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

[Shrew]

Well Cat's Paw is a bit of a different beast-more akin to Imitation of Life in thinking it's fighting racism instead of just proliferating a different, more positive but equally passive and undesirable stereotype. It's really more orientalist than racist. Even the ending set piece, which obviously takes so many cues from Fu Manchu, turns out to be a big sham, and the joke's on the criminals and audience who believed that the Chinese would be capable of such ruthlessness.

It would be terribly interesting to see how China and Chinese reacted to it though, especially considering the history with the Welcome, Danger boycott. Apparently prior to that Lloyd was incredibly popular there, even being on the premier cover of one of the first Chinese cinema journals. Sadly everything I've found is focused on the earlier controversy, and doesn't mention much on Cat's Paw. There is the contemporary NY times review which finds amusement in how Lloyd acts so much like an oriental.

[matrixschmatrix]

True enough. It seems as though with a few exceptions, the movies from the 30s that seem shockingly racist are the ones that deal with race, whatever their intentions- they always seem to run into the trouble Griffith did, the belief that a positive stereotype is equal and opposite to a negative one.

There are a few exceptions, though, even within Hollywood- The Emperor Jones is a standout (though still problematic in a bunch of ways), and the black gangster's discussion with the chauffeur in The Petrified Forest was an absolute highlight, and didn't have any ring of condescension (to me.)

The 30s on the whole seem like a really interesting era for racial politics generally. I think in the silent era, a lot of oogah-boogah stereotypes got reinforced as much as anything because it was a convenient visual shorthand, and you can still see the carryover of that in something like Kong. The opportunities for more nuanced stuff seem to have exploded as the decade went on- and got pretty well cut off when addressing the matter at all became a much bigger and more weighted deal in the 40s, when people were dealing with the legacy of Hitler. So, the 30s really are a special window for it.

[Siddon]

Still lots left that I'll never finish in time, but at least I feel that I've gone through most of the big stuff my library has to offer (save for semi-canonical classics I can't muster up excitement for, like Captains Courageous) and can now focus on the movies I actually own--as well as the digital ones I don't technically own.

How can you not get pumped for Kipling, Fleming, and Tracy? Seriously that's a top tener in my eyes.

Right now I'm watching The Lower Depths, Make Way for Tomorrow, and Son of Frankenstein. My list right now is sitting at 45, (I have options to fill in the other 5 that I like but don't love) but I would much rather find films that I love.

There are a few exceptions, though, even within Hollywood- The Emperor Jones is a standout (though still problematic in a bunch of ways), and the black gangster's discussion with the chauffeur in The Petrified Forest was an absolute highlight, and didn't have any ring of condescension (to me.)

I think you take that stuff with a grain of salt. For example Imitation of Life is a fantastic film that while having some negative issues about race also had a lot of positive and thought provoking ones. Emperor Jones is a lot of fun, I wish we would see more films like that where African American style biopic filled with twists tragedy and humor. And then you have Luise Rainer playing a Chinese woman in The Good Earth that on paper is offensive and racist. Yet the film won her an Oscar and I would argue of the ten women who won Oscars in the 30's to me her's was the most impressive and my favorite.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think you take that stuff with a grain of salt. For example Imitation of Life is a fantastic film that while having some negative issues about race also had a lot of positive and thought provoking ones. Emperor Jones is a lot of fun, I wish we would see more films like that where African American style biopic filled with twists tragedy and humor. And then you have Luise Rainer playing a Chinese woman in The Good Earth that on paper is offensive and racist. Yet the film won her an Oscar and I would argue of the ten women who won Oscars in the 30's to me her's was the most impressive and my favorite.

Yeah, I mean I'm not looking to find things to condemn- I don't think you need movies to tell you that people had fucked up racial attitudes in the 30s- as I am fascinated by the depictions of race from a largely foreign political climate, seeing what people's unconscious attitudes were, what people thought was progressive, that kind of thing. In a lot of ways, I think some of the problematic things people believed then are still around now, but they were a lot less self conscious about it at the time- it's fascinating to see things like Sanders' colonialism or Gone With the Wind's romantic pro-slavery attitude without the layers of protective camouflage that such beliefs have acquired now, and also to see where those sorts of things are carried into the modern era unexamined and unreconstructed (as with the islanders in Peter Jackson's Kong.)

