MC Decade Consensus - 1930s

[Spinal]

Submit your ten favorite eligible films from this decade and in a week I will give you a top twenty.

The point system is as follows

1st Place-10 points
2nd Place- 8 points
3rd Place- 7 points
4th Place- 6 points
5th Place- 5 points
6th Place - 4 points
7th Place - 3.5 points
8th Place - 3 points
9th Place - 2.5 points
10th Place - 2 points

As you can see, the scale is weighted to give your top film a little bonus and to make sure that the difference between a 6th place and a 10th place is not too drastic.

Ten eligible films must be listed. Please make any edits by making a new post and telling me what changes have been made.

PLEASE READ:
In order to be eligible for this vote, a film must have placed in the top 10 for the Yearly Consensus Poll for the year it was released. Honorable mention films are not eligible. Since you only have ten slots to fill, I want you to focus on films that have a realistic chance of making the final list, so that we may achieve the most accurate results possible. My goal is to increase the influence of your vote. Please feel free to post an additional list that reflects your "true" top films of the decade. However, only lists with ten eligible films will be counted towards the final poll.

In order to add some suspense to the final results, you may (if you choose) PM your ballot to me instead of posting it in the thread below. Either method of voting will be acceptable. (But please do not do both.) "Secret" ballots will be revealed after the final poll is posted.

You may begin now.

Eligible films
A Day at the Races (Wood)
A Day in the Country (Renoir)
A Night at the Opera (Wood)
À propos de Nice (Vigo)
A Story of Floating Weeds (Ozu)
After the Thin Man (Van Dyke)
Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein/Vasilyev)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Milestone)
Angels With Dirty Faces (Curtiz)
Animal Crackers (Heerman)
Boudu Saved From Drowning (Renoir)
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
Captain Blood (Curtiz)
City Lights (Chaplin)
Design for Living (Lubitsch)
Destry Rides Again (Marshall)
Dodsworth (Wyler)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Mamoulian)
Dracula (Browning)
Duck Soup (McCarey)
Earth (Dovzhenko)
Frankenstein (Whale)
Freaks (Browning)
Fury (Lang)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (LeRoy)
Gone With the Wind (Fleming)
Hell's Angels (Hughes)
Holiday (Cukor)
Humanity and Paper Balloons (Yamanaka)
I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (LeRoy)
I Love to Singa (Avery)
I Was Born, But... (Ozu)
It Happened One Night (Capra)
King Kong (Cooper/Schoedsack)
La Bete Humaine (Renoir)
La Chienne (Renoir)
L'Âge d'or (Buñuel)
Land Without Bread (Buñuel)
L'Atalante (Vigo)
Le Million (Clair)
Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian)
M (Lang)
Mad Love (Freund)
Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (Bruckman/Fields)
Modern Times (Chaplin)
Monkey Business (McLeod)
Morocco (von Sternberg)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Capra)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra)
Mutiny on the Bounty (Lloyd)
My Man Godfrey (La Cava)
Of Mice and Men (Milestone)
Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
Osaka Elegy (Mizoguchi)
Pépé le Moko (Duvivier)
Porky in Wackyland (Clampett)
Port of Shadows (Carné)
Pygmalion (Asquith/Howard)
Queen Christina (Mamoulian)
Scarface (Hawks)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Hand)
Stage Door (La Cava)
Stagecoach (Ford)
Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (Murnau)
The 39 Steps (Hitchcock)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Curtiz)
The Awful Truth (McCarey)
The Blood of a Poet (Cocteau)
The Blue Angel (von Sternberg)
The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale)
The Devil is a Woman (von Sternberg)
The Goddess (Wu)
The Grand Illusion (Renoir)
The Invisible Man (Whale)
The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (Hitchcock)
The Mascot (Starewicz)
The Music Box (Parrott)
The Petrified Forest (Mayo)
The Public Enemy (Wellman)
The Roaring Twenties (Walsh)
The Rules of the Game (Renoir)
The Scarlett Empress (von Sternberg)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang)
The Thin Man (Van Dyke)
The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)
Top Hat (Sandrich)
Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl)
Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
Twentieth Century (Hawks)
Vampyr (Dreyer)
Westfront 1918 (Pabst)
Wuthering Heights (Wyler)
You Can't Take it With You (Capra)
You Only Live Once (Lang)
Young and Innocent (Hitchcock)
Zero for Conduct (Vigo)

[Ezee E]

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. Modern Times
3. King Kong
4. Duck Soup
5. Angels with Dirty Faces
6. Only Angels Have Wings
7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
8. M
9. Stagecoach
10. Scarface

The 30's are probably my biggest opportunity. Make Way For Tomorrow probably being the one I should see the quickest.

[soitgoes...]

Renoir. He's French.


The Grand Illusion (Renoir)
The Rules of the Game (Renoir)
M (Lang)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra)
La Bete Humaine (Renoir)
The Blue Angel (von Sternberg)
Pygmalion (Asquith/Howard)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang)
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
It Happened One Night (Capra)

[Spinal]

1. M
2. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
3. The Wizard of Oz
4. Tabu
5. Wuthering Heights
6. The Grand Illusion
7. Vampyr
8. L'Âge d'or
9. City Lights
10. The Thin Man

[Russ]

1. Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
2. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)
3. Freaks (Browning)
4. L'Âge d'or (Buñuel)
5. City Lights (Chaplin)
6. King Kong (Cooper/Schoedsack)
7. Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
8. M (Lang)
9. Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
10. I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (LeRoy)

[Pop Trash]

1. Modern Times
2. The Wizard of Oz
3. City Lights
4. Freaks
5. Angels with Dirty Faces
6. The 39 Steps
7. Frankenstein
8. King Kong
9. Queen Christina
10. Stagecoach

[Melville]

1. City Lights (Chaplin)
2. The Mascot (Starewicz)
3. Top Hat (Sandrich)
4. Duck Soup (McCarey)
5. Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
6. Animal Crackers (Heerman)
7. Modern Times (Chaplin)
8. Freaks (Browning)
9. The Blue Angel (von Sternberg)
10. Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)

[Raiders]

1. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
2. Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
3. The Mascot (1934)
4. Stage Door (1937)
5. L'Atalante (1934)
6. The Blue Angel (1930)
7. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
8. L'Age d'or (1930)
9. The Rules of the Game (1939)
10. Porky in Wackyland (1938)

[baby doll]

Eligible:

1. La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
2. Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
3. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
4. Osaka Elegy (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936)
5. Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932)
6. La Grande illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)
7. L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)
8. The Scarlet Empress (Josef von Sternberg, 1934)
9. Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
10. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933)

Ineligible:

A Colour Box (Len Lye, 1935)
The Only Son (Yasujiro Ozu, 1936)
Rose Hobart (Joseph Cornell, 1936)
You and Me (Fritz Lang, 1938)
Sisters of the Gion (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936)

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
02. Duck Soup
03. M
04. Frankenstein
05. Freaks
06. The 39 Steps
07. Vampyr
08. The Thin Man
09. It Happened One Night
10. Captain Blood

[Derek]

Renoir. He's French.

