Stage Door (1937, USA) – Loud comedy about a boardhouse for girls who want to make it in the theatre. I especially like the scenes where Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn are sniping at each other. (Now why is is that the few 30’s movies I’ve seen that are Bechdel compliant are about actresses?) Watched it all.

Festliches Nürnberg (1937, Germany) – Having finally freed itself from Jewish oppression, the German people celebrates with a spontaneous outburst of goosestepping. You know, sometimes I feel sorry for the regular German people I see in these movies. Other times I feel they got just what they deserved.

Marked Woman (1937, USA) – This gangster movie taught me a new word: clip joint, a shady club that scams its customers. Watched: 23 minutes.

Paradise Isle (1937, USA) – An American washes ashore a South Sea island where the white men (including himself) are arrogant jerks, and the natives are happy, subservient and child-like. Watched: 15 minutes.

Pensionat Paradiset (1937, Sweden) – Light summer vacation farce. Watched: 18 minutes.

Kid Galahad (1937, USA) – Just some lousy boxing movie. Watched: 6 minutes.

Nothing Sacred (1937, USA) – I love what this satire about a fake victim of radiation poisoning who becomes the darling of the New York press is trying to do: It’s full of odd jokes and black humor. That doesn’t save it from being, at times, kind of bad, but I refuse to hold that against it. Oh, poor, doomed Hazel Flagg! Watched it all.

Captains Courageous (1937, USA) – A spoiled rich kid learns the joy of honest labor. The star here isn’t Spencer Tracy, but the kid, Freddie Bartholomew, who manages to be both obnoxious and likeable. Watched it all.

Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937, USA) – This is the most stupid crime movie I’ve ever seen. Charlie Chan, a Chinese-American detective who speaks easternish platitudes in broken English, travels to the Berlin Olympics to retrieve a stolen gizmo. Watched: 43 minutes, in hope of seing a portrayal of Nazi Berlin, but the movie takes place in an alternate universe where Hitler never happened.

Blake of Scotland Yard (1937, USA) – The British really sucked at movies in the 30’s, didn’t they? A scientist invents a giant death ray, hoping thereby to end all war, presumably by obliterating the enemy. Watched: 9 minutes.

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937, USA) – Grown-up children don’t care about their sad, lonely, old parents. Watched: 32 minutes. IMDB reviewers say not to watch this if you feel suicidal.

Heidi (1937, USA) – Opens with Shirley Temple stripping(!), followed by Shirley Temple being cute. I loathe Shirley Temple, and I suspect her fans. Watched: 8 minutes.

Black Legion (1937, USA) – Didactic drama about the rise of a KKK-like movement of working class fascists. Not good, but it’s the first 30’s movie I’ve seen so far to deal with the most relevant subject of the decade. Watched: 38 minutes.

The Lower Depths (1936, France) – A thief, a bankrupt baron, and assorted poor people live in a lodging house. Based on Maxim Gorky’s play. I think I rather like socialist realism, especially when it’s done with grim humor. Watched it all.

Big Brown Eyes (1936, USA) – Fast-talking crime comedy, with many right ingredients, but I just don’t care. Watched: 10 minutes.

Winds of the Wasteland (1936, USA) – These old westerns almost make me not like westerns any more. How dreadful! Watched: 8 minutes.

Mayerling (1936, France) – Wonderful historical romance. The crown prince of Austria-Hungary finds the love of his life in 1880s Vienna. Correct in the outline, though the events are a matter of historical controversy to this day. Watched it all.

Klondike Annie (1936, USA) – Any definition of pornography that doesn’t include Mae West’s smile is deficient. But she can’t act, and neither can anyone else in this movie. Watched: 16 minutes.

San Francisco (1936, USA) – I am prejudiced against movies that begin by solemnly informing you that the uninteresting people (including Clark Gable at his most despiccable) you’re about to meet may all die horribly at the end. In this case the disaster is the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but the same applies to, say, the Titanic and Pearl Harbor. Watched: 11 minutes.

Wedding Present (1936, USA) – Cary Grant, the man’s man who put modern boy-men to shame, (yes!), plays a boy-man with an annoying sense of humor. Watched: 8 minutes.

