Juarez 1939 - Entertaining historical epic with some flaws

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031516/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,3

Director: William Dieterle
Main Cast: Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne, Claude Rains, John Garfield, Donald Crisp, Gale Sondergaard, Gilbert Roland

"Juarez manages to be a very entertaining and effective historical epic, despite some enormous flaws. Part of its success lies in the fact that - unlike so many Hollywood attempts to film history - a great deal of what ends up on the screen is accurate. It helps also, of course, that the historical situation being explored is one that is in and of itself exciting and intriguing. The screenplay doesn't always succeed in capturing this excitement and intrigue totally, due in no small part to the fact that too many people had a hand in writing and shaping it, but individual sequences are excellent and director William Dieterle does a fine job of pulling together its disparate parts and camouflaging the gaps and faults. He is helped greatly by Brian Aherne's excellent performance, which makes Maximilian into a sympathetic and complicated character, as well as by Bette Davis, who sinks her teeth into her juicy mad scene and plays it for all she is worth. Gale Sondergaard and Claude Rains are also effective, both smoothly villainous, but John Garfield is quite miscast. More damaging, however, is Paul Muni whose decision to underplay his role in order to contrast with Davis' histrionics renders Juarez distant, remote, uninvolving, and quite dull. This leaden anchor at its center weakens Juarez, but the film fortunately has enough assets to mitigate the damage." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/juarez-v26648/

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Jesse James 1939 - A highly romanticized account of the infamous criminal

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031507/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5
IMDB rating: 7,1

Director: Henry King
Main Cast: Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly, Randolph Scott, Henry Hull, Brian Donlevy, John Carradine, Jane Darwell

"Historians will shudder at Jesse James, a biopic which is much more interested in the legend of the famous outlaw than in the facts, but viewers looking only for entertainment will be quite happy with this rip-roaring adventure tale. While the story has been whitewashed, credit should be given to the creators of Jesse for at least not making the title character as pure as the driven snow. Though the motivation they have devised for his first forays into crime make him out to be something of an avenging angel, as time goes on they show that greed does enter into his continued career. Still, with matinee idol Tyrone Power playing the part, there's only a certain amount of 'sullying' that can come into play. Power does very well with the part, turning in a powerful performance that anchors the film and handling his dramatic scenes with aplomb. As brother Frank, Henry Fonda's role is much smaller, but he makes a terrific impact; granted, the part is written as a bit of a scene stealer, but Fonda really runs with it and his scenes are especially memorable. Nancy Kelly is only so-so, but the rest of the supporting cast is right on target. Henry King's direction is nimble and deft, staging the action sequences in glorious outsized fashion, notably the famous bank-robbery scene in which Jesse rides his horse through a plate glass window. Jesse James was filmed largely on location in Missouri, resulting in crowd-control nightmares for the picture's beleaguered assistant directors." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/jesse-james-v26071/

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Son of Frankenstein 1939 - 'He does things for me!'

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031951/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: Rowland V. Lee
Main Cast: Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Josephine Hutchinson

"Son of Frankenstein is unusual because it maintains its quality despite being the third film in a series, and despite a change in directors. While Roland V. Lee was hardly in the league of predecessor James Whale, he was an above average director who could do good work with the proper material and resources. Here he has a strong story, fine inherited production motifs, and an excellent cast that includes Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Josephine Hutchinson, and Boris Karloff, in his final movie performance as the Monster. The film established several motifs that would later be used in similar films - for example, the initially uninterested son who gradually becomes obsessed with the work of his mad-scientist father. Mel Brooks fans will instantly recognize the story line of Young Frankenstein (1974), which borrowed several other bits of this film, including a delightful satire of Atwill's stiff-armed performance. Son of Frankenstein is a step down from the expressionistic heights of Whale's Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein, but the step is not so great as to leave the film without its own substantial merits." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/son-of-frankenstein-v45612/

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The little princess 1939 - Shirley Temple's first Technicolor feature

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031580/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,3

Director: Walter Lang
Main Cast: Shirley Temple, Richard Greene, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Cesar Romero, Mary Nash

Shirley Temple was at her most engaging in this handsome adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's story, playing plucky Sara Crewe, who finds herself orphaned and reduced to near-indentured servitude at the boarding school where she was formerly a student. Director Walter Lang manages to balance the drama, the little bits of song-and-dance (mostly courtesy of Arthur Treacher), the comedy, the romance (provided by Richard Greene and Anita Louise), and the Technicolor glow of the production, creating one of Temple's most enjoyable movies. Lang's handling of the actors is lively, engaging, and smooth - he never lets the splendor of the Technicolor shooting, or the lavish sets, stand in the way of moving the story forward or letting his actors do what they're there to do - the result is a set of highly memorable portrayals in an exquisite screen setting, presenting late Victorian at its most opulent and beautiful (and, at times, cruel). This is the kind of storytelling in which the old Hollywood had no equal, and looking at the pacing, drama, humor, and fantasy elements, one wonders what Lang might have made out of a movie such as Mary Poppins if he'd had the chance to work on that a quarter century later (not that Robert Stevenson did a bad job with the latter...). But at the center of this movie's success is Temple, nearing the end of her childhood appeal but able to flex some real acting muscles, especially working in the same scenes with villainous Mary Nash. - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-little-princess-v29595/

