The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)

THE RINGU
WIZARD
OF OZ HIDEO

VICTOR FLEMING NAKATA

PULP FICTION RASHOMON BONNIE AND CLYDE

QUENTIN TARANTINO AKIRA KUROSAWA ARTHUR PENN

BOYHOOD

RICHARD LINKLATER

THE
MOVIE THE SHAWSHANK
REDEMPTION
FRANK DARABONT
BOOK
VERTIGO
BIG IDEAS SIMPLY EXPLAINED
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

SUNSET BOULEVARD DR. STRANGELOVE

BILLY WILDER STANLEY KUBRICK THE SEVENTH SEAL

INGMAR BERGMAN

METROPOLIS IT’S A SOME LIKE IT HOT

FRITZ LANG WONDERFUL BILLY WILDER

LIFE

FRANK CAPRA









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STUDIO 8

CONTRIBUTORS

DANNY LEIGH, CONSULTANT EDITOR KIERAN GRANT

Danny Leigh is a journalist who regularly writes about Kieran Grant is a writer and editor who lives in London.
movies for the Financial Times and The Guardian. He has written about movies and television for Radio Times,
Since 2010, he has cohosted BBC Television’s long- the FILMCLUB website, and various licensed publications,
running Film program, as well as writing and hosting and once traveled in the footsteps of Peter O’Toole’s
documentaries for BBC TV and radio. He has also worked Lawrence of Arabia for Esquire magazine. He has been
in film education and programming. Danny has written in love with British cinema since he first saw Black
two novels, The Greatest Gift and The Monsters of Narcissus on a big screen at university, and is proud
Gramercy Park.  to have made a tiny contribution by writing and
codirecting The Lights (2015), a short film produced
LOUIS BAXTER in association with the BFI and Film London. 

Louis Baxter started watching and writing about movies as DAMON WISE
a boy, making his way through his parents’ VHS collection
and staying up until 3 a.m. to watch horror movies. He started A movie writer since 1987, Damon Wise is a Contributing
his own movie blog and contributed to many others before Editor with Empire magazine and an advisor to the BFI
studying film at Westminster University, London. He has London Film Festival’s Thrill strand. As a journalist, his
since developed screenplays for a movie company and worked features, interviews, and reviews have been published in
as a freelance writer and critic, specializing in horror movies. many notable UK magazines and newspapers. In addition to
covering set visits and junkets, he is a regular attendee at
JOHN FARNDON key international film festivals. In 1998, he published
his first book, Come by Sunday, a biography of British
John Farndon is a Royal Literary Fellow at Anglia Ruskin movie star Diana Dors.
University in Cambridge and an author, playwright,
composer, and poet. He taught the history of drama at the
Actors Studio, studied playwriting at Central School of
Speech and Drama, and is now Assessor for new plays for
London’s OffWestEnd Theatre Awards. He has also written
many international best-sellers such as Do You Think You’re
Clever? and translated into English verse the plays of Lope
de Vega and the poetry of Alexander Pushkin.

CONTENTS

10 INTRODUCTION 35 Has God promised 52 To a new world of
you things? gods and monsters!
VISIONARIES The Passion of Joan of Arc The Bride of Frankenstein

1902–1931 36 Falling in love again, 53 Magic mirror on the wall,
never wanted to who is the fairest one of all?
20 Labor omnia vincit The Blue Angel Snow White and the
A Trip to the Moon Seven Dwarfs
37 If I were you, I’d make
22 Out of the cradle a bit of a scene 54 I’ve a feeling we’re not
endlessly rocking People on Sunday in Kansas anymore
Intolerance The Wizard of Oz
38 Tomorrow the birds
24 I must become Caligari! will sing 60 Everybody has
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari City Lights their reasons
The Rules of the Game
28 What are we waiting for? A GOLDEN AGE IN
Battleship Potemkin BLACK AND WHITE 62 Tomorrow is another day
Gone with the Wind
30 This song of the Man 1931–1949
and his Wife is of no 64 You’re wonderful, in a
place and every place 46 Don’t want to, loathsome sort of way
Sunrise but must! His Girl Friday
M
32 Those who toiled knew 66 It isn’t enough to tell us
nothing of the dreams 48 Will you marry me? Did what a man did. You’ve
of those who planned he leave you any money? got to tell us who he was
Metropolis Answer the second Citizen Kane
question first
34 If you say what you’re Duck Soup 72 Of all the gin joints in all
thinking, I’ll strangle you the towns in all the world,
Steamboat Bill, Jr. she walks into mine
Casablanca
49 Don’t be alarmed, ladies
and gentlemen, those 76 How dare you call me
chains are made of a ham?
chrome steel To Be or Not to Be
King Kong
78 It’s hot in here by the
50 War is declared! stove Ossessione
Down with monitors
and punishment! 79 How singularly innocent
Zero de Conduite I look this morning
Laura

FEAR AND WONDER 132 When I’m better, we’ll
go and look at the
trains again
1950–1959 Pather Panchali

80 A kick in the rear, if well 108 We all want to forget 134 Get me to that bus stop
delivered, is a sure laugh something, so we and forget you ever saw
Children of Paradise tell stories me Kiss Me Deadly
Rashomon
84 Children believe what 135 That’ll be the day
we tell them 114 I am big. It’s the pictures The Searchers
La Belle et la Bête that got small
Sunset Boulevard 136 I have long walked by your
86 This is the universe. side The Seventh Seal
Big, isn’t it? 116 I have always relied on
A Matter of Life and Death the kindness of strangers 140 If I do what you tell me,
A Streetcar Named Desire will you love me?
88 George, remember Vertigo
no man is a failure 118 It’s a hard world for
who has friends little things 146 What did you do during
It’s a Wonderful Life The Night of the Hunter the uprising?
Ashes and Diamonds
94 I mind my own business, 122 What’s the first thing an
I bother nobody, and what actor learns? “The show 148 Well, nobody’s perfect
do I get? Trouble must go on!” Some Like It Hot
The Bicycle Thief Singin’ in the Rain
150 Your parents say you’re
98 It is so difficult to make a 126 Let’s go home always lying
neat job of killing people Tokyo Story The 400 Blows
with whom one is not on
friendly terms 128 When I was a kid, I used REBEL REBEL
Kind Hearts and Coronets to see men go off on these
kind of jobs—and not 1960–1974
100 The world doesn’t make come back
any heroes outside of The Wages of Fear 160 You are the first woman
your stories on the first day of creation
The Third Man 129 But if we don’t use your La Dolce Vita
device against Godzilla,
what are we going to do? 166 Don’t use the brakes. Cars
Godzilla are made to go, not to stop
À bout de souffle
130 Just wait until you see
your mother. She’s never 168 That’s what all these
looked so radiant loony laws are for, to be
All That Heaven Allows broken by blokes like us
Saturday Night and
131 I don’t think that I want Sunday Morning
to learn that way
Rebel Without a Cause

170 I have never stayed so 196 They see a free individual, ANGELS AND
long anywhere it’s gonna scare ’em MONSTERS
Last Year at Marienbad Easy Rider
1975–1991
172 This is the story of a man 198 Are you fond of meat?
marked by an image Le Boucher
from his childhood
La jetée 200 Some day, and that day 228 You’re gonna need a bigger
may never come, I will boat Jaws
173 Guy, I love you. You smell call upon you to do a
of gasoline service for me 232 There’s some questions
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg The Godfather got answers and
some haven’t
174 There’s gold in the 206 That man is a head taller Picnic at Hanging Rock
sea beyond than me. That may change
Black God, White Devil Aguirre, the Wrath of God 234 Someday a real rain
will come
176 Gentlemen, you can’t 208 The guests are here, sir Taxi Driver
fight in here. This is the The Discreet Charm of
War Room! the Bourgeoisie 240 I lurve you, you know?
Dr. Strangelove I loave you. I luff you.
210 Did you really see her? Two ‘F’s
180 I can’t seem to stop Don’t Look Now Annie Hall
singing wherever I am
The Sound of Music 214 You can talk to him 242 The Force is strong
whenever you want. with this one
182 It’s difficult to start Just close your eyes Star Wars
a revolution and call him
The Battle of Algiers The Spirit of the Beehive 243 You still don’t understand
what you’re dealing with,
188 Who wants to be 216 You know what happens do you?
an angel? Chelsea Girls to nosy fellows? Alien
Chinatown
189 Let’s see the sights! 244 It’s so quiet out here. It
Playtime 222 And we’ll buy ourselves is the quietest place in
a little piece of heaven the world
190 This here’s Miss Bonnie Ali: Fear Eats the Soul Stalker
Parker. I’m Clyde Barrow.
We rob banks 248 You have to have good
Bonnie and Clyde men. Good men, all
of them Das Boot
192 I’m sorry, Dave. I’m
afraid I can’t do that 250 I’ve seen things you
2001: A Space Odyssey people wouldn’t believe
Blade Runner
194 We’re gonna stick
together, just like it 256 I can’t figure out if you’re
used to be a detective or a pervert
The Wild Bunch Blue Velvet

