1930s

  • Carl Junghans – Takový je zivot aka Such Is Life (1930)

    1921-1930Carl JunghansCzech RepublicDramaSilent

    Quote:
    The heroine of the film is a proletarian wife and mother. Her husband, a coalminer, seeks solace in alcohol and neglects his work. After he is sacked, he spends most of his time in the pub with his friends and his lover, a waitress. He wastes the money his wife earns as a washerwoman. The woman, with her work and her worries, doesn’t even remember it is her birthday but her neighbours come to visit her to wish her happy birthday. Even this happy day ends in sadness: her husband comes home drunk. When he starts destroying their meagre furniture in a fit of rage, she throws him out. The man moves in with his lover. One day the wife badly scalds herself while washing some linen and after a few days she dies. The man comes home and prepares her a simple funeral which is attended by all the neighbours. After the funeral the husband holds a wake in the local inn. Then they all return to their homes as if nothing had happened. Such is life.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – The Spanish Earth (1937)

    1931-1940DocumentaryJoris IvensUSAWar

    Plot/Description: from IMDB
    This documentary tells of the struggles during the Spanish Civil War. It deals with the war at different levels: from the political level, at the ground military level focusing on battles in Madrid and the road from Madrid to Valencia, and at the support level. With the latter, a key project was building an irrigation system for an agricultural field near Fuentedueña so that food could be grown to feed the soldiers.Read More »

  • Dominique Bernard-Deschamps – Monsieur Coccinelle (1938)

    1931-1940ComedyDominique Bernard-DeschampsFrance

    Quote:
    One of the great unknown films of the 30’s.
    Astonishingly inventive and constantly amusing tale of
    a bureaucrat whose dead aunt proves to be irrepressibly alive.
    Colin Crisp – French Cinema – A Critical Filmography, Volume 1 (1929–1939)Read More »

  • W.S. Van Dyke – San Francisco (1936)

    W.S. Van Dyke1931-1940DramaMusicalUSA

    A Barbary Coast saloonkeeper and a Nob Hill impresario are rivals for the affections of a beautiful singer, both personally and professionally in 1906 San Francisco.Read More »

  • Tamizo Ishida – Hana chirinu AKA Fallen Blossoms (1938)

    1931-1940AsianDramaJapanTamizo Ishida

    Quote:
    Set against the backdrop of an imperial victory in the civil war leading up to the Meiji Restoration, Fallen Blossoms tells the story of the sorrows of women in a geisha house in Kyoto by recounting the relationships of its inhabitants.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Nieuwe gronden aka New Earth (1933)

    Joris Ivens1931-1940DocumentaryNetherlandsSilent

    Quote:
    The Zuiderzee Works episode of We Are Building was elaborated to the much longer film Zuiderzee by Joris Ivens in 1930. In 1934 Ivens used the same material, and additional footage, to make another version: New Earth. This time the film got a political message, and the editing became more compact and stronger, sustained by the stirring Music of Hanns Eisler. After the part on the reclamation and the closing of the dyke the film continues with images of the economic crisis and the poverty among labourers. Ivens opposes this with the speculation on the market: those who helped with the reclamation of new land for agriculture are now unemployed and starving, while grain is dumped at see to keep the prices up. The closing of the dyke is still one of the strongest editing sequences in the films of Joris Ivens.Read More »

  • Henry Hathaway – Peter Ibbetson [+Commentary] (1935)

    Henry Hathaway1931-1940DramaRomanceUSA

    Synopsis
    When his mother dies, young Peter Ibbetson leaves Paris and his best friend, Mary, behind to live with a severe uncle in England. Years later, Peter (Gary Cooper) is an architect with little time for women, until he begins a project with the Duke (John Halliday) and Duchess of Towers (Ann Harding). When Peter and the duchess become great friends, she reveals that she is Mary — but the duke soon suspects his wife of infidelity and challenges Peter to a duel, threatening the pair’s second chance.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Philips-Radio (1931)

    Joris Ivens1931-1940DocumentaryNetherlandsSilent

    An industrial film which shows the operations inside the Philips Radio plant: In a mêlée of activity, glassblowers make delicate glass bulbs. Machinery assists the bulb manufacture. A virtuoso glassblower begins a more complex tube used in radio broadcasting; it is then turned, fired, and sculpted. Conveyors carry partially completed units. Workers perform their various specific assembly-line tasks. Cases are manufactured and machined, wire harnesses are assembled, loudspeakers are produced. As radios near completion, they are run through a series of tests. Engineers and draughtsmen define future developments. In a closing stop-motion sequence, in a style reminiscent of Norman McLaren, a group of loudspeakers performs a playful dance. The film overall is a poetic depiction of an industrial process.Read More »

  • Tamizo Ishida – Hana-tsumi nikki AKA Flower Picking Diary (1939)

    Tamizo Ishida1931-1940DramaJapanRomance

    Maya Grohn wrote:
    This film is based on the book Heaven and Maiko by Yoshiya Nobuko.

    It is a story of two girls with totally different family backgrounds. The family of Eiko was in the okiya business, which handled geiko (geisha), one of the highest rank okiya in Osaka. Eiko was attending the girls’ school, modeled after Wilmina Girls School (currently Osaka Jogakuin).

    One day a new girl, Sada Mitsuru moved to the school from Tokyo, Mitsuru’s father was a successful businessman and her mother a pious Christian.Read More »

Back to top button