Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)

"A man doesn’t tell a woman what to do; she tells herself."

Despite its superior artistry, Alfred Hitchcock’s noir romance Notorious never attained the same degree of notoriety as the Michael Curtiz’s comparable Casablanca. The two classics share a number of important aspects: captivating star Ingrid Bergman, consummate character actor Claude Rains, and a plot fueled by Nazi intrigue that forces patriotic loyalties in conflict with deepest individual desires. The master of suspense brings an unmatched level of restraint to every aspect of this work. The postwar spy story requires the characters to conceal the truth, and forces the actors to reveal their thoughts through the smallest nuances of facial expressions. Leading man Cary Grant plays against type, burying his manic screwball charm under layers of self-control. The film’s romantic moments manage to duplicate the same tension level as the thrilling espionage scenes. Under a mask of bitterness, the two lovers hide their own vulnerabilities as tirelessly as they protect their undercover identities. Hitchcock’s stylistic flourishes (rotating camera, tracking shots, zooms, edits) make a lasting impact, because he holds back the most powerful punches until the ideal knockout moment.

Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese)

"You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets."

Before Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, and Harvey Keitel achieved legendary status, the three young men collaborated on the low-budget crime drama Mean Streets in 1973. As a smaller, independent film, it lacks the polish of something like Coppola's The Godfather (1972). Too much polishing here would obscure rather than illuminate Scorsese's subject. Most scenes revolve around petty, unglamorous criminal activity: low-level scams, debt collection, shakedowns, vandalism, drunken brawls, and senseless shootings. In short, these crimes are disorganized. The title uses the word 'Mean' not just in its ordinary sense, to suggest anger and cruelty, but the word unearths its more traditional associations: the low, dirty, small, and ugly aspects of life. The people near the bottom of the barrel prey on the few people unfortunate enough to be below them. Meticulous craftsmanship infuses every sight and sound with authenticity. Handheld cameras bring the audience into the barrooms, the bathrooms, the bedrooms; the back-rows, the backseats, and the back-alleys, to breathe the same air as its characters. Scorsese's conflicted attitude towards his 1970s Hells Kitchen setting (genuine affection along with genuine loathing) emerges through this intimate story. Protagonist Charlie (Keitel) stands in for the filmmaker. Burdened under Catholic guilt, he attempts to make a better life for himself, but only while fixing the tragic flaws of his friends at the same time. His longtime companion, the violent Johnny Boy (DeNiro), acts on impulse without any greater plan, dragging everyone else back down to his level. The character fails to find the proper equilibrium between the loyalties to religion, community, and self, but with any luck Scorsese himself may have achieved some balance, through his art.

Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton)

"Pussy Galore? I must be dreaming."

It might be fair to say that if you don't like Goldfinger, then you don't like James Bond movies. Scottish star Sean Connery is widely considered to be the true incarnation of the British agent, and Goldfinger often receives mention as the greatest entry in the most successful franchise of all time. Goldfinger is not only an action movie, but an action movie template: slick introductory scene, catchy theme song, flashy opening credits, beautiful women, more than one roll-in-the-proverbial-and-actual-hay, puns and innuendo, inventive ways to kill, some high-stakes cardplaying, expensive drinks, a gadget session with some new toys, ego-stroking flirtations with the secretary, a briefing from the ineffectual boss, an obligatory car chase, plenty of mindless thugs, a series of captures and escapes, a ticking time bomb in need of defusing, and an escalation into a spectacle-heavy finale. The James Bond universe is by no means realistic, but instead a PG version of how most men would like the world to work. The story, the props, and the supporting characters all serve the same function as the Bond's signature tuxedo: accessories to make him look cool. This film's iconic trio of antagonists become mere subjects for Bond's conquest: outwit the mastermind criminal (the soliloquizing Goldfinger) on the biggest scale, defeat the physically dominant rival (the silent Oddjob) in hand to hand combat, and seduce the femme fatale (the vaguely lesbian Pussy Galore) through masculine charm. Goldfinger delivers what all James Bond films promise to deliver, a shameless male fantasy that is equal parts violent, sexual, materialistic, and comedic. Perhaps sensing that something was still lacking, this one even finds time for an extended golfing sequence.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)

