The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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domino harvey
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#126 Post by domino harvey » Sun Sep 16, 2018 9:35 pm

I really like the Walking Dead and it's on my provisional list. I'm kind of surprised so few other horror movies have co-opted its clever basic premise. Tucker and Dale Vs Evil get a lot of mileage out of playing it for laffs, but the Curtiz film treats the absurdity of its premise with solemnity, which shows it works just fine straight too

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#127 Post by knives » Sun Sep 16, 2018 9:48 pm

Do you mean the accidental murder part?

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#128 Post by domino harvey » Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:22 pm

Yes. The first two-thirds of the Strangers plays even closer, with the invading menacers committing no violence themselves, but that sure goes out the window in the last act

Also, Cold Bishop, in honor of you adopting the best post formatting, I'll bump Sylvia Scarlett up in my viewing queue

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#129 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Sep 20, 2018 5:53 am

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Radio Patrol (Edward L. Cahn, 1932)
A young group of recruits, in an unnamed mid-western city, graduate from the academy to the city beat. But it’s the end of Prohibition, and violence is high, bribery rampant, and the force understaffed. Despite loving the same girl, two best friends (Robert Armstrong, Russell Hopton) get assigned as partners to crime-fighting’s latest high-tech division – squad cars with two-way radios! Afraid to Talk and Law and Order both got attention, from me and others, during the last 1930s project. This film, which I tracked down during the last project, has quickly emerged as my favorite of Cahn’s early films, just an unrestrained wallop of a Pre-coder, unassuming enough until it sneaks up on you with its vision of endemic urban corruption. HerrSchreck once praised the way Afraid to Talk’s maintained an atmosphere of brutality, despite almost no onscreen violence. This film has the same sense of menace AND plenty of bloodshed.

It also has a much greater sense of camera fluidity than the stilted/austere Law and Order and the stage-derived Afraid to Talk. There’s an interesting sense of invention that belies this film’s status as an early sound quickie. The film’s opening, a De-Palma-esque fake-out - which drops us in the middle of what could be a combat zone or prison riot, only to pull the rug out from under us – immediately demands attention. It’s an episodic film, which allows the melodrama of its central conceit – mostly a mix of morality play and love triangle – to never get old, as the hard-boiled stuff gets mixed in with plenty of docudrama novelty, concerning the reality of the radio cars, the police beat and general Prohibition-era living. The film’s also punctuated with plenty of Vorkapic-esque montages, combining reused silent-film footage and new Expressionistic second-unit stuff into explosions of gangland violence that take on a monumental stature against the meager, blue-collar vision of the police force. Despite it’s focus on the hard-work and sacrifice of the police, this film never succumbs to glorification. It’s as pitiless and cynical as any gangster film of the era; the film starts almost light-hearted, which makes the matter-of-factness that personal compromise and death slowly enters the picture that much more effective. The film’s finale could be three-hankie melodrama in another film; here, it’s played with enough distance and voyeuristic discomfort that it comes off perverse and genuinely sorrowful. Our hero may have joined the force with the ideal of staying honest and saving people, not killing them… but the film ultimately leaves us wondering if him and other like him are just babes in the woods.

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Blood Money (Rowland S. Brown, 1933)
"What I need is a man to give me a good thrashing, I'd follow him around like a dog on a leash." - Frances Dee

Bill Bailey (George Bancroft) looks like a successful bail bondsman, but in reality he’s the L.A. mob’s fixer #1, well connected to both the underworld and the establishment alike, riding the zeitgeist of corruption to wealth and success. When a rich, crazy dame (Frances Dee) falls in his lap, he finds a path into respectable society and nearly brings about his own doom. More of a fascinating curio than a truly great film, Blood Money deserves a look for anyone needing a fix of pre-code kinkiness. Like Edward Cahn, Rowland West or Arthur Ripley, Rowland S. Brown is one of those interesting what-could-have-beens who had an interesting burst of productivity that mysteriously stopped dead in its track. He was a confrontational director, and an assault on a studio exec supposedly had him blackballed. No worries: despite being a full-blown Communist, he married into opulent wealth and was glad to leave the industry. In his earlier days, he was reportedly a gangster, and it was a pursuit of authenticity which supposedly brought about his directorial squabbles.

