1936 poll

[rischka]

Not sure if I've ever seen Fred MacMurray or Sylvia Sidney in colour before.

sylvia sidney worked right up until her death. she was in omen II, beetlejuice, mars attacks and god told me to (above)

[greennui]

I recognize those watery eyes.

[Roscoe]

I LOVE TO SING-A (Avery)
OSAKA ELEGY (Mizoguchi)
ROSE HOBART (Cornell)

Checking the other lists so far, these are the those that I like best. I just happen to have DVR'd SABOTAGE recently, so a revisit is in the cards, but well, we'll see. MY MAN GODFREY is undone by my inability to believe that Godfrey would really finally want anything to do with Carole Lombard's twit heiress, who's just exactly too foolish to be taken seriously as anything but the most genre-demanding of final partners. I'll look around and add/change/subtract, but we'll see if anything is able to knock that little work of genius about the singing owl from the top spot.

[sally]

argh wow devil-doll was great. every film i see from tod browning makes me appreciate him more (that opening shot as tho lighting up a film studio! making little people without minds of their own! his entire filmography is a meditation on movie making??) and von stroheim did the screen play? ♥

good start

[Lencho of the Apes]

seduced by jorge negrete

I guess we've all been in that boat at one time or another... I knew a woman in Mexico City that played keyboards for an alt. rock band called (trans) "I Didn't Come Yet," who was all "Since Jorge Negrete isn't available, there's zero chance I'll ever marry. Why settle?" I kept waiting for her band to embrace goth cheese and write a "Jorge Negrete's' Dead"... but it never happened.

Maximum swagger, and some of the most beautiful smiles ever recorded to film, him and her both:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4QsYowdPG8

[Lencho of the Apes]

Deanna

There's also a Deanna short for the year, looks like it could have been a tryout, testing the waters before signing off on 3SG (and on Pigskin Parade as well, from the looks of it). I forget the title, but "1936 Durbin" should bring it forward on the youtube.

[...]

Wow, so nice Letterboxd has decided to render their site virtually unusable with the glut of ad overlays that reload on each new page view. Really a great way to get me to use the site. Of course that's just how we roll nowadays, even the computer's free cell and solitaire games have fucking ads.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Things I've liked that might need plugging and that haven't yet been named:
...
• Three Smart Girls (Henry Koster) -- Deanna's first feature, a perfect pick-me-up.

i named that, naturally

very interesting list btw!

Thank you! Naturally, I couldn't resist giving a second plug for Deanna

Deanna

There's also a Deanna short for the year, looks like it could have been a tryout, testing the waters before signing off on 3SG (and on Pigskin Parade as well, from the looks of it). I forget the title, but "1936 Durbin" should bring it forward on the youtube.

Yup, seen that several times. It was a tryout, but at MGM. They had both Deanna and Judy Garland on contract, and they figured they only needed one teenybopper singer star, so the movie was a kind of training camp competition for who was going to make the final roster. (The title 'Every Sunday' may even be a pun on NFL football, but it's hard to know, and the NFL wasn't ubiquitously famous yet.) The story goes that after watching it the evil Louis B. Mayer made some characteristically awful demeaning remark regarding which gal to fire but didn't specify which girl he was referring his scorn too, leaving his staff to try to read his mind. They kept Judy, and Deanna went to Universal, where they gave her a feature and the rest was history. Up until 1939, you'd have to say that Universal had won that particular sweepstakes.

[rischka]

i...have to eat that tuna?

i'm enjoying amar jyoti, all about a pirate queen fighting for women's rights

edit: compiled a respectable watchlist
morning's tree-lined street
allotria
club de femmes
gluckskinder (lucky kids)
das hofkonzert (sierck)
das madchen irene
la vie est a nous (renoir)
ramona
mademoiselle mozart (w/danielle darrieux)
secret agent

[Lencho of the Apes]

that tuna?

Well, yeah, because it's all pink and juicy inside. I'm not helping matters any, am I? Oh, um... tuna = pitahaya, cactus fruit. Just in case...

I passed over Amar Jyoti cuz at first glance it didn't seem to have subs, but I've added it to my shortlist. So-called.

[rischka]

oh THAT tuna

[...]

Initial list of possible choices of movies I liked. (I really like the thirties too much and probably should discriminate more, but what can I do? I'm a sucker for this era.)

