What's streaming from 1938 and which films should we write about?
Saturday, August 22, 2020 at 3:00PM We'll be celebrating 1938 in between regular programming for the next few weeks as we approach the next Supporting Actress Smackdown (September 14th). But before you do your own '38 movie explorations, hit the Smackdown titles first so you can vote on the big event! They are:
• The Great Waltz - just $1.99 to rent
This nutso musical bio received 3 Oscar noms, winning for cinematography
• Jezebel - just $1.99 to rent
This problematic Southern Belle drama is the one that lifted Bette Davis from exciting new talent to superstar (and won her her second Oscar). 5 Oscar noms, winning both Actress categories
• Merrily We Live - free (with ads) on Tubi
Screwball comedy about a wealthy family taking in hobos. 5 Oscar noms
• Of Human Hearts - $2.99 to rent
Drama about a preacher's family. Supporting Actress was the only nomination
• You Can't Take It With You - $3.99 to rent
Frank Capra comedy. 7 Oscar nominations, winning Picture / Director
And you know what to do after you've screened them VOTE before the morning of Sunday, September 13th.
As you undoubtedly know if you're reading TFE, streaming services aren't particularly kind to films that are more than 20 years old. What's available is utterly random and it disappears suddenly and without warning -- for instance Hulu just decimated their once pretty ok "classics" section (which included our very favourite 1938 film, Bringing Up Baby) between when we began drafting this post a month or so ago and now. Now that section includes only 19 films, half of which are now from the 1980s or later. (They did this just when we had gotten used to telling people that they are way better than Netflix for anything pre 2000s and turned us into liars. AAARRRRRGH.) Anyway, we've done the legwork for you and prepared a list of titles that are currently streaming for free (provided you have certain subscriptions of course) from this particular cinematic year. Let us know in the comments which you're most interested in discussing. This will come as a shocker but we're actually way ahead of the curve this month and have already finished screening all 5 Smackdown titles and most of the 10 Best Picture nominees, too... WUT?
TEN 1938 MOVIES THAT ARE FREE TO STREAM
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (Curtiz & Keighley) free on HBOMax
This beloved swashbuckler starring Errol Flynn & Olivia de Havilland was nominated for 4 Oscars, winning 3 (all of its categories except Best Picture)
ALEXANDER NEVSKY (Eisenstein & Vasilev) free on Criterion Channel
Historical drama about a Russian prince leading an army.
ALGIERS (John Cromwell) free on Amazon Prime
A drama about a jewel thief starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr. 4 Oscar nominations.
BRINGING UP BABY (Howard Hawks) free on HBO Max
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and a leopard named Baby star in this screwball classic.
COWBOY AND THE LADY (Potter, Heisler, & Wyler) free on Amazon Prime
A romantic comedy with Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon. 3 Oscar nominations.
THE DUKE IS TOPS (Ralph Cooper & William L Nolte) free on Amazon Prime
Lena Horne's film debut.
THE LADY VANISHES (Alfred Hitchcock) free on Prime (fuzzy) and HBO Max (good copy)
Hitchcock's penultimate British film before "going Hollywood" is a train set mystery. Hitchcock won Best Director at the NYFCC awards.
PYGMALION (Anthony Asquith & Leslie Howard) free on Criterion Channel AND HBO Max
Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller star as Professor Henry Higgins and Ellza Dolittle. It's the adaptation of the play that inspired My Fair Lady of course. 4 major Oscars nominations including Best Picture, winning for its Screenplay.
THE RAGE OF PARIS (Henry Koster) free on Amazon Prime
This Venice Film festival selection about a husband hunting French girl stars the wonderful Danielle Darrieux who some of you will remember as the grandmother in the all-star musical comedy and French Oscar submission 8 Women (2002).
A WOMAN'S FACE (Gustaf Molander) free on Criterion Channel
One of Ingrid Bergman's last Swedish pictures before going Hollywood. It's a drama about a disfigured woman (de-glam has been with us forever!). Joan Crawford remade this picture in English three years later.
OSCAR-NOMINATED 1938 TITLES THAT ARE CHEAP TO RENT
Have we ever told you that Claude Rains is one of our all time favourite actors?
