A UCLA study found that couples who watch movies together and discuss them are 50 percent less likely to divorce. Though this is hardly the thing that keeps my husband Chris and I together, we do enjoy watching classic movies most every evening. I told this to a friend recently, and she said, “Oh, like The Godfather?” No, I’m not talking about recent classics; we watch movies from circa 1935-65, give or take a few years. The writing is better than current movies, with reliance on substance rather than special effects.
Interestingly, though Chris and I didn’t meet until we were about 30, we’ve discovered we were both doing the same thing on weekend afternoons all through our teenage years: watching old films rerun on local television channels. It was only in the early years of our marriage, after Turner Broadcasting started Turner Classic Movies, that we began to share our mutual love of old movies in earnest because suddenly so many more became available.
Now that streaming over the Internet is the way to go, one of Chris’ hobbies is to find old movies to fill our evenings. He gets them from commercial streaming sites and on YouTube, as well as some independent sites where viewers upload and share. Qualiity varies, so it pays to look around. Many are in the public domain and free; occasionally we pay-per-view.
I plan to share our picks here periodically. Here are three great ones we watched recently…
1. The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
RELEASE DATE: 1966 DIRECTOR: Norman Jewison STUDIO: United Artists HEADLINERS: Alan Arkin (in his first major film role), Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, Tessie O’Shea RUN TIME: 2 hours, 6 minutes
PLOT: A satirical story that depicts the chaos following the accidental grounding of a Soviet submarine off a small New England island. The title alludes to Paul Revere’s midnight ride, as does the subplot in which the town drunk rides his horse to warn people of the “invasion.” Lots of comedic antics, including one where the Russians tie up and gag the village postmistress and hang her from a peg in her kitchen where she goes unnoticed by her deaf husband, and another where Carl Reiner’s character is tied back-to-back with the overweight telephone operator and the pair roll down a flight of stairs together in an escape attempt. Based on the 1961 novel The Off-Islanders by Nathaniel Benchley.
NOTES: With great hilarity, the film explores people’s fear of foreigners, making it more than relevant today. It was also a hit in Russia because the sailors are depicted without typical Hollywood Russian stereotypes. Nominated for four Academy Awards, won two of five Golden Globe nominations.
2. Passport to Pimlico
RELEASE DATE: 1949 DIRECTOR: Henry Cornelius STUDIO: Ealing HEADLINERS: Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford, Hermione Baddeley RUN TIME: 1 hour, 24 minutes
PLOT: British comedy about the unearthing of treasure and documents that lead to a small part of Pimlico, a London suburb, being declared a legal part of the French House of Burgundy and therefore exempt from post-war rationing and other British bureaucratic restrictions and, eventually, services. Without government oversight, however, chaos (and hilarity) result.
NOTES: The story was an original concept by screenwriter T. E. B. Clarke, inspired by an incident during World War II when the maternity ward of Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) Civic Hospital was temporarily declared extraterritorial by the Canadian government so that when Princess Juliana of the Netherlands gave birth, her baby was born on Dutch territory and would not lose her right to the throne. Nominated for one Academy Award and two British Film Academy Awards.
3. The Children’s Hour
RELEASE DATE: 1961 DIRECTOR: William Wyler STUDIO: UA HEADLINERS: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner, Miriam Hopkins, Fay Bainter (in her final film role), Karen Balkin RUN TIME: 1 hour, 47 minutes
PLOT: Former college classmates Martha and Karen open a private boarding school for girls. After an engagement of two years to the local doctor, Karen finally agrees to set a wedding date. The doctor is a nephew of the influential Amelia Tilford, whose granddaughter Mary is a student at the school. Mary is a spoiled, conniving child who bullies her classmates. While being punished for a lie Mary told, one of her roommates overhears an argument between Martha and her Aunt Lily, in which Lily accuses Martha of being jealous and having an “unnatural” relationship with Karen. Mary spreads this gossip to her grandmother, and Amelia spreads it to other parents, with unforeseen consequences.
NOTES: Released as The Loudest Whisper in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand). Screenplay by John Michael Hayes, based on the 1934 play of the same title by Lillian Hellman. Nominated for five Academy Awards and three Golden Globes.
& {sometimes} WHY 
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