"Strange, isn’t it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

After surviving the Great Depression, the Second World War claimed over 60 million human lives between 1937 and 1945. The final months of 1946 saw the release of three classic films: William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives, Michael Powell’s A Matter of Life and Death, and Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. As those echoing titles suggest, the era’s greatest directors were preoccupied with find some perspective to help the human race to continue living. Much like Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Capra’s soul-searching flashbacks show the audience the moments that transformed a boy playing in the snow to a tired adult man on the brink of death. Whereas Welles set out to find the meaning in the life of a great man, Capra’s story finds the value in the life of ordinary man (who nonetheless demonstrates his own greatness). A simple fantasy premise involving a guardian angel becomes as a thought experiment to answer the question quite directly. After a lifetime of cashing in his dreams to bail out his ungratefully needy small-town, he comes to see himself as nothing more than $500 of life insurance. A prolonged vision sequence reveals a world where he never existed, using the negative to expose the positive. Brought to life by the legendary Hollywood everyman James Stewart, George Bailey shows that the highest emotional peaks can be reached only after exploring the lowest depths of despair. Despite countless parodies and valid complaints of sentimentality, his journey retains its emotional power. Sooner or later, misfortunes will pile up and every man finds himself staring over the edge like George Bailey. Without the benefit of miracles of the heavenly or fictional variety, perspective is our only guardian angel.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008, David Fincher)

"Your life is defined by its opportunities... even the ones you miss."

Although The Curious Case of Benjamin Button suffers from a cumbersome and somewhat bland title, but the adjective ‘curious’ perfectly describes the final product. Filmmaker David Fincher made a name for himself as Hollywood’s prince of darkness: the bleak subject matter of his neo-noir thrillers could be matched only by his color palette. His often detached sensibilities made him a strange choice indeed to visualize Eric Roth’s screen adaptation of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s short story. The cradle-to-cradle tale of an oddball loner who ages backward through a tortured lifelong romance, would seem to require the light heart of someone like Spielberg (who not coincidentally was originally attached to the project). Roth’s screenplay achieves little with its potentially intriguing premise, and, as many viewers noted, instead comes across as a generic retread of the chocolate-box life lessons from Roth’s own Forrest Gump, only without the jokes. Fincher’s perfectionist tendencies still ensure that the film impresses on a technical level, using computer graphics masterfully to blur the line that separates special effects from cinematography and makeup. However, the combination of monotone voiceover narration, flat characterizations, ineffective symbolism, and a meandering narrative structure drains the film of whatever visual power it possesses. The script detracts so much that the film’s two-minute teaser trailer, a silent montage of striking images synchronized to “Aquarium: Carnival of the Animals,” remains a significantly stronger artistic achievement than the nearly three-hour film it advertises. The Curious Case deserves credit for replicating a full century of time periods and ages while maintaining a consistent style, but the work still lacks any unifying vision. Perhaps the film, like its protagonist, developed backwards. Benjamin Button began its life as a bloated $100 million blockbuster and a double-digit Oscar contender, instead of growing up naturally from an infant story worth telling.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939, Frank Capra)

“I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for.”

The path to adulthood requires a series of compromises with many youthful ideals. As the famous saying goes: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I understood as a child; I thought as a child; but, when I became a man, I put away childish things.” With Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the great American director Frank Capra crafted a timeless cinematic reminder that most adults put away one too many things during that process. The principal characters of Capra’s political drama each represent different positions on the spectrum from naïveté to cynicism. The titular Jefferson Smith (in a justifiably career-making performance from James Stewart) brings the purity of a literal boy scout to the chambers of the United States Senate. His incorruptible nature creates a problem for amoral business tycoon Jim Taylor, who controls the switches for the home state’s political machine. The tropics between these two poles are inhabited by the jaded realism of Smith’s world-weary assistant Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur) and the pragmatic utilitarianism of senior senator Joseph Paine (the eminent Claude Rains). Capra's film transforms potentially tedious congressional procedure into a thrilling battle of wills. The boyish Jeff requires both veteran savvy and a soldier’s fortitude. Not all our ideals shared with children are immature, and adult cynicism often results from childish cowardice rather than genuine wisdom.

