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419,419 | 1,609,079 | 32,396 | 7 | How much of this is true ? | I briefly worked for the Reuters news agency ( in a very minor capacity ) during the Cold War , so I was curious to see the film ' This Man Reuter ' , which purports to be a biopic of Paul Julius Reuter . I knew almost nothing about the agency's founder before I saw this film . . . and now that I've seen it , I still k... |
418,450 | 1,609,079 | 1,053,058 | 7 | A Paper of Pins : Greer Garson guys herself . | I was living in Britain and Australia when ' The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour ' aired in the States , so I didn't have a chance to watch it regularly . I'm aware of the controversies which accompanied this programme , and which only make me that much keener to track down all the episodes . Despite the ' Comedy Hour ' ... |
419,183 | 1,609,079 | 243,123 | 7 | First use of the cutaway shot ? | For the first two seconds of this brief movie , I thought I was watching a split-screen shot : two different images occupying the frame simultaneously , side by side . In this short film , a white ( or pale grey ) vertical line bisects the screen ; there are two different rooms either side of the line , with different ... |
419,485 | 1,609,079 | 759,597 | 7 | Kobayashi Tomijiro in a wooden box , and so is this movie . | I saw this 7-minute Japanese silent film in October 2005 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Sacile , Italy : the festival screened a 35mm print . Since the film has no intertitles , there was no language barrier . I've seen references to this film as a documentary , but that's incorrect . It would be more accurate to cr... |
418,246 | 1,609,079 | 14,869 | 7 | Wistful semi-fantasy | ' The Enchanted Cottage ' is a delicate little drama that flirts at the edges of fantasy . Cleverly , this film evokes the aura of the supernatural without ever making clear whether it's actually here or not . The film actor Richard Barthelmess engages me intellectually but not emotionally . I've never yet seen a Barth... |
419,530 | 1,609,079 | 12,938 | 7 | The Tutankhamun of silent films | Once again , a film " lost forever " has merely been mislaid . ' Beyond the Rocks ' is now the King Tutankhamun of silent films , and I say this not merely because the movie climaxes in an ancient Egyptian tomb . Tutankhamun was actually one of the more obscure kings of Egypt , who is now famous precisely because of hi... |
419,157 | 1,609,079 | 26,485 | 7 | Double trouble , ooh la la ! | Back in silent-film days , Hollywood studios were able to release their movies all over the world , simply by translating the title cards into other languages . After the talkie revolution , all the rules changed . Eventually , soundtrack dubbing techniques were developed . . . but for the first few years of the talkie... |
418,307 | 1,609,079 | 32,971 | 7 | Plumb ornery varmints ! | ' Range Busters ' is an absolutely typical example of the low-budget quickie grind'em-out Western . It will therefore be hugely enjoyable to those who like such things , but not to many other people . Crash and Dusty are typical white-hat cowboy heroes . Their friend Alibi , the comedy relief , is a ventriloquist cowpo... |
418,464 | 1,609,079 | 34,890 | 7 | George Brent pulls the stops out . | The film ' In This Our Life ' is adapted from the novel of the same name by Ellen Glasgow ( 1873-1945 ) , whose novels had healthy sales figures during her lifetime , yet who is now almost totally forgotten . Her own life was extremely unhappy , largely due to unpleasant memories of her abusive father . ( In her will ,... |
418,758 | 1,609,079 | 14,901 | 7 | Arf a moment , squire . . . | When I play movie trivia with other movie fans , I often stump them with this question : What famous movie personality served in the German army during World War One , but became one of Hollywood's biggest stars in the 1920s ? The answer is Rin Tin Tin . This Alsatian dog ( his original name unknown ) was found in an a... |
418,263 | 1,609,079 | 83,721 | 7 | Tom's a-cold ; or , dead dad Donovan didn't duly die . | ' Carry Me Back ' was a big hit in its native New Zealand , and is a hardy perennial on British television . The U . S . rights were bought by Lorimar , and it's a shame that Stateside distribution has been handled poorly . If Lorimar had put a bit of effort into marketing this movie , they could have had a hit of ' Cr... |
418,470 | 1,609,079 | 841,152 | 7 | Edwardian striptease | Filmmakers realised very early on that sex appeal would bring in the customers . The movie camera enabled audiences to view a shapely actress in close-up , or at least much more closely than she could be seen from across the footlights of a stage . ' Pull Down the Curtain , Susie ' is a brief film offering sexual titil... |
