Enough of politics and COVID-19 for the moment. Let’s talk movies.
What’s the greatest Hollywood movie? I know lots of professional critics love Citizen Kane but I’m not a fan. My candidates for the very best Hollywood film would include
- Casablanca
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- The Wizard of Oz
- The Maltese Falcon
- North By Northwest
Those have something in common: great ensemble performances, taut direction, decent writing, and above all, they are entertaining. And, with the possible exception of North By Northwest they all have heft—they have meaning. And they’ve all crept into the culture in one way or another. People quote them all of the time, sometimes without knowing that they’re quoting them.
If you twisted my arm I could be forced to add a few more contemporary movies to that list. Movies like Jaws (the movie that saved Hollywood) or Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark but good as those movies are I think they’re lightweights compared with those in my list. Some people would, presumably, add Apocalypse Now or The Godfather but both of those are a bit too tendentious for my taste. And I don’t much care for Marlon Brando. I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it before but I have an odd characteristic, possibly the consequence of being from a show business family, which I refer to as “the actors’ real characters coming across the proscenium at me”. I think that’s the reason I don’t care for Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, or Robert De Niro.
So, what’s the greatest Hollywood movie?
If forced to pick one, it’s Casablanca.
I considered a few factors. Is it something I would enjoy watching again. Does it have some acclaim or quality which sets it above other movies beyond my own personal preference? Does it represent Hollywood in some way?
I really like Star Wars, and its technical achievements and footprints are large, but seems like an English production to me. Citizen Kane is a movie I’ve never been interested in seeing again, though I don’t doubt its qualities. There are probably some anti-Hollywood 70s movies I feel the same way about. To Kill a Mocking Bird, It’s a Wonderful Life, Singing in the Rain and Maltese Falcon are my runners up, probably in that order.
Well, judging from the facts that I’ve seen it 8 times, and I always cry, it has to be “Sleeping in Seattle.”
My official favorite is “The Maltese Falcon” (my younger daughter agrees) but I would also nominate “The Big Sleep” and “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
Yeah, I’m a Bogie fan, big time.
Mars Attacks
The Wedding Singer
Die Hard (its a Christmas movie, you know)
Ok. Ok.
Schindlers List (I’m a sucker for an historical angle)
Shawshank Redemption (for personal reasons)
Unforegiven (for its commentary on the human condition)
Good Will Hunting (same as Unforegiven)
Clockwork Orange (commentary on society doesn’t seem so far fetched these days)
Although entertaining The Big Sleep is an incoherent mess. Among Bogart pictures Key Largo is a much better picture. It had at least two actors who seem to be incapable of turning in a bad performance: Claire Trevor and Edward G. Robinson.
One of The Big Sleep’s biggest problems was that they hired William Faulkner to write the screenplay and he fell into a bottle. Leigh Brackett took over and did the best she could as she always did. The male-female dialogue is the best part of the movie, not just between Bogart and Bacall but especially between Bogart and Dorothy Malone or Bogart and Martha Vickers.
very good choices towards the bottom of the list would add All That Jazz, aka Bob Fosse faces mortality, All Quiet on the Western Front, war is not glamorous.
Can’t disagree with your list. Would also suggest Notorious (Claude Rains is great in support) and Dr. Strangelove (ditto George C. Scott).
Which one? It’s been made three times. I think the 1930 pre-Code version with Lew Ayres is the best.
pat:
Claude Raines is great in everything. Another actor incapable of turning in a bad performance. He starred in one of the all-time best horror movies (The Invisible Man) and supported in a lot of GOATs, e.g. Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Notorious, Now, Voyager.
It just occurred to me that North By Northwest is sort of a mash-up of The 39 Steps (my favorite movie) and Notorious.
The 1930 version is better than the 1979 version but sometimes you gotta go with whats on the shelf and audience. Bored high schoolers get the 1979 while cadets get the 1930 version (and assigned reading of the novel).
Good choices above. Just to add from the oft neglected animated sector I would select Fantasia. Best melding of music and visuals in a movie of any kind. Maybe add Pinocchio also. (Since you said Hollywood will leave out Spirited away and Graveyard of the Fireflies, one of the best war movies of all time.)
Steve