1937 Poll 2.0

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Choose your favourite films from 1937 (according to IMDB).

Each person can vote for up to 20 films. Do not feel compelled to fill the maximum allowable number.

Twenty-film ballots can be formatted as follows:
- Five tiers of four films each, 4/4/4/4/4; scored 5-4-3-2-1 pts/film/tier
- Four tiers of five films each, 5/5/5/5; scored 4.5-3.5-2.5-1.5 pts/film/tier
- Two tiers of ten films each, 10/10; scored 4-2 pts/film/tier
- No tiers, unranked; scored 3 pts/film
- A 20-film three-tier ballot is not possible

A tiered ballot can include less than 20 films, but in that case the total number of films must still be able to be factored by the number of tiers, so:
- A five tier ballot can include only 20, 15, 10, or 5 films
- A four tier ballot can include only 20, 16, 12, 8, or 4 films
- A three tier ballot (scored 5-3-1) can include only 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, or 3 films
- A two tier ballot can include only 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, or 2 films
- Ballots that are 19, 17, 13, 11, 7 or 1 films must be no tiers

Users are urged to post their provisional lists as soon as possible, so that others can use them for recommendations. You may revise your lists at any point prior to the deadline.

Deadline for 1937 ballots will be Saturday, December 31st at roughly midnight EST.

[greennui]

Stage Door 1937 Directed by Gregory La Cava
Angel 1937 Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
The Old Mill 1937 Directed by Wilfred Jackson, Graham Heid
Glens Falls Sequence 1937 Directed by Douglass Crockwell
Daughter of Shanghai 1937 Directed by Robert Florey
The Hurricane 1937 Directed by John Ford
Pépé le Moko 1937 Directed by Julien Duvivier
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937 Directed by David Hand
Grand Illusion 1937 ‘La Grande Illusion’ Directed by Jean Renoir
A Day at the Races 1937 Directed by Sam Wood

[rischka]

shimizu's year or mccarey's

[sally]

is this a 'normal' year?


the rainbow pass - jacques tourneur
the great garrick - james whale
the edge of the world - michael powell
street angel - muzhi yuan
juha - nyrki tapiovaara
le mot de cambronne - sacha guitry
désiré - sacha guitry
angel - ernst lubitsch
the trio's engagements - yasujirō shimazu
don't tell your wife about it - minoru shibuya
the golden demon - hiroshi shimizu
a star athlete - hiroshi shimizu
il signor max - mario camerini
souls at sea - henry hathaway
the adventures of a good citizen - franciszka themerson, stefan themerson
drôle de drame - marcel carné
der mann, der sherlock holmes war - karl hartl

[flip]

really really like several comedies from this year, not too attached to the films near the end of my list, haven't seen the renoir in ages so no idea where to put it. and i really need to see the great garrick


Non-Stop New York (Robert Stevenson)
Tovarich (Anatole Litvak)
Humanity and Paper Balloons (Sadao Yamanaka)
Angel (Ernst Lubitsch)

One Hundred Men and a Girl (Henry Koster)
Stage Door (Gregory LaCava)
True Confession (Wesley Ruggles)
The Prisoner of Zenda (John Cromwell)

The Perfect Specimen (Michael Curtiz)
You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang)
The Story of the Fox (Wladyslaw Starewicz)
Nothing Sacred (William Wellman)

Easy Living (Mitchell Leisen)
The Old Mill (Wilfred Jackson
La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir)
Topper (Norman McLeod)

Dead End (William Wyler)
Swing High, Swing Low (Mitchell Leisen)
Lost Horizon (Frank Capra)
West of Shanghai (John Farrow)

[karl]

contenders:

grand illusion (renoir)
straits of love and hate (mizoguchi)
harvest (pagnol)
edge of the world (powell)
lady killer (grémillon)
what did the lady forget? (ozu)
forget love for now (shimizu)
children of the wind (shimizu)
the golden demon (shimizu)
the trio's engagements (shimazu)
souls at sea (hathaway)
angel (lubitsch)
seventh heaven (king)
to new shores (sirk)
il signor max (camerini)
confession (may)
without dowry (protazanov)
virginity (vávra)
morality above all else (frič)
the awful truth (mccarey)
make way for tomorrow (mccarey)
wee willy winkie (ford)
stage door (la cava)
young people (toyoda)
humanity and paper balloons (yamanaka)
a day at the races (wood)
a woman's sorrows (naruse)
you only live once (lang)
history is made at night (borzage)

