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419,508 | 1,609,079 | 4,740 | 4 | Typhoon : A lot of wind and hot air . | I saw ' The Typhoon ' in October 2006 at the Cinema Muto film festival in Sacile , Italy . The festival screened a print from Eastman House , restored via funding from the ( U . S . ) National Endowment for the Arts . The film's title is mostly symbolic , referring either to tempestuous emotions or to the implacable to... |
418,828 | 1,609,079 | 20,436 | 4 | He's the prettiest girl on the football team | Like quite a few other films which someone has described on the IMDb site as ' lost ' , ' The Sophomore ' is very much among the living . I attended a public screening of this film at the American Museum of the Moving Image , on the site of Paramount's old Astoria Studio . Despite its title , ' The Sophomore ' is not a... |
419,490 | 1,609,079 | 365,009 | 4 | Rube's boobs : Tex Avery did it better | Reuben Lucius ' Rube ' Goldberg is remembered for his wildly implausible comic-strip contraptions , but he was a man of many talents . By 1916 ( at the time he made ' The Boob Weekly ' ) , he had already published three book-length collections of his comic strips , sheet music for a popular song , and a card game . Gol... |
419,439 | 1,609,079 | 6,703 | 4 | Never trust a belle named Beulah . | Earlier this week , I had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time . To take my mind off what happened , I've dug out the notes I took several years ago when screening some old movies , intending to transfer those notes into IMDb postings . Lo and behold , the first set of notes I grabbed were for ' Frid... |
419,163 | 1,609,079 | 10,621 | 4 | The regiment's darling | Elsie Janis was a child star in vaudeville : extremely talented and vivacious , she sang and danced and told jokes with equal facility . During the Great War ( by now in her late twenties ) she performed for the troops very close to the front lines . She appeared in a few of the very early Vitaphone talking-film shorts... |
418,855 | 1,609,079 | 24,296 | 4 | . . . but not daring enough | ' The Man Who Dared ' is an awkward film . It is presented as a work of fiction , but the plot line is clearly inspired by the true story of Anton Cermak , the son of East European immigrants who overcame his impoverished childhood to become mayor of Chicago despite rampant municipal corruption and voter fraud . In 193... |
419,665 | 1,609,079 | 20,395 | 4 | Is zat so ? Sez who ? | James Gleason is one of the most fondly remembered character actors from Hollywood's golden age . I consistently enjoy his screen work , but he's not on my personal list of all-time favourite character players : Gleason worked in many films , but I find his performances too similar and predictable from one film to the ... |
419,205 | 1,609,079 | 384,496 | 4 | Paul Lynde upstages Gene Kelly ! | The talented dancer Sandy Duncan has worked in film and television , yet has achieved her greatest success on the musical stage . She's hardly one of my favourites ; I find her chipmunk voice more than slightly annoying , and even though she's a lithe and graceful dancer I don't find her very attractive . But her talen... |
418,535 | 1,609,079 | 159,755 | 4 | One good scene for Clyde and Noah . | In California in the early 1980s , I interviewed Clyde Cook ( from " Brizzo " , Down Under ) near the end of his long life . He had a fascinating career , performing in American vaudeville as the Kangaroo Boy , and arriving in New York City just in time for the 1919 Actors ' Equity strike . In his prime , Clyde Cook's ... |
418,453 | 1,609,079 | 182,989 | 4 | Not much historic value . | It's hard to believe that Americans needed any propaganda in the Second World War to encourage them to support the fight against Nazism . However , up until Pearl Harbour , this was the case . Many Americans took an isolationist attitude , believing that events in Europe were none of their business . Some German-Americ... |
419,380 | 1,609,079 | 25,960 | 4 | Fritz Lang's ex-wife writes ' I Love Lucy ' | The oddly-named Betty Bird ( her real name ? ) was a Viennese actress who played frothy roles in pre-war films ; her early death was due to the deprived circumstances in wartime Austria following the Anschluss . IMDb lists Betty Bird in the casts of several American films of the late silent era , but I'm certain that t... |
419,301 | 1,609,079 | 16,519 | 4 | When you find out , tell the rest of us . | Englishman Reginald Denny had a hugely successful career in American silent films ( in which his public-school English accent went unheard ) , playing brash young Americans who were firmly in the Harold Lloyd mould . In the sound era Denny's career tapered off into character roles , and he is now utterly forgotten . Du... |
