1932 facts and figures
Top 5 Money-Makers (US): Not Available
Best Film Oscar (1931-32): Grand Hotel
Best Actor Oscar (1931-32) [tie]: Wallace Beery, The Champ and Fredric March, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Best Actress Oscar (1931-32): Helen Hayes, The Sin of Madelon Claudet
If I could pick a time in which to live, that time would probably be the early 1930s: not the most comfortable living conditions (no air-conditioning! no VCR! no Internet!), but everything I’ve seen of the culture appeals to me. All those Art Deco buildings, and the girls in their sexy pants-suits; the lilting, lovely songs by Jerome Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart; the novels of Faulkner and Huxley, the art of Miro and Picasso — and of course the movies, especially before Hollywood fell prey to the dreaded Production Code (i.e. censorship).
1932 was one of the great years — perhaps the greatest. Maybe the looseness and gaiety (before that word got corrupted) had to do with WW1, which had wiped out a generation and left the survivors — now in their 30s — determined to have a good time. Or maybe it had to do with the transition from Silents to Talkies five years before: movies suddenly talked, and never again did they talk so exuberantly — especially in the films made by Warner Bros. (most of them still unseen, or rarely seen), with wall-to-wall slangy dialogue delivered at a breathless pace.
Random titles from the 1932 treasure-trove include: Two Seconds, with Edward G. Robinson as a gangster (gangsters were big in ’32) looking back on his life from the electric chair; Three On A Match, with a young Bette Davis; Red-Headed Woman starring Jean Harlow, the platinum-blonde bombshell (who died five years later at the age of 26); 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (more gangsters); The Greeks Had a Word For Them (‘they’ being young ladies looking for rich husbands); Million Dollar Legs, a wacky comedy set at the Olympics; If I Had a Million, a portmanteau film where a millionaire gives a million dollars to random strangers (the sketches going from comic to surprisingly dark). And so on.
This was the time of Marlene Dietrich, at her most glamorous in the dazzlingly stylish films directed by Josef von Sternberg (Blonde Venus and Shanghai Express in 1932). This was the time of horror films, often with a healthy dose of black comedy (The Mummy and the wondrously weird The Old Dark House leading the pack in 1932). This was the time of sophisticated, lighter-than-air comedies (Jewel Robbery), musicals mixing song and recitative (Love Me Tonight), gangster movies (Scarface). This was the time of Mickey Mouse, Tarzan, W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers.
Outside America, too, things were humming. In Spain, Luis Bunuel — having just finished working with Salvador Dali — made the searing documentary Land Without Bread. In France, René Clair made delightful musicals and Jean Renoir made the equally delightful Boudu Saved From Drowning (re-made 55 years later as Down and Out in Beverly Hills). In Britain, there were thrillers by Alfred Hitchcock. In Japan, tales of family life by Yasujiro Ozu. In Germany, tales of adventure starring Hans Albers, often in patriotic roles.
A year later, Hitler came to power…
Here’s our Top 10
1. I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang: Torn-from-the-headlines drama may be the most powerful ‘message movie’ ever made, tackling the Great Depression head-on in the tale of unfortunate man drifting into crime. Convincingly hellish, utterly uncompromising; works both as film and hypnotic social document.
2. Red Dust: Hot-blooded, irresistible jungle melodrama with Jean Harlow opposite the young Clark Gable. Slangy, funny, sexy as hell.
3. Freaks: Unique at the time, impossible nowadays: real-life ‘freaks’ — midgets, Siamese twins, a man without arms or legs — in the strangest, most disturbing (and politically incorrect) horror story ever put on film. Moments of humour and ethereal beauty capped by chilling climax. “One of us, one of us¼”
4. I Was Born, But…: Sublime (and silent) Japanese comedy set in the secret world of children: both charming and deceptively simple, with a subtly melancholy message about Growing Up.
5. Shanghai Express: Marlene Dietrich in excelsis: delectable melodrama, mixing comedy and high adventure (and emotional complexity) with beguiling visual excess.
6. Horse Feathers: “I’d horsewhip you if I had a horse”. “You’ve got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it”. The Marx Brothers in college, and near the top of their lunatic game; includes Groucho singing Whatever It Is, I’m Against It.
7. Vampyr: Eerie mood-piece from director Carl Dreyer, and the most poetic of all vampire movies: atmospheric, virtually plotless, marked by indelible images and an extraordinary dream sequence.
8. Blessed Event: Standing in for all the great Warners comedies: fast-talking Lee Tracy as a cynical reporter in a film as exhilarating now as the day it was made.
9. The Sign of the Cross: Christians, lions, Poppaea (Claudette Colbert) bathing in asses’ milk, Nero (marvellous Charles Laughton) fiddling while Rome burns. Lusciously over-the-top Biblical drama from eternal showman Cecil B. DeMille.
10. Trouble in Paradise: Jewel thieves fall out in a sparkling sex comedy, brimming with toothsome lines and witty innuendo. Blissfully civilised.
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