Which are your favorite Jimmy Stewart movies?

Harvey

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation

Not so keen on Vertigo.

Shop Around the Corner

Philadelphia Story

Rope

Bend of the River

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER is one of the my all-time favorite films. It's perfect and so subtle and restrained (esp. compared to the pretty bad remake YOU'VE GOT MAIL, which I must confess I do enjoy). One of the few later Lubitsch films that still had his famous "touch", I think.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think Stewart's character in ROPE is also supposed to gay (alongside the two leads, obviously), but it's difficult to say in the final film. If he is, then I think it's the only gay character he ever played?

It's a Wonderful Life.

Though, I haven't seen it in 30 years.

No--wait: Rear Window is my favorite.

Without question, a film that made me insist my parents take me to the Smithsonian Museum:

"The Spirit of St. Louis."

"Mr. Smith goes to Washington and becomes a Super Right Wing Bastard"

'Rear Window', definitely.

'The Naked Spur' is also one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart movies!

In addition to the Hitchcock movies mentioned, especially Rope, Rear Window, and Vertigo, as well as The Shop Around the Corner and The Philadelphia Story, I quite liked The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

"How I Sucked Ronald Reagan's Balls For Fifty Years And Fooled The Soppy Movie Going Public"

R9 i guess you appreciate more Henry Fonda...

r9 Most Hollywood actors are right-wing, whether they admit it or not. Most of us watch movies to see them act not to watch people whose politics align with our own. x

DESTRY RIDES AGAIN and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. He's geeky and sexy in both.

Don't have one. None of his films really hold up that well. The ones he made in the 1950's he was way too old for, and the ones in the '30's show how corny his persona was.

He was a right wing racist fuck who agreed to spy on his friends in Hollywood for the FBI to "root out communism in Hollywood". Ironically when Hoover asked him to help, Stewart wanted to go after the Mafia, whom he despised and told Hoover as much. But Hoover had no intention of bothering the mafia at all, since they were blackmailing him with photos that would prove he was a homosexual.

He married a woman with two sons whom he raised as his own and adopted two girls. One of the sons was killed in Vietnam.

It's a Wonderful Life is on my Christmas movie watch list each year.

The Anthony Mann films are all great and show how his personality had changed given the horror he'd seen in Europe in WW2.

I adore It's a Wonderful Life. To me a profound celebration of Roosevelt's New Deal, and the spidery Mr. Potter represents everything disgusting about capitalism.

I love all of the the films Stewart made with Anthony Mann and (especially) Alfred Hitchcock. Rear Window & Vertigo in particular are such wonderfully complicated films, they're a cineaste's dream.

"It's a Wonderful Life when Gays are Locked in Their Self Loathing Closets"

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU is another great Capra film, adapted from the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.

Rear Window. I want to like Vertigo more but his performance bothers me.

Never really cared for him, and his styles grows worse as times goes by.

But there are a few movies I enjoy:

Rear Window - his best performance and his best movie Rope - badly miscast as a wordly intellectual, but I enjoy the movie Vertigo - he almost ruins this great Hitchcock film for being so dull in it Destry Rides Again - a good comedy western. He's not too bad as the peace-loving sheriff, who Dietrich makes a man out of Philadelphia Story - won an undeserved Oscar in a dream cast with Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant, who both were better

I find him painfully dull in the rest of his movies, including the classics.

Never really cared for him, and his styles grows worse as times goes by.

But there are a few movies I enjoy:

Rear Window - his best performance and his best movie

Rope - badly miscast as a wordly intellectual, but I enjoy the movie

Vertigo - he almost ruins this great Hitchcock film for being so dull in it

Destry Rides Again - a good comedy western. He's not too bad as the peace-loving sheriff, who Dietrich makes a man out of

Philadelphia Story - won an undeserved Oscar in a dream cast with Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant, who both were better

I find him painfully dull in the rest of his movies, including the classics.

[quote]Most Hollywood actors are right-wing

what???

I think R9 meant most Great Hollywood actors are right wing!

Harvey

Rear Window

Take Her, She's Mine

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation

I love Vertigo, and just how creepy Hitchcock has his character become, which i didn't expect from his homely shtick at the start (though he looks too old to have been in college with Midge) Also love Rope (I was just rewatching it today, sad to hear the last surviving cast member died in December) and despite always being hyper-aware of possible gay subtext in films I honestly didn't pick up that his character was meant to be gay and with a past relationship to one or both main characters until I heard the screenwriter discussing it and how that didn't come across as it should have because of his miscasting (and again, the role was meant to be for a younger man) So yes- favourites are Vertigo because of jimmy stewart and Rope despite him I suppose! (Rope screenwriter Arthur Laurents is always fun to see interviewed because he really didn't give a shit- there's a great docu on Rope on youtube if anyone's interested)

I've read that Hitchcock wanted to cast William Powell as Max de Winter in "Rebecca" and as Uncle Charlie in "Shadow of a Doubt". I think that Powell would have been a good choice for Stewart's role in "Rope".

