Chewers' 100 best films of the 1930s - Page 3

Love love love The Old Dark House. "Even Welsh ought not to sound like that..."

73. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

Starring: Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara

When we were doing Drafts a few years ago this was one of my picks as one of the greatest love stories ever made. A true classic on several levels and one that I revisit quite often.

74. Hollywood Hotel (1937) d: Busby Berkeley

Dick Powell has a great gig playing sax for Benny Goodman, but runs off to Hollywood when it looks like stardom is calling. He promptly lands at the bottom of the talent food chain, joined by a hustling photographer (Ted Healy) and an aspiring actress (Rosemary Lane) whose resemblance to an established star (her real-life sister Lola Lane) keeps her from getting jobs. Rowdy, spoofy showbiz story with lots of familiar faces and cameos. Berkeley keeps the musical numbers reality-based this time around-- there's a terrific sequence built around a drive-in burger joint-- and Goodman & co (including Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton) play the HELL out of "Sing, Sing, Sing". Look quick for young Ronald Reagan as a radio announcer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

Yep. Triumph Of The Will exists & it is a sickening thing. But it's craftmanship & ingenuity can't be denied. As a student of film, you cannot look at that movie & not think, "Holy shit, I didn't even know that shot/edit was f*cking possible".

Yeah. Riefenstahl was hired to sell Hitler, and she did a fucking good job of it. More's the pity.

Until and unless something worse comes along, it's going to be the all-time example of style versus substance. The style is masterful. The substance is vile.

75. Treasure Island (1934)

Starring: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Nigel Bruce

This is still my favorite adaptation of Stevenson's novel to date. Wallace Beery is perfect as Long John Silver.

76. Roman Scandals (1933) d. Frank Tuttle

Not a great film, by any stretch, and in terms of Berkeley choreography both Gold Diggers and Hollywood Hotel are more 'iconic'. But there's a charm and style to this film which I find inescapable. It's a big, bawdy, and slapstick.

Essentially this is an hour long dream sequence, set largely in the court of a Roman Emperor. The plot largely follows various attempts to kill the Emperor and how each attempt fails, but it's really essentially a screwball comedy with extravagent dance numbers. Eddie Cantor is the heart of the film, with an almost constant stream of risque one-liners, whilst Berkeley goes all out to make Rome as salacious as possible using his columns of dancing girls. It's a film with a lot of problems, it's not got enough energy to maintain it;'s runtime, but it's major setpieces are so much fun and the songs so ear-catching that it's hard not to like the film.

77. 20th Century (1934) d: Howard Hawks

During the early years of Talkies, the flight of New York actors to Hollywood was a recurrent topic on both stage and screen. This is one of the top two, and I'll get to the other later on. John Barrymore and Carole Lombard drive each other crazy throughout: He's a domineering Broadway impresario and she's the actress he coached to stardom-- now she's catching a train to California and he's giving chase, intent on convincing her she's nothing without him (and that, just maybe, he can't live without her, personally or professionally). Barrymore the stage legend and Lombard the rising starlet are an unexpectedly perfect match, supported ably by Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, and fantastic dialogue by Hecht & MacArthur. Along with It Happened One Night, screwball comedy started here.

78. Wuthering Heights (1939)

Starring: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Geraldine Fitzgerald

When I was a teenager I absolutely loved this movie. This is a movie I need to revisit as it has been easily 10 years since I last saw it.

There's a couple of us still hanging in this. Although the 30's were a great decade for movies, I have discovered that there are a lot of people (young and old) who are limited on what they have seen from this decade.

Thank goodness for Greta Garbo and Bette Davis! Since they are my 2 favorite actresses of all-time I have some great stuff still to choose from.

79. Jesse James (1939) d. Henry King

I saw this back in 2009 when I was really getting into the history of Jesse James, after I'd fallen in love with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and remember being really drawn to it, but not quite putting my finger on why. I think the reason I enjoyed it so much was Henry Fonda as Frank James. Even though he isn't the titular character Fonda dominates the film for me, much like he does in several other movies. What's interesting about the film is how it spins Jesse James as some-sort of mythical folk-hero, an American Robin Hood, who was more of a rogue than a murdering thief. This tone, and it's use of law-men as antagonists, gives the film a surprisingly anti-establishment feel, well beyond it's time. In fact my real issue with the film is that Frank James disappears from the last act of the film and we're forced to settle with Tyrone Power who is fun, but doesn't have the same presence as Fonda.

80. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

I saw this a couple of years ago on dvd because it was included with the Spencer Tracy version. The 1931 take on Robert Louis Stevenson's novel puts the Tracy version to shame. Fredic March throws himself into playing both Jekyll and Hyde, and won a much deserved Oscar for the performance.

The transformation sequences remain visually stunning. Check it out for yourself.

Ah, Dr. Jekyll was going to be my pick today. The early talkies tended to be static affairs due to the restrictive new technology, and Rouben Mamoulian was one of the first directors to insist that the camerawork in his films remain mobile and fluid. Check out that POV sequence at the beginning!

81. Design For Living (1933) d: Ernst Lubitsch

"It was my unprotected rear that cost me Waterloo..."

The old two-guys-and-a-girl plot, with a difference. Best friends Fredric March and Gary Cooper both fall in love with Miriam Hopkins, and she falls in love with both of them-- first alternately, then simultaneously. Everybody tries to be civil and proper but a threesome looms, and to its enduring credit the film endorses this arrangement as the only workable solution. Funny and sexy, with much going on between the lines and behind the doors.

84. Black Legion (1937) d: Archie Mayo

Complacent factory worker Humphrey Bogart sees 'his' promotion go to a studious, deserving immigrant. His jealousy and misplaced sense of disenfranchisement make him easy pickings for a shadowy quasi-political organization. Warner Bros was the 'socially-conscious' studio, and this is one of their strongest pre-War anti-fascist statements. I was shocked to learn that there was in fact such an group active in the '30s: sadly, one could remake the film for today and not need to change a word.

85. Red Dust (1932) d: Victor Fleming

A womanizing rubber planter is reformed by a fugitive prostitute. Man, I love pre-Code films. Harlow smolders, but more important than that she's hilarious, and it was this sense of humor that won over her more severe critics and allowed her to upstage Clark Gable and Mary Astor, her more respected co-stars. I'd like to add:

86: Bombshell (1933) d: Victor Fleming

... a straight-up comedy in which Harlow plays an overworked movie star very much like herself, to the point that we see her doing re-shoots for Red Dust. She yearns for a normal life, but in Hollywood there's no such thing and nobody to tell her different, and her unscrupulous manager (Lee Tracy) makes sure it stays that way so she'll keep working. The fact that this has never been released on R1 DVD is unconscionable.

87. Follow the Fleet (1936) d: Mark Sandrich

My favorite Astaire/Rogers film. Along with Top Hat it marks the duo's transition from supporting characters to leads, as they have more or less equal screen time with the 'straight' pairing of Randolph Scott and Harriet Hilliard. Irving Berlin's songs are worked into the story organically, largely thanks to Max Steiner's score, and there's a good balance of comic numbers and classy duets. "Let's Face The Music And Dance" is the iconic sequence, but I keep returning to Astaire's breezy solo piano version of "I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket".

88.

1939                                 dir. Ernst Lubitsch

Garbo stars as a cold, emotionless Russian bureaucrat who succumbs to the relentless charms of Melvyn Douglas while on official Soviet business in Paris. Co-written by a young Billy Wilder (his fingerprints are all over this thing), Lubitsch's Ninotchka is a whip smart & surprisingly laugh out loud funny "feel good" flick that is both of it's time & waaay ahead of it.

89. Sons of the Desert (1933) d: William A. Seiter

Perhaps the definitive Laurel & Hardy film, establishing a sitcom staple that endures to this day: the boys plan to attend a wild out-of-town convention but fear their wives will object. Ollie devises a grand deception and browbeats Stan into abetting it. Things go right, then very, very wrong. And remember, honesty is the best policy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeplesslumber 

You are the King of this thread Hammerhead, the King.