[wba]

Films seen: 50+

20 personal favorites, ranked in order of preference

5 tiers

Condottieri "Giovanni de Medici: The Leader" (Luis Trenker/Werner Klingler, Germany/Italy)
Der Herrscher "The Ruler" (Veit Harlan, Germany)
Sant Tukaram "Saint Tukaram" (Vishnupant Govind Damle/Sheikh Fattelal, India)
Young and Innocent (Alfred Hitchcock, UK)

Die Stimme des Herzens "The Voice of the Heart" (Karlheinz Martin, Germany)
Karussell "Carousel" (Alwin Elling, Germany)
¡Centinela, alerta! "Guard! Alert!" (Jean Grémillon, Spain)
Kuin uni ja varjo "As Dream and Shadow..." (Yrjö Norta/T..J. Särkkä, Finland)

Kid Galahad (Michael Curtiz, USA)
Daphne und der Diplomat "Daphne and the Diplomat" (Robert Adolf Stemmle, Germany)
Nothing Sacred (William A. Wellman, USA)
L'homme de nulle part "The Late Mathias Pascal" (Pierre Chenal, France/Italy)

Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, France)
Le roman de Renard "The Story of the Fox" (Irene Starewicz/Wladyslaw Starewicz, France)
Ninjô kami fûsen "Humanity and Paper Balloons" (Sadao Yamanaka, Japan)
La Habanera "Cheated by the Wind" (Detlef Sierck, Germany)

Gleisdreieck "Dangerous Crossing" (Robert Adolf Stemmle, Germany)
Konyaku sanbagarasu "The Trio's Engagements" (Yasujirô Shimazu, Japan)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, USA)
Truxa (Hans H. Zerlett, Germany)

[lineuphere]

Lots more in my queue, but this I where I stand at the start of the month...

La grande illusion
The Pearls of the Crown
Gueule d'amour
Make Way for Tomorrow
The Thirteen
Angel
The Old Mill
Humanity and Paper Balloons
Easy Living
Confession
Pépé le Moko
Un carnet de bal
The Fourth Dimension
The Awful Truth
History Is Made at Night
Song of the Flower Basket
Children of the Wind
Pluto's Quin-puplets
Stella Dallas
To New Shores

[sally]

the hound of the baskervilles - karel lamač

the third german-made version of the story i've seen after rudolf meinert's 1914 & richard oswald's 1929 versions but more interestingly this was one of the two films found in hitler's bunker (the other also 1937, karl hartl's der mann, der sherlock holmes war, guess hitler was either doing a yearpoll or researching english detective techniques for reason)




also featuring fritz rasp, of recent (to me) twitter fame



https://twitter.com/florencisalesas/sta ... 4036004866

[wba]

I thought this was a pretty lame Doyle-adaptation, especially considering that Lamac was quite a competent filmmaker. But it's been long ago, so maybe I shoul re-evaluate?

[rischka]

wakai-hito (young people) - link

an early shiro toyoda as girls' school drama it's quite involving tho the ending was somewhat wtf. picture quality not up to most people's lofty standards i'm sure. according to someone on imdb this is only half the film? but uploader says there's no 2nd half so i'm going with my preferred ending below

Spoiler!

my idea for the ending was for the 2 teachers to marry after the girl jumps off the bridge

quite a lot of old japanese films on this channel - at least 5 more from 1937

[sally]

pabst's mademoiselle docteur

nicely shot but meh, with some old friends from the silents (artaud's mentor charles dullin and carrying us from 1917 to 37, dear gaston modot)






to familiar, comfy faces of the 30s

jean-louis barrault doing his best kenneth williams


fresnay as the love interest...


which is ridiculous when you have sex god jouvet hanging around. madness



although it has been dawning on me for a while that i am more and more intrigued by pierre blanchar

[Lencho of the Apes]

quite a lot of old japanese films on this channel - at least 5 more from 1937

Yeaah, that's a great channel. One of the few thaat I download everything they put up as soon as I see it.

