The Skin Game (1931)

When a rich industrialist (Santa) eyes a valuable property with intent on building factories, an old money family is determined to stop him. The conflict has unintended consequences.

Come review time it had been several weeks since I watched The Skin Game, and truth be told, I didn’t remember much. I was forced to take drastic measures. I rewatched it.

The story mostly follows the old money Hillcrist family making them seem like the protagonists, but they are not without fault. Had they been more welcoming to the upstart Hornblowers, the whole conflict might have been avoided.

The central conflict is very much old money verses new money, a la The Gilded Age, or the Slobs verses the Snobs, if you prefer. Skin game is slang for a shady business deal, what Mr. Hornblower is accused of. But it is less the deal and more the conflict that is at the center of the story. And skin game takes on another meaning entirely at the climax.

Alfred Hitchcock was a little heavy handed with visual imagery early in his career. The Hornblower son and Hillcrist daughter meet at the beginning, teasing a love interest. She, on a horse, he, in an unusually loud car. When they separate, she follows a picturesque treed path, he, towards a more urban area. This kind of visual reinforcement is throughout.

Quite unlike latter Hitchcock, there is some sloppy dialog. Actors start speaking at the wrong time and correct themselves. Other times it feels like they are entirely improvising their dialog. It doesn’t detract from the film, however. Early talkies are pretty clumsy in general. Looking back, Hitchcock said about it in his interview with Francois Truffaut "I didn't make it by choice, and there isn't much to be said about it."

The Skin Game holds up to a second viewing. It could have been a two dimensional moral tale, but chooses a more nuanced path. AMRU 3.5.

Svengali (1931)

A foreign music teacher (John Barrymore) in Paris uses hypnotic powers to control the beautiful young Trilby (Marian Marsh) and make her a star.

Dirty and devious, the Rasputinesque Svengali comes from the 1894 novel Trilby. This was at least the third film adaptation. Originally a jewish stereotype, there is no hint of that in Barrymore’s performance. He is said to be from “someplace like Poland” and speaks German, French, and Italian phrases.

The teenaged Marsh was quite charming as ingenue Trilby. Her "nude" scene caused quite the stir, but she was wearing a body stocking.  She didn’t manage to have much of a career and was all but retired before the age of 30. She appeared in The Black Room (1935) but I have no recollection of her performance. There’s a deep-dive in there someplace.

Barrymore is yet another great what-if’s of Hollywood. Had he been born ten years later and not taken to drink he could have been the king of Hollywood. His performance here was masterful. Comic, sometimes menacing, and surprisingly sympathetic. I ponder what could have been. He also appeared in Rasputin and the Empress (1932), but it was brother Lionel who got the title role.

Svengali is a surprisingly good film powered by great performances. It could, however, have benefited from a musical score. The only music was diegetic. AMRU 3.5.

The Maltese Falcon (1931)

A private detective becomes caught up with a shady group scheming to steal a jewel encrusted falcon statuette worth millions.

It is hard not to compare this film with the 1941 masterpiece, especially since the major beats of the story are the same. The tone, however, is quite different. Also, the story makes sense. While John Huston wrapped every character’s motivation in mystery, director Roy Del Ruth was more respectful to his short attention span audience.

Ricardo Cortez’ Sam Spade is a smarmy womanizer in fancy suits compared to Bogart’s world-weary detective. While Bogart seldom cracked a smile, the smirk on Cortez’ face did not disappear for more than a moment. Spade approached every woman with an uncomfortably handsy eagerness. The relationship with Archer’s wife is an ongoing affair rather than a regrettable past indiscretion. And then there is how he behaved towards his secretary.

Lost in the mix is how the film features three big female stars of the era: Bebe Daniels as our femme fatale, Una Merkle as Sam’s secretary, and Thelma Todd as the bitter Mrs. Archer. While these names may not be familiar to the casual film fan, they were pretty big names in their day.

