BLACHEFAN
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It's a Gift (1934)
The popularity and influence of W.C. Fields continues with each succeeding generation, distinguishing him as one of the greatest American comedians of the 20th century. "It's a Gift" has survived a perilous preservation history and is the third Fields film to be named to the National Film Registry. The film's extended comic sequence featuring Baby LeRoy, and depicting Fields' travails while trying to sleep on the open-air back porch of a rooming house, was adapted from one of his most successful live theatrical sketches.
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It Happened One Night (1934)
In this screwball comedy from director Frank Capra, spoiled socialite Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) elopes without her family's approval and consequently finds herself stuck with out-of-work journalist Peter Warne (Clark Gable) on her journey back to her new husband. Based on a short story called "Night Bus" by Samuel Hopkins Adams, "It Happened One Night" faced a difficult start, with actor after actor rejecting the lead roles. Eventually Claudette Colbert took on the role of Ellie and Clark Gable was loaned from MGM to play Peter. Although now considered a classic, "It Happened One Night" opened to only so-so reviews. Despite the initial reaction, the film performed well in smaller towns and ended up winning every Oscar for which it was nominated, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Writing (Adaptation), marking the first time in history that one film swept the top five Oscar categories. "It Happened One Night" was also Columbia Pictures' first Best Picture Academy Award win.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/it_happened.pdf
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Imitation of Life (1934)
This is one of American cinema's most famous examples of the "woman's picture," melodramas which focused on the emotions, problems and concerns of women. This John Stahl film adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel has an innovative theme involving a white widow (Claudette Colbert) who starts a business partnership with her African-American maid (Louise Beavers). It is arguably the first Hollywood studio film to treat African-American characters in a dignified fashion by casting them in richly developed roles, not merely as comics or entertainers.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/imitation_life.pdf
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Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
Historians estimate that more than 250,000 American teens were living on the road at the height of the Great Depression, criss-crossing the country risking life, limb and incarceration while hopping freight trains. William Wellman's "Wild Boys of the Road" portrays these young adults as determined kids matching wits and strength in numbers with railroad detectives as they shuttle from city to city unable to find work. Wellman's "Wild Bill" persona is most evident in the action-packed train sequences. Strong performances by the young actors, particularly Frankie Darrow, round out this exemplary model of the gritty "social conscience" dramas popularized by Warner Bros. in the early 1930s.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/wild_boys.pdf
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The Three Little Pigs (1933)
Voted among the best cartoons of all time in a 1990s animators' poll, "The Three Little Pigs" was one of a series of Silly Symphony shorts on which Walt Disney practiced and refined his art on the way to his first Technicolor masterpiece: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Wildly popular, this film pushed the envelope in "personality animation"— each of the three pigs had a different personality—and the title tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" became a Depression-era anthem.
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State Fair (1933)
Portrait of Will Rogers, the popular star of "State Fair."
For director Henry King to create a film that celebrated an institution as beloved and indomitable as the State Fair, it required the presence of a cherished and steadfast star—in this case, icon, philosopher and America's favorite cowboy, Will Rogers. Rogers found a superlative vehicle for his homespun persona in this small town slice-of-life setting. He is assisted by Janet Gaynor (already the Academy's very first best-actress winner), Lew Ayres and Sally Eilers. Enhancing the fair's festivities, which include the making of mom's entry for the cook-off and the fattening-up of the family pig, are diverse storylines rich with Americana and romance—some long-lasting and some ephemeral, rife with fun but fleeting as the fair itself. The film's authenticity owes much to its director, widely known as the "King of Americana" through films such as "Tol'able David," "Carousel" and "Wait till the Sun Shines, Nellie."
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/state fair.pdf
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Sons of the Desert (1933)
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, along with comedian Charley Chase, star in this riotous comedy of fraternity and marital mishaps. Directed by veteran comedy director William A. Seiter for Hal Roach Studios, "Sons of the Desert" successfully incorporated into a feature-length film many of the comedic techniques that had made Laurel & Hardy such masters of short-subject humor. The film was ranked among the top 10 box-office hits after its release. Film scholars and fans consider it to be the duo's finest feature film.
