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Yes, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is actually my favorite Universal Horror from the ones I've seen - so please don't beat me with a stick, when I say that I prefer it to Frankenstein, Dracula, and Co.

Re - "Waltzes from Vienna": I'm a sucker for 30s "operetta" films, so if you like that kind of alternate musical comedies, you should ABSOLUTELY check out the Hitchcock. Otherwise I'm not sure. Though I do think "Waltzes" is better than the same year's "Man Who Knew too Much".

Stick-beatings are definitely not called for on that score. Murders in the Rue Morgue will be on my list and is miles ahead of Dracula, in my view. I probably prefer it to the original Frankenstein feature, too, but that's a much closer call. Son of Frankenstein is probably my top pick for horror from this decade.

To answer my own question, it looks like Waltzes from Vienna was released in the US as part of a Jessie Matthews Collection that's now OOP. I'll give the French set a miss for now. I already own Downhill, and French shipping charges are just too high for something like this, I'm afraid.

Tommaso wrote:

knives wrote:Haven't seen it, should though. After about four films though I've become very wary of this faux Griffith Murnau mashup he seemed to be doing throughout the decade.

Wasn't the mashup rather in the late 20s, with films like "Four Sons" and "Hangman's House"? Granted, some of it may still be visible in The Informer and The Prisoner of Shark Island (both good films) or The Lost Patrol (plain awful), but I'd say Ford slowly came to his own in the 30s. Have a look at the very fine Steamboat around the bend, for instance, a touching and heart-felt semi-comedy with Will Rogers. I also have a liking for Mary of Scotland, a wholly conventional though well made costume drama made almost great by a ravishing Katharine Hepburn. And I second the recommendation for Pilgrimage. Might be his best film of the decade, with the exception of Stagecoach, which will be the only Ford on my list, though.

The Informer is one of those films that I just don't like oddly enough. The mashup doesn't really bug me in the silents probably because the style works there, but it just gives a stink to me in the sound films. Unless TCM is showing them I likely won't be able to get to any more Fords in time, but if I do it will surely be Pilgrimage.

A wrote:La Marseillaise (Jean Renoir / France / 1938)

We actually had some intermittent discussion about that one- what are your thoughts?

I've browsed through the pages again, and read your post on that Marseillaise discussion.

I can understand how one might not be enthralled by it and how it became a "minor" Renoir, but for me it's one of his best films. I must say though, that I'm not the biggest Renoir fan (and La règle du jeu might be my least favorite Renoir), so what I like about La Marseillaise is exactly its off-handedness and casual depiction of something grand like the French revolution. It's an ensemble piece without a protagonist and without real character development, so there is really no one to identify with or feel sympathy for. Most of the points you mention in your post as aspects that weaken the impact of the film, actually make the film for me. The whole concept of a totally unheroic look on the french revolution that consists of a mass of ordinary people who just happen to be in this horrific situation, the randomness, makes for me the impact of the final 10 minutes all the more harrowing. The whole film feels like a dream to me, like something ordinary that is still unfathomable - as such this contrary approach of pragmatism and elusiveness makes this work unique as a historical film.

So I actually don't have much to add to knives' statement you quoted and as I said the points that weaken the film for you, are a plus in my perception of the film. If I may (mis)quote you:

Because of all the interesting aspects, I think La Marseillaise is a great movie, the way almost all the other Renoir I've seen is. I think the vignette style plays to what I see as one of his major strengths- though he does hop back to a few different characters repeatedly, you don't really get to see nuanced characterization, nor the elegant design of something like Rules of the Game. It feels disconnected, and overlong, as though you could cut quite a few pieces out but this would actually greatly reduce the impact of the movie. It also feels somewhat like it's reaching for something it never quite grasps.

And I have the feeling that Renoir struggles with his trademark humanism as he seems clearly disgusted by the violence but nevertheless obliged to view the French revolution ultimately as something positive (which I btw. don't agree with). Because I feel he is unable to solve this contradiction, and is unsure what to say and how to say it, we get a glimpse into something usually repressed in historical films, something I'd currently call moral indecisiveness (because of the lack of a better term).

