what was the last 'classic film' you watched and were knocked out by?

french cancan (d. jean renoir, 1955)

just deliriously fun

ikiru

L'Avventura most recently.

Ikiru is an underappreciated classic.

I rewatched Casablanca not long ago. What a brilliantly scripted, acted and photographed film.

Weird, you guys just listed 4 of the films I've rewatched this past week

There's a 4K Casablanca coming out soon I think.

the suicide by drowning scene in sanju the bailiff ;;

Thanatopsis

Haxan. A hundred years old and it has a scene with a lady kissing Satan's arse.

an old lady

I watched Haxan on mike's recommendation. He withheld the fact an old lady kissed Satan's arse.
They should put that sticker on the dvd/blu-ray case, its bound to sell.

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. Not sure how well known this one is outside of Canada, but Criterion Channel got it a month or so back. Anyway, it is delightful.

I saw Tetsuo: The Iron Man on the big screen last month. Incredible.

Also, De Palma's Sisters.

Candyman. I had a prejudice against any 1990s horror film, but this was the real deal

absolutely

Glass score is great as well

goat horror flick

re

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. Not sure how well known this one is outside of Canada, but Criterion Channel got it a month or so back. Anyway, it is delightful.

saw that in the theaters when it first came out and was utterly charmed and disarmed

It was a while back, but I remember being genuinely surprised by Night of the Living Dead. It defied my expectations a couple of times. E.g. it has the typical "boorish jerk who disagrees with the hero so that there's a bit of conflict" character, but in almost every other horror film that character would be ironically killed by the monster whereas in Dead the character is (spoiler) (/spoiler) instead.

I think I was thrown by the fact that it looks like a much older film (shot in 1968, but in black and white) but has the feel of something from the 1970s. The makeup etc was poor but it had a genuine air of desperation and dread about it.

To this day I still haven't seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes because I tend to dismiss them as relics of a bygone age, but perhaps I'm way out of line.

Damn. I forgot that HTML doesn't care about whitespace. As a consequence that joke doesn't work. You were supposed to be fooled by the big empty space. I wanted you to highlight the empty space with your mouse, only to find that there was nothing there. In the empty space. You wonder if your browser was broken. You'd try Firefox instead. Or Edge. Or whatever. But still there would be nothing.

You'd wonder if it was a deliberate joke, or a mistake. All the empty space. It would haunt you. It would haunt you. You'd remember it, and you'd remember me. A little bit of me. You'd carry a little bit of me inside you. But because I forgot all about non-breaking spaces the effect was lost and none of that will happen. I will not be saved. Not by the god plutonium. I will not be saved.

Many years ago I remember seeing Jaws for the first time as a grown-up and thinking "this is much, much better than I remembered, in fact it's really well-made and well-acted and just generally superior". I have the impression that it took a while for the memory of the sequels - and the humanity-versus-animals genre - to be forgotten before people could appreciate it was a really good adventure film.

I remember seeing Badlands on television at a time when it wasn't yet a classic film - just an obscure 1970s crime flick - and thinking "this looks fantastic" and "Martin Short is not in this film" and "Sissy Spacek is the best Sissy Spacek". Ditto Get Carter, which for a long time was just another downbeat 1970s gangster film. I remember seeing on TV in the early 1990s and being struck at how nasty it was. I still believe that Sissy Spacek is the best Sissy Spacek. And Shelley Duvall is the best Shelley Duvall. Imagine if they had got married and had kids!

I keep getting Martin Short, Martin Shaw, Michael Sheen, and Martin Sheen mixed up. To an extent that I have started to doubt whether Martin Shaw is real and I'm convinced that Michael Sheen was in Lord of the Rings, but he wasn't.

I love watching movies with students in class; I'm seeing them anew. They liked or at worst admired Pickpocket, and discussing Bresson's use of sound and close-ups one student remarked on the film's queer elements. I went home buoyed.

yeah Pickpocket is one I'm going to watch again.

Many years ago I remember seeing Jaws for the first time as a grown-up and thinking "this is much, much better than I remembered, in fact it's really well-made and well-acted and just generally superior". I have the impression that it took a while for the memory of the sequels - and the humanity-versus-animals genre - to be forgotten before people could appreciate it was a really good adventure film.

