MC Yearly Consensus - 1938

[Kurosawa Fan]

Submit your five favorite films from this year and in a week I will give you a top ten. IMDb dates will be used.

The point system is as follows

1st Place-5 points
2nd Place-4 points
3rd Place-3.5 points
4th Place-3 points
5th Place-2.5 points

There will be no restrictions on short films. A minimum of three films must be listed. You may edit your post freely up until the time that the thread is locked, which will be in about a week. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

You may begin now.

IMDB Power Search (http://www.imdb.com/list)

[Spinal]

New Ballot:

1. Bringing Up Baby
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. Porky in Wackyland
4. The Adventures of Robin Hood

Old Ballot:
1. Bringing Up Baby
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. The Adventures of Robin Hood

[Raiders]

1. Angels With Dirty Faces
2. La bete humaine
3. Pygmalion
4. The Lady Vanishes
5. Bringing Up Baby

[Qrazy]

Is there a MC yearly concensus hybrid list? How many years do we have left?

Great year for Curtiz.

1. Angels with Dirty Faces
2. The Adventures of Robin Hood
3. Port of Shadows
4. You Can't Take it with You
5. Bringing up Baby

[Spinal]

Is there a MC yearly concensus hybrid list?

If you click the link in my signature, you can see what we've done so far. I'm not sure what you mean by hybrid.

[dreamdead]

1. Angels With Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz)
2. Holiday (George Cukor)
3. The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock)

I should get on Renoir's film sometime.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Netflix is shipping Angels With Dirty Faces today, so I'll post my list after I watch that this week.

[Russ]

1. Porky in Wackyland
2. Angels with Dirty Faces
3. The Adventures of Robin Hood
4. Bringing Up Baby
5. Boys Town

[Qrazy]

1. Angels With Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz)
2. Holiday (George Cukor)
3. The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock)

I should get on Renoir's film sometime.

It's not very good unfortunately, formally excellent, particularly the opening, but then it's all down hill... the drama is flat as can be and the execution of the storyline is just awful. It's really too bad since it's relatively visually enticing and has all of Renoir's usual formal precision.

[Qrazy]

If you click the link in my signature, you can see what we've done so far. I'm not sure what you mean by hybrid.

Nice, thanks... these things always tend to be only one click away (/oblivious).

---

Field of Dreams? Really Match-cut? *shudders*

[Yxklyx]

1. The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. La Bête humaine (Jean Renoir)
3. The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley)
4. Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith & Leslie Howard)
5. Holiday (George Cukor)

6. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks)
7. Jezebel (William Wyler)
8. Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné)
9. The Dawn Patrol (Edmund Goulding)
10. The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Mark Donskoy)

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

1. Port of Shadows
2. Pygmalion
3. The Lady Vanishes
4. Volga Volga
5. Alexander Nevsky

[soitgoes...]

1. La Bête humaine (Jean Renoir)
2. Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard)
3. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks)
4. Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné)
5. Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz)
--------------------------------------------------
6. Porky in Wackyland (Robert Clampett)
7. Have You Got Any Castles? (Frank Tashlin)
8. The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock)
9. The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz)

Not that it probably matters too much for this consensus, but I have Renoir's La Marseillaise. I'll see about watching itthis week.

[Spinal]

Top ten songs for 1938:

1) Fred Astaire, "Night and Day"
2) Ted Lewis, "In a Shanty Old Shanty Town"
3) Bing Crosby, "Please"
4) Leo Reisman, "Paradise"
5) Guy Lombardo, "We Just Can't Say Goodbye"
6) Paul Whiteman, "All of Me"
7) Rudy Vallee, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
8) George Olsen, "Say it Isn't So"
9) George Olsen, "Lullaby of the Leaves"
10) Louis Armstrong, "All of Me"

source: goldenoldies-records.com

[Sycophant]

Two renditions of "All of Me"? Hot damn!

[Spinal]

Time Man of the Year for 1938:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/more/1101390102_400.jpg

Adolph Hitler

[origami_mustache]

1. Alexander Nevsky
2. Porky in Wackyland
3. Bringing up Baby
4 You Can't Take It with You
5. The Adventures of Robin Hood

[Spinal]

Edited to add the Porky short.

