See all movies from the 1930s
1930s
JEZEBEL (1938)
U.S. (First National, Warner Bros.) 103m BW
Director: William Wyler
Producer: Henry Blanke, Hal B. Wallis, William Wyler
Screenplay: Clements Ripley, Abem Finkel, John Huston, Robert Buckner, from play by Owen Davis
Photography: Ernest Haller
Music: Al Dubin, Max Steiner, Harry Warren
Cast: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Crisp, Fay Bainter, Richard Cromwell, Henry ONeill, Spring Byington, John Litel, Gordon Oliver, Janet Shaw, Theresa Harris, Margaret Early, Irving Pichel
Oscar: Bette Davis (actress)
Oscar nominations: Hal B. Wallis, Henry Blanke (best picture), Fay Bainter (actress), Ernest Haller (photography), Max Steiner (music)
Hollywoods second most famous portrayal of a spoiled Southern belle, Jezebel offered Bette Davis the perfect vehicle to display her acting talents in a breakthrough role. Davis plays Julie Marsden, who is the most sought-after debutante in 1850s New Orleans, a society ruled by rigid codes of behavior that the young woman finds confining. Engaged to Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda), Julie does not sever her relationship to Buck Cantrell (George Brent), an honorable Southern gentleman and the storys most sympathetic figure. Soon after, Preston leaves New Orleans to travel north, where he works; when he comes back to the city, he is married to another woman. In her petulance, Julie causes a duel in which Buck is killed, and she becomes a pariah, even to her own family. But then she redeems herself through heroic self-sacrifice during a yellow fever outbreak, when she accompanies the desperately ill Preston to the miserable island where victims of the disease are confined.
William Wyler makes use of a lavish budget and meticulous art design in this intriguing evocation of the period. Much more of a character study than Gone with the Wind (1939), Jezebel also avoids the plantation myth so prominent in that film. Its New Orleans is a decadent place with no dancing darkies, ruled by a planter class intent on its jealous sense of honor. RBP
See all movies from the 1930s
1930s
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938)
U.S.
(First National, Warner Bros.) 102m Technicolor
Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
Producer: Henry Blanke, Hal B. Wallis
Screenplay: Norman Reilly Raine, Seton I. Miller
Photography: Tony Gaudio, Sol Polito
Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale, Melville Cooper, Ian Hunter, Una OConnor, Herbert Mundin, Montagu Love, Leonard Willey, Robert Noble, Kenneth Hunter
Oscar: Carl Jules Weyl (art direction), Ralph Dawson (editing), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (music)
Oscar nomination: Hal B. Wallis, Henry Blanke (best picture)
Whether considered as a swashbuckler, a costume romance, or a mockery of history, The Adventures of Robin Hood is simply the best production of its kind ever made. With King Richard on the Crusades, the kingdom is ruled by his rotten brother John, played by Claude Rains as a waspish tyrant who overhears groans from a torture chamber and muses, Ah, more complaints about the new taxes from our Saxon friends. Johns less amusing but more deadly sidekick, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, is incarnated with razor-profiled malice by the unmatchably ruthless Basil Rathbone.
The fairest lady in the land is Marian, an impossibly lovely Olivia de Havilland in Technicolor flesh tones. But its dispossessed outlaw Robin of Locksley who brings life to this court of intrigue, with Errol Flynns jaunty goatee and Tasmanian twinkle making Robin a rare hero who can be a light-hearted trickster one moment but spin on a knife-point to become a determined rebel (Norman or Saxon, whats that matter? Its injustice I hate, not the Normans.) and a balcony-climbing romantic.
It is truly amazing how fast-paced and jam-packed this movie is: the story is as complicated as a Shakespearean comedy; theres a real delight in the sword-clashing and arrow-shooting battles, and it ends as all stories shouldwith good triumphant and lovers united. KN
See all movies from the 1930s
1930s
ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938)
U.S. (First National) 97m BW
Director: Michael Curtiz
Producer: Samuel Bischoff
Screenplay: Rowland Brown, John Wexley, Warren Duff
Photography: Sol Polito
Music: Max Steiner
Cast: James Cagney, Pat OBrien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft, Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsly, Joe Downing, Edward Pawley, Adrian Morris, Frankie Burke
Oscar nominations: Michael Curtiz (director), Rowland Brown (screenplay), James Cagney (actor)
Michael Curtizs films preach social responsibility, and Angels with Dirty Faces is his most powerful sermon. Rocky and Jerry, two pals from a tough New York neighborhood, grow up to be a notorious gangster (James Cagney) and crusading priest (Pat OBrien), respectively. A gang of teenagers idolize Rocky, until Father Jerry urges his condemned friend to go yellow at his execution. In keeping with its didactic mission, the films visual and performing styles are emphatic and crisp to the point of caricature. In fact, Cagneys performance here, all cocky swagger and hitched-up shoulders, provided the primary model for impressionists such as Frank Gorshin and Rich Little.