258 Why am I me, and why 282 I’m not sure I agree with 312 You don’t know me,
not you? you one hundred percent but I know you
Wings of Desire on your police work there, The Lives of Others
Lou Fargo
262 I thought this only 314 You’ll see that life
happened in the movies 284 We’ve all lost our children isn’t like fairy tales
Women on the Verge of a The Sweet Hereafter Pan’s Labyrinth
Nervous Breakdown
285 I miss my father 318 This is our destiny
263 Being happy isn’t Central Station Slumdog Millionaire
all that great
Sex, Lies, and Videotape 286 Here’s to the man 320 This box is full of stuff
who killed my sister that almost killed me
264 Today’s temperature’s Festen The Hurt Locker
gonna rise up over
100 degrees 288 Everyone’s fear takes 322 If I die, what a
Do the Right Thing on a life of its own Ringu beautiful death!
Man on Wire
265 She has the face of Buddha 290 A sword by itself rules
and the heart of a scorpion nothing. It only comes 323 I’d like to ask you
Raise the Red Lantern alive in skilled hands something, Father
Crouching Tiger, The White Ribbon
SMALL WORLD Hidden Dragon
324 Everyone pays for
1992–PRESENT 296 You don’t remember the things they do
your name? Once Upon a Time
270 The truth is you’re the Spirited Away in Anatolia
weak. And I’m the
tyranny of evil men 298 I like to look for things 326 So, what do you like
Pulp Fiction no-one else catches about being up here?
Amélie Gravity
276 I feel something important
is happening around me. 300 What an extraordinary 327 We’re all just
And it scares me stance! Lagaan winging it
Three Colors: Red Boyhood
302 It all began with the
278 Get busy living, or get forging of the Great Rings 328 DIRECTORY
busy dying The Lord of the Rings: The
The Shawshank Redemption Fellowship of the Ring

280 To infinity, and beyond! 304 You need more than
Toy Story guts to be a good
gangster. You need ideas
City of God

281 It’s not how you fall 310 Laugh and the world 344 INDEX
that matters. It’s how laughs with you. Weep 352 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
you land and you weep alone
La Haine Oldboy

INTRODU

CTION

12 INTRODUCTION

T his book describes, I don’t know yet what I’m going to tell
discusses, and pays tribute them. It’ll be pretty close to the truth.
to some of the movies that
best capture the wonder of cinema. Philip Marlowe / The Big Sleep
The movies gathered here are
those that the authors feel, in the being incessantly pirated by rivals.) platform. The sight sent all
imprecise way of these things, to Its popularity did more than any those watching fleeing in panic,
have had the most seismic impact other movie of the time to secure convinced they were about to
on both cinema and the world.  the movie as the premier art form of be mowed down by the speeding
the age. None before it had been locomotive—or at least that’s the
The journey starts in 1902, as spectacular; none had such an story that circulated after the
when Parisian showman Georges intricate storyline. event. The exact truth has been
Méliès unveiled the latest in the lost to time, but either the Lumières
series of short silent movies with Trains, panic, and hype had quickly mastered the new art
which he had been entertaining his By the time Méliès was making form’s ability to make the screen
countrymen. It was a romp through his lunar adventure, cinema had feel like life, or they had a stunning
space called A Trip to the Moon already been established as a knack for promotional hype.
(Le voyage dans la lune), and it was slightly disreputable pastime, to be Perhaps it doesn’t matter either
a huge and instant success—not enjoyed at theaters and fairgrounds. way—both those skills have a
just in France but across the world. To find its true beginnings, it is central place in the story of cinema. 
(Sadly for Méliès, much of that necessary to step back further—
success was due to the movie to Paris again, but this time with But it may be necessary to step
two showmen in the spotlight. The back further still. After all, before
No matter where the cinema pair, brothers Auguste and Louis the Lumière brothers sent their
goes, we cannot afford to lose Lumière, had their moment in 1896. audience bolting in terror, plenty
That was when, after holding large- of others had pioneered movies.
sight of its beginnings. scale screenings of their movies the There should be a tip of the hat to
Martin Scorsese year before, they first showed the US inventor Thomas Edison, who
French public L’arrivée d’un train had screened movies of boxing cats
en gare de La Ciotat—also known and men sneezing to individual
as The Arrival of a Train. It was customers a couple of years before
a mere 50 seconds of footage the Lumières, and to English
in which, as the title suggests, photographer Eadweard Muybridge,
a steam train entered La Ciotat whose 1880s studies of humans
station, shot from the adjacent and animals in motion were a vital
preface to the moving picture.

INTRODUCTION 13

Telling stories of moving pictures. From there, the Each picture has some sort
In fact, the story of movie arguably story slips into the 1930s and 1940s, of rhythm, which only the
stretches back to prehistoric times, the gilded years when cinemas
to human ancestors hunched stood on every main street and director can give it.
around a fire as one among them movies were beloved slabs of mass Fritz Lang
used the light to cast shadows appeal; the age of movie stars such
on the wall and illustrate tales of as Humphrey Bogart, Katharine and movie journalist, this book’s
fearsome beasts or unlikely heroism. Hepburn, and James Stewart. In consultant has spent much of his
When the audience settle into their the 1950s, filmmakers from Europe, adult life in cinemas seeking out
seats for an insanely expensive, India, and Japan created a string movies that can give him that
effects-fueled blockbuster on a of masterpieces that still receive feeling of blissful immersion he was
towering IMAX screen, they’re back acclaim to this day; this was the hooked on as a child: “I sit while the
around that fire. Movie in the 21st time of Henri-Georges Clouzot, lights dim and I’m the seven-year-
century is still a telling of stories Akira Kurosawa, Yasujirô Ozu, old who yelped with laughter at
with words and images, bringing Nicholas Ray, and Satyajit Ray. Harpo Marx on a rigged-up screen
those images to believable life. A new generation took hold in the at a friend’s birthday party; or who
1960s and 1970s, and broke the escaped a family Christmas at 10 to
This book is an attempt to build established molds. And then switch on the old TV set upstairs,
a narrative of movie history out of the story of cinema arrives in the and found that Citizen Kane was
the movies themselves, taking a present, where movies are made playing; or whose mind was
tour of a hundred or so movies from with technology that would have comprehensively blown at 14
Méliès on through the next century been the stuff of science fiction even by the dark, unnerving movies of
and beyond. Each entry discusses 10 years ago, whole worlds spun into David Lynch. Those moments live
where a movie came from, maps its being at the push of a button.  on every time I see a film.”  
inspiration and how it was made,
documents the men and women Blissful immersion A couple of decades after A
whose talent shaped it, and details The beauty of movies is that every Trip to the Moon, with a luckless
the ripples of influence it sent out. individual has a different way of Méliès soon to find himself selling ❯❯
looking at them, and a different
It is a story that crosses time. route into loving them. As a writer
In the silent age, the first men and
women explored the possibilities

I live now in a world of ghosts,
a prisoner in my dreams.

Antonius Block / The Seventh Seal

14 INTRODUCTION

We can’t help identifying with drawing a viewer into the screen the Godzilla but Japan’s nuclear trauma
the protagonist. It’s coded in way a movie does now—but as the made scaly flesh? You don’t need
Lumières’ train movie shows, to be a movie lover to quote a line
our movie-going DNA. movies could make audiences take from Some Like It Hot (“Nobody’s
Roger Ebert them as real from the start. perfect!”)—but how different a
movie would it have been had its
trinkets at Montparnasse train Charting how the movies Austrian-born director, Billy Wilder,
station station, the youthful have evolved as an art form is one not been forced, like so many other
medium was given a nickname of the great joys of being a movie European filmmakers, to flee to
that still fits today: the “Seventh lover. Sometimes the advances the US as the Nazis took power?
Art,” after architecture, painting, may be obvious: the momentous The Russian Revolution, the Cold
music, sculpture, dance, and poetry. lurches from silence to sound, War, the hippie era, feminism,
Its author was Ricciotto Canudo, an and from black and white to the computer age—every major
Italian scholar. To Canudo, the color. Elsewhere, the revolutions moment in world history is up
power of the movies was that they were subtler, as the crafts of there on screen somewhere.
brought each of the great art forms filmmaking—cinematography,
of the past together into one—to editing—took on lives of their own.  All this in a medium that began
watch movies was to experience all in the fairground, one step from the
six of the older art forms at once. The wider historical context in circus, and has spent much of its
which movies were made also existence as an excuse for young
Movies evolve needs to be considered—when you couples to sit together in the dark.
So many years later, the sheer talk about movies, you’re never just That what was happening on the
sensory rush of the movies is still talking about movies. Once you screen ascended to such glorious
enough to overwhelm the audience, dive into the history of movies, you entertainment was unlikely enough.
in the very best sense of the word. can’t help dealing with history in That it became art is perhaps even
It’s hard to imagine the creak and general. Look at the last century more extraordinary.
crackle of cinema’s early years of movies and you see real life
running through it like the rings of A communal experience
a tree. Purely as cinema, it is hard In many ways, it is their
to overstate the impact of Godzilla, contradictions that make the
the movie monster who terrorized movies what they are. How else
Tokyo Bay in 1954—and what was

If we’re looking for a shark, we’re not
gonna find him on the land.

Hooper / Jaws

INTRODUCTION 15

Art, that’s special. What can you There will, of course, be both
bring to it that nobody else can? omissions and inclusions that will
puzzle each reader. Part of the
Mr. Turlington / Boyhood beauty of cinema is that no two
opinions on movies are ever quite
to explain the effect they have on thing not unlike a dream or an the same. If this were just a list
their audiences? When a viewer falls act of hypnosis, until you stumble of the favorites of the consultant
for a movie, it can feel like it has back out into the light, maybe and authors, it would deviate in
been made for them and them alone, understanding something new places from the list that follows.
like a hand extending from the about yourself, maybe just aching You might think the job of selection
screen. And yet, if you have ever from laughing so hard. would get easier if the criterion
watched a really great comedy in were “greatness,” but really, that’s
the middle of a packed cinema, or A world of choice just as subjective. Rather, this book
flinched to a horror alongside two Some of the movies in this book chooses its movies as an atlas of
hundred others doing exactly the were adored by critics; others were influence, a collection of landmarks,
same, you will know that movies pure crowd-pleasers. Quite a few and the hope is that, if a reader’s
are meant to be watched in a were neither, flops that later own best-loved movie is missing,
crowd, that cinema grew up as an generations then realized were there will be others that make up
experience to be shared with others.  masterpieces. Genre doesn’t come for it. And also that there will be
into it. Thrillers rub shoulders with at least one movie that readers will
Over the years, movies have Westerns, romance with neorealism, choose to watch for the first time. ■
been viewed in many different and they all have to make room for
ways. At first, they were novelties, the occasional musical. When you clean them
cheap dollops of sensation. Then up, when you make movies
they were impossibly glamorous Language and nationality are respectable, you kill them.
moments of escapism whose stars no concern either. Hollywood is well
glittered in pristine black and represented—although many see Pauline Kael
white. They evolved into profound it as a dirty word, the true movie
accounts of the human condition, lover knows how many good things
made by great auteurs. Today, Tinseltown has produced over the
they are often vastly expensive years. But there has always been a
spectacles designed to make big world beyond Beverly Hills, and
still more money for studios and no worthwhile book about movies
corporations. They make you feel could ignore that. The White
that you’ve slipped behind the eyes Ribbon (2009) deserves its place
of the people on screen, the whole every bit as much as Jaws (1975).

