The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together [Paperback]

Ty Burr (Author)

Book Description

If a child can watch Barney, can’t that same child also enjoy watching Charlie Chaplin or the Marx Brothers? And as they get older, wouldn’t they grow to like screwball comedies (His Girl Friday), women’s weepies (Imitation of Life), and westerns (The Searchers)? The answer is that they’ll follow because they’ll have learned that “old” does not necessarily mean “next channel, please.”

Here is an impassioned and eminently readable guide that introduces the delights of the golden age of movies. Ty Burr has come up with a winning prescription for children brought up on Hollywood junk food.

FOR THE LITTLE ONES (Ages 3—6): Fast-paced movies that are simple without being unsophisticated, plainspoken without being dumbed down. Singin’ in the Rain and Bringing Up Baby are perfect.

FOR THE ONES IN BETWEEN (Ages 7—12): “Killer stories,” placing easily grasped characters in situations that start simply and then throw curveballs. The African Queen and Some Like It Hot do the job well.

FOR THE OLDER ONES (Ages 13+): Burr recommends relating old movies to teens’ contemporary favorites: without Hitchcock, there could be no The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, without Brando, no Johnny Depp.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Every parent has asked for Ty Burr’s book. Every movie-mad child will steal it from the parents. This is a guide to classic movies for kids, written with verve, humor, and pep. A winner.”
—David Thomson, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

“A treasure, a delight, and quite possibly a marriage-saver as well. Ty Burr’s advice on when, how, and even why to share with our children the movies we cherish from our own youth is funny, hip, and wise. My ten-year-old stole the book right out of my hands.” —Julia Glass, National Book Award–Winning Author of Three Junes

“Terrific, necessary, and carried out with integrity, intelligence, sensitivity, and totally without condescension. Ty Burr's book can lead to a lot of pleasure–of the life-long kind.” —Peter Bogdanovich

About the Author

Ty Burr is the film critic for The Boston Globe, and the father of two. For over a decade he wrote about movies for Entertainment Weekly, and estimates he has seen 10,680 films.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; First Edition edition (February 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400096863
• ISBN-13: 978-1400096862
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #372,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Than Movie Advice, March 14, 2007

By 

Einer Elhauge - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together (Paperback)

I bought this book expecting to just be instructed, and came away thoroughly entertained and entralled. Full of verve and funny but telling observations, this is one of the best written books I have read in years. Part culture critique, part movie review, part parental memoir, all written with energy, subtlety, and great humor. I laughed out loud many times. How can one be hip and parental at the same time? I don't know, but this book pulls it off. My only complaint is that this book undersells itself, as if it were just some reference book one should dip into for particular movies. It is just a rollicking good read, and one learns about a lot more than movies along the way. So well-written that you have to wonder whether Ty Burr's time might not be better spent writing some movie scripts, so we can have modern movies with characters whose dialogue crackles like this book's sentences do.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Great Time this Book is!, June 4, 2007

By 

R. Stanton (Outside Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together (Paperback)

This book is a gateway to a GREAT family movie experience! I have a 4 year old son, and although this book is a little more bias toward girls, it in no way forgets the boys. In fact the strength of the book, is in laying the groundwork to open up the world of classic movies (mostly Hollywood, but not exclusively) to young children by combing the various movie genres for age appropriate material and by emphasizing that each child is different. This to me is what makes this book succeed.

I've experimented with "Singing in the Rain" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood" so far with universally positive results (my son was somewhat fidgety during the dialog portions of "Singing in the Rain", but was riveted by the singing, dancing, and comedic scenes). "Robin Hood" was a hit from frame one.

This book is also a pleasure to read with regard to Mr. Burr's antidotes. You can tell he learned a lot through this process and had a great time doing it.

Highly recommend!!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful resource to widen children's movie-viewing horizons, September 28, 2007

By 

Z Hayes (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together (Paperback)

I came across this book in my local library, and after reading it, am going to purchase a copy for myself, and perhaps give it out as gifts for friends that have young children. This is an amazing movie resource. Ty Burr writes in such a familiar, easy-to-read style, and despite his motives [trying to get us to expand our young ones' movie viewing experiences through old movies/classics], never once comes across as condescending or snobbish.

The fact is that children these days are really being fed a steady, and not so healthy diet of the same type of movies that have spawned sequels, mass merchandising, and dare I say movies that don't really promote great role models [I have had enough of those tween movies with young Hollywood starlets in them]. Ty Burr provides great tips and ideas on overcoming this problems by suggesting old movies, or rather classics that will appeal to the toddler set[Meet Me in St Louis], the tween set[The African Queen], and also teenagers[Metropolis]. There are also old movies he doesn't recommend you watch with your children. The best part of the book is the comprehensive list of old movie titles in the different categories such as comedy, drama, musicals, action, adventure & westerns, horror, sci fi and fantasy, & foreign movies.

All in all, I'd highly recommend this book to readers who are interested in expanding the movie viewing experiences of the young children in their lives, and even for one's own viewing pleasure [there were titles in here that I had never come across and plan to check out!].