Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s: 1938-’39

December 9, 2010 by Robert J. Avrech 16 Comments

Myrna Loy and Clark Gable on the set of Test Pilot with director Victor Fleming.

We continue our survey of the Twenty Greatest Movies of each decade.

Part One, in which we cover the era of silent movies.

Part Two, The Thirties, 1930 – ’33.

Part Three, 1934 – ’37.

Okay, time to wrap up the glorious 30’s.

16. Test Pilot, 1938.

Jim Lane, Clark Gable, is a daring test pilot, irresponsible and carefree. His mechanic, Gunner Morse, Spencer Tracy, does all he can to keep Gable from plunging out of the sky. Tracy is anxious mother to an overgrown adolescent.

Enter Ann Barton, Myrna Loy, a farm girl from Kansas, who recognizes Gable—with her ironic if affectionate delivery—as her prince charming from the clouds. She understands that Gable loves the danger of test flight more than anything. But against her best Midwestern common sense, falls in love with the lug. It’s a dangerous, giddy romance. Together, they’re an explosive combination, trading quips with machine gun delivery while eyeing each other like hungry animals.

Confession: The dynamics of the Gable-Loy realtionship, he with his head in the clouds and she, a practical no-nonsense lady, reminds me of my relationship with Karen. Karen adores Gable—Her professional diagnosis: “A real man, rugged and dependable.”—so I’m hopeful that my analysis works.

Anyhoo.

Most critics view the film as a love triangle, with Gunnar and Ann maneuvering for Gable’s attention. But that’s a shallow misreading of the film. In fact, director Victor Fleming—a former race car driver and a pilot—understood that the true rival to Gunner and Ann is the thin air above the clouds.

This is a very American and masculine film. Gable is hugely attracted to Loy when they first meet, but he truly falls in love with her at a baseball game when she displays lunatic fanaticism and later, at a movie, when she mocks a sappy love scene.

Once together, Loy discovers that life with Gable and Tracy is nothing short of chaos and she realizes just how hard it is to live with your feet on the ground when the man you love prefers speeding through heaven.

At first, both Gable and Loy were lukewarm about the project. Gable didn’t understand the point of the story, and Loy thought the dialogue stilted. Fleming, one of the most important if underrated directors in movie history, had a clear vision and patiently explained it to the two hesitant stars.

Spencer Tracy, just off an Oscar win for his performance—one of those hey-I-can-do-a-dopey-accent roles—in Captains Courageous ’37, directed by, you guessed it, Victor Fleming, and agreed to appear with Gable and Loy. This performance might be the best of his fine if troubled—he was a nasty, violent drunk—career. It’s the only time these three legends appeared together in a film.

Ultimately, there were nine writers on Test Pilot, including director Howard Hawks, but it was probably John Lee Mahin, Fleming’s most frequent collaborator, who pulled the script together.

In her finely observed autobiography, Being and Becoming, Myrna Loy declared Test Pilot as “… a personal favorite of mine.”

Most memorable dialogue, Loy to Gable when they meet cute: “I know you, you’re the prince, a nice charming prince right out of the sky, a young girl’s dream, and I’ve been waiting for you all my life. That’s why no other man touched the tip of my finger. I’ve lived for a prince.”

Shockingly, Test Pilot is not available on DVD. You can get a VHS copy or catch it on TCM. Let’s hope that a DVD will soon be available.

17. Gunga Din, 1939.

There was a time when war was, um, fun. And Gunga Din is a prime example of this very unPC genre. Three British sergeants, Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Victor McLaglen and their native water carrier, Sam Jaffe, fight the Thuggees, a fanatic cult of murderous Indians in colonial British India.

This is an epic, mostly comic, which turns deadly serious at just the right moments. At the core, the film is not about ideology, rather it’s a loving look at the bonds that tie men to one another when they count on each other every day in life and death decisions.

So influential is this film that Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, is based on Gunga Din.

There were countless writers on this script, including the uncredited William Faulkner, Lester Cohen, John Colton, Vincent Lawrence, Dudley Nichols and Anthony Veiller.

But Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s original footprint is unmistakable. The main plot point is the same as their hit play and movie The Front Page. Fairbanks’ character wants to leave the army in order to get married. But Cary Grant, playing essentially the same fast talking character he played a year later in His Girl Friday, a remake of The Front Page, schemes to keep his buddy from making such a horrible mistake.

Throughout his career, director George Stevens displayed great aptitude for comedy—he started out as a cameraman on Laurel and Hardy shorts—and drama. But during the Second World War, in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, Stevens’ unit shot footage documenting the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. The horror Stevens encountered at Dachau profoundly effected him. George Stevens never again made a comedy.

Most memorable quote, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as Ballantine to thousands of Thugees: “Now you’re all under arrest. Her Majesty’s very touchy about having her subjects strangled.”

A DVD of Gunga Din is available.