VISIONA

1902–1931

RIES

18 INTRODUCTION

The French Lumière In Charlie Chaplin’s The Cabinet of F. W. Murnau’s
brothers shoot the second movie, Kid Auto Dr. Caligari, a disturbing unauthorized
46-second short German Expressionist adaptation of Bram
La Sortie des usines Races at Venice, the Stoker’s Dracula, titled
Lumière à Lyon. character the Tramp classic, reflects its Nosferatu, is released.
appears for the first time. authors’ experiences It is nearly destroyed
following a lawsuit.
in World War I.

1894 1914 1920 1922
1902 1916 1920 1922

Georges Méliès’s A Trip D. W. Griffith’s 3.5-hour Buster Keaton The Toll of the
to the Moon sets a epic Intolerance is an stars in his first Sea is the first
full-length comedy, Technicolor movie
new benchmark for high early Hollywood The Saphead. to be put out in
production values and blockbuster movie. general release.

special effects.

M ovies are so much a part had begun entertaining the French Movies as art
of today’s culture that it public with movies, he looked for Although the pioneers clustered
is hard to imagine a time ways to make them more splendid in France and America, it was in
when they weren’t there at all. It’s and spectacular. In America, too, Germany that the movies first
hard, too, to appreciate the awe visionaries were at work. There, became art. In the aftermath of
felt by the public of the 1890s at cinema thrived thanks to the World War I, a country mired in
seeing moving pictures for the likes of Edwin S. Porter, a former political and economic chaos gave
first time, as ghostly figures came electrician who ended his 1903 rise to a string of masterpieces
to life before their eyes. From a feature The Great Train Robbery whose influence still echoes today.
21st-century viewpoint, however, with a gunman turning toward the The silent era was filled with some
the real shock is how far those camera and appearing to fire of the most glorious, pristine
“movies” changed in the next three at the audience. filmmaking that cinema would ever
decades—quickly evolving into know: the works of Robert Wiene,
gorgeously vivid feature movies. Other filmmakers had grander F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang. Yet
plans. A few years later, Porter even then, it wasn’t just directors
Magic on screen was approached by a fledgling who deserved the credit—take
For the early filmmakers, there were playwright who hoped to sell the giant Karl Freund, a huge man
no masters to learn from. Some had him a script. Porter turned down with an equally vast knowledge
a background in theater, others in the script, but hired the young of cameras, who would become a
photography. Either way, they were man as an actor—and that same master cinematographer, strapping
breaking new ground, and none young man, the gifted and still the camera to his body and setting
more so than Georges Méliès. As controversial D. W. Griffith, later it on bicycles to revolutionize how
soon as this sometime magician become a director himself, helping a movie could look.
to father the modern blockbuster.

The Thief of Bagdad Alfred Hitchcock’s The Jazz Singer is VISIONARIES 19
stars Douglas Fairbanks first thriller, The the first movie with
and a cast of thousands synchronized sound Josef von Sternberg’s
in an early and lavishly Lodger: A Story of the dialogue. It mixes The Blue Angel is
produced swashbuckling London Fog, about title cards with short
the hunt for Jack the sound sequences. released in German-
adventure fantasy. and English-language
Ripper, is a commercial versions, and makes
hit in the UK. Marlene Dietrich a

worldwide star.

1924 1927 1927 1930
1925 1927 1929 1931

Sergei Eisenstein’s Fritz Lang’s Metropolis The first Academy Charlie Chaplin
technical masterpiece is one of the first Awards ceremony is defies the talkie
held at the Hollywood revolution with
Battleship Potemkin is full-length science- his hit silent classic
released to mark the 20th fiction movies, set in a Roosevelt Hotel in
anniversary of the 1905 technologically advanced Los Angeles. City Lights.

Russian Revolution. dystopian future.

Painters were also drawn to the Charlie Chaplin and I would their craft in American vaudeville
screen, and in 1929, the famed have a friendly contest: and British music hall and now
Surrealist Salvador Dalí worked Who could do the feature worked their magic on camera.
with a young movie fanatic named Masters of mime, slapstick, and
Luis Buñuel on the eternally film with the least subtitles? pathos, they could make audiences
strange Un Chien Andalou; Dalí Buster Keaton laugh just by looking at them. They
then stepped away from movies, were also meticulous filmmakers
but Buñuel continued making The biggest stars were clowns, and with a taste for innovation.
iconoclastic movies into the 1970s. of all the wonders of the silent age,
There were revolutionaries of the it is the comedies that most reliably If one person defined the early
political kind, too. In the Soviet delight today. In Buster Keaton and movies, it was the phenomenally
Union, cinema was embraced as Charlie Chaplin, Hollywood found famous and endlessly ambitious
the art form of the people. Movies two true geniuses who had honed Chaplin. By the end of this era,
became key to the global battle for sound arrived—it was 1927 when Al
hearts and minds. Jolson declared in The Jazz Singer:
“You ain’t heard nothing yet!” But
Hollywood begins Chaplin’s love for silent movies was
Back in America, the cinematic such that he kept making them, and
hustlers became the first studio in 1931, with City Lights, he made
bosses of Hollywood. They built one of the very greatest. By then,
their businesses on stars such he had already helped the movies
as Rudolph Valentino, Douglas claim their rightful place, where
Fairbanks, and Greta Garbo. they still are today—in the center
of people’s lives. ■

20

LABOR OMNIA
VINCIT

A TRIP TO THE MOON / 1902

IN CONTEXT A s its title suggests, the They are brought before the King
12-minute-long movie of the Selenites, but manage to
GENRE A Trip to the Moon escape. They return to Earth, where
Science fiction, fantasy (Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a a parade is held in their honor and
fantastical account of a lunar an alien is put on display.
DIRECTOR expedition. A group of scientists
Georges Méliès meets, a huge gun is constructed, Magic tricks
and astronauts are blasted to the Some pioneers of the cinema,
WRITERS moon, where they fall into the hands such as the French Lumière
Georges Méliès, from of the moon-dwelling Selenites. Brothers, saw the new medium
novels by Jules Verne and as a scientific breakthrough, a
H. G. Wells (all uncredited) Chorus girls line up to fire the means of documenting reality.
Monster Gun that will blast a Frenchman Georges Méliès, the
STARS spaceship to the moon. Méliès’s director of A Trip to the Moon,
Georges Méliès, overblown theatrical style keeps however, recognized it as a new
Bleuette Bernon, François the action more absurd than heroic. way of performing magic tricks.
Lallement, Henri Delannoy

BEFORE
1896 Méliès’s short movie Le
Manoir du Diable (The Devil’s
Castle) is often credited as the
first horror movie.

1899 Cinderella is the first of
Méliès’s movies to use multiple
scenes to tell a story.

AFTER
1904 Méliès adapts another
Jules Verne story with Whirling
the Worlds, a fantasy about a
group of scientists who fly
a steam train into the sun.

VISIONARIES 21

What else to watch: The Man with the Rubber Head (1901) ■ A Trip to Mars (1910) ■ Metropolis (1927, pp.32–33) ■
The Invisible Man (1933) ■ First Men in the Moon (1964) ■ Hugo (2011)

Méliès’s short movies were simply Georges Méliès Director
entertainments, created for the
sensation seekers who roamed Méliès’s early innovations. Méliès wrote,
the boulevards of fin-de-siècle short movies directed, and starred in more
Paris. Filled with chorus girls, experimented than 500 motion pictures,
ghosts, and Mephistophelian with the pioneering the genres of science
devils, the movies started out as theatrical fiction, horror, and suspense.
recordings of simple magic acts techniques and special effects
and evolved into fanciful stories he had mastered as a stage Key movies
realized through innovative and magician. He used the camera
audacious camera trickery— to make people and objects 1896 The Devil’s Castle
cinema’s fledgling special effects. disappear, reappear, or 1902 A Trip to the Moon
By 1902, Méliès was ready to pull transform completely, and 1904 Whirling the Worlds
off his biggest illusion: to take his devised countless technical 1912 The Conquest of the Pole
audiences to the moon and back.
up and down like unruly children, a pompous old man, resembling
Sci-fi and satire and when they land on the lunar one of Méliès’s political cartoons.
A Trip to the Moon was the first surface, their rocket stabs the Its inscription reads “Labor omnia
movie to be inspired by the popular Man in the Moon in his eye. They vincit” (Work conquers all), which,
“scientific romances” of Jules Verne cause chaos in the kingdom of the in light of the chaos that has
and H. G. Wells, and is widely Selenites—whom they treat as preceded it, takes on a decidedly
acknowledged as the world’s first mindless savages—and they only ironic tone. ■
science-fiction movie. But while make it home by accident. A statue
it is true that Méliès conjured up of Barbenfouillis appears in the
the basic iconography of sci-fi final scene—a
cinema—the sleek rocket ship, the caricature of
moon hurtling toward the camera,
and the little green men—the
director did not set out to invent
a genre. His aim was to present a
mischievous satire of Victorian
values, a boisterous comedy
lampooning the reckless
industrial revolutionaries
of Western Europe.

In Méliès’s hands,
men of science are
destructive fools.
Led by Professor
Barbenfouillis (played
by Méliès himself),
they squabble and jump

When they reach the moon, the
scientists discover a strange land.
Their arrogant attitude toward the
moon people has led the movie to
be seen as an anti-imperialist satire.

