We’re all looking to escape the Woke Gestapo’s idea of “entertainment” in any way we can, which leaves us with two choices: waste countless hours wading through an ocean of woke crap looking for a gold nugget, or… We can look back.
I prefer to look back.
For a hundred years, Hollywood made thousands and thousands of non-woke movies, which means there are a countless number of good movies you haven’t seen. Sure, everyone knows about the classics, and maybe you’ve seen those so many times you prefer to swim in that ocean of woke crap… Well, I’m offering a better solution…
Below are some older titles you might have missed. They’re not Casablanca, or Raging Bull, or The Outlaw Jose Wales — movies you’ve seen a hundred times. No, these are deep cuts. Gems that don’t enjoy Top 40 play on TV; titles to add a little variety to your movie watching until the Woke Gestapo finally runs out of steam….
The Organization (1971)
You might not know this, but there are two sequels to 1967’s Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night. Both star Sidney Poiter as police detective Virgil Tibbs, and neither — for whatever reason — pretends to have anything to do with In the Heat of the Night.
The Organization is the third in the trilogy. The second, 1970’s They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, is not worth your time: the story isn’t bad and Martin Landau co-stars, but it is without question the ugliest-looking theatrical movie ever shot for a major studio. It looks like a cheap TV show with cheap sets, and that makes it agonizing to watch.
The Organization actually looks like a movie. It’s shot on-location in San Francisco and opens with a daring, well-planned robbery. The script is intelligent, offers a lot of twists, there’s all kinds of urban action — what more do you want from a movie than that?
Gold (1974)
This little gem was diminished for decades by way of countless, cheap-looking public domain DVD offerings. At long last, Kino Lorber has released a gorgeous transfer in full 2.35:1 widescreen, and it is more than worth your time.
If Gold feels like a James Bond movie, that’s because it stars Roger Moore (fresh off his Live and Let Die Bond debut), it is directed by Peter Hunt (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), it is edited by John Glen (who would go on to direct five Bond films), and the production is designed by Live and let Die’s Syd Cain. Even the title designer is a Bond veteran.
At first, Moore seems a little too refined to play the general manager of a rough and ragged South African gold mine, but as he goes about the business of seducing his boss’s wife (Susannah York), solving problems, and mouthing off to authority, you forget all that.
The central plot is also Bond-ian. Greedy corporatists conspire to flood a gold mine and everyone in it in order to boost the price of gold.
Scope, sex, action, a good-hearted social conscience, and a suspenseful, action-filled climax… This is a movie made for intelligent adults, not woketards.
The End (1978)
Burt Reynolds directs himself for a second time in a blacker-than-black comedy about a dishonest, philandering real-estate promoter who desperately tries to commit suicide after discovering he has less than a year to live.
In 1978, Reynolds was the biggest movie star in the world, bigger even than Eastwood. For him to star in and direct a movie where he plays a weak neurotic — well, that was pretty impressive. The acting is broad, our protagonist is deeply flawed, the movie is equal parts slapstick and pathos… Somehow it works, especially in the second half where Dom Deluise starts hamming things up as Reynolds’ insane partner-in-suicide.
The Woke Gestapo would never allow this movie to be made today. Too much racial humor (a ton of Polish jokes) and Reynolds’ character is a “sex pest,” etc.
This, of course, only makes it more enjoyable today.
Bustin’ Loose (1981)
Bustin’ Loose is, sadly, the last truly good theatrical movie The Mighty Richard Pryor starred in. He would go on to make another ten or so films until 1991 (when multiple sclerosis put an end to his career), and while I like Some Kind of Hero (1982) and kind-of like Brewster’s Millions (1985), the glory days of the angry and hilarious Richard Pryor came to a abrupt end after Bustin’ Loose.
Bustin’ Loose doesn’t sound like it should work, a movie about a career criminal (Pryor) who’s blackmailed by a parole agent into driving Cicely Tyson and her busload of troubled foster kids across the country. The reason it works is two-fold: an intelligent screenplay written by Roger L. Simon (who’s a friend of mine) and an Oscar-worthy performance from Pryor.
The movie wisely goes out of its way to avoid pathos. Pryor’s Joe Braxton is furious at his predicament. “I ain’t no goddamn social worker,” he says over and over, and this anger not only avoids the cloying sentiment that could have brought the whole thing down, it keeps Pryor’s character honest. Most importantly, it keeps him from patronizing the kids. Again and again, he gives them all kinds of hell, and hell is exactly what they need.
One of the best scenes involves Joe being propositioned by a young Vietnamese girl damaged by her years of being exploited as a prostitute.
The movie is also hilarious. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Richard Pryor convince the Ku Klux Klan to help him push a bus out of the mud.
The Ghost Breakers (1940)
After a handful of movies failed to capitalize on his success in The Big Broadcast of 1938, with 1939’s The Cat and the Canary, Bob Hope finally found the persona that would make him one of the 20th Century’s biggest and most enduring stars: the cowardly, glib, wise-cracking, woman-chaser.
The Cat and the Canary co-starred Hope with the luscious Paulette Godard and offered a delightful mix of scares and laughs all set in a haunted house. Since that worked so well, Paramount dipped into the same well again the next year with The Ghost Breakers, which also co-stars Godard, mixes horror and comedy, and is set in a haunted house.
While Cat and the Canary is pretty great, Ghost Breakers is a comedy masterpiece, and one the Woke Gestapo are already starting to “disappear.” The truly sad thing about this is that what makes Ghost Breakers a cut above the usual Bob Hope comedy (and I love the usual Bob Hope comedy) is why it’s on a soft-blacklist of “inappropriate” movies…
Bob Hope himself called Willie Best “the best actor I know,” and Hope’s regard for Best can be seen throughout Ghost Breakers. Best practically steals the movie with an absolutely brilliant comedic performance. But we’re not supposed to enjoy Best’s tour de force because Best was black and his character is considered “demeaning” and “stereotypical.”
Yes, there are a couple moments that make you uncomfortable, but overall, Best is dazzlingly funny, and his character is nowhere near as “demeaning” or “stereotypical” as, say, those unfiltered hood-mama characters Leslie Jones always plays in junk like Coming to America 2 and that terrible Ghostbusters reboot.
There are more big laughs in Ghost Breakers than in all the Hollywood comedies released over the last decade put together. Get it while you still can.
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So there you go… Another batch (here’s chapter one) of underrated movies you probably missed.
Hopefully these will help you make it through this anti-art, anti-human Woke Gestapo Reign of Terror.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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