Nice try. ;)

One per director to spread the wealth a bit:

1) L'Atalante (Vigo)
2) Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
3) The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang)
4) Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
5) City Lights (Chaplin)
6) The Rules of the Game (Renoir)
7) Holiday (Cukor)
8) The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)
9) Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
10) Earth (Dovzhenko)

[soitgoes...]

Nice try. ;)My guy's got pedigree. His pops is a national icon and shit. Plus he didn't engage in all those newfangled film techniques you kids are so keen on or die young.

[Ivan Drago]

1. Duck Soup
2. The Wizard of Oz
3. The Rules of the Game
4. City Lights
5. King Kong
6. A Night At The Opera
7. Queen Christina
8. Monkey Business
9. My Man Godfrey
10. The Scarlett Empress

[Weeping_Guitar]

01. Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
02. The Grand Illusion (Renoir)
03. Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
04. City Lights (Chaplin)
05. Holiday (Cukor)
06. The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock)
07. Pygmalion (Asquith/Howard)
08. Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
09. My Man Godfrey (La Cava)
10. Top Hat (Sandrich)

[soitgoes...]

An alternate list where the Japanese reign supreme:


Wife! Be Like a Rose! (Naruse)
An Inn in Tokyo (Ozu)
Salt for Svanetia (Kazalotov)
New Earth (Ivens)
The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi)
Wooden Crosses (Bernard)
Leibelei (Ophüls)
Swing Time (Stevens)
Every Night Dreams (Naruse)
The Only Son (Ozu)

[Eleven]

1. The Rules of the Game
2. Duck Soup
3. M
4. L'Atalante
5. I Was Born, But...
6. Freaks
7. The Scarlet Empress
8. City Lights
9. The Bride of Frankenstein
10. Scarface


Not Eligible: The Bitter Tea of General Yen, The Crime of Monsieur Lange, Daybreak [Le jour se leve], History is Made at Night, The Lost Patrol, Man's Castle, Ninotchka, The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums, Swing Time, Wooden Crosses.

[B-side]

1. Modern Times (Chaplin)
2. The Blood of a Poet (Cocteau)
3. A Night at the Opera (Wood)
4. À propos de Nice (Vigo)
5. Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
6. Duck Soup (McCarey)
7. Stagecoach (Ford)
8. City Lights (Chaplin)
9. L'Âge d'or (Buñuel)
10. M (Lang)

[Yxklyx]

1. M (Fritz Lang)
2. Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy)
3. It Happened One Night (Frank Capra)
4. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale)
5. Boudu Saved from Drowning (Jean Renoir)
6. Young and Innocent (Alfred Hitchcock)
7. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming)
8. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)
9. The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock)
0. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)

[Lazlo]

1. The Grand Illusion
2. Gone With the Wind
3. All Quiet on the Western Front
4. M
5. The Wizard of Oz
6. Bringing Up Baby
7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
8. The Rules of the Game
9. Modern Times
10. City Lights

[Grouchy]

Ten films?

1. Duck Soup
2. Freaks
3. M
4. Grand Illusion
5. Bride of Frankenstein

6. Gone With the Wind
7. King Kong
8. L'Atalante
9. Modern Times
10. A Night at the Opera

[StanleyK]

Well, what do you know. If I unethically put a mere ***½ film in my #10 spot, then I can compose a list:



1. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)
2. The Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau)
3. La Bête Humaine (Jean Renoir)
4. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy)
5. L'Atalante (Jean Vigo)
6. My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava)
7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand)
8. The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir)
9. La Chienne (Jean Renoir)
10. Porky in Wackyland (Robert Clampett)



Whole lotta Jean's in there.

[Boner M]

1. Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
2. M (Lang)
3. Fury (Lang)
4. Freaks (Browning)
5. Modern Times (Chaplin)
6. Stagecoach (Ford)
7. The Awful Truth (McCarey)
8. L'Atalante (Vigo)
9. Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
10. A Day in the Country (Renoir)

[dreamdead]

1. The Grand Illusion (Renoir)
2. Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
3. The Awful Truth (McCarey)
4. Angels With Dirty Faces (Curtiz)
5. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra)
6. Stagecoach (Ford)
7. The Blue Angel (von Sternberg)
8. Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
9. Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
10. Stage Door (La Cava)

[MadMan]

Note: this list reflects how little I've seen from the 1930s, and is really terrible. But hey I like voting in these things.

1. Stagecoach (1939)
2. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
3. Modern Times (1936)
4. Frankenstein (1931)
5. Duck Soup (1931)
6. M (1930)
7. The Public Enemy (1932)
8. King Kong (1933)
9. Vampyr (1932)
10. The 39 Steps (1935)

[Mysterious Dude]

I'll be watching Make Way for Tomorrow tonight, hopefully.

[Eleven]

I'll be watching Make Way for Tomorrow tonight, hopefully.

Obviously, you should make way for Make Way for Tomorrow today.

[Mysterious Dude]

Obviously, you should make way for Make Way for Tomorrow today.
*SLAP*

[Mysterious Dude]

1. M
2. I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
3. The Music Box
4. Freaks
5. City Lights
6. Westfront 1918
7. Angels With Dirty Faces
8. All Quiet on the Western Front
9. The Scarlett Empress
10. Make Way for Tomorrow

I wasn't sure about Make Way for Tomorrow at first. I was kind of annoyed for much of the movie, but the last half-hour is just wonderful. I don't know if I would feel the same way if I gave the movie some time to sink in, but Make Way for Tomorrow has made its way onto my list... today. (sigh)

Weirdest moment: mom and dad lean towards each other for a kiss, then the mom looks straight at the camera, then backs away from the kiss, as if embarrassed, suddenly aware that everyone is watching her.

