1930s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[matrixschmatrix]

I think the Bride of Frankenstein scene would seem less off to me if I watched the movie again, because it's actually kind of a comic beat- there's a similar 'oh, fuck it' sense there to the later one where he kills Dwight Frye- which I just wasn't expecting.

In the book, the creature kills Frankenstein's bride because he has come to hate his creator, which is one of the major sort of metaphorical themes throughout it, an almost Nietzschean rebellion against your gods thing- it's one of the reasons I was disappointed when he lets the Baron and Baroness escape. His angry 'we belong dead' would have fit right in with him hating Frankenstein for bringing him back.

[knives]

In that case I think the themes from the movies and the book are drastically different starting with the mute child nature of the monster going forward. It's really only in the set up and certain events that the two mediums overlap.

[Mr Sausage]

Yes, the movies and the book are completely different entities. They really are doing quite different things. Comparing them can be fun, but you shouldn't expect too many conjunctions. The reason he lets Henry go at the end is because, now having been spurned by his own Bride, and having realized the actual evil of Pretorius, he feels sympathy for Henry and Elizabeth's love, and sends Henry off to rescue her. (Worth noting that, as originally filmed, Henry died in the explosion. Indeed, you can even see him in one of the interior shots of the castle coming down).

You're right about the comic beat, matrixschmatrix. The movie has a real black comic streak to it; its tone is somewhere between the original and The Invisible Man.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well, one of the interesting things about the second movie is that it reconnected with the book at a few points- most obviously the intro, but also with the way the creature becomes more complex and self-aware, the demand to make him a mate, the sense of tit for tat with the mate and Elizabeth (in the book, killing Elizabeth is the creature's vengeance for Frankenstein refusing to complete a mate for it, as well as an expression of his hatred) and the introduction of the creature's wrath for being brought into the world in such a cruel way. The first movie seems to assume that nobody in the audience has read it, the second one seems to assume that everyone has (or at least may have) and is playing with that a bit.

[knives]

It's also important to remember the first film much like Dracula was based on a stage adaptation and honestly could be said to have nothing to do with the book. The sequel sort of flies with that by looking back to the book, but warping it to fit the play. It's definitely a sneaky film.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's much more literate and has a lot more respect for the audience's intelligence than the first one, for sure- even if that manifests itself in occasionally acknowledging that what's going on is actually pretty silly.

[lubitsch]

And next we have

Japan

Obviously Japan has become everybody's darling going from almost complete obscurity to a solid selection of films on DVD plus some fansubtitles which allow a peek at the big names. While I think the best films are indeed among the world best of the decade it has to be said that one thing really grated on my nerves after having seen 60 films - it's all so bloody polite. I want passionate kisses, gunfire, nudity, blood, gratuitous violence. While the films of daily life that made especially Shochiku's success are indeed a triumph compared to the crude melodramas from US and partly also Europe and while their scripts are remarkably complex, there's also a certain sedative quality which isn't that surprising considering the mounting pressure from the militarist bureaucrats and the total loss of many early left leaning films.
Generally I'd say what's out on DVD is pretty much the top with a few exceptions.
Ranking Ozu is a daunting task. Looking at combined quality and quantity of his output he has no peer in the 30s worldwide. I'd favor The Only Son, Story of Floating Weeds and An Inn at Tokyo most just ahead of Tokyo Chorus, Passing Fancy and Dragnet Girl. the most famous film I was born but never really struck a chord with me, the boys aren't that interesting, the father's predicament a repeat from Tokyo Chorus. I generally like the more flexible approach of Ozu in the 30s and would argue that this was his best decade.
The second giant gives me more of an headache. Mizoguchi's ultra-detached, "spot the actor two miles away from the camera" and his shinpa melodramas don't really click with me. I thought Sisters of the Gion the most successful and bitter of these films, however I agree that Straits of Love and Hate is in no way a lesser film than its two predecessors. My Favorite is curiously "Boule de soif" again this time appearing as Oyuki the Virgin preserving the qualities of the story and expanding it with a clever twist. That I despise Late Chrysanthemum I wrote here, it's a classical example of the progressively more repressive atmosphere of the years 1937-39.
Thanks to tireless fansubtitling I've seen all 19 films by Naruse. the two knockout films of the set are obviously Apart from You and Every Night Dreams but Naruse's supposed late 30s slump really doesn't look that dramatic to me especially since so many of his early and presumably lesser silents are lost. Wife be like a Rose and Morning's Tree Lined Street are no worse than the two earlier films and are ably supported by some other features though with Naruse you can also see the mounting pressure which leads him to retreat to the less interesting theatre films and the absurd ending of The Whole Family works and the ugly didactics of Sincerity. He may not be such a fully rounded stylist like the two other men, but I think he surpasses Mizoguchi and equals Ozu in his best films.
The fourth great director, Sadao Yamanaka, really deserves a nice little set, come on Criterion or MoC. Humanity and Paper Balloons is a stunner and the two other films could use better subtitles, Priest of Darkness is admittedly a bit special with its variations on a well known story and the whole knife business, but Tange Sazen is a leisurely told, sage comedy that again finds few contemporaries. It's difficult to decide at what to rage more, the loss of his films or his death.
I don't think that Shimizu and Gosho reach quite the same level (Shimazu's two subtitles features are even less impressive though his supposedly best, A Brother and his Younger Sister, remains unsubbed), but their best efforts also have a good chance to crack any list. Gosho is a tad too quiet when funny and not harsh enough when dramatic though Woman in the Mist reaches tragic dimensions and is worth a look. As for Shimizu I'd say first the Eclipse set than the second Japanese set and Forget Love for now is not too shabby either. The children films of the Japanese set are rather slight though I'm probably the only one to rate Japanes Girl at the Harbor as the best of the three Eclipse films, technically it is a melodrama but as in Dragnet Girl, the mood and story development is such that the genre cliches fall apart and you find yourself in the real world of the salarymen films again. Mr. Thank You lacked a bit of punch for me, but that's an appropriate final world for my journey through this national cinema. Its strengths shine bright when you've ploughed your way through hundreds of Western culture melodramas from the era, but after some time vices also emerge.

