Old Yeller 1957 - An influential tear-jerker family movie

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,3

Director: Robert Stevenson
Main Cast: Dorothy McGuire, Fess Parker, Tommy Kirk, Beverly Washburn

"Old Yeller is one of the best-loved live-action features ever made by the Walt Disney Company. Unabashedly weepy, the film is genuine enough to have become a family classic. Director Robert Stevenson coaxes some fine performances from his cast and does an admirable job recreating farm life in the mid-1800s. The film inspired a number of copycats, and its influence can still be felt in almost any movie that prominently features an animal. Disney began to move away from animation after the success of 1950's Treasure Island; Yeller was one of many live-action hits directed by Stevenson, including Kidnapped, The Absent-Minded Professor, and, most notably, Mary Poppins. Yeller spawned an inferior sequel, Savage Sam, featuring much of the same cast but a different director." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The bridge on the River Kwai 1957 - One of the greatest war films ever made

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,3

Director: David Lean
Main Cast: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald

"The Bridge on the River Kwai ranks as one of the greatest films of all time and arguably director David Lean's best film. At the heart of the film is the performance of Alec Guinness as the obsessively principled Colonel Nicholson. In a lesser film, his character might be simplified into a heroic martyr, but The Bridge on the River Kwai revels in its moral ambiguity: no significant character is either purely a hero or purely a villain. Filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film features brutal prisoner-of-war work camps that are nonetheless considerably nicer than their historical counterparts, a good decision since it frees the audience to focus on the battle of wills, at first between Nicholson and Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), later between Shears (William Holden) and Warden (Jack Hawkins). The film's closing line ('Madness... Madness') is among the best-known and most enigmatic closings in screen history.
Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary British filmmaker David Lean, and Best Actor for Guinness. It also won Best Screenplay for Pierre Boulle, the author of the novel on which the film was based, even though the actual writers were blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, who were given their Oscars under the table." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Forbidden planet 1956 - The ultimate predecessor of cinematic space voyages

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,7

Director: Fred M. Wilcox
Main Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Richard Anderson, Earl Holliman, Robby the Robot

"At the time Forbidden Planet came along, science fiction hadn't existed for all that long as a movie genre, having really only established itself after World War II as distinct from horror films and movie serials. And there had been some serious science fiction films made up to that time - most notably, Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). But science fiction was still considered primarily a genre that appealed to children, centered on action and adventure, without undue plot complexities or character relationships. Forbidden Planet changed all that, without sacrificing a genuine sense of wonder and other elements that juvenile audiences could enjoy. At the time, people mostly noticed the special effects, perhaps the best ever done up to that time and for many years beyond; it was the first movie that could convince viewers, moment to moment, that they were out in space or on some alien planet. Forbidden Planet's real importance, however, lay in respecting its audience, including the kids, enough to steep its plot in psychology and to make some statements about human nature that were pretty strong stuff in the midst of the Cold War, with both sides detonating H-bomb tests on a regular basis. The movie walks an even more precarious tightrope with its subplot about nubile Anne Francis' relationship with her father and the officers of the starship that has just landed in their two-person paradise. The plot was adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, which flabbergasted (and distressed) some critics but helped draw a new, more serious viewer to this kind of movie. Forbidden Planet was so good, in fact, that it proved an impossible act to follow, and no one tried for almost a decade. But its influence trails out for a half-century beyond: Gene Roddenberry drew most of his ideas about the crew, officers (and their personal relationships), and setting of Star Trek from Forbidden Planet's script and set designs, and George Lucas' funny androids (not to mention Lost in Space's helpful robot servant) have their origins in Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot. And one can only guess at what luck Stanley Kubrick might've had getting financing for 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially out of MGM, had it not been for the precedent of Forbidden Planet." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The Ten Commandments 1956 - The epic masterpiece of the 50s

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,9

Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Main Cast: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Paget, John Derek, Cedric Hardwicke, Nina Foch, Martha Scott, Judith Anderson, Vincent Price, John Carradine

