The champ 1931 - A heartwarming film about parents and children

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IMDB rating: 7,3

Director: King Vidor
Main Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates

"Wallace Beery won an Academy Award for his tour de force performance as a washed-up boxer. The bibulous Beery travels from one tank-town bout to another in the company of his faithful son Jackie Cooper and his stuttering manager Roscoe Ates. Hoping for a comeback in Tijuana, Beery is approached by his ex-wife Irene Rich, now married to wealthy Hale Hamilton. Rich convinces Beery that Cooper would be better off with her. Feigning brusqueness, Beery orders his son to get lost, hoping that the kid will be disillusioned enough to remain with his mother. But Cooper runs away from his new home and shows up back in Tijuana, just as Beery is in the middle of his comeback bout. Cheered on by his son, Beery knocks his opponent cold - and then collapses himself. Dying, Beery tells the tearful Cooper that everything will be all right if the boy returns to his mom. While Wallace Beery was capable of laying on pathos with a trowel, his final scene in The Champ can still move an audience to tears - far more so than the similar scene between Jon Voight and Rick Schroeder in the wearisome 1979 remake. In 1953, writer Frances Marion updated and revised her Champ script, changed the washed-up pug to a washed-up comedian, and came up with The Clown, one of Red Skelton's few dramatic vehicles." - www.allmovie.com

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The Maltese falcon 1931 - The dangerous female

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IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Roy Del Ruth
Main Cast: Ricardo Cortez, Bebe Daniels, Dudley Digges, Una Merkel, Robert Elliott, Thelma Todd

"The 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon consistently ranks among the greatest American films ever made, but two other adaptations of Dashiell Hammett's novel preceded it. Unlike the 1936 version - Satan Met a Lady, starring Bette Davis - 1931's The Maltese Falcon stays close to the source material, aside from a tacked-on ending that relieves some of the book's cynical severity. The film had a standard feel for a studio production of the early sound period; it arrived in theaters right before the surge of detective movies, as horror and gangster films were falling out of favor. Journeyman director Roy Del Ruth helms adequately enough, and the prolific but lightly regarded bit actor Ricardo Cortez does well with his interpretation of Sam Spade as a saucy womanizer.
To avoid confusion with the 1941 remake, the 1931 Maltese Falcon has been retitled Dangerous Female for television." - www.allmovie.com

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(DVDrip):

http://dfiles.eu/files/4317b7bx0
http://dfiles.eu/files/zpclg9e23

Five star final 1931 - One of the best newspaper movies

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IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Main Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H. B. Warner, Anthony Bushell, George E. Stone, Ona Munson, Boris Karloff

"Adapted from the stage play by former newspaperman Louis Weitzenkorn, Five Star Final is an uncompromising look at the consequences of journalistic irresponsibility. Nominated for an Oscar as the year's best film, Five Star Final was the prototypical newspaper movie which was widely imitated in the 1930s and 1940s. It features many of the aspects of such films that would later become cliches, including a hard-bitten newspaper editor (played by Edward G. Robinson), an unscrupulous reporter (played by the great villain Boris Karloff) and a cast of crusty journalists and outraged citizens. It's a thorough condemnation of yellow journalism and sets forth the same kind of tensions and themes that many decades later could be found in such newspaper films as All the President's Men and Absence of Malice. Like all such films, there is redemption in exposing hypocrisy and pursuing truth. Prolific director Mervyn LeRoy was at the helm. Five years later, the plot was recycled, with the setting shifted to a radio station, in Two Against the World, starring Humphrey Bogart." - www.allmovie.com

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East Lynne 1931 - A powerful melodrama with good performances

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IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: Frank Lloyd
Main Cast: Ann Harding, Clive Brook, Conrad Nagel

"There were several silent film versions of East Lynne, all of which made money. 1931 yielded no fewer than two adaptations, one set in modern times and retitled Ex-Flame. Fox Studios' version restored the original title and the 1860s setting, but couldn't do much with that creaky plot. Ann Harding portrays Lady Isabel Carlisle, who nearly a decade of family hardships learns that her son has fallen ill. Despite being nearly blind as the result of a bomb explosion, Lady Carlisle returns home to see her son one last time - just before dying herself." - www.allmovie.com

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http://rapidgator.net/file/23974876

