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Ranked: The 1930s

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A ranking of all the films released during the 1930s that have been reviewed on my blog. #12 The Black Cat (1934) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-black-cat-1934.html #11 Dracula (1931) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2025/09/dracula-1931.html #10 The Roaring Twenties (1939) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-roaring-twenties-1939.html #9 I Was Born, But... (1932) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2022/06/i-was-born-but-1932.html #8 The Raven (1935) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-raven-1935.html #7 Son of Frankenstein (1939) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2023/10/son-of-frankenstein-1939.html #6 The Invisible Man (1933) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-invisible-man-1933.html #5 Bride of Frankenstein (1935) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-bride-of-frankenstein-1935.html #4 It Happened One Night (1934) https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2022/12/it-happened...
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The White Mountains (The Tripods #1) (1967)

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by John Christopher (AKA Samuel Youd) On an Earth ruled by alien Tripods, Will and two other boys flee their village to avoid the “Capping” ceremony that would make them compliant servants.  They head for the Swiss Alps, where they’ve heard an organized resistance might be hiding.  The plot is a flight narrative—escape, pursuit, close calls, and hard choices—so the story sustains momentum even when it pauses for world building.  That world feels real: pastoral, tightly managed, and quietly wrong in the details people accept as normal.  The three boys read like actual adolescents, brave when they must be and petty when they’re tired or scared, learning as they go.  Will’s prickly, defensive first-person narration supports that immediacy, but it also narrows the view.  Because everything is filtered through him, the others can end up defined by his judgments more than by their own inner lives.  The Tripods can also feel inconsistent as threats; for suppo...
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The Assassin (Kane’s War #2) (1987)

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by Nick Stone When the Agency gets wind that the KGB has slipped an assassin into the Caribbean to take out Senator Mason—a leading presidential candidate trying to enjoy a little sunshine—local operative Ben Kane gets tapped as the man for the job, and the story clicks into an 80s action flick groove that could have come straight from the Blockbuster video store.  This book feels more like an ensemble than the previous one, with multiple characters actually contributing instead of orbiting the protagonist like props.  Ben remains an easy guy to root for, and the author pulls a genuinely surprising turn as the story develops.  Entertaining!
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Jackal, Jackal…Who’s Got the Jackal? (The Amazing Spider-Man #148) (1975)

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Author: Gerry Conway Artist: Ross Andru Embellishers: M. Esposito & D. Hunt We join our hero in mid-fall. The Jackal, Tarantula, and Gwen Stacy’s hypnotized clone escape with a portable jet pack, while an unconscious Spidey is left dangling for the police. (Though how he manages to withstand punches from supervillains is beyond me if he gets knocked out by a simple swing into a brick foundation.) Naturally, he escapes… An exhausted Peter Parker doesn’t respond well to an angry MJ, who confronts him in the spirit of “if you want to keep a man, you’ve got to fight for him.” Ned drops by later, and he and Peter have an important realization. Following up on Serba’s address, Spider-Man gets a surprise.  What “famed spider sense?” I don’t know that it’s exactly a secret, but I’ve never had the impression that this power is widely known. Nor that the distinction between friends and enemies has ever been relevant. It’s always been about the presence of danger. The reveal of Professor ...
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