FilmStruck Down: 11 Life-Changing Films To Watch Before The Service Is Struck Down

Pre-code movies are always so entertaining and insane to watch, and none may be more entertaining and insane than this William A. Wellman gem about a prostitute (Dorothy Mackaill) who escapes a murder rap by being dropped off on a Caribbean island filled with a gaggle of lecherous fugitives, who are also hiding out to avoid extradition. Mos Eisley‘s got nothing on this wretched hive of scum and villainy, who all want to put their paws on Mackaill, but she’s brassy and bold enough to hold her own with these ruggish rogues. Both uproariously silly and crazily creepy, you’ll be happy to be just a temporary visitor to Safe Is Hell, and not a permanent resident.

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A staple of Film History 101 classes, Olympia Part One: Festival of Beauty and Part Two: Festival of Nationals showcases the pomp and circumstance that was the 1936 Summer Olympics. In fact, it was the very first Olympic Games to get a documentary treatment, and perhaps no other ones since have had the pageantry, drama and controversy to equal these games that were staged in Nazi Germany. Yep, these were the games that Adolf Hitler used to propagate his and his peoples own “superiority,” only to be embarrassed by American running dynamo Jesse Owens. Capturing all the glory is revered and reviled filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who could both be praised and razed for creating such a beautiful piece of cinema, that doubled as very effective propaganda, like she did with the other film she completed prior for dem/damn Nazis – Triumph of the Will.

Watch Olympia Parts One and Two on Filmstruck

Rule #1 in life – never sell your soul to the Devil. Well, rule #1 is broken right away by our down on his luck protagonist Jabez Stone (James Craig) who does just that to save his farm from ruin. In return, the Devil, known locally as Mr. Scratch (a truly most devilish Walter Huston, yes, of THAT Huston clan), promises him 7 years of luck and prosperity. Jabez (what a name!!)’s farm and life goes from bust to boom, but his riches soon go to his head and he alienates everyone he knows. The years pass, and he’s fast approaching the buzzer when Mr. Scratch will soon receive his end of the bargain. Stepping in to help Jabez save himself and his soul is Daniel Webster (a fictionalized version of the real statesman, stately played by Edward Arnold), who somehow convinces Mr. Scratch to agree to a court case to settle it all. You’ve heard of a ‘jury of the damned’? This (and the original short story from 1936) is where it was popularized. Scratch gets to handpick the jury of Americans, and does so by enlisting “dastards, liars, traitors, knaves”, ghosts of the United States’ past (including Benedict Arnold!). Webster has his work cut out for him, and will do anything in his orator-ally power to not “let this country go to the devil!” Amazing how we’ve always been fighting demons, both metaphorically and metaphysically, in fiction and real life. This movie is pure terror, and will terrorize you into abiding by Rule #1 for life.

Watch The Devil and Daniel Webster on FilmStruck

Yes, we’re suggesting three choices as one, but if you want to see technicolor at its most vibrant brilliance, then these three cinematic treasures by the film-making dynamic duo of The Archers – Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger – will be a sight for sore OR even clear eyes. Don’t trust us? Maybe you’ll trust Martin Scorsese, who worships at the altar of Powell and Pressburger. Even Marty’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, was so taken with their work that she became Pressburger’s third and final wife for the last six years of his life. The two have put their love into labor, restoring many of P&P’s films. And with these three films – you get to enter all kinds of different worlds filled with wonder, excitement, thrills AND chills!

Colonel Blimp is the funnest of the lot, taking us on a joyful journey of one military man’s life that spanned three wars (Boer, WWI and II), with the bonus of seeing the divine Deborah Kerr play three roles.

Black Narcissus delves deep into a group of isolated nuns (one of them being Ms. Kerr) in the Himalayas, and how sexual urges and repression will eventually bubble up and bring things to an unforgettable boil. There is perhaps nun film better about the habit that is truly kicking.

The Red Shoes isn’t so much a film as it is a piece of moving art. Powell and Pressburger’s masterpiece, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, is a must see for anyone who has eyes, and even for those who don’t. Sorry Dorothy, but the red shoes of The Red Shoes > your ruby slippers. There’s no place like Powell and Pressburger’s films.

Watch The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp on FilmStruck

Watch Black Narcissus on FilmStruck

Watch The Red Shoes on FilmStruck

Director David Lean and writer Noël Coward came together to bring you one of the most heartbreaking love stories ever committed to celluloid. No matter how many times you see this film, you will always hope and pray that Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard will somehow make it work, turning their Encounter from being all too Brief into everlasting love. Love hurts, and so does this movie. You’ll hurt, and love every minute of it.

Watch Brief Encounter on FilmStruck

“Day for night” is the cinematic term for shooting exterior nighttime scenes during daylight hours. Simple enough, but nothing is so simple in the Academy Award winning François Truffaut flick of the same English title (although in its natural French, it goes by the name they give the technique – La Nuit américaine, which translates to “American night”), which is perhaps one of the finest movies about movie-making. Truffaut appears as the director of the film within the film itself, alongside his longtime screen alter ego Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Aumont and many other French acting luminaries, guiding us through the madcap production that both educates us on the process, and delights us in the process of doing so. There’s not much quiet on this set!

Watch Day for Night on FilmStruck

Forget the Amazon miniseries, and pack a blanket + some wine and cheese for Peter Weir’s mysterious and stunning film about a girl gone missing (near said Rock that is Hanging), and the feverish insanity that ensues for her fellow classmates and school administrators. Remember when Zamfir and his pan flute and those TV ads were the butt of everyone’s jokes? You won’t be jesting his music anymore after you are entranced by his haunting Picnic score.

Watch Picnic at Hanging Rock on FilmStruck

Mixing civic fact and silly fiction, along with his own family’s follies, maddening director Guy Maddin creates a gorgeously constructed, and often hilarious love/hate poem of the town he has called home since birth – yes, Manitoba’s capital city – Winnipeg. His Winnipeg is a colorful place (shown in glorious black & white), filled with dark snowy nights, sleepwalkers, frozen horses, seances, man pageants, elderly hockey legends forever playing in the abandoned arena of the Jets [before the team returned in 2011!!], and his forever crotchety mother. What’s true and what’s false in the narrative isn’t important, ’cause the surreal mythology he presents is so filled with affection and verve that you’ll want to believe every bit of it. His Winnipeg has become OUR Winnipeg! Winnipeg! Winnipeg! Winnipeg!

Watch My Winnipeg on FilmStruck

Andrea Arnold’s raw and fresh second feature is not only one of the 21st Century’s best films, but also delivered one of this century’s finest screen debuts as well – Katie Jarvis’.  Ms. Jarvis break-dances and break-prances her way across the screen, and into our hearts, as she has to juggle lower-class English strife, an unsympathetic and un-understanding family life, and the leering eye of a man well out of her league and appropriate age range – Michael Fassbender, in only his sixth film. Every inch of Arnold’s Tank is to be cherished, like FilmStruck itself.

Bonus: If you get all your homework done before the clock strikes midnight, here’s a trio to round out the fun…

The Shop Around the Corner (1940) – it’s You’ve Got Mail, but WAY better.

Time Bandits (1981) – Terry Gilliam at his finest, with help of dwarves, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, Ian Holm and David Warner.

Carlos (2010) – Édgar Ramírez is one of our finest actors going, and this is where he got his going… going, as the infamous terrorist.

Michael Palan is a New York based writer and multimedia producer. He got an A+ in bowling at a midwestern university, and once handed Kurt Vonnegut his coat. In his free time he enjoys Edward Hopper paintings and eating fried chicken.

Watch Fish Tank on FilmStruck