[Russ]

For those who haven't seen it, here's the Porky in Wackyland (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI) short.

[Yxklyx]

For those who haven't seen it, here's the Porky in Wackyland (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI) short.

Rick Astley-Never Gonna Give You Up? Doesn't look like it was made in the 30s.

[Russ]

Yes, Rick was in his 30s when he made this.

[Yxklyx]

Wait, when was LSD invented?

[Philosophe_rouge]

One of my weakest years of the 30s. Need to see more

1. Le Quai Des Brumes
2. Holiday
3. Angels with dirty faces
4. The Adventures of Robin Hood
5. The Lady Vanishes

[Eleven]

1. La Bete Humaine
2. Holiday
3. Bringing Up Baby
4. Angels with Dirty Faces
5. Jezebel

HMs: Porky in Wackyland, Robin Hood, Lady Vanishes.

I've got Alexander Nevsky on hand, might watch it before this is over.

EDIT: Holiday was pretty awesome. Fuck you, rich people.

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Angels With Dirty Faces
2. Olympia
3. Port of Shadows
4. The Childhood of Maxim Gorky
5. Porky in Wackyland

Also, a shout out to Mickey's Trailer (http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=owN6A18TKrA) (and thank God even the mighty Michael Eisner can't stop YouTube).

[Melville]

1. The Lady Vanishes
2. La Bête humaine
3. Bringing Up Baby
4. Porky in Wackyland

[Melville]

It's not very good unfortunately, formally excellent, particularly the opening, but then it's all down hill... the drama is flat as can be and the execution of the storyline is just awful. It's really too bad since it's relatively visually enticing and has all of Renoir's usual formal precision.
I thought the execution of the story was excellent, except for the protagonist's psychology never being made believable. And the whole thing is formally magnificent.

[Qrazy]

I thought the execution of the story was excellent, except for the protagonist's psychology never being made believable. And the whole thing is formally magnificent.

Yeah change execution to 'the storyline is awful' primarily because of terribly executed dramatic beats. I wanted to give Zola the benefit of the doubt.

As time went on I cared less and less about any of the characters, their situation, what was happening, etc... perhaps the protag's underdeveoped psychology was largely the cause of this.

[Boner M]

1. La bete humaine
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. Angels With Dirty Faces
4. Bringing Up Baby

[Melville]

Yeah change execution to 'the storyline is awful' primarily because of terribly executed dramatic beats. I wanted to give Zola the benefit of the doubt.
Well, it's definitely a major failing of the film that the protagonist's "affliction" seems so arbitrary (or that the arbitrariness never seems meaningful or justified), so I do agree with your original statement to some degree. Other than that, what dramatic beats did you dislike?

[monolith94]

1. Bringing Up Baby
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. Alexander Nevsky
4. Ferdinand the Bull (only decent animation, but one of my favorite stories)
5. Porky in Wackyland

really need to see more form this year.

[BirdsAteMyFace]

1. Port of Shadows
2. The Adventures of Robin Hood
3. Porky in Wackyland

[Weeping_Guitar]

1. Bringing Up Baby
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. Holiday
4. The Adventures of Robin Hood
5. You Can't Take it with You

[SirNewt]

Pygmallion and Port of Shadows are on the way.

How do you guys use the IMDB power search. If I just put in 1938 and exclude TV shows and whatnot I still get 2300 listings which I can't go through. How do you filter it down.

[Spinal]

Pygmallion and Port of Shadows are on the way.

How do you guys use the IMDB power search. If I just put in 1938 and exclude TV shows and whatnot I still get 2300 listings which I can't go through. How do you filter it down.

Filter by number of user votes. Even if you put in something small, like 20, it will get rid of all the stuff that almost nobody has seen. If you're still getting too many for your taste, raise the number.

[ledfloyd]

1. Bringing Up Baby
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. Angels with Dirty Faces
4. The Adventures of Robin Hood
5. You Can't Take it With You

[Mysterious Dude]

How do you guys use the IMDB power search. If I just put in 1938 and exclude TV shows and whatnot I still get 2300 listings which I can't go through. How do you filter it down.

I like to check "display first 100 highest rated movies" down there at the bottom, and maybe give a minimum number of votes like 100 or so.

Excluding TV shows is not really an issue for 1938, incidentally.

[SirNewt]

I like to check "display first 100 highest rated movies" down there at the bottom, and maybe give a minimum number of votes like 100 or so.

Excluding TV shows is not really an issue for 1938, incidentally.

hehe. . . good point.


I was using the 100 highest rated for a while but I was worried I might be missing something.

[Yxklyx]

hehe. . . good point.


I was using the 100 highest rated for a while but I was worried I might be missing something.

It's hard to miss something. If it's a really obscure movie that's awesome then there will probably be enough high votes from dedicated cinephiles to put it at 8 or above. The only problem is there seems to be some nationalistic raters that give a 10 to everything from their country (India, I'm looking at you).

[Mysterious Dude]

The only problem is there seems to be some nationalistic raters that give a 10 to everything from their country (India, I'm looking at you).
I think the Russians may be a little biased, too. I mean, really (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068519/)?

[Grouchy]

Damn! Arse-footed again! Only too movies seen from this year, The Lady Vanishes and Room Service.

[Kurosawa Fan]

A few more hours and I'll be closing this up.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Well, it was more hours than I thought it would be, but this is closed. Tallying the results as we speak.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Whoops, I never posted my own list. I promise I don't know the results yet. I was waiting to watch Angels with Dirty Faces but never got around to it.

1. The Lady Vanishes
2. Holiday
3. Porky in Wackyland

[Kurosawa Fan]

#10 (TIE)
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1167/youcanttakeitwithyouau9.jpg
You Can't Take it With You
Frank Capra


Alice Sycamore has to introduce the family of her fiance, Tony Kirby, to her own family. The Kirby's are wealthy, stuffy family of great self- importance, while the Sycamore's are a collection of good-hearted lunatics. When the two families come together, lifestyle and philosophy collide head-on.

Shortly before filming began, Lionel Barrymore lost the use of his legs to crippling arthritis and a hip injury. To accommodate him, the script was altered so that his character had a broken leg, and Barrymore did the film on crutches. This is the first James Stewart and Frank Capra collaboration.

"If this were a total fantasy, there'd be no harm, but You Can't Take it With You makes its playground the very real world of people in relation to a philosophy of practical living. The overt message is to drop out like Vanderhof and Poppins, follow your heart's desire and let God take care of you as he does the lilies of the field. The only alternative presented is to become a grubbing cog in a system of greed. Capra really preaches a primitive form of Anarchism, one still sold by the pundits. Do your own thing, turn your back on reality. Let somebody else make the sewers work, pay the firemen, and worry about society as a whole. True love always triumphs, and the nastiest villains are really creampuffs. And no problem is bigger than one's personal emotions." - Glenn Erickson

[Kurosawa Fan]

#10 (TIE)
http://img244.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=85844_alex_nevsk y_122_419lo.jpghttp://img374.imageshack.us/img374/4513/alexnevskyel5.jpg
Alexander Nevsky
Sergei Eisenstein

It is the 13th century, and Russia is overrun by foreign invaders. A Russian knyaz', or prince, Alexander Nevsky, rallies the people to form a ragtag army to drive back an invasion by the Teutonic knights. This is a true story based on the actual battle at a lake near Novgorod.

Joseph Stalin wanted this film to be a propaganda tool to warn Soviet citizens to be wary of German aggression. However, it was rejected at first due to it being "too anti-German", as it came out shortly before the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of 1939. Stalin reportedly demanded that it be shown in every Soviet movie theater as a rallying cry against the invasion. The battle on the ice was inspired by Sergei M. Eisenstein's love for the D.W. Griffith film Way Down East (1920), in which the climax is a chase over a vast river of melting ice heading toward a waterfall.

"The Battle on the Ice is an incredible example of how the combination of image and music can evoke deep and varied emotions; it is a masterpiece of matching both concordant and discordant visuals and sounds. Eisenstein's careful compositions are matched to Prokofiev's inspired musical score to create a sequence that is both horrifying and comical, while always emphasizing Alexander's (and thus the Soviet Union's) nationalist fervor and resilience even under the most dire circumstances." - James Kendrick

[Kurosawa Fan]

#9
http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/9718/pygmalionxa0.jpg
Pygmalion
Anthony Asquith

The snobbish & intellectual Professor of languages, Henry Higgins makes a bet with his friend that he can take a London flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, from the gutters and pass her off as a society lady. However he discovers that this involves dealing with a human being with ideas of her own.

