1931

A comic fairy tale about a little tramp's devotion to a blind flower seller. My heart belongs to Buster Keaton but even I must acknowledge that no one anywhere ever equaled this. It is exquisite.

Police and criminals unknowingly make common cause in tracking down a child serial killer (Peter Lorre). This was voted the best German film ever by German film historians in the 1990's as per the fantastic commentary on the Criterion DVD. I've seen this one many times and always get something new out of it. Lorre was beyond magnificent in his film debut. What a tragedy that he succumbed to addiction later on.

A mildmannered henpecked cashier (Michel Simon) falls head over heels for a woman he rescues on the street. She and her pimp find that that his paintings have a market and cash in.

The film is introduced by puppets in a Punch & Judy show. One says the story is a morality play, a second says it is a comedy of manners, the third that it is about ordinary people and has no point. In fact, it is all three but I found it predominantly to be a pitch black comedy. Simon is wonderful and the direction, of course is superb. I love the way Renoir plays with art dealers and the way he uses music.

I'm always hoping to discover something new to add to my non-existent Top 100 and I'm happy to say I did today! Highly recommended.

Fritz Lang remade this film as Scarlet Street in 1945 with Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea. Much as I love that version, I prefer this one.

I've seen this one many times before. Each time I am moved all over again by Boris Karloff's timeless performance as the monster. It is amazing that Universal considered for even one second giving the part to Lugosi. Then, too, the images are just wonderful. Some of the performances are over the top but they seem to fit right into the Gothic story. For a movie that is so easily parodied, this plays it surprisingly straight.

Fanny loves Marius (Pierre Fresnay). Marius loves Fanny but dreams of the sea. Caesar (Raimu) loves them both. This is a richly human film, filled with marvelous character parts and emotion. The dialogue is wonderful without being too stagy.

Favorite exchange: Wealthy widower who wants to marry young girl - "I have plenty of money." Girl's mother - "Nightgowns have no pockets."

This is the first of three films collectively known as the "Marseilles Trilogy" or the "Fanny Trilogy" based on plays by Marcel Pagnol, who also wrote the source material for Jean de Florette, The Baker's Wife, and other films.

Another musical souffle from Rene Clair. A penniless young Parisian artist's creditors are all breathing down his neck when he wins a million in the lottery. Only problem is the ticket is in the pocket of his jacket, which he gave to his girlfriend to mend, and his girlfriend gave the jacket to a bum, and the bum sold the jacket and ... you get the picture. I find these things totally enchanting.

A large seam of coal runs under the border between France and Germany. When over 600 miners are trapped by fire and cave-ins on the French side, German miners spontaneously come to their rescue.

This is a picture about the brotherhood of workers. As such I expected it to be heavy on the message. This movie would have been excellent without any message. It is very suspenseful, the script is first-rate, and the special effects down in the mine are incredible. The ensemble cast speaks both French and German and is excellent. Quite an achievement considering the year it was made.

A bon vivant Viennese Lieutenant (Maurice Chevalier) starts a new romance with a violinist (Claudette Colbert). The affair ends all too quickly when a princess (Miriam Hopkins) believes a wink aimed at the violinist was meant for her. This musical comedy is pure naughty fun simply dripping with the Lubitsch touch.

A physician's experiments to isolate the "noble" and "impulsive" parts of human nature go horribly wrong. I must read the book because I really could not figure out what possible constructive purpose this effort was designed to achieve. What I got out of the movie was that it allowed the otherwise saintly Jekyll to act on his sexual desires when he was not allowed to marry - though of course that goes wrong too. The camera work and special effects were ahead of their time. I thought Fredric March was wonderful as Hyde but maybe a bit theatrical as Jekyll. Miriam Hopkins was very good as poor Ivy save for her execrable Cockney accent. With Rose Hobart as Jekyll's fiancee.

Oh, I loved this version of the Brecht/Weill operetta. It just drips Weimar decadence and forboding. The acting is fantastic and the production is so stylish the frames could leap out from a German expressionist painting. Highly recommended.

An out-of-work American chorus girl (Mae Clarke) makes ends meet by picking up doughboys on Waterloo Bridge. She runs into a naive American soldier during an air raid and he starts making wedding plans. With a young and glowing Bette Davis in a tiny part as the soldier's sister.

