Madchen in uniform (Girls in uniform) 1931 - An underground classic

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022183/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich
Main Cast: Dorothea Wieck, Hertha Thiele, Emilia Unda, Hedwig Schlichter

"Inspired by Christa Winsloe's play Gestern und Heute, Madchen in uniform is one of the most memorable and moving of the pre-Hitler German talkies. The film is one of those odd movies whose very existence - and the attributes it displays - place it almost completely outside of the era and attributes of the era in which it was made; in that regard, it stands alongside such unusual Hollywood movies as Joseph L. Mankiewicz's People will talk, Herbert Biberman's Salt of the Earth, and Abraham Polonsky's Force of evil - except that Madchen in uniform was the product of an even more repressive culture than 1950's America, made as it was in early 1930's Germany. And it was attacked in its time, though not for the lesbian-oriented, homo-erotic aspects of its story and visuals, but for being a critique of the educational establishment. It thus became an underground classic, taken to heart by iconoclasts of all stripes and, most especially, by lesbian audiences. Even by the standards of the twenty-first century, the honesty of the movie is startling when one considers its origins. The technical side of the filmmaking may be a little frayed, but the acting and direction have endured in their appeal across many decades, and the movie continues to attract attention as something more than an artifact.
Madchen in uniform was antiseptically remade in 1958, with some of the frankness but little of the honest eroticism of the original." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/m%C3%A4dchen-in-uniform-v30757

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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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Marius 1931 - The charming first part of Pagnol's Fanny trilogy

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022125/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Alexander Korda
Main Cast: Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Fernand Charpin, Alida Rouffe, Orane Demazis

"In this touching romance, the first in Marcel Pagnol's Marseilles or Fanny trilogy - the other two being Fanny and Cesar - Pierre Fresnay stars as Marius, a young man tending bar who dreams of a life at sea. Because he so desires to become a sailor, he cannot commit to marriage even though he loves Fanny (Orane Demazis). When the rich Honore Panisse (Charpin) proposes to Fanny, Marius becomes enraged, but still refuses to ask for her hand. At the bar, Fanny confesses her love for him and tells Marius she has rejected Honore's proposal. Marius admits his love for her as well and they retire to a back room to make love. When Marius is told a spot has opened up on a departing ship, he declines to sign on, not wanting to leave Fanny, but he still refuses to marry her. Fanny overhears the conversation, and not wanting to hold Marius back from the life at sea he so desires, tells Marius she has changed her mind and accepted Honore's proposal. Heartbroken, Marius rushes to pack and catches the departing ship." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/marius-v31479

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La chienne (The bitch) 1931 - A bitter and highly controversial psychological drama

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021739/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Jean Renoir
Main Cast: Michel Simon, Janie Marese, Georges Flamant, Magdeleine Berubet

"Jean Renoir's downbeat drama about the dangerous liaisons of a henpecked bank clerk and a hooker is one of his earliest masterpieces. An early example of the poetic realism that would become a dominant strain in the French cinema of the 1930s, it comes from a period in the director's career when he was scouring the margins of French society. Despite the noirish feel of the plot, it has little in common with the romanticism one associates with the genre, its tale of greed and cruelty permeated by a cutting bleakness. Renoir's conclusion, which offers poetic rather than strictly legal justice, was so highly controversial that the film was banned in many locales until the mid-'70s, but seems as entirely fitting now as it did then. Michel Simon, is, as always, inspired as the harried clerk and Sunday painter, his hangdog demeanor and slumping shoulders an eloquent expression of his put-upon character. Renoir's deep focus photography, an advance from that of his earlier work, is sharp and revelatory, conveying a palpable sense of the sordid locations, and the use of natural rather than post-synched sound also adds much to the film's texture." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/la-chienne-v27887/

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A nous la liberte (Freedom for us) 1931 - A wicked comedy on the dehumanization of industrial workers

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022599/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Rene Clair
Main Cast: Henri Marchand, Raymond Cordy, Rolla France, Paul Ollivier

"What's the point of escaping from a real prison if you only wind up trapped in, say, a factory job, or a loveless marriage, or the strictures of high society? That's the question René Clair poses in this oddly paced but totally winning comedy.  Clair's sound effects and musical interludes may feel dated to contemporary audiences, but they mark this film not as a quaint artifact but a forward-looking historical document. The factory scenes may be reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, but Clair's work preceded Chaplin's by several years. Among the extras on the DVD edition is an essay by Chaplin scholar David Robinson on the plagiarism lawsuit brought against Chaplin by the producers of À Nous la Liberté, a suit of which Clair wanted no part. He said he would have been honored if Chaplin had used his film as inspiration, acknowledging his colleague's unmatched virtuosity." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/%C3-nous-la-libert%C3%A9-v358/

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M 1931 - A city is looking for a murderer

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 8,5

Director: Fritz Lang
Main Cast: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke

"One of the most distinguished and technically accomplished early sound films, Fritz Lang's M revealed the expressive possibilities for combining sound and visuals, in a metaphorically loaded story about pre-Nazi Germany. Working from the true story of the Dusseldorf child murders, Lang matches a mother's anguished calls for her daughter with images of an empty stairwell and a lost balloon rather than show the killing, while the murderer's obsessive whistling becomes the calling card for his threatening presence. Beyond the use of sound, Lang takes a pessimistic view of German society, using editing to equate the police with the criminals, while Fritz Arno Wagner's fluid cinematography creates a gloomy night world of shadows and paranoid entrapment. Lang's documentary-like attention to the details of the search, combined with the absence of non-diegetic music, matches the stylization with an equally creepy element of realism. The killer may be sick, but the society pursuing him isn't that much better. A worldwide success and a star-maker for Peter Lorre (who is terrifyingly ordinary in the role of the murderer), M influenced movies from those of Orson Welles to the American film noir of the 1940s; Lang himself left Nazi Germany for Hollywood in 1933.
M is revealed as a true classic - a film that shames everything made in its genre since." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/m-v100745

