Chewers' 100 best films of the 1930s - Page 2

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".

If Triumph of the Will  is too problematic, one can always substitute Olympia (1938):

After viewing the evidence, I fully support this substitution.

40. Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)  dir. Michael Curtiz

41. Captain Blood (1935) dir. Michael Curtiz

Still the best pirate movie ever.

42. Shanghai Express (d: Josef von Sternberg, 1932)

"I'm not proud of my white blood."

For me, the pinnacle of the von Sternberg/Dietrich collaboration. It's hypnotic and visionary while still keeping a toe in reality. There's also a great supporting performance from Anna May Wong.

43. My Man Godfrey (1936) d. Gregory La Cava

William Powell + Carole Lombard = a Screwball masterpiece

44. Frankenstein (1931) d. James Whale

Uh, this must have been an oversight. "Bride" is on the list but not the original. Truly a classic, iconic piece of film making.

I'm gonna add another since that one was such a no-brainer:

45. Vampyr (1932) d. Carl Theodor Dreyer

An eerie, dream-like early horror film filled with stark, creepy imagery. The view from inside the coffin freaks me out.

Triumph definitely deserves to be on this list.

I've got two more choices for my man Lang.

The first is

46. Fury (1936) d. Fritz Lang

The first of Lang's American films, and the template for his later Noir films, this movie follows the story of a man who barely escapes a lynching and plots his revenge. Building on the tone and themes of M, Fury is a gritty, grimy, examination of revenge and the seedier side of life. What's amazing about this film is that it functions both as a proto-Noir movie and also as a proto-revenge film with all the usual tropes being crystallised in this film. In fact it's hard to imagine the likes of Death Wish, Oldboy, Cape Fear existing without this film.

What is interesting is that the film's vengeance is largely intellectual and the last half of the film largely plays as a morality tale. Spencer Tracy is phenomenal as the 'hero' Joe, a man so consumed by anger that he blindly sets out on a path of vengeance only to realise what he's doing when it's almost too late. Tracy gives Joe, a character who exists for the plot to happen to him, surprisingly relatable and likeable, giving him a quiet sort of dignity even when his life is unfurling around him.

There are elements of Lang's older films in this, an early scene where word of Joe's imprisonment travels around town and grows more distorted with each telling harkens back to M, whilst the fury of the fire and the machinations of his revenge bring to mind Dr. Mabuse. But more than anything else this represents the start of Lang's American career and the amazing films he'd produce as part of the Hollywood system.

Thanks for putting that together Sleepless.

47. Dark Victory (1939)

One of Bette's first major roles, and it features a young up and comer in a bit role (Bogart). Bette and George Brent are simply magnificent in the lead roles. The story is a bit corny in some places but I believe that is due to the times it was made more than anything. If you want to see the greatest actress of all time in her younger days, look no further than this little gem.

If some of you are having problems finding movies from this decade look no further than here,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930s_in_film

48. Harvest (Regain, 1937) d: Marcel Pagnol

Deceptively simple and elegant tale of a mismatched couple and the small farm they work together. You can feel their hard-won sweat and their pride in accomplishment. Fernandel is an irreproducible presence.

49. The Public Enemy (1931) d. William Wellman

It's been said that modern acting began the moment Cagney walked across the screen in this movie. It's a whirlwind performance.

50. You Only Live Once (1937) d. Fritz Lang

Loosely based on the story of Bonnie and Clyde 'You Only Live Once' loses some of Lang's thematic work, but lays down the stark, increasingly claustrophobic, style that would denote Lang's American style. Henry Fonda owns the screen as Eddie Taylor, a hard done-by ex-con who finally proves everyone right when he's implicated in a murder. Fleeing from his home with his wife and young child he sets out across America. What's amazing about this film is Fonda's performance, because he essentially plays Eddie as the kind of guy you wouldn't really want anything to do with. He tries his best, but he's just kind of bad news. Towering over most of the cast Fonda is magnetic, but he never betrays the spirit of the character. He's wrong done-by, but he's still rash and weaselly. The real protagonist of the film is Sylvia Sidney as Eddie's wife, a person who genuinely believes in her husbands good nature, but is repulsed by his increasing desperation. There's an uneasy chemistry between them which is at times electric. Despite a few odd moments, the version I saw still held the same cuts from it's original release and as such you can tell where violence has been cut around, it's a bracing, brooding work.