418,491 | 1,609,079 | 18,457 | 4 | Oy , oy , oy ! Mine daughter loves a goy ! | Mary Philbin deserves at least a permanent footnote in movie history , as the actress who memorably unmasked the Phantom of the Opera in Lon Chaney's greatest film . She also gave a fine performance as the blind heroine in ' The Man Who Laughs ' , directed by the brilliant Paul Leni . Apart from these two films and ' T... |
419,069 | 1,609,079 | 425,840 | 4 | The titular chest | ' Chest of Fortune ' ( quiet in the back , there ! ) is an American film from the Kalem ( K-L-M ) Studio , which was the first Yank film studio to publicise the real names of its actors . Before Kalem , all movie actors were either anonymous or required to emote under house names which remained the property of their st... |
418,793 | 1,609,079 | 20,899 | 4 | Put this cat to sleep . | ' Forty Winks ' is one of the very last Felix the Cat cartoons from his original ( Otto Messmer ) period , but it's so crude that I mistook it for one of his very early efforts . The toon is technically a talkie ; it was released with a soundtrack , but the audio consists entirely of unsynchronised noises and ' rhubarb... |
418,668 | 1,609,079 | 20,987 | 4 | Hardly their best work . | ' Hook , Line and Sinker ' is the very generic title of this very generic comedy , starring Wheeler & Woolsey , who are very nearly the most generic comedy team of all time . ( That dubious honour goes to the Ritz Brothers . ) I consistently enjoy watching Wheeler & Woolsey , yet I frankly find them neither very good n... |
419,167 | 1,609,079 | 14,145 | 4 | The French are revolting . | I Will Repay is based on one of the numerous Scarlet Pimpernel novels by Baroness Orczy , which I haven't read . I don't know how faithful this film is to its source novel , much less how accurate either of them is in regard to the historic names and events that are freely mentioned throughout the proceedings . We ar... |
419,611 | 1,609,079 | 20,956 | 4 | Boop-a-doop bootleggers | ' Heads Up ' stars Helen Kane , who is now remembered only in parody as the prototype for Betty Boop . The animated character in the Fleischer cartoons is blatantly similar to Helen Kane's screen persona : same hairstyle , same annoying speaking voice ( Kane sounds like Gracie Allen on helium ) , same ' boop-oop-a-doop... |
418,955 | 1,609,079 | 16,378 | 4 | He dis-sables his wife . | I wonder if this movie was written by a fur fetishist , or possibly by a fur-phobe . Somebody involved in ' Souls for Sables ' seems to be firmly convinced that every woman has an innately evil side that will come to the surface if she acquires a fur coat , especially a sable . Fred Garlan is a working stiff whose wife... |
419,286 | 1,609,079 | 150,776 | 4 | A shoeshine on his head . | The Paramount animation studio's ongoing series characters - - the annoying Little Lulu , the insufferably twee Casper the Friendly Ghost - - were mostly pretty bad . . . due to their poor animation , repetitive plots and feeble humour . But during this same period , Paramount's animation department also released carto... |
418,618 | 1,609,079 | 11,827 | 4 | Quick , Watson , the needle ! | Charles Ray was a very bland actor who somehow attained nearly front-rank stardom in silent films , playing gormless country lads who somehow made good . Towards the end of the silent era ( when he was getting too old to continue playing this character ) , he financed a starring vehicle for himself which flopped badly ... |
419,633 | 1,609,079 | 214,592 | 4 | The worst under-cranking I've ever seen . | Chester Conklin and Mack Swain were two stalwart comedians at Mack Sennett's Keystone studio . Swain was a huge , porridge-faced man who starred in a series of Keystone shorts as Ambrose , a dignified blowhard who was often put upon by Conklin as an annoying little man with a walrus moustache . After leaving Keystone ,... |
418,343 | 1,609,079 | 20,755 | 4 | Ay tank Ay go home now . | Selma Lagerlöf was a phenomenally successful author in her time , writing many novels that were extremely popular in her native Sweden and elsewhere . She won the Nobel Prize for Literature , becoming one of the very first female Nobel laureates . Today , she is remembered primarily for ' The Wonderful Adventures of Ni... |
419,480 | 1,609,079 | 11,901 | 4 | What's the French for ' depressing ' ? | I saw ' L'Âtre ' ( ' The Hearth ' ) in October 2005 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Sacile , Italy . After its original release ( which received little fanfare ) , ' The Hearth ' was forgotten until a print was discovered in 1984 by Cinémathéque Française . This dead-earnest drama purports to depict the grim life of ... |
419,173 | 1,609,079 | 11,881 | 4 | Valentino's part is tiny ; O'Brien takes all the screen time . | ' The Wonderful Chance ' is even worse than my IMDb colleague Arne Andersen has made it seem . I know from off-site conversations with Arne that he's a major Valentino fan ; unfortunately , he perceives this as a Valentino movie , when in fact Rudy has very much a supporting role . Also , Arne too kindly describes the ... |
