This year has a couple romcom bangers at the top of the list. I’ve found the early romantic comedies a hit and miss affair, but this year has two big hits, launching 3 careers into superstardom.
Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff made their careers on playing famous monsters. Here they team up, playing different kids of monsters, in this case human ones. A couple gets in a car crash in Budapest, and ends up at the house of Karloff, who Lugosi starts to recognize for his perverse practices as a crazy doctor.
Robert Flaherty was cinema’s earliest documentarian. This, his first speaking doc, is about a group of people living on the Aran Islands, west of Ireland, and their day to day lives. It’s a lovely showcase for the islands, with their gorgeous, grand rocky cliffs.
The cinematic breakout of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, two of the best dancers on the planet. This movie starts a run of sweet innocent romcommy movies for the pair, with predictable plots, filled with unpredictable amazing dance set pieces.
Of the many, many Tarzan sequels, this one is probably the best. Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan are sexy and hot as the jungle lovers, at least for the time period the movie was shot in. What’s great in any time though are the shots of animals, as we get some of the best imagery of the wild the movies has had to offer.
With those curls and that bright smile, Shirley Temple was destined to be a sensation. This movie is pure schmaltz, subjecting the poor Temple to trauma after trauma so that she could find the parents of her dreams, all while boarding the Good Ship Lollipop.
As melodramatic and dated as it is, it’s still refreshing to see a great story about race relations in the US this early in cinema. Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers are a white and black pair of best friends, respectively, opening up a business and making names for themselves. John Stahl deserves a lot of credit for telling a multifaceted story like this, probably getting away with it by also making it a story about mothers and daughters, as well as romance.
The best of the Frank Capra romcoms. The story fits the genre well: Claudette Colbert plays a spoiled flightly heiress and celebrity escaping the clutches of her father, trying to bolt for New York. On the bus there, she meets the surly drunk newspaper man Clark Gable, who quickly figures out who she is. You’ll see what’s coming a mile away, but Clark Gable’s charm and humor steal the show her, making this my favorite performance of his, and yes, I’m including Gone With the Wind.
Dashiell Hammett, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett. Remember those writers’ names. They wrote this movie about William Powell’s detective, out of the game for a bit enjoying life with his wife Myrna Loy, sucked back into the case of a disappeared man. Powell and Loy’s repartee make this one of the best comedies I’ve seen out of early Hollywood. Their dialogue is so good the movie basically waves off the murder mystery that’s also happening around it, which will make you confused at first, but grow in estimation over time.
