Quoting:
Another thread got me thinking about this one.  What, or rather who, hasn't been well served by the passage of time?  Who rose on the golden wings of popularity then but drags along on the leaden boots of obscurity now?  Well, obscurity isn't the right word... maybe some examples will help.

Mae West - Kind of the Madonna/Brittany/Courtney Love of her time.  If you watch any of her old movies now, the jokes are stale, the double entendres are groan-able and she looks like a pudgy, middle-aged man in a whalebone bustle.End Quote

Mae West doesn't have a contemporary analog because her persona doesn't make sense in today's social climate.  In 1935, Seinfeld would have been called obscene.  Reading scripts like that on the radio (no TV then) was unthinkable.  In 1935, James Joyce's Ulysses was still censored by the government.  It's easy to forget just HOW uptight society was about sexuality back in Mae West's day.
Her act REALLY WAS risque.  Men of moral mettle would never expose their wives and children to smut like Mae West and W.C. Fields!

Quoting:
Marx Brothers - You know, every one of their movies had some precious bits in them.  But.... I've read that the Marx Brothers road tested a lot of their material before filming it, and you can really tell.  The movies all have a "stagy" feeling to them.  And most of them have a romantic sub-plot that are usually annoying.  They could have none without the mandatory music breaks for Harpo & Chico, too.
W.C. Fields, on the other hand, wears much better.  His comedy is a kind collision of Monty Python surrealism and Danny DeVito dark humor.  End Quote

Groucho could be as raunchy and nasty as Andrew Dice Clay!  That's part of why the Marx Brothers seem so un-spontaneous.  The film codes were so strict in their day that their was no room to risk improv.  Every line, every move had to be vetted.  Fields maintained a darker, edgier style, as you point out.  The Marx Brothers were more of a "fun" number.  The studios kept them geared to more "general" audiences.
I could be wrong here as I'm making an educated guess.End Quote

Casablanca - In the late '60s there was a revival of old movies, and Bogart's classic benefitted more than most from the rediscoveries.  A lot of the film critics who came of age during that era, the Roger Ebert class, adopted this one and have never moved far from it.  
I believe it's their influence that was most telling in Humphrey Bogart's election by the American Film Institute as the #1 motion picture actor in history.  By the way, Cary Grant is #2 and Jimmy Stewart is #3.  The AFI got it wrong, in my opinion.  It should be Stewart, Grant and then Bogart.  How many westerns has Bogart been in?  How many light comedies? End Quote

Yeah, I get have the same opinion of the old guard of rock critics.  Everythingis measured against Elvis, James Brown, Ike & Tina, The Beatles, The 'Stones, The Doors, Dylan, and other old war horses.  It's not that I don't like the early rock icons, I just felt under the rock critics' prejudice the pop groups I loved in the '80s never stood a chance.
:(
Anyway, Bogart has been a tired cliche for two generations.  However, I love what Bogie had to say about the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).  He initially appeared as a "friendly witness" (along with Lauren Bacall) in 1947. Later that year he protested HUAC with Bacall and others because people were actually getting sent to jail for being Commies.  He issued a statement that his initial cooperation had been "ill-advised," and was heard to say, "They'll nail any one who ever scratched his @ss during the National Anthem."
;D

Quoting:
James Dean - What DID they see in this one?  God, what an annoying, mumbling wreck.  
 I guess it's true - dying young is never a bad career move.
End Quote

I think James Dean was a great actor and interesting guy.  He would have been up for a very diverse career if he hadn't crashed his effing Porsche.  I think the demi-god icon they make of him actually does his legacy a disservice.

Quoting:

Mae West doesn't have a contemporary analog because her persona doesn't make sense in today's social climate.  In 1935, Seinfeld would have been called obscene.  Reading scripts like that on the radio (no TV then) was unthinkable.  In 1935, James Joyce's Ulysses was still censored by the government.  It's easy to forget just HOW uptight society was about sexuality back in Mae West's day.
Her act REALLY WAS risque.  Men of moral mettle would never expose their wives and children to smut like Mae West and W.C. Fields!End Quote

Respectfully disagree.  
Courtney and Britany may not belong on that continuum, but I think Madonna fits right in.  Courtney is a self-destructive rocker more in line with Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Keith Moon.  Britany is a corporate group-think Frankenstein monster.
Madonna, though... when she first hit the scene her big selling point, her schtick, was provocation.  Maybe not as provocative as West, who spent some time in jail for her play "Sex," but she was definitely there in spirit.  And I remember her being lauded as a business-smart woman who shocked by not only exposing her sexual nature, but by controlling it.  They're both shrewd women who cashed in on the public's love of titilation and pathological need to condemn those who supply it.  They both, in my opinion, were minimal talents.  I think people 70 years from now will have as much trouble seeing what we saw in Madonna as we have trouble understanding the fuss Mae West caused.
 

