Classic Hilarity Ensues: A Look Back

Today I am reposting one of my favorite reviews ever. I had a lot of fun writing this one. Enjoy - Will P.S. be sure to try out my Super Duper Summer Trivia!

King Kong (1933)

Carl Denham, a film director famous for shooting 'animal pictures' in remote and exotic locations is unable to find an actress to star in his newest project and so is forced to wander the streets searching for a suitable woman. He chances upon a poor girl, Ann Darrow, and convinces her to get on a ship with nothing but men and sail around for at least six weeks with no stops at any ports and be in his picture by buying her dinner. I mean really, just because you buy her dinner doesn't mean you can...ahem, back to the story. The crew sails from New York with only Denham knowing the final destination. He is looking for a mysterious island that is not on the charts. It is Skull Island and it hides a secret, a beast known only as Kong. Meanwhile on the ship, first mate and dastardly devil Jack Driscoll starts to fall in love with Ann and Ann with him. Mmmm...first mate. Denham reveals this movie's theme, beauty and the beast. This is pre-Disney, so no talking teapots. The crew finds the island and land to find a politically incorrect inappropriate stereotypical native civilization performing a ritual concerning Kong, I swear one of the natives looked just like Buckwheat from the Little Rascals. The natives become fascinated with Ann, the "golden woman" and thinks she would be Kong's type, but the crew returns to the ship with Ann. That night the natives come aboard and kidnap Ann to become the bride of Kong, he has a thing for blondes, I guess. Kong is revealed to be an 18 to 24 foot tall gorilla, depending on where he is at the time, who takes Ann back to his lair for a little jungle fever. A rescue party lead by that cad Driscoll goes to search for Ann, but all are killed by Kong, all that is except that rascal Driscoll who is able to rescue Ann and return to the village. Kong, enraged that some guy would steal his wife goes on a killing spree of the politically incorrect inappropriate stereotypical natives. Denham is able to gas the giant ape and takes him back to New York for some fun. Dubbed "King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world" the great beast is chained to a stage with very strong "chrome steel." When Kong hears that his babe will be married to that scoundrel Driscoll the next day, he goes crazy. Hilarity ensues. Kong searches for Ann who in the mean time has gotten a hotel room with that wretched Driscoll. Kong finds Ann and tries to persuade her to return with him to the island. He says he will clean up the island for her and get rid of all those pesky dinosaurs and he would stop monkeying around with the boys and that they could have a good life together. Ann's answer? Scream. Which seems to be her answer to a lot of things. Kong, feeling boxed in with all the buildings and commuter trains running about, takes Ann to someplace more quiet so they can talk. He has heard the the Empire State Building has a magnificent view so he takes her there. In a classic case of police brutality, the authorities use airplanes to shoot and kill Kong, you know because if you watch Cops, domestic violence is never a good call to get for a cop. Denham then blames Ann for everything with the line, "T'was beauty killed the beast." Typical, blame the woman, if she hadn't been wearing the blonde wig, if she hadn't come on to Kong with all the screaming and the jiggling of her legs and her suggestive dress. That has been happening since Adam and Eve. So the moral of the story: If you gots the Jungle Fever, make sure she is down with it too, or you could end up as a bullet riddled corpse on a New York street, which, come to think about it, isn't that unusual.

Trivia: King Kong's roar was a lion's and a tiger's roar combined and run backwards. Close-ups of the pilots and gunners of the planes that attack Kong were shot in the studio with mock-up planes. The flight commander is director Merian C. Cooper and his observer is producer Ernest B. Schoedsack. They decided to play the parts after Cooper said that since they created Kong, "we should kill the sonofabitch ourselves".

Okay, so I had a little fun with the plot summary above. Everybody knows the plot of this classic movie. King Kong is one of the most recognized, if not the most, character ever created. The movie has had a major influence in film history. It was truely a groundbreaking movie. Movies like Wallace and Gromet: Curse Of The Wererabbit is still using the same techniques that Willis O'Brian used to bring Kong to life. King Kong was the first movie to really give a visual effect a character and identity. Kong comes alive. When we look back on it from our perspective, it is primative and sort of campy, but we still believe Kong is alive and we can connect with him. We still feel sad when he dies at the end of the movie. Not bad for an 18 inch puppet. The movie still stands up to today's mega visual effects movies.

Tarzan The Ape Man (1932)

James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) and Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) are on an expedition in Africa in search of the elephant burial grounds that will provide enough ivory to make them rich. Parker's beautiful young daughter Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) arrives unexpectedly to join them. Harry is obviously attracted to Jane and he does his best to help protect her from all the dangers that they experience in the jungle. Jane is terrified when Tarzan ( Johnny Weissmuller) and his ape friends first abduct her as hilarity ensues, but when she returns to her father's expedition she has second thoughts about leaving Tarzan. After the expedition is captured by a tribe of violent dwarfs, Jane sends Cheetah to bring Tarzan to rescue them...

