Top 10 Films of 1931

1. "M" (Fritz Lang, Germany)

2. "Maedchen In Uniform" (Leontine Sagan, Germany)

3. "La Stella del cinema" (Mario Almirante, Italy)

4. "The Public Enemy" (William Wellman, Warner)

5. "The Smiling Lieutenant" (Ernst Lubitsch, Paramount)

6. "Tabu" (F.W. Murnau, Paramount)

7. "Le Million" (René Clair, France)

8. "City Lights" (Charles Chaplin, United Artists)

9. "Frankenstein" (James Whale, Universal)

10. "Limite" (Mario Peixoto, Brazil)

Other great films:

À nous la liberté (France)
Behind Office Doors

The Blonde Captive 

The Champ
La Chienne (France)
Cimarron
The Criminal Code

Daphnis And Chloe (Greece)
Dracula
Dziesieciu z Pawiaka (Poland)
Five Star Final
A Free Soul
The Front Page
Kameradschaft (Germany)
The Lady And The Beard (Japan)
Little Caesar

The Maltese Falcon

Marius (France)
Monkey Business
Palmy Days
Platinum Blonde
Rich And Strange (UK)
Road To Life (Soviet Union)
Skippy

The Star Witness
Street Scene
The Threepenny Opera (Germany)

Tokyo Chorus (Japan)

Trader Horn

Wizard Of Athens (Greece)

Short Top 3:

1. "Helpmates" (James Parrott, Roach, MGM)

2. "Our Wife" (James W. Horne, Roach, MGM)

3. "The Prague Castle" (Alexander Hackenschmied, Czechoslovakia)

Other great shorts:

Musical Justice
One Good Turn

Scratch-As-Catch-Can

Cartoon Top 10

1. "Wot A Night" (John Foster, George Stallings, RKO)

2. "Bimbo's Initiation" (Dave Fleischer, Paramount)

3. "One More Time" (Rudolf Ising, Warner)

4. "Dizzy Red Riding Hood" (Dave Fleischer, Paramount)

5. "You Don't Know What You're Doin'" (Rudolf Ising, Warner)

6. "Traffic Troubles" (Burt Gillett, Disney)

7. "The Fox Hunt" (Wilfred Jackson, Disney)

8. "Mask-A-Raid" (Dave Fleischer, Paramount)

9. "Laughing Gas" (Ub Iwerks, MGM)

10. "Studie Nr 7" (Oskar Fischinger, Germany)

Other great cartoons:

Adventures Of Juku The Dog (Estonia)
The Bandmaster
The Barnyard Broadcast
The Birthday Party
Bosko Shipwrecked
Bosko's Soda Fountain
Box Car Blues
The Bum Bandit
The Busy Beavers
Cat's Out
The China Plate
The Cuckoo Murder Case
The Delivery Boy
The Dumb Patrol
Fishin' Around

Hittin' The Trail To Hallelujah Land

Jack And The Beanstalk
Making 'Em Move
Mickey Cuts Up
Mickey's Orphans
Minding The Baby

The Moose Hunt

Ragtime Romeo
Red-Headed Baby
Silly Scandals
Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!
Studie Nr 8 (Germany)
Ugly Duckling
Ups 'n Downs
Weenie Roast

Weak films of 1931:

Arrowsmith
Bad Girl
Cham (Poland)
Delicious
East Lynne
The Guardsman
On purge bebe (France)
Pardon Us
Parlor, Bedroom And Bath

Seven Seas Part 1: Virginity Chapter (Japan)
The Sin Of Madelon Claudet
Smart Money
Svengali
Ten Nights In A Barroom
Transatlantic

Weak shorts:

Beau Hunks

Be Big
Catch-As Catch-Can
Chickens Come Home
Come Clean
I Surrender Dear
A Lesson In Love

Weak cartoons:

Ain't Nature Grand ?
Any Little Girl That's A Nice Little Girl
The Beach Party
Big Man From The North
Bimbo's Express
Birds Of A Feather
Blue Rhythm
Bosko's Fox Hunt
Bosko's Holiday
Bosko The Doughboy
The Castaway
The Clock Store
Egyptian Melodies
Fiddlesticks
Kitty From Kansas City
Lady Play Your Mandolin
Mickey's Steps Out
Mother Goose Melodies
Movie Mad
The New Car
The Soup Song
The Spider And The Fly
The Tree's Knees
The Village Barber
The Village Smithy
Yodeling Yokels

Top 3 Musicals of 1931

1. "The Smiling Lieutenant" (Ernst Lubitsch, Paramount)


2. "Le Million" (René Clair, France)


3. "Palmy Days" (Edward Sutherland, United Artists)

La Stella del cinema (1931) *****

A great classic of the Italian cinema, a possible inspiration for "Singin' In The Rain" (1952) and one of the most fascinating inside glimpses into the inner workings of the film industry ever made. And a visual feast for the eyes, with set designs inspired by Italian Futurist paintings.