419,422 | 1,609,079 | 158,646 | 7 | Laser beams and drag queens | I found this musical special hugely enjoyable , even though I'd previously had some bad experiences with Shirley MacLaine when I worked on the production crew of her ill-fated sitcom ' Shirley's World ' . Ms MacLaine is a dynamically talented performer who has paid her dues over and over ; I just wish that she didn't h... |
419,083 | 1,609,079 | 10,456 | 7 | Alpine for you , mein liebchen | Before his brilliant Hollywood career as a director of sparkling sex comedies , Ernst Lubitsch starred ( and directed himself ) in a long series of silent comedies ( most of them four reels long ) in Germany . He typically played a pushy Jewish character , and many of his early comedies featured up-to-the-minute slang ... |
418,980 | 1,609,079 | 20,056 | 7 | Oy , vay ! Such a schmendrick ! | Before he became a movie star , Edward G Robinson was a New York stage actor who had difficulty getting roles , so he teamed up with newspaperman Jo Swerling to write a play as a stage vehicle for himself . ' The Kibitzer ' , starring Robinson , was a modest Broadway hit . When Paramount bought the film rights , they d... |
418,845 | 1,609,079 | 454,824 | 7 | Look at those Fokkers go ! | I'm fascinated by the First World War , so I rushed to a press screening of ' Flyboys ' . As soon as I saw the portentous words ' Based on the True Story ' , I knew we were in for a load of fiction . Sure enough : ' Flyboys ' tells a deeply entertaining but largely implausible UNtrue story about the Lafayette Escadrill... |
419,348 | 1,609,079 | 18,132 | 7 | a Plot-o-Matic romance | ' Man Crazy ' has a doubly misleading title , which implies that this is a wild comedy about a nymphomaniac . In fact , it's a sedate comedy of manners , in which the female lead is a dignified ingenue . The movie is well-made and entertaining , but nothing special . . . up until a fairly exciting action climax . The s... |
418,224 | 1,609,079 | 24,329 | 7 | Not even Hitler could stop this cartoon | Mickey's Gala Premiere is an above-average Mickey Mouse cartoon from Disney's best period . The premise is simple : Mickey Mouse produces a movie , and all the biggest stars in Hollywood ( 1933 vintage ) show up for the premiere . Unfortunately , most modern viewers will be unable to identify some or all of the big s... |
419,060 | 1,609,079 | 186,984 | 7 | Cheap skates , but plenty of ball bearings . | Here's a pleasant Vitaphone short which has the sense to dispense with any sort of plot , just giving us musical numbers . Vocalist Sylvia Froos is a minor talent : pretty to look at and pleasant of voice , though clearly no star . She warbles a samba called " Tony's Wife " , then sings " Lullaby of the Leaves " , a we... |
418,292 | 1,609,079 | 74,283 | 7 | Very enjoyable in its own right ; just don't expect Loony Toons . | I saw this American TV special on British television , on a rainy afternoon in Bristol . In several other IMDb reviews , I've stated my displeasure for the work of animator Chuck Jones . Here , Jones actually subordinates his own ego for once , and I was pleasantly surprised that he produced a one-off show that gives k... |
419,350 | 1,609,079 | 18,109 | 7 | Nice to look at , but morally obtuse . | Why is this movie titled ' The Love Mart ' ? Would ' The Love MARKET ' have been too shocking ? The opening credits say this movie is based on a novel , but the novel ( which I've not read ) had a different title , so the peculiar title on this movie can't be blamed on the original author . All of the following refers ... |
419,234 | 1,609,079 | 39,668 | 7 | Mexican melodrama | ' We the Poor ' is a somewhat overwrought drama by Ismael Rodríguez , a Mexican director whose films often deal with social injustice and economic hardship . The hero of this story is José , nicknamed ' Pepe the Bull ' , although he looks more like Keenan Wynn than any sort of livestock . Pepe is a Mexican working stif... |
418,782 | 1,609,079 | 14,725 | 7 | Bitter Betty , the biter bit . | An archivist at the New-York Historical Society ( they hyphenate " New-York " ) once explained to me that the legend about Dutch settlers purchasing Manhattan from the natives - - and supposedly cheating them out of valuable real estate at a meagre price - - has a twist : the Amerindians who accepted the Dutchmen's bar... |
419,374 | 1,609,079 | 309,300 | 7 | Two giants of English comedy | ' Around the Town ' was a one-off comedy special which the BBC transmitted on the first of October 1955 . Up until that week , the BBC had held a monopoly over all TV broadcasting in Britain , but this week transmissions began for the ITV channel . To keep ahead of their new competition , Auntie Beeb led off with this ... |
419,462 | 1,609,079 | 20,198 | 7 | Amazing science-fiction epic | I truly enjoyed ' The Mysterious Island ' , even though this film is a mess . It's also the most definitive example ( by which I mean the WORST example ) of that mongrel genre which haunted Hollywood in the last three years of the 1920s : the part-talkie . Long stretches of ' Mysterious Island ' are completely silent :... |
