1934

This film is considered by many to be the finest of the Johnny Weissmuller MGM Tarzan movies. It's a crackling good adventure story that is a real roller coaster ride. The African jungle, considering the B&W photography and primitive special effects, is vividly portrayed as a savage place indeed. Wild animals abound: charging rhinos, stampeding elephants, lions with an attitude, and a tribe of fearsome great apes. An annoyance for Tarzan purists is the portrayal of Tarzan as a hulking brute that only speaks in halting, broken sentences. The character written of by Edgar Rice Burroughs is an intelligent white ape that is fluent in several languages, including native dialects and the animal "language" of the great apes. The Tarzan yell is overdone in this movie, too. Depending on the viewer's tolerance level, it may start to grate as chalk on a chalkboard, especially when Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) gets in the act with her combination soprano Swiss yodel and the familiar "ape call." Again, ERB's Tarzan only gave this fierce victory cry as he stood bloodied and dirty over a vanquished foe, animal or otherwise. In personal combat, Tarzan reverts to his primitive self and truly becomes a denizen of the forest primeval.

Based on a successful stage drama, this historical romance stars Norma Shearer as Elizabeth Barrett, an invalid largely confined to her bed. Elizabeth has little company beyond her dog and her obsessively protective father, Edward Moulton Barrett (Charles Laughton). Her one great passion and means of emotional escape is writing poetry, to which she devotes a large part of her days..

Actually this film should have been titled "Here Comes Jimmy Cagney Again, so Duck!". James Cagney is a bantam-cock sailor who runs up against chief petty officer Pat O'Brien. Seems that Cagney and O'Brien had come to blows early in the film when O'Brien stole Cagney's date at a dance hall. O'Brien resents both Cagney and Cagney's attentions towards O'Brien's sister (Gloria Stuart). The animosity intensifies when O'Brien court-martials Cagney for going AWOL. But all passions are spent when Cagney heroically rescues his shipmates from a raging fire. Here Comes the Navy proved to Jimmy Cagney's fans that he could still deliver the goods even with the tighter movie censorship imposed in 1934.

A far from factual filmed biography of Mexican patriot Pancho Villa, Viva Villa! was written by lengendary screenwriter Ben Hecht. We first meet the young Villa when his father is beaten to death after protesting Diaz' seizure of the Mexican peons' land. Pancho exacts a temporary revenge by knifing one of his father's killers, then heads for the hills, where he organizes a band of renegades. As he "matures," Pancho is played by child actor Phillip Cooper and adult star Wallace Beery.

Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler reunite once again for this musical salute to the West Point Military Academy, including many scenes shot at West Point with "the full cooperation of the United States Army." Powell is Canary Dorcey, a private at a Hawaiian army post where he meets the perky Kitt Fits (Ruby Keeler), and she proceeds to flirt with him..

After several false starts, opera star Grace Moore became a motion picture success in the sublimely assembled One Night of Love. Moore opens the film by losing a radio talent contest in New York. She disconsolately heads to Europe, where the best job she can come up with is singing in a restaurant. Here she is discovered by brilliant voice-teacher Tulio Carminatti, who carefully nurtures Moore until she becomes the toast of the European opera world..

In 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade his 1934 silent classic A Story of Floating Weeds in color with the celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu). Setting his later version in a seaside location, Ozu otherwise preserves the details of his elegantly simple plot wherein an aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunities with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all. Together, the films offer a unique glimpse into the evolution of one of cinema’s greatest directors. A Story of Floating Weeds reveals Ozu in the midst of developing his mode of expression; Floating Weeds reveals his distinct style at its pinnacle. In each, the director captures the joy and sadness in everyday life.