Three Smart Girls Grow Up (Koster 1939). When I watched eleven of the Deanna Durbin musicals a while back, I gave an edge to this one out of the better films. In a sequel to her debut, Deanna, unbeknownst to her two sisters, tries to fix their love lives. Set in a rather simpler setting than some of the previous films, this one’s comedy, charm and occasional music pieces all generally succeed. Deanna displays her gifts as a comedienne, while Robert Cummings provides a really fun character. These films usually have a nice sheen to them too. Not that this means it’s good enough to qualify for a place on my list though!
The Scarlet Empress (Von Sternberg 1934). I revisited and wrote this up not long ago for the biopic list project, but watched it again to see the upgrade and rank it here.
Rayon Vert wrote: ↑Sat Jan 13, 2018 6:09 pm(...) (W)hat a worthy film this is and what a strange beast to come out of the Hollywood studio system – although maybe not so strange when you take into account that it was made at Paramount (home, during this period, of irony, sophistication, erotic naughtiness, visual sensualism, the European-flavored, and a propensity with experimentation and the bizarre). The comedy is really dry but at the same time quite exalted, sometimes almost in Mel Brooks territory, in addition to being as risqué as any Lubitsch. The story seems almost an excuse to make a film that is just completely, unrestrainedly, about style: the darkly lit photography and décor, an excess of luminous shots of Dietrich through gauze, and the screen constantly filled with those huge, grotesque statues the tone of which parallels the film’s story and the painting of that Russian court as pure insanity. At film’s end, as Catherine comes to power, it’s as if the pretense of narrative has almost been sacrificed to an almost abstract series of visual flourishes.
Peter Ibbetson (Hathaway 1935). Gary Cooper plays an architect who carries a strange malady in his soul after being taken away from Paris to London after his mother’s death at an early age, and separated from his beloved 8-year-old playmate. The film’s über-Borzagian romantic mysticism surprises in its intensity and by the intoxicated delirium that finally and completely engulfs the narrative. Delightful enough in its first “normal” half or so, but the oddness of its later stages makes it a must-see at least.
G Men (Keighley 1935). WB’s solution to the Production Code allows the genre and Cagney to continue their thing, with gun violence and killings as intense and numerous as in any pre-code gangster film. It’s nowhere near as stylish as something like The Public Enemy, but it’s a solid, very likeable film, with an entertaining story and personable actors. Brick’s relationship with his trainer McCord is one of the noteworthy dimensions.