Shucks, I'm just old enough to have been around when vintage movies didn't only play on cable stations. I miss the late show on Channel 2, via which I discovered so many titles I wouldn't otherwise have thought to seek out.

91. Stage Door (1937) d: Gregory La Cava

Katharine Hepburn leads a once-in-a-lifetime roster of legendary comediennes, including Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden and Lucille Ball, as a group of struggling actresses sharing a boarding house. It's easy to forget that this film was make-or-break for Hepburn's career, and that her oft-imitated reading of the line "The calla lilies are in bloom again..." was in fact a strategic bit of self-parody. Watch for the tap duet Rogers shares with Ann Miller, and marvel that Miller, who'd lied about her age to get work, was only 14 at the time.

92. Daybreak aka. Le Jour Se Leve (1939) - d. Marcel Carne

I remember watching this in film class because it was the first film to ever use dissolves to represent a flashback. It's hilarious because you get the dissolve, which is now the standard 'flashback is happening now' indicator but you also have a title card explaining that "A man has committed murder. Locked, trapped in his room he thinks back on his actions".

Aside from this technical innovation the film is a real piece of work, with an amazing sense of doom hanging throughout its entire narrative. There's an existential horror which winds it's way throughout the entire film and it seems to be tied into the real life changes taking place in France at the time. There's a mean, nihilistic, spirit to the film and the tone never lets up. It's a real intellectual masterwork and it really deserves more recognition.

I've got quite a few to add to this list, so I'm just going to add one every few hours and hope that other people chip in as we move towards the end.

93. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) - d. Kenji Mizoguchi

I actually didn't realise this was a 1930s film until a few days ago, the BFI version I have states it as being from 1940 for some reason. This is probably my favourite movie by Mizoguchi, who I view as one of the underrated Japanese masters, and really shows where his craft really lay. His work is often overshadowed by his peer Ozu and his successor Kurosawa (who was massively influenced by Mizoguchi and was deeply troubled when his work was compared and contrasted with Mizoguchi's work on an international stage) but there's something resolutely original about Mizoguchi's work which sets him apart.

Whilst Ozu was interested in subverting and critiquing societal norms and Kurosawa wore his western influences on his sleeve Mizoguchi was very much a traditionialist and this is apparent in this movie which follows of an aspiring Kabuki actor who is constantly in his father's shadow and who is desperate to make something of himself. The movie essentially contrasts the struggles of this young actor against the rigid societal conventions of Japan in the 1800s. Reviled by his fellow performers over his lack of talent, but never confronted with this truth, he is eventually confronted with someone who highlights his shortcomings and allows him to see his own failings and better himself.

There's a stark family drama at the heart of the film, but the film never comes across as maudlin or soap operaish, it just feels factual and wonderful.

94: L'Atalante (1934) d: Jean Vigo

Vigo was dead of a lifelong illness, at 29, before he could see this film released. Appreciation for his works would not come until years later. Once you know that, it's impossible to watch L'Atalante without encountering the powerful feeling that he was compelled, with every frame, to say everything he needed to say before it was too late. The story is simple: a boatman takes a wife. But their dreams and memories and fantasies are everywhere. Michel Simon is wonderful as the old engineer, and the scene in which he re-enacts a wrestling match remains utterly unique.

95. Queen Christina (1933) - d. Rouben Mamoulian

Greta Garbo is the defining presence in this lavish telling of the life of Swedish Queen Christina. Taking an expressionistic view of a Seventeenth Century Swedish Court Rouben Mamoulian constructures a film built around the rapturous performance of it's star.

Largely fictionialising the life of the Queen the film largely focuses on Christina's dealings and battles with enemies inside and outside of Sweden and her growing affection for a Spanish Amabassador. Essentially it's a love story about a woman torn between love and duty and the toll that takes on her and although the film misrepresents several facts of Christina's life like Coppolla's 'Marie Antoniette' it finds a certain emotional truth. It's all perfectly summed up by the final image of Christina on the deck of a ship, abandoned by all, looking into the distance with a calm resolve.

Goddamn, this thread could be submitted into the Smithsonian. So many great films, many of which I've only just discovered here.