The Seventh Seal (1957, Ingmar Bergman)

“ This is my hand. I can turn it. The blood is still running in it. The sun is still in the sky and the wind is blowing. And I... I, Antonius Block, play chess with Death.”

With The Seventh Seal, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman cried out to the heavens, and then to the depths. He died half a century later, still waiting to hear a response. This film lives on, remembered more widely than any other work from his distinguished career, due to its stark imagery and its direct treatment of a subject as universal today as it was during the Middle Ages. Death is inescapable. Bergman dramatizes the human struggle with mortality through the story of a medieval knight, Antonius Block, playing chess against the Grim Reaper. His opponent is unbeatable, and even the most cunning tactics will only delay the end-game as long as possible. The film’s setting allows Bergman to emphasize the desperate follies that a society will embrace in its attempts to outmaneuver Death. The Bishop (organized religion) offers the empty promise of immortality. Knights will wage murderous crusades for the glory of their god. Waves of Pawns will be sacrificed (here, the torture and burning of heretics) to win divine favor. Even the strongest castle fortress, represented by the Rook, provides no defense against the Black Death (through the bubonic plague or some other form). Seemingly, the most sensible strategy for any man is to devote himself to his Queen, to enjoy the pleasures of life while it lasts.

Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick)

“Though this encounter is not recorded in any history books, it was memorable enough for those who took part.”

After making three masterpieces about the future, Stanley Kubrick returned to the past with an extravagant adaptation of a nineteenth century novel. This film chronicles the unremarkable life of Irish peasant Redmond Barry, a thoroughly ignoble and selfish weakling, as he rises and falls in the British aristocracy. Throughout the epic, Kubrick alludes to paintings: often literally as set decoration, sometimes visually through his shot compositions, and other times metaphorically through a narrator that treats every event as rigidly predetermined. Barry himself is flat, static, immobile, a prisoner of his own nature and circumstances. The background for this portrait, the society around him, is rigid in its own way. The culture obsessively imposes man-made rules upon this chaotic existence: rituals for dueling, war, military protocol, titles, social status, secession rights, marital obligations, and card games. The characters go to ridiculous lengths to bribe and cheat their way around their own equally ridiculous rules. In truth, the dispassionate universe obeys its own laws of chance and causality, without any regard for human concepts of fairness. Most stories begin by looking at the background and then zoom in on an individual. In Barry Lyndon, both Kubrick’s camera and his narrative does exactly the opposite. Perhaps the only way to view humanity objectively is to step back far enough that the humans appear to be objects.

Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson)

"There are stories of coincidence and chance, of intersections and strange things told, and which is which and who only knows? And we generally say, "Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn't believe it." Someone's so-and-so met someone else's so-and-so and so on. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time.”

Following the trail blazed by American pioneer Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson helped popularize a peculiar subgenre, the ensemble drama with intersecting storylines. Three subsequent Oscar winners used a similar canvas to explore the scope of a particular issue (Traffic: drugs; Crash: prejudice Babel: language). In Anderson’s Magnolia the means are ends in themselves. An energetic opening montage, coupled with voice-over narration, recreates a series of unbelievable yet factual stories. Not content to tell a story with an implausible plot, Magnolia aspires to tell a story about implausibility itself. Patterns emerge as the camera follows the simultaneous melodramas of a double-digit collection of characters. Seemingly everyone’s life is filled with suffering and regret. These people are not only similar, but in a sense they become one unified character, wrestling with terminal cancer, drug abuse, marital infidelity, and child cruelty from every angle. This person also screams out so many curses from the cradle to the grave, that a diagnosis of Tourette syndrome might be appropriate. Each cast member exercises his vocal cords and flexes his emotive muscles. Two hours after the audacious opening sequence, Anderson makes another bold creative decision to use music to highlight their interconnectedness. Another half hour later, he becomes even bolder by manipulating the weather, almost with the divine hand of fate. This nonstop barrage of human misery, punctuated by these instances of the filmmaker’s bravado, either elevates itself to masterpiece status or collapses under its own ambitions (depending upon your perspective).

The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)

"Them Okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain't human. Human being wouldn't live the way they do. Human being couldn't stand to be so miserable.”

Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane became the default choice for greatest American film, but Welles himself preferred “the old masters,” by which he meant: “John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.” With striking black-and-white photography, flawless editing, and revelatory performances, Ford’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize-winning novel makes a strong claim for Kane’s lofty position. The Grapes of Wrath surrounds the viewer with the profound sadness of a Beethoven sonata. Before the story even begins, the characters already have suffered as many hardships than the heroes at the ending of a tragedy. Darwin, however, would offer more insight into this story than Aristotle. The Joads, a family of Oklahoma sharecroppers, have become an obsolete organism. Nature has reduced their once fertile soil to a dusty wasteland. Whenever they manage to pick themselves off the ground, some harsh force drives them back down, whether natural, economic, legal, or political. Their struggle to survive even requires physical acts of self-defense. Nevertheless, this species retains its dignity. Their search for meaning amidst such suffering elevates their humble dialect to poetry. Beyond their words, though, a gallery of genuinely woeful faces will haunt the viewer quite permanently.

Fargo (1996, Ethan and Joel Coen)

"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it.”

Ethan and Joel Coen have more than earned a place alongside the greatest American filmmakers. Although the list of notable Coen films has reached double digits, the Brothers' most remembered work remains this 1996 crime masterpiece. Inspired by their own experiences growing up in the American Midwest, the Coens meticulously re-create every mannerism of the residents of small-town North Dakota and Minnesota. Somehow, the filmmakers manage to find endless laughs at the expense of the locals, while remaining respectful and affectionate toward them. Framed by the visionary cinematography of Roger Deakins, Fargo’s flat, desolate, snow-covered landscapes stretch as far as the eye can see. In its own way, the sheer look of this environment becomes as important an element of the storytelling as the sinister silouettes of The Night of the Hunter, the scorching deserts of Lawrence of Arabia, or the rainy cityscapes of Blade Runner. These images become an indispensible metaphor for the empty souls of its pathetic and lonely characters. As with many other Coen films, the plot revolves around a suitcase full of money; the story explores the depths to which people will sink, in order to get their hands on it. Feeble car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hires a pair of petty criminals, one a conniving weasel (Steve Buscemi) and the other a stone-cold psychopath (Peter Stormare). The scheme requires kidnapping his own wife, so that he can extort a ransom from his wealthy father-in-law (Harve Presnell). These four men lie and cheat to keep as much of the million-dollar payment as possible, while leaving a trail of blood in the snow behind them. Miraculously, amidst this meteorological and moral wasteland, an unstoppable ray of sunlight emerges. Pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) melts away all traces of icy nihilism, with her genuinely honest and cheerful approach to detective work and life in general. Even though this story may not have been “based on true events” as the title cards proclaim, few stories offer a more truthful look at the extent of human capacity for depravity, but also for decency.

King Kong (1933, Martin C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack)

“Oh, no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.”

A few human characters drive the plot of King Kong forward: the beautiful actress Ann Darrow, the lavish showman Carl Denham, and the gallant hero John Driscoll. However, the human drama acts only as a sideshow for the main attraction. The title speaks the truth, because Kong is the king of his own movie; he is a tragic hero in the form of a 25-foot gorilla. The visual effects used to animate Kong are not impressive because they look realistic, but because they add enough life to his movements and reactions to make him a sympathetic creature. After fixating on his pet human female, Kong rescues her from danger three times, by conquering his jungle foes from land (the tyrannosaurus rex, royalty among dinosaurs), from water (a massive snake-like reptile), and through the air (a giant pterodactyl). The context of these scenes conditions the audience to revel in each of his chest-pounding triumph, so that his ultimate battle against man becomes a heartbreaking one. Kong earns his crown, but not his queen.

Frankenstein (1931, James Whale)

“You have created a monster and it will destroy you.”

Director James Whale’s film version of Frankenstein no longer scares audiences, but retains its power today for four main reasons. The first is Boris Karloff, and the second is the outstanding makeup. The alchemy between those two elements brought the character to life on-screen, just as it does in the story. The third reason is the visionary art direction. The misty graveyard where Frankenstein collects his raw materials; the dungeon laboratory where he conducts his experiments; and the hilltop windmill where master confronts his creation – these three locations are not just settings for the story, but the story itself. The fourth, and most important, component is Mary Shelley’s powerful work of science fiction, on which the film is based. Frankenstein’s monster might be the grandfather of all movie zombies: the slow-moving, groaning, cold, gray, decaying embodiment of our own mortality.

