In 1935,
Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping Charles Lindbergh Jr.;
Parker Brothers began selling Monopoly;
Porky Pig debuted;
Persia was renamed Iran;
The Philadelphia Phillies and the Cincinnati Reds played the first nighttime baseball game;
Alcoholics Anonymous was founded;
President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act;
Babe Ruth played in his last Major League Baseball game;
Carl Weiss assassinated Huey Long;
The Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship;
Floyd Patterson, Elvis Presley, Bob Denver, the Amazing Kreskin, Gene Vincent, Sonny Bono, Jimmy Swaggart, Judd Hirsch, M. Emmett Walsh, Mahmoud Abbas, Herb Alpert, Dudley Moore, Charles Grodin, David Prowse, Jack Kemp, Donald Sutherland, Ron Paul, Frank Robinson, Ken Kesey, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Mathis, Julie Andrews, Bruno Sammartino, Luciano Pavarotti, Jerry Orbach, Peter Boyle, Bob Gibson, Woody Allen, Lee Remick, Paul Hornung, and Sandy Koufax were born;
While Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jane Adams, Alfred Dreyfus, T.E. Lawrence, and Ma Barker died.
The following is a list of my favorite films released in 1935:
In the early twentieth century, the Earl of Burnstead gambles away his English manservant, Marmaduke Ruggles (Charles Laughton), to American millionaires Egbert and Effie Floud who promptly take their new employee with them to Red Gap, Washington. In the small, western town, the well-mannered Ruggles is mistaken for a retired English colonel and becomes a reluctant celebrity.
Enamored with American ideals, Ruggles takes dramatic steps to better his life, culminating in an impassioned recitation of the Gettysburg Address.
Laughton is phenomenal and director Leo McCarey deftly balances comedy and drama to produce a fantastic film about American exceptionalism and its profound ability to transcend cultural differences.
On the run with her fugitive father (Edmund Gwenn), Sylvia Scarlett (Katherine Hepburn) pretends to be a young boy to escape the police. While on the lam, the pair befriend fellow con man Jimmy Monkey (Cary Grant).
Way ahead of its time, this film’s exploration of gender roles was too controversial for film audiences in 1935. The resulting poor box office performance briefly derailed Hepburn’s career and led to her branding as “box office poison,” but, in retrospect, its one of her most nuanced performances.
Meanwhile, a young Cary Grant begins to develop the dashing and charming persona which would lead to super-stardom in the following decades.
Audiences watching today will react with a different frame of mind than audiences in the mid 1930s and recognize this as a fine subversive film from Hepburn and her friend and frequent collaborator, director George Cukor.
This version of Victor Hugo’s enduring French epic stars Frederick March as Jean Valjean and Charles Laughton as his archnemesis, Inspector Javert. Most of the English-speaking world is familiar with the story of Valjean from the acclaimed musical adaptation, so I won’t rehash it here.
Suffice it to say, this version is very good. Frederich March is competent as Valjean, and Charles Laughton is impeccably cast as Javert; his menacing glare is a perfect complement to the character, and whenever I listen to my CD, I’ll see Laughton’s scowling face.
7) Alice Adams
Social climber Alice Adams (Katherine Hepburn) resents her family’s poor financial situation. Under false pretenses, she meets the wealthy Arthur Russell (Fred MacMurray) and conspires to court him.
When her gambler brother embarrasses the family in front of Mr. Russell, a despondent Alice assumes her plans have been ruined. Fortunately, Russell has fallen in love with her.
Adapted from the Booth Tarkington novel, the story is simple, but great performances elevate the flimsy material, making it one of the first major successes of director George Stevens’s career. Katherine Hepburn is phenomenal; Fred MacMurray (mostly remembered as the first Disney Legend, or as the star of Double Indemnity) is great in a change of pace role; and Hattie McDaniel is delightful as a bumbling maid.
The framework of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley commending Mary Shelly (Elsa Lanchester) on her inventive story but chastising her because it didn’t meet the established criteria is wonderful. Casting Elsa Lanchester as both Mary Shelley and the titular Bride is a masterstroke.
The design of the bride is one of the best in any film; Dr. Pretorius and his homunculi are delightful.
Karloff is better as the monster in this film than in the original and gets more to do thanks to the blind hermit.
The monster’s semi-redemption at the end is a great story arc and would have been a perfect farewell for the character.