18. Stagecoach, 1939

It has often been said that 1939 was Hollywood’s greatest year. I split this honor with 1929, also an astonishing year for movies, the closing curtain for silent films. Whatever the truth, 1939 was certainly John Ford’s greatest year. Between October 1938 and November 1939 Ford made four films, Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, and The Grapes of Wrath, the greatest run from a single director in the history of the movies. With these four films John Ford solidified his reputation as arguably the most important director in Hollywood, a man who could meld art with commerce.

Three of these films were studio projects made under the watchful eye of Twentieth Century Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck—the only studio mogul who was not Jewish. In fact, Zanuck was Protestant from Wahoo Nebraska. In any case, Zanuck passed on the Stagecoach script, seeing it as a money-loser. Ford pitched the project to MGM, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Columbia—all passed. The studio moguls viewed Westerns as old fashioned, grist fit only for their B units.

Finally, Ford approached independant producer Walter Wanger, a sophisticated Ivy Leaguer with a reputation for honesty and good taste. Wanger had a deal to deliver a film to United Artists. After reading and liking the script, Wanger decided to go ahead and put together the financing—as long as Ford would take a cut in his fee and keep the budget to $392,000. This left, hold on to your hats, $65,000 for the entire cast. But Ford was able to assemble some of the best character actors in Hollywood at the right price. John Wayne would have worked for nothing. Claire Trevor was the highest paid actor in the film. At the time she was the best known star in the cast and received top billing.

Flashback to 1930 when John Wayne—real name Marion Morrison—starred in The Big Trail, a groundbreaking Western. However, in a perfect example of bad timing, the film was shot on 70mm. Movie theaters had just spent a fortune switching to sound equipment and they were not about to spend even more money to project the massive 70mm negative. The film bombed just at the moment when John Wayne was poised to become a huge Hollywood star. And for the next nine years Wayne labored in the relative obscurity of B films.

Until Stagecoach, Wayne’s 80th film.

This is the film that turned the scorned Western into a respectable genre. Director John Ford and ace screenwriter Dudley Nichols understood America and its people. It’s the quintessential tale of a group of strangers, social misfits thrown together—it’s Grand Hotel in Monument Valley—into extraordinary circumstances, and emerging as a family. And of course, it’s a deeply touching love story between the dashing outlaw, the Ringo Kid, John Wayne, and Claire Trevor’s Dallas, a saloon girl, code for prostitute. Scene by scene, Ford allows each major character to reveal an intrinsic nobility.

The Ringo Kid, is introduced with a stunning forward dolly shot that ends on Wayne standing like a Michelangelo sculpture—with clothing—grasping his rifle. It’s one of the most iconic images in the history of the movies. But pay attention, near the end, the movie brings forth another powerful close-up of Wayne, this time anguished in his attempt to revenge the murders of his father and brother at the same moment he tries to build a future with Dallas.

Stagecoach signaled the enduring partnership between Ford and Wayne. Together, they redefined the American Western and the legends which define us.

Orson Welles, while shooting Citizen Kane, screened Stagecoach over and over again. Welles understood that in his understated way John Ford was, using light and shadows, painting a uniquely American masterpiece.

Most memorable quote, John Wayne as the Ringo Kid: “Well, I guess you can’t break out of prison and into society in the same week.”

The Criterion DVD transfer of Stagecoach is dazzling. The film has not looked this good since it was first released.

19. Ninotchka, 1939

Ninotchka afforded Greta Garbo her best role and her very best film. It was a huge hit. The story is a classic Hollywood fish-out-of-water tale. Garbo, a Soviet envoy who carries a portrait of Lenin in her suitcase, arrives in decadent Paris and is swept off her feet by the charming Melvyn Douglas and Paris fashions as interpreted by Adrian.

The script, credited to Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and Walter Reisch was, in fact, the work of at least ten Hollywood screenwriters. But it is a seamless production. Ernst Lubitsch’s assured hand brings a consistent tone to this near-perfect Hollywood classic.

Casual but razor-sharp lines nail the murderous and corrupt Soviet regime.

Says Garbo: “The last mass trials were a success: there will be fewer, but better Russians.”

This one piece of dialogue is more honest and accurate than Warren Beatty’s three-hour plus Reds, 1981.

Here, Melvyn Douglas is devoid of political convictions save a profound fondness for champagne and beautiful women. This, I suppose, is a way of indicating the American love of freedom in contrast to dreary and regimented Communism. When Douglas views the lights of Paris he sees beauty and romance. Garbo’s Ninotchka sees a waste of electricity—she’s already an insufferable environmentalist. Thus, Garbo’s transformation from Soviet drudge—wisely, Lubitsch keeps Garbo in medium shot emphasizing her chronically bad posture—to capitalist swan is deliriously romantic.

Ninotchka is like a Soviet versions of What Not to Wear—and you thought I only watch classic Hollywood movies—with free market American males rescuing Bolshevik beauties from the unspeakable horrors of Communist shmattes. Like the notorious East German athletes of uncertain genre, the Communist female is decidedly, er, not, until the all American male effects a fierce make-over, thereby freeing up natural feminine impulses.