[swo17]

Of which I just watched my first Gremillon, Gueule d'amour. I enjoyed the the first hour fine, save Gabin's ridiculous pants, but couldn't quite understand what the big deal was. But that last half-hour left me floored. Matrix complained of Port of Shadows's overly constructed sense of doom, and this would be a logical counterexample of poetic-realism, fueled more by psychological character faults and blockages than fate. I still prefer Port, personally, because I think it's world is for more fleshed out, and to me its aura of doomed fate feels not so much a construct of plot but of atmosphere, like the fog surrounding the port. Plus that wonderful score. But Gueule will definitely make my list too, if slightly lower.

I'm eager to find more Gremillon, but that's easier said than done. Could someone perhaps point me toward La Petite Lise? All I've found is a dead dead torrent. Any other suggestions along the Gremillon line would be appreciated too.

Here for you and anyone else interested are:

La petite Lise link 1/2/3

Daïnah la métisse link

The latter is without English subs, but that shouldn't stop you from appreciating what starts happening 6 minutes in.

[lubitsch]

And next is

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

It's the cruelest of ironies that a) of no other non-English speaking country exist more English subtitled films than of Czechoslovakia but b) the two, three best films are not among them. The films to see at any rate are Tonka Sibenice with Ita Rina from Machaty's Erotikon who plays the classical tragedy of young country girl descending into prostitution and falling even deeper when she spends a night with a man condemned to die on the next day. One might say this is melodramatic stuff, but it's very sensitive, well acted, shot with the classic fluidity of late silent style. The other masterpiece is Carl Junghans' Takovy je zivot/Such is Life arguably the best of all the early proletarian millieu dramas with a beautifully realised mix of documentary and dramatic approach far far predating the whole neorealism. I was slightly disappointed by From Saturday to Sunday by Machaty which is as usual with him not quite coherent, but it's still an interesting merger of nightclub millieu study in the first half and a small, melodramatic portrayal of a romance in the second.
Obviously the big classic is Extase and one of my favourites, too. I find the strongly modernist approach towards sexuality and the visual poeticism stunning all the way, some may be a bit overdone and the "work symphony" at the end may not quite belong, but it's a genuinely daring and unique film essentially a silent shot with full command of all expressive means and seeing Hedy Lamarr in the lead doesn't hurt either. Other examples of the well photographed films of the era on DVD are Reka/The River a coming of age story and Marijka nevernice shot in the poorest country region of Ruthenia. The last film was made by Vladislav Vancura, a poet who dabbled a bit in films experimenting with film technique, his debut Pred maturitou also shows his attempts to expand the film language.
Later in the second half of the decade on the national film became more conservative as in most countries, Paneenstvi/Virginity is the best 30s film by the still living director Otakar Vavra featuring the young and beautiful Lida Baarova (famous for her affair with Goebbels) in a slightly more conventional story about the pressures young women meet at work and in private life, but it's again beautifully shot with Baarova shining in the leading role. Otherwise the national industry always excelled in comedies as you all know who have seen the 60s Czech classics. The two I'd like to point out are Kristian which has an immensely intriguing set-up about a mysterious, rich man who visits a night club, throws around his money, seduces even the most beautiful women and then vanishes. It's really the cleverest written script which doesn't just present the antiques and comic gifts of the stars of its era. Hej-Rup starts slowly but becomes progressively more funny being a modernist, left-wing comedic version of Vidor' Our daily Bread.
It's a very nice national cinematography with a humming output of films mixing commerce with experiment and deserving a bit more attention than it gets at the moment.

[Wu.Qinghua]

Thank you, Lubitsch. The only Czechoslovakian movie, I've been able to see in the last months, was Fric's Janosik, a historical drama about a peasant rebel, which in my eyes was too stylized. But I've been waiting for this round-up and will see, whether I'll manage to watch some of these films ... I guess, it's pretty obvious, that some of the movies, which are recommended by you, are of major interest to me ...

Oh, apropos Ekstase ... I have to admit, that in the face of all those aristocratic and higher middle-class settings and accessories, that permeate the film, I am particularly fond of the short sequences depicting the construction of that mountain road by Italian (?) migrant workers ...

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh my God, there are a lot of aspects of Dieterle and Reinhardt's Midsummer Night's Dream that are absolutely spectacular- pretty much every scene that doesn't involve dialog- but it has some of the worst acting I've ever seen. Mickey Rooney's performance is so big it's physically painful, and he's still better than Dick Powell.

Cagney's pretty fun, though.