"The Ten Commandments was the final film in the five-decade career of legendary producer/director Cecil B. DeMille and, despite its flaws, it remains a primary example of combining high production values and epic scope for a box-office blockbuster. Expanded from one of the segments in DeMille's 1923 silent film of the same name (though not exactly a remake of that film as is often claimed - the earlier version took place mostly in modern times), it benefits greatly from Charlton Heston's star-making performance as Moses, and from a veteran supporting cast that includes Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, and Vincent Price. The acting, though, is secondary to DeMille's visually expansive storytelling. The production design has an appropriate sense of grandeur, and the parting of the Red Sea is among the most famous scenes in any film from the 1950s. DeMille's directing style is straightforward, maintaining a clean, brisk pace throughout the film's 220 minutes. The Ten Commandments was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning for John Fulton's special effects." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The searchers 1956 - Ford's masterpiece, Wayne's definitive role

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,0

Director: John Ford
Main Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood, John Qualen

"If John Ford is the greatest Western director, The Searchers is arguably his greatest film, at once a grand outdoor spectacle like such Ford classics as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950) and a film about one man's troubling moral codes, a big-screen adventure of the 1950s that anticipated the complex themes and characters that would dominate the 1970s.
Described by the director as a 'psychological epic', The Searchers (1956) is John Ford's most revered Western, for its visual richness and profoundly ambiguous critique of the genre's (and America's) racism. Ford pushed John Wayne's archetypal Westerner into the realm of antiheroism, as Ethan's five-year quest to rescue his niece from Comanche chief Scar mutates into killing her when he discovers her living placidly as Scar's bride. While Ethan's lethal racism signals his insanity, Wayne's charismatic presence and Ethan's desire to salvage the family unit of 'civilized' settlers carries its own sheen of Western heroism. Still, the famous final image of Ethan's departure into the desert reveals that 'civilization' has no place for such an uncompromising figure.
Shot on location in Colorado and Monument Valley, Ford's vividly arid Technicolor vistas render Ethan a man of the magnificent and punishing landscape, unable to reconcile his inner savagery with domestic constraints. Greeted in America as just another quality Ford oater, the film was first reclaimed by French critics for the unresolved tensions and evocative style of Ford's narrative, elevating it to the status of cinematic art.
John Wayne gives perhaps his finest performance in a role that predated screen antiheroes of the 1970s; by the film's conclusion, his single-minded obsession seems less like heroism and more like madness. Wayne bravely refuses to soft-pedal Ethan's ugly side, and the result is a remarkable portrait of a man incapable of answering to anyone but himself, who ultimately has more in common with his despised Indians than with his more 'civilized' brethren. Natalie Wood is striking in her brief role as the 16-year-old Debbie, lost between two worlds, and Winton C. Hoch's Technicolor photography captures Monument Valley's savage beauty with subtle grace.
The Searchers paved the way for such revisionist Westerns as The Wild Bunch (1969) and McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and its influence on movies from Taxi Driver (1976) to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Star Wars (1977) testifies to its lasting importance." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Le salaire de la peur (The wages of fear) 1953 - A powerful study of greed and failure

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,3

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Main Cast: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter van Eyck, Vera Clouzot

"Together with Diabolique, The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) earned Henri-Georges Clouzot the reputation as a 'French Hitchcock'. Le Salaire de la Peur is among the most suspenseful films of the 1950s, notable for slowly building character development and atmosphere before its dramatic climax. The first half of the film slowly, methodically introduces the characters and their motivations. The second half - the drive itself - is a relentless, goosebump-inducing assault on the audience's senses. In its original 148-minute version, the story lags in spots as director Henri-Georges Clouzot indulges some anti-United States propaganda. Not surprisingly, the film was re-edited for release in the U.S., and many critics preferred the faster pacing and more focused narrative. International acclaim came quickly, including the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. Yves Montand gives one of his best performances, though current-day audiences may find his character's chauvinism and condescension toward women unappealing. The female lead is strikingly played by Véra Clouzot, the director's wife. She had only a brief film career but appeared in two classics, this film and Les Diaboliques, which was also directed by her husband.
The Wages of Fear was remade by William Friedkin as Sorcerer (1977)." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The African Queen 1951 - A successful mixture of adventure, comedy and star chemistry

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: John Huston
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Theodore Bikel

