MY FAVORITE FILMS OF 1932

I know 1939 is considered the banner year for the Golden Age of Hollywood, but I gotta tell ya, I haven’t even begun to tap into all the films that were released in 1932. This was a helluva year.

( Garbo in “As You Desire Me” and “Grand Hotel” )

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FREAKS  –  ( Todd Browning )

It all depends on whose point of view you’re telling. Todd Browning takes us into the world of the bizarre with the story of circus people who are truly the most normal humans in the movie.

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THE MUMMY  –  ( Karl Freund )

                                 Karloff

“Call her. He has dragged her back to Ancient Egypt. Call her. Her love for you will bridge the centuries.”

Poor Imhotep. He did all he did…for love. Karloff can do more covered up in make up than many actors can with fresh-scrubbed faces.

Karloff with lost love, actress Zita Johann. ———->

This is a really good movie.

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RED DUST – ( Victor Fleming )

   
         Harlow and Gable                           Harlow and Mary Astor

Gable’s & Harlow’s chemistry is combustible in the heat of a rubber plantation. But don’t think Mary Astor can’t steam up a thing or two for Gable in her still-waters-run-deep way. Gable’s reach exceeds his grasp as he falls for a married woman out in the jungle. He gets in this predicament throughout the 30’s. My man’s got his hands full.

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THIRTEEN WOMEN –  ( George Archainbaud )

                 Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy

Go on. I hear the roars of laughter because this is on my list. I know Dunne & Loy could have met under better dramatic circumstances being neck and neck in the leading lady department. Quirky, campy maybe, but I enjoy this movie. A woman uses hypnosis to get revenge for past racial injustices. Ahhh those eyes of ‘Ursula Georgi’. This is one of my dream teamings of casting because I think Loy and Dunne are just shades and degrees different in their cool persona of being the comic straight man to the likes of Cary Grant and William Powell. This movie is a hootenanny, and I enjoy it. You know you like it too.

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THREE on a MATCH  – (  Mervyn LeRoy  )

      Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell and Bette Davis

Girls travel in packs of three in movies. Think about it: “Sally, Irene and Mary”, “Three Coins in the Fountain”, “The Pleasure Seekers”, “The Best of Everything”, “Come Fly With Me”, “Three On A Couch” or “The Three Faces of Eve” (oooh, wrong threesome ). It must be an Egyptian thing with the pyramids or something. Now in “Three On A Match” the heat seeking missile in this movie is not Bette Davis or hot to trot Joan Blondell. The It girl in this piece is the great Ann Dvorak who’s the unlucky third on that match. She runs into Lyle Talbot ( rarely a good thing for a girl in the 30’s ), Jack LaRue and Bogie and gets her world turned upside down with kidnapping, drugs, and I daresay a gang rape? Warren William a good guy? Geez, the world really IS upside down. Ann Dvorak is amazing to watch.

(  H O M E   )

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