"The HTF 100 Great Films of the 1930's Challenge" - Page 34

Petrified Forest -
06/24/2005
OARDVD

Good flick with Bogart and a surprisingly likable Davis. But not much to distinguish it. Decent script, Very nice ending, but otherwise pretty average.

Caught up on a bunch of AFI thirties films this weekend, the best two were possibly worthy of consideration, Heidi and Bombshell. The rest were average.

Go West Young Man -
Mae West is good in a film where she plays herself stranded among country yokels. But not much to recommend, funny and solid but not too special

Stowaway -
Standard Shirley Temple film, not all that good, very by the numbers and a little silly with tinny musical numbers.

Klondike Annie -
Mae West film from Raoul Walsh that takes time for a slow and uninteresting opening act that transistions into something that works a lot better by the end of the film. Mae West reforming herself is quite delightful and her preaching as well.

Heidi -
Involving Shirley Temple film where she's very good and not just mugging for the camera (see Stowaway) and is well directed with a good supporting cast but thin and arbitrary villains.

Hands Across the Table -
very standard and moderately funny rom com with Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurry.

Bombshell -
Outstanding script and performance by Jean Harlow, highly recommended for those elements alone, and as a great early Screwball comedy. Harlow plays her own story, literally, but has a much snappier and zanier plot than Go West Young Man.

Well if we're ranking ALL the films we saw from the original list and the nominated, that leaves me with 164 films to slot into 90 spots. Hope you don't mind a few repeats, and I let the bottom end drop below 10 as there are at least three films I'd rate below a five on your scale. Sending you my lists now, I hope excel is an okay format.

Flying Down to Rio -
Fred Astaire dancing & final number -
09/03/2005
TCM timeshift

This is the sort of film that makes me want to finally sit down and watch That's Entertainment. The other three Astaire Rogers I've seen were worth watching on their own merits, this however is only worthwhile for the dance numbers. The first time Astaire and Rogers actually dance is the first time the film actually becomes somewhat interesting, and I'd say the highlight is Astaire's solo number. The way he just slowly gets sucked into the music is just outstanding, and overall amazing to watch. The final number on the planes is simply amazing to watch. Wonderful piece of work. The editing style is occasionally quite interesting, the wipe-transitions are quite effective. I espeically liked one jaggedy edge that went up as it cut to a long high shot of the hotel exterior and almost immediately came back down as it cut into a medium shot of the hotel owner.

The overall plot is annoying, though the Gangster silohuetes are amusing.

The print on TCM was pretty beat up with scan lines tears and cigarette burns, so it'll be nice when the DVD comes out and they start airing a clean version.

Adam

Brian,

I'll try and get mine to you before the weekend is up. I'm re-siding my house right now and it's sucking up a lot of time!

Caught up with another pair of thirties films, nothing too exceptional:

The Gay Divorcee -
09/16/2005
TCM Timeshift

Good film but because it has Howard in it, but the plot is pretty silly--how is it good for Ginger Rogers as the rich wife being set up to be caught cheating, creating a divorce? Wouldn't she just loose most of her money in the divorce. tsk tsk. Then again I guess that's part of the humor.

The Dance numbers were spectacular, especially the big one at the end. the script was good with several zingers and the use of Night and Day was also a highlight.

And Mimi is not a name that fits Ginger Rogers.

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Baby Face -
09/16/2005
TCM Timeshift

Wasn't the complete version of this film recently uncovered? Anyway there are some annoying issues, cut arounds. But mostly this is interesting for its pre-code value, but it has none of the verve and pizzazz that carries Red Dust or Trouble in Paradise. On the other hand this is worth seeing for Stanwycks performance and the character she plays. Great visual device to 'show' how she sleeps her way to the top.

Adam

Gabriel over the Whitehouse -
09/30/2005
TCM timeshift

This is possibly the strangest film I've seen from the thirties, including Bunuel. It's a rare and delightful document of just how fucking desperately crazy Americans were leading up to FDR's election.