Trivia: When Johnny Weissmuller was approached to play Tarzan, he was under contract with BVD to advertise their underwear and swimming trunks. BVD strenuously objected to its spokesman appearing in just a loincloth - the company only wanted him to appear wearing its product. In return for letting Weismuller play Tarzan, MGM allowed BVD to run ads featuring the studio's contract players in BVD swimsuits (including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler). Tarzan's distinctive call was created by sound recordist Douglas Shearer. It was a normal call, manipulated and played backwards. Clark Gable was considered for the role of Tarzan, but was deemed too much of an unknown to play the ape man. At no point in this movie is the line "Me Tarzan, you Jane" spoken. When Jane and Tarzan meet, it is she who initiates the verbal exchange, repeatedly indicating herself and giving her name until he repeats it. She then points to him, indicating that she wants to know if there's a word for who he is as "Jane" is the word for who she is, until eventually he understands and says, "Tarzan." This film used considerable stock footage from Trader Horn also directed by W.S. Van Dyke, resulting in some very obvious back-projection effects, particularly toward the beginning of the picture.

I have seen enough Tarzan movies on Saturday afternoons to expect certain things. There would be animals, they would put an expedition in danger and Tarzan would come swooping in for the rescue. Well, I wasn't disappointed, but it was other things that surprised me. First, Jane shows up at her father's trading post in Africa unannounced then finds out her father will be going on an expedition into the deep African jungles and promptly invites herself. Her father protests for about 2 seconds then says okay when Harry Holt says he doesn't see a problem in it (besides the fact the she has only been in Africa for less then 10 minutes). Jane is very talkative and she was very hott, especially when she was showing her legs (who walks through the jungles of Africa in a dress?) And man was this movie politically incorrect, they whipped their porters mercilessly, and they were attacked by violent dwarfs ("Are those Pygmys" asked Jane, "No, they are dwarfs", and that was the funniest scenes in the whole movie, I mean they really looked like Oompa Loompas). And this movies is very violent. Tarzan kills people! I know they killed his ape friend first, but he sneaks up behind one person and hold his head under the water until he drowns. Oh yeah, Tarzan. This guy is, well, to use a modern term, an real horndog. I mean he kidnaps Jane 2minutes after meeting her, takes her to his love nest...umm...tree house home, he continually paws at her and grabs her, and Jane turns into a little giggling school girl, screaming and running around. I know this is an unconventional love story but it was hilarious.

Classic Movie Wednesday

Captains Courageous (1937)

Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew) is a spoiled brat used to having his own way. When a prank goes wrong onboard an ocean liner Harvey ends up overboard and nearly drowns as hilarity ensues. Fortunately he's picked up by a fishing boat just heading out for the season. He tries to bribe the crew into returning early to collect a reward but none of them believe him. Stranded on the boat he must adapt to the ways of the fishermen from Manuel (Spencer Tracy) and learn more about the real world.

Trivia: Was the first MGM film to be shown on television, in 1955. Spencer Tracy was initially reluctant to take on the part of Manuel, mainly because he had to sing in several scenes and get his hair curled. His new curly locks provided a lot of amusement to his friends and fellow actors. Joan Crawford, for instance, referred to him as Harpo (after Harpo Marx, the curly-haired Marx Brother). This was one of the final films Lionel Barrymore made before his degenerative arthritis crippled him. The following year, he was hobbling around on crutches in Frank Capra's "You Can't Take It with You" (1938); after that, he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Welcome to a new feature on Hilarity Ensues. Classic Movie Wednesday where I will review a classic movie on, well, Wednesday. Now what is a classic movie? Actually, it is just an old movie and Old Movie Wednesday didn't sound as good. I am going to say pre 1990 (well I had to pick a year), and yes, I know that is not very old, but this way I can pick up some of the great 80's flicks, although most will be older. And now to this film. Spencer Tracy won the Best Actor Oscar for this little gem. Freddie Bartholomew was great as the spoiled brat with a machiavellian bent who has to come to terms with his mostly absent father. Tracy becomes a surrogate father to Bartholomew and really has some great scenes. The rest of the cast is also pretty high powered with Lionel Barrymore as the captain and Mickey Rooney as the captain's son. The movie still has relevance today with it's look at fatherhood and growing up.

Remember to get your quiz guesses in, I only have one so far.

42nd Street (1933)

Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter), a successful Broadway director, produces a new show, in spite of his poor health. The money comes from a rich old man, who is in love with the star of the show, Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels). But she doesn't reply his love, because she is still in love with her old partner. Hilarity ensues the night before the premiere, Dorothy Brock breaks her ankle, and one of the chorus girls, Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler) tries to take over her part.

