1930s

Leslie Howards time-travels between 1784 and 1933 London in this fantasy romance.Read More »

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After directing three of Universal’s finest horror films, James Whale shifted gears with the elegant romantic comedy By Candlelight. Though quite miscast, Paul Lukas successfully conveys the role of Josef, ultra-dutiful valet to the libidinous Count Von Bommer (Nils Asther). Falling in love with Marie (Elissa Landi), whom he assumes to be a countess, Josef poses – quite convincingly – as his rakish master. The catch: Marie is herself a poseur, a mere maidservant to Count and Countess Von Rischenheim (Lawrence Grant, Dorothy Revier). Based on a play by Siegfried Geyer, By Candlelight is chock full of delightfully double-entendre pre-Code dialogue and dextrous directorial touches.Read More »

Synopsis:
The young Brazilian journalist Rex Ronney is gathering data for his book on Nordic alcohol smuggling and embarks on a boat trip to Estonia and Finland, where alcohol is prohibited. On the boat, he meets the booze king Kõlgis, whose confidence he wins. Kõlgis issues him a letter of recommendation and sends him to the smuggler Bratt in Tallinn, who is in the service of Mart Martens, who in turn is heavily indebted to Kõlgis. As a result, Betty Martens, his daughter, is compelled to get engaged with Kõlgis. In order to clear her father’s debts, Betty conducts the alcohol transports from Finland herself. When Rex Ronney shows up, it has consequences…Read More »

A beautiful woman suspected of being a jewel thief is actually a detective tracking down a ring of bond thieves.Read More »

Dr. Maurice Lamar is a noted plastic-surgeon who makes his rich clients beautiful. He makes Eve Caron, the wife of Marcel Caron, so satisfied with his skilled hands that she leaves Marcel and marries Maurice. They go on a Mediterranean honeymoon, where he soon finds the effects of his own beauty regulations are more than he can handle. He bids adieu to his new bride, wings it back to Paris with the intention of giving up his practice and becoming a scientific researcher…after winning back the love of his simple, unadorned secretary, Anne.

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A gang of racketeers frames down-on-his-luck John Ellman for murder. After a trial finds him guilty, evidence is brought forth proving his innocence, but it is too late and he is executed anyway. A doctor sees an opportunity to use an experimental procedure to restore him to life but is that entirely possible? Desirable?Read More »

Sorok Serdets is a 49 minute politprosvet film centered on electrical power plants, the new beating hearts planned for Soviet society and economy.

The infotainment flick is full of both creative metaphors and rather rude suggestions towards the bourgeois and capitalists, conveying historical materialism in a bombastic way that anyone can understand. The most prominent metaphor, a horse transformed by technology into a factory, connects peasant toil to industrialization. And it goes on to contextualize the early 20s grain famines, NEP, and Stalin’s new 5-year-plan phases, and it gets you on board for the role of electrification in the development of a workers’ state in the Soviet Union.Read More »

Quote:
Labeled in the credits as a “vaudeville filme” [sorry, can’t get the accent mark on the filme], Le coq du regiment (dir. Maurice Cammage) was filmed at the Courbevoie studio near Paris, using the Photo-Sonor technology developed by French radio. The film could also be described as a comique troupier, a comedy film about military life, a popular French film genre of the 1930s. Le coq du regiment features the comic actor Fernandel, as does another military comedy of the period, Pathe Natan’s Les gaites de l’escadron (dir. Maurice Tourneur, 1932). Le coq du regiment also features stage-trained actors performing a script adapted from the stage, and direct-recorded sound. Read More »

The story takes place on a college campus, where a distinctively unpopular professor is murdered. When her physics-teacher father falls under suspicion, co-ed Betty Tisdale turns to campus newspaper editor Larry Campbell. Dissatisfied with the slowness of police procedure, Betty, Larry and their fellow students conduct their own investigation, unearthing a hotbed of scholastic intrigue and double-crossing.Read More »