Category Archives: Pre-Code Reviews

Dracula
Directed by Tod Browning
Written by Garrett Fort adapted from a play by John L. Balderson and Hamilton Dean and the novel by Bram Stoker
1931/US
Universal Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Count Dracula: [hearing wolves howling in the distance] Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.

Iconic film is perhaps the worst of the classic Universal films.  Nonetheless, it continues to entertain all these years later.

Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) lives in a remote castle in Transylvania with his undead brides. He wants to expand his horizons and calls real estate agent Renfield (Dwight Frye) from London so he can buy an estate there.  Between Dracula and his brides Renfield becomes Dracula’s abject slave.  Renfield is installed in the insane asylum next to the estate where the staff have a hard time preventing him from eating flies and spiders.

Doctor Seward, director of the asylum, has a lovely daughter named Mina (Helen Chandler) who is engaged to handsome John Harker (David Manners).  Dracula first attacks her friend Lucy, whose corpse is found drained of blood.  Then Dracula begins a slow attack on Mina, draining her blood gradually over several days.  Esteemed scientist Van Helsing (Edward van Sloane) is called in to help identify Mina’s mysterious illness.  Fortunately, Van Helsing is a vampire specialist and he instantly knows the cause.  We spend the rest of the movie following Van Helsing’s attempt to save Mina and slay the vampire once and for all.

By all rights this movie just shouldn’t be a classic. The acting is over the top when it isn’t wooden and the effects are laughable (I am especially fond of the armadillos in Dracula’s crypt and the rubber bats).  It isn’t even scary. So why is it so darned entertaining??? Beats me. Every time I watch it I enjoy it all over again.

Frankenstein
Directed by James Whale
Written by Garett Fort and Francis Edward Faragoh from the novel by Mary Shelley
1931/US
Universal Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Henry Frankenstein: Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!
Victor Moritz: Henry – In the name of God!
Henry Frankenstein: Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!

This one never gets old.  The definition of a true classic.

Do I really need to explain the plot?  Surely not but I want to squeeze in two photos.

The setting is a village in some unnamed country of Central Europe.  As the story begins, Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) are grave robbing in furtherance of Frankenstein’s experiments to try to bring dead humans back to life.  He is working in strict secrecy and his fiancee Elizabeth (Mae Clark) is worried.  So is his old professor Doctor Waldman (Edward van Sloane).  The two set off for Frankenstein’s castle/laboratory accompanied by Henry Moritz (John Boles), who is sweet on Elizabeth.   They break in on the Creation/Monster (Boris Karloff) coming to life.  He has been given an abnormal criminal brain, which explains his violent tendencies though I have never felt anything but sympathy toward him.

The Monster awakens to a confusing new life filled with torment.  All hell breaks loose.

I’ve seen this one many times before. Each time I am moved all over again by Boris Karloff’s timeless performance as the monster. It is amazing that Universal considered for even one second giving the part to Bela Lugosi.  I had forgotten how few of the scenes Karloff appeared in.  They are what sticks with the viewer long after the movie is over.

Then, too, the images are just wonderful. Some of the performances are over the top but they seem to fit right into the Gothic story.  For a movie that is so easily parodied, this plays it surprisingly straight.  Essential.

King Kong
Directed by Merion C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
Written by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose from an idea conceived by Edgar Wallace and Merion C. Cooper
1933/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Carl Denham: We’ll give him more than chains. He’s always been king of his world, but we’ll teach him fear. We’re millionaires, boys. I’ll share it with all of you. Why, in a few months, it’ll be up in lights on Broadway: Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The granddaddy of all special effects movies withstands the test of time beautifully.

Adventurer/impresario Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) has convinced a skipper and crew to take him to an unknown location where he intends to make an unknown movie.  He needs a female lead. Desperate, he picks up starving Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) in the city and it is off to the races.  First mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) does not like the idea of having a woman on board.  He gets over this quickly and Ann and Jack are in love before too long.  Denham coaches Ann on her screaming technique.

As the ship nears its intended destination, Denham explains that they are going to an uncharted island to make their picture.  When they get there they find that villagers are engaging in a ritual.  They prepare a young woman to be sacrificed as the bride of Kong to placate the giant ape. When they see the lovely Ann, they decide that she will make a better bride than one of their relatives.  They tie her to some posts and she screams her lungs out as the Kong plucks her off her platform.

There follows a pursuit which kills most of the crew of the ship.  Kong takes Ann through a jungle populated by dinosaurs, stopping to defeat them one by one.  He seems to be protective of Ann during these encounters.  During one such battle she manages to slip away so she can be rescued by Jack.

Denham is not deterred from his project.  He sedates King Kong with gas bombs and brings his captive to New York City where he plans to put him on exhibition.  Then all hell breaks loose.

This is still amazing for its time. It is hard to imagine how much work must have gone into the elaborate stop-motion animation, matte paintings, and projections needed to make this work. It is impressive that we end up being scared by and feeling pity for what is, after all, a rubber puppet covered with rabbit fur. The Max Steiner music, one of Hollywood’s first purpose-written full-length film scores, adds to the suspense.  Even after several viewings, I found myself in suspense during the scary moments.  Essential.