Jaws 3D was, unfortunately, the first Jaws I saw, so my experience was similar.

It was a while ago but Pennies from Heaven was a huge curveball that impressed the hell out of me

lol I saw Jaws 3 with the 3d glasses on at the cinema as well, even the 3d was shit.

return of the living dead!!! well overdue! takes on extra resonance during a global pandemic lol

I can remember being absolutely horrified when the salty captain goes into the jaws of death at the end, it was horrifying as anything in Alien when you are a child.

Dad took me to see Jaws 3 when I was… five, I guess? I closed my eyes most of the time, because obviously just seeing blackness and the sound of screams is much less scary

To answer the actual question it was “History is Made at Night” for its unashamed smorgasbord of genre-smushing and because Charles Boyer is the shit

"The Innocents" knocked me sideways recently, I'd never seen it before.

that one packs a punch for sure

Panique by Duvivier is a banger, great perf by Michel Simon as the arrogant, anti-social patsy in a gallic take on the old film noir love triangle plot. Amazing sets.

I already knew that French directors who stayed in the industry during Vichy got a rough time afterwards even if their work didn't have any propaganda elements, but have now learned that those who escaped to the US were also derided as cowards who abandoned their country. Can't win!

It was a while ago but Pennies from Heaven was a huge curveball that impressed the hell out of me

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Thursday, October 6, 2022 2:01

There was a screening in maybe 2000 in L.A., with Steve Martin, Jessica Harper, Bob Mackie and others interviewed after. I don't remember who said it, but one of them said that this was the first time they'd seen the film with an audience that liked it.

xp
They could have joined the resistance! Made some real underground films.

last few classic films i watched that blew me away were "beau travail" and "daisies," both for being "art" movies that are also genuinely entertaining and hypnotic in their own ways, and "hud," for that bleak cynicism and paul newman playing a real shit (similar to "night of the living dead," it feels older than it is because of the black and white, so the nastiness of it is surprising)

+1 on Beau Travail, that's some hardcore cinema.. (not sure it's officially a classic yet, it's from 1999)

A Brief Vacation by Vittorio De Sica was one that I found really touching.. yeah it's a melodrama but maybe that's something I respond to, also I'm really into TB sanatoriums

Charles Boyer is the shit

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, October 6, 2022

otm

https://gifer.com/en/7liY

https://i.gifer.com/7liY.gif

+1 on Beau Travail, that's some hardcore cinema.. (not sure it's officially a classic yet, it's from 1999)

Definitely a classic. Maybe one of the greatest endings ever too.

Yeah, pretty sure it's going to be top 50 in the forthcoming Sight & Sound poll.

Not to make fun of another poster's confusion, but I can't stop laughing at the idea of Badlands starring Martin Short.

i've had the week of and watched a film a day, a mix of old faves, unwatched dvds and recent bbc4 foreign things. the highlights were The Apartment and Throne Of Blood. and Phase IV

"Not to make fun of another poster's confusion, but I can't stop laughing at the idea of Badlands starring Martin Short."

I have a slow-running drain so I've been using a lot of chemicals recently. My thought process was (a) Badlands with Martin Sheen (b) is that right? (c) was Martin Sheen in The Damned United? (d) no, I really am thinking of Martin Sheen.

I've worked out a way to remember them all:

Michael Sheen is "the man who does all the other men".
Martin Sheen is "it really is him".
Martin Short is "the happy man".
Martin Shaw is "the humourless man who blocked repeats of The Professionals".
Charles Martin Smith is "the guy who was shot dead in a lift".
Andy Serkis is "the man who does all the other men but invisibly".

Is Catch-22 (the Mike Nichols film) a classic? I remember seeing it on television with no preconceptions whatsoever - I wasn't even aware it existed - and thinking "this is grimmer and bleaker than I expected for a film that came out the same year as Kelly's Heroes" and "given the obviously enormous budget why have I not heard of this film" and "that was icky".

I understand it was a financial disaster that had all the ingredients to be a big popular hit and Oscar-bait, but it just didn't click with the public, viz The Right Stuff.

