Vampyr is a 1932 horror film directed by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. The film was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based on elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's collection of supernatural stories In a Glass Darkly. Vampyr was funded by Nicolas de Gunzburg who starred in the film under the name of Julian West among a mostly non-professional cast. Gunzburg plays the role of Allan Gray, a student of the occult who enters the village of Courtempierre, which is under the curse of a vampire. Very little dialogue was used in the film and much of the story is told with silent film-styled title cards. The film was shot entirely on location and to enhance the atmospheric content, Dreyer opted for a washed out, soft focus photographic technique.
Read More#68 - Love Me Tonight (1932)
Love Me Tonight is a 1932 American pre-Code musical comedy film produced and directed by Rouben Mamoulian, with music by Rodgers and Hart. It stars Maurice Chevalier as a tailor who poses as a nobleman and Jeanette MacDonald as a princess with whom he falls in love. It also stars Charles Ruggles as a penniless nobleman, along with Charles Butterworth and Myrna Loy as members of his family. It features the classic Rodgers and Hart songs "Love Me Tonight", "Isn't it Romantic?", "Mimi", and "Lover". The staging of "Isn't It Romantic?" was revolutionary for its time, combining both singing and film editing, as the song is passed from one singer (or group of singers) to another, all of whom are at different locales.
Read More#67 - Boudu Saved from Drowning
Boudu Saved from Drowning (French: Boudu sauvé des eaux, "Boudu saved from the waters") is a 1932 French social satire comedy of manners film directed by Jean Renoir. Renoir wrote the film's screenplay, from the play by René Fauchois. The film stars Michel Simon as Boudu. Pauline Kael called it, 'not only a lovely fable about a bourgeois attempt to reform an early hippy... but a photographic record of an earlier France.’
Read More#66 - I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is an American pre-Code crime-drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Paul Muni as a wrongfully convicted convict on a chain gang who escapes to Chicago. The film was written by Howard J. Green and Brown Holmes from Robert Elliott Burns's autobiography of a similar name "I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!" serialised in the True Detective magazine.
Read More#65 - Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Trouble in Paradise is a 1932 American Pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, and Herbert Marshall and featuring Charles Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton. Based on the 1931 play The Honest Finder (A Becsületes Megtaláló) by Hungarian playwright László Aladár, the film is about a gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket who join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner.
Read More#64 - Scarface (1932)
Scarface (also known as Scarface: The Shame of the Nation and The Shame of a Nation) is a 1932 American pre-Code gangster film starring Paul Muni as Antonio "Tony" Camonte. It was produced by Howard Hughes and Howard Hawks and directed by Hawks. Based on the life of Al Capone, the plot centers on a gangster named Tony Camonte who through his aggressive and violent methods, manages to move up the ranks in the Chicago gangland world. A version of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre is depicted. Believing that the film was too violent and glorified the illegal acts of the gangster, Hollywood censorship offices called for major alterations of the film including a alternate ending that would greater condemn and shame Tony Camonte. Audience reception was good, but censors banned the film in several cities and states, forcing Howard Hughes to remove the film from circulation and put it in his vault. Along with contemporary classics, Little Caesar, and The Public Enemy, Scarface is regarded as one of the greatest gangster films ever made and significantly influenced the future of the gangster film.
Read More#63 - Shanghai Express (1932)
Shanghai Express is a 1932 American pre-Code film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, and Warner Oland. It was written by Jules Furthman, based on a 1931 story by Harry Hervey. Shanghai Express was released during the midst of the Great Depression. The film was a huge hit with the public, grossing $3.7 million in its initial screenings in the United States alone, becoming the biggest financial success of the Dietrich-von Sternberg collaborations, and was the highest-grossing movie of 1932, surpassing the all-star Grand Hotel.
Read More#62 - Freaks (1932)
Freaks is a 1932 American pre-Code horror film produced and directed by Tod Browning. The original version of the film, running 90 minutes, was considered too shocking to be released, so several scenes were cut, resulting in an abridged runtime of 64 minutes. The film is based on elements from the short story "Spurs" by Tod Robbins. The eponymous characters were played by people who worked as carnival sideshow performers and had real deformities. The film stars Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova and Roscoe Ates. Among the deformed cast were dwarf siblings Harry and Daisy Earles, Johnny Eck who had sacral agenenis, the conjoined twin sisters Daisy and Violet Hilton, and Schlitzie.
Read More#61 - A Nous La Liberte (1931)
À nous la liberté (English: Freedom for Us) is a 1931 French film directed by René Clair. With a score by Georges Auric, the film has more music than any of Clair's early works. Praised for its scenic design and use of sound, À nous la liberté has been called Clair's "crowning achievement".
Read More#60 - Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)
Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, sometimes simply called Tabu, is a 1931 silent film directed by F.W. Murnau, a docufiction. The film is split into two chapters. The first, called "Paradise", depicts the lives of two lovers on a South Seas island until they are forced to escape the island when the girl is chosen as a holy maid to the gods. The second chapter, "Paradise Lost", depicts the couple's life on a colonised island and how they adapt to and are exploited by Western civilisation. The title of the film comes from the Polynesian concept of tapu from which is derived the English word "taboo."
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