What quality of speech most characterized how actors spoke in early “talkies”?
poetic
colloquial
proper
accented
The gangster movie cycle began with which film?
Scarface
Underworld
Little Cesar
Public Enemy
Who first administered the censorious Production Code?
Joseph I. Breen
Will Hays
neither a nor b
both a and b
Which of the following is true of the gangster in gangster movies?
He is poorly educated.
He is incapable of love.
He is a man of the city.
He is incapable of humor.
All of these movies featured guns, cars, and sex except:
Wild Boys of the Road
Public Enemy
Scarface
Little Caesar
Who was “a musical Eisenstein”?
Howard Hawks
Ernst Lubitsch
Fred Astaire
Busby Berkeley
What replaced the sight gag in comedies when sound was introduced?
wisecrack
fast talk
double entendre
non sequitur
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95
_____ were “the legitimate descendents of the American iconoclastic tradition.”
The Gold Diggers
Mae West and Cary Grant
The Marx Brothers
none of the above
All of the following are typical examples of a Frank Capra movie except
It Happened One Night
Red River
Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington
The Strong Man
Greta Garbo laughed for the first time on film in which movie?
The Little Foxes
It’s a Wonderful Life
Front Page
Ninotchka
What did Mae West possess that made her a “startling apparition”?
beauty
bravery
great voice
political savvy
What characterizes the film style of William Wyler?
lengthy takes
deep-focus photography
few close-ups
all of the above
Which of the following is true of an Ernst Lubitsch comedy?
it is very realistic
it makes secondary characters the butt of jokes
it is never cold nor brittle
it stays true to traditional comic technique
Who worked as a successful independently produced director?
Howard Hawks
George Cukor
Sam Wood
Mervyn LeRoy
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96
John Ford’s movies are characterized by which of the following?
visual economy
independent women
loosely structured plots
none of the above
The actor that worked successfully in westerns with both Howard Hawks and John
Ford was
Humphrey Bogart
James Cagney
Clark Gable
John Wayne
All of the following qualities are true of George Cukor’s outstanding, Garbo-starring
film except:
luxurious mise en scène
underplayed acting
careless writing
great performance
True/False
(Place a T or an F in the line following the sentence.)
Ernst Lubitsch was the screen’s resident master of the grotesque through the early 1930s. ___
Ben Hecht’s writing was embodied in a dynamic, no-nonsense style which helped define 30s comedy and drama. ___
In a Busby Berkeley movie the star was really the editor, not the actor and not the camera. ___
Fred Astaire used dance as a metaphor for character, courtship, love, and, yes, sex.
___
The Marx Brothers were more dependent on their writers than quieter, more behavioral comics like Laurel and Hardy. ___
Frank Capra’s movies are morality plays of loss followed by reclamation as can be seen in It’s a Wonderful Life. ___
Musical underscoring is what made bad movies “bad” and, as well, often distracted from the emotion a key moment in a movie. ___
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97
Bette Davis made her mark as a shy, retiring woman who would surrender her will to stronger characters, especially men. ___
Howard Hawks’s films are characterized by a concise sense of plot, verbal economy, visual economy, and, at their end, triumphant characters. ___
John Ford’s films are full of compositions which are painterly, in-depth, and in deep focus, but whose narrative is often rambling. ___
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98
Matching
Angels with Dirty Faces ___ a. Busby Berkeley’s musical in which
pianos move
Swing Time ___
Mae West puts Cary Grant in his
Scarface ___ place
The Informer ___ c. William Wyler films starring Bette
Davis
The Little Foxes ___
Marx Bothers’ surrealistic assault on
Duck Soup ___ order and reason
The Gold Diggers of 1935 ___ e. starred James Cagney, bruised,
without illusions…
Camille ___
George Cukor film starring Greta
It’s a Wonderful Life ___ Garbo and Robert Taylor
She Done Him Wrong ___ g. Frank Capra film starring James
Stewart
director John Ford’s first critical hit
gangster film written by Ben Hecht, directed by Howard Hawks
starred Fred Astaire, the musical’s
inventor
Short Answer
What things did the Production Code prohibit in movies?
What was it that Fred Astaire managed to achieve through his dance musicals in the
30s?
What was impossible for director Frank Capra in movies? What was his core
message?
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99
With what character type was John Ford preoccupied in his movies?
Essay Questions
What did gangster movies generally have in common with the optimistic orientation
of most American movies (that is, until the typical gangster movie reached its bloody
conclusion)?
What was the appeal of the American musical, both in technique and story, to American audiences?
What would be the delights and problems with director William Wyler’s excessive attention to detail in making his movies?
In American movies, which is the more powerful thematic impulse: idealism or pragmatism?
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100
TEST – CHAPTER 7 – EUROPEAN CINEMA IN THE 1930s
Multiple Choice
Who did not flee Germany with the rise of Adolf Hitler?