Daniels was a bona-fide leading lady in her day, taking top billing here, but did very little post 1940. Merkle, quite charming in her small role, had a long film and TV career but never seemed to graduate to leading lady. And Todd was a successful comedian, appeared in two Marx Brothers films, and teamed with Patsy Kelly for many successful shorts. Murdered by criminal elements before her 30th birthday, the LAPD did a thorough “nothing to see here” investigation and ruled it a suicide.

Hey, look, it’s Dwight Frye as Wilmer. You remember, Renfield. None of the other male actors had noteworthy careers.

The Maltese Falcon started out pretty rough. Early talkies have a shouty quality and the dialog was pretty stilted, but I quickly got used to it. I did find it annoying that our three ladies looked too much alike. I was sometimes unsure which pretty petite blonde I was looking at. In the final analysis, I cannot overstate how superior the remake is over this. Just about every aspect of film making is markedly better. But that’s not to say the original isn’t interesting in its own right. Fans of the latter should see it. For everyone else, AMRU 3.

Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)

After catching fish, young men wash off in a waterfall, as one does. Realizing that young ladies are bathing upstream, they sneak up and kidnap them. I may be misunderstanding this part of Polynesian courtship. Anyhow, a white man’s boat arrives carrying an elder from another tribe. He reads a scroll written in French. It’s unclear what it says but judging by the tonal shift in the film’s score, it does not bode well for our young kidnap victim.

Tabu is essentially a silent film with a synchronized score. There is no dialog and the only thing resembling a title card is when written words are shown on camera. I was about a third through the film that I realized turning on closed captions would translate them. The Amazon version seemed to be missing about nine minutes. A copy on youtube appears to be complete and shows translated text without resorting to closed captions. Amazon Prime fails me again.

Here "Tabu" means forbidden, but with a tribal enforcement aspect. Because pretty young Reri is promised to a powerful chief, it is Tabu for another man to express interest in her. Also, don’t dive for pearls where sharks are known to swim. Safety tip. It’s also taboo to build a house on ancient burial grounds as Directory F.W. Murnau did. This, along with his manner and how the natives were depicted, caused significant friction with the local population. He would die before the film’s release. And so it goes.

A great number of films were made exploiting the young, pretty, and topless ladies of the south seas. While I don’t think that was the intention of this film, it might be their spiritual granddaddy. That said, there isn’t a whole lot of story here. Boy kidnaps girl, girl is promised to powerful chieftain, they run away together, then face the consequences. The classic tale. More so than nudity, the film exploits their exotic otherness. See the native peoples and their strange ways. Nanook director Robert J. Flaherty, no stranger to exotic otherness, was supposed to be co-director. He quit after butting heads with Murnau.

Filmed almost thirty years prior to Hawaii’s statehood, audiences ate it up, even though the fairly sparse nudity had been edited out. Today the novelty of seeing Pacific Islanders is not a thing, so Tabu offers little for modern audiences. And, truth be told, while it is interesting, it's not that interesting. AMRU 3.

Mädchen in Uniform (1931)

Young Manuela is sent to a stern boarding school where all of the girls are infatuated with the stunning headmistress von Bernburg. Manuela takes her infatuation a bit too far, and this can not be tolerated in a school for “the daughters of soldiers, and God willing, mother of soldiers too”. Does our headmistress reciprocate these feelings?

Mädchen in Uniform is in part a statement about the rise of authoritarianism in post-war Germany. As such, it would be banned outright when the Nazis take power a couple years later. They destroyed every copy within their grasp and may even have executed the author of the play it is based on. Or maybe they didn’t. Research is hard.

But more than a statement on authoritarianism, it is remembered as a landmark film embracing the “great spirit of love, in all its forms”. It would have been banned in America had Eleanor Roosevelt not spoken up for it, and went on to become a hit.

