Screening

About Transatlantic

A pre-Code romp on the high seas! Starring Edmund Lowe, Lois Moran, John Halliday, Greta Nissen, and a young Myrna Loy (credited here as Mirna Loy), Transatlantic tells the tale of the souls aboard the luxury liner S.S. Transatlantic as it sets sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Comedy and drama abound as each passenger's own financial woes lead them all into a series of personal pickles and compromising conundrums. While the innovation of deep focus cinematography is often credited to Gregg Toland in Citizen Kane, James Wong Howe used the effect in Transatlantic (his first sound film) a decade before Orson Welles' magnum opus was released. At the fifth Academy Awards in 1932, Gordon Wiles took home the Oscar for Best Art Direction for his work on Transatlantic. Restored by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation with funding provided by The George Lucas Family Foundation. [78 min; comedy, drama; English]

"Director Howard and cinematographer James Wong Howe get some great mileage out of the film, with its finale, set in the engine room among steam and shadows, looking absolutely stunning. Speaking of the film’s look, this may be one of the most deco movies I’ve ever seen as every inch of the ship is adorned in angular, perfectly accented type. It actually got an Oscar for Art Direction for Gordon Wiles, and it’s well deserved—the ship feels like a living place, more so than any other ocean liner had or would again on film." — Pre-Code.com

"Director William K. Howard and photographer James Wong Howe take this snappy mystery and serve it up with splendid sets that give the huge ship the appearance of a Byzantine palace or gothic cathedral, jazzed up with snappy editing and a restless, roving camera that follows the action perfectly. All capped off very effectively by a tour-de-force cat-and-mouse shoot-out in the labyrinthine guts of the ship itself." — Dan Stumpf, Mystery*File

"Very formally accomplished with great camerawork by James Wong Howe and moving very dynamic between its many strands. Terrific cast as well. The atmospheric direction is by William K. Howard who probably deserves more attention than '30s/'40s scholars usually gave him." — Filipe Furtado, film critic and former editor of Cinética and Paisá

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