Satire is, perhaps, the most potent weapon in Hollywood’s arsenal, and Ninotchka, more than any film I have ever seen, exposes and ridicules the evils of Communism.

Ninotchka takes it for granted that Stalin’s regime
was a monstrous killing machine liquidating vast swaths of its people. Lubitsch and his writers—many were Jewish European exiles—are properly repelled by utopian collectivism.

In contrast, Walter Duranty, Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for praising Stalin and defending the brutality of the Communist purges. The Soviet-manufactured mass starvation in the Ukraine never happened in the expert opinion of this Communist hack. Predictably, Duranty never recanted his noxious opinions—a true Stalinist—and the New York Times never returned their blood-soaked Pulitzer.

With Ninotchka, an elegant and fluffy romance, Hollywood righteously skewers totalitarian Soviet Communism. Indeed, for a brief and shining moment tinsel town was on the side of the angels.

In a film overflowing with memorable quotes I’m going with this very Jewish observation by Ninotchka: “I’m so happy, I’m so happy! Nobody can be so happy without being punished.”

A DVD of Ninotchka is widely available.

20. Only Angels have Wings, 1939

In this pivotal scene, early in Howard Hawk’s masterpiece, after one of the fliers, Joe, has been killed, Cary Grant and all the other aviators act as if he never existed. Grant even chows down on the steak beng kept hot for Joe. Jean Arthur as Bonnie Lee, miscast as a showgirl, perceives the men as unfeeling brutes, not realizing that it’s the only way the men—who defy death every time they fly—can cope with the shattering loss of their comrade.

This sequence neatly sums up the world view of director Howard Hawks: when men are professionals sentimentality has no place, especially in a dangerous world. Famously, Hawks intensely disliked High Noon 1952. He complained, quite correctly, that Gary Cooper as town Sheriff, was hired to do a job and as a professional that’s what he should have done. Begging townspeople, amateurs, for help against hired guns, was a betrayal of professional standards and honor. And then, being saved in the final shootout by the pacifist Quaker Grace Kelly was, for Hawks, the final indignity.

With a plot bearing an uncanny resemblance to Red Dust, another of our greatest films of the 30’s, Only Angels Have Wings takes place in the mythical Banana Republic of Barranca.

Cary Grant as Geoff Carter—hard boiled Grant is a wonder to behold—runs a business flying mail over the Andes in planes that are rust-buckets. Jean Arthur shows up, is baffled by the closed society of the fliers, but, naturally, falls in love with Carter. Things get really interesting when Carter’s old flame, a dazzling Rita Hayworth in her first important role, arrives as the wife of a new aviator, Richard Barthelmess, who also happens to be responsible for the death of a beloved comrade.

The film explores notions of guilt, loyalty, love, honor and courage with powerful understatement. There are no Shakesperian monologues, just simple glances and exchanges that articulate a particularly male American ethos which has all but disappeared in an increasingly feminized, multi-cultured, ethically neutered Hollywood.

Kenneth Hawks, Howard’s brother, was a promising young director in Hollywood. Like his older brother, Kenneth was an enthusiastic aviator. But in 1930, Kenneth was killed on location, while flying a stunt plane at the age of 31. Howard Hawks mourned his brother in private and then went on to direct a handful of superb movies that celebrate aviation: The Dawn Patrol, 1930 Ceiling Zero, 1936 Only Angels Have Wings, 1939 and Air Force, 1943.

Most memorable quote in a film where almost every scene has a memorable exchange is between Jean Arthur and Cary Grant:

Bonnie Lee: What was she like, anyway?
Geoff Carter: Who?
Bonnie Lee: That girl that made you act the way you do.
Geoff Carter: A whole lot like you. Just as nice, almost as smart.
Bonnie Lee: Chorus girl?
Geoff Carter: Only by temperament.

Only Angels Have Wings is available on DVD.

There might be a delay in posting my Twenty Greatest Films of the 1940’s due to the birth of Lielle Meital, but I am working on the list—oh, the anguish of being forced to choose only twenty—and it will be published as soon as possible.

Eighth and last day of Chanukah in Casa Avrech

The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s: ’34-’37

December 2, 2010 by Robert J. Avrech 20 Comments

We continue our survey of the Twenty Greatest Movies of each decade.

For The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1920s, click here.

For The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s, click here.

For The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940’s, click here.

Let’s roll:

11. Twentieth Century, 1934.

Oscar Jaffe, John Barrymore, a stubborn, hyperkinetic Broadway producer, is in a professional downward spiral. He cooks up a scheme to get his former protege and girlfriend, Lily Garland, Carole Lombard—Jaffe discovered her as a lingerie model named Mildred Plotkin—now a Hollywood diva, to resurrect his declining career.

This is one of the great Hollywood comedies with the larger than life Barrymore playing a larger than life character. The essential ingredients of screwball comedy are all present:

a) A beautiful but dizzy dame.
b) The male hero, charming but conniving.
c) Brilliant, rapid fire dialogue.
d) A dash of slapstick humor.
e) Romance.

