20 Great Years of Movies, Part 5: 1942

1. Casablanca (director: Michael Curtiz): This is another film often called one of cinema's greatest and again, I agree. This is studio filmmaking done right - lots of snappy dialogue, great character actors, memorable performances - everything about this movie lands just right for me.
2. Yankee Doodle Dandy (director: Michael Curtiz): By the same director, another very good film - a musical biography of George M. Cohen, starring James Cagney. I understand it apparently doesn't bear much resemblance to the real Cohen, but Cagney is quite game in the lead.
3. The Ox-Bow Incident (director: William A. Wellman): From the other end of the axis, a very sobering film. A western, yes, but a different kind of western - I first learned of it when I read a list of the greatest films made about law. This film is concerned, in particular, with mob law and lynchings. It's a tough film, yet for all that, is less bleak than the story it's adapted from.
4. To Be or Not to Be (director: Ernst Lubitsch): This was the only movie Jack Benny made which he actually felt well about, but it was marred by Carole Lombard's death around the time of the premiere. It's a pity that her death dulled this film's impact - Benny is perfect as the conceited actor who gets to use his abilities against the Nazis.
5. The Magnificent Ambersons (director: Orson Welles): This film seems to be best-remembered for the controversies surroundings its creation and the alterations to Welles' climax. But what's remained was still a mighty fine movie, a portrait of a film that cannot bend with the changing times.
6. Bambi (director: Samuel Armstrong): This is a Disney film I genuinely admire. It has the likeability I associate with Disney, but the depiction of both nature and man as cruel and capricious is different than most of their product.
7. Tales of Manhattan (director: Julien Duvivier): I really love this film and I wish it had more of a following - it's a portmanteau film, with various stories connected by the presence of suit which keeps changing owners. There's comedy, there's drama, there's Paul Robeson singing. I wish there more like this one.
8. Cat People (director: Jacques Tourneur): This is the first real horror film to make my lists since I started at a time when the horror genre was mostly quiet. This film helped get horror moving again and the neat ways it overcomes its limited budget by emphasizing tension and suspense instead of showing the monster itself was a very well-judged decision which makes this picture a classic.
9. The Palm Beach Story (director: Preston Sturges): Another very fine Sturges movie, this one concerning a wife who loves her husband so much she tries to leave him and line up a new suitor so that her new lover can finance her husband's impractical invention! This film goes for a happy ending designed to satisfy everyone and I love how intentionally ridiculous that conclusion is!
10. This Gun for Hire (director: Frank Tuttle): A fine star-making turn for Alan Ladd as a killer without much of a conscience who meets a woman who tries to direct his vengeful wrath at the people who deserve it. A really different kind of thriller, though it would have surely been a much tougher film had it come out 4 years later.

