Sons of the Desert

Director: William A. Seiter
Year: 1933
Run-time: 1 hr 4 min
Source: Amazon Video

- This is the first and perhaps only Laurel and Hardy film on the list. As a comedy, it's very different in style than Duck Soup, and I liked it a fair bit more. The contrast between the two characters is delightful, and there's no modern equivalent to the comedy duo riffing on each other like this. (The only example that comes to mind is Conan O'Brien and Jordan Schlansky.) There's also no cinematic clown quite like Stan Laurel. Plus the theme of husbands dominated by their wives plays surprisingly well against today's expectations.

- Recently Steve Coogan starred with John C. Reilly in a biopic of Laurel and Hardy late in their careers. I haven't seen the film, but I did see an interview with Coogan where he gave an impression of Laurel and one of his antics. It was a funny bit, but at least compared to the Laurel of this film I'm not sure Coogan was the right fit.

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Fétiche Mascotte (The Mascot)

Director: Ladislas Starevich Year: 1933 Run-time: 26 min Source: Youtube Notable For : The second animated short on the list from 1933 is this stop-motion piece from the Polish-Russian film-maker Ladislas Starevich. Stop-motion is almost as old as cinema itself (Starevich had been innovating since 1912). The craft here is as good as any modern film, and Starevich's twisted imagination is on full display, with dolls and household objects coming to life in a dark version of Toy Story. For animation fans, it almost goes without saying that Starevich was an influence on Jan Svankmajer's work much later. Verdict : Every frame is a bizarre delight. There didn't seem to be an overarching plan to this work (indeed, it's possible that The Mascot is an amalgamation of several shorter films featuring the same dog character), and so the film veers from one strange scene to the next, with much of the second half taking place in some kind of tchotchke hell governe...

The Killers

The Killers uses up every noir cliche that had developed by this time - the detective story with flashbacks from Laura , the insurance investigator from Double Indemnity, the seductive femme fatale from Gilda - but somehow manages to feel wholly original. I thought that I'd grow weary of noirs by this point, but they are getting better, and there's no doubt that it's a fun genre, if there's not always much going under the pristine surface. There's some tremendous acting, and I unabashedly love the opening scene with the titular killers - the only part that seems to have been actually adapted from the Hemingway short story (Ernest himself was nevertheless a fan) - but the ending doesn't really work. It's a bit easier to follow than The Big Sleep, but it has a few too many twists for what is ultimately a pretty straightforward story without any real morals. Still, I have to recommend it, and it would definitely be up there in my list of best noirs.

Suspense

Director: Lois Weber (with Phillips Smalley) Year: 1913 Runtime: 0:10 Source: Youtube Lois Weber is a fascinating, largely forgotten figure in the history of cinema. Not only is she an early female filmmaker, with an unusual auteur-level control over her works, but for a short few years she held a surprising amount of sway in the burgeoning industry. In 1916, she was Universal Studio's highest paid director, period. During her heyday she made 10 movies a year, but the vast majority of her films are lost. Unfortunately, this brief short is likely her only appearance on the list, but it highlights her technical innovations. Weber probably didn't invent the split screen, but she used it extremely effectively in this tight little domestic thriller. The real highlight is a triangular three-way split, in which we see a distressed wife, played by Weber herself, calling her husband at work, while a burglar is about to cut the phone line with a knife. A...

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