Tom Clavin and a producer named Tom curate six essential classic films, starting with Casablanca (1942), where Humphrey Bogart’s wartime sacrifice eclipses romance, contrasting boomer-era The English Patient. The Godfather Part I (1972) critiques American ideals through mafia corruption, rejecting sequels’ superiority. High Noon (1952) aligns with McCarthy-era anti-communism, while Rocky (1976) champions perseverance over victory, with Stallone’s Kennedy Award praised even by Trump. Logan (2017) inverts Western sacrifice tropes, and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) elevates Peter O’Toole’s soulful heroism over Heston’s stoicism—these films redefine moral complexity and genre evolution. [Automatically generated summary]
All right, here is a bonus video that actually I should enjoy.
I think it won't be like watching horrible leftists with things in their noses on TikTok.
We're going to talk about six essential classic films that you ought to see if you care about the movies.
I did not make this list.
My producer Tom made this list, but I did approve it, so I will take the hit.
Obviously, there will be some, it's only six films.
There will be some things left off.
They're not the only six essential films, but there are six films that I do love and I think you ought to watch.
Now, the first two are so obvious.
They are the first and second greatest films ever made.
The first greatest film ever made is Casablanca.
And it's very important that you know that 1942's Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman is the best film ever made because sometimes people will tell you it's Citizen Kane.
Citizen Kane is a technically brilliant film.
It's got some wonderful acting in it and they love it because it takes after a conservative Hearst.
That's why they think it's a great, great film.
It's a good film and it belongs probably on a top 100 list down around the bottom quarter of that list.
Casablanca is an essential statement of the human condition.
It was made like in chaos and yet somehow it formed into the almost perfect film.
Obviously it's 1942.
You know it's talking about America coming into World War II and it's about a guy, Humphrey Bogart, who has had his heart broken and he doesn't want to stick his neck out for anybody.
And the one girl of his dreams walks into his bar where he's trying to forget her and walks in with her husband, which is making it even harder for him.
It is a brilliant film and what is brilliant about it is how it presents its complexity in such a way that it doesn't get in the way of the sentimentalism.
It is a morally complex film in which a good aim is achieved through an act of adultery.
And that's really a complicated thing.
It's a hard thing, but it's very realistic.
And yet, what we remember about it is its sweeping romance, its incredible sentimentality.
It makes you feel like your life just isn't big enough and can't compete.
And if you ever want to see what happened to American values and what happened to Western values, compare it to the English patient.
Compare the end of Casablanca, in which we realize that maybe we're not the most important thing in the world, and maybe World War II is more important than whether we have a broken heart, to the English patient, which was made in the 90s based on a novel and it basically says, no, we're the most important thing and the war doesn't matter.
And that reversal, which was the work of the baby boomers and the left, is what all our problems are about.
So Casablanca will remind you what we should be.
The other great film, which is the second greatest film ever made, is The Godfather, Part 1, 1972, Francis Ford Coppola, Coppola.
Never let anybody tell you that the sequel is better.
No sequel is ever better.
The sequel to this is not better.
It is not a better film.
Godfather Part 1 is one of the greatest films ever made.
Why?
It is about the great American subject.
If there is one subject that is greater in America than it is anywhere else, it is the subject of assimilation.
It is a story of a man who wants to, of a Sicilian American, who wants to become an American, wants to buy into the values of America, but finds that the values of America cannot protect him from being drawn in to the life of the mafia from the old country.
And it is a tragedy.
It is a tragedy of a man drawn in.
But it's also the tragedy of American values being turned upside down.
By the end of the movie, all of the things that we want to believe in, baptism, Christianity, the police, all of them have become symbolic of evil.
You know, our ideals are beautiful, but of course, we're human beings and we don't live up to those ideals.
And like every democracy, there's a lot of corruption.
So the question is, are you going to live into that ideal like, for instance, Philip Marlowe does in The Big Sleep, where he actually takes on the Western ideals, even though he knows he's living amidst corruption?
Tragedy Of American Values00:08:32
Or are you going to do what happens to the people in Godfather Part 1?
It's a brilliant film.
It's a wonderful, incredibly watchable movie.
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High Noon, 1952, directed by Fred Zinneman.
A lot of conservatives don't like High Noon because it was made by a leftist to put forward what he thought were leftist values.
In fact, John Wayne made a movie, I believe, called Rio Bravo, arguing with High Noon.
High Noon is the story of Gary Cooper who wants to marry Grace Kelly, as who wouldn't, but she's a Quaker girl, and so he has to leave his job as a sheriff to become a farmer because she hates violence.
But bad men who he put away in prison are coming to town at high noon to kill him.
And so he has to decide to stay and fight and go to the townspeople who just don't want any part of it, just wish he'd run away and take the fight somewhere else.
And so it's really about the fact that you have to do the right thing, even if you have to do it alone, which was Fred Zinnemann's reaction to the McCarthy hearings, the anti-communism, that House on American Activities, really.
He wanted to stand up to them and he was saying basically you have to do this on your own.