Monkey business 1931 - Joyful comedy, plenty of fun

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IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Main Cast: Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd, Rockliffe Fellowes, Harry Woods

"Until Monkey Business was filmed in 1931, the fabulous Marx Brothers had made only films adapted from their stage comedies. Noted humorist S. J. Perelman was the leading force among the writers who concocted this zany tale about four stowaways on an ocean liner. The title is a perfect one for a Marx movie even if the film doesn't have anything to do with monkeys. When the brothers are practicing their hijinks aboard the ship, the sight gags, pratfalls and quips are virtually non-stop. After they each imitate the actor Maurice Chevalier while going through customs, however, the jokes dissipate, and the second half of the movie, which takes place in a New York mansion, is not nearly as frenetic. Some consider this the best Marx Brothers movie, but many viewers and critics prefer Duck Soup." - www.allmovie.com

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The front page 1931 - The first version of the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur Broadway hit

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IMDB rating: 7,0

Director: Lewis Milestone
Main Cast: Adolphe Menjou, Pat O'Brien, Mary Brian, Edward Everett Horton, Walter Catlett, George E. Stone, Mae Clarke

"The original screen version of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's 1928 Broadway hit remains perhaps the most faithful to its theatrical origins - although, as an inside joke, several character names were altered to reflect the change in medium, e.g. 'George Kid Cukor' and 'Judge Mankiewicz'. But Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou) is still attempting to keep star reporter Hildy Johnson (Pat O'Brien) from leaving his place at the paper in favor of marrying the upwardly mobile Peggy Grant (Mary Brian). And poor Earl Williams (George E. Stone's), whose upcoming hanging drives the plot, is still more or less ignored while the tough reporters crack wise. The overlapping lines are much in evidence here and obviously not the invention of Howard Hawks, whose gender-switch remake His Girl Friday (1941) may be faster but not nearly as gritty. Menjou, who actually fits his bombastic role better than perhaps expected, was actually a last minute replacement when the original choice, Louis Wolheim, suddenly died. Menjou went on to win an Academy Award nomination for his efforts. Producer Howard Hughes drew mightily from the Warner Bros. stock company and every role, no matter how small, is filled with such notorious scene stealers as Edward Everett Horton as the prissy Bensinger; Clarence H. Wilson as the inane sheriff, and Mae Clarke as the self-sacrificing streetwalker Molly Malloy. In fact; Miss Clarke conveys the character's desperation skillfully. According to Mary Brian, The Front Page was this charming actress' favorite film." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

https://archive.org/download/TheFrontPage1931AdolpheMenjouPatOBrienLewismiles/TheFrontPage1931AdolpheMenjouPatOBrienLewismiles.avi

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Little Caesar 1931 - The first 'talkie' gangster movie

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IMDB rating: 7,4

Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Main Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, William Collier Jr., Sidney Blackmer

"The rise of Al Capone to the head of America's criminal class inspired this Edward G. Robinson vehicle. Appearing just as talking pictures were finding their feet, Robinson's gravelly snarl and sociopathic disdain for human conventions became the template for countless future gangster anti-heroes. In fact, virtually every aspect of Little Caesar, from the seedy settings and rough-hewn slang to the pinstriped suits and ever-present Tommy Gun, became part of the language of the genre. Little Caesar sprints by in a brisk 77 minutes, powering through the rapid rise and inevitable descent of its flawed and ambitious protagonist as if a getaway car were waiting outside. The film insightfully plays on the Horatio Alger ideal of the all-American self-made man to examine this impulse's darker, anti-social implications, while offering a tragic arc of Greek proportions. The story's violence is discernibly in your face, and the performances are about as subtle as the gangster's suits. Ironically, the film, which purportedly aimed to expose the dark underbelly of the gangster life, was so riveting that it wound up glamorizing its targets, a fact not lost on movie censors of the time. Little Caesar was followed quickly by Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932); the three films ushered in a legion of imitators to follow, but they were also, at least for a time, the last 'true' gangster movies, as their ambiguous representation of glamorous criminals brought down the much stricter 1934 content restrictions of Joe Breen's Production Code Administration." - www.allmovie.com

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Dracula 1931 - The perfect Gothic horror picture

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Tod Browning
Main Cast: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan

"'I am....Drac-u-la. I bid you velcome'. Thus does Bela Lugosi declare his presence in the 1931 screen version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Director Tod Browning invests most of his mood and atmosphere in the first two reels, which were based on the original Stoker novel; the rest of the film is a more stagebound translation of the popular stage play by John Balderston and Hamilton Deane. Even so, the electric tension between the elegant Dracula and the vampire hunter Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) works as well on the screen as it did on the stage. And it's hard to forget such moments as the lustful gleam in the eyes of Mina Harker (Helen Chandler) as she succumbs to the will of Dracula, or the omnipresent insane giggle of the fly-eating Renfield (Dwight Frye). Despite the static nature of the final scenes, Dracula is a classic among horror films, with Bela Lugosi giving the performance of a lifetime as the erudite Count (both Lugosi and co-star Frye would forever after be typecast as a result of this film, which had unfortunate consequences for both men's careers). Compare this Dracula to the simultaneously filmed Spanish-language version, which makes up for the absence of Lugosi with a stronger sense of visual dynamics in the lengthy dialogue sequences." - www.allmovie.com 

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Tabu 1931 - A lyrical 'documentary' of Polynesian life

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: F. W. Murnau
Main Cast: Anne Chevalier, Matahi

"The story concerns a young island girl (Anna Chevalier, who like everyone in the cast is a non-professional) who has been consecrated to the gods by her tribespeople. It is thus "tabu" for her to marry; still, she falls in love with a handsome young pearl fisherman (Matahi). The island's holy man takes the girl away in his schooner. Her lover swims after her, but eventually sinks disconsolately into the ocean. Shot completely on location, it was supposed to be a collaboration between German director F. W. Murnau and American documentary producer Robert Flaherty. Flaherty withdrew from the project when he realized the film was taking a romanticized approach. Murnau never lived to see the final product; he was killed in a car accident just before the film's opening. Begun as a silent film in 1929, Tabu was released in that form in 1931, despite the fact that talking pictures already had been established for nearly three years." - www.allmovie.com

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1931 - The first sound version of Stevenson's classic morality tale

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Main Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart

"Director Rouben Mamoulian had already proved, with his earlier Applause and City Streets, that it was possible to make a sound film that was not enslaved by the limitations that most accepted as part and parcel of the new sound technology. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was even more impressive in its use of a fluid camera, interesting shots and angles, and (for the most part) quality sound reproduction. Mamoulian has a field day telling this familiar story; he uses the subjective point-of-view to make the viewer complicit in Jekyll's sins and seems to be having a love affair with close-ups of characters' eyes (the windows of the soul). Through clever use of lighting and careful editing, his transformation sequences are also startling and effective (helped enormously, of course, by Wally Westmore's superb makeup for Hyde). Mamoulian's work is, thankfully, not an example of mere egotism, but rather is used in support of a very good script that, while it overemphasizes the sexual decadence of Hyde at the expense of his overall innate evilness, has been written with the demands of the cinema in mind. Mamoulian is also helped by a first-rate cast, led by Fredric March's irreplaceable turn as the title characters. March captures both the extremes of civility and savagery that are demanded of him; he also manages to inject humor into the proceedings and to make Jekyll a fully rounded individual, even to the point of letting the audience see what an ignoble coward he can be. Rose Hobart makes Muriel's love for Jekyll touching and believable, and in the showy role of the tart, Miriam Hopkins is splendid." - www.allmovie.com

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The public enemy 1931 - William A. Wellman's landmark gangster movie

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: William A. Wellman
Main Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell, Donald Cook

"One of the great pre-Production Code gangster films, William Wellman's The Public Enemy made James Cagney a star, providing him with his defining role: Tom Powers, a bitter Chicago gangster driven to a tragic end. Like its contemporaries Little Caesar and Scarface, The Public Enemy was surprisingly ambitious in its examination of the social causes that drive young men into a life of crime, closely examining the allure of street gangs to working-class youths. Although the film goes to great lengths to claim that it does not glamorize criminal activity - providing a moralistic introduction and conclusion designed to ward off censorship - many powerful people felt otherwise, and the film's notoriety helped install the more draconian Production Code of 1934. The film's mixed message occurs largely because Cagney is so charismatic an antihero, especially compared to his straight-arrow brother, played woodenly by Donald Cook. Though the film is sometimes visually static, a common problem given the constraints of early sound cinema, it remains bracing and brutal, filled with an air of menace and hopelessness." - www.allmovie.com

