The Largest Collection of Classic Films Online

September 12, 2011 10:26 AM

Cinevault has over 1000 full length streamable movies, most from the golden age of Hollywood.
posted by crunchland (32 comments total)

Is this where we talk about how I don't get what's so great about Preston Sturges?
posted by griphus at 10:29 AM on September 12, 2011

<mid-atlantic accent>Well gawlly!</mid-atlantic accent>
posted by blue_beetle at 10:32 AM on September 12, 2011

That's uh... that's pretty awesome. Thanks.
posted by Edogy at 10:33 AM on September 12, 2011

This ... is ... just ... swell.
posted by chavenet at 10:34 AM on September 12, 2011

This is reel-y cool. Thanks, crunchland.
posted by argonauta at 10:36 AM on September 12, 2011

Ni-hi-hi-iiice... thanks!
posted by Rykey at 10:37 AM on September 12, 2011

Is this where we talk about how I don't get what's so great about Preston Sturges?

Before we continue with this, I must ask if you have seen Palm Beach Story.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:54 AM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

One nice thing about this kind of a treasure trove is that it underlines that Hollywood has, always and forever, poured out lots and lots of silly, easily forgettable movies featuring big stars of the day for pure entertainment purps. There was no Golden Age. And there is no Cabal.
posted by chavenet at 11:02 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Like.
posted by Melismata at 11:08 AM on September 12, 2011

The Golden Age of Cinema is defined as any period in which Ernst Lubitsch makes To Be or Not to Be.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:11 AM on September 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

The Golden Age (1900)
posted by chavenet at 11:13 AM on September 12, 2011

That sound you hear is Sonny Bono spinning in his grave.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:16 AM on September 12, 2011

Thanks very of the muchings.
posted by Gentlemanhog at 11:18 AM on September 12, 2011

If someone could download these and put them on torrent with a decent upload rate, thanks!
posted by DU at 11:22 AM on September 12, 2011

So... it's like a hideously misguided MPAA honey pot then?
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:27 AM on September 12, 2011

M? Cabinet of Caligari? AND My Favorite Brunette?

Sometimes I stand back for a second and gaze at the vastness of the Internet, and am awed all over again. Thank you.

Although this means housework will NOT be done at my home for a while.
posted by kinnakeet at 11:30 AM on September 12, 2011

The few films I looked at there were already on the Internet Archive. Maybe that's true for all of them?
posted by the dief at 11:31 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have a hard time believing this is legit. Somehow I doubt the producers of a film from 1999 just gave it to this company for free distribution. There are plenty of other films on the site that are well within copyright terms. But the bulk of them seem to be lapsed copyrights.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:58 AM on September 12, 2011

Maybe that's true for all of them?

Some are via YouTube movies as well.
But... tried to watch Jason and the Argonauts (one of my favourites) and: "This Video Is Private"

Still there are some movies that have been MSTied, facinating to watch the original.
posted by Webbster at 12:04 PM on September 12, 2011

There are a lot of these sites, and most are fed by the gigs of media that have lapsed copyrights, or no longer have a copyright holder for the region they are hosted in, or are from pre 1968 (I think) where copyright was not automatically applied to a work and the author(s) never applied.

The latter is why Romero's Night of the Living Dead is on every one of these collections.

They could also be stealing movies, too. I wonder what happens if they are hosted in a country not a signatory to the Berne Convention?
posted by clvrmnky at 12:06 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think it was pre 1976. I think the reason 1968 comes to mind is because that's when Night of the Living Dead came out, and that was subject to the requirement that a copyright indication be placed on the prints themselves.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:21 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women? Don't mind if I do.
posted by Trochanter at 12:33 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have a hard time believing this is legit. Somehow I doubt the producers of a film from 1999 just gave it to this company for free distribution. --- "This video is private."
posted by crunchland at 1:02 PM on September 12, 2011

Start watching movie. Watch ad first. Movie starts. Volume low. Turn it up. 5 minutes into movie ANOTHER AD POPS UP AND IT'S F-ING LOUD. Quit watching movie. The end.
posted by njohnson23 at 1:04 PM on September 12, 2011

Man...That print of M is nasty. And the page claims to be a high-def copy. I know the film is old and all, but the pixelization on top of the fuzzy transfer is hard to take. It's taken from the Criterion collection print, too. I've not seen that one...Can anyone tell me if the Criterion version is really that fuzzy?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:39 PM on September 12, 2011

Hmm. Lot of hit-and-miss. "Countess Dracula" and "The Thing" are both pulled due to copyright violations, "Jason and the Argonauts" is private. D.O.A. is up, and so's Argento's "Deep Red". I guess it's all pretty ok, for a database that'll end up changing quite a bit. Hope they weed out the dead ones and add more like some of these kind of aggregate sites don't do.
posted by Zack_Replica at 5:11 PM on September 12, 2011

Well I just got to see a Wheeler & Whoolsey film I'd never seen, so I couldn't be happier.

Didn't get any commercials, either.
posted by the bricabrac man at 6:09 PM on September 12, 2011

Cinevault's RSS feed gives you a list of all 1094 movies in their collection.
posted by twoleftfeet at 7:26 PM on September 12, 2011

The second most popular film is Diary of a Nudist. It's set to Members Only but you can watch or download it at archive.org.
posted by unliteral at 9:13 PM on September 12, 2011

The top film on the site is "Wheels on Meals", a Jackie Chan flick from the 80s.

"Wheels on Meals", of course, doesn't make any sense: "The film's name was actually supposed to be more sensibly titled Meals on Wheels. However, superstitious Golden Harvest executives demanded the name change because their two previous films with titles that began with the letter 'M' – Megaforce and Menage A Trois – were both box office flops."
posted by dgaicun at 9:33 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I notice that alot of the offering scome up as private or otherwise unavailable when you click on them.
posted by Gwynarra at 11:21 AM on September 13, 2011

The silent films they have consist of The Man With The Movie Camera and 24 Charlie Chaplin shorts. Nowhere near as many as can be found on YouTube or Archive.org. It's a start I guess.

Open Culture also has a bunch of links to old movies
posted by Rashomon at 2:03 PM on September 13, 2011