Shane 1953 - A simple Western elevated to mythical status

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IMDB Rating: 7,7

Director: George Stevens
Main Cast: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance, Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan

"Despite being burdened with grand pretensions, George Steven's Shane stands securely as one of the most intelligent westerns of its era. The story, underscored by potent historical conflicts between cattle ranchers and homesteaders, and broad philosophical issues contrasting the rugged individualist of American lore with the value of belonging to a community, is mythic in scope. The massive, imposing and ragged landscape of Wyoming's Grand Tetons, captured capably by Oscar winner Loyal Griggs, provides an appropriately awe-inspiring backdrop to the action. Stevens rarely passes up a chance to offer up attention-seeking directorial flourishes (long takes capped by extended fades), but in the end his faithfulness to the characters and their stories preserves the movie's greatness. Jack Palance, whose sneering charisma is palpable, is the embodiment of evil as the ranchers' hired assassin. Alan Ladd, who is enigmatic and mysterious as the neo-pacifist ex-gunslinger titular character, is quietly imposing (despite his lack of physical stature) in the role. As a man with a dark past, Shane willingly martyrs himself in order to atone for past sins and to save his newly adopted family. Therefore, it is appropriate that his son-by-proxy Joey provides the predominant point-of-view, since it is his coming-of-age that reflects the maturation of the American west.
Cinematographer Loyal Griggs imbues this no-frills tale with the outer trappings of an epic, forever framing the action in relation to the unspoiled land surrounding it. A. B. Guthrie Jr.'s screenplay, adapted from the Jack Schaefer novel, avoids the standard good guy/bad guy clichés: both homesteaders and cattlemen are shown as three-dimensional human beings, flaws and all
Nominated for 5 Oscars, winner of one for its stunning color cinematography." - www.allmovie.com

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A foreign affair 1948 - A very funny post-war satire

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IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund

"A cutting-edge comedy in the post-World War II era, A Foreign Affair remains a very funny film, but much of its richness came from the historical context of its satire. At the heart of the film is the observant wit of writer/director Billy Wilder, a Jewish German émigré with a sardonic view of life in post-war Berlin. The interplay among Marlene Dietrich, Jean Arthur, and John Lund gives the film much of its comic texture; the dialogue is sharp and the story is knowing. Charles Lang's cinematography is first-rate, and Edith Head's costume designs give the film much of its glamour. While not as well-known as other Wilder films, A Foreign Affair was a clear example of Wilder's increasing willingness to push the limits of what Hollywood would allow. While a film like A Foreign Affair would be the crowning achievement for many directors, Wilder had still more great films ahead of him, with such classics as Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Some Like it Hot (1959)." - www.allmovie.com

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Mr. Smith goes to Washington 1939 - One of the greatest American films about American ideals

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IMDB rating: 8,3

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Thomas Mitchell, Eugene Pallette, Beulah Bondi

"Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was the director's final film for Columbia Pictures, the studio where he'd made his name in the 1930s with an enviable array of comedies and topical dramas. It also marked a turning point in Capra's vision of the world, from nervous optimism to a darker, more pessimistic tone. Beginning with American Madness in 1932, such Capra films as Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and You Can't Take It With You had trumpeted their belief in the decency of the common man. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, however, the decent common man is surrounded by the most venal, petty, and thuggish group of yahoos ever to pass as decent society in a Capra movie. Everyone in the film - except for Jefferson Smith and his tiny cadre of believers - is either in the pay of the political machine run by Edward Arnold's James Taylor or complicit in Taylor's corruption through their silence, and they all sit by as innocent people, including children, are brutalized and intimidated, rights are violated, and the government is brought to a halt. The film's story of innocence and righteousness triumphant over corruption frames a chilling picture of an ineffectual and venal government fronting for gangsters. Coming at a time when the American public was growing weary (and wary) of the New Deal, then in its seventh year, it may have caught the public's mood just right. The world was indeed becoming a darker place - as the movie acknowledges by the presence of representatives of various European dictatorships in the Senate gallery as Smith's struggle on the Senate floor continues. The movie was so potent in its time that it cemented the image of James Stewart, then a good working dramatic actor who'd portrayed a range of roles, into the quintessential good-natured hero, the archetypal common man. That image made him a star, but also straightjacketed him to some degree. Stewart did some of his most interesting work in later years when he escaped from that image, as in Winchester '73, The Far Country, Rope, and Vertigo." - www.allmovie.com

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The return of Dr. Fu Manchu 1930 - A good atmosphere, a snappy ending and a few chills along the way

Jean Arthur in The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930)

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021297/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,1

Director: Rowland V. Lee
Main Cast: Warner Oland, O. P. Heggie, Jean Arthur, Neil Hamilton, Evelyn Hall

"In his pre-Charlie Chan days, Warner Oland returned as Dr. Fu Manchu for this sequel to The Mysterious Doctor Fu Manchu (1929). Supposedly the victim of a suicide at the end of the first film, Fu Manchu has actually injected himself with a toxin that will make him only appear dead. Escaping through a trap door in his coffin, Fu Manchu travels to England to seek revenge on the two men he holds responsible for the deaths of his wife and child: Dr. Jack Petrie (Neil Hamilton) and Inspector Nayland Smith (O.P. Heggie). A murderous game of cat and mouse ensues." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-return-of-dr-fu-manchu-v107670

