So much to say

Brandon, great to have you back dude! I’ve missed you. I figured you’ve seen most of the films from the 30s that I’ll be watching. Fuck you for having your ’33 list almost done. I’m way behind, but slowly getting there. ’36 and ’39 are probably the first ones I’ll have done. Can’t wait to see your lists. Also, can’t wait to hang out again!

Awesome news about Summer People. Good luck with those songs, dude! I can’t wait to hear ‘em. I played soccer with Alex the other night and he kicked my ass as always. I hope everyone else in the band is doing well! Glad to hear the tour was such a blast.

I’m stoked that Stalag 17 is your favorite Wilder film too. We are certainly in the minority, but that’s awesome. I agree completely that Ace in the Hole is far superior to Network. It hits at the heart of what Network is trying to do with more economy and precision. It’s razor-sharp and scathing, but first it builds character. I agree totally.

There is something that rings hollow about Trouble in Paradise. There are certain things that I really enjoyed about it, but it might be missing the Lubitsch touch, as you suggest. I’m going to watch Heaven Can Wait this week, and I can’t wait to see it.

I’m with you on Powell. After the Thin Man will be high on my list too.

Ben, congrats on finishing your work. No worries too dude. You can watch/skip any of the films from the 30s that you’d like. That goes for everyone else to. Watch any of the films if you have the time and desire to do so, and if not, totally cool. There’s already too many movies to watch as it is; I don’t want to put any undue pressure on anyone to watch even more.

I don’t know how I missed this from before, but Bill Hicks is awesome. I really want to see that documentary on him; I’m jealous. Glad you liked and and are a fan of him as well. He was a monumental dude, and each year that passes it seems like we need him now more than ever.

Also jealous that you’ve seen Midnight in Paris. Can’t wait for it. Glad you dug it. I will try to see it this weekend. If I do decide to go, I’ll post the date and time I’m going and if anyone wants to meet me there, that’d be awesome! Lisa, if you’re still down for it, it’d be great to meet you.

Also, Lisa, great to read your thoughts on The Blue Angel. I think you’re right about shifting the focus to Rath; he certainly does idolize Lola. She’s like an opening into a whole new world for him, and he obviously wants her all to himself, singing and dancing just for him. I probably put too much culpability on Lola, when, as you mentioned, she remains true to her character throughout the film. She is who she is, and if Rath sees something different then he’s just deluding himself (ain’t that 90% of relationships?). I think those legs would delude any man into thinking she only had eyes for him.

Glad you watched and dug Blue Valentine. It’s great for all the reasons you gave. Brandon is right, it is Cassavetes realism in the best sense.

I haven’t seen Following in a long time, but I really liked reading your thoughts on it. Can’t wait to read your Linklater post. I’ve got a lot written already on Before Sunset for my 2004 list, but I’m waiting to finish up writing about the rest of the films before I post it.

Jason, you really liked Super 8, which makes me want to see it. Brandon, you didn’t really like it, which makes me not want to see it. I’ll probably end up waiting for this one on dvd (like most of the 2011 movies–I’m gonna be way behind). I still want to see X-men though.

John, I hear you about blog apathy. I go through it too often. I love reading what everyone else has to say, but mostly don’t care about what I have to say.

I’d love to check out the 30s movies that are playing at BCF, especially since they are unavailable. I’ll try my best to make it to those.

You recommended Rohmer to me. I need to see some of his films. How have I not seen even one of the them? For shame.

I watched The Lower Depths yesterday. I really enjoyed it. Brandon, glad you’ve seen it and are a fan too. It’s got our man Louis Jouvet in it! He’s so incredibly likable in this. I love the opening POV shot of him–it’s a very interesting way to open the film. The relationship between his character and Jean Gabin’s (a class-act as always) is my favorite part about the film. There’s a lot to say about the film’s treatment of class issues and social (im)mobility, but for me the friendship between these two really propels the film. From their first surprisingly benevolent encounter to their bittersweet farewell, I was enjoying all of their scenes together. Renoir can add incredible warmth to a film as well as anyone. I seriously love him as an auteur. When all is said and done, he might be my favorite director from the 30s.

I could add a ton more about this film, but I’ll wait to hear what you have to say John and anyone else who sees it and wants to write about it.

I haven’t seen the Kurosawa version, but have always wanted to and would certainly love to now. I’d also like to read Gorky’s play.

I like this from Criterion, especially Renoir’s comment on Kurosawa’s film: Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths.

Lower Depths

Thought I'd change the color scheme for the blog. That baby blue wasn't doing it for me.

I guess my pick is going to be Renoir's The Lower Depths (1936). Feel free to watch it whenever you want and write about it whenever you want.

John, have you seen Destry Rides Again, yet? I'd like to make that next week's pick because it is streaming through Starz and they tend to remove their titles pretty quickly.

