I love watching movie classics! There’s something so joyous about sitting down and turning on a really good black-and-white film. Maybe it’s because these classics felt so much more creative in their storytelling than the generic hodgepodge of movies these days but yeah, I love watching classic cinema. This past week I decided to watch two films that caught my eye; High Noon and It’s a Wonderful Life.

I decided to watch High Noon because I love a good Western and this Western earned the film’s star, Gary Cooper, an Oscar for Best Actor. That’s like an actor getting an Oscar for playing a superhero these days.

So I turned on the film and at first I was kind of bored with the story but after a while my anxiety built and built until by the end I could barely contain my muffled screams of anguish.

High Noon tells the story of a newly-retired sheriff who has a date with four revenge-stricken gunslingers who are out to kill him. But here’s the catch, the gunslingers’ leader is coming on the noon train, meaning the sheriff has to try and recruit deputies and wait for the noon train to come before the showdown.

What transpires is a brilliantly written, highly suspenseful conclusion that left me beaming when it finished. I’ve seen plenty of great Westerns in my time but High Noon is totally up there with the greats like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Unforgiven, and 3:10 to Yuma.

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And then there’s It’s a Wonderful Life which might just be the greatest Christmas movie of all time. This movie touched my heart strings on a level that I wasn’t prepared for. In fact, this film is so good I won’t even share the plot because if you’ve never seen it you’ll want to go into this film as blind as possible.

What I can say is this. I’ve seen a lot of James Stewart movies lately and wow are they all incredible. I’m talking his Hitchcock hits, Rope, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and my personal favorite Hitchcock film, Vertigo. And The Philadelphia Story was another fantastic film I saw of his that had me riveted from beginning to end.

Next, I’m determined to watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance because it’s deemed one of the best Westerns of all time and I believe it considering his track record.

Oh, It’s a Wonderful Life is honestly one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. What a heartwarming and poignant masterpiece.

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Like I said before, I love watching movie classics!

I thank you for reading and I hope you have a tremendous day.