Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Little Caesar
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Francis Edward Faragoh based on a novel by W.R. Burnett
1931/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Caesar Enrico Bandello: You can dish it out, but you got so you can’t take it no more.

Edward G. Robinson lights up the screen every time he appears in this gangland classic.

We meet Caesar Enrico Bandello (“Rico”; soon to become Little Caesar) (Robinson) as he is robbing a gas station somewhere in the sticks.  Shots ring out and it is clear he has used his constant companion so as to leave no witnesses.  His friend and sidekick Joe Massara has been his accomplice.  Rico and Joe talk things over and Rico figures he is ready for the big city and the big time.  The city attracts Joe too, but he’d rather hit the big time as a dancer, a profession Rico scorns.

Rico applies for a position in Sam Vittori’s (Stanley Fields) gang.  He is hired though Sam has been told by the Big Boy (Sidney Blackmer) to cool it with the killings and Rico is clearly trigger happy.  The first job Rico goes out on is to rob the patrons of the Peacock Club, where Joe now has a dance act with girlfriend Olga (Glenda Farrell).  Joe is forced by Rico to participate.  He is aghast when Rico blasts the Crime Commissioner.

The ruthless Rico continues to rise in the ranks of the underworld taking over Sam’s gang and setting his sites ever higher.  He wants Joe by his side, threatening to kill him and Olga, unless he complies.  But Rico is a vain hot-head who doesn’t think things through too well.  Will hubris lead to his downfall?

It’s been awhile since I last saw this.  The big draw is Robinson’s electric performance. You can’t take your eyes off him while he is on screen.  Unfortunately, he is not always on screen and those parts are kind of ordinary.  I was surprised that there is no reference to either Prohibition or bootlegging in the film.  Iconic and recommended.

Little Caesar received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Adapted.

The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel)
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Written by Carl Zuckmayer et al from a novel by Heinrich Mann
1930/Germany
UFA/Paramount
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental of Kino restoration

[singing] Lola Lola: Falling in love again, never wanted to. What’s a girl to do? I can’t help it. What choice do I have? That’s the way I’m made. Love is all I know, I can’t help it. Men swarm around me like moths ’round a flame. And if their wings are singed, surely I can’t be blamed.

I love this tawdry, erotic, tragicomic masterpiece.

Professor Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) is a pompous English teacher at a boy’s high school.  His students universally hate him, calling him Professor Unrat (Professor “rat shit” or “garbage”) both behind his back and in front of him.  And they have good reason.  He humiliates the boys during their English recitation and punishes them for visiting a local hot spot called “The Blue Angel” to leer at and flirt with star attraction Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich).  The act is naughty in the extreme.

But when Rath shows up to ask the singer to stop corrupting his students, she seduces him in turn.  It’s all a big joke to her.  He stays the night and asks her to marry him in the morning.  She thinks this is the most hilarious thing she has ever heard and goes through with it as a lark.

Five years pass and the Professor is reduced to selling her naughty postcards and painting her nails.  When he has lost his dignity altogether, the management decides to take its show back to his home town and make the Professor its star.  He is forced to go through with it at the exact time that it is evident that he will lose Lola entirely to a strong man.

I’ve seen this several times before and find it imminently rewatchable. I am completely blown over by Emile Janning’s performance. You laugh at him and feel sorry for him at the same time.  His face is unbelievably expressive and he had this kind of humiliated character sharpened to a fine edge by this time. Dietrich is equally wonderful, really. She may not be acting to the same extent but she is so natural in front of the camera that who cares. The sets and costumes are wonderful.

Von Sternberg has given this film a wonderful rhythm. I loved the cock crow that begins the movie and then is echoed by Jannings during the wedding dinner and again during his humiliation at the end. There are so many other elements that repeat. None are obtrusive but all are a mark of masterful story telling.  Highly recommended.

Re-release trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbaRRDgTIkc

Dietrich’s screen test – a natural born movie star

All Quiet on the Western Front
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Written by Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott, Del Andrews et al from a novel by Erich Maria Remarque
1930/US
Universal Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

Paul Bäumer (speaking to a class of high school students): I shouldn’t have come on leave. Up at the front you’re alive or you’re dead and that’s all. You can’t fool anybody about that very long. And up there we know we’re lost and done for whether we’re dead or alive. Three years we’ve had of it, four years! And every day a year, and every night a century! And our bodies are earth, and our thoughts are clay, and we sleep and eat with death! And we’re done for because you *can’t* live that way and keep anything inside you! I shouldn’t have come on leave. I’ll go back tomorrow. I’ve got four days more, but I can’t stand it here! I’ll go back tomorrow! I’m sorry.

Now this is my idea of a timeless must-see classic.  Still one of the greatest anti-war films.

The film begins in a small German town filled with the excitement of men marching out to what everyone assumes will be a short war.  At the local high school, a professor preaches the glory of war.  When Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres), the class leader, agrees to sign up the rest of the class follows.