1931 has been the year of Mae Clark who has done well in a wide range of roles - the fiance in Frankenstein, Jimmy Cagney's rather straight-laced moll in The Public Enemy and as a sensitive but street-wise woman in this one. I enjoyed Whale's restrained handling of the melodrama. I could have lived without the ending. I didn't know they would have to resort to that in the pre-Code days.

Rapid fire newspaper comedy about an editor (Adolph Menjou) with ice in his veins who continuously bamboozles his star reporter (Pat O'Brien) into giving up his wedding plans to cover a high-profile hanging. This was remade with a sex change as His Girl Friday in 1940 with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and again in 1974 with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. The screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur just pops. The delivery in this version is fine. I liked Edward Everett Horton as a germophobic reporter. The print I watched on Netflix streaming left a lot to be desired but I enjoyed it anyway.

Dorothy (Sally Eilers) thinks all men are after one thing. Eddie (James Dunn) has never been able to whisper sweet nothings and is saving up to open his own radio business. They get together when he is the one guy who doesn't flirt with her. This is a moving film about well-intentioned ordinary people trying to make a go of married life while operating out of mistrust and often working at cross purposes. I liked it a lot. Eilers is beautiful but not much of an actress. I thought James Dunn was wonderful as the husband who expresses his love through action rather than words.

The title is misleading. There are a couple of shots of Eilers in lingerie and the couple do get married after they stay out late (or rather in at the boy's apartment) but the girl is certainly not "fast". Rather the opposite I would say.

Bad Girl won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Writing (Adaptation). It was also nominated for Best Picture.

This silent comedy directed by Yasujiro Ozu looks at the ups and downs of a middle class Japanese family during the Depression. The film ranges from slapstick to true poignancy and everything in between as it captures the experience of children and parents as they face challenges together. There is a moment when the family has reached its lowest ebb and the parents are playing a pat-a-cake game with the children. The husband and wife simply look at each other without saying a word or emoting very much. You can see all the genius that Ozu would develop in that one moment. Highly recommended.

By all rights this movie just shouldn't be a classic. The acting is over the top when it isn't wooden and the effects are laughable (I am especially fond of the armadillos in Dracula's castle and the rubber bats). It isn't even scary. So why is it so darned entertaining??? Beats me. Every time I watch it I enjoy it all over again.

An entirely separate cast and crew went on duty when the principal players were through for the day and prepared a version of Dracula on the Universal lot for the Spanish-speaking market. Funnily enough, it turns out to be superior in almost every way to the more famous Lugosi version. It is much creepier, flows better, and boasts a more believable Renfield and a Van Helsing who is a worthy vampire slayer. The damsel in distress is a real beauty. This version is available on the Universal Dracula Legacy Collection DVD with English subtitles. Highly recommended.

I was so sure I had seen this before. But I have no recollection of the unforgettable ending at all so clearly I was basing my memories on clips. At any rate, Cagney gave his usual 110% and I thought many of the more brutal moments foreshadowed The Godfather. It moved a little more slowly than I would have liked.

A power-crazy and gun-crazy hoodlum (Edward G. Robinson) rises to the top of his profession before a great fall. With Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as his chum turned song-and-dance man and Glenda Farrell as his dance partner.

This was an interesting companion piece to The Public Enemy. Robinson's character has none of the charm of Cagney's "bad boy" and there is a strong role for the police which were absent in the other film. Nonetheless, Robinson is as dynamic and compelling as Cagney for me and I thought the film flowed somewhat better.

Silent docu-drama about the love of a Tahitian girl and boy and their struggle to stay together when a tabu is placed on the girl. This is beautiful to watch, the young actors are charming and natural, and the music is fun.

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A washed-up alcoholic heavyweight (Wallace Beery) is attempting to raise his young son (Jackie Cooper) in Tijuana on gambling winnings. While he doesn't do a great job of it, love is strong between father and son. This sentimental but gritty tearjerker works for me. Cooper is particularly charming and, while Beery is an unconvincing boxer, he is a lovable lug.

A society girl (Jean Harlow) and a reporter (Robert Williams) fall in love and elope but can their marriage survive her attempts to "civilize" him? With Loretta Young as his newspaper buddy, Gallagher. I liked this one a lot due to the snappy dialogue, expertly delivered by the very appealing Williams and company. I found myself wondering what happened to him. Turns out this was his first major role and he died of peritonitis 4 days after the picture's release.

