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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 20, 2021 16:12:09 GMT -5
I'm going to try to take a page from Brutalis' "Which One" thread. Periodically I'll make a post for my favorite movie of a particular year. At this point my intent is to go chronologically starting with 1930. Feel free to comment and, preferably, post about your favorite movie of that year. In about a week I'll move on. Maybe sooner if there's not a huge amount of discussion.
Why start with 1930? Why not?
Okay. So Really it has a lot to do with breadth of knowledge of the films before that year. I have reasonable knowledge of silent films...but it's not super broad. By 1930, talkies had almost completely replaced silent films. The Studio System was largely in place (at least in the US). And...I didn't want to start with 1931 because it's going to be a hard choice.
Criteria? Whatever I decide at the time I write it up. I'll likely default to feature films. Though it's possible a short film could win. And I will definitely at least try to mention the short films that I love from a given year.
So let's see how this goes.
1930 up in a minute.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 20, 2021 17:02:03 GMT -5
1930 is pretty much a two film race, though it isn't quite so clear if we include short films. The contenders, for me, are All Quiet on the Western Front and Animal Crackers. It would be a little hard to get two more dissimilar films. But here we are.
All Quiet on the Western Front is, of course, the adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel of life on the front during World War I. From Universal Pictures it was directed by Lewis Milestone and starred Lew Ayres and Louis Wollheim. All Quiet won the Best Picture Oscar for 1929-30 and has maintained its critical acclaim over the years being added to the National Film Registry in 1990 and being cited by AFI a number of times. The film is an excellent adaptation of Remarque's novel and maintains his realistic view of the effects of war on all those involved, from the soldiers to the civilians who are being lied to at home. Any film banned in Nazi Germany is a good thing. Watching the film today the direction by Milestone doesn't feel aged. And the performances, by and large, are naturalistic at a time when the broad acting of the silent era still clung on. It's a film that doesn't feel nearly a hundred years old.
This assault scene is as brutal and effective as anything we would see today.
Animal Crackers is the Marx Brothers' second film and an adaptation of their Broadway play of the same name. The plot, to the extent it matters, revolves around a party for Groucho's Captain Spaulding and a stolen painting. But mostly it's just and excuse for word-play by Groucho and shenanigans by Chico and Harpo, much of it at the expense of Margaret Dumont. If that sounds like a thin premise for a film, it might be if it were anyone but the Marx Brothers. But they were, quite simply, comic geniuses. And while Animal Crackers isn't my favorite Marx Brothers film it's an absolutely hilarious movie that leaves me in stitches. If it happens to be on TV I can join it at any point and be incredibly happy.
Tough choice. But ultimately I'm more likely to just sit down and enjoy Animal Crackers. So I'm giving it the slight edge.
There honestly were very few other films from 1930 that I considered. One short film did get a bit of thought. Laurel & Hardy's Another Fine Mess is probably their first great talkie.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2021 17:13:33 GMT -5
All's Quiet is the first movie I ever showed in class as a teacher (it was during my student teaching stint and we were reading Remarque's novel for the World History course I was teaching). The first film adaptation I ever saw of it was the 70s remake featuring Richard Thomas (John Boy of Waltons fame) in the role, but I sought out the 30s film when I began my student teaching to look for a viable addition to my curriculum, but also because I wanted something to use as a bridge to the anti-war themes in Remarque. It was early '91 and Operation Desert Storm was in full swing and several of my students had older siblings in the military on active duty and in the Middle East and were wrestling with a lot of the themes from Remarque in their own lives and I wanted to provide something they could digest and promote some real discussions of it (I was a young idealistic student-teacher, so sue me, I got to be a grizzled, burnt-out veteran soon enough).
Aside from all that though, All's Quiet is simply a great film, enjoyable in its own right, but it can be a bridge to so much more as well.
I am not familiar with a lot of the films released this year, but of those I am, this one would be my pick.