Tokyo Chorus (1931) ****

Frankenstein (1931) ****

Excellent horror film still packs a wallop. Boris Karloff is superb as the Monster.

Tabu (1931) ****

Limite (1931) ****

A poetic and very experimental silent feature directed by 20-year-old Mario Peixoto (who never made another film again). It's certainly an impressive achievement, although it's no longer possible to claim (as Cinemateca Brasileira did in 1988) that it's the greatest Brazilian movie ever made - considering such post-1988 Brazilian masterworks as 2002's "City Of God" or 2008's "Still Orangutans".

The Maltese Falcon (1931) ****

It's actually an excellent adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's famous novel. But it was inevitably eclipsed by an even better adaptation 10 years later by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart. To put in a proper perspective, this "The Maltese Falcon" was among the best Hollywood movies of 1931, but "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) is still among the best Hollywood movies of all time.

Trader Horn (1931) ***

Wizard Of Athens (1931) ***

Palmy Days (1931) ***

The plot is extremely silly (even by Eddie Cantor's standards), but the musical numbers by Busby Berkeley are superb. Songs:

"Bend Down Sister"  ***
"There Is Nothing Too Good For My Baby"  **
"My Honey Said Yes Yes"  ***

The Lady And The Beard (1931) ***

Yasujiro Ozu's eccentric comedy of manners about a bearded kendo master who falls in love with an office girl. He shaves his beard (after protesting memorably that "all great men have beards!" including Lincoln, Darwin and Marx), puts on a suit and learns the Western ways of wooing a woman, attracting a haughty aristocrat and a gangster floozy in the process. The three very different women represent three feminine responses to the Western modernization of Japan, with the office girl being the ideal (conversant in Western ways while wrapped fetchingly in a kimono).

Little Caesar (1931) ***

The first sound gangster movie, a model for others to follow. Still exciting, thanks to Edward G. Robinson's star-making performance.

A Free Soul (1931) ***

Norma Shearer gives the greatest performance of her career as frivolous playgirl who falls for a charming gangster (Clark Gable in an equally impressive performance that made him a star). But ironically, it was Lionel Barrymore who actually won an Oscar for his fine (but in this film, only third-best) performance as Shearer's father and Gable's lawyer.

Road To Life (1931) ***

Innovative Soviet film about former homeless children becoming model socialist workers.

Rich And Strange (1931) ***

An atypical Hitchcock's film. No murders in this one, only a story of a couple that almost divorces during a vacation on a cruise ship.

The Champ (1931) ***

An old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama about a parent sacrificing everything for a child, but unlike "Stella Dallas", "The Sin Of Madelon Claudet" and countless other films, this time the parent in question is a father.

La Chienne (1931) ***

Curious film by Jean Renoir. A mixture of several genres (black comedy, film noir, murder mystery, etc.), the film starts slow and it's quite tedious in the first half, but stick with it because later on it becomes very interesting, amusing and surprising.

Dziesieciu z Pawiaka (1931) ***

Polish patriots are fighting against Russian occupiers in pre-World War I Poland. A silent film with a few synchronized dialogue scenes.

The Star Witness (1931) ***

Exciting gangster film about a family that witnessed a crime.

The Blonde Captive (1931) ***

Daphnis And Chloe (1931) ***

Cimarron (1931) ***

Epic western, the first to win an Academy Awards for Best Picture (and the only one until 1991).

Five Star Final (1931) ***

A denunciation of tabloid journalism.

Street Scene (1931) ***

A snapshot of lower-class New York reality circa 1931 or a typical Hollywood melodrama about jealous husbands and adulterous wives. A little bit of both, actually.

Skippy (1931) ***

Nice, engaging drama about a young boy from the right side of the tracks and his friends from the wrong side of the tracks.

Transatlantic (1931) **

Melodramatic story of fraud, theft and attempted murder on an ocean liner.

East Lynne (1931) **

Better-than-average, but still very old-fashioned melodrama about a mother losing the custody of her son becausely falsely accused of infidelity by her aristocrat husband.

Arrowsmith (1931) **

John Ford's "heroic doctor" movie, better than most, but hardly a classic.

Svengali (1931) **

The title says it all, but the film is quite average.

Smart Money (1931) **

Edward G. Robinson plays a barber who becomes an illegal gambler.

Ten Nights In A Barroom (1931) *

A sad tale about an alcoholic.

Bad Girl (1931) *

Dated melodrama.

Seven Seas Part 1: Virginity Chapter (1931) *

Silent melodrama by Hiroshi Shimizu. The script was written by Kôgo Noda, based on a novel by Kaitaro Hasegawa (aka Itsuma Maki).

Cham (1931) *

A prostitute marries a naive peasant. Ridiculous melodrama adapted from a novel by Eliza Orzeszkowa.