418,874 | 1,609,079 | 351,663 | 7 | Duel suspension of disbelief . | I saw the short Danish film ' Rivalinder ' ( ' Rivals ' ) in October 2006 - - a century after its original release - - at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy . . . but the print which was screened was an acetate dupe restored in 1999 from a print in a German film archive , with German intertitles . Consequently ... |
419,531 | 1,609,079 | 27,834 | 7 | Well-made propaganda | The title of this German film translates as ' The Emperor of California ' , so - - when I first heard of this movie - - I thought it would be a dramatisation of the bizarre true story of Joshua Norton , an eccentric beggar in 19th-century San Francisco who declared himself Emperor of the United States . This movie turn... |
418,249 | 1,609,079 | 35,612 | 7 | Valerie Hobson , keep your hat on ! | Robert Donat had movie-star looks and considerable acting talent , but he also had chronic asthma that shortened his life . Ironically , the asthma also helped his acting career . He took acting lessons in the first place in the hope of strengthening his voice , and the condition gave his voice a plaintive whisper that... |
418,429 | 1,609,079 | 2,569 | 7 | This movie gave Grandpa the hotchahs ! | ' The Water Nymph ' was Mack Sennett's very first Keystone film , although he had been involved with the film industry earlier at Biograph , working under DW Griffith . . . whom Sennett enthusiastically praised decades later : ' He was my day school , my night school , my university . ' In the 1990s , film historian Le... |
419,623 | 1,609,079 | 22,370 | 7 | The true story was better . | ' The She-Wolf ' would be totally implausible if it were not inspired by a real person . Hetty Green ( 1834-1916 ) was a miser financier who inherited $7 . 5 million from her Quaker father . Investing this in Civil War bonds and then in railway shares , she was worth at least $100 million when she dropped dead while ha... |
419,256 | 1,609,079 | 24,570 | 7 | A pair of Jacks are busted | Jack Oakie was a very funny comedian within his narrow range . He usually played a blowhard of slightly below-average intelligence , with a high opinion of his own prowess but who lacked the ability to deliver the goods . ( It's a shame that Oakie never got a crack at the role he was born to play : Aubrey Piper in Geor... |
419,442 | 1,609,079 | 24,448 | 7 | ' You and Me ' did it better . | I enjoyed ' Pick-Up ' , but there were quite a few obstacles along the way . Sylvia Sidney plays a woman who's just being released from prison after a two-year sentence , but in the opening scene ( in the prison governor's office ) she's wearing elaborate makeup and her eyebrows are tweezed . In a supporting role , Lil... |
418,797 | 1,609,079 | 223,884 | 7 | Bumbershoot bamboozles | I viewed the Library of Congress print of this George Méliès ' trick ' film . As was often the case , Méliès himself plays the conjuror who presides over the magical proceedings . We see a backdrop with a French inscription which translates as ' Galatea Theatre ' . Apparently Méliès expected audiences in 1903 to be lit... |
419,476 | 1,609,079 | 249,925 | 7 | Oh , bee-hive yourself ! | I saw ' Marvellous Beehive ' in October 2007 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone ; the annual festival has made a welcome return to that town after eight years in nearby Sacile . . . a town no less beautiful , but in Sacile the festival's programme was split between two smaller cinemas at opposite ends of the t... |
419,448 | 1,609,079 | 2,646 | 7 | Not exactly a sinking ship , but . . . | I saw ' Atlantis ' at the opening weekend of the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy , in October 2006 . Several other IMDb reviewers have commented ( incorrectly ) that this 1913 film was inspired by the Titanic disaster of the previous year , and have also commented ( correctly ) about the physical ampleness and i... |
418,276 | 1,609,079 | 14,606 | 7 | The Browning aversion . | This film's title ( a contrived reference to the criminal instinct ) is so arbitrary , I suspect that someone in Universal's front office ordered Tod Browning to make a movie called ' White Tiger ' but didn't care about its actual content . SPOILERS COMING . We get several of the usual Tod Browning elements here : a gr... |
419,080 | 1,609,079 | 10,281 | 7 | Victor / Victoria , 1919 vintage | I Don't Want to Be a Man is a splendid showcase for the acting talents of Ossi Oswalda , the extremely talented ( and pretty ) soubrette of German silent films . She spends a substantial portion of this film dressed as a man , visiting the dance halls of post-war Berlin . . . and the movie resembles a delightful warm... |
418,813 | 1,609,079 | 6,813 | 7 | Did Ernie Kovacs see this movie ? | Roscoe Arbuckle wrote , directed and starred in ' His Wife's Mistake ' at a crucial point in his career , when he was weaning himself off crude slapstick and gradually developing a subtle sense of characterisation . I enjoyed this entire two-reeler , except for one genuinely disgusting sequence after Roscoe's boob char... |