Carole Lombard was not the studios first choice to play Lily Garland. Columbia boss Harry Cohn considered Gloria Swanson, Miriam Hopkins, Ina Claire, Tallulah Bankhead, Ruth Chatterton, Constance Bennett, Ann Harding, Kay Francis and Joan Crawford. But director Howard Hawks had a gut instinct that Lombard was a brilliant comedienne whose talents had not yet flourished in the right role. But during rehearsals, Lombard seemed to be sleepwalking through the role, turning in a listless performance. Hawks took Lombard aside and asked her what she would if a fellow actor bad-mouthed her behind her back. “I’d kick him in the balls,” Lombard replied. Hawks said: “Well, go kick Barrymore.” Lombard was energized by Hawk’s lie, and her performance is, perhaps, the very best of her short but brilliant career.

Most memorable quote, John Barrymore as Oscar Jaffe: I never thought I should sink so low as to become an actor.

You can get a DVD of this film for amazon.com.

12. The 39 Steps, 1935.

Alfred Hitchcock was a revolutionary storyteller and film stylist who defined and perfected the thriller genre. His major preoccupations are all here: an affable, innocent man on the run, useless police, and an icy blond who wants to turn him in. The hero must overcome enormous odds in order to prove his innocence, solve the crime, and, of course win the love of the girl. Hitchcock also unleashed a wonderful sense of droll humor that served as a safety valve for the narrative tension. In the clip, notice how Madeleine Carroll removes her wet stockings as she’s manacled to Robert Donat. It’s highly erotic but also very funny. This is classic Hitchcock, an effortless blend of suspence, action, adventure and romance.

In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock introduces the concept of the MacGuffin. This is a device which kicks off the plot, but as he explained to Dick Cavett, is an object to which the audience is, ultimately, quite indifferent. In the days of Rudyard Kipling, the MacGuffin would have been the plans of a frontier fort. If Hitch were making films today it would be a flash drive containing state secrets. Here’s how Hitchcock explained the MacGuffin to Francois Truffaut:

There are two men sitting in a train going to Scotland and one man says to the other, “Excuse me, sir, but what is that strange parcel you have on the luggage rack above you?”, “Oh”, says the other, “that’s a Macguffin.” “Well,” says the first man, “what’s a Macguffin?” The other answers, “It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.” “But,” says the first man, “there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands.” “Well,” says the other, “then that’s no Macguffin.”

More than plot, a classic Hitchcock film is a way of observing ordinary characters thrust into extraordinary situations and exploring the means by which trust is established between the hero and heroine.

Most memorable quote, Robert Donat to Madeleine Carroll: There are 20 million women in this island and I get to be chained to you.

The Criterion DVD of The 39 Steps is a fine transfer.

13. Desire, 1936.

Marlene Dietrich is the phony Countess Madeleine de Beaupré, a devious grifter and jewel thief who steals a valuable pearl necklace and flees Paris. On the road, she meets naive American Gary Cooper, Tom Bradley, who is on vacation. Madeleine slips the necklace into Bradley’s pocket to avoid a customs inspector.

From this simple premise Desire slips into high romantic gear. Dietrich, against all her snake-like instincts, starts to fall for the unsophisticated American, and Cooper, discovering Dietrich’s con, throws caution to the wind and decides to turn her into an honest woman. It’s a compelling brew: American optimism vs. European decadence. Director Frank Borzage’s sincere lyricism has an edge over the famous Lubitsch touch.

This was the second pairing of Dietrich and Cooper. They burned up the screen in Morocco, 1930 a classic Josef von Sternberg dream tale of love between a bar girl and a Foreign Legionnaire. But here, Dietrich is a more believable character. She’s not just posing for the effects of chiaroscuro lighting, but acting and reacting to Cooper’s hunky charms.

Of this film, Dietrich said:

The only film I need not be ashamed of is Desire, directed by Frank Borzage and based on a script by Ernst Lubitsch. I found Gary Cooper a little less monosyllabic than before. He was finally rid of Lupe Velez, who had been at his heels constantly throughout the shooting of Morocco. Desire became a good film and, moreover, also proved to be a bo
x-office success.

Most memorable quote, Gary Cooper to Marlene Dietrich: All I know about you is… you stole my car and I’m insane about you.

It looks like the only DVD available is Non USA format from Sweden. But Desire does show up on TCM every once in a while so check their schedule.

14. Swing Time, 1936.

This is the only Astaire Rogers film directed by the great George Stevens. Hence, the performances by Fred and Ginger are the most down to earth of all their films. Which is not to say that the movie is not an over-the-top fantasy—it is—but there is a naturalistic ease in their non-dance performances that elevates this film even above Top Hat, another masterpiece.

