Oh good God.
Don’t tell me about old movies. It’s part of my life - I’ve been watching old movies since I was a child, long before there was Turner. I know “old” great actors much better than I know these new fools.
Sorry, but it’s true, especially SINCE I was born - LOTS of endearing, sympathetic movies on Italians and Irish and Jews. Please. Especially the popular ones.
Tell me what old - or new - movies DENIGRATED these groups? The closest you’ll get is regarding Jews, although mostly they were just ignored prior to my birth. But you’ll find LOTS of Irish braggadocio. Boxing movies about the greats like Sullivan and Corbett, Little Nelly Kelly, George M. Cohan, lately “Far & Away”, hell, even “Quiet Man” (albeit that’s about Irish directly, not so much the Irish-AMERICAN as I’m REALLY focusing on here). Not as much Italian in the old days, either, but nothing really “insulting” either. You’ll point out Godfather, but that’s too obvious and I’m not counting that as after all, they’re focusing on crime outfits (when, BTW, did they ever make a movie focusing on obviously Irish crime syndicates, as did indeed exist before Italians got bigger?). Moonstruck, etc. much more regular “home life” I’m talking about.
Where are these constant loving and endearing movies for the rest of our ethnicities (besides black, which have been mixed)? Come up with more than 1. I’d like to know what will show me something nice (preferably also not “silly” and goofy as they do with my ethnicity at best) about Germans and Norwegians besides “Pride of the Yankees” (old parents and goofy too) or “I Remember Mama”.
Your knowledge of movies leaves something to be desired; you poor thing. So right off the top of my head, I'll list some movies that you really SHOULD know of, since you claim to KNOW all about old movies, but don't!
Not so good examples of the Irish and Italian Americans...
DEAD END ( Italians & Irish kid gang )
KNOCK ON ANY DOOR ( Italian-American )
THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH (American Irish, Italians, and Jews )
COTTON CLUB ( Irish and Jewish mobs bosses )
ON THE WATERFRONT (Italian-Americans and others )
SINNERS HOLIDAY ( Irish-Americans )
PUBLIC ENEMY ( Irish-Americans )
WHITE HEAT (Irish-Americans )
STUDS LONIGAN ( Irish-Americans )
WINTERSET ( Italian immigrants )
LADY FOR A DAY ( crooks, thieves etc. all mostly Irish Americans! )
Jews in a "bad" light...
1.EIGHT MEN OUT
2.THE PAWN BROKER
3. THE GREAT GATSBY ( both movies )
And then, talking about THE MOB.. 4. Bugsy
5.LANSKY
6.ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
During the late '30s through the mid '50s, Hollywood did many film bios. Besides foreigners ( kings, queens, scientists, doctors, writers, artists ), they also did a series on American composers and that's where the movie "YANKEE DOODLE DANDY", NOT GEORGE M. COHAN, comes in. and the Judy garland "LITTLE NELLIE KELLY" is actually one of Cohan's musicals!
The following are a list of all of the song writers and lyrics writers that I have seen many times over and own the movies made of them:
1.Stephen Foster ( of Scot descent...3 movies )
2.Jerome Kern ( of German/Bohemian descent )
3.The Gershwin boys ( Russian Jews )
4. Sigmund Romberg ( Hungarian immigrant )
5. Irving Berlin ( Russian Jew )
6. George M. Cohan (Irish- American )
And on the foreign scene...many movies about Liszt, Chopin, and Mozart.
There are many other films I can list, without looking them up, to answer your question, because I do love a good movie and have seen a LOT of movies over time. :-)
You'll notice that I stayed away from listing SILENT films, that would find a place on these lists, because I doubt that you are all that familiar with them.
I also left out the "first talkie", THE JAZZ SINGER, and other Jolson movies, most of which DO denigrate Jews because he was a force unto himself and a different category entirely!
Oh and FYI...no, I wouldn't have posted about THE GODFATHER series at all, because that's a separate category too.