The Usual Choices
The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)
The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle)
Lost Horizon (Frank Capra)
Nothing Sacred (William Wellman)
Stage Door (Gregory La Cava)
A Star is Born (William Wellman)
But how about...
Captains Courageous (Victor Fleming)
Ah, the golden days of "Boys Own" films: gung-ho adventure; upper class twats becoming real boys after all; trying your hardest not to cry in public; death of a really good guy which you get over faster than strep-throat; respecting God, country and your parents; fresh air, lashings of food and, most importantly, never needing to have a piss. Captains Courageous is all this, PLUS: snicker at Spencer Tracy (a Portuguese fisherman?!?!); physically jump when Lionel Barrymore wallops the shit out of little Freddie Bartholomew; and wonder where all those non-suspect unmarried male private school teachers went.
...and what about...
Make Way For Tomorrow (Leo McCarey)
Gulp: a lovely old couple who have lived together for around 50 years must now live apart. Why? Because their bastard kids don't want them with them and don't want to cough up the bucks to find them somewhere nice and accommodating. As sentimental as a creased photo, this film will make you rethink the concept of motherlove, and explain why you should just throw the thankless child right into the serpent's teeth...with gusto.
...not to mention...
You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang)
If Thomas Hardy, fresh from Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The Mayor of Casterbridge, made a movie, this is exactly what it would be like. Fatalistic and rigged from the get-go, Henry Fonda's ex-crim tries to believe in the good of people and just can't seem to find it in anyone apart from his (superwoman) wife. But somehow, despite the plot turning on this point, Fritz Lang the director still manages to avoid nonstop BLEAK in his storytelling. How does he do this? I mean, Fritz fled from the WWII Nazis who really would have lampshaded him if he had stuck around (and Fritz's first two ex-fraus would've joined in with the bastards). So if anyone was entitled to be a misery guts... An enjoyably depressing achievement.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Lost Horizon (Frank Capra)
Shangri-la = Utopia = Paradise = Where you want to spend the rest of your life, right? Ahem...Mr Byrne, if you please: "Heaven...Heaven is a place...a place where nothing...nothing ever happens...". The Great Mystery is solved folks: Happiness is a luxury holiday resort which is wholly committed to Art-Deco. Brrr...the thought of spending one's existence at Shangri-la is akin to eating caviar and water crackers but craving a hamburger with the lot. Always remember: The Devil has the best parties. Run Ronald; run for your life.
My Top 10 Films of 1937
 |
| "Spencer...Fred...let's dump 'em both and come out to the world." |
#02 A+ Stage Door (La Cava)
#03 A The Awful Truth (McCarey)
#04 A Dead End (Wyler)
#05 A Nothing Sacred (Wellman)
#06 A- Make Way For Tomorrow (McCarey)
#07 A- You Only Live Once (Lang)
#08 A- Angel (Lubitsch)
#09 A- The Prisoner of Zenda (Cromwell)
#10 A- The Hurricane (Ford)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 A- Daughter of Shanghai (Florey)
#12 A- Easy Living (Leisen)
#13 A- A Day at the Races (Wood)
#14 B+ Young and Innocent (Hitchcock)
#15 B+ True Confession (Ruggles)
#16 B+ The Perfect Specimen (Curtiz)
#17 B+ Black Legion (Mayo)
#18 B+ Marked Woman (Bacon)
#19 B+ The Life of Emile Zola (Dieterle)
#20 B+ They Won't Forget (LeRoy)
#21 B+ Breakfast for Two (Santell)
#22 B+ Way Out West (Horne)
#23 B+ Victoria the Great (Wilcox)
#24 B+ First Lady (Logan)
#25 B+ Storm in a Teacup (Saville; Dalrymple)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B Night Must Fall [unfortunately stagebound]
> B The Prince and the Pauper [shame the twins only know how to smile and laugh too much]
> B Oh, Mr Porter! [it's a Will Hay movie]
> B Good Morning, Boys [see above]
> B History is Made at Night [romance, comedy, drama, glamour...but it still needed something more]
> B Fire Over England [bit stodgy for me]
> B Stella Dallas [Barbara Stanwyck is great; self-sacrificing motherlove is not]
> B Charlie Chan at the Olympics [not prime Mr Chan but not dire Mr Chan]
> B Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo [see above]
> B Charlie Chan on Broadway [see above above]
> B- Think Fast, Mr Moto [James Bond + Charlie Chan...with extra racist cliches]
> B- Kid Galahad [unfortunately, Bette Davis is used as the nightclub singer rather than the pugilist]
> B- Souls at Sea [a rousing tall ships film which leaves all the rousing for the last 15 minutes]
> B- Internes Can't Take Money [the first Dr Kildare, but it's more about crime 'n' corn than medicine]
> B- Stand-In [worth it just to see Bogie holding a little dog and calling Leslie Howard "sweetheart" & "darling"]
> B- Maid of Salem [the Salem Witch Trials rejigged as a romantic drama]
> B- Beg, Borrow or Steal [con-artist rom-com with too much rom and not enough com]
> C The Green Cockatoo [British spiv story nobbled by its leading actor and a plot that doesn't move]
> C Mannequin [Joan Crawford tries to escape the Great Depression and remain a noble martyr]
> C Saratoga [completed in tragic circumstances, it was never really much to begin with anyway]
> C Lost Horizon [A Personal Unmentionable]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1937 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Big City (Borzage); Confession (May); Conquest (Brown); Danger - Love at Work (Preminger); Dinner at the Ritz (Schuster); Double Wedding (Thorpe); Dreaming Lips (Czinner); Ebb Tide (Hogan); The Edge of the World (Powell); Farewell Again / Troopship (Whelan); The Great Garrick (Whale); Invisible Stripes (Bacon); It’s Love I’m After (Mayo); Knight Without Armour (Feyder); Lancer Spy (Ratoff); The Last Gangster (Ludwig); The Last Train from Madrid (Hogan); Love from a Stranger (Lee); Madame X (Wood); Personal Property (Van Dyke); Quality Street (Stevens); The Road Back (Whale); Slave Ship (Garnett); The Squeaker (Howard); They Gave Him a Gun (Van Dyke); This is My Affair (Seiter); The Toast of New York (Lee); Tovarich (Litvak); True Confession (Ruggles); Under the Red Robe (Sjostrom); Wee Willie Winkie (Ford); Wells Fargo (Lloyd); Wings of the Morning (Schuster); The Woman I Love (Litvak)
Best Performances of 1937
Irene Dunne - The Awful Truth
Janet Gaynor - The Star is Born
Cary Grant - The Awful Truth
Laurel & Hardy - Way Out West
Fredric March - A Star is Born
Paul Muni - The Life of Emile Zola
Luise Rainer - The Good Earth
Spencer Tracy - Captains Courageous
But how about...
