griggs's - 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List
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Alice White (Anny Ondra) is frustrated with her police officer boyfriend Frank (John Longden) as he neglects her in favour of his work. To spite him, she arranges to meet another man. When he tries to rape her, she ends up killing him in defence. The case gets assigned to Frank who realises that Alice is the murderer, but it seems someone else knows too as Alice begins to receive threats of blackmail from an anonymous source. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- Joan Barry, Anny Ondra, John Longden
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A Throw of Dice (1929)Prapancha Pash
Inspired by the gambling episode in the ancient Hindu epic the 'Mahabharata', this rare classic of silent cinema tells of two kings who share a passion for reckless gambling, and for the same women. After the beautiful Sunita (Seeta Devi) nurses Ranjit (Charu Roy) back to health following dramatic events during a royal tiger hunt, his wicked rival Sohat (Himansu Rai) persuades him to risk his kingdom and his love in a fateful game of dice. 'A Throw of Dice' is the third film in a pioneering trilogy of silent films made through a unique partnership between German director Franz Osten and Indian actor-producer Himansu Rai, whose films combined documentary techniques with narratives derived from Indian myths and legends. The film is presented here with a new full orchestral score by musician, producer and composer Nitin Sawhney, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Sawhney's distinctive compositional style, steeped in both western and South Asian musical traditions, results in an evocative, lyrical soundtrack to this sumptuous film. - Director:
- Franz Osten
- Cast:
- Seeta Devi, Himansu Rai, Charu Roy
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The Blue Angel (1930)Der Blaue Engel
Emil Jennings, the quintessential German expressionist actor, stars as Professor Immanuel Rath, the sexually-repressed instructor of a boys prep school. After learning of the pupils' infatuation with French postcards depicting a local nightclub songstress, he decides to personally investigate the source of such indecency. But as soon as he enters the shadowy Blue Angel nightclub and steals one glimpse of the smoldering Lola-Lola (Marlene Dietrich), commanding the stage in a top hot, stockings and bare thighs, Rath's self-righteous piety is crushed. He finds himself fatefully seduced by the throaty voice of the vulgar siren, singing, "Falling in Love Again". Consumed by desire and tormented by his rigid propriety, Professor Rath allows himself to be dragged down a path of personal degradation. Lola's unrestrained sexuality was a revelation to turn-of-the-decade moviegoers, thrusting Dietrich to the forefront of the sultry international leading ladies, such as Greta Garbo, who were challenging the limits of screen sexuality. - Director:
- Josef Von Sternberg
- Cast:
- Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron
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Earth (1930)Zemlya / Soil
Dovzhenko's landmark 'film poem' style brings to life the collective experience of life for the Ukranian workers, examining natural cycles through his epic montage. He explores life, death, violence, sex and other issues as they relate to the collective farms. An idealistic vision of the possibilities of communism made just before Stalinism set in and the Kulack class was liquidated, 'Earth' was viewed negatively by many soviets because of its portrayal of death and other dark issues that come with revolution. - Director:
- Aleksandr Dovzhenko
- Cast:
- Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, Yuliya Solntseva
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Unlike most "message" films which date themselves almost immediately, Lewis Milestone's low-key unpolished and deeply-felt screen adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque anti-war novel has lost little of its original impact. Years after its release it was still being banned in countries mobilizing for war.
The plot follows a group of young German recruits in World War I through their passage from idealism to disillusionment. As the central character Paul Baumer declares, "We live in the trenches and we fight. We try not to be killed - that's all". All Quiet is an anthology of now famous scenes: Ayres trapped in a shell crater with a man he has killed; the first meeting of the recruits and the veterans; infantrymen being mowed down to machine-gun visual rhythms; a moonlight swim with French farm girls; Ayres' pacifist speech to his astonished schoolmates; and the final shot of the soldier's hand reaching for a fatal butterfly.- Director:
- Lewis Milestone
- Cast:
- Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray
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Age of Gold (1930)L'Age d'Or / The Golden Age
More than 80 years on, this masterpiece of cinematic surrealism remains as brilliantly witty and shocking as ever. Uniting the genius of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, "Age of Gold" is a uniquely savage blend of visual poetry and social commentary. A sinister yet poignant chronicle of a couple's struggle to consummate their desire, the film was banned and vilified for many years for its subversive eroticism and furious dissection of 'civilised' values. - Director:
- Luis Buñuel
- Cast:
- Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Caridad de Laberdesque
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"Little Caesar" is the tale of pugnacious Caesar Enrico Bandello (Edward G. Robinson), a hoodlum with a Chicago-sized chip on his shoulder, few attachments, fewer friends and no sense of underworld diplomacy. And Robinson - a genteel art collector who disdained guns (in the movie, his eyelids were taped to keep them from blinking when he fired a pistol) - was forever associated with the screen's archetypal gangster. - Director:
- Mervyn LeRoy
- Cast:
- Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell
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‘City Lights’ begins with an uproarious skewering of pomp and formality, ends with one of the most famous last shots in movie history and, from start to finish, so completely touches the heart and tickles the funny bone that in 1998 it was named one of the American Film Institute’s Top-100 American Films. Talkies were well entrenched when Charles Chaplin swam against the filmmaking tide with this forever classic that’s silent except for music and sound effects. The story, involving the Tramp’s attempts to get money for an operation that will restore sight to a blind flower girl, provides a star with an ideal framework for sentiment and laughs. The tramp is variously a street sweeper, a boxer, a rich 0poseur, and a rescuer of a suicidal millionaire. His message is unspoken, but universally understood: love is blind. - Director:
- Charles Chaplin
- Cast:
- Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee
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Towering ominously among the shadows of the Carpathian Mountains, Castle Dracula strikes fear in the hearts of the Transylvanian villagers below.