419,664 | 1,609,079 | 49,530 | 4 | Don't drink and drive while dancing " jive " | I never would have watched ' My Teenage Daughter ' if it hadn't been made by Herbert Wilcox and Dame Anna Neagle . This husband / wife team ( he as director , she as star ) churned out a long series of highly profitable British films , most of which were earnest period dramas . ' My Teenage Daughter ' , made in 1956 , ... |
419,241 | 1,609,079 | 25,106 | 4 | Take me to your lederhosen | ' Ferien vom Ich ' ( ' Holiday from Myself ' ) is a weak film , although there are some pleasant exterior shots of the Bavarian countryside . The most interesting thing about this film is that it was made in Germany during the very early days of Hitler's premiership - - before the Third Reich caused most of its unpleas... |
418,710 | 1,609,079 | 25,119 | 4 | Vienna sausage at its wurst . | This movie's title is almost entirely irrelevant . Ricardo Cortez portrays a suave musician in Vienna ( memo to a previous IMDb reviewer : Vienna is not in Germany ) , who lures young maidens to his bachelor flat by offering to play Stravinsky's ' Firebird ' . Of course , he's a cad with dozens of notches on his bedpos... |
419,602 | 1,609,079 | 31,302 | 4 | Good tech , mixed cast , poor script . | ' 5th Avenue Girl ' doesn't work , but it's a fascinating failure . I was especially impressed by Robert de Grasse's superb camera work . On two different occasions in this movie , Ginger Rogers has a conversation with someone while walking down a steep flight of stairs : in both cases , the camera seamlessly precedes ... |
418,564 | 1,609,079 | 157,617 | 4 | The count and the cowboy ; or , Pudd'n'head Wilhelm . | I saw ' The Farmer from Texas ' in October 2007 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone , Italy . The festival screened a print from a German collection ( the Bundesarchiv in Berlin ) that had English intertitles . This film's bizarre title did not encourage me , but I was keenly interested in seeing the movie when... |
418,350 | 1,609,079 | 55,556 | 4 | Not quite Ibsen , neither noir | In the wide range of roles which Patrick McGoohan has played in his long career , his favourite role was the title character in Henrik Ibsen's " Brand " : a defiant individual who is perceived to be superior to all his neighbours in the village . In ' Two Living , One Dead ' , McGoohan plays a similarly Ibsenesque ' en... |
418,345 | 1,609,079 | 22,603 | 4 | Fumbled in the end zone | There's a really brilliant , exciting movie in which a football player drops dead in the middle of a football match , in a stadium filled with witnesses . . . and it turns out he's been murdered . That brilliant movie is ' The Arsenal Stadium Mystery ' , a thriller filmed in England in 1939 . ' 70 , 000 Witnesses ' , m... |
419,410 | 1,609,079 | 354,713 | 4 | Max's stamp of approval | I saw " Lèvres collées " in October 2006 at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy . The print was on loan from Filmarchiv in Vienna . For some reason , this French film's English release title was ' Joined Lips ' . In fact , a more faithful translation of the original French title would be ' Glued Lips ' . . . and... |
418,771 | 1,609,079 | 25,466 | 4 | Weltschmertz on the high seas | I agree with a previous IMDb reviewer , who said that this film is clumsy German propaganda . ( There were times when Nazi propaganda was very subtle and artful . . . but you wouldn't know it here . ) ' A Man Wants to Go to Germany ' does seem intent upon preparing German audiences for another war . . . which is rather... |
418,922 | 1,609,079 | 22,704 | 4 | Don't buy peanuts from Bimbo . | ' Boop-Oop-a-Doop ' is an early Betty Boop cartoon , from the period when the Fleischers were still imitating Disney . The cartoon starts with Betty dancing a shimmy . . . then the camera pulls back to reveal that this is actually a drawing of Betty on a circus banner , rippling in the wind . I laughed as I realised th... |
419,369 | 1,609,079 | 7,279 | 4 | Hopping hairy husband hollers " Hoy-Hoy-Hoy ! " | This movie's title translates as " Rübezahl's Wedding " . Rübezahl is a figure in German folklore who has no precise English or American equivalent . He's somewhere between Cropsey , the Boogie Man , Springheel Jack and the Green Man of old English folklore . German peasant wives would warn their children to be good , ... |
419,067 | 1,609,079 | 231,959 | 4 | Down , boy ! | In the days of old-time vaudeville , booking agents and theatre managers were constantly seeking ' dumb acts ' . This term had nothing to do with a performer's intellectual appeal ( or lack of it ) . ' Dumb act ' was the vaudeville industry's recognised term for any turn which didn't sing or speak onstage . There was a... |