Because, fuck it.

96. Olympia (1938) - d. Leni Riefensthal

Ugly politics aside this is possibly one of the great sports documentaries which documents the 1936 Olympic Games.

There is an Aryan subtext, and obvious political subtext to the film, but no other movie has ever quite captured the dynamism of human athleticism like this movie does. It's the sort of film which turns sportmens into almost deities, their every movement and contortion captured with the kind of reverence usually reserved for art. The pacing, the rhythm, the style of this movie are just amazing and divorced from the Nazi politics it's just an ode to the sheer artistry of human movement. Riefensthal was even awarded by the Olympic committee in 1948 for her work on this film.

I mean just look at this excerpt

97: Peter Ibbetson (1935) d: Henry Hathaway

A delirious tale of star-crossed lovers who can only be together in their dreams, captured with hallucinatory clarity by the great cinematographer Charles Lang. Absolutely the last thing you'd expect of a meat-and-potatoes director like Hathaway, or of a regular-guy star like Gary Cooper. Reportedly, this was Luis Bunuel's favorite Hollywood film and you can see why.

98. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) - d. Frank Lloyd

A massive, big budget, telling of the historical Mutiny on the Bounty which saw Captain William Bligh ousted from command by his crew. Lloyd films this like a travelogue of sorts, taking the time to carefully establish the geography of the Bounty itself and the seas and islands it interacts with. There's a real sense of adventure and daring in the film, with large segments of the film actually shot on location around Tahiti. The film turns Bligh into a truly monstous human being and Charles Laughton brings a smirking, evil, menance to the character as he tortures and terrorises his crew. It's overlong, but an amazing spectacle.

99. Night Nurse (1931) d: William Wellman

Straight-up crime thriller with side orders of sex and comedy. It's hard to choose just one Barbara Stanwyck film this late in the list, but I love the mama-bear vibe she has going here. She's a candy-striper in a city hospital who discovers that a child patient is being systematically poisoned by greedy relatives angling for an inheritance. Chauffeur Clark Gable is in on it too. So she turns to the one man she can trust... a low-level gangster. The final shot is such a dirty joke I can't believe it got past the censors even in Pre-Code days.

100. The Baker's Wife (1938) - d. Marcel Pagnol

An amiable and humanistic tale of small town love and the hijinks that ensue. The singularly named Raimu plays a cuckolded villager baker who heartbroken over the desertion by his wife stops producing his wares. The village, unable to maintain itself without bread, has to then lift their desponded baker from his malaise before they all starve. Raimu is a delight in this, shifting effortlessly from outright pathos to over the top slapstick comedy and he is amazingly supported by an ever expanding cast who bounce off Raimu.

Filmed with simple precision by Pagnol the movie is almost a stage play on celluloid, but Pagnol maintains a tone and allows all of his cast their moments to shine.

And that's how you do it. Perfect finish, Spike.

Gotta say, that's one of the best lists I've seen. Really impressed at the effort and thought everyone put into this. I'll get a collage done at some point like I usually do and I'm going to use this as a reference point when I try and brush up on my cinema history next year.

Done and done,

http://www.listal.com/list/chewers-top-100-films-1930s

Hot damn, that's gorgeous. This thread was class.

You can see a bigger version here, http://cdn.chud.com/e/e0/e08bbe0e_Filmsofthe1930s.png

I also realised we didn't have a number 83 so I put Footlight in.

Upon closer inspection, Robin Hood's poster is the 70s Disney version.

Updated the original, big version here http://cdn.chud.com/9/91/91306d4d_Filmsofthe1930s.png

I think I was do desperate to not put the Erotic Adventure of Robin Hood, which has a really similar poster, into the list that I ended up fucking up.

Supoib. And now, the also-rans: Baby Face, Three on a Match, The Good Fairy, Easy Living, Midnight, Gunga Din, Monkey Business, A Star Is Born, Nothing Sacred, Mad Love, The Mystery of the Wax Museum, Love Me Tonight, Men In White, Theodora Goes Wild, Private Lives...

I'm in. It'll take some commitment though.