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Frankenstein 1931 - The definitive film version of Mary Shelley's classic tale of tragedy and horror

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IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: James Whale
Main Cast: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Boris Karloff, Edward Van Sloan

"Frankenstein was the movie that made unknown character actor Boris Karloff a star and created a new icon of terror. Along with the highly successful Dracula, released earlier the same year, it launched Universal Studio's golden age of 1930s horror movies. The film's greatness stems less from its script than from the stark but moody atmosphere created by director James Whale; Herman Rosse's memorable set designs, particularly the fantastic watchtower laboratory, featuring electrical equipment designed by Kenneth Strickfaden; the creature's trademark look from makeup artist Jack Pierce, who required Karloff to don pounds of makeup and heavy asphalt shoes to create the monster's unique lurching gait; and Karloff's nuanced performance as the tormented and bewildered creature. Despite moments of melodrama, the film is wonderfully economical, telling a complex and engaging tale in little more than one hour. There are more moments of quiet power (most of them involving the strikingly effective Boris Karloff as the monster who simply wants to be loved) than you'll find in a fistful of big-budget horror films. Whale knew his medium and didn't clutter the action with a lot of chatter. Instead, he filled the screen with images that would become part of our cultural lexicon. He builds the story to its tragically inevitable climax, interchanging moments of subtle beauty and dreadful horror. Rather than simply adopt a conventional perspective (man should not play God), Whale emphasized the human drama (Frankenstein should not have abandoned his creation), turning a horror film into an existential tale of man's fear of abandonment." - www.allmovie.com

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City lights 1931 - A plea for humanitarianism and justice

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IMDB rating: 8,6

Director: Charles Chaplin
Main Cast: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers

"Many critics consider City Lights to be Charles Chaplin's finest film, no small accomplishment considering his long string of great films. The film is a Chaplin tour-de-force, as he has his hand in almost every aspect of its production. He co-wrote, produced, directed, scored and edited the film. Unwilling to bend to the winds of change, which saw the introduction of the spoken word in movies three years earlier, Chaplin's is a silent film. However, he does use music and sound effects cleverly throughout, even employing them pointedly to satirize "the talkies." Other familiar targets are the hypocrisy, prissiness, and arrogance of wealthy 'polite society' and cruelty to society's less fortunate, lovable outcasts like The Little Tramp himself. Of course, Chaplin's physical comedy is riotously funny. He dances along the highwire between hilarity and disaster with aplomb. All the while, Chaplin's Little Tramp maintains his dignity and sense of fair play. City Lights's parallel plot lines unfold effectively, as the storyline involving The Little Tramp and the suicidal millionaire presages themes developed more fully in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. The pathos-ridden love story with the blind flower girl plays on universal themes, such as the intoxicating blindness of love and the rejuvenating power of selflessness. A graceful, athletic artist of pantomime, Chaplin's Little Tramp moves effortlessly between figures of destitution and wealth, aiding and abetting all around him. City Lights is a paean to our best impulses, a plea for humanitarianism and justice. Most important, it is the work of a master craftsman, in full control of his craft." - www.allmovie.com

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Suicide fleet 1931 - Fighting sailing ships

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IMDB rating: 5,8

Director: Albert S. Rogell
Main Cast: William Boyd, Robert Armstrong, James Gleason, Ginger Rogers

"Coney island vendors Baltimore Clark (Bill Boyd), Dutch Herman (Robert Armstrong) and Skeets O'Reilly (James Gleason) spend their off-hours (and some of their on-hours) carrying on a friendly rivalry for the affections of the pert Sally (Ginger Rogers). But when America enters WW1, our three heroes leave Sally behind and join the Navy. Before long, Baltimore, Dutch and Skeets find themselves smack in the middle of an ongoing conflict between the German U-boat fleet and a shadowy 'mystery' ship. Naturally, the boys are crewmen on the aforementioned mystery vessel, which is used as a decoy to bring the enemy out into the open. Despite this tense situation, the film spends a goodly amount of time showing the three protagonists cheerfully cheating on Sally with fetching foreign damsels in other ports of call." - www.allmovie.com

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Seas beneath 1931 - Visually interesting sea adventure