THE CITADEL (King Vidor) $1.99 on Amazon Prime or Apple TV
Rosalind Russell and Robert Donat star in this drama about high society doctor. 4 Oscar nominations including Best Picture.
FOUR DAUGHTERS (Michael Curtiz) $1.99 on Amazon Prime or Apple TV
Drama about a family of marriage-age daughters. 5 Oscar nominations including Best Picture.
MARIE ANTOINETTE (W.S. Van Dyke) $1.99 on Amazon Prime or Apple TV
Norma Shearer took the Volpi Cup in Venice for Best Actress. 4 Oscar nominations followed.
If you've got lots of movie-watching time this month here are even more free 1938 titles.
MORE FREE '38 FILMS ON HULU
- Love, Honor and Behave (US) Wayne Morris and Priscilla Lane (who has the biggest role in Four Daughters) star in this one about a weakling husband who has trouble asserting himself
MORE FREE '38 FILMS ON CRITERION CHANNEL
Strangely they have zero Hollywood pictures from that year
- La Bête Humaine (France) crime drama from Jean Renoir
- The Challenge (UK) True story mountain-climbing drama
- The Divorce of Lady X (UK) Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier
- Dollar (Sweden) Another of Ingrid Bergman's final Swedish pictures
- The Drum (UK) Zoltan Korda's war adventure starring Sabu
- Hotel du Nord (France) Tied for Best Foreign Film at the NYFCC when it was released two years later in the States
- The Masseurs and a Woman (Japan) A drama about blind masseurs in a mountain retreat
- Olympia (Germany) Leni Reifenstahl's two part propaganda documentary about the Olympic games in Berlin tied as the winner of the Venice Film Festival
- Quadrille (France) a social satire about a newspaper editor
MORE FREE '38 FILMS ON AMAZON PRIME
They mostly have B movies available but some are of interest
- Battle of Broadway (US) Gypsy Rose Lee stars. She was not well received as an actress
- Devil's Party (US) crime drama
- The Frontiersman (US) western
- Gang Bullets (US) crime drama
- God's Stepchildren (US) an early "all colored cast!" drama
- The Goldwyn Follies (US) musical comedy. (2 Oscar nominations)
- I See Ice (UK) musical comedy
- Letter of Introduction (US) showbiz father/daughter drama
- Little Tough Guy (US) crime drama
- Mr Wong Detective (US) Boris Karloff in yellowface as a detective
- Prison Break (US) crime drama
- Saleslady (US) romantic comedy
- Sex Madness (US) along the lines of the more famous Reefer Madness only about "social diseases" instead of drugs
- Shine on Harvest Moon (US) Roy Rogers western
- Spirit of Youth (US) Joe Louis stars in this black drama about a boxer
- Tarzan's Revenge (US) Glenn Morris stars as Tarzan in this knockoff (Weismuller's films were happening concurrently).
- Terror of Tiny Town (US) a western with an "all midget cast!"
- Tough Kid (US) boxing drama
- Under Western Stars (US) Another Roy Rogers western. (Oscar nomination for Song)
- Young and Innocent (UK) A '37 Hitchcock that arrived in the states in 1938.
Reader Comments (24)
The fact that Merrily We Live is so, so similar to My Man Godfrey is so odd to me. A Hal Roach second-rank production with stolid old Brian Aherne as a bargain basement William Powell and Constance Bennett (a thrilling actress, but one on the decline) in the Lombard part. I haven't seen it since childhood and I'm hoping it's better than I remember. Constance Bennett deserves a re-appraisal. Her work in the wicked/wonderful satire Our Betters is thrilling. And of course, she's in What Price Hollywood?, the movie that is rather liberally ripped off in A Star Is Born and all its remakes.
1938 was such a great year for film it's a real shame that there is such a dearth of choices.
Love, Honor and Behave is one of the most vile pieces of crap I've ever seen!! It's horribly sexist which was not that uncommon of films of the time but the way it advocates physical abuse as something that not only is acceptable but desirable is appalling. It also presents fair play and decency as something to sneer at. Just an ugly film with a terrible message.
There are some good films in the list, Robin Hood and La Bête Humaine especially but an awful lot of the cream is missing.