419,025 | 1,609,079 | 20,538 | 4 | Bingo's bangles bungle ; she should leave them in the jungle . | I've never understood the ' camp ' phenomenon , with its devotees ( camp followers ? ) who actually prefer to see their cult favourites - - usually larger-than-life actresses - - in bad films , rather than good ones . But Joan Crawford's ' camp ' credentials are unquestioned , and ' Untamed ' is a campfest . Those who ... |
419,200 | 1,609,079 | 49,213 | 4 | What bait are you using , fraulein ? | ' The Fishing-Girl of Bodensee ' is a weak movie , but it's an excellent example of ' Heimatfilm ' , a genre unique to the German-speaking world . ' Heimat ' is the German word for ' country ' or ' homeland ' . Heimatfilmen feature stories that take place largely outdoors , emphasising the countryside of Germany , Aust... |
418,740 | 1,609,079 | 16,684 | 4 | Cupid kisses the mezuzah | I'm fascinated by the history of the Yiddish theatre world that was active in Second Avenue of New York City during the early twentieth century . Some great actors - - notably Paul Muni - - got their early training in these theatres ' overwrought melodramas and slapstick farces , performed in Yiddish for Jewish audienc... |
418,871 | 1,609,079 | 179,006 | 4 | Kenneth Tynan uses THAT word . | The very weak joke in the title of this 1965 series is that ( as Britons surely will already know ) in 1965 there was a BBC-1 and a BBC-2 , but no BBC-3 . Now there's a Channel 4 , and two million channels on SkyTV . ' BBC-3 ' made its debut soon after the tremendous revolution of satirical comedy in Britain had begun ... |
418,788 | 1,609,079 | 18,920 | 4 | Nice to look at , but not funny . | ' Futuritzy ' is the interesting title of a Felix the Cat cartoon which isn't very funny , but which contains some interesting visual devices . Most of Otto Messmer's Felix toons relied on a stark palette of black and white : in ' Futuritzy ' there's a subtle range of greys which I found much easier on my eyes . Felix ... |
418,408 | 1,609,079 | 263,673 | 4 | Stan and Ollie did it better . | The German word ' lumpen ' - - as in ' lumpen proletariat ' - - has no precise English equivalent . It would translate somewhere between ' people of the labouring class ' and ' people who don't matter ' . This film's title ' Lumpenball ' refers to a social event - - a ball - - held by and for such people . ' Lumpenball... |
418,332 | 1,609,079 | 29,234 | 4 | The merry-go-round broke down . | During Hollywood's golden era , several of the major studios tried to offer a splashy musical comedy that went through annual editions . MGM had ' Broadway Melody of ( insert year ) ' . Paramount had ' The Big Broadcast of ( insert year ) ' . Warners had ' Gold Diggers of ( insert year ) ' . Typically , the date in the... |
419,432 | 1,609,079 | 5,276 | 4 | Jam and Jerusalem | George Ade ( 1866-1944 ) is now almost entirely forgotten , although his name still turns up in crossword puzzles . In the first two decades of the twentieth century , his humour pieces and plays were phenomenally popular in America . Most of his work has badly dated : for example , his 1902 musical comedy ' The Sultan... |
418,878 | 1,609,079 | 55,819 | 4 | No remake , but not so bad | The 1962 movie ' The Cabinet of Caligari ' ( notice that the title does NOT include the word ' Doctor ' ) is often described in reference books and horror-movie magazines as a remake of the classic German silent film ' The Cabinet of DOCTOR Caligari ' . It may have been screenwriter Robert Bloch's intention to script a... |
419,526 | 1,609,079 | 13,606 | 4 | ' Skin Deep ' is very shallow . | Milton Sills was a moderately handsome , moderately talented actor who attained a moderately successful level of stardom in silent films . In silent days , the threshold of stardom was a lot lower , because movies could be produced very cheaply , and there were many low-budget production companies dedicated to grinding... |
418,720 | 1,609,079 | 1,592 | 4 | Turgid soap opera , in early Danish . | I saw this Danish silent film in October 2006 at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy . Its title doesn't readily translate into English ; I would render it as ' Expediency ' . Edgar Geheimraaden is a wealthy young man who meets a beautiful shopgirl named Ebba , and they straight away fall in love . They begin to... |
418,950 | 1,609,079 | 21,449 | 4 | Oy vay , yassuh , wee-wee monsewer . | What a weird movie ! ' The Talk of Hollywood ' ( filmed in New York City ) has a clever title , since it deals with the then-recent talkies revolution in the movie industry . This film is basically a comedy ( although not very funny ) , and the protagonist is a burlesque Jewish stereotype . . . so it's bizarre that , a... |
418,907 | 1,609,079 | 3,733 | 4 | Who was that lady ? | ' A Busy Day ' is proof of something I've often maintained : namely , that no so-called ' lost ' film should ever be considered truly lost unless it was deliberately destroyed . ' A Busy Day ' was unavailable for many decades , and was generally assumed to be lost . . . until an acetate-stock dupe print ( intended for ... |
