reviewId int64 363k 588k | userId int64 33.9k 15.9M | itemId int64 1 1.42M | rating float64 1 10 | title stringlengths 1 10.9k ⌀ | content stringlengths 81 11.6k ⌀ |
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438,820 | 1,617,546 | 27,466 | 5 | Should've Been Better | This decent second feature about how Chester Morris goes undercover to break up a counterfeiting ring is a decent effort , but has all the earmarks of something that should have been better . It has a fine cast including Morris , Lloyd Nolan , Claude Gillingwater doing one of his patented grouches and the always believ... |
438,596 | 1,617,546 | 25,535 | 5 | Surprisingly bland | Given the talent here - - Billies Gilbert and Bletcher in front of the camera , Charley Chase behind it - - this is a surprisingly dull short comedy from Roach , as the Billies play stock German dialectician comics going out for a night at a nightclub . Chase directs competently , but nothing really surprisingly funny ... |
438,442 | 1,617,546 | 269,542 | 5 | Fragment | Very little of this Billy West comedy from 1918 is known to survive today : only a forty-second fragment in which Leo White instructs a half dozen girls ( including a very young and conventionally coifed Leatrice Joy ) in a gym class , using Billy as a saw horse for their gymnastics . Billy's playing of the scene indic... |
438,470 | 1,617,546 | 20,735 | 5 | Exercise in Stereotypes | The sort of line-drawing animation that is used in this Silly Symphony about cannibals in Africa is interesting . . . . a sort of animated line drawing , eked out a bit - - arms and legs thin lines , hands and feet big . But the modern viewer will be offended . The extreme stereotype of Blacks will offend the modern vi... |
438,698 | 1,617,546 | 16,114 | 5 | Oo-la-la , Bebe ! | During the twenties , Paramount made a lot of sophisticated comedies , which meant people , supposedly living in Europe in varying states of undress , coming to no good . This would prove that Middle America knew how to live . Many of them , alas , were not particularly funny . Except for Raymond Griffith , this is one... |
439,212 | 1,617,546 | 142,149 | 5 | Fred , Not Tex | Tex Avery worked on this one , credited as an ' artist ' and it must have annoyed him , because while the construction of this cartoon and the gags are good , the timing is slow and , at times , awful - - and Tex , as we know , was always anxious to get on to the next gag . We've only got a few minutes folks . Instead ... |
438,599 | 1,617,546 | 13,975 | 5 | What was ours is ours again | No , this lost film has not mysteriously turned up in a meat locker in Alice Springs , a barn in the Faroes Islands or even in the Gosfilmfond Archives , where a mutilated version was used to educate good Communists on how capitalists try to burn up small babies for profit . Tom Stathes found a Kodascope copy of the la... |
438,366 | 1,617,546 | 335,384 | 5 | Everybody's Doing It ! | Surprisingly funny short - - about ten seconds - - showing half a dozen people , including policemen , housewives and workmen on roller skates . Interesting as a very early example of fast cutting all done without the benefit of Russian theoreticians , the year before Griffith stepped behind a movie camera . |
438,557 | 1,617,546 | 25,426 | 5 | Which Way Did He Go , George ? | This amusing but overly frantic second feature comedy stars Ross Alexander as a Hollywood press agent who is fired from his job flacking at a movie studio and becomes a radio reporter on Tinseltown , dishing the dirt . Alexander co-stars with future wife Anne Nagel , but the show is stolen by Charley Foy and by Glenda ... |
439,223 | 1,617,546 | 15,917 | 5 | The Timmy's Fallen In A Well School of Anaimal Acting | Thunder the Dog was one of the numerous Dog Stars that sprang up in the wake of Rin-Tin-Tin . He starred in a half dozen movies in the mid-twenties and then disappeared from the screen . In this one , he is the loyal pet of George Hackathorne , a thoroughgoing coward . George behaves like the 98-pound weakling in a Cha... |
438,762 | 1,617,546 | 125,070 | 5 | Saps At Sea | Carl Schenstrøm and Harald Madsen were the leading pair of ' Fat and Skinny ' comedians in the movie world until Laurel and Hardy came along . While their characters never shed their movie-comic trappings - - ill fitting costumes , weird mustaches and bad hats - - they remained enormously popular and continued making f... |
438,453 | 1,617,546 | 49,219 | 5 | Express - - no time for sight seeing | This high speed B movie of Rory Calhoun trying to get out from under the thumb of the diamond smuggling syndicate moves at too fast a speed to make the viewer care much about the characters . They are all portrayed as stick figures : Calhoun , his adventure-loving friends who get caught up in high-profit racket in Maca... |
438,635 | 1,617,546 | 18,885 | 5 | Isadore , Not Friz | In this , the first of more than three hundred cartoons that Isadore ' Friz ' Freleng ever directed , we see no sign of his future greatness - - although he does use one of his favorite gags , of some one entering one door and then exiting another , unrelated door later . This was one of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit car... |