Ginger Rogers in Stage Door
Why did she waste so much of her time with that Fred guy? Just like in Bachelor Mother and Roxie Hart, Ginger shows how much of a master-comedienne she truly was. Wise-cracking, bitingly sarcastic, throwing off funny lines which lesser talents would hang onto and strangle, and stealing scene after scene from the likes of Katharine Hepburn and Lucille Ball, Ginger gives one of the great female (no, scrub the word "female") comedic performances of all time.
...and what about...
Marlene Dietrich in Angel
While I thoroughly enjoy this "Lubitsch Touch" classic (and shudder when a collection of cultured & civilized people are discussing European politics two years before the outbreak of the ultimate barbarism), it is Marlene who really holds my attention. An impossible role - y'know, bored rich wife who dallies with another man but still loves her workaholic husband - Marlene somehow makes it believable and, even more impressive, interesting. All with a face that is sculpted from the whitest marble and the warmest flesh. Obligatory sigh.
...not to mention...
Will Hay in Good Morning, Boys & Oh, Mr Porter!
The epitome of the silly old fart, the oh-so-preWWII-British persona of Will Hay is at its absolute best in these two films. The scripts being totally besides the point, our man Will bumbles from one bluster to another guffaw onto another didn't-quite-catch-that, all of which really were his own fault (he is such a vaguely self-righteous twit). But it all works out okay in the end as long as we stay warmed to the character. Dad's Army would've been impossible without him.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Cary Grant in Topper
My 10 Favourite Performances of 1937
 |
| "You're right! I can hear the prunes working." |
#03 Roland Young (Topper)
#04 Freddie Bartholomew (Captains Courageous)
#06 Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (The Prisoner of Zenda)
#07 Humphrey Bogart (Dead End)
#08 Marlene Dietrich (Angel)
#09 Henry Fonda (You Only Live Once)
#10 Robert Montgomery (Night Must Fall)
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Margaret Dumont (A Day at the Races)
#12 Constance Collier (Stage Door)
#13 John Barrymore (True Confession)
#14 Ronald Colman (The Prisoner of Zenda)
#15 The Marx Brothers (A Day at the Races)
#16 Anna Neagle (Victoria the Great)
#17 May Whitty (Night Must Fall)
#18 Bette Davis (Marked Woman)
#19 Carole Lombard (True Confession)
#20 Eric Blore (Breakfast for Two)
#21 Billie Burke (Topper)
#22 Erin O'Brien-Moore (Black Legion)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Janet Gaynor & Fredric March in A Star is Born [Judy & James...'nuff said]
> Luise Rainer in The Good Earth [she looks like she has a stone in her shoe]
> Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous [he says "feeshy" once too often]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 1937 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: Captains Courageous (Victor Fleming)
SILVER: Stage Door (Gregory La Cava)
BRONZE: The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Robert Montgomery (Night Must Fall)
SILVER: Roland Young (Topper)
BRONZE: Henry Fonda (You Only Live Once)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Carole Lombard (Nothing Sacred)
SILVER: Ginger Rogers (Stage Door)
BRONZE: Marlene Dietrich (Angel)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (The Prisoner of Zenda)
SILVER: Humphrey Bogart (Dead End)
BRONZE: Lionel Barrymore (Captains Courageous)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Constance Collier (Stage Door)
SILVER: Margaret Dumont (A Day at the Races)
BRONZE: May Whitty (Night Must Fall)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Cary Grant & Irene Dunne (The Awful Truth)
SILVER: Laurel & Hardy (Way Out West)
BRONZE: The Marx Brothers (A Day at the Races)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Freddie Bartholomew (Captains Courageous)
SILVER: The Dead End Kids (Dead End)
BRONZE: Mickey Rooney (Captains Courageous)
The Alternate Razzies for 1937 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
Lost Horizon (Frank Capra)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Cary Grant (Topper)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Luise Rainer (The Good Earth)
