Pre-Code Wonder

Intended as a suggested starting point for those who want to watch old films without having to endure the cookie-cutter romance subplots that plague all genres equally.

1. Sleuth (1972): An intellectual duel takes place between an old british mystery writer and a young italian hairdresser.    

2. Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936): An all-american kid from a small town sees his life change when he is named heir to a british Lord. 

3. A Big Hand For a Little Lady (1966): A woman who has never played poker before must face the top players in the wild west when her husband dies during a game in which he had gambled with their life savings.

4. Murder on the Blackboard (1934): A middle-aged teacher investigates a crime committed at her own school with the help of her friendly rival, a professional detective. 

5. The Ladykillers (1955): A sweet old lady unknowingly aids a band of robbers after their grand heist. 

6. The Mad Parade (1931): The tale of nine WWI nurses as they try to cope with the horror and madness of war.

Fraulein von Bernburg: You must come to your senses. You must recover, whatever it takes.

Manuela: Recover? From what?

Now you can walk down the street semi-dancing to this music at full volume until it’s the only thing you hear, wear really dark sunglasses until you can barely see any colors and get run down by several cars while enjoying your day-in-a-silent-film experience. You can thank me later. From the hospital. 

Btw this is called ‘photoplay music’, it’s a nearly forgotten genre (at least by name). From Wikipedia:

Early films (c. 1890-1910) merely relied on classical and popular repertory, mixed usually with improvisation by whatever accompanist was playing (usually a pianist). Around 1910, folios of photoplay music began being published by companies such as Sam Fox Music and Academic Music. These were only a minute or so long and could not sustain an entire feature, but were used to fill in scenes where music was not popularly written (such as "misteriosos" for scenes of mystery, etc.).

Highlights: Cool bi and lesbian characters, speaks to women who crushed on female teachers as teenagers..

Content Warnings: Pedophilia, Student-Teacher Romance.

This very sapphic german film is about a group of teenage girls in an extremly strict all-girl boarding school. They also all happen to have a crush on one of their (also female) teachers.  

They also happen to crush on each other a lot. There’s a very cute scene where a girl gets a love note from another girl and shows it to her friends, being very excited that the other girl likes her.

The status quo changes when Manuela, a new student, arrives. Manuela is not afraid to pursue a romantic relationship with the aforementioned teacher (who returns her affections), which causes all sort of trouble for both of them. It is pretty much your standard students-rebel-against-authoritave-boarding-school plot, with student-teacher romance added to it. And lesbians.

Antonio: You are very pretty, Elsa. Are you also good?

Elsa: When I do not like a man, yes.

Queen Christina: That's a true virtue.

When I see people talking about old films, I feel they treat them more as historical documents than actual movies.

People always use the actors’ name to refer to the characters, as if the characters didn’t even exist. Old movie reviews are more of an info dump than an impression or analysis, leaving out any trace of emotional reaction and focusing on intellectual appreciation.