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Dan and the 1001 Movies

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1910s

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Pre-1910s

A Trip to the Moon
The Great Train Robbery

1910s

The Birth of a Nation
Les Vampires
Intolerance
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Broken Blossoms

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107: Stella Dallas

US 106m Dir: King Vidor Key Cast: Barbara Stanwyck Stella Dallas is an unusual film which is hard to define. Essentially it's a character study of the titular Stella played by Barbara Stanwyck. Stella is a working class woman determined to better herself and she sets her sights on mill executive Stephen Dallas. After the birth of their daughter Stephen moves to New York and Stella elects to stay in Massachusetts with daughter Laurel. She finds herself having a strong maternal instinct and gradually begins shifting her ambitions to move up in society on to her daughter. Stella is a really complicated character. At the very beginning of the film she is quite likeable and the romance between her and Stephen feels quite convincing. Over time though it's clear any interest she had in the man has gone and she is determined to try to be a social climber. Her daughter changes things though and this is where Stella becomes most conflicting as she remains a pr...

109: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

USA 83m Dir: David Hand (Supervising Director) It's hard to imagine how revolutionary Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was in 1937. Walt Disney had gradually been improving his animation techniques in short films but this first feature film was a huge step up. The first act of the film focuses on Walt Disney's ideas that people could forget they are watching an animation because it seems so realistic. Snow White and the Queen are based on real people and rotoscoping animation is used where real footage of actors is used as the basis for the character's movements. Suddenly though there's a scene where Snow White has nightmarish visions of a forest where the trees have faces and the real benefits of animation come to the fore. I don't really understand why Walt Disney wanted to make animation look realistic- the real benefit of the medium is that you can do so much more with it. The dwarfs are not based on real people and so are proper cartoon characters that...

192: Notorious

US 101m Dir: Alfred Hitchcock Key Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains Original Screenplay This was one of Hitchcock's few 40s films to attract a big cast and it is often said to be the first time he delivered a romance effectively. After her father is convicted of being a Nazi spy, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is recruited by government agent T.R.Devlin (Cary Grant) to serve her country. As the pair travel to Rio and await their assignment they fall in love. Things get complicated when Alicia's assignment turns out to be to seduce Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains), her father's friend and a leading member of a Nazi organisation. The film is a sort of spy-drama love triangle. Alicia and Devlin's relationship is complicated by her assignment and Sebastian senses their affection for each other and is jealous of Devlin, though doesn't know they are spies. The relationship between Alicia and Devlin is really convincing, perhaps aided by the fact that ...

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