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Alex got me to thinking...what's your favorite black and white movie?
I, myself, love many b+w films- and I'll list some!

What about you folks?
It can be anything from an old silent movie to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968).


http://youtu.be/V5XwrRFP7Zw (http://youtu.be/V5XwrRFP7Zw)

There's a couple more obvious ones that I'll wait for other people to mention, but on one extreme, I always liked Haxan, on the other extreme, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

^ Both those films are great.  :thumbup:

(https://i.imgur.com/FK1jMy9.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

I really love HAXAN (1922)   (of course!)

As mentioned previously, Arsenic & Old Lace. I did a 14-hour flight once, got off the plan all jet-lagged to hell and went to see a performance of it. Was a long trip just to see it, but I figured while I was in town that I might as well get married to Kristi while I was there too.

Movies vying for second place include The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Phantom of the Opera (black and white AND a silent movie to boot), Night of the Living Dead, It Came from Beneath the Sea and King Kong. If thought about it a bit more I could no doubt add quite a few more to that list.

^ KING KONG (1933) is always on my list.

(https://i.imgur.com/kZEt8Qe.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN(1943)

(https://www.classic-monsters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Frankenstein-Meets-the-Wolf-Man_05.jpg)

This is at the top, but there are so many more I could think of.

Triumph Of the Will has it's moments.... And they're BIG moments....
So does Frankenstein VS The Space Monster.....

^ That's the first horror film I ever seen in my life, in 1967.

Is that the scenes with Hitler or the scenes of Nazi's cheering Hitler?
The photography is the only memorable part of that piece of s**t.

The review of the Reich Labor force also got me, which I later realized is just one of several heavily scripted scenes....
In a weird way, it's almost like you're watching one of the most well behaved concert movies ever made, this is an entire city, thousands of people, doing what the director tells them to do....
Nuremberg it's self was refitted so that Leni Riefenstahl could capture certain moment & make them look a certain way...
Even though it's all fake, you realize that Riefenstahl has been given a level of both control & cooperation that any other director would kill for!

Bad wording there, man.  :lookingup:

The cabinet of Dr Caligari
While I've always found the plot a bit formulaic, the surrealistic set makes for an interesting mood.......

^ In 1919, it wasn't formulaic, being as the form was just developing.
It is a beautiful film.

I said Triumph of of the will had it's moments, I didn't say the whole movie kicked @$$..........

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

^ What moments?  :question: It's all Nazis! That's all it is!  :buggedout:

For me, the 3 Stooges I have found are ageless. My parents loved them, I loved them, my kids loved them, my grandson loves them.  It's a living cartoon.  :smile:

(https://i.imgur.com/bfRx9Wi.gif) (https://lunapic.com)

I grew up on black and white films, for the simple fact we didn't have a color set until 1970.
So I suppose I'm biased.

PANDORA'S BOX (1929) with Louise Brooks is  a heartbreaking and amazing film.

http://youtu.be/K0Furc-LygU (http://youtu.be/K0Furc-LygU)

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and all the films it spoofs.  I like good movies.  And bad movies.  We got a color TV in 1970 too...! 

Mine too... and GOJIRA (1954)

(https://i.makeagif.com/media/4-27-2019/9yPfUQ.gif)

Even with the color set, I sat in the backroom and watched the old black and white. I liked the black and white movies better anyway. Gilligan's Island was stupid. Laurel and Hardy was classic.

Dead men don't wear plaid
Frankenstein vs the space monster

Not really a favorite, per se, but Carnival Of Souls made me realize why you tend to see those "evil mimes" more in black & white movies than in color....

We have a b/w 16mm print of David Millin's Ride The High Wind and this makes it a bit more spooky.

For it's low budget- I think they did a fantastic job.

Early '60's black and white horror movies helped transition people from Frankenstein and giant bug movies to PSYCHO (1960), which is a classic black and white horror movie done by one of the best directors of all time.

http://youtu.be/Nv88ASiLmgk (http://youtu.be/Nv88ASiLmgk)

PRIDE & PREJUDICE (1940) was just on TCM and I ended up looking at some of it.  One of my top 10 favorite movies.   :thumbup:

CARNIVAL OF SOULS is a great movie, that I think of also as "bad".  Sure it's low-rent but that's not why it's bad...