Billy Wilder
Fritz Lang
Leni Riefenstahl
Fred Zinnemann
Fritz Lang’s first talkie in German was
The Blue Angel
M
Liebelei
Triumph of the Will
The Blue Angel is characterized by which of the following:
woman as devourer
man as avenger
love as redemption
all of the above
Britain’s cinema was stunted for many years by which of the following:
country’s lack of a strong economy
dreary conservatism
snobbish, theater-oriented tradition
all of the above
Charles Laughton, the actor, perhaps gave his fines performance in the movie
The Private Life of Henry VIII
Spartacus
The Hunchback of Norte Dame
Night of the Hunter
Who of the following often built movies around an “innocent man on the run” theme?
Michael Powell
Alexander Korda
John Grierson
Alfred Hitchcock
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101
Alexander Korda’s problem with making his movies — those he produced and directed — was that
he was not a very creative director
he moved from country to country too often
he let too many different people direct his movies
he had tastes which were much too rarefied
Hitchcock in part achieved his films’ effect and success through the influence and use
of
editing based on the theory of Kuleshov and Pudovkin
German Expressionism
innovations in sound
all of the above
What film did Alfred Hitchcock make in Britain which proved the precursor of later
films like North by Northwest?
Vertigo
The 39 Steps
Lifeboat
Number 17
The French admired and paid homage in their surrealist films to
American slapstick comedy as seen in Buster Keaton and Laurel and
Hardy
Russian masters Pudovkin and Eisenstein
Alfred Hitchcock and Alexander Korda
all of the above
Jean Cocteau made which of the following magical tales?
Beauty and the Beast
The Blood of the Poet
both a and b
neither a and b
If French civilization were destroyed today, what film, according to Richard Roud,
could be used to reconstruct that civilization?
Rules of the Game
Beauty and the Beast
Children of Paradise
none of the above
The New Wave film movement of France most admired which French film director?
Jean Cocteau
Jean Renoir
Marcel Carné
Jacques Prévert
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102
Who financed his early movies himself using art works?
Marcel Carné
Jean Renoir
Jean Cocteau
Carl Theodore Dreyer
What French film director called for movies which “dealt with life as it was lived in
the streets of Paris”?
Francois Truffaut
Danielle Darrieux
Jacques Prévert
Marcel Carné
In Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir made good use of the talents of
Charlie Chaplin
G. W. Pabst
Erich von Stroheim
Alfred Hitchcock
William Faulkner wrote the script for which of these films which Renoir made in
America?
The Southerner
The Sound and the Fury
Absalom, Absalom
Light in August
True/False
(Place a T or an F in the line following the sentence.)
Hitler targeted two areas to condemn and promote his policies: Americans and movies. ___
Marcel Ophüls often examined what he considered the transitory nature of love in movies like La Ronde. ___
British drama was not hampered at all departures of artists like Charlie Chaplin. ___
Alfred Hitchcock regretted that sound entered movies as is clear in Blackmail. ___
Hitchcock’s movies tended to follow a “structure of the Sennett chase, accelerating rush towards a climactic resolution.” ___
Jean Cocteau was pedestrian in his invention of imagery and humor. ___
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103
A film like Leo McCarey’s Wrong Again is an example of a film much adored by French surrealists. ___
Marcel Carné prefigures film noir. ___
Jean Renoir was interested in preserving and extending his famous father’s reputation as an Impressionistic painter. ___
Silence was better suited to Renoir’s films than sound because of the films’ contemplative and realistic perspectives. ___
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104
Matching
M ___
Marlene Dietrich ___
Rules of the Game ___
Jean Cocteau ___
Children of Paradise ___
Leni Riefenstahl ___
Rembrandt ___
Alfred Hitchcock ___
Jean Gabin ___
Max Ophüls ___ Short Answer
Jean Renoir classic of study of French classes
angels wore black leather Orpheus
German actress turned director
star of Port of Shadows
The Blue Angel star
Liebelei
Fritz Lang’s first talkie
Marcel Carné masterpiece
The Lady Vanishes
Alexander Korda
What sense of fate did Max Ophüls achieve in his use of circular narratives?
What film movement brought Great Britain its first distinctive form of filmmaking and what was its goal?
What quality do Alfred Hitchcock’s American films possess that is lacking in his earlier British films?
What view of life and love do Marcel Carné ’s films like Children of Paradise have? What do his film anticipate?
Essay Questions
Is Leni Riefenstahl’s The Triumph of the Will a documentary or a work of fiction?
How is Marlene Dietrich’s Lola in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel prototypically a femme fatale?
Was the fabulist/surrealist French film director Jean Cocteau simply ahead of his time in his technique and story development?
Did Marcel Carné make “film noir” movies?