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Snow White (1933)
Betty Boop
Four years before Walt Disney made "Snow White" the star of an animated motion picture, the Fleischer brothers -- director Dave and producer Max -- turned the spunky, sexy Betty Boop (voiced by Mae Questel) into the fairy tale damsel. Trouble starts when the queen's magic mirror says Betty Boop is fairest in the land and is ordered to be beheaded. Another Fleischer stalwart, Koko the Clown, is voiced by Cab Calloway and sings "St. James Infirmary Blues" in a spooky cave full of flying skeletons and floating ghosts.
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She Done Him Wrong (1933)
Adapted by Mae West from her successful stage play and directed by Lowell Sherman, this is one of the key films cited as the impetus for the motion picture industry's stricter enforcement of its nascent production code. The suggestive musical number "Where Has My Easy Rider Gone?" was found particularly objectionable. Co-starring with West were Gilbert Roland who plays her estranged outlaw lover and Cary Grant, in one of his earliest roles, as a temperance union leader trying to reform saloon singer West.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/she_done.pdf
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The Power and the Glory (1933)
Preston Sturges' first original screenplay, "The Power and the Glory," is a haunting tragedy in sharp contrast to the comedies of the 1940s that established him as one of America's foremost writer-directors. Contrary to common practice of the time, Sturges wrote the film as a complete shooting script, which producer Jesse L. Lasky, believing it "the most perfect script I'd ever seen," ordered director William K. Howard to film as written. Compared favorably to novels by Henry James and Joseph Conrad for its extensive mix of narration with dramatic action (Fox Studios coined the word "narratage" to publicize Sturges' innovative technique), "The Power and the Glory" introduced a non-chronological structure to mainstream movies that was said to influence "Citizen Kane." Like that film, "The Power and the Glory" presents a fragmented rags-to-riches tale of an American industrial magnate that begins with his death, in this case a suicide, and sensitively proceeds to produce a deeply affecting, morally ambivalent portrayal. The Nation magazine called Spencer Tracy's performance in the lead role "one of the fullest characterizations ever achieved on screen."
The expanded essay is below this description.
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King Kong (1933)
Since it first opened, "King Kong" has been an audience favorite, initially giving the troubled RKO much needed money to finance future projects. It has come to epitomize one of Hollywood's best attempts at horror fantasy. Layered with obvious moralizing, the story has taken on the significance of a modern folk tale. Adventurer and movie director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) takes an unknowing crew and newly found star, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) on a mysterious voyage to the lush prehistoric jungles of Skull Island where giant creatures lurk, including the gargantuan ape, Kong. Captivated by Ann, he carries her off, the crew scrambling after them, until he's finally subdued and taken to New York for exhibition. Directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack use Willis O'Brien's spectacular stop-motion effects to develop a series of tumultuous action scenes, both on the island and in Manhattan, culminating with Kong's famous ascent of the Empire State Building.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/king kong.pdf
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The Invisible Man (1933)
Universal released many classic horror films during the 1930s and director James Whale crafted some of the greatest from that famous cycle: "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein," "The Old Dark House" and "The Invisible Man." Whale brought a dazzling stylishness to what were essentially low-budget horror films and, in the case of "The Invisible Man," produced sophisticated special effects, aided by John P. Fulton. As in his discovery of Boris Karloff to play "Frankenstein," Whale made another inspirational choice in picking British-born Claude Rains, in his American film debut, to portray H.G. Wells' tormented scientist Jack Griffin. In the film, after discovering a drug which provides the secret to invisibility, Rains becomes an insane maniac and goes on a power-hungry murder spree, but later makes a deathbed confession to his fiancée: "I meddled in things that man must leave alone."