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Dodge City 1939 - A landmark early Flynn Western

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031235/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot, Frank McHugh

"Director Michael Curtiz paints with a wide and colorful brush and Dodge City is the kind of virile entertainment where a mammoth barroom free-for-all rudely interrupts the temperance meeting taking place next door, a situation that allows recently chaste cattle driver Alan Hale to partake in both. There is also a stampede of cattle, a fiery climax on a hi-jacked train and the cowardly killing of little Bobs Watson to keep the action fan happy for a good 104 minutes of so. Which, needless to say, doesn't leave much space for feminine interest, supplied here by Olivia de Havilland (exceedingly good and ultimately brave) and Ann Sheridan (sort of 'bad' by the mere fact that she is in the employ of evil Bruce Cabot). The latter, unfortunately, is completely wasted in the thankless role of the saloon belle but does get to warble a song or two. Overseeing it all with his usual authority, Curtiz has a couple of neat tricks up his sleeve, including a memorable sequence where Miss de Havilland spots an intruder by his shadow. A solid box office hit, Dodge City was the first of a series of westerns for swashbuckling star Flynn; his next oater, Virginia City, followed in 1940." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/dodge-city-v14179/

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Drums along the Mohawk 1939 - Three-strip Technicolor in all its glory!

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031252/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: John Ford
Main Cast: Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert, Edna May Oliver, Eddie Collins, John Carradine

"The first of many collaborations between director John Ford and Henry Fonda, this fine, typically Fordian vision of community life also features the director's first use of the then recently developed Technicolor process. A visually appealing slice of Americana, the film places a youthful, yet stoic Fonda in a series of iconic poses as he and his new wife, an incongruously soigné Claudette Colbert struggle to maintain their farm during the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in the Indian-infested Mohawk Valley. As the farmers fight off Indian attacks, with the well-born Colbert learning to adapt to a difficult new environment, the director links self-sacrifice with heroism. As with much of Ford, the characters' behavior is concerned with the enactment of rituals and the display of pageantry, and the main characters, essentially types. He's more willing to allow the character actors, like Oscar-nominated Edna May Oliver, who plays a feisty widow, to indulge in some theatrics. Despite the hardships the farmers must endure, the film's bright look signals an optimism characteristic of the director during this period, perhaps addressing his Depression-era audience about the grit and cohesiveness required to survive in difficult times. 1939 was a stellar year for John Ford; along with this highly successful adventure tale, which was nominated for three Academy Awards, Ford also released the ground-breaking western Stagecoach." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/drums-along-the-mohawk-v14871/

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Stanley and Livingstone 1939 - The great explorer and the Victorian saint

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031973/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,2

Directors: Henry King, Otto Brower
Main Cast: Spencer Tracy, Cedric Hardwicke, Nancy Kelly, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Charles Coburn, Henry Hull

"Stanley and Livingstone is perhaps more faithful to its historical source than most Hollywood biopics, but even so it completely whitewashes the character of Henry Stanley. This is particularly true at the end, when Stanley returns to Africa, presumably a changed (and religiously inspired) man. It's totally false as history, but it makes for a great movie; for once, the studios' insistence on adding significant amounts of fiction to their fact-based products produced good drama. And Stanely is definitely a good drama, as well as a rousing adventure and an intriguing character study. The team of screenwriters have crafted a narrative that is totally engaging and peopled it with characters that leave their impressions on you, none more so than the two title characters. Henry King has directed with finesse, making sure that there's an excellent balance of action, adventure and inspiration, and even making the extraneous romantic subplot work fairly well. Of course, he's aided enormously by Spencer Tracy's towering yet nuanced performance. Tracy gets to play it both rough and pious, the adventurer and the thinker, the amoralist and the moralist, and he does so superbly. No other actor could combine gusto with restraint in the way that Tracy could, and watching his transformation from the beginning of the film to the end is a true treat. Cedric Hardwicke is also in top form as Livingstone, celebrating the man's deep religious faith without ever commenting upon it. The supporting cast is good, the cinematography evocative (even if the rear screen projections are occasionally obvious to modern viewers)." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/stanley-and-livingstone-v46460/

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