G Men (1935) - Uninteresting action puff-piece for the modern lawmen

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You nearly put your hands up out of sheer self-protective reflex looking at this intense and beautifully painted, elongated poster for William Keighley's G Men

A lawyer with morals gets headhunted to the newly created Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he becomes unpopular as a 'G' Man, who hunts the country's border-crossing criminals.

 

G Men is written by Seton I. Miller (Calcutta (1946)) and directed by William Keighley (The Match King (1932)).

James Cagney (The Strawberry Blonde (1941)) applies himself as the Government Man hero, (that's what the G stands for), but the film is beneath his talents. It is a standard shoot-em-up, designed as one long PR push for the FBI. The shoot-outs are long and deafening.

G Men is a minor film among the many greats from Warner Brothers in the 1930s.

 

Related post:

 

William Keighley: The Fighting 69th (1940) - Cagney and O'Brien back in familiar dynamic in alright morale war picture

 

Watch 2 minutes from the film here

 

Cost: 307k $

Box office: 1.9 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 6.18 times its cost)

[G Men premiered 18 April (USA) and runs 85 minutes. Warner Bros. produced the film to counteract growing criticism that their popular gangster movies glorified gangsters. Shooting took place in California. The film grossed 1.1 mil. $ (57.9 % of the total gross) in North America, where it was among the year's highest-grossing films. It was nominated for the Best Original Story Oscar, lost to The Scoundrel. Keighley returned with Mary Jane's Pa (1935). Cagney returned in The Irish in Us (1935). 3,560 IMDb users have given G Men a 7.2/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of G Men? 

Danmark (1935) - Henningsen's light-hearted documentary of his own beloved country

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The title still from Poul Henningsen's Danmark

QUICK REVIEW:

Renowned Danish designer, filmmaker and societal influence Poul Henningsen's (Den Opvakte Jomfru (1950), writer) Denmark documentary, known as Danmark/Danmarksfilmen [Denmark/The Denmark Film], is a unique historical source and a fine, uplifting film especially of the Danish agriculture and industry of the 1930s era.

The film starts at sea, and the idea to present a large part of the water-surrounded kingdom from the seaside is excellent. Time has been tough on the film, but many of the Danish landscapes shine through the cobwebs still, and it is also clear from watching Danmark that the Danish people's fame for being a happy and happiness-striving people is not new qualities.
Writer-director Henningsen narrates the film and has chosen a jazz score, composed by Bernhard Christensen (Begynd Dagen med en Sang [Begin the Day with a Song] (1937), song composer), that is light and merry, which might indicate to the outsider that all in Denmark is a trivial delight, which, however, wasn't and still isn't the case.

Watch the first couple of minutes from the documentary here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[The film was ordered by the Danish Foreign Ministry, and the original 55 minute version released became heavily rebuked at the time for its every-day-like, unimpressed form, the jazz and a lot of other things. The ministry made Henningsen re-edit it later that same year. He re-edited the film again to a shorter 31 minute version in 1950. I don't have information of Danmark ever being shown outside of Denmark, although that must have been the ministry's original intention with ordering the film. You can find links for where to see it here.]

What do you think of Poul Henningsen's Danmark?
Does it portray the country and the Danes well in your opinion?

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - The magnificent and mysterious monster bride

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A sombre, beautiful poster for James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein

QUICK REVIEW:

From the Golden Age of studio-created horror movies - especially from Universal Pictures, - James Whale (The Invisible Man (1933)) finally followed his hugely popular 1931 Frankenstein up with The Bride of Frankenstein, which boldly and inventively starts out from a make-believe conversation between Mary Shelly (writer of the original Frankenstein (1818)) and Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. We are then catapulted into the fictional universe of the animated monster again.
Whale has chosen several details from the novel that had not been used in the first film, like the monster's relationship to the old, blind man and its ability to speak, which I think, however, is overused a bit in Bride.
But Boris Karloff (The Mummy (1932)) portrays his tragic figure brilliantly, and Ernest Thesiger (The Ghoul (1933)) is superiorly evil as Dr. Pretorius. The effects, camera and set work is stunning. The fantastic cinematography is by John J. Mescall (Magnificent Obsession (1935)). The film had censorship issues in many countries and is teeming with symbolic, religious and scientific elements that have stirred rich analyses of it in many different directions.
Finally, Bride is always remembered for Elsa Lanchester's (Mary Poppins (1964)) now iconic costume wig, if not for some of its many other appealing, strange, remarkable contents. A great horror classic.

Related review:

Boris Karloff: The Ape (1940) or, The Costume-Crazed Doctor!

Elsa Lanchester as The Bride of Frankenstein in James Whale's horror classic

Watch an original trailer for the movie here

Budget: 0.397 mil. $
Box office: 2 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Bride of Frankenstein?
If you have any funny anecdotes concerning the film, please share them

The 39 Steps (1935) or, Murder and Hijinks!

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A pretty gorgeous poster for Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps is a fun escape movie by British master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window (1954)):

Mr. Hannay (Robert Donat (The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958))) gets into a terrible situation, when a beautiful woman is stabbed to death at his hotel. With foreign agents at his heels, he gets cuffed together with a tiresome woman (Madeleine Carroll (It's All Yours (1937))).  

- SPOILER And, of course, it all ends in a characteristically Hitchcockian big 'bang'. 
The film is entertaining but somewhat overrated: In 1999 the British Film Institute voted it the 4th best British film of the 20th century! Total Film magazine has also voted it among the best British films and best adaptations of all time.
39 Steps is written by Charles Bennett (Balalaika (1939)), with dialog by Ian Hay (Sabotage (1936)), based on John Buchan's 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps.
Hitchcock's best, in my opinion, are; Notorious (1946), Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Wrong Man (1956), and North By Northwest (1959) - all absolute masterpieces.

Wonderful artwork on this poster for Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps

Watch an original trailer for the film here

Cost: 60k £
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[The 39 Steps premiered 6 June (London) and runs 86 minutes. 39 Steps was a big British venture at the time: Donat and Carroll were cast because they were actors that enjoyed familiarity in the States. Shooting took place in Scotland and in England, including London. I can't find any box office figures for the film, - if you have found any, please, let me know where in a comment. Hitchcock returned with Secret Agent (1936). Donat returned in The Ghost Goes West (1935); Carroll in The Case Against Mrs. Ames (1936). The 39 Steps is certified fresh at 96 % with a 8.9/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The 39 Steps?