No one will confuse this film for a docudrama, but there’s enough oddball and offbeat details here to keep the film interesting. First of all is it’s choice of protagonist: most gangster films took their cue from the Capone-inspired gunman. This film, however, is interested in the Frank Costello-type: the businessman and nearly-respectable conduit between the straight world and the criminal, eschewing violence for diplomacy, slightly embarassed by his own criminality. In fact, I don’t believe there’s a single gun fired throughout the whole film, and nary an act of serious violence. Light on bloodshed, but heavy on sauciness, this film seems almost ready to become a comedy at any moment; it’s the expectation of violence that we associate with the genre and milieu that keep it grounded as a gangster film. The film instead is focused on character and color: the backroom speakeasies, where cross-dressing lesbians lounge at the bar and vaudeville legend Blossom Seeley commands the floor; at the dog-races, where bell-boys parade the contestant like a 1930s Westminster, and a young Lucille Balls hooks for $5 a pop; the Hawaiian luaua, where the early rumblings of Tiki express themselves in gyrating island girls.

Really, however, the main reason to see this film is the oddball casting. Dame Judith Anderson actually is allowed an unusual role of glamour and sex appeal as a speakeasy madame/crime boss and long-suffering romantic partner to Bancroft. There’s a sobering quality and restraint to her performance that really sells the romantic disappointment, and if her posh accent goes unexplained, it ties into the film’s focus on the mutability between straight and criminal society. The whole film’s a reversal of the usual madonna/whore conflict: the gang moll is the reasonable and grown-up romantic option that’s foolishly eschewed; the rich heiress is the wild and dangerous one. Which brings us to the real star of the show: Frances Dee. Mrs. Joel McCrea’s reputation later became that of the goody two-shoes; here she doesn’t soil those shoes so much as toss them in a mudpit. Her character is a nymphoniac, kleptomaniac, sadomasochistic, bisexual. She craves only excitement and the more criminal the better. Her last scene is a howler of a pre-code punchline, and if it’s incorrect to say the film is non-judgmental towards her, it’s surprisingly un-punitive. In fact, there’s a refreshing affection for all these characters and pre-Prohibition vice which really papers over the film’s obvious shortcomings. The least of Brown’s three films, but intriguing nonetheless.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#130 Post by knives » Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:03 am

domino harvey wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:22 pm
Also, Cold Bishop, in honor of you adopting the best post formatting, I'll bump Sylvia Scarlett up in my viewing queue
It's probably Hepburn's best of the decade so definitely not a poor choice.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#131 Post by knives » Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:27 pm

The Charge of the Light Brigade (dir. Curtiz)
This is pretty much the complete opposite of the Richardson film and as a compliment to the '60s form it makes it impossible to watch this as merely an Errol Flynn adventure film. Instead it speaks solely as the complete and passive acceptance of colonialism that it is. Jacoby and Leigh's script doesn't go full Gunga Din as it shows a human side to the colonialized with Henry Gordon's performance slightly bringing the Kahn outside of wise representative role and into a small critique of the situation. Still, those moments are far and few between with the Indians amounting to target practice through much of the film. The movie is technically well made and certainly not the absolute worst example of this type of mindset from the era, but its close relationship to such a great film sinks it quite hard.

Also more dead horses than all of the Tarkovsky films.

Intermezzo (dir. Ratoff)
The Swedish version is far enough from my mind that I can't pick what exactly about this version fails to live up to it, but there's something here that makes the American variation come across as mediocre. Partially at least this has to come from Howard giving a weak, dandied performance, but his poverty of effort isn't strong enough to explain the wanting the film produces as a light entertainment.

Varsity Show (dir. Keighley)
I'm not sure is this is an exceedingly square attempt to mimic MGM or a sly dig at them, but there's something I like about the movie (even beyond the Busby Berkeley number). On one had its a completely straight faced college musical, truly one of the worst genres of the decade, filled to the brim with some of the corniest jokes you'll see. On the other it seems like a self reflection on Warner Bros. part that these Dick Powell/ Berkeley were becoming yesterday's news and would need a new angle to make a splash anymore. It gives the film a sense on finality that was perhaps unintended. Also Ted Healy is hilarious in this as the grouchiest sidekick convention could permit.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#132 Post by Rayon Vert » Thu Sep 20, 2018 8:25 pm

knives wrote:
Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:27 pm
Intermezzo (dir. Ratoff)
The Swedish version is far enough from my mind that I can't pick what exactly about this version fails to live up to it, but there's something here that makes the American variation come across as mediocre. Partially at least this has to come from Howard giving a weak, dandied performance, but his poverty of effort isn't strong enough to explain the wanting the film produces as a light entertainment.
Bergman looks terrific in her first Hollywood film but yeah, unfortunately, it’s mostly a dud.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#133 Post by Cold Bishop » Sat Sep 22, 2018 11:19 pm