Trivia: Ginger Rogers took the role of Anytime Annie at the urging of director Mervyn LeRoy, whom she was dating at the time. In one of the opening scenes, Bebe Daniels is reading the premiere issue of The New Yorker magazine, with its trademark top-hatted Manhattanite on the cover. The film was so financially successful that it saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy. The movie's line "Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" was voted as the #87 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

A good old classic movie. Now it would be considered a cliche. Aging director trying to create one last show to go out on top, a temperamental star, a wealthy investor who wants to woo said star but gets the brush off, the star breaks her ankle and can't perform and it is left up to a newcomer in her first show to save the day and step in for the star. But can it really be a cliche when it is probably the first one to do it? There is plenty of leg shown also which is always a good thing and was probably pretty racy in 1933. This was part of the trio of films that put choreographer Busby Berkley's name into the mainstream. The final musical numbers during the opening of the show foreshadowed the great movie musical numbers to come in the next couple of decades. It is in black and white which gives it that old timey feel, but I wonder what it would have looked like in color? The dialog is also a great throwback to the golden age of movies. It was rapid fire and included plenty of snappy comebacks. It was fun to watch. The poster for this movie is a very good example of the Art Deco look for the 30's.

The Alphabet Project: L is for...

The Last Days Of Pompeii (1935)

Peaceloving blacksmith Marcus refuses lucrative offers to fight in the arena...until his wife dies for lack of medical care. His life as a gladiator hardens him, and shady enterprises make him the richest man in Pompeii, while his son Flavius (who met Jesus on a brief visit to Judaea) is as gentle as Marcus once was. The final disaster of Marcus and Flavius's cross purposes is interrupted by Vesuvius. Hilarity erupts.

Trivia: Despite all the spectacle, the movie was a box-office flop, and required several re-releases (on a double bill with King Kong (1933) another Marian C. Cooper production) to earn back its cost.

A good 30s Hollywood movie but what surprised me were the not so subtle christian overtones. Marcus disapproves of the slave trade and use of the slaves in the gladiator area but eventually becomes a gladiator himself and becomes disillusioned. He travels to Judea when an old women tells him his son will get the help of the greatest man in Judea. He thinks it is Pontius Pilate, but when his son is gravely injured he asks "the teacher" for his help and his son is healed. He is in Jerusalem when Pilate sentences Jesus, "the teacher" to death. (They even used the standard operating procedure from back then by not showing Jesus, just peoples reactions to him.) Flavius becomes a man who hates his father's job as head of the area and tries to save slaves and free them. Oh yeah, and it is placed in Pompeii so the last ten minutes are very explosive.

Impman, you were on the right track with The Land Before Time and The Land That Time Forgot based on my clue, but 1,927 years ago was 79 A.D. the year Vesuvius erupted.

Up Next: The "M" Movie. The week's clue: Flimflam Artists. Now here are the guesses for L:

The Land Before Time - Four orphan dinosaurs travel the ruins of their world, while grieving the loss of their families and banding together to face the odds of survival.

The Land That Time Forgot - During World War I, a German U-boat sinks a British ship and takes the survivors on board. After it takes a wrong turn the submarine takes them to the unknown land of Caprona, where they find dinosaurs and neanderthals.

Lady Chatterley's Lover - A film adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's novel. After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires.

The Little Mermaid - A mermaid princess makes a faustian bargain with an unscrupulous seahag in order to meet a human prince on land.

Dodge City (1939)

Dodge City. A wide-open cattle town run by Jeff Surrett. Even going on a children's Sunday outing is not a safe thing to do. What the place needs is a fearless honest Marshal. A guy like Wade Hatton (Errol Flynn), who helped bring the railroad in. It may not help that he fancies Abbie Irving (Olivia de Havilland), who won't have anything to do with him since he had to shoot her brother. But that's the West. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Lee Irving fires his six-shooter revolver eight times without reload it. Flynn played opposite Olivia de Havilland in seven other films, including Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Santa Fe Trail, and They Died with their Boots On.

This was one of the first westerns to star a major actor in Flynn and it was shot in technicolor. It is also the essential hollywood western in that it has all the cliches of the genre. A stranger comes to town, Hatton the cattle trail boss. He gets of the wrong side of the girl, has a past with the main villain, who runs the town from the casino. The stranger become sheriff to clean up the town, while the girl becomes a, gasp, reporter for the local paper reporting on such things as what the women are wearing and who is having a baby, instead of being at home like a good girl. The new sheriff has a side kick who means well but has a problem with the bottle and gets himself into trouble. It has a saloon brawl, one of the most quintessential barroom brawls I have ever seen, which totally destroys the saloon/casino with people thrown through windows and such (the next day the saloon is back to normal). the eight shot six shooter. It had a gun fight on a train between four people where at least sixty shot, if not more were fired and nobody is shown reloading. I don't think I heard the word "tarnation" but someone did say "Okay boys, string 'im up." And to top it off...it has a character named Tex. How cool is that?

