Classic Movie Review: How Green Was My Valley

Best Picture: #14Original Release Date: November 26, 1941Rating: Not RatedRuntime: 1 hour, 58 minutesDirector: John Ford Quick Impressions:This Best Picture project I’m doing with my daughter has revealed staggering gaps in my own film viewing history.  I honestly never realized before how many Best Picture winners I had not seen.  …

Classic Movie Review: Gone with the Wind

Best Picture: #12Original Release Date: December 15, 1939Rating:  PassedRuntime:  3 hours, 58 minutesDirector: Victor Fleming (and George Cukor) Quick Impressions:Probably the biggest mistake the South ever made was fighting to preserve a way of life that was not sustainable through moral methods.  The second biggest mistake the South ever made …

Classic Movie Review: You Can’t Take It with You

Best Picture Winner: #11Original Release Date: September 29, 1938Rating: PassedRuntime: 2 hours, 6 minutesDirector: Frank Capra Quick Impressions:I first saw Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You when I checked it out of the public library at seventeen, and I hated it.  Here’s why.  When I was fifteen, I …

Classic Movie Review: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Best Picture Winner: #8Original Release Date:Rating: Not RatedRuntime: 2 hours, 12 minutesDirector: Frank Lloyd Quick Impressions:“Have you seen this movie before?” my daughter asked as we started. “I’ve definitely seen Bugs Bunny do it,” I replied.  Surely at some point during my childhood, I must have seen at least part …

Classic Movie Review: It Happened One Night

Best Picture Winner: #7Release Date:  February 22, 1934Rating:  ApprovedRuntime: 1 hour, 45 minutesDirector:  Frank Capra Quick Impressions:On July 3, I was consumed by the desire to watch Hamilton as soon as possible.  Apparently, I mentioned that seven or eight…hundred…thousand times.  My mother remarked that a friend of hers had mentioned …

Classic Movie Review: Grand Hotel

Best Picture Winner: #5Release Date: September 11, 1932Rating: NRRuntime: 1 hour, 52 minutesDirector: Edmund Goulding Quick Impressions:After Cimarron so bitterly disappointed us, I was relieved to watch Grand Hotel, the first Best Picture winner we’ve encountered so far that I had already seen. “Don’t worry,” I reassured my daughter when …

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