All Quiet on the Western Front B. & W., American, 1,930, with Lew Ayers

Probably the first war movie with sound and still, perhaps, the best.
Erich Maria Remarque's famous post W.W.1 anti-war war novel comes alive on the screen without pulling many punches.
Lew Ayres plays the German infantry man who is thrown into the insanity of pointless trench warfare.
Ayre gives an entirely convincing performance.
There's a scene towards the end of the movie in which Ayres, on leave from the front, is welcomed back to his old class room by his old teacher.
The patriotic old teacher tries to elicit positive remarks on the war from the battle scarred Ayres, but instead receives a stinging, almost nihilistic rebuke from him.

I saw this film many years ago, but I can still remember most of what Ayres said and, especially, the bitterness on his face as he said it.
Ayres says at one point that he prefers life at the front to listening to the home town folk's nonsense, "...because when you're at the front, there's only two kinds of people, those that are dead and those that aren't and there's nothing phony about that."
Or something like that.
Great and true words.

Affected by the movie, Ayres himself was a concientious objector during W.W.2, capsizing his Hollywood career for some years.
He eventually sought and served as an orderly in a field hospital in the European theater of the war.

The Mask of Demetrios B. & W., American, 1,944; with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre plays man who decides, rather on a lark, to investigate an international criminal mastermind known as Demetrios.
He travels to various European countries, tracking the man through his trail of crimes and deceptions.
At each local Lorre's informants tells what he knows of Demetrios through a flash back.
As totally European as Hollywood got in those days and loads of sinister fun as we follow the trail of Demetrios.

Conflict B. & W., American, 1,945; with Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet

Both Bogart and Greenstreet are totally out of their stereotype here.
Bogart plays and engineer who commits a murder, then finds unavoidable clues that his victim is still around.
I think I recall Bogart using a cane for part of the movie; in any case, he is 90 degrees from his usual role as invincible and steel hearted, tough guy.
When the object of his affections refuses him, he just wishes her well and drops the matter.

The failure of this film, popularly at least, shows that much of the public is not, nor ever has been, interested in seeing good character acting.
That would go triple for the miscreants who manage the movie industry.

For these types there are leading men and leading ladies in one catagory, expected to be glamourous on and off camera, portraying some impossible height or nadir of human existence which excites low passions without being able to be taken seriously.
In another category are character actors, expected to fill out the other roles in movies without upstaging the leading man or women.
These character actors actually have to act rather than play themselves over and over as the Gary Coopers, Ava Gardeners and Clark Gables did and as the Mel Gibsons, and Clint Eastwoods do today.
That's not to say these leading men and women can't act out of character, but that they are not expected to and they may be seen to be hurting their careers and their movies if they do.

If you're reading this sort of stuff, you're not likely to be a Hollywood producer or a member of the 'crowd', so go find this movie and enjoy Bogart doing something different.

Letter from an Unknown Woman B. & W., American, 1,949; directed by Max Ophuls, with Louie Jourdan and Joan Fontaine

A tear jerker, but a very effective and satisfying one.
Jourdan plays a dissolute composer in 19th century Europe who has several encounters with a beautiful woman.
The kicker is that he doesn't remember her from one encounter to the next while she has adored him and followed his career since she met him as a teenager when he lived in her building.

Most of the movie takes place as flash backs on the night before the morning of a duel which Jourdan is scheduled to fight with the woman's husband.
Jourdan has no intention of showing up, but his mute and ever faithful valet, serving as his conscience, gives him the letter to read while they are making preparations to flee the town.
Jourdan consumes the entire night reading the letter and remembering and ends by making a fateful decision.

The movie is sad and touching, with a famous and appropriate Lizst piece running throughout the movie.

La Ronde B. & W., French, 1,950; directed by Max Ophuls, with Simone Signoret

A lush, sophisticated, dark comedy based on the famous Schnitzler play.
A dissolute nobleman is having an affair with a woman who is married to a soldier who is having an affair with...well, you get the idea.
The title of the movie should give you a clue as to how it all ends up.
A funny and knowing farce.

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