The Mummy (1932)

In 1921 a team of British archaeologists led by Sir Joseph Whemple uncovers the 3700 year old mummy of Imhotep (Boris Karloff) who was condemned and buried alive for sacrilege. When one young archaeologist opens the scroll of Thoth, he goes insane and the Mummy comes to life. 10 years later Sir Joseph returns with his son Frank. Unknown to them, the Mummy now exists as the mysterious Egyptian, Ardath Bay, who helps the expedition uncover the tomb of his ancient love. He then uses his mystic powers to mesmerize Helen Grosvenor, the reincarnation of his lost love. When Sir Joseph interferes he mysteriously dies. Frank Whemple, with the help of Dr. Muller, attempts to discover the key to Ardath Bay's powers and get Helen back. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: 'Ardath Bey' (the name Imhotep assumes after his exhumation) is an anagram of 'Death by Ra' (Ra is the Egyptian sun-god). Boris Karloff based his mummy on that of Ramses III and spent eight hours putting on his makeup. The film's poster holds the record for the most money paid for a movie poster at auction: more than $453,500. Boris Karloff was virtually unknown when he appeared as the creature in Frankenstein (1931). He created such a sensation that when this was made, only a year later, Universal only had to advertise "KARLOFF....'The Mummy'." The flashback scenes in ancient Egypt were designed to resemble a silent film, with no dialog, exaggerated make-up and gestures, and a faster camera speed, to suggest the great antiquity of the events portrayed. This is the only Universal monster of the time without a fictional antecedent. Large segments of the movie are scene-by-scene parallels of the movie Dracula (1931).

Another day, another classic. And one that defies the stereotypes of today. Today when you think of mummy movies you think of a tall mute man wrapped in bandages from head to toe, walking really slowly, dragging a foot behind with a deformed arm. In this movie you only see Karloff wrapped in the bandages for less then a minute, and you only see a close up of his head and arm down to his chest. After that he appears as an articulate, if wrinkled, old Egyptian man. The story becomes a twisted love story with Imhotep trying to revive his lost love, and the reason he was buried alive and condemned. She has been reincarnated as a British woman, who just happens to be living in Egypt. Good movie and good story, even if it parallels the twisted love story in Dracula where the Count falls in love with a young woman. I feel really sorry for David Manners though. Why you ask? Well, David Manners (as Johnathon Harker) is in love with Mina, who is coveted by Dracula, then one year later he (as Frank Whemple) falls in love with Helen Grosvenor, who is coveted by Imhotep. Talk about unlucky in love!

Dracula (1931)

After a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferal of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), who is in actuality a vampire. Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Seward who then calls in a specialist, Dr. Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina's health. Van Helsing, realizing that Dracula is indeed a vampire, tries to prepare Mina's fiance, John Harker, and Dr. Seward for what is to come and the measures that will have to be taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the undead. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Universal Studios commissioned a new musical score from composer Philip Glass. It premiered at The Brooklyn Academy of Music on 26 October 1999. The original plan was to make a big-budget adaptation of "Dracula" that would adhere strictly to Bram Stoker's novel. However, with the Great Depression, Universal didn't have the money to make such a sprawling film. Instead, they opted to adapt the much less expensive Hamilton Deane stage play. The large, expansive sets built for the Transylvania castle and Carfax Abbey sequences remained standing after filming was completed, and were used by Universal Pictures for many other movies for over a decade. Bela Lugosi was so desperate to repeat his stage success and play the Count Dracula role for the film version, that he agreed to a contract paying him $500 per week for a seven week shooting schedule, an insultingly small amount even during the days of the Depression. The studio did not want the scene where Dracula attacks Renfield to be filmed due to the perceived gay subtext of the situation. A memo was sent to the director stating "Dracula is only to attack women".

Dracula, I don't think I need to say any more. It is a classic movie. It is also the root of a lot of Dracula cliches. Dracula's long cape. The Gothic style of Dracula's castle and Carfax Abbey with long sweeping staircases. Dracula's stilted slow speech patterns and accent. But some of the Dracula movie staples were not seen. You never see his fangs, or the twin puncture bite marks on the women's neck. You do get the feel that it was filmed on a sound stage. I know that is a modern day bias, but everything felt a little claustrophobic, which I guess creates a better atmosphere for a horror movie. And as for the horror, (Again with the modern day bias) nobody seemed to be in real life threatening danger, I would classify it as a psychological thriller (of course, I would classify Silence Of The Lambs as a psychological thriller, were as IMDb says it is horror). All in all it is a good movie, and Lugosi is very creepy as the Count.

Top 250 Challenge: 222

The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Number 190 on IMDb's Top 250

In an "uncivilized" Alpine region of pre-World War II Europe, a motley group of tourists eager to get back to England is delayed by an avalanche blocking the railway tracks. Among the passengers are Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), a young musicologist who has been studying the folk songs of the region; Iris (Margaret Lockwood), a young woman of independent means who has spent a holiday with some friends but is now going home alone to be married; and Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), an elderly lady who has worked some years abroad as a governess.