[StanleyK]

If you want, Spinal, I can tally this one or the 1920s.

[Spinal]

If you want, Spinal, I can tally this one or the 1920s.

Go for it.

[StanleyK]

Go for it.

All right. List to commence in roughly 24 hours, so last call for more ballots.

[Mr. Pink]

1) M
2) The Bride of Frankenstein
3) The Adventures of Robin Hood
4) I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
5) Bringing Up Baby
6) Vampyr
7) Freaks
8) The Wizard of Oz
9) Scarface
10) Stagecoach

[StanleyK]

All right. List to commence in roughly 24 hours, so last call for more ballots.

Hm, make that another 24 hours. Some RL stuff that needs to be taken care of.



In the meantime:


3. Top Hat (Sandrich)

What the hell? That movie was pure disposable fluff; a generic, irritating rom-com misunderstanding plot which could be cleared away with a couple lines of dialogue and the characters just not being complete idiots, lame jokes, no substance, salvaged only by Astaire's charm and dancing prowess. Of all people, you're just about the last one who I'd imagine would enjoy this film.

[StanleyK]

#20

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/DirtyFaces.jpg

Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938)

You'll slap me? You slap me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.



To play Rocky, James Cagney drew on his memories of growing up in New York's Yorkville, a tough ethnic neighborhood on the upper east side, just south of Spanish Harlem.. His main inspiration was a drug-addicted pimp who stood on a street corner all day hitching his trousers, twitching his neck, and repeating, "Whadda ya hear! Whadda ya say!" Those mannerisms came back to haunt Cagney. He later wrote in his autobiography, "I did those gestures maybe six times in the picture. That was over thirty years ago - and the impressionists have been doing me doing him ever since."

The Dead End Kids terrorized the set during shooting. They threw other actors off with their ad-libbing, and once cornered costar Humphrey Bogart and stole his trousers. But they didn't figure on James Cagney's street-bred toughness. The first time Leo Gorcey pulled an ad-lib on Cagney, the star stiff-armed the young actor right above the nose. From then on, the gang behaved.



IMDB board threads:
1. Leo D and Tobey Maguire are gonna remake this.
2. Where does he say keep the change ya filthy animal?
3. Moral - go to gym to outrun cops!




Angels With Dirty Faces is aces except for those awful, goddamned Dead End Kids.

Wryan

[StanleyK]

#19

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/MrSmith.jpg

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939)

Either I'm dead right, or I'm crazy!



James Stewart knew this was the role of a lifetime, one that could place him near the top of the Hollywood heap. Jean Arthur later remembered his mood at the time: "He was so serious when he was working on that picture, he used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and drive himself to the studio. He was so terrified something was going to happen to him, he wouldn't go faster."

It is known that Alben W. Barkley, the Senate Majority Leader, called the film "silly and stupid," and said it "makes the Senate look like a bunch of crooks." He also remarked that the film was "a grotesque distortion" of the Senate, "as grotesque as anything ever seen! Imagine the Vice President of the United States winking at a pretty girl in the gallery in order to encourage a filibuster!" Barkley thought the film "...showed the Senate as the biggest aggregation of nincompoops on record!"



IMDB board threads:
1. roger ebert stars in this movie?
2. Didn't all those kids working at the senate have school???
3. Mr Smith: Extremist




I realize that the execution of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is superb, and I like the film a lot, but the material itself strikes me as very naive and simplistic tale that makes a grand moral argument, and its sincerity cannot be doubted, but 70-some years after the fact still strikes me as unconvincing in its understanding of political process.

Raiders

[Spinal]

3. Mr Smith: Extremist


Heh.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Woo-hoo! Yes, the film is naive. Heroically naive.

[StanleyK]

#18

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/Frankenstein.jpg

Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)

Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!



Child actress Marilyn Harris had done several takes of the drowning scene, none of which turned out quite right. Although wet and tired, she agreed to do one last take of the scene, the one that appears in the finished film, after director James Whale promised her anything she wanted if she would do so. She asked for a dozen hard-boiled eggs, her favorite snack. Whale gave her two dozen.

During production there was some concern that seven-year-old Marilyn Harris, who played Maria, the little girl thrown into the lake by the creature, would be overly frightened by the sight of Boris Karloff in costume and make-up when it came time to shoot the scene. When the cast was assembled to travel to the location, Marilyn ran from her car directly up to Karloff, who was in full make-up and costume, took his hand and asked "May I drive with you?" Delighted, and in typical Karloff fashion, he responded, "Would you, darling?" She then rode to the location with "The Monster."




Frankenstein is (so far) the best of the horror movies I've been watching since late September. I was somewhat surprised that it actually lived up to its rep.

MadMan

[StanleyK]

#17

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/ChainGang.jpg

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)

There are no musts in my life. I'm free, white and twenty-one.



The final fade came as an accident. Director Mervyn LeRoy had planned to go to a blackout after the final line. During rehearsals, a light blew, taking the fuse with it. The resultant slow fade, starting just before the final line, was so powerful that Leroy decided to shoot the film exactly that way.



RT user reviews:
1. Nothings better then the original
2. Excellent, has pretty good politics, all things considered.
3. I didn't like this film.




For instance I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (How do you survive? I steal!)... very precise, memorable middle chain gang section but the degree of didacticism is absolutely stifling. I'm not saying the film shouldn't be didactic but I never think it hurts to be less gleeful in one's caricature and blatant in intent...

Qrazy

[StanleyK]

#16

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/Testament.jpg

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933)



In his film, where gun-play, fires, or explosions are needed, Lang often resorted to using real weapons. In the opening scene during a power out, a stunt actor is brought in to do the gun play. Cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner stated that he spent most of the production in a state of panic due to the extreme lengths that Lang would endanger his crew. The film is generally shot in a realistic style with the exception of Mabuse's ghostly appearances throughout the film. Lang admitted later in interviews that if he could re-do the film, he would not have included these supernatural scenes.



IMDB board threads:
1. Fight Club!
2. Batman Begins
3. police academy 6




Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, despite feeling vaguely familiar in terms of plot development, nonetheless feels quite modern and intricate in its overlaying narrative. Lang's camera evokes some wonderful noir lighting, and the opening is more suspenseful than I would have thought; Mabuse's out-of-body appearances had quite an eerie vibe. The only real flaw is in that repetitive and excessive (by today's standards) car chase that closes out the film. That part hurt. Everything else was quite wonderful.

dreamdead

[StanleyK]

#15

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/KingKong.jpg

King Kong (Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933)

Some big, hardboiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy!



