Present Joys

In my ongoing effort to remember all the movies I watch, here is a list of the things I’ve seen since my last list:

• The Mystery Man, a b-movie from 1935 starring Robert Armstrong as a newspaperman who ends up broke and in an unfamiliar city. Probably the most absurd film I’ve ever seen. The plot was totally incoherent, but it was short and funny.
• Dead End, a 1937 film starring a very young Humphrey Bogart as an unsympathetic gangster who returns to his hometown. Spoiler: everyone hates their lives! It was adapted from a stage play, which means this film was boring as well as depressing!
• The Fallen Idol, a 1948 British film about a murder mystery. Annoying child actor notwithstanding, this was a really great movie. Thrilling and cinematographically attractive.
• The President’s Mystery, a disappointing 1936 movie about a man (Henry Wilcoxon) who fakes his own death. Wilcoxon was great as the lead, but the movie itself is facepalm-inducing New Deal propaganda.
• Hidden Fear, a typical 1957 noir with a twist: it’s set in Denmark. This turns out to not really be a twist, since it’s just like any other mid-50s noir. I just can’t get into cheaply-made noir films from the 50s.
• Les Diaboliques, a classic horror film 1955, in French. Fantastic in every way. Watch it with the lights off.
• Dark City, a thriller from 1950 starring a very young Charlton Heston (who is really a terrible actor) as a stony con man opposite Lizabeth Scott, his sycophantic female companion. Contains gambling and gratuitous cabaret songs! As far as b-movies go, though, this is the best one in the list. Lots of laughs.
• Faust, F.W. Murnau’s classic 1926 silent film. Aesthetically beautiful but very long! Emil Jannings, the actor who played Mephisto, was spectacular.
• Pandora’s Box, a 1929 silent film starring Louise Brooks, who plays an annoying floozy (shocker, huh?!). There are lots of interesting garments to look at, at least.
• Dinner at Eight, a 1933 pre-code drama about upper-middle-class life during the Depression. Lots of great actors: Lionel and John Barrymore, Edmund Lowe, Billie Burke, Marie Dressler! also, the always-awful Jean Harlow. This was an excellent, excellent film, like a black comedy with less comedy and lots more black. Edmund Lowe is an unrepentant womanizer; Billie Burke is too preoccupied with entertaining guests to notice her husband is dying of heart disease; the always-glamorous John Barrymore commits suicide on-screen. Exactly what a pre-code film should be like.