At 17, I saw this movie when it came out, in Washington, DC. It was the same day that Washington replaced the last of its streetcars with busses. So it was quite amusing to see Charles Laughton make his entrance getting off a streetcar. Even this early the movie was starting to look dated.
shareYes, but at least we have a filmed, if brief, record of what a DC streetcar looked like. By the time I lived there, they were gone, though the tracks still remained.
Any movie that's 50 years old is bound to look somewhat "dated". That doesn't make it any less good. If people object to a film because it looks dated, ultimately they're going to dismiss every film once it gets to be a couple of years old, since by then any film will have inevitably become, in some way, "dated".
if youre nostalgic go to San Fran, they have ancient trolleys all over the streets, and Im not referring to the tourist cable cars, I mean trolleys used by commuters, you think youre in the 40;s or 50's
shareMovies look "dated" if they don't have everyone using cellphones!
Where will it end?
I love watching various movies and TV shows that show different eras of Las Vegas. I wonder if any other city has changed so many times and so much over the years?
And I've never even been to Vegas!
Sam Tomaino
They're bringing street cars back to Washington. They are supposed to start operation early next year.
http://dc.about.com/od/transportation/a/DC-Streetcar.htm
Cats are delicate dainty animals who suffer from a variety of ailments ... except insomnia.
One of the things I love about movies is that they all eventually look dated. That's one of the best things about them. The only way to avoid seeing dated movies is to not watch any that were made more than a year or two ago.
shareI actually ran into someone on an IMDb board the other year who complained about movies "dating". He said he wouldn't watch any film older than two or three years, let alone something made 40 or 60 or 80 years ago, because he couldn't stand looking at "older" technology -- cars more than a couple of years old, an iPhone three designs back, etc. When I pointed out that by that standard the films he likes today will be unwatchable for him in a few years, he agreed...and said he wouldn't watch them anymore either! Now that's being picky, though I guess at least he's being consistent and isn't just against films made before he was born.
shareStop to think of how many classic movies wouldn't have plots today if cell phones had existed at the time they were made! :)
shareIndeed! As it is, they have to complete making excuses as to why the cell phones won't work. It actually makes me feel sorry for today's screenwriters because they have to get around that problem.
Sam Tomaino
I was thinking that about Ben-Hur. "Hello, Massala? Know where I am? Does the area code for Rome look familiar?"
Well, you know how some actors just like to phone it in.
I keep thinking how we'd have no story at all in "Duel" if there was a cellphone. Or maybe "Jaws" (though Quint would have likely tossed Brody's over the side if he tried to phone in for a bigger boat).
And maybe if Tom Hanks had opened the package in "Cast Away" he'd have found a fully functioning cell phone with GPS to get off the island sooner! :)
Yes, I've often thought about the negative impact of cell phones on Jaws. Any movie that requires a sense of distance, of being out of touch with the outside world, would suffer after the advent of cell phones. Die Hard, for another example.
shareAnd a lot of old murder mysteries in which the killer only wants to make it seem like the victim has "disappeared" and is "out of touch" for a long while wouldn't work well either if the victim were known to have a cell phone!
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