Wives Under Suspicion

1938, US, directed by James Whale

A rather precipitous fall from the standards that Whale set earlier in the decade, this is an efficient enough vehicle for Warren William, who is good value -- as ever -- in a role as a prosecutor who senses some overlap between his current case and his own wife's behavior. However, there's nothing of the distinctiveness of Whale's Universal horrors, even in the visuals. 

Mollenard

1938, France, directed by Robert Siodmak

An assured film from Siodmak's French period, though with a somewhat unusual structure -- it almost feels like two different films, albeit both featuring the same protagonist, with the capacious frame a tale of domestic spite and poison and the inset a rousing sketch of colonial skulduggery in Shanghai (a pretty common backdrop at the time). Harry Baur is in fine form as the titular Mollenard, a merchant marine captain facing ruin and shame, a circumstance that brings every dark aspect of his relationship with his wife, played by Gabrielle Dorziat, to the fore. The film rigs the game somewhat, though, by making Dorziat's character so utterly unsympathetic -- the same rather unpleasant trick Renoir played in La Chienne -- that the audience is cast on the side of the criminal by default. Still, the downbeat ending manages to channel something of the spirit of Quai des brumes, made the same year, with the two films also sharing Eugen Schüfftan as director of photography.

Pièges

1939, France, directed by Robert Siodmak

French-period Siodmak, and very brisk fun: seen shortly after Sirk's remake, as Lured/Personal Column, the debt owed by the later film is a good deal more obvious, with certain sequences essentially shot-for-shot reproductions, though the actors give each film a nice variation in flavor. 

Monkey Business

1931, US, directed by Norman Z. McLeod

Kicking off 2019 with the Marx Brothers on the big screen; the kids were alternately nonplussed (Groucho's breakneck speechifying, the creakier reference points) and delighted (every musical and slapstick moment, and a smattering of the verbal wit). With popcorn and soda thrown in, I think they were a good deal more pro than con.

Quai des brumes

1938, France, directed by Marcel Carné (aka Port of Shadows)

A film I hadn't seen since college, and it blew me away to see it again now -- the intensity of feeling, the gorgeous photography, the use of sets with a judicious addition of location shooting, Gabin at his pre-war peak, the quite extraordinary support from Simon, Morgan, Brasseur, Le Vigan, and perhaps most of all the willingness to allow scenes to build and build (several of the sequences are exceptionally extended, quite rare in modern cinema except in something like Tarantino's deliberately affected approach). 

Blessed Event

1932, US, directed by Roy Del Ruth

Terrific pre-Code fun, with motormouth Lee Tracy as that most unscrupulous of columnists; it's not quite as strong or, ultimately, as committed in its cynicism as Five Star Final, but it's still a pretty heady early 1930s brew, delivered at an absolute breakneck pace. Glenn Kenny's 2011 capsule review is well worth revisiting, too. 

Le Million

1931, France, directed by René Clair

René Clair at his 1930s peak; the sudden eruptions of song are a particular delight, and its notable that the device has only rarely been used as effectively in the many years since. 

The Spy in Black

1939, UK, directed by Michael Powell

Powell & Pressburger's marvelous first collaboration is strikingly beautiful at times, as well as being noteworthy both for its fine suspense-management and for the daring of creating sympathetic, or at least not wholly antipathetic, German characters (presumably at least some filmgoers would have been familiar with Conrad Veidt's personal history, with the actor taking up residence in the UK after the Nazis came to power, which couldn't have harmed). It's not hard to see here the germ of ideas, particularly with respect to the depiction of German characters, that could lead to something as wondrous as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp within a few years.

Bringing Up Baby

1938, US, directed by Howard Hawks

There's little for me to add with respect to Hawks' wonderful film, which pairs Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn at their peak, except to note that I watched it on this occasion with a six-year-old and a four-year-old who remained rapt throughout, interrupting the film only to ask for occasional clarity regarding the identity of the titular leopard. The opening is so rapid-fire that I worried they would struggle to figure things out but my concerns were entirely misplaced, and they stayed with it through the final scene, aghast and delighted at the destruction on display.

