This page contains links to all the films I have reviewed from the early days of the movies and Hollywood. When the screwball comedy and the grand musical were king and gritty gangster films showed the nasty underbelly of America.
1916
 | Intolerance – DW Griffith’s impossibly grand masterpiece covers the history of intolerance from 30AD all the way to the 1920s. | Director: DW Griffith Cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Constance Talmadge |
1922
 | Nosferatu – a mysterious vampire (definitely not Dracula) travels to Germany in Murnau’s genre-defining masterpiece | Director: FW Murnau Cast: Max Schreck, Gustav van Wangenheim, Greta Schroder |
1923
 | Dr Mabuse, der Spieler – a criminal mastermind wreaks havoc in Lang’s masterful film-as-mini-series | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Bernhard Goetzke |
 | Our Hospitality – Keaton’s debut comedy is a hilarious, stunt-filled masterpiece of invention set in the Wild West | Director: Buster Keaton Cast: Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts, Natalie Talmadge |
1924
 | The Navigator – Keaton goes back to basics with a film that’s all gags and no plot, character or heart | Director: Buster Keaton Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire |
 | Die Nibelungen – Lang’s luscious epic, crammed with visual majesty and magic | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Paul Richter, Margarete Schön, Theodor Loos |
 | Sherlock Jr – a would-be detective daydreams himself into a film in Keaton’s sensational comic masterpiece | Director: Buster Keaton Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton |
1925
 | Battleship Potemkin – hugely influential, a triumph of montage and the greatest propaganda film ever | Director: Sergei Eisenstein Cast: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigori Aleksandrov |
 | Go West – Keaton buddies up with a cow in this delightful Western comedy | Director: Buster Keaton Cast: Buster Keaton, Howard Truesdale, Kathleen Myers |
 | Seven Chances – sub-par Keaton comedy (his least favourite) with one knock-out chase | Director: Buster Keaton Cast: Buster Keaton, T Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards |
1926
 | Faust – a technical marvel, Murnau’s beautiful exploration of the myth is awash with striking, haunting images | Director: FW Murnau Cast: Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn |
1927
 | The General – Keaton’s masterpiece, stunt-filled train epic one of the best action films ever made | Director: Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman Cast: Buster Keaton, Marian Mack, Glen Cavander |
 | Metropolis – hugely influential sci-fi flawed but visionary and inspiring | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Brigette Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Frolich |
 | Napoleon – Gance’s breath-taking epic is crammed with innovation, invention and flair | Director: Abel Gance Cast: Albert Dieudonné, Edmond Van Daële |
 | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans – Murnau’s fairy tale of a man and wife helps redefine the language of cinema | Director: FW Murnau Cast: George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston |
 | Wings – WW1 buddy movie, the first Best Picture winner: pilots love the same woman but become friends | Director: William A Wellman Stars: Clara Bow, Charles Rogers, Richard Arlen |
1928
 | The Last Command – Jannings wins the first Best Actor Oscar in this sympathetic look at White Russians | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent, William Powell |
 | The Passion of Joan of Arc – Dreyer’s searing passion play about the French saint, shot in glorious, searching close-up | Director: Carl Dreyer Cast: Renée Jeanne Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André Berley |
 | The Racket – a gangster and a cop face off in a silent film that becomes less visually engaging as it goes on | Director: Lewis Milestone Cast: Thomas Meighan, Louis Wolheim, Marie Prevost |
 | Steamboat Bill Jnr – Keaton’s final ‘proper’ film, fast paced with possibly film’s most famous stunt | Director: Charles Reisner Cast: Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrance, Marion Byron |
1929
 | Alibi – is a former criminal going straight, or is he still a ruthless killer? Early talkie with moments of interest | Director: Roland West Cast: Chester Morris, Regis Toomey, Eleanor Griffin |
 | The Broadway Melody – Best Picture winning musical, from when seeing a film with actual singing was revolutionary. | Director: Harry Beaumont Cast: Anita Page, Bessie Love, Charles King |
 | Disraeli – Victorian statesman foils spies and plays cupid in this entertaining melodrama with an Oscar-winning star | Director: Alfred E Green Cast: George Arliss, Doris Lloyd, Joan Bennett |
