The man in possession 1931 - One of Montgomery's delightful comedies

Publicity picture of Robert Montgomery, circa 1931

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022117/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,1

Director: Sam Wood
Main Cast: Robert Montgomery, Charlotte Greenwood, Irene Purcell, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen, Alan Mowbray

"Robert Montgomery plays an aimless young man who secures a job as a bailiff's deputy. Montgomery is assigned to guard a house under writ, but when he falls for the lady of the house (Irene Purcell), the boy decides to serve as her butler to keep up her family's appearances. Throughout the film, Montgomery assumes several more disguises to keep the family's legal reverses from becoming public. P. G. Wodehouse adapted H. M. Harwood's play The Man in Possession for this brisk film version. The story was Americanized in 1937 as Personal Property, with Robert Taylor and Jean Harlow in the leads." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-man-in-possession-v101236

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The black camel 1931 - The earliest surviving film of the Charlie Chan series

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021668/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,3

Director: Hamilton MacFadden
Main Cast: Warner Oland, Sally Eilers, Bela Lugosi, Dorothy Revier, Robert Young

"The Black Camel is one of the more watchable mystery films from the early 1930s, despite the fact that it suffers from many of the usual difficulties that one encounters in movies of this vintage. It is the earliest circulating (and perhaps existing) of Fox's Charlie Chan films and only the second movie to star Warner Oland as Chan. It does offer the treat of seeing Chan operating on his home turf, where he is a highly respected member of the police department rather than an interloper, and also of taking in Warner Oland's fresh, lively self-effacing performance as the police inspector - even the aphorisms, including the one referred to obliquely in the title ('Death is a black camel that kneels unbidden at every gate'), sound fresh, and in place of his Number One and Number Two sons, the comic relief is provided by a well-meaning but overly enthusiastic assistant (Otto Yamaoka) from the police force. It does have the drawbacks of many movies made in the early sound era, including a relatively immobile camera and shots that linger just a little too long for their own good, some stretches of dialogue (not involving the leads) that is enunciated just a little too carefully to let a scene flow smoothly, and a complete absence of background music except for source music (in this case, all Hawaiian). The main reason for the movie's lingering appeal today lies in the quality of the acting on the part of Oland and Bela Lugosi, and supporting players Murray Kinnell, Victor Varconi, and Sally Eilers - they're animated and interesting enough to keep the film moving, and it's fascinating to see Oland and Lugosi in such relatively youthful and unmannered performances, early in their careers. Because of the combination of the mystery - which is rooted in an unsolved Hollywood murder of the late '20s, and resounds with then-contemporary sensationalism about the dark side of the movie capital - and the extensive location shooting in Hawaii, this is a fun film to watch for a lot of reasons beyond what one would expect from a basic Charlie Chan movie. It also includes a very important scene depicting Chan's unofficial side, as an exasperated but loving family man, which distinguished the screen character from other sleuths of the period, and helped to make Chan a much more fully drawn character than critics usually acknowledge." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-black-camel-v85166/

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(Sorry, this time I couldn't embed the video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn-VkUp18Dw

The last flight 1931 - One of the finest films ever made about the Lost Generation

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022054/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: William Dieterle
Main Cast: Richard Barthelmess, David Manners, Johnny Mack Brown, Helen Chandler, Elliott Nugent

"The war is over but a new struggle begins for former World War I flyboys Cary Lockwood (Richard Barthelmess) and his three friends. They are all shell-shocked by their combat experiences and ill-fitted for a world of workaday responsibility. For them, the night life of Paris is an irresistible siren's call. Then comes the allure of Lisbon with its passion and bullfighting. Then may come the tragic result of the quartet's inability to rediscover the selves the war took from them.
This exceptional film is the work of writer John Monk Saunders and, more surprisingly, director William Dieterle. It's a penetrating, incisive work that manages to be both bleak and nihilistic without becoming pretentious or enervating. While a heavy sense of melancholy hangs over the film, tinged with an undercurrent of despair, Flight never becomes labored. Its characters are souls that are weighted down and, for most of them, on an inexorable march toward destruction, but their unconscious fascination with a Death Wish doesn't force the film to become an ordeal. Instead, one cares deeply about these people, mourns even as they reach their expected ends, and feels triumphant at the implied relative happiness that awaits those who manage to survive the dark nights of their own souls. Dieterle directs with extreme sensitivity and taste; it's far and away his best work and makes one wish he had created more works in a similar vein. The cast is all good, with special mention going to Helen Chandler's Nikki."

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Street scene 1931 - An unforgettable slice of urban living

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022436/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: King Vidor
Main Cast: Sylvia Sidney, William Collier Jr., Estelle Taylor, Beulah Bondi, David Landau

"Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Street Scene was purchased for the screen by producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1931. The entire story takes place on the street in front of a foreboding old New York brownstone, between one evening and the next afternoon. The individual fates of eight neighboring Manhattan families intertwine during this brief stretch of time.
Street Scene is a dated but still moving look at one New York neighborhood in the midst of a heat wave. It's true that today's audiences are used to this kind of ensemble, slice-of-life effort, so the impact has lessened somewhat; it's also true that the accents employed, vital to letting audiences in 1931 know the ethnic background of each character, will come across as stilted and artificial to 21st century ears. But there's enough poetry in Rice's dialogue to help skate over the charge of stereotypes, and the author's keen ability to create memorable scenes is a big help. Granted, Street betrays its stage origins in its single setting, but director King Vidor creatively opens up the piece by employing a dazzling array of angles and set-ups to keep the setting intact while adding movement and variety to the visuals. He also masterfully handles the climactic set piece, employing a number of deft tricks to create maximum dramatic effect. The large cast is good, although some players are a bit more emphatic than is really necessary. A very young Sylvia Sidney, however, is mesmerizing as the young girl whose dreams are shattered in one violent instant." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/street-scene-v47300/