22

OUT OF THE CRADLE
ENDLESSLY ROCKING

INTOLERANCE / 1916

IN CONTEXT O ne of the most influential those used in Intolerance. It was
movies ever made, a hit, but was condemned by many
GENRE Intolerance is truly epic for its overt racism, glorifying slavery
Historical epic in its scope, with elaborate sets and the Ku Klux Klan.
and countless extras. It was not
DIRECTOR the first movie to use techniques Its commercial success,
D. W. Griffith such as camera tracking and close- however, bankrolled the cast
ups, but director D. W. Griffith of thousands required to make
WRITERS used them with such mastery Intolerance, which lost as much
D. W. Griffith, Anita Loos that many regard him as the at the box office as The Clansman
father of modern moviemaking. had made. Some critics describe
STARS Intolerance as an apology for the
Vera Lewis, Ralph Lewis, The movie was born in earlier movie, but there is nothing
Constance Talmadge, controversy. Griffith’s previous apologetic in its ambition and scale.
Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, movie in 1915, The Clansman,
Robert Harron came to be called The Birth of a Four-part drama
Nation and was the first full-length Four stories of intolerance, spanning
BEFORE feature movie made in the US. Its three millennia, interweave through
1914 Italian director Giovanni innovative techniques foreshadowed the movie, each with a different
Pastrone makes Cabiria, an
early feature-length epic. D. W. Griffith Director

1915 Griffith’s The Birth of a Born on a farm The Birth of a Nation, whose
Nation is the first US feature in Kentucky in racism caused protests and riots.
movie, but sparks controversy 1875, David Griffith made about 500 movies
with its racist content. Llewelyn Wark in total, but his career entered
Griffith was 10 into a downward spiral after
AFTER when his father died, leaving the Intolerance. He died in 1948.
1931 Griffith’s final movie, The family in poverty. After several
Struggle (his second sound years of stage work, he got an Key movies
feature), is a box-office failure. acting job for a movie company
It is a semiautobiographical in 1908, and was soon making 1909 A Corner of Wheat
tale of a battle with alcoholism. his own movies, some of the first 1915 The Birth of a Nation
ever made in Hollywood. He set 1916 Intolerance
up his own company to make 1919 Broken Blossoms

VISIONARIES 23

What else to watch: Cleopatra (1917) ■ Broken Blossoms (1919) ■ Sunrise (1927, pp.30–31) ■ Metropolis (1927, pp.32–33) ■
Modern Times (1936) ■ Gone with the Wind (1939, pp.62–63) ■ Ben-Hur (1959)

The central courtyard in Babylon
was recreated with a life-size set.
More than 3,000 extras were employed
for Belshazzar’s lavish feast.

film tint. They are linked by the The four stories are intercut with To some critics, the effect is almost
ever-present image of a mother, increasing rapidity as the movie symphonic, while others find it
played by Lillian Gish, rocking a approaches its climax. Racing tiresome. But there is no doubt that
cradle to symbolize the passing chariots in one story cut into this crosscutting and use of the edit
generations. Captioned “Out of speeding trains and cars in another; was to prove hugely influential.
the cradle endlessly rocking,” it this effect was achieved almost
suggests that nothing changes. entirely in the edit, since Griffith Other technical innovations
shot the sections chronologically. we now take for granted include
The first of the four stories dissolves between scenes and
focuses on the conflict at the fall the fade-out. Most significant
of ancient Babylon, fueled by the of all, perhaps, was the close-up.
intolerant devotees of two warring The full-length shots of earlier
religions. The second tells how, after movies called for an exaggerated,
the wedding at Cana, Christ is driven pantomime style of acting to
to his death by intolerance. The third convey the story. But as Griffith
tale depicts the St. Bartholomew’s said, “The close-up enabled us to
Day massacres in France in 1572, reach real acting, restraint, acting
when Catholics massacred the that is a duplicate of real life.” ■
Protestant Huguenots. The final
story is of two young lovers who Jesus drags
are caught up in a conflict his cross through
between ruthless capitalists jeering crowds
and moralistic striking in the movie’s
workers. Griffith is clearly biblical story.
on the side of the lovers,
who are hounded by the
type of social reformers he
clearly equates with those
who protested against
The Clansman.

I MUST

BECOME

CALIGARI!

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI / 1920



26 THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI

IN CONTEXT T he Cabinet of Dr. Caligari The somnambulist Cesare, who,
has been described as the the viewer is told, has been in a
GENRE first feature-length horror sleeping trance for 23 years, is roused
Horror movie, and it is easy to see its legacy by Caligari and fed sitting in his coffin.
in modern cinema, but not for the
DIRECTOR obvious reasons. Its ingenious set with Caligari as a straightforward
Robert Wiene design—still avant-garde in its villain causing an innocent to
use of palpably unreal, theatrical sleepwalk into committing murder.
WRITERS environments—is the most striking As the movie neared production,
Hans Janowitz, Carl Mayer of its features. Yet it is other, more however, the story morphed into
subtle elements of Robert Wiene’s something more complex, leading
STARS groundbreaking psychological to possibly another first for cinema:
Werner Krauss, Conrad thriller that have become fixtures the twist ending.
Veidt, Friedrich Fehér, of movie storytelling.
Hans Heinrich von Opening the cabinet
Twardowski, Lil Dagover The “unreliable narrator” had Janowitz and Mayer were inspired
long been a staple of literature, by an 11th-century story about a
BEFORE since the time of the ancient Greek confidence-trickster monk who
1913 The Weapons of Youth is dramatist Aristophanes, but it had exerted a strange influence over
Wiene’s first movie, now lost. yet to be used in cinema. Caligari a man in his keep. In their
pioneers the use of this device in screenplay, the monk became
AFTER the character of Francis (Friedrich a doctor, whom Francis and his
1924 The Hands of Orlac, an Fehér). The story Francis tells starts, love rival Alan (Hans Heinrich
Expressionist movie by Wiene, innocently enough, with a love von Twardowski) encounter at
is later remade twice and triangle, as two friends compete for a village fairground.
inspires many horror movies. the affections of the same woman—
1925 Wiene directs a silent but of course, all is not as it seems. Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) first
movie of Richard Strauss’s appears as a fairground showman
opera Der Rosenkavalier. The movie’s screenwriters, who opens his so-called cabinet—
Strauss conducts a live Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, a coffin by any other name—to
orchestra for the premiere, but originally wrote the story as reveal the ghostly, heavy-lidded
a tour of the US is canceled an indictment of Germany’s Cesare (Conrad Veidt) lying within.
with the arrival of sound movie. government during World War I,

I have never been
able since to trust
the authoritative power

of an inhuman
state gone mad.
Hans Janowitz

VISIONARIES 27

What else to watch: Nosferatu (1922, p.330) ■ The Last Laugh (1924) ■ Secrets of a Soul (1926) ■ Metropolis (1927,
pp.32–33) ■ Dracula (1931) ■ Spellbound (1945) ■ The Third Man (1949, pp.100–03) ■ The White Ribbon (2009, p.323)

Caligari, Cesare’s “master,” claims sinister close-ups, mostly of the Robert Wiene Director
that his charge “knows all secrets” seemingly insane Caligari, to
and invites the audience to ask a persuade his audience that they Robert Wiene was born in 1873
question. A visibly shaken Alan are watching a straightforward in Breslau. In 1913, he wrote
asks, “How long shall I live?”—to hero-and-villain story. Yet when and directed a short movie,
which Cesare replies, “Until dawn.” it is revealed that no character’s The Weapons of Youth, which
And here we see another example perspective may be taken at face was the first of 20 features and
of a horror-movie device lifted from value, suddenly the strange, shorts he would make in the
countless tales: the fool who tempts distorted angles and backdrops silent era. After a prolific movie
fate. The unfortunate Alan is found of the production design begin to career in Germany, Wiene fled
dead the following morning. make sense. They are an integral the Nazi regime in the early
part of the story and not simply an 1930s and moved to France.
Expressionist style unsettling style; the sets by Walter He died of cancer during the
The look and style of the movie Reimann, Walter Röhrig, and shooting of his last movie,
were heavily influenced by the Hermann Warm seem to portray Ultimatum (1938), which was
legendary Max Reinhardt, director a whole world gone mad. completed, uncredited, by
of the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin. fellow émigré Robert Siodmak.
His antirealist style, itself inspired One reason that The Cabinet
by the Expressionist art movement of Dr. Caligari has endured is that, Key movies
of the early 20th century, embraced anticipating Hitchcock’s Psycho, it
the artificiality of the theater set is the first movie to take audiences 1913 The Weapons of Youth
and manipulated darkness rather inside the mind of a madman. Its 1920 The Cabinet of
than light to create swathes of Dr. Caligari
chiaroscuro, establishing an resonant horror stems from our 1923 Raskolnikow
atmosphere of mystery fear of the mask of 1924 The Hands of Orlac
and unease. sanity that even
the most disturbed Cesare carries away
Wiene carefully individuals can Francis’s sweetheart,
employs lighting to wear in order to Jane, through
suggest that this is deceive those a landscape
simply an outlandish around them. ■
melodrama—a notion resembling the
reinforced by the aftermath of
frequent use of World War I,
which had
ended just two

years earlier.

28

WHAT ARE WE
WAITING FOR?

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN / 1925

IN CONTEXT S ergei Eisenstein’s This was one
Battleship Potemkin of the first movie
GENRE was commissioned posters by Dutch
Historical drama by the Soviet authorities designer Dolly
to commemorate the 20th Rudeman.
DIRECTOR anniversary of the 1905 It depicts a
Sergei Eisenstein Revolution, when Russian Cossack soldier
sailors mutinied against with one of his
WRITER their naval commanders and victims at his
Nina Agadzhanova protested in the port of Odessa feet. Its bold
(now in Ukraine). The result futurist style
STARS was a movie that revolutionized
Aleksandr Antonov, cinema. Ninety years later, it is typical of
Vladimir Barsky, is rare that an action movie 1920s posters
Grigori Aleksandrov does not owe it something. in Europe.