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Justin de Marseille (Maurice Tourneur, 1935)
The port city of Marseille may be the center of France’s drug trade and white slavery, but it is also Justin’s (Antonin Berval) domain, a home he looks on with pride and affection. When a foreign Neopolitan gang attempts to seize the opium trade, Justin and his men step in to protect their city. Simultaneously closing his silent and Hollywood career, Maurice Tourneur returned to France for the last stage of his career, creating a run of films influenced by mystery and pulp fiction; Tourneur spent his later retirement translating detective fiction, so one assumes these weren’t mere assignments. Justin de Marseille especially merits attention for the way it anticipates the Corsican gangster films that would dominate French cinema from the 50’s to ‘70’s. Yet, Justin is peculiarly lighthearted, a film often labeled a parody, although I’d say it’s only half a burlesque: it doesn’t shy away from the violence and squalor of the material, but it also isn’t fixated on it, constantly shifting away for arch observations and playful asides. One could easily see this film being made in the late ‘50s, with Lino Ventura or Jean Servais, and being utterly inconsequential. It’s a testament to the alchemy of the era that it glistens with so much nitrate-lined luminescence in both look and spirit. Despite it’s ‘35 date, it invokes not the violence of Warner or pessimism of le réalisme poétique but the romance of those early-ran works in the genre by Sternberg and Mamoulian, even as it’s ensemble and humor owes a debt to Pagnol’s Marseille films.

At the same time, it's a film fully aware of its place among an identifiable – and foreign – genre; the film’s arch tone is predicated on the existence of the American gangster film. This is apparent early on in the form of the journalist character, who preaches objective truth, but is clearly only interested in selling an existing narrative: Marseille as Chicago #2. Likewise, the character of Esposito, who’s foreignness comes less from his ethnicity than his violence and covetousness, is almost like Little Caesar come to invade the shores of France. More than a gangster, Justin is sold as a romantic and a man of the people; he enters the conflict less to preserve his own interest than simply preserve the existing status quo for everyone. It’s no mistake that he’s called Justin of Marseille. If Berval makes a less than credible hood – he looks like he should be leading a musical-comedy – I think his lightness is no mistake. A Jean Gabin would be both too tough and too charismatic, hogging all the attention; Tourneur’s film is less focused on Justin than the atmosphere of his self-fashioned Marseille, a labyrinthine backlot city of artificial moonlight, its crowded pathways populated with endless hotels and barrooms. It’s also a fascinatingly multi-ethnic city; outside of Colonial-set films, it is unusual to see a France that’s this much of a melting pot; and if the film isn’t above stereotypes, it also doesn’t treat characters of color with condescension. It’s the huckster journalist and his one-sided narrative that provides the film’s real villain. The film may be predicated on a turf war, but like an afterthought, it ultimately settles that battle in ellipses; Esposito is the storm that threatens to level the town, but ultimately can’t be bothered to even blow the laundry off the line. Justin’s real triumph comes in finding a heartbroken girl and showing her that, behind the crime and squalor, Marseille is ultimately a city of romance and possibility.

Sidenote #1: one of the reasons the film’s imagery so calls to mind silent film is certainly due to appealing lead starlet Ghislaine Bru, whose pale skin and saucer eyes invoke a silent star born a decade too late. I’m sad to see she didn’t do much work beyond this film, but unlike a lot of flash-in-the-pan actresses of this era, she at least had a happy ending: after ending up in London during the blitz, she met and became the lifelong companion of Nobel Prize winner René Cassin, drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Sidenote #2: It’s worth noting that this film was preceded by another proto-French polar, In the Name of the Law in 1932, which supposedly played the mood much more seriously. I’m curious to see it, but currently only available with Spanish subtitles.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#134 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Sep 23, 2018 12:46 pm

I guess I'll conform!

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Love Finds Andy Hardy (Seitz 1938). When I saw the Garland-Rooney musicals, I watched their other screen pairings, including this first of three in the Andy Hardy series. This is the better one, a cute, well-scripted film where Rooney is particularly charismatic, and where Judy as the amiable, 12-year-old Betsy can’t compete with Andy’s romantic affections and other love interests but captures the screen when she belts out her three songs.