Fred plays Lucky Garnett, a dancer/gambler—a combination found exclusively in Hollywood—trying to earn enough money to marry his fiance. Ginger is Penny, a dance instructor with whom he falls in love instead. Like the Marx Brothers, plots for Astaire and Rogers were paper-thin, premises to get the dancers dancing. But the Astaire-Rogers dance numbers were more than just window-dressing, they moved the story forward, in contrast to the dazzling spectacles served up by Busby Berkeley. Dance brought Fred and Ginger together as a couple, their doubts and hesitations are lovingly chronicled, and then, as the plot moves forward, their love emerges triumphant in a final heart-stopping number.

Is it any wonder that Dancing with the Stars is such a hit with the American public? Audiences can no longer find romance and glamour in Hollywood movies. Thus, D-list celebrities paired with professional dancers—clad in drop-dead ugly, ersatz glamor costumes—feed the insatiable need.

Fred Astaire—real name Frederick Austerlitz—insisted that, when technically possible, the camera film the routines in a single take using a wide, full shot. Said Astaire: “Either the camera will dance, or I will.”

Most memorable quote, Rogers to Astaire: Listen. No one could teach you to dance in a million years. Take my advice and save your money!

Swing Time is available on DVD.

15. The Awful Truth, 1937.

In the following clip, Cary Grant as Paul Wariner meets with his socialite fiance and her stuffy, upper class family. Lucy Wariner, Irene Dunne, shows up disguised as Grant’s sister, presumably to rescue Grant from a lie, but in truth, to undermine his new love interest. Great film acting is reacting so keep an eye on Grant as he expresses surprise, bafflement, frustration, humiliation and then, finally, delight as he realizes that the woman he’s divorcing is his perfect match.

Irene Dunne—a devout Roman Catholic, an activist Republican, married to one man all her life, and never involved in a single scandal—was one of Hollywood’s greatest dramatic actresses and comediennes. Naturally, she was never honored with an Oscar.

Here is a sublime example of the screwball comedy, a Hollywood genre that reached its zenith during the thirties when the American economy was crippled by the Great Depression.

The sets for screwball comedies are massive Art Deco rooms, floor to ceiling drapes, and miles of marble floors. Men dress in tuxedos, and ladies dash about in bias-cut gowns, trailing streams of mink and chinchilla. Every household boasts a know-it-all British butler and perfectly uniformed maids who curtsy as they serve caviar from silver trays. Best of all, no one seems to work for a living. The pursuit of love, while sipping endless cocktails, is a full time occupation.

Indeed, the fantasy world of Depression era screwball comedies provided a safe haven for millions of down-at-the heels, entertainment-hungry Americans.

The storyline for The Awful Truth is a comedy of remarriage—Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is the original model. Here, Jerry and Lucy Wariner impulsively decide to divorce though obviously made for each other. They pair off with inappropriate partners, Grant with a spoiled heiress and Dunne with a dose of Thorazine, played, naturally, by Ralph Bellamy. The bulk of the film chronicles the couple’s whacky attempts to ruin each other’s romances and find a way of getting back together.

Grant and Dunne co-starred in two spectacular screwball comedies: The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife, 1940. Both are near perfect films, hilarious and profoundly wise about human nature. Leo McCarey was the guiding force behind both films. It’s a shame that this fine producer-director’s output wasn’t greater—he also directed Duck Soup, another of our greatest—but he was a serious alcoholic who, sadly, retreated to corners of darkness for long periods between pictures.

The Awful Truth launched the unique and beloved Cary Grant persona that was, in part, based on Leo McCarey’s mannerisms. Said Peter Bogdanovich: “After The Awful Truth, when it came to light comedy, there was Cary Grant and then everyone else was an also-ran.”

Most memorable dialogue in a film overflowing with brilliant exchanges is between Cary Grant as Jerry and Irene Dunne as Lucy:

Jerry: In a half an hour, we’ll no longer be Mr. and Mrs. Funny, isn’t it?
Lucy: Yes, it’s funny that everything’s the way it is on account of the way you feel.
Jerry: Huh?
Lucy: Well, I mean, if you didn’t feel that way you do, things wouldn’t be the way they are, would they? I mean, things could be the same if things were different.
Jerry: But things are the way you made them.
Lucy: Oh, no. No, things are the way you think I made them. I didn’t make them that way at all. Things are just the same as they always were, only, you’re the same as you were, too, so I guess things will never be the same again.

The Awful Truth is available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Happy Chanukah to all our friends and relatives.

The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s: ’30-’33

November 24, 2010 by Robert J. Avrech 17 Comments

Clark Gable, the greatest male star of the 1930’s. Gable was glamorous yet rugged, a man’s man. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him.

We continue our decade-by-decade survey of The Twenty Greatest Movies. Last week we examined the 1920’s, the era of silent movies where a particular American vitality found expression in images that were, at once, highly stylized, yet strangely realistic. In short, silent movies perfected the illusion of glamour—originally the word meant a literal magic spell. Movie makers quickly discovered that, more than anything, their audiences craved a good story channeled through beautiful faces, fantastic wardrobes, dazzling sets, and of course, larger than life passions. Thus, it is glamour that sustains the world’s bottomless appetite for Hollywood movies.

