It baffles me how nearly any movie in black and white is automatically labelled a masterpiece. I watch most of them and am usually bored to death by the slow pacing of dialogue, poor acting and lack of inventive cinematography. I think it's just because most movies brought out today are made purely for money, and is a reflection of our own times in which we ourselves don't feel comfortable. Chances are that the plethora of movies made 30's/40's/50's were made for exactly the same purpose, but because we've moved on as a society, looking back on these films gives us a kind of jaded view of the past and of a more pleasant era without the likes of Global Warming, Terrorism, Obesity "time-bombs", dwindling natural resources and so on.