Old Hollywood keeps showing us up. We just don’t write, act, direct, or even shoot films the way they did back in the 1940’s.
I rented an old Bette Davis movie called “Old Acquaintance” the other day. I sort of expected it to be mildly amusing or maybe some b movie sob story. Instead, it was an expertly acted movie about two woman, both successful writers, one of whom chooses to write from her heart, while the other turns out books like sausages and makes a mint.
There is a great scene where Davis, frustrated by the blindness and arrogance of her lifelong friend Millie (played by Miriam Hopkins) grabs her by the shoulders and violently shakes her. The audience had been waiting for this superficial snob to get her comeuppance and this is it.
The drama, which is full of hilarity and theatricality and poignance, has a score written by Franz Waxman, and was directed by Vincent Sherman.
To think that it came out of that studio on Hollywood Way, surrounded by the banality of all that is Burbank, transporting us to places around the world.
How many times do we go to the movies nowadays and walk out not remembering a single moment of the past two or three hours?
Here in Van Nuys 
The film industry is pretty much the same, just completely reversed.
The big budget, main line, mainstream, major studio releases used to be “adult dramas” like the one you mention. Low budget shlock made for two cents by Roger Corman and his ilk dealt with monsters and creatures from outer space.
Now, the reverse is true. The blockbusters are derived from comic books and have budgets of $200 million, while dramas about writers writing books are put out by independent producers or “boutique” arms of the major studios.
One thing is almost the same: the artsy movies are still usually the ones that win the awards.
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