My Favorite Films of the 1930s

A Spanish magazine “Miradas de Cine” has conducted a poll and asked Spanish and a few abroad critics to select their 15 favorite films from the glorious 1930s and also to pick five that supposed to be overrated films. I have nothing to do with the latter part because I don’t believe if overrating of the classic films, when the creatures of them are all gone, will do any harm to us. As long as overrating is concerned, the predictable record breaker of the poll in Gone with the wind. But in my view, if we are really looking for overblown titles we must take a look around ourselves and revise some internationally accepted names and films in contemporary cinema.

Selecting top films of the 1930s is an irresistible poll to participate in. For me, one of the most essential periods in history of motion pictures is thirties and those early efforts to make something decent and artistic out of the new technical inventions like sound and later, color, while economical depression and fascism were the most serious issues of the time and maybe the whole century.

My real mentor in thirties cinema of the United States is Mr. Andrew Sarris. Writings of this wise man have been my companion in the worst and hardest days of my life and I owe him much for unveiling so many names of that era to me. So I’m going to pick my top 15 films of decade (sticking to the rules of Miradas de Cine!), but meanwhile I’m going to add another 50 titles to my selection! I must admit that my knowledge of 1930s cinema in Spanish language countries, far eastern cinema and also Italy is very limited.

You can see the complete lists in “Miradas de Cine” site, but if you are only looking for critics who are well-known outside Spain, these are the names and their picks:

Nicole Brenez (Paris) - À Propos de Nice (Vigo) • Lot in Sodom (Watson & Webber) • Lichtspiel Schwarz-Weiss-Grau (Moholy-Nagy) • L’âge d’or (Buñuel) • Le fleuve Sumida (Amaya) • Limite (Peixoto) • Taris ou la natation (Vigo) • Les Berceaux (Kirsanoff) • Que viva Mexico (Eisenstein) • L’Or des mers (Epstein) • Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey (Dreyer) • Le Bonheur (Medvedkine) • Rapt (Kirsanoff) • Rainbow Dance (Lye) • Early Abstractions (Smith)

Sergi Fabregat - City Lights (Chaplin) • L’Atalante (Vigo) • Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey (Dreyer) • Modern Times (Chaplin) • M (Lang) • The Roaring Twenties (Walsh) • Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (Lang) • Aleksandr Nevskiy (Eisenstein) • A Night at the Opera (Wood) • La grande illusion (Renoir) • Bride of Frankenstein (Whale) • Freaks (Browning) • Duck Soup (McCarey) • Otona no miru ehon – Umarete wa mita keredo (Ozu) • White Zombie (Halperin)

Floreal Peleato (Paris) - Zemlya (Dovzhenko) • Ze soboty na nedeli (Machatý) • Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (Murnau) • City Lights (Chaplin) • La chienne (Renoir) • Liebelei (Ophüls) • Das testament des Dr. Mabuse (Lang) • Only Yesterday (Stahl) • L’Atalante (Vigo) • U samogo sinyego morya (Barnet) • Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey) • La grande illusion (Renoir) • Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks) • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra) • Remorques (Grémillon) • Zangiku monogatari (Mizoguchi)

Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago) - Laughter (d’Arrast) • City Lights (Chaplin) • M (Lang) • La nuit du carrefour (Renoir) • Ivan (Dovzhenko) • Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo (Ozu) • Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian) • Scarface (Hawks) • Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch) • Hallelujah, I’m a Bum (Milestone) • L’Atalante (Vigo) • Judge Priest (Ford) • King Kong (Cooper & Schoedsack) • Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey) • Zangiku monogatari (Mizoguchi)

Chris Fujiwara (United States) - La règle du jeu (Renoir) • Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford) • Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks) • Zemlya (Dovzhenko) • L’Atalante (Vigo) • You Only Live Once (Lang) • Naniwa erejî (Mizoguchi) • Stage Door (La Cava) • Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (Murnau) • Tsuma yo bara no yo ni (Naruse) • City Lights (Chaplin) • Les perles de la couronne (Guitry) • Otona no miru ehon – Umarete wa mita keredo (Ozu) • Me and My Gal (Walsh) • Design for Living (Lubitsch)