Wendy Hiller was personally chosen to play the part of Eliza Doolittle by author George Bernard Shaw. In British prints, Leslie Howard utters the word "damn". In American prints he says either "hang" or "confounded". This was a year before David O. Selznick famously tussled with the Hays Office over permission for Clark Gable to say "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" at the end of Gone With the Wind (1939).

"But while the plot is vaguely familiar, even for those who haven't seen My Fair Lady, that takes little away from the execution. Shaw was a master of drawing room class comedy, and delights in developing the characters of Higgins and Doolittle. We laugh at Higgins' conceit and intellectualism, and at Eliza's awkward attempts to fit into her new life. But we are touched at her transformance, and how it demonstrates the lost potential of the uneducated lower class." - Brian Koller

[dreamdead]

O for 3 thus far. High five!

[Kurosawa Fan]

#8
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/845/holidayxv4.jpg
Holiday
George Cukor

Free-thinking Johnny Case finds himself betrothed to a millionaire's daughter. When her family, with the exception of black-sheep Linda and drunken Ned, want Johnny to settle down to big business, he rebels, wishing instead to spend the early years of his life on "holiday." With the help of his friends Nick and Susan Potter, he makes up his mind as to which is the better course, and the better mate.

Katharine Hepburn understudied the role of Linda Seton (played by Hope Williams) in the original Broadway play. She also performed a scene from Holiday for her first screen test, which led to her first film role. Eighteen months before Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind (1939), Katharine Hepburn says "damned" in a Production Code-approved Hollywood movie. The occurrence isn't gratuitous: She's recounting her experience in amateur theatrics and, in camp style, performs a fragment of Lady MacBeth's "Out damned spot" sleepwalking line from Shakespeare.

"It may be that Holiday scares me a little: I love it not just for its wit and its tenderness, but for its ruthlessness. Adapted from a play by Philip Barry -- himself a member of Philadelphia society -- Holiday doesn't skewer the rich simply because they're rich. Just as it makes a case for building a life in which you're surrounded by people you love (Johnny risks losing his smart, adoring professor friends, Edward Everett Horton and Binnie Barnes, because they wouldn't fit in with his new, rich-guy lifestyle), it's also unflinching about steeling yourself against people who can only hurt you, no matter who they are." - Stephanie Zacharek

[Kurosawa Fan]

#7
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/166/portofshadowstn6.jpg
Port of Shadows
Marcel Carné

Life's a rotten business, says Jean, a deserter who arrives at night in Le Havre, looking to leave the country. He lucks into civilian clothes, a little bit of money, a passport, and a dog, and he also meets Nelly, a 17-year-old who's grown up too fast. She's the object of lust of men: including a boyfriend Maurice, her putative protector Zabel, and Lucien, a local hood. Jean falls for her, faces down Lucien, and gives her courage to stand on her own feet. A ship is leaving for Venezuela; can at least one of them be on it, or is that just a dream?

A scene from the film is seen projected in the 2007 Oscar-nominated dramatisation of Ian McEwan's wartime tragic drama Atonement.

"The foggy night and eerie waterfront locale, even though filmed on a stage set to reinvent Le Havre, give the film its authentic film noir shadowy look to match the similar darkly poetical dialogue. It's a place inhabited by loners, losers, weasels, psychopaths and misfits. There's doubt if any but the most cunning, ruthless or most repellent can survive such a state of hopelessness. The atmosphere is tense and all the characters are desperate, but none as much as the innocent star-crossed lovers who can never shake their belief that the world has it in for them and there's no escape." - Dennis Schwartz

[Kurosawa Fan]

#6
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/6717/labetehumainedz6.jpg
La Bete Humaine
Jean Renoir

The story tells of train engineer Jacques Lantier (Jean Gabin) who lusts after Séverine Roubaud (Simone Simon), the wife of his co-worker Roubaud (Fernand Ledoux).