"Rear Window" and "Philadelphia Story". But, I was never much of a fan of his. His politics made me dislike him even more.

Shadow of a Doubt is Hitchcock's only perfectly cast movie. He always fucked it up somewhere along the way. The grotesque Ruth Roman in Strangers on A Train, the absurdly patrician and glamorous Grace Kelly in Rear Window, Vera fucking Miles. Powell looked far too old for Stewart's role in Rope and only Joseph Cotten should have played Uncle Charlie.

It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story and Anatomy of a Murder are my favorite Stewart films. Anatomy Of A Murder has a lot to offer the first time viewer.

Thanks R18!! I was trying to think of the name of that one (You Can't Take it With You). I never heard of it but saw it on TCM and watch it again whenever I see it come on. It's become one of my favorite classics.

I think Hitchcock wanted Cary Grant for the Stewart role (Rupert) in Rope. Knowing Grant was gay Hitchcock felt this would give the character a sexual edge and hint at a past sexual relationship with one of the murderous flatmates. Three relatively attractive young men, all gay, starring in the same movie. Of course Grant declined, perhaps playing a gay character was too close to home.

Jimmy's 150-Load Weekend

Has Hollywood hindsight ever explained how Jimmy Stewart got his Oscar for a middling supporting role in The Philadelphia Story and especially when he was at the height of his star power and xould have ben rewarded for so many other performances of the late 1930s/early 1940s?

Personally, my favorite perfromances were all well before the 1950s: Made for Each Other, Shop Around the Corner, The Mortal Storm, Destry, Mr. Smith...., and even his juveniles in Ziegfeld Girl, Born to Dance (singing Easy to Love to Eleanor Powell undubbed!) and that Thin Man sequel. He was adorable back then. Post-war, not so much.

It was common wisdom at the time that Stewart's Philadelphia Story Oscar was a consolation prize for losing out for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the year before. Supposedly (I'm not sure if this is on film) he started his acceptance speech in typical sheepish fashion by saying, "I voted for Henry Fonda." Fonda (Stewart's close friend from the Princeton Players, even if Fonda briefly married Margaret Sullavan whom Stewart had a huge crush on) was up for Grapes of Wrath the year Stewart won, and Fonda certainly should have won himself, though I'm quite fond of his winning On Golden Pond performance.

I love It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith, and Rear Window the best. Have never quite understood the kvelling over Vertigo. I remember my college film class laughing at all the constant alcohol references ("Here, drink this!" Stewart seems to bark at Kim Novak at every crisis) and generally finding it ridiculous when we watched it.

He has lots of them but Harvey is my sentimental favorite. I watched it with my Mom shortly before she died and she still was able to laughed and did.

REAR WINDOW, BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE, VERTIGO, HARVEY, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON,

Cannot stand YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, but it has nothing to do with Stewart. The script was changed from the play just enough to fuck up the whole thing.

The one I like the most is when he falls out the 'Rear Window' and hangs on a 'Rope'!

But just before he dies he goes 'Aw, shucks, I'm a fucking fraud!!!!'

I liked him well enough in The Man Who Knew Too Much but that movie belonged to Doris.

His voice gets grating after a few movies.

ANATOMY OF A MURDER

BELL BOOK AND CANDLE

The Hitchcocks and the Anthony Manns obviously

NIGHT PASSAGE

MR HOBBS

DEAR BRIGITTE

DESTRY

ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE

Vertigo

Rear Window

The Shop Around the Corner

Rope

It's a Wonderful Life

After the Thin Man

Destry Rides Again

Rear Window. But that was because Grace Kelly and Thema Ritter walked off with that movie. He didn't deserve that Best Actor Oscar like several posters have mentioned. I despised his voice. and he was a racist who disrespected Woody Strode on the set of THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE as well as actor Hal Williams ( from 227 with Marla Gibbs) on the set of his mercifully short-lived TV series. He was an asshole like John Wayne was when it came to minorities.

Vertigo

Anatomy of a Murder

Shop Around the Corner

The Man from Laramie

I never cared for his Capra films, especially It's a Wonderful Life, which is cloying beyond belief. Also agree with the above poster about You Can't Take it With You - the play is much, much better.

He's just a man of the ( VERY, VERY, VERY RICH) people!

Elwood P. Dowd would be a Datalounger today.

That one where he's runnin' around with the pixie, lookin' for some wings.