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1930s Decade in Review!
37 Plays1 year ago
It's time once again to reminisce and recap the last 10 years of movies! In this casual wrap-up episode, we talk about two movies that concern filmmaking in the 30s (The Aviator, Gods and Monsters) and we each count down our top 10s of the decade!
Here's our Letterboxd list of our 30s Top 10s: https://letterboxd.com/criselie/list/one-week-one-year-top-10s-of-the-1930s/
And here's our list of every movie covered on the show so far! https://letterboxd.com/criselie/list/one-week-one-year-films-discussed/
You can check out our socials and our YouTube version where you can watch along at http://linktr.ee/1w1y
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Transcript
Introduction to 1930s Cinema
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to One Week, One Year, a podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history in order, starting in 1895 at the dawn of cinema, and this episode is our 1930s decade in review.
00:00:14
Speaker
Hey, it's our casual time, which is why we've got casual party episode. Another decade of the books. I love the I love the way this punctuates everything, you know. But yeah, that's why we got cocktails. Normally we would not be so normally we'd be professional. Very professional. We're very professional. Anyway, no for a professionalism. This is this. We're going to talk about the movies in 1930s, but
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Crocelli. I'm a film projectionist, and joining me as always is... I'm Glenn Covell. I'm a filmmaker. And we're here, basking in the 1930s. Aesthetically, my favorite decade. That, yes. The Indiana Jones poster behind you really, really sells that. In pretty much every other respect, garbage decade.
00:01:05
Speaker
Well, good movies too, but yeah. Good movies. Garbage for things besides movies. For this episode, we're going to be talking about two movies that we watched, two kind of newer movies that we watched that kind of cover the 1930s filmmaking era.
Cultural and Aesthetic Discussion of 1930s Films
00:01:25
Speaker
Both of them were like, eh, kinda.
00:01:30
Speaker
And then we're going to do our top tens of the 1930s, which I'm curious to see. This was a tough list to whittle down. There were some good movies in this decade. I feel like, for whatever reason, I just remember the 20s list kind of being easier to put together.
00:01:51
Speaker
I feel like the great movies stood out a lot more from the good movies in the 20s, where in the 30s, there's just a lot of really good stuff. Right. Yeah. I feel like the 20s had absolute pinnacle bangers and then a bunch of stuff that was like, that's not good at all. Whereas in the 30s, it was a much more even-handed kind of like, oh yeah, a lot of goodens.
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah, I made a top 20-21 list or something like that. I'll only reveal the top 10 unless I feel like not doing that.
00:02:35
Speaker
uh yeah and so we're you know this is a chill podcast so we're drinking we've both got uh bee's knees cocktails era appropriate cocktails you've got it in a coop glass which is uh probably more appropriate than the glassware i mean whatever is the 30s they're drinking out of whatever they had on hand
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, I want to say that last night I went to a bar here in Denver that's called The Thin Man because I felt like this is, you know, we got to soak in those 30s movies vibes, go to the Thin Man bar. And I ordered a Nick and Nora and he said, what is that?
00:03:22
Speaker
uh you know i don't want to put anybody on blast like i don't want to be that guy uh but your bar is called the thin man yeah i mean i mean i'm unfamiliar with like what that is i know because it's a there's a glass that's a nikonora glass yeah i think they drink martinis in the movie i think the nikonora cocktail is like kind of a riff on a martini uh like similar how it was described in the book yeah
00:03:49
Speaker
But alas, I had a Manhattan and a beer instead. There you go. Did it come in a Nicanora glass? No, it came in a... What did it come in? It came in a rocks glass. Oh.
00:04:01
Speaker
That's supposed to. I'm not trying to put anybody on blast. We're here to have a good time. To that end, let's have a good time by talking about some movies. We're going to listen to us talk about some other movies, and then we'll get to the top 10s. We've got to tease it a little bit. Make it through the podcast before we hear about our top 10s. Or just skip forward. I don't know. Whatever. I'm not a cop. There's no rules.
00:04:32
Speaker
Shall we start with The Aviator?
Deep Dive into 'The Aviator'
00:04:35
Speaker
Sure. The Aviator, 2004, directed by Martin Scorsese. Yeah, our second Scorsese movie on our decade in review. This guy likes film history, I guess. He does, yeah. Surprise, surprise. Number one popular booster of film history, and he made a couple movies that are soaked in it.
00:04:58
Speaker
Um, yeah, the aviator is a good movie. Yeah. Probably one of my favorites, honestly, like rewatching it for this show. I was like, it's a great movie. I love this thing. I've seen it a lot of times. Hmm. All right. For whatever reason, I feel like this is like, I don't know, it just it's one I've like. It's it's kind of a good it's like not really this kind of movie, but I kind of like it as like a vibes movie.
00:05:26
Speaker
I could see that. It does have good vibes throughout a lot of it, not throughout all of it, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think even, you know, it's a nearly three hour long movie. There are a lot of people who will just throw on Lord of the Rings every other week for background stuff. And I think that somewhat of a certain persuasion could definitely throw on the aviator and just tune in every once in a while, you know.
00:05:52
Speaker
I remember the aviator was a fairly early pandemic watch for me, which felt very apt because of its long-extended scene of Howard Hughes just sitting in his own filth watching movies for weeks on end. Isn't that just what this podcast is, right? Yeah, pretty much. Sitting in our own filth watching movies.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah so I mean if you're all are not familiar this is a biopic of Howard Hughes portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio and it covers kind of the the making of the movie Hell's Angels which we covered on the podcast and and then his kind of life as an aviation industrialist
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think that the main I think one of the main reasons to watch it for this show was I mean, we watched Hell's Angels and talked about on the show. So like there's that obviously. But I think even that it's like a fairly small portion of the movie. But the whole thing is like set in Hollywood between like twenty seven. I think like twenty seven and forty seven.
00:07:09
Speaker
and so like a good chunk of it is set in the 30s and so it just has lots of good like 30s Hollywood kind of uh vibes and like characters that pop in and out and like
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, we've got we've got a lot of Hollywood stars and celebrities, but mostly played by contemporary stars and celebrities. Yeah. But but the one who we get the most of is Catherine Hepburn, played by Cate Blanchett. And it's kind of a spot on impersonation crush like Cate Blanchett is so so like.
00:07:48
Speaker
rewatching, I'm like, she might be honestly like my favorite performance in the whole movie. Yeah, I think I think she kind of comes away as like MVP. I mean, I believe she won Best Actress for this. Oh, dang. Yeah, you're right. Something that that I kind of wondered is like, you know, how much Katherine Hepburn really talks like that, you know, I think she did, though. Maybe she did. Because she does in all of her movies.
00:08:15
Speaker
Right. Actually, like last night, I peeked ahead in 1940 a little bit and I watched the Philadelphia story, which has Catherine Hepburn in it. And so it was, you know, I had I had her voice fresh in my memory when I when I watched this performance. And I think the thing that like just immediately sold me on the Catherine Hepburn performance was the laugh that she does toward the beginning.
00:08:43
Speaker
Like, she does this laugh in Philadelphia Story and bringing up Baby of, you know, she'll say something and just go like, hahaha. And yeah, very well observed. Very, very good. I mean, I guess Kevin Hepburn was in real life, played golf, but I feel like that
00:09:03
Speaker
one of the first scenes that she's in in the aviators playing golf and it definitely reminded me of bring a baby yeah I think I think intentionally I think Scorsese was doing a little sort of like hey playing golf just like in the olden pictures it looked like that scene I actually because
00:09:20
Speaker
right before that scene there was a you know director's chair that had Cary Grant's name on it and I rewound once I saw that golf scene because I thought that it might have been meant to be literally bringing up baby that this was happening it's not it's a different it's supposed to be a different movie I forget what it is now it's one that we did not watch for the show but um
00:09:45
Speaker
Because I was like trying to look up, they do make a lot of references to like movies that are in production or like people are like talking about whenever people are hanging out like the Coconut Grove nightclub in this movie, they're all talking, talking showbiz. Yes. And so there's lots of like little like very kind of like subtle references to just like what things are like in production.
00:10:07
Speaker
Um, which is kind of funny. Like they're not like name dropping titles, but they're just sort of like offhand, like mentioning different like movies for being worked on. Yeah. And there's just like, yeah, a lot of mention of, you know, certain, certain celebrities that are around at the time or like, you know, there's a, this end make bolt has someone playing, uh, Louis B. Mayer, uh, of MGM. Uh, so like executives as well.
00:10:35
Speaker
Neither of which I think are particularly flattering. And like, Mank goes a lot harder on that, but still, I feel like Louis Belair doesn't come across as like a super friendly guy in this movie either. He doesn't want to give Howard Hughes another two cameras. Yeah. He laughs in his face. Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
I don't know what I don't know if we need to like I don't know break down this movie or I mean there's it is kind of tangentially about filmmaking it's sort of it starts off and there's a lot of stuff about filmmaking because he's making Hell's Angels and he's like really into it but then it kind of it's like depicting the existence of production hell in right of Hell's Angels yeah
00:11:22
Speaker
which it's unclear how many of these, I think probably a lot of the broad strokes details are more or less correct. But it's interesting kind of seeing the depiction of this production that we know was horrifically challenged. I hadn't seen this movie since probably, I don't know, I was like 14, 15, something like that. So I don't remember it super, I didn't remember it super well.
00:11:51
Speaker
But, I mean, another thing that I had forgotten about, but at the time I really had no context for understanding, was that like the first 45 minutes of this movie are in a two strip, or like a two color effect. In this kind of early era of digital color grading post, oh brother or art thou, they're just like, let's go wild, you know?
00:12:17
Speaker
Um, yeah, I found like, I don't know if it's like from the DVD or whatever where like Scrisse talks about why he wanted that first chunk of the movie to be in like, you know, fake two strip technicolor. It's not two strip technicolor though.
00:12:32
Speaker
It is. Well, not right, because it's yeah, they didn't actually shoot it in that. But if it's no, no, no, it's emulating that. No, it's emulating multicolor because two strip Technicolor is red and green and multicolor was a color process that Howard Hughes like owned, which was blue, like cyan and red, which which is why
00:12:59
Speaker
you know, they can still have a blue sky in this movie. That was kind of confusing me for a second. But there were like competing color systems in the two strip era, quote unquote, two strip era before it all kind of converged on three strip Technicolor. And yeah, there was one that Howard Hughes kind of bought and owned and used for I think presumably what he used for Hell's Angels, right?
00:13:25
Speaker
Well, but Hell's Angels was the two strip scene was red and green. And I don't know exactly what the deal with that was. I know that like this multicolor process was something that
00:13:43
Speaker
They weren't able to release Hell's Angels in the way that it was shot, and so they couldn't produce the prints fast enough. So they were printed in two-strip Technicolor, so like green and red.