When the train resumes its journey, Iris and Miss Froy strike up a conversation, while the remaining passengers in the compartment appear not to understand a word of English. Iris lapses into unconsciousness (the result of an earlier encounter with a falling flowerpot meant for Miss Froy). When she reawakens, the governess has vanished. Iris is shocked to learn that the other passengers claim Miss Froy never existed. Even the other English travelers deny ever seeing her, for their own reasons. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Two of the supporting characters, the hilariously singleminded cricket fans Caldicott and Charters (played by Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford), proved so popular with audiences that they starred in a movie of their own, Crook's Tour (1939), and appeared in several more Gilliat-and-Launder-scripted movies, Night Train to Munich (1940) (also starring Margaret Lockwood), Millions Like Us (1943) and Passport to Pimlico (1949) (although they are re-named Straker and Gregg). They were resurrected again for a BBC television series, Charters & Caldicott, in 1985. The set that the movie was shot on was only ninety feet long. Gilbert says he once drove "a miniature engine on the Dymchurch line". The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway is a real-life miniature (1/3 normal size) railway in southeast England, which in 2003 still uses steam locomotives and carries passengers over 13 miles of route.

This is one of Hitchcock's lesser known films, heck I didn't even realize it was Hitchcock's until I saw the opening credits. It is not a typical Hitchcock film coming well before his biggest films of the 50s and 60s. This film is actually very funny at times and even includes a fight scene that could easily have come from a Bob Hope movie. It was also pretty good at developing some of the minor characters and explain why they, for their own personal reasons, denied seeing Miss Froy.

Next Up: Throne of Blood

Top 250 Challenge: 184

City Lights (1931)
Number 98 on IMDb's Top 250

The plot concerns Chaplin's Tramp, broke and homeless, meeting a poor blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) selling flowers on the streets and falling in love with her. The blind girl mistakes him for a millionaire. Since he wants to help her and doesn't want to disappoint her, he keeps up the charade. He befriends a drunk millionaire, works small jobs like street sweeping, and enters a boxing contest, all to raise money for an operation to restore her sight. Hilarity ensues. In the end, it is a casual gift of a thousand dollars from his drunken millionaire friend that eventually will pay for the operation that restores the blind girl's sight. Unfortunately, like many of the Tramp's efforts, things go wrong and he is mistakenly accused of stealing the money. He ends up spending some months in jail, but not before getting the money to the blind girl. The ending, widely acclaimed as one of cinema's most touching, brings the flower girl, her sight restored, face to face with her kind benefactor. "You?" she says after recognizing the touch of his hand. "Yes" replies the nervous tramp, his face a map of shame, pride, love and devotion.

Trivia: Orson Welles said that this was his favorite movie of all time. Chaplin re-shot the scene in which the Little Tramp buys a flower from the blind flower-girl 342 times, as he could not find a satisfactory way of showing that the blind flower-girl thought that the mute tramp was wealthy.

Well, this was typical Chaplin, a well-rounded, funny, touching movie.

Top 250 Challenge: 177

Modern Times (1936)
Number 68 on IMDb's Top 250

Charlie turns against modern society, the machine age, and progress. Firstly we see him frantically trying to keep up with a production line, tightening bolts. He is selected for an experiment with an automatic feeding machine, but various mishaps leads his boss to believe he has gone mad, and Charlie is sent to a mental hospital... When he gets out, he is mistaken for a communist while waving a red flag, sent to jail, foils a jailbreak, and is let out again. Hilarity ensues. We follow Charlie through many more escapades before the film is out.

Trivia: Supposedly was to be Charles Chaplin's first full sound film, but instead, sound is used in a unique way: we hear spoken voices only when they come from mechanical devices, a symbol of the film's theme of technology and dehumanization. Specifically, voices are heard from: The videophones used by the factory president,
The phonographic Mechanical Salesman, The radio in the prison warden's office. Charles Chaplin allows the Tramp to speak on camera for the first time during the restaurant scene, but insisted that what the Tramp says be universal. Therefore, the song the Tramp sings is in gibberish, but it is possible to follow the story he tells by watching his hand gestures. France's Tobis Studios sued Chaplin for plagiarizing the conveyor belt sequence from René Clair's À nous la liberté (1931) but dropped the suit when Clair declared himself honored by the tribute, saying, "I have certainly borrowed enough from him."

After 8 years of talking movies, only Charlie Chaplin would be able to make a "silent" movie. I liked the use of voices only coming from technology. And Paulette Goddard was pretty hot as the gamin. I'm pretty sure this is the first full Chaplin movie I have seen. I have seen clips and stuff but never a full movie. Although it is predictable, it's still a pretty funny movie.

Top 250 Challenge: 173

M (1931)
Number 59 on IMDb's Top 250

A psychotic child murderer stalks a city, and despite an exhaustive investigation fueled by public hysteria and outcry, the police have been unable to find him. TBut the police crackdown does have one side-affect, it makes it nearly impossible for the organized criminal underground to operate. So they decide that the only way to get the police off their backs is to catch the murderer themselves. Besides, he is giving them a bad name. The beggers union starts watching all the children in the town for any suspicious characters until a blind man recognises a familiar whistle that he heard just before the last child disappeared. The criminals spring into action and one is able to "mark" the target to make him easier to follow. That mark? The letter "M" for murderer. Hilarity ensues. Will the criminals be able to exact their revenge? Or will the police find the murdere in time?

