What is your favourite classic film?

[Guest 64691]

I saw The Story of Ruth in 1960 when I was 13 and thought it was excellent. Like many others, I'd been drawn to it by the beautifully produced Dell Movie Classic comic adaptation of the film, which made the film look very important. When I went to see it, the cinema was packed, so it seemed to be a prestige picture at the time.

It was to be another twelve and a half years before I would get to see it again, when it had its UK television premiere on BBC 1 in December, 1972 (pan and scan, of course). Oddly, it was never shown on television again. When it came out on Region 1 DVD a couple of years ago, I bought it straight away. It was the first time in 47 years that I'd seen it in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

I am lucky to have the original quad poster and a set of eight Front-of-House colour stills for the film. Elana Eden was what today would be called drop dead gorgeous and I fell in love with her from my seat in the Essoldo. She lit up the screen and gave a wonderful performance. She was twenty years old then and would be nearly seventy now if she's still alive. I don't know why she never made another film. It seems odd that she just disappeared after such a wonderful debut. Maybe someone high up in the film world fancied her and she wouldn't play ball, so they made sure she never worked in Hollywood again. No doubt that kind of thing used to happen in those days.

Sea of Sand was an excellent war film about the Long Range Desert Group and I loved the catchy title music so much that I was always humming it and whistling it at the time. I was 12 when I went to see that.

[Alan George]

Originally Posted by DavidRayner

I saw The Story of Ruth in 1960 when I was 13 and thought it was excellent. Like many others, I'd been drawn to it by the beautifully produced Dell Movie Classic comic adaptation of the film, which made the film look very important. When I went to see it, the cinema was packed, so it seemed to be a prestige picture at the time.

It was to be another twelve and a half years before I would get to see it again, when it had its UK television premiere on BBC 1 in December, 1972 (pan and scan, of course). Oddly, it was never shown on television again. When it came out on Region 1 DVD a couple of years ago, I bought it straight away. It was the first time in 47 years that I'd seen it in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

I am lucky to have the original quad poster and a set of eight Front-of-House colour stills for the film. Elana Eden was what today would be called drop dead gorgeous and I fell in love with her from my seat in the Essoldo. She lit up the screen and gave a wonderful performance. She was twenty years old then and would be nearly seventy now if she's still alive. I don't know why she never made another film. It seems odd that she just disappeared after such a wonderful debut. Maybe someone high up in the film world fancied her and she wouldn't play ball, so they made sure she never worked in Hollywood again. No doubt that kind of thing used to happen in those days.

Sea of Sand was an excellent war film about the Long Range Desert Group and I loved the catchy title music so much that I was always humming it and whistling it at the time. I was 12 when I went to see that.

I saw the quad poster for sale a few years back, it looked fantastic, but I'd spent all my money on a UK quad of "Journey To The Centre Of The Earth" which is framed & on the wall (it costs a fortune to have those big posters framed!). I've ordered the Ruth DVD now, should be interesting. Those Dell Movie Classics were great (I wish I had a collection of them). I remember I had "The Lost World" (Fox), which I read until it fell apart. When I finally got to see the (not very good) film, it was a bit of a disappointment.

[Guest 64691]

I have a very large collection of Movie Classic comics, both Dell and World Distributors and I have The Lost World among them. The quad poster for Journey to the Centre of the Earth is one that I haven't got. But I have seen it and it's fabulous. The posters they make for modern films are so dark and dismal and quite dire and unimaginative compared to those of the 1950's; 1960's and 1970's. I've obtained a lot of my quads and Front-of-House sets off eBay, but also off specialist dealers such as Quadbod.

[JoelCairo]

Originally Posted by DavidRayner

Elana Eden was what today would be called drop dead gorgeous and I fell in love with her from my seat in the Essoldo. She lit up the screen and gave a wonderful performance. She was twenty years old then and would be nearly seventy now if she's still alive. I don't know why she never made another film. It seems odd that she just disappeared after such a wonderful debut. Maybe someone high up in the film world fancied her and she wouldn't play ball, so they made sure she never worked in Hollywood again. No doubt that kind of thing used to happen in those days.

In her two autobiographies, both interesting, both well worth reading, Joan Collins explains how that sort of thing was basic operating procedure at 20th Century Fox in the late 1950s.

[tizza]

The ladykillers- pure brilliance.