00:14:01
Speaker
It's possible it was shot in blue and red, but that doesn't really make sense why that would happen, or how that would still remain naturalistic. But either way, yes, it was not shot... This was confusing me, so I went on a deep dive with this. It was not shot to look like two-strip Technicolor, it was shot to look like Multicolor.
00:14:23
Speaker
I mean, right. But anyway, I mean, that is I think for for our show and what we're talking about, that is an important distinction to make. Sure. Yes. Also, it is wild, like how obvious that is to me now, like it looks so kind of funky, right? It's like so obviously only two colors. Yeah. I remember like I saw this movie when it came out in theaters when I was 13. Um.
00:14:50
Speaker
And I remember the only time I even like- You were almost as old as his girlfriend in the movie. Oh, God. Yeah. I only noticed that when he's eating his peas and the peas are like bright cyan color. I'm like, why are the peas a weird color?
00:15:08
Speaker
yeah and and when they're golfing like all of the green grass is just bright blue yeah but even so like i don't remember ever noticing any other like weird colors watching this movie yeah it's still until much later in some ways it's kind of subtle i think that um
00:15:25
Speaker
A lot of the two strip stuff that we've seen looks kind of shitty. Either it is something to do with the restoration, or the way that it's degraded, or it's just the way that the film was, that colors were kind of floaty. Right. They don't always line up. Yeah. It looked off. And this was, of course, very sharp.
00:15:54
Speaker
And so that almost felt like, you know, it's this kind of like, what if it was like this, you know, right? Yeah, I would love to see more stuff like that. I think it was so, so neat. You know, yeah, I think it's a very cool choice.
00:16:12
Speaker
I commend Scorsese for taking a swing like that, because I feel like not a lot of people necessarily would. I think that might think it's too weird or too off-putting. I'm sure that it confused a lot of people when the movie came out, because there really is no explanation for it. No, yeah, unless you know that old movies looked like that kind of, then...
00:16:35
Speaker
That's a very specific era of old movies too, right? Yeah, it's like only late 20s and like early 30s kind of like the very specific time period that this movie starts out in so I Wonder I was I'm just looking this up right now Sometimes when there's something kind of funky going on with a movie
00:17:00
Speaker
when they send it out to theaters they'll send like a kind of letter to go along with it to the projectionist and you can sometimes find these online but i am not seeing it right now i'm seeing someone saying uh could the aviator be remastered with color that looks better
00:17:21
Speaker
uh no hell no yeah correct uh but yeah i'm sure that like that definitely confused some people around the time uh uh and and and it doesn't really even make a big show of like when it goes back to normal color uh uh well it because then right somewhere around like a not quite halfway through it switches to more of a sort of like three strip type of color
00:17:50
Speaker
Look, I think that was the intent anyways that it like it's it's like because the rest of the movie is like super bright Saturated colors. Hmm. I guess I didn't really notice that I thought it looked normal. I think a lot of like the production design kind of Is sort of Leaning into that too. It's like a lot of like bright blues and reds and things. Mm-hmm look good in that I know aesthetic whatever
00:18:19
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, it is sort of like after watching whatever 45 minutes of the movie in like weird, you know, cyan red vision, then it goes to like more colors and you're like, okay, this is how, this is how it's normal movies look. And I think, um, I think maybe some of the effect of the kind of like slightly more technicolor-y colors, uh, it doesn't quite hit as much. Um.
00:18:47
Speaker
So this movie has some other kind of, I don't know, worth mentioning hints toward film industry in the era. One of which is the motion picture production code. Yeah. There's a scene where Howard Hughes is presenting in front of the, what are they called? The Association, oh my God.
00:19:20
Speaker
the prudes he's presenting in front of the prudes who want to destroy cinema and one of them they even they namedrop Breen which you know very well observed you know it's interesting because there's a bunch of tut tutting he's like oh
00:19:39
Speaker
Yes, and the scene ends with the 1930s equivalent of a PowerPoint presentation of boobs. And it's pretty funny. But yeah, there's a lot of details in this movie that I really appreciate that I think a lot of the audience watching it probably would not have any
00:20:09
Speaker
ability to know what it is. But it is these like little carefully observed details and just historical accuracy, which is never
00:20:22
Speaker
it's never something that I have been too educated on. So I'm not just like, oh, that clay pot in this medieval movie, it fits exactly. Oh my God. But I am like that when it comes to them mentioning Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Breen. There you go. Yeah. Now we know all this stuff.
00:20:45
Speaker
and so doing this podcast has turned us into pedantic nerds yeah i mean i was already but and i'm just slightly more pedantic and nerdy i do i do love that scene i think it works even without knowing about like the haze code like you get that it's like the the stodgy like censor people like don't want howard houston with boobs in his movies
00:21:08
Speaker
And he does this whole thing of just like, aha, but you see, there have been many boobs in many other movies that have not been a problem. And it's this kind of thing where, I don't know, it's like,
00:21:20
Speaker
It endears you to that character so much where you're like, hell yeah, you tell him, Howard. You know what's funny is that that scene is exactly kind of something that I did, not with boobs.
00:21:38
Speaker
I was not allowed to play M-rated games when I was a kid and I really wanted to play Halo. I wanted to convince my parents that I could get Halo. And so I went on the internet and I downloaded a bunch of pictures and I made an entire essay with screenshots and fill in information of just like, here is why Halo isn't that M-rated and I should be allowed to play it.
00:22:07
Speaker
And so I had like color comparisons. Yeah, exactly. I was like, exhibit A, the alien blood is blue. It's not as violent as it as it would be if it was red. Breaking down the whole ESRB rating and everything. And you know what? It didn't work.
00:22:28
Speaker
You should have had Ian Holm there with his calipers. That would have helped. Ian Holm is interested early in the movie as a meteorologist because Howard Hughes is trying to find clouds that look like boobs for his airplane picture. That's right.
00:22:49
Speaker
Um, and so he has to hire a meteorologist, but I like how he keeps going back throughout the movie for just other unrelated things. He just likes this, the scientist that he's on the, he's on the payroll now, right? But it's like, he was just like, we'll bring him in for other non-weather related stuff. I was like, you're a scientist. You can help. Definitely. I think, especially like the early kind of like.
00:23:14
Speaker
directing of Hell's Angels stuff is kind of a very good example of like, I don't know, kind of the cliche like cartoon 1930s director, which I guess I already was kind of embodied to some degree where he's like, he's got his job person.
00:23:31
Speaker
and his leather jacket, and he's just like making absurd demands from everyone around him. I've just felt like, no, it's gotta be like this, it's gotta be, I still have no, it's like the closings look like boobs, I need 26 cameras, yada, yada, yada. And it's, I don't know, it's exciting. It's like watching it, you're like, let this guy cook, you know? And so,
00:23:58
Speaker
I don't know, I often think of this movie just in relation to like what directing a movie kind of feels like, which is like having way too much responsibility for something that is deeply silly. What, movies as a thing? Yeah, it's just like you're asking so many people to like invest so much time and effort into this thing and it's like, I don't know, you're just like, I want to see airplanes blow up and it's like,
00:24:29
Speaker
I don't know. It's just that's I feel like it gets the feeling of what filmmaking feels like really well. And part of that is kind of the absurdity of it.
00:24:42
Speaker
That's tricky. I mean, I feel like I may be too self-conscious to get people in on the things that I want that are silly. If I'm doing something big and silly, I feel like I need to do it myself because I would be too self-conscious to say like, yes, you dedicate your time to my silly thing right now. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
I also just want to shout out a funny thing is that Adam Scott plays Howard Hughes, what? Press agent, I think. And I think most people in this movie, Cate Blanchett stuff, he's doing like a real, like very sharply observed sort of like evocation of Catherine Hepburn. But I feel like for the most part, people are like, they're acting like
00:25:33
Speaker
normal acting performances in a movie whereas Adam Scott I think is like really hitting the like 1930s voice hmm which I I just find really amusing because it's that's not a thing he does often in in things it's gotta be an early role for him right like before stepbrothers I think
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, I guess so. That is another thing I like about Scorsese. He'll he'll cast like comedic actor, people who are like known for comedy in dramatic roles a lot. I feel like he just is like, I like that guy. Put him in the movie. Errol Flynn shows up and it's kind of a kind of an asshole. Yeah, as as per his reputation. Played by Jude Law.
00:26:22
Speaker
Which is a little cameo. I think it's good casting. In that scene with Errol Flynn, like they, you know, they're at a party and ordering
00:26:36
Speaker
The impression that I got is that they are using code words to order cocktails, and that they're just saying, like, you know, I'll have a juice, you know, I'll have a bottle of milk. And I thought, oh, like, this is all code. And then... Well, Howard Hughes actually just does drink milk. Yeah.
00:26:57
Speaker
It wasn't until like, yeah, later in the movie went, oh, the milk was the milk was literal. This is. Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't thought about that is probably true for everyone else at the table. Yeah. Because I think that's there were like kind of three big scenes set at the the Coconut Grove nightclub, which doesn't exist anymore.
00:27:17
Speaker
Um, but there's like one set in the twenties, there's one set in the thirties and then one set in the forties. Hmm. And that's the one that's set in the thirties. So, I mean, like, I think that's, that's might be post prohibition though. If we're really trying to, I was trying to like really follow like the timeline of this movie really closely and it definitely challenges a lot of the dates. Like there's things that like, uh, Howard Hughes meets Ava Gardner like way before she would have even like had a career in Hollywood. Hmm. Cause that wasn't until like later in like the,
00:27:46
Speaker
late forties i think but um so the timeline of this movie is a little fudged but it's it's you know whatever it's a movie but yeah i think it just in terms of like it's it's portrayal of like 1930s hollywood i feel like this this movie is probably the most it was the first thing i thought of anyway in terms of like stuff that we should watch this and the rocket here i guess but there there's a lot of crossover between the two so it seemed redundant to watch both
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of wish we watched The Rocketeer, though. Maybe we'll just do it when we get to our, like, 1991 question mark episode. Sure, yeah. Why not? Is it 91? It is 91, yeah. We can just watch The Rocketeer for, you know, because it's a fun movie. Yeah. That also is a lot of, like, 30s nightclub, like, ooh, all the stars are out kind of stuff. Anything else to say about the aviator? Nope.
00:28:44
Speaker
Cool movie. I'm a fan. Yeah, it's good. Scorsese knows what he's doing. I have it on DVD and I will be watching some more special features later.