51. The Awful Truth (1937) d. Leo McCarey

I adore the Cary Grant/ Irene Dunne team ups. And push come to shove, this is my fave Grant Screwball. This is the movie where he really developed his persona.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

35. Bringing Up Baby (1938) d. Howard Hawks

 

Whilst this isn't Cary Grant's first leading role, it feels like the debut of his assured persona.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Elvis 

51. The Awful Truth (1937) d. Leo McCarey

 

This is the movie where he really developed his persona.

I feel a ruction coming on.
 

Hey man, Bogdanovich agrees with me!

Nice write up on FURY, by the way.

52. Trouble In Paradise (1932) - d. Enrst Lubitsch

The Lubitsch Touch.  Herbert Marshall is caught between smoking hot Kay Francis and smoking hot Miriam Hopkins.  The '30s knew how to do "classy" and this is a classy affair.

53. La Bête humaine (1938) d. Jean Renoir

Proto-noir? Is that a thing? A bit soap-operaish maybe, but elevated by Renoir's direction and a capable cast. Simone Simon is simply gorgeous:

List needs more Pre-Code.

54. The Sign of the Cross (1934) d: Cecil B. DeMille

DeMille had a famous formula for religious epics. Preach the dangers of sin... but FIRST depict the sin, in as much lurid detail as possible. On his path to salvation, lusty Roman centurion Marcus Superbus (Fredric March) leads us past Claudette Colbert up to her nipples in a milk bath, a lesbian dance number, Charles Laughton keeping a nude boy on a leash, Amazons and Pygmies hacking each other to bits, and tied-down Christian virgins menaced by gorillas and crocodiles. This, mind you, was no grindhouse quickie but a major studio release with A-list stars, beautiful photography and brilliant set design. Less than a year later, the Production Code office cracked down on what was and wasn't permissible in films and we had to go back to using our imaginations for a couple of decades.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Elvis 

Hey man, Bogdanovich agrees with me!

 

Nice write up on FURY, by the way.

Just breaking balls. The Awful Truth is probably the first time we see the Cary Grant persona, it just doesn't seem to have the same recognition as Bringing Up Baby.

Shit, didn't mean to kill the thread.

55. The Edge of the World (1937) d. Michael Powell

"Life as our fathers knew it is no longer possible"

Powell is perhaps best know for his collaboration with Emeric Presburger, or perhaps the polarising Peeping Tom, but this early solo outing gives a clear indication of what Powell brought as a filmmaker. Focusing on a remote Scottish island as it's young residents slowly move to the mainland The Edge of the World is a rumination on changing ways of life and ultimately on the death of a society. It's a film whose themes feel ahead of time and also glaring of their time, with Powell delivering a melancholic outlook on the ravages of modernity whilst balancing it with natural affection for his characters and a cheerily lyrical script. It's a film with a lot on it's mind, but it never loses track of it's audience and despite it's thematics it's core story is about relationships and people.

It's also fascinating to see Powell's directorial style when give free reign. His style is far more naturalistic and panoramic than his collaborations with Presburger would suggest, with The Edge of the World filled with sumptous cutaways to the rugged island terrain and held to the rhythm of the roaring waves.

If I can break out of my trance caused by that Claudette Colbert photo, I'll see if I can keep this list going:

56. Holiday (1938), d. G. Cukor

Of the Grant / Hepburn films, this isn't as heralded as Bringing Up Baby or Philadelphia Story, but I find it on par with those. One of George Cukor's best.

There's a really obvious one that no one's mentioned and I don't want to bring up because the last time I saw it I was about 9 years old, but after that I've probably got three or four more films I'd consider genuinely great before I start having to just list films from the 1930s I happen to have seen.

57. The Good Earth (1937)

Cannot believe this one has not been listed yet! Such a powerful movie and Paul Muni's finest performance. As good as Paul is, it's Luise Rainer who is the heart and soul and it is her performance that stands out.

Nice pick, really great film. I have a few issues with the casting, I know it was a staple of the time, but Americans playing Chinese farmers is just odd.