The "Old Arabian Proverb" opening the film was actually written by director Merian C. Cooper.

As a child, Merian C. Cooper lived close to an elevated train which kept him awake at night when it clattered across the tracks. This was the inspiration for the scene where Kong destroys an elevated train.

For the shots of the airplanes taking off from the strip, the pilots were paid US$10 each.

King Kong's roar was a lion's and a tiger's roar combined and run backwards.

Close-ups of the pilots and gunners of the planes that attack Kong were shot in the studio with mock-up planes. The flight commander is director Merian C. Cooper and his observer is producer Ernest B. Schoedsack. They decided to play the parts after Cooper said that "we should kill the sonofabitch ourselves".



IMDB board threads:
1. King Kong is a movie about 'nice guys' finishing last and exploitation.
2. King Kong is an analogy for Amercia's fear of Black men
3. Adolf Hitler's favorite movie




I thought it was powerfully meh. Dull hokum. And Kong's facial expressions are risible in the extreme.

Melville

[Melville]

What the hell? That movie was pure disposable fluff; a generic, irritating rom-com misunderstanding plot which could be cleared away with a couple lines of dialogue and the characters just not being complete idiots, lame jokes, no substance, salvaged only by Astaire's charm and dancing prowess. Of all people, you're just about the last one who I'd imagine would enjoy this film.
I thought it was the most charming movie I've seen—it's all charm. It is fluff, but it feels like it's dancing on air. I loved the wit, the grace of the dancing, and how Astaire seemed so at ease, so amused by all the luxury and even by the misunderstandings he finds himself in. The whole film is steeped in his charm. I know Derek loves it too, and he wrote a pretty extensive review of it that's somewhere.


However, I can't even remember if I've seen King Kong. Was I responding to just the last bit, where he bats at the planes? 'Cause that's the only part I remember. Although maybe I watched the whole thing online. I guess I also remember the scene where the natives first offer the girl to him to pick at and make funny expressions over. Hm.

[StanleyK]

#14

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/Stagecoach.jpg

Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)

If talk was money, Doc, you'd be the best customer I got.



In 1939 there was no paved road through Monument Valley, hence the reason why it hadn't been used as a movie location before (it wasn't paved until the 1950s). Harry Goulding, who ran a trading post there, had heard that John Ford was planning a big-budget Western so he traveled to Hollywood, armed with over 100 photographs, and threatened to camp out on Ford's doorstep until the director saw him. Ford saw him almost immediately and was instantly sold on the location, particularly when he realized that its remoteness would free him from studio interference.

John Ford loved the Monument Valley location so much that the actual stagecoach journey traverses the valley three times.

Orson Welles argued that it was a perfect textbook of film making and claimed to have watched it more than 40 times during the making of Citizen Kane.



RT user reviews:
1. This Movie Sucks Whiener
2. This is a good movie
3. HIS FIRST ACT PLAY FILM




I read somewhere that there was more humanity in the reporting of the war while it was still happening than there was in any of the films that followed it. In the climax of John Ford's Stagecoach, the coach-riders are battling Indians, who drop off like flies. The natives are treated as obstacles, not people.

Isaac

[StanleyK]

#12 (tie)

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/OnlyAngels.jpg

Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939)

I don't think even you can spoil good liquor.



When Rita Hayworth couldn't play her drunk scene well enough, Hawks told Cary Grant to throw a bucket of water on her head, dry her hair, and to only say his lines.

Howard Hawks and Jean Arthur did not get along during filming. Arthur was not used to Hawks' highly improvisational style, and when Hawks wanted Arthur to play Bonnie much in a subtly sexy way (not unlike his other "Hawksian women"), Arthur flatly said, "I can't do that kind of stuff." Hawks told Arthur at the end of the shoot, "You are one of the few people I've worked with that I don't think I've helped at all. Someday you can go see what I wanted to do because I'm gonna do this character all over again." Years later Hawks returned home to find Arthur waiting for him in his driveway. She had just seen his To Have and Have Not and confessed, "I wish I'd done what you'd asked me to do. If you ever make another picture with me, I'll promise to do any goddamn thing you want to do. If a kid [Lauren Bacall] can come in and do that kind of stuff, I certainly could do it." Hawks and Arthur never collaborated again.



RT user reviews:
1. never seen this one
2. not interested one bit!
3. no thanks not my kinda thing




Only Angels Have Wings was both incredibly entertaining and a surprisingly affecting depiction of a tightly knit and insulated group of men and how they cope with grief, and the women who upset those coping mechanisms. Couldn't believe it ran for nearly 2 hours, moves by so breezily. I suppose the final scene is a major drawback, but the fact that it made me smile before I realised what a crock it is says something about Hawks' handling of it. Also, I love Jean Arthur's voice.

Boner M

[StanleyK]

#12 (tie)

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/BringingUpBaby.jpg

Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)

Just name anything, and I've done it.



It has been suggested that co-screenwriter Dudley Nichols based the madcap romance on Katharine Hepburn's affair with director John Ford at the time. However, other sources state that Hepburn and Ford were never romantically involved, explaining that although they had been on Ford's yacht together, his wife had been there with them.

Cary Grant was not fond of the leopard that was used in the film. Once, to torture him, Katharine Hepburn put a stuffed leopard through a vent in the top of his dressing room. "He was out of there like lightning," wrote Hepburn in her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life.



IMDB board threads:
1. The word 'gay' in the film referenced homosexuals...
2. More on the 'gay' joke -- WITH EVIDENCE!! :)
3. The word 'gay' in pre-1960s films




I'm not a huge fan of Bringing up Baby, although I do enjoy it. I liked it a lot the first time, but have a hard time getting through it on repeat viewings. I like the third act the best, which is a shame because I rarely make it that far :(

Philosophe_rouge

[soitgoes...]

I thought it was the most charming movie I've seen—it's all charm. It is fluff, but it feels like it's dancing on air. I loved the wit, the grace of the dancing, and how Astaire seemed so at ease, so amused by all the luxury and even by the misunderstandings he finds himself in. The whole film is steeped in his charm. I know Derek loves it too, and he wrote a pretty extensive review of it that's somewhere.
I love it too. Swing Time's better though.

