1932--The Year in Review

Another landmark year for the horror genre with Vampyr, The Mummy, Island of Lost Souls, The Most Dangerous Game, and James Whale's brilliant The Old Dark House making deep impressions. Still, Tod Browning's truly one-of-a-kind film has to emerge victorious, even over the best of Lubischt, Dreyer, Renoir, Hawks, and von Sternberg. Also a great year for short films with Laurel and Hardy delivering their very finest, narrowly beating out a controversial W.C. Fields short, Shirley Temple's film debut, and an impressive show of early Technicolor in Over The Counter. Over in animation, meanwhile, Disney battles it out with the Fleischers and though Flowers and Trees delivers eye-popping color, it's no match for the powerhouse team of Cab Calloway and Betty Boop. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are in no way reflective of the choices made by the Oscars. 

PICTURE: FREAKS (US, Tod Browning)
(2nd: Vampyr (Denmark, Carl Th. Dreyer), followed by:
Trouble in Paradise (US, Ernst Lubischt)
Scarface, or: The Shame of a Nation (US, Howard Hawks)
Boudu Saved From Drowning (France, Jean Renoir)
The Old Dark House (US, James Whale)
Shanghai Express (US, Josef von Sternberg)
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (US, Mervyn Le Roy)
Grand Hotel (US, Edmond Goulding)
The Most Dangerous Game (US, Irving Michel and Ernest B. Schoedsack)
Horse Feathers (US, Norman Z. McLeod))



ACTOR: Paul Muni, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (2nd: Herbert Marshall, Trouble in Paradise, followed by: John Barrymore, Grand Hotel; Michel Simon, Boudu Saved From Drowning; Charles Laughton, Island of Lost Souls; Paul Muni, Scarface, or: The Shame of a Nation) 



ACTRESS: Miriam Hopkins, TROUBLE IN PARADISE (2nd: Marlene Dietrich, Shanghai Express, followed by: Helen Hayes, A Farewell to Arms; Constance Bennett, What Price Hollywood?; Irene Dunne, Back Street)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Lionel Barrymore, GRAND HOTEL (2nd: Edward Everett Horton, Trouble in Paradise, followed by: George Raft, Scarface, or: The Shame of a Nation; Charles Ruggles, Trouble in Paradise; Ernest Thesiger, The Old Dark House)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Eva Moore, THE OLD DARK HOUSE (2nd: Kay Francis, Trouble in Paradise, followed by: Joan Blondell, Three on a Match; Ann Dvorak, Scarface, or: The Shame of a Nation; Mary Astor, Red Dust)

DIRECTOR: Tod Browning, FREAKS (2nd: Carl Th. Dreyer, Vampyr, followed by Ernst Lubischt, Trouble in Paradise; Howard Hawks, Scarface, or: The Shame of a Nation; Jean Renoir, Boudu Saved from Drowning; James Whale, The Old Dark House)

SCREENPLAY: Samson Raphaelson and Grover Jones, TROUBLE IN PARADISE (2nd: Rene Fauchois, Boudu Saved From Drowning, followed by: Ben Hecht, Seaton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin, W.R. Burnett, Scarface, or: The Shame of a Nation; Vicki Baum, Grand Hotel; Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins, Freaks; Harry Hervey and Jules Furthman, Shanghai Express)

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: THE MUSIC BOX (James Parrott) (2nd: The Dentist (Leslie Pierce), County Hospital (James Parrott); Over the Counter (Jack Cummings); War Babies (Charles Lamont))



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: MINNIE THE MOOCHER (Dave Fleischer) (2nd: Flowers and Trees (Walt Disney and Burt Gillet); Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning (Dave Fleischer); Mickey's Nightmare (Walt Disney and Burt Gillet); Boop Oop a Doop (Dave Fleischer))

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Rudolf Mate and Louis Nee, VAMPYR (2nd: Lee Garmes and James Wong Howe, Shanghai Express, followed by: William H. Daniels, Grand Hotel; Arthur Edeson, The Old Dark House; Karl Struss, The Sign of the Cross)

ART DIRECTION: SHANGHAI EXPRESS, The Sign of the Cross, Grand Hotel, Trouble in Paradise

COSTUME DESIGN: SHANGHAI EXPRESS, The Sign of the Cross, Trouble in Paradise, Grand Hotel

MAKEUP: THE MUMMY, Island of Lost Souls, Freaks, The Old Dark House

Film #40: Vampyr

Carl Th. Dreyer’s hallucinatory 1932 Danish masterpiece Vampyr has a unique creepiness all its own. It’s easy to see where some present-day filmmakers (chief among them David Lynch) got some of their ideas once you experience this moody trek through Cortenpierre, where vampire hunter David Grey (Baron Nicholas De Gunzberg, acting under the alias Julien West) has stumbled upon an atmosphere fraught with supernatural dealings. Shadows defy their owners and do as they please; two sisters seem to be decaying into members of the undead; and, in the most famous sequence, David wanders into a room where he sees himself laid out in a flower-bedecked coffin, eyes dreadfully open but nonetheless ready for burial.


Many of Dreyer's previous films--like the incomparable Passion of Joan D'Arc--and later works like Gertrud and Ordet--fell on the more spiritually nurturing side of the fence. But I suppose if you're going to be a filmmaker who admits the chilly existence of God, then you must also be one to recognize the burning face of evil as well. Vampyr does this better than almost any movie I can think of. It's masterfully photographed by Rudolph Mate, later the cinematographer of Hollywood classics like The Lady from Shanghai, Gilda, and Dodsworth. Mate gives the film an otherworldly glow that is difficult to shake come bedtime. Despite its being Dreyer's first sound work, Vampyr is a prime example of a movie that uses silence and darkness--two of a horror movie maker’s best tools--to ultimate, spine-tingling effect.