If you want to get your friends into classic movies, there are three ways to do so. Kidnapping them, strapping them to a chair with eye clamps and locking them in a room with a TV locked onto Turner Classic Movies isn’t quite the best idea, nor is lecturing them about how all modern films are terrible compared to everything pre-code or up to say, 1959.
I’d say method three, where you invite them over and pop on Carl Reiner’s 1982 film Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid works the best because you get a film that’s not too old, funny as hell and one that’s going to get copious notes taken as to which classics were used in certain scenes. Of course, you’ll also have to convince some of those friends who don’t like any black and white movies (or Steve Martin) that this is worth a look, but that shouldn’t be too hard if you’re smart…
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It’s actually pretty fun to watch early 50’s to mid-60’s sci-fi films for their historical as well as entertainment value because the space race was in full blast and Hollywood was finding out fast that NASA was making most of what they were doing obsolete. Granted, other than the opening few minutes, Nathan Juran’s excellent First Men in the Moon doesn’t need to juggle much in the way of realism other than making sure its 1964 astronauts (made up of members of UN countries!) making that moon landing were wearing gear that at least looked up to date. 
When I was much younger, I wondered why Ray Harryhausen didn’t make more films until I found out how long it took him to design all those characters from drawing and painting some outstanding concept art to the construction and creation the visual effects. Let’s just say the man gained all the respect I had after that. That said, 1977’s Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is an example of what happens when a movie studio decides to rush things a bit too quickly, as it’s not his best work of the decade on display. 
Ha! Motivation-killer flu, you can’t keep me from posting! Anyway, onward! It took Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen fifteen years to follow up their classic fantasy film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad with the second of three movies starring the fabled sailor and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad both looks and feels almost as timeless as that first adventure.
For years, I disliked most of Clash of the Titans because by 1981, I’d thought I’d outgrown the type of work Ray Harryhausen was doing and it seems that, despite the film’s OK success at the box office, some movie audiences just weren’t into so much classic stop motion animation in such a large scale film either.
When I was a wee bairn, I actually went to two different schools where some kids thought this 1967 film was based on actual facts and at least one really deluded kid thought it was a documentary. Seriously. My ears still spin in opposite directions thinking about that, but I digress. You’re either watching One Million Years B.C. for its faux historical value, Ray Harryhausen’s excellent dinosaur effects or Raquel Welch with a side order of Martine Beswick in that cave gal cat-fight sequence. Don’t deny it, now…
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