 | In Old Arizona – a romantic cowboy outwits a scheming woman and a dull lawman in this early Western talkie | Director: Irving Cummings, Raoul Walsh Cast: Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe, Dorothy Burgess |
 | The Love Parade – a charming lothario marries a Queen – and finds he has no power in this winning musical | Director: Ernst Lubitsch Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald |
1930
 | All Quiet on the Western Front – WW1 trenches drama and Best Picture winner with powerful anti-war message | Director: Lewis Milestone Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray |
 | The Blue Angel – a Professor is smitten by a cabaret singer – just as von Sternberg became smitten with Dietrich – and comes off badly | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron |
 | Morocco – romantic drama set in the French Foreign Legion, full of classic imagery | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou |
 | Westfront 1918 – similar to All Quiet, Pabst presents an impassioned plea for an end to conflict | Director: G W Pabst Cast: Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl, Hans-Joachim Moebis |
1931
 | Arrowsmith – a dedicated doctor tries to save lives in the Caribbean in this sometimes subversive prestige production | Director: John Ford Cast: Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, Richard Bennett |
 | The Champ – a son worships his washed-up boxer dad in this pioneer of a whole genre of father-son-weepies | Director: King Vidor Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich |
 | Cimarron – terrible, semi-racist Western, Best Picture winner – possibly the worst ever winner, following the growth of a town | Director: Wesley Ruggles Cast: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor |
 | Frankenstein – iconic monster film, whose imagery totally reinvented public perception of the novel | Director: James Whale Cast: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff |
 | The Front Page – original (and perhaps best) version of the definitive story of cynical journalism | Director: Lewis Milestone Cast: Adolphe Menjou, Pat O’Brien, Mary Brian |
 | M – compelling, thought-provoking and quite brilliant mix of crime drama and social commentary – Lang’s masterpiece | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Peter Lorre, Gustaf Gründgens, Otto Wernicke |
 | The Public Enemy – iconic Cagney gangster film with the famous grapefruit scene, still rather exciting | Director: William A Wellman Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods |
1932
 | Blonde Venus – melodrama about a woman’s desperate attempt to save her husband’s life | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant |
 | Grand Hotel – Best picture all-star melodrama about comings and goings in a posh Berlin hotel | Director: Edmund Goulding Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford |
 | I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang – a man suffers in a chain gang in this impressive social issues drama | Director: Mervyn LeRoy Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson |
 | The Most Dangerous Game – genre-defining movie, as a mad Russian hunts the shipwrecked on a jungle island | Director: Ernest B Shoedsack, Irving Pichel Cast: Joel McCrea, Leslie Banks, Fay Wray |
 | Scarface – brilliant gangster film, ‘the shame of the nation’ in its day: bullets fly as a ruthless gangster climbs to the top | Director: Howard Hawks Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, George Raft |
 | Shanghai Express – romantic drama and tension on the eponymous train | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong |
 | Trouble in Paradise – two con artists in a relationship decide to con a rich woman: not helped when he falls in love with her | Director: Ernst Lubitsch Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall |
 | Vampyr – nightmareish vampire movie, full of haunting images and unexplained terrors | Director: Carl Theodore Dreyer Cast: Julian West, Maurice Schitz, Rena Mandel |
1933
 | Cavalcade – Best picture winning Noel Coward adaptation of a posh British family saga | Director: Frank Lloyd Cast: Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, Una O’Connor |
 | 42nd Street – joyous film about a musical theatre production, full of the joy of theatre | Director: Lloyd Bacon Cast: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler |
 | King Kong – iconic monster movie, the ‘daddy’ of them all, as the big beast takes an unfortunate trip to see his love in New York | Director: Melville C Cooper, Ernest B Schoedsack Cast: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot |
 | The Private Life of Henry VIII – Laughton establishes the public idea of the Merrie Monarch in this early Carry on Henry | Director: Alexander Korda Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Merle Oberon |