[knives]

On the other hand (and not intending to steal your thunder) Men Are Not Gods is a great little b side to the American screwballs. Miriam Hopkins plays a lust filled nut who can't keep her actions straight like some sort of dumb hurricane. The thing keeping this from being Bringing Up Baby is that the jokes tend to be on her. That is excepting the scenes with Rex Harrison who seems to be taking Ralph Richardson's leftovers here. The movie is certainly not list worthy, but is still too much fun not to check out.

[Tommaso]

The films to see at any rate are Tonka Sibenice with Ita Rina from Machaty's Erotikon who plays the classical tragedy of young country girl descending into prostitution and falling even deeper when she spends a night with a man condemned to die on the next day. One might say this is melodramatic stuff, but it's very sensitive, well acted, shot with the classic fluidity of late silent style. The other masterpiece is Carl Junghans' Takovy je zivot/Such is Life arguably the best of all the early proletarian millieu dramas with a beautifully realised mix of documentary and dramatic approach far far predating the whole neorealism. I was slightly disappointed by From Saturday to Sunday by Machaty which is as usual with him not quite coherent, but it's still an interesting merger of nightclub millieu study in the first half and a small, melodramatic portrayal of a romance in the second.

I completely agree about Tonka and Takovy je zivot, though unfortunately the 30s seem to be even richer in great films than the 20s, and thus these two won't make my list, though they'd surely rank somewhere in my Top 50s or 60s, and so I hope someone else will give them their vote.

But I really have to speak up for From Saturday to Sunday. It's a wonderfully touching and lyrical portrait of the nightly 'adventure' of a young woman, very much like a Weimar romance (including the inevitable songs, and pretty nice ones they are), but seen through an avantgarde sensibility, avoiding all sugar coating on what could easily have become some melodramatic story. I find it striking how often Machaty has the dialogue in the off and instead shows us images of everyday things, which may or may not comment on the action, giving us the possibility to watch this from an objective distance and 'breathe in' the atmosphere, which makes the story all the more effective. But From Saturday to Sunday is not a simple exercise in style (of which the film has lots), as the performances of the main actors are not only very believable, but also genuinely endearing.

The film's combination of a simple story with avantgarde tendencies reminded me somewhat of the earlier work by Werner Hochbaum, but without the roughness and the grittiness, which in my view is rather a plus for Machaty. Nevertheless, everyone should check out the work of Hochbaum, that completely unknown though rather eminent German director; at least Razzia in St. Pauli and Morgen beginnt das Leben, the latter of which will definitely be on my list.

Coming back to Machaty, I have to confess that I never was a big fan of Extase. Sure, the images of the nude Lamarr running through the woods are strikingly beautiful (though in a way that strikes me as curiously ascetic, and I always have to think of Riefenstahl a bit in this respect), but the whole story doesn't have a lot of depth and thus the film becomes pretty conventional in its second half. The dialogues aren't particularly great, either, and that 'work symphony' ending really looks like out of a different film. If that was meant to show a counterpart/opposite to the lives of the main characters, well, for me it fails.

[Gropius]

Oh my God, there are a lot of aspects of Dieterle and Reinhardt's Midsummer Night's Dream that are absolutely spectacular- pretty much every scene that doesn't involve dialog- but it has some of the worst acting I've ever seen. Mickey Rooney's performance is so big it's physically painful, and he's still better than Dick Powell.

Cagney's pretty fun, though.

I feel like I ought to speak up for this one, since it's currently sitting at no. 7 on my list. As far as I'm concerned, the spectacle - sets, costumes, music, fairy atmosphere - transcends everything, making it one of the most visually impressive films of the decade. Granted, the verse delivery by the Warner contract players is variable at best, with Powell's notably wooden, but this is perfectly tolerable if one accepts it as part of an anti-naturalistic presentation (anticipating at times, however inadvertently, aspects of Bresson or even Straub & Huillet).

Rooney's braying, bestial Puck will be the deal-breaker for many viewers, but, however eccentric or borderline-irritating, it is still an intellectually defensible approach to the role. As a Shakespeare adaptation, one could dismiss this film as patchy, but on its own terms, as a studio curio, it's something of a masterpiece, pointing forward to such later Bard-adulterating experiments as Greenaway's Prospero's Books.

[knives]

I agree, though not in as strong of terms. It's a bizarre mish mash of things and when you look at it like a circus it becomes pretty amazing. It won't be on my list, but it has many things to offer from a historical standpoint at least.

[swo17]

Also remember that this was still several years before Mickey Rooney would refine his screen persona to become the #1 box office draw between 1939 and 1940 (spanning two decades!)

