1933

The Ghoul

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The Ghoul.
Gaumont British Pictures 1933.

Before watching the movie:

It never really seemed consistent to me what kind of supernatural entity a ghoul is. I kind of settled on a subtype of ghost that’s more corporeal than a spectre. I looked up the definition and it wasn’t very helpful. “A monstrous humanoid associated with graveyards and consuming human flesh” is broad enough to include zombies, only this is from pre-Islamic Arabia instead of from Haitian Vodou.

In this movie, Boris Karloff comes back from the dead to get revenge on those who wronged him, but I don’t think he eats flesh, just strangles or snaps necks or something. I expect a lot of overwrought tension that comes off as corny today.

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A Study in Scarlet (1933)

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holmes

scarlet33
A Study in Scarlet. K.B.S. Productions 1933.

Before watching the movie:

A Study in Scarlet is, as the first Holmes story, important, but is also very unlike most other stories, in that half the book completely departs from Watson’s narrative and instead lays down motive. From another point of view, Holmes’s investigation sets up a half-novel romance on the American frontier. I’m interested in seeing how adaptations handle this oddity, though in most cases they handle it by ignoring the second part. On the one hand, it doesn’t have Holmes in it, which is the draw, but on the other, it’s the more cinematic part of the story. I have a sneaking suspicion this movie will dip into it more than most.

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Duck Soup

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Duck Soup. Paramount Pictures 1933.

Before watching the movie:

This was a consideration for May’s classics theme, and probably would have been a better fit than one of them. I was actually planning to include it before I realized that May might have had five Thursdays (the day I write on), but only four Fridays (the day I publish).

Anyway, here’s the Marx brothers doing political satire. On what? I don’t recall, but I think it’s about contemporary US foreign policy.

I had fun keeping up a theme for a month. I’m thinking about doing another themed month soon, but it won’t be July.

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