Trivia: The tune that Peter Lorre's character whistles is "In the Hall of the Mountain King," from the "Peer Gynt" suite, by Edvard Grieg. Peter Lorre was Jewish and fled Germany in fear of Nazi persecution shortly after the movie's release. Fritz Lang, who was half Jewish, fled two years later. Peter Lorre's climactic speech was appropriated by Joseph Goebbels for the Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew, a Holocaust apologist film that blames Jews for devaluing German culture with degenerate art. Because Lorre was Jewish, the film uses his final speech as "proof" that Jews exemplify innate criminality, and refuse to take responsibility for their wrongdoings. (Ed. Note: Leave it to the Nazis to subvert everything the touched.)

Peter Lorre plays one of the first serial killers ever portrayed on film. The child murderer is one of the first characters ever to be associated with a leitmotif, in this case the character whistles "In The Hall Of The Mountain King." Later in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he must be nearby, just offscreen. Cool Beans! I got to use the word leitmotif!

Top 250 Challenge: 170

Duck Soup (1933)
Number 142 on IMDb's Top 250

Nominated by Anonymous Ken

To rescue the small country of Freedonia from bankruptcy, Mrs. Teasdale agrees to donate 20 million dollars, but only if Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) is appointed its new president. Firefly is a cynical, sarcastic dictator who refuses to play politics by the book. For instance, he does reduce workers' hours~by shortening their lunch breaks! Firefly attempts to win the hand of Mrs. Teasdale, as does Ambassador Trentino of the neighboring country, Sylvania. Sylvanian spies (Chico and Harpo) harass Firefly. Hilarity ensues. When the two leaders cannot resolve their dispute over the wealthy dowager, war between the countries is declared, and Mrs. Teasdale's house comes under attack. Who will save the day?

Trivia: Shortly before this film premiered, the city of Fredonia, New York, complained about the use of its name with an additional "e". The Marx Brothers' response was: "Change the name of your town, it's hurting our picture." During the battle scene, Groucho wore five different uniforms: A Union soldiers uniform, a Confederate general's uniform, a boy scout troop leader's uniform, a Revolutionary War-era British general's uniform, and a Davy Crockett outfit. This film marks the last appearance of Zeppo Marx in a Marx Brothers film. Groucho Marx offered the following explanation for the movie's title: "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup the rest of your life."

I finally got to see this after about a month of NetFlix having it listed as a very long wait. Many consider this the Marx Brothers best film. I have to disagree, I recently saw A Day At The Races and liked it better then this one. Don't get me wrong, this was a funny movie, just not their best. Groucho starts off the movie kind of stiff and his jokes sound forced, but he gets better as the movie progresses. This movie also has the famous mirror scene where Harpo, pretending to by Groucho, shatters a mirror and then takes over the mirror's job and plays Groucho's mirror image. Thanks Ken.

Top 250 Challenge: 160, 161

Frankenstein (1931)
Number 229 on IMDb's Top 250

Frankenstein (1931) veers quite far from the novel. Though it is the basic plot of the book "Frankenstein", one could not say that it is anything other than loosely based on the novel. Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster from various posthumous 'donors' and combines them into a massive creature, to whom he wishes to bestow life. The movie centers on this monster and his struggle in this life after death. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: The method of animating the creature is never discussed in Mary Shelley's novel. In the book, Frankenstein, narrating, refuses to divulge how he did it so no one can re-create his actions. However, the use of lightning to resurrect the monster has become the accepted methodology and appears in virtually every Frankenstein movie since. In one scene, the Monster (Boris Karloff) walks through a forest and comes upon a little girl, Maria, who is throwing flowers into a pond. The monster joins her in the activity but soon runs out of flowers. At a loss for something to throw into the water, he looks at Maria and moves toward her. In all American prints of the movie, the scene ends here. But as originally filmed, the action continues to show the monster grabbing Maria, hurling her into the lake, then departing in confusion when Maria fails to float as the flowers did. This bit was deleted because Karloff - objecting to the director's interpretation of the scene - felt that the monster should have gently put Maria into the lake. This scene is restored in the videocassette and DVD reissue. Note: There is that American audience thing again.

Well, this movie was pretty much what I expected. I'm not sure why I never saw it before. I particularly loved the mob scene at the end where the everyone in the early 20th century (I guess) European village evidently went home and put on their mob gear that consisted of fedora hats and suits.

Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)
Number 196 on IMDb's Top 250

Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive, not killed as previously believed. Dr. Frankenstein wants to get out of the evil mad scientist business, but when a mad scientist, Dr. Pretorius (local 234, Mad Scientist Union), kidnaps his wife, Dr. Frankenstein agrees to help him create a new creature, a woman, to be the companion of the monster. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: It is considered inaccurate to refer to the Monster by the name "Frankenstein" rather than "Frankenstein's Monster", however in the prologue, Lord Byron actually does attach the name Frankenstein to the monster. When filming the scene where the monster emerges from the burnt windmill, Boris Karloff slipped and fell into the water-filled well. Upon being helped out, he realized he had broken a leg in the fall. The metal struts used to stiffen his legs (for the famous "monster lurch") helped keep the bones in place until they could be properly set. Like in the opening credits of the original where "The Monster" is followed by a question mark and not Boris Karloff's name, the cast list of Bride says "The Monster's Mate" followed by a question mark.

