Film Reviews by Steve

Gloomy melodrama adapted from Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize winning play which (of course) was a sensation because it was silent star Greta Garbo's debut talking picture. Her first line made headlines: 'Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby!' And she's still the main attraction, weary and full of cynicism as a sex worker who goes home to her Swedish immigrant father (George Merion).

The main selling point of the play is the realistic presentation of the working poor, trying to scrape a living off the New York river during the depression- while they palliate their misery with booze. There's nothing to arrest the decline of a woman alone. Garbo starts off well as a defeated no-luck dame who has run out of options. She conveys all the troubles of the world.

But eventually she is defeated by the script as the dialogue get ever more overwrought. The insights into the lives of destitute immigrants are no more wise than a dime novel. There is little narrative; Garbo meets an Irish sailor (Charles Bickford) but is tortured by the shame of her past. All the actors struggle. Marie Dressler comes off best as the old, threadbare wharf rat who represents Greta's future.

There's a trip to Coney Island, but mostly this is a filmed stage play. The lighting of the dockland set brings some atmosphere. But Clarence Brown doesn't have the imagination to challenge the technical limitations of the early sound period. We are shown lives destroyed by poverty and ignorance, but it's not obvious that anyone working on this production cares too much. Maybe not a good fit for MGM.

From the dawn of German expressionism, this is one of the most influential films ever made; most ostentatiously, the extraordinary set decoration which not only inspired other German silents but Hollywood too. The classic Universal horrors of the early thirties are unmissably produced under its spell. Critics now call this the first ever horror feature.

A travelling circus comes to town, which features a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) primed by a mysterious mentalist (Werner Krauss) to commit murder. But the sideshow svengali is also the governor of a mental hospital. There is a framing devise, with the events told by one of the inmates. This unreliable/mad narrator makes the story fascinatingly ambiguous.

It has stimulated many diverse interpretations. And theories of how it reflects Germany between the wars. Most obviously, it is a subversive, anti-authoritarian fantasy. It expresses a social climate of paranoia and conspiracy. But primarily it is an an imaginative and exciting thriller. The acting is unsubtle... But then, this is a modernist dreamscape.

So who knows how people should act! Krauss doesn't make much of the title role. But Veidt as the hypnotised killer, pale and dressed in black, has become a goth icon. This is the thriller as arthouse, which has stimulated many musicians to write soundtracks to accompany the crazy events. Robert Wiene creates a gateway into a world of a distressed imagination which still beguiles.

This is Ernst Lubitsch's debut sound film and the first of four musical comedies co-starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald before the implementation of the Production Code in 1934. It's a farce which is tumescent with innuendo, and Maurice was a sort of genius in the craft of salacious insinuation. And his song Paris, Stay the Same is the standout number.

Jeanette's operetta style vocals have dated, and maybe by the end of the extended running time, it's possible to feel she sings too much... And her Philadelphia accent is a bit of a stretch for middle European royalty. She marries a commoner (Chevalier) who is stifled by his role as the Queen's consort and has to assert his masculinity before the fade out.

And aside from some falling over by Lupino Lane, who is pretty good at it, that's the whole plot. After about half an hour the narrative stalls and thereafter only fitfully advances. The comic songs are mostly engaging and there are plenty of laughs. It's sexy and sophisticated. But even the legendary charisma of Chevalier can't keep the fizz from going flat.

There's a support role for 19 year old Lillian Roth, whose boozy life story was turned into I'll Cry Tomorrow in '55, a warts-and-all biopic with Susan Hayward. Though Roth isn't all that good! The Lubitsch touch gave class to Hollywood in the early sound period, and he overcomes all the technical limitations. But the director and his stars all did so much better with One Hour With You in '32.

Sleazy, precode backstage melodrama which overcomes some initial creakiness mainly courtesy of Rouben Mamoulian's artistic direction. Not everyone cast in this can act, and they get to inhabit some transparent archetypes. But the compelling visual storytelling and realistic set design retain interest long enough for the characters eventually to start to matter.

This was Mamoulian's debut feature and he had the usual difficulties of early talkies to contend with. But he got his camera to move quite freely, though not always smoothly. He pioneered new sound techniques, but that isn't really what makes this interesting. The New York locations add value, but mainly it's how the director skilfully explores each frame for nuance and narrative detail.

Helen Morgan stars as a deadbeat burlesque stripper who wants to keep her daughter out of the racket but is continually blocked by the lowlife chiseller (Fuller Mellish) she's shacked up with. Who turns his sexual attention to the girl (Joan Peers). It's a trashy tearjerker but it builds up a powerful impression of life being nasty, brutal and short, with no way out for the poor of the depression.