The boys are completely unprepared for the hunger and squalor that are awaiting them in the bunkers and trenches much less for the horrible combat, maiming, and death that are to follow very shortly. Disillusionment takes maybe a day to sink in.

Paul is soon befriended by Sergeant Katczinski (Louis Wolheim) a rough-hewn and hardened soldier.  He must watch as his buddies are killed one after another.  He feels even worse when he must kill the enemy himself.

Paul gets leave after being wounded and finds that his small town is still living in dreamland and the old men are full of strategies for winning what Paul knows cannot be won.  The local professor is still pushing out teenage recruits like links in a sausage factory.  Paul cuts his leave short to return to the front where at least he is understood.  The horror continues.

Brutal and poetic by turns, I cannot find a single thing wrong with this powerful film.  I often drift away at times when re-watching films but this had me riveted at all times.  The combat sequences are unbelievable for the era.  Most highly recommended.

All Quiet on the Western Front won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.  I think Ayres deserved a Best Actor nomination.

Re-release trailer

Lew Ayres returns to the classroom from which he was recruited to fight to find absolutely nothing has changed.

Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora)
Directed by G.W. Pabst
Written by Ladislas Vajda from plays by Frank Wedekind
1929/Germany
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Prosecutor: The Greek gods created a woman – Pandora. She was beautiful and charming and versed in the art of flattery. But the gods also gave her a box containing all the evils of the world. The heedless woman opened the box, and all evil was loosed upon us.

Some things never change and the allure of Louise Brooks after almost a century is one of them.

Lulu (Brooks) is a young woman who makes her way in the world with her beauty, body, and man manipulation skills.  She has also attracted the unrequited love of a lesbian who will do anything for her.  She is not mercenary exactly as she seems to share most of her money with her creepy pimp/father and his mostly drunk friend.  She just likes a perpetual good time.

As the movie begins, Lulu is being kept by respectable Dr. Ludwig Schön.  The good doctor has been long engaged to a wealthy and respectable young lady.  The point has come when he must choose or lose his chance at an advantageous match.  Though Lulu doesn’t appear to love the doctor, she is extremely jealous and manages to wreck his prospects.  So he decides to marry Lulu, though he knows this may be the end of him.

On her wedding day, the doctor’s son Alwa (Franz Lederer) reveals his love for Lulu.  The doctor catches them in a fairly innocent embrace.  He knows that this will ruin his son and tells Lulu she must kill herself or she will drive him to murder.  Instead it is the doctor who ends up dead and Lulu is arrested for his murder.  After her conviction, she escapes the courtroom, and goes on the lam with Alwa and her two hangers on.  Her fortunes take a turn for the worse with the appearance of a blackmailer.  Then things get worse.

Brooks alone makes this movie a must-see.  She is so natural she seems modern in comparison to any of the silent screen actresses of her time.  Her smile would melt any heart.  But we get more.  Pabst is a master at directing crowd scenes and using the camera in a beautiful expressionist fashion.  And this is a glimpse into the decadence of the Weimar Republic.  Recommended.

Restoration Trailer

Montage of scenes featuring Brooks

Blackmail
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Charles Bennett
1929/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Gossiping Neighbour: A good clean honest whack over the ‘ead with a brick is one thing. There’s something British about that. But knives? Nope. Knives is not right. I must say, that is what I think and that is what I feel. Whatever the provocation, I could never use a knife. Now, mind you, a knife is a difficult thing to handle. I mean any knife… a knife… a knife… a knife…

Hitchcock’s first talkie is on the clunky side, but watchable.

Alice White (Anny Ondra) is a coy and flighty young woman who thinks she has it all together.  (Truth to tell, she is absolutely the most irritating heroine in the Hitchcock catalog).  Opposites attract I suppose and she is dating hunky Detective Frank Webber of Scotland Yard.  He arrives late for a date and Alice ditches him at a restaurant to go off with an unnamed artist (Cyril Ritchard).  He lures her into his studio to see his paintings.

Alice is an idiot and in way over her head.  Soon the artist takes her behind a curtain and tries to force himself on her.  She grabs a knife from a nearby table and stabs him to death.

Of course, Frank is assigned to the murder case.  He finds her glove at the scene but chooses to hide this from his superiors.  Then a blackmailer turns up….  The movie ends with a chase through the British Museum.

Sound technology was in its infancy, obviously, and the talking scenes had to be taken with a stationary camera in a soundproof booth.  The delivery of the dialogue is oddly slow and stilted.  But Hitch still gets to work his developing magic in the silent scenes.  It’s certainly not a must-see but it is of interest to those following Hitchcock’s progression into the Master he became.

Anny Ondra’s sound test with Hitch – do not miss!

The knife scene – comparison of silent vs. sound versions (in English)

Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kino-apparatom)
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Written by Dziga Vertov
1929/USSR
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

I’m an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I’m in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse’s mouth. I fall and rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine, manoeuvring in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations. – Dziga Vertov

My non-existent 100 Greatest Films of all time list will always include room for this one.

