Category Archives: 1935

“In this regard, the most hateful film is unarguably La Kermesse héroïque because everything in it is incomplete, its boldness is attenuated; it is reasonable, measured, its doors are half-open, the paths are sketched and only sketched; everything in it is pleasant and perfect.” — Francois Truffaut, The Films in My Life

A village in 17th Century Flanders in preparing for a carnival. Into the midst of this comes a contingent of occupying Spanish troops, who want to be housed for the night. The Burgermeister and other men, fearing rape and pillage, decide to lay low with the Burgermeister pretending to have died. The women, led by the Burgermeister’s wife, decide the proper course is to welcome the Spaniards with open arms. A bawdy good time is had by all.

A whole Flemish town was built in suburban Paris as the setting for this farce and it is certainly quite a spectacle. You can see Feyder’s inspiration from the paintings of Brueghels, who is a character in the film, in many of the crowd seens. The acting is first-rate. I particularly liked Louis Jouvet as the crooked Spanish priest.

This was the kind of costume production that the French New Wave was rebelling against. It is now possible to enjoy both kinds of films and “pleasant and perfect” is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.

Turn of the Tide is a sort of a Romeo and Juliet story told in a fishing village on the coast of Yorkshire.  It was based on a real feud.  The Fosdycks have fished the area for 400 years when the Lunns arrive.  The Lunns have modern ideas (like buying an engine for their boat) and the Fosdycks, particularly the patriarch of the clan, mightily resent their presence.  John Lunn (Niall MacGinness in his film debut) and Ruth Fosdyck (Geraldine Fitzgerald) are in love and both families object.

This film has a semi-documentary feel and is enjoyable for the good acting and glimpse at a vanished way of life.  It took brave men to go out in those rough seas in small boats!  This was the first feature film produced and distributed by J. Arthur Rank.

For your listening pleasure

Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron – namely, that he is a blockhead. – Ambrose Bierce

I am moving into 1935 for the moment in order to catch a couple of films that are disappearing from Netflix Instant on May 1.  This is the story of Maximus, a fake music hall mind-reader (Claude Rains) who with the assistance of his wife (Fay Wray) performs such stunts as “guessing” items she collects from the audience.  One night when Christine (Jane Baxter) is present in the crowd, Maximus experiences a true clairvoyant trance.  Later, he begins to prophecy the future when Christine is around.  This eventually gets him into trouble as is blamed for the catastrophes he predicts.

This movie started out extremely strong.  Claude Rains is, of course, brilliant and Faye Wray is appealing.  The screenplay was written by long-time Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett and made at Hitchcock’s British studio and early parts of the piece had a definite Hitchcockian feel.  Unfortunately, the story descends into melodrama and the ending is really weak.  Still, I’m glad I watched this while I could.  I love Rains and he was in top form here.