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IMDB rating: 5,7

Director: John Ford
Main Cast: George O'Brien, Marion Lessing, Mona Maris

"Seas Beneath is a rousing sea adventure from John Ford that takes place in the closing months of World War I. Largely unavailable for decades, Seas Beneath remains a solid and gritty war picture that is also guilty - like much of Ford's work - of idealizing history. About half of the film takes place in a Spanish port town, where German spies abound. These scenes suffer from a stasis probably dictated by the technical restrictions of the early sound era, but Ford injects them with a seediness and mysteriousness that makes them compelling nonetheless. When Seas Beneath really comes alive, however, is when Captain Kingsley and company leave port and embark on their cat-and-mouse game with the German U-boat. With the invaluable aid of some remarkable location camerawork (as well as the assistance of the U.S. Navy), Ford places the viewer into the center of the action, creating a sense of authenticity that makes these scenes all the more dramatic, and leading up to a stunning climactic sea battle. The battle scenes are the highlight of the picture, and some credit must go to the sound crew for capturing the intensity of the action as the U-boat bombards the schooner over and again while Kingsley waits for his chance to strike. Another valuable element to the film is Ford's wise decision to actually have the Germans speak German, with only a minimal use of intertitles to translate the more important dialogue. The cast is solid, especially Mona Maris as the seductive spy Lolita. Seas Beneath is not a classic, but it deserves to be far better known and more widely seen." - www.allmovie.com

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Border law 1931 - A well paced early sound Western

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IMDB rating: 6,2

Director: Louis King
Main Cast: Buck Jones, Lupita Tovar, Jim Mason

"Border Law, directed by Henry King's less remembered brother Louis, remains a fine B-Western typical of its stalwart leading man Buck Jones. Although Columbia Pictures had only begun its slow climb out of Gower Gulch in 1931, the Jones westerns were better-than-average, and awarded more care than most of their rivals. With old-timer Frank Rice as a not too annoying comic relief and Lupita Tovar as a very fetching saloon belle, Border Law makes a pleasant hour of so of juvenile sagebrush action, Columbia style. The film is also a welcome chance to see the other, American, James Mason in action. His credits always confused with the later British star of the same name, Mason was the typical suave B-Western 'Boss Villain', complete with pencil-thin mustache and supercilious airs. In films since the 1910s, Mason enjoyed his best years in the early sound era, when his villainy often added an air of true menace to an otherwise lethargic B-Western." - www.allmovie.com

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Illicit 1931 - Stanwyck exudes raw sensuality

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IMDB rating: 6,2

Director: Archie Mayo
Main Caast: Barbara Stanwyck, James Rennie, Ricardo Cortez, Natalie Moorhead, Charles Butterworth, Joan Blondell

"'Nearly every girl I know is either unhappily married or unhappily divorced' -  a no-nonsense Barbara Stanwyck tells prospective father-in-law Claude Gillingwater in an early scene in this frank society drama from Warner Bros. Despite rumors of an illicit affair with handsome James Rennie, Gillingwater's son, Stanwyck remains doubtful of whether marriage is for her. And amazingly to viewers accustomed to post Production Code films, there is indeed an illicit affair going on here, what with Miss Stanwyck and her prospective groom lounging about at all hours in their night attire. They do of course get married but almost immediately lose that special spark that comes with a new romance. Rennie begins to dally with mature femme fatale Natalie Moorhead and Stanwyck, despairing at being turned into the shrewish wife, demands that they start afresh, and in separate apartments. Needless to say, the couple come to their senses before the obligatory happy ending, but that didn't pacify scores of local censorship boards, some of whom refused to permit even the film's title. Borrowed from Columbia and suffering a slight case of miscasting, Barbara Stanwyck nevertheless gives yet another of her patented standout performances, adding a bit of street smarts to her Long Island debutante. She is matched in most scenes by the unfairly forgotten James Rennie, a stage actor from Canada, who is best remembered today as the husband of Dorothy Gish. Based on a risqué 1930 play by Edith Fitzgerald and Robert Riskin, Illicit was remade by Warners in 1933 as Ex-Lady, this time starring Bette Davis." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

(Double feature with Girl Missing 1933)