Morgan was good casting. She had success on Broadway in the '20s with Showboat, but by the time of Applause she was an alcoholic and well on the way to an early death. She is 29, but looks much older. Her life was cleaned up in 1957 for a nostalgic biopic, The Helen Morgan Story. She's got a sob in her voice that initially irritates, but eventually touches the heart.

There's something about silent cinema which promotes performances which have become mythic. And Louise Brooks as the tragic courtesan Lulu, falling slowly through hedonistic Weimar Berlin, is one of these. Brooks was monolingual and from Wichita, Kansas, so... a long way from home. But she flawlessly captures the spirit of capricious, sensual spontaneity.

Lulu is a waif who only has her sexuality to exploit to survive. She leads a coterie of crooked oddballs who also get by in the only ways they know. She has become rated as a feminist symbol. My feeling is the film- adapted from a pair of plays by Frank Wedekind- is more broadly critical of inequality, and the hypocrisy of German bourgeois society.

Now, at least to non-German audiences, it's GW Pabst's film which most represents the divine decadence of '20s Germany. Even though Wedekind's play dates from 1904. There is a prominent lesbian character. Lulu is compulsively promiscuous. Society is divided between the ostentatious excesses of the wealthy and the crimes of the poor. Even Louise's hairstyle is an icon of the period.

Lulu is both a femme fatale and a victim, and Brooks plays that ambiguity like a virtuoso. In London she meets Jack the Ripper and the whole bundle suddenly feels like fan fiction! Though this episode allows Pabst to adopt some welcome expressionism. He even seems to sanctify her! But Brooks legendary performance always transcends these moments of phoney melodramatics.

Fritz Lang's science fiction epic was way ahead of its time and its set design and state of the art effects still look sensational. This is an art deco metropolis of the future, from the pristine skyscrapers where the decadent heirs of the wealthy frolic at leisure. To the underworld where the workers toil like human machines.

Control is maintained by a corporate oligarchy through surveillance. Gustav Fröhlich plays the son of the chief administrator, who falls in love with the leader of the resistance (Brigitte Helm). Could he be the mediator the rebels are waiting for, to bring the two worlds together? The politics are crucial to the interwar period; the need to connect the division between capital and labour.

The story was written by Lang's wife, Thea von Harbou, who became an enthusiastic fascist. And it's easy to understand the Nazis' fascination with this film and its theme of political destiny. But it is principally a '20's blockbuster, which became hugely influential within cinema and the wider culture. There are many legendary scenes, like the creation of the man-machine (also Helm).

As new prints have been discovered, the running time has been extended. It's now restored to the original 150 minutes. Maybe it's time for a trim! The last third is spectacular, but doesn't add much to our understanding, and is too melodramatic. The political theme is still relevant. However, its greatness stands on the most impressive vision of a futureworld in cinema.

Relentlessly austere but mesmeric account of the trial and execution of Joan of Arc at Rouen in 1431 during the Hundred Years' War. It's a classic French silent directed by the Danish Carl Th. Dreyer based on transcripts of the trial. And it has become a critics favourite, invariably in the top 10 of the Sight and Sound poll.

It is most memorable for the high contrast photography, shot on bare white sets, with the actors almost entirely in extreme close up. And for Maria Falconetti's harrowing, mythic title performance. The main impression the film leaves is of her agonised face. At first it conveys rapture, and then fear and finally a tenuous acceptance. There is nothing else like it in cinema.

A curiosity of the film is that it is silent, when the most of the narrative is her trial, and therefore spoken. There are a lot of title cards. It must cross everyone's minds what this film would be if it used the emerging sound technology. The price would have been more restricted camera movement. But what we get is an incredible intensity which builds to an ecstasy of faith.

It can be approached as a document of a historic event; though it is silent, there is an impression of authenticity. But that isn't exactly the spirit of Dreyer's creation because this is an ambient experience which the audience feels personally. And credit for this must be extended to Falconetti, who seems to transcend the limits of the screen, in her only film role. 

This could easily have been conceived as a sequel to Fritz Lang's 1922 hit Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. The head of the criminal underworld is still played by Rudolf Klein Rogge- situated somewhere between Professor Moriarty and a Bond villain. The main differences are a lower budget and a much lighter tone. This has the feel of an adventure serial, all cliffhangers and last second escapes.

Middle Europe in the years between the wars has drifted into an uneasy peace monetised by parasitic gangs. There is a lot of McGuffin about a peace treaty, but this is really a vehicle for the spy plot motifs; the invisible writing, the disguises and '20s surveillance technology. Most of the action is loaded into the climax. Earlier scenes are sustained by the attractive romantic leads.

Willy Fritsch has a lot of debonaire charm as the action man of national security. And Gerda Maurus is drop dead gorgeous as the hired spook who turns legit. The camera plainly loves her, but then she was having an affair with the director. German expressionism has been replaced by a more realistic look and a procedural approach, but it's still stylish, with outlandish plot twists.

Buzzers are constantly triggered which connect with the '30s thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock. Most startlingly when the female lead is manoeuvred into bondage... Hitch took plenty from this. Spione is not usually pitched as one of Lang's best silents, and there are longueurs early on, but it's ultimately an exciting action-suspense film set in an interwar Germany of intrigue and conspiracy.

This is absolutely integral to the history of the horror film, though made at the dawn of the genre. It was adapted from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. But without permission, so the names and locations are changed. This is the tale of Count Orlok who travels from his castle in Transylvania to the medieval town of Wisborg in 1838, leaving a trail of pestilence and death.

The narrative alterations are improvements. This is really pacy, with no dead ends. It's German expressionism, but the sets are relatively realistic, only the Count's castle is distorted. It is mostly shot in real locations. FW Murnau creates a sense of unease with camera effects and the shadows. But primarily through his star, Max Schrek as the hideous, rodent-like vampire.

He is the ultimate monster in cinema; grotesque and parasitic and folkloric. The journey by ship is disturbing, as he feeds on the crew, slowly draining them all. On arrival, he is the only survivor and he and his cargo of rats go to work on the local population. The Count is an astonishingly voracious killer. More like a disease than a creature. There are moments of breathtaking horror.

And the conclusion- not from the novel- is very satisfying. Murnau creates a supernatural world which is oddly relatable; like a glimpsed memory of a childhood nightmare. Famously, the courts ordered all prints must be destroyed at the behest of Stoker's estate! What was saved is a strong candidate for the best horror film ever made.

Paul Wegener was crazy for this traditional Jewish folk tale. He made three golem films in the silent era and planned others for many years afterwards. And as well as co-writing and co-directing, he starred in the title role too! He plays the clay figure who is animated by the chief Rabbi (Albert Steinrück) to save his people from persecution.

This is German expressionism, so the most striking feature is the ambient set decoration. It's supposed to be Prague in the middle ages, but is so unrealistic it can't really be pinned to any time or place. The ghetto has a peculiar organic look, as if carved out of rock. It's tempting to suggest it's like nothing else in films, except the 1968 original of Planet of the Apes surely borrows from this.

And the early Universal horrors take inspiration too. Like Frankenstein, made in 1931, it's about a maverick creating a living thing, and, by over-reaching their human limits, causing destruction. Admittedly, that makes them both part of a much wider tradition, but James Whale specifically refers back to The Golem throughout his horror classic. Most obviously the meeting of the monster with a little girl.

It was photographed by Karl Freund who performed the same role on Dracula, also in '31. He was famous for his pioneering moving camera techniques. But this was obviously before then! The camera doesn't move a centimetre... The effects are rudimentary, but typical of the period. It's a must for students of German expressionism, but maybe more interesting than entertaining. 

Comedy-thriller set in a rundown hotel in North Africa during WWII which keeps changing hands as the armies of Montgomery and Rommel advance and retreat. A British soldier (Franchot Tone) wanders in from the Sahara just as the Germans arrive, and assumes the persona of a dead waiter, who turns out to have been a Nazi spy imbedded while the British were last in control.

The film starts with a stark and pessimistic image of the campaign so far, as a British tank full of dead soldiers moves randomly through the dunes. The main thrust is propaganda, as Tone persuades a French, pro-Nazi maid (Anne Baxter) to side with the Allies. Erich von Stroheim plays Erwin Rommel as a stiff, aloof, hubristic Prussian aristocrat.

Most of the comedy is entrusted to Akim Tamiroff as the anxious, baffled but well meaning Egpytian hotel boss, in a fez. The McGuffin of where the Germans have buried their fuel dumps is slight but effective. The story ends with the British sweeping back into town and a moving reminder of the sacrifices that winning the war would entail as we discover the maid was shot by Rommel's men.

The fascists are portrayed as efficient and ruthless, not the fools they appeared in the British comedies of the war years. This has the rich production values those films couldn't dream of. The b&w photography is gorgeous. While it is a diversion, it is a handsome suspense film, and a morale booster that leaves its audience with optimism that the tide of the war has turned.