Also, I should follow blogdanovich just for the name alone! Thanks for that post.

Brandon, can't wait to have you back in full swing. Midnight in Paris is playing at Regal right now...if you are free sometime, we should make that happen. Anyone else interested?

"What is food?"

Jason, I have friend who is also an enormous X-Men fan, and he had a similar reaction to the new film. He enjoyed it, liked the interpretation, and thought it remained true to the spirit of the characters. I’m interested in seeing it; the trailers make it look like harmless fun and kind of badass. To me, it looks like the best superhero flick coming out this summer. Didn’t see Thor (though I know you enjoyed it), Green Lantern looks way too CG, and I don’t know how I feel about Captain America. If someone recommends it, perhaps I’ll try to see it, but I have no intense desire for it on my own.

If anyone sees Super 8 soon let me know what you think. My brothers are interested in seeing it, but before I spend the little money I have on it, I’d like to know if it’s worth it.

I think the only other blockbuster I’m interested in seeing this summer is Cowboys & Aliens. And I definitely want to see Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark at the end of August. Still waiting on Tree of Life...

Also, Jason, glad to have you on board for this 30s adventure. I guess the idea is that I pick a movie on either Saturday or Sunday and we are all supposed to watch that movie within a week of the next pick. You can watch The Blue Angel at your leisure–no rush. I’ll most likely provide the next pick tomorrow, but you can post on The Blue Angel whenever you’d like, and it will definitely be welcome and appreciated.

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I watched My Man Godfrey (1936) on NWI the other day. I absolutely loved it. It comes with the highest recommendation. If anyone else wants to watch it, I’ll totally be down to discuss it further. John, you’ve seen it–what a great movie! I love William Powell. He’s effortlessly entertaining and humorous, such a charismatic guy. He’s fantastic as Godfrey. I also love Carole Lombard. She’s fantastic as Irene. I loved the scenes when she is performing her depression for everyone after she thinks Godfrey is married. I had a huge grin on my face watching them. I also loved the character Carlo. He’s absolutely absurd and the way the family treats him is hysterical.

This is a great screwball comedy because it’s hilarious throughout and also a pretty scathing satire of the rich. It works on so many levels that it’s kind of a miracle. 1936 is already going to be impossible to rank. With this, Modern Times, Dodsworth, and After the Thin Man all in the mix...damn, what a great year!

I can’t wait to watch Godfrey again. It put me in such a great mood after watching it. It’s seriously a lot of fun.

I also watched Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise (1932). It’s cool to see this pre-code film that was later banned under the code until the 60s because it’s incredibly tame by today’s standards but obviously racy for the time. There’s quite a bit of innuendo and an ending that the code just wouldn’t allow. This one is worth discussing further if anyone has seen it (Brandon, if you can read this, you probably have).

I’m pretty sure I can’t make King Kong tomorrow because I’m vehicle-less...bummer.

Also, I plan on putting up my 2004 list soon, but I’ve been waiting for Brandon to get back from tour and for his computer to be fixed. Miss you dude!

Falling in love again

John, I suppose you’re right that Dietrich’s character had some genuine feeling for Rath initially. He was probably a different sort of character than the ones she was used to. At the wedding feast she does look at him with joviality, so there had to be something there. I guess I just read her more as a seductress than a legit lover. But I didn’t see her as entirely responsible for Rath’s ruin; he definitely forged his own path.

I forgot to ask, did you think there was any social commentary involved in the film? In the scene where Rath comes out on stage as the clown, the announcer makes it clear to the audience that this former professor and intellectual has debased himself and become consumed by this sort of bawdy underworld. Do think this was just one man’s downfall or a potential comment on a society moving away from intellectual endeavors towards sexual pleasure and base spectacle. It’s definitely possible to read the film in this way or in a way like it, but I was just wondering if you had any similar thoughts or if you completely disagree with this. That goes for anyone else who has seen the film too.

If the film is a comment on society in that way, then does it see itself as somewhat complicit in this? Is the film a spectacle too? haha I sound like one of my English professors. Just trying to stir up some debate.

John, you’ve seen more films around the time of this than me so I completely trust you on the sound of this film. Once I’ve seen more of the new talkies, I can probably do a better judgment of it compared to others. I’m sure you’re right though.

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I’ve seen some other 30s pictures recently...

Wyler’s Dodsworth (1936) is one of the best I’ve seen in a while. It’s fantastic, heartbreaking, and very well done. It has a literate, well-written script with some absorbing character work and many entertaining scenes. The direction by Wyler is just spot-on. He keeps the film fluid and interesting and really lets us care about the characters. The film is so strongly developed. It basically follows the disintegration of a marriage while on a trip to Europe. Dodsworth is a newly retired automobile tycoon out to see the world and his wife is a quickly aging (but still young) woman looking for romance, adventure, and European sophistication. They grow apart pretty rapidly in the film, and it is terribly sad to see despite the film’s fairly lighthearted tone. There is one scene early in the film where Dodsworth is looking at a lighthouse flash from the shores of England and tries to get his wife to see it with him. It’s a very tragic scene that foreshadows the rest of the film. You can’t help but feel for poor Dodsworth in that moment. Great stuff.