58. The Most Dangerous Game (1932) d. Irving Pichel

Really gaudy, but really fun adaptation of the 1920s book. The MVP of this film is Leslie Banks who plays sinister hunting enthusiast Count Zaroff with amazing amounts of relish. With his all black outfit, demonic goatee, and eloquent dialogue Zaroff feels like a serial villain come to life, Ming the Merciless with a taste for hunting. He's a satisfying main villain in a story that exists largely to entertain and horrify. The protagonists of the film are largely there to be victims and at times the film feels like more of a proto-slasher film than anything else.  The main action set-piece in which Zaroff hunts our heroes, Bob and Eve, across the island is expertly handled and the main confrontation at a waterfall is a perfect capper to it.  The film also seems to revel in it's pre-code transgression, really loading on the violence thickly. It's still shocking when we see the mounted head of one of Zaroff's victims and Zaroff's implied fate is one of those things that is utterly horrifying to think about.

59. Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)

Recently released by Criterion, this powerful, heartbreaking tale follows an elderly couple facing life after their children refuse to take them in. (Even the cover art makes me sad.) A Depression-Era tale that is uncomfortably timeless. How odd that something so depressing could be made by the director of The Awful Truth and Duck Soup!

That excellent cover art is by the indie comic book artist/writer Seth. His Drawn & Quarterly published Palookaville series is brilliant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eileen 

57. The Good Earth (1937)

 

Cannot believe this one has not been listed yet! Such a powerful movie and Paul Muni's finest performance. As good as Paul is, it's Luise Rainer who is the heart and soul and it is her performance that stands out.

I teach this novel, and I couldn't show it to my students. Besides the casting, it completely warps the story for a happy ending which doesn't exist in the book.  Paul Muni is good, so it deserves to be on the list, but ...meh. :D
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hammerhead 

29. Dodsworth (1936, d: William Wyler)

 

An exceptionally mature tale of late bloomers, as a well-off middle-aged American couple take a long-deferred European vacation and promptly discover they have nothing in common. Walter Huston (reprising his stage role) gives a performance of great subtlety, and Mary Astor seems to relish the opportunity to play a nice person for a change. I love movies that depict characters who are always open to new ideas and experiences-- this could double up well with Harry and Tonto.

Just saw this & I am completely, totally, madly in love with Mary Astor.

The film is pretty damn great & Wyler's direction is beautiful. 75 years on, the problems that face these characters are still very real & universal & it's incredible how grounded the film is. It refuses to cross the line into melodrama when it easily could have. Fran Dodsworth's meeting with her boyfriend's mother is brutal & it's amazing to see an old domestic drama like this be so emotionally raw, honest, & mature.

Glad you loved it!

60. Gunga Din (1939) d. George Stevens

Action adventure film with a heavy dose of comedy thrown in for good measure. I saw it on TCM about five years ago and thought it was very entertaining. Apparently a big influence on Speilberg and Lucas.

61. Island of Lost Souls (1933) d. Erle C. Kenton.

Bela Lugosi.  Charles Laughton.  The first and best adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau.  "What is the law?"

Unfortunately my knowledge of 1930's films is far too small and many of the ones I've seen were already mentioned, but I might as well bring up one:

62. Little Caesar (1931) d. Mervyn LeRoy

The film that made Edward G. Robinson a star and started the era of 30's gangster pictures. Still entertaining and fun to watch 80 years later, and whether or not you believe the idea that the title character is a closeted homosexual, it's a tough and gritty film you can enjoy in 2011.

63. The Lady Vanishes

Vintage, fun, populist Hitchcock. Pre WW2 paranoia, Hitch's permanent themes and buckets of fun.

And a tentative suggestion:

64. White Zombie.

Not a great movie by any means but an important one for genre cinema. And if we can't appreciate this here on CHUD where can we? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reasor 

61. Island of Lost Souls (1933) d. Erle C. Kenton.

 

Criterion, Halloween, first official disc release EVER. Very exciting.

65. Jezebel (1938)

Starring: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent

A solid period piece that still stands up today in large part because of the great acting by the three leads.

Rumor has it that the role of Jezebel was compensation for Bette because she did not get the role as Scarlett in GWTW. Whether true or not it is this movie that catapulted Bette to stardom and this was her first Oscar win.