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L'age d'or (Age of gold) 1930 - Bunuel's surrealist dream

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021577/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: Luis Bunuel
Main Cast: Gaston Modot, Lya Lys

"L'age d'or was director Luis Buñuel's first feature, and was produced by the Vicomte Charles de Noailles, wealthy friend to the surrealist group. It was intended as a satire on the European bourgeoisie, and while de Noailles could have easily included himself among their number, he secretly detested them. In a sense, L'age d'or is as much de Noailles' statement as it is Buñuel's. The satire is so pointed that it borders on outright comedy, and in 1933 de Noailles and Buñuel did re-edit the film down into a two-reel comedy entitled In the Icy Wastes of Dialectical Materialism, which was distributed to left-wing theaters in Eastern Europe and Russia. Sadly, this short version has not survived. Anti-Semitic right-wingers staged a riot at the Paris premiere of L'age d'or, thinking Buñuel was Jewish. While their own organization, the League of Patriots, condemned the riot, the action did open a dialogue among French conservatives that L'age d'or was too anti-clerical, and the paper Le Figaro began to pressure the censorship board to withdraw the film's certificate. It did so on December 1, 1930.
Only three prints of the film were struck initially, and two of these were seized by authorities and destroyed. The Vicomte de Noailles hid the negatives of L'age d'or in a Paris bookshop of which he was part-owner. In 1933, a few more prints were struck, and one of these was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that same year. Buñuel claimed the notoriety of L'age d'or made it difficult for him to work in the 1930s and '40s.
Now that it has been generally available for awhile, it is easy to see that L'age d'or is technically the most accomplished of the early surrealist films. It has nothing of the brutish intensity of Un chien Andalou, nor the strange, otherworldliness of Le sang d'un poete. But it is by far the most successful of the de Noailles films in terms of progressing from scene to scene in an illogical/logical surrealist dream state, and the impact of the satire can be felt in comedies made 40 to 50 years down the line, particularly in the work of Monty Python's Flying Circus. While the beginning and end sequences of L'age d'or may feel slow, the main part of the film has lost little of its power, and is still highly amusing and mildly shocking, even today." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/lage-dor-v27795

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Journey's end 1930 - A forceful drama about men at war

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021013/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,0

Director: James Whale
Main Cast: Colin Clive, David Manners

"R.C. Sherriff's forceful drama about men at war, a long running hit in London as well as New York, is brought to the screen in this film adaptation. Capt. Denis Stanhope (Colin Clive) is the commander of a military unit during World War I; constantly bombarded by enemy fire and hemmed in by his superiors, Stanhope no longer believes in the cause for which he fights, and is despondent over the thought he is sending young men to a pointless death. Depressed, Stanhope has turned to drink, and often squabbles with Lt. Osborne (Ian MacLaren), his second-in-command, as well as berating 2nd Lt. Raleigh (David Manners), whose sister is Stanhope's beloved. As his confidence begins to collapse, Stanhope believes he has lost the respect of his men, until he secretly obtains a letter Raleigh is writing to his sister. Journey's End was the first major success for director James Whale; he soon signed a deal to work in the United States, and he cast his Journey's End leading man, Colin Clive, in one of his first American projects, Frankenstein." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/journeys-end-v97341

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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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Le sang d'un poete (The blood of a poet) 1932 - Cocteau's first movie, one of the best in French avantgarde

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021331/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Jean Cocteau
Main Cast: Enrique Rivero, Elizabeth Lee Miller

"Inspired by the myth of Orpheus and details from Jean Cocteau's own life, The Blood of a Poet is a fascinating, but somewhat confusing look at the struggle to create art. Its dreamlike imagery and unconventional narrative structure might not seem revolutionary to viewers who have absorbed Cocteau's influence through modern filmmakers such as David Lynch; also, the film might seem slow to some viewers despite its short running length (for example, the camera lingers too long on some of the reaction shots). But this is still an impressive and historically important film that retains much of its sense of mystery, although it's not as accessible as the remaining two films in Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, Orpheus (1950) and The Testament of Orpheus (1960). It contains comprehensible visual metaphors and symbols, draws on recognizable ideas and myths, and explores identifiable themes (such as death and resurrection). In other words, the movie is unusual because Cocteau wanted to express his ideas in a creative way and not simply because he wanted to confuse people. It's worth checking out if you're curious about the history of avant-garde cinema or want a glimpse into a unique, poetic mind." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-blood-of-a-poet-v6150/

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Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel 1930) - Marlene Dietrich started to conquer the world

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020697/

IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: Josef von Sternberg

Main Cast: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich

"Der Blaue Engel is one of the masterpieces of the early sound era, notable in using sound to enhance atmosphere and establish characterization. Germany in 1930 was in desperate economic turmoil from reparations following World War I, and the film mirrors the bleak, unhappy view of the future common in German society at that time. The story is a superb portrait of cruel, obsessive love and the unrelenting degradation that ensues. Director Josef Von Sternberg skillfully paces the film so that the descent of the Professor (Emil Jannings) is both believable and understandable. Indeed, it is clear that the camera adores Lola (Marlene Dietrich) every bit as much as does the professor. The film made an international star of Dietrich, and she is matched in performance by Jannings, in what is perhaps his best-remembered screen role. The film also launched the song "Falling in Love Again,"which, like the film itself, has amply stood the test of time.The Blue Angel was shot in both German and English language versions and was based on Heinrich Mann's novel." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-blue-angel-v60947/

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