You know what impressed me? Herzog's Vampyre.

rewatched harvey after many many years with a friend who'd never seen it (and didn't know it existed): she adored it and i was delighted that i still did too

Ganja & Hess, just now. Nearly didn’t go to the screening as it’s late for a Sunday and I have a headache but man I’m glad I did

For potentially differing values of 'classic film' I absolutely loved The Last Movie and watched it twice more to make sure I wasn't mistaken.

By the standard definition of 'classic film' though it's Casablanca. I'd totally forgotten how much of it is played as a comedy.

Herzog’s is arguably the best Dracula on screen. Or at least tied with Murnau’s.

"Double Indemnity"!!!!!

Bande apart

Double Indemnity is brilliant, basically the template for all the best noirs.

Chameleon Street on Criterion Channel. For those unaware, this film made a splash at Sundance in 1990 and then was purchased by Warner Brothers, but not to give it a wide release; they had the hare-brained idea to bury the film and remake it with a different black star. The remake never happened but the film, which should have been a key indie of the early 90s, stayed pretty much buried until being restored recently, and the director Wendell Harris Jr. has still never gotten to make a second film.

Anyway, it remains audacious and entertaining and it anticipated so much satire of the following decades. In fact, it reminded me a lot of Paul Beatty's novel The Sellout.

I watched The Night of the Iguana on TCM several months ago and I'm still thinking about it all the time.

Love the Herzog Nosferatu, it's got such a vibe of sadness.

Watched Round Midnight the other day and that will stay with me for a while I think. Never knew there was a possibility of seeing Bobbie Hutcherson as a dude compulsively cooking in a Paris hotel room.

i'm having a Park Chan-Wook retrospective and rewatched Lady Vengeance last night, the emotional impact of his movies never gets played out for me

Lady Vengeance in the cinema was almost too much.

Happy Together. Wong Kar-wai's films are getting a run in London and it's really beautiful to look at on the big screen.

vibe of sadness

I'm pretty sure this is inscribed on Kinski's tombstone.

Lady Vengeance is the only time in living memory I've actively forwarded a section of a film.

i can think of 2 or 3 possibilities tbh

there's a korea season on film4 in the uk for the rest of october, including lady vengeance (which i don't think i've seen). parasite tonight. another one thursday.

i can think of 2 or 3 possibilities tbh

Aye, fair.

i watched chameleon street a few months ago. i wouldn't call it a classic but it's definitely an intriguing first independent movie that makes you wish he had gone on to make more narrative films and develop further - looks like he has focused on documentaries since then. harris' acting is great in it and i was surprised he hasn't even done much more acting.

After reading many positive mentions of ilx, last year I checked out a dvd of Pickup on South Street. It was superb! Widmark is pitch perfect for his character and the pacing and cinematography are excellent.

Love Thelma Ritter in that.

Pickup On South Street is amazing. "Are you wavin' the flag at me?"

I watched Out Of The Past — a 1947 noir starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, with Jane Greer as the (mild spoiler) female villain — this weekend. Really, really good, with some surprisingly funny dialogue. I had seen the "remake" (Against All Odds, with Jeff Bridges in the Mitchum part and James Woods in the Douglas part) before, but the original was much better, unsurprisingly.

"Out of the Past" is awesome, Jane Greer is something else in that film.

[Kathie is playing roulette]

Jeff : That's not the way to win.

Kathie : Is there a way to win?

Jeff : There's a way to lose more slowly.

Also watched Buster Keaton's College recently; I bought several Keaton Blu-Rays a couple of years ago and tossed them on the shelf without watching them. I wouldn't say I was "knocked out" by it compared to, say, Steamboat Bill Jr. College is pretty funny, but once you pick up the structure — basically, Keaton tries out for a bunch of different athletic events, and you gradually realize that at the end he's going to use all those skills to foil the villain — you're just kind of waiting for the pieces to fall into place. Also, there's a blackface scene (he's playing a waiter at a restaurant with an otherwise all-black staff), so be warned about that.

I love how Kirk Douglas can't stop grinning at Mitchum, i.e. "I can't believe you're getting away with this."

You are aware that Mitchum hated, hated, hated Kirk Douglas and his brand of acting.

I meant their characters.

Kirk Douglas is really good in this.

Greer, Douglas and Mitchum all equally amazing in it imo. Probably Mitchum's best.