Education de prince

1938, France, directed by Alexandre Esway

I've no prior familiarity with the work of Alexandre Esway, though he worked with many of the greats of French cinema -- including, here, Henri-Georges Clouzot as a writer, though there's little sign of Clouzot's later directorial preoccupations. The film was mostly of interest as one of the last lingering entries in Louis Jouvet's filmography. It's a slice of Ruritania very much of its period, and by the standards of his pre-war work, Jouvet has a larger role than was the norm, playing a kind of fixer avant la lettre, charged here with the eponymous education of a prince who is to take over the throne in his invented homeland. The film probably deserves to be slightly less obscure, for Jouvet is very enjoyable -- the role is hardly a stretch, but it's well-suited to his persona, and there are several nicely-turned lines to savour. 

Merrily We Go To Hell

1932, US, directed by Dorothy Arzner

Arzner was one of the very few women directors of the studio era, a true pioneer (though female directors still remain far too rare in the modern Hollywood era), and while this is in many was a fairly typical studio-produced pre-Code film, with lashings of alcohol and adultery, I had the strong sense that the picture was more concerned with the "home front" and the consequences of bad (male) behaviour than was the norm for the period, which adds an interesting layer to the generic elements. Also, Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney are in very fine form, and their opening encounter is a peach; screwball before it had acquired the name.

Tumultes

1932, France/Germany, directed by Robert Siodmak

The French-language version of Siodmak's Stürme der Leidenschaft, starring Charles Boyer rather than Emil Jannings. This is very early Siodmak, though it has some of the darkness and melancholy of the American films that brought him to greatest prominence in the 1940s, and it shows that he was already an assured hand with narrative. Visually, it's not overly distinctive, though several brief passages in the final third are more obviously Siodmakian. 

The Prisoner of Zenda

1937, US, directed by John Cromwell

While Selznick’s high-end picture is a ripping yarn in the best tradition of the 1930s studios, I had forgotten the extent to which this is rather more of a drama/romance than a straight swashbuckler -- there are some wonderfully odious villains, and Ronald Colman, C. Aubrey Smith and David Niven all look like they had loads of fun on set, but the action – in stunt terms at least – is compressed into the final ten minutes or so, with a good deal of fairly complicated back and forth in the lead in. As tales set in invented Mitteleuropa locations go, I still prefer the more comically-inclined TheLady Vanishes, or even Night Train to Munich...

Le Chien jaune

1932, France, directed by Jean Tarride

Tarride's Maigret appearing the same year as Renoir's adaptation of La Nuit du carrefour, and the year before Duvivier's very fine La Tête d'un homme, and while it's not at the level of either of those it's certainly an interesting screen version of one of the most atmospheric and characteristic of all Maigret books -- the character himself had first appeared in print only the previous year, though given Simenon's prolific rate of production Maigret had rapidly become a ubiquitous figure in popular culture. The novel and film are set in Concarneau, in the rainy, desolate off-season, and the film makes excellent use of some limited location filming to add authenticity -- just as Chabrol did a half-century later for a non-Maigret Simenon adaptation. The film is a generally faithful adaptation of the source novel, and as much an examination of the local bourgeoisie as it is a murder mystery. Abel Tarride, the director's father, plays Maigret, though there's little of great note in his portrayal; Robert Le Vigan plays one of the local notables and, as so often, lingers much longer in the memory.

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery

1939, UK, directed by Thorold Dickinson

An interesting pre-war British entry, wherein the central murder is vaguely amusing, very much in keeping with the Golden Age novels of the period. The football backdrop, rare for the time, adds an element of intrigue, particularly since the actual footage came from Arsenal's last pre-war match. Leslie Banks is very good as both lead detective and comic relief, and as a procedural it's rather effective and, in that sense, a little before its time -- the details of forensic practice seem to be taken quite seriously, for instance, years and an ocean away from something like He Walked By Night. 

Gueule d'amour

1937, France, directed by Jean Grémillon

No great surprise that I liked this a lot: Gabin, Grémillon, 1930s. To my great surprise, though, I discovered afterwards that it was filmed in Germany, like Grémillon's later L'Etrange Monsieur Victor, though in 1937 this was a good deal less unpopular in terms of audience perceptions. The extent to which this telegraphs the postwar Gabin persona is quite fascinating -- he manages to occupy both the handsome young buck and embittered older man within a single, quite brief film. The film taps into that vein of poetic tragedy that so marked the French 1930s, though the finale is more brutal than I expected, perhaps again foreshadowing what was to come in the postwar years.