20 Great Years of Movies, Part 4: 1941

1. Citizen Kane (director: Orson Welles): Who am I to argue against the verdict of history? I've spent a great deal of time studying this film and explaining its techniques to other people. But along with the stupendous craft involved, I think the plot and performances are quite worth highlighting as well.
2. The Maltese Falcon (director: John Huston): The definitive detective movie. I find many adaptations of mystery novels get a bit muddled (ie, The Big Sleep), so this film's ability to deftly cover the twists and turns of the plot should not be marginalized. This is the movie that made Bogart (as Sam Spade) a true leading man and he's very enjoyable in the part with a lot of clever dialogue. The scene in which Peter Lorre's character Joel Cairo attempts to search Spade's office is all on its own an immensely fun performance.
3. How Green Was My Valley (director: John Ford): Infamous as the movie which was honoured by the Oscars instead of Citizen Kane, this movie is still a very worthy film. Sentimental, but I am, again, a viewer who values genuine sentiment.
4. Sullivan's Travels (director: Preston Sturges): This is the Sturges film which has been singled out as his finest and it is, indeed, very good - the story of a filmmaker who wanted to create drama and so flung himself into poverty to gain the necessary experience. My track record so far shows that I do enjoy a great picture about social problems of the time, but I also admire the coda of this film - that movies provide a valuable escape for people who are suffering.
5. High Sierra (director: Raoul Walsh): This came out before The Maltese Falcon and was the real launching point for Bogart as a leading man (albeit with Ida Lupino in top billing). This film paved the way for everything Bogart subsequently achieved - showing that he could portray sympathetic characters who could be invested in.
6. The Lady Eve (director: Preston Sturges): Another very funny Sturges film, this one concerning an heir who falls in love with a con woman. After being exposed as a criminal, the con woman becomes determined to ruin the heir's life. It's a very clever story and always fun to revisit.
7. Ball of Fire (director: Howard Hawks): Another great Hawks comedy, featuring a language & grammar researcher who asks a nightclub singer to help him understand slang; she goes along with it because her gangster boyfriend needs to her to lie low. Really fun stuff.
8. Man Hunt (director: Fritz Lang): An unusual and very strong thriller: a hunter has an opportunity to assassinate Hitler, but is prevented from pulling the trigger. The Nazi interrogator wants to know whether he meant to kill Hitler or if it was, as the hunter claims, merely a "stalking shot." This is basically Fritz Lang doing Alfred Hitchcock and it's wonderful.
9. Suspicion (director: Alfred Hitchcock): Speaking of Hitchcock, there's this - the ending is a let-down, although I can't imagine another way to end to the move which would have been satisfying. But Cary Grant is so good as the murderous husband that, well, you want him to be the murderous husband.
10. The Face Behind the Mask (director: Robert Florey): This one is not too well-known. Peter Lorre plays a man disfigured by fire who turns to a life of crime. It's very much in the vein of Lon Chaney Sr.'s classics and one of the best lead roles Lorre ever had.

20 Great Years of Movies, Part 3: 1940

1. Fantasia (director: Ben Sharpsteen): Somehow, this is the Disney film I was most drawn to as a child - the one with with the least conventional structure. It helps that I grew up in a house where we heard classical music all the time - nor does it hurt that the film has weird imagery, dinosaurs, demons and some frightening brooms. I still have a great time watching this film.
2. The Great Dictator (director: Charles Chaplin): Because of the range of years I chose for these lists I won't get to spolight much of Chaplin, but this is my favourite of his films, the picture I really connected with. It has a lot of physical comedy which, at times, is dated (dated by the standards of 1940, I mean). It's also very heartfelt and many of the gags still land. I also simply have to applaud Chaplin's bravery in mocking Hitler at a time when all of Hollywood wanted to keep him happy.
3. His Girl Friday (director: Howard Hawks): This film is rightly lauded for the rapid dialogue delivery (some of which was not scripted). It's almost entirely carried by performances, specifically those of Cary Grant & Rosalind Russell.
4. The Grapes of Wrath (director: John Ford): As a social picture examining what were contemporary problems, this movie is simply unparalleled. I recently showed it to a friend of mine who wanted to know what John Ford's movies were like. I was amazed when, months later, he told another friend that this was the best movie he had seen all year!
5. The Philadelphia Story (director: George Cukor): This film lacks the edge of His Girl Friday but it's all good fun - James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant is somehow likeable despite who his character is on paper - just great fun.
6. The Shop Around the Corner (director: Ernst Lubitsch): Another great James Stewart comedy from this time, and one which can be brought out at Christmas. The notion of two combative co-workers falling in love through the mail is great, but Stewart learning his pen pal's identity really puts it over. It's delightful.
7. Christmas in July (director: Preston Sturges): I came late to Preston Sturges and I'm amazed that, outside of Sullivan's Travels (next year), he was not a director written about in any of the books I studied, nor spoken of reverently in documentaries. He wrote so many great films before becoming a director, but in 1940 he finally took on the challenge of directing and proved he was able at that. This film is charming - a movie which has practically no antagonist and yet finds plenty of complications as a man thinks he's won a big cash prize.
8. The Great McGinty (director: Preston Sturges): And this was Sturges' debut film as a director, with a political pawn working his way up to become a governor by holding to no particular scruples; unfortunately he eventually develops a slight conscience, and that ruins his political career! Discovering this film was like finding a lost Capra film; it surely earned its Academy Award.
9. Night Train to Munich (director: Carol Reed): This is sometimes called a sequel to Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes because two of that film's supporting characters appear here - on a train, no less! This is a fun espionage story with a British agent trying to transport a scientist out of the Nazis' hands.
10. The Sea Hawk (director: Michael Curtiz): This has basically everything The Adventures of Robin Hood did - I mean, not the technicolor or Olivia de Haviland, but basically everything. It's a fun swashbuckler with an amazing musical score by Korngold.