Mitchum was no great respecter of "acting" as craft iirc?

His hair in OOTP = fabulous

The cinematography's by Nicholas Musuraca. Jacques Tourneur had an excellent visual sense.

Mitchum was no great respecter of "acting" as craft iirc?

Typical old school approach - "say your lines and don't bump into the furniture". Used to really love that attitude when contrasted with self-indulgent artistes who go on about themselves forever, but in retrospect I also think it shows a certain level of insecurity, not wanting to be seen as doing a job that involves gurly FEELINGS and EMOTIONS.

i was gonna say it's an assumed pose because he certainly can act, but it's part of the game of Robert Mitchum, film star, and i definitely don't care much about the methods (small m) actors use to create a role so i'm kind of with him up to a point

TS Out Of The Past vs. Night Of The Hunter

Robert Mitchum C/D, S/D

Typical old school approach - "say your lines and don't bump into the furniture". Used to really love that attitude when contrasted with self-indulgent artistes who go on about themselves forever, but in retrospect I also think it shows a certain level of insecurity, not wanting to be seen as doing a job that involves gurly FEELINGS and EMOTIONS.

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, October 11, 2022 9:22 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was gonna say it's an assumed pose because he certainly can act, but it's part of the game of Robert Mitchum, film star, and i definitely don't care much about the methods (small m) actors use to create a role so i'm kind of with him up to a point

― saigo no ice cream (Noodle Vague),

both of you otm

In my film class we had a cool discussion on the history of film acting a couple weeks ago. When we reached Method acting, a student shrewdly asked, "Who cares what they used? How would you know what's Method vs old school acting when watching them?" She's right.

I also pointed out that male American actors, forever insecure about perceived effeminacy and indulging themselves in a wasted career choice, love to drone on talk shows about how much weight they lost and gained and how much "research" they put into their parts as if to expiate their sins.

yeah a good point. and of course there are film actors who i enjoy for the sheer pleasure of their perfomances, whether said performances are "realistic" or "deep in character" or whatever

iirc Mitchum had to be dragged to his first-ever acting audition by his sister, who was an aspiring actress he followed out to Los Angeles. Everyone could tell he was interested in show business but he feigned disinterest as much as possible while still getting his foot in the door.

Can't believe there's no discussion of The Friends Of Eddie Coyle in that Mitchum thread. What a late career performance that is. Not just the gangster stuff, but his interactions with his wife almost more than anything.

Of course, it's not easy to tell. James Cagney comes off like a Method student in stuff like White Heat, while Paul Newman glided through the 1980s and 1990s on star power (though he needed twenty years of prefatory Method exertions imo).

XP: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973, Peter Yates)

Also watched Buster Keaton's College recently; I bought several Keaton Blu-Rays a couple of years ago and tossed them on the shelf without watching them. I wouldn't say I was "knocked out" by it compared to, say, Steamboat Bill Jr. College is pretty funny, but once you pick up the structure — basically, Keaton tries out for a bunch of different athletic events, and you gradually realize that at the end he's going to use all those skills to foil the villain — you're just kind of waiting for the pieces to fall into place. Also, there's a blackface scene (he's playing a waiter at a restaurant with an otherwise all-black staff), so be warned about that.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, October 11, 2022 8:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

The ending of College is a knockout.

Mitchum in his youth wrote a sympathetic play about a union leader, which he later claimed got praise from Eugene O'Neill. This tidbit courtesy of Lee Server's amazing biography which just drops nuggets like that every other page.

^That book is amazing. Ava Gardner book too.

Panique by Duvivier is a banger, great perf by Michel Simon as the arrogant, anti-social patsy in a gallic take on the old film noir love triangle plot. Amazing sets.

I already knew that French directors who stayed in the industry during Vichy got a rough time afterwards even if their work didn't have any propaganda elements, but have now learned that those who escaped to the US were also derided as cowards who abandoned their country. Can't win!

― Daniel_Rf, Friday,

Will watch tonight.

vampyr d. carl theodor dreyer, 1932

i didn't actually love it tbh but was still knocked out by the gloomy atmosphere. the extended and numerous shots of pages of a book somehow made it creepier.

I saw Vampyr at the cinema earlier in the year. One of the few films I would genuinely consider "dreamlike".

xpost my thoughts as well.