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Ceiling Zero (Hawks 1936). Such a dry run for Only Angels Have Wings in certain aspects that it isn’t surprising it gets forgotten. It’s nowhere in the same league as the later film, and it’s a much more humble, plain little WB piece (and Newark definitely ain’t no Barranca!), but it’s worth seeing. There’s some solid adult writing here, and a feel for the ensemble and the relationships among characters (with one of the earliest Hawksian women, one of the pilots among the men who goes by the name of “Tommy”), some good suspense, and Cagney of course who brings in his usual dynamo energy and persona. Not the great flight visuals we get in OAHV or The Dawn Patrol though.


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Of Human Bondage (Cromwell 1934). I’ve never read the novel so can’t compare but this is at times so pessimistic and dire that it skirts the ridiculous. Nevertheless, principally on the strength of Davis’ really striking, one-of-a-kind performance (and secondarily on some of the quirky directorial touches), it has a powerful strangeness that despite all of its excesses and lack of elegance makes it quite a memorable and ultimately winning experience.


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David Copperfield (Cukor 1935). This certainly holds its own with Lean’s Dickens adaptations. Quite a bit of Hollywood magic here, of the Selznick-Cukor-MGM kind: great sets, wonderful actors, direction and atmosphere. The book is a bit unwieldy though, which comes across in this ambitious adaptation – a bit too episodic to provide full satisfaction. Another small criticism is that the child actor is so good that the switch to the adult half, with a noticeably less endearing or likeable actor, is somewhat disappointing.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#135 Post by domino harvey » Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:09 pm

That "child actor" in David Copperfield is Freddie Bartholomew, the second-most famous male child star of this decade behind Mickey Rooney. If you haven't seen Captains Courageous, I'd move it way up in your queue

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#136 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:34 pm

Thanks. I have it in a list of good 30s Hollywood adventure films I haven't seen. I'll really try to get to them, or it, at least. (Still in the revisit mode for probably 6-7 weeks though.)

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#137 Post by knives » Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:43 pm

He's also quite good in Lloyd's of London. It's really too bad his career floundered once puberty hit.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#138 Post by Cold Bishop » Fri Sep 28, 2018 3:19 am

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Resurrectio (Alessandro Blasetti, 1931)
A wealthy man (Daniele Crespi), spurned by his vamp of a lover, contemplates first suicide and then murder. In his haze of temporary madness, he bumps into a working-class shopgirl (Lia Franca) and possible redemption. Fascist Italy has always been a fascinating case study for “troublesome art” in that, unlike its autocratic brethren, Mussolini never spurred the avant-garde and briefly encouraged it. However, the collapse of the Italian film industry after WWI meant the cinema never got to indulge this experimentation like its neighbors. The Futurist films of the ‘10s pretty much established the precedent for abstract, experimental art-films followed for the next two decades; yet their direct influence in Italy itself seems to have vanished as much as the films themselves, all lost but one fragment. By the time the government rescued the fledgling industry with the formation of Cinecitta, Italy had already adopted the view of “degenerate art” of the other fascist states. Ultimately, the 1930s belong to the middle-class fluff of the “White Telephone” films, not the fascinating formalism on display here.

Alessandro Blasetti is certainly the most important director of this period until the end of the war. A believer in fascism, he was also an undiscriminating student of film technique, and his early films are fascinating for the way they blend these foreign experimental impulses into narratives if, rarely blatant propaganda, are certainly in line with ideology. It’s a tension in form that mirrors Blasetti’s own increasing tension with fascism: he may have produced Italy’s most blatant piece of self-hagiography (the March on Rome paean The Iron Guard) but he also later produced one of its most self-critical (The Iron Crown, which Goebbels called worthy of the firing squad).