418,379 | 1,609,079 | 30,990 | 4 | Mosquitos and mascara , and a phony John O'Hara | ' Yellow Jack ' is a goodish , proficiently made Hollywood drama which is weakened by several poor artistic decisions , and rendered absolutely ludicrous by one especially bad decision ( which I'll describe presently ) . The film deals with an inspiring true story in medical history , namely the attempts of the U . S .... |
419,523 | 1,609,079 | 42,389 | 4 | Gleason and Besser save this movie | ' The Desert Hawk ' is a bog-standard adventure epic ( Arabian Nights subclass ) , sorely compromised by its extremely low budget but benefiting from an interesting cast . When I saw that Yvonne De Carlo was the female lead ( in harem trousers , worse luck ) , I was worried this might turn out to be a Maria Montez-type... |
419,030 | 1,609,079 | 1,167,665 | 4 | Big news : cats are always hungry . | A little girl sits at a table , holding a container of what appears to be some sort of food . Suddenly there's a flash of movement : a tortoiseshell cat , with long hair and a very furry tail , has leapt onto the table . The girl and the cat are clearly friends : she cheerfully feeds the cat little bits of whatever's i... |
419,515 | 1,609,079 | 273,473 | 4 | I'd sooner see Sully than Seeley . | The husband-and-wife team of Bennie Fields and Blossom Seeley were huge stars in vaudeville , yet they made very few films . As is the case for some other performers of their era ( George M . Cohan , Fanny Brice , Gertrude Lawrence ) the most accessible piece of film footage for Fields and Seeley is the biopic ABOUT th... |
418,827 | 1,609,079 | 16,958 | 4 | Karloff's most surprising performance | ' Her Honour , the Governor ' is a fairly implausible movie inspired by actual events . James Ferguson was governor of Texas during the Great War and for some years thereafter . Throughout his administration , his wife Miriam Amanda Ferguson showed no political ambitions of her own : she was happy to be a wife , a moth... |
418,768 | 1,609,079 | 23,459 | 4 | . . . and it serves her right , too ! | For modern viewers , the title ' She Wanted a Millionaire ' makes this movie sound like a comedy , but it was actually meant to be moralistic : she wanted a millionaire , and look what she got . There's a very judgmental tone hanging over this entire film ; the audience are manipulated to perceive that the female prota... |
419,175 | 1,609,079 | 896,964 | 4 | Who or what is a Cuban Pete ? | IMDb's reviewer " free2emailus " has made a few errors in reviewing this film : the Three Rhythm Boys are dressed as footmen , not butlers ; the little girl Jean has no mother in this film , off-camera or otherwise . Also , the plot centres on an error : even a Brit like me knows that U . S . income-tax auditors did no... |
418,214 | 1,609,079 | 16,915 | 4 | Who's a pretty boy , then ? | Elisabeth Bergner is probably best remembered ( in Britain , at least ) for playing Rosalind in ' As You Like It ' , a role for which she spent most of her screen time cross-dressed as Ganymede , the counterfeit boy . She wasn't convincing as a boy in that film , but the theatrical artifice of Shakespeare's verse made ... |
418,480 | 1,609,079 | 38,643 | 4 | Fritz Lang did it much better | ' Inside Job ' is a semi-noir drama , notably for one reason only : this film is the very last credit on the CV of cult-film figure Tod Browning . Although Browning had a serious drinking problem ( partly because he took advantage of free beer shipments for life , a gift from the president of Coors Brewing , whom he ha... |
418,258 | 1,609,079 | 253,069 | 4 | Scooby-Doo , wo bist du ? | Dolly Haas performed on stage in Europe and on Broadway , and in several films ( including Hitchcock's " I Confess " ) , but her acting career is less significant than the fact that she was the wife of the great caricaturist Al Hirschfeld , and the mother of ' NINA ' whose name so notably appeared in Hirschfeld's drawi... |
418,734 | 1,609,079 | 15,714 | 4 | Cheese and pickle sandwich | Johnny Hines was dealt with briefly in Walter Kerr's important reference work ' The Silent Clowns ' . His inclusion in that book is justified , but a brief mention is all he deserves . Hines was a third-string comedian in the great days of silent comedy . He tended to play brash go-getters in the Harold Lloyd mould . .... |
418,847 | 1,609,079 | 68,637 | 4 | Katharine Ross , drop those hot pants | ' Get to Know Your Rabbit ' is far from a great movie , but it's a quirky film that tells an unusual story in an original way . Best of all , there's a very sexy performance by Katharine Ross , plus good performances by Orson Welles and several other cast members . I'm surprised that this hasn't become a cult movie . (... |