Herzog's Nosferatu is great but not even close to the heights of Murnau's.

I love both.

not wanting to be seen as doing a job that involves gurly FEELINGS and EMOTIONS

I've read that Humphrey Bogart always thought acting was kind of a sissy career

It’s a feeling
You never outgrow

Murnau's Nosferatu is the ultimate classic vampire film but Herzog's version is great too.

I loved William Wyler's The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift, a 1949 reimagination of Henry James' novel Washington Square. It was romantic but ultimately very hard-bitten and cynical like a lot of 40's films

Murnau’s is a horror film; Herzog’s is a tragedy.

The Heiress, Wyler's best film after The Letter, handles the melodrama of James' novel so well that by the time Dr. Sloper's realizing what he's done to his daughter it's a horror film.

"how could you be so cruel?"

"I've learned from the best"

In the novel Dr. Sloper is always right until he's wrong.

Wyler's use of deep focus = A+. And the period interior design doesn't stifle the picture.

I loved seeing Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa again

It still seems contemporary 32 years later.

Herzog’s is a tragedy

I'm a Herzog fan, but I think what I disliked about his Nosferatu is that the unhappy ending felt arbitrary; not in a "senseless whims of an uncaring universe" way, but a twist into nihilism that I didn't feel the earlier part of the film had earned.

The film shows his slow deterioration such that the ending to me is an inevitability, and Adjani's character, thanks to her performance, is just ripe for suffering.

Now, I don't think these elements make tragedy.

What do they make … a milkshake?

Eric, dear, will you check about the hors d'oeuvres? The caterer forgot them, the varnish wasn't dry or something.

you two

if I remember right, at least a few early Dreyer films show images of creepy pages from a book

for example The Parson's Widow, Leaves From Satan's Book

rewatching the Human Condition Trilogy and the 3rd one is the best I think.

(^ this is one of the things in the arrow sale, £15 for the ~9hr trilogy)

Panique was marvelous. The almost-lynching was as harrowing as what it's shown in The Ox-Bow Incident.

Leaves From Satan's Book

showing the titular leaves from satan's book i'm guessing

Been saving Varda's Vagabond for a rainy evening such as this one, and it hit me like a blow to the gut. "Freedom and dirt", as Varda puts it in a 'making of' documentary about the film.

i've been meaning to dig into varda for literally years after loving the gleaner and i. feel like this week is the time.

Check out LE BONHEUR (“Happiness”), one of Varda's most subtle films.. it's a harsh toke but really beautiful to look at

Seconded

Not wanting to give away the ending, I thought that the behaviour of the kid at the end of that movie was entirely off; Varda was completely weighing the scales to make her point.

Third-degree. My theory: Assayas films like [Summer Hours/i], with their lightness and buoyancy about serious matters, and this one are connected.

Er, thirded. I hate phones.

Varda stands charged with third-degree weighing the scales.

I really like the profound 1970sness of One Sings, The Other Doesn't and Jacquot De Nantes is a rare example of a biopic I enjoy.

Is it a "classic film"? Probably the exact opposite of that in most people's minds, but DRACULA A.D. 1972 (which I watched on HBO Max last night) is a lot of fun. It's a perfect time capsule — not of actual yoof kulcha circa 1972, but of a somewhat conservative, censorious film industry's view of same, and it also takes on the Dracula story in an interesting way, in that for a third of its running time (it's only 95 minutes) it's a police procedural, trying to solve these weird sex-cult murders while a guy hangs around telling the lead detective "It's a vampire, I'm telling you!" and the detective says, "Great, but try convincing my boss of that." Plus, you get to see Peter Cushing running around a grimy-looking London while low-budget blaxploitation funk blares on the soundtrack. The actor playing Dracula's servant is particularly good, too — he really seems like the kind of creep who would hang around preying on fog-brained hippies. Can recommend.

otm yeah that one pays off. yeah its always funny to me how many horror movies from that era are really just straight police procedurals, but its just that the criminal is a werewolf/vampire/alien/whatever.

this is a secondhand 'classic film you were knocked out by' but went with my wife to see Nosferatu the other night (Murnau not Herzog), she'd never seen and had no idea what to expect, she was chuckling at the beginning but was legit terrified by the end, was really delightful seeing someone go into it cold and completely fall under its spell.

