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Moulin Rouge

Director: E. A. Dupont
Year: 1928
Run-time: 2 hrs 5 min
Source: Blu-ray

I'm back for the new year with the first British film on the list.  Well, of a sort anyway - the British film industry was a couple decades away from its golden age, and the director and much of the cast were brought in from the continent.

Moulin Rouge isn't related to the Baz Luhrmann film I grew up with, but it does share the same madcap energy.  Although the plot contains a melodramatic love triangle with strong lead performances, and excellent cinematography, the film's real fascination for me was in its authentic depiction of the Paris cabaret scene, in all its triumphs (luscious sets, gaudy costumes, and a mesmerizing can-can), and horrifying relics of the past (a blackface minstrel skit and a gross parody of a Japanese play).  We also get great scripted audience reaction shots, with leering mustachioed Frenchmen, and their snooty wives.  Its a blockbuster that revels in pure spectacle

As with films like Fantomas, I was in love with every detail of the past here - for example, a hotel room with three buttons, each with a drawing of the type of wait staff it would summon.  A shot of a wall of mechanical cranks, each corresponding to a set of theatre lights.  This film is not easily available - some awful prints of a shorter version can be found online, but an excellent reprinting was stuck in the UK.  But it really should be - although set in Europe, it's the best depiction of the Roaring Twenties on the list.
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