It Happened One Night

Title: It Happened One Night
Year: 1934
Director: Frank Capra
Writer: Robert Riskin, story by Samuel Hopkins Adams
Starring: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert
Music: Howard Jackson, Louis Silvers
Distinctions: Oscars for best picture, director, screenplay (non-original), actor (Gable) and actress (Colbert); currently #134 on IMDb’s Top 250
Length: 105 minutes
Synopsis: a famous heiress on the run from her father is helped by a reporter
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Subjective Rating: 5/10
Objective Rating: 4/10 (gets points for characters, dialog, special effects/design and acting)

Amusing in places, but tedious overall. For much of the movie I was distracted by the fact that a grown woman who was apparently kidnapped by her father is hiding from the police rather than getting their help. And the idea of calling her husband (who she’s trying to get to) never even comes up. It seems very bizarre that it won all the Oscars it did; it’s entertaining, but it’s not by any stretch a Great Film.

The Cat’s-Paw

Title: The Cat’s-Paw
Year: 1934
Director: Sam Taylor
Writer: Sam Taylor, story by Clarence Budington Kelland
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Una Merkel, George Barbier
Music: Alfred Newman
Synopsis: a naive but clever man raised in China becomes mayor of a corrupt American town
How I saw it: “The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection: Vol. 1″ (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Subjective Rating: 7/10
Objective Rating: 7/10 (points off for cinematography, special effects/design and music)

This was completely unexpected. It’s more like a 1980’s movie than something you’d expect to be made by a silent film star. The humor is situational or verbal (including some Muppet-worthy puns), not physical. What’s even more surprising, it was actually a good movie. If they’d cast a “talkie” star in it, it would probably be considered a classic today.