But as important as it has become to members of a certain community, I have difficulty getting past the fact that Manuela was fourteen. This is fine in the context of an adolescent awakening and infatuation, but things become problematic when read as a budding romance between student and teacher. In reality the actresses are only a few months apart in age, but change the context to priest and choir boy and the conversation takes on a whole new meaning. The film leaves some of this to interpretation.

The story, while sometimes wonky and episodic, is entertaining. Hertha Thiele is adorable and the movie was well photographed. Unfortunately the Kino version has some serious tape hiss, but I suppose we’re lucky to have it at all. AMRU 3.5.

Pardon Us (1931)

The boys hatch a plan to brew their own beer and sell what they can’t drink. Unfortunately they sell it to a cop and are sent to jail. It’s prohibition, remember. What was supposed to be another two-reeler, ended up their first feature-ish length film when they failed to edit out the boring parts. Or, in actuality, thought it was all good enough.

An early indication of efficient storytelling is how they go from concocting their brewing plan straight to being carted off to jail. No beer brewing antics, no arrest or trial bit, just “Let’s brew beer” to the close of the prison gates. But in reality they just wanted to do prison bits, so that’s all they did. Plus a scene in a cotton field wearing blackface. Yea, that was a thing.

Unpopular opinion: Laurel and Hardy’s comedy does not hold up. The big gag here is that Laurel has a bad tooth that causes him to make a rude mouth sound after every sentence. He can stop this by poking the side of his face. See him offend people when he forgets to poke his face! See him forget what side of his face he needs to poke! See him forget how blankets work! Pardon Us is rife with innovative punchlines like “Oh, yea?” and “Say, what is this?”

My hot take can be greatly influenced by mood, my company, and where I am in my film education. I fully acknowledge this. I don’t wish to dismiss a performer or performance too hastily and I should watch each film a second time before opening my big fat keyboard. But this is my third Laurel and Hardy film, one of their highest rated, and it, like the others, stunk.

I’ve rated higher films with more things wrong with them. Bad acting, bad editing, bad camera work, bad dialog. Here there is only one flaw, but it’s a fatal one. Pardon Us is uninteresting. Just a lot of pointless running around and goofy reaction shots. I have never before watched a film this short that felt so long. AMRU 2.

The Front Page (1931)

A newspaper reporter is quitting the business to marry his sweetheart, but his editor (Adolphe Menjou) isn’t giving up so easy. As a big story unfolds around them, the editor connives to keep Hildy in the game.

Filled with sharp dialog and quick wit, this stage adaptation was remade nine years later as His Girl Friday with Cary Grant in the lead. The story is principally the same except Hildy was gender bent to be Grant’s ex-wife, a fairly clever twist if you think about it. What Girl Friday had in marquee stars and Hollywood polish, The Front Page matched with a darker tone and pre-code edginess. The internet strongly prefers the Grant version but I liked it only a bit more. Billy Wilder directed another version in 1974 with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon which has to be pretty good. Additionally there are four TV versions and a Burt Reynolds vehicle.

Let’s talk about Adolphe Menjou. I just recently saw him in A Star is Born (1937) in which I barely remember him and also in A Farewell to Arms (1932) which I don’t remember him at all. To be fair, that was a while ago. Those were character roles but he is front and center in The Front Page. His career went from silent film villain, to ladies man, to background character. A healthy career filled with ‘A’ pictures. His roles diminished as things went on but when you spend your life crusading against Hollywood Commies and other phantoms, people don’t offer you the juiciest roles.

There was a surprising amount of casual racism. Reporters call in stories into their news desk that don’t pertain to the story at hand but provide atmosphere to the environment. Sometimes those stories involve language surprising to my puritanical ears. Equal parts hate and quaint. When Hildy tells the guys he’s getting married they ask if she is white. When the editor talks about a wife he loved, he says he “treated her white”. What does that even mean? The message I took was that while the reporters were hand-to-mouth working stiffs, society afforded an even lower caste for them to look down upon.

