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 |
 | 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 |
 | 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
 | The Broadway Melody – Best Picture winning sound musical, from a time when seeing a film with actual singing would have been revolutionary. | Director: Harry Beaumont Cast: Anita Page, Bessie Love, Charles King |
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 |
1931
 | 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 |
 | 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 |
 | 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 |
 | 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 |
 | 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 |
 | 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
 | 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 |
 | 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
 | 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 |
 | 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 |
 | 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 |
 | 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 |
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 |
 | 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 |
 | Young Mr Lincoln – myth-making ‘origins story’ for America’s greatest President | Director: John Ford Cast: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver |
Movie Musings 