1930

Animal Crackers

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Animal Crackers. Paramount Pictures 1930.

Before watching the movie:

Once again, this movie is not in the public domain yet, but thanks to being based on a stage musical, the score and song lyrics are. Though apparently not the script of that stage show, which I don’t know the legal mechanisms behind. Aside from Marx Brothers Vaudeville schtick, I don’t really know what to expect here.

When I think “Animal Crackers” and musical, I think of the song made famous by Shirley Temple, but it seems not even the song is here, let alone Temple, so I’m already going in a little disappointed.

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All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

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All Quiet on the Western Front. Universal Studios 1930.

Before watching the movie:

While this movie’s copyright has not expired, the book is as of this year in the public domain (and so is the original English translation, which I hadn’t realized came so quickly after). I’ve considered coming to this one a few times when an antiwar story would have topical currency, but I never made it all the way.

I mostly know only in vague terms how directly this story illustrates the hell and futility of war, aside from having heard of the scene where a protagonist kills an enemy soldier in a foxhole and, on examining the dead man’s pockets, realizes just how relatably human the “enemy” really is.

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