1936 Movies
OSCARS Won/Nominated
OSCARS
Best Director
Best Actor Best Actress Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress Best Screenplay |
My Man Godfrey
Dir: Gregory La Cava Stars: William Powell, Carole Lombard 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die William Powell is a very charismatic actor, and he elevates everything in this film. Carole Lombard is excruciatingly annoying and she pulls it all down. This story about rich people hiring a bum to work as their butler, without knowing that said bum used to be just like them is fine, but the family is so comically ridiculous that it almost always rings false. However, Powell is so good that you forgive it. Also, Gail Patrick acts circles around everyone and becomes the most sensuous woman in the film...overshadowing Lombard and throwing the romantic balance of the narrative off the rails. B- |
Sabotage
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock Stars: Sylvia Sydney 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Another Hitchcock movie, another dud. Hitchcock is good at mounting suspense...and the scene where a gullible young man is carrying a time bomb is truly horrifying and tension filled (as well as the scene where Sylvia Sydney is deciding whether or not to kill her husband). But all of those scenes in between the suspense just drag, and drag, and drag. The film is also poorly titled. It should be called TERRORISM instead of SABOTAGE....but then again, Terrorism wasn't such a catchphrasey word back in 1936 as it is today. Short and simple to a fault...this is another dissapointment from the so-called Master of Suspense. If only that tension could have been maintained throughout...THEN we would have had something. C- |
Things to Come
Dir: William Cameron Menzies Stars: Raymond Massey 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die As this film, inspired by H.G. Wells, opens, I was pretty impressed with its premonition about a major war that crosses the globe. When said war lasts 30 years, wipes out most of the human race, and leads civilization into a cliched futuristic utopia...it got a little corny. I was impressed by the effects this movie pulled off back in 1936, but the acting is hammy and the message is a bit ridiculous, especially when the filmmakers were about 100 years off on their prediction of a flight to the moon. "Progress!!! Why Always PROGRESS!!! Can't the human race just relax??" See what I mean?? C+ |