This movie was surprisingly delightful. The lead girl could be a bit much, but I was smiling from beginning to end. Great use of misunderstandings for both humor and to advance the plot.
The daughter of a struggling musician runs around town trying to create a new orchestra from all the unemployed musicians her father knows.
11 to go...
I haven't done a deep dive into the history yet, but the bullet points seem to be correct. This is the story of the beginnings of the Rothschild banking family and how they helped fund the war against Napoleon all while dealing directly with an anti-Semitic Europe.
I was surprised how engaging and quick paced it was. This probably ranks pretty highly among all the movies from the 1930s for me.
12 to go...
Do yourself a favor and don't watch this movie. It's not even really a movie. It's just a filmed stage variety show with yawn-inducing song and dance numbers. A torturous two hours to get through.
13 to go...
Feels more like a community theater production than a professionally made movie. But, after a rough start there's actually a fairly solid story involving Skippy helping a boy from the shanty town try to save his dog. Skippy's own father looms as a specter over shanty town.
Also kinda neat that Jackie Cooper goes on from playing Skippy to Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman movies.
14 to go...
Makes me want to do more research on Pancho Villa. They paint him as a far more nuanced character than one might expect from a movie from 1934. He's shown as a patriotic warrior, a murderous simpleton, a womanizer, and a loyal citizen. This film held my attention more than most from this era.
15 to go...
Surprisingly charming. Though less surprising when I realized this film earned Frank Capra his first Oscar nomination for directing. A poor woman who makes a meager living by selling apples on the street learns her daughter is coming from Spain to visit her. She had put her daughter up for adoption when she was born and, though they regular correspond, she has convinced her daughter that she is a well-to-do society woman. To avoid ruining the daughter's engagement to the son of a Spanish Count, the community rallies around Apple Annie to make her a... lady for a day.
A little too serious for a comedy, but a little too silly for a drama, I'd say it's mostly going for comedy and I did laugh out loud multiple times. Solid film.
16 to go...
At first glance, this is a simple tale of a good cop trying to take down a mob boss in the days of Prohibition. But it manages to pack a surprising amount of depth and hints at systemic corruption into its short runtime. While the pacing doesn't quite hold up and everything seems pretty cliche, I can definitely see this one being hip and fresh at the time. There were a few moments that I still found pretty darned cool - two rival gangs circling each other in public place, guns openly hidden in their jacket pockets like kids pretending to have guns; the lackey from the corrupt D.A.'s office turning on the main villain before he can expose them. Again, it's a little slow, but a strong film from the silent era.
17 to go...