Quoting:Groucho could be as raunchy and nasty as Andrew Dice Clay!  That's part of why the Marx Brothers seem so un-spontaneous.  The film codes were so strict in their day that their was no room to risk improv.  Every line, every move had to be vetted.  Fields maintained a darker, edgier style, as you point out.  The Marx Brothers were more of a "fun" number.  The studios kept them geared to more "general" audiences.End Quote

I listened to an internet old time radio station and every so often have the opportunity to hear an old "You Bet Your Life."
Groucho was an improv genius.  Heck, I like all their old movies.  But, passing the Hays guidelines or no, busting up the action for a Kitty Carlisle/Allan Jones duet ain't good for business.
And when in the heck are we going to be able to buy more WC Fields movies on dvd?  You can get The Bank Dick and the wretched My Little Chickadee fairly easily, but others, like for instance Million Dollar Legs, aren't even on VHS tape.

Quoting:I think James Dean was a great actor and interesting guy.  He would have been up for a very diverse career if he hadn't crashed his effing Porsche.  I think the demi-god icon they make of him actually does his legacy a disservice.
End Quote

You're probably right, and it's a little unfair of me to criticize someone who only made a small handful of movies.  

Quoting:Speaking of "Gone With The Wind", there's a couple movies that are now considered "politically incorrect" or offensive like that now banned Disney movie that portrayed African American stereotypes in the mid 1800's. Thankfully, it's no longer shown on tv nor sold on tapes/DVDEnd Quote

I think the Disney movie you're talking about is "Song of the South."  I don't think old tapes of "The Amos 'n Andy" show are available, either.  It's kind of odd, because the radio shows are more easily available, and the radio program had an all-white cast portraying all-black characters.  You can also easily purchase DW Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation," which makes heroes out of the KKK and is extremely offensive in its portrayal of African-Americans.
Racism is a part of our history, our heritage, and sometimes I think we do a disservice to ourselves by this type of self-imposed censorship.  

Quoting:

Madonna, though... when she first hit the scene her big selling point, her schtick, was provocation.  Maybe not as provocative as West, who spent some time in jail for her play "Sex," but she was definitely there in spirit. They both, in my opinion, were minimal talents.  I think people 70 years from now will have as much trouble seeing what we saw in Madonna as we have trouble understanding the fuss Mae West caused.End Quote

It's already happened.  If Madonna's donning of lingerie outside her clothes didn't seem campy at the time, it certainly looks most campy today.  I don't agree on the talent comparison.  I think Madonna is waaay more talented than Mae West.  Her talent hasn't stopped her from marketing scads of drek.  I was never a big fan, but when singing and dancing was the focus and sexiness was a prop, she was great.  When she tried to be a sex star rather than a pop star, she BOMBED.  This started with the pathetic Sex book in 1990.

Quoting:
I think the Disney movie you're talking about is "Song of the South."  I don't think old tapes of "The Amos 'n Andy" show are available, either.  It's kind of odd, because the radio shows are more easily available, and the radio program had an all-white cast portraying all-black characters.  You can also easily purchase DW Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation," which makes heroes out of the KKK and is extremely offensive in its portrayal of African-Americans.
Racism is a part of our history, our heritage, and sometimes I think we do a disservice to ourselves by this type of self-imposed censorship.  
End Quote

I remember when Song of the South was re-released in 1981.  If "Uncle Remus" caused a major outcry then, I don't remember.  They wouldn't have tried to get away with that sh*t any time in the past 15 years.
I have only seen excerpts from Birth of a Nation, but I did read the book on which it was based.  The Clansman: an Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, written by North Carolina lawyer and legislator Thomas Dixon, was published in 1905.  It is an abominable piece of pulp rubbish.  It's not just the novel's seething racism, but the writing itself.  It's as bad as a Harlequin romance!
Speaking of old cartoons, and "Amos 'n Andy", don't forget Jack Benny's "Rochester" character, the black kids from the Little Rascals/Our Gang comedies, and the recurring manservant character in the "Three Stooges" ("This house-a-sho' gwan crazah!").  All of these are examples of pejorative stereotypes of African Americans.  