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I also watched Lowell Sherman’s “The Greeks Had a Name for Them”/AKA “Three Broadway Girls”  (1932). Three women are the best of friends.  Except when it comes to stealing wealthy men from each other. Ina Claire will resort to the lowest of tricks to do this. Joan Blondell is more sensible. Madge Evans has a very wealthy boyfriend David Manners whom she loves for himself. But Ina is not about to leave him alone. She also steals pianist Lowell Sherman who had offered to finance Madge’s piano lessons and be her sugar daddy. It’s a very pre-Code movie but nothing to write home about in my opinion.

She Done Him Wrong
Directed by Lowell Sherman
Written by Mae West, Harvey F. Thew and John Bright
1932/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Lady Lou: I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand. Why don’t you come up some time and see me?

Fun, fun comedy based on Mae West’s Broadway hit “Diamond Lil” and an early role for Cary Grant as one of her many admirers.

It is the Gay Nineties.  Lady Lou (West) is the headline singer in a San Francisco saloon. But her main business is collecting diamonds provided by her many, many admirers.  Next door to the saloon is a religious mission,  Captain Cummings (Cary Grant) is newly arrived to run the mission.  Lou takes one look at the Captain and makes it clear she wants to know him much better, diamonds or no diamonds.

There is a plot involving a young girl in trouble, a jealous ex-boyfriend who escapes from jail, some counterfeiters, a murder, etc., etc.  The story is but an excuse for West to get off some naughty one liners and sing some of her signature songs. With Gilbert Roland as a Latin lover.

It’s hard to fathom why this was so shocking in its day. There are plenty of double entendres but it’s just bawdy good fun. This is the one where she asks Grant to “Come up sometime and see me.” Mae also sings “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone”, “A Guy What Takes His Time” and “Frankie and Johnny”.  I thought this was thoroughly entertaining.

I have to admire West.  She was 40 when she made this film and her curves didn’t fit the figure popular at the time.  Yet she really is sexy.  And she is always in control.never cheap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbzTORe4iD8

42nd Street
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Rian James and James Seymour from a novel by Bradford Ropes
1933/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb Page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Dorothy Brock: Now go out there and be so swell that you’ll make me hate you!

The third of the 1933 Busby Berkeley musicals suffers a bit from a lack of Joan Blondell and a little too much story and too little spectacle.  I love it all the same.

Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) is a celebrated director of Broadway musicals.  After barely recovering from a nervous breakdown (he seems headed for another one throughout), he agrees to direct a new musical that, if successful, will allow him to retire.  The show is to star Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels).  Would-be sugar daddy Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbe) has agreed to finance the show.  Thus, Dorothy must keep her love affair with ex-vaudeville partner Pat Denning (George Brent) a secret.

Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler) is the last girl to be picked for the chorus line.  She meets cute with tenor Billy Lawler and he is sweet on her.  But she is also platonically dating Pat. Finally, Dorothy can’t stand it and reveals their affair.  That takes away the financing until gold-digging chorus girl Ann Lowell (Ginger Rogers) makes Abner putty in her hands.  Then Dorothy breaks her ankle.  With Una Merkel as a wise-cracking chorus girl and Ned Sparks as the dance director.

The part of this movie that always kills me is when Ginger Rogers tells Warner Baxter that she isn’t right to take over for the injured Bebe Daniels but that Ruby Keeler is because Ruby is such a great dancer! Such irony …

We come to these things for the comedy and musical numbers but here we get an honest-to-God dramatic plot.  It does not improve the movie.  The three numbers at the end are Busby Berkeley bliss but look slightly more like they could actually be staged in a theater than in the other films.  These niggles matter not at all to me.  I would watch this again anytime.  Recommended.

42nd Street was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Best Sound, Recording.

Footlight Parade
Directed by Lloyd Bacon; dance direction by Busby Berkeley
Written by Manuel Seff and James Seymour
1933/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Nan Prescott: You scram, before I wrap a chair around your neck!
Vivian Rich: [Angrily] It’s three o’clock in the morning – where do you want me to go?
[Nan starts to speak, but Vivian immediately cuts her off]
Vivian Rich: You cheap stenographer…
Nan Prescott: Outside, countess. As long as they’ve got sidewalks YOU’VE got a job.
[Shoves her out, gives her a swift kick in the rump, and slams the door behind her]

James Cagney plays a Broadway musical director who finds he must bend to the times and produce musical prologues for talking pictures instead. Joan Blondell is his assistant and is secretly in love with him. Ruby Keeler is another secretary who dresses like a plain Jane but has unknown talents as singer and dancer. The show’s backers see that Dick Powell gets a job in the chorus but he rapidly moves to having a principal part paired with Ruby. With Guy Kibbe, Ruth Donnelly, Frank McHugh and Hugh Herbert.

Most of the musical numbers are at the end of the film. The comedy getting there is a lot of fun too. James Cagney shows off his dancing chops and boy does he have them. The Busby Berkley numbers must be seen to be believed. My husband actually gave this one a round of applause – a super rare reaction from him.

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I also watched Victor Fleming’s Red Dust (1932).  All the enthusiasm I had in my 2018 review still applies.  This contains probably my favorite performance by Jean Harlow.