This follows a platoon of US infantry in WWII, from landing on a beach at Salerno to their primary objective, the seizing of a heavily defended farmhouse six miles away. Which they achieve through great loss of life. It is understated, and unheroic for a US war film. There is no propaganda. Much of the time, the men are waiting, or glimpsing distant flashes of combat.

Yet, it is theatrical. There are three narrative voices on the soundtrack, including a sung commentary of ballads. The constant impassive crosstalk of the soldiers is intended to be realistic; they rarely talk of the danger of their situation, but repeat verbal leitmotifs,  which are usually ironic: "You kill me', 'Nobody dies'. This chorus feels unreal and dreamlike and literary.

 Despite this, many returning soldiers said this best captured their experiences. They walk from the beach to the assignment as members of their group are picked off. The Lieutenant dies on the landing craft and his second in command becomes incapacitated through fear. Dana Andrews stands out as the pragmatic Sergeant suddenly thrust into the role of leader.

 This is another WWII film that brings together an ensemble of many ethnic and social groups.They capture the farmhouse bravely, but the stress of constant danger is unsustainable. It's a weary, noirish film which feels appropriate for men who have been at war for three years with no impression of how it will end. It is one of the best Hollywood combat film made in the war years .

This is a companion to William Wellman's The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), sharing the same writer and some of the cast, as well as its laconic style, abstract studio sets and absence of music. There is a different photographer, but similarly stark, ominous high contrast black and white. It's a fascinating, schematic heist narrative, from a story by WR Burnett.

Six men (Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, et al) rob a bank and are chased into the salt desert of Death Valley. Rather than give themselves up, they continue into the barren, hostile wilderness. As their resilience gives way the outlaws stumble on a ghost town occupied by an old gold prospector (James Barton) and his rugged grand-daughter (Anne Baxter).

 It unfolds like a medieval parable. The men destroy themselves as their desire for the gold and the woman open up their already significant divisions. It's really an anti-western. The men are ruined by their individualism, and the only survivor is Gregory Peck, the gunman who develops the capacity to compromise and not be ruled by impulse.

Predictably Peck plays the tough leader who develops some integrity and Widmark is the cruel, mercenary killer. There's little dialogue, just the visual impact of the derelict shacks huddled in the desert as the men betray each other. It's the sombre mood and melancholy cynicism that linger. It's one of the first of the western noirs to emerge after WWII, and one of the best.

This is the western as political history. Of course it is fictionalised to fit an acceptable narrative, but it is a biopic of Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) a US army scout who constructed a relationship with Cochise (Jeff Chandler) leader of the Apaches in 1861, which was instrumental in ending the war in Arizona. Clearly, it's Hollywood history and primarily an entertainment.

It condemns America's western expansion for ethical reasons as well as for the entrenched racism- which more reflects US values after WWII. It recognises the Apaches' strength as warriors and stresses that they were a civilised and principled people, even compared to American imperialists. It treats their culture as worthy of respect.

There was location shoot in Arizona, in Technicolor. It's a vivid spectacle full of well staged action scenes. As so often, Stewart is able to mute the heroics and reveal the common man within the hero. Chandler is dignified and charismatic and plays Cochise as a philosopher-warrior. Debra Paget is appealing as Jeffords' Apache love interest. .

It reflects on the perspectives of both the indigenous people and the settlers. James Stewart has to do a lot of editorialising to draw out the nuances of their relative positions. Roughnecks on either side threaten the treaty. It humanises the Native Americans and acknowledges that greed and corruption are the instruments which will overwhelm Apache traditions, and their territory.

The Baron (Herbert Marshall) and the Countess (Miriam Hopkins), share a romantic supper in his swanky hotel in Venice. But they soon they tumble each other as fellow con artists. After they have returned the trinkets they lifted from each other, they move to Paris as a duo and steal a diamond covered handbag from a rich perfumer (Kay Francis).

Marshall finagles a job as the tycoon's secretary and develops romantic feelings for her while embezzling a fortune from the company. But Hopkins wants him for herself. It's a love triangle, except two of the lovers are kleptomaniacs trying to gyp the third, and each other.

Marshall is very much at home in Ernst Lubitsch's Paris.  But it's Hopkins film, in a performance that goes a long way to establishing a female archetype of the screwball comedy, with her mix of the ditzy, impulsive and volatile.  

The dialogue is charming and witty and the farce is adorable. But it's also a comedy of manners which refers to Trotsky and the wages of the poor. Surprising and imaginative at every twist this is the last word on the sophisticated comedy which was Lubitsch's gift, set in the romantic destinations of Europe, places of irony, charade and repartee. And scandal.