419,289 | 1,609,079 | 21,968 | 5 | Dooley truly quite unruly . | Ray ( short for Rachael ) Dooley was an extremely talented Scots-born comedienne who was a Broadway star of the 1920s . Like Christine Baranski , Ray Dooley was ( by contemporary accounts ) that rare female combination of funny and sexy in the same woman . With her angular features and acrobatic agility , Dooley perfor... |
418,757 | 1,609,079 | 15,332 | 5 | Forget the dog ; let's see more of Edna . | The top-billed performer in ' The Silent Accuser ' is Peter the Great , an Alsatian dog who resembles Rin Tin Tin . . . and this film appears to be MGM's attempt to copy the success of the highly profitable Rin Tin Tin movies . Peter is the faithful canine companion of Jack . When Jack's evil stepbrother Phil murders h... |
418,733 | 1,609,079 | 15,355 | 5 | And nobody's driving the movie , either . | Johnny Hines was dealt with briefly in Walter Kerr's important reference work ' The Silent Clowns ' . His inclusion in that book is justified , but a brief mention is all he deserves . Hines was a third-string comedian in the great days of silent comedy . He tended to play brash go-getters in the Harold Lloyd mould . .... |
419,036 | 1,609,079 | 23,848 | 5 | Fast-forward to Rooney's big number | ' Broadway to Hollywood ' has a grandiose title and can't live up to it . Nevertheless , this early MGM semi-musical does have some good moments in amongst the soap opera . The most interesting thing about this movie is that Jackie Cooper plays Mickey Rooney's father ! ( They were both child actors at the time , and Co... |
418,870 | 1,609,079 | 61,308 | 5 | A sobering experience . | I saw ' Twice a Fortnight ' ( which works out to once a week , ha ha ) when it was originally transmitted by the BBC on a weekly basis . The programme lasted precisely five fortnights ( i . e . , ten weekly episodes ) in late 1967 , terminating just before Christmas . In fact , I was a member of the studio audience for... |
419,006 | 1,609,079 | 26,311 | 5 | Magyar self at home | ' Miss Big Shot ' stars Lilli Muráti as Zsuzsa ( pronounced ' ZHOO-zha ' ) , the dark-eyed daughter of the chairman of a Budapest textile factory . When he dies suddenly , Zsuzsa takes over the factory . Intriguingly , this 1935 film makes it quite clear that a young woman is intellectually and emotionally capable of r... |
419,456 | 1,609,079 | 130,133 | 5 | Hava Nagila | ' Halome Ami ' was filmed silent , with a post-dubbed soundtrack , so I'll review the image and the sounds separately . The film consists of travelogue footage of Eretz Israel : the Palestinian homeland of the Jewish people before the nation of Israel was officially recognised . There is some fascinating footage of col... |
418,943 | 1,609,079 | 13,251 | 5 | ' Battling Butler ' on horseback | ' The Hottentot ' has strong similarities to Buster Keaton's film ' Battling Butler ' , made a few years later . In both movies , the main character is ( at the beginning ) an ineffectual and clumsy man who coincidentally has the same name as a popular athlete . In both movies , mistaken identity leads the klutz to sub... |
418,841 | 1,609,079 | 15,219 | 5 | Crude but delightful . | Another " lost " film back from the dead ! I viewed " Peg o ' the Mounted " - - lost for years , but now found again - - at the 2006 Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy . Even more impressively , at the same screening I got to meet this film's star ! Diana Serra Cary , who once performed as ' Baby Peggy ' , is still... |
418,908 | 1,609,079 | 8,873 | 5 | Leave Xantippe out of this . | Silent-film star Wallace Reid is ( like Roscoe Arbuckle ) unfairly remembered for a scandal which didn't accurately reflect his true life or career . Because Reid usually played clean-cut go-getters on screen , his fans were shocked when his early death revealed the effects of long-term morphine abuse . This was actual... |
418,730 | 1,609,079 | 214 | 5 | Oh , by jingo ! | SPOILER ALERT : Reading this review will take longer than the running time of the movie itself . The Yorkshire-born showman J . Stuart Blackton was an important figure in the early history of American movies . Most of his early films were newsreel-style records of actual current events . . . but their historical value ... |
418,887 | 1,609,079 | 8,848 | 5 | Accept no imitations . | At the peak of his career , Charlie Chaplin's films were so hugely popular ( and profitable ) that a whole legion of lesser film comedians were imitating him . A few comedians took the gambit of performing Chaplinesque antics while at least maintaining some originality of appearance . The best and best-known example of... |
418,213 | 1,609,079 | 21,760 | 5 | Jim Nabors gets shot . | The title of this film is never explained ; possibly ' The Conquering Horde ' refers to a cattle stampede . Certainly the stampede sequence in this movie is one of its ( few ) highlights . Taisie Lockhart ( Fay Wray ) and Dan McMasters ( Richard Arlen ) were chaste lovers up until 1861 , when the American Civil War bro... |
