1930s

  • Jean Grémillon – Daïnah la métisse (1932)

    1931-1940DramaFranceJean GrémillonMystery
    Daïnah la métisse (1932)
    Daïnah la métisse (1932)

    Synopsis:
    Shades of Othello loom in this engrossing exploration of class, race, and murder set on an ocean liner. Young Dainah encounters an engineer on board who mistakes pleasantries for flirtation. When she disappears the next day, suspicion spreads not only to the engineer but also to Dainah’s husband. Forward-thinking and absorbing.Read More »

  • Max Ophüls – Yoshiwara (1937)

    Max Ophüls1931-1940ClassicsDramaFrance
    Yoshiwara (1937)
    Yoshiwara (1937)

    The daughter of a Japanese nobleman sells herself as a geisha in order to save her family from poverty and dishonour when her father dies leaving debts. She meets and falls in love with a Russian naval officer, but their romance is threatened by the love of a jealous servant, and by the espionage mission that the officer has been assigned to.Read More »

  • Abram Room – Strogiy yunosha AKA A Strict Young Man (1935)

    1931-1940Abram RoomExperimentalPoliticsUSSR
    Strogiy yunosha (1935)
    Strogiy yunosha (1935)

    Two heros are placed face to face in this film; a famous medical professor who has kept his bourgeois lifestyle intact and a young man engaged in the Komsomol, an ardent enforcer of mankind’s new moral code for the construction of communism. But the severe young man falls in love with the professor’s wife.Read More »

  • Dziga Vertov – Entuziazm (Simfoniya Donbassa) AKA Enthusiasm (The Donbass Symphony) (1930)

    Dziga Vertov1921-1930DocumentaryExperimentalSoviet montageUSSR
    Entuziazm (Simfoniya Donbassa) (1930)
    Entuziazm (Simfoniya Donbassa) (1930)

    PLOT:
    Vertov and his Kino group produced this lyrical documentary on the lives of Coal miners in the Donbas who are struggling to meet their production quotas under the five year plan. Enthusiasm is most noteworthy for it’s creative use of the new sound medium. Vertov liberated the recording equipment from the studio and shot sound on location. He also used common everyday sounds and wove them into what can only be described as a symphony. In fact, after seeing the film Charlie Chaplin wrote: “Never had I known that these mechanical sounds could be arranged to sound so beautiful. I regard it as one of the most exhilarating symphonies I have heard. Mr. Dziga Vertov is a musician.”Read More »

  • Kôzaburô Yoshimura – Danryû AKA Warm Current (1939)

    Kôzaburô Yoshimura1931-1940ClassicsJapanRomance
    Danryû (1939)
    Danryû (1939)

    STORY.
    After his benefactor Shima falls ill, Hibiki (Shin Saburi) sets out to rebuild the hospital that Shima had run. In the complicated relationships that swirl around the hospital, Gin (Mitsuko Mito), a nurse who works as Hibiki’s confidant, gradually develops a romantic interest in him. Meanwhile, Shima’s daughter Keiko (Mieko Takamine) and her fiancé Sasajima (Shin Tokudaiji) rebel against Hibiki’s dogmatic behaviour…Read More »

  • Leon Barsha – Convicted (1938)

    1931-1940CrimeDramaLeon BarshaUSA
    Convicted (1938)
    Convicted (1938)

    Convicted tells the story of a diligent detective named Burns (Quigley) who is forced to arrest Chick Wheeler (Edgar Edwards), brother of Burns’ sweetheart Jerry Wheeler (Hayworth), for murder. The more he thinks about it, the more Burns is convinced that Chick is innocent. With Jerry’s help, Burns tracks down the genuine miscreant in the nightclub where the heroine works.Read More »

  • Abel Gance – Un grand amour de Beethoven AKA Beethoven’s Great Love (1936)

    Abel Gance1931-1940ArthouseDramaFrance
    Un grand amour de Beethoven (1936)
    Un grand amour de Beethoven (1936)

    If one were to gather the hundreds of books written about Ludwig van Beethoven, sift through each with a fine-tooth comb, and extract every simple mistake, wild speculation, and outright falsehood, the result would still be nowhere near as fabulous and artificial as this 1936 biopic, which rewrites the composer’s life story into a throbbingly melodramatic tale of genius ignored and love unrequited. Director Abel Gance, best known for his expansive silent classic Napoleon, wasn’t interested in the truth of Beethoven’s life, but instead the romantic ideal of a great man tormented by history; Gance’s Beethoven is merely a variation of the filmmaker’s beloved Bonaparte, triumphant yet scorned by his inferiors in the artistic realm rather than the political. (Needless to say, among the film’s many omissions is Beethoven’s bitter rededication of the “Eroica” Symphony.)Read More »

  • Gus Meins – Romance on the Run (1938)

    Gus Meins1931-1940CrimeDramaUSA
    Romance on the Run (1938)
    Romance on the Run (1938)

    A man has the knack for finding stolen items. Then returns them to the insurance company. Finds some fake jewels and turns them in. Antics ensue.Read More »

  • Guthrie McClintic – Once a Lady (1931)

    1931-1940ClassicsDramaGuthrie McClinticUSA
    Once a Lady (1931)
    Once a Lady (1931)

    Synopsis:
    Once a Lady is a 1931 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Guthrie McClintic and starring Ruth Chatterton, Ivor Novello and Jill Esmond. The film, produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures, is a remake of the Pola Negri silent film Three Sinners (1928). The film was the final attempt by British matinée idol Novello to establish himself in Hollywood. Anna Keremazoff, a Russian living in Paris, leaves her beloved city and her bohemian lifestyle to marry Briton Jimmy Fenwick after she becomes pregnant by him. When the couple arrives at the Fenwick estate in Kent, Anna candidly tells Jimmy’s snobbish family she is pregnant. Shocked by Anna’s lack of decorum, Jimmy’s priggish aunt and mother begin a slow campaign against her free spirit.Read More »

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