Film Reviews by Steve

Mythic horror/crime hybrid which is a sequel twice over. There's the return of Fritz Lang's criminal Übermensch, 11 years after Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler. And he is pursued by the Inspector from Lang's 1931 film, M... Mabuse has been in a mental hospital since '22, constantly scrawling meaningless hieroglyphics on endless reams of paper. But it's '33 and time to return.

Mabuse controls the people through telepathy. Which brings a satisfying circularity to the end of golden age Weimar cinema which began in 1920 with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with another hypnotist in an asylum. Lang says Goebbels banned his picture and asked him to lead the Nazi film industry. So Lang fled the country. It wasn't shown in Germany until '51.

Critics like to undermine Lang's assertion that this was intended to be a warning about the rise of fascism. But it's unmissible. The interesting, exciting plot isn't much different from a Dick Tracy adventure. But Lang's villains actually repeat hate-speech and propaganda taken from Nazi rallies. The mood of panic, anarchy and paranoia is incredibly powerful.

This is a suspenseful thriller unbalanced by its weighty allegorical insinuations. Which then turns nightmarish as the mastermind runs crime from beyond the grave! It's pessimistic with an incredibly heavy, desolate score. Lang directs with panache, and even takes us back to the expressionism of the original. For me, this is his best German film.

The first half an hour is an above average musical about a big band which travels south of the border to Rio for a nightclub engagement, and gets involved in romance, and performs a few Latin numbers. There's a love triangle led by Dolores Del Rio who is tempted by the handsome band leader (Gene Raymond) away from her hometown squeeze (Paul Roulien).

It's one of many jazz combo musicals released in the golden age. But on about 30m, during a long Latin dance spectacular- The Carioca- there is suddenly magic. For the first time ever on screen, Fred Astaire dances with Ginger Rogers. And it all briefly becomes sublime. And then the number ends and we're left with Del Rio, Raymond and Roulien and a poor script.

The stars are actually fine, and quite sexy. We see Dolores momentarily in a two piece bathing costume a year before Maureen O'Sullivan did famously in a Tarzan film which led to a ban under the Production Code! Gene emerges hunkily unclothed from a shower. And the big title finale with the showgirls strapped to the wings of light aircraft... is astonishing.

This would be the esoteric delight of precode nerds, if not for the debut together of Fred and Ginger. They sing one song each, without much impact. But when they come together on the dance floor, lightning strikes. Fred wasn't looking for a partner but the public response meant the studio starred them in a further nine musicals, which would substantially define '30s cinema.

After their success with Grand Hotel in '32, MGM released this in its image; another all star comedy drama based on a Broadway play. It retains many of the crew, and some of the stars in similar roles. So there's Lionel Barrymore as a dying entrepreneur. Wallace Beery returns as the bumptious capitalist. John Barrymore plays another bankrupt washout.

But this is much better, mostly because MGM's ace director George Cukor is in charge. He gets more disciplined performances from his stars. John Barrymore is especially poignant as an egotistical, alcoholic actor, which must have felt close to home. And there's Jean Harlow as a sexy gold-digger and Marie Dressler as the sardonic observer.

The support is fine too, with Billie Burke a stand out as a ditzy social climber who hosts a dinner for some visiting aristocrats and invites all of her diverse acquaintances. We see the ensemble cast preparing for the event, with comedy from Harlow and Beery as quarrelling nouveau-riche, and heartbreak from Barrymore.

It's precode so there are some skintight satin gowns for Harlow- by Adrian. Cukor benefits from an excellent script adapted from George Kaufman and Edna Thurber's stage play which is funny and satirical. And we observe that the best laid plans of mere mortals are ultimately futile! Particularly in the depression.

The quintessential Greta Garbo talkie. MGM solved the problem of what to do with her Swedish accent by casting her as the 17th century queen of Sweden. Though this is Hollywood history. Garbo is said to have been bisexual, but Christina's homosexuality is in such soft focus that you won't see it unless you know. The star does wear male clothing almost throughout.

But this isn't really precode exotica, it's history as romantic melodrama. Garbo plays the enlightened monarch who came to the throne as a child, but on maturity falls in love with a Spanish ambassador (John Gilbert) and abdicates. There isn't a realistic impression of the period. The wonderful sets and costumes are extravagant rather than authentic.

Any film directed by Rouben Mamoulian is worth seeing, but the quality of this one depends on Garbo's performance. As a silent actor she is sublime. That flawless visage in close up is peerless. The final image as she sails into an uncertain future is so famous it's difficult to live up to its reputation. But it's still stunning. Yet her voice is inflexible and lacks resonance.