-M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 20, 2021 17:33:50 GMT -5
All's Quiet is the first movie I ever showed in class as a teacher (it was during my student teaching stint and we were reading Remarque's novel for the World History course I was teaching). The first film adaptation I ever saw of it was the 70s remake featuring Richard Thomas (John Boy of Waltons fame) in the role, but I sought out the 30s film when I began my student teaching to look for a viable addition to my curriculum, but also because I wanted something to use as a bridge to the anti-war themes in Remarque. It was early '91 and Operation Desert Storm was in full swing and several of my students had older siblings in the military on active duty and in the Middle East and were wrestling with a lot of the themes from Remarque in their own lives and I wanted to provide something they could digest and promote some real discussions of it (I was a young idealistic student-teacher, so sue me, I got to be a grizzled, burnt-out veteran soon enough). Aside from all that though, All's Quiet is simply a great film, enjoyable in its own right, but it can be a bridge to so much more as well. I am not familiar with a lot of the films released this year, but of those I am, this one would be my pick. -M I hadn't watched it in a number of years until my middle son was reading Remarque's novel for school. I read along with him and then found a copy of the film for us to watch as well. It's just an incredibly powerful film that really doesn't show its age. I credit it in part with that son becoming an old film buff. I remember the made-for-TV version with John-Boy and Ernest Borgnine airing in 1979. I haven't seen it in eons, but it was, by all reports a better than average TV movie. But the 1930 original is a stone-cold classic of a film. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 20, 2021 17:46:20 GMT -5
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2021 18:51:03 GMT -5
I made an “Favorite Film By Year” list at IMDB but I don’t have to consult it to remember what I picked for 1930.
Animal Crackers! It is nonstop hilarious!
I’ve seen it over and over going back to about 1980 when I taped it off the television.
I can never decide between Animal Crackers and Duck Soup as my favorite Marx Brothers movie.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 20, 2021 18:55:44 GMT -5
I made an “Favorite Film By Year” list at IMDB but I don’t have to consult it to remember what I picked for 1930. Animal Crackers! It is nonstop hilarious! I’ve seen it over and over going back to about 1980 when I taped it off the television. I can never decide between Animal Crackers and Duck Soup as my favorite Marx Brothers movie. At the risk of potential spoilers Horse Feathers is absolutely my favorite of their movies. |
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Post by brutalis on Nov 20, 2021 19:06:32 GMT -5
Don't believe I could ever do a "best" for each year or decade. Watch and enjoy so many movies across the years it's nearly impossible to try creating a list. I just prefer to sit back and watch 'em all any chance I get and be a happy watcher.
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Post by berkley on Nov 20, 2021 19:23:10 GMT -5
Don't believe I could ever do a "best" for each year or decade. Watch and enjoy so many movies across the years it's nearly impossible to try creating a list. I just prefer to sit back and watch 'em all any chance I get and be a happy watcher. I'll probably feel much the same for many or most individual years, but glancing through the list for 1930, I think I can say Animal Crackers since I don't believe I've seen many other movies from that year. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2021 19:40:39 GMT -5
Yeah. Another Fine Mess is hilarious.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2021 19:45:11 GMT -5
And then there’s ...
MADAM SATAN!!
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Post by berkley on Nov 20, 2021 20:10:28 GMT -5
And then there’s ... MADAM SATAN!! I was just reading about that one, as I was struck by the title as I scanned through the list. Might have to watch it one of these days. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2021 20:31:10 GMT -5
I scrolled through and made a list of 1930 films (that haven’t already been mentioned) that might be worth watching for film buffs: The Golden Age (Directed by Luis Bunuel) Anna Christie (Garbo TALKS!) The Bat Whispers (Said to be very influential on Bill Finger) The Big House (Awesome early prison film) The Blue Angel (Marlene Dietrich) Blood of a Poet The Divorcee The Floradora Girl Hells Angels (THIS MOVIE ... !) Madam Satan Beauty Prize (with Louise Brooks) Westfront 1918 |
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Post by berkley on Nov 20, 2021 23:07:04 GMT -5
I think the only one Ive seen besides Animal Crackers is The Blue Angel.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 20, 2021 23:35:20 GMT -5
I knew right away that my 1930 movie would be "All Quiet." Can't add much more to what Slam_Bradley and @mrp have said. It is still as powerful as a war movie gets. Like mrp, I taught the novel many times and used it afterwards. Lew Ayres, who played Paul, became a CO in World War Two, outraging mviegoers, movie producers, and theatre-owners. He served time in a labor camp before he finally was allowed to serve as a medic -- as he'd requested -- in the South Pacific, where he earned three battle stars. Like the novel, the film is subversive in a culture like ours, and unfortunately, it was all too relevant during the years I taught, which began in the last year of the Vietnam War and wound its way through "sideshows" like the assault on the Mayaguez, the incursions into Grenada and Panama, the Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, etcetera, etcetera. And not only is it brilliantly filmed and acted, it served as a perfect introduction for students to the beauty of black and white films. As my teaching years went by, that introduction became increasingly more difficult to make, but I never gave up, showing other b&w beauties like "Great Expectations," "Rebecca," and "Angels with Dirty Faces." |
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