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Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Arguably the definitive Depression-era musical, rife with visually stunning Busby Berkeley productions, ranging from the escapist "We're in the Money," kaleidoscopic, neon-violin-playing chorines of "The Shadow Waltz" to the powerful social statement of "My Forgotten Man," a stirring paean to World War I veterans unemployed by the Depression. The usual backstage drama involves showgirls Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, and Aline McMahon who search for financial backing for producer Ned Sparks new show. Enter secretly well-heeled songwriter Dick Powell who offers to put up the money for the show, much to his brother's chagrin.
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Footlight Parade (1933)
Directed by Lloyd Bacon, "Footlight Parade" is one of the best of the Warner Brothers showbiz musicals, with James Cagney turning in a dynamite performance as a theatrical producer who finds that talking pictures are cutting into his business. Turning lemons to lemonade, he begins to produce musical preludes for the pictures. Busby Berkeley contributed his signature production numbers, including his first water ballet, "By a Waterfall" as well as "Shanghai Lil" and "Honeymoon Hotel." Joan Blondell is Cagney's gal Friday, and Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler are the young stars who croon and tap their way to romance and fame.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/footlight_parade.pdf
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The Emperor Jones (1933)
Adapted by DuBose Heyward from a Eugene O'Neill play and directed by Dudley Murphy, "The Emperor Jones" is one of Paul Robeson's earliest and most powerful leading roles. Robeson, a railroad porter and notorious swindler, gets into a fight over a crap game and murders his friend Jeff (Frank Wilson). He ends up on a chain gang, but escapes to Haiti where the white trader Smithers (Dudley Digges) buys his freedom. He and Smithers become shady business partners, and Jones becomes rich by tricking the natives into believing he is immortal. Jones declares himself emperor, ruling with an iron fist until the natives revolt and chase him into the jungle where he hears voices and sees visions, eventually leading up to his suicide.
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Duck Soup (1933)
A combination of musical mayhem and political satire finds the Marx Brothers, under the direction of Leo McCarey, at the center of war between tiny Freedonia and its neighbor Sylvania. The reliably clueless Margaret Dumont is there to bear the brunt of Groucho's wisecracks. Famous for the scene in which Chico and Harpo impersonate an unwitting Groucho in front of a mirror, the film is generally acknowledged as the brothers' masterpiece. Unlike many directors, McCarey, whose credits also include the Registry comedies "Ruggles of Red Gap" and "The Awful Truth," successfully tempered the patented Marx mania without inhibiting it.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/duck_soup.pdf
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Baby Face (1933)
Smart and sultry Barbara Stanwyck uses her feminine wiles to scale the corporate ladder, amassing male admirers who are only too willing to help a poor working girl. One of the more notorious melodramas of the pre-Code era, a period when the movie industry relaxed its censorship standards, films such as this one led to the imposition of the Production Code in 1934. This relative freedom resulted in a cycle of gritty, audacious films that resonated with Depression-battered audiences.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/baby_face.pdf
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42nd Street (1933)
At a little less than 90 minutes, "42nd Street" is a fast-moving picture that crackles with great dialogue and snappily plays up Busby Berkeley's dance routines and and the bouncy Al Dubin-Harry Warren ditties that include the irrepressably cheerful "Young and Healthy" (featuring the adorable Toby Wing), "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and the title number. A famous Broadway director (Warner Baxter) takes on a new show despite his ill health, then faces disaster at every turn, including the loss of his leading lady on opening night. The film features Bebe Daniels as the star of the show and Berkeley regulars Guy Kibbee, Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell, and Ruby Keeler, whom Baxter implores, "You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!"
