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Best Films – 1930

Made at the dawn of the sound era, All Quiet on the Western Front remains the best war film ever made. Despite some brave (and not so brave) attempts by other filmmakers ever since, no other motion picture I’ve seen has captured the horrors of war with the honesty and the poignancy of Lewis Milestone’s rendition of Erich Maria Remarque’s pacifist novel. Lew Ayres plays the young, idealistic soldier who soon discovers that war has nothing to do with either honor or glory.
 
FILM
All Quiet on the Western Front
d: Lewis Milestone; scr: Maxwell Anderson, Del Andrews, George Abbott
The Bishop Murder Case
d: Nick Grindé, David Burton; scr: Lenore J. Coffee
Going Wild
d: William [...]

CELEBRITIES IN THE 1930 CENSUS: Q&A with Author Allan R. Ellenberger

As it says on the cover, Allan R. Ellenberger’s Celebrities in the 1930 Census (McFarland, 2008, US$49.95) is a compilation of household data — as collected by 1930 census takers — of more than 2,000 "U.S. actors, musicians, scientists, athletes, writers, politicians and other public figures." (The woman in the photo is aviatrix Amelia Earhart.)
The book, of course, doesn’t offer any saucy insights into the lives of those people. Instead, it’s a straightforward amalgam of un-dramatic — but important — information for researchers. (Though non-researchers may find the myriad listings addictive as well.)
For instance, when I wrote the Ramon Novarro (above right) biography Beyond Paradise, I didn’t have access to the 1930 census, which became part of the public record [...]

Marie Dressler V: Lesbian Rumors, Film Possibilities

Marie Dressler in Dinner at 8

Marie Dressler IV: DINNER AT 8, THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN
Marie Dressler and Claire Du Brey. Were they really lovers? Did you go through Du Brey’s papers? (I believe actor John Phillip Law is in possession of them.)
Ah, the lesbian love question! I talked with Mr. Law, and met with the actress Sierra Pecheur, who knew Du Brey and shared portions of her writing. But Du Brey is problematic as a source. First of all, Marie was dying of cancer during much of the time the two were together. Du Brey wrote exacting details on medical treatments, surgeries, and recoveries, but her papers are of no help on the subject of a sexual relationship, which is [...]

Marie Dressler IV: DINNER AT 8, THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN

Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow in Dinner at 8

Marie Dressler III: Wallace Beery, Polly Moran Comedies
Some reviewers have complained that Marie Dressler didn’t act. They say she overacted. What do you think?
Writing about her as an actress was tough, because there is no one remotely like her anymore. If you watch her performances today, you can see that she was a true-blue ham. And I can see how that would bother people, but for me it’s an essential part of her charm. If I settle into a Marie Dressler picture, I know I won’t get naturalism by today’s standards. Neither will I get fart jokes, horny frat boys, or mean-spirited mockery. Instead, Marie offered character-driven humor.
She played the charwoman [...]

Marie Dressler III: Wallace Beery, Polly Moran Comedies

Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler in Min and Bill

Marie Dressler II: Silent Films, Movie Stardom
How did Marie Dressler react to her newfound stardom?
Marie basked in her success. She had been through enough trials in life — points when she couldn’t get a job — and so she was more than ready for fame and adoration. I think audiences loved that they could give that to her, too. It made them feel good to shower her with love, because she took it so gratefully and graciously. She was the loving grandmother that her fans wanted to protect and comfort, while she comforted, amused, and moved them in return.
Her stardom also points to something missing from modern movies. In the 1930s and into [...]

Marie Dressler II: Silent Films, Movie Stardom

Marie Dressler Interview: Part I
Marie Dressler was very popular in vaudeville at the turn of the 20th century. Did she try to become a silent-film star? She was in Tillie’s Punctured Romance with Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand in 1914, but she doesn’t seem to have quite caught on. Why not?
As told in the book, Marie was a huge star when Mack Sennett approached her to film a loose adaptation of her stage play Tillie’s Nightmare. The result, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, is quite important in film history. Released in 1914, it was the first feature-length comedy, Marie’s film debut, and an early example of Chaplin honing his skills and developing the Tramp.
The film was a big hit, but Marie [...]

Marie Dressler: Q&A with Biographer Matthew Kennedy

Marie Dressler: Introduction
First of all, what made you decide to write a book on Marie Dressler, a performer who died in 1934?
Well, she does seem to be a member of the obscurati, doesn’t she? But once I started looking at her life, I was hooked.
In the early 1990s, some friends and I saw Dinner at Eight at the Crest Theater, an old movie palace in downtown Sacramento. Yes, we all agreed, Jean Harlow was hysterical and perfect, but we really fell in love with Marie Dressler as the faded actress Carlotta Vance. I had known of Marie for years, but this was the fist time I’d seen her with a theater audience, and the reactions were so strong. [...]

Marie Dressler

Marie Dressler in Dinner at 8

It’s Oscar time. What better way to celebrate the 2008 Academy Awards than by having a q&a about the best actress Oscar winner … of 1931?
(Or rather, for the period 1930-31, as the Oscars in those days covered films released in the Los Angeles area from August 1 to July 31.)
And who was the best actress winner that year?
Well, none other than — according to US film exhibitors’ polls — the biggest box-office attraction in the United States of the early 1930s.
That’s Joan Crawford, right?
Wrong.
Norma Shearer? Greta Garbo? Barbara Stanwyck? Jean Harlow?
Nope.
Betty Grable!
Go get yourself a film history book. Grable was the biggest female box-office attraction of the 1940s.
Who then?
Marie Dressler.
Who??
Marie [...]

George Cukor: Top Oscar Directors for Actors

Known as a refined “woman’s director,” George Cukor has had his considerable output either relegated to the sidelines or simply dismissed by those who like their directors macho and their films male-centered. Not helping matters is the general perception that Cukor was merely a hired hand for the likes of David O. Selznick at RKO and Louis B. Mayer at MGM, not an auteur following a clear professional path. Except, of course, for the (assumed) fact that he was a woman’s director — and we’re back to square one.
In truth, George Cukor was one of the most remarkable directors of the studio era. Like Elia Kazan, Cukor served his apprenticeship in the theater, thus developing into an excellent actor’s director. [...]

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