The Little Princess (1939)

Only a handful of Hollywood actors from the 1930s are as well remembered today as Shirley Temple, the cutesey child actor, adored by everyone. At the ripe age of ten, Temple made the film The Little Princess. No-one knew it yet, but already her star was waning. The Little Princess was one of her last major successes.

The Little Princess is basically the story of Cinderella, with a few twists thrown in. Shirley plays the girl Sara, whose mother is dead and whose father is going into war. He leaves her to a fine boarding school, where she quickly becomes the mistress’ favourite, and the envy of the other girls. She also gets a few friends among the staff. But things take a sudden turn for the worse when her father is reported dead. All her nice things are taken away, and she is forced to work off her father’s debts.

Today, The Little Princess may seem a bit overly cute and sentimental, and Shirley Temple may seem just a little bit too perfect with her smiles and mannerisms. Ah, but she is gorgeous at the same time. She basically makes the entire film, although several of the adult actors are also very good, and the whole piece is exquisitely well produced from beginning to end.

This film is best enjoyed if you want to discover Shirley Temple, arguably the most celebrated child star in all of Hollywood. If you like this film, there is a good chance that you will also like Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), also available at the Internet Archive. Though Shirley Temple is not in that one.

The Little Princess
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Year: 1939
Running time: 1 h 33 min
Director: Walter Lang
Stars: Shirley Temple
Image quality: Good
Resolution: Medium (653×446; not counting black border)
Sound quality: Good
Best file format: MPEG2 (3.1 G)

Zéro de conduite (1933)

Banned in its own time, but highly influential on later French (and international) film, Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite (Zero for Conduct) is not to be missed.

The setting is a boarding school, where the teachers, or most of them, are pretty mean characters. The pupils decide to take matters into their own hands and revolt. This, of course, is a controversial theme, not least since Vigo takes the children’s side in the conflict. Even today, the notion of empowering children over adults may be found hard to swallow by some.

The film is in many ways experimental and a fore-runner in its use of techniques for visual composition and story-telling. The images may sometimes feel exaggerated, but the exaggeration is also a very conscious tool for directing the viewer’s focus.

The film, as it has been preserved to the world, is only a little over 40 minutes. I have read that it was originally intended to be significantly loger, but was cut contrary to Vigo’s wishes. This is sad, because one of the film’s major problems is that the story-telling feels a bit awkward at times. I think this could have been improved by a longer running time.

This film is best enjoyed by anyone who has the slightest interest in the history of French film. Or just watch it as a great comedy.

Zéro de conduite
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Year: 1933
Running time: 41 min
Language: French (English subtitles)
Director: Jean Vigo
Image quality: Good
Resolution: Medium (704×576)
Sound quality: Good
Best file format: MPEG2 (2.0 G)

Downhill (1927)

Alfred Hitchcock’s early films are only rarely the suspense filled thrillers that we are used to from his later works. There are many dramas and a few comedies. Some are interesting only for tracing Hitchcock’s development, but a few are genuinely good. One of those is Downhill.

Downhill was the second time – after The Lodger (1927) – that Hitchcock used Ivor Novello as his leading actor. Novello, at the time highly popular, also worked on the script. Some believe that the story reflects Novello’s attitudes towards women. He was apparently a homosexual, and the women in Downhill are for the most part treacherous, deceiving and seeking lust or riches. This is a pretty risqué story, even though some of the moral implications may seem very dated today.

Another important theme is that of friendship and trust. The friends Roddy (Novello) and Tim (Robin Irvine, also very good) go to the same school and are interested in the same woman. When Tim makes her pregnant, Roddy takes the blame and is consequently expelled from school and disowned by his father. This is the start of his moral and economic downhill ride in society, a ride which is sometimes depicted with brutal sincerity.

Hitchcock’s image compositions are terribly elegant, sometimes bordering on overdone. The influence from German Expressionism can be clearly seen (F.W. Murnau’s Der letzte Mann (1924) was one of Hitchcock’s major sources of inspiration). In fact, had this film been made in Germany, I am sure it would have been considered part of the German Expressionism.

This film is best enjoyed if you do not expect a “regular” Hitchcock. Downhill is a good silent drama, and Hitchcock is experimenting successfully with visual elements that he were to re-use later in many of his thrillers. The theme of the falsely accused is also used to great effect here. But no thriller or horror elements are to be expected, so while the lover of silent cinema is likely to enjoy this, the casual Hitchcock fan may find it a disappointment.

Downhill
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Year: 1927
Running time: 1 h 22 min
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Stars: Ivor Novello
Image quality: Good
Resolution: Medium (560×416)
Soundtrack: None
Best file format: MPEG4 (969 M)