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Employees Entrance (1933)
During the bleak era of the Depression, film studios scrambled to find various types of "escapist" fare to take people's minds off their hard life struggles and get audiences into theaters: musicals, lighthearted comedies and melodramas with big stars. "Employees Entrance," a superb pre-Production Code film about the machinations in a New York department store, effectively captures real urban tensions during the Depression. Key is Warren Williams' devastating characterization of the store's general manager, whose system shows not a trace of the smiling manager. He's always superb as a charismatic, shyster professional, is obsessed with being successful, callously dismissing longtime, non-productive employees and demanding that his assistants not succumb to women. Warner Bros films of the 1930s are renowned for being fast-paced, quickly made, relatively short features (55-75 minutes) with whip-smart dialogue. "Employees Entrance" remains one of the studio's best.
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Trouble in Paradise (1932)
The "Lubitsch Touch" -- an easy comedic elegance which characterized the films of director Ernst Lubitsch -- is epitomized in this frothy gem starring Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins as professional thieves who fall in love while plundering the Riviera. Saucy dialog delivered with mock melodrama runs rampant amidst sophisticated promiscuity when Marshall is bewitched by the wealthy Parisienne he intends to fleece (Kay Francis), the thieves find they're not as thick as they thought.
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A Study in Reds (1932)
This polished amateur film by Miriam Bennett spoofs women's clubs and the Soviet menace in the 1930s. While listening to a tedious lecture on the Soviet threat, Wisconsin Dells' Tuesday Club members fall asleep and find themselves laboring in an all-women collective in Russia under the unflinching eye of the Soviet special police.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/study_reds.pdf
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Scarface (1932)
Howard Hawks's 1932 masterpiece is a dark, brutally violent film depicting the horror of mob intimidation. Paul Muni gives his best performance as the thug Tony Camonte, who gradually insinuates himself as the leader of a small ring of hoods, wooing away the boss's girl (Karen Morley) and further terrorizing his rivals with the latest in gang warfare, the tommy gun. But as Tony's thirst for power grows, so does his recklessness and temper, increasing his already frightening obsession with protecting his sister (Ann Dvorak) as well as sending him on a collision course with the law that won't end with a clean getaway. Hawks reverses the usual structure of the gangster tragedy: Camonte's not driven by his ego to challenge the world so much as to embrace its natural chaos and violence. The supporting actors include Osgood Perkins, Boris Karloff, Vince Barnett, and George Raft (flipping his coin).
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Red Dust (1932)
This steamy pre-Production Code melodrama stars virile, tough guy Clark Gable as a Far East plantation owner who proves no match for Jean Harlow's saucy incandescence. Her earthy, breathless dialogue ("You can check the wings and halo at the desk") serves to turn up the heat. The movie's well-remembered humor, star chemistry and atmosphere owe much to underrated director Victor Fleming, who managed to inspire a superior performance from Harlow, who was coping with the suicide of her husband during the filming of "Red Dust."
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The Music Box (1932)
Delivery men Laurel and Hardy struggle to push a large crated piano up a seemingly insurmountable flight of stairs. Hal Roach earned an Oscar for producing one of the comic duo's most celebrated short films, which was, in fact, a partial remake of their silent short "Hats Off" in which The Boys tote a washing machine up the same flight of steps.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/music_box.pdf
National Film Registry Year by Year
in General Discussions
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Little Miss Marker (1934)
In this film directed by Alexander Hall from a Damon Runyon story, Shirley Temple stars as a little girl whose father leaves her as a marker for a $20 bet. When Temple's father never returns (desperate for the bet to pay off, he kills himself when it doesn't), the bookie and confirmed bachelor (Adolphe Menjou) is stuck with the precocious moppet. Not surprisingly, she wins over the hearts of all the race-track ruffians, including Menjou's tough guy partner (Charles Bickford) and his moll (Dorothy Dell). In her first starring role (she'd already amassed 24 credits in short films and bit parts by this time), the six-year-old Temple would become and household name and the biggest child star the world had ever seen. One of the most popular stars of the 1930's, the revenue from her movies was instrumental in saving Fox Studio from bankruptcy.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_miss_marker.pdf