(The adventures of) Don Quixote 1933 - A moving and exhilarating experience with opera star Chaliapin

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023956/
IMDB rating: 6,6

Director: G. W. Pabst
Main Cast: Feodor Chaliapin Sr., George Robey, Renée Valliers

"The French/British Don Quixote is a faithful rendition of the Cervantes novel, with a poignant ending added by director G.W. Pabst. Opera star Feodor Chaliapin stars as Cervantes' 'Knight of the Woeful Countenance', an aged, addled Spanish gentleman so devoted to stories of long-ago chivalry that he decides to relive those bygone days.
Pabst alters Cervantes' original ending by having the dispirited Quixote pass away as he watches his precious books on chivalry going up in flames. There are actually two versions of Don Quixote, one in English and one in French; the French-language version has a different supporting cast, but Pabst draws the same deep emotions and brilliant bits of business from both. Quixote benefits from its directors sure hand and even more so from his clear, dominating vision; the project clearly means a lot to him personally, and that connection fills every frame. Pabst is greatly aided by the dominating performance of Feodor Chaliapin, whose operatic presence is right at home with the larger-than-life Quixote. He's mesmerizing at all times, even when what he's doing is closer to grandstanding than acting. He gets fine support from George Robey and Renée Valliers, but it's Chaliapin who owns the film acting-wise. - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/don-quixote-v14297

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Kameradschaft (Comradeship) 1931 - A stunning piece of filmmaking

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022017/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: G. W. Pabst
Main Cast: Alexander Granach, Fritz Kampers, Ernst Busch, Elisabeth Wendt

"As a marvelous film, Kameradschaft is also as emotionally affecting as it is technically precise. Although based upon an actual incident, Kameradschaft uses it merely as a jumping off place to tell a story of two enemy forces coming together and working together in the face of a terrible mining disaster. Director G.W. Pabst and screenwriter Laszlo Vajda expertly set up the story, putting all the pieces properly into place for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. Occasionally, the two slightly lose their footing, letting a scene become ever so slightly too sentimental or perhaps painting some sequences too black and white when a little more gray would have been effective, but overall their footing is very sure. And despite the cry for peace and unity that underlies their efforts, the Pabst and Vajda resist the temptation to end on a positive note, opting instead to show that things in the real world are never as simple as we would like them to be. Pabst brings a sense of realism to the proceedings, aided enormously by Robert Baberske and Fritz Arno Wagner's cinematography, which manages to be both starkly naturalistic and emotionally subjective at the same time." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/kameradschaft-v26908

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Prix de beaute/Miss Europe (Beauty prize) 1930 - Louise Brooks in her final starring role

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021273/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,0

Director: Augusto Genina
Main Cast: Louise Brooks, Georges Charlia

"Louise Brooks is stunning as ever in her final starring role in the early sound melodrama Prix de Beauté, also known by its alternate title, Miss Europe. After becoming a European sensation in her classic silent films for German director G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl), Brooks' career began a tragic decline as alcoholism took its toll, but she's still in fine form here as Lucienne, a lively Parisian typist who enters an international beauty contest against the wishes of her disapproving fiancé André (Georges Charlia), only to find herself swept up in a whirlwind of fame and publicity when she unexpected wins the contest.
One of France's earliest sound features, Prix de Beauté was originally filmed in a silent version and quickly dubbed when sound films grew popular, and although Brooks' voice is dubbed (along with her singing, which was dubbed by the legendary vocalist Edith Piaf), the film's technical crudeness doesn't detract from Brooks' astonishing beauty, which far surpasses a performance that was, according to director Augusto Genina, seriously compromised by Brooks' off-screen drinking. Based on a story by René Clair (who was originally slated to direct), Prix de Beauté offers fascinating glimpses of vintage fashion shows and Parisian high society, but it's the divine Miss Brooks who makes it all worthwhile."

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Westfront 1918 (1930) - G. W. Pabst's first talkie

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021542/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Main Cast: Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl

"Westfront 1918 (aka Comrades of 1918) was the first talkie effort from German filmmaker G. W. Pabst, which he made for Nero Films, a production company headed up by Seymour Nebenzahl. Like the contemporary Hollywood production All Quiet on the Western Front, Pabst's film is a bitter, melancholy antiwar statement. The story concentrates on four German soldiers, sent to the front in the waning days of World War 1. The futility of killing an enemy who is already dead spiritually, and of being killed for a cause that has for all intents and purposes been resolved, is brought home to the viewer with both barrels. The astonishingly fluid camerawork of Fritz Arno puts the spectator in the thick of the battle, and the effect is both terrifying and heartbreaking." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/westfront-1918-v53915

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