The Phantom Light (1935, Michael Powell)

Is the battle for the recognition of the pre-Grindhouse “quota quickies” and B-cinema over? One would think so considering the posthumous (and richly deserved) attention paid by critics, film-makers and archivists to the works of directors such as Joseph H Lewis, Edgar G Ulmer, Jacques Tourneur, Samuel Fuller and the subsequent efforts from the Corman …

Flunky, Work Hard (1931, Mikio Naruse)

Twenty-eight minutes in length, Flunky, Work Hard is the earliest surviving work by Japanese master Mikio Naruse, made just one year after his debut. If Passing Fancy by Ozu belongs to the proletarian-focused cinema on the 1930’s, then Flunky, Work Hard belongs to that tradition too while also straddling a more experimental vein in the …