The Rest Is Silents
Jesse Walker is back to the films of 1929. This was the year where Hollywood pretty much made the full shift to talkies, with the rest of the world soon following. Silent film had risen to great heights, but it was time for sound to take over.
The early talkies are pretty creaky, as movie people adjust to the new rules (making many titles that would be remade once they had sound figured out). These films are rarely shown, so I'm almost surprised to see a top ten list. (At least they used to be rarely shown until TCM started up--in fact, I recently saw Coquette and the first Show Boat on the channel, and this morning they're showing Broadway Melody and Sally.)
Here's Jesse's (last) top ten:
2. My Grandmother
3. A Cottage On Dartmoor
4. Hallelujah!
5. Nogent
6. Un Chien Andalou
7. Pandora's Box
8. Arsenal
9. Big Business
10. The Skeleton Dance
The Man With The Movie Camera is an intriguing experiment that should be on the list. (Though I admit I've seen so few films from 1929 that almost anything good could make my list.)
Haven't seen 2 or 3. Hallelujah (not sure if it gets an exclamation point) is pretty interesting, showing King Vidor wasn't scared of sound. Jesse calls it the first great American musical. Perhaps, though it should be noted this is a big boast, considering the huge number of musicals produced in 1929.
A number of these films are shorts--Nogent, Un Chien Andalou, Big Business and Skeleton Dance. Considering how few films are shown from this year, maybe I should give Jesse a break, but I still feel shorts shouldn't be compared to features. I should note I haven't seen Nogent, but the other three are classics. Un Chien Andalou is THE surrealist masterpiece. Big Business is perhaps the best Laurel and Hardy two-reeler of the year, but they were making one a month, and about half of them are great. Meanwhile, Walt Disney was coming out with one or two shorts per month--Skeleton Dance is one of the best, but there were a few others that were pretty good.
I'm not surprised to see Pandora's Box--I'm more surprised that Louise Brooks's other famous 1929 isn't in the top ten. And Arsenal is another famous 1920s Soviet silent that still holds up.
Honorable mentions:
12. Diary Of A Lost Girl
13. Les Mysteres Du Chateau De De
14. Tusalava
15. Hyas And Stenorhynchus
16. The Hoose-Gow
17. Brumes d'Automne
18. H20
19. Black And Tan
20. La Perle
Afraid I haven't seen most of these (and a number of them are shorts). 12 is the Louise Brooks film I was expecting a little higher. 16 is another Laurel and Hardy short (a fine one, though I wouldn't call it their second-best of the year).
The Cocoanuts (I'm shocked it's not on Jesse's list--it might be a 1929 talkie, but it still captures the Marx Brothers at or near their best)
Applause
The Love Parade (I think it holds up better than Jesse does)
Spite Marriage (one of Keaton's weaker silent features, but good enough for the list)
Other films I like:
Other films of the year:
posted by LAGuy @ 12:46 AM
6 Comments:
What I love about the Disraeli, which George Arliss had been playing for years on stage, and had already done as a silent (and won an Oscar for the talkie) is how unembarrassed they are about supporting the British Empire. In fact, the idea that Britain controlling other countries is a positive good is so obvious that they don't feel the need to explain it.
The Cocoanuts has one great scene (the shirt song), but it's just too uneven to make my list. I mean, I enjoyed it—it's the Marx Brothers!—but it just doesn't compare to the movies they made from 1930-35.
Including shorts I've actually seen less than 20 movies from 1929. Still, I'd say my list for this year is overall stronger than '39, even if the last few are just placeholders with a handful of good scenes between them.
1. Skeleton Dance
2. Man with a Movie Camera
3. White Hell of Pitz Palu
4. Un Chien Andalou - the only Bunuel film I really like (to be fair I haven't rewatched most of his stuff in the last 20 years), but I like it a lot.
5. Arsenal
6. The Cocoanuts
7. The Haunted House
8. The Broadway Melody
9. Spite Marriage
10. Broadway
And I've only seen 1 1919 film (Sir Arne's Treasure - pretty good) and 1 1909 film (Nero, of the Fall of Rome - don't remember it very well). So no more lists from me.
By 1919 the film industry was well established. Though much of the era is lost, there are actually a fair number of well known films from 1919. For starters, there's DeMille's Male And Female (a weird version of The Admirable Crichton), Griffith's Broken Blossoms, von Stroheim's Blind Husbands and Lubitsch's Passion and The Oyster Princess.
You've also got big hits from major stars like Mary Pickford (Daddy-Long-Legs), Lon Chaney (The Miracle Man, mostly lost) and Douglas Fairbanks (just before he became a swashbuckler).
In slapstick, you've got Chaplin continuing to be the top comedy star (with some minor shorts), Lloyd coming into his own with his glasses character (and doing his first two-reelers) and Keaton doing his best work with Fatty Arbuckle.
You've even got the beginning of Felix The Cat cartoons.
On the other hand, things were fairly primitive in 1909. But you've still got memorable stuff like Griffith's A Corner In Wheat and Those Awful Hats.
Thanks, I should check some of those out.
I've actually seen a couple Felix The Cat cartoons over the years, but have no idea which ones they were. And I think I've seen some bits from Broken Blossoms (though could be thinking of a different non-Birth of a Nation/Intolerance Griffith).
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