I thought the "Mammy Two-Shoes" character on "Tom and Jerry" was a scream when I was little.  Only later did I realize how nasty a stereotype it was.  I'm not into PC, but I would rather not have kids get their ideas about Mexico from "Speedy Gonzales."  Not as entertainment for kids, but as part of our cultural legacy, I think such cartoons are important documents.  
You can often catch subtler examples.  I've been watching the Leave it to Beaver reruns on TV Land.  I finally saw an African American character.  She was a maid in the episode in which Wally and Eddie work as car parkers at Mr. Langley's party!

Quoting:
 I think Madonna is waaay more talented than Mae West.  Her talent hasn't stopped her from marketing scads of drek.  I was never a big fan, but when singing and dancing was the focus and sexiness was a prop, she was great.  When she tried to be a sex star rather than a pop star, she BOMBED.  This started with the pathetic Sex book in 1990.End Quote

More talented how?  
I'm close, in age and spirit, to the "old guard" rock critics.  Madonna was never "great," just noisy.  We stopped paying attention to her before "Material Girl" hit the charts.  The "Sex" book wasn't a radical break from the True Path - it was just another dingy stop for the queen of look-at-meism.  

Quoting:I remember when Song of the South was re-released in 1981.  If "Uncle Remus" caused a major outcry then, I don't remember.  They wouldn't have tried to get away with that sh*t any time in the past 15 years.End Quote

Who, exactly, decided that "Uncle Remus" is an offensive character?  Granted, he's poorly dressed and uneducated; but he's also wise, gentle and loving.  

Quoting:I have only seen excerpts from Birth of a Nation, but I did read the book on which it was based.  The Clansman: an Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, written by North Carolina lawyer and legislator Thomas Dixon, was published in 1905.  It is an abominable piece of pulp rubbish.  It's not just the novel's seething racism, but the writing itself.  It's as bad as a Harlequin romance!End Quote

Yeah, and the success of Birth of a Nation led directly to the rebirth of the Klan in America.
Here's a little something from cuny.edu:
"When Griffith released the film in 1915, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (or NAACP) and other groups protested; the NAACP published a 47-page pamphlet titled "Fighting a Vicious Film: Protest Against The Birth of a Nation," in which they referred to the film as "three miles of filth." W. E. B. Du Bois published scathing reviews in The Crisis, spurring a heated debate among the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures as to whether the film should be shown in New York. However, President and former history professor Woodrow Wilson viewed the film at the White House and proclaimed it not only historically accurate, but like "history writ with lightning." Like Woodrow Wilson, many whites felt it a truthful and accurate portrayal of racial politics, so much so that they flocked to join the rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan. The years after Griffith released The Birth of a Nation saw massive race riots throughout the country, peaking especially in the North in 1919; many historians lay the blame for this racial conflict on Griffith's The Birth of a Nation."
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/birth.html
I don't think anyone this side of David Duke is claiming Birth to be "history writ with lightning" anymore, but I assume the Virginian Wilson was sincere in his praise.  
My guess is that a the answer lies in the history of the Reconstruction era.  Why did many whites feel Birth was "truthful and accurate?"  

Quoting:Speaking of old cartoons, and "Amos 'n Andy", don't forget Jack Benny's "Rochester" character, the black kids from the Little Rascals/Our Gang comedies, and the recurring manservant character in the "Three Stooges" ("This house-a-sho' gwan crazah!").  All of these are examples of pejorative stereotypes of African Americans.  

I thought the "Mammy Two-Shoes" character on "Tom and Jerry" was a scream when I was little.  Only later did I realize how nasty a stereotype it was.  I'm not into PC, but I would rather not have kids get their ideas about Mexico from "Speedy Gonzales."  Not as entertainment for kids, but as part of our cultural legacy, I think such cartoons are important documents.End Quote

I totally agree.