439,438 | 1,617,546 | 29,206 | 5 | Supporting Actors Don't Need Stars | But they do need someone to make sure the script works and a director who can deal with zigs . Joseph Calleia - - best known as the heavy in GILDA - - gets a chance to star in this programmer as a lawyer who joins the political machine and then fights it . He is especially fine in a couple of underplayed small scenes .... |
438,410 | 1,617,546 | 33,949 | 5 | And Down they Go ! | This weak little effort doesn't begin to use a fraction of the ability of its two leads , Slim Summerville and Zasu Pitts , in no small part because too much of the story concerns the two good-looking but uninteresting juveniles . The picture is one of Roach's one-hour ' streamliners ' that he was concentrating on in t... |
438,482 | 1,617,546 | 209,075 | 5 | And bricks is Bricks | Gregory La Cava would go on to make the switch to live action movies and direct some excellent ones , including the classic MY MAN GODFREY . At this stage in his career , he was directing cartoons . This Krazy Kat cartoon hints at the weird and strange strip it is based on and works as a one-joke strip - - five panels ... |
438,689 | 1,617,546 | 22,741 | 5 | Not Betty Boop | The Van Beuren cartoon factory suffered for some time in not being able to figure out what sort of cartoons it wished to produce . This is sort of a Betty Boop cartoon ( with a Helen-Kane-style singing cat in a dress and the gags are very much in the Fleischer vein , although the artwork is far superior in execution , ... |
438,853 | 1,617,546 | 1,469 | 5 | Random Adventures | This is a lesser example of Griffith's series of shorts concerned with social problems , like WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR OLD ? and ONE IS BUSINESS , THE OTHER CRIME . It is , according to its first title , " suggested by Press Comment on the Tramp Evil . " Billy , a poor bootblack , played by Edna Foster , decides to tr... |
439,424 | 1,617,546 | 12,122 | 5 | Broken Nightmare | Griffith returns to the Limehouse author of BROKEN BLOSSOMS to poor effect . Two years earlier we had Lilian Gish , Richard Barthelmess and Donald Crisp acting out a small melodramatic tragedy on sheer acting chops that , even today , through muddy prints , works beautifully . This time , however , we are confronted wi... |
439,185 | 1,617,546 | 31,404 | 5 | A Series Low | This is a decent but weak episode in the MGM series , possibly the weakest . The plot concerns the Judge being informed that he has inherited two million dollars and the entire family heading out to Detroit . Mickey Rooney spends almost all of his time mugging and the life lessons and warmth that give life to the serie... |
438,931 | 1,617,546 | 247,334 | 5 | Well , Fast , anyway | A not-too bad short comedy that suffers from its lack of originality . Lige Conley was a film comedian who is so obscure today that only about a third of his credits appears in the Internet Movie Database . In this film he is a dead ringer for Martin Short in A SIMPLE WISH , but much better at taking the many pratfalls... |
439,477 | 1,617,546 | 800,318 | 5 | Singing and Dancing to a Tiger Beat | As a fan of musicals , I am pleased by the Disney Channel's efforts to keep the genre alive . Indeed , some of their efforts are excellent musicals : HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL , for example . This movie , however , is shot with little sophistication in either the musical forms or the dance forms . Most of the songs are fast ... |
438,744 | 1,617,546 | 34,686 | 5 | First of Three | In this , the first of three Roach streamliners starring Noah Beery Jr . as ' Pidge ' and Jimmy Rogers as , well , Jimmy , a pair of trouble-seeking cowboys wandering around the modern west , we see the middling mix of comedy and western story telling that was the hallmark of this modest series . Noah Beery Jr . later ... |
438,528 | 1,617,546 | 401,504 | 5 | Old Men Talk Talk Talk | Tom Selleck gives a dynamite performance as Eisenhower in this whitewashed hagiography which concerns itself solely the politics leading up to D-Day . While it is well written , it is not particularly cinematic or dramatic and Selleck's performance cannot disguise that entirely . Selleck is shot in a pearlescent light ... |
439,469 | 1,617,546 | 960,876 | 5 | The Dippy-Doo-Dads | Originally , Hal Roach envisaged the ' Our Gang ' series as being about small kids and their animals , but Bob McGowan soon set that right , limiting the animals to Pete the Pup , Darina's mule , and the occasional onerous issue of greasing Wheezer . So Roach split off the animals - - dog , monkey and goat , including ... |
438,564 | 1,617,546 | 31,035 | 5 | Clearing Himself of Murder | Ace the Wonder Dog stars in his third movie , assisted by embittered James Ellison . Ace is accused of murder - - although it is Mr . Ellison who is accused of harboring a vicious animal which needs to be destroyed . Although there is considerable talent in this RKO programmer - - and Ace the Wonder Dog is a handsome a... |