419,228 | 1,609,079 | 148,378 | 7 | The Pharaoh's ancient records | King Tut's Tomb is a Heckle & Jeckle cartoon , but it avoids the usual anarchic violence of those magpies . Instead , the two friends go on an exotic adventure which features more imaginative visuals than usual for a Paul Terry cartoon , and the climax features an interesting musical number . This cartoon ( intention... |
418,912 | 1,609,079 | 33,294 | 7 | Unga bunga boonga ! | Lola Lane was the oldest and least talented of the three Lane sisters ; she was also the one with the campiest forename . ( The others were Priscilla and Rosemary . ) ' Zanzibar ' is a B-movie campfest , and Lola Lane was a good choice for the ludicrous lead role . In some ways , this pull-the-stops-out movie reminds m... |
419,179 | 1,609,079 | 152,194 | 7 | Weight and a waiter ; H . G . Wells did it better . | The UPA studio revolutionised American animation , to the extent that even the monolithic Disney studio emulated UPA's distinctive visual style in ' Toot , Whistle , Plunk and Boom ' . The UPA toon ' The Rise of Duton Lang ' is , by UPA's standards , a fairly straightforward narrative , but it still has a slight twist ... |
419,283 | 1,609,079 | 122,200 | 7 | ' Bambi ' goes Down Under | ' Orphan of the Wilderness ' , filmed in Australia and making excellent use of Australian locations , is an early sound-era film ( 1936 ) that was largely filmed silent , with overdubs . This film reminded me that Australia was one of the leading film-making nations during the silent-movie era ; in fact , the very firs... |
418,623 | 1,609,079 | 8,550 | 7 | Hayakawa kicks the Kaiser in the keester . | ' The Secret Game ' is an espionage drama , and it's rather a good one despite a few ludicrous touches . Although the Japanese-born actor Sessue Hayakawa sometimes played other nationalities , here he's very much a Son of the Emperor . During the Great War ( in which this film takes place ) , Japan were on the same sid... |
419,365 | 1,609,079 | 18,356 | 7 | The thief wore diapers . | Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared in a substantial number of films together before they were officially teamed by producer Hal Roach . In fact , Roach ( a very shrewd businessman ) always kept Stan and Ollie under separate contracts to his studio , intentionally dating the contracts so that Hardy's would expire ( a... |
418,776 | 1,609,079 | 870 | 7 | Rigoletto , the Libretto ; or , Hugo First . | I saw this film in October 1998 at the Cinema Muto festival in Pordenone , Italy . They screened a print from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City . The print ran 16 minutes at 16fps ( I timed it ) , but was missing its original intertitles , so the original running time would have been at least two minutes longer... |
418,232 | 1,609,079 | 39,896 | 7 | . . . and they won't bereave you , either . | ' They Won't Believe Me ' is an excellent second-rank ' noir ' drama . I usually dislike movies told in flashback , but here the gimmick works . Larry Ballantyne ( Robert Young ) is on trial for murdering Verna Carlson ( Susan Hayward ) . His testimony constitutes the bulk of the film's action , in flashback . In the c... |
419,661 | 1,609,079 | 31,844 | 7 | Not as good as ' Sunrise ' , but . . . | By general consensus , the greatest film of the silent-movie era is ' Sunrise : A Song of Two Humans ' ( 1927 ) , made in Hollywood by German director F . W . Murnau . I personally prefer ' Metropolis ' , but there's no doubt that ' Sunrise ' is one of the most lyrical and visually beautiful films ever made . So I was ... |
418,240 | 1,609,079 | 12,513 | 7 | Macadamia pistachio cashew | ' The Nut ' is entertaining enough , yet the elements never cohere . First , the good news : we get quite a bit of Douglas Fairbanks's trademark acrobatics . During the climactic sequence , he and Marguerite De La Motte ( the latter partly stunt-doubled ) clamber about inside a furnace boiler and its heating ducts - - ... |
418,238 | 1,609,079 | 217,151 | 7 | Rare D . H . Lawrence drama | D . H . Lawrence is of course best known for his novels , but he also wrote several plays , of which ' The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd ' is probably the best constructed . I dislike Lawrence's novels while recognising his skill in writing them , and I felt somewhat similar about this play : I disliked it , yet recognised i... |
418,661 | 1,609,079 | 2,915 | 7 | Kindly leave the stage ! | ' The Green Eye of the Yellow God ' was originally a poem by Victorian balladeer J Milton Hayes . This poem was so extremely popular in its day that it became a standard recitation on the bills of 19th-century English music halls , much as ' Casey at the Bat ' and ' Gunga Din ' later became staples in American vaudevil... |