Nick the Barber (Edward G. Robinson) is known for his luck as a gambler. He takes off for the big city with a stake bankrolled by all his friends at the barber shop. Unfortunately, blondes are his weakness and they and considerable hubris will prove challenging. With James Cagney as his pal/enforcer, Evelyn Knapp as one of the blondes, and Boris Karloff in a tiny role as a gambling rival.

This movie was made as a way of cashing in on the tremendous success of Little Caesar. (Cagney had yet to break through to stardom in Public Enemy, which was in pre-production at the time this film was made.) This is the only film in which Robinson and Cagney appear together. Although Robinson reprises many of the characteristics of Rico, his character here is far more sympathetic. I enjoyed it very much.

A bumbling insurance salesman struggles to make ends meet in Depression-era Japan. This silent short comedy is the earliest surviving work by cinema great Mikio Naruse, who, with Yasujiro Osu, made many domestic dramas in the 30's, 40's and 50's.

The story follows the training and early career of plucky nurse Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck). Her first job is as a night nurse to a couple of young children who are mysteriously starving while their drunken mother carries on with a sinister chauffeur (Clark Gable - in jodhpurs!). Also with Joan Blondelle as another nurse and Ben Lyons as a good-natured young bootlegger. This Pre-Code classic is great fun what with all the disrobing, fisticuffs, and straighttalking ("you mother!"). The DVD includes a pretty good TCM documentary on pre-Code Hollywood called "Thou Shalt Not."

Mixed Marx Brothers entry in which the boys stow away on an ocean liner. Harpo has some inspired moments including a long scene in a Punch and Judy show. Thelma Todd can never replace my beloved Margaret Dumont as a foil for Groucho.

The original film adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novel with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly (here not an alias). Also with Dwight Frye, who was having quite a year, as Wilmer Cook and the always delightful Una Merkel as Sam's secretary. I enjoyed this but couldn't help longing for Bogart and the rest of the 1941 cast who took the same dialogue to a whole new level. There was something about Bogart's ability to play it straight that gave the wisecracks a special bite. Here Cortez tries much too hard.

A creepy singing teacher mesmerizes a young artist's model into a great concert career but can he hypnotize her heart? Marian Marsh is adorable as the gamin-like Trilby and the story is ably staged. The title role may be John Barrymore's hammiest performance ever and he can't seem to decide whether his accent should be Swedish, Yiddish, or German. Worth watching for Marsh.

Somewhat ponderous adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. M.D. Martin Arrowsmith (Ronald Colman) initially abandons research when he marries his first love (Helen Hayes) and becomes a country doctor. Later, he rejoins his research mentor and works on a cure for bubonic plague.

I haven't read the novel so cannot comment whether the film's problems originate in the book. It suffers from an overall pompous tone and some very dubious racial politics as well as from Richard Bennett's horrendous Swedish accent. Interesting to see uncredited early performances by Ford regulars Ward Bond and John Qualen.

Charlie Chan (Werner Oland) solves a murder on the fringes of a film shoot in Honolulu. With Bela Lugosi as a psychic, Dwight Frye as a butler, Sally Eilers as a friend of the victim, and Robert Young in his film debut as Sally's boyfriend. This is this is the earliest extant Oland/Chan film. It stands out for some dynamite Honolulu location footage and beautifully lit camerwork as well as featuring a somewhat more serious and active Chan than is seen later in the series. The remastered print on the DVD is out of this world.

Steven Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) is a brilliant, but alcoholic, trial attorney, who has taught his daughter Jan (Norma Shearer) to think for herself. When Jan meets the sexy gambler (Clark Gable) her father has exonerated in a murder trial, she drops her steadfast fiance (Leslie Howard) and "gives herself" to him. It gets more and more dramatic from there.

It was refreshing to watch a film of this era with a strong female protagonist, even if Norma does recognize the error of her ways by the final frame. I enjoyed the film but the trial scenes, as usual, bothered me. I always watch these with a critical eye and the attorneys and judge almost never fail to trample on every rule of evidence in the book throughout.

Lionel Barrymore won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in this film.

Adaptation of a stage play by John Galsworthy. A self-made industrialist (Edmund Gwynne) is buying up land and overturning the old order in the name of progress and power. The local squire's family seeks to combat this usurpation of its traditional demesne through a bit of blackmail with tragic results. I really enjoyed Gwynne's very un-Santa performance but that was the high point of this film. The sound quality detracts from the experience and the blackmail victim's histrionics are almost intolerable.