THE creative value which results in certain American/Hollywood films becoming classics rests on an engaging style and content to filmmaking.

For those who pay little attention to the art of classic cinema, or do not regard it as a cultural value from which to learn little more than extremely subjective opinions, and no doubt their dogmatic dissemination, that might be expected. It is as if countless films, such as those mentioned here, never existed.
The work of art, on the other hand, especially film’s social potential, consciously formulates methods of creative delivery whose whole purpose is to affect us; to add to our personal understanding, behaviour, and development.
The viewer surrenders to the logical arguments and activities which emerge from the content of dialogue and scenes, including voice-over narration. And this — unlike clinging to our own previous opinions and deafly applying them to those we know, like family, friends, colleagues, even students, etc — adds to our human capabilities, carrying us further into appreciation of unknown possibilities in social education.

Two classics
For example, let us return to a few of the classic films mentioned previously in this essay; films such as ’STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET’ (1960), and ‘MOMENT TO MOMENT’ (1966). In both films, which concern the extra-marital affair of one parent in families each with a young son about six or seven years old, we are left to wonder what will be the effect of these so-called  broken homes on these children.
But most children are not as opinionated or fixed in their ways (as yet) as adults are; and so we cannot didactically assume in advance that a broken or single-parent home will result in wayward delinquents, or problem children. Indeed, ‘Strangers When We Meet’, from its first scenes, shows us an important but often ignored role children often play in the actual reformulation of their family structures.
The film opens with Kim Novak and Kirk Douglas each dropping their little sons off to their school’s bus stop. Neither Novak nor Douglas really knows each other, except that they are in the same suburban neighbourhood; so, it is their family duties, their care for their children, which leads to their meeting, their gradual friendship, and then romantic sexual affair.
Small, or even older, children in such developments are often their parents’ natural accomplice, because they accept their parents’ choices, and their parents’ friends often become theirs too. So, the lover of one parent can be quite accepted by the child, because the child’s curious mind has not been poisoned by the idea of jealous competition. It is when one parent influences their child against the other parent that the real ‘broken home’ scenario arises, since, often, the small child is concerned little with either parent’s personal or intimate life, and more with their own.
It is often the separated parent who is more hurt and angry at being separated from his or her child, than the child, who adjusts to any pleasurable new arrangement.
In ‘Moment to Moment’ it is Jean Seberg’s little son who innocently encourages his mother to befriend the young amateur artist sketching old buildings on the French Riviera where they live, and their affair is as a result of the boy’s father being delayed abroad.
Later, when the child returns from vacation, knowing nothing of the affair and a traumatic occurrence it involved, and sees the young man (who had significantly given him a gift of building blocks) in the presence of his mother and father, even though his mother, Seberg, had to deny to her husband that she had known the young man before, the boy is too preoccupied with his own interests to make an issue out of seeing the young man again, and the father is saved from realizing his wife’s lie. It is the child interested from an early age with constructive educational pastimes like reading, playing intelligent games, seeing films with everyday stories (not just animated cartoons!), stamp collecting, etc, who develops a life fully involved with educational interests in the widest sense, leaving no space for the stigma of ‘broken home’ life to develop.
The pleasures of such a concept of education guides the child’s life, present and future, not the adult problematic conflicts of its parents.

Artists and models
When the idea that films are minor, unimportant forms of forgettable entertainment is given up, then and only then will viewers insist on inviting or seeking out those films which encourage and strengthen a healthy state of mind and an enlightened socially educated lifestyle.
The yardstick of evaluation is the nature of the scenes we see on screen: Either they possess and show us something worthy of emulation, or they simply want to impress us with stories and spectacles that have little real effect on our real lives.
Take one of the beautiful Hollywood colour films of 1955, ‘ARTISTS AND MODELS’, perfect for the whole family, starring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Dorothy Malone and Shirley Maclaine in her first film.
The film’s director, Frank Tashlin, is famous for lively, comical, but socially educational films in the 1950s and 60s, especially with one of Hollywood’s greatest comedic stars, Jerry Lewis.
‘Artists And Models’ combines Pop Art, Comic Books, fashion, music, social satire, racial integration, and sensuality to make it one of the best family movie classics of all time.
When Dean Martin sings with his ‘hip’ black musician friends; when the black and white kids, smartly dressed, play and do chores together without any ethnic awareness; when we observe the stylish presentation of street vendors, the comic books hanging on lines, etc, there is nothing that says we are looking at a fantasy or illusion, but a social model for real life.
In 1955/56 British Guiana, when I was a little boy like those in the film, growing up in Kitty village, ‘Artists And Models’ became a popular hit film at the village cinema named ‘Hollywood’; and it was an inspiration to many families and friends who wanted to and created for themselves a local Guyanese reality, based on scenes of beauty, artistry, and contentment similar to what they saw in this film.

Classic films to see
Once people in societies comprising of any race, colour or language agree that, as individuals, they are free to shape their personality or character with unrestrictive artistic influences, then American/Hollywood classic films will have the chance to prove their relevance and practical value to their lives in the modern world of today.
Those young men who dream of pursuing genuine artistic careers should see classic films like ‘HUMORESQUE’ (1947); ‘THE GENE KRUPA STORY’ (1959); and ‘YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE’ (1964).
Those young women, artistic or not, who seek understanding from family and friends, should see ‘WOMAN OF THE YEAR’ (1943); ‘KITTY FOYLE’ (1940); ‘THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES’ (1946); ‘MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR’ (1957); ‘THE APARTMENT’ (1960); ‘A SUMMER PLACE’ (1960); and ‘LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER’ (1963).
Single adult women should see ‘TAKE A LETTER DARLING’ and ‘NOW VOYAGER’ (both of 1942); ‘ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS’, (1956); ‘THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE’ (1961); and ‘NIGHT OF THE IGUANA’ (1964).
Those lawyers with a conscience should see ‘FORCE OF EVIL’ (1948), and ‘PARTY GIRL’ (1958), while those would-be macho tough guys unaccustomed to the pleasures of reason and restraint should see ‘ON THE WATERFRONT’ (1954), and ‘HEAVEN KNOWS MISTER ALLISON’ (1957).
These examples of film classics are a fraction of a huge amount of classic films with similar themes available today as DVDs, and which the TCM channel also conveniently presents.