Pépé le Moko (1936, France) – Excellent gangster drama, set in the Casbah in Algiers. Watched it all. IMDB reviewers say it invented noir. I say you should follow up with The Battle of Algiers.

Windbag the Sailor (1936, UK) – An old man who pretends to have been a sailor is tricked into captaining a doomed vessel. He inevitably ends up king of a cannibal island. Watched it all. Not very funny, but .. it’s British humor, finally!

Follow the Fleet (1936, USA) – Who needs medicare and the 35c flat rate fare, when Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are dancing through the air? (I’ll soon run out of obscure song references, I promise.) Watched it all.

Satan Met a Lady (1936, USA) – A crime comedy with the actual comedy removed, leaving only unappealing cynicism behind. Watched: 20 minutes. IMDB claims it’s based on the The Maltese Falcon. I refuse to believe it!

The Garden of Allah (1936, USA) – It’s good to see a 30’s movie In Glorious Technicolor ™ at last, but what a mess the story is. You can’t cast Marlene Dietrich in a straight and boring drama. The sprinkle of oriental stereotypes don’t make it exotic, just stupid. Watched: 21 minutes.

Libeled Lady (1936, USA) – Some people are trying to frame some other people as part of some intricate plot. Charming nonsense, saved by William Powell and Myrna Loy redoing their parts from The Thin Man. Watched it all.

My Man Godfrey (1936, USA) – A hobo with a Harvard degree gets hired as a butler for a family of rich assholes. Darker than Wodehouse, lighter than Blackadder. Best scene: The opening, where New York’s wealthiest decadents go on a scavenger hunt for “lost men” in the city dump. Watched it all.

Things to Come (1936, UK) – Powerful anti-war science fiction. In the distant year of 1940, war drags the world down a seemingly neverending spiral of violence and disease. Eventually a strong but peaceful world government arises, creating a new world order based on reason, science and preposterous clothing. Watched it all.

Next Time We Love (1936, USA) – Bloodless romance, with James Stewart back when he was so young his best smile just made him look sleazy and stupid. Watched: 9 minutes.

Ceiling Zero (1936, USA) – Dedicated to the brave young men in the U.S. Air Mail Service. Watched 8 minutes. IMDB reviewers say the rest sucks too.

Swing Time (1936, USA) – Wave your hands in the air / And wave ‘em like you just don’t care / Like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire / My main man Yogi Bear. Not as good as Top Hat. Watched: 55 minutes.

Desire (1936, USA) – Con woman Marlene Dietrich hooks up with regular joe Gary Cooper. It’ll never last! But I do wish they’d shown the scene where he gives her a spanking for being a perl thief. Watched it all.

Fury (1936, USA) – Spencer Tracy, a stranger innocently arrested for kidnapping, faces the insane rage of a small town. This is a shocking movie about mob rule and revenge, with many unforgettable scenes. Fury is essentially an indictment of the masses for the murder of Justice. Its outlook is so cynical that even the somewhat happy ending, (whether forced on Fritz Lang by the studio or not), doesn’t resolve anything.

The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936, USA) – Errol Flynn was the Lord Flashheart of old Hollywood. The good thing about him starring in this movie is the hope that his character will die in the charge. The bad thing is that one fears he will somehow find a way to lead the light brigade to victory at the battle of Balaklava. Watched: 18 minutes, then fast forwarded to the end, where Errol Flynn dies(!!), although in an annoyingly glorious manner.

After the Thin Man (1936, USA) – Nick Charles is an alcoholic ex-detective, back when this was a sign of sophistication. In this second Thin Man movie based on Dashiell Hammett’s novels, there are further horrible relatives, farcical crime plots, and Clues liberally sprinkled everywhere. Watched it all.

The Dark Hour (1936, USA) – A murder mystery with no good qualities. One of the worst movies in the marathon so far. Watched: 13 minutes.

Sweeney Todd (1936, UK) – I didn’t like Tim Burton’s version, and this one isn’t even pretty – or audible. Watched: 16 minutes.