MovieChat Forums > Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) Discussion > Los Angeles in the "good old days"

Los Angeles in the "good old days"

posted 10 years ago by nagmashdriver
12 replies | jump to latest

Growing up in Los Angeles in the smoggy, grimey, crimey 1970s and 80s, I wondered what it might have been like to live in Los Angeles before smog, the gangs, illegal immigrants, gridlock traffic.............

One of the reasons I love watching these old films is because it takes me back to a place I've never been to, a Los Angeles of manicured lawns and civil, polite citizens not worrying about locking the front door at night.

Got sick of California altogther and moved to the central highlands of Arizona in 2012 and now I'm in small town heaven!

[–] blcmitchell 10 years ago

Well done. Central Arizona is one of the most scenic parts of America (imho, anyways).

I can see what you mean about the setting of this movie. It is serene. The neighborhoods are clean and tidy and the people are wholesome. Always helping others. Maybe a little too much in Gramps case!

Terrible but fun flick.

[–] Scipii 9 years ago

Yesss dude I know exactly what you mean, though I am only 23 and grew up on the East Coast. There is just something about the 50's that draws me to it. Part of that is definitely the movies that were made during the time that make everything seem perfect.

[–] toldyousew 9 years ago

polite citizens not worrying about locking the front door at night.

No, citizens with common sense in any decade locked their doors at night
to keep strangers from walking in while they are sleeping.

Character is revealed by how you treat people with no power.

[–] nagmashdriver 9 years ago

I am guessing that you are quite young (20s) and also quite naive, Mr. TYS. I have read more books and spoken to more older folks in my 51 years on this planet than you will have in all your lifetime, as well as your family's lifetimes. I especially enjoy reading biographies of people who lived in the proceeding generations both here in America and in Europe, which is where my ancestry is from.

Only here in America did EVERYBODY feel safe enough to keep their door(s) unlocked; that started changing in the 1960s with the rise of the New Left and the attendant crime and downward spiral in values.

I suggest you start reading non-fiction and if your schedule allows it, to listen to AM talk radio, particularly Michael Medved and Dennis Prager, if you are American/Canadian.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Zero_Credibility 8 years ago

Idiot

[–] nagmashdriver 8 years ago

Said the poster with the username of "Zero_Credibility"...

[–] Zero_Credibility 8 years ago

Idiot

[–] nagmashdriver 8 years ago

I just love verbally sparring with a Leftist; it's so easy to win. All I have to do is answer in a rational, logical fashion and you make my argument for me.

Every time you answer with an ad-hominem reply ("idiot") I rest my case. Actually, I don't have to make my case, you make it for me.

Maybe in a few years time you'll graduate high school and will be able to write a complete sentence using both a subject and a predicate such as "You're an idiot".

[–] Zero_Credibility 8 years ago

Idiot

[–] liscarkat (19031) 6 years ago

At least Mr. Zero is consistently stupid.

[–] liscarkat (19031) 6 years ago

Most of the suburbs and small towns in and around Los Angeles were neater, cleaner, and safer when this movie was made; however, the smog was as bad or worse in the 1950s as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition to the industries and the millions of cars with no emission controls, everybody had an incinerator in their back yard for the daily disposal of burnable trash. Anybody old enough to remember 1959 remembers days of hellish smog. The air is very clean now, compared to then.