- Director:
- Tod Browning
- Cast:
- Bela Lugosi, Tod Browning, Helen Chandler
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In 1929, F. W. Mufnau, one of the greatest of all film directors, invited leading documentarist Robert Flaherty to collaborate on a film to be shot on location in Tahiti, a Polynesian idyll in which Murnau imagined a cast of island actors would provide a new form of authentic drama and offer rare insight into their "primitive" culture. The result of their collaboration was Tabu, a film that depicts the details of indigenous island life to tell a mythical tale that is rich in the universal themes of desire and loss. Subtitled "A Story of the South Seas", Tabu concerns a Tahitian fisherman and his love for a young woman whose body has been consecrated to the gods, rendering her tabu as far as mortal men are concerned. The lovers flee their island and its restrictive traditions, but will their love prevail in the "civilised" world? - Director:
- F.W. Murnau
- Cast:
- Anne Chevalier, Matahi, Hitu
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The Public Enemy (1931)Beer and Blood
"The Public Enemy" showcases James Cagney's powerful 1931 breakthrough performance as streetwise tough guy Tom Powers, but only because production chief Darryl F. Zanuck made a late casting change. When shooting began, Cagney had a secondary role but Zanuck soon spotted Cagney's screen dominance and gave him the star part. From that moment, an indelible genre classic and an enduring star career were both born. Bristling with '20s style, dialogue and desperation under the masterful directorial eye of William A. Wellman, this is a virtual time capsule of the Prohibition era: taut, gritty and hard-hitting - even at breakfast when grapefruit is served. - Director:
- William A. Wellman
- Cast:
- James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods
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Like a brand, the letter M has made it's mark on film history; it's disturbing theme having lost none of its impact or relevance. Sinister, dark and foreboding, M tells the story of Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) - child molester and murderer. Tension builds - a child late home - another child missing. Posters reveal the fate of earlier victims, and the Police seem to have few clues as to the perpetrator of the crimes. Gangsters, beggars and petty criminals, incensed by both the crimes and the Police crackdown, track the killer themselves. Cornered, caught and dragged off to face an equally barbaric form of justice, Beckert endures his own personal torment. - Director:
- Fritz Lang
- Cast:
- Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut
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Limite (1931)Limit
In a rowboat to nowhere three nameless people - two women (Olga Breno and Tatiana Rey) and one man (Brutus Pedreira) indefinitely and aimlessly drift at sea. Some semblance of what led them to this sea of abyss is told via flashbacks - but even those don’t really explain how the hell these people ended up floating in a boat together. As such, the “story” made absolutely no sense and drug on forever - hence my need for a handful of speed. - Director:
- Mario Peixoto
- Cast:
- Olga Breno, Tatiana Rey, Raul Schnoor
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Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) dares to tamper with life and death by creating a human monster (Boris Karloff) out of lifeless body parts.
- Director:
- James Whale
- Cast:
- Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff
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Freedom for Us (1931)A Nous La Liberte!
One of the all time classic French films. Made in 1931, this is one of the first French talkies. Pre dating Chaplin's Modern Times by 5 years (and the subject of a bitter court case stopped when Rene Clair stated that imitation is the finest form of flattery) and leading the way in a satirical attack on the machine age, Rene Clair created a wicked comedy on the dehumanisation of industrial workers. When Louis (Raymond Cordy) and Emile (Henri Marchand), two prison inmates, attempt to escape, Louis is caught and returned to his cell, while Emile succeeds and becomes a successful businessman. On Louis' release he goes to work for Emile but finds the industrial world no better than the prison regime. When Emile is recognised as an escaped convict he and Louis decide to escape the confines of the factory by taking to the road as tramps. - Director:
- René Clair
- Cast:
- Raymond Cordy, Henri Marchand, Rolla France
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