"Adapted from a novel by C.S. Forester, The African Queen stars Humphrey Bogart in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Charlie Allnut, the slovenly, gin-swilling captain of a tramp steamer called the African Queen, which ships supplies to small East African villages during World War I. Katharine Hepburn plays Rose Sayer, the maiden-lady sister of a prim British missionary, Rev. Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley). When Germans invade and Samuel dies, Allnut offers to take Rose back to civilization. She can't tolerate his drinking or bad manners; he isn't crazy about her imperious, judgmental attitude. However it does not take long before their passionate dislike turns to love. Together the disparate duo work to ensure their survival on the treacherous waters and devise an ingenious way to destroy a German gunboat. The African Queen may well be the perfect adventure film, its roller-coaster storyline complemented by the chemistry between its stars. The profound difficulties inherent in filming on location in Africa have been superbly documented by several books, including one written by Katharine Hepburn." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Red river 1948 - Epic, emotional Western; a clash between the old and the new

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Howard Hawks
Main Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey Sr., John Ireland, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Carey Jr.

"In his first collaboration with John Wayne, Howard Hawks examines capitalism and dueling masculinities in the rousing context of a Western cattle drive. A Mutiny on the Bounty for Big Sky country, Red River features a challenge between Montgomery Clift's Matthew Garth and Wayne's Tom Dunson that becomes a contest between new and old models of Western manhood - a clash enhanced by the different performance styles of ambiguous, Method-acting, proto-rebel Clift and stolidly imposing star Wayne. Young and adaptable, Garth sees the necessity of finding new markets and cooperating with a community, including such potential adversaries as John Ireland's gun-loving Cherry, while Dunson's Old West individualism becomes an inflexible, economically ruinous monomania. The unsympathetic Dunson challenged the traditional Wayne persona, presaging the disturbed Western heroes that proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s, including Wayne's later role as psychotic Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and in the films that Red River writer Borden Chase wrote for director Anthony Mann. Powered by Russell Harlan's dynamic yet moody black-and-white cinematography and Dimitri Tiomkin's score, Red River became a substantial hit, confirming Clift's star quality in his film debut and earning Oscar nominations for Chase and action editor Christian Nyby; it still stands as one of Hawks's top Westerns." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Oliver Twist 1948 - Dickens and Lean: Triumphant combination

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: David Lean
Main Cast: John Howard Davies, Robert Newton, Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Anthony Newley

"David Lean's ambitious interpretation of this Charles Dickens classic is a powerful but flawed film. Guy Green's hyaline cinematography dominates the picture from its opening shots of a terrified young woman stumbling around in a stormy heath to its closing scenes of mob violence. His camera is perched above the characters, implying moral superiority to the many flawed characters, while making the ever-vulnerable Oliver look cowed and beaten. The turbulent world of mid-19th century London, with its incessant hustle and bustle of human industry, is recreated so carefully that the vibrant set designs almost overshadow the memorable characters that roam these streets. A smorgasbord of urban decay, social disorder, and class conflict imbues the film with a potent sensuality, as both natural elements and human architecture conspire to consume the disadvantaged. An unrecognisable Alec Guinness, endowed with pounds of prosthetics to mask his youthful vigour, creates a sympathetic Fagin out of a potentially racist caricature. Robert Newton's Mephistophelean Bill Sikes is exemplary, particularly in the scene in which he brutally murders Nancy then sits in tortured and hysterical contemplation of the deed. Dickens' faith in the human spirit is well-depicted in Oliver's ability to survive despite the cruelty of this unjust world. Both Dickens when he wrote the novel and Lean when he filmed it were men near the beginning of their careers whose optimism shone through the darkness of the material. However, the film closes with scenes of mob vigilantism and sentimentality that carry messages betraying the social commentary that precedes them." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The treasure of the Sierra Madre 1948 - The tale of greed and its consequences

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: John Huston
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett, Barton MacLane

