Boris Karloff in the career-making role that Bela Lugosi turned down, the famous composite clumper who has a heavy-handed way of dealing with his Master and a little girl picking daisies. Directed by James Whale, who, despite the evidence of this grim trudge, had it in him to be quite …
The story of the mousy white-collar worker who falls in love with a prostitute, made by Jean Renoir in 1931, was remade by Fritz Lang in 1945, under the title Scarlet Street. A comparison would show a sharp contrast between two anarchists who do not have a lot else in …
There still remains plenty of interest in the manhunt story, told with the imaginative gimmicks of one of Andersen's gorier fairy tales plus some modernized (ca. 1931) touches of abnormal psychology, in which everybody from the enraged police department down to the edgy criminal fraternity pounds the trail of a …
Common factory girl Marian Martin (Joan Crawford) stands outside the depot, watching as the train slowly pulls into the station, living vicariously — as though each passing compartment window represented a silver screen with a different story emblazoned across it. (It’s one of those “magic of the movies” moments that …
It was a supporting role in a long-since forgotten George Arliss programmer that convinced the brothers Warner that James Cagney, with but three minor pictures to his credit, had what it took to play fast-talking big city bootlegger Tom Powers. (Edward Woods, who co-stars as Tom’s henchman, Matt Doyle, was …
More than just a half-grapefruit pushed into the kisser of a grouchy gun moll at the breakfast table. Really one of the quintessential rise-and-fall gangster chronicles, including perhaps the most insufferable Long-Suffering Mama ever encountered on screen. And the "fall" comes with a uniquely resounding and humiliating whump. Cagney got …
Murnau, in his final feature film, transports his romantic fatalism into Flaherty's domain, the South Seas and the genuine natives thereof. The predetermined "attitude" somewhat stifles the documentary interest, and the authenticity gets in the way of Murnau's natural interests. The conflict of interests creates some interest of its own.