00:28:57
Speaker
The other movie that we're talking about that concerns 1930s Hollywood is Gods and Monsters. The James... James? James Condon? James Cordon? Yeah, the James Cordon
Exploration of 'Gods and Monsters'
00:29:15
Speaker
film. The Bill Condon-directed biopic of... James Whale. James Whale. Okay, you can see where my wires got crossed here.
00:29:26
Speaker
This feels like less of a biopic, I guess, than the aviator is. Yeah. I don't know. Biopic is such kind of a loose terminology anyway. So here's the thing. Like, I think that this kind of has a bit more of... I think this movie is neat, but I think this is more of a biopic derogatory than...
00:29:48
Speaker
than the aviator is you know like the aviator is a movie that i think is a very well done biopic and this is a movie that has a lot of 90s hollywood cliches in it sure yeah and i think that
00:30:07
Speaker
one of the one of my takeaways from this movie really is that is almost incidentally about the person that it's about uh i think the movie is kind of more concerned with like trauma queerness and yeah like it's more concerned with those two things than
00:30:27
Speaker
uh bride of frankenstein or james wale as a person i don't know but i feel like it's it's using a lot of the sort of details of james wale's life and his kind of place in hollywood to kind of build the story off of i don't know i feel like if you i don't know you could probably make this about like a fictional director and it would still work but i i do think the way it kind of integrates
00:30:54
Speaker
Specifically writer Frankenstein. Yeah. It brings it in for theming. Yeah. And it's there's all of this stuff about, you know, creation and monsters and, you know, I don't know. I thought it sort of used like James Wales filmography, I guess, filmography, really just writer Frankenstein and Frankenstein.
00:31:22
Speaker
I like the way that it kind of incorporated that into the movie and it wasn't just kind of background stuff like I think even like stylistically it starts to kind of I mean there's like the dream sequence right which is like shot for shot that's fun right Frankenstein but then even outside of that I feel like sometimes
00:31:43
Speaker
the movie starts to get a little bit crazier and it kind of leans into more gothic, James Whaley kind of style. Fair. A little bit. A little bit. This is, I think, even more than the aviator-like.
00:32:02
Speaker
tangentially about 30s Hollywood. I mean, it doesn't even really take place in the 1930s. Yeah, it takes place in the 50s, but there is a... We got one scene. Yeah, there's a scene that I really enjoyed that feels like the kind of flashback scene in Hugo in a lot of ways, which is just showing younger James Whale directing Bride of Frankenstein.
00:32:30
Speaker
But this and Hugo are about sort of like famous directors sort of after their as like bitter old men kind of. Yeah, yeah, true. Although, yeah, this this one is incorrigibly horny. There's a lot of like,
00:32:53
Speaker
There's a number of kind of fun jokes about his just unending horniness. He can't resist. And I think everyone just kind of rolls their eyes and is like, that's Jimmy for you. Well, boy, there he goes again.
00:33:17
Speaker
there he goes again playing a strip interview with uh with someone who's uh who's come to cover him i mean it's definitely like i think the movie knows that it's like a little bit um a little creepy like i think the movie the movie is not is sort of like all right james is getting a little you know he's pushing a little far with his horniness
00:33:45
Speaker
Yeah, which I think is kind of interesting given its place as a 1998 movie, right? This is a movie that, you know, is about a gay man who is being played by a gay man. And it, I was kind of surprised at how willing it was to allow him to be, I don't know,
00:34:13
Speaker
reprehensible at times. You'd think that kind of like a 90s Hollywood portrayal at this time would probably just be like a little less complex because they're at the kind of bare minimum of representation in the first place. But the way this movie ends is like very kind of morally murky in a lot of ways, which I thought was interesting.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah. It did definitely stick out to me. I think like the late 90s in particular were like seemed to me like a particularly kind of like homophobic time in Hollywood filmmaking. You think so?
00:34:55
Speaker
I don't think of that being a good time for queer filmmaking in general. I'm thinking about stuff like Philadelphia and these kind of 90s prestige movies where a straight actor would play gay. That's what I mean, though. It's like, no, we got Tom Hanks to play a gay guy. And it's like, well, you could have just got an actual gay actor instead.
00:35:23
Speaker
Philadelphia is a kind of that pipe movie a pie wouldn't have gotten made unless Tom Hanks was in it. I don't know But there is something I think somewhat it's it's notable that Ian McKellen is in this movie Yeah, opposed to someone else. Yeah, and also the Bill Cotton also gay director. So it's like I think that that struck me as a
00:35:48
Speaker
kind of thing where i don't know how common that was in late 90s movies yeah i mean and you know it's a movie that i think like uh you know speaking of just kind of gay stuff it like engages in or no it it
00:36:06
Speaker
it deals with the idea of camp without directly engaging with it. It's a pretty self-serious movie, I think. But then they're talking about the intentional camp of Bride of Frankenstein and then the dream sequence and everything. I think that maybe
00:36:30
Speaker
within gay spaces in maybe the 80s or 70s, the way that gay representation was able to happen was through camp, where this is maybe like one of these kind of early, like these like 90s self-serious gay dramas, you know, a la Philadelphia.
00:36:52
Speaker
But maybe just its awareness of the idea of camp does kind of lend sort of credence to it being a more thoroughly gay production than something like Philadelphia. Yeah, maybe. I like that take. I do kind of like how it's like, I don't know, just like showing people in this movie watching Brighter Frankenstein, like not getting it, that it's like, that it is camp, that it's like intentionally
00:37:21
Speaker
Uh, I mean, I think has even like James well says in the movie, it's like, it's, it's laughing at death. It's like a comedy about death, which then was the thing I, I, I mean, definitely when we watched writer Frankenstein, I was like, Oh yeah, I, I get the tone of this movie very easily. Like I. Um.
00:37:45
Speaker
I, unlike some of the characters in the movie, I wasn't like, what? I thought this was supposed to be scary. Well, you know, but, um, but then like I, the way in which it sort of like gets more into his history of like his, his sort of like, uh,
00:38:03
Speaker
upbringing and poverty and like being in World War I and just his like the intense-ness of that and I thought that was at least an interesting insight into like why he might have made the movie in that way. Why he might have made Bride of Frankenstein in that way?
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, of like, I'm gonna make a movie about death, but it's going to be sort of comedic in a lot of ways. And that also kind of reminded me of just like a thing that we noticed in like the 1920s movies is like the different types of movies that people were making about World War I, who had actually experienced it. And there's like the French make, I feel like make these like very serious like tragic dramas.
00:38:51
Speaker
And then like the Americans make these like really sort of like bombastic like action movies. And then the German movies are like not explicitly about World War I, they're just like nightmare horror movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know, I thought that was really interesting that they, I mean, that's not, you know, there are German movies about World War I that are just, you know, straight war dramas, but like,
00:39:14
Speaker
I thought that like- We might be talking about some later. I don't know. I thought that was like an interesting, that was just a thing that I noticed where it was like a lot of the German filmmakers who had lived through World War I were taking those experiences and sort of like using them to tell these sort of like really kind of esoteric horror stories.
00:39:38
Speaker
And that's kind of what I hadn't thought of that while watching any of James Wales movies that we watched, but I think that's an interesting perspective that I hadn't really thought about until I watched Gods of Monsters.
00:39:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting read. I don't, yeah, it's unclear to me like how based in reality it is, but I think that it is, you know, certainly him being in the trenches in World War One, he would have a certain relationship with death. And Frankenstein is about death in many ways. So I think it's a reasonable connection, regardless of how, you know, accurate
00:40:21
Speaker
historically based it is, but I don't know. This is a movie that
00:40:31
Speaker
is interesting in that it's a biography, but it's based on, you know, it's based on a book and it's kind of... It's kind of more historical fiction, I think, than... Exactly. I mean, it's got like, you know, it's got very obviously fictional characters who are kind of meant to sort of use
00:40:55
Speaker
a real person's life as a jumping off point for the themes that they just want to explore in this movie in particular. Which is why I ended up kind of feeling like the fact that it is James Wales specifically feels a little bit incidental because like this movie
00:41:13
Speaker
is what this movie is about is not like a director but it's about like a guy whose life and mind are deteriorating and while that's happening it's bringing up a bunch of horrific memories for him and like that could be a story about anybody but they decided to make it about james wale yeah i mean i guess you could someone make that argument about like
00:41:38
Speaker
aviators about a guy who has like all this money and power and control but it's like his brain is deteriorating from disease and he's like you know is that the title of this that do we do we do episode titles for your views maybe I don't think so brain deteriorating yeah it's happening to us right now Cheers
00:42:05
Speaker
I mean, we haven't talked about, uh, Brendan Fraser in this movie, who I think is very good in it. Yeah. Um, as is Ian McKellen. I mean, the, the movie begins and ends with, uh, with, uh, Brendan Fraser was character whose name escapes me. Um, and I feel like he is almost kind of like the point of view character of like, right. He's our kind of way in to like learning about things as well.
00:42:33
Speaker
In particular, I think he's a point of view character for lightly homophobic 90s people. Also very true, right? Yeah. For them to be like, hey, I'm with this tough guy. It took me way too long to realize that his weird 50s haircut is
00:42:54
Speaker
like flat on top, like Frankenstein's monster. Right, yes. I was like, it wasn't until he like shows up like dressing the costume and like, oh, I get it. That's why his hair looks like that. But I don't know. Yeah, it's like. Love to see Brendan Fraser pop up and stuff. I think he's good in this movie. Get a lot of good beefcake moments with him gardening.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah. And James Way like leering out the window. Yeah, I mean, you know, like, you know, talking about the way that this movie is willing to kind of problematize, I don't know, it's willing to do a gay performance, a gay represent, like, like an example of gay representation that is not
00:43:48
Speaker
un-complex, especially in the way that we see Brendan Fraser's character and the way that
00:43:59
Speaker
that James Whale interacts with Brendan Fraser's character, where like, you know, in this movie, there are scenes, though the place where it's going is that it looks like Brendan Fraser's character kind of has these sort of gay leanings that he is pushing away from himself. And as he is willing to kind of slowly move in that direction and explore his
00:44:29
Speaker
reality of his sexuality, it is kind of predated upon by the protagonist. And it's not treated respectfully. He's treated as like
00:44:47
Speaker
He's treated as an object at times. You see this person almost turn away from their homosexual inclinations because
00:45:04
Speaker
the kind of person mentor who would be bringing him into this world is somebody who is kind of like sick in the head at this moment, you know, and is willing to basically take advantage of this guy in order to
00:45:24
Speaker
suicide by proxy uh via like homophobic uh uh reaction you know it's it's very it's very complex he's trying to create a monster that i guess he is don't you see yeah um not enough talk about invisible man in this movie i thought i wanted more invisible man talk but yeah that's i mean it's not what the movie's about so
00:45:50
Speaker
I wanted more old movies, but maybe that's just because I have an old movie podcast. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like the one scene of like the flashback to like him shooting Bradley Frankenstein, I was like, I want more. I want more film set scenes. I guess the old movie stuff in this movie is, uh, uh,
00:46:12
Speaker
like with them meeting in the 50s but like meeting some some more kind of named celebrities right yeah and so there's like a lot of like gossip in this movie it's like George Kukor is gay Boris Kamala is boring as a person uh
00:46:33
Speaker
Oh, one really good detail in this movie is that the end credits say a good cast is worth repeating. Like it does at the end of Bride of Frankenstein.