419,486 | 1,609,079 | 147,897 | 5 | What were they thinking ? | Cross-dressing is a fertile subject for comedy , but I tend to cringe when it happens in a cartoon intended for children . Bugs Bunny's penchant for transvestism is strange enough . . . but here in ' Blind Date ' , a cartoon starring Heckle and Jeckle , we have something even more bizarre : forced public feminisation i... |
419,169 | 1,609,079 | 74,057 | 5 | Insert Gallic shrug here . | The title and subtitle of this French miniseries are " Six Times Two ; Over and under the media " . The " six " refers to the fact that there are six episodes ; the " two " has a double meaning . Each of these episodes is a collaboration between two people : Jean-Luc Godard and his long-time partner Anne-Marie Miéville... |
419,058 | 1,609,079 | 285,733 | 5 | Fiddling about . | In the 1920s , classical musicians were still popular with the general public rather than being stigmatised as ' long-hairs ' for elitists and snobs . With the coming of talkies , Warner Brothers ' Vitaphone unit ( based in Brooklyn , NY ) were quick to film the performances of classical musicians and opera singers bas... |
418,599 | 1,609,079 | 307 | 5 | Verging on the Opper attic . | The comic strip ' Happy Hooligan ' was written and drawn by Frederick Burr Opper ( without assistants ) for an impressively long time : 1900 to 1932 . It was the first extremely popular American comic strip , the first major comic strip syndicated by King Features , and the first comic strip to spawn a significant amou... |
419,221 | 1,609,079 | 17,750 | 5 | Some razzle , but not much dazzle | Yes , the 1927 silent film ' Chicago ' is the same story that became the big-budget Oscar-winning musical of 2002 . ( There was a remake in between , ' Roxie Hart ' : starring Ginger Rogers . ) Apart from the obvious difference that one ' Chicago ' is silent and the other is a musical , both films tell exactly the same... |
418,993 | 1,609,079 | 21,629 | 5 | You are getting sleepy . . . very sleepy . . . | Many European actors who fled the Nazis brought their talents to Hollywood , usually in supporting roles due to the limitations of their European accents . Siegfried Arno was a star in German comedies who went on to a respectable career in Hollywood as a character comedian in small supporting roles . ' Ein Ausgekochter... |
418,548 | 1,609,079 | 11,073 | 5 | Afterbirth of a nation | John Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore never entirely abandoned the stage , even after beginning their film careers . However , when their older brother Lionel moved to Hollywood , he gave quits to the theatre forever . . . devoting the rest of his career to movies and radio . During Lionel Barrymore's theatrical career , ... |
419,706 | 1,609,079 | 330,580 | 5 | Like a bad opera with no music . | The very sensuous actress Regina Badet portrays Leah , a shill who works for a European casino run by a crook , played in an excellent performance by the actor Guy Favieres . According to the intertitles of the print I viewed , the casino owner's name is Govanni . . . aye , that's Govanni , not Giovanni . Shows you how... |
419,138 | 1,609,079 | 26,385 | 5 | Where's an earthquake when you really need one ? | ' Frisco Kid ' was made at Warner Brothers , the studio that most ruthlessly ripped off and recycled its own scripts in thinly-disguised remakes . This movie re-uses elements from ' Barbary Coast ' , another ( and better ) Warners film made the same year ! The barroom brawl in ' Frisco Kid ' seems to be inspired by the... |
418,937 | 1,609,079 | 17,774 | 5 | That sinking feeling | The English-born Dorothy Mackaill was a silent-film actress who looked stately rather than beautiful . Her voice was not impressive in early sound films . In ' Convoy ' , she plays Sylvia Dodge : a New York society lady in 1917 who is recruited by a Secret Service agent ( ominously known only as Smith ) to befriend Ern... |
418,808 | 1,609,079 | 14,956 | 5 | Flyweight actor in lightweight story . | The thoroughfare in the title of ' The Great White Way ' is , of course , Broadway . . . which came into its own in 1904 with the opening of Manhattan's subway system . I was eager to see this film , as it includes brief appearances by several prominent newspapermen and society figures of this period . Among others , w... |
418,452 | 1,609,079 | 887,506 | 5 | The buttons don't reach high enough . | It's a shame that so many Broadway plays and musicals drift into obscurity because they were never filmed . For decades , theatre historians agreed that one of the greatest dance numbers ever staged was Jerome Robbins's second-act opening of ' High Button Shoes ' : a frenzied production number titled ' The Bathing Beau... |
418,462 | 1,609,079 | 11,102 | 5 | ' Deep Purple ' ? More like pale lavender . . . | ' The Deep Purple ' is based on a stage play ( about which , more in a moment ) . I was surprised to discover that William Cameron Menzies was this film's art director . . . and disappointed , once I'd seen the results . Menzies was the greatest art director in the history of films , but his work here is a far cry from... |
