James Cagney's star has yet to rise. Sound engineers at Warner Bros. are busily perfecting the Vitaphone. In perhaps 1931's most infamous Hollywood film, The Public Enemy, Beryl Mercer as "Ma Powers" is a silent-era harmonium among her fellow character actors. Out of step by more than chronological age, remaining forever asynchronous to her surroundings, she is elsewhere in her house when son Tom (Cagney) is fatefully shot, staggering en point, like a ballerina in the rain. We can hear the downpour and see a gigantic curbstone leaping upward as if to meet it. Later, Tom’s lifeless corpse arrives special delivery—a rare case of an ending tacked onto a climax that actually makes things more traumatic, miserable, cruel, and violent. Some inscrutable force keeps Ma upstairs, humming goofily to herself. Depression Lesson #16 has got your morning paper: Beryl Mercer moons on infinite repeat, the model of mute...
- 10/15/2020
- MUBI
Wow! That glorious original poster jumped out at us, making us ask why we couldn’t see this classic-era Paramount horror picture starring the brilliant and glamorous Carole Lombard and directed by the maker of White Zombie. Well, it’s finally shown up to answer that question on Blu-ray. This fairly insubstantial spiritualist vs. scientist spook show about a lady strangler returned from the dead is no classic but will of course be a major curiosity for horror buffs. It’s short on real scares, but it does have a young Randolph Scott to race to the rescue at the finish.
Supernatural
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1933 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 64 min. / Street Date April 7, 2020 / available through Kl Studio Classics / 24.95
Starring: Carole Lombard, Randolph Scott, Vivienne Osborne, Alan Dinehart, H.B. Warner, Beryl Mercer.
Cinematography: Arthur Martinelli
Dialogue Director: Sidney Salkow
Written by Harvey Thew, Brian Marlow story by Garnett Weston...
Supernatural
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1933 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 64 min. / Street Date April 7, 2020 / available through Kl Studio Classics / 24.95
Starring: Carole Lombard, Randolph Scott, Vivienne Osborne, Alan Dinehart, H.B. Warner, Beryl Mercer.
Cinematography: Arthur Martinelli
Dialogue Director: Sidney Salkow
Written by Harvey Thew, Brian Marlow story by Garnett Weston...
- 3/17/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) Direction: Lewis Milestone Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, Russell Gleason, John Wray, William Bakewell, Raymond Griffith, Beryl Mercer, Ben Alexander, Slim Summerville, Yola D'Avril Screenplay: Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott, Del Andrews; from Erich Maria Remarque's novel Oscar Movies Highly Recommended Lew Ayres, All Quiet on the Western Front Synopsis: World War I: A group of German schoolboys soon learn that war has absolutely nothing to do with either glory or heroics. Pros: More than eight decades after its release, Lewis Milestone's unflinching film version of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front remains the greatest war movie ever made. Or rather, the greatest anti-war movie ever made. In its simple, straightforward manner, All Quiet on the Western Front manages to be infinitely more powerful than all other loftier (and widely acclaimed) war dramas I've seen, including Terrence Malick...
- 3/27/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Cavalcade (1933) Direction: Frank Lloyd Cast: Clive Brook, Diana Wynyard, Herbert Mundin, Una O'Connor, Beryl Mercer, Irene Browne, Merle Tottenham, Frank Lawton, Ursula Jeans, Margaret Lindsay Screenplay: Reginald Berkeley, Sonya Levien; from Noel Coward's 1931 play Oscar Movies, Pre-Code Movies Herbert Mundin, Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, Una O'Connor, Cavalcade Synopsis: Upstairs, Robert and Jane Marryot (Clive Brook, Diana Wynyard), and downstairs, Alfred and Ellen Bridges (Herbert Mundin, Una O'Connor), in a British household, from 1900 to 1933. The Pros: Cavalcade won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for the period 1932-33 (basically from Aug. '32-Dec. '33) and was reportedly the biggest box-office hit of 1933, grossing more than $3.5m (approx. $121m today*). That makes it a historical curiosity. Best Actress Oscar nominee Diana Wynyard has one remarkable moment, walking among armistice revelers but not feeling at all like celebrating after having lost a son to the Great War. Noel Coward, for his [...]...
- 2/11/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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