419,131 | 1,609,079 | 148,292 | 7 | Simultaneous magpies . | ' Hitch Hikers ' is an above-average Heckle and Jeckle cartoon . The two magpies are thumbing a ride ( magpies have thumbs ? ) without success . Eventually , they force their way into a passing car . However , the car's canine occupants are a couple of bank robbers , heading for their hideout . Magpie mayhem ensues . F... |
419,434 | 1,609,079 | 66,012 | 7 | It doesn't insult our intelligence ! | I saw ' The Love War ' more than 30 years ago on Australian television , while I was working double shifts in a Sydneyside slaughter-yard . I found this low-budget TV-movie deeply enjoyable , for two reasons : firstly , it was science fiction at a time when I was starved for even half-decent SF . Secondly , I've always... |
418,404 | 1,609,079 | 234,922 | 7 | Serves him right for reading the New York " World " . | I viewed a Library of Congress print of this film ; it was very well-preserved . Quite a few silent-film comedies made fun of social trends of the early twentieth century , such as the women's suffrage movement , the temperance movement and Prohibition . ' Trial Marriages ' is notable because it takes its inspiration f... |
418,815 | 1,609,079 | 2,894 | 7 | Fatty's tragic pants | ' The Gangsters ' is a very early Keystone comedy , but already the Keystone Cops are in their full uniforms ( which wasn't the case in ' The Bangville Police ' ) , and there's some hilarious slapstick action which refreshingly deviates from Keystone's usual ' chase ' structure . Nick Cogley is the leader of a gang of ... |
418,801 | 1,609,079 | 11,958 | 7 | Early McGuffin , sexy maid . | In some of Larry Semon's comedies , he seemed to be positioning himself as a somewhat Chaplinesque little man , to the extent of making his character the subordinate of a large bully resembling Eric Campbell , the burly and memorable foil in Chaplin's short comedies for Mutual . In these Eric Campbell roles , Larry Sem... |
419,575 | 1,609,079 | 1,098 | 7 | Stumped ! or , Mack Sennett as Lon Chaney . | I saw this short film in October 1998 at the Cinema Muto festival in Italy . They screened a print on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC . According to the festival's programme , this print had " missing titles " . . . however , apart from an opening title and credits , I doubt that this movie ever had tit... |
419,535 | 1,609,079 | 27,257 | 7 | Some Polish hams and one kielbasa . | ' Ada ! To nie wypada ! ' was screened for me by a native Pole , who was kind enough to translate some of the dialogue and jokes for me . IMDb's description of this film ( as a comedy ) is not quite accurate : the film is light-hearted , and some of it is quite funny , but there is far more emphasis on singing and danc... |
418,839 | 1,609,079 | 3,288 | 7 | Lon Chaney pays his dues | I saw " Poor Jake's Demise " ( another allegedly ' lost ' film ) this week at the 2006 Giornate del Cinema Muto in Sacile , Italy . A print of this movie turned up in England in May 2006 ; its opening titles were gone , and someone had spliced on the opening title of a Charley Bowers one-reeler . ( Bowers was a comedia... |
419,460 | 1,609,079 | 5,487 | 7 | Hand me that putting niblick , m'dear . . . | Greetings to all my fans in the silent-films newsgroup who eagerly read my IMDb film reviews ! I screened a foreign-language print of " His Lordship's Dilemma " , located in Belgium with the original English-language intertitles cut out and French intertitles spliced in . Also , two insert shots of text ( a close-up of... |
419,504 | 1,609,079 | 131,135 | 7 | Hardy's best pratfall | Why Girls Say No is one of Max Davidson's funnier comedies , even though the aggressively Jewish stereotypes are more obvious here than in most of his other films . Still , there are some very disturbing plot elements here . This is one of those movies which subscribes to the view that , if a man pursues a woman aggr... |
419,440 | 1,609,079 | 20,894 | 7 | Button Up Your Overcoat ! | I viewed UCLA's restored print of this musical , an early example of two-strip Technicolor . Much of the action takes place on golf links and fairways , so I expected to see vibrant greens . . . and I DID see some bright hues of green in the actress's costumes . But the foliage and fairways were strangely subdued . All... |
418,699 | 1,609,079 | 148,673 | 7 | Chapeaux on the magpies . | I never thought I'd spot an example of Walt Disney following Paul Terry's lead , but here we have a Terrytoon that anticipates a Disney toon . ' Rival Romeos ' features Heckle and Jeckle in almost exactly the same premise that would show up a year later in the 1951 Disney epic ' Two Chips and a Miss ' featuring Chip ' ... |
418,690 | 1,609,079 | 249,713 | 7 | Better than I'd expected . | The German title ' Liebesleute ' would translate imprecisely as ' Love-Folk ' or ' The Ones Who Love ' . Here we have a story which , at first glance , would seem to be one of the oldest and most trite of moss-covered Mills & Boon chestnuts : the one about the peasant girl who marries the handsome young nobleman , and ... |
