Do you agree with our readers? Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments.
A tear jerker from ’57
That was a very interesting list of the ‘Weepiest film moments of bawl time’ (Metro, Fri) – and I wouldn’t argue at all.
I’m from the older generation though and my own personal pick would simply have to be a Walt Disney movie that was released in 1957, when I was ten-years-old. It was the movie Old Yeller and the scene which made me cry (and many others in the Studio 2 cinema on Oxford Street) came when the young lad Travis (Tommy Kirk) had to shoot his dear dog, after it had caught rabies.
I’m sure many others in my age group, the late 70s, will recall that moment, too.
The main star in the movie was Fess Parker who many will remember as Davy Crockett. Mike Bondy, London
No recognition for this rescue mission
I would say the Samsung weepy movies poll left two films out.
Firstly, The Railway Children made by Lionel Jeffries. The scene at the railway station is first class. The camera is slow. The reaction of Jenny Agutter seeing her father and her cry of joy still brings a lump to the throat.
Secondly, One Life. This is the story of Sir Nicholas Winton. The scene where he appears on That’s Life for the second time is very moving. He discovers that the woman sitting next to him is someone he saved. The actress playing Esther Rantzen asks if there is anyone else in the audience whose life he has saved and for them to stand up. The entire audience stands up. Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is playing Sir Nicholas, stands and looks at the audience. For a brief moment, this really is Sir Nicholas.
What makes the scene even more poignant is that every member of the audience is a child or grandchild of the children Sir Nicholas rescued. Chas Kenny, Essex
Should Titanic have been up top?
I was surprised to see that Titanic was voted the top tear-jerker finale, as The Notebook was clearly the best.
I’m a little old and remember crying at the start of The Last Snows Of Spring when I saw it at the pictures, too. Lorraine Hassan, via email
‘Nothing earlier than 1982’, reader calls film polls a ‘joke’
The list of film tear-jerkers is a complete joke. Nothing earlier than 1982 – are any of the voters aware of what came before?
I would place the end of Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) in the top spot and his Modern Times (1936) not far behind. There’s also the magnificent Brief Encounter (1945). How could anyone omit that? And director Leo McCarey’s 1937 film Make Way for Tomorrow inspired Orson Welles to declare, ‘It would make a stone cry’. Elia Kazan’s A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945) pierces the heart with wistful sadness.
Then there are foreign language classics: De Sica’s gut-wrenching Umberto D of 1952, Fellini’s 1954 offering La Strada (that ending gets me every time!), Demy’s poignant Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964) and Ku-rosawa’s haunting Ikiru (1952).
The list goes on.
How can you compile a rundown of the best movie moments to make you bawl your eyes out if you more or less ignore 70 per cent of cinema history? Maybe some of those in the listing deserve a placing, but certainly not all of them. William Barklam, Kent
Henry VIII, monster or hero?
Charles EL Gilman (MetroTalk, Fri) is wrong to suggest that Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle should be left empty. Both are fully functioning State buildings and have been part of the UKs history for a very long time.
Buckingham Palace is the official residence of the UK’s Head of State as the White House is for America’s Head of State. He talks of Henry VIII being a monster. What in fact Henry was was the sole leader of England and as such he was personally responsible for the security, peace and prosperity of a whole nation.
He had to do everything he could to keep the country together and not let it be split asunder again by rival political and religious groups.
We cannot judge a 16th-century absolute monarch by today’s idea of what is good or bad behaviour. D Turberman, London
It could be wurst
I stood in line outside the shop for ages the other day, I was waiting to get my hair cut. Never mind I thought, it’s a lovely day for a barber queue. John Coyne, Leeds
