What Is a Classic Film? Survey says....

Ask the average person on the street to define "classic film" and your answer is likely to be: "An old black and white movie." Ask the same question to a classic film fan and you will get a myriad of responses. As I tried to craft my own definition, I decided to gather input from the experts and thus published the Cafe's first annual Classic Film Survey. Over 125 classic film enthusiasts from across the internet participated. My thanks to each of them, especially the many who took extra time to leave thought-provoking comments at the end of the survey.

Age Does Matter
One question that intrigued me was whether age played a significant role in defining "classic" (an issue that certainly applies to other forms of art as well). The answer is a resounding "yes" from two-thirds of the respondents. So then, how old does a film have to be before it's considered a classic? Survey respondents identified the 1960s and 1970s as the decades which formed the start points for classic status. Each of those decades received about 30% of the total votes, with the 1950s, 1980s, and 1990s sharing the rest (each earning between 12% and 15%).

West Side Story: A classic within a decade?

Think of the responses in another way: The survey's findings indicate that a film must be over 30 years old before it's considered a classic! Certainly, that hasn't always been true. When I took film courses in college in the last 1970s, West Side Story and To Kill a Mockingbird were already considered classics--and they had been made a scant 16 years earlier (of course, both were based on earlier works, which may have impacted their classic status). Still, I can think of numerous 1960s films that were considered classics by the following decade. So why is the overwhelming perception now that a film must be at least three decades old to be classic?

Richard Widmark and Wayne--still stars
in the 1960s.

One possibility suggested by a handful of survey respondents is that the Hollywood studio system of the 1930s and 1940s created stars that were still dominant through most of the 1960s. Perhaps their box office popularity was fading, but stars like Doris Day, Henry Fonda, and John Wayne were at the top of their game in 1960s classics such as Lover Come Back, Fail-Safe, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. By the latter part of the decade, the "new stars" weren't graduates of the studio system--they gained their experiences in television (e.g., Robert Redford) and independent films (e.g., Jack Nicholson). They made fewer films and often took roles in small pictures like The Passenger (with Nicholson). Thus, this hypothesis proposes that the cutoff point for "classic" status is when the majority of stars from Hollywood's "Golden Age" retired from acting--in the 1960s and 1970s.

A Film's Enduring Appeal
However, the survey results also indicate that a film's enduring appeal is significantly more important than its stars or age. When asked what criterion was most important in defining a classic film, 57% said it was the film's enduring appeal. A distant second was "when a film was made" (25%), followed by "a film's impact on culture and the industry" (12%) and and the "iconic appeal of a film's stars or director" (5%).

Of course, it's hard to discuss a film's overall appeal without focusing, in part, on the contributions of the actors in it and the film's age. We also can't forget that nostalgia--a partial by-product of age--plays a role in the "timeless" quality of some films. Thus, there's overlap between the different criteria...let's just call that a survey design flaw.

To avoid getting mired in analysis, we'll look at "enduring appeal" from a holistic viewpoint. Aside from nostalgia, why do some classic films maintain--or even increase--their appeal through the years? One potential reason is that films from the 1930s through the 1960s spanned so many genres. Lavish musicals? Check. Westerns? Hundreds were made. Gangster films, film noir, war movies, historical adventure? Yes to all!

Cabaret: A rare 1970s musical.

Yet, by the 1970s, almost all those genres were dead, on life support, or buoyed by a couple of hits. Quick, can you name a significant musical other than Cabaret or Grease from the 1970s? I suspect films like A Matter of Time, Funny Lady, and All That Jazz have their admirers, but none of them is considered a classic. How about a rousing pirate action film from the 70s? I think Scalawag and Swashbuckler are best forgotten.

Another contributing factor to enduring appeal, related to the variety of genres, is the number of films with non-contemporary settings. Simply put, historical films and Westerns--which were plentiful in the 1930s through 1950s--don't date as quickly as most contemporary-set dramas. Admittedly, I'm generalizing to a degree, because Gene Autrey's Westerns seem very dated! But Shane, Winchester '73, Dodge City? Their settings give them a timeless quality that keeps these films fresh over the years.

Finally, I suppose some classic film fans may argue that "movies were just better in the old days" and that's why their appeal has endured over the last 70 years. Personally, I don't buy that. There are fine films made every year and, in time, the definition of classic film is bound to evolve.

But for now, we'll stick with the definition provided by our survey results. What is a classic film? A movie made prior to the 1980s that possesses enduring appeal. That's short and sweet...but the supporting reasons are what make for intriguing discussion. I've listed my thoughts. What are yours?


Stay tuned for Part 2, in which we'll examine more survey results to define the prototypical classic film fan.