 | Queen Christina – Garbo is (of course!) the Queen of Sweden in this luscious, very well filmed, costume drama | Director: Rouben Mamoulian Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith |
 | The Testament of Dr Mabuse – Lang’s masterful, chilling mix of psychological ghost-story and gangster film | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Otto Wernicke |
1934
 | Cleopatra – big, camp, DeMille spectacle full of enjoyable sequences | Director: Cecil B DeMille Cast: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon |
 | The House of Rothschild – old-fashioned historical melodrama, with a strong message against antisemitism | Director: Alfred L Werker Cast: George Arliss, Boris Karloff, Loretta Young |
 | It Happened One Night – legendary Oscar-winning road-trip romantic comedy, still one of the best there is | Director: Frank Capra Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly |
 | The Scarlet Empress – absolutely crazy von Sternberg historical epic about Catherine the Great | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe |
 | Twentieth Century – a theatre producer tries to cajole his former star to return with him to Broadway | Director: Howard Hawks Cast: John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly |
1935
 | Bride of Frankenstein – blackly funny monster film, possibly one of the best sequels ever made | Director: James Whale Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Ernest Thesiger |
 | David Copperfield – classic all-star Dickens adaptation, extremely influential costume drama | Director: George Cukor Cast: Freddie Bartholomew, WC Fields, Edna May Oliver |
 | The Devil is a Woman – romance and duels in revolutionary Spain | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero |
 | The Lives of a Bengal Lancer – old school adventure and imperial attitudes in this fun adventure | Director: Henry Hathaway Cast: Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell |
 | A Midsummer Night’s Dream – overlooked, influential production, with many fine ideas | Director: Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle Cast: James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Mickey Rooney |
 | Les Misérables – Good performances can’t always outweigh clumsy adaptation decisions | Director: Richard Boleslawski Cast: Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke |
 | Mutiny on the Bounty – Best Picture winning retelling of the most famous mutiny ever | Director: Frank Lloyd Cast: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone |
 | Ruggles of Red Gap – comedy about a classic British butler falling in love with America | Director: Leo McCarey Cast: Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charles Ruggles |
 | Top Hat – classic Astaire and Rogers dancing, in glorious top hat and tails | Director: Mark Sandrich Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton |
1936
 | Dodsworth – a husband and wife drift apart on a European vacation in this rich non-judgemental drama | Director: William Wyler Cast: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Mary Astor |
 | The Great Ziegfeld – Best Picture winning biopic of a legendary Broadway showman. Better than you might have heard. | Director: Robert Z. Leonard Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer |
 | Mr Deeds Goes to Town – Capra’s world-view falls into place as a man (unhappily) inherits millions | Director: Frank Capra Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, Lionel Stander |
 | Modern Times – Chaplin’s silent swansong, as the tramp struggles against the system. Subtly political. | Director: Charlie Chaplin Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman |
 | My Man Godfrey – a millionaire goes incognito as a butler with one crazy family, classic screwball | Director: Gregory La Cava Cast: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady |
 | Rembrandt – biopic of the great Dutch artist with Laughton on top form. | Director: Alexander Korda Cast: Charles Laughton, Gertrude Lawrence, Elsa Lanchaster |
 | San Francisco – professionally smooth Hollywood melodrama meets disaster movie to success | Director: W.S Van Dyke Cast: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Jeanette MacDonald |
 | The Story of Louis Pasteur – classic biopic of the Great Scientist that laid down a lot of tropes of the genre | Director: William Dieterle Cast: Paul Muni, Josephine Hutchinson, Donald Woods |
 | Things to Come – HG Wells utopia future has flat dialogue but great visuals in this sci-fi curiosity | Director: William Cameron Menzies Cast: Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson |
1937
 | The Awful Truth – remarriage comedy as a feuding couple faces ‘the awful truth’: they’re in love, Grant’s first ever “Cary Grant” role | Director: Leo McCarey Cast: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy |
 | Captains Courageous – a spoilt rich kid learns lessons from a fisherman in this charming coming-of-age tale | Director: Victor Fleming Cast: Freddie Bartholomew, Spencer Tracy |
 | La Grande Illusion – Jean Renoir’s masterpiece, French POWs struggle with class, friendship and war | Director: Jean Renoir Cast: Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresney, Erich von Stroheim |
 | The Life of Emile Zola – Best Picture winning biopic of the great French writer, mostly about the Dreyfus affair | Director: William Dieterle Cast: Paul Muni, Joseph Schildkraut, Gale Sondergaard |
 | Lost Horizon – Capra’s well-made Utopian dream, utterly unaware of the flaws in its system | Director: Frank Capra Cast: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, HB Warner |
 | A Star is Born – one of the first versions, a peak behind Hollywood’s curtain with excellent performances from the two leads | Director: William A Wellman Cast: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou |
1938
 | The Adventures of Robin Hood – the classic Robin Hood film, best swashbuckler ever made and one of the most influential | Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone |
 | Alexander Nevsky – Eisenstein shoots in a traditional style a great propaganda epic, as Russia defeats the Germans | Director: Sergei Eisenstein Cast: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolay Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov |
 | Angels with Dirty Faces – Cagney weeps on the way to the chair in this classic gangster flick | Director: Michael Curtiz Cast: James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart |
 | The Lady Vanishes – an old woman disappears on a train in this gripping Hitchcock comedy-thriller | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, May Whitty |
 | Pygmalion – classic adaptation of Shaw’s best known play | Director: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard Cast: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson |
 | Quai des Brumes – French romantic gangster tragedy in a seedy docklands | Director: Marcel Carné Cast: Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan |
1939
 | Dark Victory – a woman has her terminal condition hidden from her by the doctor who loves her, in a classic tear-jerker | Director: Edmund Goulding Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald |
 | Destry Rides Again – delightful semi-mock Western, as a gun shy sheriff cleans up a dirty town | Director: George Marshall Cast: Marlene Dietrich, James Stewart, Brian Donlevy |
 | The Four Feathers – classic boys-own British Empire hero story as a man is mistaken for a coward but proves his worth | Director: Zoltan Korda Cast: John Clements, Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith |
 | Gone with the Wind – the classic Hollywood Romance to end all Hollywood Romances. A legend despite everything | Director: Victor Fleming Cast: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland |
 | Goodbye, Mr Chips – heartbreak and romance in an English boarding school | Director: Sam Wood Cast: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Lyn Harding |
 | The Hunchback of Notre Dame – marvellous, gothic adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel | Director: William Dieterle Cast: Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell |
 | Love Affair – two people fall in love on an Atlantic cruise, before tragedy strikes: half comedy, half sentimental love story | Director: Leo McCarey Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya |
 | Mr Smith Goes to Washington – the best-ever filibuster film as one man makes a difference | Director: Frank Capra Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains |
 | Of Mice and Men – an affecting version of a familiar tale, well acted and made with professional restraint | Director: Lewis Milestone Cast: Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jnr, Betty Field |
 | La Règle du Jeu – a weekend shooting party is swept up in love affairs in Renoir’s metaphorical masterpiece | Director: Jean Renoir Cast: Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Marcel Dalio |
 | The Roaring Twenties – a former soldier becomes a bootlegger in this classic, overlooked, gangster film | Director: Raoul Walsh Cast: James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Gladys George |
 | Stagecoach – danger awaits on a coach journey in this exciting and very-well written adventure | Director: John Ford Cast: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell |
 | Young Mr Lincoln – myth-making ‘origins story’ for America’s greatest President | Director: John Ford Cast: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver |
Movie Musings 