 And she is adorable as a lover, but unimpressive as a politician. There are contrasting moods: the complex dialogue is tangled with commentary; the unsubtle comedy resorts to thigh slapping kitsch, yet the scene when Garbo- incognito as a man- and Gilbert share a room, could be from Lubitsch. It's the great Garbo who brings it all together with her gravity and class.

This is the sort of prestigious production that MGM had in mind when they claimed to have more stars than there are in heaven. It is based on a hit Broadway play, itself adapted from Vicki Baum's popular German novel about 24 hours in a luxury hotel in Weimar Berlin. There are three interlinked stories which reflect differences in social class.

So there's the aristocrat with John Barrymore as a hard up gentleman jewel thief. And the capitalist with Wallace Beery as an overbearing, crooked Prussian businessman. Greta Garbo is the artist, as a the most temperamental prima-ballerina in pictures. And then the workers: Joan Crawford as a jazz-babe stenographer; and Lionel Barrymore as a gauche, dying accountant.

They all basically play their star image. None of them is particularly appealing, but Beery is the nominated bad guy. It takes quite a lot of effort to get all the drama and the egos off the ground and the first hour lacks vitality. Eventually the situations engage, but there is nothing inspired here. It's well directed with a lavish budget, but it is hard to care.

It won the Oscar for best film, maybe because of the stars. Now, Barrymore looks shabby and Garbo is tiresomely theatrical. She does utter the immortal line: 'I want to be alone'. Crawford comes off best. The art deco sets and the fashions- by Adrian- are chic. It's the quintessence of what a big MGM drama was in '32. But now feels overwrought and weary.

For their 1920s stage productions the Marx Brothers were fortunate to draw on the scripts of George Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, two of the best comic writers on Broadway and in Hollywood. These were adapted for the act's first two films. SJ Perelman wrote this one as an original screenplay and it isn't quite at the same level.

Nothing exposes the thin material quite as much as so many of Zeppo's scenes surviving the edit. More than usual. Yet the Marx Brothers are always fun and this still has their customary anarchic energy. Groucho becomes President of an Ivy League college and enrols Chico and Harpo to win them the intra-varsity football cup...

The most famous sketch is the 'password is Swordfish' routine which is a pretty good tumble of crazy puns. And Chico's stream of malapropisms is the best part of the film. Groucho's digressions are disappointing. Margaret Dumont is regrettably absent, though Thelma Todd is game support and gives the screen some genuine sex appeal.

All four brothers sing Everyone Says I Love You- well, Harpo plays it on the harp- which years later was adapted as the title number for the Woody Allen musical. They all do their beloved schtick, but the gags aren't there. For me, this is the least of their early Paramount comedies. They were back on form the following year with Duck Soup.

Eerie low budget arthouse horror which has gathered a strong cult following. It's based on the same vampire story by Sheridan Le Fanu as the 1970 Hammer favourite, The Vampire Lovers, which is just about apparent, but could hardly be more different in style. This is b&w and dreamlike, with very little dialogue, and mostly sustained by a gloomy string score.

It was financed by the Russian aristocrat who takes the lead role as Julian West. Its micro-budget determines the aesthetic. It's all atmosphere and suggestion. The frame is haunted by transient, superimposed figures of uncertain reality. A researcher visits a country home to investigate rumours of the supernatural and finds young women preyed on by vampirism.

Carl Th. Dreyer creates an expressionist hallucination which has been copied mercilessly. Like Carnival of Souls in 1962. The narrative is uncertain. Reading a plot summary may elicit a few surprises. But the spectral imagery worms into the subconscious. Particularly West's vision of being buried alive seen from his point of view through a window in his coffin.

The only professional actor is Sybille Schmidt who earns her wage for a single emotive look of pure transgressive evil. Aside from Wolfgang Zeller's score, Rudolph Maté deserves mention for the blanched, impalpable photography. This is a hypnotic, uncanny dreamworld, an unsettling immersion into an astral sphere of occult folklore.

Sentimental musical melodrama set among the colourful inhabitants of the Parisian demi-monde. It's make-believe, but René Clair creates such a rich atmosphere with the wonderful studio sets, costumes and expressionist lighting that it's how we come to imagine Paris between the wars, courtesy of the nostalgia of cinema.

