Gold Diggers and M

Dominic Mayhall

Gold Diggers and M

        This week we were shown a glimpse of the golden age of Hollywood and the overwhelming number of movies that were produced in just a couple of decades. Movies seemed to grow at a rapid rate and in a short amount of time. In that short slide of all those movie titles passing by, it looked like more than a couple hundred movies were made in just one to three years. And I see a production difference in two movies that came out only two years a part. 

        Comparing these two films, Gold Diggers and M, is like water and oil. These movies are acted and written polar opposite to one another. One is German and the other is an American film. Both have different feels for their own genres, and you can see the differences that are portrayed in Germany and America. The movie M had pretty much no music in it, you could just hear the static or the wind in the backgrounds of every shot. The things you could hear where objects people were using. Like the little girl when playing with the ball and hearing it bouncing. Or hearing the sounds of the scooter while she's strolling down the sidewalk. While Gold Diggers had music and dialogue almost constantly flowing throughout the film.

        You also mentioned that there was a Great Depression that hit Germany, and you can see that in the production of the film, M. I think it had great imagery and scenes, but compared to the films that America was producing it fell short. Gold diggers had a big entrance at the beginning of the film with a whole dance sequence with singing and the dancing girls had on extravagant outfits. Whereas M started of silent with kids playing. I know that one is a musical and one is a crime thriller, but the budget of these films is noticeable. The use of props and costumes seemed limited in M, while Gold Diggers had so much more.

        Both of these films had good aspects about them. But they differ with the time and place these movies were produced and what each director had to work with. With a limited budget, you can only do so much with what you were given. And that budget is highly visible in both films. Either way you feel, I still feel like its ying and yang when it comes to these two movies, almost incomparable.