to think that acting in Hollywood films in the '40s and '50s is absolutely crap?

[ohmychrist]

Watching April in Paris and the acting is all OTT and music hall-esque.

These old films are full of exaggerated facial expressions and really, really badly-delivered lines. The acting (not the dancing necessarily) seems so amateurish by today's standards.

It's more stylized but that's what people wanted in those days. Marlon Brando mumbling away to himself was a new departure.

I love the old classics.

James Mason dying in the Dublin snow. Utterly brilliant.

I love Hollywood films from that era. Watched The Letter with Bette Davis a few weeks ago. Utterly brilliant!
All about Eve is another classic.

YABVU.

Some aren't great, but then neither is Bring it On from the early 00's.

Not all films from that era are bad.

The musicals in particular, are fantastic. Though I do have to disengage my brain a bit for Seven Brides for Seven Brother's now.

Ah yes, Seven Brides. That charming tale of ginger abduction and imprisonment.

Exactly squoosh. Great songs and sets, seriously dodgy plot.

I recently watched the 1930s film of Little Women. It was excellent. Better than the Winona Ryder version made more recently!

I caught a bit of The Importance of Being Earnest from 1952 the other day and was transfixed at the mannered and stagey nature of the acting - Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism was the only 'naturalistic' actor in the production and it rather made the other (very good) actors look as stiff as boards - but there was definitely a difference between stage actors on film and Hollywood/Pinewood/wherever film actors on film, iyswim. The actors with a stage background seem far more artificial than the 'film stars'.

There were some great films from that period. I love the original of The Women :) I also used to LOVE Seven Brides when I was little for the dancing scenes - then I got older and actually listened to the lyrics of some of those songs...

Well, don't forget, that's how they did stage acting back then (and even now). It was basically a play on tape. As time went on we tried mimicking real life a bit better.

Exactly squoosh. Great songs and sets, seriously dodgy plot.

But it did have Howard Keel, Jacques d'Amboise and Tommy Rall so I make myself ignore the awfulness!

I agree, OP.

I WATCHED the African Queen recently and could not believe how shite the acting and script were.

Don't forget the newsreaders and presenters from early tv and radio also looked and sounded completely different. General public would have been too. Different world back then.

I love all the amped up 1940's acting. Especially in those costume melodramas, Margaret Lockwood is a fave of mine.

The African Queen is pretty boring.

Give me British WWII films over modern Hollywood blockbusters any day. One of Our Aircraft is Missing is just gripping, as is Went the Day Well. I also love the 30s screwball comedies and the 50s MGM musicals. And anybody who doesn't find Casablanca moving and funny has no soul. So there.

Film Noir too! Love a bit of Barbara Stanwyck.

But yes our era has Adam Sandler. So much better.

Ahem.

Ice Cold In Alex (1958). Brilliant based on a true story about a med unit in WW2 starring John Mills and Sylvia Sims.

at least most of them didn't need to do sex scenes/get naked/ blast cities to pieces a-la Terminator, to have a successful film.

Give me the old ones anyday.

squoosh: Ah yes, Seven Brides. That charming tale of ginger abduction and imprisonment.

That should be the synopsis on the back of the DVD box

Basically Stockholm syndrome over the course of one song...

I grew up watching these movies (usually shown on BBC2) back when there were only 3 TV channels, and loved them. Some on re-watching are a bit cringey by today's standards but in the main I prefer their heart, soul and wit to a lot of today's identikit cynical snarkfest movies.

One of my pet soapbox issues is that with technology where it is today, youngsters can completely (and understandably) insulate themselves from any alternative generational input and watch only media aimed at them, whereas I grew up exposed to ideas and social mores from various generations.

It would be interesting to see whether today's youngsters could get anything out of watching a selection of timeless classics from years gone by. Couldn't BBC4 /2 do something?

UhOh - this line of thinking made me suggest a deal with my DC whereby they have to watch selected old stuff with me in return for getting the latest offering of modern dross!

It's all too much of a narrative to encapsulate in one post. But - for instance, The Importance of Being Earnest was written in the 1890s. So a film adaptation of the 1950s will actually be reflecting theatre of the 1890s. Realism in movies didn't come into vogue until the 1950s. Method acting (still the basis of modern good acting as we know it) wasn't around until the 1950s; before that the benchmarks for good acting of all kinds were those of the theatre of the day. Modern acting would not have been possible until the middle of the last century.

Some glorious classics mentioned above: All About Eve, Night of the Hunter and Odd Man Out to name but three. Crackling, dialogue-heavy, theatrical works of genius of Hollywood's forever golden age.

Ha, ha, Bardar good for you. Do they resent it, or grudgingly admit that some of that old crap isn't so bad?

Well it's just been a recent flash of inspiration as we entered next round of bipartite XBox negotiations. Initial signs were positive.