20 Great Years of Movies, Part 2: 1939

This is the year often called the "greatest" in Hollywood's history. I certainly had no problem finding ten movies from 1939 that I liked, but I fear my list won't look exactly like anyone else's. Nor should it...

1. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (director: Frank Capra): Here's Capra at his best, not to mention James Stewart & Jean Arthur. The film is remembered by some as an optimistic picture of how US politics work, but it's actually a pretty cynical picture, from the reporters who don't believe in anyone or any cause beyond good copy, to the opportunistic party faithful. This film has stood the test of time.
2. Gunga Din (director: George Stevens): This film has not quite stood the test of time, on the other hand. It's a big racist. But if you can get past that, this is a marvelous picture of high adventure as a soldier goes hunting for a fortune but instead wanders into the lair of Thugees preparing an attack. The tense climactic scene is what really drives this film up to the top for me
3. Goodbye, Mr. Chips (director: Sam Wood): This film is sentimental and that's it's greatest strength. Robert Donat is simply perfect as the schoolmaster who ages across the scope of the story. I still find it an emotional experience.
4. The Wizard of Oz (director: Victor Fleming): This was a classic of my childhood, one that my siblings and I watched repeatedly; I'm sure I still know every song. It's charming, and I've enjoyed seeing my nieces become fans of it.
5. Of Mice and Men (director: Lewis Milestone): At the other end of the spectrum, we have this, a stark drama. It's very well performed by Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr. -- pretty near the only time in his career that Chaney Jr. played outside the horror genre.
6. Only Angels Have Wings (director: Howard Hawks): This film stars cary Grant & Jean Arthur and features the lives of pilots who take on dangerous air mail routes. Grant's character is basically the opposite of what he played for Hawks' 1938 film Bringing Up Baby -- a much more assertive figure. How his relationship plays out with Arthur is immensely satisfying.
7. Ninotchka (director: Ernst Lubitsch): The last great hurrah for Greta Garbo! I'm not a great fan of her work but this film is pretty good. I particularly enjoy the black humour found in lines like: "The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer, but better Russians."
8. Destry Rides Again (director: George Marshall): You'll notice as we go that I don't often include westerns in my list, but this film is a fun exception - fairly light-hearted with James Stewart in the lead and Marlene Dietrich as his love interest. I think I like it because I never feel like I'm watching a western.
9. Bachelor Mother (director: Garson Kanin): An underrated comedy in which Ginger Rogers takes home an orphaned child, leading to complications as characters make various assumptions about who the father is. Ginger Rogers seems to have been best-remembered for her dancing but she was quite good at comedy.
10. Wuthering Heights (director: William Wyler): An outstanding adaptation of the Emily Bronte novel - atmospheric to the extent that at times it plays like a ghost story (which it arguably is).

20 Great Years of Movies, Part 1: 1938

As I was recently looking at my top ten favourite old-time radio programs from 1938-1957, one of my readers suggested I should do the same for motion pictures from that range of dates. I chose those years because they were the 20 years which were easiest for me to assemble lists for, but I don't see why I can't do the same for movies.

1938 is actually a pretty good year to begin with - the following year, 1939, is frequently called the greatest year of the golden age of film, so this is a decent time to be looking at the state of film.

