89% (2) Scarface 93 min, PG, [Action, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller] [Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson] [09 Apr 1932]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 78%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 2 wins.
Actors: Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins, Paul Muni
Writer: Armitage Trail (based on the novel by), Ben Hecht (screen story), Seton I. Miller (continuity), John Lee Mahin (continuity), W.R. Burnett (continuity), Seton I. Miller (dialogue), John Lee Mahin (dialogue), W.R. Burnett (dialogue)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Johnny Lovo rises to the head of the bootlegging crime syndicate on the south side of Chicago following the murder of former head, Big Louis Costillo. Johnny contracted Big Louis' bodyguard, Tony Camonte, to make the hit on his boss. Tony becomes Johnny's second in command, and is not averse to killing anyone who gets in his and Johnny's way. As Tony is thinking bigger than Johnny and is not afraid of anyone or anything, Tony increasingly makes decisions on his own instead of following Johnny's orders, especially in not treading on the north side run by an Irish gang led by a man named O'Hara, of whom Johnny is afraid. Tony's murder spree increases, he taking out anyone who stands in his and Johnny's way of absolute control on the south side, and in Tony's view absolute control of the entire city. Tony's actions place an unspoken strain between Tony and Johnny to the point of the two knowing that they can't exist in their idealized world with the other. Tony's ultimate downfall may be one of two women in his life: Poppy, Johnny's girlfriend to who Tony is attracted; and Tony's eighteen year old sister, Cesca, who is self-professed to be older mentally than her years much to Tony's chagrin, he who will do anything to protect her innocence. Cesca ultimately comes to the realization that she is a lot more similar to her brother than she first imagined.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this film, based on Armitage Trail's novel, Paul Muni stars as prohibition-era mobster Tony Camonte. The homicidal Camonte ruthlessly wrests control of the bootlegging racket from his boss Johnny Lovo. However, Tony does have a soft spot in his heart for his sister Cesca.
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86% (2) Our Daily Bread 80 min, [Drama, Romance] [King Vidor] [02 Oct 1934]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 72%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win.
Actors: Barbara Pepper, John Qualen, Karen Morley, Tom Keene
Writer: King Vidor (the story), Elizabeth Hill (the scenario), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (the dialogue)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: John and Mary sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society based upon the teachings of Edward Gallafent. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.
Rotten Tomatoes: Unable to secure Hollywood-studio backing for his Depression-era agrarian drama Our Daily Bread, director King Vidor financed the picture himself, with the eleventh-hour assistance of Charles Chaplin. Intended as a sequel to Vidor's silent classic The Crowd (1928) the film casts Tom Keene and Karen Morley as John and Mary, the roles originated in the earlier film by James Murray and Eleanor Boardman. Unable to make ends meet in the Big City, John and Mary assume control of an abandoned farm, even though they know nothing about tilling the soil. Generous to a fault, the couple opens their property to other disenfranchised Depression victims, and before long they've formed a utopian communal cooperative, with everyone pitching together for the common good. Beyond such traditional obstacles as inadequate funding, failed crops and drought, John is deflected from his purpose by sluttish blonde vamp Sally (Barbara Pepper), but he pulls himself together in time to supervise construction of a huge irrigation ditch -- a project which consumes the film's final two reels, and which turns out to be one of the finest and most thrilling sequences that Vidor (or anyone) ever put on film. The acting by Tom Keene and Barbara Pepper is atrocious, but John Qualen saves the show as a dedicated Swedish farmer, especially when he loudly rejects the notion that communal farming is a "Red" idea (this didn't stop the anti-New Deal press from labelling the film as "Pinko" back in 1934 -- and never mind that the communist press considered the film "capitalist propaganda"!) The optimistic finale, distinguished by its Eisentein-like "rhythmic" editing, fortunately lingers in the memory far longer than the film's dramatic and structural defects. Our Daily Bread is also enhanced by Alfred Newman's stirring musical score, later borrowed by Darryl F. Zanuck for his production of Les Miserables (1935).
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78% (2) The Littlest Rebel 73 min, Approved, [Comedy, Drama, Family, Musical, War] [David Butler] [27 Dec 1935]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, Rotten Tomatoes: 88%, External Reviews
Actors: Jack Holt, John Boles, Karen Morley, Shirley Temple
Writer: Edwin J. Burke (screen play), Edward Peple (from the play by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Shirley Temple's father, a rebel officer, sneaks back to his rundown plantation to see his family and is arrested. A Yankee takes pity and sets up an escape. Everyone is captured and the officers are to be executed. Shirley and "Bojangles" Robinson beg President Lincoln to intercede.
Rotten Tomatoes: This Shirley Temple offering casts the moppet as the daughter of a Confederate officer who visits with President Lincoln in an effort to get her father released from a Union prison.
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78% (2) Gabriel Over the White House 86 min, PASSED, [Drama, Fantasy, Romance] [Gregory La Cava] [31 Mar 1933]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 65%, Rotten Tomatoes: 92%, External Reviews
Actors: Arthur Byron, Franchot Tone, Karen Morley, Walter Huston
Writer: Carey Wilson (screen play), Bertram Bloch (additional dialogue), Anonymous (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A political hack becomes President during the height of the Depression and undergoes a metamorphosis into an incorruptible statesman after a near-fatal accident.
Rotten Tomatoes: At the bottom of the Depression, a political hack is elected President of the United States. After suffering a near-fatal car accident, he is inspired by the angel Gabriel to seize dictatorial powers in order to lead the nation out of its woes.
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66% (1) Black Fury 94 min, APPROVED, [Crime, Drama, Romance] [Michael Curtiz] [18 May 1935]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 66%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 nomination.
Actors: Barton MacLane, Karen Morley, Paul Muni, William Gargan
Writer: Abem Finkel (screen play), Carl Erickson (screen play), Michael A. Musmanno (original story "Jan Volkanik"), Harry R. Irving (play)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: An immigrant coal miner finds himself in the middle of a bitter labor dispute between the workers and the mine owners.
Rotten Tomatoes: Ganesh (Lawrence Ragavendra) moves into a new house, unaware that it's also home to Muni (Rajkiran), an angry ghost seeking vengeance upon the people responsible for his death. Terrified of the supernatural, Ganesh is panicked to realize he's sharing his home with a spirit. Soon, Muni manages to take over Ganesh's body and sets off to find the corrupt local politician he blames for his murder.
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