Good solid acting and witty tongue-in-cheek dialogue in fascinating settings – this is entertainment at its very best. The colourful, engaging characters elevates the forgettable, almost unimportant story. Mae West shines throughout and a young Cary Grant is full of surprises.
Stays in my pre-code book.Short, tragic farce of abusement and rebellion on several levels. Sometimes whimsically playful, sometimes terrifyingly razor-sharp in mixing childish mischief and adult misconduct. Eternal symbolism of oppressive society and threatening anarchy with school as the microcosm backdrop. Surreal and sublime, almost silent. Unusually frank storytelling and experimental execution.
Pleasant surprises like this is reason enough to continue the race towards 1001. Stays in my book, and very much so.Legendary depiction of unsuspicious love and dark treachery among the artists of a travelling freak show. A conventional plot is elevated by the touching depiction of the outcasts and a ferociously vengeful ending.
On my »not-for-the-squeamish« list.Long before Tony Montana there was Tony Camonte. Equally ruthless and determined, just as doomed by destiny. Control is everything In mob life. Deal with competing gangs, your own organization, family, society and hardest of all, yourself.
On my list.A strange, unworldly »Symphonie des grauens« if there ever was one. Immerse yourself in the foglike atmosphere of confusion and bewilderment. Sink slowly into a grey and white universe of weird characters both fascinating and threatening. Ingmar Bergman's movies could have been something like this if he had made them a couple of decades earlier.
On my list.Deeply unsettling portrait of a murderer, a city and a society. An amazing Peter Lorre as the compulsive child-molester manages to evoke both creeping fear, strong disgust and finally even a kind of desperate sympathy.
On my list with no hesitation whatsoever.Movie history, that's for sure! Early gangster melodrama with a brutal, menacing, edgy James Cagney pursuing his own misinterpretation of the elusive american dream. We all know from the very beginning that this will not end happily...
Uncomplicated, not at all uninteresting. Fails somewhat in my book, though.Impossible but true, a successful silent movie in the age of early talkies! Highly anachronistic not only because of the absence of dialogue, but also when it comes to storytelling and emotion. Chaplin in his most endearing mood, and still managing to be funnier than more or less everyone else.
On my list.Witness the ultimate outsider stumbling new-born through a hostile world, rejected by both »family« and society. Tragic and cruel, visually top-notch, impressive performance by Boris Karloff. By far the greatest of the classic horror movies.
On my list.Uneven direction and a couple of laughable »special effects« doesn't matter, Bela Lugosi is still quite scary with his strange accent, grotesquely leering face and theatrical body language. Good supporting cast as well, and an eerie mood well enhanced by lighting, camerawork and scenery.
Maybe it's just childish nostalgia, but this one stays on the list in my book.