00:46:44
Speaker
And yeah, also there was, there's a point where Brendan Fraser's character is meeting a princess and then he, Ian McKellen says, oh, he's never met a princess, only queens. I burst out laughing.
Top 10 Films of the 1930s
00:47:00
Speaker
It's a good joke. Yeah, I do think it's kind of funny how like, this movie was set in the 50s, so it's like not even, right, it's like 20 years.
00:47:12
Speaker
Post, you know, I think he was saying it had been 15 years since he'd made a movie if I'm right. Right. Right. And it's funny that people in this movie are like, oh, if I can find that old movie and it's like, it's not a very old movie, but this movie takes place with the aviator, that old movie. Right. Exactly. Also, this movie reminded me a lot of Sunset Boulevard, I think, not accidentally.
00:47:38
Speaker
I need to watch that movie. I mean, I mean, watch it. We'll watch it in nine episodes. So I mean, you know, we'll get there fairly soon. But definitely the idea of sort of like the the older sort of like Hollywood figure. With this sort of like weird, not that healthy relationship, like a younger person that like is around their house.
00:48:07
Speaker
A lot of death in pools. Not opening scene, not a spoiler. But yeah, I don't know. That was just a thing that kind of stuck out was that it has some real Sunset Boulevard vibes. Yeah, anything else to say about gods and monsters? I'm ready to get down to that top 10. All right, here we go. Delicious top 10.
00:48:37
Speaker
You want to go first with number 10? Uh, sure. So my number 10, uh, is this was very difficult because there are maybe like four movies that I want to put in this position. Uh, and I like roughly, let me just like shout out the three that didn't make it. Okay. Which are sort of.
00:48:58
Speaker
the honorable mentions. Yeah, I, you know, I don't know. I think this would be a little over overburdened if we did honorable mentions because I have a lot. But the three that I feel like I could put in this position besides this movie on a different day would be Modern Times, The Thin Man, and Port of Shadows. But for my number 10, I put The Invisible Man. I felt like I needed some universal horror. A James Whale picture. A James Whale picture. I think
00:49:28
Speaker
I think the best Universal monster movie that we watched personally. It's up there. I think it's a lot of fun. It's very dark, very funny. Yeah, I liked it a lot, The Invisible Man. Check it out.
00:49:53
Speaker
That's my number 10. My number 10 is Stagecoach. Ah, the John Ford Western, which I mean, we just talked about last episode. If we're to delve into honorable mentions, that's my number 17. Oh, OK. Yeah, no, Stagecoach is it held up surprisingly well upon like revisiting.
00:50:19
Speaker
Um, considering it, that is in, in old Western, I was, I was a little, I think we talked about this on the episode. I was like, where's this going to hold up that well? Oh, John Wayne, he had bad opinions. Um, and, uh, I, I was pleasantly surprised at how it definitely feels like a product of its time, but at the same time, it, it wasn't as like problematic as I, as I worried it might be. It actually, if anything feels for 1939 somewhat progressive, maybe.
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, unlike other movies that came out that year, it is not a fan of the Confederacy. There you go. Also, it just like it rips like it's such a like a fun like like the action and stunts in it are incredible. It's got really great characters that all play off each other really well. It's super well written. Yeah, cool movie. Yeah.
00:51:20
Speaker
Okay, man, we're cooking. All right. My number nine is Freaks, which I have a lot of appreciation for that movie. It's maybe one of my first thirties movies that I ever saw. And I remember being just really astonished by it when I first watched it.
00:51:40
Speaker
Uh, and seeing it again for the show, it's, uh, you know, talking about movies that are progressive, um, like this, this movie, I think.
00:51:50
Speaker
even though it's kind of backwards in some ways, it is extremely forward-thinking and progressive in other ways. And it's also just like a great time. It's a really fun movie. It's progressive in ways that I did not see coming. Yeah, yeah. I definitely thought it would be much more of like an exploitation movie than it is. It is still kind of an exploitation movie, but I think it is so much more like empathetic. And it does like, I think I think I didn't really quite realize
00:52:20
Speaker
is from the POV of the the freaks. Yeah. It's like they are they are the heroes of the story. It's complex, I think. Yeah. I it didn't make my list, but I think a big reason for that is because it feels so censored to me like. Hmm. I think that's really bothered me, especially the ending. It just it like cuts.
00:52:50
Speaker
It like cuts off like mid scene and then it's like, and then everything was fine. Like everyone lived happily ever. I was like, wait, hang on. What? Like, well, everything was happily ever after except that lady and like her legs chopped off. But I mean, like, I, I still think it's like, we should have seen that stuff. Like, yeah, the fact that they filmed all that and they're like, it got cut out. I think it's wild that this movie exists in any state.
00:53:16
Speaker
Because it's a wild movie. But I like what I wouldn't give to see the like original uncut version of this movie, because I think it would be like a straight up masterpiece. I think it would have been.
00:53:29
Speaker
Absolutely incredible. And I think I think the version of it that you can watch now is feel so kind of hampered by it's it's really obvious sort of like Edits that were made to it. It still works for me. I like it a lot. It's a cool. It's a cool movie. I agree
00:53:48
Speaker
uh my number nine is the invisible man hey we just talked about that um i know right uh but uh what do i have to say about visible man yeah it's uh it's great it's it's real spooky um uh
00:54:05
Speaker
Claude Rains is incredible in it. It's great. I mean, speaking of camp, it's like camp and menacing at the same time. Yeah. And it's like legitimately scary at times. And I think that was a thing. Remember when like the recent universal remake of The Invisible Man came out?
00:54:32
Speaker
The one that, uh, uh, what's his name? Shit. He directed it. The, the lay one L remake of the is old man came out. People were like, Oh my God, this movie is scary. Like invisible man is a scary thing. What, what a concept he's invisible and it's scary. And I think as like, I don't know, as a kid looking at like old monster books and things like invisible man, who cares? Like his thing is he can't even see him. I know. It was a big deal. And then it is like.
00:55:01
Speaker
the implications of someone actually being invisible and insane and murderous is so scary. And that being invisible makes you insane in this movie. Yeah. And yeah, like you're talking about, it has all this stuff about I'm going to use my invisibility powers to take over world governments and become the emperor of the entire galaxy. It starts to get existential, where it's sort of like,
00:55:31
Speaker
Because he's invisible, he could be in every room. And so you just have to start assuming he is in every room at all times. Yeah, it's so cool. I guess one other thing I should shout out about this movie is the effects, which are incredible, incredible. The footsteps in the snow, the way that he takes the bandages off his head, like it blew my mind when I watched it. Yeah.
00:55:58
Speaker
Um, so my number eight is, this was, this was a little tricky, but I think I'm going to put city lights in this, in this position. I, um, you know, I think this is kind of just like the platonic ideal of a chaplain movie. Uh, it, uh, it kind of hits all of his beats. I think it doesn't have this sort of like, um,
00:56:24
Speaker
It still has this sort of optimism and play where modern times is a bit more down in the dumps, you know? It feels like the end of an era. City Lights, it's just like... I feel like every Chaplin movie you watch
00:56:48
Speaker
like the er chaplain movie that it's got like some kind of thing missing from the kind of platonic chaplain movie. And this just hits every beat. And so it's got like a couple of fun gags as far as the way that the synchronized soundtrack works. But more or less, it's just like, you know, Charlie Chaplin is his most excellent. And yeah, I quite liked it.
00:57:16
Speaker
Yeah, probably the best thing you ever made. And I won't say anything else about it because no reason. My number eight is Design for Living, the the Thrupple rom-com directed by Ernst Lubitsch. A movie that if you were to like make the same script today, it would still feel like, how come no one's made this?
00:57:44
Speaker
You know, I feel like the idea of like treating Thrupple instead of, I mean, this movie is a love triangle movie for like the majority of it. But I think, right, there's like the moment in towards the beginning and then the way the movie ends where it's just like, no, that's just a legitimate way for three people who were like romantically entangled to live.
00:58:11
Speaker
I think is not something I see depicted in culture that often. Do you mean that the way they live through most of the movie or the conclusion that they come to at the end of the movie? I mean, the conclusion they come to the end. I mean, it's it's arguable if that is the conclusion of the movie. I think it is. It seems like it. Yeah. But that's I think if you write a challenger is not withstanding, which challengers is also not even really
00:58:40
Speaker
I think Challengers is more of a love triangle movie than, not more than Design for a Living is, but it is, I don't know, I saw that comparison being made a lot when Challengers came out, and I think it's fairly apt, but like, I don't know, that's just a thing where I was like, no one's making rom-coms about Thrupples now, really. And so the fact that there was one in 1933 is,
00:59:10
Speaker
Notable and also it's it's hilarious. It's such a funny cool movie All three leads in it are great It has so many just like really funny good scenes. It feels like a really kind of classical like 30s Like screwball rom-com Thing it's got like a bunch of
00:59:35
Speaker
I'm just kind of staples of what I think works really well about these kinds of movies stuff like the the The sharpness of the dialogue that the sort of the rhythms of it Yeah, I feel like we didn't watch it for the show so I I didn't put it on my list but I also want to shout out trouble in paradise and
01:00:01
Speaker
which is also a sort of romantic comedy, very different premise that's more of a heist comedy rom-com thing, also a love triangle. I think- You can't shake them. I know, but that's the thing is because it's like, that could be such a cliche. And I think in both of these movies, Ernst Lubitsch just refuses to make it feel cliche.
01:00:29
Speaker
And it's like, I think there are two really good examples of that trope being done really well. Trouble in Paradise, I just rewatched that. They were playing it at the Nighthawk recently. And so that's like fresh on my mind. I'm like, damn it, I would like, that might even go higher on the list if I was gonna put it on the list, which I'm not gonna because it's cheating.
01:00:55
Speaker
I mean, I think I put it on the list for the 20s and we didn't talk about it on the podcast. Still cheating, but whatever. Trouble in Paradise and Design for Living both are just great examples of like early 30s comedy done really well.