Walter Huston gives a masterful performance as the title character. Ruth Chatterton is great as his superficial and naive wife (a pretty solid variation on Emma Bovary). Mary Astor is so lovely and a young David Niven is suave as hell. Terrific performances all around. This one will be high on my ’36 list.

Vigo’s Zero de Conduite (1933) is a much more whimsical and fanciful verison of Lindsay Anderson’s If....It has some neat camera work and some nice bits of absurdity. It’s pretty amusing.

The Adventures of Robin Hood is still awesome and so is King Kong. I’d love to make that showing this weekend. I don’t know if I can make it, but if I am around I will let y’all know.

I forgot to add Renoir's The Lower Depths to my '36 list. I definitely need to see that and may choose it as the next film to see.

Der blaue engel

This is my first go with von Sternberg and Emil Jennings too. And my first look at Dietrich in the 30s. Previously, I had seen her only when she was older in some films from the late 50s. I’ve got a few more films on my lists with her in them; I look forward to seeing more of her.

What’s interesting about her in this film is that she isn’t astonishingly beautiful. She has a pretty face and a nice pair of legs, but what really makes her so appealing is her lack of inhibition. She flaunts herself as though she doesn’t give a shit. She could be naked the whole picture and still strut around with maximum confidence. Most of the film she is in her underwear or exposing her legs and she does it all like a natural. She has a liberated sexual presence that I’m sure made her insanely desirable to film audiences all over at the time.

Jennings has a great face, I agree. Definitely the face of a silent film actor. He’s splendid in the role of Rath, especially near the end when performing on stage as the cock turned cuckold or when lurking around backstage after going mad. I don’t know if he performed in any horror films at the time, but he certainly had the face for ‘em.

I’d also agree that the set-up for the film is pretty preposterous though it seems to work. It plays like a fantasy turned nightmare, which isn’t a bad thing at all. There’s no way Dietrich would be interested in Jennings unless her character makes a habit of seducing and devouring men without a thought. This is probably the case, as her first moves when meeting him are to undress and drop her underwear on his head. The uptight Rath becomes a desiring animal for her after that. This initial meeting is almost like Hawk’s Ball of Fire. The stuffy professor meets the sexually unrestrained performer and gets a taste for a whole new side of life. But obviously this plays out much differently as the professor lowers himself considerably and the “performer” doesn’t really have a heart of gold.

I like the clown in the first half of the film too. A presage for Rath’s eventual degradation and his future role. It’s a nice touch.

Does anyone else think this plays like a silent film? You can tell that von Sternberg was just making his transition into using sound. The dialogue isn’t that great or even that necessary (though it is helpful); most of the film is communicated through its images and visual performances. Dietrich's singing is really when the sound is needed the most.

1930s: Let's do this shit!

Awesome! I'm surprised and happy that so many are interested in the 1930s thing. John, thanks for stirring up interest and for being interested yourself. I'm excited about the 30s too. It should be a fun project. I'm down for picking a film for everyone else to try to see as well each week. I'll probably end up seeing three or four films a week from the 30s, but I don't expect everyone else to keep at this pace. I'll just pick one that we can all focus on. With that in mind, I have decided that my first pick will be...

Von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930).

It seems like a great inaugural film. First year of the decade, first sound film for von Sternberg (one of the first popular sound films in German too), and world cinema's first real introduction to Marlene Dietrich. von Sternberg and Dietrich are figures that will dominate the 30s. Let's get acquainted with them.

I'll definitely be watching My Man Godfrey at some point in the next week and possibly Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise on youtube and Jean Vigo's Zero de Conduite (1933) through google videos (a film I forgot to add to my 10 because I thought it was unavailable). If anyone else wants to watch those please feel free to.

If anyone hasn't seen the Marx Bros' Duck Soup, I would absolutely recommend it. It's on NWI and it's one of my favorite movies of all time. Also, through that open movies link Ben posted you can access Chaplin's City Lights. If anyone hasn't seen that, see it! It's one of the greatest films ever made.