[Russ]

I'm not a huge fan of Bringing up Baby, although I do enjoy it. I liked it a lot the first time, but have a hard time getting through it on repeat viewings. I like the third act the best, which is a shame because I rarely make it that far :(

I like the third act the least, which is a shame because I always make it that far. :)

[StanleyK]

#11

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/TroubleinParadise.jpg

Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)

Yes, that's the trouble with mothers. First you get to like them, and then they die.



"When I was small I liked to go to the movies because you could find out what adults did when there weren't any children in the room. As I grew up that pleasure gradually faded; the more I knew the less the characters seemed like adults. Ernst Lubitsch's "Trouble in Paradise'' reawakened my old feeling. It is about people who are almost impossibly adult, in that fanciful movie way -- so suave, cynical, sophisticated, smooth and sure that a lifetime is hardly long enough to achieve such polish. They glide." - Roger Ebert




it was... alright. It was charming and with good performances, but somehow the drama didn't really stick for me and it wasn't half as funny as I expected it to be. High expectations (due a great deal to To Be Or Not To Be's brilliance) left me feeling underwhelmed. Not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but hardly a memorable one for me.

Buffaluffasaurus

[baby doll]

The list so far: Only Angels Have Wings, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, and Trouble in Paradise are amazing. I didn't care for Frankenstein, and I turned off King Kong and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington after thirty minutes. I haven't seen the rest.

[StanleyK]

#10

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/LAtalante.jpg

L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)



L’Atalante was filmed mostly on location during the cold winter months and Vigo was so ill with tuberculosis that he had to direct some of the scenes from a stretcher. Vigo died just weeks after completing the filming of L’Atalante and, in fact, did not remain healthy long enough to complete the editing process.

"I believe that this film of Jean Vigo completely changed my illusions on the revolutionary character of the cinema. It is the poetry which makes the cinema. If you want to last, you have to be a poet ; if you're not a poet, the films you make can just be reflexions... Fifteen years ago, all seemed much easier to to me ; today, the things became rough. It is much more difficult to survive as a poet in the jungle of the modern cinema... Nobody knows what it means anymore. I remain persuaded that in L' Atalante, you find the perfect balance between dialogue and action" - Emir Kusturica



RT user reviews:
1. Another French film? Yes. Something that qualifies under the category of "weird damn French crap"?
2. Watch out. When Jules asks, "Do you want to see my little man?" he's not bluffing.
3. Have I actually seen this?




Well, L'atalante wasn't quite what I expected... but still good, and inspiring. Very pretty, even if the gorgeous shots were a bit more intermittant than I expected.

monolith94

[StanleyK]

#09

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/MakeWayforTomorrow.jpg

Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)

Two old-fashioneds, for two old-fashioned people.



Orson Welles reportedly said of Make Way for Tomorrow, "Oh my God! That is the saddest movie ever! It would make a stone cry," and rhapsodized about his enthusiasm for the film in his booklength series of interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, This Is Orson Welles. In Newsweek magazine, famed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris named it his number one most important film, stating "The most depressing movie ever made, providing reassurance that everything will definitely end badly."



An RT user review:
1. Do you hate old people? so do I




Make Way for Tomorrow was quite something. I haven't cried this much from a movie in years. Possibly since I was a kid. Completely heartbreaking. More than once I was actually sobbing. Both Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore were perfect. Unbelievable that Bondi was 49 at the time, playing a woman in her 70s. That ending. Getting teary just thinking back to it. Probably the best thing I've seen so far this year.

megladon8

[StanleyK]

#08

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/Freaks.jpg

Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)

We accept you, one of us! Gooble Gobble!



Prince Randian, the man with no arms or legs, developed a habit of lurking in dark corners and frightening passers-by with a blood-curdling yell.

During filming, director Tod Browning was plagued with dreams in which Johnny Eck and a pinhead would keep bringing a cow in backward through a doorway in the middle of shoots.

During a publicity photo session with Olga Baclanova, midget actor Harry Earles kept making lewd remarks. Many of her surprised and disgusted visual expressions in the photos that the session yielded are authentic rather than posed.



Reviews by witty and insightful RT users:
1. We accept yu one of us! We accept yu one of us! We accept yu one of us! We accept yu one of us!
2. ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US.
3. We except you We except you!




Freaks, on the other hand, was wonderfully disturbing. Even to this day. That final image (you know the one) is still kind of shocking.

Spun Lepton

[StanleyK]

#07

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/ModernTimes.jpg

Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)

Buck up - never say die. We'll get along.



Reminding a great deal of John Keats' poetry, the silent medium is a fascinating one in that there is embedded in many of its best examples the understanding that its life is an ephemeral one--nowhere more so than in Chaplin's work, self-reflexive as it is inside and out. In its sublimely infernal eating machine, Modern Times subverts the Russian formalism of Eisenstein; in its exploded surreality, it comments on German Expressionism; and at its heart, it predicts Italian neo-realism (the soap operas of De Sica and the more accomplished avant-garde of Fellini). - Walter Chaw



An indignant IMDB user:
"what kind of idiot and waste of life, comes on this board asking if this film is suitable for children? Gee no, that cunnilingus scene where Charlie eats out Paulette might be too much! God people are morons!"




Tonight, I saw Modern Times and I simply don't have words to describe my feelings on it. Seriously, I'm sitting here still teary-eyed thinking about it and if I had an inkling before, I'm sure of it now: Charlie Chaplin was one of the greatest artists to ever live.Absolutely breathtaking experience. Parts were brilliantly hilarious (the feeding machine, the 'nose-powder' and the tramp finding a wedge to name a few) but underneath it all was a not-so-subtle warning to people to not become part of the machine. There was some scathing political commentary as well (The tramp had it better in jail than he did on the streets? that sounds familar).Timely? Yes, but more importantly - timeless. Chaplin played with universal themes that seem to resonate with more urgency today than they did when his films were released.

Fezzik

[Russ]

Freaks, on the other hand, was wonderfully disturbing. Even to this day. That final image (you know the one) is still kind of shocking.
I find the shot of the freaks crawling through the mud, with the rain and flashing lightning, in their pursuit of Hercules much more disturbing. Guess that's why they felt the need to remove all references to the implied castration of Hercules. Though, it's cut from the same gut-check cloth as the scene you mention.