A street singer (Albert Préjean) seeks romance with a penniless immigrant (Pola Illéry) but fate conspires against him. The triangle is completed by Edmond Gréville, who film buffs will know as a director of B features in UK after WWII. There's a lot of underworld malarky with a gangster and a pickpocket, which facilitates a highly stylised portrayal of life on the streets.

Clair became a success in Hollywood, usually making ambient pictures like this. There is a peculiar impression of the talkie era arriving during production. It fluctuates between sound and silent approaches. The soundtrack is mainly for songs, including the guileless singalong waltz of the title, naturally played on accordion.

The director's use of crane shots is prominent, and his mastery of montage. The camera sweeps us from the rooftops of Paris and down to the gutter. For the poor, life is sorrowful and unjust and love is the only glimpse of happiness. The audience is positioned as tourists in their world. It's very slight, but an unusual vignette lifted from the big parade.

This is framed as René Clair's follow up to his 1930 musical, Under the Roofs of Paris. It opens with the camera tracking over the chimney tops and then entering the skylight of a large attic room. The story is heard from the people within and there is an impression that it is another random episode from the diverse pageant of the great French capital.

Rather than the underclass melodrama of the earlier film, this is a musical comedy, mainly set among the petit bourgeoisie. A struggling artist (René Lefèvre) has won the lottery but his resentful girlfriend (Annabella) has given away his coat with the ticket in a pocket. So it's a caper as the couple and other interested parties chase the jacket around the streets of Paris.

Which takes in many eccentric characters, like an elderly gang boss and a flamboyant opera singer. This is a critics favourite, partly because it's an entertaining comedy, but also for the imaginative uses of early sound technology, which were widely copied. And there is an engaging fluidity, as Clair blends speech, songs and silence. And sets and models too.

It a fantasy where sometimes the dialogue rhymes and characters fluctuate between singing and talking. It's an optimistic celebration of the capricious consequences of fate and the lives which are swayed by them. Most critics prefer this to Under the Roofs of Paris because of the playful use of sound. Personally, I lean towards the pessimism of the previous film!

Another whimsical musical from René Clair in the early sound period, though this one has a political edge. It became controversial because the producers sued Charles Chaplin who quite extensively steals from it for Modern Times, released in '36. Though Chaplin brings in his own surrealism. And arguably Clair was influenced by the Englishman anyway.

A couple of jailbirds who escape from prison find very different fortunes on the outside. Raymond Cordy becomes a capitalist who gets rich enslaving workers on his dehumanising production line. Henri Marchand is a dropout who fails to be a good worker because he really doesn't want to play by the rules of industrialisation. He prefers to smell the flowers.

The leads make a likeable double act as their friendship ultimately overcomes the difference in status. For the workers, life on the outside is the same as prison. There is no freedom and people are destroyed by its spirit crushing conformity. If Clair was alive to see conditions today at an Amazon warehouse, he'd have a heart attack. This is quite a familiar dystopia.

There are wonderful expressionist sets, and a score by Georges Auric which occasionally bursts into satirical political songs. There's a lot of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), except the resolution is not to bridge capital and labour, but to opt out completely. Our heroes become a pair of (Chaplinesque) tramps. Given a choice between fascism and socialism, Clair picks anarchy.

My pick for the best precode Hollywood melodrama, which exploits a range of standard situations but elevates them with quality. This is partly due to the superior dialogue taken from Robert Sherwood's Broadway play. And even more for James Whale's fluent and sympathetic direction. But most of all, for Mae Clarke's stunning lead performance.

Anyone who only knows her from having half a grapefruit shoved in her face by James Cagney (in The Public Enemy, also '31) is in for a big shock. She is heartbreaking in an extremely natural portrayal. She's well directed by Whale and really delivers in a some agonising closeups. This is one of the great dramatic performances of the decade.

She plays a former chorus girl forced into sex work when the theatres close down during WWI. She meets a Canadian soldier (Douglass Montgomery) on leave and gets the customary glimpse of redemption before fate, and her overwhelming shame, closes down all hope. This doesn't deal with the facts of life as bluntly as the play, but it's still pretty candid.

Plus the 23 year old Bette Davis has an early support role! The vast painted Thames and the slum interiors bring atmosphere. It wasn't seen for decades after the code was enforced in '34. Then the cleaned up MGM remake became popular. But Whale's version is supreme and far more realistic. And features Clarke's definitive portrayal, as yet another casualty of war.

Cinema landmark which is often called the first horror film. This overlooks that it is already a remake of FW Murnau's silent classic from 1922, Nosferatu, which is a much superior film. But Dracula is hugely influential and Bela Lugosi as the Count is legendary. It's a straightforward telling of Bram Stoker's novel, though actually based on one of the many stage spinoffs.

