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My Man Godfrey (1936)
Butler! FOR THE COCK-EYEDEST FAMILY in the WHOLE WORLD!...and the butler-blonde battle was on!
Filmmaker(s): Gregory La Cava

Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a "forgotten man" to win a scavenger hunt, and no one is more forgotten than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks a lesson or two.

The Man 30s was when movies decided what they want to be. You can spin one of three or four narratives tracing that development. One of those narratives casts genres as beings and has them duking it out, only a few surviving. In this narrative, you'd...


Published December 11, 2024
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Freaks (1932)
Can a full grown woman truly love a midget?
Filmmaker(s): Tod Browning

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

Elephant Men older gems have to be watched with eyes on two levels. The first concerns the experience within the narrative. Projects that worked well in this regard when new often fade. Those that continue to work as the context changes get called "classics" as if...


Published December 11, 2024
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L’Atalante (1934)
Filmmaker(s): Jean Vigo

Capricious small-town girl Juliette and barge captain Jean marry after a whirlwind courtship, and she comes to live aboard his boat, L'Atalante. As they make their way down the Seine, Jean grows weary of Juliette's flirtations with his all-male crew, and Juliette longs to escape the monotony of the boat and experience the excitement of a big city. When she steals away to Paris by herself, her husband begins to think their marriage was a mistake.

Adam in His Prime a legacy! There's a very fine recent film named "Young Adam." Its extremely well done and it matters. Few people saw it I think. Its very much like this, indeed has some of the very shots. Its set on a barge and...


Published December 11, 2024
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The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
The Frankenstein of the Orient!
Filmmaker(s): Charles Brabin

The villainous Dr. Fu Manchu races against a team of Englishmen to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan, because he wants to use the relics to cause an uprising in the East to wipe out the white race.

Scientific Rape many times a movie can be worthwhile when it does no more than create and display a strange world. Almost always that's the case where the world is new and/or synthesised from previous abstract sources. "Metropolis" of five years earlier is often celebrated as...


Published December 11, 2024
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The Old Man of the Mountain (1933)
Filmmaker(s): Dave Fleischer

Betty Boop goes to see the fearsome Old Man of the Mountain for herself; he sings the title song and a duet with Betty.

Spooky Black Magic music videos derive from this little masterpiece. It had an earlier incarnation in 'Minnie the Moocher' where Betty goes to a subterranean hell, enticed by the devil's music. While there, she encounters demons with whom she 'dances.' In both of these, the music...


Published December 11, 2024
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City Lights (1931)
True Blind Love
Filmmaker(s): Charlie Chaplin

A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.

Seeing and Being Seen me, this film falls not into the category of favourite films (I'm a Marx brothers kind of guy) but earns instead a place on a very short list of most important movies. That's because it has two features that I truly appreciate. It...


Published December 11, 2024
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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Happiest, Dopiest, Grumpiest, Sneeziest movie of the year.

A beautiful girl, Snow White, takes refuge in the forest in the house of seven dwarfs to hide from her stepmother, the wicked Queen. The Queen is jealous because she wants to be known as "the fairest in the land," and Snow White's beauty surpasses her own.

Stained Glass have a lot of complaints about Disney; what he made personally and the lumbering beast his studio has become. In particular, he murdered one of the most precious literary structures we have in Alice. But in his first big project, he did well enough...


Published December 10, 2024
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The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Madman? Monster? Murderer? Scientist?
Filmmaker(s): Fritz Lang

After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum, he observes the professor's preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist. When Mabuse's notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor's whereabouts, and capture him for good.

Viewer Possession comment is on the fully restored Criterion edition.) I see that my comments on the Mabuse films have been deleted. There was an IMDb era when any offended reader could exact revenge by successfully complaining of scores of comments. But I guess that's apt...


Published December 9, 2024
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Bottles (1936)
Filmmaker(s): Hugh Harman

A dark and stormy night in a drugstore. The druggist mixes a potion and falls asleep. The skull-and-crossbones on the bottle comes to life and drips the potion on the druggist.

A Mind Ajar seems that one major theology of animation concerns the animating (meaning coming to life) of normally inanimate objects. It is one strain worth tracing, because with today’s film technologies, animals can easily be seen to talk and even wear clothes and such....


Published April 2, 2024
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The Mystery Man (1935)
Stark Drama! A Shadow Creeping Through the Night!
Filmmaker(s): Ray McCarey

Hard-boiled newspaper reporter Larry Doyle (Robert Armstrong) goes a bit too far in celebrating a work bonus and wakes up on a train bound for St. Louis with only a buck on his person. To remedy the problem, Doyle pawns the revolver he's carrying. When the gun is subsequently used in a murder, Doyle's problems only multiply. In the meantime, he's also fallen in love with a comely stranger (Maxine Doyle) he convinced to impersonate his wife.

Prehistoric Fishing archeology is what this is all about. The film has lost all its appeal as the hooks have gone out of style. But we can see major chunks that have evolved to what we have now. The basic setup is the fold of a...


Published February 9, 2024
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