News from the Boston Becks

My Top 10:

My winner for 1937 of Best Picture, Best Actress (Janet Gaynor) and Best Actor (Frederic March): A Star is Born

1. A Star is Born
2. You Only Live Once
3. The Awful Truth
4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
5. Shall We Dance
6. Make Way for Tomorrow
7. Stage Door
8. The Lower Depths
9. Lost Horizon
10. La Marseillaise (more…)

Despite a spate of head colds in the household, Thanksgiving came off very nicely. My sister Andrea is visiting us, and she was a tremendous help in the production of a fully edible turkey. I even pulled out some of my nice dishes that have been boxed up since we left Oregon in 2005. Yesterday was spent shopping for pants for my sister’s trip to The Nutcracker with a friend she met in Arizona who is now attending Simmons in the GSLIS program (I know-crazy coincidences!) Today Andrea and I are going to the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science, and Erik and I are hoping to squeeze in a movie sometime while we have a babysitter. Other than that, Thomas has off on Monday as well, but luckily Erik doesn’t work that day.

My Top 10:

The final shot of Modern Times (1936): Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard walking off into the future.

1. Modern Times
2. The Petrified Forest
3. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
4. A Tale of Two Cities
5. My Man Godfrey
6. The Secret Agent
7. Dodsworth
8. Fury
9. After the Thin Man
10. The Great Ziegfeld (more…)

My Top 10:

Victor McLaglen in his Oscar winning role in The Informer (1935)

1. The Informer
2. Bride of Frankenstein
3. The 39 Steps
4. Les Miserables
5. Mutiny on the Bounty
6. The Man Who Knew Too Much
7. Captain Blood
8. Top Hat
9. A Night at the Opera
10. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (more…)

My Top 10:

William Powell, Myrna Loy and Asta in The Thin Man (1934)

1. The Thin Man
2. The Gay Divorcee
3. It Happened One Night
4. Death Takes a Holiday
5. Mauvaise Graine
6. Story of Floating Weeds
7. The Scarlet Empress
8. Of Human Bondage
9. Twentieth Century
10. Madame Bovary (more…)

My Top 10:

Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's brilliant M

1. M
2. King Kong
3. Duck Soup
4. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
5. The Invisible Man
6. The Blood of a Poet
7. The Mummy
8. Little Women
9. Dinner at Eight
10. The Private Life of Henry VIII (more…)

My Top 10:

Paul Muni as Tony, the crazed gangster and Ann Dvorak as his sister in Scarface

1. Scarface
2. Vampyr
3. Frankenstein
4. A Nous la Liberte
5. Horse Feathers
6. Freaks
7. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
8. Wooden Crosses
9. What Price Hollywood
10. Grand Hotel (more…)

My Top 10:

1. City Lights
   

   Charlie Chaplin in the final, touching scene in City Lights

2. Dracula
3. The Three Penny Opera
4. Le Million
5. Earth
6. The Public Enemy
7. Waterloo Bridge
8. The Front Page
9. Little Caesar
10. Woman in the Moon (more…)

My Top 10:

The final poignant moment in All Quiet on the Western Front

1. All Quiet on the Western Front
2. City Girl
3. Arsenal
4. Hell’s Angels
5. The General Line
6. Under the Roofs of Paris
7. The Great Gabbo
8. Anna Christie
9. Blackmail
10. Diary of a Lost Girl (more…)

My Top 10:

the menacing shadow in Nosferatu (1922, US release - 1929)

1. Nosferatu
2. October
3. Steamboat Bill Jr.
4. Napoleon
5. The Fall of the House of Usher
6. The Wind
7. The Wedding March
8. Pandora’s Box
9. Street Angel
10. Spite Marriage

(more…)