Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
Directed by Mitchell Leisen and co-written by Maxwell Anderson (All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)), Gladys Lehman (Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)) and others, this film was remade as Meet Joe Black (1998) by Martin Brest with Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins.
Fredric March plays Death who poses as Prince Sirki, a guest of Duke Lambert (Guy Standing), for a weekend in order to better understand why people fear him. The Duke is the only one, at least initially, who knows his identity and is sworn to keep it. The dialogue spoken by he and Death is particularly clever as they conceal their inside "joke". Evelyn Venable plays Grazia, a young woman who's expected to marry Corrado (Kent Taylor), but is charmed by the "Prince". Grazia's mother, Princess Maria, is played by Kathleen Howard. Gail Patrick plays a young American Rhoda Fenton and Katharine Alexander plays Alda, two female guests staying at the Duke's residence who are taken with Death's attractive human form, the latter being frightened when she stares into his eyes. Helen Westley plays the Duke's wife Stephanie. Henry Travers plays the aging Baron Cesarea, also a guest of the Duke and his wife, who makes note while reading the newspaper that persons around the world have escaped certain "death", miraculously.
The film is quite different from the remake, whose DVD includes this version, and runs less than 80 minutes compared to the much longer (nearly 3 hours), and inferior, more recent movie. The special effects (though brief) weren't bad either. I did find that the last 20 minutes or so got a little "talkie", but that would be my only complaint. Plus, it was nice to see Henry Travers, who was not as prolific as a lot of other familiar character actors from those golden years.
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