However, I should caution you that these lists are ranked according to my own opinions. I like popular movies. I like unpopular movies. I like crowd-pleasers. I like artsy movies. Some of these will be films which are already very well known. Others will not. Some that you think should be there will not make my list. With that understood:

1. The Adventures of Robin Hood (director: Michael Curtiz): My father loved this movie and shared it with me, for which I'll always be grateful. This is simply one-of-a-kind. There are many other swashbuckling Errol Flynn movies and a plethora of Robin Hood pictures, but this is the greatest. As a kid, it was just about everything I wanted - the lush score, terrific stunts, wise dialogue and beautiful Technicolor. This is my favourite movie of 1938, but in general one of my favourite movies, full stop.
2. Bringing Up Baby (director: Howard Hawks): All the same, it was difficult to keep this title from the top spot. This is, of course, the ur-example of screwball comedy, one of the funniest movies of Hollywood's big studio years. It holds up extremely well; it makes me laugh and I admire how the jokes are crafted.
3. Three Comrades (director: Frank Borzage): So, one thing about me it -- I'm very sentimental. This film, adapted from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, hits me in a very sentimental place. It's the story of three best friends in between-the-wars Germany; when one of them falls in love, the other two do everything in their power to help the relationship succeed. It's extremely heartfelt -- and tragic, due to circumstances beyond the characters' control.
4. The Lady Vanishes (director: Alfred Hitchcock): This was one of the best of Hitchcock's British pictures. It's a charming, fast-paced mystery.
5. Angels with Dirty Faces (director: Michael Curtiz): James Cagney was best-known for his gangster pictures, but that was mostly due to The Public Enemy. This is one of the few times he returned to the genre and it's rather good as he's a gangster with a heart of gold.
6. You Can't Take It with You (director: Frank Capra): In some ways this is not exactly a Capra film as it was adapted from a popular play, but some familiar Capra attitudes appear in here about people who seem to be at odds with the rest of the world as they hold to their values. And of course, it was Capra's first film with James Stewart. It's also gently humourous.
7. The Citadel (director: King Vidor): An interesting morality story with Robert Donat as a physician who seems trapped at being either a low-paid and unappreciated doctor or a high-paid but frivolous one. It's sort of a British version of the 'problem pictures' the Warners were famous for.
8. Pygmalion (director: Anthony Asquith): A great adaptation of the play starring Leslie Howard. I only saw this film for the first time recently - it's certainly very similar to the version told in My Fair Lady. Howard is certainly at his best.
9. The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (director: Anatole Litvak): This is something of a b-movie elevated by its star, Edward G. Robinson. Like Cagney, Robinson had to crawl out of the shadow of his big gangster film (Little Caesar). Robinson had a pretty diverse career, but unfortunately he was just too dang memorable as a gangster. This film seems to more along the line of what he wanted to play - a meek little man who takes up crime as a hobby. As in Angels with Dirty Faces above, Bogart has the thankless task of being the antagonist.
10. If I Were King (director: Frank Lloyd): A nice picture with Ronald Colman as a rascal who becomes a part of the royal court. Not exactly Pygmalion, but fun in its own way.

Angola in the Comics #16: Biff Powers and the Giants

Welcome back to Angola in the Comics! In this infrequent series of blog posts, I examine comic books in which the nation of Angola makes an appearance. This outing is a little special because, for the first time, I'm composing it while visiting Angola!

Many of the comics I've look at in this feature are old 'jungle comics.' They tend to range from mildly racist to rather quite racist. Appropriately, this time I'm looking at a Biff Powers adventure. You may recall that Biff Powers was the subject of the very first entry in my 'Angola in the Comics' feature!

This story comes from Startling Comics Vol.2 #1 (December, 1940). No creators were credited and the Grand Comics Database hasn't determined who they were yet.

We open as the curator of the Metropolitan Museum tells an audience that in a recent expedition to Africa his party was turned back at Lake Ngami by "fierce head-hunting pigmies!" The only Lake Ngami I know of is in Botswana - it would be a strange place to find pygmies. As a result they could not complete their expedition to discover if gigantic men lived in the interior. "And who knows - there may still be giants in these days!" In the very next panel a newspaper headline declares, "Curator Reports Race of Giants" which is, uh, not what he said - he was discussing the possiblity of giants. But okay, this is the premise of our story. Giants in Africa. So this is liable to be a little more fantastic than the previous Biff Powers tale.