Another interesting pre-code remnant are pictures of topless women seen around the newsroom, particularly near the door. A fussy newsman orders a sandwich using “gluten bread”, comedically emphasizing the ‘gluten’, so I was curious what that could mean in 1931. Was there non-gluten bread back then? Googling gluten bread here in the 21st doesn’t produce useful results, so my question was left unanswered.

Other than the fact that audio equipment of the day required the actors to shout their lines, the movie plays very well. It was clever, charming, and surprisingly well shot. Oh, and the racism. AMRU 3.5.

“Williams is a poor bird who had the tough luck to kill a colored policeman in a town where the colored vote counts!"

Little Caesar (1931)

The rise and fall of an underworld crime thug (Edward G. Robinson). See The Public Enemy and Scarface. Rinse and repeat.

Little Caesar was a big hit and made Robinson a star and became the gangster stereotype, see? His full name is Caesar Enrico Bandello, or Rico for short. Or Little Caesar because he is short. His buddy is played by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. not to be confused with his far more talented silent screen star father. Well, at least Junior made it past 60. Junior’s Joe wants out because he falls in love with his dancing partner (Glenda Farrell) in one of the most unconvincing and chemistry-less scenes imaginable. Still, the love and dancing makes Rico think Joe is soft, see?

Pre-code films had to play a game. In order to show the sex and violence that audiences craved they pretended to offer a cautionary tale. See the evils if good men are not diligent? Few were fooled but it was enough to keep the censors at bay.

So, was Rico gay? Hear me through. Joe is soft, Rico thinks, because he loves a woman. Rico acts almost jealous, like a spurned lover. And when he is first on the lamb, where does he hold out? A fruit store. Reading too much into this, am I? Of course I am.

Somewhat entertaining and historically significant, Little Caesar codified the sounds and mannerisms of the prohibition gangster. And don’t think that the racketeer Influenced and corrupt organizations act name was just a coincidence. AMRU 3.

“Well, that was white of him alright.”

Monkey Business (1931)

The FOUR Marx Brothers (yea, we're still dealing with Zeppo at this time) are stowaways on an ocean liner. They spend their time running away from the crew and become caught up in a conflict between a small time hood and a retired mob boss. Standard Marx Brothers bits apply.

This may be the least interesting Marx Brothers film, short of A Night in Casablanca. Nothing particularly compelling or interesting here. This was the first Marx Brothers film made specifically for the screen, and the first produced in Hollywood. Their films do seem to get better after this one, so maybe they needed to find their voice again.

Thelma Todd took what may have been the Margaret Dumont part because she was younger and prettier. Todd would return in Horse Feathers, and Dumont would pick up again in Duck Soup. Then Todd was murdered.

So, what's the deal with Zeppo anyhow? The big three all had their distinct look and mannerisms. But Zeppo was, well, a poor man's romantic lead. He took over for Gummo as the straight man the act simply didn't need. In their vaudeville days (and apparently in their film career to a small extent) he would substitute for one of his brothers from time to time. Zeppo was present for the first five films before joining Gummo as a talent agent.

No real highs here, but no real lows either. Just consistently meh. It falls in the "kinda short and not painful to watch" category I seem to find, but no real reason to go out of your way to see it. AMRU 2.5.

"Oh, I know it's a penny here and a penny there, but look at me. I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty."

Night Nurse (1931)

Young Lorna Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) wants ever so much to be a nurse, but without the proper degree (high school) she isn't qualified. But bumping into a chief surgeon on the way out appears to have solved all that. She is paired by sassy blond Maloney (sassy blond Joan Blondell) who shows her the ropes. At the midpoint of the film, Lorna gets a private gig and the drama begins. She is taking care of two young girls who are ever so sorry they have been such a bother and promise to be good, really they do! They are slowly dying of starvation and the twitchy attending physician and the cruel chauffeur Nick (Clark Gable) seem to like it that way.

