Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
This list was originally compiled by Claude Gonzalez after he took over the final few weeks of David Stratton's long ongoing University of Sydney course on a the History of World Cinema. It is intended as a guide for those who will now have to self-navigate through the thickets of online cinephilia. As Claude remarked however, a good number of classics by established filmmakers are available online for free. But not everything...
What Claude presents here (Part one) is a list of resources and recommendations that he created for his own film students that could help with your search for elusive titles. He hopes readers find the following useful, and that it brings you many hours of film viewing pleasure
CG’s Classics Film List.
Streaming Services
Many of you will have to a streaming device (Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku), or a Smart TV which will enable you to use streaming apps such as Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime Video, etc. to view your films on. Unfortunately, these streamers do not offer cinema classics, and all require a monthly payment. Yet there are four streaming services that you can install apps onto your device, and that will give you access to a good number of classics for free.
1.Kanopy
(joining page)
https://www.kanopy.com/en/category/9513
(film list page)
This is a free streaming service that was established in the U.S. in 2008 by Public Libraries, and that has since linked up with libraries all over the world, including Australia. It is free to anyone who is a member of a local library and who has a library card. To use it you will need to download the app onto your device (the same way you have apps for your streaming services now), and then enter your library card number. It works the same way as borrowing a book, with your membership allowing you to view 10 films per month from their film collection of classics (foreign films, silent cinema, documentaries) and educational programs. Kanopy rents its films and pays a fee to the filmmaker on a pay per view basis. It’s a great resource and it has many films (excellent quality prints) that are not available anywhere else. I highly recommend it as a good starting point.
2.Tubi
Tubi is a film rich streaming service, which is free but it’s a little bit more esoteric in its film programming. The streamer is an American company that has access to the film libraries of MGM, Lionsgate, and Paramount. To join you will need to download the app onto your device, and then once you register, (with an email address and new password), you will have access to a large library of films – some classics, some Euro trash and even some TV shows. Use the browser on the top of the page, and with a bit of patience you’ll be rewarded. Here’s a link to the classics section, which as you’ll see has some great films listed.
https://tubitv.com/category/classics
Two Australian Streamers
Both Kanopy and Tubi are Ad free and make their revenue via their pay per view royalties and established film catalogues. There are also two local film streamers - SBS On Demand and ABC iView - that are free and have access to good film libraries. You may know them as TV Channels, but if you look closer within their online line up you will find a Movie page. Each of these Movie pages contains a film library that is free to use via their app:
3.SBS On Demand - has many foreign films, classics and new releases that can be found via their search engine, or via subcategories on the movie page (IE: Korean Cinema, Japanese Cinema, French Cinema, etc). It’s a very good service, well-resourced and with monthly updates. The only minus to this streamer is that it pays for its content via the use of Ads, which will break into the film now and then, sometimes at the worst possible moment, but it’s a good resource with lots of titles none the less.
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movies
4.ABC iView – a is a very good service with a movie page too, but more limited in its programming, mostly English language films and recent releases; the titles date from 1990s to the mid 2020s; it’s good but it has a narrow choice of films.
https://iview.abc.net.au/category/film
Online Libraries
Following are two online libraries that cater to students. Each has a vast collection of free films; the only drawback is that sometimes the quality varies depending on the print and the source it is linked to. But the films are available to everyone, and you will find many titles that are hard to get and that are part of the film canon. Its audio books are good too, with many of them downloadable for use on your other devices.
1.Open Culture
(home page)
This is a web site that aims to centralise content (audio, text, films, academic papers, textbooks, and lectures) for students around the world. It works by curating and then placing links it has found from other web sites (The Film Board of Canada, etc), and then placing them in categories that are useful for online study. It is funded by the use of pop-up ads on its page; they do not break into the film, but they sit on the page (smaller and less obstructive than normal); you can get rid of them by making the screen full size.
https://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline
(film page)
Example - Canadian films:
2.The Internet Archive
(home page)
This is a very large American digital archive established in the 1990s that provides its user’s free access. The platform and the general public upload videos, and then they are shared and curated on the site. Here is a link to their Film page.
https://archive.org/details/feature_films
Note – it’s a good site but a bit overwhelming – so I recommend that you use the search bar up the top of the page to streamline your hunting of films.
*If you have a smart TV or streaming device like Apple TV, this platform will allow you to link and watch it via your TV monitor at home - use the icon with the upward pointing arrow to link to your device. The icon with the two-sided arrow will enable you to make the film full screen on the device you are currently using (laptop or phone).
*Overall, the quality is good, not always great (acceptable) but if it’s a film you have never seen or that is hard to find then this site is a good place to look for it.
For example, here is a link to its film noir page. Within you find an alphabetical list that contains noir films, audio recordings and textbooks on the subject.
https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Film+Noir%22
(film noir page)
Here is a link to Laura (Otto Preminger,1944), a film we studied during our Thriller session. It’s not available online but it is here, and the quality is ok:
https://archive.org/details/laura_202003
Then on the other hand there are prints that are excellent in quality. Here is a link to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953), which is very good:
https://archive.org/details/gentlemen-prefer-blondes-1953_202211
So, as you’ll see it will take patience, a good sense of what you want to find and a punt on the quality of the print.
To be continued with Part Two - A Guide to YouTube, coming soon
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