We move to the offices of the Carson Circus whom you will (not) recall are the employers of Biff Powers. "I want you to shoot down there and get me some of those babies!" says the circus owner. "It'll be a change from the animals, Tom!" says Biff, casually discussing their plot to enslave human beings as exhibits in their circus. This was indeed in the days of 'human oddity' exhibits at circuses and carnivals, but discussing them as though they were an animal display -- this is pretty inhumane. I mean, that's assuming the giants even exist. Well, whether they do or not, Biff is informed that a rival outfit, the Trans-American Circus, are likewise out to find the giants. Tom of the Carson Circus calls them "shady." Hey, we put human beings on display in cages, but one thing we're not is "shady!"

Biff books passage on a boat bound for Lobito, which is where Angola enters our story. You'll recall that last time, Biff Powers was one of the few early comics I found which named an actual location in Angola (Luanda), and they've done it again. Anyway, the Trans-American Circus hires Brick Peters and he suggests they kidnap Biff's love interest Marcia Beale so that Biff will go looking for her and miss the boat to Lobito (you might remember Marcia from the other blog entry). Biff rescues her rather easily and fights his way out of the den of kidnappers with his gun. So I guess at this point the Trans-American Circus has had men killed on account of these giants they're not positive even exist? Priorities, man.

Although Biff rescued Marcia rather quickly, it seems he did miss the boat. Not to worry though, Tom lends him his yacht. Arriving in Lobito, he's met by his "old native head boy" Weki (also from our last tale). Still, Biff, Marcia, Weki and one other African man are about four days behind Brick Peters as they venture into the jungle.

Marcia is attacked by a gorilla who snatches her up into a tree. Biff climbs after the gorilla and starts a fistfight with him on one of the branches. That seems like a spectacularly terrible idea. Fortunately Weki throws a spear into the gorilla's heart. Biff and the gorilla fall from the tree and Biff stabs the gorilla with his knife. "Touch luck, monk! You lose!" Er, Biff, don't act so proud of yourself, it was Weki who pulled your fat from the fire.

Later they pitch camp near Lake Ngami (if this is supposed to be the lake in Botswana that was... uh... quite a march!). The pygmies mentioned earlier attack their camp. They're quickly defeated and the unnamed African aide is beheaded by the Pygmies. Biff, Marcia and Weki are brought by the pygmies to their village where they find Brick Peters, who has made himself the boss of the pygmies in the hopes they would lead him to the giants.

Marcia is about to be beheaded by the Pygmies when the giants attack the village. And, remarkably for a comic book from 1940, these 'giants' are very reasonably proportioned. Like, they seem to be about seven feet tall. I really thought we were in for some ten-storey giants. Anyway, these giants easily defeat the Pygmies, then take some Pygmies, Biff, Marcia and Weki back to their village (Brick runs away). The giants' chief was wounded by a Pygmy poison dart but Biff offers to help him. When the chief revives, the chief's son is miffed. Believing Biff is the one who made the alliance with the Pygmies, he challenges Biff to one-on-one combat for his life. Biff wins, thanks to a jiu jitsu move (although it looks like a punch to the jaw from where I sit).

Biff supplies the giants with the antidote to the Pygmy poison and in gratitude they permit two of their warriors to accompany Biff back to the USA. As they head away from the village, a Pygmy throws a head at them; it's the head of Brick Peters, whom they killed for failing to lead them to victory. Back in the USA, the two giants are a huge hit as attractions at the circus. And that's the end.

Biff Powers is a pretty typical "great white hunter" series. It's a relic of its time, but in its time it was just one of many such heroes from Jungle Jim to Clyde Beatty. I was pleasantly surprised that the "giants" were reasonably sized, but otherwise this was pretty rote jungle comic story.

• +1 estrela for using a real location in Angola (Lobito)
• -1 estrela for using an animal not found in Angola (gorilla)
• -1 estrela for the premise of putting human beings on display at a circus
• +1 estrela for being surprisingly modestly-sized giants.

TOTAL SCORE: Zero estrelas! The good and bad cancel each other out.

Lubango vlog, welcome to the blog!

I won't make any promises about becoming a regular vlogger, but I have created my first-ever vlog as a way of marking my arrival in the city of Lubango, Angola. If you've been following my journey elsewhere on this blog you'll be able to pick up the narrative. Otherwise, sorry, this isn't a jumping-on point!