Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
We move forward in film history to the 1930s, often considered the Golden Age of Hollywood. Culminating in what is widely considered one of the best years in film history: 1939. This decade will be a bit tougher than last week, but easier than subsequent weeks due to the number of films I’ve seen. Without further ado, here are the new titles.
M (1931)
Last week, we talked about Fritz Lang’s German Expressionism and its impact on narrative filmmaking. This week, we get another masterpiece, a sound film released in Germany in 1931 and the the United States in 1933. The role that launched Peter Lorre into broad popularity, Lorre plays Hans Beckert, a man assumed to be a child murderer who is being pursued by both the police and a gang of criminals who want to get the unwanted attention off their nefarious activities.
A harrowing piece of filmmaking, M is riveting asking us at once to revile and to empathize with this piteous man forced to admit to his urges and unable to control them while those who make careers out of criminal activity made choices that he is unable to. Lang’s ability to elicit such strong emotion from the audience marks this film as proof of his skill as a filmmaker. It’s not difficult to see why he was one of the earliest influences on cinema.
No original review available.
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931)
Speaking of Lang’s influence, part of that influence is keenly felt in Rouben Mamoulian’s take on the popular Robert Louis Stevenson novella about a kindly scientist who discovers a formula for an elixir that turns him into the repulsive Mr. Hyde. Fredric March delivers one of his finest performances in both roles opposite Miriam Hopkins as a bar singer with whom he becomes obsessed, Rose Hobart as his fiancée, Halliwell Hobbes as her father, and Holmes Herbert as one of his colleagues (that’s a heck of a lot of H names in this cast).
While you can feel Long in how Mamoulian generates atmosphere through set design, the film’s success hinges on the convincing shift in mannerisms that March gives Jekyll and Hyde. The film was only nominated for three Oscars. It lost the categories of Adaptation and Cinematography, but tied for first place for March’s performance (Wallace Beery’s The Champ performance was the other), the first and only time a tie has occurred in the Best Actor category. It’s a marvelous performance that countless actors have attempted to portray over the years, but March is the gold standard and everything else but a pale imitation. The same could easily be said about the film itself.
It Happened One Night (1934)
One of the master comic directors of the 1930s and 1940s, Frank Capra had been building a name for himself since the late silent era, but would finally emerge as a major filmmaker with 1933’s Lady for a Day, which earned him the first of his six Oscar Nominations for Best Director. His first win came with this film, the first of only two of his pictures to win the Best Production category. In this film, Claudette Colbert plays a wealthy heiress trying to escape her controlling father who suspects the man she’s eloped with is only after her money. Finding refuge on a Greyhound bus, she encounters Clark Gable as an unemployed newspaper reporter.
Although they are initially antagonistic towards one another, their careful dance of avoidance eventually bringing them together. Colbert is luminous and Gable would calcify his nonchalant disinterested persona with this role. Wittily written by Robert Riskin based on Samuel Hopkins Adams’ story, the film scored five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Directing, Adaptation, and for Gable and Colbert. It would go on to win all five awards becoming the first ever to win the top five prizes (for picture, directing, actor, actress, and screenwriting) and would hold the record for film with the largest perfect score for 12 years until The Best Years of Our Lives bested it in 1946, which would then be eclipsed a further 12 years later by Gigi in 1958, a record that would be tied 29 years later by The Last Emperor, and which would ultimately be broken 16 years later by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with 11 awards off of 11 nominations. No other films have joined their ranks of films with 5 or more Oscars and a perfect score.
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Writer, director, and producer Leo McCarey had an illustrious career working with everyone from the Marx Brothers to Charles Laughton to Irene Dunne and Cary Grant to Bing Crosby and Deborah Kerr. While he’s best known for modern audiences for Duck Soup, Going My Way, and An Affair to Remember (among others), his best film might well be one of his least seen. Set prior to the establishment of Social Security, Make Way for Tomorrow stars Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi, playing much older than their age as an elderly couple whose financial situation has deteriorated to the point of losing their family home. They summon their children together to find out which of them are willing to take the couple in since they have no place to live and no prospects for employment.
Facing a situation that forces them to live apart with different children, the pair struggle to stay connected as their unwavering love rips the audience’s heart to pieces. The film’s bittersweet ending is well earned thanks to Viña Delmar warm and compassionate screenplay that paints a desperate picture of why Social Security was such an important piece of legislation on the cusps of its implementation. Moore and Bondi deliver humanizing performances that pull you into their faithfulness to one another in spite of their desperate situation. McCarey considered this his masterpiece, though he would win the Oscar that year for his comedy The Awful Truth instead. Yet, the film’s legacy has persisted long after its release with many now recognizing it as one of the all-time great films, certainly one anyone who considers themselves a cineaste should check out.
Grand Illusion (1938)
While 1939 is often considered the greatest year in film history, I’m stopping a year short of that with my fifth and final film, a picture filmed in English, French, and German and exploring classism and the rise of Nazism through the lens of World War I. Unlike many war films, The Grand Illusion presents much of its story outside the confines of conflict. Jean Gabin, Marcel Dalio, and Pierre Fresnay play French officers captured by the Germans during The Great War and are put into a prison camp where they attempt to escape. Separated and shifted from one camp to another, they ultimately land in a mountain prison from which there is no escape as its commandant (Erich von Stroheim) declares. All three prisoners are reunited here and ultimately plot a risky escape whose success or failure will further plot for all three men.
A well acted chamber drama, French director Jean Renoir positions this war-adjacent picture as a commentary on nobility and class distinctions that were blurred and altered by the war itself. Also reflecting the rise of fascism in Germany, the film was a potent look at war from the marbelled halls of its officers who were often segmented and protected as prisoners unlike their enlisted inferiors. All of these thematic elements are expertly woven into the script by Renoir and Belgian screenwriter Charles Spaak.
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