This Blog is Based Upon Actual Movies

I love old black and white movies. One of the reasons I like them is realism. Yeah, I know they can be a little hokey in special effects and the moralities are outdated but they also didn't depend upon $200,000,000 special effects budgets to carry the lame ass actors through an otherwise empty suit of a script.

The B&W movies had real actors. People who weren't afraid to take on difficult character studies. They immersed themselves in a role. And the minor actors weren't all cookie cutter simulacrums of one another, as they are today. They were true character actors because they had true personalities.

They knew how to present psychological thrillers. Hitchcock knew that the ticking bomb would build suspense but he also knew that the true devastation was not in the explosive special effects but rather in the reactions and acting abilities of his actors.

And I am aware that there were some truly dreadful B&W movies made. But there were some real classics that stand the test of time, as well. How many true classics have been released recently? If you listen to the media hype for the Oscar Race you would think they were all classics. But if you strip away the rhetoric and just watch the movies you will be sadly disappointed.

I was watching a movie called 14 Hours yesterday. It was a psychological suspense movie about a man on a ledge in New York City. The movie took place in and was filmed in 1951. It starred Richard Basehart, Paul Douglas, Agnes Moorehead and Howard DaSilva. I thought it was a great movie.

As I was watching the opening credits, I realized another difference between the old B&Ws and modern movies. The old movies often had similar notices to this one:

The events and characters
depicted in this movie are entirely
fictional and any similarity to actual
occurrences or with actual persons,
either living or dead, is not intended.

In other words, the story telling and the acting were so realistic that the producers were afraid someone would be too upset by its true-to-life portrayals. On the other hand, I notice this warning at the beginning of movies now-a-days:

This story is based upon actual events.

The difference being, in most cases, that the load of crap they are trying to sell us is so unbelievable that they feel a need to say, "Hey, it could happen!"

So, yes, I do enjoy the black and white movies more. These may have been some of the reasons why I do. I am sure there are others. But I am also sure of something else. "They just don't make 'em like that, anymore."