The screenplay takes time to explain the rules of vampirism, because all this was new to cinema audiences. Of course, Lugosi is accused of overacting, which is fair. But so does everyone else! Dwight Frye as Renfield hams most effectively and arguably steals the film. Helen Chandler and David Manners are very weak as the romantic leads.

Surely director Tod Browning is partly responsible for the issues with performances. He is said to have been routinely absent from the set. Much of the direction was actually done by legendary cameraman Karl Freund who photographed the expressionist, silent German horrors this heavily borrows from. There's a lot of atmosphere, and creepy set decoration.

The brides of Dracula are only glimpsed, but are splendidly sinister. Most prints now incorporate a musical score which wasn't on the original release. It's more entertaining with this, but maybe a touch less eerie. It's dated and poorly directed and edited. But it's more than a film; it's a cultural phenomenon. All later Dracula pictures are made in its shadow.

This is the third of seven collaborations between Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich made between 1930-35. The last six were for Paramount and are exotic studio melodramas set in romantic places. Critics search for unifying themes, but what they uniquely share is the director's visual style, and the fascination of his camera for his star.

Dietrich plays a sex worker who turns spy for Austria in WWI. Her mission is to take down her Russian counterpart (Victor McLaglen) which she does, but of course they fall in love and she saves him and is shot for treason... But really this is a film about how von Sternberg lights his great leading lady. Plus a lot of fatalism and atmosphere with cigarettes and snowstorms.

And Marlene is dressed magnificently. In my view, this is the least of their films. Mostly because McLaglen is disastrously cast and a limited actor anyway. Dietrich gives a languid, opiated performance which is probably intended to be mysterious, but just slows everything down. The narrative of romantic espionage is commonplace. The dialogue is absurd.

But in a way, none of this matters. This is an artistic production of extraordinary glamour, and that's why these films survive. No one can make pictures like this now; they're rare blooms which are rooted in their period and its technology. And in the unique relationship between the director and his star and Paramount's willingness to indulge them.

After Marlene Dietrich's success as an exotic Austrian spy of the Great War in Dishonored, later in the same year MGM released a very similar melodrama loosely based on the last few weeks in the life of Mata Hari, who (allegedly) was a German agent in Paris. And it makes an ideal vehicle for Greta Garbo as the infamous Dutch celebrity/dancer who was executed in 1917.

Joseph von Sternberg's film is more beautiful while the less exalted George Fitzmaurice creates a more coherent and satisfying entertainment. It still looks great, with artistic photography and extraordinary costumes. But some work has gone into the script too and Garbo delivers a performance, as well as being a star.

In real life, Mata Hari was middle aged and looking it by the time of her death. But Garbo plays a lissom femme fatale for whom besotted men gladly die. There a memorable scene where she compels a dashing, handsome Russian fighter pilot (Ramon Novarro) blow out the eternal flame on his religious icon before she'll seduce him.

It's a sombre precode adventure with the usual impediments of early sound. It's dated but still absorbing. After '34 the censors cut out some salacious content which has been lost, but Garbo's dance at the start of the film is still quite erotic. Until the tiresome histrionics of Mata's death, this is an irresistible treat for fans of golden age romantic melodrama.

This is the masterpiece of Fritz Lang's German period because of its innovative use of the camera and emerging sound technology. In 1931, this must have looked like a giant leap forward. And it's a suspenseful thriller too with Peter Lorre as the psychopathic child murderer the whole of Berlin comes together to capture. Including the criminals and beggars.

A mythology has collected around M that it is an anti-fascist polemic and an allegory about the need for all citizens to root out and destroy the emerging Nazi threat. This feels tenuous... though Goebbels did ban the film as soon as they were in government. Perhaps the atmosphere of paranoia, mistrust and panic captures the spirit of the times.

While Lorre haunts the memory of the film, he doesn't have all that much screen time. But he is horrifying as he pleads for mercy from his hostile criminal captors on the grounds that he kills because he has no choice. Mainly it's a realistic police procedural as the Inspector (Otto Wernicke) uses forensics to track down the murderer.

Lang based the events on interviews with the police and research into serial killers. He took his extras from the Berlin underworld. And there is sympathy for the left behind and the dispossessed of the depression. This is a long way from the German expressionism of the early '20s. It's an ominous, pessimistic crime thriller which was an influence on film noir.