Also, if anyone has cable, there are plenty of 1930s films being shown on TCM this month and the next. Here's some notable ones (sorry I didn't mark down the times):

June 4th: Dodsworth (1936)
June 4th: King Kong (1933)
June 5th: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
June 5th: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
June 11th: Horse Feathers (1932)
June 13th: David Copperfield (1935)
June 13th: Captains Courageous (1937)
June 18th: Bringing Up Baby (1938)
June 18th: Twentieth Century (1934)
June 18th: The Awful Truth (1937)
June 20th: Grand Hotel (1932)
June 22nd: The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
June 23rd: Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
July 8th: The Petrified Forest (1936)
July 25th: Fury (1936)
Aug 3rd: Jezebel (1938)
Aug 6th: Stage Door (1937)

1930s: Biting off more than one can chew

The other day I was with Brandon and he mentioned he wanted to do a 1930s movie Monday with his friend Big Jim. I don't have the sort of transportation to get to this, but I still want to see a bunch of movies from the 30s because I have realized how little I have actually seen. So, I have decided to pick 10 movies from each year of the 1930s (the ones that I have seen and the ones I want to see) and rank them. I currently don't have nextflix dvd shipping but I do have NWI. There are some titles on there. For others, I plan on using TCM, Hulu Plus, Youtube, any other internet source. Eventually, I plan on getting my netflix dvd subscription back and I'll be able to use that. This will definitely take me a long time to do and it could take me awhile to get any posts up, but I thought it would be a nice project to work on. I'm also trying to watch as many films from Brandon's 40s and 50s list that I haven't seen so I can someday do rankings for those years as well (that'll take a couple years for sure). Anyway, I'm going to post the list of films I plan on working with. If anyone has any of the titles I haven't seen, let me know. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to lend them to me. There's an asterisk next to the films I have seen. I may have to substitute films out if they are completely unavailable. Also, if anyone has any recommendations for films I should see instead, let me know too.

1930

L’Age d’Or (Bunuel)*
All Quiet on the Western Front (Milestone)*
Animal Crackers (Heerman)*
Annie Christie (Brown)
The Blue Angel (von Sternberg)
Earth (Dovzhenko)
The Divorcee (Leonard)
Hell’s Angels (Hughes)
Morocco (von Sternberg)
Under the Roofs of Paris (Clair)

1931

Cimarron (Ruggles)
City Lights (Chaplin)*
Dracula (Browning)*
Frankenstein (Whale)*
Little Ceasar (LeRoy)
M. (Lang)*
Le Million (Clair)
Monkey Business (McLeod)*
A Nous La Liberte (Clair)
The Public Enemy (Wellman)

1932

Boudou Saved from Drowning (Renoir)
Freaks (Browning)*
Grand Hotel (Goulding)*
Horse Feathers (McLeod)*
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (LeRoy)
I Was Born, But... (Ozu)
Scarface (Hawks)
Shanghai Express (von Sternberg)
Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch)
Vampyr (Dreyer)*


1933

42nd Street (Bacon)
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Capra)
Cavalcade (Lloyd)
Dinner at Eight (Cukor)
Duck Soup (McCarey)*
Footlight Parade (Bacon)
King Kong (Cooper, Schoedsack)*
Little Women (Cukor)
The Private Life of Henry VIII (Korda)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang)

1934

L’Atalante (Vigo)*
The Black Cat (Ulmer)
The Gay Divorcee (Sandrich)
It Happened One Night (Capra)*
It’s a Gift (McLeod)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (Hitchcock)
Manhattan Melodrama (van Dyke)
The Scarlet Empress (von Sternberg)
The Thin Man (van Dyke)*
Twentieth Century (Hawks)

1935

The 39 Steps (Hitchcock)*
Alice Adams (Stevens)
Bride of Frankenstein (Whale)*
Captain Blood (Curtiz)
David Copperfield (Cukor)
The Informer (Ford)
Mutiny on the Bounty (Lloyd)
A Night at the Opera (Wood)*
Top Hat (Sandrich)
Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl)

1936

After the Thin Man (van Dyke)*
Dodsworth (Wyler)
Fury (Lang)
The Great Ziegfeld (Leonard)
Modern Times (Chaplin)*
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Capra)*
My Man Godfrey (La Cava)
The Petrified Forest (Mayo)
Sabotage (Hitchcock)
Swing Time (Stevens)

1937

The Awful Truth (McCarey)*
A Day at the Races (Wood)*
The Good Earth (Fleming)
Grand Illusion (Renoir)*
The Life of Emile Zola (Dieterle)
Pepe Le Moko (Duvivier)
The Prisoner of Zenda (Cromwell)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Lots of People)*
Stage Door (La Cava)
A Star is Born (Wellman)

1938

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Curtiz)*
Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein)
Angels with Dirty Faces (Curtiz)*
La Bete Humaine (Renoir)*
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)*
Holiday (Cukor)
Jezebel (Wyler)
The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock)*
Port of Shadows (Carne)
You Can’t Take it With You (Capra)*

1939

Dark Victory (Goulding)
Destry Rides Again (Marshall)
Gone with the Wind (Fleming)*
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra)*
Ninotchka (Lubitsch)
Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
Stagecoach (Ford)*
The Rules of the Game (Renior)*
The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)*
Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford)