Here Comes the Navy (1934)

 

This film is an absolute time capsule of disasters. Most of it takes place aboard the USS Arizona, seven years before it would sink in the attack on Pearl Harbor. We see a Navy zeppelin three years before the Hindenburg disaster. James Cagney at one point puts on blackface to sneak off of the ship before society realized how problematic that was - though his black shipmates definitely don't seem pleased. Then there are the smaller (by comparison) issues of toxic masculinity with a touch of homophobia.

Cagney's character joins the Navy because he wants to fight an officer he runs into while working in Seattle. Then, of course, he falls for the guy's sister. Despite being the protagonist and saving the day a couple times, Cagney's character has few redeeming qualities and is really just a horrible human being.

20 to go...

State Fair (1933)

 

I'm continually shocked and amused by pre-Hays Code films. Most of the plot here revolves around the sweethearts the brother and sister each meet while the family is at the fair for a week. The brother quickly starts sleeping with the trapeze artist he meets at the fair, only to be confused that she won't agree to marry him. Meanwhile the daughter falls for a guy she randomly gets paired with on the roller coaster. While their relationship is more chaste, she hesitates on his offer of marriage when he admits he's slept with lots of girls before. There's nothing explicit, of course, but after the Hays Code everything would have to be much more ambiguous or carry more consequences.

All this while their ma and pa are willing awards for their pickles, minced meat, and prized hog. The film moves at a fairly modern pace and isn't a bad watch.

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Smilin' Through (1932)

 

Given the title Smilin' Through, I was expecting a lighthearted romanic comedy or romp of some sort. That is definitely NOT how I would describe this film. It's more of a dark romance with tales of past heartbreak and a patriarch struggling to forgive a son for the sins of his father. The title comes from a song his dead fiancee sang the night before their wedding, a wedding which, we later learn, saw her killed at the altar by a jilted former boyfriend.

It's pretty solid as I did see both points of view in the crucial conflict in the story. A lifelong bachelor holds on to the memory of the love of his life. 30 years after her death, he adopts her 5-year-old niece after her parents die. Seventeen years after that, the girl falls for the son of the man who killed her aunt, all without knowing the details of her adopted father / uncle's past loss.

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Five Star Final (1931)

 

This is a very dark film that holds up remarkably well and shows how little has changed in the world of tabloid journalism and sensationalism. In order to sell more papers Edward G. Robinson's character is charged with following up on an old story of a woman who killed her boss twenty years earlier for refusing to marry her after getting her pregnant. The daughter born soon after the murder is now about to get married herself and has no idea about her origins or her mother's dark past. The newspaper shining a light on this family's dirty laundry has tragic consequences. I couldn't help but think of Princess Diana's death in 1997 while fleeing paparazzi.

Great direction by Mervyn LeRoy and a film that includes the iconic faces of Robinson and Boris Karloff.

23 to go...

The Big House (1930)

 

A bit uneven, but this was actually a pretty darned good movie. It focuses on three cell mates serving time in a prison of 3000 inmates. One is the thick-skulled brute, one is the charming thief, and one is the new guy in for vehicular manslaughter. They are played by Wallace Beery, Chester Morris, and Robert Montgomery, respectively, whom all had very successful careers before and after this film, though this film does come at different points in their careers. All three were Oscar-nominated at one point or another, including Beery for this film.

Surprisingly nuanced for just an 87-minute film, it's one I'm surprised wasn't based on a novel. One that could definitely be updated and remade.

24 to go...

Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)

 

I went into this one with incredibly low expectations as it's a sort of follow-up to the 1929 film The Broadway Melody which I consider the worst best picture winner ever. So while this is completely forgettable, it actually wasn't too bad at all and could be reworked into a delightful high school musical.

We follow a newspaper man whose boss is forcing him to chase the 30s equivalent of clickbait and a girl from Albany who wants to make it big on Broadway. There's a hotshot stage director whom she went to high school with, but he tries to send her home to protect her from the industry. Meanwhile the reporter enjoys targeting the director for perceived scandals to do with his fundraising.

While the plot may be charming enough, the musical numbers are just flat boring.

25 to go...

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

This one mostly won me over in spite of myself. Much of the humor doesn't hold up, but several jokes did and I actually laughed out loud multiple times.

The story is simple enough. A British butler named Ruggles is won in a poker game by a rich American couple. The wife is prim and proper while the husband is a good ol' boy who just wants to drink and carry on with his friends. It's a fish-out-of-water story when Ruggles travels with his new employers to Washington state.

It definitely feels dated, but a pretty good film all things considered.

26 to go...

Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

 

While this production itself was well done enough, the story does not hold up at all in my opinion. A Romanian man is living in Mexico and not looking forward to the prospect of waiting 5-8 years before he can legally enter the United States due to immigration quotas. So, he woos a naive American school teacher (played by Olivia de Havilland) and gets her to marry him half a day after they meet. His plan is to ditch her the moment the paper work goes through and he can enter the country.

Slimy as all that is, the movie then has him fall in love with her and expects the audience to be on board with their relationship. I suppose that could work, but the movie doesn't really earn it. He's never empathetic enough to make us want to be on his side. So while the film paints it as a happy ending for both him and the school teacher, it's hard to see what she sees in him after learning of his betrayal.

27 to go...

The Citadel (1938)

 

A fairly compelling story of a doctor's career. He starts out pure and ambitious before poverty leads him to treating wealthy hypochondriacs. His wife chastises him for changing, noting how once he seemed so driven that he'd be willing to march on any citadel the establishment put in his way. A tragedy opens his eyes once again, but then the film just kind of ends.

I was at first frustrated at the corruption he faced from the establishment, then frustrated at his own turn to financial convenience, and finally frustrated at the movie's lack of really paying off any of the longterm projects they set up for the doctor. That said, I did actually enjoy the film and would be curious to read the book it's based on.

28 to go...

The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)

While this depiction of Pasteur's life is over-simplified and fictionalized in parts, it still correctly paints him as a man too few of us credit today. I thought of him only as the man who taught us to boil stuff to kill bacteria--hence pasteurization. But he's also one of the founders of germ theory who develop vaccines and helped to get doctors to wash their hands.

A very strong film, showing one man willing to fight for the scientific truth no matter the cost to him professionally when the establishment refuses to believe him. Paul Muni won the Oscar for best actor for playing Pasteur. A year later he was nominated again for playing another famous Frenchman in the best picture winner The Life of Emile Zola.

29 to go...

Four Daughters (1938)

Pretty solid. Essentially it boils down to a love triangle between two of the sisters and a family friend whom they both pine for. There's plenty of quick, witty dialogue that prevents the whole thing from feeling too dated. I laughed out loud in the first few minutes when their father, played by Claude Rains responds to his daughters' teasing by saying, "I'm going down to the hall of records to strike my name off of your birth certificates."

Three of the four titular daughters are played by the real life Lane sisters and there are two less heralded sequels - Four Wives and Four Mothers. The film is directed by Michael Curtiz who had an amazing year in 1938. He was nominated for directing both Four Daughters and Angels with Dirty Faces that year and wasn't nominated for his best known 1938 film - The Adventures of Robin Hood. Four years later he would go on to direct Casablanca.

30 to go...

The Long Voyage Home (1940)

Nothing spectacular, but definitely a couple of poignant moments. There's no real through-plot, which makes sense when you consider the film is based off of four one-act plays by Eugene O'Neill. While John Wayne gets top billing, it's much more of an ensemble piece about men aboard a so-called tramp steamer. The movie doesn't clearly establish where this long voyage takes place to or from, but according to Wikipedia they're traveling from the West Indies to Baltimore to England. Ultimately, I suppose, that's not what matters. It's more about the men's lives and what's important to them as WWII is in its infancy.

31 to go...

Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

This was a bit of a pleasant surprise just because I had very low expectations going in. It's a 6.9 on IMDb and a horrible 33% on RottenTomatoes (though with just nine critic reviews and the audience gives it a 72%). I'll admit it's far from special as a film, but I was very impressed with the story it tells of a woman I'd never heard of - Edna Gladney. She was a major advocate for children who might otherwise become neglected by the state. We also see in the film her fight to get the label "illegitimate" removed from birth certificates as the stigma could have negative effects that followed a person their whole life.

So, just an average film from the time, but a story everyone should familiarize themselves with.

32 to go...

The Divorcee (1930)

Not knowing anything about this movie going in, my biggest takeaway was the strong performance by Norma Shearer in the lead. I found out afterward that she did indeed win best actress that year at the Oscars. Overall, the film is a mostly lighthearted relationship drama. It's shockingly progressive in dealing with extramarital affairs.

On their third anniversary, Norma's character learns her husband has been cheating on her. In her despair she cheats on him that same week while he's out of town on business. She confesses when he returns saying, "I've balanced our accounts." Her husband, in true 1930s fashion, doesn't seem as understanding about her indiscretion as he expected her to be about his. This leads to her becoming the titular divorcee.

Worth watching and just a brisk 82 minute film.

33 to go...

Shanghai Express (1932)

A solid film set during the early years of the Chinese Civil War. All our main characters are making the long train ride from Peking (now Beijing) to Shanghai. While they hope it will be uneventful, they are twice stopped by the opposing factions of the war who want to search for their rivals.

I always find the pre-Hays Code films fascinating in that they didn't have to be as concerned with censorship. Marlene Dietrich stars as essentially a prostitute known as Shanghai Lily who stumbles across a former lover on the train. Their attempt to rekindle their relationship is butted up against his role in assisting one side of the civil war. It all holds up pretty well and is an impressive bit of filmmaking.

34 to go...

The Pied Piper (1942)

Unlike the last couple I've watched recently, this film is pretty darned good. An elderly Englishman is tasked with escorting a couple children home to London as the Germans invade France. Along the way he keeps accumulating more children, hence the film's title. It's a bit of an odd mix of humor and the horrors of the war, but I definitely recommend it.

35 to go...

The Human Comedy (1943)

Overall, this is just a slightly-below-average slice-of-life show filmed and set during WWII. There's no real through plot and just little vignettes that loosely tie together. I could have almost got on board with recommending it until I got to the ending which was so incredibly tone deaf I said, "What the f***" out loud. [Spoiler alert for a 77-year-old movie] So our main character learns via telegram that his brother has died in the war and goes home to tell his family. When he gets to the front porch he encounters his brother's best friend from the army whom the family has never met. He decides this is just as good as having his brother back and shouts up to the family that the soldier has returned home. Are you kidding me?

36 to go...

Wilson (1944)

No real plot here, just an overview of Woodrow Wilson's career from president of Princeton University to the end of his tenure as President of the United States. The movie avoids any nuance and paints Wilson as a saint and almost a martyr for the causes of peace and prosperity. Ignoring, of course, the fact that he couldn't have cared less for the struggles of minorities in the country. Alexander Knox does give a very good performance as Wilson, but this film is entirely skippable.

37 to go...