Classified pre-code mostly because Stanwyck and Blondell have occasion to undress to reveal their overly complicated undergarments. In one scene they share a bunk for no clear reason, then suddenly shiver inexplicably as if cold. While a bootlegger is a protagonist, this is during the great social experiment, and drunkenness must shown in a definitely negative light. One character exclaims that she's a dipsomaniac and she likes it. Dipsomaniac is an old fashioned word for alcoholic but I suspect filmmakers wanted us to think she was saying nymphomaniac, which also fits.

James Cagney was suddenly a big star so he turned down the role of Nick, allowing nobody Gable to take it. I like the jargon thrown in there in an attempt to make it sound credible, like "Have you tried the Murphy drip?" There are nice elements like the point of view shot from an ambulance at the beginning, and it holds your interest, but otherwise Night Nurse is standard fare for it's time. AMRU 3.

"Says me in a big way, sister"

The Public Enemy (1931)

Local thug (James Cagney) earns a living as a thug.

The 30's had many gangster films, some fairly interesting. Like Scarface, we watch the rise and fall of a ruthless thug in the guise of a cautionary tale. Unlike Scarface, the story is only mildly amusing. Rife with clumsy camera work, the clumsy story showcases Cagney's better than fair acting and signature mannerisms (see Johnny Dangerously). Being early in the soundie era, the actors had to over project their voices.

Jean Harlow appears in a very early role. Not sure how she got to be such a sex symbol. For my money, I'd take old friend Joan Blondell. Or even Mae Clarke, whom some may remember as the young ingenue in Frankenstein. She got the pineapple treatment here.

A key film in the genre and definitely worth a viewing. Just don't expect to have your socks knocked off. AMRU 3.

"Why that dirty, no good, yellow-bellied stool. I'm gonna give it to him right in the head the first time I see him."

Drácula (1931)

Drac is Back, and this time he's ... Hispanac?

After filming of the Bela Legosi classic concluded for the day, another team would arrive to make a Spanish language version of the same movie. Same sets, same script, same actors marks, everything. Just different actors and crew. This is an interesting solution to a problem the studios faced. Back in the halcyon days of silent cinema, they could rewrite a dozen or so title cards and ship their movie around the world. Now, with the dubbing process years away from "perfection", they realized that the great technological innovation called sound made their films much harder to export. Their solution was to shoot it twice.

Same script and same sets, but here's the thing. Different director, cameraman, and editor. They looked at the direction notes and said "we can do better than that", and did. And at almost 30 minutes longer, contained a whole lot more of the story (longer here, is better). One cannot help but to compare the two films, and Tod Browning's piece doesn't always place second, but as a whole, this is a much better film.

The most noticeable difference between the two is the titular character. While Bela might not have been the great actor Karloff and Price were, his rendition of Dracula is iconic for a reason. And Carlos Villarias, who played the Spanish speaking Dracula was terrible Terrible TerRibLe TeRRIBLE TERRIBLE! Having your monster be something of a disappointment is a serious obstacle to overcome, but at least audiences didn't yet have Bela to compare it to.

While I am huge fan of Dwight Frye's rendition of Renfield, Pablo Rubio was almost as good. I still take Frye's performance, but Rubio was no weak point. From there the acting gets better. When Helen Chandler's Mina was under the influence of Dracula, she indicated this by widening her eyes and acting a little strange. Lupita Tovar's Eva's demeanor, however, changed from virginal to something more aggressive in a sheer top. A much more pronounced transformation.

Oh, and like I marvelled that Carla Laemmle who had a brief speaking role turned 104, Tovar turned 103 last summer. But I leave you with a question: is Dracula a dead man who rose from the grave or is he a living man who unnaturally extended his life by drinking blood. Most versions imply the former but this version appears to assert the latter. I'd have to watch them again paying attention to that point. AMRU 3.5.

"Buenos dias, Senor Renfield."

Dracula (1931)

Rich guy moves to town and starts biting all the chicks. Boyfriends get jealous, nail stake through his heart. Body count two. Three if you count the Count.