418,506 | 1,609,079 | 16,601 | 7 | Furbelowed farthingales | ' The Amateur Gentleman ' is a swashbuckler , set in Georgian England . This movie perpetrates most of Hollywood's usual errors for costume dramas : everything is too clean , and all the people are too healthy and have perfect teeth . Still , the art direction , lighting and photography are much better here than I've c... |
418,355 | 1,609,079 | 249,609 | 7 | Mostly of historical interest . | I viewed a print of this film which had the original intertitles cut out and German-language titles spliced in . The opening credits were missing altogether : a definite loss , as they might have revealed the name of the astonishingly tall and gaunt actor who plays Jim Slim . His neighbour Jack Fat is played by the rot... |
419,093 | 1,609,079 | 18,505 | 7 | Those communists share EVERYTHING . . . including their wives , apparently . | I was surprised that a previous IMDb reviewer has compared this movie to ' Some Like It Hot ' . ( I assume he means the Billy Wilder comedy , not the Bob Hope musical . ) If ' Tretya meschanskaya ' resembles any Billy Wilder movie , it would have to be ' The Apartment ' . Volodia is a young man from the Russian provinc... |
419,451 | 1,609,079 | 125,242 | 7 | Oh , heaven ! She was beautiful ! | I saw ' Innocence of Lizette ' at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy , in 2006 ; their Desmet print was restored from a beautifully tinted and toned source print in the Nederlands Filmmuseum with Dutch translations replacing the original American credits and intertitles . As is often the case in foreign prints ... |
418,682 | 1,609,079 | 1,063 | 7 | Kiddy kiddy bang bang . | I saw this short drama at the 1998 Cinema Muto festival in Pordenone ; they screened a print from the Library of Congress with the original intertitles missing . The title " Those Boys ! " and the short running time ( 133 feet ) led me to expect that this would be a comedy . When the mother of the large family puts her... |
419,160 | 1,609,079 | 1,076 | 7 | Historically priceless , but poor adaptation | O . Henry's famous story ' The Cop and the Anthem ' was originally published in ' The Sunday World ' on 4 December , 1904 , and has been widely reprinted ever since . This is the story of a Manhattan derelict named Soapy . . . an odd name for an unwashed tramp , until one realises that in 1904 a typical cake of soap wa... |
418,212 | 1,609,079 | 16,129 | 7 | Lloyd Hamilton at both ends ! | Lloyd Hamilton was one of the most imaginative ( and among the funniest ) of all the silent-film comedians . Why is he utterly forgotten ? Unfortunately , the original negatives for a large percentage of his films were lost when the Fox warehouse burnt in the early 1930s . Hamilton was not handsome or graceful like Cha... |
418,970 | 1,609,079 | 29,516 | 7 | She may be dead , but she's still under contract . | ' Saratoga ' was one of Hollywood's biggest box-office hits of 1937 , but an explanation is in order . The film was scheduled to star MGM's popular team of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow , but Harlow died suddenly ( of uraemia , aged only 26 ) while ' Saratoga ' was in production . Her fans demanded that MGM honour Harlow... |
419,411 | 1,609,079 | 129,219 | 7 | Harem-scarem , with some genuine surprises . | I saw ' Maharadjahens yndlingshustru ' ( no capital ' I ' at the end ) in October 2006 at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy ; they screened an archive print from the Danish Film Institute . The film's title translates as ' The Maharaja's Favourite Wife ' . According to the on-screen credits of the DFI print , ... |
418,620 | 1,609,079 | 9,857 | 7 | Korda and Corda in moody intrigue . | I actively seek out movies from as many different nations ( and languages ) and time periods as possible : one reason being so that I can experience at least a few details of many different cultures ( and eras , at least since the days of early cinema ) . Also , if the films aren't in English , I endeavour to learn som... |
419,134 | 1,609,079 | 20,752 | 7 | Mickey gets away with plenty . | ' The Chain Gang ' is a delightful Mickey Mouse short from his early sound period . I was surprised that this one features Mickey in prison ( on a chain gang , no less ) , and we're never told how he came to be there in the first place . The cartoon manages to imply that he's guilty of something , rather than stitched ... |
419,721 | 1,609,079 | 49,457 | 7 | The dessert takes fifteen years . | ' The Long Yule Midday Meal ' would be the literal translation of the title for this Swedish-language production of ' The Long Christmas Dinner ' , one of Thornton Wilder's more obscure plays . All of Wilder's plays feature some distortion of reality - - even his very conventional work ' The Matchmaker ' depicts charac... |
