Movie Review: City Girl (1930)

After reading Michelle Sung's review a few days ago, I'm inspired to do a review as well. Besides, it has been a very long time since my last review.

I was surfing the internet to download some new movies then I came across this movie and I was attracted to it, being an 'old movie junkie' and this movie is in BLACK AND WHITE. I absolutely love old movies especially movies that the late P. Ramlee's starred in. I'm not sure about you guys but I feel that old movies have their own charms that can just make you glued yourself to your sit and watch until the end of the movie. In fact, I always pay attention to the props, settings, clothes, hairstyles, HEELS! So I downloaded it and watch it in bed on the 1st day of Chinese New Year. 

The movie is about a son of a farmer, Lem who went to Chicago to sell wheat that his family has grown. Lem went into his first restaurant in the big city and he met Kate, the waitress and a city girl. Kate has always hoped to be living in the countryside, longing to have a different life than the life that she has been living. Kate was attracted to Lem's good manners and of course his good looks and Lem was also attracted to Kate's beauty and how nice she treated him while his 1st visit. They got married and Lem brought Kate back to his hometown in Minnesota. Kate had a hard time in her husband's home because her father-in-law despise her, accusing her that she married Lem just for the money and also blaming her for disrupting Lem that he didn't get fair price for the wheat. Then came the harvesters to harvest the wheat and they also give Kate a hard time by making a move on her, which leads to Lem's misunderstanding the situation and he thought that Kate is interested to run away with one of the harvester. Quite an interesting storyline, isn't it?

 

 I just love Kate's hair, hat and makeup

I've watch quite a few old black and white orang putih movies and to my surprise, this movie is totally different from the others. Why you ask? It's because the movie is a silent movie, it has no sound of people talking, just the background music! You know, like those Charlie Chaplin movies. There are no sound from the actors, when they talk, when they scream, when they cry. There will be a few lines of the dialogue that will be shown during the movie for you to read to understand the storyline and the dialogue will only come out for the important parts of the movie, so you need to read carefully. When the actors talk, you can only see their lips moving and you need to have the ability to read lips to understand what they're talking. There are also closeups of notes and letter in very beautiful handwriting and that includes letters written by Lem's father too.

 

I love this movie because like all old movies, there are good morals instilled in the storyline. One of them is to get to know people first before judging them, which is a good moral that is still relevant even today. I must say that I'm so blown away by Kate's beauty because she is so beautiful in the movie and all the ladies in the movie are really beautiful as well, and the hats are just to die for! After watching City Girl, it made me wanting to watch more movies just like it!