Walter Huston plays the president of the United States, he's just another one of the politicians, intent to not really do anything except fatten other politicians and whose main goal is to keep the boat rock steady.

he's also young and a little bit wild. That means he drives his own car and he drives fast, pushes it to 100mph, gets in a crash and is comatose for two weeks. When he comes back he's a changed man. He hides his recovery for a while so he can think and read and read and think. He comes out, promptly fires his secretary of state and then begins laying out reforms before the country. He's so extreme congress nearly mutinies, so he declares martial law ans essentially becomes a benevolent socialist dictator. He takes on gangland with a no holds barred fascist agenda and puts the government in charge of bootlegging because its major tax revenue the country desperately needs. He then decides that come hell or high water every other country in the world is going to pay their debts to America (and this is where the film gets really ridiculous). Since they realistically can't pay them under threat of war and AMerica can't realistically go to war over debts, he instead convinces all the countries of the world to demilitarize and thus save so much money they can pay america backa nd begin their own economic recoveries. :p Then the spirit of the lord leaves him and he promptly dies after signing the peace accord.

The film is filled with stunnign photography, the camera is extraordinarily dynamic and used to outstanding effect again and again, driving home points visually rather than via dialogue. Huston's two different personas are quite striking and are lit completely differently. Wonderful use of sculpted lighting and differently ground lenses to achieve the imposing Lincoln-relief of the divine president versus the soft and fat politician he naturally is.

In many ways this film is the most searing portrait of the depression I've seen, if only because it refuses to show the depression, we only see it through the extremes the fictional America is willing to let this president go to to fix it.

Adam

Edge of the World -
10/07/2005

I was terribly disapointed that this Michael Powell film was so average, I was certainly hoping for more from him.

Brian I too have been away for a while.

I'll orgnaize a list and get it to you in the next couple of days

Holy cow, welcome back Lew

--
H

Thanks very much Holadem—good to be back.

I finally sent my list, Brian.

How many lists do you have Brian? I figure if at least me, you, Eric, George, Lew and Evan all had lists that should be enough to hopefully get us our final list. wondering when we'll see it.

What needs sending again?

Evan

I believe this is where Brian explained how he wants to run this vote and what sort of ranking/list he's looking for.

Well, I'm counting on you guys to make a new list and look forward to seeing it and trying to do the new challenge... I have just three films left from the first list that I still have to see: 'G' Men (purely out of carelessness, as I missed it on TCM more than once), The Lost Patrol (haven't been able to find it), and I was Born, But... (REALLY haven't been able to find that one...). I can buy a VHS of 'G' Men or simply wait for TCM to air it again, so that one doesn't bother me too much. But the others are kind of frustrating. I've tried the local universities (one of which has an excellent library, from which I have been able to watch several other of the films on the list), the libraries, etc.

Anyone care to lend me a copy? I'd be willing to start an exchange for others who are trying to find some of the harder-to-find titles as well.

Michael, I believe in that post I linked above that Brian invited everyone who participated to submit a ranked list of all the movies you have seen, but I may have misunderstood.

I don't know about the rest of us that finished all 102, but if you finished 99, that's good enough for me.

Lost Patrol occasionally screens on TCM as well, as for I was Born But, even the USC cinema library doesn't have a copy, (although it screens on a vhs a professor owns about every two years or so), only one of the rare video rental places in LA carries a copy. I might be able to scrounge one up though, but hte official video release is completely silent, no soundtrack, though a new score has been composed and recorded for the traveling Ozu retrospective of the past couple years.

Out of curiosity, how did all of you guys who have seen it get to see I Was Born, But...?

Michael,

I'm OK with you submitting your list also. 99 is close enough.

I was lucky enough to catch "I was born but..." at a screening in downtown Chicago last winter (Ozu retrospective)

I was able to get "Lost Patrol" through my library system. Have you tried that yet? Sometimes the smallest libraries have the strangest films.

I also have a copy of G-Men on VHS. If you want, I'll ship it to ya, and you can return it when you're done. Just PM me.

I rented a VHS copy at Premire Video on Mockingbird Lane in Dallas.

Premire Video is by far Dallas' best video rental outlet--at least if you are interested in foreign and classic films.

I loved this movie and I really feel that it is worth seeking out. I expect that one of the major mail-order firms would rent a copy.

Eric, that's really cool of you! You've got a PM

Things to Come -
OARDVD
3/19/2006


Kind of astonishing this whole challenge has gone without mention of this film. It's directed by William Camercon Menzies so the design of the film is insanely ambitious and awesome to see.

Things to Come is based on an HG Wells short story, it spans 100 years of humanity from 1936 to 2036. It predicts WWII, a fascist form of a preemptive peace United Nations, a new terrifying worldwide plague and manned space exploration, the way it views those things is whats really fascinating though.

The film starts on Christmas 1936, there are rumblings of war, heated discussion about the merits (or lack thereof) of war and then the air raid starts. The was is brutal, devastating and unending, the film flips through decades until 1965 when all machinary is pretty much stopped working and people are living like the 1600s, including a petty warlord making war on the "hill people" and the "coal pits" . The warlord is obsessed with getting his planes flying again, though he doesn't want to be bothered with details like parts and fuel. He also institutes a brutal program to control the plague (shooting all the victims so it only kills half of humanity, what the war didn't get I suppose). But the engineers and mechanics have banded together and progressed while the petty warlords have taken over most regions and just warred on their near neighbors, so they begin a program to take control of the world and stop war forever. Then the film rolls forward to 2036, where everyone has flat screen 16:9 tvs but we haven't yet landed on the moon and a giant gun is used to fire and bullet capsule into space.

A great piece of science fiction, wonderfully designed and thoughtfully made. It's more amusing now than provocative but still worth watching, and definitely an overlooked step between Metropolis and post-nuclear scifi.

1000 posts on this thread, only took four or five years.

Hallelujah I'm a bum -

An odd but adorable little film from Lewis Milestone. THe directing and camerawork and editing are utterly SUPERB in this film. THe first forty minutes are probably 80% some kinds of music type or rhythmic thing going on. But it's really not a musical, not in the sense that similar films like Lubitsch or lloyd were putting out. This is more an entertainment than a musical. Sure Jolsen sings, and many others break into song or fall into the rhythm of the film, but the lyrics feel almost improvisational, they're not good, but they are charming and the salesmanship of the lyrics and story on behalf of the entire cast is wonderful.

Jolsen plays Bumper, "the Mayor of Central Park," the leading bum of New York City. He's on great terms with the mayor of New York City, played brilliantly by Frank Morgan ( I wonder if anyone else could have possibly played the part so well). Also appearing is silent clown Harry Langdon in a wonderful turn as Egghead.

Morgan is in love with a girl named June, but he's suspicious of her for good reason. Bumper doesn't know June and he LOVES being a bum, he prefers it over getting rich quick or work.

Anyway this is an imperfect but delightful little film. It's flawed, but in a good, and almost deliberate way. and the direction and cinematography are wonderfully rich and the editing style directly incorporates some Eisenstein touches.

I can't think of a hollywood film from the thirties as astonishing as this except maybe Gabriel over the White House.

and it was definitely a good antidote to watching High School Musical (gag).

Adam

It's certainly a very interesting movie though I'm not sure at what it exactly aims with the bums shown as living the right way, presenting Harry Langdon as socialist and Frank Morgan as lovesick mayor. Nevertheless it's a constantly inventive film (I loved the nude scene ) and is to be considered for a TOP 100 list of the 30's. Milestone strikes me as a major director of the 30's and not just the director of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.
I've almost finished the challenge, but am waiting mostly for the John Ford boxsets, I haven't seen THE LOST PATROL and THE INFORMER and there's no point watching synchronized and shortened videotapes if the real thing comes out in two months. Therefore I wait with my TOP 100 list until then, I have exactly 50 films now in it.

Re: "The HTF 100 Great Films of the 1930's Challenge"

Well, just one left - I Was Born, But... I've been searching for it for over three years without having to pay $30+, but it looks like I might be able to see it pretty soon. It has taken me 2 1/2 years to see the last 8 films on my to-see list.
Also, what happened to Brian Lawrence? Does he not post here anymore?

Re: "The HTF 100 Great Films of the 1930's Challenge"

Yay, I finally finished the challenge!
Are we ever going to do one for the 1940s?