This film tied with Port of Shadows at the Venice Film Festival for the Mussolini Cup, awarded to the best film of the festival. In 1954 Fritz Lang remade the picture as Human Desire, a film noir starring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame.

"Jean Renoir crafted this brooding, fluid adaptation of Émile Zola's doctrinaire novel, expanding the palette of pre-noir "poetic realism" to include the hardscrabble locomotion of proletariat desperation and fashioning a national icon of working-class struggle in the process. The mechanics of Zola's disastrous, homicide-poisoned love triangle—between train engineer Lantier (Jean Gabin), his co-worker Roubaud (Fernand Ledoux), and Roubaud's luscious kitten-wife Séverine (Simone Simon)—are nearly supplanted by the machinery of the trains (Gabin drove them himself, and the sequences are realistic enough to come with hand signals instead of dialogue), and of Renoir's mise-en-scéne, which comes at you in a subtle but relentless battery of transitional portals, doors, windows, movements, gazes, points of view, and secret spyings." - Michael Atkinson

[Kurosawa Fan]

#5
http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/2891/porkywackyland7qe6.jpg
Porky in Wackyland
Robert Clampett

Porky Pig goes on a hunt to catch the surreally elusive last Do-Do bird.

In animation historian Jerry Beck's 1994 poll of animators, film historians and directors, this cartoon was rated the eighth greatest cartoon of all time. At one point in the pan of the various denizens of Wackyland, a character with large glasses comes out of a pot and says, "Hello, Bobo." This refers to animator Robert Cannon, whose nickname was Bobo and who did wear big glasses. On the pot are the words "Treg's a Foo", refering to sound effects man Treg Brown. (Foo, incidentally, is a nonsense word from the Smokey Stover comic strip, a big influence on this cartoon in terms of humor and visual style.)

"The Do-Do represents a fracture even in the loose rules of the Looney Tunes cartoons; this is a creature that is entirely illogical and surrealistic even in relation to illogical standards. The Looney Tunes cartoons always flirted with surrealism and other disjunctions of narrative logic, but never more so than in this 'toon, which wantonly breaks all the rules and doesn't bother to create any new ones. Wackyland is a totally free world, a masterfully executed Surrealist landscape in which anything can and does happen." - Ed Howard

[Spinal]

"The Do-Do represents a fracture even in the loose rules of the Looney Tunes cartoons; this is a creature that is entirely illogical and surrealistic even in relation to illogical standards. The Looney Tunes cartoons always flirted with surrealism and other disjunctions of narrative logic, but never more so than in this 'toon, which wantonly breaks all the rules and doesn't bother to create any new ones. Wackyland is a totally free world, a masterfully executed Surrealist landscape in which anything can and does happen." - Ed Howard

Love this quote.

[Kurosawa Fan]

#4
http://s1.screenshots.cc/upload/31b29247.jpg
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Michael Curtiz

Sir Robin of Locksley, defender of downtrodden Saxons, runs afoul of Norman authority and is forced to turn outlaw. With his band of Merry Men, he robs from the rich, gives to the poor and still has time to woo the lovely Maid Marian, and foil the cruel Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and keep the nefarious Prince John off the throne.

The film was originally planned with James Cagney playing the title role, but he quit Warner Brothers and production was postponed for three years.
Michael Curtiz took over from director William Keighley when the producers felt that the action scenes lacked impact. The sound of Robin's arrow is the favorite sound of Skywalker Sound's Ben Burtt. He has used that sound in almost all the Star Wars films.

"The swashbuckling in the movie is thrilling precisely because it is mostly real. The weakness of modern special effects pictures is that much of the action is obviously impossible, and some of the computer animation defies the laws of gravity and physics. It is no more possible to be thrilled by Spider-Man's actions than by the Road Runner's. It is more exciting to see the real Jackie Chan scampering up a wall than to see the computer-assisted Jackie Chan flying." - Roger Ebert

[Kurosawa Fan]

#3
http://s1.screenshots.cc/upload/d817afc4.jpg
Angels With Dirty Faces
Michael Curtiz

Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connolly were tough kids who grew up together in the toughest part of New York: Hell's Kitchen. Early on, Rocky gets sent to reform school, where he learns how to be a first class criminal. Jerry, who had escaped from the law, goes straight and becomes a priest. As adults, they reunite in the old neighborhood: Jerry works with the kids who, like he and Rocky, could end up on either side of the law. Rocky has returned looking for a safe place to stay till he can get back into his old racketeering organization, something that his old partner isn't anxious to have happen.