Madame Bovary

1934, France, directed by Jean Renoir

Unfortunately, I did not save the best for last when it came to my mini-Renoir festival. Obviously, even a longer film, never mind one reputedly butchered by its producers, cannot hope to include every nuance of a substantial novel, and that's not really my issue, more the fact that the visualization here tends to underline Emma Bovary's most unpleasant characteristics -- assuming that you accept that the book posits Emma as a kind of feminist heroine avant la lettre, this film seems to subvert those qualities, making her come across as merely obnoxious even considering the social strictures of 19th century bourgeois life. There are, of course, some pleasures -- specific scenes that are exceptionally well-constructed with respect to the use of space, fine set pieces, and the occasional moment of real emotional force. That said, I think one's mileage could be a good deal greater depending on how you react to the actors, especially Valentine Tessier in the lead role -- if you embrace Emma's onscreen theatricality as a reflection of her inner self, for instance, you might find the film more rewarding. Robert Le Vigan has yet another oily turn as the creditor who brings about Emma's downfall, and his delivery of the line "we're not Jews" in justification of his financial practices carries an inevitable charge given our knowledge of the actor's subsequent offscreen career. 

Chotard et compagnie

1933, France, directed by Jean Renoir

Despite the substantial corpus of writing devoted to Renoir, there are few words on this particular film, a surprise as I found it generally charming and technically quite compelling. It occasionally reminded me of Die Koffer des Herrn O.F., especially in the second half, as an entire town buys into a particular obsession (complete with dream sequences). It was really the opening that grabbed me, though, with the first shot part of a long lineage of bravura openers, and the film is mostly made on a set that permits a great deal of easy movement, the camera peering behind corners, through windows, and generally keeping an eye on characters as they move around the space. 

Chotard himself is played by Fernand Charpin, such a key presence in Pagnol's Marseilles trilogy, and he's a delight here, too. The plot is driven by the marriage of Chotard's daughter to an unpromising fellow, a writer played by Georges Pomiès, a name wholly unfamiliar to me, but from his movement it wasn't hard to figure out that he was trained as a dancer, and indeed that this was his primary vocation. He's not a great choice for the part but his background certainly adds an interesting energy to the character, granting him an unexpected and graceful physical presence. As a casting selection, it reminded me a little of the offbeat energy of Jean-Louis Barrault in Drôle de drame, though that's a more successful marriage. Which in turn reminds that I took a reflexive dislike to Pomiès when I discovered that he had won Louis Jouvet's lover Lisa Duncan away from the great actor (though of course she may have been the one who effected the change). 

While the whole thing is based on a pre-existing play, I couldn't help but wonder if there was a reference to Simenon -- with whom Renoir remained friendly after the director adapted one of the Maigret novels -- when the characters discuss an industrial-scale production of literature, of a kind that Simenon himself would have had no trouble keeping up with given his book-a-month rhythm. 

On purge bébé

1931, France, directed by Jean Renoir

A film that Renoir by all accounts made to show his ability to film with sound on a budget, in order to impress potential producers. Obviously, though, he was already an experienced filmmaker and despite the film's pretty straightforward nature he clearly spent at least some time working on direct sound, use of diegetic music, and, from time to time, on the framing of actors' faces, although some of the film is shot in a theatrical format that underlines the picture's stage origins. The most interesting points, for me, were on the casting level -- an exceptionally early, blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance from Fernandel, and, far more substantial, an amusing turn from Michel Simon, already cast in roles far beyond his years.

Toni

1935, France, directed by Jean Renoir

A very interesting on-location picture, clearly made under the influence of Pagnol in terms of the southern realism on display (Pagnol's company was involved with the film, but as distributor rather than producer). There's little optimism here in this deliberately circular tale -- the contrast between the larkish beginning and the pessimism of the conclusion is very stark, and in many ways the film has a modernity that Renoir may not have intended, at least with respect to the pointed commentary on immigration, something that's hard to push out of the mind in early 2016. If Pagnol himself had made this I'd expect it to be leavened with a little more comic relief, or even perhaps the more gentle acceptance of the vagaries of humanity that you find in much of Renoir's best work. I'm not all that familiar with Charles Blavette, who plays Toni, though he did appear in Pagnol's La Femme du boulanger among others; more recognizable to me was Andrex, whose apparently permanent cheeriness is used to good subversive effect in the conclusion.