[Steven H]

I'll jump on your Japanese post and add that I found Naruse's Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts is among his best of the decade. There are some really inspired moments, especially towards the beginning when the characters are being introduced. The only mild complaint I can think of is that it's a little too reliant on close-ups towards the end, but it's hard to stress that I had too much of a problem with it.

A favorite samurai flick of the decade is Ito Daisuke's Jirokichi the Rat which can be found on one of the Digital Meme sets. It shares with Yamanaka (and maybe Itami) that mix of pathos and humor that can be found in the best of that period in the genre.

As for Shimazu and Gosho, I think My Neighbor Miss Yae and My Neighbor's Wife and Mine could make my list, but if you have a problem with polite, stay away.

[Sloper]

I don't remember Frankenstein (the novel) too well, but I do seem to recall a distinction being made between the creature's own sense of himself as a 'creature' and Frankenstein's insistence on referring to him as 'the monster'. That ambiguity is reproduced in a very interesting way in the first film, in that the dominant perspective seems to emphasise the 'monster' but this is undercut by the smallest moments, often close-ups - Karloff's sad little convulsion when they stick the needle in him, or best of all the final confrontation between creature and creator in the mill, when we see both their faces in quick succession obscured by the rotating wooden bars so that they seem to blur together. It's the first time Henry really faces what he's done, and sees into the soul of this person he's created. That shot of the creature trapped under a burning beam is pathetic, above all; they could have had him raging away like Cagney in White Heat. When the film cuts back to the raging mob, our thoughts might still be with the creature inside the mill, and this anticipates the more obviously critical portrayal of the mob in the next film.

I have to say, having watched them again recently when they came on TV, I've pretty much lost all the fondness I used to have for the Whale films. Seeing Son of Frankenstein didn't help, I think - it's so much more polished, less camp, better structured, better acted, more visually striking, and less silly yet also funnier (largely thanks to Lugosi - who can stand Dwight Frye after seeing that performance?).

I wish I could have devoted more time to this project, but I have managed to fill in a few gaps - I think I agree with lubitsch that Tokyo Chorus is better than I Was Born But.... The comedy is funnier (amazing scene in the boss's office, with the escalating tit-for-tat) and the pathos more affecting. The pat-a-cake game after the husband sells his wife's kimonos, and the song at the end, pretty well sum up what makes Ozu great.

Oh and I thought La Kermesse Heroique was very beautiful, but mostly had a hard time getting into the spirit of the thing. A lot of the time it seemed more cruel than funny. Louis Jouvet was wonderful, though, and the look on the heroine's face at the end was priceless. Hard not to love such a gleefully cynical ending.

[matrixschmatrix]

While I think the best films are indeed among the world best of the decade it has to be said that one thing really grated on my nerves after having seen 60 films - it's all so bloody polite. I want passionate kisses, gunfire, nudity, blood, gratuitous violence.

Honestly, this is kind of true of the 30s as a whole for me- one of the reasons I've been so delighted by gangster movies, some of the Universal horrors, and particularly and especially von Sternberg, Lang, and Pépé le Moko is that they've all got a nastiness that cuts through the general sense I've got of the decade as a really gloves-on, gentle one overall. I love The Good Fairy, and I love Ozu, but eventually I get tired of restraint and delicacy and want to see a goddamn over-the-top bloodbath, be it emotional or physical. As much as I'm glad to be participating in this project, I'm quivering with anticipation for the postwar era.

I don't remember Frankenstein (the novel) too well, but I do seem to recall a distinction being made between the creature's own sense of himself as a 'creature' and Frankenstein's insistence on referring to him as 'the monster'. That ambiguity is reproduced in a very interesting way in the first film, in that the dominant perspective seems to emphasise the 'monster' but this is undercut by the smallest moments, often close-ups - Karloff's sad little convulsion when they stick the needle in him, or best of all the final confrontation between creature and creator in the mill, when we see both their faces in quick succession obscured by the rotating wooden bars so that they seem to blur together. It's the first time Henry really faces what he's done, and sees into the soul of this person he's created. That shot of the creature trapped under a burning beam is pathetic, above all; they could have had him raging away like Cagney in White Heat. When the film cuts back to the raging mob, our thoughts might still be with the creature inside the mill, and this anticipates the more obviously critical portrayal of the mob in the next film.

