1933 - KING KONG, accept no substitute

 One of the most important adventure films ever made.  King Kong came out of the imagination of two remarkable filmmakers, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack.  These two men had made their reputations filming what can only  be called sort of documentary films.  Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life, was about an amazing caravan of nomads in search of pastures in what was then known as Persia for their cattle.  The film had some extraordinary scenes of the hardships that these nomads endured during their migration, Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, was filmed in Thailand and featured a family trying to make a living in the jungle.  This film ended with an impressive elephant stamped.

Cooper and Schoedsack eventually ended up working for RKO, where Cooper pushed the studio to make a film about a giant gorilla.  Cooper was lucky enough to find Willis O'Brian, a stop motion animation effects technician to implement his idea and with a green light from RKO studio chief David O Selznick, King Kong was born.  The rest is they say is history. A few pieces of trivia about this film

The giant gate and wall that the natives of Skull Island use to keep Kong out of their village was eventually repurposed for the escape from Atlanta sequence in Gone With The Wind the wall was burned down as Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh made their escape.

It's well know that the character of Carl Denham the movie producer looking to shoot a film about Kong was modeled after Merian Cooper.  Jack Driscoll the sailor who rescues Ann Darrow from Kong was modeled after Ernest B. Schoedsack.   Although they never really acknowledged it Ann Darrow might have been based on Marguerite Harrison who had partially financed the making of Grass, and accompanied Cooper and Schoedsack on their expedition in Persia much to their annoyance.  Marguerite Harrison was a rather remarkable woman, she had been a spy for the allies during World War I and later went on to found the Children's Hospital School in Baltimore.

RKO's special effects team pushed the limit with what they could be done with camera trickery.  For a early 1930's film, a lot of the special effects hold up very well.  King Kong has frequently been criticized  for the amount of racism in the film particularly in the scenes with the natives of Skull Island.  The film has also been cited as a metaphor for racial tensions as the film is about the destruction of the black gorilla by white men.

It’s also well known that during the climatic fight between Kong and the Air Force, the pilot and co-pilot of one of the planes are Cooper and Schoedsack blasting away at Kong.  The director Peter Jackson in his 2005 remake and special effects and makeup expert Rick Baker are the pilot and co-pilot in that version.

King Kong was written by Edgar Wallace, James Creelman and Ruth Rose.  The running time is 100 minutes. 

1933 - THE KEYHOLE, comedy/drama about marriage.

 1930's actress Kaye Johnson was pretty hot stuff for a few years before she became box office poison.  Johnson plays a married woman who falls in love with a private eye played by the rather stiff actor George Brent.  Brent’s been sent to spy on her to make sure she's not cheating on her husband.  Well that's about it for a plot for this film.

Really there isn't much to say about this film.  It has a comedic subplot involving actors Allen Jennings and everyone's favorite 1930's tough broad Glenda Farrell which isn't particularly funny. It does eat up the running time so we don't have to endure much of the Kaye Johnson/George Brent romance.

 

If there is anything that stands out about this film it's the involvement of Michael Curtiz one of the best Hollywood directors of the 1930's and 40's.  Curtiz keeps thing moving along at top speed and occasionally sticks in an interesting camera angle but that's about it.  Curtiz got a lot of the big film projects at Warner Brothers studio but he was a contract director and frequently get stuck directing stuff like this.  Sometimes Curtiz could make these kinds of films interesting but the screenplay was already old stuff even in 1933.

 

The film was written by Robert Presnell Sr,  the running time is a quick 69 minutes.

1933 - HALLELUJAH I'M A BUM, forgotten 1930's musical from Rogers and Hart

You would think a film written by Ben Hecht, S. N. Berman, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart would be better remembered.  However you don't see a lot of cabaret singers crooning songs from this film probably because the approach to presenting them was very unusual.

Rogers and Hart in addition  to writing the songs contributed to the dialog with "musical rhyming" scenes where the actors sang/spoke lengthy portions of the film.  This is sort of like a 1930's version of Les Miserables, except the songs and in particular the lyrics are a lot better.

The interesting cast included Al Jolson as the mayor of the Hobos, silent film comedian Harry Langdon as a Communist and Frank Morgan as the mayor of New York.  In one scene Morgan lies in his bed drunk repeating "there's no place like home" six years before TheWizard of Oz came out.

The film was directed by Lewis Milestone in his full moving camera and montage editing mode. A fascinating experimental film combining, sound, visual florish and music.

82 minutes.

1933 - THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, is Fritz Lang's excellent thriller

Probably as close to perfection for a crime thriller and one of Fritz Lang's best films.  The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is a sequel to Lang's massive silent film about the master criminal.  Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou pick up the Mabuse story ten years later with Dr. Mabuse now locked away in an insane asylum.  A new crime wave has started up supposedly headed by a "Dr. Mabuse."  It's up to Inspector Lohmann the same character in Lang's film M to figure out what is going on.

Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse was clearly a major influence on the James Bond films with a criminal mastermind attempting to wreak havoc on society.  Inspector Lohmann is also a larger than life hero trying to outwit Mabuse.  The movies have been stealing from this film for years

The action and the large scale factory fire set piece are filmed in that exciting technique Lang had mastered during his silent films.  The photography and staging are impressive for an early sound film.  Lang was a director who understood almost immediately how to adapt his technique to avoid static and stagy dialog scenes in his  early sound films.

In interviews,  Lang also stated that The Testament of Dr. Mabuse was a veiled reference to the rise of Nazism in Germany, a somewhat dubious claim.  However the film was banned by Joseph Goebbels so there may be some truth to this.

124 minutes, written by Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang.

1933 - DR BULL, for John Ford completists only

John Ford is a few years off from entering his best period in film making.  Dr. Bull is I believe his  first collaboration with Will Rogers.

John Ford directs Will Rogers

  Dr. Bull is a comedy/drama about a doctor up against small town narrow mindedness and capitalism, but this is film is a very minor indictment of those themes.  Will Rogers is Dr. Bull and Ford does a pretty good job of keeping his "as shucks Goober persona" under control. 

This is a minor but not uninteresting film made on a relatively small budget during the depression.  There are not a lot of visual flourishes in the film but for an early sound film it's pretty easy to watch and it is short.

  77 minutes, written by Paul Green, Philip Klein, Jane Storm and James Gould Cozzens.

1940 - THE POWER AND THE LAND, 1933 - INDUSTRIAL BRITAIN, a couple of short "classic" documentaries.

I doubt The Power and the Land would even be produced today by the United States Government since it glorifies rural electric cooperatives and the government's involvement in bringing power to the rural areas of the country in the late 1930's, this stuff is way to socialist for the present mood of the country.

The real life farm family in The Power and the Land.

The Power and the Land has some nice photography but not unexpectedly looks hopelessly dated, with the narration glorifying the "simple people" working the land.  Television has completely killed this kind of informational film.

38 minutes.

Industrial Britain is just hopeless.  The film was started by Robert Flaherty for the Grierson film unit and then taken out of his hands and reedited.  The stereotypical British narrator intones about the merits of industrialization across the British empire.  The word "stogy" comes to mind.  This is the kind of short film that played before before the main feature in theaters during the 1930's and 40's.  It's primary function was to torture the audience by boring them to death.

22 minutes

1933 - SOS ICEBERG, more amazing on location filming from Arnold Fanck

More on location winter hell madness from  Dr. Arnold Fanck as he sticks the cast and crew on an iceberg that is slowly falling apart.

The story has something to do with a polar expedition looking for another polar expedition.  Expedition number two ends up stuck on an iceberg that is drifting out to sea.

The leader of the expedition is the fiancee of Leni Riefenstahl.  Riefenstahl takes off in an airplane looking for him and crashes her plane onto the same damn iceberg in a extreme example of plot coincidence.

As usual in a Fanck film it's all about spectacular sequences.  SOS Iceberg certainly has them.  Avalanches, glaciers falling apart, polar bears attacking people and lots of icebergs tipping over in the Arctic water.  Towards the end there is a large scale rescue scene with hundreds of Eskimos in kayaks rushing to save the cast before the iceberg falls apart, very impressive stuff.

This was an English/German co production which means that the film was shot simultaneously in both languages for world wide release.  Tay Garnett supervised the English language scenes but the good stuff is all Fanck.

Riefenstahl paying her dues as usual in a Fanck film

Fanck was known for putting his actors in extreme danger while filming on location in his mountain films in the 1920's.   He apparently hadn't changed his ways for SOS Iceberg.   At the end of the film the leader of the expedition intones, "let us remember our colleagues didn't die in vain."  The last line should probably have been "let us remember no actor died making this film."

76 minutes

1933 - SON OF KONG, amazingly crappy sequel to King Kong.

Carl Denham the promoter of King Kong,  who got loose in New York City and tore the town apart is being sued by just about everyone for the mess he made.  Along with Captain Engelhorn from the first film and some stowaway starlet he ends up back on Skull Island looking for treasure.  Denham runs into King Kong's son or as they call him the Son of Kong.

The film was clearly made as a quick followup to King Kong  today it would be called a "cash grab."  Even though the film has the same production team as the first film it's a poor sequel to that legendary film.  Amazing it came out 9 months after the original King King.

The viewer has to wait until almost half the running time before Denham ends up wandering around Skull Island and meets up with little Kong.  Whatever entertainment value there is to be found is with Willis O'Brien's special effects and even these are kind of disappointing.

The decision was made to play the film mostly as a comedy, so you get lots of stop motion eye rolling  little Kong, which is well done but pretty stupid.  The climatic destruction of Skull Island is fun to watch with it's 1930's special effects and miniatures.  But that's about it.

 Son of Kong is probably more notable as being one of the first films that is a very poor sequel to the much better original film and basically made to rip off the audience.  Hollywood learned a lot from Son of Kong, here is a partial list of films that it influenced, 2 Fast 2 Furious, 3 Ninjas Kick Back, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, Bride of Chucky, Caddyshack II, Godzilla vs (anybody), Leprechaun 2 etc.