Garden of Allah
Mayerling
Dodsworth
Rembrandt
Rose Hobart
Swing Time
Mr. Thank You
Postal Inspector
Poppy
Private Number
Yiddle with His Fiddle
The Story of a Cheat
By the Bluest of Seas
The Crime of Monsieur Lange
A Day in the Country
The Only Son
Things to Come
Wife vs Secretary
The Devil Doll
My Man Godfrey
Desire
Theodora Goes Wild
The Bohemian Girl
Our Relations
I Love to Singa
San Francisco
The Plainsman
Pennies from Heaven
Prisoner of Shark Island
Secret Agent
Modern Times
The Lower Depths
It Had to Happen
Rhythm on the Range
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
Last of the Mohicans
Petrified Forest
Girls Dormitory
Big Brown Eyes
Let's Go with Pancho Villa
Popeye Meets Sinbad the Sailor
Bridge Ahoy
What -- No Spinach?
Love on the Run
Rose Marie
Night Mail
The Milky Way
Satan Met a Lady
Follow the Fleet
Three Smart Girls
Trail of the Lonesome Pine
Libeled Lady
Ceiling Zero
Lloyds of London
Great Guy
The Great Ziegfield
Mr Deeds Goes to Town
The General Died at Dawn
After the Thin Man
Camille
Sabotage
Anthony Adverse
Charge of the Light Brigade
The Walking Dead
The Man Who Lived Again
Osaka Elegy
Orphan's Picnic
Every Sunday
Bullets or Ballots
Fury
Sisters of Gion
Anything Goes
Wedding Present
Mary of Scotland
Romeo and Juliet
Bored of Education

[sally]

Wow, so nice Letterboxd has decided to render their site virtually unusable with the glut of ad overlays that reload on each new page view. Really a great way to get me to use the site. Of course that's just how we roll nowadays, even the computer's free cell and solitaire games have fucking ads.

ADBLOCKER!

[greennui]

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (Henry Hathaway) - Super melodramatic city folks/country folks kind of thing, not that hard to predict how it'll all pan out. T'was decent I guess, the colour def helped.

[sally]

coincidence. just watched nursery island directed by mary field and the credits state that it was supervised by dr julian s huxley, who is quoted liberally in the book i'm (still) reading at the minute. now if everything synchronises perfectly i'll be lambasted by an irate puffin when i'm out and about tomorrow (i have never seen a puffin in real life)

[sally]

oh was gonna have a 36 marathon but i chose dodsworth as my first film and now i'm a wreck and will watch television

[sally]

also another coincidence, we're polling vecchiali, who last week gave a reading about one of his best 1936 films, mayerling

https://www.cinemathequedegrenoble.fr/v ... mayerling/



assuming that because hardly anyone has logged it on letterboxd that victor tourjansky's la peur with gaby morlay & charles vanel is not available?

[rischka]

oh was gonna have a 36 marathon but i chose dodsworth as my first film and now i'm a wreck and will watch television

i love dodsworth getting mayerling now it looks delicious

[nrh]

assuming that because hardly anyone has logged it on letterboxd that victor tourjansky's la peur with gaby morlay & charles vanel is not available?

have been looking for awhile since it's a vecchiali fave but can't find anything with subs

[ralch]

1. Modern Times

The Crime of Monsieur Lange
A Day in the Country
Dodsworth
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
My Man Godfrey
Osaka Elegy
The Prisoner of Shark Island
Swing Time
Things to Come
¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa!

[Lencho of the Apes]

It looks as though Greg is the only person here who has logged Ceiling Zero. That just ain't right. My first **** in a good long time; the way Hawks disguises heartbreaking narrative beats with laconic dialogue kinda ruins me.

Pat O'Brian: "Don't be stupid here."
James Cagney: "It's a little late for me to change."

[sally]

dodsworth is such an adult film, i don't think i've watched anything recently that compares, and such good filmmaking! there's a film that could stand up for analysis! even that scene i randomly posted above, with him against the unmoving, plain background and her against the varied flux of people rushing past her, dragging her off into the dream of life she's yearning for ♥

and i think greg has logged every single movie from 1936. it's not helpful. my watchlist went from 72 to 143, which is not possible. i'm going to need help whittling it down. please people, if you watch anything good, or want to shout about a film that's not getting enough attention that deserves it, don't feel shy

how has everyone seen catherine the last?

also, there are TWO movies about the US postal service from 1936, and i feel for 'some' reason i should watch them both. Greg, what did you like so much about postal inspector?

[greennui]

and i think greg has logged every single movie from 1936. it's not helpful. my watchlist went from 72 to 143, which is not possible. i'm going to need help whittling it down. please people, if you watch anything good, or want to shout about a film that's not getting enough attention that deserves it, don't feel shy

I noticed that you've seen and liked both Marius and Fanny on letterboxd but not Cesar, should be a no brainer even though it's kinda getting enough attention. Not enough attention for me tho.

[sally]

yeah that's lined up, would definitely have completed the trilogy at some point anyway, although not sure about whether i want to watch all the french films in one block, the german films in one block etc to get a better sense of what was going on nationally, or whether i want to intersperse them to break up the massive hollywood run that has to happen. i haven't figured out my strategy yet

in case anyone missed it, humberto mauro's simultaneously great and cringy descobrimento do brasil is 36, altho on letterboxd it's 37.

also, not sure about watching il duce approved titles, but amedeo nazzari? and horses? can't resist

[...]

