1930s

Drawing heavily on the poignant novel by Jules Renard on which it is based, Poil de carotte is a modest yet appealing film which has stood the test of time mainly because of the quality of its acting performances and its inherent humanity. It is more memorable than Julien Duvivier’s earlier silent version of 1925, also named Poil de Carotte.
The part of Poil de Carotte was played by 11 year old Robert Lynen, who was alleged to have been discovered whilst walking down the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Lynen is totally captivating and the film made him an instant star, launching what looked like becoming a very promising film career – until he was shot dead whilst fighting against the Germans in 1944. Harry Baur, a legendary stage and film actor (who also died during World War II, allegedly at the hands of the Gestapo), also turns in a typically fine performance. The reconciliation between father and son at the end of the film provides its most enduring image, enough to melt the heart of all but the most stoical of spectators.

Wealthy young Toyomi and Shintaro are in love. However, Shintaro’s father is arranging for him to marry Yurie, the scion of an even wealthier family. The two lovers flee to Tokyo, but when Shintaro returns to proclaim his intent to marry Toyomi, his father browbeats him into attending the marriage meeting with Yurie. Part one of a two-part romance based on a story by noted author Kikuchi Kan.

Thief Gaston Monescu and pickpocket Lily are partners in crime and love. Working for perfume company executive Mariette Colet, the two crooks decide to combine their criminal talents to rob their employer. Under the alias of Monsieur Laval, Gaston uses his position as Mariette's personal secretary to become closer to her. However, he takes things too far when he actually falls in love with Mariette, and has to choose between her and Lily.

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

1935 film by Marcel Pagnol

Life story of a charming scoundrel, with little dialogue other than the star/director's witty narration. As a boy, only he survives a family tragedy when he's deprived of supper (poisonous mushrooms!) for stealing...concluding that dishonesty pays. Through years of dabbling in crime and amusing adventures, two women appear and reappear in his life, a dazzling blonde jewel thief and a stunning brunette gambler. Finally, he meets the mysterious Charbonnier who had saved his life in World War I, leading to the surprising next phase in his career...

A man and a woman arrive in a cafe-hotel near the Belgian frontier. The customers recognize the man from the police's description: his name is Amedee Lange, and he murdered somebody in Paris. Lange was an employee in a printing works. His boss was a real bastard, swindling every one, seducing female workers... One day he fled to avoid facing his creditors, and the workers set up a cooperative to go on working. What then made Lange a killer?

1935 film by Jean Renoir

1935 film directed by James Whale

A silk factory worker is persuaded to support her son's education up to a college level despite their poverty. Many years later, she travels to Tokyo to visit her son.

A comedy about a hobo and a millionaire who swap roles after the millionaire rescues the hobo from a suicide attempt.

Porcelain maker invites a guest to sell him chamber pots, however family problems cause interruptions.

Released in France as La Kermesse Heroique, Carnival in Flanders is set during the long-ago war between the Dutch and Spanish. A tiny village in Flanders is invaded by Spanish troops. The townsfolk have heard of Spanish cruelties in other towns, and decide to deflect the vanquishers by playing dead. This isn't terribly effective (you have to take a breath once in a while), so the wife of the burgomaster tries to soften up the invaders with a lavish carnival. So successful is this venture that the Spaniards allow the village to escape being decimated, or even taxed. An award-winner many times over, Carnival in Flanders was banned in Germany; evidently, Goebbels caught on that director Jacques Feyder and scenarists Bernard Zimmer and Charles Spaak were drawing deliberate parallels between the Spanish and the then-burgeoning Nazis.

A Louisiana con man enters his steamboat into a winner-take-all race with a rival while trying to find a witness to free his nephew, about to be hanged for murder.

Larisa Ogudalova, unlike her sisters, refuses to obey her mother's wish that she marry a wealthy old man in order to collect a dowry

A geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto feels obliged to help her lover when he asks to stay with her after going bankrupt and leaving his wife. However, her younger sister opposes this, thinking that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them.

Set in the port city of Yokohama, two girls, Sunako and Dora who attend a Christian school, pledge to be friends. But when a youth named Henry appears on his motorcycle and offers to take Sunako for a ride, we know that this friendship won't last and that the lives of both girls will change in ways they are barely able to comprehend, and can do little to change.

Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck) is outraged when her minister father is fired after many years of selfless service to make way for a younger man. She tells the congregation what she thinks of their ingratitude. Her bitter, impassioned speech impresses Bob Hornsby (Sam Hardy), who convinces her to become a phony preacher for the donations they can squeeze out of gullible believers. She builds up a devoted national following. Then she meets a blind John Carson (David Manners), falls in love, and the sham comes tumbling down.

1931 film directed by James Whale

Made during the rapid industrialisation and collectivisation of Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. Kaufman countered the poverty of the villages with the geometrical rhythm of mechanised factories; militarisation is shown as the next step of the ‘unprecedented campaign’. "The proletariat, having become master of one sixth of the globe, frees the rural working people from the kulak oppression… THE PROLETARIAT …engages the peasantry in a joint campaign for Socialism. This is what the film speaks about".