Schneider Steven - Steven jay schneider стр 61.

Using the Brothers Grimm story as loose inspiration, Disney

unleashed his team of animators on the material, giving them a great deal of freedom in the development of such a creative breakthrough. The film is peppered with gags but also filled with emotion, comprising a soaring combination of beautiful images and strong, enduring songs like Whistle While You Work and Some Day My Prince Will Come, the latter virtually a standard. Snow White, incidentally, also marked the first commercially released soundtrack.

There is no way to overestimate the effect of Snow White. It not only permanently established Disney as one of the foremost studios in the world but also advanced the state of animation to such a degree that it wasnt really until the advent of computer animation that anyone arguably pushed the form further. A creative triumph, Snow White inspired hundreds of imitators, gave birth to an empire, and remains to this day the default template for nearly all animated features. JKl

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1930s

THE AWFUL TRUTH (1937)

U.S. (Columbia) 91m BW

Director: Leo McCarey

Producer: Leo McCarey, Everett Riskin

Screenplay: Viña Delmar, from play by Arthur Richman

Photography: Joseph Walker

Music: Ben Oakland, George Parrish

Cast: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy, Alexander DArcy, Cecil Cunningham, Molly Lamont, Esther Dale, Joyce Compton, Robert Allen, Robert Warwick, Mary Forbes

Oscar: Leo McCarey (director)

Oscar nominations: Leo McCarey, Everett Riskin (best picture), Viña Delmar (screenplay), Irene Dunne (actress), Ralph Bellamy (actor in support role), Al Clark (editing)

The legend of Leo McCareys The Awful Truth is that it was largely improvised from day to day. This legend is perfectly in tune with the ethos of the film itself, in which spontaneity, playfulness, the ability to laugh at ones own act (as well as to see it with the eye of the person who is seeing right through you at that moment) are so central to its glorious, warm sense of humor as well as its exploration of how to make marriage work.

But the script structure, however it was arrived at, is satisfying. It starts with a rupture: Jerry (Cary Grant) and Lucy (Irene Dunne), believing they have caught each other in infidelities, lies, andworst of alla lack of trust, decide to divorce. It takes half the film, covering Lucys flirtation with Dan (Ralph Bellamy), for her to realize she still loves Jerry. But then its his turn to hook up with someone, a madcap heiress. Once all these bets are off, the story becomes a road movie leading to a cabin in the woodswith two beds, and thirty minutes left before the divorce decree becomes final.

McCarey perfects every ingredient of the romantic comedy here, from the opposition of New Yorkers and Southerners, to the role of games, songs, and dances as ways of sorting out the characters affections and allegiances. Full of splendid minor characters and inspired bits of business, The Awful Truth also has a heartbreakingly serious moment when Jerry and Lucy remember their unofficial marriage vow (This comes from the heart, Ill always adore you).

Of all the great movies, this may be the one that most resists description in words. This has much to do with its small jokes of subtle verbal delivery, where ordinary phrases are transformed by timing, rhythm, and tone, from Lucys defensively repeated had better go and Jerrys stumbling on Tulsa to Dans exasperated Mom! via the black servants reaction to Jerrys fake tan: Youre looking weellll. Above all, the film is a monument to the sheer, magical lovability of its stars. AM

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1930s

PÉPÉ LE MOKO (1937)

Photography: Marc Fossard, Jules Kruger

Music: Vincent Scotto, Mohamed Ygerbuchen

Cast: Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin, Gabriel Gabrio, Lucas Gridoux, Gilbert Gil, Line Noro, Saturnin Fabre, Fernand Charpin, Marcel Dalio, Charles Granval, Gaston Modot, René Bergeron, Paul Escoffier, Roger Legris, Jean Témerson

Pépé le Moko was the film that consolidated Jean Gabins stardom and defined his on-screen persona as a tough, streetwise character, outwardly cynical but with an underlying romantic streak that will cause his downfall. As Pépé, an expatriate French hood who has become top dog in the Casbah (the Arab quarter of Algiers), he relishes his power but yearns nostalgically for Paris. When a beautiful French tourist (Mireille Balin), the embodiment of his longedfor homeland, catches his eye, the temptation becomes too great. But once outside the Casbah hes vulnerable because there a tireless policeman (Lucas Gridoux) lies in wait.

Director Julien Duviviers skill at evoking atmosphere creates a vivid (if romanticized) vision of the Casbah, an exotic labyrinth of twisting alleyways full of pungent detail. Borrowing motifs from the classic Hollywood gangster movies but seasoning them with doomy Gallic romanticism, Pépé le Moko prefigures film noir. Images of bars, grilles, and fences recur throughout the film, underlining Pépés entrapment within his little fiefdom. The movie is pervaded by a mood of longing, of lost youthful dreams, and of desires that can never be fulfilled. This fatalism led to its being banned during the war by the Vichy regime, but its warm reception after this temporary absence only confirmed its status as a classic. PK