I was a Dracula fan back in the day. Werewolves were cool too, but Dracula resonated with me. I saw this film for the first time as an adult, maybe eight years ago. The UHF channels back in the day never showed the big movies. It was always Crab People and Rodan stuff. When I saw it I was more than a little underwhelmed. This was my reaction again. No soundtrack to speak of (they thought it would confuse the audience), clumsy editing, overdone dramatic pauses, mediocre acting, and more liberties with the original story than anything short of Forrest Gump.

In a scene, the camera focuses on the casket, moves to a window showing the full moon, the comes back to see Bela straightening up. Oh, he must have come out of the casket. Really people? Maybe Todd Browning wasn't really all that good. Freaks, for all it's shock value, was a clumsy mess.

Ok, enough with the disappointment, here's what I found interesting. Lon Chaney was slated for the title role but died. Oh, what could have been! There was a Spanish language version filmed on the same set at night. I must get a hold of a subtitled copy.

Dracula never displays fangs nor are bite marks ever seen. He never says "Good Evening!" or "I vont to bite your neck", but that should come as no surprise. Bela would appear as Dracula one more time in an Abbot and Costello movie. Bette Davis was considered for Mina but was not considered pretty enough. They were right. The movie is based on a stage play, not the book. That play starred Bela in the lead role. They did not film where Dracula attacks Renfield, because that would be so totally gay. Totally. The movie that made 48 year old Lugosi a star came out on Valentines day, two years after the massacre. Carla Laemmele, niece of studio head Carl and cousin of producer Carl Jr, appeared briefly in the movie. She turns 104 next month.

This is an unbelievably iconic film. It is so strange to realize how ... pedestrian much of it is. The classic lines still resonate: "Children of the night ...", and the creepy, gothic atmosphere frequently worked, but it could have been so much better. It came out just before Frankenstein and set the standard, then was quickly surpassed.

Before I finish, lets say a word about Dwight Frye, who played Renfield. His comic but creepy portrayal was the highlight of the film. Every version since would be a tribute to him and a somewhat failed attempt to out over-the-top his performance. He also played Fritz in Frankenstein. And Karl in Bride Of. And maybe in a crowd scene in Son Of. He was in a pile of movies before dropping dead at age 44. I used to be 44. Nothing sadder than a Christian Scientist with a heart condition.

Required viewing for classic horror fans. For all it's faults, still creepy and iconic. And delightfully short. AMRU 3.

"Rats. Rats. Rats! Thousands! Millions of them! All red blood! All these will I give you if you will obey me."

Ghost Parade (1931)

The owners of an old mansion are eager to sell, but strange things are going on, noises from empty rooms and whatnot. Maybe the ghost of and uncle who died during the civil war?

Nope, it's the buyers trying to get the house cheap because they know there is oil on the property. There, I spoiled this crap hole of a movie. Now you won't have to see it!

Maybe that's not fair, but Mack Stennett (producer of over eleven hundred shorts, mostly silent) once lamented that the public was getting harder and harder to make laugh. That attitude of rising to the occasion can be seen in full force here. What could be funnier that someone walking down the stairs slowly realizing that someone in a costume was behind them, but being to stereo typically frightened to turn around and look ...

Over, and over, and over again!

Seriously, this sucker got tedious at 18 minutes! Nuff said about this stinker.

Mack Stennett was one of the founders of Keystone, producers of many early comedies featuring the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, and, of course, the Keystone Kops. Considered a fairly good actor, mostly by himself, he appeared in over 350 of his own shorts. Luckily few after 1916. For anyone unfamiliar with early comedy shorts, the production pace was unbelievable. Some years he would produce over forty shorts. This schedule left little time for such frivolities like script, rehearsals, and retakes. The end result? Well, lets just say audiences are becoming harder and harder to please.

Skip this one, shall we? What interested me is the haunted house theme. I am interested in when certain cliche's were first used. Nothing of interest here, however.

AMRU 2.0.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Good Doctor Jekyll (Fredric March) wants to experiment into the darker side of human nature, when ... oh, what's that? You know the story already?