419,554 | 1,609,079 | 1,258 | 7 | Two different movies : same year and title . | I saw a 1958 acetate print of ' Den Hvide slavinde ' ( ' The White-Slave Trade ' ) at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy , in October 2006 . This film has an interesting history . First , some background : During the early 20th century , a popular theme in sensationalist literature was the crime of ' white slav... |
419,072 | 1,609,079 | 1,256 | 7 | I shutter to think ! | D . W . Griffith remains well-known for a handful of feature-length silent films he directed . It's less well-known that he churned out a large number of much shorter films as well , ranging in tone and quality from crude comedies to sophisticated mini-dramas . I found ' The House with Closed Shutters ' hugely interest... |
419,397 | 1,609,079 | 127,028 | 7 | The baron was barren ; the vicar is quicker . | Asta Nielsen was an ethereally beautiful silent-film actress who made only one sound film , then went into a long Garbo-like retirement . There are some strong parallels between Nielsen and Garbo , including some roles they both played ( notably ' Mata Hari ' ) . It's intriguing that Nielsen and Sarah Bernhardt both pl... |
419,655 | 1,609,079 | 23,033 | 7 | This joint is jumping | How've You Bean ? is one of the six short Vitaphone comedies which comprise Roscoe Arbuckle's entire sound-film career . Arbuckle's sudden death occurred less than a week before this film was released . It's not the funniest of Arbuckle's talkies ( that's " Buzzin ' Around " ) , but it's not the worst of them either ... |
418,873 | 1,609,079 | 126,995 | 7 | Hefty actress gives out-sized performance . | I viewed ' Lavinen ' ( a . k . a . ' Avalanche ' ) at the 2006 Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy . This Danish silent is notable for two reasons . Firstly , it uses an elaborate flashback structure , which actually remains quite coherent despite the uninspired technique of this film's director ( Emanuel Gregers , ... |
419,503 | 1,609,079 | 42,510 | 7 | Vood you like mebbe swallow a gless tea ? | Gertrude Berg starred in the extremely popular radio sitcom " The Goldbergs " , which made a successful transition to television and then to this one-off film . The appeal of " The Goldbergs " was similar to that of its contemporary " The Honeymooners " : both featured working-class character studies in 1950s New York ... |
419,447 | 1,609,079 | 123,135 | 7 | That clown leaves big shoes to fill . | I saw the 1926 film ' Klovnen ' ( ' The Clown ' ) in October 2006 at the Cinema Muto festival in Sacile , Italy . I'm always intrigued when a director decides to remake one of his ( or her ) own films : there are so many different stories to tell , why would anyone want to tell the same story twice ? If the story was n... |
418,205 | 1,609,079 | 461,713 | 7 | Impressive but outdated . | Lee Blessing's two-hander ' A Walk in the Woods ' is fiction , but based on a true incident from the last years of the Cold War . During the 1982 Geneva peace negotiations , American delegate Paul Nitze would occasionally stroll through the nearby forest between negotiation sessions . During one of these walks , he enc... |
419,429 | 1,609,079 | 16,854 | 7 | Can you Adam and Eve it ? | ' Fig Leaves ' is a clever marital comedy , starring the rugged George O'Brien and the very sensual Olive Borden . In the prologue , they play Adam and Eve , got up in caveman cozzies . They've been invited to a fight between Cain and Abel , but Eve demurs . ' How can I go , Adam ? ' she asks her husband . ' I've nothi... |
419,699 | 1,609,079 | 69,562 | 7 | Waterhouse's watershed | Following the huge success of Keith Waterhouse's ' Billy Liar ' as a novel , stage play and film , it was inevitable that this ' oop North ' Walter Mitty character would star in a television series . I saw ' Billy Liar ' when it was originally transmitted . While never quite attaining ' Fawlty Towers ' heights of hilar... |
418,563 | 1,609,079 | 439,141 | 7 | Oh boy , does she cover the waterfront ! | I saw ' The Carmen of Saint Pauli ' in October 2007 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone , Italy . The festival screened a print from the archive of the Cinémathèque Royale in Brussels with the original German intertitles . This silent film , made in late 1928 , had the bad luck to be released when it was clear ... |
418,427 | 1,609,079 | 199,671 | 7 | Wind chimes in the toilet | This short film's title would translate in English as ' The Ordeal of the Dragon ; or , The Tragedy of the Underboarders ' . Actually , there's no such word as ' Underboarders ' , but it's a valid concept . In the days when boarding-houses were commonplace , there was always a hierarchy among the boarders in a rooming ... |
418,731 | 1,609,079 | 143,897 | 7 | First movie to use miniatures | 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 is compromised , because Blackton's films are generally re-enactments of these incidents ( often ... |