The range feud 1931 - Jones and Wayne: two generations of cowboys

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IMDB rating: 5,8

Director: D. Ross Lederman
Main Cast: Buck Jones, John Wayne, Susan Fleming

"Buck Jones is supported by a very young John Wayne in this fine Western from his early years at Columbia Pictures.
They play stepbrothers involved in a feud between the Turners and the Waltons. Clint Turner (Wayne) is forbidden to visit Judy Walton (Susan Fleming) by her father, John (Edward J. LeSaint). He does so anyway and is conveniently blamed for old man Walton's murder. Forced to arrest his stepbrother, Sheriff Buck Gordon (Jones) decides to investigate the real reason for the feud. After being shot and wounded by a mysterious figure, Buck discovers that a cattle rustler, Vandall (Harry Woods), is stirring up the bad blood between the families for his own nefarious purposes. When Vandall is proven guilty of Walton's murder, the feud comes to a peaceful end and Clint and Judy are reunited.
While Wayne disliked working with Tim McCoy, another Columbia Western star, he came to admire the amiable Jones, a friendship that lasted until Jones' death. Wayne, as befitted his low status in Hollywood in 1931, is playing little more than a supporting character, but he still managed to have a quarrel with the powers at be, and, despite his friendship with Jones, vowed never to work for Columbia again, a promise he kept. Range Feud was unofficially remade by Jones as The Red Rider (1934), a 15-chapter Universal serial featuring Grant Withers as the stepbrother falsely accused of murder." - www.allmovie.com

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Broadminded 1931 - A Joe E. Brown vehicle with scenes stealing presence of Lugosi

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IMDB rating: 5,9

Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Main Cast: Joe E. Brown, Ona Munson, William Collier Jr., Marjorie White, Margaret Livingstone, Thelma Todd, Bela Lugosi

"Comic Joe E. Brown scores another hit in this very humorous little Pre-Code film which gives him free rein to engage in his madcap capers. Here he plays the supposedly responsible young man chosen to chaperone his highly libidinous cousin after the latter is forced to beat a hasty retreat from a Big City scandal. Brown, of course, proves remarkably capable of causing trouble wherever they travel, thus providing the film with much of its plot. With his large rubbery face & huge mouth a constant source of amusement, Brown enters the movie with much hilarity - costumed as a bawling infant at the baby party which opens the film. Further on, the scene where he finds himself locked out of his hotel room in his underwear is particularly jovial.
Most of the cast is on hand to provide support during Brown's antics: William Collier Jr. as his frisky cousin; Holmes Herbert as Collier's stern New York City father; Margaret Livingston as Collier's vindictive former flame; Ona Munson as Collier's new heart throb; Grayce Hampton as her frightful aunt.
Even perky little Marjorie White, as Brown's new gal pal, is not given much to do. The two major exceptions are statuesque Thelma Todd, delightful as a compliant actress eager to help the boys out of a nasty jam, and marvelous Bela Lugosi - the same year he would become an international star as Count Dracula - lending his malevolent presence as the fierce Gentleman From South America who menaces Brown throughout the film."

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Rich and strange 1931 - One of Hitchcock's best early talkies

Joan Barry in Rich and Strange (1931)

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IMDB rating: 6,0

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Main Cast: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann, Elsie Randolph

"Rich and Strange is an off-beat and interesting, if not totally successful, film. Clearly, devotees of Alfred Hitchcock will take to it more than average filmgoers; the latter will probably be disappointed to discover that it is not a thriller, as they might expect from the 'Master'. But if they can get over this disappointment, they will find much to appreciate, including a story that doesn't go exactly where one expects and an odd mixture of the comic and the melodramatic. True, Hitchcock doesn't blend these two styles seamlessly, but that helps to give the film its unique impact. The film is schizophrenic in other ways, especially in its attempt to be both a silent film and a talkie, and this can be disconcerting; but it does allow the director to take advantage of the fluidity of the silent camera. (He also has a delightful time experimenting with a few new effects, such as making the words on a dinner menu fly off the page.) And the opening commuter sequence is a gem. Henry Kendall and Joan Barry are a bit wan as the leads; she in particular has a peculiar delivery, and he has several moments that grate, but they overall are adequate. Much better are Betty Amann as the gold digging princess and the wonderful Elsie Randolph, whose old lady is both annoying and strangely endearing. If the various components of Rich and Strange never really coalesce, the film is still intriguing and enjoyable.
Partly a sophisticated sex comedy, partly a grim seafaring melodrama, Rich and Strange had the negative effect of confusing the public in general and Hitchcock's fans in particular, and as a result the film, which remains one of Hitch's best early talkies, died at the box office." - www.allmovie.com

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