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This week's "Film Friday" is a very special one. Since it i s Halloween, I thought it was only fitting if I told a little bit about what is considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time (incidentally, this is the only classic horror picture I h ave seen so far). However, with the Universal Pictures Blogathon , I was not able to post this on time, so this week's "Film Friday" is actually a "Film Fri(Satur)day," which makes it even more appropriate. Theatrical release poster Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) tells the story of Dr. Henry Jekyll (Fredric March), a respected physician in Victorian London who is convinced that man lives with an eternal struggle between his good and evil sides. One evening, Jekyll attends a party at the home of his fiancé, Muriel (Rose Hobart), and asks her father, Brigadier General Sir Danver Carew (Halliwell Hobbes), permission to marry her earlier than they ha...

This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war. Original release poster Directed by Lewis Milestone, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) tells the story of a group of German schoolboys, led by the sensitive Paul Bäumer (Lew Ayres), who decide to join the Kaiser's Army after their patriotic teacher, Professor Kantorek (Arnold Lucy), convinces them of how «sweet and fitting it is do die for the Fatherland.» Their romantic delusions are soon shattered, when they reach training camp and are bullied by their sadistic drillmaster, Corporal Himmelstoß (John Wray). Arriving at their billets, Paul and his friends meet a group of already hardened and cynical veterans of the war, including Stanislaus 'Kat' Katczinsky (Louis Wolheim), Deteri...

In honor of Joan Fontaine's 98th birthday, this week on "Film Friday" I bring you the first film I ever saw her in, which also stands as my favorite film of hers so far. Theatrical release poster Directed by Anatole Litvak, This Above All (1942) opens in England in the early days of World War II, when the spirited Prudence "Prue" Cathaway (Joan Fontaine) joins the ranks of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, much to the surprise and chagrin of her aristocratic family, especially her aunt Iris (Gladys Cooper). Through one of her fellow WAAF's, Violet Worthing (Queenie Leonard), Prue meets and starts a romance with Clive Briggs (Tyrone Power), a handsome soldier who is oddly not in uniform and seems to be harbouring a deep dark secret. Taking advantage of Prue's seven-day leave, the couple decides to go on vacation together to a seaside resort in Dover, where Clive begins to act strangely, calling out military orders in his sleep and becoming g...