Alright! They recreated the mob scene at the beginning of this film with the fedoras and suits. I thought it was creative to have Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester) basically introduce the movie and then have Elsa Lanchester play the Bride. Watching these two movies gave me a lot more respect for Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. Man, that movie was spot on.

Top 250 Challenge: 150!!!!

Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Number 195 on IMDb's Top 250

David Huxley (Cary Grant) is a paleontologist beleaguered by problems: he is trying to assemble the skeleton of a Brontosaurus but is missing one bone (an "intercostal clavicle"), he is about to get married, and he must make a favorable impression upon Mrs. Random, a wealthy lady who is considering whether to give a million dollars to his museum. The day before his planned wedding, David meets Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a free-spirited young lady and Mrs. Random's niece.

Susan's brother has sent her a leopard from Brazil, "Baby," which she is in turn supposed to give to her aunt. Because Susan believes David is a zoologist rather than a paleontologist, she asks him to her country home in order to help her take care of Baby. Complications arise as Susan decides that she has fallen in love with David, and endeavors to keep him at her house for as long as possible. Then the plot becomes further entangled as Susan's dog, George, steals and buries the last dinosaur bone that David needs for his skeleton. Susan's aunt arrives, unaware of who David is and mistakenly believing that he is a man named Bone. Hilarity ensues when Baby runs off, as do George and a leopard from a circus that is playing in a nearby town. Susan and David must find Baby, the dog, and the dinosaur bone, try to escape from the county jail in which they've been mistakenly locked up, and ensure that Mrs. Random still wants to give away the million dollars.

Trivia: Susan pretends that she and David (Cary Grant) are gangsters. The underworld nickname she gives police for David is "Jerry the Nipper", a nickname that Jerry (Grant) had in The Awful Truth (1937). David protests to the police, "Officer, she's making it up from motion pictures she's seen!" Though Hepburn never received royalties as an actress in the film, because she was a part investor, the film did provide a financial return for her (and still does for her estate).

Only someone like Cary Grant could have made this movie without being upstaged by Katherine Hepburn, but Grant was able to balance of comedy. This is about as good as an example of screwball comedy as you can get. A very funny movie.

Top 250 Challenge: 139

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Number 147 on IMDb's Top 250
Anonymously Nominated by Anonymous Ken

Umm...Robin Hood...Do I have to spell it out for you? Okay, King Richard the Lionheart is off at the crusades...crusading. Meanwhile, back at the castle, Prince John, some Guy from Gisbourne, and the Sheriff of Nottingham plot to overthrow Richard and gain the crown cause lets face it, chicks dig the crown, and that Guy guy likes the Lady Marian (Olivia de Havilland) and who wouldn't, she's a babe.

Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn) is a nobleman who gets fed up with Prince John and Sir Guy of Gisbourne and runs away to stay in the forest with a band of merry men (not that there is anything wrong with that) and basically becomes a hood. Robin decides to fight John Little and his quarterstaff ("Actually, it's a buck-and-a-quarter quarterstaff. But I'm not tellin' HIM that.") and gets beat by him so they become friends (except Robin demands on calling him Little John, Hey Man! He beat you fair and square!). They then commence to robbing the rich to give to the poor and all that Robin Hood stuff. ("See yon rich, unwary traveler? I'll rob him of his gold, and give it to some poor unworthy slob! That'll PROVE I'm Robin Hood! Huh? Hm? Okay?")

Prince John and the guys come up with a plan to get Robin Hood by holding an archery tourney. Sure enough, Robin can't resist a good tourney and he wins! (It sure would have thrown a kink in the plan if he had lost there wouldn't it.) After a chase Robin is caught and sentenced to death, now there is a fine how-do-you-do. Maid Marian doesn't want to become an old maid with that Guy so she gets the merry men and they rescue him, Hurrah! Hilarity really ensues when King Richard shows up and we have a big sword fight. All is well and Marian gets her man.

Trivia: The Golden Palomino that Olivia de Havilland rides in this film is Trigger, shortly before he became the mount of Roy Rogers. The sound of Robin's arrow is the favorite sound of Skywalker Sound's Ben Burtt. He has used that sound in almost all the Star Wars films. The production used all 11 of the Technicolor cameras in existence in 1938 and they were all returned to Technicolor at the end of each day's filming.

This movie may be the origin of just about every Robin Hood cliche in existance. Robin Hood in green tights. The archery tournament. All the fancy colorful clothing. Robin sword fighting on the stairs. King Richard showing up in the end to save the day. They became cliches for a reason, everybody copied them in Robin Hood movies to come. There was a Robin Hood movie in 1922 with Douglas Fairbanks but most people remember this one more. An Anonymous Thanks To Anonymous Ken.

Quick Bonus Trivia Question: The two quotes in the summary above are not from this movie, what are they from?

