"The HTF 100 Great Films of the 1930's Challenge" (1 Viewer)

[Adam_S]

Make Way for Tomorrow - 10 of 10
A stunning and wrenching film about love, aging and the modernized disintegration of extended family. This is Leo McCarey's finest film, by far.
Barkley and Lucy Cooper are in their seventies, it's harder for them to get by and "Pa" has been retired for four years now. But he never had finished paying off the mortgage on the house, and now the bank is repossessing it. Their five well off children simply cannot be burdened with supporting both mom and dad, so the children decide to split mom and dad up, and then shuffle them around every three months to another one of their brothers or sisters. The old couple stoically agrees, though they are not pleased with the arrangement, they have no other option. But the family members are miserable. They have lives, you see, lives that cannot possibly accommodate the elderly or additional members of their own family. they are busy with important things--like going out to dinner. Caring for Mom and Dad is such an insufferable burden and the old fools keep being embarrassing and interfering. What makes it worse is that the children and grandchildren are utterly oblivious to just how wretched they are, while the parents grow more despondent as they realize what sort of adults their children have become.
I actually thought for a while that the film was going to end with a double suicide, the film is that dark. But the ending the film took, with Lucy and Barkley reminiscing and retracing their honeymoon in New York fifty years before was much honest, more powerful and better storytelling.
Elegant and overlooked, this is definitely a film that deserves to be on this list.
The lead performances, but especially Beulah Bondi, are absolutely outstanding, Bondi gives one of the best leading performances of the 30s, in my opinion.
I finally tracked down a copy of this film, from Eddie brandt's. Long ago taped off of AMC and now I've transferred it to DVD.

 

[Adam_S]

I Was Born, But is coming to DVD!
along with two other Ozu Silents, Passing Fancy and Tokyo Chorus
Best Eclipse release ever.
The Criterion Collection: Eclipse Series 10:
Silent Ozu
Three Family Comedies by Yasujiro Ozu
I can't wait to see this film again

 

[Adam_S]

I got the Shimizu set, I first heard about his films, particularly Arigatosan (ありがとさん) about two years ago on criterionforum.org. so I'm quite excited to finally get to see them.

 

[Adam_S]

Arigatosan is a forgotten masterpiece like Make Way for Tomorrow that is assuredly an absolute must see.

Japanese Girls at the Harbor is pretty damn good and impressive too. Haven't watched the other 30s Shimizu yet.

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I finally revisited L'Atalante, taking the opportunity to check out the much more impressive DVD. previously I'd watched this on an ancient VHS (pre 1991 restoration), where half the subtitles were unreadable and half the long shots of people were either black blobs or white blobs depending upon what they were wearing. Watching the clear DVD is a definite improvement, but I didn't miss so much from the story, a bit of nuance perhaps. That said, I remain relatively ambivelent towards the film. the photography is stunning, and the sequence underwater and the lovers apart making love montage is breathtaking for it's eroticism and audacity. but to me that's the primary standout of the film, it comes across a lot like Sunrise, but without whatever it is about that film that really connects to me. A bump up in rating to a 7 as the film is quite excellent, but the 'top twenty all time' the film consistently receives baffles me a great deal. It has its standout moments, but overall is just an above average film from this decade.