BEFORE The opening scenes are meat, only to be told that it was
1925 Eisenstein’s first full- historically accurate. The cooks did fit for consumption. The crew’s
length feature, Strike, tells take issue with the maggot-ridden spokesman, Quartermaster Grigory
the story of a 1903 walkout Vakulinchuk (Aleksandr Antonov),
in a Russian factory and the View it in the same way did call for a boycott and was shot.
repression of the workers. that a group of artists The crew did turn on their superior
might view and study a officers before hoisting a red flag
AFTER Rubens or a Raphael. and sailing to Odessa, where there
1928 Eisenstein’s October David O. Selznik had been ongoing civilian unrest.
(Ten Days That Shook the And Vakulinchuk’s body was put
World) uses a documentary on display, with a note: “This is the
style to tell the story of the body of Vakulinchuk, killed by the
1917 October Revolution. commander for telling the truth.”

1938 In a more restrictive When the sailors reach Odessa,
political climate, Eisenstein however, Eisenstein’s movie veers
retreats to distant history into propaganda. While it is true
with Alexander Nevsky. that Tsar Nicholas II took action
against the striking citizens of
Odessa, this did not happen at the

VISIONARIES 29

What else to watch: Strike (1925) ■ October (1928) ■ Man With a Movie Camera (1929) ■
The Untouchables (1987) ■ JFK (1991)

A carriage careers down the steps
past and over the bodies of the dead
and dying. The baby’s mother has been
shot: as she fell, she nudged it forward,
starting its headlong descent.

Odessa Steps. Now known as the on the experiments in montage grief, and desire. Eisenstein’s belief
Potemkin Stairs, they were then pioneered by Soviet movie theorist in montage—although he preferred
just the Boulevard Steps, or Giant Lev Kuleshov between 1910 and to use images in “collision” with
Staircase. The director made full 1920. For Kuleshov, meaning lay not each other—can be shown by
use of the 200 steps to show the in individual shots but in the way statistics alone: at under 80 minutes,
tsarist troops advancing. The that the human mind contextualizes Battleship Potemkin consists of 1,346
crowds’ celebration with the sailors them: for example, by using the shots, when the average movie of the
is cut short by a title card that same image of a man’s face and period usually contained around 600.
says simply, “And suddenly.” The intercutting it with a bowl of soup,
scenes of carnage that follow have a coffin, and a woman, Kuleshov Manipulating emotions
lost none of their power. Nobody could conjure up images of hunger, Eisenstein’s approach to
is safe from the advancing troops, storytelling still seems radical
filmed from a low angle and often today. Its juxtaposition of the epic
tightly cropped: for the director, and the intimate virtually rules out
only their rifles needed to be the possibility of engaging with the
visible. The outraged sailors fire characters on a personal level, and
back with shells, before heading in that way it is indeed perfectly
off to sea where they are joined communist. Even Vakulinchuk, the
in revolt by other sailors. hero and martyr of the piece, is seen
only as a symbol of humanity to be
Montage and collision contrasted with the faceless tsarist
As a history lesson, Battleship troops. The most famous scene—a
Potemkin took liberties, but factual baby in a carriage tumbling down
accuracy was never Eisenstein’s the steps—is the ideal symbol of
concern. It was more important the movie’s manipulative grip on
for him to pursue a new cinematic our helpless emotions. ■
language, which he did by drawing

Sergei Eisenstein Director

Born in 1898 in the Soviet Union, he found that
Latvia, Sergei the political tide had turned
Eisenstein against his “formalist” ideas, to
started work as more traditional storytelling. He
a director for theater company died in 1948, leaving behind just
Proletkult in Moscow in 1920. eight finished movies.
His interest in visual theory
led to the “Revolution Trilogy” Key movies
of Strike, Battleship Potemkin,
and October. He was invited 1925 Battleship Potemkin
to Hollywood in 1930, but his 1928 October
projects there stalled. Back in 1938 Alexander Nevsky

30

THIS SONG OF THE
MAN AND HIS WIFE
IS OF NO PLACE
AND EVERY PLACE

SUNRISE / 1927

IN CONTEXT I n 1927, one movie changed the fellow who has been seduced
course of cinema history: The by the vampish woman from
GENRE Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, the city (Margaret Livingston).
Silent drama was the first ever feature-length She urges him to sell his farm
“talkie.” But another song was and come with her to pursue a
DIRECTOR playing in picture palaces that life of excitement in the city. The
F. W. Murnau year, and it was a silent movie. In man is married, however, to his
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, sweet young wife (Janet Gaynor).
WRITERS German director F. W. Murnau When he asks the woman: “And
Carl Mayer (screenplay); attempted to distill a universal my wife?” a sly look comes into
Hermann Sudermann human experience into 90 wordless his lover’s eyes. “Couldn’t she get
(short story) minutes of beautiful monochrome drowned?” is the chilling title card.
imagery, accompanied only by
STARS music and sound effects. The rural setting, creeping fog,
George O’Brien, Janet and shifting, spidery shadows of
Gaynor, Margaret At a lakeside village, two this scene recall Murnau’s other
Livingston, Bodil Rosing clandestine lovers meet under great masterpiece, the archetypal
the moonlight. The man (George vampire movie Nosferatu. Sunrise
BEFORE O’Brien) is an honest country looks set to deliver an equally
1922 Murnau’s Nosferatu helps
to define the horror genre in a F. W. Murnau Director
nightmarish version of Dracula.
Born in Germany literate man, Murnau brought
AFTER in 1888, Friedrich Goethe’s Faust to the big screen
1927 Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s Wilhelm Murnau before moving to Hollywood in
science-fiction classic, also fought for his 1926. His first US movie was
features the spectacle of the country in the horror of World Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.
modern city. War I before making a horror He died in a car crash in 1931.
of his own: Nosferatu, the first
1930 Murnau’s City Girl tells movie to be based on Dracula. Key movies
the story of a flapper falling in The Last Laugh proved that
love with a farm boy and being Murnau could move his 1922 Nosferatu
rejected by his family. audiences as skillfully as he 1924 The Last Laugh
could terrify them. A highly 1927 Sunrise

VISIONARIES 31

What else to watch: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, pp.24–27) ■ Faust (1926) ■ The Lodger (1927) ■ Wings (1927) ■
Street Angel (1928) ■ Man with a Movie Camera (1929) ■ City Lights (1931, pp.38–41) ■ A Star Is Born (1937)

sensationalist story of Sunrise was one of Murnau’s films are gorgeous,
sex, death, violence, and the first movies with and Sunrise is no exception.
betrayal. But will the sound effects, but Its luscious black-and-white
man commit murder? its innovations were photography and sweeping
With her black bob, largely overlooked. camera moves haven’t aged.
sleek satin dress, and
smoldering cigarette, and strange Pamela Hutchinson
the woman from the hallucinogenic
city embodies the patterns in the The Guardian
amorality of the bright lights.
metropolis, while Danger, too, will a Movietone soundtrack, which
the man is a symbol reappear, the added piglet squeals, traffic horns,
of rustic innocence. past not so easily and other clunky effects, but the
The viewer assumes escaped. And all of movie doesn’t need these to bring
that Sunrise will it is made with the its world to life. “Wherever the sun
be a chronicle of kind of ambition— rises and sets,” says the closing
corruption; at one point the Murnau’s “city” was made up of title card, “in the city’s turmoil or
woman appears devil-like on the vast, complex, hugely expensive under the open sky on the farm,
man’s shoulder, urging him to sin. sets—that has led many to see life is much the same; sometimes
The man invites his wife to take Sunrise as a pinnacle of the silent bitter, sometimes sweet.” ■
a boat ride, but when the moment movies, a beautiful last waltz.
comes to drown her, he can’t go
through with it. Last sunrise
Sunrise plays like a montage of the
The man hesitates, the wife silent era’s greatest hits, a flickering
escapes, and when he catches up carousel of melodrama, suspense,
with her, the pair find themselves horror, spectacle, slapstick, and
on a tram bound for the city. Unable tragedy. The US release was given
to discuss what has happened at
the lake for fear of being overheard,
they stay on the tram.

City awakening
This is where Sunrise surprises us.
The metropolis has a magical effect
on the man and his wife as they
spend the day wandering through
its vertiginous throng, thrown
together in a touching, accidental
second courtship.

Yet there is still much drama
ahead, and more unforgettable
sights: crowds through which the
camera swoops, street carnivals,

Unable to go through with the
murder, the man follows his wife
to a tram, and they both end up
heading for the city.

32

THOSE WHO TOILED KNEW
NOTHING OF THE DREAMS
OF THOSE WHO PLANNED

METROPOLIS / 1927

IN CONTEXT M any movies have Lang’s vision of the cityscape of
journeyed into the future, the future was heavily influenced
GENRE and most of them owe a by the skyscrapers that were being
Science fiction debt to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. built at the time in New York.
Made in Germany in 1927, this tale
DIRECTOR of city life projects itself a hundred Lang often said that the idea for
Fritz Lang years ahead of its time. Metropolis came to him on a visit
to New York in 1924, and it shows.
WRITERS Mirror image The American city, with its soaring
Fritz Lang, Metropolis is set in 2026, but it is skyscrapers and views of ant-sized
Thea von Harbou really a warped reflection of the era citizens, clearly inspired the first
in which it was made. In its striking science-fiction cityscape ever
STARS black-and-white imagery, influenced shown on screen. Lang worked
Alfred Abel, Gustav by German Expressionism, lie the with visual-effects pioneer Eugen
Fröhlich, Rudolf Klein- nightmares of a world in flux. The Schüfftan to create an exaggerated
Rogge, Brigitte Helm mechanized horrors of World War I version of Manhattan, combining
were fresh in the memory, and the models of monorails and shining
BEFORE Nazis would soon begin their rise pinnacles with vast clockwork sets,
1922 With Dr. Mabuse the to power, proposing totalitarian in which the humans operating the
Gambler, Lang and von Harbou solutions to Germany’s problems. machines are little more than cogs.
introduce the arch-criminal to
the big screen for first time.

