These are my favourite Hollywood classics. If you think otherwise, let me know why. And if you agree, why don’t you add your own favourite list to this and let me know through your comments.
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
215 mins, 1934; Director: Frank Capra
This film is a true classic. It withstands the test of time and does one better – defies it fully. Both Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are in top form in this charming and memorable comedy. It’s a romantic comedy that all others draw from, few imitate effectively, and none have been able to replicate. It is the story of a runaway heiress falling in with a devilish, wise-cracking reporter on a cross-country road trip. Only minorly dated, this film would play well for modern audiences despite being more than 70 years old. And who can forget a movie where the girl’s father provides his daughter with a getaway car from her own wedding? Not even the jury at the Oscar – it became the first movie ever to sweep five major Oscar categories. Recommended viewing.
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
149 mins, 1962; Director: Robert Mulligan
It is easy to enjoy this movie and hard to forget. Imbibing the best of courtroom drama traditions, this Oscar-winner is poignant as a classic coming-of-age tale and expose of the American legal system. The film is all about a noble gentleman, who is both an upstanding attorney and a single father to two young children. All that is past. Now, he must stand up and do what’s right when an innocent black man is accused of assaulting a white woman. It’s a story about honour and bravery, memory and regret, decency and determination. The ‘surface drama’ is effortlessly engaging. But the social commentary and the sobering subtext gives the film a heart and soul that most filmmakers would kill to replicate. Plus, if nothing else, you’re getting Gregory Peck at the very top of his game … and that’s saying something. No wonder, it won four Oscars, including Best Screenplay (written by Horton Foote), and Best Actor (Gregory Peck).
12 ANGRY MEN
96 mins, 1957; Director: Sidney Lumet
12 Angry Men is every bit the classic it’s been made out to be for all these years. One-room dramas don’t get much better than this. The film generates dramatic tension simply by having jury members argue over the fate of a teenager accused of killing his father, a simple premise brilliantly crafted and exploited by director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Reginald Rose. Almost every jury member wants to vote guilty despite lack of concrete evidence but one person stands up for the accused. And that’s when, the real argument begins and continues till the last reels when firm opinions weaken and even reverse. It is a masterful work of debate and dialogue; of shifting momentum and the ideal of sticking to your scruples in the face of antagonistic groupthink. Watch it for Lumet’s direction and camerawork. And what a collection of actors, from Fonda to Warden to Balsam to Cobb to EG Marshall and Begley.
GONE WITH THE WIND
239 mins, 1939; Director: Victor Fleming
The film glows in its well developed ensemble. There’s self-centered ‘heroine’ Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh); her suave suitor, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable); Scarlett’s unattainable true love, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard); and Ashley’s much put-upon wife, the saintly Melanie Hamilton (Olivia DeHavilland)–and that’s just for a start. It is a film that perhaps defines Hollywood. It’s so full of iconic moments of plotting and dialogue that a feature film could be edited just out of the most quotable moments. Even if it is essentially four hours about a selfish, silly cow, it’s impeccably well made, and should be seen by anyone with even a passing interest in romance or movies. It personifies a lost Hollywood art: the epic melodrama. Hugely expensive for its time, it has every dollar evident on screen, and it is easy to be seduced by its sumptuous visuals, to feel the heat of Atlanta burning.
