I’ll definitely have to seek out Westfront. I’ve seen Dawn Patrol but probably only once and it’s be eons.

Moving on to 1932.  

Now I could make a pretense of going through potential favorites, but honestly what's the point?  I already know my favorite film of 1932 and I kind of telegraphed it before.  I will, however, provide a few that I do like a lot after the main event.  

Horse Feathers - This is my favorite Marx Brothers movie and it's one of my favorite movies.  Groucho is absolutely brilliant as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff and Chico and Harpo are equally great as Baraveli and Pinky.  The films climax was number one on ESPN's list Top 11 Scenes in Football Movie History.  On a personal note, my youngest son dressed up as Groucho for his grade school gifted and talented program's "Night of the Notables" and sang "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It."  This movie just always makes me laugh and fills me with joy.  



Not that there aren't some other great films from 1932 (though I don't think it's on par with 1931).  

The Mummy - This has always been kind of one of the lesser step-children of the Universal horror films, but I'm a pretty big fan.  Jack Harris' make-up work is absolutely fabulous.  We get a chance to see Karloff in both monster and in a more traditional role.  While successful it didn't generate any direct sequels, but was more continually re-imagined.  



Scarface - This is the only version of Scarface I have any interest in watching.  Based on the Armitage Trail novel, this is the third leg (along with The Public Enemy and Little Caesar) of the three movies that codified the gangster movie for at least a generation.   This was the film that took Paul Muni off Broadway and made him a movie star.  The film also catapulted George Raft to stardom and had a great turn by Boris Karloff.  



Freaks - Aww...the movie that essentially killed Tod Browning's career.  This had originally been conceived as a vehicle for Lon Chaney, one has to wonder what might have happened had Chaney lived to lend his star-power and cachet to the film.  It's also a film that was essentially destroyed when Irving Thalberg decided to take the scissors to the original version, which was, apparently, doing very good business at the Fox Theater in San Diego.  The excised version completely changed Browning's social critique.  After years of being largely unavailable it became a cult film and has garnered significant re-evaluation. 



The Music Box - How did I miss this one.  I think this may be Laurel & Hardy's greatest short.  Them trying to move a piano up a steep set of stairs is just pure joy. 





1932 in film in case someone needs a look.   

I like Scarface as well but I’ve only seen it once.

I started to write down my recommendations from the 1932 list but I’m rather fatigued from my booster shot, so I’ll do it later.

My favorite has to be Chandu the Magician.  Not crazy about Edmond Lowe in this, but everything else is fantastic about this picture.  It feels too polished and perfect in so many respects that despite my love for this film, I'm not certain I give it the credit it deserves.  It runs only about an hour, but I learned so much from this where later creators got their ideas.  Bela Lugosi is fantastic (hardly surprising) and plays the type of villain for whom the death ray was invented.  It plays around with a medium and tropes even as they're still being invented.  Love this picture.

Runner-ups:

The Old Dark House.  All of the acclaim it gets might have made it impossible for it to have lived up to its reputation when I finally saw it, but perhaps it's because its not what I expected that I loved this one so much.  Charles Laughton is terrific convincing you that he's a one-dimensional oaf before peeling back layer after layer of a much deeper character; Brember Wills as Saul is perfect as a crazy man capable of passing off himself of as perfectly sane; you can practically hear Whale's mind spinning with future plans whenever Karloff and Ernest Thesiger are on screen - deservedly a classic, but I'd be hard pressed to describe it to anyone since there's really nothing else to compare it with.

White Zombie.  I've never seen such a wrath brought down upon a man's enemies for the slight of refusing to shake a man's hands like I've seen it here.  God help the poor soul who has the misfortune of making eye contact with Lugosi in 1932 on a bad day.  No one can see a grudge through to the bitter end like Murder Legendre as captured by Lugosi.


Island of Lost Souls.  Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, H.G. Wells.  I don't think I have to add more. 

I'll also second Freaks, Scarface, and The Mummy (though to be honest, it's always the sequels I head for when I grab my set rather than the original.  What can I say - I want a guy in bandages if I'm watching a movie with a mummy in it).  To my shame, I don't think I've seen The Music Box in full, but when I do, I'm sure I'll be regretting not singing its praises when I had the chance now.

I should have included Tarzan the Ape Man. But I like Tarzan and His Mate a lot more. And Tarzan Escapes too. The first one kind of pales in comparison, but it’s still pretty good. I haven’t seen it in a very long time.

This is one I kind of wanted to give a shout-out to but it's been at least three decades since I've seen it.  This was honestly a very important film at the time and probably couldn't have been made post-code.  As I recall, the film did a good job of portraying the abysmal treatment of Robert Elliot Burns for a pretty minor crime (I believe in the film he was innocent, in real life he was a dupe).  I also can't remember if the film delves in to Burns' significant "shell-shock" which was a major part of the book.