[rischka]

for anyone who hasn't seen it shimizu's a star player/athlete is there too ♥♥♥ seems like boys running is a theme in all shimizu's early work. soon boys like these went to war

i also watched gosho's song of the flower basket w very adorable tanaka and takemine. this channel is amazing - i edit out the link above

[rischka]

it might be #1 on my list. also watched ushidure express (toshio otani) at least two of these lifted songs from astaire/rogers RKO pictures

[sally]

green fields - edgar g ulmer, jacob ben-ami

this is the most clear, beautiful film i've seen in ages, instantly on my best of list, firmly alongside some boris barnets, just stunning

[Lencho of the Apes]

Haven't watched it yet, but I'm always eager to go to Ulmer. It suprised me -- given that it was indie-produced ethnic-audience marginalia, to see that it was high-profile enough at the time of release that Looney Tunes parodied the title with the cartoon Clean Fields. Which I also haven't seen yet, but black stereotypes. Galore.

[sally]

yikes....but i guess the film is quite amenable to parody, even invites a cynical ridicule...aside from the opening which is all austere claustrophobic shadows straight out of the black cat universe, it then opens out into The Light, complete with stereotypes (archetypes!) a barely-there plot where nothing much happens, hardly any conflict (everyone is mostly well meaning) and a sentimental crowd(ie me)-pleasing ending. and yet...such simplicity is hard to do, the struggle of the scholar is a conscious environmental process, not just a reductive wrangle, (and oh he's sooooo adorably awkward that it even got me wondering if there's not an autistic origin to some patriarchal religious customs) it's staged and shot with modest brilliance (it needs a long dissecting screenshot essay on the use and staging of parable in the particular jewish context of 1937) and it just screams 'iberian macmahonist'

[sally]

I thought this was a pretty lame Doyle-adaptation, especially considering that Lamac was quite a competent filmmaker. But it's been long ago, so maybe I shoul re-evaluate?

oh sorry, i missed this....no you were entirely correct, it is largely forgettable aside from the hitler trivia

[St. Gloede]

My top 20:

Le roman de Renard / The Story of the Fox (1930/37, Irene Starewicz & Wladyslaw Starewicz)
Pépé le Moko (1937, Julien Duvivier)
Drôle de drame ou L'étrange aventure du Docteur Molyneux / Bizarre, Bizarre (1937, Marcel Carné)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937, Leo McCarey)

Les perles de la couronne / The Pearls of the Crown (1937, Sacha Guitry)
La grande illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)
Dead End (1937, William Wyler)
The Life of Emile Zola (1937, William Dieterle)

Mravnost nade vse / Morality Above All Else (1937, Martin Fric)
Souls at Sea (1937, Henry Hathaway)
You Only Live Once (1937, Fritz Lang)
Un carnet de bal (1937, Julien Duvivier)

Lost Horizon (1937, Frank Capra)
Der zerbrochene Krug / The Broken Jug (1937, Gustav Ucicky & Emil Jannings)
Ninjô kami fûsen / Humanity & Paper Balloons (1937, Sadao Yamanaka)
Het kwade oog / The Evil Eye (1937, Charles Dekeukeleire)

Panenství / Virginity (1937, Otakar Vávra)
Désiré (1937, Sacha Guitry)
Regain / Harvest (1937, Marcel Pagnol)
Night Must Fall (1937, Richard Thorpe)


Honorable mentions:

Svet patrí nám / The World Is Ours (1937, Martin Fric)
Koi mo wasurete / Forget Love for Now (1937, Hiroshi Shimizu)
La contessa di Parma / The Duchess of Parma (1937, Alessandro Blasetti)
Kid Galahad (1937, Michael Curtiz)
Marked Woman (1937, Lloyd Bacon)
Konyaku sanbagarasu / The Trio's Engagements (1937, Yasujirô Shimazu)
Easy Living (1937, Mitchell Leisen)
Tri vejce do skla / Three Boiled Eggs (1937, Martin Fric)

[rischka]

no one wears hats like kay francis. her wardrobe is sometimes the best thing in the picture



stolen holiday (curtiz) kay is hired by claude rains to be his beard? i think that's what you call it? story is somewhat confused on gender issues. an even bigger wtf

Spoiler!

kay has no idea that claude is a conman

it made me think of janet gaynor and adrian but i looked them up and that was a few years later

[...]

