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matrixschmatrix wrote:I bet if you put all the WC Fields vehicles together he'd make a respectable showing- they're all over the place in the orphans and also rans, but I didn't see one in the actual list.

Note the "non-directors" section of the results. I tracked several others but didn't think they all placed high enough to merit a mention:

The Marx Brothers (6 films, 818 points)
Astaire & Rogers (4 films, 513 points)
Busby Berkeley (5 films, 475 points)
GPO Film Unit (11 films, 408 points)
Walt Disney (7 films, 286 points)
Preston Sturges (2 films, 261 points)
W.C. Fields (6 films, 215 points)
Marcel Pagnol (2 films, 165 points)
Betty Boop (3 films, 124 points)
Laurel & Hardy (2 films, 98 points)

Hah! Dumped my darlings in the wrong thread! Who's a sad panda now?

Anyway, great work, swo, and thanks for the pretty pictures and common-sense wrangling of the project this time around.

zedz wrote:49. Glen Falls Sequence (Crockwell, 1937) – I forget who nudged me to revisit this fascinating experimental grab-bag, but I guess it’s the other guy who voted for it! So thanks.

Other guy here, glad somebody else voted for it.

You voted for a film you found boring?

I gave It's A Gift my number one pick -- and it still didn't make the cut.

Damn, it was a mid-fielder for me, but I kind of wish I had placed it higher now. Ah, well, someone still loves you, Harold Bissonette.

I guess a lot of people haven't seen some of the less-visible Hawks films from this decade. I voted for five Hawks films, and none of them were Scarface or Bringing Up Baby (pretty shocked this outpaced every film but one this round).

Exciting results. Upset I didn't have time to participate this round, but hopefully I'll be able to start playing catchup. This whole thread seems like an incredibly valuable resource.

I returned Swo's result posts a few pages back after removing them for testing purposes. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks Chris.

I'm curious how successful people think the spotlight section was. Did anyone end up including anything on their list that they only checked out because it was mentioned there? Did people appreciate being able to download commercially unavailable films from links posted there, or do most of you have other means to acquire such films? Any suggestions for improvement?

I wound up listing The Good Fairy, which I wouldn't have known about outside the thread- but my interest came more from discussion than the spotlights. It wound up being mostly a list of movies I was guilty that I didn't wind up seeing (though, as I am a Catholic, the fact that something made me feel guilty shouldn't be taken seriously.)

It does seem to me that bringing something up and talking about it is going to attract more people than just putting it as a spotlight- but the links for downloads are absolutely a fantastic idea.

swo17 wrote:I'm curious how successful people think the spotlight section was. Did anyone end up including anything on their list that they only checked out because it was mentioned there? Did people appreciate being able to download commercially unavailable films from links posted there, or do most of you have other means to acquire such films? Any suggestions for improvement?

I am pretty sure that I'd missed Hochbaum's Razzia in St Pauli if Lubitsch hadn't put it in the spotlight - and made it available. But I have to admit, that I am very surprised that it became an orphan of mine, given the prominence of German films on the list.

Edit: This goes for Tange Sazen, too.

Marius is one title that got a good place on my list because it was in the spotlight section. I'm okay with the links, I wouldn't have seen any of them (the linked ones) otherwise, I'm sure of it (Haven't seen them all yet, I must admit...). I'm not cool enough to know where you people find these things.

Even if I can't participate in upcoming lists, I may still dig around in the spotlights. It just shows how much I think it's a great feature. Even though not all of the films were good

Congratulations on a great job running the poll. Thanks also to all the boarders who submitted wonderfully exciting ballots.

Results are priceless, really fascinating. In some aspects they are even more interesting than we got on the IMDb with the Doubling the Canon exercise.

Glad to see a "Spanish" film on the top 100: The Devil Is a Woman.

Films on the top 100 that I don't know (5):
54. Rapt (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1934) 219/6(3)/5/New
57. La petite Lise (Jean Grémillon, 1930) 210/6(2)/1/+13
75. Morgen beginnt das Leben (Werner Hochbaum, 1933) 171/5(1)/7/New
98. Morning's Tree-Lined Street (Mikio Naruse, 1936) 139/4(2)/5/New
99. Der Student von Prag (Arthur Robison, 1935) 136/4(1)/4/New

Just out of interest swo: to which country did you attach Vampyr? Except for the early 30s multi-language versions where the "home base" is easily identifiable and the US films made in England at the end of the 30s, it's very easy to group the films according to country. But Vampyr is really tricky, a Danish director, a German production shot in France in German language with mostly French actors. An international cameraman who at this point worked in France, but a German composer and art design ... this is the one film of the decade whose country of origin I couldn't decide at all.