So it's this (unwanted) directorial ambiguousness which finally makes the film great for me.

PS: I saw it at the cinema as a pretty good 35mm print which certainly also helps matters.

Gregory wrote:Stick-beatings are definitely not called for on that score. Murders in the Rue Morgue will be on my list and is miles ahead of Dracula, in my view. I probably prefer it to the original Frankenstein feature, too, but that's a much closer call. Son of Frankenstein is probably my top pick for horror from this decade.

To answer my own question, it looks like Waltzes from Vienna was released in the US as part of a Jessie Matthews Collection that's now OOP. I'll give the French set a miss for now. I already own Downhill, and French shipping charges are just too high for something like this, I'm afraid.

Now I'll have to watch Son of Frankenstein!

I own the french DVD of "Waltzes.." bought it very cheaply and consider the transfer to be above average. So you might reconsider buying this, once you find some other french titles to purchase.

I can see where you're coming from about elegance- there are times where a mathematical, formal structure seems totally inhuman to me, and drives me nuts- but I think one of the things I like about Renoir is that when he is elegant, it never feels like he's going out of his way to make that happen.

I never get the feeling in Rules of the Game, for instance, that he's worked out some kind of Point Counter Point structure in advance where each person mirrors this other, partners with a third, and opposes a fourth; it happens, but it feels totally organic, and you only notice how clean it all is in retrospect. He's such a virtuoso there that it feels like a shame to lose it, as though Dante were writing in prose.

I've tried 3 times so far but my problem with Rules.. is that I find all characters repulsive - from start to finish. Something I haven't encountered in any other Renoir...

At the end of the film (which sometimes feels like torture to me), I'm actually glad that it's 1939 and WWII is coming. Something I've never felt in any other 30s film...

Funny, I found even the worst people in Rules lovable- you didn't even have affection for the character Renoir played? I can see where not liking them would destroy the movie, since I think one of the key ways it works is the tension between the affection you feel for the characters and recognition of how destructive or inhuman or straightforwardly stupid their behavior is, but I can hardly imagine not liking them.

Out of curiosity, have you ever read a Wodehouse novel?

Nope, not the slightest tinge of affection - not even for Renoir's character. I'm disgusted by all of them from beginning to end - and I expect that's not what Renoir wants me to feel. I don't have a problem with unlikable characters per se, but in this instance I cannot get rid of the feeling, that Renoir really tries to make the viewer like them on some level - which makes it even worse for me. If he would just show them without his trademark humanism...

But maybe when I watch it yet again, something else will occur. 8-[ :-k [-( :-s

As far as Wodehouse is concerned, I haven't encountered his writing, yet.

His novels use their stuffiness to great effect with the drunken scene in one of the Jeeves and Wooster stories being the funniest thing I've ever read. Well worth your time.

Feel like Evelyn Waugh was the best at the stiff upper lip Brit lampooning

Unlike Renoir or Wodehouse, tho', Waugh doesn't care one bit if you like his characters.

One of the goals I set for myself during this listmania was to try and see lots more 30s Chinese films, but because of time and access I've failed pretty badly. Before it's too late though, I really want to give props to Street Angel (Malu Tianshi), which has been on the list before and all, but I'm afraid it'll get overlooked in all this discussion.

The Goddess is probably the Chinese film that'll rank highest, and it's good, but Street Angel is just a damn fun film filled with visual inventiveness. There's no real flashy editing or camerawork, but there's a strong mise en scene at work in its set pieces of songs and shadows and bizarre pinned to the wall dancing, moving deftly into sound but retaining a lot the vaudeville energy in play and performance of a silent. The somber leftist messaging doesn't quite fit with the rest, but it doesn't derail the film, and after a bunch of weakly used superimpositions finally manages to nail one that packs a wallop of emotion in a pitiful unrequited love.

Unfortunately it seems netflix doesn't have it in stock anymore, and the Cinema Epoch Chinese Classics disc is really dire as well, but it's a strong enough film that I really encourage people to try and seek out.

