OPEN POST: Are Your Favorite Old Movies Still Watchable?

Have you ever re-watched a movie you once treasured as a child or a teenager and realized that it was low-grade crap? It happens! Recently, a friend watched "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with her 7 year-old, hoping to share what she once enjoyed as a youngin'. "Ooo, I loved that movie when I was a kid," I told her. "Me, too," she said, "but when was the last time you saw it?" I had to think for a moment. I'd watched YouTube clips of my favorite scenes over the years, but probably hadn't watched the entire movie since I originally saw it on TV as a 10 year-old. "Trust me," my friend added, "it's junk." 

Sadly, she was right. Warily at first, I re-watched it, and I'll be blunt, the movie is a dirge, moving at a snail's pace from one insipid musical number to the next, like the soul-curdling "You Two" with those offensively squeaky children; or "Posh," featuring the "eccentric" grandfather in a number so strained I must have flushed it from my mind the first time I saw it. Then there's Sally Ann Howes, or the BJ's Wholesale version of Julie Andrews, and genuinely shoddy green-screen special effects. 

Based on a book by Ian Fleming, the movie was written and directed by Ken Hughes - blame him twice! - a journeyman hack who later directed the near unwatchable "Sextette" with a game, but ill-used, 87 year-old Mae West. "Chitty" also clocks in at a butt-numbing, near masochistic 2 hours and 25 minutes, which must have really tested the patience of parents who took their children to see it in the theatre, since wee ones hopped-up on sugary concession treats are not known for even temperaments or patience.

What worked? Basically any musical number with Dick Van Dyke (sans the squeaky children), like the still hugely entertaining "Me Ol'Bamboo," or "Toot Sweets" or the "Music Box" number (which has the dull-as-dishwater Howes in her element, playing a stiff dolly). There's also Child Catcher, the villain portrayed with ghastly primal effectiveness by Robert Helpmann, a renown ballet dancer and choreographer in one of his few movie roles. These are the all-too-brief scequences, totaling about 25 minutes, which scorched themselves in my mind as a tot - and erroneously convinced me that the entire, lumpily-paced movie was similarly joyful. Memory is a tricky bitch. 

Still, sometimes you're surprised. I recently saw "Death Becomes Her" for the first time in at least a decade, and it was even better than I remembered. I love when that happens! Have you ever had your past rudely amended by revisiting what you thought was a terrific movie when you were young? Or have you been happily surprised?