01:01:16
Speaker
Well, speaking of early 30s romantic comedies, my number seven is It Happened One Night, which is a masterfully done rom-com
01:01:32
Speaker
uh but like almost you know we can pay respects to modern day rom coms and you know it shouldn't be it shouldn't be uh looked down upon so much that being said putting that aside calling it a rom com feels like it's kind of cheapening and happened one night where uh it is really just like a
01:01:51
Speaker
fantastic movie that I think is the kind of perfect example in my favorite 1930s genre of people pretending they hate each other but they really love each other. Right. People being being mean in funny ways. Yes.
01:02:10
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think that we can think of the 1930s as an era where people were figuring out what to do with sound in movies, right? I feel like in the last decade wrap ups, we might have been talking about like our general perceptions of the era and everything, and we forgot to do that. But we can wrap that in a bit, I guess.
01:02:33
Speaker
It happened one night and stuff like bringing up baby, like these are things that are incredibly dialogue driven, specifically using the abilities of this new medium of sound in motion pictures to do something that couldn't be done before, to emphasize these kind of interesting, unique aspects of like
01:03:01
Speaker
I mean, I think this movie is about banter, you know? And it's masterfully put together banter. You know, when we talked about Clark Gable's shit-eating grin in Gone with the Wind, I think that was kind of pioneered in this movie, you know? Yeah. And breaking in the shit-eating grin in this movie.
01:03:24
Speaker
And yeah, it's a great time. It's a really fun movie. You really buy into the romance of it, the journey that they go on and the fact that there's an auto gyro in it. I'm all about it. Love to see that. It's funny you say that like, oh, like calling this a rom-com, it feels like it's like not doing it justice. I feel like that's because every modern rom-com is like chasing this movie.
01:03:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah, right. It's like this this like set the like the standard for like, oh, this is like what this genre is Which I think I'd heard before but then like watching it I'm like, yeah totally great. Like this is this is like the Rosetta Stone is that the right analogy? Whatever
01:04:18
Speaker
It's translating the the the ancient language of rom-com. It's just hovering in the ether into something that movies can experience. I'm just going to keep talking about because my number seven is it happened one night. So. Oh, hey, look at that. Great movie. Yeah, like the quintessential rom-com. Great banter. I think that is something I think the genesis of Bugs Bunny.
01:04:44
Speaker
Yes, like legitimately. I think a lot of the like the really late 20s, really early 30s comedies and things that were really dialogue were really dialogue driven felt very stagey. They felt very much like stage productions that were being filmed. Yeah. Whereas I think once we start getting into a little bit like 32, 33, 34 right with like the Lubitz stuff that we just talked about and then this movie.
01:05:13
Speaker
Um, they feel really cinematic. Like they have lots of like, they have like miniature shots and they have like effects and they have like.
01:05:22
Speaker
stuff that you could never do on a stage, stuff that feels wholly, you know, unique to movies. It really took 30s movies a couple of years to find their feet as far as not being crap. I think this movie is like a, not necessarily a pioneer of, but it's like such a like quintessential example. It was like the road movie, right? Where it's like two people like stuck together.
01:05:47
Speaker
on the bus like traveling you know just like trying to find a hotel room for the night and it's like um yeah it's like all of that stuff that you'd want out of a good road movie but but yet i also think watching it now it doesn't feel stale like it's it still has a kind of like um there's a there's an exuberance and there's an energy to it that that keeps it really entertaining even now when it's like we've had a
01:06:16
Speaker
a bazillion movies like this. It's still sort of like this is still one of the best kind of. Yeah. Yeah.
01:06:26
Speaker
Um, well, uh, my number six is King Kong, which I'm sure is higher up on the list for you. King Kong is an astonishingly well put together movie. It's a lot of fun. It is, uh, uh, it holds up super well. I mean, I think that like a concern that a lot of people have with
01:06:53
Speaker
watching old movies is that it won't be entertaining. It'll be boring, you know, and King Kong is never boring. King Kong is King Kong is is watching a giant ape smash things and enjoying the experience of that, you know, the effects in this are so ahead of their time, like that, like, yeah.
01:07:16
Speaker
that the the way that they integrate the puppets stop motion with the live-action footage I think is really really really well done and there's like a real like sense of kind of terror and adventure in this movie you know I think that
01:07:36
Speaker
This is one of the 1930s movies that more people have seen, one of the more canonical 30s movies that not just, you know, that like normal people have seen, you know, a la the Universal Monster movies.
01:07:56
Speaker
You know, I think there's a reason for that. It's a great popcorn movie. It's a great adventure movie. And it's just a whole load of fun. It's a good time. King Kong. There's a reason it's been remade three times. Yeah, for sure. I won't say more about it because maybe it'll show up on my list at some point, possibly.
01:08:21
Speaker
You should just do that when it doesn't show up. Just say that and tease it. Yeah. My number six is the Bride of Frankenstein. Oh, another whale picture. I just feel like I was so like.
01:08:41
Speaker
Not shocked by this movie, but I was just like, I just think it rules. I just think it's like such a I think it has real genuine. Like pathos to it. Like, I think I think. I think Boris Karlov is. Even better in this movie than he is in in the first for incident movie, I think the first for incident movie is like very cool.
01:09:09
Speaker
and is super iconic, all of that stuff. But I feel like it doesn't really get at what I thought was really interesting and cool about the book Frankenstein, which is the whole concept of this person who's been created and then thrown aside.
Fritz Lang's Cinematic Impact
01:09:32
Speaker
And what would that do to someone who had no other concept of what being alive is like?
01:09:40
Speaker
And I think this movie is actually kind of trying to like peel back that question a little bit more. It feels like even though it's a sequel, it feels like a much more kind of, uh, faithful adaptation of the book Frankenstein. Um, and then also, yeah, like all of the, the sort of like super Gothic stuff, all of the super campy stuff.
01:10:04
Speaker
it just has it just has there's so much good exactly like fire bad is like I didn't realize that that is just a verbatim a thing from this movie
01:10:19
Speaker
Like I think everyone knows like how iconic the first Frankenstein movie is. It's like really obvious. Whereas I think this has like kind of permeated the culture kind of just as much, but in maybe less obvious ways. Frankenstein is Knight of the Living Dead. Bride of Frankenstein is Return of the Living Dead.
01:10:38
Speaker
They've never seen Return. I've only seen The Living Dead. It's so good. I'm not talking about the James Mangold Tom Cruise vehicle either. It's the campy response to Night of the Living Dead. It is, I believe, the origin of zombies saying brains.
01:11:02
Speaker
It is a boatload of fun. It has great animatronics. It has a zombie who grabs a police radio and says, send more cops. Because he wants to eat them, you know?
01:11:18
Speaker
I think it is in line with Bride of Frankenstein in being this movie that kind of takes this kind of more self-serious or original material and just has fun with it. But then like Bride of Frankenstein also ends with like the monster like
01:11:39
Speaker
Destroying himself and saying we belong dead Which is just like it's very? Operatic and it's very over the top, but it's like I know it really gets at some there's some real emotional heft I think to mm-hmm the the monster actually like genuinely being able to like communicate his own thoughts and like The I don't know the the monster actually kind of reckoning with his own mortality and like existence and
01:12:09
Speaker
I think it has all of that cool existential stuff also, in addition to just being a romp where he smokes a cigar and goes, smoke good. You get the best of both. And that's why it's my number six. The silly and the meaningful, all in one, which is what I tend to enjoy in a movie.
01:12:37
Speaker
My number five is not silly at all. It is M. The Fritz Lang movie M, which is a just kind of harrowing
01:12:50
Speaker
portrayal of the process of capturing a serial killer and like a kind of child predator, basically. Peter Laurie does an incredible job. He is so good in this movie. In the way that he portrays this person, the way that he shows his fear and his menace,
01:13:18
Speaker
the the movie is just so eerie for its time for being a really early 30s movie it has these really smart ways that it uses sound to tell a story um and it's it it
01:13:34
Speaker
It's an extremely compelling watch. It's a super, super good movie that's like at times this kind of horror, at times like a kind of crime procedural. Yeah, maybe a progenitor of Silence the Lambs in a way. It's an incredibly compelling, like a really, really good movie.
01:14:01
Speaker
It is like there's I think very few movies that we've watched like for the show or just like from very few movies that are like this old that I would describe as harrowing. Yeah. And I think I'm absolutely like it. And it earns that, you know, it's like it's it's a really good like, yeah, like crime procedural zero color movie. And it's really creepy.
01:14:30
Speaker
Um, I think that I feel like people are like, old movies aren't scary. And like, M is like really like, uh, unsettling. It's not necessarily scary, but it's just like, oh, like, oh, I, this is, this is, uh, yeah, it's great. Um, speaking of, uh, harrowing Fritz Long movies. Uh, my number five is fury.
01:15:01
Speaker
this is my number four so we'll just talk oh great let's just talk about fury then um yeah what a what a like bold and and very also yeah also harrowing also like very upsetting movie in ways that i'm not used to like movies from this era being and just like how willing it is to like confront like human uh flaws and like human
01:15:30
Speaker
I don't know, like, uh, I'm trying to think of the right, something more harsh than flaws. It's like, it's like breaking evil apart. Like prejudice and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This movie and also it's like, it's not just, you know, it's, it's human, but it's also kind of uniquely American ways of, uh, uh, uh, perceiving crime and, and mob justice. In ways that feel so relevant today.
01:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And this is his first movie that he made in America. And it's such a well observed picture of American prejudice. Yeah. Even though, you know, there are aspects of it that are kind of trying to represent the Nazis, right? Coming from where he came from. I think even he was able to kind of notice some of the parallels.
01:16:24
Speaker
Yeah. I do think it's kind of wild how he had been spending his last couple years in Germany, kind of like he made M and then he made the testimony of Dr. Mabuza, which is like such a sort of directly like anti-Nazi movie. And also very much about the idea of like hatred bringing this communicable disease, almost this thing that like spreads between people that like infects your mind.
01:16:52
Speaker
And then he comes, he, you know, escapes all that. He's like, I'm going to flee Europe and I'm going to go to Hollywood. I'm going to make movies there. And he immediately makes this thing. It's like, you got, you guys got some issues you've got to deal with too. Like just letting you know. Yeah. Um, like I think this movie is really is feels very confrontational in a way that I'm, I'm not used to seeing.
01:17:16
Speaker
From you know, I feel like I'm harping on this a lot of like old movies aren't usually this good bull and that's not what I mean old movies are usually very good, but I like Usually when I think of stuff in the 1930s that is like really Gets me really like it's really affecting I think of things like it happened one night or King Kong or whatever Whereas fury is like
01:17:44
Speaker
such this like targeted thing of like. It's a mean movie, right? It's a mean movie, but it also is like.