"Loosely based on the Biblical parable of the thieves and the 'Pardoner's Tale' in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, John Huston's morality tale is one of the great cinematic proofs of the Biblical adage radix malorum est cupitidas, or, the root of evil is the love of money. The film is a clever study of the erosive effect that money can have on flawed men's characters. Shot entirely on location in Mexico, the film's dry and dusty atmosphere is clearly authentic. Humphrey Bogart's maniacal Fred Dobbs is one of moviedom's great characterizations, a conglomeration of cunning, greed and paranoia. As his wealth mounts, so does his distrust. While external threats abound, the real enemy lies within. The Treasure of the Sierre Madre examines the essential existential hopelessness and loneliness of the avaricious man, drawing an implicit parallel between the prospectors and man's contemporary pursuit of material wealth. A failure with audiences who apparently didn't want to see Bogie playing such a nefarious anti-hero, the movie is now recognized by most critics as an American classic. For the first time ever, a father and son - Walter Huston (for best supporting actor) and John (for directing and screenplay) - won Oscars for their stellar work." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

To have and have not 1944 - A classic war time action-romance in the shadows of Casablanca

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Howard Hawks
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael

"A masterful blend of comedy, romance, and action, Howard Hawks' To Have and Have Not is filled with the director's signature situations and relationships. The characters could have been lifted from any one of a number of Hawks films: a strong, stoic hero (Humphrey Bogart), a clueless sidekick (Hawks regular Walter Brennan), and a bold, sexually-charged heroine (Lauren Bacall, in her screen debut). A few scenes even recur in the director's other films, such as the classic, post-kiss line, 'It's even better when you help'. Jules Furthman and William Faulkner loosely adapted the screenplay from an Ernest Hemingway novel; though the setting of To Have is the Caribbean, the characters and Bogart's unselfish transformation is clearly reminiscent of 1942's Casablanca. Hawks would exploit the tremendous chemistry between Bogart and Bacall again in his next film, 1946's The Big Sleep.
The film's enduring popularity is primarily - if not solely - due to the sexy chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, especially in the legendary 'You know how to whistle, don't you?' scene. The most salutary result of To Have & Have Not was the subsequent Bogart-Bacall marriage, which endured until his death in 1957. For the record, a more faithful-to-the-source cinemadaptation of the Hemingway original was filmed in 1950 as The Breaking Point." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Gunga Din 1939 - The ultimate motion picture adventure

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: George Stevens
Main Cast: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Sam Jaffe

"George Stevens' Gunga Din was not only the best of Hollywood's forays into colonialist adventure yarns, it served as the blueprint for many action-adventure movies for years after its release. It is a tribute to Stevens' direction and the uniformly superb cast that the film was a rousing success upon its release, and has endured as a popular favorite for decades since. Americans have always had problematic relationships with stories of British colonialism, but they also love a good adventure yarn, and the usual Hollywood compromise is to ignore the particulars, hold one's nose at the worst elements of subjugation, and just tell the story. That was the approach of the five screenwriters (including Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur and the uncredited William Faulkner) involved in the project, and director Stevens adhered to their work to the letter in telling Rudyard Kipling's story of life, love, and adventure on the frontier of the Indian subcontinent. In the film, the British army is a peace-keeping force, protecting the native populace from a murderous cult of religious fanatics who kill anyone in their way, including their own people. If the paternalistic attitude of the British seems heavy-handed, the oversight is more than outweighed by the savagery of the characters they're fighting. The pacing includes room for ample roughhousing, some of it bordering on slapstick, and rich character development. The actors play their parts as though they were born for them: Victor McLaglen, in particular, cuts a surprisingly dashing figure as Sergeant McChesney; the actor was nearly a decade away from settling into the more comical and jovial character roles that he played in John Ford's films. Cary Grant displays a larcenous side to his screen persona which in many ways anticipates his most compelling dramatic performance, in None But the Lonely Heart. Ironically, for a film that introduced author Kipling to the mass public than any other adaptation of his work, Gunga Din ran afoul of the sensibilities of the author's widow, who objected to the scenes depicting an unnamed, Kipling-like journalist, and those shots were cut at her request after the first run of the movie. These scenes would remain unseen until the late 1980s, when they were restored under the auspices of Turner Entertainment, the company that purchased the RKO film library.
Originally slated to be directed by Howard Hawks, Gunga Din was taken out of Hawks' hands when the director proved to be too slow during the filming of Bringing Up Baby. His replacement was George Stevens, who proved to be slower and more exacting than Hawks had ever been!" - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The wizard of Oz 1939 - The movie which catapulted Garland into stardom

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Victor Fleming
Main Cast: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton

"The third and definitive film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy, this musical adventure is a genuine family classic that made Judy Garland a star for her heartfelt performance as Dorothy Gale, an orphaned young girl unhappy with her drab black-and-white existence on her aunt and uncle's dusty Kansas farm. Dorothy yearns to travel 'over the rainbow' to a different world, and she gets her wish when a tornado whisks her and her little dog, Toto, to the Technicolorful land of Oz.
The lavish MGM production of L. Frank Baum's children's book may have lost a million dollars on its initial release, but its songcraft, technical artistry, star-making performance from Judy Garland, and unexpected TV success turned it into a perennial classic. With future ace MGM musical producer Arthur Freed lending producer Mervyn LeRoy an uncredited hand in pre-production, Cedric Gibbons' art direction, Adrian's costumes, and Hal Rosson's sparkling cinematography maximized the creative potential of Technicolor film, as Dorothy goes 'over the rainbow' from a sepia-toned black-and-white Kansas to a fantastically rendered Oz of ruby slippers, emerald cities, and yellow brick roads. Lent ample support by vaudeville vets Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr, neophyte Garland delivered a touching performance as Dorothy, proving that she had the acting talent to match her superb singing. As with Gone With the Wind, the film went through several directors and Victor Fleming got the credit; King Vidor directed the Kansas sequences, including Garland's solo 'Over the Rainbow'. Almost cut for the sake of pacing, 'Over the Rainbow' became an Oscar winner for Best Song and a Garland standard. Garland was MGM's second choice for Dorothy after Shirley Temple dropped out of the project; and Bolger was to have played the Tin Man but talked co-star Buddy Ebsen into switching roles. When Ebsen proved allergic to the chemicals used in his silver makeup, he was replaced by Haley. Gale Sondergaard was originally to have played the Wicked Witch of the West in a glamorous fashion, until the decision was made to opt for belligerent ugliness, and the Wizard was written for W.C. Fields, who reportedly turned it down because MGM couldn't meet his price. Although the 2.7-million-dollar film wilted at the box office, The Wizard of Oz was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture (which it lost to Gone With the Wind), winning for Herbert Stothart's score and Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg's song. It was the first feature sold for prime-time TV telecast, and its 1956 TV debut was a ratings hit, finally turning it into the crowd-pleasing blockbuster that MGM had always meant it to be." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Stagecoach 1939 - Lifting the Western genre and John Wayne up to A-movie status

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: John Ford
Main Cast: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell

"Although there were Westerns before it, Stagecoach quickly became a template for all movie Westerns to come. Director John Ford combined action, drama, humor, and a set of well-drawn characters in the story of a stagecoach set to leave Tonto, New Mexico for a distant settlement in Lordsburg, with a diverse set of passengers on board.
Relegated to B-movie status by the mid-1930s, the western was regenerated most prominently by John Ford's Stagecoach in 1939. Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols artfully balanced the genre's standard action with the character studies and quality production values of prestigious 1930s films. In the microcosm of the stagecoach, the confrontation between 'civilization' and 'savagery', Western future and Eastern past, is played out among characters journeying through hostile Apache territory, with honor-bound outlaw Ringo fighting valiantly for a society that shuns him. Though not the top-billed player, and then a B-movie actor, John Wayne as Ringo became the star hero from the moment that Ford introduces him with a rare kinetic flourish. Ford here introduced his signature Western setting of Monument Valley, lending Stagecoach a realism that set it apart from studio-bound films; and his deep focus interiors preceded Citizen Kane by two years. When he made Citizen Kane, Orson Welles claimed that he learned everything about directing movies from watching Stagecoach more than 40 times.
A critical and commercial success, Stagecoach offers plenty of cowboys, Indians, shootouts, and chases, aided by Yakima Canutt's remarkable stunt work and Bert Glennon's majestic photography of Ford's beloved Monument Valley. It also offers a strong screenplay by Dudley Nichols with plenty of room for the cast to show its stuff. John Wayne's performance made him a star after years as a B-Western leading man, and Thomas Mitchell won an Oscar for what could have been just another comic relief role. Thousands of films have followed Stagecoach's path, but no has ever improved on its formula." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The four feathers 1939 - 'When war was war and men were men!'