This, his second film, and Italy’s first sound film, is primarily noteworthy as one of the great unsung early experiments with sound. On paper, it’s one of those late silent films, with a recorded soundtrack and dialogue overdub inserts. Yet, Resurrectio feels like a talking film, not just a silent; instead of making a silent film with some concession to “talkies”, it tackles the dilemmas and ingenuity needed for sound production head on. With its emphasis on “off-screen” dialogue cut into the soundtrack, the film early on establishes an emphasis on off-screen characters and action; regularly the film focuses on hands or object as characters converse, or relegates people, back-turned, to the far ends or corners of the frame. Nor does the film settle for static compositions; an early scene in an Art Deco nightclub finds the camera roving around with Ophulsesque energy. Only when a tracking shot ends with a closeup of a person does the dialogue soundtrack get spliced in. This is also a thoroughly musical film, about as filled with melody as a film can get without being a Musical or Operetta. The musical soundtrack isn’t mere accompaniment; the film is divided into two musical movements, and composer Amedeo Escobar gets a big enough credit (and later, blatant piece of self-promotion) that one perhaps should consider him a co-auteur. The film is wallpapered with music, and even before music reveals itself as being a major thematic point, the various pieces suggest themselves as the primary unifying structure of the film, and a unifying element of cosmopolitan life.

If the film eventually succumbs to fascist heroics – a scene of social terror silenced by a lone charismatic genius – it’s the energy and inclusivity of this urban-musicality that truly carries the film. This is a film both influenced and building on Walter Ruttmann and his Berlin, adding actual music to the rhythmic-montage. While the film is too focused on the central melodrama to become a city symphony proper, the nervous energy overflowing from urban life is always at the edges of the narrative, culminating in the social panic of the ending, but also informing the film’s sense of romance and new beginnings. Despite the fascism in its finale, for the majority of its runtime, the film is in the lineage of similar works by Pal Fejos, Jean Vigo and Menschen am Sonntag. Perhaps a minor masterpiece of the great transition.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#139 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Fri Sep 28, 2018 5:32 am

Cold Bishop wrote:
Sat Sep 22, 2018 11:19 pm

Sidenote #2: It’s worth noting that this film was preceded by another proto-French polar, In the Name of the Law in 1932, which supposedly played the mood much more seriously. I’m curious to see it, but currently only available with Spanish subtitles.
If it helps it is also available in the Tourneur box set with French HOH subs. Tourneur's intention was to do a documentary style police procedural in a sort of proto-Naked City style but Vanel's star quality presence and Tourneur's impeccable framing using the 1.20:1 ratio to it's limit seems to have got the better of the idea. Well worth the viewing particularly if interested in early gestation and flourishes of Noir.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#140 Post by knives » Sat Sep 29, 2018 10:28 pm

The Women (dir. Cukor)
This is pretty great utilizing Cukor's tendencies against their usual purpose. This is as elegant and clean a film as he ever made, but with some hard sarcasm and a plot in loath with its setting that beauty becomes a sterile prism highlighting in a sense why it renders stories mediocre so often. Naturally the plot between Crawford and Shearer is where the bulk of the film's thoughts are, but I would argue that third billed Rosalind Russell, in the best performance I've seen from here, is the heart and soul of the movie. She's charming and beautiful, but leading an empty life where the machine she's an effective cog in exists just to keep her down. Her being so central also highlights what makes this film deliciously complex. As nasty and inhumane as Manhattan is it is very attractive. We even get a six minute colour non-sequitur that seems to exist just to swim in shallow delight. Delightful it is too, but the cost is probably too much. It really is shocking this didn't get at least one oscar nomination.

Boys Town (dir. Taurog)
This seems to be devised as a combining of things that worked in the past. Taurog is good with children, Tracey is a priest, Rooney is a fast talking wise ass (It is funny how unlike Andy Hardy all his other roles are with this antisemitic, racist being as far as the '30s would let him). This stuff is familiar, but the recipe works into a pretty good movie. It would have been a great movie without the ham that Rooney is obliged to bring, but it only undermines things slightly. It is also interesting how this overlaps with The Road to Life since it highlights the difference each culture felt about social support both in broad ways (obviously the Soviet version is more friendly to the idea) and in smaller ways.

Moby Dick (dir. Bacon)
This is a strange beast to say the least. Barrymore, looking a million years old, basically plays himself drunkedly going through scenes that suggest the book. Rather than a serious movie this films more like one of those films star comedians would do from time to time, such as A Carmen on Burlesque, where they insert themselves into some literary adaptation. So if your idea of a good time at the movies is the John Barrymore character stumbling around a church or going after Joan Bennett who is so baby faced (I didn't even know she was acting this early) that it makes Barrymore feel all the more out of place. It really is one of the most distancing age disparities I've ever seen. That said this is an interesting idea even if it flops most of the time. In the back half it gets moody with touches of the original book thrown in suggesting a better film, but that just goes further to making this a compelling mess.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#141 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Sep 30, 2018 1:06 pm

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Le Quai des brumes (Carné 1938). I saw this about a decade ago and didn’t remember it being this good. My initial impression was of a good, noteworthy film, but somewhat forced and contrived relative to Renoir’s work in the same period – the mixing of grittiness with stylization, pre-neo-realism with a little “Hollywood” glamour thrown in (check out Michèle Morgan’s make-up and lighting). This time I just found the thing not only atmospherically alluring but extremely well-written, and just romantic as hell and overall irresistible. I was a sucker even for the little dog tugging at my heartstrings.