[matrixschmatrix]

As much as I hated Midsummer, I do agree that the visual aspects were everything I was hoping for- in terms of special effects, I don't know that there's anything to beat it from the 30s- and the music was obviously very good, though I though the way it was used sometimes inflated the overall sense of deadly pompousness and horrible pacing that killed the movie for me.

It's something that pretty obviously would have been better as a silent movie, and I can see how it would work on stage (with a largely different cast.) I certainly don't have a problem with it as something that took too many liberties with Shakespeare- if anything, I wish it had taken more, cut bigger pieces out of the text, and focused more on visual storytelling.

I also watched Twentieth Century last night- again, it was interesting to see a fairly dead on portrayal of theater people (though a bit more flamboyant and less real feeling than Stage Door) but I always have a hard time getting aboard with anything that takes the structure of a romantic comedy when I don't feel like either of the leads is a good or a likable person- which may be more a fault in my viewing than in the movie itself. Barrymore's performance is pretty fun, but Lombard isn't anything like as entertaining here as she was in Godfrey, and broadly I didn't feel sympathetic enough towards either of them to be particularly worried about what happened between them.

[domino harvey]

Also remember that this was still several years before Mickey Rooney would refine his screen persona to become the #1 box office draw between 1939 and 1940 (spanning two decades!)

"I was married to Ava Gardner and nominated for Best Actor twice!"

[matrixschmatrix]

He really would have made a great Fallout Boy

[domino harvey]

I can't defend his nomination for whatever one of the "Let's put on a show" Garland musicals got it, but he earned his second for the Human Comedy-- he also had two Best Supporting Actor noms later in life as well. And his performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's is, not surprisingly, fine and not worth all the reactionary whining it always generates

[knives]

So it's okay for me to admit I don't understand the general backlash against Rooney. He's not a great actor, but when he does a job right it can be a powerful thing. He also starred in one of my top five Twilight Zone episodes if that means anything.

[Mr Sausage]

Out: Svengali. Sorry folks, but a couple of shots aside, I found this clunky and drab.

Have to agree. Despite that bravura tracking shot out the window, the interesting set-design, and some great shots here and there, it's pretty creaky, with no real narrative thrust. It wastes a huge amount of time on the set-up (filled mostly with lame comedic bits), then spends next to no time on what should've been the most dramatic section, Billie's pursuit of Svengali. Not one of the great thirties horror films, although the ending is fantastic, if only because it totally spoils your expectations with its last second turn.

[matrixschmatrix]

Since it's come up- I've come around a bit on 30's Horror, and I want to make sure I don't skip any of the big ones. I've seen Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Mark of the Vampire, Fu Manchu, Mad Love, and The Return of Dr. X, and I plan on catching Dracula's Daughter, the Invisible Man, and Son of Frankenstein before the project closes up. I know Knives is a big fan of The Devil Doll- anything else worth trying to catch?

[swo17]

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
The Student of Prague (available in the spotlight section)
Vampyr
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Tod Slaughter's films (especially The Face at the Window)

[knives]

It's a shame really that foreign horror doesn't really kickoff again until after the war, but obviously Vampyr is also a must see.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, Vampyr and Mabuse are both already on my list, but I hadn't thought of them as horrors for some reason. I'll definitely check out the others, though, thanks.

[Mr Sausage]

Since it's come up- I've come around a bit on 30's Horror, and I want to make sure I don't skip any of the big ones. I've seen Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Mark of the Vampire, Fu Manchu, Mad Love, and The Return of Dr. X, and I plan on catching Dracula's Daughter, the Invisible Man, and Son of Frankenstein before the project closes up. I know Knives is a big fan of The Devil Doll- anything else worth trying to catch?

Dr. X, of course, and Devil Doll seconded. Don't forget Mystery at the Wax Museum (another two strip technicolour early horror).

Also must-sees: Tower of London, The Black Room, The Man They Could Not Hang, and Werewolf of London.

[knives]

How could I have forgotten The Man They Could Not Hang. That's probably my favorite Karloff is a mad scientist movie ever. Speaking of The Invisible Ray while more Sci-fi of The Fly kind is absolutely essential (we've already talked in length on the other films in the set). That's a genuine tear jerker that if it was made four decades later could easily be seen as a metaphor for STDs. It gets to a rough start, but once Karloff begins his descent into madness I really do tear up. Lugosi's pleas to him is some truly devastating work.