To see our list of The Greatest Movies of the 1920’s, please click here.

This week we move into the 30’s, a particularly rich era in which Hollywood quickly mastered the new medium of talking pictures. Tragically, hundreds of silent stars and ordinary working actors, were unable to make the transition and scores of careers were abruptly euthanized by the new technology.

Compiling this list was particularly difficult. The 30’s are my very favorite decade and arguably Hollywood’s greatest movies were produced during this era.

The gangster movie reached its apogee with such movies as Scarface, The Public Enemy, and Little Caesar. The delightful genre of screwball comedy was born with such classics as Bombshell, The Thin Man, and Twentieth Century. And wicked Pre-Code dramas such as The Blue Angel, Baby Face, and Safe in Hell, spoon-fed the audience a diet rich in sex, sin and (sometimes) redemption.

Of course the 30’s also gave us the Hollywood musical, the lavish, military-inspired Busby Berkeley—a field artillery lieutenant in WW I—spectacles, and the glamorous but intimate Astaire-Rogers musicals where song and dance is the language of love.

There are notable absences in my list: Gone with the Wind, King Kong, and The Wizard of Oz to name just three classics. But I’ve decided to concentrate on less familiar titles, in order to introduce the Seraphic Secret audience to some wonderful movies of which they might not be aware.

Instead of just throwing up a bare list of films with clips, this time around, in order to hint at the richness of each production, I’ve added a bit of commentary, some random Hollywood factoids, and my pick for the most memorable dialogue.

I realize that some movie lovers will be appalled that I haven’t included their favorites, but be aware that at this time next year, my list of greatest films might be very different. As I grow older, my tastes expand, change, and I trust, become richer.

Okay, let’s roll:

1. City Lights, 1931.

Silent movies were dead by 1931, but Charlie Chaplin begged to differ. He released City Lights as a silent film enhanced with synchronized music and a few sound effects. The plot of is elegant and simple; the tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind girl, Virginia Cherrill—Mrs. Cary Grant from 1934-35—and tries to get the money for an operation to restore her sight.

City Lights does not have the memorable comic set pieces of The Gold Rush or Modern Times, but in terms of narrative velocity, City Lights is Chaplin’s most accomplished film. The ending, in this screenwriter’s not-so-humble opinion, is the most coherent and touching in the history of film.

During production, Chaplin fired Virginia Cherrill and planned to reshoot her scenes with Georgia Hale, his co-star in The Gold Rush. But Chaplin decided that reshooting would be too expensive and asked Cherrill to come back. On the clever advice of her good friend, actress Marion Davies, Cherrill refused to return unless Chaplin gave her a raise.

Most memorable line of dialogue, Virginia Cherrill as The Blind Girl: You?

2. The Champ, 1931.

Avrech’s first rule of movie narrative is: Every great movie is a love story. This is a love story between father and son. Jackie Cooper plays Dink Purcell, a child who worships his father, Wallace Beery, a broken down boxer, gambler and alcoholic. But Beery, a former heavy weight champ, seems determined to destroy any hope for a stable future. Into the combustible emotional mix is a long-lost mother, a racing horse, and a final scene—the camera is thrust into Dink’s weeping face—that is guaranteed to break your heart.

Wallace Beery, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in The Champ, gives the impression of an easy going slob. But in reality he was a violent, abusive drunk. Gloria Swanson eloped with Beery in 1916, on her 17th birthday, an innocent virgin. In her very fine autobiography, Swanson reports that Beery got drunk on their wedding night and brutally raped her. Later, Beery impregnated Swanson. Unwilling to have a child, Beery tricked her into drinking a concoction that induced an abortion.

Most memorable line of dialogue, Jackie Cooper as Dink: I want the champ! I want the champ!

3. Possessed, 1931.

A train slides along the tracks and presents a hard-scrabble factory girl with a vision of America that fires her ambitions. It’s one of the most audacious and specific sequences ever filmed, far more effective than Italian neorealism, a favorite of film school elites.

This is Joan Crawford’s best film of the 1930’s. She was not yet playing every single scene at a jaw-clenching emotional pitch. Her lips not yet magnified by a Goya-like slash of lipstick, and her eyebrows did not yet resemble caterpillars. Here, with great skill and subtlety, Crawford makes substantial the hopes, dreams and anxieties of her Depression-era audience. But it’s her vulnerability that grabs us by the throat. As a small town girl with big dreams, Crawford makes her way to New York where she meets, yup, Clark Gable. Hey, isn’t that what happens to every female runaway?

Crawford and Gable, both married, were having an affair during production. They arrived early on set and hooked up in a dressing room. Their heat is evident in every scene. In fact, Crawford and Gable carried on a passionate, on-and-off affair for the next thirty years.

Most memorable line of dialogue, Joan Crawford as Marian Martin: I left school when I was only 12… never learned how to spell “regret.”

