Feb 2, 2009

Great 1930s movies

Have discovered some classic black and white movies of the 1930s that I enjoyed watching and can recommend.

Harold Lloyd's comedies: Feet First made in 1930 has Chaplinesque humor and hilarious but harrowing scenes of him dangling from ropes and pulleys outside a skyscraper, and scrambling to get back into an open window. He wears his signature bowtie and white straw hat in several of his comedies set in the 1930s. In The Cat's Paw, he wore a tie and "bush" hat.

Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford and others converge in the Grand Hotel in Berlin, 1932.


Louise Rainer stars as the hard-working and long suffering farm wife in The Good Earth, 1937, based on the book by Pearl Buck, and plays a spoiled Southern wife in The Toy Wife, 1938.

Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest, 1936

Ninotchka with Greta Garbo, 1939. A Russian woman falls in love in Paris. Remade later on as a musical, Silk Stockings, with Cyd Charisse.

Clark Gable and Hedy Lamar in Comrade X, 1940. An American tries to take a Russian woman and her father to America. Comedy drama set in Moscow.
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4 comments:

  1. EvaFebruary 3, 2009 at 8:18 PM

    Thanks for the list! I love old movies, but I haven't seen all of these. I think I'll try out Ninotchka (I studied Russian in college) and The Petrified Forest (love Bette Davis!)

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  2. HarveeFebruary 3, 2009 at 9:26 PM

    Eva: Glad you found something on my short old movies list! I found the Japanese Lit website that you contribute to and find that also very interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lori JohnstonSeptember 17, 2009 at 11:06 AM

    I love, love, love 1930s movies. Honestly, nothing tops them.
    "Grand Hotel" is a classic. If you want some great early 30s Clark Gable with some Jean Harlow mixed in, I urge you try to "Red Dust". Really, really enjoyed it. And while Bette Davis really excelled in nearly every film she was in, even the stinkers, I thought "Marked Woman" was a nice little offering that was less known than some of her bigger films from the 30s.
    Great post!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. HarveeSeptember 17, 2009 at 11:14 AM

    Lori: Glad you found this post on 1930s films. Will try to find Red Dust and Marked Woman - they sound like good movies to watch inside in the winter, with the snow swirling around...I love watching movies then.

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