Top Ten Gift Ideas for the Classic Movie Lover

Every week, we go to the movie theaters to see Hollywood’s latest offerings. Most of us are bored with the movies that are coming out. Many of them are shameless remakes of classic movies, so why not check out the originals? I asked a friend who is an expert on classic film noir which ones he would recommend and he gave me a list of ten nail-biting, on the edge of your seat, tear jerkers that any fan of old movies is sure to love.

1. Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) - James Cagney was the quintessential bad guy in the 1930s and 1940s, and this was one of his best. Cagney as Rocky Sullivan and Pat O’Brien as Jerry Connelly play best friends whose lives take totally different roads. As children, they were small-time thieves, but after one robbery, Rocky is caught and sent to a reformatory. Jerry escapes and eventually finds the road that leads him to the priesthood. Rocky, however, takes the easiest path, continuing his bad boy ways and becoming the hero of the neighborhood boys. He wants to get back into his racketeering organization once he gets out the joint, but his former partners don’t think this is a good idea and set him up for a fall. Through it all, Rocky and Jerry remain friends, but when Jerry decides to fight against the corruption to save the street kids he is working with, Rocky finds himself stuck between his best friend and the corrupt society that is his life.

2. Dark Passage (1947) - Humphrey Bogart could be considered Cagney’s heir to the throne of movie bad guy. He brought a depth to his characters through his face, showing all types of emotion with just one look. In Dark Passage, he plays a man who has been wrongly convicted of killing his wife. In order to clear his name, he escapes from prison and undergoes plastic surgery to avoid capture. He recuperates in the apartment of an artist, played by Lauren Bacall, who he eventually falls for. But his first priority is to find out who killed his wife and get revenge.