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. Because of the controversy over gangster films, the film was banned outright in Denmark, China, Poland, Finland, and parts of Canada and Switzerland.

"Angels has James Cagney as the star, which is always a plus for studio pictures of this era. But it also benefits greatly from having ace craftsman Michael Curtiz in the director's chair. Curtiz didn't bear the definitive stamp of a true auteur, but his great films are notable for their remarkable craftsmanship. He gives journeymen directors a good name, having directed the lively The Adventures of Robin Hood the same year as Angels and going on to make Casablanca. Heavily influenced by German expressionism but never so much that his movies feel leaden and thick, Curtiz knew how to keep things moving." - Jeremiah Kipp

[Philosophe_rouge]

Yay! Recommendations, haven't seen 7-10 or Porky... or La Bete Humaine

[Kurosawa Fan]

#2
http://s1.screenshots.cc/upload/0c64e483.jpg
Bringing Up Baby
Howard Hawks

When Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a scatterbrained young woman, takes a shine to Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant), a sober paleontologist, mayhem ensues. Dr. Huxley, engaged to be married and intensely interested in the arrival of the brontosaurus bone required to complete his project at the museum, is inextricably bound up with Susan's escapades when she finds herself responsible for Baby, a tame leopard shipped to her New York apartment and intended for Susan's aunt in Connecticut.

This movie fared so badly at the box office that Howard Hawks was fired from his next production at RKO and Katharine Hepburn bought out her contract to avoid being cast in the film Mother Carey's Chickens (1938). Coincidentally, Hepburn was labeled "box office poison" on the same day her contract was dissolved. Seems people were wiser in 1938 than they are 80 years later.

"Howard Hawks allegedly said that to get the full effect of Bringing Up Baby one had to realize that everyone in the film was crazy. The first time I saw it, I realized Kate Hepburn's Susan Vance character was off her rocker, and her performance threatened to send me off mine. Hepburn is fearless in her portrayal, but her character is exasperating to the point where one wishes her pet leopard, Baby, would turn her into Meow Mix. Fortunately for Hepburn, this is exactly what is required of the role. Her job is to drive co-star Cary Grant bonkers until he either falls in love with her or brings her a glass of poisoned milk. She makes us feel what Grant feels whenever she's done something annoying to him. Bringing Up Baby is a comedy of aggravation, and much of the comedy stems from Grant's reactions to whatever it is that's frustrating him." - Edward Copeland

[Philosophe_rouge]

I just have to say, Simone Simon is one of the most adorable actresses ever. I love her face so much

[Qrazy]

That shot from Angels with Dirty Faces reminds me just what a great film it really is and how much I love Curtiz.

[Spinal]

This movie fared so badly at the box office that Howard Hawks was fired from his next production at RKO and Katharine Hepburn bought out her contract to avoid being cast in the film Mother Carey's Chickens (1938). Coincidentally, Hepburn was labeled "box office poison" on the same day her contract was dissolved. Seems people were wiser in 1938 than they are 80 years later.


Just couldn't resist the editorial commentary, could you?

[Kurosawa Fan]

#1
http://s1.screenshots.cc/upload/40a07c22.jpg
The Lady Vanishes
Alfred Hitchcock

Travelers on a trans-European train are stopped for the night due to bad weather and are hosted by a local hotel. Iris Henderson meets an old woman, Miss Froy who disappears as the journey begins again. Iris, helped by the musician, Gilbert, decides to find her.

The set that the movie was shot on was only ninety feet long. Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford proved to be such popular characters that they were teamed up in other films. They also got their own radio show.