Poor recognition of con artists seems to be a recurring problem for Kay.

[rischka]

this is true just pushed to ridiculous extreme here mr softee hat almost made up for it

i found another one to watch tonight: confession by joe may

edit: I think I've seen this before when it was called mazurka starring pola negri

[rischka]

horrible plot, basil rathbone plays a child predator



it's a different look for kay francis. very ufa

same film in german by willi forst 1935 mazurka

[sally]

hortobágy - george hoellering

delicious cinematography by lászló schäffer (who also worked on ruttmann's berlin and rutten's rubber of all random things, and not much after this when he emigrated to america in 1939 and couldn't get work, madness) here's to you lászló (and even hoellering, who didn't do much either)

Graham Greene wrote about the film in The Spectator: "Undoubtedly, the horses have it. Hortobagy, a film of the Hungarian plains, acted by peasants and shepherds, is one of the most satisfying films I have seen: it belongs to the order of Dovzhenko’s Earth without the taint of propaganda. The photography is extraordinarily beautiful, the cutting superb." And later: "The leaping of the stallions, the foaling of the mares are shown with a frankness devoid of offence and add to the impression that here we are seeing, as far as humanly possible, the whole of a way of life. But we are not asked to admire one way more than another, the horse more than the tractor."

[rischka]

oh that looks beautiful!!

[sally]

yes it's gorgeous but don't be expecting much of a plot

is in resources if anyone wants it

[Angel]

Unranked ballot:
Big City
Drôle de drame (Bizarre, Bizarre)
Easy Living
Fant (Gypsy)
Il signor Max (Mister Max)
Juha
Kafuku zempen (Learn From Experience I) + Kafuku kôhen (Learn From Experience II)
Kaze no naka no kodomo (Children in the Wind)
Kid Galahad
Love Is News
Ma lu tian shi (Street Angel)
Marked Woman
Panenství (Virginity)
The Prisoner of Zenda
Trinadtsat (The Thirteen)
Under the Red Robe
Viento norte (North Wind)
Wells Fargo
Young and Innocent
Zu neuen Ufern (To New Shores)

HMs (Spanish language):
Almas rebeldes (Rebel Souls)
Barrios bajos (The Slums)
La mancha de sangre (The Blood Stain)
Aurora de esperanza (Dawn of Hope)

Deliberately excluded (IMDb/TSPDT/S&S top 500):
La grande illusion
Make Way for Tomorrow
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Awful Truth

To watch before the deadline:
Green Fields

Wanted:
Kagirinaki zenshin
L'habit vert
Ôsaka natsu no jin
Pensionat Paradiset
Ya sui qian

[rischka]

green fields part of a brief burst of yiddish cinema that included der dybbuk filmed in the warsaw ghetto

it's been many years since i've seen fiddler on the roof but i could swear this is the same story.





that is til i looked it up and found that's another yiddish film tevya (1939) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032012/

there's a lot of heart here ♥♥♥ and the performers are marvellous

to be followed by hungarian horse movie. beautiful and bucolic double feature courtesy twodeadmagpies

[sally]

♥♥♥ so calming and tranquil

but actually, it's a (slightly more tortured) triple bill

seems like in 37 lots of people are getting high on open sky






het kwade oog / the evil eye - charles dekeukeleire

another pastoral idyll, but soon tainted by ignorant suspicions and tragedy (and backwards cows)....very gorgeous, very epstein - folk (dancing), double exposures (esp. towards the end)...















BUT...............

YES YES YES YES YES, who should we spy in the opening credits and wait excitedly most of the film before seeing evidence of????

scfz's favourite dutchman! the unwilling godfather of japanese documentary!! and probably the greatest, GREATEST use of his work