Thunderbolt

[The film was banned in 1930 in Finland by the title Pimeimmässä New Yorkissa.]US © 1929 Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. P: B.P. Fineman. D: Josef von Sternberg. SC: Jules Furthman - dialogue: Herman J. Mankiewicz – from a story by Charles and Jules Furthman. DP: Henry Gerrard. AD: Hans Dreier. ED: Helen Lewis. CAST: George Bancroft ("Thunderbolt" Jim Lang), Fay Wray (Mary, "Ritzy"), Richard Arlen (Bob Morgan). 91 min. Print: UCLA (sound version). Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 23 Sep 2009. - Revisited a fascinating gangster film by Sternberg, the first 20 minutes. - The UCLA print looks great. - The story of Ritzy (Fay Wray) who wants to get rid of the possessive gangster boss Thunderbolt (George Bancroft). - Visually powerful, and with already an assured soundtrack. However, the sound makes it all seems slightly more everyday and commonplace: the sound is professional, but the image is masterful.

Dirigible

Lentävä kuolema. US 1931. D: Frank Capra. Story: Frank Wilber Wead e James Warner Bellah (n.c.); SC: Jo Swerling, Dorothy Howell; DP: Joseph Walker, Elmer Dyer - 1,2:1; ED: Maurice Wright; M: Mischa Bakaleinikoff, David Broekman; S: E. L. Bernds; CAST: Jack Holt (Jack Bradon), Ralph Graves (Frisky Pierce), Fay Wray (Helen Pierce), Hobart Bosworth (Louis Rondele), Roscoe Karns (Sock McGuire), Harold Goodwin (Hansen), Clarence Muse (Clarence), Emmett Corrigan (Admiral Martin), Selmer Jackson (il luogotenente Rowland); P: Harry Cohn, Frank Capra per Columbia Pictures; 35mm. 106’. B&w. From: Sony Columbia. - E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti. Viewed at Cinema Arlecchino, Bologna, 28 June 2009. - A brilliant print. - The last picture of Capra's Marines trilogy, all with Jack Holt and Ralph Graves as rivals for Woman, here played by Fay Wray as the conceited hero's long-suffering wife. - An ugly feature in Frank Capra's films: blatant racism is recurrent. - The dirigible sequences have documentary value. I did not know that Zeppelins had such a role in the U.S. Marines. - The second half of the picture is a harrowing adventure on the Antarctic with a grim fate for the unfortunate flyers. Snow blindness threatens our hero. - Interesting but mediocre.