1924 The Nibelungs is
Lang and von Harbou’s epic
two-part silent fantasy.

AFTER
1929 Woman in the Moon is
Lang’s next science-fiction
masterpiece after Metropolis.

1931 M stands for “Murderer”
in Lang and von Harbou’s
desolate thriller.

VISIONARIES 33

What else to watch: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, pp.24–27) ■ The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, p.52) ■
Modern Times (1936) ■ Blade Runner (1982, pp.250–55) ■ Brazil (1985, p.340) ■ The Matrix (1999) ■ Minority Report (2002)

Alfred Abel Actor depicted as a malevolent monster, a
living, breathing machine incapable
Born in Leipzig elegant, and eschewing florid of compassion. Maria is duplicated
in 1879, Alfred gestures, Abel remained in as a Maschinenmensch (“machine-
Abel tried his demand in the age of sound, but human”), whose unholy birth would
hand at forestry, a brief foray into directing was later be imitated by Hollywood in
gardening, art, and business not a success. He died in 1937, Frankenstein (1931). Mechanization
before taking up acting. Moving two years after the Nazi regime is ultimately a means to deceive,
to Berlin, he worked with stage barred his daughter from acting. dehumanize, and enslave.
director Max Reinhardt, who
gave him his first movie role in Key movies Metropolis is often described as
1913. He went on to star in more the first screen dystopia, and in its
than 100 silent movies, most 1922 Dr. Mabuse the Gambler prediction of a segregated German
famously Metropolis. Always 1927 Metropolis society, it is bleakly prescient. But
Lang’s movie remains optimistic
In Metropolis, the architecture of with her does the machine begin at its core—it believes the human
the city reflects the rigid structure to break down, as the two groups— heart can triumph even when
of its society, whose ruling class, led the “mind” and the “hands”—are our dreams turn into oppressive
by Fredersen (Alfred Abel), lives in brought together by the heart. nightmares, and for all its concerns,
luxurious towers, while the workers, it sees a frightening beauty in the
represented by Maria (Brigitte Helm), Technology and terror world of tomorrow. ■
are consigned to the sunless slums Lang’s movie revels in cutting-edge
at ground level and below. The special effects, but it doesn’t trust In an Art Deco vision of hell, the
two groups—literally the high-ups technology with the future of Industrial Machine powering the city
and the low-downs—know little humanity. The 21st-century city is is seen as a sacrificial temple of Moloch
of each other, and in the smooth that consumes its workers.
running of the machine city their
paths never cross. Only when
Fredersen’s privileged son glimpses
the worker Maria and falls in love

Should I say now that I like
Metropolis because something
I have seen in my imagination
comes true, when I detested

it after it was finished?
Fritz Lang

34

IF YOU SAY WHAT
YOU’RE THINKING
I’LL STRANGLE YOU

STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. / 1928

IN CONTEXT B uster Keaton was a master Keaton performed his own stunts,
of deadpan slapstick. He many of which, like this building
GENRE was born into a vaudeville falling on him in Steamboat Bill,
Comedy family and grew up familiar with Jr., relied on precise timing and
the demands of physical comedy, positioning to avoid serious injury.
DIRECTOR which he transferred from stage
Charles Reisner to screen. Although he didn’t
always take a credit as director,
WRITER he was invariably the mastermind
Carl Harbaugh behind the laughs. Today, what
impresses most about his movies
STARS is their comic precision, and the
Buster Keaton, Tom sophisticated way in which he
McGuire, Ernest Torrence, misleads his audiences. Steamboat
Marion Byron Bill, Jr. is typical of the way in which
Keaton plays with expectations.
BEFORE
1924 Keaton fractures his Straight to the jokes type as a fey bohemian, complete
neck while shooting the The movie sets course in almost with Oxford bags, a tiny ukulele,
pratfalls for Sherlock, Jr. record time—the grizzled captain and a beret, before the movie
of a dilapidated paddle steamer moves up a notch with a storm.
1926 Keaton’s The General, faces competition from a stylish After he has been swept by high
now considered a classic, new riverboat on the same day winds through a town on a hospital
flops at the box office. that his long-lost son (Keaton) bed, Keaton stands immobile as an
reappears—and goes straight to the entire storefront crashes over his
AFTER jokes. Keaton uses a slew of visual head, perfectly framing him in its
1928 Steamboat Bill, Jr. is the puns and sight gags even before his top window. The scene—highly
inspiration for Walt Disney’s character has arrived. When he dangerous to perform—captures
Steamboat Willie, the first finally does appear, Keaton starts a Keaton’s philosophy in a nutshell:
Mickey Mouse animation. symphony of silliness, playing against “Stuntmen don’t get laughs.” ■

1929 Keaton makes his final What else to watch: Our Hospitality (1923) ■ Sherlock, Jr. (1924) ■
silent movie, Spite Marriage, The Navigator (1924) ■ The General (1926) ■ The Cameraman (1928)
about a celebrity wife who
divorces her humble husband.

VISIONARIES 35

HAS GOD PROMISED
YOU THINGS?

THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC / 1928

IN CONTEXT T he story of Jeanne d’Arc put through an exhausting ordeal.
(Joan of Arc), or the Maid The director keeps his camera
GENRE of Orleans, has been filmed tight on her face, contrasting her
Historical drama several times, mostly as an action- tortured expressions with the
adventure in which she leads an pinched features of the clerics—
DIRECTOR army against English invaders in all shot in extreme close-up, with
Carl Theodor Dreyer 15th-century France. But Danish no makeup, and harsh lighting.
director Carl Theodor Dreyer went
WRITERS back to the transcripts of Joan’s As matters get progressively
Joseph Delteil, Carl trial to create an intimate and worse for Joan, the movie keeps the
Theodor Dreyer emotionally grueling account of audience inside her tormented
her persecution and execution at world for as long as it can. Even as
STAR the hands of the church. she is burned at the stake, Dreyer
Maria Falconetti focuses relentlessly on Joan rather
By all accounts, the shoot was than on the attempt to save her.
BEFORE as grim and punishing as anything As the director himself once put
1917 Falconetti stars in La depicted on screen, particularly for it, “Nothing in the world can be
Comtesse de Somerive, the Maria Falconetti as Joan, who was compared to the human face.” ■
first of her two feature movies.
The trial scene
AFTER was shot in a
1932 Dreyer makes his first hugely expensive
sound movie with the horror replica of the
movie Vampyr. ecclesiastical
court at Rouen
1943 Dreyer’s movie Day of Castle, where the
Wrath returns to the theme historical Joan
of witchcraft with a tale of was tried.
17th-century persecution.
What else to watch: Sunrise (1927, pp.30–31) ■ Vampyr (1932) ■
1957 Otto Preminger adapts Day of Wrath (1943) ■ Ordet (1955) ■ Gertrud (1964)
George Bernard Shaw’s play
Saint Joan for cinema, starring
Jean Seberg in her debut role.

36

FALLING IN LOVE
AGAIN NEVER
WANTED TO

THE BLUE ANGEL / 1930

IN CONTEXT M arlene Dietrich’s Lola-Lola, sermon, warning of the dangers of
the showgirl of The Blue chasing the pleasures of the flesh.
GENRE Angel (Der Blaue Engel), is Set in Weimar Germany, it tells the
Comedy drama one of cinema’s most indelible sirens. tale of Professor Immanuel Rath
The movie was banned by the Nazis (Emil Jannings), who gives up his
DIRECTOR in 1933, but Hitler, a fan of Dietrich, respectable job as a schoolteacher
Josef von Sternberg reputedly kept a private copy. to pursue Lola-Lola, a performer at
cabaret club The Blue Angel.
WRITERS Moral message
Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Lola-Lola’s decadence and sexually Professor Rath journeys through
Vollmöller, Robert charged ennui are captured in songs the seamy demimonde of show
Liebmann (screenplay); that made Dietrich famous: Falling business, and when Lola-Lola
Heinrich Mann (novel) in Love Again became her personal rejects him, he ends up a laughing
anthem. Ironically, Josef von stock: spineless, emasculated, and
STARS Sternberg’s movie is also a moral powerless, a grotesque shadow of
Marlene Dietrich, his censorious former self. ■
Emil Jannings
Professor Rath
BEFORE (Emil Jannings,
1929 Von Sternberg’s right) becomes
first talkie is the US crime a humiliated
drama Thunderbolt. clown in
Lola-Lola’s
AFTER troupe. He is
1930 Von Sternberg and ridiculed by the
Dietrich team up for a second audience when
time with the Hollywood the troupe visits
romance Morocco. his home town.

1932 Dietrich and von What else to watch: Shanghai Express (1932) ■ Blonde Venus (1932) ■
Sternberg reunite for Shanghai Desire (1936) ■ Destry Rides Again (1939) ■ Cabaret (1972)
Express, a huge box-office hit,
and the fourth movie of seven
the two would make together.

