When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1935, it gave its Best Picture award to Mutiny on the Bounty. That's an excellent movie, and it's close to the top of my list. But another picture is even better:
1. The Bride of Frankenstein
Directed by James Whale
Written by William Hurlbut and John L. Balderston
A young scientist named Frankenstein feels torn between a conventional marriage and a same-sex liaison with his mentor, an old queen named Pretorius. The latter persuades the protagonist to reproduce with him through unnatural means. Upon succeeding, Pretorius proclaims himself "the bride of Frankenstein." Careless viewers assume he's referring to the couple's creation.
2. Mutiny on the Bounty
Directed by Frank Lloyd
Written by Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, and Carey Wilson, from a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
Revolution on the high seas.
3. Top Hat
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Written by Allan Scott, Dwight Taylor, Ben Holmes, and Ralph Spence
"You mean to sit there and tell me that that girl slapped your face in front of all those people for nothing?" "Well, what would you have done? Sold tickets?"
4. Ruggles of Red Gap
Directed by Leo McCarey
Written by Walter DeLeon, Harlan Thompson, and Humphrey Pearson, from a novel by Harry Leon Wilson
The first great comedy western.
5. The 39 Steps
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Charles Bennett and Ian Hay, from a novel by John Buchan
Hitchcock wouldn't perfect the lightly comic conspiracy movie til he made The Lady Vanishes, but I think it's fair to say that this is where he mastered it.
6. A Night at the Opera
Directed by Sam Wood
Written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind
The taming of the Marx Brothers begins here, but in this case the film is so funny that you barely notice. Later, alas, that will change.
7. The Good Fairy
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Preston Sturges
If I just wrote "Frank Morgan delivers Preston Sturges' lines," that would be self-recommending, right?
8. Toni
Directed by Jean Renoir
Written by Renoir and Carl Einstein, from a story by Andre Levert
Neorealism was born in Italy in the 1940s, yet somehow Renoir made a neorealist film in France in the 1930s. Go figure.
9. Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life
Directed by Fred Waller
Written by Milton Hockey and Fred Rath
I know that I just listed Messeurs Waller, Hockey, and Rath, but the real auteur here is Duke Ellington.
10. Scenes of City Life
Written and directed by Yuan Muzhi
The only film on this list to feature a future member of the Gang of Four.
Honorable mentions:
11. Happiness (Aleksandr Medvedkin)
12. La Bandera (Julien Duvivier)
13. Sazen Tange and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo (Sadao Yamanaka)
14. A Colour Box (Len Lye)
15. Captain Blood (Michael Curtiz)
16. The Hyp-Nut-Tist (Dave Fleischer)
17. The Magic Atlas (George Pal)
18. The Devil is a Woman (Josef von Sternberg)
19. Les Berceaux (Dimitri Kirsanoff)
20. The Black Room (Roy William Neill)
Let's give a shoutout as well to Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935. If this had consisted of nothing but the "Lullaby of Broadway" sequence, it would have made the top 10. But even with all the filler—a.k.a. "the plot"—it's still good fun. The film is frequently funny, and you have to appreciate a Gold Diggers movie that fully deserves its title: Every character here who isn't already rich is trying to scam their way into riches, with only Dick Powell displaying a scruple or two. And the rich ones aren't always above digging for a little more gold themselves.
Speaking of Dick Powell, let's also give a shoutout to Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle's take on A Midsummer Night's Dream: a picture for people who like high camp in their high art. They say Powell wasn't sure what all his lines in the movie meant—and whether or not that's ideal for appreciating Shakespeare, it certainly makes for a memorable sort of entertainment.
Of the films of 1935 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in The Eternal Mask.