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Dodsworth (Wyler 1936). A remarkably mature and modern treatment of marital life and problems, which is probably why this stayed in my memory as something warranting a revisit. I don’t think it’s a stellar film – you get to a point near the middle where the repetition of the pattern involving Dodsworth’s wife’s actions starts to drag a bit, before things take a surprising turn with still a third of the movie to go -, but it’s a lot more than workmanlike, going on the strength and originality of the material mostly.


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The Public Enemy (Wellman 1931). This time around what really struck me is how impressively this is filmed: the choice of shots, angles, how the camera moves, the editing. Masteful, a really impressive thing of beauty, especially this early on in the sound era. I’m ranking it above Scarface.


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The Gay Divorcee (Sandrich 1934). For me Swing Time is by far the most satisfying of the Astaire-Rogers films, and Top Hat has some glorious moments, but this really isn’t that far behind. The music, dancing, romance and comedy are all strong – in fact it might be the funniest of them. The Continental is really a fun and delightful sequence too, and surprises with its length. But overall other films have stronger dance-and-song numbers.


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Romeo and Juliet (Cukor 1936). Cukor directs another very good adaptation of a classic. Of course the sore point is how, age-wise, Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer are ill-fitted for the lead roles (let’s not even mention mid-50s John Barrymore as Mercutio!) but the material isn’t dumbed down, the sets are lavish and wonderful, and the acting is very fine. Shearer in particular is very committed and draws the viewer in.


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Morocco (Von Sternberg 1930). This film quite seduced me the first time I saw it and used to be my favorite of the Sternberg-Dietrichs. I’m still charmed by the atmosphere, the slow hypnotic pace, and that magical ending scene and shot. But even though this film is about the elusiveness and mystery of passion, it can be a bit frustrating at times to not only not figure out Amy’s motivations, but even more so Tom Brown’s (why does he decide suddenly to leave her behind?). Then there’s the bigger problem of Cooper’s uneven performance, with occasionally some very bad line readings (a feature in the majority of his films, I’d argue).

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#142 Post by knives » Fri Oct 05, 2018 3:36 pm

Dodge City (dir. Curtiz)
Maybe I'm just easy to please, but I found this a fun run through the Earp tropes with Flynn giving a surprisingly breezy performance. The more typical western bits like the stuff with the train at the end sinks this to okay, but the development of this as a kind of mundane world where simple actions are enough to enforce law and order is a fascinating choice.
SpoilerShow
Also that kid from Boy's Town is in this and again gets run over. Clearly he should avoid vehicles.
Sons of Liberty (dir. Curtiz)
This is an extra on the above disc. It also shows these historical films didn't have to suck eggs just as long as you have talented actors and crew. This is also obscure enough of a figure to make it exciting to get this high glossed information. It's also fascinating to see how the movie deals with him being Jewish in light of the semi-ban on explicit depictions of Jews under the Hays code. It seems, in fact, that basically no books have been written about him with appearances in kids books and encyclopedias on Jewish Americans being all that seriously come up.

Night Must Fall (Dir. Thorpe)
Admittedly in the hands of a Hitchcock this could have been a masterpiece, but even with Thorpe's workman like effort the script and performances are so fascinating as an ugly look at ugly people being ugly that it is near impossible not to be taken with it. Montgomery in particular is great balancing a certain absurdity to his character (he looks and sounds like Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot) while making him genuinely creepy in a way I can only call Marnie like. Russell is something of a weak point. She's amazing in comedic roles, but this dramatic one that feels like the left overs to a Bette Davis old maid film does her little favors. She ultimately does good in the role, but there are other stars who could have done it better. I suppose that's a good summary of this film which doesn't measure up to its potential, but is still great enough that it should be a must see.