M (1931, Fritz Lang)

”All of which seems to me you could just as easily give up if you learned something useful or if you had jobs, if you weren’t such lazy pigs. But me … I can’t help myself. I have no control over this, this evil thing inside me, the fire, the voices, the torment!”

Working in Germany during the 1930s, Fritz Lang did not make this film during what could be called the height of free expression. Both director and star Peter Lorre fled from German persecution within two years of its release, and the Nazis banned the movie a year later. Regardless, Lang managed to bury his social commentary beneath the surface of his film, for future generations to uncover. M uses the story of serial child killer to expose the ugliness of the larger people. The film unfolds with a series of ironies: the playfully whistled “Peer Gynt” tune becomes a death march, a blind man makes the only reliable eye-witness, criminals run a better investigation than the police, and the violent mob proves to be as monstrous as the killer. The expressionist aesthetic creates a pervasive mood that will linger with viewer long after the final frames.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, Lewis Milestone)

“You think it’s beautiful to die for your country? The first bombardment taught us better. When it comes to dying for your country, it’s better not to die at all. There are millions out there dying for their countries, and what good is it?”

Most of the power of Lewis Milestone’s Best Picture winner derives from its literary source material. Most of the power of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel derives from its real-world source material. Young soldiers fight for their lives against all of the dangers of World War I trench warfare: nationalist hysteria, commanding officers, shells, bullets, bayonets, dirt, disease, vermin, hunger, loneliness, guilt, fear, insanity, and the ignorance of society. The characters are technically German, the actors speak English, but they just as easily could be French or any other nationality. Although it was produced in the early days of sound, the production values still impress alongside any other war epic made since.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, F.W. Murnau)

“The song of a Man and his Wife is of no place and every place; you might hear it anywhere, at any time. For wherever the sun rises and sets, in the city’s turmoil or under the open sky on the farm, life is much the same: sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet.”

As its title suggests, F. W. Murnau composed this silent masterpiece more like music than like fiction. Sunrise creates a progression of emotions almost exclusively through the power of its images. Not one frame of film goes to waste. The visual effects, cinematography, editing, lighting, set design, and of course the actors’ faces tell a fairy tale that goes beyond words in a script. Even the rare title cards often contain an inspired degree of visual expressiveness. The Two Humans together explore the many dualities of life: man and woman, city and country, love and hate, night and day, sadness and joy, loneliness and unity. The story does not strive to be broad, but rather universal. Like a piece of music, Murnau’s film can speak volumes to people of all tongues, without saying a single word.

Safety Last! (1923, Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor)

"Will you climb the Bolton Building - twelve floors – for five hundred dollars? / Say, for five hundred dollars, I’d climb to Heaven and hang by my heels from the pearly gates."

Harold Lloyd is remembered (or, perhaps more accurately, has been forgotten) as the third genius of silent comedy behind Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Safety Last!, the most famous Harold Lloyd feature, is built from the same components: the unnamed protagonist of humble origins, devoted to a single love interest, who stumbles his way from one sight gag to the next. Lloyd’s bespectacled screen persona displays neither Chaplin’s comedic charm nor Keaton’s physical mastery. Nevertheless, Safety Last still manages to cements its legacy with one unforgettable set piece. Lloyd the actor compensates for his shortcomings by putting his own life and limb at risk to please his audience. At the same time, his character does precisely the same thing to impress his girl. Unable to climb the proverbial corporate ladder, Lloyd ends up with no choice but to climb a 12-story department store with his bare hands. The stunt work impresses, even when the comedy and storytelling do not.

Sherlock Jr. (1924, Buster Keaton)

"By the next day the master mind had completely solved the mystery – with the exception of locating the pearls and finding the thief."

