Sarah's Library

Thanks to Book Cupidity for starting this.  The words in italics are hers, mine start below the line.

Let's list favorite old (or older) movies. the list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes. The parameters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980...

So, tell me some of your favorites! Maybe we will discover new great flicks and new friends. Let's tag the post so that we can search it over the weekend - "Fav old movies'. I will also use the tag 'BL Round Robin".

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I was born in 84 and my parents were around my age in the 80s so they were quite into movies in that decade, especially my dad.  I will never forget our original video tape library taped off the tv, with his very precise pencil (so that you could erase the title if the tape is ever reused) written titles on every cassette and its matching box (we have now upgraded to bought DVDs with pretty coloured cases, but those VHSs are what I'll always remember).  So while I'm an expert in 80s movies, pre 80s I haven't seen (and loved, since this list is about favourite pre 1980s movies) that many, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to come up with a 'list', but thanks to everyone else's lists and a little search through Wikipedia I've managed to come up with enough to bother writing about.  I have no theme and no order to my list, it's just what came to mind.

1. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope - one of the first movies I remember watching with my dad.  I watched the taped-off-the-tv version so many times that it always seems weird to me to watch it without ads and to be able to read the introduction with ease (Dad's tape was deteriorating when he taped Star Wars, so the very beginning of the tape was all snowy and you couldn't really read the introduction, it was a revelation when I first watched it on DVD).

2. Alien - the first movie to encourage my fear of space and the idea that there's only a thin wall between you and the non-life-supporting vacuum of space.  I now have quite a collection of space themed movies that never fail to reignite my irrational fears (irrational because I will never be going into space, so I really don't have to worry), all thanks to the original space movie.

3. Singing in the Rain - I love a good song and dance movie (I've got Good Morning on my iPod, that's such a happy song), plus Jean Hagen was absolutely hilarious.

4. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - This always reminded me of some of my mum's western-themed romances from the 80s/90s (just without the sex scenes), and bonus! it had dancing and I'm a sucker for dancing movies.

5. Calamity Jane - I haven't seen this in years, but I think it mostly had just singing and less dancing, and now the songs are stuck in my stuck in my head for ever, especially "I just blew in from the windy city, the windy city is mighty pretty, but they ain't got what we got".

6. Grease - The best singing and dancing movie of all time!!  I've seen it so many times I can recite almost the whole movie line for line.

7. The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Lets do the Time Warp Again!  At one of my primary schools we spent half an hour every morning doing physical activity, this consisted of energetic dancing to The Time Warp, Nutbush City Limits, and The Bus Stop.  That was my first introduction to the movie (I'm sure the teachers would not have been happy to have a class of 9 - 12-year-olds watching), and also to Tina Turner.

8. The Exorcist - Who can forget that scene with the crucifix?

9. To Kill a Mockingbird - The first 'serious' 'old' movie I ever watched and watching it sent me to the book (which I need to read again) which I always think is the mark of a good movie adaptation.

10. The Sound of Music - A great story which lead me to learning more about the true history behind it.  Plus guess what?!  It has singing and dancing of course!

11. Mary Poppins - I do love Julie Andrews, and singing and dancing movies (I can't think of any that I don't like).

12. And a special mention goes to all the fantastic Walt Disney cartoons from the 40s, 50s, and 60s - The Sword in the Stone, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp (God! my heart just melts when I watch that movie, my Cavalier Poppy and I just watched that and she loved the doggies on the tv as much as I did), etc.