"What separates Lady Vanishes from the more fundamentally Hitchcockian 39 Steps, and makes it more remarkable, is its genuine sense of purpose. The film is a comic satire on British blindness to Germany's rising threat, standing now as Hitchcock's cleverest statement on the war. A cover-up is conducted on a train by a string of Germanic nobles, Italian magicians, and Czech spies—yet most of the numerous English passengers have no suspicions. Hitchcock and writers Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder use more than a few brilliant symbols to reference the English elite's sense of insularity, such as the sudden appearance of a Holmesian deer hunter hat and pipe at the precise moment the facts of the case need restating." - Arthur Ryel-Lindsey

[Kurosawa Fan]

Just couldn't resist the editorial commentary, could you?

How did that get there!

[Kurosawa Fan]

Final Results:

1. The Lady Vanishes - 47.5
2. Bringing Up Baby - 45
3. Angels With Dirty Faces - 40
4. The Adventures of Robin Hood - 29.5
5. Porky in Wackyland - 27.5
6. La Bete Humaine - 27
7. Port of Shadows - 25
8. Holiday - 22
9. Pygmalion - 14.5
10. Alexander Nevsky - 11
10. You Can't Take it With You - 11

No other films received more than one vote.

[Qrazy]

How did that get there!

What do you dislike about it? It seems like a pretty standard screwball comedy to me with exceptional formal execution. Irritated by the characters or? Do you like other screwballs?

[Kurosawa Fan]

What do you dislike about it? It seems like a pretty standard screwball comedy to me with exceptional formal execution. Irritated by the characters or? Do you like other screwballs?

I like very few screwballs. This one grated on me from start to finish. Well, that's not true because I shut it off. I couldn't watch any more. Still, it's better than Arsenic and Old Lace.

[Qrazy]

I like very few screwballs. This one grated on me from start to finish. Well, that's not true because I shut it off. I couldn't watch any more. Still, it's better than Arsenic and Old Lace.

Ah Ok, well if it's the genre (subgenre?) then that's something else I suppose.

[SirNewt]

I like very few screwballs. This one grated on me from start to finish. Well, that's not true because I shut it off. I couldn't watch any more. Still, it's better than Arsenic and Old Lace.

Really, do they just seem too void?

[DrewG]

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Heh, I posted my rankings without seeing that everything had already been tabulated. Woops.

Either way, have to see more from this year, though my #1 would be Angels With Dirty Faces, which has, for my money, one of the best final lines in all of cinema.

[Philosophe_rouge]

I like the Lady Vanishes a lot, but I dont' adore it... then again, I've never seen a good print. I guess I should check out the Criterion sometime.

[Mysterious Dude]

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/845/holidayxv4.jpg

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/166/portofshadowstn6.jpg

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/6717/labetehumainedz6.jpg

I'm seeing a curious lack of variety in this year.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Really, do they just seem too void?

Most of the time they're too irritating for me to laugh at.

[SirNewt]

Most of the time they're too irritating for me to laugh at.

What are some you like? 'The Lady Eve' by chance?

[Kurosawa Fan]

What are some you like? 'The Lady Eve' by chance?

Absolutely. It's probably my favorite, along with To Be or Not to Be and The Philadelphia Story. I like my screwball tame, and without the tired 'this mess is all because of a simple miscommunication and no one is stopping to ask the obvious question' plot. Or at least, severely toned down.

[Qrazy]

Absolutely. It's probably my favorite, along with To Be or Not to Be and The Philadelphia Story. I like my screwball tame, and without the tired 'this mess is all because of a simple miscommunication and no one is stopping to ask the obvious question' plot. Or at least, severely toned down.

I find Philadelphia Story to be one of the most visually competent screwballs of the bunch, some great use of focus from the DP in that film.

[SirNewt]

Absolutely. It's probably my favorite, along with To Be or Not to Be and The Philadelphia Story. I like my screwball tame, and without the tired 'this mess is all because of a simple miscommunication and no one is stopping to ask the obvious question' plot. Or at least, severely toned down.

In that case I highly recommend Sturges's 'The Palm Beach Story'. You may've seen it though.

[Kurosawa Fan]

In that case I highly recommend Sturges's 'The Palm Beach Story'. You may've seen it though.

I have it recorded on my DVR from TCM from back in February but haven't got around to seeing it yet. I'll try to make it a priority. Thanks for the recommendation.