In the days before streaming, before cable, when there was just the zenith color TV with a dial you turned to change the channel (until it broke and then you used a pair of pliers), my dad would stay up late and the TV would always be on, usually tuned to the late, late show which was just old movies.

I saw a lot of spaghetti westerns, gangster movies, 70s gritty crime and antihero movies. Even some foreign movies (in subtitles!).

I was a kid, and didn’t understand half of what I was seeing. I only new it was cool. And the actors were cool. Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, DeNiro, Pacino, and so on. The character actors were even better — Ned Beatty, George Kennedy, Burt Young.

Then if you could have a movie like The Great Escape or the Magnificent 7 and a bunch of these guys were in the movie together — James Coburn and Charles Bronson? Sign me up.

But these movies weren’t non-stop action. Scenes could be drawn out, lots of dialogue or no dialogue. And there were no special effects. No crazy stunts. Critics raved about the Bullitt car chase, but to watch it now, it doesn’t seem like much more than a street tour of San Francisco. The French Connection car chase was pretty cool, but it wasn’t exactly fast or furious.

But I thought these movies were great. And so I thought my kids would think they were great too.

At first, when they had no interest, I thought maybe they were too young. Even though I was pretty young when I first saw them. But when they were older and I thought surely now they could appreciate the acting, the drama, the mood of these movies. I was still wrong. They grew bored quickly. The movies just looked cheap and old to them. Boring. Nothing happens. Nothing is being blown up. No big death counts at the hands of the hero.

And I didn’t think these movies would require much convincing. I really wanted to go deeper into the back catalogue and share some absolute gems with them, but how? How could they appreciate the long, choreographed magic of something like The Third Man. Quite frankly they won’t watch anything in Black and White. But even leaving that aside for a moment, they just wouldn’t appreciate what Welles does with his shots in that movie. I wanted to share with them Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, and the way he captures the simple pleasures of a summer vacation, while poking fun at how groups of strangers, with their individual quirks, interact in the shared experience of a resort.

Even the movies that have been heralded as the all time greats, like Casablanca or Lawrence of Arabia. They don’t stand a chance with my kids. There’s no appreciation for the weirdness of Peter Lorre or the sinisterness of Sidney Greenstreet. The amazing wide shots of the sun rising over the desert would seem minuscule compared to the enormity of something like Avengers’ Endgame.

As they get older, they surprise me. Perhaps it’s not too late. My older kid recently started watching Quentin Tarantino films. Given that his movies are filled with homages to some of the greats, maybe this is the entry way to classics. It might be I was willing to watch Bing Crosby or Edgar G. Robinson because I saw them caricatured on Looney Tunes first.

There were movies my dad liked which I didn’t get. So I know this is nothing unique. I still have never watched 2001 a Space Odyssey from beginning to end. Rebel Without A Cause and The Wild One were important movies for my dad. They probably were for any boomer who saw James Dean and Marlon Brando as kings of cool. But I didn’t find them particularly interesting.

Why do I care if my kids like these old movies? Not sure. I guess it’s because my dad has been gone for several years now, but when I see these movies on TV they still make me think about him.