418,901 | 1,609,079 | 26,491 | 5 | Waller , Robinson , Le Gon transcend weak material . | ' Hooray for Love ' is the great title of this goodish B-musical ( and of one poor song near the closing ) . The best assets of this so-so show are its three African-American performers : the great Fats Waller , the great Bill Robinson , and the very talented ( and pretty ) dancer Jeni Le Gon . In recent years , Ms Le ... |
418,987 | 1,609,079 | 132,513 | 5 | Soapsuds on the ice , starring Frick & Frack | Figure-skating isn't the most promising basis for a film , nor for an acting career . Esther Williams's movie stardom was based on swimming , but at least MGM could just occasionally hang a decent plot line on that talent . Until somebody makes a movie about Tonya Harding , I don't think I'll ever see a genuinely excit... |
419,103 | 1,609,079 | 17,672 | 5 | So , THAT'S Mrs Warren's profession ! | I was intrigued by the opening credits of ' Beware of Widows ' : this comedy ( not very funny ) is based on a play by somebody named Owen Moore . There can't be very many people with that name , and I can only think of one : the prolific film actor who was also married to Mary Pickford . I was wholly unaware that he'd ... |
418,497 | 1,609,079 | 9,088 | 5 | Semon second-class | Buster Keaton's ghost-written memoir ' My Wonderful World of Slapstick ' contains a perceptive comment about silent-film comedian Larry Semon : he tended to pack his films with impossible gags that were funny but completely implausible . According to Keaton , audiences laughed harder at Semon than at more plausible com... |
418,848 | 1,609,079 | 53,109 | 5 | Near-miss , near-musical | ' Never Steal Anything Small ' comes tantalisingly close to being a first-rate film , a sparkling musical comedy with some trenchant satirical commentary on the close relationship between politicians , labour unions and organised crime . James Cagney gives an ingratiating performance in what very nearly could have been... |
419,237 | 1,609,079 | 25,759 | 5 | Hoot mon ! A braw bricht iguana ! | I've seen an advert for a video of ' The Secret of the Loch ' which touts this as ' the first sound movie about the Loch Ness Monster ' . . . implying that there were several silent films about Nessie . I'm absolutely certain that not a single movie was made about the Loch Ness creature during the silent-film era . . .... |
418,557 | 1,609,079 | 18,170 | 5 | Goodbye , Mr Chimps | I saw ' The Monkey Talks ' in October 1998 , at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy . The main character in ' The Monkey Talks ' is a man who spends most of his time on screen disguised as a chimpanzee . . . and successfully deceiving close observers . Without relying on camera tricks , it's probably impossible... |
419,356 | 1,609,079 | 24,431 | 5 | Based on a famous murder case . | ' The Past of Mary Holmes ' was inspired by a notorious murder case that was never solved . In 1922 , a man and woman were found shot dead in a field in New Jersey . The man was quickly identified as the Reverend Edward Hall , an Episcopal minister married to an heiress . The woman was Eleanor Mills , who sang in Rever... |
418,784 | 1,609,079 | 148,144 | 5 | Jeckle stops pretending he's English ; Dimwit gets smart . | ' Fishing by the Sea ' is the weird and unfunny title of this fairly funny Heckle and Jeckle cartoon , made very early in their development . The magpies ' voices haven't been established yet ; here , Jeckle speaks in a falsetto that doesn't even pretend to be an English accent , while Heckle's prole voice has just a h... |
419,413 | 1,609,079 | 594 | 5 | Insultin ' the Sultan ; a climactic camel chase ! | I saw ' Flugten fra seraillet ' in October 2006 at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy ; they screened an excellent print on loan from the Danish Film Institute . The credited male actors are Viggo Larsen , Gustave Lund and Valdemar Petersen . The credited actresses are Clara Nebelong and Maggi Zinn . This movie... |
418,274 | 1,609,079 | 684 | 5 | proto-Keystone slapstick | A previous IMDb reviewer has stated that Jeanie Macpherson , who appears in this film , was Cecil B . DeMille's wife . That's not correct . Macpherson had a long and significant career as DeMille's favourite scenarist ; she wrote or co-wrote the scripts for many of DeMille's most important films and quite a few of his ... |
419,260 | 1,609,079 | 25,629 | 5 | Robert Young in his skivvies | ' Paris Interlude ' is based on a play by S . J . Perelman and his wife Laura ( nee Weinstein ) . Laura Perelman's chief claim to fame was that she was the sister of the grossly overrated cult author Nathanael West . S . J . Perelman is remembered for co-authoring two Marx Brothers movies and ' Around the World in 80 D... |
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