Blockbuster Online has Street Angel in stock, and I'd second the recommendation.

Finally watched the Prisoner of Zenda, having bought it on about page 3- it's definitely a lot of fun.

It's hard to have much to say about it, since it's so consciously a lark, but there are a few things. The relatively modern setting makes all the derring do about kings and queens a little harder to accept- especially the ending, which seems to assume that I'm really invested in all that crap- but its so damn charming that I can't hold that kind of thing against it. Particularly as, between the Anglophilia and the cast, it felt like something the Archers tossed off.

(And man, if I had any political objections to the movie, the short on that disc makes them seem like nothing- why was 'condescending dickhead narrator goes on about how stupid a housewife is' such a popular theme for a short?)

As to the short, men are assholes? It's probably the same reason Two and a Half Men is still on the air. I wonder though, did you like the remake on the disc any better? There's something about James Mason that makes everything else look inferior even if that movie doesn't use him enough.

I haven't gotten to watch it yet, though I plan to. Mason played a great smug asshole, even as protagonist, so I'm looking forward to seeing him as a fun bastard- although one of the interesting things in the '37 version was that Fairbanks Jr kept playing that role as though he were the romantic lead. Whether that was intentional or just sort of the default mode for him, it worked out interestingly, as I was surprised anew every time he did something brutal.

It's little things like that that allow me to love both versions (as slight as they are). The scripts might actually be identical yet they are nothing alike with the closest thing to a similarity they have is the prince being a drunken doof.

A wrote: I hope you'll excuse the barebones list, as I didn't want to go into detail on a film someone else might have already discussed in one of the posts in this thread.

Excused, but I'll take this as my cue to finally say something about some German films of the period here, first about those you mentioned:

F.P.1 antwortet nicht "F.P.1 Doesn't Answer" (Karl Hartl / Germany / 1932): Love that one, too, though with the period being so extremely rich, I don't think it will make my list. But Hartl was certainly one of the best German directors of the early 30s, and this adventure film with a few Science Fiction-elements is no exception. It's basically a show piece for Hans Albers in one of his usual 'draufgänger'-roles, and we also get a ravishing Sybille Schmitz in one of her early roles (her real stardom only started a little later, I'd say). In any case, a suspenseful film that even today is occasionally shown on German TV, probably because it contains Albers' famous "Flieger grüß mir die Sonne" song (even though this signature tune of Albers isn't even sung by him in the film).


Kuhle Wampe oder: Wem gehört die Welt? "To Whom Does the World Belong?" (Slatan Dudow / Germany / 1932): yes, the famous Brecht film, but honestly, I find it terribly overrated. I even sympathize with its social/ideological concerns, but they are presented here in a far too 'direct' and obvious manner to my taste. Much, much better is the striking Cyankali(Hans Tintner, 1930), one of the very last silents, a film dealing with the poverty of the working class and the problem of abortion made necessary by it for some women. Absolutely convincing, intense performance by the beautiful Grete Mosheim in the main role, an actress who is nowadays probably better known as a Berlin cabaret singer and performer of the 1920s, although she played in quite a number of silent films, too (and a few talkies). Cyankali will almost definitely be on my list.


Die Stimme des Herzens "The Voice of the Heart" (Karl Heinz Martin / Germany / 1937): oops... I don't even know that one. Can you say a little about this film?


And then, I should finally say something about two of my most favourite films (apart from the musicals, which I'll deal with later) of the German cinema of the time, both directed by Frank Wysbar, a filmmaker who is far to little known today (none of his early German work is available on dvd).

His best-known film, relatively speaking, is Fährmann Maria (1936), starring Sybille Schmitz in the role of a young woman who takes on the job of a ferryman in a little village in some unspecified German country (the time must be 19th century). One day she ferries over a man who is pursued by enemies, and saves him from death this way. However, this means she interferes with the plans of DEATH himself... I'm not giving away more here, but let me say that all those who love the Weimar silent tradition with its romantic and expressionist heritage will be stunned by this film, and the character of Death certainly derives directly from Lang's "Der müde Tod". This might be Sybille Schmitz' best performance ever, and the film has an almost hypnotic quality in places. Totally striking visually, too.

But there's one film by Wysbar that is even better, and that is his debut as a director, Anna und Elisabeth (1933). I hope some here have seen Sagan's "Mädchen in Uniform" and remember the two main actresses, Hertha Thiele und Dorothea Wieck, because these two are paired again here in a film that stands as something totally unique in the German cinema of its time. The film is about Thiele miraculously curing Wieck from a severe illness, and then being seen by her and the people of the village they live in as possessing divine gifts. Such stories never end happily, of course... The film asks about the reality of the transcendental, providing no answer, and does that in such striking images (close-ups worthy of Bergman) and with such an intensity in the playing of the two actresses that there's really no other comparison I can think of than Dreyer's "Ordet" (made more than twenty years later, notabene). An extremely gripping and beautiful film that will be among my Top Five for sure, and that everyone should see for this list. It would be a shame if this was ignored, so, if you allow, I'll make Anna und Elisabeth my first swapsie (or whatever it's now called )

Thanks for your remarks. I really don't like commenting on films much, so that helped a lot.

I agree with you on Hartl and Dudow, in that they aren't necessarily essentials, but some may find them to be masterpieces. I enjoy both very much, but I can understand the "complaints".

"Die Stimme des Herzens" would be a similar case. I like it even more than the Dudow and Hartl, but it's basically one of the many musical films made in Germany during that period. Its plot is woven around a lot(!) of singing by Opera star Beniamino Gigli whom I found extremely fascinating in that he was not an actor and not German (a bit like Louis Graveure), but easily dominated most of the scenes he was in. I think all of the strengths of the film lie in the direction by Karl Heinz Martin (nowadays known for his expressionistic feature "Von Morgens bis Mitternachts"), and the acting, camerawork and editing is quite impressive. I especially like the way some of the songs are visualized through cameramovement, when Gigli is being accompanied on Piano (reminded me of similarlly impressive mise-en-scene of Hitchcock in "Waltzes from Vienna"). And the film is very charming, as it evolves around Princess Helene (played by 16 year old Geraldine Katt who is a revelation) trying to find a way out of a marriage that is being arranged for her. Though she falls in love with the Prince (played by Ferdinand Marian - I always love Marian on the screen) complications occur as she starts pursuing a career as a musician. The plot is basically just your standard romantic comedy stuff from the 30s, but if you are a fan of that it's absolutely delightful.

After this, I absolutely need to see more films by Karl Heinz Martin!! Watched it on an old German VHS that I bought at a second hand store some years ago. It was probably released during the 80s. The company is called Video-Archiv Film (VAF), and on the back it says they also released (among others "Die Frau im Mond" ('29), Regine ('34), "Eskapade", "Musik im Blut", "Ein Lied geht um die Welt" and "Du bist mein Glück" (another Gigli by Martin). Well, those were the days of VHS...

PS: I need to watch those two Wisbars, which I fortunately do have on my hard disc drive.

I also like those 'singer films' which seem to have been rather popular in Germany in the early 30s, no doubt having to do with the invention of sound films and the desire to capture some of the great stars of the opera and operetta on the new medium. As to Gigli, I've only seen the 1936 Ave Maria (directed by Johannes Riemann), which is available on a dvd from the Belcanto Society. Quite nice, especially for the wonderful Käthe von Nagy playing the female lead, but it really shows that Gigli was a great singer rather than an actor, although he certainly did a better job than, for instance, Richard Tauber in the two films I've seen with him (the 1932 Melodie des Herzens and the 1936 Land without Music). Pretty stiff affairs, both.

