Here’s a little tour of classical music in the movies. The interesting thing about so much of this—and the reason it so captured the imagination of many of my generation and drove us to the record store—is that the music was actually used by these movies. The movies gave something back to the music they were appropriating—something exciting. The music drove the action, enhanced the images, and the images enhanced the music.

My absolutely biggest moviegoing disappointment—and one that ultimately has a happy ending—came with Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). Here was a movie with a lot of legend attached.

I’m bowing to requests various and sundry that I augment my spiel on overrated movies with one on bad movies I can’t resist.

Each and every one of the films in question have indeed shaken a finger at the viewer — and they’ve done so without any distancing. It’s one thing to suggest that we as a people might have bungled something in the past, or that we were somehow not as attentive or aware as we might have been. It’s another thing to lecture the viewer that they’re doing the same right now.