This is is the clear best of the Universal Horror pictures, and the high point of director James Whale’s career, which was curtailed by studio interference in his attempt to direct the sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front.
Thank goodness he managed to get this one done first.
After his mother dies, English boy Gogo says goodbye to his childhood sweetheart, leaves Paris, returns to England where he’s renamed Peter Ibbetson.
Years later, an adult Ibbetson (Gary Cooper) works on the estate of the Duke of Towers and falls in love with the Duke’s wife, Mimsey, only to realize she’s the girl from his childhood in Paris. When the Duke discovers the unconsummated relationship, he confronts Peter. After a scuffle, Peter murders the Duke in self-defense.
Despite his protestations, Ibbetson is convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Fortunately the two would be lovers are so spiritually connected they can communicate through their dreams and visit each other nightly on the astral plane until they pass way.
The childhood separation of Peter and Mimsey was a little too contrived, and I didn’t particularly care for the implication Mimsey married the older Duke for money. However, the last act of this film is a very sweet, moving testament to the possibilities of love.
During the wedding celebration of Theseus and Hippolyta, four Athenians, Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena fall in and out of love with each other, aided by the impish machinations of the King of Fairies, Oberon, and his queen Titania.
Meanwhile, a group of amateur actors prepare a play for the wedding festivities.
This adaptation of Shakespeare’s enduring play is one of the most beautiful films. The crisp, black and white cinematography is stunning. This carefully crafted production was the debut of screen legend Olivia De Havviland (Hermia), the only time James Cagney performed in a Shakespeare production (Bottom), and features a perfectly cast Mickey Rooney as the mischievous fairy, Puck. Eighty years later, it remains one of the best film adaptations of Shakespeare.
Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) wants wealthy Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont) to invest in an opera; tenors Rodolfo Lassparri and Ricardo Baroni compete for a spot in the production and the affection of soprano Rosa Castaldi.
The Marx Brothers’s first film for MGM is not as chaotic and anarchic as their earlier Paramount films. Allegedly, Irving Thalberg wanted their films to have more structure, to feel more like films and less vaudevillian.
Despite the efforts to reign them in, this contains some of the group’s best remembered material: the verbal sparring between Groucho and Chico over a sanity clause and the oft imitated state room scene.
2) Top Hat
American dancer Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) arrives in London and promptly falls in love with Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers). She’s attracted to Travers, but mistakenly thinks he’s Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton), the producer who recently married her friend Madge.
In order to deflect Travers, Tremont agrees to marry fashion designer Alberto Beddini. Fortunately for the star-crossed lovers, she learns the truth in time.
The plot is incidental to the one-liners and musical numbers. Astaire and Rogers are phenomenal and their dance routines have rightly become American treasures. “Cheek to Cheek” has transformed into a cultural signpost, a shorthand for the allegedly more innocent interwar years.
Astaire was an amazing physical performer and his pairing with the equally talented Rogers is among the best recorded dance partnerships. Regrettably, people don’t dance like this anymore.
The film features Rogers good friend Lucille Ball in a small role, an unexpected delight for fans who only know her from her iconic television show; Eric Blore is well cast as Horace’s meddlesome English valet; and Edward Everett Horton burnishes his reputation as one of the unsung heroes of the age. His steady performance as Horace is another in a string of excellent performances providing the background glue for people like Astaire and Rogers to shine.
The captain of the HMS Bounty William Bligh (Charles Laughton) is a sadistic man. His more compassionate lieutenant, Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable), resents Bligh’s mistreatment of the crew, while midshipman Roger Byam (Franchot Tone) is torn between loyalty to both men.
When Bligh’s cruelty results in the death of the ship’s beloved surgeon, the crew mutinies and new captain Christian sets Bligh and his followers adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a small boat.
The mutineers enjoy an idyllic time in Tahiti until a British ship arrives. Christian flees to Pitcarin Island and burns the Bounty, but Byam enthusiastically greets the ship as an opportunity to return home. Unfortunately, it’s captained by a vengeful Bligh who miraculously survived his ordeal. He arrests Byam and takes him to England where he’s court-martialed, but his testimony of Bligh’s behavior earns him a pardon.
All three lead actors were deservingly nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, but sadly, none of them came home with the coveted statue.
While combining an alluring setting, a perfectly cast Gable, one of the greatest film villains, and a dramatic court room scene, this perfect adventure story hints at the unbelievable and fascinating true story of Christian’s descendants on Pitcairn Island.