But it is a conservative principle all the same that you do right whether the society supports it or not.
And it is a great, great film.
It's 90 minutes long and it's in real time.
So the clock ticking to high noon is actually ticking as you watch it.
Rocky, 1976.
I was talking about this a little bit on the show.
It is a great classic movie.
It is sentimental, it is old-fashioned, and yet it is filled with cinematic intelligence.
Sylvester Sallone, I always say this, is undervalued because of his voice.
He sounds like a dummy.
He talks like that, but he is a really good screenwriter and a really good actor.
And this is, you know, obviously the film that made him.
And it's probably his best film.
He probably never matched it, won every award, and, you know, just he refused to let it go.
He wanted to act in it, and he didn't want, you know, he didn't want it taken away from him.
It's a film that makes reference to old other Hollywood films like On the Waterfront.
He obviously loved Brando, kind of refers to that cinematically.
And it's a great film because it actually has, you know, a beautiful message, which is not the winning.
It's the standing up.
It's the fact that you don't go down.
And that's a beautiful thing.
And that's something that he has kind of promulgated through those Rocky films.
I'm glad that President Trump is honoring him with a Kennedy Award.
I think he deserves it.
I think he's an actual mainstay of American cinema in his time.
Logan, 2017 by James Mangall.
I hate to elevate a superhero movie, but the reason I think this movie is worth watching, and I won't call this an essential film, that's going a little too far, but I think it is worth not missing if you love movies.
It's a superhero film about superhero films, which makes it fascinating.
It is a film in which the superheroes are compared to the cowboy movies like Shane, and Shane is famously a Jesus Christ story.
Shane is a story about a gunfighter who descends into a valley, saves the valley at the expense of himself, and then leaves the valley.
And it's very much a Jesus Christ story.
And the Logan ends with a cross falling over to become an ex.
And what Mangold is saying is these stories, these classic cinematic stories, they may not be great movies, but they are conveying great, timeless Western values through popular entertainment.
And to see that done, just like it is great to see how Casablanca puts moral complexity into a sentimental tale, a tale that moves your heart, it is wonderful to see how Mangold puts a deep understanding of Western culture and where it comes from and how it operates into a superhero film.
So it's really worth watching if you love the arts and if you like superheroes, it's probably the only really good superhero film.
Finally, Lawrence of Arabia, and there is no better film than Lawrence of Arabia.
I'm not saying it's the best film ever made.
I'm just saying there is no better one.
It is a great film.
And I would watch Lawrence of Arabia in tandem with watching Ben-Hur.
It was made about three years before in 1959, starring Charlton Heston.
Lawrence of Arabia, I believe, is the debut film of Peter O'Toole.
And Peter O'Toole, like many British actors, Albert Finney is another one.
Richard Burton, British actors, when they're young, may be the most beautiful people who ever lived.
Peter O'Toole is beautiful.
I don't know how else to put it.
I mean, you know, he is as beautiful as a woman in this picture, even though he's not womanly or feminine.
He is just, you look at him and think like, oh my God, that guy is beautiful.
And, you know, if you're straight, you know, it doesn't do much for you, but it's still kind of amazing to see a guy who looks like that.
And the difference between Ben-Hur and Charlton Heston and Ben-Hur and Peter O'Toole and Lawrence of Arabia is the difference between classic and romantic.
Ben-Hur is a classic historical epic, and Charlton Heston is a classic actor.
You have no idea what he's thinking or feeling.
You have no idea what his inner life is about.
You only know the hero Ben-Hur.
He's like a statue.
It's like watching a statue act.
People think he's a bad actor.
I think he's actually a good actor, but he plays the statue of the man.
He plays the statue of Ben-Hur.
Peter O'Toole, and this is partly because of David Lean, the great director, who was just one of the great directors across the history of cinema.
I mean, his career went on forever and ever, and he just made wonderful, wonderful movies.
You know this guy's heart.
He is a major classic hero in a tremendous historical setting, but you just are watching his soul unravel.
You're watching his soul and its twistedness and its pain and its beauty and all these other things.
And it's just an amazing move that essentially announces the coming of the 60s, when people start getting very interior, when people start getting very romantic, when the romance of your therapy and your inner life become part of American culture instead of the guy who just goes out and does what he has to do, the Gary Cooper who just goes down the street and has to face the bad guys.
Now we have a new kind of hero who would be exemplified by Al Pacino, by Dustin Hoffman, by Robert De Niro.
Guys, you could see their tormented souls even as they played the gangster, the cop, the old-fashioned Hollywood characters.
And so Lawrence of Arabia marks the moment when we transfer from the old-style hero who was just a man who did what he did to the new style hero who was a soul bared in all his torment to the movie going public.
Great selection of films, not the greatest film.
Well, Godfather and Castle Anglo are the greatest films, but there are other great films.
I know this is only six of them, but still all worth watching and all will teach you more about not just about movies, but about the culture you live in.
If you recognize this as an essential film that you had to see, which of course it was, like and subscribe.