Classic Cinema Quotes

I'm basically a fairly traditional filmmaker.

I grew up in an Irish Catholic family, and I think they force you to watch every James Cagney movie.

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

The last Christmas movie I really liked was 'It's a Wonderful Life,' probably. It's sort of a schmaltzy movie, but it's not without its dark moments. It still gets to me every year.

Coming from where I came from, the Midwest, in the era I was born, the '30s, movies were glorious fun - Bette Davis dying or whatever. But whatever they were, they were not serious.

I always felt that Bette Davis was one of the great screen actresses who never really got her due - she won two Oscars, but the last was in 1938, and that was really before all the great work that she did.

I became addicted to the movie-going experience in the 1970s, when I attended multiple screenings of films such as 'Chinatown', 'Jaws', 'Star Wars' and the original 'Rocky'.

I've seen John Wayne's 'True Grit' about 10 times.

I love 'Bringing Up Baby.' Anything that Katharine Hepburn's in. I'm committed to the Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn era of filmmaking.

The Brat Pack is timeless.

I love Fincher, as he has a great atmosphere and intensity. Also, I grew up watching Hitchcock movies, and there was something elegant in the way he plays with you and plays with the character and tricks you.

I like old movies, screwball comedies, vintage clothes, and basically I'm an old-fashioned gal.

For me, I was watching Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, Victor Fleming movies, and I said, "I want to tell stories like that. I want to move people like that. But I'm good at magic, so what am I going to do?" So I started using magic for the right reasons - to get the girl.

I love Hitchcock movies. I took a Hitchcock class in college, so I saw all his movies. I wrote papers on his movies.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

My favorite decade of cinema would be kind of the '40s, yeah. I like things in the '30s, but you know, the sound recording in the '30s wasn't very good. But for some reason the movies in the '40s have the best personalities: Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, and all those people. For some reason, I seem to gravitate more toward the '40s, and I don't necessarily know why. I just love the people.

I mean, the actors that I admired were Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, an actress named Barbara Harris. And Greta Garbo. They were great actors.

So many people of my generation all grew up with that shock theater package on television of 'Frankenstein,' 'Wolfman,' 'Dracula,' 'Mummy,' all the Universal stuff.

I used to watch movies - silent movies - and stock companies and theater whenever I could.

I'd love to do like a modern day 'Shining' and play the Jack Nicholson role.

I loved all movies, literally. I certainly loved 'Shane' and 'Roxie Hart.' Later on, when I was less of a kid, I loved 'L'Avventura' and 'Persona' and all Fellini movies and like everybody else I loved John Ford. Then and now, I loved Preston Sturges, maybe above anyone.

When I was a kid going to the movies, we'd go because Bogart was in the movie, or Cagney, or John Wayne. We didn't know what the story was about or anything.

You have to go back to the '30s and '40s to see a film that's any good.