Index#10 tomorrow!

Issue #10 of the Official Index to the Marvel Universe is released to all fine comic book stores tomorrow. I blogged about it here!

Great Films of the Golden Age Part 6: Columbia

Of the major film studios in the "Golden Age" of cinema, Columbia was one of the least powerful. Unlike most of the other studios, they did not own a large chain of theatres, which was common practice until the late 40s (and the end of that system was a major contributor to the end of the "Golden Age"). Columbia was altogether more modest and had to get most of their star power from the other studios. It's rather remarkable that Columbia survived, thrived and is with us today.

Of course, in the 1930s Columbia had one major advantage: they had director Frank Capra, who brought them box office and Academy Award gold in 1934 with It Happened One Night and made some of his best-remembered pictures with them.

My ten favorite Golden Age Columbia films in chronological order are:

• It Happened One Night (1934)
• Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
• Lost Horizon (1937)
• You Can't Take it With You (1938)
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
• Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
• His Girl Friday (1940)
• Penny Serenade (1941)
• Dead Reckoning (1947)
• Lady From Shanghai (1947)

7 are romance/comedy with 1 fantasy and 2 film noirs. Half of them were directed by Frank Capra while another 3 star Cary Grant.

Great Films of the Golden Age Part 5: 20th Century Fox

Although known primarily today as a purveyor of punditry, Fox was one of the largest studios of the so-called "Golden Age," although they didn't have as much star power as some of the others. Still, they had Will Rogers, who, up until his death, was the most popular film entertainer in the USA. Later, Alice Faye, Betty Grable and Shirley Temple were their biggest stars.

My favorite Golden Age Fox films in chronological order are:

• The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
• How Green Was My Valley (1941)
• Tales of Manhattan (1942)
• Laura (1944)
• Lifeboat (1944)
• And Then There Were None (1945)
• Boomerang (1947)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• The Snake Pit (1948)
• The Third Man (1949)

2 social issue pictures, 1 biography, 1 anthology, 1 film noir, 2 thrillers, 1 mystery, 1 courtroom drama and 1 comedy. The Third Man isn't actually a Fox film - it was only distributed in the US by Fox - but that's good enough for me; it's my all-time favorite movie.

Great Films of the Golden Age Part 4: Paramount

Of the "Golden Age" studios, Paramount was one of the best at comedies. They had one of the great directors, Cecil B. DeMille, and at various times included talent like the Marx Brothers, Veronica Lake, Gary Cooper, Mae West, Ray Milland and Bing Crosby.

My ten favorite Golden Age Paramount films in chronological order are:

• Animal Crackers (1930)
• Duck Soup (1933)
• Island of Lost Souls (1933)
• Sullivan's Travels (1941)
• Holiday Inn (1942)
• This Gun for Hire (1942)
• Double Indemnity (1944)
• Going My Way (1944)
• The Uninvited (1944)
• Lost Weekend (1945)

4 comedies, 2 film noirs, 2 horror films, 1 musical and 1 social issue picture. Or, in terms of stars: 2 Marx Brothers, 2 Veronica Lakes, 2 Bing Crosbys, 2 Ray Millands and 2 others.

Great Films of the Golden Age Part 3: Universal

Universal did a lot to make me a fan of classic films. I can vividly recall seeing my first horror movies on tv when I was about six - evening broadcasts of the Wolf Man, Son of Frankenstein and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. My sister has some stories about those occasions too. Later on, Abbott & Costello became favorites of mine and I eagerly sought them out on cable and video rental.

Universal definitely specialized in the horror films, I'm certain it's what they're best remembered for now. Consequently, the Universal stars we recall most fondly are the horror leads: Lugosi, Karloff and Chaneys Senior and Junior. All the same, their horror output was at its best in the 30s and became less memorable from wartime onwards.

My favorite Golden Age Universal films are:

• All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• The Mummy (1932)
• The Invisible Man (1933)
• The Black Cat (1934)
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• The Wolf Man (1941)
• Saboteur (1942)
• Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
• The Killers (1946)

1 war film, 6 horror films, 2 thrillers and 1 film noir.

Also, I really like the Universal logo. Even the original with the plane circling the globe was fun, but the logo they use at present is just incredible.

Great Films of the Golden Age Part 2: MGM

As alluded to yesterday, MGM is often considered to have been the greatest of the film studios, renowned for its epics and its musicals. I don't have a great affection for the MGM style, but they certainly had their stars: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra; they also produced one of the all-time greats, Gone With the Wind.

Because MGM had a reputation for being the most extravagent and glamourous of the Golden Age studios, the studio's current condition perturbes people. What once walked amongst the mightiest is simply a franchise bought up Sony. All that's left of MGM is the name...and the films, of course.

My ten favorite Golden Age MGM pictures are:

• The Thin Man (1934)
• Mad Love
• A Night at the Opera (1935)
• Gone With the Wind (1939)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
• Random Harvest (1942)
• Bataan (1943)
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

1 detective film, 1 horror film, 3 comedies, 2 romances, 1 fantasy, 1 war film and 1 film noir. Say, 1940 was a pretty good year for James Stewart, wasn't it? Two great films and one of them snagged him his Oscar! This was back in the days when the Academy considered comedies to be legitimate films.

Great Films of the Golden Age Part 1: Warner Bros.

I've recently read a few books about the so-called "Golden Years" of Hollywood, the days when the studios held immense power over their stars and guided the film making top-down. One book in particular which got me thinking was Richard Jewell's Golden Age of Cinema, which examined films from the late silent to era to 1949, concerned mainly with the genres of film and the differences between studios.

What got me thinking was the elaboration of how certain studios differed in output. I had only slightly considered how some films from that era feel the stamp of their home studio, but the more I read the more I thought about each classic studio. And so, over the next few days I'm going to think about the various film studios of the day, up to releases from 1949.

It seems appropriate to begin with the Warner Bros. Most film historians rank MGM as the king of Golden Age Hollywood, but I rather prefer Warner. In my mind, Warner had bigger stars (I'm not a huge fan of musicals). Warner definitely had a unique feel when you look at their gangster pictures and at socially conscious films like I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang. There were also so many stars whose presence made it feel like a Warner picture: Bogart, Davis, de Havilland, Cagney, Flynn, and especially the supporting players who turned up frequently like Veidt, Lorre, Hale and Greenstreet.

My 10 favorite Warner Bros. pre-1949 films are, in chronological order:

• I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
• Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941)
• Meet John Doe (1941)
• Casablanca (1942)
• Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
• Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
• Rope (1948)
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

My list contains 1 socially conscious film, 2 adventure films, 1 gangster picture, 1 detective film, 2 comedies, 1 romance, 1 musical and 1 thriller. Also, 40% have Bogart.