I'm No Angel (1933)

To indulge in a lame rhyme, Mae West is the best. This was my first of her movies and she's like obviously one of the coolest ladies of the 1930s. Not only did she star in this, but she wrote both the story and the screenplay. Super rad! Playing a character that I assume she plays in most of her roles, Mae is a woman who wants what she wants and fucks it. Sorry for the expletive, Mom. As the movie progresses, what she wants is Cary Grant. They got mad sexual chemistry, people. It's pretty fun to watch. In addition to Mae being sex positive, she is smart as a whip and a witticism-producing machine. One of the movie's best is "Honey, when I'm good, I'm good. But when I'm bad, I'm better." Oh, did I mention this was pre-Code?

3/5 pizzas

Destry Rides Again (1939)

Look at that mise-en-scene, people. That is a great shot.

I hadn't seen this movie in at least 10 years, so I thought it deserved a second viewing. Turns out, it did and I really liked it. Marlene Dietrich [who is billed before James Stewart] plays a dance hall woman/saloon singer and the unofficial mayor of this town that has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Her boyfriend is played by Brian Donlevy who plays one of my all-time favorite villains in Beau Geste [see it]. He is a really crooked gambler and murderer, but he sports the perfect, pencil-thin villain mustache.

Jimmy Stewart is no slouch, either. This is one of his early-ish roles, so he is looking like a youthful, healthy babe. My friends and I have a theory that Jimmy Stewart went through a time warp or something, because he goes from Mr.-Smith-Goes-to-Washington Jimmy Stewart straight to Rear-Window Jimmy Stewart without really aging in between. Where are his 30s and 40s? Anyway, he plays this awesome deputy that comes to clean up the town, except he doesn't believe in guns, but instead "peace" as he puts it. Awesome. He is super smart and even eventually wins the bad guy's girlfriend's heart because he is so awesome.

My favorite part in the movie and the only scene I remembered from my first viewing is when Jimmy Stewart suggests to Marlene that she should wipe away some of her makeup since she is so naturally beautiful. This scene is actually really moving, people.

4/5 pizzas

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Finally! After illegally downloading this movie from unpreferred torrent sites, I finally got to see it! I saw it a bajillion years ago on television and have had my eyes peeled for it ever since. And it was just as good as I remembered it -- exquisitely sad, provocative, and subtle. It's easy for a movie about old folks being abandoned by society to devolve into melodrama, but Leo McCarey prevents this from happening. The film does a really good job of being consistently depressing, which is unconventional for a Hollywood flick from the late 30s. For Christ's sake even Gone with the Wind (that's racist) has a happy ending.

If you've seen Ozu's Tokyo Story [also great], then you should definitely see this movie, as it was the inspiration for Tokyo Story. Anyway, Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore are 70 and have just gotten their house repossessed by the bank. They have no where to live, and their 4 children begrudgingly divide the couple amongst them. Beulah goes to live in New York City, where she is hopelessly always in the way, even when she really isn't. Victor goes to the country to live with his B-of-a-daughter who makes him sleep on the couch. It's difficult to determine what is more painful -- for the couple to live separately in their last years when their only loved ones are each other, or for the couple to be discarded by their children. Problems. This one is a quiet tear-jerker.

It's funny that Beulah's son in this movie is Thomas Mitchell, who plays her brother in It's a Wonderful Life 9 years later . It's also interesting to note that the screenplay was written by a lady! [Vina Delmar].

5/5 pizzas

The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I first heard of this movie from V. for Vendetta, but I did. One of the only redeeming qualities about that movie was that V. was a film buff. When I saw Natalie Portman watching The Count of Monte Cristo, I thought I could do that too. Also, how could there be a movie from the 30s starring Robert Donat that I hadn't heard of ?

The 1934 version was hard to find, but the internets helped me. On the whole, the film isn't a winner. It's one of those confusing French Alexander Dumas stories that is probably 1 billion pages long in novel form yet fits into a 100-minute movie. The deal is that Robert Donat [Edmond Dantes/The Count of Monte Cristo] has been wrongly imprisoned for about 15 years, digs his way out [with the guy who plays the blind stranger in the Bride of Frankenstein], assumes a new identity, and gets mad justice on those who imprisoned him. Now, I tried to suspend disbelief, but it's really difficult for me to understand how his old boo and old pals did not recognize him as Edmond Dantes and believed that he was some new Count. Some of them were all "Hey, you remind me of someone. Nah, never mind."

I have to say, for not starring Errol Flynn, there was a pretty good sword fight in this movie. It was also nice to see Robert Donat in another flick, because I love him from those other ones. Other appearances include Louis Calhern from Notorious and Sidney Blackmer, who plays Clara's dad in Heidi. Cool!

2/5 pizzas

These Three (1936)

What a pleasant surprise! This is a movie I had never heard of until someone who has 95% movie correlation with me recommended it, and it was pretty slammin'. Fact: The cast is fabulous. It featured outstanding performances by two children [weird, right?], and I mean really fantastic. Bonita Granville is pure evil.

Also, Joel McCrea is very smug in this, which I like. Miriam Hopkins and Merle Oberon, the protagonists, did not take any bullshit from anyone. Second fact: William Wyler remade his movie again as the Children's Hour in 1961, and These Three is maybe the better of the two. Third fact: The original story came from a play written by Lillian Hellman [a lady, what]. In the movie, the two protagonists run a school and are accused of both sleeping with the same man, thus scandalizing their students. In the play, however, the two teachers are accused of being lesbians. While this would have made for a tenser and more interesting movie, it just got served by that Haze Code. Obviously the idea of women sleeping with each other would just make audiences barf. I mean, I'm barfing right now.

4/5 pizzas