Daily Granny Gram: Watch Classic Movies for Free Online

Dreaming backwards to those old Classic Movies of yesteryear?  Well, I'm happy to say that there are a ton of movies made before 1964 (for most of us boomers, those were our teen years-- classics like "Beach Blanket Bingo" and all those gorgeous Audrey Hepburn flicks and Hayley Mills and Gidget and Gigi and "South Pacific" and Elvis and on and on (*sigh*)that have likely all "fallen into" the Public Domain now). That means that we can watch them on our laptops in bed... sort of like the old drive-in movie experience, but closer up.  With no awkward girl-boy stuff. Free. Streaming.  You don't have to sign up with any of those rip-off online sites that promise more than they deliver... or who deliver a pile of viruses in lieu of your classic movies. 

Well, unfortunately, not necessarily.  Films have slightly more complex rights than other media (such as books, paintings, etc.)  Films, the category in which classic films belong, are actually a "package" of copyrights made up of cinematography, drama, literature, art, musical score, and even something as esoteric as 'trademark'.  So, while the book that the film was based on might have 'fallen into' public domain, perhaps there are copyrights made later than 1964 on the screenplay or some music that was inserted at the last minute in the production.  And, of course, there is the inevitable adversarial legal system with its hand in the matter-- disagreeing legal counsel is not obliged to do as the public would wish them to.  

There are no exhaustive lists of actual available movies at this time, but there are a number of 'lists' of possibly available movies on sites online, some more reliable than others. Some of these sites -- maybe most-- are looking to harvest your contact information for the privilege of downloading the movie from what looks like a park on their site... when the movie is likely stored on another site altogether. Researcher-reviewer Wendy Boswell from about.com lists the following as her picks for the Top Ten sites to download full-length classic movies. While I really appreciate this review, I am disappointed that because of certain governmental laws and regulations, many of the sites on the top end of the review (like HULU) can only be streamed into the United States. There will be challenges to finding the movie-offering sites with the full-length classic movies you want to view, but you WILL find many so just hang in there! (Get your grandchild or a neighbor child to help you if need be lol). There are lots of Zombie movies, of course. If that was a genre you enjoyed as a teenager, you might want to revisit them.

Enjoy!

HULU and GOOGLE are supposed to be incompatible, which means you are not supposed to be able to watch HULU videos on GOOGLE TV (and remember that Google is the Boss), but apparently with a few little adjustments you are able to do that... it likely won't last long, may already be gone (let me know it that is the case, okay?)  Go here to read about the micro-adjustments you make (a matter of seconds for real techs).