The Petrified Forest (1936)
I really enjoyed watching this film and looked forward to some scholarly insights on the commentary track by Eric Lax, co-author of a Humphrey Bogart biography and several other books.[…]
Category: Films from the 1930’s
Shanghai Express (1932)
A film like this that deals openly with the subject of prostitution and pokes fun at conventional morality would be impossible to make in Hollywood after the Hays Code began to be rigidly enforced in 1934.
Black Legion (1937)
Film review by Dan Willard. Black Legion is based on the real life murder of Charles Poole which revealed a large secret hate group that terrorized minorities in the Midwest during the 1930s.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
Film Review by Dan Willard. Four years before he made Lost Horizon Frank Capra questioned the perceived superiority of the Western way of life in The Bitter Tea of General Yen.
Men Without Women (1930)
Film review by Dan Willard. Only the International Sound Version survives from this John Ford film about a submarine crew trapped on the bottom of the ocean.
Journey’s End (1930)
Film review by Dan Willard. Though shot in Hollywood to take advantage of the new sound stages, this British production marks the debut of James Whale as a film director and is Colin Clive’s first screen appearance.
Lāčplēsis (1930)
Film review by Dan Willard. Made to commemorate the Latvian victory over the German-White Russian army in 1919 Lāčplēsis is the first major Latvian film.
Cities and Years (1930)
Film review by Dan Willard. Most of Russian director Yevgeni Chervyakov’s films from the twenties have been lost yet he was considered a giant of Soviet cinema by his contemporaries. CITIES AND YEARS is the story of a Russian painter in Berlin during WWI.
Cyankali (1930)
Review of ‘Cyankali’ (1930), a German silent/early sound film that dramatizes the plight of impoverished women who must seek the aid of illegal abortionists in Germany’s Weimar Republic.