4. Shanghai Express, 1932

Marlene Dietrich is Shanghai Lily. Her name says it all. In war torn China, the passengers on the Shanghai Express are held hostage by a cruel warlord. Dietrich, at her most beautiful, and Anna May Wong, the great American-Chinese actress, are fallen women—with really great wardrobes, who, in this highly stylized world, are the agents of redemption for clueless men and a hypocritical society.

Director Josef von Sternberg—real name Jonas Sternberg—was desperately in love with Dietrich. Dietrich was desperately in love with, well, Dietrich. He made her career, she busted his heart. Every frame attests to von Sternberg’s helplessness in the face of Dietrich’s cool disdain. They don’t make romances like this anymore.

In her not-so-reliable autobiography, Marlene Dietrich claimed that von Sternberg directed most of the cinematography, instead of Lee Garmes who won an Oscar for his work on the film. This actually has the ring of truth; von Sternberg was known as a control freak and a master of lighting. In the seven films he made with Dietrich, the exquisite architecture of her face was transformed into the iconic image of Hollywood beauty and glamour.

Most memorable line of dialogue, Marlene Dietrich as Shanghai Lily: When I needed your faith, you withheld it; and now, when I don’t need it and don’t deserve it, you give it to me.

5. Trouble in Paradise, 1932.

Miriam Hopkins is a pickpocket posing as a Countess. Herbert Marshall is a suave international thief posing as a Baron. They meet cute, fall in lust, and together, set their larcenous sights on a new victim, the lovely Kay Francis, who wore bias cut gowns with such elegance that her female audience waited breathlessly for each wardrobe change. Naturally, a delicious love triangle ensues.

Directed by Ernst Lubitch with a script by Samson Raphaelson—in his old age Raphaelson kindly met with yours truly and brilliantly critiqued one of my scripts—this is a world where men wear tuxedos for breakfast, and beautiful, rail-thin women swan around massive Deco rooms with dazzling jewels at their throats and a dry Martini at their lips. Lubitch produced elegant, sophisticated comedy where the battle of the sexes is a lovely, low-intensity conflict.

Carefully observe Herbert Marshall when he’s walking. You just might detect a slight limp. Marshall served in the London Scottish Regiment during World War I and lost a leg in combat. He wore a wooden prosthetic, but his disability is practically invisible. Fellow actors Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman, and Claude Rains all served in the same regiment, which helps explain why the Hollywood British colony was such a close-knit institution.

Most memorable line of dialogue, Kay Francis as Mariette Colet: I have a confession to make to you: You like me. In fact, you’re crazy about me.

6. Red Dust, 1932.

Clark Gable manages a rubber plantation in Indochina. It’s the monsoon season with ferocious heat and Biblical rain making every day hell on earth, until Harlow as Vantine, a prostitute—with gowns by Adrian—on the lam from the law, shows up. Gable knows what she is but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Things get messy when Mary Astor arrives with her husband, a surveyor for the plantation, who is ill with malaria. Astor is a lady with a capital L, refined and helpless, but beneath that cool exterior she’s a woman on the make. Her scenes with Gable melt the screen. But it’s Gable’s easy relationship with the physically and emotionally courageous Harlow—genuine affection and respect—that defines true romance for director Victor Fleming and screenwriter John Lee Mahin.

Harlow’s husband, MGM executive Paul Bern—real name Paul Levy—mysteriously committed suicide during production of Red Dust. Harlow’s grief and bafflement is nowhere evident; that’s a Hollywood pro.

Most memorable line of dialogue, Harlow’s Vantine to Gable’s Dennis Carson when he shows her to a room: I’m willing to pay rent—if you ask nicely.

7. Bombshell, 1933.

Harlow plays Harlow. That’s what this film is really about. Harlow, all wisecracks and fed-up with Hollywood’s insanity, is Lola Burns, a Hollywood sexpot. Her father and brother are always looking for handouts, and the studio publicity flack cooks up outrageous publicity stunts to add heat to an already overheated reputation as a smoldering blonde bombshell. Harlow, a hugely appealing and gifted comedienne, delivers the best, most energized performance of her tragically short career. In truth, like Lola, Harlow yearned for a normal life, a husband and children, but was thwarted by bad judgment in men and a monstrously overbearing mother who controlled every aspect of her daughter’s life and career.

Director Victor Fleming—he also helmed Red Dust, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz—with ace screenwriters John Lee Mahin and Jules Furthman cooked up this Hollywood tale as a thinly disguised look at Fleming’s former lover, silent film star Clara Bow. Fleming observed that Bow’s life, on the surface was Hollywood glamorous, but when Bow went home at night, her mansion was filled with dog droppings and her deeply unstable family soaked her for every penny she earned. Fleming was two-timing his wife, but Bow was two-timing Fleming with Gary Cooper.

Most memorable exchange of dialogue is between Harlow as Lola and Louise Beavers as Loretta her maid:

Lola: I didn’t give you that for a negligee, that’s an evening wrap!
Loretta: I know, Miss Lola, but the negligee you gave me got all tore up night before last.
Lola: Your day off is sure brutal on your lingerie.