Quite nice in the acting department, however, was Jan Kiepura. His first film, Die singende Stadt (Carmine Gallone, 1930) shows him as a Neapolitan singer who is discovered by a rich German society lady and finds himself to be only a plaything of hers. Not a great film, but it has wonderful music (of course), beautiful photography of the Italian seaside and the ruins of Pompeii and is also noteworthy because of Brigitte Helm as the female lead, who has seldom been captured on film in a more enticing manner. Also with Kiepura, there's the 1932 Anatole Litvak film Das Lied einer Nacht, which is very light but amusing and - at least in its French version - features a gorgeous song by Margo Lion, "Tempo, tempo".

Perhaps the best actor among these singers was Joseph Schmidt, an entirely charming man whose life story ended very tragically, as is well known. He appeared in a string of German and Austrian films of the early 30s which do away with any sort of reasonable story for the most part (unlike those Kiepura films, which actually function quite well as films), but they are saved by the man's fantastic singing and a generally charming atmosphere. And unlike the other films mentioned, three of the Schmidt films are even released in a DVD box set in Germany, containing Ein Lied geht um die Welt (Richard Oswald, 1933), Ein Stern fällt vom Himmel (Max Neufeld, 1934), and Heut ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben (Oswald again, 1936).

Well, none of the films mentioned are Top 50 material, of course, but I can't say I didn't enjoy them, so the suckers for musical films should definitely try to check some of them out.

Just rewatched Murders in the Rue Morgue. I had forgotten that it is essentially a remake of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; tho' while Rue Morgue shares that movie's grotesque and artificial visual manner, it is grounded in so many common genre tropes that its world feels more stable and familiar.

I don't know what to make of Rue Morgue's attempts to link real science and pseudo-science together. The movie seems conflicted about what it thinks of Mirakle's hypotheses: it sets him up as a lone voice of unpopular scientific truth against the ovine reactions of popular opinion and received knowledge, daring his audience to burn him for heresy while taunting them with the cry that truth can never be suppressed. But then it goes ahead and links his (factually true) evolutionary ideas, which the movie had seemed to admire, with the kind of pseudo-science that mad scientist films of the 30's and 40's always link with the unnatural, the perverse, and the insane, and which always functions as a negative and paranoid critique of science as an unhealthy, anti-social, essentially dangerous curiosity.

The movie has the odd effect of subverting its own subversion. I wonder if it wasn't that the filmmakers' actual sympathies made their way in alongside the elements demanded by convention.

While I'm sure convention plays a lot into it I also have always felt that they were trying to get across that a villain can make a good point too. He's not so much a bad guy as he is insane and trying to prove himself in the most outrageous way possible. He's not a villain for his ideas, but for how he tries to prove them which for me makes him a tragic figure. The King Kong (an other film that should be considered for the list naturally) like ending seems to prove that for me. The whole climax is filmed as if a terrible mistake were occurring.

knives wrote:While I'm sure convention plays a lot into it I also have always felt that they were trying to get across that a villain can make a good point too. He's not so much a bad guy as he is insane and trying to prove himself in the most outrageous way possible.

While that would certainly cover most of the Karloff mad scientist pictures (Invisible Ray, Man They Could Not Hang, Before I Hang, The Devil Commands, Black Sunday, and so forth), where Karloff starts off as a legitimate, benevolent scientist, who is pushed over into insanity and obsession when his experiments are obstructed by either personal loss or ill-meaning and ignorant people, Dr. Mirakle is the other type, the cold, arrogant egotist who cares for human life only insofar as it aids his experiments. He's diabolical from the beginning. He doesn't have that Karloff sense of a decent man pushed to extremes. Plus he's contrasted with Dupin, who is also a man of science, but of a more 'proper' science, medicine, which is about healing and not experimenting with forbidden knowledge. That and Mirakle's experiments are amusingly useless and unscientific even for these kinds of movies (mixing ape blood and human blood proves what exactly?). It's kind of telling that the movie implies Mirakle can only use the blood of a female virgin, which is more magic/voodoo than is typical for 30's-era pseudo-science.

Murders in the Rue Morgue is an unrealistic fantasy movie with this strange little interlude of real science and scientific idealism near the beginning that doesn't seem to fit properly with the rest of the film.