Reeling In The Years cinema style - 1931

1931 was a banner year for cinema. It was the year of the Universal monster and the year Gangster cinema began it's meteoric rise. The year Hollywood realised genre films made money and that cinema audiences loved films that got their pulses racing. The Hays code hadn't come into full effect and so some of the most famous films ever made were just about able to be released intact.

Dracula & Frankenstein were both released this year to critical acclaim. Audiences lapped them up and made stars of the leads of both movies. Lugosi and Karloff did very well from horror films but both ended up typecast, much to their chagrin, for the rest of their careers.

Frankenstein became the biggest earning film of the year with 12 million dollars ensuring horror films would stay in vogue through the 30's.  
  

Gangster cinema pushed it's way into the public consciousness this year too. Public Enemy was the big one. The controversial moment of screen violence where James Cagney's character pushes a grapefruit into his moll's face caused uproar and crowds flocked to see what the fuss was all about. 

Little Caesar, The Maltese Falcon (not the Bogart version) and The Criminal Code also made an impact. Little Caesar made a star out of Edward G.Robinson who would go on to become a stable of crime and film noir cinema.

M gets released. A German masterpiece that puts both Peter Lorre and expressionist film on the map. It's dual themes of horror and organised crime ensure it does well. And because I'm a decent skin I've added the link to the full film here. (I'll let your moral compass decide what to do here) Director Fritz Lang later moved to America and built a successful career than included the crime masterpiece The Big Heat.



Monkey Business & City Lights. Comedy is to the fore in 1931 as well with two comedy classics from the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin getting released. Almost 9 decades later these two are still wowing audiences with City Lights regularly appearing in Top 10 best film ever lists.

Mata Hari. Greta Garbo is once again the female star of the year and this was her most successful film. An erotically charged spy flick that had audiences stampeding to the cinema. When this was re-released a few years later the Hays code was in full effect and a lot of footage was censored and has never been seen since.

The Champ. Wallace Beery, a silent actor who's career crashed and burned when sound films came along made a stunning reappearance in 1931's biggest weepy. Just like the 1979 remake this one had audiences bawling in the aisles and Beery won himself a best actor Oscar for his troubles.

Cimarron becomes the first western to win best picture at the Oscars. Despite the genre's popularity over the years no western wins again for another 60 years until Dances With Wolves in 1991.

Joan Crawford becomes pregnant with Clark Gable's child and the studio forces her to have an abortion to stave off controversy (Gable was married) and so as not to affect their schedule. An early example of woman as a studio asset and not a person. A situation still happening 87 years later.

Born in 1931 were Rita Moreno, James Dean, James Earl Jones, Olympia Dukakis and Robert Duvall. Dean died tragically in a car crash only 24 years later but all the others are still going strong and still gracing our screens, Rita Moreno in fact is killing in on Netflix at the moment with One Day At A Time.

F.W. Murnau passes away. The director of the classic horror Nosferatu and the drama Sunrise passed away in a car crash only days before his new film Tabu opens in cinemas. The aforementioned two films are to this day still thought of as some of the greatest films ever made.

Better Davis and Ida Lupino made their film debuts in 1931 in Bad Sister and The Love Race respectively. Davis became a superstar and stayed so for nearly 6 decades. Lupino though made massive strides besides acting, becoming the first woman working within the studio system to become a producer and director. A true trailblazer paving the way for others.

1930