At only 44 minutes, Sherlock Jr. could be classified as either a short or a feature film. Despite running short in minutes, this Buster Keaton feature runs long with imagination. Keaton plays a downtrodden movie projectionist, hoping to win the heart of a girl, while also aspiring to become a detective. His luck in his waking life takes a downturn, but he reinvents himself during a dream. From this point, Sherlock Jr. achieves more than one instance of movie magic, in a literal sense. Keaton approaches surrealism with one expertly crafted illusion after another. When the dreaming projectionist walks through the screen into the movie universe, Keaton seemed to express his own desire that his films might speak directly to the human imagination.

The Gold Rush (1925, Charles Chaplin)

"Say, there, that’s no stowaway. That’s Big Jim’s partner, the multi-millionaire!”

Essentially, the films or Charlie Chaplin are live-action cartoons. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be: many cartoons are essentially hand-drawn imitations of Chaplin films. The Gold Rush offers Chaplin at his most cartoon-like. Strangely, a plot summary will probably sound terribly depressing. The lone prospector travels to the frozen Klondike in search of striking gold. He battles against bitter cold and such severe starvation that he is forced to eat his own shoe to stave off hunger. At a nearby dance hall, he faces constant cruelty from a woman he adores, her group of friends, and her bully of a boyfriend. He also faces severe danger from a homicidal miner a ferocious black bear, and his own mad companion who nearly resorts to cannibalism. The film somehow manages to remain an extremely light-hearted comedy throughout all of these events.

City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin)

"Tomorrow the birds will sing.”

In 1931, Hollywood had transitioned to all-sound pictures, and the United States found itself mired in the Great Depression. The great filmmaker Charlie Chaplin responded to these challenges precisely the way his Little Tramp character reacts his own: with a shrug and a smile. On the technical side, he retained the essence of his physical silent humor, but complemented it with a remarkable musical score and sound effects (literally, a few bells and whistles). On the creative side, his story subverted notions of wealth and poverty. The Tramp enters the film jobless, homeless, and friendless, subject to public ridicule. However, the blind girl who sells flowers on the street believes him to be a handsome millionaire. The actual millionaire is a suicidal drunkard, but in his intoxicated stupor, he treats the Tramp as his best friend. The same core idea underlies both relationships: this penniless man does indeed possess extraordinary worth. Another inspired sequence replaces the financial metaphor with a physical one: love empowers him to hold his own in a boxing match against a man twice his size. Ultimately, though, the girl and the viewer measures this man not by the size of his wallet or his muscles, but by the size of his heart.

Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey)

"Here are the plans of war. They're as valuable as your life. And that's putting them pretty cheap. Watch them like a cat watched her kittens. Have you ever had kittens? No, of course not, you're too busy running around playing bridge. Can't you see what I'm trying to tell you? I love you."

The mustachioed screen persona of Groucho Marx might invite comparisons with the silent comic Charlie Chaplin. However, Groucho’s brand of comedy is anything but silent. Only an all-sound picture could communicate his genius, which relies on his complete mastery of every facet of spoken English. Furthermore, Groucho is downright funnier than any other comedian of his day, and perhaps any other day. Most comedies settle into a steady rhythm of setup and payoff. The Marx Brothers effortlessly manage to go a step further: the payoff of one gag doubles as setup for another one. When everyone else fires jokes from a musket, the Marxes use a machine gun. Groucho delivers the rapid-fire zingers, Harpo executes a perfect pantomime, and Chico blends both styles (with Zeppo playing a supporting role). Both their verbal and physical humor carries a nasty, modern edge to it that is difficult to find in other American classics. Groucho’s subversive insults are every bit as dangerously sharp as the oversized pair of scissors that Harpo uses for constant vandalism. By the way, Duck Soup also features a plot that involves politics, diplomacy, espionage, and war. These plot elements serve the same function as all of the straight characters in the film: more targets for the Marx Brothers to knock down.

It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra)

”I want to see what love looks like when it's triumphant. I haven't had a good laugh in a week.”