When a film like Jekyll and Hyde (or Jee-kal) is a heralded as this, why anyone would do what seems like a shot for shot remake only ten years later is a mystery to me. I mentioned in my write up of the 1941 version that it was a remake of this. I was wrong. They both are versions of a play based on the story. Either way, the scenes, sets, and story line matched too closely. And now that I've seen both, I can't help but compare.

The biggest difference is where Tracy's Hyde was a big jerk, March's was truly evil. Where Tracy's performance was competent and workmanlike, March was astounding. Every nuance, every subtle jesture was totally separate between gentleman and brute. This may have been the best acting performance I've seen to date.

As this version was "pre-code", Ivy Peterson (Miriam Hopkins) was free to be a prostitute. It was Jekyll's lust for Ivy that encouraged him to experiment on himself. And lustworthy she is. I wish I could find a better still. We're talking serious side-boob. Here Jekyll is busted by his uptight college.

Artsy camera direction what with the POV shots and fancy overlays and wipes, tremendous acting, and awesome makeup (the transformation scene was out of this world), this movie ruined two otherwise good movies simply because of comparison (Werewolf of London was the other). AMRU 4.

"Perhaps you prefer a gentleman. One of those fine-mannered and honorable gentlemen. Those panting hypocrites who like your legs but talk about your garters."

Frankenstein (1931)

Once again, good Doctor Frankenstein (Colin Clive) turns his back on polite society and his hot fiancee in pursuit of the secret of life. Fiancee, buddy, and old college professor arrive with great concern. Doc shows them what he's been working on. It's alive, it's alive, yea, yea. Then he finds out that the brain was donated by an ... Abby something ... and realizes the folly of his ways. He leaves the task of offing his ugly creation to his old college professor to get married.

But it's the prof that's off'd and the monster escapes, tosses a little girl into the drink, and finds his maker. The villagers (as they are want to do) take up torches and pitch forks, chase the monster into a windmill, then burn it to the ground. And everyone lives happily ever after. Except the people who die.

A classic work of horror, there is very little to pick nits about. Maybe that the good doctor was actually taller than his monster. Or that he traded first names with his college chum. But the differences between this and the Elizabethan novel only start there. For fans who think this may be the movie that least resembles it's literary progenitor, go watch Forrest Gump then read the Winston Groom novel. There, as here, the movie is better.

Colin Clive was excellent as the obsessed doctor. He appeared in one sequel then promptly died. I always thought Boris Karloff was chosen for the role because he was a big, brutal man. In real life, however, he was rather slight of build and refined in nature. The high boots, shoulder pads, and tall head made him look menacing, but still, he wasn't much larger than many of the villagers. Also, he was forty four when he filmed his star making role. Talk about being a late bloomer.

Excellent film making. Great atmosphere and performances all around. It's quite daunting to act when you are covered in makeup and can't talk, but Boris was something special. He was a frightful monster but one that you could pity. ANRU 4.5.

"Dangerous? Poor old Waldman. Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous? Where should we be if no one tried to find out what lies beyond? Have your never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars, or to know what causes the trees to bud? And what changes the darkness into light? But if you talk like that, people call you crazy. Well, if I could discover just one of these things, what eternity is, for example, I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy."

Platinum Blond (1931)

Stew Smith (Robert Williams) is a newspaper reporter covering a society story. Seems a foolish young man of breeding and culture made some hard to keep promises to a lowly chorus girl, and she has the love letters to prove it. Stew meets with the Schuylers to get the story, where he meets our titular character.

Funny, isn't it how whenever someone refers to a character for whom the movie is named as "titular", that seldom that someone is either male or flat-chested. Apropos of nothing, that character is played by our very own Jean Harlow.

Boy meets Girl, boy earns the trust and respect of girl, boy MARRIES girl, girl's family approves not at all of the situation, work-a-day boy becomes a fish out of water, or more appropriately, a "Bird in a Gilded Cage", and starts to go a little nuts. We've seen the story a million times.

