It can be hard to watch black and white films when you didn’t grow up with them. Colour adds so much life to films and television and when you grow up with it, you take it for granted a bit. The media we watch even shapes our imagination a psyche: many older people used to and still do dream in black and white, but most younger people rarely do. So it’s natural that if you grew up with colour TV and films, you will feel weirded out or bored to death by black and white films. They are unfamiliar and look very low energy and dull. But even if you never watch any others, there are five TV shows and films that you really should see, even though they are in black and white!
1: Betty Boop.
The original Betty Boop is a character originally created in 1920 and the only cartoon on our list. She started out as an anthropomorphic French poodle and eventually developed into a caricature of a flapper girl. Between the original idea and the liberated nature of flapper girls, Betty Boop in her time was a radical, stereotype-defying girl who young women everywhere admired. She was blunt but sweet, smart and girly, a combination of everything girls were told they wanted to be and couldn’t be. It’s so surprise she’s still a sex icon to this day! And her cartoons are at once adorable, moving and a brilliant insight into how far we have come as a culture.
2: Citizen Kane.
Citizen Kane is a 1941 drama that offers a lot of insight into life in the past, as well as an exploration of the human condition. It is also often considered the best film ever made, so it obviously couldn’t be missed off this list. It follows an investigative journalist trying to decipher the last words of an incredibly famous and powerful publisher. He interview’s Kane’s friends and family, revealing a picture of his life piece by piece. He learns of Kane’s early life in poverty, how he became educated and pursued the American ideal. He sacrifices morals and family life in his pursuit of success, pleasure, money and happiness. Ultimately, it becomes evident that those pursuits would have been easier if he had stuck to his childhood innocence. The film explores the very depths of our humanity in our uncivilized, yet advanced world.
3: The Honeymooners.
The Honeymooners is a 1950s series based on short sketches of the same name. It is one of the original American sitcom and makes most modern Romantic Comedies look pretty bland and humourless by comparison. Most of it takes place in Ralph and Alice Kramden’s tiny city apartment. It followed the life and love of the couple as they struggled to get rich quick and keep their love alive. It is the origin of many sitcom jokes and tropes and does them really well. The characters are funny and well designed. Ralph is a quick to anger, quick to regret man whose tendency to domestic violence threats was often criticized, although he never carried them out, a joke both inside and outside of their world. Alice was always the voice of reason the guys never listened to. All the episodes are self-contained, a staple of many successful sitcoms that works just as well for them as for any other and they always revert to step one for every episode, making them easy and enjoyable to watch.
4: Young Frankenstein.
Young Frankenstein is unique on this list because, as a 1974 film, it was intentionally filmed in black and white. This was as a tribute to the original film. Where the original film was a serious horror based on Shelley’s book, Young Frankenstein is a parody, featuring Gene Wilder as the descendant of the original Dr Frankenstein, who tries to escape his heritage but winds up almost accidentally creating his own monster. The film is a play on family businesses, taboos, stereotypes and fate. It includes both tasteful and tasteless jokes on various topics and is arguably a comic work of art.
5: The Addams Family.
We are all familiar with the modern series and films the Addams family have starred in, but few people know the original series other than by name. It was released in 1964 and was almost ahead of its time with it’s dark setting, scary characters and quirky humour. It had a brilliant portrayal of a deeply loving yet deeply unusual couple which showed us all that romance is about how you love, not who or why. The jokes were based around puns, creepiness and how unusual the family found everyone else. They were weird and wonderful and perfectly lovable. It’s not at all surprising that they are brought back year after year to this day!