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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#143 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Oct 07, 2018 1:02 pm

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42nd Street (Bacon 1933). Terrific cast for the original classic backstager, but this time I felt that until we get to the spectacular ending it’s a cute but not too particularly remarkable comedy.


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Tiger Shark (Hawks 1932). I had trouble seeing why I originally thought more of this minor film. Like many early Hawks films (Scarface notably excepted), it’s rough around the edges and weirdly eccentric (like those lengthy proto-neorealistic fishing scenes). There is something to be said, I guess, for the way Robinson, as the quasi tragi-comic Mexcian American tunafish boat captain, drives this film with his energy.


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The Girl from the Marsh Croft (Sierck/Sirk 1935). There’s a French 4-dvd pack of Sirk films from the Nazi UFA period (only French subs though) that would make an ideal Sirk in Germany Criterion Eclipse set. They’re all worthy but this one, the earliest, is my favorite. This melodrama (adapted earlier in the silent era by Sjöström about the controversial consequences of a young farmer bringing home a shamed girl as hired help) has prototypical Sirkian elements like the oppressiveness of the social conventions and the theme of entrapment. Despite the pat happy ending, there’s a potency to the film, and there are several moments where the director’s visual intelligence and originality is already on full display.


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Dishonored (Von Sternberg 1931). I must have been sleepy and not paying too much attention when I originally saw this because it’s so much better than I remembered. There’s both more style and irony here than in Morocco, but not so over the top that it doesn’t work as a story. Love the use of the cat and those long dissolves. The one sore point was that it didn’t make much sense that X-27 fell for this guy.


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Maytime (Leonard 1937). The Macdonald-Eddy operetta musicals tend to be overlooked (admittedly the musical style is more antiquated, and there isn’t the modern irony of a Lubitsch) but different as they are from the MacDonald-Chevalier films, they’ve got their own virtues. Out of the eight, this one was the one I’d ranked the highest initially (with Naughty Marietta and, surprisingly, the western musical The Girl of the Golden West, both from this decade, close second and third – the well-known Rose Marie I found too corny and far less enchanting, despite a couple of well-known numbers). Here MacDonald plays a mid-19th century opera singer who’s about to get married to her svengali (John Barrymore) but then meets up with an immediately amorous and incredibly persistent American student in Paris. The MGM sets and staging become yet more opulent, in this at once more grandiose and serious pairing of MacDonald and Eddy, especially towards the end.

Like all of their films, it isn’t perfect, but this goes from good to very good depending on the scene, with solid writing, acting and singing all the way through. MacDonald, especially, is at her best, and the filmmakers aren’t afraid of loading up on the staged opera scenes in French. Give some of these films a chance if you like MacDonald and have never seen them.


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La Belle Équipe (Duvivier 1936). To me clearly the director’s best film. A great script around the theme of friendship, despite the inevitable Duvivier ending. That moment when Jean tells Charles he proposes they go to tell Gina together they’re through with her so that he’ll believe in his sincerity towards him is moving. This is also a gorgeous film. The wild expressionism that defined the look of La Bandera is here almost completely absent. There are times, such as when the camera tracks to singing or music the trees and water, you’d think you were in a Renoir film.


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Wuthering Heights (Wyler 1939). The film starts off a bit stiffly, and there are clumsy and less successful scenes involving Heathcliff and Cathy on the moors. I read the novel so long ago that I don’t remember if Cathy’s changes of heart come across as radically changing and abrupt as they do here. The film really picks up once Cathy marries and Heathcliff comes back from America, when the drama really starts to engage, and the ending (in the main flashback chunk of the film) is stirring. As is often the case with Wyler, it’s the acting that’s the strongest element (Olivier is particularly good), and there’s a good example of it in the scene played only with the eyes at the dance as we feel Cathy finding out Heathcliff is still intent on pursuing her and only using Isabella.