69 minutes, screenplay Ruth Rose.

1933 - THE KENNEL MURDER CASE, complex, clever film mystery

A good adaptation of a murder mystery from the 1930's in all its 30's glory. 

The Kennel Murder Case, is a clever murder mystery directed at full speed by Michael Curtiz using just about every camera angle and visual trick he could muster to keep what is basically a drawing room mystery interesting to an audience. 

What the film also has going for it is one of Hollywood's smoothest actors William Powell,  playing the detective Philo Vance.  Most everyone remembers Cary Grant as the epitome of grace and elegance in classic Hollywood films but Powell is certainly right up there with Grant possessing an elegance that has vanished in mainstream entertainment.

An excellent example of a 1930's approach to a murder mystery, an interesting plot, memorable characters and good direction, all mixed together. 

73 minutes.

1933 - PASSING FANCY, Ozu's comedy drama

The Japanese were still cranking out silent films even into the mid 1930's.  Here's an interesting slice of life in Japan.  Passing Fancy is a comedy drama about a father and son in a working class neighborhood. 

The director is Yasujirō Ozu a filmmaker who really followed his own path.  Ozu's films were about family life in Japan and the small intimate events that occur in their lives.  Ozu's technique was developed over years of film making.  It's an austere approach emphasizing a lack of editing or fancy camera work almost imperceptible.   His films aren't boring but they are different, no Kurosawa razzle dazzle here.

The acting in this film is at a very high naturalistic level, especially for a silent film.

Passing Fancy is not one of the better Ozu films that I have seen.  The story kind of jerks along from one subplot to another.  Ozu doesn't seem to have worked out where he wanted the story to go.  He relies on the actors to keep the story from sliding into melodrama.  Still, this is a very good film with many fine scenes. 

Eight years later when the United States was at war with Japan, Hollywood was churning out propaganda films that portrayed the Japanese people as sub human monkeys.  Passing Fancy is an interesting view of Japan that the American public never saw.

2009 - LOGORAMA, 1937 - THE OLD MILL, 1933 - A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN, three animated shorts

Three animated shorts made in three different styles.

Logorama is now up on YouTube.  It won a lot of awards and it's well made and clever.  Logorama takes all of the American advertising logos the filmmakers can think of and sticks them into a fast moving story about master criminal Ronald McDonald running amok.  I thought the whole was a little  slick.

This short was made by some French guys, and exactly why they felt they had to pick apart American advertising is a puzzle to me.  I find it hard to believe that Europeans aren't equally saturated with enough of their own advertising logos to satirize. 

The Old Mill is one of those Disney animated shorts that is easy to make fun of.  It has the usual bunch of frolicking cute Disney types of animals.   Probably more important as an example of the Disney animators and artists refining their skills with short cartoons before they transitioned into their 1940's features.  This cartoon looks great, with very careful attention paid to the color and the Disney artists getting more skilled with their multi-plane camera which created a pseudo 3D effect. 

Probably the outstanding animated short I viewed this weekend was A Night On Bald Mountain, animated by Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker.  Their amazing animation technique was called the pinscreen.  This demanding setup was literally a board full of about one million pins that were pushed in an out to create images with varying degrees of black and white contrast.  A Night On Bald Mountain took two years to complete

Alexeieff and Parker were artists in the pure sense.  With the exception of their commercials, all of their films were made only for themselves.  A Night On Bare Mountain is a very impressive "artistic achievement" in the best understanding of that over worked phrase.  Probably one of the best animated short films I have seen in a while.

1933 - ALICE IN WONDERLAND, the Paramount version

Paramount, probably the more adventurous of the Hollywood studios, took their plunge into the Alice in Wonderland story with this film. 

The director Norman Z. McLeod was a comedy guy who had worked with the Marx Brothers but he made a pretty unfunny film this time.  The cast seemed to want to give it their best shot.   Supposedly Cary Grant is in some animal costume somewhere in the film.  W. C. Fields or at least his voice is Humpty Dumpty.  Gary Cooper is a knight who constantly falls off of his horse.  It looks like every actor under contract to Paramount got stuck into this film.   The actor playing Alice, Charlotte Lewis, found out that this part was a career killer and eventually got out of the movie business. 

The screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz was a talented guy.  He mixed parts of both Alice books into the film but the whole thing seemed to have been too much for him.  Again, Alice just wanders around hanging out with one strange character after another.  The whole logic vs illogic theme is constantly hammered away.  I still feel the lack of an actual plot hurts the Alice stories.  There is just no point to any of this film.  The Wizard of Oz has equally fantastical situations but that movie is about something, Dorothy finding her way home.  In this film Alice wakes up from her dream and the film's over.  

There are some good parts in the film.  The Queen's croquet game features real live flamingos (who seem really pissed) and the Mad Hatter tea party has the actor Edward Everett Horton who plays the character like a weirdo instead of a manic nutcase.  I still don't see the point of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Just like in the Disney version they bring the film to a complete halt.  

 

I would rate this version below the Disney Alice, it's not as well made.  Both films are still pretty poor.

The running time is 77 minutes.