Frankenstein feels like the creature it shows, in a funny way- it's a big, lurking monstrosity that seems to be all ungainly feet and elbows, but every once in a while there's a moment of delicacy that shows human intelligence trying to get out from under all the clumsy crap it's been saddled with.

[knives]

I suppose I'm the only one who has zero fondness for Son of Frankenstein.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh man are all the Astaire and Rogers movies smart enough to let you see their goddamn feet when they are dancing, or is it just The Gay Divorcee? Because that is like the #1 most infuriating thing to me in this kind of movie, when they cut the poor dancers off at the knees.

[knives]

There's a few dances where we see Astaire's feet in Top Hat

[matrixschmatrix]

So, now I've actually finished it:

I've never seen an Astaire and Rogers before, and I'm not generally huge on musicals, but goddamn was The Gay Divorcee fun. It was like you made up a cast of fun parts from half a dozen other movies I just watched- Ginger Rogers from Stage Door, Alice Brady from My Man Godfrey, Erik Rhodes from The Good Fairy, Edward Everett Horton from everything, put them all together, and added some of the most delightful dancing segments I've ever seen.

The comic bits were more than good enough to keep the momentum up between musical segments- though I especially liked the way they were combined in the Knock Knees number, which really highlighted both the repeated sly jokes about Horton's sexuality (although my favorite was later, when Astaire refers to him as his aunt) and the dance as sex thing. The latter runs beautifully throughout the movie, in the confusion about whether Astaire is a dancer or a gigolo, and (my favorite) when Astaire offers Rogers a cigarette after their first big tension-relieving dance together. There were a few other slipped-in naughty jokes that really worked for me- "I have an unnatural passion for geology" "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!", and the husband referring to Tonetti as "that hairdresser" (though I worry that I enjoyed gay stereotyping too much just because it felt cleverly slipped in) and I think a lot of business that might otherwise have fallen apart worked beautifully because of the strength of the cast as comics. Alice Brady's death in '39 is a real tragedy, hers was a character I'd happily watch over and over.

As for the actual dancing- I mentioned earlier that I liked the way it was shot, letting you watch the dancers' whole bodies, but beyond that I almost don't feel qualified to comment, beyond that it was delightful. One thing that sticks out, though, is the degree to which the dancing is equally shared between the central duo when they're dancing together- it's not a dancer and a partner, but a real team, and they bring out something especially fun in one another.

There were parts of the movie I could have done without- the Continental sequence spent too much time with a big roomful of dancers, none of whom had anything like the personality in their dancing that the leads brought, for one thing- but nothing anywhere near bad enough move the overall experience beyond borderline giddiness. I love the idea that Astaire is someone who dances absentmindedly, almost unconsciously, and the whole movie has a lot of the same joy in moving and goofing around.

[Murdoch]

Gay Divorcee will definitely make my list, and is my favorite of the Astaire-Rogers collaborations. I actually like the Continental sequence a great deal if just for the part where Astaire wanders in and just chuckles at Horton's antics, but I agree that having such a relatively big number without either of the leads present makes it drag and rather superfluous.

In more Ginger Rogers news I just rewatched 42nd Street and her in a monocle is the cutest thing ever.

[knives]

Not as cute as Oberon in a blanket cape I bet.

[Murdoch]

After Wuthering Heights I try to limit my Merle Oberon intake to none

[matrixschmatrix]

Gay Divorcee will definitely make my list, and is my favorite of the Astaire-Rogers collaborations. I actually like the Continental sequence a great deal if just for the part where Astaire wanders in and just chuckles at Horton's antics, but I agree that having such a relatively big number without either of the leads present makes it drag and rather superfluous.

I think you might be thinking of the Knock Knees bit- Horton is off with Alice Brady playing find-the-detective during the Continental number. The Continental starts and ends with Astaire and Rogers, but there's a big part where it's just a bunch of people we haven't seen whirling around (and the leads sitting at a table and watching via backprojection, which was kind of a surprise)- it wasn't a huge problem, but it killed some of the momentum and felt sort of painfully irrelevant near the climax of the movie.

[knives]

After Wuthering Heights I try to limit my Merle Oberon intake to none

Well no one was good in that movie. Watch The Divorce of Lady X to change your mind.

[Murdoch]

Oh, that sequence. I rather enjoy the Berkeley-like choreography of it with all these look-alike extras on display. And, knives, I'll have to check that out as it's been in my hulu queue forever.

[knives]

If Laurence Olivier as sweaty Crispin Glover sounds appealing than you'll have a blast.

[Murdoch]

Olivier and Glover being used in the same sentence is enough to get me interested in anything.

[matrixschmatrix]

He had me at 'sweaty'

edit: Oh man, he does look like Crispin Glover, that is not a man who should have shellacked black hair

[matrixschmatrix]

Is the sound really bad in Lady X, or is that just my system?

[knives]

I didn't notice anything.