MICKEY: The first great movies and the first great movie stars were in the 1920's, Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Ford, and others made great films in the 50's, in the 60's (like so much else in that decade) movies exploded in several different directions with films like Dr Strangelove, Psycho, & Midnight Cowboy, the 70's saw the rise of a new generation of filmmakers like Scorsese, Deniro, Woody Allen,and Speilberg . . . etc, etc. But it's the Hollywood films of the 30's & 40's that are what comes to mind when the term "classic" is referenced.
When speaking of movies we use words like "great", "masterpiece", "classic", etc. "Classic" suggests not merely really good but also good that has stood the test of time . . . as in still good, as in every new generation will be able to recognize and delight in how good it is. But the great films of the 30's & 40's aren't just classic because their quality is so durable, their classic-ness is more than just being able to appreciate them long after they were made. Right now the films of the 60's were made 50 years ago - in the 60's the films of 1940 were made only 20 years earlier, yet they were counted as "classic" even then.There are more parts to the classic-ness of the Hollywood films of the 30's & 40's than simply that they were really good movies made a long time ago.
The most interesting component, it seems to me, that made those films classics is the studio system. These glorious movies were made by a factory, by a movie-making plant. They were most assuredly made by the hands of master artists, but under assembly line and general manager conditions. Something about that early generation of studio heads, who they gave assignments to and who they wanted to put on the screen, etc, prompted them to make the greatest films ever made.
The other great component that no longer exists is those larger-than-life movie stars. There are, of course, both great actors and giant movie stars now, but nothing like those back when. Today we see Nicholas Cage or DeNiro promoting their new film with Letterman or on some entertainment show, we see them in our homes as themselves - the only time anyone saw Clark Gable or Olivia de Havilland was as a member of a public audience, in giant dark room, and when the curtains dramatically opened they were literally larger than life . . . and always in character. Cagney simply must have been that tough, Errol Flynn was that dashing, Myrna Loy was that sharp and sophisticated.
And the last point I'll touch on, is that glorious black & white cinematography. Movies are not supposed to be an accurate re-accounting of reality - they are an artist's portrayal of reality, his vision of something in reality he's trying to communicate to us. Black & white films present a shifted vision reality, they aid in removing us from simply watching what happens into an appreciation of the storytelling, an apprehension of what is in the artist's heart and mind. And therein rests the real key to why those old black & white movies are so good - they were simply great stories told by great storytellers.