66. The Raven (1935) d. Lew Landers

The film which broke Universal's love affair with Horror films. It's actually to see why this film caused a temporary distate for horror amongst the viewing public, as it's certainly a far more ambitious, darker work than anything that had come before. Selling itself on Karloff's performance, the actual film is driven by Bela Lugosi as Dr. Richard Vollin. Dr Vollin is perhaps the natural end point for the mad professors of the Universal horror movies, an arch and at times campy character who engulfs pretty much every scene he's in. Lugosi, not a particularly great thesp when forced to move out of his wheel-house, uses his general otherwordlyness to great effect in making Vollin feel like a genuinely volatile character.

The actual mechanics of the plot, with Vollin willfully disfiguring Karloff's murder-on-the run to indenture him into servitude and creating an elaborate series of death-traps, feels amazingly ahead of it's time. There's a nastiness and vindictiveness, and an a notion of Vollin as a villainous protagonist, to the film which seeps into every frame and really isn't alleviated by Vollin's last minute defeat. It's not a particularly well made film, but it's effective, and interesting, and still kind of unsettling.

67. Reefer Madness (1936)

Propaganda at it's funniest. Back in the day my friends would get stoned and laugh their asses off watching a shitty VHS copy of this film.

You could follow up Reefer Madness with this 1938 gem:

68.

directed by Sam Ne...who cares!  ALL-MIDGET CAST!

                 "Helluva thing, killin' a man.."

69.  'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1934) d. Hitchcock

Surprised nobody got this one.  Overshadowed by Hitch's own 1956 remake with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, I feel the original is superior.  Leslie Banks and Edna Best play a much calmer and more capable couple than Stewart and Day against Peter Lorre as the villain.  The vacationing family's relationship with the spy makes a little bit more sense, all with an action packed climax.

70. Union Pacific (1939) d. Cecil B. DeMille

One of my all-time favourite films and one I was surprised didn't get picked earlier. This film is essentially about the building of the railroads across the American West. DeMille presents this expansion of the railways as a personal feud between two former friends, both working to ultimately win the heart of the same woman. It's a sappy, melodramatic, point to hinge the plot on but it transforms what could be a fairly dry narrative into something broils with emotion. The film also has a lot on its mind about the distinctions between the East and West, with the West sort of signifying the common, working man and the East the affected wealthy gentry. The film continually makes the point of how workers on the railway are viewed as entirely expendable and it's hard to gauge just what DeMille himself thinks.

However the scope and sweep of this film is amazing, it's a film that just pulses with energy whilst juggling its thematics.

Have never seen that one Spike. Now I have to.

I am literally out of films from the 1930s that I've seen and remember well enough to write about. This isn't good.

71. Libeled Lady (1936).

Newspaperman Spencer Tracy publishes a story defaming society girl Myrna Loy as a homewrecker. Faced with a lawsuit, he persuades his long-suffering fiancee Jean Harlow to pose as a married couple with ladies' man William Powell-- Powell will seduce Loy, and Loy will be framed as the 'other woman' Tracy claimed her to be. Only... Powell falls in love with Loy, and Harlow develops a crush on Powell. Got it? It keeps going from there. Bonus: Walter Connolly as Loy's exasperated father.

I still can't believe Harlow was only 26 when she died.

72. The Old Dark House (1932) d. James Whale

James Whale’s wry send-up of the popular horror plays of the time actually has moments that put today’s so-called horror films to shame. Whale really went to town, bringing out a parade of increasingly wacko characters until there’s nowhere to go except fiery apocalypse. (Sounds like Barton Fink.) Raymond Massey, wife Gloria Stuart, and friend Melvyn Douglas are stranded near a sturdy old mansion inhabited by the ultimate dysfunctional family. Another couple, Charles Laughton (in fine form) and Lilian Bond, arrive later. The head of the house (Ernest Thesiger) enjoys baiting his fervently religious sister (Eva Moore); the hulking, mute butler (Boris Karloff) wastes no time getting drunk and going mad; and the upper reaches of the house conceal the 102-year-old patriarch (Elspeth Dudgeon, billed as “John Dudgeon”) and a cackling firebug (Brember Wells). It’s funny, scary, and weird — some scenes reminded me of the surreal discomfort of the dinner scene in Eraserhead. Whale may have intended it as an ironic comment on society’s view of gays (the family name is Femm); there’s also a strong whiff of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.”