griggs's - 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List

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Browning, a former circus contortionist, cast reai-life sideshow professionals.

A living torso who, nimbly fights his own cigarette despite having no arms or legs, microcephalics (whom the film calls "pinheads")-they and others play the big-top troupers who inflict a terrible revenge on a trapeze artist who treats them as subhumans.

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It's full steam ahead with Marlene Dietrich as the mesmerising Shanghai Lilly in this exotic high drama directed by Josef Von Sternberg. After being jilted by Captain Donal Harvey (Clive Brook), Lily gains a reputation as notorious adventuress.

Things heat up when the former lovers are reunited on a train en route to Shanghai. They share accommodation with a motley group of international passengers, including a dubious merchant who unsuccessfully propositions Lily. When the train is overtaken by Chinese rebels, Captain Harvey is held hostage and the merchant turns out to be the rebels' leader. So Lily strikes a tantalising bargain in order to save the man she never stopped loving.

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Generally regarded to be the best of the classic gangster films, 'Scarface' tells the exciting story of organised crime's brutal control over Chicago during the Prohibition era.

Paul Muni gives an electrifying performance as Tony Carmonte, an ambitious criminal with a ruthless drive to be the city's top crime boss. Directed by the legendary Howard Hawks, 'Scarface' was a groundbreaking film which established both Paul Muni and George Raft as major Hollywood stars, while influencing all gangland films to follow.

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The first sound-film by one of the greatest of all filmmaker's, Vampyr offers a sensual immediacy that few, if any, works of cinema can claim to match.

Legendary director Carl Theodor Dreyer leads the viewer, as though guided in a trance, through a realm akin to a wakingdream, a zone positioned somewhere between reality and the supernatural.

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When the debt owed to Parisian tailor Maurice (Maurice Chevalier) becomes too great, he decides to travel to the aristocratic home of his non-paying customer. There, he falls for Princess Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald), who rejects his advances due to his low social standing.

However, she changes her tune when she is led to believe he is a royal, travelling incognito.

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When career thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets glamorous pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), their love soon takes on a professional dimension as they initiate a plot to rob beautiful perfume magnate Mariette Colet (Kay Francis).

But as Gaston gets ever closer to his intended prey, his romantic confusion, as well as the threat that his past will catch up with him, throws their plan into jeopardy.

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Having returned from fighting in World War I, James Allen (Paul Muni) doesn't want to settle into a humdrum life and decides to set off to find his fortune. He travels the length and breadth of America, working as a skilled tradesman in the construction industry.

When times get tough however, he finds himself living in a shelter where an acquaintance suggests they go out for a hamburger. What the friend really has in mind is to rob the diner and Allen soon finds himself working on a chain gang with a long jail sentence. Allen manages to escape however and heads to Chicago where over several years he slowly but surely works his way up the ladder to become one of the most respected construction engineers in the city. His past catches up with him and despite protestations from civic leaders and his many friends in Chicago, he finds himself again on the chain gang. Escaping for a second time, he accepts that to survive, he must lead a life of crime.

A Parisian bookseller, Lestingois, fishes Boudu, a vagrant, out of the river Seine. He befriends the tramp and puts him up at home, where Boudu causes nothing but trouble. However, events take a different turn when Boudu wins the lottery...

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At the height of the Chinese civil Megan Davis Megan Davis, an American missionary, travelled to Shanghai to marry her childhood sweetheart.

Separated during a raid, Megan is taken prisoner by the local warlord, General Yen (Nils Asther), who, intrigued by her innocence and strength, spirits her away to his summer palace. Initially repulsed by her captor's barbaric behaviour, Megan soon realises that beneath Yen's ruthless demeanor lies the soul of a poet and philosopher. And as war rages around them, these two strangers find themselves hopelessly entangled in a dangerous web of desire, betrayal and unattainable love.

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Set in the 1890s, West plays a brash barroom entertainer with a soft spot for men in trouble, especially the mission director, young Cary Grant. She unknowingly gets caught up in a murder, as well as a white slavery ring, and sets about clearing things up as only Mae can.

In between rescues she manages to perform some of her heated, hip-swinging classics including a steamy belting of "Frankie and Johnnie". Dripping in gems and low cut splendour, Mac is a delight for all of the senses. No one comes close to this lady's style of pure brazen wit and suggestive invitations to "Come up some time and see me?"

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Meet a dewy-eyed ingenue, a gee-whiz tenor, stuck-up stars, hard-up producers, brassy blondes and "shady ladies from the 80s". They're all denizens of '42nd Street', belting out ageless Harry Warren/Al Dubin songs and tapping out Busby Berkeley's sensational Depression - lifting production numbers.

The put-on-a-show plot spins merrily, full of snappy banter and new faces Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers. The show-stopping numbers (Shuffle off to Buffalo, You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me and the title tune) still dazzle. Looking and sounding its best in years via this new digital transfer from the restored original camera negative and optical audio tracks, '42nd Street' shows good times never go out of style.

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Experience the excitement and the terror felt by movie-going audiences when R.K.O. released the original monster classic.

Behold the discovery of the giant ape King Kong on Skull Island, his terrifying battle against the prehistoric creatures that live there, and his brutal murder of the ship's sailors that follow him. See King Kong's voyage to New York and his fatal attraction to the beautiful Fay Wray, leading to death and destruction as Kong pursues her through New York City. Witness the awe-inspiring finale as Kong ascends the Empire State Building, only to be shot down by fighter pilots in a breathtaking display of 1930's aerial photography.

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Bruel (Constantin Goldstein-Kehler), Caussat (Louis Lefebvre) and Colin (Gilbert Pruchon) are three students at a boarding school. There is a continual battle between the school's authority figures and students.

The teachers and monitors are always giving the three in particular "zero for conduct" and Sunday detention for their behavior. Conversely, most of the students believe the headmaster, teachers and monitors are a combination of authoritarian, inept, and/or corrupt. The one exception among the teachers is Huguet, newly arrived to the school, he who has a penchant for imitating Charles Chaplin as the Little Tramp, and to do handstands whenever the mood suits him, which includes in class. The boys are always doing whatever it takes to amuse themselves, which if it causes the teachers grief, so much the better. The three are the masterminds of a plot to overtake the school's Commemoration Day celebrations. The one student not involved is Tabard, who is seen as a sissy among the student body. Bruel believes Tabard (Gérard de Bédarieux) should be involved.

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A Broadway producer has the talent, the tunes, the theater and everything else he needs to put on a show - except the dough. Not to worry, say Ginger Rogers and the other leggy chorines decked out in giant coins. Everyone will soon be singing "We're in the Money".

Soon after 42nd Street, the brothers Warner again kicked the Depression blues out the stage door and into a back alley. Mervyn Le Roy directs the snappy nonmusical portions involving three wonderfully silly love matches (including Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler). And Busby Berkeley brings his peerless magic to the production numbers, his camera swooping and gliding to showstoppers that are naughty ("Pettin' in the Park"), neon-lit ("Shadow Waltz") and soul-searing ("Remember My Forgotten Man"). Solid cinema gold!

James Cagney channels Busby Berkeley (who choreographs the stunning, kaleidoscopic dance routines) as a Broadway director who comes up with a scheme to break into movies through, well, stunning, kaleidoscopic dance routines. (Cagney even does some hoofing of his own.)