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Soup, USA, 1933, Starring the Marx Brothers,
Margaret Dumont, Edgar Kennedy. Directed by Leo
McCarey. Groucho takes over as leader of Freedonia
– surprise, surprise, pretty soon they're
at war. The Brothers' first flop is now widely considered
their best film, with a level of anti-establishment
humor that is simply staggering for its time.
L'Atalante, France,
1934, 89 min. Starring Michel Simon, Dita Parlo,
Jean Dasté. Directed by Jean Vigo. The
second and last feature of Vigo's regrettably
short career tells the story of newlyweds who
set off for their new life on a barge –
along with the husband's blustery friend. Offbeat
and thoroughly enchanting.
Stagecoach, USA,
1939, 96 min. Starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor,
John Carradine. Directed by John Ford. Wayne went
from cowboy actor to cowboy star, as well as beginning
a longtime public association with director Ford,
with this character-driven piece that more than
delivers on the action as well. Yakima Canutt’s
stunts still impress.
Alexander Nevsky,
Russia, 1938, 107 min. Starring Nikolai Cherkassov,
Nikolai Okhlopkov. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein
and Dmitri Vasilyev. Under the watchful eye of
the state, Eisenstein created this classic of
sweeping battle scenes, not-so-subtle warnings
about the dangers brewing to the west in Germany,
and even less subtle pandering to the ego of Papa
Joe. Propaganda, to be sure, but grandiose, unquestionably
cinematic propaganda.
La Grand Illusion,
France, 1937, 117 min. Starring Jean Gabin, Pierre
Fresnay, Eric von Stroheim. Directed by Jean Renoir.
A war movie with no war in sight might be unthinkable
today, but Renoir was far more interested in decoding
what being on different sides in a conflict did
to people internally, as characterized by the
relationship between Gabin's war camp prisoner
and Von Stroheim's warden.
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