Though the silent film era had it's share of classic horror cinema, the 1930s saw a rapid growth of the genre beginning in 1931 when Boris Karloff's Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi's Dracula were released to huge successes. After these successes, Dracula director Tod Browning took an even bolder step in the genre the following year with Freaks. Set in the carnival, particularly among the sideshow, Freaks doesn't use professional actors in makeup. Instead Browning, who worked at a carnival before his time in Hollywood, took the remarkable step and cast real sideshow performers to play their screen counterparts. Real people with real genetic deformities. Like so man horror films have, it would be easy for Freaks to be exploitative of these people, instead it does the exact opposite, exposing the wickedness of those "regular" circus members who take advantage of the "freaks," and even murder one for personal gain. Despite how scary and occasionally disturbing it can be, Freaks never loses sight of the humanity of it's characters, which is rare in the horror genre. After it was cut by 26 minutes because of disastrous test screenings, Freaks was a critical and commercial failure that effective ended the career of Browning. Despite this, Freaks is one of the best horror films of the all time, able to not only terrify, but also send a message of unparalleled depth for it's time.
Today, most animated movies and TV shows are made with computers and the classic animation styles are slowly disappearing from the screen. This is a shame because there is nothing quite like cel-animation, it has such a distinct, beautiful look; the way the color pops from the screen and movements flow is wholly unique to the medium. No matter how much computer power you put behind it, nothing can replace the care and detail that goes into each hand-drawn animation cel. The first full-length cel-animated feature film was Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is not only a beautiful piece of animated art, but also a hugely influential movie that opened the door for for ever single animated movie after it. Snow White deviates from the classic fairy tale only to make itself more family friendly (the original story is a little darker) and to add some musical numbers, written by Frank Churchill and Larry Morey. Walt Disney himself produced the film, which helped lead to a unified look the film, despite the presence of six different directors, seven writers, as well as the numerous animators who worked on it. Though today some who watch it might find the animations simplistic compared to the more advanced techniques that marked later animated films, however this minimalism in many ways makes it more beautiful as the colors are purer, less diluted by detail lines. Even 75-plus years after it release, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a timeless, beautiful piece of classic animation that influenced countless artists since it was first released.
If Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were the king and queen of musicals in the 1930s, then Busby Berkeley was the prime minister. His visual style as both director and choreographer shaped the genre for the decade and those that followed. While many filmmakers were content to just transpose Broadway to the screen, Berkeley was the first to utilize the camera as a tool for his creative vision. Instead of just planting the camera where the audience would be during a stage performance, Berkeley's shots slither in and out of the action, track through the legs of the chorus line, rise up to shoot from straight above, and use dramatic angles for perspective tricks. If Berkeley's direction went against the norm, then his choreography was downright revolutionary. From his psychedelic kaleidoscopes of dancers and the fluid undulation of the chorus lines to the many times downright ludicrous costumes, Berkeley pushed the creative envelope with each dance sequence he designed. As with most of Rogers and Astaire's movies, the appeal with Berkeley's pictures isn't the story, characters, or acting, it is the terrific musical numbers. 42nd Street, which stars Rogers, Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell is the best of Berkeley's pictures (Lloyd Bacon directed the non-musical parts) but also has a credible and entertaining story of the life behind a Broadway musical, while also having great music, written by Harry Warren and Al Durbin, and choreography courtesy of Berkeley. In a genre that usually follow a tried and true formula, Berkeley's creativity and downright weirdness can be a breath of fresh air and all his movies are worth watching.
One of the most important figures in British cinema during the 1930s 40s, and 50s, was director and producer Alexander Korda. After mostly flopping as a director in Hollywood during the 1920s, Korda returned to Britain in 1932 and started London Films, which became one of the biggest British movie studios of the cinema's Golden Age. Korda either directed or produced most of the studios biggest films, the former in the case of The Four Feathers, which is directed by his younger brother Zoltan, though Alexander was certainly more hands on with the film than more producers. The story, about a disgraced British army officer who goes to Sudan during the Mahdist War (1981-1899) to regain his honor, was adapted by R.C. Sheriff, Lajos Biro, and Arthur Wimperis' from A.E.W. Mason's novel. John Clements stars as Harry Faversham, the shamed officer, who is given four white feathers (a sign of cowardice) by three of his fellow officers (Ralph Richardson, Donald Grey, and Jack Allen) and his fiancée (June Duprez) after he resigns his commission on the eve of war. Haversham travels to the Sudan on his own to regain their respect, finding himself in the middle of a vicious war. Shot in beautiful Technicolor on location in the Sudan, The Four Feathers it looks even today and doesn't look dated at all. From the small, touching moments of courage to the large set-piece battle sequences, The Four Feathers never stops thrilling and entertaining. It is one of the best adventure movies of all time because of the way it mixes exciting action, beautiful desert visuals, and a tremendous story that stirs the heart with a tremendous sense of adventure.
With the advent of sound, filmmakers were able to transport the dialogue of the stage onto the screen in a way that Silent film never allowed. This development led to a new genre of movie: the screwball comedy, which was highlighted by witty, rapid fire lines, slapstick, and an element of the ridicules. Twentieth Century was one of the first screwball comedies to grace the screen, and as much as any of the genre, it owes a debt to the romantic comedy stage plays the preceded it because it was lifted directly from Broadway. Adapted for the screen by the original authors, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Twentieth Century centers around a manic Broadway producer Oscar "O.J." Jaffe (John Barrymore) who tries to convince his former star and girlfriend Lily Garland (Carole Lombard) to star once again in one of his plays. The bulk of the action occurs on a train, the 20th Century Limited from Chicago to New York, which takes the place of a stage as a backdrop to the performers. Both Barrymore and Lombard are excellent, going back and forth with scathing insults and explosions of hilarious temper and emotion. Barrymore especially gives the best comedic performance of his career. Director Howard Hawks would eventually go on to direct two of the best screwball comedies ever made, Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), and much of the greatness of those two movies, particularly the rhythm of the dialogue, can be seen here as Hawks masterfully balances Barrymore and Lombard's over-the-top theatrics while still keeping everything coherent despite the speed of of the verbal tete-a-tete's.
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