[StanleyK]

#06

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/GrandIllusion.jpg

The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)

The theater's too deep for me. I prefer bicycling.



"The illusion in "Grand Illusion," Jean Renoir's 1937 masterpiece set during World War I, is war itself, which demands sides when sides bear little relationship to the common interests of individuals. No wonder Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels declared the film ''Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1.

[...]

In the gracious and respectful relationship between the German Captain von Rauffenstein and his French prisoner-counterpart Captain de Boeldieu, between the high-born Boeldieu and his low-born fellow officer Maréchal, between Maréchal and the French-Jewish soldier Rosenthal, and between one brave German woman and the two escaped French prisoners she hides, Renoir, the grand humanist filmmaker, spoke for all that's best about people at a time when people were in danger of becoming their worst.'' - Lisa Szhwarzbaum



IMDB board threads:
1. Did Rauffenstein Inspire Darth Vader.
2. Capt. von Rauffenstein Chin Piece
3. Anti War?




Grand Illusion was pretty damn good, although the last half hour didn't mesh terribly well with the earlier film. It's mostly a surprisingly light look at a POW camp, then it turns into a men-on-the-run story. Although both are directed with the same subtlety and attention to character. It doesn't feel like a war film. It feels more like a character study, with its characters almost all sympathetic and kind. They probably all feel that this whole "war" thing is terribly unfortunate.

Dead & Messed Up

[StanleyK]

#05

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/DuckSoup.jpg

Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)

Married. I can see you right now in the kitchen, bending over a hot stove. But I can't see the stove.



"Duck soup" was American English slang at that time; it meant something easy to do. Conversely, "to duck something" meant to avoid it. When Groucho was asked for an explanation of the title, he quipped, "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life."

When asked what the political significance of this film was, Groucho Marx reportedly said, "What significance? We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh."




It was pretty good. It's one of those films where it's been parodied up the whazoo (Bugs Bunny is pretty much a carbon copy of Groucho). The mirror scene is the best.

Watashi

[StanleyK]

#04

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/TROTG.jpg

The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)

The awful thing about life is this: Everybody has their reasons.



When the film opened in 1939, initial reception of it was so bad that one viewer lit a newspaper and tried to burn the theater that it was playing in. There were even threats to other theaters.

"Its Paris opening in 1939 was a disaster: the film was withdrawn, recut, and eventually banned by the occupying forces for its “demoralizing” effects. It was not shown again in its complete form until 1965, when it became clear that here, perhaps, was the greatest film ever made. “The rules of the game,” said Jean Renoir, “are those which must be observed in society if one wishes to avoid being crushed.”" - Dave Kehr



IMDB board threads:
1. The end reactions to (spoiler) made no f*+#ing sense
2. truly mystified - what the?
3. Dick Cheney, pseudo aristocrat.




I honestly wouldn't have remembered that there was a murder mystery in The Rules of the Game. All I remember is the class stuff, a sense of shame, and being impressed by its formalism.

Duncan

[soitgoes...]

I like Duck Soup a lot. I'd say it's my favorite Marx Brothers film, but boy does it look out of place between the Renoir films.

[StanleyK]

#03

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/CityLights.jpg

City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)

Tomorrow the birds will sing.



Charles Chaplin re-shot the scene in which the Little Tramp buys a flower from the blind flower-girl 342 times, as he could not find a satisfactory way of showing that the blind flower-girl thought that the mute tramp was wealthy.

As a filmmaker, Chaplin was known for being a perfectionist; he was notable for doing many more takes than other directors at the time. At one point he fired Virginia Cherrill and began re-filming with Georgia Hale, Chaplin's co-star in The Gold Rush. This proved too expensive, so he re-hired Cherrill to finish City Lights. [...] When Chaplin completed the film, silent films had become generally unpopular. But City Lights was one of the great financial and artistic successes of Chaplin's career, and it was his personal favorite of his films. Especially fond of the final scene, he said, "[I]n City Lights just the last scene … I’m not acting …. Almost apologetic, standing outside myself and looking … It’s a beautiful scene, beautiful, and because it isn’t over-acted."

Orson Welles said that this was his favorite movie of all time.



RT user reviews:
1. This movie was gay and stupid. I saw it on a movie channel on TV.
2. Greatly overrated. Silent, too.
3. it was good, but prolly would have been funnier with sound




The most magical experience I had was sort of a smaller theater viewing in a film class during college. First time I saw City Lights. First silent film I'd ever seen. I was giggling insanely the entire film, it totally charmed me and by the end my heart was aching. I just sat there stunned for nearly 5 minutes and cried my eyes out, not caring about these strangers around me who clearly weren't as moved as I was. I was in pieces. I walked back to my dorm in a daze and in recounting the viewing to friends the following few days I'd tear up just remembering what I felt.

amberlita

[StanleyK]

#02

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/WizardofOz.jpg

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Of course, some people do go both ways.



Want trivia? Here's tons of it. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/trivia)



RT user reviews:
1. Best movie ever no one better say this movie sucks cause it doesent
2. complexly silly. Hasn't aged well
3. video of dorothy in munchin land




For me, it's the colors and the design, all the way. It's simply gorgeous to look at. Helps that it's a real fun entertainment, too.

Sven

[StanleyK]

#01

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/m-chalk.jpg

M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

Just you wait, it won't be long. The man in black will soon be here. With his cleaver's blade so true. He'll make mincemeat out of YOU!



Fritz Lang's cruelty to his actors was legendary here. Peter Lorre was thrown down the stairs into the cellar over a dozen times. When Lang wanted to hire Lorre for "Human Desire" over two decades later, the actor refused.

MGM studio head Irving Thalberg assembled his writers and directors for a private screening of this film, telling them that they needed to be making films of this power and caliber. He also admitted that if anyone had brought a story of a child killer to him, he would have rejected it.

Josef Goebbels was said to have described the film as "fantastic, free of phony humanitarian sentiments".



IMDB board threads:
1. M Night Shyamalan to do remake
2. M VERSUS CITY OF GOD
3. Not even half as good as The Dark Knight!




Great performance by Lorre. The rest? Eh. Nothing special. Maybe my expectations got to me.