My top 20 for the year:
Holiday
The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Sisters
Sidewalks of London
Marie Antoinette
A Man to Remember
La Bete Humaine
Bringing Up Baby
Four's a Crowd
Mad About Music
The Mad Miss Manton
Jezebel
Angels with Dirty Faces
Four Daughters
Paradise for Three
Happy Landing
Vivacious Lady
A Slight Case of Murder
Carefree
Tarnished Angel
Young and Innocent! Charming and fun little Hitchcock ‘wrong man’ thriller. It’s on criterion channel, I believe.
I'm so glad to hear that HBO Max, Prime, etc are now free! :-) Kidding Nathaniel-- thanks for the monumental task of compiling all of these options! I'm making a list of things I want to see (some of which I was not previously aware of). Looking forward to A Woman's Face, Hotel du Nord, The Masseurs and a Woman, La Bete Humaine, Angels w/ Dirty Faces and maybe more if I have time.
It is a crime how few movies older than 20 yrs are on the subscription streaming services. In addition to ala carte renting and the library, some of these movies can be streamed for free with a library card through Kanopy. I know it's no longer in NYC, but for non-new yorkers, if you have Kanopy, you can stream these for free:
-Pygmalion
- A Woman's Face
- Port of Shadows (classic french crime drama w/ Jean Gabin)
and more too I'm sure. Sadly, Kanopy doesn't let you search by year, just by decade.
thanks again Nathaniel for doing this leg-work with links and all!
My 1930's actressy knowledge only extends to Shearer and Davis.
Missing from the list is Three Comrades starring the magnificent Margaret Sullavan who both Best Actress awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review. The New Times film critic wrote, “ Hers is a shimmering, almost unendurably lovely performance.”
Based on the Erich Maria Remarque, the screenplay was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald with some ghostwriting by Joseph Mankiewicz. The heartbreaking melodrama is the story of three German war buddies and the woman they all love who is dying of tuberculosis.
The 1938 classic film is available on iTunes, Amazon, VUDU, and Microsoft.
Jemes -- every listing i see for Three Comrades details a price you have to pay to watch it. And the list is about 'free to stream' options if you have those various subscriptions
joel6 -- the Mad Miss Manton is one of the pictures that vanished between the first draft of this post and its publication. :( the lesson is when you see a non-super famous old movie streaming for free you should watch it immediately because it might be gone the next day. I stupidly thought. I'll wait until I'm done with the Best Picture nominees.
Olympia, Alexander N., and Robinhood are not to be missed.
I know Bringing Up Baby is the most discussed of these, but there's a reason for that! One of my all-time favorite films... it still makes me laugh out loud.
I am looking forward to rewatching Jezebel, which I haven't seen since I was a teen. I watched A Woman's Face last year and it might be interesting to do a comparison with the Crawford remake (which I think is superior even though I prefer Bergman as an actress).
I surprisingly kind of loved "The Great Waltz". It feels very Baz Luhrmann though I couldn't find any quotes from him on whether he's ever mentioned it as an influence.
Renoir's La Bête Humaine is excellent. Fritz Lang's Human Desire is a remake, and it's also excellent (I slightly prefer Lang's movie because of its riveting leading lady, the always sensational Gloria Grahame).
My Oscar ballot:
Picture: The Adventures of Robin Hood (2nd: Pygmalion)
Actor: Leslie Howard (2nd: Charles Boyer)
Actress: Wendy Hiller (2nd: Bette Davis)
S. Actor: Robert Morley (2nd: John Garfield)
S. Actress: Fay Bainter (2nd: Miliza Korjus)
Director: King Vidor (2nd: Michael Curtiz Angels with Dirty Faces)
Story: Angels with Dirty Faces (2nd: Alexander's Ragtime Band)
Screenplay: Pygmalion (2nd: The Citadel)
Too bad The Lady Vanishes wasn't eligible until 1939, when it received a total of 0 nominations. I wonder if it might have gotten a couple if it was eligible in 1938 and still fresh in their minds. After all, they even nominated the French-language La Grande Illusion for Best Picture. I'll admit I'm prejudiced - it's my all-time favorite Hitchcock.
