1931-1940

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I like P. G. Wodehouse, but this film is not in the same category as A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS. That film showed the Wodehouse’s characterizations and situations at their funniest. This one seems strained. But it’s cast is a nice one, and it has an interesting social historic note to it.

Alan Dinehart and George Givot are planning to make Arthur Treacher (Jeeves) their guinea pig in a scam in which he is the heir to the supposed “millions” of pounds estate of the English sea hero Sir Francis Drake. Incredibly, in the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of foolish people in the U.S., the British Empire, and elsewhere, paid money to the head of a scam in which the people were told they were heirs to Drake’s fortune. It was not until just before World War II that the scam was finally cracked. It is curious that this 1937 film actually used such a current swindle in it’s plot, but they may have felt it would have increased the audience for an otherwise mediocre film.Read More »

IMDB:
Two journalists from different papers are looking for the same story. They want to know, who a group of gangsters getting young women from Europe to South America, where they are forced to work in brothels. But the gangsters have their own battels against each over, so the journalists can escape the danger, in which they’ve brought themselves.Read More »

Lilly Turner (1933) provided a bravura role for star Ruth Chatterton, and another opportunity to display her versatility. Lilly is a hard-luck dame with lousy taste in men. First she marries a no-good bounder who promises her the world, but instead turns her into a cootch dancer in a carnival. Then she finds out her “husband” already has a wife. Left alone and pregnant, Lilly marries an alcoholic pal (Frank McHugh), and the couple joins a traveling medicine show. Things go from bad to worse when a psychotic strongman in the show develops an obsession for her. When a genuine nice guy, played by Chatterton’s then-husband George Brent, comes into her dreary life, Lilly tries to grab some happiness. But it may be too late.Read More »

The young monarch of a kingdom situated in eastern Europe is sent to France because of his poor health status. There, he meets again with his mother who had been exiled from the kingdom.Read More »

IMDB wrote:
Jofroi sells his orchard to Alphonse. Alphonse wants to use the land for crops, so he starts to cut down the trees. Jofroi is furious: how can someone cut down those trees? He threatens to commit suicide so that the small town will blame Alphonse and Alphonse’s life will be miserable. Alphonse, the curate, the teacher, and some of the townsfolk spend the rest of the movie trying to keep Jofroi from committing suicide… This is not complicated… the movie is not about the plot; it is all about the characters and the dialogue.Read More »

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An altruistic department-store owner hires ex-convicts in order to give them a second chance at life. Unfortunately, one of the convicts he hires recruits two of his fellow ex-convicts in a plan to rob the store.Read More »

Mentioned in Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque:
Throughout the Occupation, Langlois remained active and naturally kept on showing films in this theater, the Museum of Mankind Theater, at great risk. A week or two after war broke out, when Germany declared war on the USSR, he showed us there the film The Lonely White Sail, about the sailors’ revolt that Eisenstein had depicted in Battleship Potemkin. When it ended, the crowd was mute with admiration. And someone said (maybe it was me), ‘Now that screen stands for freedom!'” – Jean RouchRead More »

The Shadow battles a villain known as The Black Tiger, who has the power to make himself invisible and is trying to take over the world with his death ray.Read More »

A famous sound film comedy by Kajira Yamamoto, best known for being the mentor of Akira Kurosawa. This is actually considered a major classic of physical comedy in Japan and remains perhaps the most fondly remembered vehicle for the famous comedian Enoken, who was a major star during the pre-war period.

Quote:
A comedic tale told in four parts, this film follows the antics of the pickpocket Kinta as he is pursued by a low ranking deputy named Kurakichi. The two get into all manner of peccadilloes and encounter a range of peculiar characters as their game of cat and mouse moves across the countryside in the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The title role is played by Enomoto Kenichi (known by his performance name Enoken), a star of screen and stage. Kinta the Pickpocket showcases his indefatigable energy and talent for physical comedy.Read More »