[4] Groucho, Chico, Zeppo, and Harpo are back for their second big-screen soire. This one hangs loosely on a stolen painting plot, with Groucho playing a returning safari hunter at a rich aristocrat woman’s house where all the action takes place. Like The Cocoanuts before it, Animal Crackers still suffers from being an un-cinematic Broadway stage adaptation. It’s just hard for vaudeville acts like these …
[7] Paul Muni stars as Emile Zola, the famous French author whose critical writings brought the scorn of the French government, especially when he came out in support of a wrongfully-condemned army officer. The first half of this film, directed by William Dieterle (The Devil and Daniel Webster), offers a high level overview of Zola’s penniless beginnings and his breakthrough success with the novel Nana. …
[4] The third-ever Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’ went to this somewhat clunky, melodramatic story spanning three decades in the lives of two British families — one upstairs aristocrats, the other downstairs servants. It may have been one of the most popular films of 1933, but it’s not one to which the passage of time has been particularly kind. Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook play …
[5] Whenever Bela Lugosi isn’t onscreen, you can’t wait for him to return in this cornerstone of on-screen horror. His iconic portrayal is the best thing this movie has going for itself. I also liked some of the sets and Dwight Frye’s crazy performance as Renfeld. The rest of the cast are not particularly good, and I would like the Dracula/Mina relationship to have been …
[5] Bette Davis stars in this Oscar-bait melodrama about a spoiled socialite who learns she has an inoperable brain tumor. After co-star George Brent performs an operation, Davis is told she’s all better — when really her doctor and close friends are keeping a secret from her. The tumor will return and she will die. While waiting for Bette to discover the truth, Dark Victory …
[6] Call me a sucker for an Olympic swimmer in a loincloth, but I enjoy Johnny Weissmuller’s maiden swing through the jungle. This first feature in the long running matinee series is the one where Tarzan meets Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan), whose on expedition with her father to find a fabled elephant graveyard. He kidnaps her, but then she saves him from her angry father, he …
[8] Warner Brothers caught lightning in a bottle when they took a chance on a relatively unknown Tazmanian actor and cast Errol Flynn as Peter Blood in the Oscar-nominated crowd pleaser Captain Blood. Flynn became an instant star with his magnetic performance as an English physician forced into slavery, who would later lead a band of fellow slaves to piracy on the high seas. Captain …
[8] A man is wrongly convicted and sentenced to a brutal chain gang in this gripping tragedy from Mervyn LeRoy (The Wizard of Oz). Paul Muni (Scarface, Life of Emile Zola) stars as the innocent prisoner who succeeds in a daring escape and becomes a well-respected member of society before the law catches up with him. State extradition laws offer him some sanctuary, but Muni …
[8] Errol Flynn and David Niven star as World War I pilots confronting the grimmest odds of survival in this exciting and moving remake of Howard Hawks’ 1930 original. With its wartime setting and nary a woman in the cast, The Dawn Patrol is another great bromance in the grand tradition of war stories — it’s all about camraderie, brotherhood and sacrifice.
[7] Bette Davis plays Queen Elizabeth the first, in love with Errol Flynn’s Earl of Essex, in this period technicolor drama from director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood). Both stars conjure the necessary pathos of their characters’ doomed relationship. His love is tainted by his thirst for power, while hers is hindered by her royal standing and social responsibilities. The film’s finale …
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