And here is my list of 15 (+50) films of the 1930s, dedicated to Andrew Sarris:

City Lights	1931	Charlie Chaplin
L'Atalante	1934	Jean Vigo
M	1931	Fritz Lang
Le Règle du jeu	1939	Jean Renoir
Only Angels have wings	1939	Howard Hawks
My Man Godfrey	1936	Gregory La Cava
Stagecoach	1939	John Ford
Roaring Twenties	1939	Raoul Walsh
Steamboat Round The Bend	1935	John Ford
Partie de campagne	1936	Jean Renoir
Scarface	1932	Howard Hawks
Crime de Monsiuer Lange	1936	Jean Renoir
Dawn Patrol	1938	Edmund Goulding
Destry rides again	1939	George Marshal
Pépé le Moko	1937	Julien Duvivier

And the next 50, without any specific order:

À nous la liberté	1931	Rene Clair
Bete humaine,La	1938	Jean Renoir
Grand Illusion	1937	Jean Renoir
Boudu Saved from Drowning	1932	Jean Renoir
Dead End	1937	William Wyler
Holiday	1938	George Cukor
Informer	1935	John Ford
Propose de Nice, A	1930	Jean Vigo
Le quai des brumes	1938	Marcel Carne
Young Mr.Lincoln	1939	John Ford
Zéro de conduite	1933	Jean Vigo
Alice Adams	1935	George Stevens
All quiet on the western front	1930	Lewis Milestone
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang	1932	Mervyn LeRoy
Judge Priest	1934	John Ford
Little Caesar	1930	Mervyn LeRoy
Night At The Opera, A	1935	Sam Wood
Road to Glory	1936	Howard Hawks
Scarlet Empress	1934	Joseph Von Sternberg
Vampyr	1932	Carl Th. Dreyer
Whole Towns Talking	1935	John Ford
Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse	1933	Fritz Lang
39 Steps	1935	Alfred Hitchcock
42nd Street	1933	Lloyd Bacon
Blonde Venus	1932	Josef Von Sternberg
Blood of a Poet	1930	Jean Cocteau
Bringing up baby	1938	Howard Hawks
Day At The Races,A	1937	Sam Wood
Dinner At Eight	1933	George Cukor
Dishonored	1931	Josef von Sternberg
Gay Divorcee	1934	Mark Sandrich
Invisible Man,The	1933	James Whale
King Kong	1933	Ernest B.Schoedsack & M.Cooper
L'Age D'or	1930	Luis Bunuel
Modern Times	1936	Charlie Chaplin
Mr. Deeds goes to town	1936	Frank Capra
Mr. Smith goes to Washington	1939	Frank Capra
Ninotchka	1939	Ernst Lubitsch
Top Hat	1935	Mark Sandrich
Twentieth century	1934	Howard Hawks
Under the roofs of Paris	1930	Rene Clair
Alexander Nevsky	1938	Sergei Eisenstein
Black Cat	1934	Edgar G. Ulmer
Frankenstein	1931	James Whale
Design for living	1933	Ernst Lubitsch
Devil Is a Woman	1935	Josef Von Sternberg
Duck Soup	1933	Leo McCarey
Fury	1936	Fritz Lang
It happened one night	1934	Frank Capra
Lady Vanishes	1938	Alfred Hitchcock
Peter Ibbetson	1935	Henry Hathaway
Petrified Forest, The	1936	Archie Mayo
Public Enemy	1931	William Wellman
Ruggles of Red Gap	1935	Leo McCarey
Plainsman	1936	Cecil B.DeMille
Tabu	1931	F.W.Murnau
Triumph Of The Will	1935	Leni Riefentahl
Women	1939	George Cukor
You can't take it with you	1938	Frank Capra
You Only Live Once	1937	Fritz Lang

Thanks to Jonathan Rosenbaum for notifying me about the event.