1930 BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR!

This is my choice (choices) for Best Picture for the year 1930.  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). 

I found this year to have one easy choice and one difficult one.

And the nominees on the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die are...
The Blue Angel
L'Age of d'Or
Earth
Little Caesar
All Quiet on the Western Front
A Nous la liberte'
Le Million

                    

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1939 is…All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

I would be hard pressed not to put All Quiet on the Western Front as Best Picture. The only question is whether to put it under Unique and Artistic Production or as Best Picture. Despite it's literary pedigree, I'm putting it as the winner of Best Picture as it was a hit and is still regarded as one if not the classic American movie of the early talkie era.

All Quiet on the Western Front

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1939 is...The Blue Angel

The Blue Angel

Despite stiff competition here from three French films, I'm going with Von Sternberg's classic tale of Lola Lola the cabaret singer portrayed to the hilt by Marlene Dietrich. But it is the sad descent of the academic Professor Rath (Emil Jannings) that is the movie's somber heart and center.

I do wonder if I should see A Nous a Liberte' again. Would that have been a better choice? It's just been a few years since I've seen it now. No wonder so many Academy winners are movies released late in the year!

The Blue Angel

SHANGHAI EXPRESS (1932)

MORE 1001 MOVIES FROM THE 30's

(Post 17 of 20)

Marlene Dietrich looks for a way out

in Shanghai Express

Most of the passengers aboard the Shanghai Express (led by the exotic Shanghai Lil played by Marlene Dietrich) are just trying to get to their destination when their journey is interrupted by Chinese Guerrillas and the brutal General Chang. A hostage situation ensues. The film packs a lot of intrigue and romance, featuring Shanghai Lil and Clive Brook as a doctor from her past, into it's eighty minute running time manned by perhaps the greatest pioneer of early talkie cinema, Josef von Sternberg. The film would definitely make a good early thirties political intrigue double feature with Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen.

Another exotic woman of the world aboard the train is  Hui Fei. To the film's credit she is played by Chinese-American star Anna May Wong...but there seemed to be more of a trend of casting Caucasians in many of the Asian roles, which leads us to...

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to..Warner Oland. It's interesting to see Oland as the Asian heavy General Chang in Shanghai Express, since he is best known as playing the Asian heroic detective Charlie Chan in sixteen films up until his death in 1938.

White actor Warner Oland as Charlie Chan...

 

...replaced by white actor Sidney Toler
as Charlie Chan...

...who was replaced by white actor 

Roland Winters as Charlie Chan...

...or maybe you prefer the 70's TV Charlie Chan

played by white actor Ross Martin or...

 

...how about the silly Curse of the Dragon Queen

with Englishman Peter Ustinov as

Charlie Chan?

Oland also played Fu Manchu (below) in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. There is also a long list of non-Asian actors that played Fu Manchu, including Boris Karloff, Peter Sellers and Christopher Lee..but so it goes (or at least use to go) in Hollywood.

PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928, FRANCE), DOCKS OF NEW YORK (1928), THE CROWD (1928), STORM OVER ASIA (1928, RUSSIA)

1928

"It is a painful irony that silent movies were driven out of existence just as they were reaching a kind of glorious summit of creativity and imagination, so that some of the best silent movies were also some of the last ones."-Bill Bryson, One Summer: America, 1927

I was looking at some original film critiques from the  New York Times Film Reviews and thought I would share some of the original thoughts on some films from 1928 from that source.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

 "In The Passion of Joan of Arc, M. Carl Dreyer has produced a singularly arresting and original film, which will certainly be much discussed. He presents the heroine in the new realistic manner as an inspired peasant girl, without the gaudy trappings of legend, and the figure he makes of her is no unworthy companion to the stage picture drawn by Bernard Shaw."-W. L. Middleton, New York Times Film Reviews, August 12, 1928.

The Docks of New York

"Nine-tenths of the persons seeing the Paramount's offering this week will like it. Perhaps the most serious objections the other tenth will have are that The Docks of New York is a little too long and that it has an anti-climax. The picture as a whole is good, however, with able acting and occasional bits of exceptional directing."-Mordaunt Hall, New York Times Film Reviews, September 17, 1928.

Storm Over Asia

"Excellent photography and sterling work by the eminently suitable cast are the conspicuous assets of Vsevolod Pudovkin's silent cinematic contribution, Storm Over Asia...There is, however, much that is compelling in this production in the early scenes, but in the closing episodes it becomes hysterical and absurd events occur, including a man, who through injuries, is hardly able to move around, suddenly becoming a veritable Samson."-Mordaunt Hall, New York Times Film Reviews, September 28, 1930.

The Crowd

"The Crowd is on the whole, a powerful analysis of a young couple's struggle for existence in this city. Throughout this subject, Mr. Vidor shrewdly avoids the stereotyped conception of setting forth scenes and in more than one case he uses the camera in an inspired fashion."-Mordaunt Hall, New York Times Film Reviews, February 20, 1928.

 "The last full year of Hollywood's silent era, 1928, produced some of its greatest masterpieces,"-Martin Ruben, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

"I do wish silent films had endured as an art form alongside the "talkies." But let us enjoy the ones that still survive."-Chris Cox, 1001: A Film Odyssey

THE BLUE ANGEL (1930, GERMANY)

HULUPALOOZA!! (Post 1 of 12)

Ever since I got Hulu Plus, it has proven to be a real help in going through many of the movies on the 1001 list, particularly the foreign films and other Criterion releases. I'll do twelve posts this month  from the 1001 list available on  Hulu Plus. But that's just the tip of the iceberg! There's a lot more than that to go through!

So there's no time for further explanation, as I need to get a move on cause I'm certainly not getting any younger!...and they could be dropping some French film from the cue as I type! It's time for Hulupalooza! (Ta da!)

The Blue Angel

I haven't seen The Blue Angel since I took a film class at Georgia State in the 80's. It is the famous story of an aging academic brought down by a showgirl. Marlene Dietrich became a star after this film, but for me, it's the downfall of Emil Janning's teacher that is the heart of the movie. 

I did wonder a bit why the showgirl hooks up with the teacher in the first place. He's a professor! You know how little they make? No matter, it's sad and the tragic last shot of Jannings is unforgettable.

Random note: Francine Prose wrote Blue Angel, one of my favorite novels. It is not based on the movie, but makes references to the original film and does follow a similar plotline.