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(DVDrip, 586 MB):

http://netload.in/dateit8juUfV0NS/Street_Scene_1931__DVDRip.part1.rar.htm 
http://netload.in/dateieU0TjDZPax/Street_Scene_1931__DVDRip.part2.rar.htm 
http://netload.in/datei7Tf4cT5X9k/Street_Scene_1931__DVDRip.part3.rar.htm

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Free and easy 1930 - Keaton's talkie debut

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020902/?ref_=nv_sr_2
IMDB rating: 5,6

Director: Edward Sedgwick
Main Cast: Buster Keaton, Anita Page, Robert Montgomery, Fred Niblo, Lionel Barrymore, William Haines, Dorothy Sebastian

"Buster Keaton's talkie debut (discounting his non-speaking guest appearance in Hollywood Revue of 1929) was Free and Easy, an uneven but generally amusing comedy with a Hollywood setting.
When pretty Elvira (Anita Page) of Gopher City, Kansas wins a beauty contest, her prize includes a trip to Tinseltown and a screen test at MGM. Appointing himself protector of Elvira and her formidable mother (Trixie Friganza), gas-station attendant Elmer Butts (Keaton) accompanies them to California. Once they've arrived, Elmer manages to disrupt the daily MGM routine, stumbling into films in progress, knocking over sets and breaking props, and finding himself taking a screen test in which he repeatedly blows the single line 'The queen has swooned' ('The sween has quooned', 'The coon has sweened') over and over. Meanwhile, latin-lover film star Lorenzo (Robert Montgomery) sets his sights on innocent Elvira, attempting to seduce her while Elmer's back is turned. But Lorenzo turns out to be a good guy - in fact, his real name is Larry, and he's a Kansas boy himself - and he arranges for Elvira to get her big break. In a surprise turnaround, Elvira doesn't win a contract, but Elmer and Elvira's mom become popular musical-comedy stars!
The film is studded with guest appearances by such MGM contractees as directors Cecil B. DeMille, Lionel Barrymore, Fred Niblo, and actors Gwen Lee, John Miljan, William Haines, Karl Dane and Keaton's then-girlfriend Dorothy Sebastian. The film was remade as Pick a Star in 1937, and as Abbott and Costello in Hollywood in 1945." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/free-and-easy-v18547

DVD links:

Loose ankles 1930 - Young and Fairbanks are charming, but character actresses shine

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021087/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 5,9

Director: Ted Wilde
Main Cast: Loretta Young, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Louise Fazenda, Otis Harlan

"The story concerns a group of society people hearing a will read to them. The deceased's niece (Loretta Young) has most of the luck when an estate is left to her under the condition that she find a husband and no scandal be brought to the family. Everyone else's inheritance depends on this clause, but Ann (Young) doesn't want her share. In fact, she's determined to force everyone out of theirs because she thinks the family is too greedy. Off she goes to put an ad in the paper for a boy to 'compromise her'. Andy (Edward Nugent) finds it in the paper and thinks he'd be perfect for the role, but instead thinks maybe his room mate Gil (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) would be better suited. In a very funny scene, Gil goes to Ann's home and is taken advantage of by the maid (Daphne Pollard). Somehow, they all end up at a speakeasy where Ann's uptight aunts Katherine (Ethel Wales) and Sarah (Louise Fazenda) steal the show during a drunken spectacle where Andy tries to control his laughter.
Heady with too much dialogue, as were so many of the first talkies, it tends to creak badly, leaving the performers to strain a bit for laughs. Very little more is required from the two leads than to look attractive and recite their lines. However, there are some fun performances from the supporting cast which makes the film worthwhile."

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(double feature with The Naughty Flirt 1931)

The Bishop murder case 1930 - A very satisfying Philo Vance entry

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020695/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,0

Directors: David Burton, Nick Grinde
Main Cast: Basil Rathbone, Leila Hyams, Roland Young, Alec B. Francis, George F. Marion

"Nine years before stepping into the role of Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone essayed the character of S.S. Van Dyne's dilettante detective Philo Vance in The Bishop Murder Case. While the film is more of interest for curiosity value, it's not a bad detective movie. A large part of what is wrong with it is related to when it was made; in 1930, films were still trying to come to grips with sound. Like many other films from the era, Bishop is quite static - and the sound is so poor that the dialogue is frequently incomprehensible. It also suffers from 'acting schizophrenia', also not uncommon for the time, in which part of the cast is fairly comfortable with dialogue-centered acting, while another part is still acting as if in front of a silent camera. Fortunately, star Basil Rathbone belongs in the former category (as does the estimable Roland Young). Both turn in very good performances, Rathbone's of a quality that makes one wish he had been given the opportunity to make more Philo Vance films. With an imaginative use of 'natural' sound in the exterior scenes, The Bishop Murder Case is ultimately laid low by its molasses-slow pacing, though things become moderately exciting when the heroine is kidnapped in the last reel. The basic story of Bishop is quite solid and the screenplay is pretty good, but the direction is terribly sluggish. Nonetheless, fans of the detective genre - or of Rathbone - should definitely check this one out." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-bishop-murder-case-v85130/

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