Grand Hotel (1932) dir. Edmund Goulding. USA. Fascinating atmosphere is woven through the story, reflecting the beehive of a fashionable foreign hotel (it’s in Berlin) – its gaiety, sorrow, strivings and just aimless bustle. There are spirited glimpses of a vast hotel switchboard with a jumble of words; the lobby is angled as a huge … Continue reading Film 25: Grand Hotel
Film 33 (b): The Bride of Frankenstein
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) dir. James Whale. USA. One advantage of horror movies is that they permit extremes and flavors of behavior that would be out of tone in realistic material. From the silent vampire in "Nosferatu" (1922) to the cheerful excesses of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in Hammer horror films of the … Continue reading Film 33 (b): The Bride of Frankenstein
Film 24: Cimarron
Cimarron (1931) dir. Wesley Ruggles. USA. Wesley Ruggles apparently gets the full credit for this splendid and heavy production. His direction misses nothing in the elaborate scenes, as well as in the usual film making procedure. Big production bits start with the land rush into Oklahoma in 1888, then the gospel meeting in a frontier … Continue reading Film 24: Cimarron
Film 31: The Thin Man
The Thin Man (1934) dir. W. S. Van Dyke. USA. For audiences in the middle of the Depression, "The Thin Man," like the Astaire and Rogers musicals it visually resembles, was pure escapism: Beautiful people in expensive surroundings make small talk all the day long, without a care in the world, and even murder is … Continue reading Film 31: The Thin Man
Film 23: City Lights
City Lights (1931) dir. Charlie Chaplin. USA. If only one of Charles Chaplin's films could be preserved, “City Lights” (1931) would come the closest to representing all the different notes of his genius. It contains the slapstick, the pathos, the pantomime, the effortless physical coordination, the melodrama, the bawdiness, the grace, and, of course, the … Continue reading Film 23: City Lights
Film 22: Dracula
Dracula (1931) dir. Tod Browning. USA. The vampire Dracula has been the subject of more than 30 films; something deep within the legend is suited to cinema. Perhaps it is the joining of eroticism with terror. The vampire's attack is not specifically sexual, but in drinking the blood of his victims he is engaged in … Continue reading Film 22: Dracula
Film 32: Top Hat
Top Hat (1935) dir. Mark Sandrich. USA. Because we are human, because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing, there is a need for another world somewhere, a world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers … Continue reading Film 32: Top Hat
Film 21: M
M (1931) dir. Fritz Lang. Germany. When you watch "M,” you see a hatred for the Germany of the early 1930s that is visible and palpable. Apart from a few perfunctory shots of everyday bourgeoisie life (such as the pathetic scene of the mother waiting for her little girl to return from school), the entire … Continue reading Film 21: M
Film 20: Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) dir. G.W. Pabst. Germany. In her autobiographyLulu in Hollywood,one of the most charming and honest books about the movies ever written, Brooks says Pabst refused to discuss the details of a performance with her and never held group discussions with his actors: "He wanted the shocks of life to … Continue reading Film 20: Diary of a Lost Girl
Film 19: Pandora’s Box
Pandora's Box (1929) dir. G.W. Pabst. Germany. Louise Brooks regards us from the screen as if the screen were not there; she casts away the artifice of film and invites us to play with her. Her beauty was “almost impersonal,” Pauline Kael wrote; she carries it like a gift she doesn't think much about, and … Continue reading Film 19: Pandora’s Box
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