BLACHEFAN

Love Me Tonight (1932) According to director Rouben Mamoulian, Paramount executive Adolph Zukor hurried "Love Me Tonight" into production to keep two of his more expensive contract players, Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, from sitting idle. If Mamoulian rushed, it doesn't show in what film historians consider one of the most original of 1930s musicals. , "Love Me Tonight" as By pre-recording the entire score, Mamoulian, who was influenced by the work of Ernst Lubitsch and Rene Clair, combined sound and image with more fluidity than most early musicals achieved. Songs by Rodgers and Hart – including "Isn't It Romantic" and "Mimi" – and an effervescent script filled with risque innuendo are brought to life by Chevalier's saucy charm and MacDonald's angelic voice and beauty. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/love_me_tonight.pdf

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) A compelling, Academy Award-nominated performance by Paul Muni as an average guy framed for robbery and sentenced to hard labor distinguishes this Warner Bros. "social conscious" picture from most others of this era. Based on a series of works by Robert Elliot Burns, himself a chain gang escapee, the vividly depicts the prisoner's despair as his strength and dignity are stripped away until escape becomes his only option. Director Mervyn LeRoy ("Little Caesar" and "They Won't Forget") pulls no punches in showing the brutality and corruption of prison farms. Much of the film's story and technique would influence later prison movies.

Grand Hotel (1932) Dubbed "The Lion Tamer" for his skill in dealing with temperamental Hollywood stars, director Edmund Goulding ("Dark Victory," "Razor's Edge," and "Nightmare Alley") earned that moniker many times over in "Grand Hotel." This film put much of the MGM star factory—Greta Garbo, Wallace Beery, John and Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford—into a single film with multiple plots, arguably the first use of the all-star formula later seen in "Dinner at Eight," "Airport," and "The Towering Inferno." Crawford is reported to have told the Barrymores: "All right, boys, but don't forget that the American public would rather have one look at my back than watch both your faces for an hour." In this film Garbo uttered the line, "I want to be alone."

Freaks (1932) Master horror film director Tod Browning assembled a cast of genuine sideshow oddities for this chilling tale of camaraderie, persecution and revenge, with Olga Baclanova as the cruelly manipulative trapeze artist and Harry Earles as the freak she torments. The film's unusual subject matter, its cast of curiosities, and its untraditional moral sympathy combined to create a cult following for this film, which was severely edited in the U.S. at the time of release and banned in the U.K. for 30 years.

Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) Utilizing a cast of natives, German director F.W. Murnau blends ethnographic curiosity with romantic drama as he examines the dangers faced by lovers who break the rules of society in Bora Bora. Best known for the more expressionistic "Nosferatu" and "Sunrise," Murnau dispenses with inter-titles and exaggerated gestures that typified most silent films, and reveals plot points visually through journal entries, newspaper articles and signs. The New York Times described it as a "picture poem" of 'paradise' and 'paradise lost.' Shot entirely in Tahiti, Floyd Crosby's lush cinematography won him an Academy Award. "Tabu" would be Murnau's last film; he died in a car accident one week before its premiere.

The Public Enemy (1931) Raw and brutal, this crime saga – one of the earliest sound examples by Warner Bros. , the studio known for its gritty tales of the street – features James Cagney in an incendiary star-making portrayal of a two-bit bootlegger and his rise to the top amid gang warfare. Director William Wellman infuses the film with fierce machismo, witness the now-famous grapefruit-in-the-face scene (the face belongs to Mae Clarke). Jean Harlow as Cagney's moll gives viewers little indication of the superstar she'd become in a few short years.

The Front Page (1931) This early sound film successfully demonstrates the rapid progress achieved by Hollywood filmmakers in all creative professions after realizing the capabilities of sound technology to invent new film narratives. The film is based on one of the best screenplays of the 1930s by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and features strong performances by Pat O'Brien, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Brian, Edward Everett Horton, Walter Catlett, Mae Clark, Slim Summerville, Matt Moore and Frank McHugh. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently restored this film utilizing materials from their collection, by way of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and from the Library of Congress collection.