Jean was the biggest name and, as indicated earlier, the "titular" character, but the movie is really about Stew and Gallagher (Loretta Young). Gallagher is a woman, but not a real woman. She's one of the guys, a real pal. Seems our Stew never noticed how Gallagher absolutely glowed in soft focus. Live and learn.

Now, I didn't know anything about Loretta Young. I found out later that she had a child out of wedlock with Clark Gable (while he was still married, no less!) and is best remembered for her TV series. Back in the day, however, she was hot. 18 when the movie was released, she stood up to the more veteran actors and out shined Harlow herself.

It was kinda nice to go back to Capra thumbing his nose at society muck-a-mucks, and the performance of Williams was strong (and who doesn't like a little depression jiggle), but the movie left me somewhat flat. A little punching up of the script would have served it well. AMRU 3.

We all know that Capra and Young went on to long successful careers in cinema, and that Harlow went on to a tragic and short life, but Williams wins the cupie doll today. The sharp and witty reporter dropped dead of appendicitis three days after the premiere. So it goes.

"Yea, I know those bluenoses. Their ancestors refused to come over on the Mayflower because they didn't want to rub elbows with the tourists... So they swam over!"

M (1931)

Someone is abducting little girls and murdering them. Peter Lorre is Hans Beckert, a "rehabilitated" mental patient, who is frustrating the police. No material evidence is ever found and witnesses disagree on every detail. The police, in desperation, spend every night raiding every night club and harassing every two-bit crook.

The crooks have had enough. They band together to find the culprit so that they can get back to their businesses of picking pockets and other petty crimes. I'm going to stop right there. Anything more would be spoiling the film, and with M, I actually care.

I picked up M because in the category of Film-Noir, IMDB rates it number 3. 48th overall. I didn't know what to expect. M is a truly remarkable film.

Lorre's performance was nothing short of stunning. Earlier in the film, he'd be on screen and you'd say "oh, yea, totally a child molester". He just had that look. His big scene at the end is unbelievable. Truly out of this world.

I don't have anything sarcastic to say. I'm lost for snark! It's disorienting. Here's what I learned about Fritz Lang. Fritz was a German movie director principally remembered for Metropolis (1927). M, he felt, was his best work. When the Nazis took over in Germany, he fled. He continued to make movies in Hollywood, none matching the power and impact of M. He had the reputation of being demanding of actors, to the point of abuse. But, what did he look like? Think Colonel Klink, but more gay.

That's the stuff! In striking contrast to every other movie I've gotten from the library, this one was perfect. Not only was the restoration flawless, the disk itself was pristine. No skips! I must see this movie again. AMRU 4.

City Lights (1931)

The Tramp falls for a blind flower girl. She mistakes him for a rich man. He continues the charade to gain her favor. He tries to earn money to help her out and pay for an operation to restore her sight. But if she has the operation, what then? 

This is how silent films were made. No ridiculous over acting or paper-think plots here. Made years into the age of talkies, Charlie Chaplin made the conscious decision to keep the tramp silent. 

Still, I have to say, it was a little tedious to watch. It ran about an hour and a half. The sight gags were cool, but I've seen them before. Mostly by people imitating the man, but still. Maybe if I get used to the genre I'll get into it more. We'll see. 

I learned that Hitler modeled his mustache after the Tramp thinking it would endear him to his people, even though he mistakenly believed Chaplin to be Jewish. That was an interesting choice, looking back. A fiery, antisemitic dictator trying to channel a silent tramp he thought was Jewish. Go figure. Hey, and the blind girl (whom Chaplin disliked) married Cary Grant for about a year. I love IMDb!

Now, where did the title come from? Yes, it was set in a city, but lights of any kind didn't play any role in the story. AFI called it the number one romantic comedy. I say it was cute. Maybe worth another viewing. AMRU 3.5.