With the benefit of hindsight, It Happened One Night seems as if it were always destined for greatness. Any romantic comedy made today must be envious of its collection of A-list talent; director Frank Capra, screenwriter Robert Riskin, lead actor Clark Gable, lead actress Claudette Colbert all won Oscars for their work, and the film also earned Best Picture. At the time it was made, though, Columbia Studios was on poverty row, struggling to make B-pictures at best. Perhaps some of that professional angst, as well as the struggling nation’s class resentments, became fuel for Capra’s creative fire. Somehow, this humble little love story, about a savvy reporter and pampered heiress who share a bus trip, stumbled upon the formula for the beloved screwball comedy sub-genre. As is often the case, the original template avoids the flaws of its later imitations. The witty motor-mouth dialogue and the farcical situations never become so ridiculous as to detract from the storytelling core. In public, circumstances force them to play the part of husband and wife; in private, they go to great lengths to conceal their affection from one another. The sustained romantic tension between the two leads always takes place behind a curtain (and in a few inspired scenes, a literal one).

Modern Times (1936, Charles Chaplin)

"A practical device which automatically feeds your men while at work? Don't stop for lunch: be ahead of your competitor. The Billows Feeding Machine will eliminate the lunch hour, increase your production, and decrease your overhead."

The technical similarities across Charlie Chaplin’s body of work are easy to recognize, but the recurring themes of poverty and wealth are just as prominent a feature of his signature style. This film retains its silent roots, but Chaplin definitely had something important to say. Modern Times expands upon those earlier experiments to become his most overtly political film to date. The Tramp suffers through a dangerous and dehumanizing ordeal that sends him from the factory assembly line to the sanitarium to the streets. He and his homeless female counterpart (played by the beautiful Paulette Goddard) spend the rest of the film stealing food to survive, trying to stay out of (or sometimes get back into) prison, and working low-paying jobs with little success. Their search for a real home leads them only to false ones: breaking into a department store, squatting in a rundown single-room shack, and imagining a comfortable place in the suburbs. The film’s most inspired and self-aware sight gag involves Chaplin’s arrest for accidentally leading a workers’ protest march. The House Un-American Activities Committee, apparently lacking a sense of humor, later accused him of holding Communist loyalties. Although much of the film could be interpreted as a call for political change, Modern Times also reflects a deeper dissatisfaction with technological change. The only voices in the film come from mechanical devices, and the Tramp sings only gibberish. The film ends at dawn, with Chaplin walking into the sunset of his artistic era.

Bringing Up Baby (1938, Howard Hawks)

“Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments.”

After a disappointing commercial release, director Howard Hawks surmised that his screwball comedy failed because his characters were so madcap that the film lost its grounding. Decades later, Bringing Up Baby is regarded as one of the greatest comedies of all time, and perhaps the greatest entry into the screwball subgenre. Actually, all the zaniness in the story can be attributed to one center of gravity, socialite Susan Vance, played to perfection by Katharine Hepburn. Every other character in the film, exemplified the engaged scientist played by Cary Grant, serves the role of straight man. Hepburn’s Susan simply overpowers their seemingly firm grip on sanity and normalcy through her infectious lunacy. No actress has ever delivered a stronger comedic performance; Hepburn was fearless enough to embrace a dangerous leopard on the set as if it were just another co-star. The visual gags designed around the massive wildcat (the titular Baby) work every bit as well as the script’s constant wordplay and situational hi-jinks. The film is filled with instances of man’s dominance over nature (hunting, domestication of animals, paleontology), but Kate Hepburn reminds us that some forces are too wild for any man to tame.

The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock)

My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble. He even carried that as far as marrying Mother.

Before Alfred Hitchcock mastered Hollywood, he first thrilled audiences with the most successful British movie of his time. Unlike some of his most famous works, The Lady Vanishes relies on more of an ensemble cast, a colorful group of British travelers returning home from a fictitious country to the east. Act one introduces the range of characters as a railroad delay forces them to stay overnight at a quaint inn. Act two transforms into a mystery aboard the confined train-cars, the disappearance of an elderly lady whose existence is confirmed only by a protagonist with a head injury. After she uncovers the twisted truth, the final act accelerates into nonstop action. In some ways, Hitchcock exploits the fear of foreign dangers to build suspense, but he also finds plenty of comic relief often at the expense of the British caricatures. One of the running jokes involves Charters and Caldicott, two men so fixated on a cricket match that they remain oblivious to the intrigue around them. The film allows Hitchcock to create a few signature stylish moments, and to engage a few of his classic obsessions: trains, the MacGuffin, the ordinary person wrongfully accused (here, in fact, wrongfully accused of making wrongful accusations).