1930s

  • Leo McCarey – Duck Soup (1933)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyLeo McCareyUSA

    Synopsis:
    The small state of Freedonia is in a financial mess, borrowing a huge sum of cash from wealthy widow Mrs. Teasdale. She insists on replacing the current president with crazy Rufus T. Firefly and mayhem erupts. To make matters worse, the neighboring state sends inept spies Chicolini and Pinky to obtain top secret information, creating even more chaos!Read More »

  • Victor Heerman – Animal Crackers (1930)

    1921-1930ClassicsComedyUSAVictor Heerman

    Synopsis:
    Captain Spaulding, the noted explorer, returns from Africa and attends a gala party held by Mrs. Rittenhouse. A painting displayed at that party is stolen, and the Marxes help recover it. Well, maybe ‘help’ isn’t quite the word I was looking for–this is the Marx Brothers, after all…
    — Ken Yousten (IMDb)Read More »

  • John Ford – The Whole Town’s Talking (1935)

    1931-1940ComedyCrimeJohn FordScrewball ComedyUSA

    Synopsis:
    Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He’s never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he’s then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.Read More »

  • George Melford & Enrique Tovar Ávalos – Drácula AKA Spanish Dracula (1931)

    1931-1940ClassicsEnrique Tovar ÁvalosGeorge MelfordHorrorUSA

    Synopsis:
    Englishman Renfield (Dwight Frye) visits Count Dracula (Carlos Villarías) in Transylvania and falls victim to his vampire brides. Dracula travels to London, arriving hidden in three crates of his native earth. While Renfield languishes in a sanitarium, raving about blood and obsessed with eating insects, Dracula dons evening wear and infiltrates the opera crowd, vampirizing Lucia (Carmen Guerrero) and menacing the beautiful Eva (Lupita Tovar). Only the wise Professor Van Helsing (Eduardo Arozamena) can read the telltale clues that spell the truth: Dracula is a vampire, an undead ghoul who preys upon the living.Read More »

  • Rouben Mamoulian & Lowell Sherman – Becky Sharp (1935)

    1931-1940DramaLowell ShermanRomanceRouben MamoulianUSA

    Synopsis:
    Set against the background of the Battle of Waterloo, Becky Sharp is the story of Vanity Fair by Thackeray. Becky and Amelia are girls at school together, but Becky is from a “show biz” family, or in other words, very low class. Becky manages to insinuate herself in Amelia’s family and gets to know all their friends. From this possibly auspicious- beginning, she manages to ruin her own life, becoming sick, broke, and lonely, and also ruins the lives of many other “loved ones”. In the movie we get to see the class distinctions in England at the time, and get a sense of what it was like for the English military at the time of the Napoleonic wars.Read More »

  • Cecil B. DeMille – Cleopatra (1934)

    1931-1940Cecil B. DeMilleClassicsEpicUSA

    Synopsis:
    In 48 BC, Cleopatra, facing palace revolt in her kingdom of Egypt, welcomes the arrival of Julius Caesar as a way of solidifying her power under Rome. When Caesar, whom she has led astray, is killed, she transfers her affections to Marc Antony and dazzles him on a barge full of DeMillean splendor. But the trick may not work a third time…Read More »

  • Marcel Carné – Le Jour se lève aka Daybreak (1939)

    1931-1940CrimeDramaFranceMarcel Carné

    Marcel Carné and Jacques Prevert’s classic of French poetic realism stars Jean Gabin in one of his most famous roles as François, a rough, barrel-chested loner who hides out in his apartment awaiting for the police to arrive.Read More »

  • Howard Higgin & Tom Buckingham – The Painted Desert (1931)

    1931-1940Howard HigginTom BuckinghamUSAWestern

    Synopsis:
    Western pardners Jeff and Cash find a baby boy in an otherwise deserted emigrants’ camp, and clash over which is to be “father.” They are still bitterly feuding years later when they own adjacent ranches. Bill, the foundling whom Cash has raised to young manhood, wants to end the feud and extends an olive branch toward Jeff, who now has a lovely daughter. But during a mining venture, the bitterness escalates. Is Bill to be set against his own adoptive father?Read More »

  • Lewis Milestone – All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

    1921-1930ClassicsLewis MilestoneUSAWar

    Synopsis:
    This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about “the enemy” and the “rights and wrongs” of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.Read More »

Back to top button