Brightside

[StanleyK]

Complete scores, out of a total 23 votes (list mentions in parentheses, mentions at #1 in brackets):

M - 94 (14) [4]
The Wizard of Oz - 63.5 (10) [1]
City Lights - 61.5 (12) [1]
The Rules of the Game - 57.5 (9) [3]
Duck Soup - 57 (8) [2]
The Grand Illusion - 55 (8) [3]
Modern Times - 51 (9) [2]
Freaks - 48.5 (9)
Make Way for Tomorrow - 46 (7) [2]
L'Atalante - 35.5 (7) [1]
Trouble in Paradise - 32 (6)
Bringing Up Baby - 29 (5) [1]
Only Angels Have Wings - 29 (7) [1]
Stagecoach - 28 (7) [1]
King Kong - 25.5 (6)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse - 23.5 (5)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang - 22 (4)
Frankenstein - 21.5 (4)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - 21 (3) [1]
Angels with Dirty Faces - 19.5 (4)
The Blood of a Poet - 16 (2)
Bride of Frankenstein - 15.5 (3)
The Mascot - 15 (2)
The Golden Age - 14.5 (4)
Vampyr - 14.5 (4)
The Blue Angel - 14 (4)
A Night at the Opera - 13 (3)
La Bête Humaine - 12 (2)
Gone with the Wind - 12 (2)
It Happened One Night - 11.5 (3)
The Scarlett Empress - 11 (4)
The Awful Truth - 10.5 (2)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - 10.5 (3)
The 39 Steps - 10 (3)
My Man Godfrey - 9 (3)
Top Hat - 9 (2)
Holiday - 8.5 (2)
Gold Diggers of '33 - 8 (1)
Stage Door - 8 (2)
The Adventures of Robin Hood - 7 (1)
All Quiet on the Western Front - 7 (1)
Fury - 7 (1)
The Music Box - 7 (1)
Pygmalion - 7 (2)
À Propos de Nice - 6 (1)
Osaka Elegy - 6 (1)
Queen Christina - 6 (2)
The Lady Vanishes - 6.5 (2)
Scarface - 6.5 (3)
Tabu: A Story of the South Seas - 6 (1)
Boudu Saved from Drowning - 5 (1)
I Was Born, But... - 5 (1)
Love Me Tonight - 5 (1)
The Thin Man - 5 (2)
Wuthering Heights - 5 (1)
Animal Crackers - 4 (1)
Porky in Wackyland - 4 (2)
Westfront 1918 - 4 (1)
Young and Innocent - 4 (1)
The Public Enemy - 3.5 (1)
Monkey Business - 3 (1)
La Chienne - 2.5 (1)
Captain Blood - 2 (1)
A Day in the Country - 2 (1)
Earth - 2 (1)



Of the 98 that qualified, 33 didn't receive a single mention:

After the Thin Man
Alexander Nevsky
A Day at the Races
Design for Living
Destry Rides Again
The Devil is a Woman
Dodsworth
Dracula
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Goddess
Hell's Angels
Humanity and Paper Balloons
I Love to Singa
The Invisible Man
Land without Bread
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Le Million
Mad Love
Man on the Flying Trapeze
Morocco
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Mutiny on the Bounty
Of Mice and Men
Pépé le Moko
The Petrified Forest
Port of Shadows
The Roaring Twenties
A Story of Floating Weeds
Triumph of the Will
Twentieth Century
You Can't Take it With You
You Only Live Once
Zero for Conduct

[StanleyK]

Easy copy-pastable list for ratings:

1. M
2. The Wizard of Oz
3. City Lights
4. The Rules of the Game
5. Duck Soup
6. The Grand Illusion
7. Modern Times
8. Freaks
9. Make Way for Tomorrow
10. L'Atalante
11. Trouble in Paradise
12t. Bringing Up Baby
12t. Only Angels Have Wings
14. Stagecoach
15. King Kong
16. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
17. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
18. Frankenstein
19. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
20. Angels with Dirty Faces

[baby doll]

I'm a big fan of Lang's collaborations with von Harbou, but I've always admired M more than loved it. (I prefer Die Nibelungen, Metropolis, Spies and The Indian Epic, not to mention Hangmen Also Die! and Moonfleet.)

The best scenes in The Wizard of Oz, for storytelling and mise en scène are the sequences set in Kansas (which I believe were directed by King Vidor). The Oz scenes are noteworthy mainly for the production design, but the storytelling is disjointed and the camera set-ups and staging of actors are purely functional.

I'm not a fan of Duck Soup. Clearly we're not supposed to care about the story, which is just a clothesline for a series of routines, either verbal (Groucho) or physical (Harpo). But once you've seen ten minutes you've seen it all, and I found that the joke got real old real fast.

I suppose I'll have to take another look at Freaks, but I just don't find it very memorable. Also, the humor is really weak.

[soitgoes...]

1. M ****
2. The Wizard of Oz ***
3. City Lights ***½
4. The Rules of the Game ****
5. Duck Soup ***½
6. The Grand Illusion ****
7. Modern Times ***
8. Freaks ***½
9. Make Way for Tomorrow ***½
10. L'Atalante ***
11. Trouble in Paradise ***½
12t. Bringing Up Baby ****
12t. Only Angels Have Wings ***
14. Stagecoach ***½
15. King Kong ***
16. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse ****
17. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang ***½
18. Frankenstein ***½
19. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ****
20. Angels with Dirty Faces ***½

[Qrazy]

Brightside

Brightside is a fail.

[Raiders]

1. M - ***½
2. The Wizard of Oz - ***
3. City Lights - ***½
4. The Rules of the Game - ****
5. Duck Soup - ***½
6. The Grand Illusion - ***
7. Modern Times - ***
8. Freaks - ***½
9. Make Way for Tomorrow - ****
10. L'Atalante - ****
11. Trouble in Paradise - ****
12t. Bringing Up Baby - ***
12t. Only Angels Have Wings - ****
14. Stagecoach - ***
15. King Kong - **½
16. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse - ****
17. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang - ***
18. Frankenstein - ***½
19. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - ***
20. Angels with Dirty Faces - ***½

[Bosco B Thug]

Great work on the list; funny.