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Tommaso
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#144 Post by Tommaso » Mon Oct 08, 2018 3:30 am

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 1:02 pm
There’s a French 4-dvd pack of Sirk films from the Nazi UFA period (only French subs though) that would make an ideal Sirk in Germany Criterion Eclipse set.
I agree, but unfortunately that French set misses what for me is the most impressive of all the early films Sierck/Sirk made in Germany, the stunning 1936 Schlußakkord. Sirkian society drama at its best, the story revolves around the wife of a famous conductor who tries to improve marital affairs by adopting a child. But the child's real mother comes home from the US and wants to get her child back or at least be near to the boy, so she takes on a job as a nanny in the conductor's household. Various tensions arise, of course, not least because the wife is also blackmailed by a shady astrologer with whom she had an affair. Brilliant direction on Sirk's part, impressive camerawork by Robert Baberske, and Lil Dagover delivers what might well be one of the greatest performances of her career. It's beyond me why this masterpiece isn't even out on dvd in Germany, but if you can find it - complete with custom subs - via the backchannels, don't miss it. Definitely on my list.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#145 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:45 am

Rayon Vert wrote:Image
La Belle Équipe (Duvivier 1936). To me clearly the director’s best film. A great script around the theme of friendship, despite the inevitable Duvivier ending. That moment when Jean tells Charles he proposes they go to tell Gina together they’re through with her so that he’ll believe in his sincerity towards him is moving. This is also a gorgeous film. The wild expressionism that defined the look of La Bandera is here almost completely absent. There are times, such as when the camera tracks to singing or music the trees and water, you’d think you were in a Renoir film.
Renoir used all his influence and guile to try and wrestle this project away from Duvivier who stuck to his guns for what I agree to be his best film

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sinemadelisikiz
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#146 Post by sinemadelisikiz » Mon Oct 08, 2018 7:07 pm

I'd be curious to hear more from y'all that think Le Belle Equipe is Duvivier's best (of what I've seen, that would probably be Un carnet de bal for me). Perhaps it was the victim of heightened expections, but I saw it for the first time a couple months ago, and while there was a lot to like, I found it really tonally confused. The more melodramatic elements rubbed up against the looser comedic vibe of the beginning to the point of being jarring. Knowing that Renoir wanted in on this project makes a lot of sense though.

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domino harvey
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#147 Post by domino harvey » Thu Oct 11, 2018 11:44 pm

knives wrote:
Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:03 am
domino harvey wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:22 pm
Also, Cold Bishop, in honor of you adopting the best post formatting, I'll bump Sylvia Scarlett up in my viewing queue
It's probably Hepburn's best of the decade so definitely not a poor choice.
It gives me no great pleasure to say so, but I dutifully watched Sylvia Scarlett as promised and hated it. Hyperbole stronger than even my usual brand constantly came to mind while viewing: worst Hepburn performance, obviously-- turns out contemporary critical notices were too kind if anything; worst Cukor movie-- I hope, I don't want to see one worse than this; worst film I've watched specifically for this project-- sadly accurate, unless one counts sitting through Up Pops the Devil for the Lombard thread. I thought Cold Bishop did a great and noble job extolling the virtues as he saw them, but I think he hit the film's biggest problem dead-on when he described it as a hangout film. This movie presents a variable I hadn't considered, because these kind of movies are usually so great, but: what happens if you are stuck in a hangout film where you cannot stand every single character on screen? This movie had everything going for it-- con artists, bold sexual politics, gifted actors and director-- and blows it at every turn. I am not exaggerating when I say-- with the exception of parts of the finale on the train, which at least has a cute idea in the feigned ignorance of both lovebirds before blowing even that-- I hated every minute of this film. I found it obnoxious, idiotic, shrill, and an insult to decent Hollywood contrivance. If Cold Bishop is correct that this is a foundational text in queer studies, that saddens me on a deep level, as here's another atypical bad Hollywood film that reinforces negative misconceptions of the era's film-making quality for audiences not well-versed in the period.

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knives
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#148 Post by knives » Fri Oct 12, 2018 6:55 am

It's unfortunate it worked out they way for you. I suppose you do have to like the characters to like the movie and if you didn't persuasion can't work.

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TMDaines
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#149 Post by TMDaines » Fri Oct 12, 2018 7:00 am

Cold Bishop wrote:
Fri Sep 28, 2018 3:19 am
Resurrectio (Alessandro Blasetti, 1931)
Thanks, this is on my watchlist like all of Blasetti's output. Seen Palio yet? Not the greatest, but lovely to see Siena on film in the 1930s.

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domino harvey
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Re: The 1930s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#150 Post by domino harvey » Fri Oct 12, 2018 7:16 am

knives wrote:
Fri Oct 12, 2018 6:55 am
It's unfortunate it worked out they way for you. I suppose you do have to like the characters to like the movie and if you didn't persuasion can't work.
It is too bad. Though for the longest time I kept confusing this with Alice Adams and thought I'd already seen it, so I'm glad to at least be able to say I have now with more accuracy!

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