Frankenstein (1931) This early sound chiller may be the definitive film of its genre from the studio that became known for the genre: Universal. Superior to "Dracula," made less than a year previously, it illustrates how quickly Hollywood mastered the art of sound. Influenced by German Expressionism, director James Whale applies a unique twist to Mary Shelley's original tragedy of a doctor (Colin Clive) obsessed with restoring life, and the creature (Boris Karloff) he unleashes. Makeup designed by Jack Pierce was revolutionary. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/bride_frank.pdf

The Forgotten Frontier (1931) Mary Breckinridge founded the Frontier Nursing Service in 1925 as a project to demonstrate the delivery of accessible and affordable health care in a rural population of Kentucky. Breckinridge's cousin, Mary Marvin Breckinridge, was an accomplished photographer and used her artistic talents to aid her cousin's mission. Beginning in 1928, Mary Marvin traversed the The service grew and today operates a hospital with one of the few training programs for nurse-midwives in the country. This documentary shows nurse-midwives as they race on horseback through the wooded hills to deliver babies, treat gunshot victims and inoculate schoolchildren. In a 1985 sound version of the film, Marvin Breckinridge said, "I've had a rewarding and useful life."

Drácula (1931) (Spanish language version) Before the advent of sound, the only significant difference between films seen by domestic audiences and foreign ones was the language of the subtitles, which could be adapted for each market. When talkies arrived, American studios began shooting foreign-language versions for international and non-English-speaking domestic markets, generally at the same time they filmed the English versions. In one of the most famous examples of this practice, a second crew—including a different director and stars—shot at night on the same sets used during the day for the English version of the Bram Stoker classic starring Bela Lugosi and directed by Tod Browning. In recent years, the Spanish version of the film, which is 20 minutes longer, has been lauded as superior in many ways to the English one, some theorizing that the Spanish-language crew had the advantage of watching the English dailies and improving on camera angles and making more effective use of lighting. Directed by George Melford (best known for the Valentino sensation "The Sheik"), the Spanish version starred Carlos Villarías (billed as Carlos Villar) as Conde Drácula, Lupita Tovar as Eva Seward, Barry Norton as Juan Harker and Pablo Alvarez Rubio as Renfield. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/dracula_spanish.pdf

Dracula (1931) Bela Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula defined the ultimate vampire characterization for decades to follow, and the actor made a career of it, both on screen and on stage. Director Tod Browning referenced Bram Stoker's 1897 novel and subsequent stage plays, including a 1927 Broadway production starring Lugosi, to inform his cinematic approach to the legend. Browning, cinematographer Karl Freund and art director Charles D. Hall created an eerie gothic atmosphere to frame Lugosi's performance. Dwight Frye is memorable as Dracula's uber creepy minion Renfield. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/dracula.pdf

City Lights (1931) In this story of a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) and the tramp who makes sacrifices for her (Charlie Chaplin), Chaplin deftly combines comedy with pathos. Despite the movie industry's embrace of talking pictures, Chaplin held on to the pantomime style that defined his screen persona, and the film earned great critical acclaim and box-office profits. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/city_lights.pdf

A Bronx Morning (1931) Part documentary and part avant-garde, this renowned city symphony was filmed by Jay Leyda when he was 21. It features sensational and stylish use of European filmmaking styles The images movingly show the resilience of people persevering with style and enthusiasm during the early years of the depression. "A Bronx Morning" won Leyda a scholarship to study with the renowned Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/bronx_morning.pdf

La vengenza de Pancho Villa (1930-1936) aka The Revenge of Pancho Villa The compilation film created by itinerant exhibitor Félix Padilla combines the cinematic traditions of the United States and Mexico to construct a biographical film about the regional hero and revolutionary general Francisco "Pancho" Villa. Using footage primarly from American silent features and newsreels – augmented by still photos and footage he shot himself – Padilla produced and exhibited the film in the El Paso-Juárez border region in the 1930s. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pancho_villa.pdf