I also saw that somebody voted for Barnet's Girl with the Hat Box which however was a 20s film before imdb apparently had in the meantime the bright idea to make it 1930 (it's from 1927).

This aside I think the list is a further step in the right direction. Some of the most baffling favorites of the previous list got downscaled or eliminated (Goodbye Mr. Chips, Deserteur). DVD availability helped Japan as well as some pretty singular films like Edge of the World, the internet and fansubs moved some German films or titles like Rapt.

lubitsch wrote:Some of the most baffling favorites of the previous list got downscaled or eliminated (...Deserteur),

Hey, it may be Stalinist propaganda, but it's of artistic and historical interest nonetheless, as are many other 30s Russian films that didn't receive any votes.

lubitsch wrote:Just out of interest swo: to which country did you attach Vampyr?

I only attributed one country to each film. I did this based on the "Country" entry listed on IMDb, or if multiple countries were listed, based on the "Language" field. (For example, I put Ekstase in Austria because it is in German, even though it was apparently a co-production with Czechoslovakia.) IMDb simply shows Germany and German for Vampyr, so that's where I put it. This might not always give the right answer (or a complete one), but I figure it's close enough.

swo17 wrote:I'm curious how successful people think the spotlight section was. Did anyone end up including anything on their list that they only checked out because it was mentioned there? Did people appreciate being able to download commercially unavailable films from links posted there, or do most of you have other means to acquire such films? Any suggestions for improvement?

The spotlight and download sections were greatly appreciated. I hope posting links for downloading unavailable films becomes a mainstay of the lists project as they were an invaluable resource and I'd like to see it continue into the later decades.

Re: the Spotlight question. I didn't use it, but I greatly appreciated the discussion of films in this thread, which prompted me to revisit films I'd forgotten or dismissed or seek out / finally watch new films.

Impact on my list? I'd had Limite and Rapt for a while and would have watched them anyway, but it was their mention here that actually spurred those specific viewings. I think it was lubitsch's discussion of Czech cinema that got me to check my ancient notes on that old Machaty retro and discover it was actually Ecstasy that I liked the best. Michael Kerpan impelled me to seek out Morning's Tree-Lined Streets, so that's one film that I would not have seen without this thread. I've already thanked Murdoch for Glen Falls Sequence, which I definitely wouldn't have revisited without his nudge. Somebody's list of great screwballs included Theodora Goes Wild, which reminded me that it was mouldering in my kevyip, so there's another one, and whoever posted the YouTube link to The Goddess persuaded me to include it, solely on the strength of Ruan Lingyu's incandescent performance.

Plus there were a number of other suggested films that made it into contention (such as my number 51, Swing, You Sinners!) but were squeaked out.

I don't exactly remember who first recommended some of the films that made my list, but I count maybe 10-15 films on my list that I know I only heard of from posts made here, over half of which I'm sure were made by people other than zedz. The poster I'd most like to thank though is HerrSchreck, whose few posts of recommendations were invaluable, turning me onto Poil de carotte, Afraid to Talk, Tod Slaughter, Mad Love, and many other great films that I unfortunately couldn't make room for on my list. I really hope he continues to contribute in future projects.

Y No 4ts Lst Thrd Yt?

Could someone translate for those of us who don't speak l33t.

domino harvey wrote:Y No 4ts Lst Thrd Yt?

Good point.

Good to see Renoir topping the poll, despite all of this railing against 'canons'. No doubt there are some gems that have evaded wider attention, but there is also a reason why great masters come to be recognised as such. In this case, enough time has passed, I believe, for Renoir's status at the greatest of all pre-war filmmakers to be both justified and secure into the forseeable future.

p.s re: country assignation: if you consider that most of these 'American' films were made by Europeans, often those fleeing Nazism, then the picture is somewhat different (it would also be rather odd to consider Vampyr anything other than a Danish film, surely). The Americans can still claim Hawks, however!

Is it too late to do a couple of "desperately seekings"? So many people discussed and voted for Gueule d'Amour and Rapt that I figure they must be relatively easy to access -- yet I've not been able to do so. I'd appreciate any help.