The Chewers column begins! Speedrazor's "5 Influential Films from the '30's"

nice article speedrazor. short and sweet...a little shorter than i was expecting.

Yeah short and sweet is what i decided to go for. I'm hoping that the lengthy discussing of these films will proceed in this topic. What do you think of my choices? Which films would you have picked?

Once again it really is great to see my topic up on the site!!

Nice, I liked it. Be looking forward to the 40s.
I don't really know enough to question any of the choices, but it seems to me that they are all influential films. And it's been a while since I saw both M and Snow White (which was so long ago I hardly remember it). Gone with the wind... well I don't like it, but there's no denying its influence.

I have to say I'm pretty amazed you managed to cut it down to just those five for the 30s. I mean that was the frickin' golden age! I liked your choices though I'm hesitant about King Kong, I mean I love the movie but what about early Errol Flynn films like Captain Blood? Or any of the pairings of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I mean Flynn made the swashbuckler successful and the Fred and Ginger flicks proved the success of the musical.

I dunno. Five is just so hard to cut it down to in the 30s...such a great decade for films. I just hope you put For Me and My Gal in in the 40s for its introduction of Gene Kelly and Judy Garlands move to more adult fare...

Nice job, Speed. Good read.

Interesting choices Speed. I can't say I disagree with any of the choices, then again, I haven't many films from the 30's. I look forward to seeing your list from the 40's, the real golden age of movies.

Good stuff and definitely a topic I would have never thought of. And I had no idea Gone With the Wind came out in the 30's.

yeah i know! thats really the toughest bit, narrowing it down to five! you are right about it getting tougher with the later decades, i was thinking through the nineties and i think it will be damn near impossible to narrow down five films.

good thinking with captain blood and the fred and ginger flicks. its just so hard to narrow down, i tried to come up with some genre defining films, for me king kong was one of the first choices for me to add to that list, especially with the infuence it still has with movies today. every big effects extravaganza, every big monster film that followed in the forties and fifties, they are direct followers of kong.

one film i totally forgot about that would have had a great chance of being on my list was Triumph of the will. i completely forgot it was made in the 30's. the first big stepping stone for propaganda films. films like fahrenheit 9/11 take their cues from films like this. i guess if there were to be reasons not to add it to my list then i would say because i dont particularly like propaganda films, and because i wanted to stick closer to hollywood style films.

so with the list i'd say:

M was a major stepping stone towards violent, adult cinema.
Kong was a stepping stone towards special effects and wonderous storytelling.
Snow White was a huge stepping stone for feature animation.
Wizard of Oz being an absolute classic family fairy tale.
and Gone with the wind being one of the first hugely epic motion pictures.

Surprised not to see Dracula or Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein, what with the effect they had on horror films.

i did debate adding one of those into the mix, but decided Nosferatu was a bigger influence.

Ah, good point.

man im thinking its going to be REALLY difficult to select only five films for the follow up articles!

"...a little shorter than i was expecting."

Articles on your word processor always look longer than they turn out to be, btw.


*the rest edited because my question was answered in another thread. Yay!*

Fritz Lang's M will forever remain one of my favorite films. Lorre is amazing, the cinematography is beautiful, and Lang's sparse usage of sound is arguably some of the best ever conceived from that era.

A lot of so called classics are visually interesting to watch but they are usually dated. Not so with M. This is a careful examination of a crazed killer and the pursuit to catch him that rivals and outdoes every recent entry in the genre. Just watch the final sequence when the gangsters have Lorre cornered in an office building to find out what true suspense is.

If you're a fan of film noir you definately need to see this movie. M and Cabinet of Dr. Calgari are the reasons the art form exists. German Expressionism at its finest. Lang will be sorely missed.

Great article. Looking forward to the next installment.

Nice job, Speedrazor! I'm happy to see the topic is on FILM!

I thought your choices were great, though I'm sad to say I haven't seen M either. Something to add to my check out list. Sure it's difficult to narrow it down to just 5, but you did a fine job. I love the ones you've chosen! Thanks.

No ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD?

Nice work, btw.

Good picks and I've still not seen 3 of them amazingly. Looking forward to your continuing decades of coverage.

Yeah, I was going to say this too. Just watched it again this weekend. Goddamn what an amazing film.

I'd also agree that ADVENTURES OF ROBIN hood had a huge influence on action/adventure film from then to now.

Also, as much as people might dispise them, the Busby Berkley musicals of the 30's really set the stage for the musical era that lasted consistantly into the 1960's, and sporadically thereafter.

Oh, and STAGECOACH.

Crap! This is hard...

And we're off to a great start. My article is about 100 words shorter than Speedrazor's, but it's not a list and more of a rant-ish type, so that might make up for its brevity.

My contributions won't be as structured as Speedrazor's, but I hope they're entertaining. (EDIT: Not as strutured means that they're not a series of similarly-themed articles. They will be cohesive in all other technical aspects.) Blo has my first article; I'm working on another one, provided my creative juices don't fail me too early today. If all else fails I can do a write up on how Ghostbusters is the most influential movie since its release and it owns your soul whether you want to admit it or not. :P

Well, the article I submitted is 4 pages long in the word processor. Not sure how long it's going to be when it's put up on the site.

cant wait to see the articles.

hmm i dont remember having seen a 1930's version of robin hood unfortunately :/

stagecoach is a great choice, one i considered also, it being the introduction of the duke!

Speedrazor, you absolutely HAVE to see the 30s Robin Hood. It might just be the best adaptation of the material, and it certaiinly makes Kevin Costner look like a big fat sissy.

ellen degeneres makes kevin costner look like a sissy.

will have to find it!

There's a great disk out just in the last year by Warners of ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. Remastered from the original 3 strip Technicolor elements. Looks AMAZING!

How cool is this movie? To get the effect of Robin shooting the sheriff's men with arrows, they ACTUALLY had master archers off screen shooting arows into wooden blocks under the soldiers uniforms. Astounding but true!

Another cool point. STAR WARS SFX designer Ben Burt spent a good chunk of time trying to recreate the sound effect of the arrows in ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD for use in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

ok i definately have to see this now.

Perfect.

Wow, richard your article really hit home on a lot of points that ALL critics (especially internet geeks) could learn from. I have also thought that in this age of the internet and information being so readily available to us about the movie making process, we get very jaded by the time a film gets to our cineplex and 9/10 its inevitable that we just tear it down. I just want to go to the movies and have fun. The constant critique (that i myself have been a part of over the years) has become too grating and unnecessary cough...AICN talkbalk...cough.

Anyway, great column.

Damn that was a good article from mr Dickson. i got me some comments, but they'll involve some actual thought and application to get them into words. maybe i'll forward them as an 'answer' article, or maybe i'll just post them here, but the article is definitely exercising my enthusiasm gland. In a good way.

That article was amazing and hit all the right points. It definently makes me think about the times that I criticized too much and didn't just enjoy it.

Great job Dickson, loved it.

Completely agree with your choices of films. Excellent first column; Speedrazor was a good choice to start this mug off.

I predict that as you close in on modern day with your decades you'll get angrier disagreements. I look forward to reading those almost as much as I do your upcoming articles.