Pups Is Pups (1930) "Pups is Pups" expertly combines slapstick, verbal humor and pathos in one neat, entertaining package. In this the 100th entry in the "Our Gang" series of short subjects, and the 12th talking installment, the little rascals systematically wreack havoc at a fancy pet show when they bring in their own menagerie of mice, pigs, goats and toads. This was the first "Our Gang" comedy to utilize the jazzy background music of LeRoy Shield for which the Hal Roach Studio, and most notably Laurel and Hardy, became known. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pups.pdf

Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (1930s-1940s) Fayard and Harold Nicholas, renowned for their innovative and exuberant dance routines, began in vaudeville in the late 1920s before headlining at the Cotton Club in Harlem, starring on Broadway and performing in Hollywood films. Fred Astaire is reported to have called their dance sequence in "Stormy Weather" (1943) the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen. Their home movies capture a golden age of show business—with extraordinary footage of Broadway, Harlem and Hollywood—and also document the middle-class African-American life of that era, images made rare by the considerable cost of home-movie equipment during the Great Depression. Highlights include the only footage shot inside the Cotton Club, the only footage of famous Broadway shows like "Babes in Arms," home movies of an all African-American regiment during World War II, films of street life in Harlem in the 1930s, and the family's cross-country tour in 1934.

Morocco (1930) Josef von Sternberg's first American film to star Marlene Dietrich ranks as his best, according to many film historians, rich in exotic atmosphere. Gary Cooper costars as a foreign legionnaire who wins Dietrich's heart with an economy of dialogue, and Adolphe Menjou plays a wealthy rake who competes for her affection. Dietrich, as a cabaret singer with androgynous appeal, looks sultry and performs three songs before trodding across the desert barefoot. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/morocco.pdf

Little Caesar (1930) Edward G. Robinson sneers and preens as the swaggering Caesar Enrico Bandello, a small-time hood who dreams of the big time and crashes the Chicago rackets. Mervyn LeRoy directs the picture with an efficient reserve, thanks partly to his own artistry and partly to the constraints of sound recording in its early days. The stiffness of the static camera lends rigid aloofness to the Rico's gestures and his violent actions. The staccato narrative includes every gangster cliché in its original form, including the mobster who falls in love and wants to go straight (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), the sarcastic Irish police officer (Thomas Jackson), the prodigal gangland banquet, and the operatic death throes.

King of Jazz (1930) A sparkling example of a musical in the earliest days of two-color Technicolor, "The King of Jazz" is a fanciful revue of short skits, sight gags and musical numbers, all with orchestra leader Paul Whiteman—the self-proclaimed "King of Jazz" — at the center. Directed by John Murray Anderson and an uncredited Paul Fejos, it attempted to deliver "something for everyone" from a Walter Lantz cartoon for children to scantily-clad leggy dancers and contortionists for the male audience to the crooning of heartthrob Bing Crosby in his earliest screen appearance. "King of Jazz" also featured an opulent production number of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/king_jazz.pdf

The Kidnappers Foil (1930s-1950s) For three decades, Dallas native Melton Barker and his company traveled through the southern and central sections of the United States filming local children acting, singing and dancing in two-reel narrative films, all of which Barker titled "The Kidnappers Foil." Barker recognized that many people enjoyed seeing themselves, their children and their communities on film. Since home movies were an expensive hobby, he developed a business to provide them. Other itinerant filmmakers produced similar fare, but Barker appears to have been the most prolific. Enlisting local movie theaters and newspapers to sponsor and promote the productions, Barker auditioned children and offered "acting lessons" to the most promising for a fee of a few dollars. He then assembled 50 to 75 would-be Shirley Temples and Jackie Coopers, ages 3 to 12, to act out the melodramatic story: a young girl is kidnapped from her birthday party and eventually rescued by a search party of local kids. After the "rescue," the relieved townsfolk would celebrate with a party where the budding stars showcased their musical talents. A few weeks after filming, the town would screen the 15- to 20-minute picture to the delight of the local audience. Most prints of these films no longer exist, although some have been discovered in vintage movie houses or local historical societies. The Texas Archive of the Moving Image holds a collection of these itinerant films and hosts Internet resources for those who appeared in them as children.