VISIONARIES 37

IF I WERE YOU
I’D MAKE A BIT
OF A SCENE

PEOPLE ON SUNDAY / 1930

IN CONTEXT G erman cinema in the visits Erwin, a cabdriver, and his
1920s and 30s was wife Annie, a model. He invites
GENRE noted for its style and them to the lake, but, after an
Silent drama technical expertise. But People on argument, Erwin leaves Annie
Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) is behind to join Wolfgang, Christl,
DIRECTORS pioneering in a very different way, and Brigitte, a salesclerk.
Robert Siodmark, creating a fluid, freewheeling movie
Curt Siodmark aimed at realism. In retrospect, the artlessness
of what happens next in the film is
WRITERS Filmmakers Robert Siodmak truly affecting, given that the movie’s
Curt Siodmark, Robert and Edgar G. Ulmer, then both makers would all be forced into exile
Siodmark, Edgar G. Ulmer, novices, would later carve out a before the decade was out. There is
Billy Wilder career in Hollywood making tense no cynicism, only the pathos of its
thrillers, but People on Sunday is characters’ optimistic faith in the
STARS the polar opposite. It is also very often-repeated word “tomorrow.” ■
Erwin Splettstößer, Annie different from the later works of
Schreyer, Wolfgang von its screenwriter Billy Wilder, who We’d sit at a nearby table
Waltershausen, Christl developed its documentary style while they’d decide what
Ehlers, Brigitte Borchert from reportage by Siodmak’s
brother Curt, soon to write many of to do that day. It was
BEFORE Universal Studios’ horror pictures. completely improvised.
1927 Walther Ruttmann’s
silent documentary Berlin: A movie experiment Brigitte Borchert
Symphony of a Great City The movie’s subtitle was “a film
chronicles one day in Berlin without actors.” It follows 24 hours
to an orchestral score. in the lives of five Berliners, played
by nonactors in roles based on their
AFTER real lives. Wine merchant Wolfgang
1948 Vittorio De Sica’s flirts with movie extra Christl. They
The Bicycle Thief, a key arrange to meet in the lake resort of
Italian neorealist movie, Nikolassee. Later that day Wolfgang
tells an everyday story
shot entirely on location. What else to watch: The Bicycle Thief (1948, pp.94–97) ■ À bout de souffle
(1960, pp.166–67) ■ Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960, pp.168–69)

TOMORROW

THE BIRDS WILL

SING

CITY LIGHTS / 1931



40 CITY LIGHTS

IN CONTEXT C harlie Chaplin’s movie City The poster for the movie’s original
Lights—which he wrote, release in 1931 makes full use of the
GENRE directed, and starred in— audience’s recognition of Chaplin’s
Silent comedy was one of the last great movies Tramp persona.
of the silent era, acknowledged by
DIRECTOR many as one of the best comedies searches desperately for ways to
Charlie Chaplin of all time. Although it was released raise the money to fund it, from
in 1931, four years after the first real sweeping the streets to getting
WRITER talkie, The Jazz Singer, Chaplin beaten in a prizefight—vehicles for
Charlie Chaplin defiantly made City Lights a silent Chaplin’s trademark slapstick,
movie with only a few distorted bawdiness, and melodrama.
STARS sound effects and a sound track
Charlie Chaplin, Virginia of his own music. The Tramp also saves a
Merrill, Harry Myers millionaire who is threatening to
Tramp and the Flower Girl commit suicide after his wife has
BEFORE The story begins in a large city, left him. In return, the millionaire
1921 Chaplin makes his first where Chaplin’s Tramp is fleeing offers the Tramp $1,000 to help the
feature movie, The Kid, with from a policeman who threatens to girl. Unfortunately, the millionaire
13-year-old Lita Grey, whom arrest him for vagrancy. Escaping only sees the Tramp as a friend
he marries three years later. by climbing through a car, he when he is blind drunk. When the
meets a poor blind flower girl millionaire sobers up, he accuses
1925 Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, (played by Virginia Merrill). He the Tramp of stealing the money.
his first blockbuster featuring buys a flower from her with his Going on the run, the Tramp gives
the Tramp, is a huge success. last coin, and the girl, hearing the girl the money to pay for the
the sound of a luxury car door, sight operation, but is captured
1927 The silent era comes to believes he is a wealthy man. and thrown in jail.
an end with The Jazz Singer,
the first feature-length movie Not judged as a vagrant by this A touching encounter
with full sound dialogue. blind girl, the Tramp falls in love Finally, he is released from jail and
with her and wants to be the rich finds himself outside the flower
AFTER and handsome benefactor she shop. In the window, the girl is
1936 Chaplin makes Modern imagines him to be. He determines arranging flowers. She has had
Times, his last silent feature, to rescue her from her life of poverty the operation and can see. Full of
a protest against the Great and when he hears of an operation
Depression workers’ conditions. that will restore her sight, he

Charlie Chaplin Director

Actor-director took him to the US. By age 26, he
Charlie Chaplin was a star with his own movie
was the biggest company. He made a string of
star of silent hit silent movies before his first
movies. Born talkie, the anti-Hitler satire The
in London in 1889, he survived Great Dictator. He died in 1977.
a childhood beset by poverty.
His alcoholic father abandoned Key movies
his singer mother, who was later
committed to an asylum. These 1921 The Kid
early experiences inspired the 1925 The Gold Rush
character of the outcast Tramp. 1931 City Lights
As a teenager, Chaplin joined a 1936 Modern Times
circus troupe and an impresario 1940 The Great Dictator

VISIONARIES 41

What else to watch: The Gold Rush (1925) ■ The General (1926) ■ Metropolis (1927, pp.32–33) ■ Modern Times (1936) ■
A Patch of Blue (1965) ■ Chaplin (1992) ■ The Artist (2011)

kindness for the Tramp, who is now struck both the rich and the poor fluttering flares of hope, that’s
dressed in shabby clothes, the girl as the crisis deepened. While enough. It’s not clear what that
picks up the flower that has been the movie offered no recipes for hope is—that she will find her true
knocked from his grasp by street recovery, what it did, cleverly, was happiness with such a bedraggled
kids, and as their hands touch, she to provide a glimmer of hope. After man, or that they will both walk
suddenly recognizes him—so very rescuing the millionaire from suicide away, wiser but content. All that
different from the debonair prince in the river, the Tramp urges him to matters is that there is hope, the
she may have imagined. The Tramp be hopeful. “Tomorrow the birds hope inspired by the thought that
looks anxiously into the eyes of the will sing,” he says. No matter how the birds will sing tomorrow,
once-blind flower girl and asks, bleak things look today, people must come what may. ■
“You can see now?” “Yes,” she cling to the idea that there may be
replies, “I can see now.” joy tomorrow—that seems to be The boxing scene, in which the
the core of the movie’s message. Tramp spends most of his time hiding
This poignant exchange is one behind the referee or running from his
of the most famous dialogues in Happy ending? opponent to avoid combat, shows off
movie history—all the more telling When the flower girl finally sees the Chaplin’s clowning skills.
because it comes from the silent Tramp for who he really is, Chaplin
era—and in many ways it is the director does not immediately
emblematic of the entire movie. have them fall into each
It is not just the Tramp that the other’s arms in
girl is seeing for the first time, recognition. We
but the truth, and the audience do not know if
must see it too. In the noisy, the flower girl
brightly flashing world of the will embrace
modern city, the little people, or reject him
the downtrodden, and the lonely because he is
are forgotten and brushed aside. so different from
It is only through the purity of the man of her
silence, simplicity, and blindness imagination. There is
that people can regain their senses no neat happy ending.
and learn to see clearly again.
While the Tramp’s
Hope of tomorrow winsome look elicits
The movie has a conservative pathos, it also restores
and sentimental—some might the movie to a comic
even say mawkish—message, level, distancing the
but there’s no doubt that it touched audience from the pain
a chord on its release, just two of his possible rejection.
years after the Wall Street Crash. But as the flower girl
Times were troubled for countless looks back at him and
millions, the poor in the US were viewers see the thoughts
beginning to feel the pinch of the turning over behind her
Great Depression, and suicides eyes and the faintly

I’m cured. You’re my friend
for life.

The millionaire / City Lights

A GOLDEN

BLACK AN

1931–1949

AGE IN

D WHITE

44 INTRODUCTION

In contrast to the more In Germany, studios fall Starting with The 39 MGM’s Technicolor epic
theatrical “talkies,” under the control of Nazi Steps, Alfred Hitchcock Gone with the Wind
makes a series of British is an international hit
Fritz Lang’s first sound propaganda chief and one of the most
movie, M, uses a Joseph Goebbels. Major thrillers that reflect an profitable movies
German directors and anxiety about the rise of ever made.
complex sound track stars flee to Hollywood. hostile powers in Europe.
to build suspense.

1931 1933 1935 1939
1931 1934 1937 1939

Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Introduced in 1930 by the Snow White and In France, Jean
Boris Karloff as Frankenstein Motion Picture Producers and the Seven Dwarfs, Renoir’s The Rules of
become horror-movie legends. Distributors of America as a Walt Disney’s first the Game is a critical
Depression-era theaters introduce guideline for moral decency full-length animated disaster, but will later
“double features”—two full- in movies, the Hays Code is movie, becomes an be recognized as a
length movies for the price of one. brilliant class satire.
now strictly enforced. instant classic.

I n an ordinary Berlin street We are not trying to entertain movies will never again equal
in 1931, a child is playing. the critics. I’ll take my chances those made in the 1930s and
From the shadows nearby, 1940s, the height of the classical
a haunting melody is whistled with the public. Hollywood period. It was an era
by a murderer. Walt Disney when, for all the trauma of world
events—not least the Great
The talkies had already made new technology made the movies Depression and World War II—
their entrance four years earlier, so cumbersome to produce that movies had swagger, confidence,
but this, perhaps, is the moment in some might have been better left and mass appeal. They were
cinema when the sound era truly silent. Yet the technical troubles glamorous and escapist. And they
begins. The movie was M, a dark were overcome, new stars emerged, made their audiences laugh. While
thriller by German director Fritz and the magic returned. Even Charlie Chaplin never fully took to
Lang. In that single scene, Lang today, there are many for whom sound (Buster Keaton even less so),
went far beyond simply adding others were perfect for it. The Marx
sound to movies. He was playing Brothers’ verbal virtuosity had their
with sound, using it. He was audiences in stitches, while the
making it a character’s signature. very essence of screwball comedy
was the wisecracking one-liner.
Early sound
The first years of sound were a Monster spectacles
disruptive time for the industry. While M is a good place to open
Many stars lost their careers this new era, classical Hollywood’s
when they failed the voice test, symbol could be King Kong (1933).
and there were times when the

A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 45

Citizen Kane, Orson Ernst Lubitsch, a Children of Paradise, Suspected communists,
Welles’s first movie, is refugee from Germany, a lavish historical 10 Hollywood filmmakers
based on the press tycoon drama directed by
William Randolph directs To Be or Not are called before the
Hearst, who bans all to Be, a movie that Marcel Carné, is Committee Investigating
mention of the movie in lampoons the Nazis, filmed in German- Un-American Activities,
and is said by critics occupied France. blacklisted by the studios,
his newspapers. to be in poor taste.
and later jailed.

