Recently Turner Classic Movies (TCM) ran a fun little series in which the network’s five on-camera hosts each confessed to a great, classic, famous American movie which they somehow had not seen. It was a little surprising that these folk, who are obviously movie nerds, and who make their living talking about movies, could possibly have missed such well-known, much-admired movies. 

The movie-non-viewings which they confessed to were:  

        BLAZING SADDLES        BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

This surprised me. I mean, three of them were Best Picture winners, one of them starred James Dean, and the other had a farting scene.  How could these have been missed?

Of course, like all true movie fans, I’d seen all five of those. Then I wondered--what would my confession be? What classic American film have I not seen?

I found it very difficult to answer that question. After all, I feel like I’ve seen ‘em all. And pretty much I have.

I do have to stipulate that I’m considering movies made before, say, 2010.  It was somewhere around there that I stopped trying to see everything. My movie viewing dropped precipitously around that time. I have seen quite a few post-2010 movies, but haven’t seen a whole lot more.

So…from before 2010, what classic American movies have I not seen? 

Honestly, no fudging, I think there is no famous, classic American movie which I haven’t seen…from the talkie era. So, yeah, I’m going to have to dip into the silents to come up with an answer.  I’ve seen most of the silent classics, but there are a few blank spots.

What are the most famous, classic silents I’ve yet to see? I’ve narrowed it to what I think are the two most famous titles.

And…ahem…here they are. My movie confessions of missed movies are… 

WAY DOWN EAST

GREED

I used to drop in on a silent movie webpage where they offered a 10 Best Silents list. This was based on reader votes and was ongoing so there would be slight changes from time to time, so the list picked from 11 or 12 movies. I’d seen all of them except GREED.  I don’t think WAY DOWN EAST ever was on that list, but it’s certainly famous enough, mostly due to the dangers that Lillian Gish faced for Mr. Griffith.

Guess I need to watch those.