Almost One In Four Unemployed

Jesse Walker now takes a look at 1932.  I love the 1930s--for Hollywood movies, anyway--though this is an early enough year that the talkies are still figuring out a few things.

https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/prosperity-is-just-around-corner-weve.html

Here's his top ten:

1. Vampyr

2. Island Of Lost Souls

3. Ivan

4. Freaks

5. Love Me Tonight

6. Horse Feathers

7. Boudu Saved From Drowning

8. Trouble In Paradise

9. Million Dollar Legs

10. Blood Of A Poet

People didn't know what to make of Vampyr back then, and I'm not sure if they do yet.  Still, quite something.

Island Of Lost Souls (which I saw recently) is fun not just because it's pre-Code, but because, like Laughton, the filmmakers have something wild on their hands and they're not sure how to control it.

Haven't seen Ivan.  I've certainly seen Freaks, and watching it you can see what it was a flop in its day but a cult classic now.  Certainly one of the creepiest films ever.

Love Me Tonight holds up better than most other musicals of the era, partly for Mamoulian's trickery, but mostly due to a great Rodgers and Hart score.

I'd put up Horse Feathers (which I saw yet again last week) against any other Marx Brothers film, so you can probably guess it's my #1 of the year.  It's essentially one classic comedy routine after another.

Boudu is early Renoir--maybe before he knew he was a classic, which is a good thing.

Trouble In Paradise is perfection (and Lubitsch knew it).  It would be #1 if the Marx Brothers hadn't made a classic.

Million Dollar Legs is an oddity well worth watching. (What a year Paramount was having, even if they were going bankrupt.  They put out four of Jesse's top ten.)

Blood Of A Poet still stands as a surrealist classic.

Honorable Mentions:

11. Betty Boop, M.D.

12. Shanghai Express

13. American Madness

14. Betty Boop For President

15. One Hour With You

16. Minnie The Moocher

17. Red-Headed Woman

18. Night At The Crossroads

19. Murders In The Rue Morgue

20. The Idea

11, 13, 16 and 20 are shorts. (And if you're going to list shorts, it wasn't all Betty Boop--these were prime years for Disney and Laurel and Hardy.)

12 is my favorite Dietrich/von Sternberg film. 13, with its memorable bank vault set, shows Capra didn't start doing socially conscious films with Mr. Deeds (though in those days he pretty much took whatever they threw at him). 15 is the second fine film from Lubitsch this year (and he made one and a quarter more). 17 is the film that made Harlow a major star, though she'd become famous as a platinum blonde, and it's not her best film of 1932 with "Red" in the title. 18 shows Renoir was pretty busy, too. 19, like Island Of Lost Souls, showed Hollywood was capable of doing weird stuff in the early 30s.

Other films that might make my top ten:

Grand Hotel

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang

One Way Passage

Red Dust (The best Harlow film of 1932)

Scarface (Jesse is bothered by the instructional scene forced upon the movie. First, it's only a minor part of the film, easily ignored.  Second, I consider the big scene mostly comic.  Third, the scene is fascinating since it probably plays today as the most offensive part of the movie. Fourth, the scene was only forced upon the film because the movie was so damn crazy and violent--other gangster films are calm and controlled next to Scarface.)

Other films I like:

Broken Lullaby, The Crowd Roars, Jewel Robbery, Movie Crazy, The Mummy, Night After Night, The Old Dark House, Skyscraper Souls, Tarzan The Ape Man, Tiger Shark

Other films of note:

20,000 Years In Sing Sing, Air Mail, The Animal Kingdom, Arsene Lupin, As You Desire Me, Back Street, The Big Broadcast, A Bill Of Divorcement, Blonde Venus, Chandu The Magician, Doctor X, A Farewell To Arms, Flesh, Forbidden, The Greeks Had A Word For Them, If I Had A Million, The Kid From Spain, The Lost Squadron, The Mask Of Fu Manchu, Me And My Gal, The Miracle Man, The Most Dangerous Game, No Man Of Her Own, No More Orchids, The Passionate Plumber, The Phantom President, Polly Of The Circus, Rain, Rasputin And The Empress, Rich And Strange, Ride Him Cowboy, Scarlet Dawn, Sherlock Holmes, Shopworn, The Sign Of Four, The Sign Of The Cross, So Big!, Speak Easily, State's Attorney, Strange Interlude, There Goes The Bride, Thirteen Women, This Is The Night, Three On A Match, Three Wise Girls, Union Depot, What Price Hollywood?, White Zombie