01:17:56
Speaker
It's a movie that's like trying to act, that's like trying to understand too. That's like, what makes people behave this way? Like how did we get here? Kind of. Yeah. It's talking about cycles of violence. It's talking about prejudice. It's talking about the ways that
01:18:20
Speaker
We can be corrupted by senses of righteousness and
01:18:30
Speaker
a sense of knowing, right? I think that Fury is a movie that is pretty upset at people who make a judgment without really thinking about the consequences or thinking complexly about the people that they're judging. And it's basically like you're a monster. You can become a monster through your prejudice. And here is how that happens.
01:18:58
Speaker
And also the thing where it's like, this can happen to it. This isn't a thing that like, you're predisposed. It's like any normal person. Yeah. When, when put through the wringer can, can become a like hate filled monster. And that's, ah, that's, I don't know that this, this moves deep, man. I don't know. It like, I was like, damn, this is really going places. It's good. Um, yeah. And then also it just, it's got really great.
01:19:28
Speaker
Performances across the board. It's just really it's really well made Spencer Tracy who makes an appearance in the aviator. There you go. Yeah Terry the dog who Later starred in Wizard of Oz Plays rainbow who gets blown up dynamite in this movie and it's very sad Does the dog die calm yes exploded with dynamite in this
01:19:57
Speaker
I wonder if this is on that website. I hope so because there's a very clear answer. Yeah, just like I don't know. Maybe that was your number four. My number four is M. So I was just roll right into that, I guess. Mm hmm.
01:20:18
Speaker
M also movie we're just swapping our Fritz Lang movie. I know we're just the whole middle middle of the pack like Fritz Lang movie corner What do I want to say about M and also I mean like for we were just talking about I just like how like harrowing and sort of like upsetting it is
01:20:42
Speaker
I think it also has kind of in its crime procedural stuff, it also has this, there's a, a, an element of the premise that I think is just really exciting and cool also, which is that it's the fact that like the entire criminal underworld of whatever German city this is supposed to be all sort of gets together and they're like, Hey, this sucks. There's a serial killer who's out killing children.
01:21:11
Speaker
we don't like this anymore than anyone else does. We're gonna go find him and get him ourselves. And so there's the thing of like, there's the whole like police sort of detectives like trying to find the serial killer and there's all the like safe crackers and like sort of the like organized crime people that are also sort of putting together their own like criminal investigation. And then yeah, there's the whole sort of like
01:21:40
Speaker
you know, underground sort of like crime court that they put together. Tick tock, Mr. Wick. Right. It has almost it feels like it has like seeds of like Batman and like John Wick sort of like this sort of like a criminal underworld thing that Fritz Long loves. I mean, that's in like a bunch of spies and woman on the moon. The Dr. Mabusa also. Yeah.
01:22:10
Speaker
But, um, so I think there, there's that element too, where it's like, there's, there's parts of this movie that are just like, yes, hell yeah. In addition to it being like, oh my God, this is like upsetting me. Um, but then right, it ends with the whole, like, you know, uh, sort of, uh, the, the court of,
01:22:34
Speaker
the city really right it's like it's the it's the criminals but it's also like all of the the parents of the victims like all to get together and there's that kind of similar inferiority right where you're like do these people have the right to just like murder this guy without a proper like criminal trial when he's pleading with them like i'm sick i have a disease like i i i don't want to do these things
01:23:01
Speaker
I I have like sympathetic in many ways. Yeah. Yeah. And it's you start to release, you know, it's like when Peter Laurie is like breaking down on the stand and talking about how it's like. How much of like an illness this is for him, it's like. I definitely like I feel like that has a lot just to say about like how the criminal justice system works in
01:23:29
Speaker
in any context, but then I like how the movie kind of leaves off on this thing where like you don't, it doesn't give you a clear answer to like who's right or who's wrong in this situation. It kind of just leaves it a little, a little ambiguous in a way that I think Fury doesn't quite, Fury because it's a Hollywood movie and it's made like during the Hays Code, I feel like it's a little bit more like Pat, that's a little bit more, it has a bit more of a kind of Hollywood-ish ending.
01:23:59
Speaker
In a way that I don't think actually ruins Fury, I think it still kind of gets away with it, but I think M is a much, a much less, I don't know, sort of like neat ending.
Emotional Narratives in 1930s Films
01:24:14
Speaker
I think that like M has ambiguous feelings about, or what's the word? It has ambivalent feelings about criminal justice, where
01:24:29
Speaker
Fury has very clear feelings on mob justice. And I think that those can live together. I don't think that Fury feels like a cop out in that way. I don't either. But I do think it's like it's noticeable how much more of like a Hollywood product Fury is compared to Em, which is a German movie. Has a certain European ambiguity. It does. Em feels a little bit darker and a little bit more
01:24:59
Speaker
willing to be ambiguous, I think, than Fury does. But I think they're both great movies. Wait, so Fury was what? Your number five? Fury was my number five and was my number four, so your number four. Okay, we just swapped them. My number four was Fury. Okay, so your number three? My number three is Make Way for Tomorrow.
01:25:26
Speaker
I am a sucker for a day-ruiner of a movie. And this is a movie that Orson Welles said it is the saddest movie ever made and it can make a stone cry. And I think he might be right. I mean, I have to think about this a bit, but this might be the saddest movie that I've ever seen in my life.
01:25:52
Speaker
uh i or at least like i had the strongest sadness reaction to it because i would say the last half hour of this movie i was literally biting the corner of a pillow and sobbing i was like openly sobbing and i couldn't control myself for this movie and you gotta pay that some respect you know absolutely this movie is uh
01:26:21
Speaker
It is extremely sad, but it doesn't feel cloying. I think that's something that is trying to be, I don't know, if you think about Requiem for a Dream or something like that.
01:26:36
Speaker
It's a movie that is just kind of going like, look how dark and sad everything can get. Whoa, you know, it's not hitting you over the head with it necessarily. No, I think that this movie, even though I had like a really extreme reaction to this movie, it's a pretty subtle movie in a lot of ways.
01:26:54
Speaker
It has these really well-observed moments of the ways that old people are disrespected in the world and by their kids, and it all kind of builds toward making this picture of
01:27:16
Speaker
of this, you know, older couple who is just, they're losing each other. They're losing their connection to their kids. And they're losing their agency in their own lives. And it studies these things in such detail and then just uses it to just crank up that sadness.
01:27:44
Speaker
In ways that I find not manipulative, I find them masterful because it's something that's true. It's speaking to something really true.
01:27:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's just incredibly, incredibly well done. When Leo McCary, I haven't seen The Awful Truth, but when Leo McCary won the best picture for The Awful Truth and then said that he should have won for this movie instead, I agree with him because I think this is one of the best movies ever made. Yeah, I mean, I didn't have a stronger reaction to it as you did.
01:28:24
Speaker
Um, I wish I did. I mean, like, I don't wish that much sadness necessarily on myself, but it's like, I, I, I, I like when I have a really strong reaction to something, right? I like when movies make me feel something. Um, this movie definitely made me very sad and I definitely teared up. Although I don't know if I, there are definitely other movies I think that I had a stronger, like just like full, just like sadness, like outpouring of.
01:28:52
Speaker
Um, which isn't anything against this movie. I think this movie, like you said, is like it, it, it, it is extremely sad without ever feeling like it's overdoing it. It doesn't hit you with like a bunch of like really sentimental music. It doesn't like, it's almost the restraint of the movie that I think kind of makes it even sadder is the fact that you're watching these two people, like trying to put a brave face on, you're seeing both of them just like,
01:29:20
Speaker
try to like push their own feelings of sadness down. You're watching them have to show restraint for like, you know, social cohesion. And you can see the suffering that's happening underneath that. Yeah. Oh, God, this movie is yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's incredible. It's it's so
01:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know, it's very emotional, but it is very smart about the way in which I think it sort of gets the audience on board with that emotion. I think there's some parts of it that maybe feel a little old fashioned to me. There's like, I don't know, there's like,
01:30:12
Speaker
Oh, grandma, we're trying to have our bridge tournament in our like tuxedos tonight. And I'm like, what what is this? Who acts this way? I mean, that's just funny, though, you know, it is. But I think like there's things like that that just kind of feel dated because like who has bridge tournaments in their apartment wearing tuxedos anymore? But I have I have a new plan for for something. Hey.
01:30:37
Speaker
Um, but yeah, like the, the two lead performances are so, so good. And yeah, I think it is like, it's the subtlety of it. It's the fact that they're not playing the sadness. It's the fact that they're playing the restraint and that that is watching them like.
01:30:54
Speaker
Clearly, watching them say goodbye at the train station and then both of them not acknowledging have said they both are not acknowledging that they will probably never see each other again. Oh no. It is heart wrenching. Yeah. And I agree. Any movie that can pull that kind of emotion out of an audience, I think, is something to be commended.
01:31:23
Speaker
Speaking of tearjerkers, mind number three, City of Lights. As Chaplin loves to put in his opening credits, it'll give you a laugh and maybe a tear. But I think, like you said, this is the ideal of a Chaplin movie. This is where I feel like all of his
01:31:49
Speaker
like storytelling instincts click together the best. And I think this movie does make me cry. I also think it's very funny. I think it has some incredible examples of like, of silent comedy and like really well, like designed silent comedy. It better be after 150 takes, you know? Right? Yeah.
01:32:18
Speaker
Yeah, this feels very much like Chaplin's masterpiece. I know we're gonna be getting into some more famous Chaplin pretty soon, but I think, I don't know, I don't know if this, I don't know if anything's gonna beat this for me. Like City Lights is probably one of the best silent movies ever made. I think it is like, it's one of the last and it feels very much like this sort of like,
01:32:47
Speaker
pinnacle of that subset of filmmaking as an art form.
01:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, it has this kind of proto-Spielbergian sentimentality, I think. I think that, you know, compared to the other silent comedians, Chaplin was sentimental. He was Hollywood sentimental. And this is the one that really just hits that stuff the hardest, I think. With the poverty, with the love, with the
01:33:26
Speaker
you know, the just good, good nature of it. And I think a lot of Chaplin stuff can feel kind of cloying and a little, a little obvious sort of like, all right, we get it, Charlie, like you want us to cry here. But yeah, I feel like City Lights just it it threads the needle perfectly between like comedy and tragedy, I guess.
01:33:51
Speaker
uh my number two is one we've touched on before which is design for living hey uh i love this movie uh i um
01:34:05
Speaker
You know, I started watching this by myself, and five minutes in, I called my partner over, and I was like, you need to watch this movie, because this is so good. Like, it's so fun. Like, let's just start this over right now, because this movie is incredible, and it slaps, you know? It is...