8. Duck Soup, 1933.

Hard to believe but Duck Soup was a box office bomb when it was first released and caused The Marx Brothers to leave Paramount and hang their shingle at MGM. Duck Soup is not just anarchic comedy, it’s positively surrealistic. The gags and wisecracks come so fast and furious that I wheeze like an asthmatic.

Plots for the Marx Brothers are just convenient situations on which to hang their remarkable brand of comedy. But pay attention, Duck Soup satirizes not just war but the insanity of taxes, financial deficits and borrowing.

Thankfully, Zeppo makes his last appearance as a boring straight man in this film; he went on to become a highly successful agent. Sadly, Margaret Dumont, the perfect foil for Groucho, was replaced by the sexy and glamorous Thelma Todd in Monkey Business, 1931 and Horse Feathers, 1932. Todd mysteriously died in 1935 of smoke inhalation. Rumors of a mob hit persist. But Seraphic Secret believes that Todd was drunk when she pulled into her garage, and fell asleep at the wheel before turning off the motor.

Most memorable exchange of dialogue in a movie brimming with brilliant exchanges is between Groucho as Rufus T.Firefly and the long-suffering Margaret Dumont as Mrs. Teasdale.

Groucho: Not that I care, but where is your husband?
Dumont: Why, he’s dead.
Groucho: I’ll bet he’s just using that as an excuse.
Dumont: I was with him to the very end.
Groucho: No wonder he passed away.
Dumont: I held him in my arms and kissed him.
Groucho: I see, then it was murder.

9. Topaze, 1933.

Professor Topaze, John Barrymore, a naive but honest professor—in modern parlance, he’s totally Asperger’s—is fired from his job when he refuses to give passing grades to the aristocratic brat, Charlemagne de La Tour-La Tour, son of the corrupt Baron Philippe de La Tour-La Tour. Simultaneously, Professor Topaze is hired by Coco, Myrna Loy, the Baron’s sleek, heart-of-platinum mistress, as tutor for her nephew. Soon, the Baron and Coco use Topaze’s research and fine reputation in a crooked business scheme.

Written by the great Ben Hecht—an ardent Zionist and supporter of The Irgun—and based on a French film by Marcel Pagnon, Topaze was directed by the little known Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast, who made only seven very fine films in his entire career. An Argentinian, d’Arrast was a master of understated comedy, but found it difficult to work in the rigid Hollywood studio system. The moguls decided that d’Arrast was more trouble than he was worth and quietly blacklisted him. He married Eleanor Boardman, the talented and beautiful silent film star—she failed to make the transition to sound—and moved to France.

Myrna Loy is best known and loved for her work with William Powell in The Thin Man series, but I have never found dipsomania amusing. In Topaze, her Coco has all the dry wit of Nora Charles but with the added kick of a heartless gold-digger redeemed by the love of a schlemiel. Repeat after me: Every great movie is a love story.

Most memorable exchange of dialogue is between Coco and the Baron as they plot to ensnare Professor Topaze.

Coco: But idiots are hard to find, I should think.
Baron: Oh no, not in the scientific world.

10. Bed of Roses, 1933.

Constance Bennett was an actress who specialized in playing diamond draped society girls. Here, in a witty and carefully structured script by Wanda Tuchock, Bennett is a gum chewing—though very well dressed—prostitute, who, in league with her sidekick Pert Kelton, get hapless men drunk before robbing them. The hard-boiled tone of the film is economically established in the first scene where, released from jail, the prison matron cautions Kelton: “Miss Brown, you’re much too impulsive.” Drawls Pert: “I ain’t got an impulse left.” Constance and Pert sashay around with hands resting langurously on their hips. They whistle at men and call them “big boy” before heartlessly taking them to the cleaners.

This is a Pre-Code stunner, with dialogue and narrative details that disappeared after The Motion Picture Code was enforced in 1934. It’s a moral fable deliciously soaked in sin and gin.

Constance Bennett meets and is mightily attracted to handsome and rugged Joel McCrea, the honest skipper of a cotton boat. But she chooses to score big by tricking a wealthy publisher into a sham marriage. Will Constance live a life of loveless luxury or will she choose true love as the wife of a river rat?

Pert Kelton, a talented actress who excelled in playing hard luck tramps, was cast as the original Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners, but Kelton was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and replaced by Audrey Meadows. In her later years, Kelton was featured in a series of Spic and Span commercials that fixed her image as a product pitcher.

Most memorable exchange of dialogue is between between Bennett as Lorry and Kelton’s Minnie:

Lorry: How good are you at walkin’ on water?
Minnie: Oh, just fair, but I could do a lot of thinkin’ on gin if I knew where to get some.

Next week, The Twenty Greatest Films of the 1930s, ’34-’39.

Jean Harlow was arguably the most glamorous and beloved star of the 30’s. Unlike, say, the tediously blank Garbo—more popular in Europe than in America—Harlow’s forthrightness and lack of pretense conjured an all-American girl. Tragically, her career was cut short at the age of 26 when she died of renal failure.