1941 1942 1944 1947

1941 1943 1946 1948

Humphrey Bogart stars In Italy, Ossessione, an The Best Years of Our The Bicycle Thief by
in The Maltese Falcon, early neorealist movie Lives, by William Wyler, Vittorio De Sica is a
the archetypal film reflects the difficulties neorealist alternative
noir, and (the following by Luchino Visconti, to Hollywood, with a
runs afoul of Fascist of US servicemen powerful, simple story
year) in Casablanca. government censors. readjusting to civilian acted by ordinary people.

life after World War II.

This monumental movie spectacular had had a major impact on the femmes fatales and world-weary
was proof of the studios’ willingness industry. Scores of directors gumshoes becoming some of
to make movies ever larger in their and actors, among them some cinema’s defining figures.
quest for excitement. Kong joined of Europe’s most talented, had
a monster hall of fame. Universal defected to Hollywood. From Italy came a different kind
Studios had already made the iconic of downbeat. In the Rome of 1948,
horror movies Frankenstein and A postwar edge director Vittorio De Sica used a
Dracula (both 1931), The Mummy World War II gave the movies that cast of real people to tell a tale
(1932), and The Invisible Man (1933), came after it a new, abrasive edge. of everyday struggle called The
all popular entertainments that also Even Britain’s typically sweet- Bicycle Thief. It was the type of
exhibited some brilliant filmmaking. centered Ealing comedies acquired movie that lit a fuse in all who saw
a darker tone when Alec Guinness it. But perhaps the most influential
King Kong was big, but it didn’t played multiple roles in the murder movie of the era had already been
have a monopoly on scale. By 1939, story Kind Hearts and Coronets made. An ambitious portrait of a
audiences were being wowed by (1949). Darker still was writer press baron, 1941’s Citizen Kane
The Wizard of Oz (its yellow-brick Graham Greene’s peerless web of goes in and out of favor with critics,
road seen in saturated Technicolor) intrigue and betrayal in postwar but its impact was immense. Its
and roused by Gone With the Wind, Vienna, The Third Man (1949). cowriter, producer, director, and
an epic romance set against the star, Orson Welles, was 25 when
historical backdrop of the American In the US, crime drama evolved he made it. As it would be again
Civil War. into a new genre—film noir. Its in the next decade, movies had
swirl of stylized shadow play been reshaped by young people too
In Europe, however, another borrowed heavily from the German much in love with its possibilities
war was about to start. By the end Expressionists of the 1920s, its to be hampered by the past. ■
of the 1930s the Nazis’ brutal rule

46

DON’T WANT TO,
BUT MUST!

M / 1931

IN CONTEXT C lassic old movies as The real-life crimes of Peter Kürten,
influential as Fritz Lang’s known in the press as the Vampire
GENRE M—without which there of Düsseldorf, were fresh in the
Crime drama would have been no Psycho, Silence minds of German audiences when
of the Lambs, or Se7en—can be M was released in May 1931. Lang
DIRECTOR slightly disappointing when later denied that Kürten was the
Fritz Lang viewers finally come to see them. inspiration for his script. Although
By then the movies will have been so he was clearly tapping into a theme
WRITERS emulated and borrowed from that that was sitting high in the public
Fritz Lang, they can end up looking somewhat consciousness, his portrayal of a
Thea von Harbou hackneyed. Not so with M—Lang’s murderer was far from predictable.
crime masterpiece still bristles
STARS with chilling invention. The first surprise was in the
Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke, casting. Little-known Hungarian
Gustaf Gründgens actor Peter Lorre, a small man
with bulging, oddly innocent eyes,
BEFORE seemed an unlikely choice to play
1927 Metropolis, Lang’s a child killer. The next surprise
seminal science-fiction epic, was in the movie’s oblique
is groundbreaking for the narrative. While concerned with
scale of its futuristic vision. justice, M is not a simple tale of
crime and punishment, and defies
AFTER expectations from the outset.
1935 Karl Freund, who was
the cinematographer on Shots of absence
Metropolis, directs Mad Love, The movie’s opening murder is
a Hollywood horror starring the set up with a heartbreaking
by now famous Peter Lorre. poignancy: as Beckert, who
is seen only in silhouette,
1963 In the last movie he approaches a young girl at a
makes, Lang appears in front
of the camera, playing himself The movie’s iconic poster
in Jean-Luc Godard’s Le displays the “M” (for murderer) that
mépris (Contempt). will be imprinted on the killer’s
back so that he can be trailed.

A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 47

What else to watch: Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922, p.330) ■ Metropolis (1927, pp.32–33) ■ Fury (1936) ■ Ministry of Fear
(1944) ■ The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) ■ The Big Heat (1953, pp.332–33) ■ While the City Sleeps (1956)

The killer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre)
stares wide-eyed at his back, as he
sees in the mirror that he has been
marked with the letter “M.”

The tangled mind is exposed… their investigations, the citizens
hatred of itself and despair plan their own justice. Vigilantism,
jumping at you from the jelly. a common theme in Lang’s later
Graham Greene career, becomes a major element
of the story.

fairground, the scene cuts to her A human monster disturbing ends when Beckert is
anxious mother at home, then out Part of the power of M is the way in on the run, when the noise of fire-
of the window, then into the yard. which Lang effortlessly wrong-foots engine sirens and traffic create a
Her calls become desperate over the viewer. So meek is the monster disorienting cacophony.
shots of absence: vacant rooms, an at the heart of the story, when his
empty dinner plate. When the actual face is finally revealed, that the Final judgment
murder is committed, Lang shows audience is thrown off guard, put M keeps nudging the audience
nothing but the girl’s ball rolling into his shoes and made to feel his off balance to the end. The movie’s
into the grass and a stray balloon fear. Lang then expertly cranks tension comes not only from the
floating away. up the tension, with the killer relentless ticktock of the narrative,
unwittingly marked with a chalk but also from the question that
Beckert, the killer, seen only letter “M,” for Mörder (murderer), Lang asks the audience: what
from behind, writes to the papers, and Beckert’s distress increasing kind of justice it wants to see
protesting that the police are not as the chase gathers momentum. for the killer. It’s a sophisticated
publicizing his crimes. Instead approach even now, let alone for an
of trailing Beckert, however, Lang M was Lang’s first “talkie,” and audience that would still have been
cuts to the wider repercussions he makes incredible use of sound, acclimatizing to Lang’s innovations
of the girl’s murder. A reward is and silence. The director subtly with sound and subject matter.
posted, and as the police pursue creates tension in the killer’s very Lang himself—in a long career
first entrance: as he is about to filled with truly great movies—
strike, Beckert whistles a familiar always insisted that M was the
tune—to unsettling effect. Lang finest of them all. ■
uses sound to different but equally

Fritz Lang Director

Born in Vienna Impressed by his talent, the Nazis
in 1890, Fritz asked Lang to head the UFA
Lang made his studio in 1933. Instead, he fled to
directorial debut the US, where he forged a highly
at the German UFA studios with successful career. He died in 1976.
Halbblut (The Weakling) in 1919,
about a man ruined by his love Key movies
for a woman—a recurrent theme
in his movies. After a series of 1922 Dr. Mabuse the Gambler
hits, including science-fiction 1927 Metropolis
classic Metropolis, Lang made 1931 M
his masterpiece with M. 1953 The Big Heat

48

WILL YOU MARRY ME?
DID HE LEAVE YOU ANY
MONEY? ANSWER THE
SECOND QUESTION FIRST

DUCK SOUP / 1933

IN CONTEXT L ike so many From the left, Groucho, Chico,
movies now Harpo, and Zeppo Marx were real-life
GENRE regarded as brothers, who honed their comic
Musical comedy classics, the Marx personas in vaudeville theater.
Brothers’ Duck Soup
DIRECTOR received a mixed reception neighboring Sylvania. With Chico
Leo McCarey from critics when it opened and Harpo working as Trentino’s
in 1933. Now it’s seen for spies, war breaks out between the
WRITERS what it is: a sharp, anarchic, two countries, leading to some of
Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and above all hilarious the most bizarre battle scenes in
Arthur Sheekman, political satire (even if the cinema history. Amid the madcap
Nat Perrin brothers themselves denied encounters, Groucho veers between
doing anything but trying to flirts, insults, and some of his finest
STARS be funny). The movie is a ever quips: “If you can’t get a taxi,
Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, riot of the brothers’ trademark you can leave in a huff.” If that’s
Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, puns and visual gags, including too soon you can leave in a minute
Margaret Dumont the famous mirror scene, in which, and a huff.” ■
after breaking a mirror, Harpo
BEFORE mimics Groucho’s every move
1921 The Marx Brothers’ first to avoid detection.
movie, a short, Humor Risk, is
made. It is now believed lost. Absurd plot
Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly, invited
1929 The first full-length movie for reasons that never become clear
to star them, The Cocoanuts, is to become dictator of Fredonia by the
a musical comedy. wealthy Mrs. Teasdale, played by the
brothers’ regular straight woman,
AFTER Margaret Dumont. Firefly only wants
1935 A Night at the Opera, the Mrs. Teasdale for her money. But he
first Marx Brothers’ movie not has a rival, Trentino, ambassador to
to feature Zeppo, is a hit.
What else to watch: Animal Crackers (1930) ■ Monkey Business (1931) ■
1937 The Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera (1935) ■ A Day at the Races (1937)
seventh movie, A Day at the
Races, is their biggest hit.