THE THIRD MAN (1950) 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946) breathtaking 

OLIVER TWIST (1948) stunning

THE GENERAL (1926) one of the best

THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940)  MODERN TIMES (1936)  CITY LIGHTS (1931)  THE GOLD RUSH (1925)  THE KID (1921)  all CHAPLIN

It is old, controversial, non PC etc but Harold Shaw's De Voortrekkers [The Pathfinders, 1916] is South Africa's oldest surviving feature film.  :smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1yDtedt2iw&t=10s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1yDtedt2iw&t=10s)

Top 10 off the top of my head:
The Thin Man (1934)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Frankenstein (1931)
Psycho (1960)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Nosferatu (1922)
Casablanca (1942)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)

It's tough to pick a favorite because I watch a lot of B&W stuff. But here are a few that come to mind:

* Notorious!
* Angels with Dirty Faces
* The Man with the Golden Arm
* The Hustler
* Marty
* Eraserhead
* In Cold Blood
* A Christmas Carol (Alastair Sim)
* Night of the Living Dead
* I Want to Live!
* On the Waterfront
* The Wages of Fear
* Treasure of the Sierra Madre
* Casablanca
* The Incredible Shrinking Man
* The Manchurian Candidate
* Anatomy of a Murder
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Charles Laughton . . . but the Lon Chaney version is also excellent)

Well, that's a start anyway

my knowledge of b/w movies is poor, but PSYCHO is definitely my fav that I've seen

loved CLERKS when it came out. don't think it aged too well tho

I had to spend 6 months studying ON THE WATERFRONT for my A Level... a great way to put me off watching it ever again

want to check out LES YEUX SANS VISAGE, apparently it's great

that's one way to break the ice, I guess?

rumble fish

Very well done.  And for it's time-1960- quite gory!

Jess Franco would (poorly) rip off this film countless times.

http://youtu.be/w5rnhZLiqrI (http://youtu.be/w5rnhZLiqrI)

Ronny, when I was in high school, I came across that exact film title and I asked one of my schoolmates who was learning French what it meant and he said "Eyes Without A Face". I went  :buggedout:, said he was talking BS and asked his French teacher and she confirmed it.

I went  :buggedout: again. :teddyr:

 ^ I discovered the movie from pictures in monster mags, and saw it on PBS channel 34 in about 1973! I was 11! I'm telling ya, I was a weird kid!


As long as we're talking 1960's films-
DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)!

"- precious bodily fluids."  :bouncegiggle:

http://youtu.be/PSofqNSuVy8 (http://youtu.be/PSofqNSuVy8)

I seen some colorized old movies- and it's evil! NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD! PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE!
Laurel and Hardy??? Why does Laurel and Hardy need color?  :bluesad:
That's like photo shopping the Mona Lisa puckering her lips and sucking her cheeks in.

Agreed.

There's this idiot on Youtube who's taken old b/w SA movies from the 1940s and 1950s (many were released to DVD in 2013/14) and colorized them which is wrong from an archival stand point. I asked him why he did this: the snotty reply I got was "If you don't like what I've done with the movies, you don't have to watch them."  :buggedout:

So, I reported the channel to the company which owns the rights to those movies  :teddyr: :teddyr: :teddyr:

^  :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
If it's in public domain- fine. Colorize it. I won't watch it. Evil! EVIL!
If it's copyrighted material- they should be busted.

cool, will try and check it out if I see the bluray anywhere...

the only jess franco movie I really enjoy is BLOODY MOON, which seems to not be typical of his style

Another from the 1960's- most folks used color by this time. But some film makers believed " This will look better in black and white." Hitchcock, Kubrick and- Mario Bava.

BLACK SUNDAY (1960)
 I can't imagine this movie in color.
My kids saw lotsa horror movies when they were young. This movie scared the sh!t out of them!

http://youtu.be/N05Bm7kOZgg (http://youtu.be/N05Bm7kOZgg)

(https://i.imgur.com/mNolZCu.png) (https://lunapic.com)

Oh, by the way, the movie the victims are watching in DEMONS (1985) seems to be a remake of this movie.
Which would make sense- being as Mario's son Lamberto directed that movie.

the longest day

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935) is a remake of the lost LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT by the same director, Tod Browning. The story line is lame, the acting is bad, and Bela Lugosi and Carroll Borland are the only redeeming features. And of course...the beautiful photography by James Wong Howe. 

(https://i.imgur.com/DFrxvfE.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

That pic of Barbara Steele reminded me of the eerie Nightmare Castle (1965)  :buggedout:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_Castle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_Castle)

^ I love that movie! Not as much as BLACK SUNDAY, but I do love it!

(https://i.imgur.com/N6N9EZ5.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

My sister and brother in law lived in Kabul for a time and she gifted me a DVD box set which had this one on it. I saw Nightmare Castle and thought "Yeah, good movie to watch late at night."

Bad idea  :buggedout: :wink:

Things to come is pretty dull & pretentious, but the special effects & some of the cinematography have their moments.....

VAMPYR (1932) is one of the strangest and spookiest vampire movies you will ever see. Director Carl Dreyer was said to be have filmed at only dusk or dawn, or with a filter over the lens to achieve it's haunting look.

http://youtu.be/509XJDHE9hU (http://youtu.be/509XJDHE9hU)


(https://i.imgur.com/P3Vhp2Z.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

As basic b***h as this is, it's probably a dead-even tie between Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dracula (1931)

Probably It's a Wonderful Life.

Other favorites, not yet listed:

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Sons of the Desert
Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein

Too many, but in light of this board, The Loved One (1965).

The Haunting.

I can't picture that movie in color. I couldn't even picture the novel in color.