Overrated Films

MSN has an interesting exercise up about 10 "classic" movies that it dubs "unclassics." I have never even seen a few of the movies on the list (I never even realized people considered Love Story a classic), and with others (Easy Rider) , it's been so long that I'd have to re-view them to consider whether I think he has a point, and I'd rather spend time seeing movies I haven't seen than seeing movies I have seen over again. Still, some of David Fear's choices make a lot of sense (like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which I believe Pauline Kael called "the best movie of 1957." Ouch).

I fully agree, though, with Gone With the Wind. Is there a more overrated movie out there? I saw this maybe 10 years ago, in the midst of my "classic movie" phase, and I just didn't get it. First, I simply can't stand the pure melodrama of stuff like that (it's the same reason I stay away from novelas). Women ranting and raving ("I don't know nuthin' about birthin' no babies!" or "I shall never go hungry again!", anybody?) is not good acting to me, nor is Clark Gable's...um...style. I've heard defenders say, "well, that's how it used to be back then! Those were great performances!", and maybe that was what was considered great back then, but that wasn't the standard for acting. Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and a lot of the early film noirs were nothing like that, and they were (and are) still great acting performances. The way Vivien Leigh in particular goes through that film may have been common, but that doesn't mean it's great - are we going to look back 30 years from now to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and say, "well, that's how a lot of women performed then, so it's a great performance!" I doubt it. And we all know Leigh definitely had the chops in her to put on a far more fierce and realistic (if still highly emotional) performance, a la A Streetcar Named Desire. Sure, the sets are impressive, even for their time, but it's not like Holywood hadn't done big-scale before.

I just never got the hullaballoo for Gone with the Wind. I'm sure there are others I'd add to the "unclassic" category (though none spring to mind right now, but hey, I just woke up). Still, I think at the end of the day I'd still have Gone with the Wind as my #1 "Unclassic" movie.