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Only angels have wings 1939 - An overlooked film in Hawks' career but it made Rita Hayworth a star

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031762/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Howard Hawks
Main Cast: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell

"Only Angels Have Wings exemplifies the complex, taciturn male bravado common to the films of Howard Hawks. Unfairly lumped into the genre of the airborne drama, it is one of Hawks' more neglected films. An experienced pilot himself, Hawks based Angels on real people and events from his time spent on the airfields; his brother was killed in a plane crash. Cary Grant plays the courageous, fatalistic lead, and Jean Arthur is the typical Hawksian heroine, strong with a subversive, gender-bending edge. Supporting player Rita Hayworth became a major Hollywood star after Angels. Scripted by Jules Furthman from a story by Hawks, Only Angels Have Wings is a treasure trove of terse, pithy dialogue: our favorite scene occurs when, upon discovering that he's about to die, Thomas Mitchell says he's often wondered how he'd react to imminent death-and, now that death is but a few moments away, he'd rather that no one else be around to witness his reaction. Though sometimes laid low by obvious miniatures, the aerial scenes in Only Angels Have Wings are by and large first-rate, earning a first-ever "best special effects" Oscar nomination for Roy Davidson and Edwin C. Hahn. The film would receive a wartime update as 1942's The Flying Tigers." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/only-angels-have-wings-v36481/

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You can't take it with you 1938 - A family of free spirits

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030993/
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington

"Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. The result is a joyful celebration of good-natured people and unconventional lifestyles. In some ways, it presages the 'do your own thing' philosophy of the 1960s, and it is easy to imagine free-spirited families of the '60s as creative descendants of Hart and Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning characters. The cast features some of the finest comic actors of its era. While Lionel barrymore and James Stewart were equally adept at drama, the film also features fine performances from such humor specialists as Spring Byington, Dub Taylor, and Mischa Auer. Of special note is the presence of comic legend Eddie Anderson, who, with his supporting performance in Gone with the wind, became the first African-American actor to appear in more than one Oscar- winning Best Picture.
You can't take it with you earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar)." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/you-cant-take-it-with-you-v55902

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Easy living 1937 - A mixture of two artistic manifestations: the director's and the screenwriter's

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028816/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Mitchell Leisen
Main Cast: Edward Arnold, Jean Arthur, Ray Milland

"Adapted by Preston Sturges from a play by Vera Caspary, Easy Living's mix of slapstick humor, topical 'in' jokes ('Wallace Whistling' being a great roman-a-clef for gossip columnist Walter Winchell), social realism, and social satire, make it one of the most potent viewing experiences that one can find among 1930s comedies. Elements of its story recall works such as Mark Twain's story The Million Pound Note, as well as early '30s topical comedies such as Zoltan Korda's Cash, while other aspects call to mind such future Sturges works as Christmas in July, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero. The plot and the pacing of most of the movie will leave even modern viewers breathless with laughter. The picture's frantic, screwball trajectory and velocity are compromised ever so slightly by just a couple of slow points. Director Mitchell Leisen occasionally lets the action drag in ways that Sturges, once he started directing his own scripts, never would have permitted. Sturges would have treated his script's obligatory romance between the hero and heroine with enough breezy humor to let it flow freely from one section of the satirical body of the work into another. Leisen, by contrast, has it played straight and sincere, with all of the attendant seriousness of purpose entailed therein.
Although not quite in a league with My Man Godfrey, It Happened One Night, Bringing Up Baby, or His Girl Friday, Easy Living is close enough to merit audiences as big as theirs, and also close enough to Sturges' own movies in content, if not approach, to demand attention from his fans as well. And certainly no movie ever portrayed the interaction of the different classes of New York City during the Great Depression in a zanier fashion." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/easy-living-v90257/

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Mr. Deeds goes to town 1936 - A light-hearted classic Capra screwball comedy

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027996/
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft

"Frank Capra built his career around the themes that he explores in Mr. Deeds goes to town. For the populist Capra, the battle lines are clearly drawn; he makes his points (sometimes heavy-handedly) by pitting small-town simplicity, selflessness, and idealism against big-city sophistication, greed, and cynicism. Capra raised the 'little guy' to iconic status, stereotyping him as effortlessly as he stigmatized the corrupt city slicker. Gary Cooper's Longfellow Deeds often looks as if he is visiting from a different era, an errant knight guided by an anachronistic code of chivalry. He is not afraid to resort to violence if words don't get the job done, although his impassioned speeches tend to get him in more trouble than they get him out of. He is looking for a 'damsel in distress' and he is guided by an archaic and romantic notion of 'noblesse oblige'. Jean Arthur makes her first of three Capra appearances as this damsel, the hard-nosed reporter who exposes Mr. Deeds to ridicule. Her nasally, pointed line delivery is sharp and precise, and Cooper's trademark laconic delivery is also perfect for the role. Playing the part as if born to it, Cooper is at the top of his game, imbuing Deeds with just the right blend of empathy and intelligence.
Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Mr. Deeds goes to town won Capra his second of three Best Director trophies." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/mr-deeds-goes-to-town-v33624/

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