Melodramatic Love is Well-Realized All Throughout Farewell to Arms

It is World War I. On the Italian front of this worldwide conflict is Lieutenant Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper), an American architect serving as an officer on an ambulance in the Italian Army. A night of drinking leads him to run into English Red Cross nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes). Their first encounter isn't so splendid but a later rendezvous in a garden proves much more fulfilling for both of them. That night, the two of them make love, taking Barkley's virginity in the process. After this night of passion, they realize they love each other. Unfortunately, forces much greater than Henry and Barkley ensure the two are quickly separated. Even across endless miles of trenches and warfare, their love continues to burn bright.

Freaks Is An Early Example Of Humanistic Horror

The circus is basically a relic of bygone eras of family activities at this point and I'm not really all that wistful for the time when they were a prominent fixture of all-ages entertainment. As Patton Oswalt once noted in his stand-up, circuses inherently are creepy and have an extensive history of exploiting people and animals. For an example of pop culture representation of the former element, look no further than the 1932 Tod Browning directed feature Freaks, which is all about following the lives of a large number of physically handicapped individuals who are put on display by a traveling circus as members of their Freak Show exhibit.

An Anemic Ending Sours The Otherwise Enjoyable Taxi!

It's difficult to make a living in any occupation but it's particularly hard for cab drivers working the streets of New York City in the early years of the 1930's as they attempt to go about earning an honest living as larger corporations trying wiggle on the routes these everyday taxi drivers have always worked. This phenomenon soon impacts Pop Riley (Guy Kibbee), whose refusal to give in to the threats of a more powerful taxi driving company result in his taxi being destroyed in an "accidental" crash. Pop is so infuriated by this action that he shoots and kills the man responsible for destroying his taxi which results in Pop being thrown into the slammer.

The 1932 Take On Scarface Still Remains One Of The Best Gangster Movies!

Howard Hughes is like a never-ending source of historical trivia. The guy's eccentric and reclusive private life is already the stuff of legend, and while I was well aware of him having a heavy hand in the film industry, I had no idea he was a staunch fighter against The Production Code (an entity meant to curb raunchy or unsavory behavior in American cinema) while he was the producer of the 1932 version of Scarface. Apparently, he told the directors in charge of this project (Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson) to forego any consideration for having their Scarface adhere to the guidelines of The Production Code and instead focus on making the most realistic and highest quality movie they could.

The Original 1932 Mummy Movie Is More Tedious Than Chilling

And so, in preparation for that new Mummy movie that opens in theaters everywhere this Friday, I've decided to take a deep dive into the Universal Mummy franchise by way of watching all five original Universal Mummy movies as well as the first two Brendan Fraser Mummy movies (I've already seen the third in that series). This journey begins with, of course, the very first Universal Mummy movie, the one in 1932 that kicked things off for the franchise and reaffirmed Boris Karloff (who also played Frankenstein's Monster for Universal in this era) as a prominent fixture of monster movie mayhem in this era.