Classic 30s Movie: “City Girl”

May is Classic 30s Movie Month. Today’s guest post comes from Adam Westbrook.

Movie Title: City Girl

Year: 1930

Writers: Marion Orth and Berthold Viertel — based on “The Mud Turtle” by Elliott Lester

Lead Actors: Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan and David Torrence.

Director: FW Murnau.

Plot Summary: A street wise Chicago waitress falls in love with a Minnesota farmer and decides to face a life in the country. When she arrives she finds herself faced with his overbearing father and the hardships of country life.

Why I think this is a classic 30s movie

City Girl is one of the final classic silent movies before the talkies took over and stands as a great of example of visual storytelling at its finest. While not as visually sophisticated as FW Murnau’s previous film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), City Girl is still packed with inventive visual devices that can teach us all a thing or two.

Despite being of the silent era, the performances are surprisingly naturalistic and Mary Duncan is particularly memorable as Kate, the tough talking waitress whose dialogue lines and body language are full of thirties sass. It’s fascinating watching City Girl from a 21st century perspective and seeing Kate endure some appalling behavior on arriving in the countryside. Her new father-in-law smacks her across the face within 30 seconds of meeting her and she’s subjected to sinister advances from his farm hands; meanwhile her soppy new husband Lem does little to protect her. Ultimately it is her wisdom and action that saves the day.

The film builds to a riveting third act involving a race to beat an incoming storm, a farm worker mutiny with shots fired and Kate caught in a blackmail. Although they would never survive the talkies, City Girl shows us that silent movies went out with a bang.

My Favorite Moment In The Movie

An argument between Lem and Kate ends with her bursting out of their bedroom, half naked, right into the most salacious of the farm hands. The two men exchange looks that a modern screenwriter couldn’t resist adding words to. Instead, we are left watching the farm hand silently mock Lem for his failure as a husband.

My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie

A joke between two dirty old men eying up Kate’s legs: “I’d rather be deaf than blind, wouldn’t you?”

Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie

Mary Duncan’s show-stealing performance: she is the opposite to the damsels in distress we imagine filled the screen in the silent era. It’s amazing to think this was made 7 years before Snow White, which presents a much weaker and passive female character.

In fact, you could argue this is one of the earliest feminist classics: Kate is a smart, wise woman surrounded entirely by idiotic, weak, violent, narrow minded and generally badly behaved men. The story has a happy ending in spite of the male characters.

Keep an eye on Lem’s father, the overbearing and angry farmer. His behavior borders on cruel — particularly towards Kate — but the script does not let us believe he is a bad man. Instead we are repeatedly shown he fears his family will starve, a fear which makes his actions extremely believable.

The naturalistic performances of all the actors: again, in contrast to the melodramatic gestures and facial expressions we associate with silent films, City Girl has only natural performances. The result is something that feels recognizably modern, despite its age.

The wide array of visual devices used to convey the meaning of the story, from sheafs of wheat, to letters, house plants, match-cuts and even fortune cookie messages. In my opinion FW Murnau was one of the great visual directors who understood the filmic form and how to convey information visually. Tragically he died a year after this film was released and his visual-first sensibilities were forgotten in the excitement of the talkie.

The Full Movie is on YouTube!

Thanks, Adam!

To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!

We already have a set of classic 40s movies, 5os movies, 60s Movies, 70s movies, 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 30s movies. And thanks to the GITS community, we’ve got at least 22 movies in the works and hopefully!

Those who I put in bold have already sent me their posts. If you haven’t sent yours to me, please do so as soon as you can!!!

All Quiet on the Western Front — Michael Waters
Bride of Frankenstein — Marija Nielsen
Bringing Up Baby — Melinda Mahaffey
Captain Blood — John Arends
City Girl — Adam Westbrook
Dracula — Sheila Seaclearr
Duck Soup — David Joyner
Gone With The Wind — Mark Twain
Gunga Din — Steve Huerta
It Happened One Night — Joni Brainerd
Make Way for Tomorrow — Susan Winchell
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — Amber Watt
Rebecca — Katha
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves — Will King
Sabotage — Jeff Xilon
Stagecoach — Thenewlight
The 39 Steps — Felicity Flesher
The Adventures of Robin Hood — Clay Mitchell
The Petrified Forest — Rachel Sheridan
The Women — Liz Clarke
Topper — Wayne Kline
Trouble in Paradise — Vincenzo
Vampyr — Megaen Kelly

I am still looking for volunteers. If there’s a 30s movie you’d like to write about, please post your suggestion in comments or contact me via email.