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Zoltan Korda
Main Cast: John Clements, Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, June Duprez

"This was the first sound production of A.E.W. Mason's classic adventure novel, which was brought to the screen three times in the silent era. Zoltan Korda's 1938 The Four Feathers was the last and best traditional patriotic film of the pre-World War II era. The movie benefited from glorious Technicolor photography and unique location shooting: Korda and his second unit crew, under Osmond H. Borradaile, not only shot the action scenes where the battles really took place but also included among the extras people who'd actually seen the fighting (and participated in it) 45 years earlier. Coupled with Korda's skills as an action director (he'd been a cavalry officer, and he knew how to move men and their mounts quickly and to good effect), the result was a movie that captured the imagination of the public on the eve of World War II with its vision of self-sacrifice and gallantry. The movie is a reminder of a time when it was possible to believe that armies could liberate peoples from tyranny, and that the use of force could be a good thing. The film is not unquestioning in this belief, as attested by its brutally humorous treatment of the aging general played by Sir C. Aubrey Smith ('Those were the days when war was war, and men were men'), but ultimately it comes down on the side of action as opposed to inaction. Korda's and Borradaile's African footage was so good that it has been reused in dozens of other movies (including remakes of this one).
The Four Feathers was a great critical and commercial success and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.
Follow That Camel, by the British Carry On company, was a direct and savage satire of The Four Feathers." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Tarzan, the ape man 1932 - The one and only original Tarzan movie that started it all

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: W. S. Van Dyke
Main Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith, Neil Hamilton, Doris Lloyd

"Tarzan, The Ape Man was not only MGM's inaugural Tarzan film, but also the first to star former Olympic swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller as The Lord of the Jungle (strange but true: one of the pre-Weissmuller Tarzan candidates was Clark Gable!)
Utilizing scads of stock footage from MGM's Trader Horn (1931), the film begins with great white hunter James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) trekking through darkest Africa in search of the legendary Elephant Graveyard. Accompanying Parker is his daughter Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) and her erstwhile beau Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton). The expedition is habitually sabotaged by the ecology-conscious Tarzan, a white man who'd been lost in the jungle years earlier and raised by Apes. Tarzan kidnaps Jane and spirits her away to the treetops, where she gradually overcomes her fear of the Loinclothed One and teaches him to speak English. The perfect gentleman, Tarzan returns Jane to her father and swings off into the distance. When Parker, Jane and Holt are captured by pygmies, Tarzan comes to the rescue, with an entourage of his elephant friends. At fade-out time, Jane has decided to renounce civilization and spend the rest of her life with Tarzan.
The only one of the MGM Tarzans actually based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs originals, Tarzan the Ape Man proved a surprise hit, spawning an endless parade of sequels and remakes.
The movie was one of Irving Thalberg's 'pet' projects at MGM, an opportunity to take an existing franchise (Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle lord had been a film staple since beefy Elmo Lincoln donned a loincloth, in 1918), give it 'A'-list production values and a 'name' director (W.S. Van Dyke), introduce charismatic actors as the leads (28-year old multiple Olympic champion Johnny Weissmuller and 21-year old Irish import Maureen O'Sullivan), and create a 'definitive' success for the studio." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The most dangerous game 1932 - The night of the mad hunter

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,3

Directors: Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack
Main Cast: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong

"This classic horror film stars Leslie Banks in a tour-de-force of pure evil as the sadistic Count Zaroff, who waylays shipwrecked boats on his foggy island then unleashes his vicious dogs and hunts humans in the jungles for sport. Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray are among the prey and would be reunited the following year for co-director Ernest B. Schoedsack's wonderful King Kong, (actually filmed on the Kong sets during a lull in the production of that classic film, utilizing most of the Kong personnel - actors Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, Steve Clemente and Dutch Hendrian; producer O'Brien; director Schoedsack; composer Max Steiner), while the other co-director, Irving Pichel, would go on to act in Dracula's Daughter. The timeless adventure story has been copied many times, decades later by John Woo in Hard Target (1995), but few of the remakes compare to the somewhat tatty but effective original." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

(720p BluRay, rar, no password):

http://uploaded.net/file/bjdysy5p/The_Most_Dangerous_Game_1932_720p_BluRay_x264_x0r.part1.rar 
http://uploaded.net/file/uwm6vrne/The_Most_Dangerous_Game_1932_720p_BluRay_x264_x0r.part2.rar