My library helped me find copies of some movies in previous smackdowns. I know covid 19 has disrupted a lot of services but check if your library is able to rent out items.
Some movies might be available on YouTube but you don't know what the quality will be. Renting older movies is usually cheaper than newer titles.
The Lady Vanishes is really excellent Hitchcock (even though it suffers from impossible movie gunplay).
I would highly recommend signing up for a letterboxd account if you're a cinephile. Not only is it an easy way to keep track of what you watch, but the site is impeccably organized. You can view films by year of release and then filter by streaming (Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, etc.) to see which ones are available on those. Though now that I think about it this aspect of the site might only be available in the Pro (paid) tier, but it amounts to $1.60 a month.
Miliza Korjus in The Great Waltz is a must see. It is in the my opinion the worst performance ever nominated in the Supporting Actress category. It was decades ago that I saw it it but the bit where she composes The Blue Danube by singing along to birds whilst riding in a carriage has to be seen to be believed.
The Lady Vanishes starts a little slowly but it's a lot of fun.
I grew up with "The Great Waltz" because my parents, being classical music lovers, had a soft spot for it despite being well aware of its ridiculousness. They would frequently make fun of what hash the movie makes of the actual facts of Johann Strauss's life (according to my dad, it mixes in some facts from the life of Strauss' father - Johann Strauss I, also famous in his day). There's even a scene in which Strauss composes "Tales from the Vienna Woods" while literally driving through the woods, with an assist from Korjus' character, which is almost certainly completely made up. And yet my parents loved the movie, and that scene in particular, despite or maybe because of its silliness. I didn't share their love as a kid, but now I kind of want to revisit the movie for old time's sake.
Bringing Up Baby is one of my favorite movies. It is still just so funny and Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn are both impossibly adorable in it.
Ferdinand the Bull is streaming on Disney Plus. It's only a short but it won an Oscar. And it's absolutely delightful for an allegory about the Spanish Civil War.
ajn -- i should've mentioned that. IT'S SO GREAT. One of my fav shorts ever.
So many good movies!
The Great Waltz , great opulent fun with Reese Witherspoon dead ringer Miliza Korjus stealing the movie with an appropriate nomination.
Jezebel, why is problematic? Because placed in South?
Merrily We Live, considered mother of future tv sitcoms with two comedy queens, Billie Burke(Oscar nominated) and Constance Bennett not leaving room for others of the amazing cast.
You Can't Take It With You, for some Frank Capra at his best, for others at his worst. Great when is more comedy and less drama.
The Adventures of Robin Hood, Oscar for best costumes easy If It was possible. And for 1939 Gone With The Wind.
Pygmalion, for those who hate My Fair Lady, here Eliza has more time to breath and speak up and drive really Higgins mad and in love(or something close to that). Bernard Shaw was always on her side and hated the chances he made to the script and hated even more the Oscar he won for adapted screenplay.
The Rage of Paris, a Billy Wilder script with those provocative things of Billy Wilder about a french gold digger model.
A Woman's Face, Ingrid Bergman's turn is very good, but Crawford's version is better because the role is better suited for Joan's persona.
Marie Antoinette, who cares about accuracy? That's Hollywood! Norma Shearer ar her best, never so gorgeous or lovely with the usual richness of costumes and art direction from MGM. B&W but you see all the colors. With eyebrows faker than Jean Harlow's Joseph Schildkraut almost stealing the movie as the duc d'Orleans.
Young and Innocent proves that Hitchcock doesn't need movie stars to make an enduring movie. So good he should have remade It in the fifties with full colors like The Man Who Knew Too Much.
1938 is a great year for films, as good as 1939 and 1940. As a George Bernard Shaw fanatic, Pygmalion is a film I have to watch regularly. A perfect example of how to transplant a stage play to cinema. Everything works and the actors are amazing - even If you don't like Leslie Howard, he's wonderful as Henry Higgins. As we know Wendy Hiller made a long and exceptional big screen career with this film, one of the darlings of critics that year and a hit with the moviegoers. Resembling simultaneously Maggie Gyllenhaal and Carrie Mulligan, the perfection of Wendy Hiller is that she plays Eliza Doolittle as one single role, unlikely some actresses who play two roles, one "then" and other "now".