419,168 | 1,609,079 | 62,323 | 7 | Can't a Menshevik be a mensch ? | I'm not as fluent in Russian as I'd like to be , so a Russian friend suggested that I hone my limited skills by watching this movie : the characters ' actions are simple and clear ( and the plot is quite funny ) even though I had difficulty following the Russian dialogue . I wasn't surprised to learn that ' Wedding in ... |
419,127 | 1,609,079 | 84,885 | 7 | Of mice and men ; Michael Landon gets on his bike . | This very weird yet very enjoyable ( and family-appropriate ) musical special is essentially an infomercial for the Disney empire in general and EPCOT Centre in particular . It pretends to be a retrospective of Walt Disney's life and achievements , yet there are constant references to the Disney corporation's latest bi... |
419,105 | 1,609,079 | 1,097,268 | 7 | Depressing , shocking , yet uplifting and empowering . | I attended the press screening for ' Very Young Girls ' in New York City . . . where this documentary was filmed , although it addresses a problem hardly unique to that city : child prostitution . According to a statement at the start of this film , the AVERAGE age when children enter prostitution is 13 . . . which mea... |
418,568 | 1,609,079 | 461,568 | 7 | Beware of German robots ! | Wow ! I saw ' Rivals ' last month at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone , Italy ; they screened a print from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin . ' Rivals ' is the work of Harry Piel , a semi-handsome German who wrote and directed movies as star vehicles for himself , usually playing a dashing action hero . In ' Rivals '... |
418,395 | 1,609,079 | 48,996 | 7 | Terrific Tom Tully , but Sylvia stinks | Tom Tully is one of the best examples - possibly the best example - of a Hollywood character actor who played prominent supporting roles in many films yet who remains unknown to audiences ( even movie-trivia buffs ) because he consistently gave understated and subtle performances , refusing to throw a film's storyline ... |
418,390 | 1,609,079 | 25,374 | 7 | A midget with an over-sized harmonica . | ' Lazy Bones ' is one of a series of shorts produced by the Fleischer studio which followed an interesting format : some typical Fleischer black-and-white animation ( cartoon gags with a musical soundtrack ) would book-end a live-action musical performance by some popular vaudeville act of the time . Generally , the ti... |
418,537 | 1,609,079 | 16,747 | 7 | Don't Chase me , Charley . | Charley Chase's films were highly variable . I'm always willing to watch a Chase movie I haven't seen before - - hoping it's one of his better ones - - but I'm not enough of a Chase fan to seek out his work . Usually , Chase tends to impress me intellectually with his professionalism rather than provoking me to laughte... |
419,512 | 1,609,079 | 434,938 | 7 | When Hell gets boring , head for Paris . | IMDb's title for this French comedy translates as ' The Son of the Devil Spends the Night in Paris ' . I saw this film in July 1996 at the Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna ; they screened a print with a French title which translated merely as ' The Son of the Devil in Paris ' . The Bologna print was restored from t... |
418,241 | 1,609,079 | 8,134 | 7 | Very much of its time | ' In Again , Out Again ' was Douglas Fairbanks's first film for his own production company ( Artcraft ) but it finds him doing pretty much the same comedy he was doing for other producers : contrived slapstick , with set-piece occasions to show off his athletic prowess . Front-rank stardom would not come for Fairbanks ... |
418,469 | 1,609,079 | 379,224 | 7 | Elaborate fakery with authentic " book-end " footage | The earliest ' newsreel ' films were in fact fakes : re-enactments produced in a studio , with ( usually amateur ) actors impersonating the public figures , and often ludicrously bad stage effects to simulate fire , flood and other forces of nature . ' The Coronation of Edward VII ' is one more such fake , but is notab... |
419,604 | 1,609,079 | 17,063 | 7 | Edna May Oliver wants a good time . | In the late silent-film era , Richard Dix played virile young men in a successful series of comedies . In the early sound era , he gracefully matured into dramatic roles . ' Let's Get Married ' is somewhat atypical for Dix , as he plays a character who is less sympathetic than usual , and who must earn the audience's s... |
419,379 | 1,609,079 | 21,420 | 7 | Too many clichés , but good anyway | The 1930 ' Street of Chance ' ( no relation to a 1942 semi-noir with the same title ) is a highly entertaining showcase for the excellent William Powell . Unfortunately , the central character ( Powell's role ) is one of those implausible stock characters who are encountered so frequently in movies but so seldom in rea... |
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