Top 250 Challenge: 125*

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington

Number 89 on IMDb’s Top 250

Nominated by Kim

Naive and idealistic Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, is appointed on a lark by the spineless governor of his state. He is reunited with the state's senior senator--presidential hopeful and childhood hero, Senator Joseph Paine. In Washington, however, Smith discovers many of the shortcomings of the political process as his earnest goal of a national boys' camp leads to a conflict with the state political boss, Jim Taylor. Taylor first tries to corrupt Smith and then later attempts to destroy Smith through a scandal. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: The scenes where Jimmy Stewart wanders around in amazement at the Washington monuments were "stolen", as the Parks Services had denied them permission to film near them.

This is a classic Frank Capra good guy movie. Stewart was magnificent, as he aways is, as the young idealistic junior senator who bucks the system. Thanks Kim.

* Whoo Hoo! half way through the list!

Top 250 Challenge: 118

King Kong (1933)
Number 205 on IMDb's Top 250

Carl Denham, a film director famous for shooting 'animal pictures' in remote and exotic locations is unable to find an actress to star in his newest project and so is forced to wander the streets searching for a suitable woman. He chances upon a poor girl, Ann Darrow, and convinces her to get on a ship with nothing but men and sail around for at least six weeks with no stops at any ports and be in his picture by buying her dinner. I mean really, just because you buy her dinner doesn't mean you can...ahem, back to the story. The crew sails from New York with only Denham knowing the final destination. He is looking for a mysterious island that is not on the charts. It is Skull Island and it hides a secret, a beast known only as Kong. Meanwhile on the ship, first mate and dastardly devil Jack Driscoll starts to fall in love with Ann and Ann with him. Mmmm...first mate. Denham reveals his movie's theme, beauty and the beast. This is pre-Disney, so no talking teapots. The crew finds the island and land to find a politically incorrect inappropriate stereotypical native civilization performing a ritual concerning Kong, I swear one of the natives looked just like Buckwheat from the Little Rascals. The natives become fascinated with Ann, the "golden woman" and thinks she would be Kong's type, but the crew returns to the ship with Ann. That night the natives come aboard and kidnap Ann to become the bride of Kong, he has a thing for blondes, I guess. Kong is revealed to be an 18 to 24 foot tall gorilla, depending on where he is at the time, who takes Ann back to his lair for a little jungle fever. A rescue party lead by that cad Driscoll goes to search for Ann, but all are killed by Kong, all that is except that rascal Driscoll who is able to rescue Ann and return to the village. Kong, enraged that some guy would steal his wife goes on a killing spree of the politically incorrect inappropriate stereotypical natives. Denham is able to gas the giant ape and takes him back to New York for some fun. Dubbed "King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world" the great beast is chained to a stage with very strong "chrome steel." When Kong hears that his babe will be married to that scoundrel Driscoll the next day, he goes crazy. Hilarity ensues. Kong searches for Ann who in the mean time has gotten a hotel room with that wretched Driscoll. Kong finds Ann and tries to persuade her to return with him to the island. He says he will clean up the island for her and get rid of all those pesky dinosaurs and he would stop monkeying around with the boys and that they could have a good life together. Ann's answer? Scream. Which seems to be her answer to a lot of things. Kong, feeling boxed in with all the buildings and commuter trains running about, takes Ann to someplace more quiet so they can talk. He has heard the the Empire State Building has a magnificent view so he takes her there. In a classic case of police brutality, the authorities use airplanes to shoot and kill Kong, you know because if you watch Cops, domestic violence is never a good call to get for a cop. Denham then blames Ann for everything with the line, "T'was beauty killed the beast." Typical, blame the woman, if she hadn't been wearing the blonde wig, if she hadn't come on to Kong with all the screaming and the jiggling of her legs and her suggestive dress. That has been happening since Adam and Eve. So the moral of the story: If you gots the Jungle Fever, make sure she is down with it too, or you could end up as a bullet riddled corpse on a New York street, which, come to think about it, isn't that unusual.

Trivia: King Kong's roar was a lion's and a tiger's roar combined and run backwards. Close-ups of the pilots and gunners of the planes that attack Kong were shot in the studio with mock-up planes. The flight commander is director Merian C. Cooper and his observer is producer Ernest B. Schoedsack. They decided to play the parts after Cooper said that since they created Kong, "we should kill the sonofabitch ourselves".

Okay, so I had a little fun with the plot summary above. Everybody knows the plot of this classic movie. King Kong is one of the most recognized, if not the most, character ever created. The movie has had a major influence in film history. It was truely a groundbreaking movie. Movies like Wallace and Gromet: Curse Of The Wererabbit is still using the same techniques that Willis O'Brian used to bring Kong to life. King Kong was the first movie to really give a visual effect a character and identity. Kong comes alive. When we look back on it from our perspective, the aprimitiveis primative and sort of campy. But we still believe Kong is alive and we can connect with him. We still feel sad when he dies at the end of the movie. Not bad for an 18 inch puppet. The movie still stands up to today's mega visual effects movies. It was just as good if not better then Peter Jackson's remake from last year.