01:34:31
Speaker
I had the biggest grin on my face from moment one to end credits of this movie. Like the way the dialogue works, the kind of just masterful
01:34:48
Speaker
banter and dialogue in this movie. The way the characters play off each other is so good, so funny. I am just, even when it's not funny, I'm having an incredible time with this movie. I was shocked at how good this movie was. Yeah. Um, I also think it like
01:35:10
Speaker
when when it gets a little dramatic i think it still works really well i think like i get really invest get i've seen this maybe once but i got very invested in the actual like uh the the you know the romantic plot of it i'm like no like i want i want these people to be happy um and uh edward everd horton is there just being uh
01:35:38
Speaker
Jerk to everybody. He's so good in this and many other similar... Great character actor, yeah. Also in Trouble in Paradise. What, he's in Top Hat as well, right? Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I mean, I...
01:36:08
Speaker
Watching Trouble in, not to make this about Trouble in Paradise also, but I feel like since we didn't watch that for the show, I need to keep bringing it up because I also really like it. When I saw that at Nighthawk recently, it killed. The whole theater loved it. I think both of these movies are really good examples of that
01:36:38
Speaker
What do they call it?
Ernst Lubitsch's Hollywood Transition
01:36:39
Speaker
The Lubitsch touch, where it's just like, there's kind of a cheekiness to it that feels unique amongst the kind of 30s comedies. There's a lot of cheekiness in 30s comedies, but Lubitsch stuff just feels cranked up a bit more.
01:36:59
Speaker
he he can do no wrong honestly like i i i love it's i think i think ursa might be one of my favorite my favorite directors ever you know same like and i've seen what like four of his movies
01:37:14
Speaker
Um, by the time he like came to Hollywood, he already made like hundreds or something like that, like ridiculous amount. Um, so like, I want to go back. He made like historical epics in Germany and stuff that's like completely different from the stuff that we watched. Historical epics usually bore me, but I trust him. Right. But I think, I think the stuff he's most famous for, right, are like.
01:37:39
Speaker
this era of Hollywood comedy and I think there's even amongst this like genre that I do really like of the kind of like banter filled very kind of like mean um like rom-com kind of uh stuff it's like nothing I feel like nothing beats uh well I say nothing beats uh
01:38:07
Speaker
It's, it's, it's, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. What's your number two? So my number two is a thirties comedy with lots of banter and mean talk talking. It is The Thin Man. Nice. Just one of my favorite movies ever. Like I've seen this before we watched it for the show and
01:38:33
Speaker
I think I like just kind of watched this like on TCM one day and was like, where did this come from? Like, why did no one tell me this movie existed? This is this is so funny. And I think that, yeah, it's like I have just as much I think, like, even though I've always liked watching old movies and I've always felt like old movies are just as worth watching as anything else, I do feel like there's a certain amount of like prejudice I have against them of just like
01:39:02
Speaker
Old comedies aren't actually as funny though, right? It's a natural inclination that I think a lot of people have. But I think, yeah, in doing this show, we've realized that we kind of knew already. But we have really just shown that that is not the case, that things can hold up quite well. And you can judge things by modern standards. And stuff from 100 years ago is still incredible.
01:39:32
Speaker
I was just seeing all the praises of Ernst Lubitsch movies, which I do love. I do think that Thin Man is easily my favorite example of this type of 30s comedy. Maybe it's because they're extra mean in this movie? I don't know.
01:39:52
Speaker
But it's like, I think I said this on the episode where we talked about it where it's like it's one of my favorite portrayals of a married couple in anything. Yeah, because it's like it's it's never their marriage is never played for like cheap drama. It's there. There's never any question of like, oh, no, like.
01:40:11
Speaker
Is their marriage in trouble? Oh, no, like what? What? They got problems like they even just kind of like ironically joke about that stuff in the movie. Yeah, they like anytime there's like it might seem like, oh, this is like a thing. This is there's going to be like some strife. It's like, no, they are both entirely secure in their relationship. They don't care. They just want to get drunk.
01:40:35
Speaker
Um, the fact that they are absolutely sloshed through the entire movie. Hilarious choice. Amazing choice. Uh, would not be hilarious in real life, I'm sure. But in a movie, it is incredibly charming. I think charming is really the the sort of the big word in the word cloud that comes up for this movie that is just like knocks me off my feet every time where I'm just like, oh, so charming. I can't handle it.
01:41:04
Speaker
They have a dog that helps them solve crimes that's adorable. Like there's just also like this movie is for as as as much as we said like, oh, these movies are like surprisingly progressive or surprisingly this or that. I do like how 30s the Thin Man feels like it feels very of its time in a way that I I do find charming. Hmm. Mostly in just the the like
01:41:33
Speaker
the slang, the vernacular of a lot of the dialogue. It was written by Dashiell Hammett, who wrote a bunch of hard-boiled detective stories, and that was his one comedic one that he decided to do. And yeah, it's wonderful. I love it so much. Nice.
01:41:55
Speaker
Uh, man, we're up to number ones. Uh, let me, uh, because I, uh, uh, by deduction, and I probably could have guessed this, uh, uh, 10 years ago of what your number one 1930s movie is. Uh, uh, I'm just going to throw out some, uh, some honorable mentions cause, cause why not? Okay.
01:42:16
Speaker
I'll do my from 20 to 11 real quick, which are The Man Who Knew Too Much, 39 Steps, Double Hitchcock, Frankenstein, Stagecoach, Things to Come, Bringing Up Baby, All Quiet on the Western Front, Modern Times, The Thin Man, and Port of Shadows. Those are... Bring Up Baby and...
01:42:46
Speaker
All Core on the Western Front, I feel like those particular, I feel like I want to shout out also.
Groundbreaking Films: 'King Kong' and 'Wizard of Oz'
01:42:51
Speaker
Those are both and like such, such opposite movies like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we got a lot of a lot of good stuff. All of these movies are good. Like, like there's a lot of really dang good movies from the 1930s. So as much as I love The Thin Man, it is without a question, one of my favorite movies I like.
01:43:14
Speaker
I will watch that movie anytime, anywhere, but also it's set at Christmas. So it's like it's especially good. It's like a Christmas movie. I came very close to putting that as my number one because it is probably the movie that I would throw on the most readily. But I feel like I can't in good conscience not make my number one King Kong.
01:43:37
Speaker
because we switched. We switched orders, but OK. I thought I thought we did that already. Whoops. I realize you did not actually say what your number one was. Go. Let's talk about King Kong. All right. All right. King Kong, King Kong. I mean, King Kong and Thin Man are almost like interchangeable at this point in terms of how much I like them. I feel like I kind of like them and more like as a movie just to watch.
01:44:03
Speaker
Like I think some of the clunkiness of King Kong really stood out to me upon this recent rewatch. But it's King Kong, man. It's about a big gorilla that goes that they go to an island full of dinosaurs and there's a big gorilla there and it smashes stuff. They go to New York City and it smashes airplanes. It's so cool. In addition to also being like
01:44:25
Speaker
I think that I think I hadn't even really quite put into perspective is like how much of a groundbreaking movie it was in 1933. It's nuts that that movie came out in 33. Yeah. Like it is kind of by a rough estimation, a fairly early talky. Yeah. And it's got, I don't know, it, I think it, it combines, I think a lot of stuff that worked well in silent movies, like the effects and the sort of spectacle of it.
01:44:55
Speaker
with, uh, you know, with- with- and the characters are- the characters are probably the weak point a little bit. They're- they're the most, like, archetypal stuff.
01:45:07
Speaker
I don't know, I think the racism is a weak point. I mean, also true. There's definitely a lot of things on this rewatch where I was like, yeah, this movie's got some issues with it. The misogyny also. I think it's easy to put aside because this movie is so cool.
01:45:27
Speaker
Um, right. There's there's all the dialogue where Jack Tris was like, uh, who cares? Who cares for women? They can't help being a bother, I guess. Made that way. And it's like, what the? But it's also like, he's wrong. I think women and semen don't mix, sir. No dames. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's like, it's kind of a remake of the Lost World from 25. Um, but it's better because it has a big gorilla in it.
01:45:57
Speaker
I'm fine with the movie being I mean, it's not even the same movie, but I'm fine with the movie being the same. If the second time that you make it, it's incredible. It's King Kong. Right. Yeah. Also, like King Kong is an incredible character. One of the first examples were like he is a character that exists purely through visual effects. The first kaiju movie, the the first I mean. Maybe kind of. Yeah. And and like
01:46:26
Speaker
You know, also so much of your cultivated vibe is just Carl Denham core, you know? Oh, sure. Absolutely. I mean, that's the King Kong. I saw King Kong as like a fairly young child, I think is maybe one of the earliest movies I can remember having seen. And I think it was a
01:46:52
Speaker
I don't know. It's it's it's it's a movie like a lot of others that I think people like Peter Jackson or scenes. Buber will cite is just like this is one of the things that made me want to make movies that showed me like, oh, my God, you can you can do anything in in film like you can have a T-Rex fight a giant gorilla and it and it feels immediate and it feels dangerous and it feels exciting. And that's
01:47:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think King Kong is still a great example of that. So King Kong. Good movie. Number one for Glenn. My number one is The Wizard of Oz. I was also like trying to deduce, you know, through. I, you know, it's funny because like Wizard of Oz is not a perfect movie. Didn't even make my list.
01:47:51
Speaker
Yeah. Which is crazy. That feels wrong, but we'll let it by. I guess Thin Man didn't make my list either. But Wizard of Oz, if we're talking about the out of five scale
01:48:09
Speaker
I do dock at some points because it has a kind of boring part toward the end where they're going to the witch castle.
01:48:22
Speaker
to rate it, if I'm to think about the highs that this movie reaches, I think that I have seen very few movies that get as immaculately good as this movie.
01:48:40
Speaker
You know, we'd seen color before, but the masterful, masterful way that it is dispensed in this movie, it's such an inspired choice. The kind of switch from sepia to technicolor and the way that it's presented in the movie. I was already swept up in it just from like good storytelling in the Kansas black and white segments, but when she goes to Oz, I was
01:49:10
Speaker
over the rainbow. I could not believe the incredible immaculate magic that was happening in front of me. It does feel like this movie feels like it should be the first
01:49:30
Speaker
like proper color movie. It's not at all. But it's like it's such a well done use of it. And it it feels like such a kind of like statement almost. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Avatar wasn't the first 3D movie, but it was the first proper 3D movie. Right. It was the one that everyone goes, oh, OK. I see what this is all about now. Yeah. Um.