From Stump to Ship (1930) Alfred Ames, the president of the Machias Lumber Company in Washington County, Maine, purchased a 16mm moving picture camera in 1929 and with the help of a friend, Dr. Howard Kane, meticulously recorded the labor of woodsmen and horses. They created this 30-minute silent film to document his workers in all facets of the lumber industry from sawing down trees to running logs down rivers. Ames not only documented his family business, but he also created a cinematic record of the lumber industry. The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/stump_ship.pdf

The Big Trail (1930) This taming of the Oregon Trail saga comes alive thanks to the majestic sweep afforded by the experimental Grandeur wide-screen process developed by the Fox Film Corporation. Audiences marveled at the sheer scope of the panoramic scenes before them and delighted in the beauty of the vast landscapes. Hollywood legend has it that director Raoul Walsh was seeking a male lead for a new Western and asked his friend John Ford for advice. Ford recommended an unknown actor named John Wayne because he "liked the looks of this new kid with a funny walk -- like he owned the world." When Wayne professed inexperience, Walsh told him to just "sit good on a horse and point."Wayne's starring role in "The Big Trail" did not catapult him to stardom, and he languished in low-budget pictures until John Ford cast him in the 1939 classic "Stagecoach." The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/big_trail.pdf

The Augustas (1930s-1950s) Amateur filmmaker and traveling salesman Scott Nixon at the Grand Canyon. Courtesy Moving Image Research Collections Digital Video Repository (MIRC-DVR), University of South Carolina External Scott Nixon, a traveling salesman based in Augusta, Ga., was an avid member of the Amateur Cinema League who enjoyed recording his travels on film. In this 16-minute silent film, Nixon documents some 38 streets, storefronts and cities named Augusta in such far-flung locales as Montana and Maine. Arranged with no apparent rhyme or reason, the film strings together brief snapshots of these Augustas, many of which are indicated at pencil-point on a train timetable or roadmap. Nixon photographed his odyssey using both 8mm and 16mm cameras loaded with black-and-white and color film, amassing 26,000 feet of film that now resides at the University of South Carolina. While Nixon's film does not illuminate the historical or present-day significance of these towns, it binds them together under the umbrella of Americana. Whether intentionally or coincidentally, this amateur auteur seems to juxtapose the name's lofty origin—'august,' meaning great or venerable—with the unspectacular nature of everyday life in small-town America.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) This faithful adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's classic pacifist novel is among the greatest antiwar films ever made, remaining powerful more than 80 years later, thanks to Lewis Milestone's inventive direction. Told from the perspective of a sensitive young German soldier (Lew Ayres) during WWI, recruited by a hawkish professor advocating "glory for the fatherland." The young soldier comes under the protective wing of an old veteran (Louis Wolheim) who teaches him how to survive the horrors of war. The film is emotionally draining, and so realistic that it will be forever etched in the mind of any viewer. Milestone's direction is frequently inspired, most notably during the battle scenes. In one such scene, the camera serves as a kind of machine gun, shooting down the oncoming troops as it glides along the trenches. Universal spared no expense during production, converting more than 20 acres of a large California ranch into battlefields occupied by more than 2,000 ex-servicemen extras. After its initial release, some foreign countries refused to run the film. Poland banned it for being pro-German, while the Nazis labeled it anti-German. Joseph Goebbels, later propaganda minister, publicly denounced the film. It received an Academy Award as Best Picture and Milestone was honored as Best Director. The expanded essay is below the description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/all_quiet.pdf

St. Louis Blues (1929) A two-reeler made both for "race theater" distribution and RKO's experiments with early recording of musical shorts in its theater chains, "St. Louis Blues" features the only film recording of Bessie Smith, "Queen of the Blues," backed by an outstanding cast of African-American artists. According to film historian Donald Bogle, the film "was marred by its white director's overstatement, but it was distinguished by Bessie Smith's extraordinary ability to express black pain. ... Haughty, husky, hungry, earthy, confident, and supremely committed to her music, Bessie Smith is magnificently larger than life here, a true dark diva, who lives up to her legend as one of America's great original artists." The expanded essay is below this description. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/st_louis_blues.pdf