I watched Kurosawa's "High and Low" a couple of nights ago and it was astonishing. It's remarkable how many police procedurals took from this but none of them are quite as good. Also the first whole hour takes place in the businessman's room and it still manages to be riveting.

Yes, that one is a real nail-biter.

its always funny to me how many horror movies from that era are really just straight police procedurals, but its just that the criminal is a werewolf/vampire/alien/whatever.

ha, we just watched Wolfen and this is the exact plot

I watched Wolfen last October, I think. It was pretty good, though the "wolf-o-vision" shots were pretty bad. Full frontal Edward James Olmos, too, if that's your thing.

I love Dracula AD 1972 - has anyone sampled Johnny Alucard shouting “Dig the music, kids!” during the black mass?

> I watched Kurosawa's "High and Low" a couple of nights ago and it was astonishing. It's remarkable how many police procedurals took from this but none of them are quite as good.

it's an ed mcbain story, one of his 84th precinct books.

87th Precint... "King's Ransom"

It's been long enough (25 years?) since watching H&L to give it a second look. Thanks!

As for me, my rediscovery was Exotica.

Also a big Dracula AD 1972 fan (the 73 follow-up, Satanic Rites of Dracula, isn't anywhere near as good) - one of the first Hammer films I ever saw on late night British telly, along with the equally fine Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, made the same year. Totally agree act the effectiveness of Christopher Neame's performance as the acolyte: the summoning in the church is perhaps the best scene in the film, and it's another REEL TO REEL horror, along with Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape, also AD 1972.

And I really like Alligator Man by Stoneground!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18RKwISa6JM

Wolfen rocks.

Just watched The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane for the first time, which TCM aired as part of its October programming. Not really a horror movie, though; more of a piece with something like The Beguiled (either version, though I’m partial to Siegel’s) or Smooth Talk. Lovely autumnal vibes, with an extraordinary Jodie Foster, an adorable Scott Jacoby, and a creepy-as-hell Martin Sheen. And while I include this more as an observation than an endorsement, the film is rather startlingly frank and even blasé about adolescent sexuality in ways that would not play well today.

As for me, my rediscovery was Exotica.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 25, 2022 9:15 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the best movie ever made

I need to see that still

David Lean's Summertime was marvellous. And a while back I finally saw Daisies and it completely ruled

Haven't seen Exotica since it came out. Reminding finding it confusing at first and then really liking it.

i just saw the shout (1978) and idk if it's a classic but it should be

Haven't seen Exotica since it came out. Reminding finding it confusing at first and then really liking it.

― 2-4-6-8 Motor Away (James Redd and the Blecchs

Then and now the ending doesn't quite work, but, geez, the rhythm of the thing, the laying out of these chess pieces on the board, the poignancy of life in that strip club -- these things stayed with me and got reinforced now.

xp
I've never heard of that, but the description sounds great--maybe an influence on Peter Strickland?

oh yeah, strickland has totally seen the shout

Exotica is all about evoking a place and a feeling, which is what most of my favourite films are about.

Yep.

I saw The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane in the theater when I was 8 and it was probably the heaviest, most adult film I'd seen to that point. It raised some questions.

Dr Morbius called it "icky."

it is pretty icky, especially having 13-year-old jodie foster be nude in a sexual setting (though body-doubled by her older sister)

Exotica is all about evoking a place and a feeling

I feel this in Egoyan's intimate, small-scale movies like Next of Kin and Calendar, but most of his well-known movies feel too mannered to be evocative. He's like the jigsaw puzzle maker who's more concerned with how the pieces fit together than the picture itself.

High and Low is my favourite Kurosawa, and mentally I always connect it with The Bad Sleep Well as contemporary thrillers, but there's a crushing inevitability to the latter that maybe makes it less exciting.

I tend to confuse those Kurosawas.

The Old Dark House

I love the pre-code stuff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Dark_House_(1932_film)

Old Dark House is great, kind of a comedy but also truly grotesque.

The James Whale specialty.

When Saul is released from the room - at first he seems so harmless but quickly becomes one of the more strangely terrifying characters in film history