01:49:55
Speaker
Yeah. And then much like with Avatar and 3D, you know, never look back. Movies are all 3D now and will be forever. But yeah, much like King Kong, it's like it's it's it's like in the in the canon, right, of just like the best movies ever, the most influential, the most impactful. It's just like it's one of these things where it's
01:50:23
Speaker
It's like, no one can ever take away the magic of it. Yeah, yeah. Actually, in that sense, I think both of our number ones are very like, they're both fantasy movies, really. And they're both about going to some other world, kind of, with weird creatures and stuff. Which I think is something I think
01:50:48
Speaker
That is really some, that's always been a part of film, right? Like from very early on, it was like, no, it's like fantasy. It's like creating stuff that couldn't exist in a different medium. And I think, yeah, I have a lot of respect for that. That's a big reason why I like movies as much as I do, is because they can kind of like,
01:51:15
Speaker
create things that that can't exist. Look at look at it Glenn bringing it home with a treatise on the magic of movies. Yeah I mean you know I gushed about
01:51:31
Speaker
Wizard of Oz in the last episode, so we don't need to say too much about it, but it's great, it's incredible, it's so good. The colors, the fantasy, the scarecrow, it's all great. It's a great rump. It's got songs, it's got dancing, it's got comedy, it's got spooky bits. Yeah, got something for everybody.
01:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, especially unless you're a fan of the Jitterbug. Which it decidedly does not have. Yeah. Wow.
Evolution of Film Technology in the 1930s
01:52:11
Speaker
Those are our top 10 lists. I was going to say surprising, but it's not surprising because all of these movies are great. Yeah. A lot of crossover. We definitely had a good number. I think most. Of my top 10 was also on your list. Hmm.
01:52:29
Speaker
But we had a couple, you know, we each had stuff that weren't on each other's lists. That's always fun to see. Yeah, yeah. Different things speak to us, which is why we're different people who talk together on a podcast. I don't think, I wonder if we'll ever get to a disagreement as strong as the teddy bears.
01:52:57
Speaker
film that I hate and that you put as like you're like number four for the 1900s but yeah I mean that movie is so cool. That movie is evil. We can put aside the fact that it's evil because it's cool.
01:53:14
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Um, you know, I mean, you know, maybe we meant to do this earlier, but do you have any kind of takeaways about the just general decade of the 1930s? I think the, the early thirties kind of surprised me at how kind of rough a lot of this stuff was. Like the, there was definitely the transition into sound was, was movies definitely needed a year or two to kind of find their legs with like how to actually use sound effectively.
01:53:44
Speaker
as part of filmmaking. But I think by like 33-ish, people had pretty much figured it out. I think there's some stuff on our list that are like real standouts from like 30 through 33 that are like just so much better than anything else that was being made around the same time. And then it's kind of wild once you get to like 39 and stuff is like full color,
01:54:14
Speaker
Like they feel so much more modern, I guess. You look at like a movie from 1930 and a movie from 1939 and they feel so wildly different in terms of like how they're using filmmaking in terms of the types of stories they're telling. And it's like all the same people too. It's like, there hasn't been even that much. It's like, it's relatively short period of time.
01:54:43
Speaker
It's like a lot of the same directors are still working, same actors, right?
01:54:49
Speaker
after they got kicked out when, if you didn't have a voice for sound, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, like, I had this kind of continual experience moving through the 30s of going, now this is a real movie, and then going, now this is a real movie, you know? Because, yeah, it really did start off pretty rough, you know?
01:55:14
Speaker
I think the kind of thing that I keep kind of returning to with all of this is that as a new technology or a new kind of formal advancement happens in the medium of film, it takes people a little while to get used to
01:55:33
Speaker
how to make movies in this way. You know, it's not just that people had a hard time making sound good, it's that for a couple of years they kind of forgot how to make a movie right, you know? And then had to kind of relearn, you know, partially just because having sound imposed some kind of restrictions that people were not used to. Yeah.
01:56:00
Speaker
And so, yeah, like the late 20s, early 30s talkies are things that are quite rough, often in an interesting way. But, you know, some of it feels a little amateur, you know, it's amateur in the way that kind of the pre-studio movies were sometimes.
01:56:27
Speaker
where it was just a bunch of people putting something together and not doing an extremely good job of it, you know? But yes, once people got a sense for how to make movies, they started coming up with new genres that fit the new medium of talkies, these kind of, you know, baintery rom-coms, which really would not have been possible, yeah, musicals.
01:56:56
Speaker
Shout out to Maytime. I thought Maytime was super good. Maytime's good. Shout out to Top Hat. We skipped Swing Time because we just watched Top Hat, but I really, really want to watch Swing Time because Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, great combo.
01:57:15
Speaker
If somebody has an RCA Selectivision player that they can send me, then I can watch this swing time VCD. No, CED. But I also have it on Laserdisc, so I can watch it. Oh, great.
01:57:36
Speaker
Another very modern, easy to watch format. I'm just trying to collect every dumb audio video format that I can. That's really my life's mission. You're doing a good job. But yeah, I think that by the 30s, by the end of the 30s, the middle of the 30s, we were just
01:58:01
Speaker
these are movies. There's no compromise here. You watch Frankenstein or Dracula and these are movies that you can tell that there is some kind of compromise that's being made because
01:58:17
Speaker
They are just still learning how to shoot movies for sound. But once you get to a certain point, it really feels like there are no compromises being made. And these are the stories that are deserving to be told in these movies. Yeah. Some things that is remembered that I want to quickly mention.
01:58:43
Speaker
the sort of run of Warner Brothers gangster movies I think are really fun. Worth mentioning, yeah. Those didn't make either of our lists, but like Little Caesar, Scarface, and Public Enemy I think are all... Those are cool movies. Real great fun movies. Another thing is that James Whale directed the
01:59:08
Speaker
the talky portions of Hell's Angels, or at least some of them. So that's kind of a, I don't know, just a fun connection between the two filmmakers that we watched biopics of. Oh, true, yeah, yeah. James, we also worked on Hell's Angels. And I guess that was it.
01:59:29
Speaker
Uh, that was the 1930s. It felt like a breeze. Uh, I am, you know, I, I think that the, I'm looking forward to another great decade of movies, I guess is what I'll say. Me too. I'm very excited for the 1940s because Glenn is, uh, uh, one part King Kong and one part Sam Spade, you know?
01:59:58
Speaker
And so I'm sure you'll get a lot of that out of that too. Do I need to do a character on that episode? Do I need to wear a hat the whole time or something? That's what being doing character is, right? It's wearing a hat? Yeah, that's what characters are, right? People who wear hats.
02:00:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's it for our kind of loosey goosey 1930s wrap up episode. I took my final sip already. There's maybe a little, ah, okay. I got the last little drop of my, what's it called, bee sting? Bee? Bee's knees. Bee's knees. Yeah.
02:00:43
Speaker
That is it for this episode. Thank you all so much for following along with us through the 1930s. You know, you can check us out on the social medias and all that. I just splurged on a letterboxed pro so I could do some fancy letterbox stuff. I've been going, I've been going hard on letterboxed in the last couple of days and so I made
02:01:08
Speaker
letterboxed lists for every movie that we've covered on the podcast, as well as our top 10 lists. And I'll continue to do that. So we, you know, you will have a presence on letterboxed, which I feel like is kind of long overdue. That has been fun. I was looking at the list of everything we've covered in the show. There were a few that I hadn't actually marked as seen.
02:01:34
Speaker
so i i i remedied that so now i'm actually i'm caught up good good yeah our our list of movies that we've covered on the show i will never reach it is over 500 uh i mean to be fair a lot of those are the like early 1890s stuff that are like
02:01:53
Speaker
a minute long you know there are there are over 130 feature length movies that we have covered on the show uh and then over 500 movies 500 individual things that we have mentioned right you know like yes they are short they're you know 15 seconds to five minutes long a lot of these but um you know we had something to say about 500 different things you know
02:02:22
Speaker
I think that's something. Launch of the USS Albion. Great picture. I'm definitely pretty proud of our output, I think. And the thing I was going to say about our total list of movies that we've talked about on the podcast is that we will never reach 100% watch rate on them because there are a couple of movies that we talked about that are lost forever, like the Melies, Red
02:02:51
Speaker
Little Red Riding Hood. Um, but, uh, you know, just, uh, you know, you can, you can just sit, sit in that non completion and check out, check out that letterbox list. Uh, and you know, if you don't want to listen along, it's pretty easy to watch along and use that list to catch up to everything that we've done. Fun time, old movies. You also have, I think.
02:03:17
Speaker
each of our top tens, which will also have, uh, I mean, it's, it's less useful now that the movies aren't like public domain and just freely available places, but like, I'll still make the YouTube playlist for like renting each one. So if you want to at least be able to like watch any of, you know, any of the top tens there, there will still be YouTube playlists for those.
02:03:45
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, you know, we have covered what? I don't know, something like 45 years of movies. Yeah, we've really done. I mean, this getting to the 1930s feels like a pretty distinct like chunk of like film history, whereas now we're in like a very different era. I think 30s through like, I don't know.
02:04:12
Speaker
30s through the 50s, I guess, kind of feels like its own chunk. Yeah. And I've always kind of had the experience of talking about this podcast to people. And they're like, oh, great. You've made it from 1895 to 1923, like a bunch of stuff that I've never heard of and don't care about. And when I talk about it now, people go, oh.
02:04:41
Speaker
Wizard of Oz? Wow. You've made it all the way to Wizard of Oz. So, yeah. It's been a good ride. Just wait till we get to Casablanca. Citizen Kane. Very soon. We will get to both of those very soon.
Anticipation for the 1940s Cinema
02:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, so join us in the 40s.
02:05:04
Speaker
We're gonna talk about noir, we're gonna talk about Cain, we're gonna talk about, I don't know, Bergman, I think. There's a lot of great stuff coming up in the next decade. I think like the 30s, 40s are gonna be pretty Hollywood heavy.
02:05:24
Speaker
But as we always try to do, we're going to try to, you know, you know, explore the world of cinema as much as we can. Try to find the diverse stuff. Yeah.
02:05:38
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, uh, as always, I mean, you know, like, uh, we, we kind of, we're, we're ending up having to focus on a lot of classics and that kind of thing, but send in your recommendations for deep cuts that we might, uh, we might need to catch. Uh, and, uh, yeah. Uh, thank you all for following us along through all of this. I feel like I'm just kind of rambling about all this now, but you know,
02:06:05
Speaker
It's the wrap-up episode. It's the wrap-up episode. It's chill. I'm drinking my bee's knees and we're having a good time. Well, with that being said, Glenn and the listeners, welcome to the 1940s and I'll see you next year. See you next year.
02:06:41
Speaker
you