Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about feature films.
H.G. Wells wrote the story of Things to Come, which was turned into a film in 1936. The film opens during Christmas 1940 in Everytown (obviously London) right before the outbreak of war. The war lasts almost thirty years before “the Airmen” led by John Cabal, a former resident of Everytown, leads the survivors to victory over the remaining war
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in one of my favorite holiday films, Babe in Toyland (affiliate link) or March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934). It is normally shown around Thanksgiving. This film features Stan Laurel as Stannie Dum and Oliver Hardy as Ollie Dee, who are trying to help Mother Peep, the little old women in the shoe. Barnaby, the wicked
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) released After The Thin Man (1936), the sequel to the popular Thin Man (1934), on Christmas Day 1936. The film is one of 14 films William Powell and Myrna Loy made together. Powell and Loy play Dashiell Hammet’s characters Nick and Nora Charles respectively. Nick Charles formerly worked as a private detective before marrying the wealthy heiress Nora.
Scrooge (1935) is Twickenham Studios version of the Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. Seymour Hicks plays Ebenezer Scrooge, the miserly owner of a London business. He employs an assistant named Bob Cratchit. Scrooge will eventually meet three ghosts on Christmas Eve, who will cause a miraculous change in Scrooge’s attitude towards Christmas and his assistant. Seymour Hicks was born
What happens is the first commercially successful art film. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) was released in January 1920 becoming a German and international sensation. It marked the beginning of the German film revival during the 1920s The German Expressionist Movement in German art strongly influenced this film. Expressionist painters drew buildings sloped at odd angles, oddly shaped furniture,