The film chronicles a day in the life of a Soviet city in line with the “city symphony” documentaries of the time.  However, in this case, an amalgamation of three different cities in Ukraine stands in for the city in question.  We watch the city come to life in the morning and then follow inhabitants through their everyday activities.  Birth, death, marriage, divorce, work and more work, leisure and recreation.  Everyone looks happy especially when they are working.  There are a lot of shots of machinery operating and various forms of transportation.  The only “character” is the camera man, Mikhail Kaufman, Vertov’s brother.  The film is full of editorial flourishes and fancy camerawork and we are often showed how this was accomplished.

This may sound like a propaganda piece.  Maybe it is but it is anything but dreary or bombastic.  Vertov edits with an infectious energy that can’t help elevating the spirit.  Absolutely recommended.  Some experimental films are indeed must-sees!

The film is available for free in multiple different versions on YouTube.  The big difference will be in the score.  I prefer the one by the Alloy Orchestra.

Restoration Trailer

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Real life won’t seem to leave me alone.  I’m going back to a simpler time in my movie watching.  It occurs to me that I have not posted many reviews from my 1929-1934 viewing on this blog.  So I’ll dip into that and post when I can.

Grease
Directed by Randal Kleiser
Written by Bronte Woodward from the original musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey
1978/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Danny: You can’t just walk out of a drive-in.

I had a lot of fun watching this.  It was better than I remembered.

Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) have an idyllic summer romance on the beach.  Sandy is from Australia and they sadly part, thinking the odds are that they will never see each other again.  But Sandy’s plans changed and she finds herself in the senior class of Rydell High, which Danny also attends.  Problem Sandy is a good girl and Danny is a greaser, perhaps the head greaser.  However, they continue to be in love with each other though Danny does his best to conceal this from the guys.

Sandy is adopted by the Pink Ladies, girls that date greasers.  She begins a rivalry with Rizzo (Stockard Channing) who has a yen for Danny and Rizzo does her best to sabotage the romance.  The story covers such musts as multiple misunderstandings; a dance contest; and a drag race. The movie is filled with upbeat music and fantastic dancing that celebrates the joys and pains of highschool.  With an outstanding cameo cast including Eve Arden as the principal; Sid Caesar as the coach; Joan Blondell as a waitress; Frankie Avalon as a Teen Angel; and Alice Ghostly as the school’s car mechanics teacher.

I saw this first as a stage play and when the movie was released I was kind of disappointed because it did not capture the 50’s the way the play did.  However, on repeat viewing I didn’t care about that.  I just enjoyed almost two hours of high energy entertainment.  If you can tolerate musical comedies and want something that will put a smile on your face, I can recommend.

Halloween
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
1978/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Tommy: Laurie, what’s the Boogeyman?

A classic of horror cinema.

The setting is Haddonfield, Illinois, a small town mid-America. High-schooler Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis)  spends most of her evenings babysitting. She doesn’t date much because the boys think she is “too smart”.  She is best friends with obnoxious and mean Annie and Lynda. Her friends both have horny boyfriends.  On Halloween night Laurie and Annie are both babysitting and Laurie plays musical houses with her friends so they can fool around with their boyfriends.

In the meantime, Michael Meyers escapes from a mental institution.  Meyers had murdered his sister when he was six years old.  He has been diagnosed as a soulless killing machine. He heads straight to Haddonfield where he terrorizes the girls and their boyfrienfds.

I waited a long time to see this because I am a wimp.  I needn’t have worried since there is very, very little gore involved.  There are a ton of jump scares however.  Well done on the part of Carpenter, who also wrote the creepily effective score. Recommended.

The 36th Chamber of Shao Lin (AKA “Master Killer”) (Shao Lin san shi liu fang)
Directed by Chia-Liang Liu
Written by Kuang Ni
Hong Kong/1978
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

San Te: I should have learned Kung-fu instead of ethics.

I read that this is a jewel of kung fu cinema and I can see why.

Liu Yu-tei  (Gordon Liu Chia-hui) is the latest in a long line of patriots who have fought back against the evil Manchu Government.  During a brutal counter-attack, our hero’s father is killed.  He decides to learn kung fu so he can take it back to the patriotic side and avenge his father’s death.

Liu applies to the Shao Lin Buddhist monastery for training.  The abbot is sympathetic and takes the boy in, naming him San Te.  But it is only after a year of manual labor and a lot of begging that San Te is allowed to start his training.  Each “chamber” in the monastery has a lesson to teach and they must be completed in order.  Final exams are arduous and dangerous but they must all be passed.  Most of the movie concerns San Te’s training.  Then he tries it out on some bad guys.

The kung-fu choreography is this film is simply amazing.  There is very little wire work which helps a lot with the suspension of disbelief in this regard.  The production is handsomely mounted.  Recommended.