1. M - ***1/2
2. The Wizard of Oz - no special regard for it, but probably at the least a *** film.
3. City Lights - ***1/2
4. The Rules of the Game - ****
5. Duck Soup - n/a
6. The Grand Illusion - this one kind of bored me, but that was a long time ago.
7. Modern Times - N2R
8. Freaks - I may agree with baby doll, I've never come away notably impressed by this one. ***
9. Make Way for Tomorrow - ****
10. L'Atalante - n/a
11. Trouble in Paradise - ***1/2
12t. Bringing Up Baby - ***1/2, movie makes me happy
12t. Only Angels Have Wings - ***1/2
14. Stagecoach - N2R
15. King Kong - N2R, anticipate being cold to it, but who knows
16. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse - n/a
17. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang - n/a
18. Frankenstein - N2R
19. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - n/a
20. Angels with Dirty Faces - N2R, ***1/2

[Mysterious Dude]

It's almost amazing how much better M is than any other movie from the 30's. My #2 choice does not even come close to it.

[Melville]

1. M - 7
2. The Wizard of Oz - 4
3. City Lights - 9.5
4. The Rules of the Game - 7
5. Duck Soup - 9
6. The Grand Illusion - 5
7. Modern Times - 7.5
8. Freaks - 8
9. Make Way for Tomorrow - 8
10. L'Atalante - 3
11. Trouble in Paradise - na
12t. Bringing Up Baby - 7
12t. Only Angels Have Wings - 8.5
14. Stagecoach - 5
15. King Kong - 2
16. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse - na
17. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang - na
18. Frankenstein - 3
19. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - 8
20. Angels with Dirty Faces - 3.5

[Grouchy]

I'm not a fan of Duck Soup. Clearly we're not supposed to care about the story, which is just a clothesline for a series of routines, either verbal (Groucho) or physical (Harpo). But once you've seen ten minutes you've seen it all, and I found that the joke got real old real fast.
I think the problem here is that after seeing ten minutes you didn't want to see it all.

Great list. I love M but I'm surprised it was #1. I expected any of the Renoir films to grab that spot.

[Bosco B Thug]

1. M - 7
2. The Wizard of Oz - 4
6. The Grand Illusion - 5
10. L'Atalante - 3
14. Stagecoach - 5
15. King Kong - 2
18. Frankenstein - 3
20. Angels with Dirty Faces - 3.5 Whoa! Badass, that's what you are. :)

2, 14, 15, and 18 I really have little desire or optimism to re-watch. Not to claim they aren't great films.

[StanleyK]

I thought it was the most charming movie I've seen—it's all charm. It is fluff, but it feels like it's dancing on air. I loved the wit, the grace of the dancing, and how Astaire seemed so at ease, so amused by all the luxury and even by the misunderstandings he finds himself in. The whole film is steeped in his charm. I know Derek loves it too, and he wrote a pretty extensive review of it that's somewhere.


6. The Grand Illusion - 5
10. L'Atalante - 3

You're a puzzle, Melv.

[StanleyK]

2. The Wizard of Oz - Don't get the love for this one. I may have to rewatch it to determine why it doesn't work for me, but man, I don't feel like doing that at all.
4. The Rules of the Game - ****
6. The Grand Illusion - ****
7. Modern Times - N2R
10. L'Atalante - ****
12t. Bringing Up Baby - N2R
15. King Kong - N2R
17. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang - ****
19. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - N2R



Who sucks at the 30's? Me. I do.

[Grouchy]

10. L'Atalante - 3
This is just wrong.

[MacGuffin]

1. M - 8.5
3. City Lights - 9
4. The Rules of the Game - 9.5
6. The Grand Illusion - 9.5
7. Modern Times - 4.5
14. Stagecoach - 5
18. Frankenstein - 6

[Eleven]

Frankenstein - 21.5 (4)
Bride of Frankenstein - 15.5 (3)


Baffling.

[Melville]

You're a puzzle, Melv.
Damn French culture, never conforming to my taste.

[B-side]

Damn French culture, never conforming to my taste.

I wasn't all that taken with L'atalante either, which you may recall. A Propos de Nice is way better.

[Melville]

I wasn't all that taken with L'atalante either, which you may recall. A Propos de Nice is way better.
I haven't seen that one, but I really liked the manic energy of Zero de Conduite.

[Grouchy]

Baffling.
Agreed. Not enough people have seen it, maybe?

[Qrazy]

L'atalante is far and away Vigo's best film.

[Eleven]

Agreed. Not enough people have seen it, maybe?

Possibly, but I was under the impression that it was just as much a perennial horror classic as its predecessor. Plus Elsa Lanchester and that amazing old fruit Ernest Thesiger, and you've got something that's funnier and richer than the original.


L'atalante is far and away Vigo's best film.

I like all of his stuff, but yeah, L'Atalante is in another league.

[Melville]

L'atalante is far and away Vigo's best film.
I can't really remember it, but isn't it kind of an affectionately quaint romanticization of earthy everyfolk? If there's one thing I can't abide, it's an affectionate tone. Or romanticizations of earthy everyfolk. It definitely did something to mildly annoy me, anyway.

[StanleyK]

I can't really remember it, but isn't it kind of an affectionately quaint romanticization of earthy everyfolk? If there's one thing I can't abide, it's an affectionate tone. Or romanticizations of earthy everyfolk. It definitely did something to mildly annoy me, anyway.

What about Punch-Drunk Love? That one's pretty affectionate, and totally awesome.

[Yxklyx]

What I remember most about the Vigo film is this guy:

http://fraser.typepad.com/a_girl_a_gun/images/jules.jpg

who later starred in Renoir's Boudu. Love that guy - very refreshing performance in both films.

[Grouchy]

Possibly, but I was under the impression that it was just as much a perennial horror classic as its predecessor. Plus Elsa Lanchester and that amazing old fruit Ernest Thesiger, and you've got something that's funnier and richer than the original.
The key word is "funnier". I don't see Bride so much as a Horror film as a fantasy / satire.

And Melville, I don't think you're remembering the same film.

[Melville]

What about Punch-Drunk Love? That one's pretty affectionate, and totally awesome.
It strikes me as more swooningly, exorbitantly romantic than affectionate. It's from Barry's perspective, or at least it takes his experience as immensely important, rather than looking from a distance upon him and his story with affection.

[StanleyK]

It strikes me as more swooningly, exorbitantly romantic than affectionate. It's from Barry's perspective, or at least it takes his experience as immensely important, rather than looking from a distance upon him and his story with affection.

A story doesn't need to distance itself from the characters to be affectionate; Anderson has love for all his characters, and that comes off strongly.