Heh. Postal Inspector is a movie I really dig, but would not really expect others to find as compelling. It's a low budget B movie that is more or less organized around whatever stock footage they could get their hands on. It's, to quote my old Mubi review, the greatest patriotic-action-musical-comedy-crime-drama-disaster flick about the U.S. Postal Service ever made. The movie treats US Postal Inspectors as roughly equivalent to G-Men in both attitude and importance to US crime prevention, with the titular character coming across like a post office Elliot Ness, but at the same time the movie also engages in some cheaper gags about things getting sent through the mail that the dedicated men of the postal service have to deal with.

Since that evidently wasn't enough for a 54 minute long flick, they also add some disasters, an airline almost crashes and a town is completely flooded, songs, one of the main characters is a singer who busts out a few songs in unlikely places, a thriller, where the postal inspector has to track down a criiminal in the flooded town, (which looks pretty cool and I've tried to figure out where else those flooded sets were used since it seems much too pricey for this movie to have done on their own), and even brings in the military, through stock footage, to deal with the disaster. It's got Bela Lugosi, though sadly not as the Postal Inspector, to give it a slight touch of a horror vibe, to cover the needs of any audience, almost like a proto-masala film. It's definitely making my list, but whether anyone else will be as charmed by it I can't say, though Evelyn for sure should give it a watch for Lugosi if nothing else.

[rischka]

now greg, US postal service officers arrested supervillain steve bannon recently as he tried to make a getaway on a chinese billionaire's yacht. so i wouldn't be one to mock them. i will support our brave postal inspectors by watching this film. i'm pretty excited for my line up. if anyone needs me to do a thing, just let me know

[Lencho of the Apes]

him against the unmoving, plain background and her against the varied flux of people

I'm envious of people for whom details like this routinely register; I only rarely pick up on them, and I feel so clever when I do... But yeah,that was very much a strategy here-- once you mentioned it, I saw Wyler working that contrast all over the place. He even inverts it toward the end,when the tables are turned, with Mrs. D. framed in isolation and Mr.D. immersed in the social whirl.

dodsworth is

I liked it and all,but the tang of misogyny didn't make your nose itch? When Mrs.D. strays it' for petty, 'typical woman' reasons and when it happens to Mr F it's true!!!!love!!!!the real thing. I found myself thinking of Le Bonheur...

how has everyone seen catherine the last?

I'm going with the hardsubbed copy on youtube. Looks pretty clean at first glance.

[Lencho of the Apes]

The Circus - Grigory Aleksandrov

Not even Karl has given much attention to the year's Soviet films... The first of four or five I may get to was quite solid: Stalinist messaging, Mosfilm pictorial values, a comedy/melodrama blend that had the same feel as Miss Mend...

PS: If I could find subs for Ferryman Maria, I'd probably watch the hell out of that bad boy.

3 cir 1.JPG (50.92 KiB) Viewed 3764 times

3 cir 2.JPG (43.25 KiB) Viewed 3764 times

3 cir 3.JPG (72.16 KiB) Viewed 3764 times

3 cir 4.JPG (74.51 KiB) Viewed 3764 times

[sally]

re: dodsworth & misogyny

i always assume a certain level in hollywood films of this era, it's practically built into the code, but i think wyler here is the same as with ford and racism - just because a film makes an attitude explicit, it's not endorsing that attitude, just reflecting the prevalent unfair one - and with some success at criticising them if those attitudes are apparent during the film. course it's more nuanced and not either/or, but from the opening scene of him against that deep, deep rich factory of his successful past to the first scene of her: flat, fluttering around HIS study, boxed in the frame almost as savagely & claustrophobic as naruse boxes his women in, to her making very clear how pointless and deeply unfulfilling her life is, i thought it was very sympathetic to her, and him generally flailing around not having much idea what to do about it apart from leave her alone - so much so that until the last scene on the boat where she turned full unrepentant shrew, i wasn't sure if the dodsworth of the title referred to him, her, or the failed family unit.

and his 'happy' ending, even that was not exactly a complete endorsement, for his happiness he had to shoot off to deepest, darkest un-american siberia, no one gets to go back to US society perfectly for that generation.

so on balance for the crime of misogyny i give wyler a pass, but not the US.

as for catherine the last, i think your idea of 'acceptable' is more generous than mine, unless i haven't found the one you're talking about, but there's a cleaner copy on ok ru just with no subs, and that will drive me mad.

for ferryman maria, the matroska file has eng subs (oh if you post the link it just plays the video, so try archive.org/details/1936FaehrmannMariaWisbar

[Angel]

I can share Ferrywoman Maria if necessary, just let me know. It will be at the top of my list after all.