It's talkies only for this list, but there is at least one German film in here. It's also the first time I took in a Laurel and Hardy picture. So here's what the Depression Film Era had to offer.
1930.)
Title: Conspiracy
Runtime: 69 Minutes
Director: Christy Cabanne
Plot: A writer helps a woman clear her name of a crime and bust a gang of criminals.
What I Thought: Well it's a movie. Ned Sparks makes a really weird choice, and Bessie Love gets lost in the shuffle. It should've been a red flag when it didn't even have a Letterboxed rating.
Rating: 1/5
1931.)
Title: Rich and Strange aka East of Shanghai
Runtime: 83 Minutes
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Plot: An unexpected inheritance causes a married couple to drift apart on a cruise.
What I Thought: Yikes, it's a good thing I didn't watch Alfred Hitchcock movies in chronological order because I never would have made it to The Lady Vanishes.
Rating: 1/5
1932.)
Title: Vampyr
Runtime: 75 Minutes
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Plot: A drifter stumbles upon an inn where a girl has been bitten by a vampire.
What I Thought: I needed to do some side reading while watching this to fully make sure I was understanding what was happening. It gets crazy weird at the end and there's this bizarre out of body experience the main character has that got me lost.
Rating: 3/5
1933.)
Title: Ace of Aces
Runtime: 76 Minutes
Director: J. Walter Ruben
Plot: A pacifist is guilted into joining the war effort and then becomes obsessed with gunning down German fighter planes.
What I Thought: There are some really cool plane sequences in a movie that I picked because it was short and available on TCM. It also carries the rare anti-war movie in an era that is post-World War I and pre-World War II.
Rating: 3/5
1934.)
Title: The Defense Rests
Runtime: 70 Minutes
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Plot: A shady lawyer meets his match when a new lawyer challenges his sleazy way of doing business.
What I Thought: Reading other reviews I tend to agree that the love plotline of this movie seems forced to say the least. An average courtroom movie.
Rating: 2.5/5
1935.)
Title: Tit for Tat
Runtime: 19 Minutes
Director: Charley Rogers
Plot: Following the events of Them Thar Hills, Stan and Ollie get into a back and forth with their storefront neighbor and an old nemesis.
What I Thought: I chuckled quite a bit through this movie, but really felt like most of these gags could have easily been prevented had the person waiting for them to be done simply moved out of the way.
Rating: 3.5/5
1936.)
Title: Come and Get It
Runtime: 99 Minutes
Director: Howard Hawks/William Wyler/Richard Rosson
Plot: A greedy lumberjack abandons the girl who loves him to marry for money. Later he tries to get with the woman's daughter.
What I Thought: Walter Brennan (left) picked up the first-ever Best Supporting Actor for his role as the friend who marries the woman Edward Arnold left behind. The first part is interesting and the logging scenes filmed by Rosson are cool, but you can tell Hawks left this movie halfway through, and Wyler took over. A nice piece of history, but not for me.
Rating: 2/5
1937.)
Title: Bulldog Drummond Comes Back
Runtime: 64 Minutes
Director: Louis King
Plot: Bulldog Drummond's girlfriend is kidnapped by the wife of a former enemy that Bulldog put in jail.
What I Thought: Ok, so I had no idea who Bulldog Drummond was, but after this, I don't think I need to find out. This makes 60 minutes feel long. A mystery that doesn't challenge you to think.
Rating: 2/5
1938.)
Title: Give Me a Sailor
Runtime: 79 Minutes
Director: Elliott Nugent
Plot: Two brothers are in love with the same woman and one of the brothers uses the aid of the girl's sister to get him to the inside track. But it's a screwball comedy so they fall in love instead.
What I Thought: The first half is pretty funny. At one point Bob Hope has to punch Martha Raye to get her out of a plaster face mask she applied incorrectly. It's kind of blah from there as you can see how things are going to play out if you've seen any comedy from this era.
Rating: 2.5/5
1939.)
Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Runtime: 80 Minutes
Director: Sidney Lanfield
Plot: Sherlock Holmes and Watson must solve a mystery in the Baskerville Manor as a series of deaths seem to be related to a legendary beast.
What I Thought: I'm a sucker for a good whodunnit. Since I had not read this story before, I didn't know how it ended. Also, the black and white film helps build the creepy atmosphere of the moor.
Rating: 3.5/5
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