OR:

Women of all nations 1931 - War, women and wine

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 6,1

Director: Raoul Walsh
Main Cast: Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, Greta Nissen, El Brendel, Fifi D'Orsay, Marjorie White, Bela Lugosi

"Flagg and Quirt, the eternally bickering 'friendly enemies' introduced in Lawrence Stallings' WWI play What Price Glory, were at it again in 1931's Women of All Nations. Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe reprise their screen characterizations as pugnacious, girl-crazy marine sergeants Flagg and Quirt, who in the course of the film's 71 minutes hopscotch from Panama to Sweden to Nicaragua to Turkey. In Sweden, the boys battle over the affections of icy blonde Elsa (Greta Nissen), while in Turkey they find themselves in the middle of a sheik's harem (where else?). Comic relief El Brendel has the film's best scene, in which he obeys Flagg's order 'Get me the lay of the land' by returning with coquettish Fifi D'Orsay! Humphrey Bogart was supposed to have played the romantic lead in Women of All Nations, but his role was all but eliminated in the final release print." - www.allmovie.com

Download links (Youtube, 5 parts):

Dirigible 1931 - Standard storyline with great footage

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 6,4

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Ralph Graves, Hobart Bosworth

"Audiences who only know Frank Capra for his middle/late 1930s and 1940s socially relevant comedies might be surprised by Dirigible. The product of a story by Frank Wead, it's a two-fisted adventure yarn about two US Navy pilots (Jack Holt, Ralph Graves) with very different approaches to work and life. At the center of the story, with apologies to screenwriters Dorothy Howell and Jo Swerling, is the competition of these two men, and their shared goal of reaching the South Pole by air. The romantic triangle with Fay Wray never really takes center-stage, despite a considerable amount of screen time devoted to it - she tries very hard, and Holt, especially, pushes himself to make their scenes together credible, but the best and most convincing parts of the movie are those aerial sequences aboard the dirigible, and the polar scenes in the final 30 minutes. Back in 1931, when many audiences were still dazzled by airplanes and light-than-air ships, Dirigible was considered a major achievement in the field of adventure filmmaking, with superb stunt and model work and even better photography - and fortunately, Capra and his cast threw enough of themselves into their work so that it all still holds up nearly as well today, and even twenty-first century audiences may well find themselves feeling the dazzle factor that filmgoers in 1931 were expected to experience. (For filmgoers in the twenty-first century, there is also the treat of seeing extensive footage of the airship facilities in Lakehurst, New Jersey as well as material shot around New York's City Hall at the time). Additionally, there are surprises to be had in the performances, including Roscoe Karnes, who would later be associated almost completely with comedy, in a serious dramatic role (and, at the risk of spoiling the plot, an agonizing final scene for his character); and Ralph Graves, who is pretty stiff and superficial in his performance here, intoning lines in the film's final section that would later belong, more rightfully, to John Wayne.
While Dirigible is notable as Frank Capra's best early film, the real credit for making something that was both a huge hit during the early years of talking pictures and an old film that will interest even today's jaded action movie fans should go to Editor Maurice Wright. Wright had to assemble this early blockbuster from what Capra shot and what the U.S. Navy provided in the form of stock and promotional footage. He did a great job and you rarely are aware that you watching a movie, let alone a fictional drama." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

King Solomon's mines 1937 - Rousing adventure in searching of the lost treasure

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029081/?ref_=fn_al_tt_6
IMDB rating: 6,5

Director: Robert Stevenson
Main Cast: Cedric Hardwicke, Roland Young, Paul Robeson, Anna Lee, John Loder

"The first of three talkie versions of H. Rider Haggard's adventure novel was produced by British Gaumont. King Solomon's Mines is a grand adventure story boasting one of Paul Robeson's finest performances. Though H. Rider Haggard would probably be surprised to find that his original story had three songs tacked onto it, he'd most likely enjoy Robeson's performance of them. Unlike many other film versions of the classic tale, this interpretation pays particular attention to the African characters. There's a subplot to go along with the main quest, and the tech credits are fine, particularly Robert Stevenson's direction and Alfred Junge's production design." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/king-solomons-mines-v27412/

Download links: