Man With A Movie List

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1931 Run-time: 1 hr 27 min Source: Criterion Channel Wikipedia Roger Ebert's Analysis Gary Giddins' Essay for The Criterion Collection Notable for : It's Chaplin's most renowned film, being the best example of his "Tramp character" as well as his innovative intermixing of comedy and tearful drama.  It's also a deliberate throwback, a silent film made three years after the advent of sound, which Chaplin knew signaled the end of the art form that he had pioneered.  Nevertheless it became a box office smash, and a sign that moviegoers were looking for comfort and familiarity in the midst of the Depression.  Chaplin controlled every inch of this film, frequently firing (and re-hiring) his put-upon actors, shooting hundreds of takes of the shortest scenes, and manipulating every twist of his audience's emotional state.  In return, it's likely become one of the most analyzed films in history, with many differen...

Director: Luis Buñuel Year: 1930 Run-time: 1 hr 3 min Source: Kanopy Notable For : This is Buñuel's second film, also a collaboration with Dali.  It's also considerably longer than Un Chien Andalou , and while it's still dream-like in the surrealist tradition, it's more thematically coherent.  Specifically, it takes aim at Catholic and bourgeois values, specifically sexual mores.  It's very deliberately provocative, especially the ending, although as with the previous film it's difficult to decipher any particular message.  However, it was enough to get it attacked by right-wing mobs and eventually even banned. Verdict : As with the last film, it's not easy to judge, since it evades any obvious analysis.  The two films are certainly enjoyable in their own way, and despite the greater length I had no trouble paying attention.  The second film lacks some of the stranger images that Un Chien Andalou conjures up, but it makes up for it by putting togeth...

Director: Josef von Sternberg Year: 1930 Run-time: 1 hr 31 min Source: DVD Wikipedia Notable for : Josef von Sternberg made a star of Marlene Dietrich earlier in 1930 with the classic film The Blue Angel (not on the list).  This is their second film together, made after Dietrich emigrated to America.  Set in French-occupied Morocco, it co-stars Gary Cooper as the devil-may-care French Legionnaire who catches Dietrich's eye - von Sternberg seems to have a penchant for anti-heros, considering Docks of New York , his first film on the list.  Morocco seems to be somewhat divisive among cineastes, who can't decide whether von Sternberg is breaking gender norms here.  There's an intriguing early scene where Dietrich's character kisses a female audience member during a vaudeville performance, but ultimately she falls head over heels for Cooper's character who spurns her after some wavering.  The final scene involves Dietrich throwing it all away and following ...

Director: Lewis Milestone Year: 1930 Run-time: 2 hr 13 min Source: Amazon Video Wikipedia Notable for:   As a direct adaptation of the German author Remarque's now-classic novel, it's a much more explicit and compelling anti-war film than The Big Parade , with which it has a lot in common.  The adaptation is reasonably accurate, although many of the iconic scenes from the book have a more "Hollywood" presentation that is familiar to novel-to-film translations from then to now.  Everything feels a little bit more romantic in a way that the book very intentionally avoids.  The message and themes of the book do remain fairly intact, however.  WWI was largely pointless war with an immense cost, and to make that claim in a big budget production eleven years after the war ended is not a trivial thing. Verdict: As only the second sound film on this list, it's remarkable how modern it feels, although considering how many later war films have stolen from it, it...

Director: Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer Year: 1930 Run-time: 1 hr 13 min Source: Criterion Channel Wikipedia Notable for : Having all the hallmarks of a modern independent movie, including non-actors playing versions of themselves, and largely improvised scenes.   The film brought together five filmmakers at the beginning of their careers - most of them would later emigrate to America and pioneer the film noir genre. The film is also the perfect snapshot of Weimar Germany at its peak, showing five aimless young people with no idea of the tragedy that their country would endure before too long.  The film's naturalistic style would become hugely influential in America, and is another instance of the free exchange of ideas between America and Germany at the time.  Along with Pandora's Box and its epitome of the American "flapper", this film would embody American glorification of the working class.  (In many ways it parallels Mother Krause's Journey to H...

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov Year: 1930 Run-time: 53 min Source: Kanopy Wikipedia Notable for: It's not the first documentary on the list, but it is the first to adopt many of the conventions we would associate it.  Salt for Svanetia is a docudrama not unlike Nanook of the North , not on the list, purporting to describe the culture and history of the Svanetia region of Georgia.  Much of it is transparently staged.  The eventual aim is to applaud Soviet modernization of an industrious, but backwards and superstitious people.  The film ends as Soviet workers build a road bringing the much-needed titular resource to the region. Verdict: It is a beautiful film with an expressionist style, the drama very reminiscent of Eisenstein.  And at least at the beginning, it seems respectful of the region's customs and economy, and it has some historical value.  But ultimately, it's exploitative in a way that's much more pernicious than much of the Soviet propa...

Director: Phil (or Piel) Jutzi Year: 1929 Run-time: 2 hr 1 min Source: Youtube Notable For : It's the first explicitly pro-communist film on the list not made in the USSR, produced by a German branch of a Soviet studio.  For that reason, it has been called the first "East German" film, although that doesn't mean much.  The influences are all over the place.  It has Eisenstein's choppy and frenetic style applied to a much more human story with distinct characters (it's probably closer to Boris Barnet and Girl With a Hat Box , which was made by the same studio), as well as Pabst's "Objectivist" philosophy.  It also cuts in real shots of people in poverty in a way reminiscent of Vertov. Verdict:   The story, especially the ending, hews towards the melodramatic and propagandistic in a way that Soviet directors were skilled enough to sidestep, but the fast, effective pacing makes it an entertaining watch regardless.  There are many fine details...

Director: Frank Borzage Year: 1929 Run-time: 1 hour (reconstructed - much of the footage is missing) Source: DVD from Edition Filmmuseum Dan Sallitt's Excellent Analysis Notable for:   There were three Frank Borzage movies released in just a couple months, with Lucky Star being the first, and The River being the last.  The River has the same male lead as Lucky Star , Charles Farrell, this time partnered with Mary Duncan (not an especially well-known actress, but as I learned somewhat surreptitiously, was the 1928 Round-up Queen in my hometown of Pendleton.)  It was a critical and commercial flop on account of its salaciousness.  It contained scenes that were more explicitly erotic than anything in the American cinema at the time, and was heavily censored in many theaters. Verdict :  Although we only have an hour of reconstructed footage to work with, it is clear that this is very different from the prevous Borzage films on the list.  It has elem...

Director: Frank Borzage Year: 1929 Run-time: 1 hr 30 min Source: Youtube Wikipedia Notable For:   With the same director and stars as Street Angel (Gaynor and Farrell would star in 12 films together), Lucky Star is another film that adheres to Borzage's theme of love inspiring people to improve themselves.  Farrell plays a disabled WWI veteran, and the way that his hometown leaves him to fend for himself in a small cabin is a not-so-subtle message. Verdict:   Farrell takes a paternalistic role towards Jaynor's farm girl character, and in an early scene he even spanks her after he catches her stealing.  (The history of spanking girls in film is explored in this recent video.)  The start of their relationship is pretty creepy from a modern perspective.  Nevertheless, Borzage is an effective director, and there are still some touching scenes in this one.  Even the hokum ending that involves Farrell overcoming his disability through sheer will....

Director: Hanns Schwarz Year: 1929 Run-time: 1 hr 42 min Source: Bootleg DVD Notable for : An obscure film today, the main draw of this German romance is a chance to further appreciate Brigitte Helm, the actress best known for playing Maria and the doppelganger in Metropolis .   Her range of expression is pretty extraordinary, and here we have a much better showcase for her talents.  The film itself, not really fitting into any of the German cinematic movements of the period, is perhaps a sign that American trends were beginning to make their way overseas.  This is a romance similar in spirit to Street Angel or Docks of New York , with its own interesting class dynamics. Verdict :  Helm is extraordinary in this film, but the crux really lies in the dynamic between the two male leads, played by Francis Lederer (also of Pandora's Box ) and the British actor Warwick Ward.  Their rivalry, genial on the surface but hot-blooded beneath, is fascinating and adds...

Director: Alfred Hitchcock Year: 1929 Run-time: 1 hr 24 min Source: Amazon Video Wikipedia Notable for:   Where do I start?  Blackmail is the first film on our list with spoken dialogue (although not the first with a synchronized soundtrack - that would be Sunrise ).  This is surprising, since sound films had been prominent, at least in America, for two years by this point.  Many of the American silents featured recently here, such as The Wind and Docks of New York , were well behind the times when they came out, and suffered in the box office because of it. Blackmail is credited as the first British sound film, at least, and it's here that British cinema could be said to truly begin in earnest.  It helps, of course, that it's helmed by a young, but already experienced director named Alfred Hitchcock.  Ironically, Blackmail was not planned as a sound film, but when the producers suggested just before production that a few scenes be filmed with s...