439,441 | 1,617,546 | 30,983 | 5 | A Draw | This is a very efficiently directed movie : so efficient , indeed , that there is not enough character friction or time for witty lines of dialogue to make things interesting . Mary Astor is the manipulative ex-wife , using Herbert Marshall's love of their daughter to control his life . Virginia Bruce is the supportive... |
438,388 | 1,617,546 | 23,912 | 6 | Top Hoot Bottom Melford | An excellent Hoot Gibson programmer in which he plays a confidence man posing as a lawyer selling phony law books . When a murder takes place , he is called in to defend the accused man . Al Bridge is also excellent as the sheriff looking for exculpatory evidence . The direction is credited to George Melford , one of t... |
439,161 | 1,617,546 | 242,707 | 6 | On the Spot | Johnny Arthur was one of those silent comedians who turned out a goodly number of funny comedies , made a transfer to sound in small supporting roles and faded from the public's mind even as they continued working . Movies like this are why . Johnny is in love with a girl who is movie struck and proclaims her devotion ... |
439,023 | 1,617,546 | 32,523 | 6 | The Spirit of Casper | This early Chuck Jones cartoon shows the usual sarcastic edge of Termite Terrace cartoons in this era , between the self-aware humor of Carl Stallings ' music and the voice work - - provided by fellow director Tex Avery . However it also clearly shows what in this period is Jones ' weakness - - his lead character is a ... |
438,536 | 1,617,546 | 32,514 | 6 | Fast | This , the fourth episode in Twentieth-Century-Fox's B series of the Cisco Kid , has Cesar Romero pretending to be dead , aided by a grave and a man who claim to have killed the Kid . The story is well done - - Fox's B unit was probably the best among the majors at this period - - and Edward Cronjager's usual excellent... |
439,440 | 1,617,546 | 10,987 | 6 | Entertaining Potboiler | This expertly rendered potboiler stars Hobart Bosworth as a great diver who is approached by some con artists . They want him to front for a fake company recovering gold from wrecks . He refuses and they put pressure on him by vamping his son . Everyone plays their parts well and this silent movie from 1920 is beautifu... |
438,644 | 1,617,546 | 21,992 | 6 | First Stanwyck Starrer | This movie creaks with age , but is memorable for being Barbara Stanwyck's first movie as a star . Miss Stanwyck gives an excellent performance , as always , but the supporting cast , particularly Charles Butterworth , steals the show as an amiable drunk whose bark is worse than his bite . |
439,253 | 1,617,546 | 21,978 | 6 | Creaky creepy | Creaky but interesting melodrama powered by Walter Huston's performance as a brute and a dynamite action ending . Although Wyler's direction is not as sure as it would be later , it is interesting to note that , for the most accomplished studio director of all time , a man said to operate without a style of his own , a... |
438,617 | 1,617,546 | 212,411 | 6 | Competing With Melies | This Robert Paul production directed by ex-stage magician Walter Booth is a comic warning about the effects of modernism . In this case , Professor Bakem offers his baby incubator , which will add a year's growth to an infant in a few minutes . But when the baby is put in the incubator , a fire starts , and when the ba... |
438,384 | 1,617,546 | 340,234 | 6 | It's A Bear | Back in the day Hollywood turned out short subjects of a myriad stripes in order to fill out a film program . There were comedies and westerns and mysteries and newsreels and cartoons and educational shorts . This is one of a series of slapstick westerns turned out by Universal Pictures - - they took pride in being abl... |
438,834 | 1,617,546 | 10,965 | 6 | An Influence on THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD ? | Sessue Hayakawa invades Douglas Fairbanks ' genre with this light-hearted romp , playing an Egyptian dragoman - - a great-grandson of Napoleon - - who goes to work for a wealthy western family , rescuing them from evil Pasha Fred Jones , who looks a lot like Billy De Wolfe in a fez , and a small horde of oriental hophe... |
438,424 | 1,617,546 | 482,122 | 6 | Presaging Maya Deren and Doing Better | This early experimental film by Emlen Etting shows a woman dancing in a field of grass and wildflowers , then a train trip into a less natural environment , the city , where movement and beauty are subdued . It would seem to be a prefigurement of Maya Deren's work , but seems much more accessible . It does not use the ... |
438,661 | 1,617,546 | 30,638 | 6 | Calling Yosemite Sam | After Fred Quimby had lured Freleng away from Schlesinger's shop , he stuck him in a slot making ' Captain and the Kids ' black and white cartoons , an assignment and attitude that he hated so much that when his contract was up , he scurried back to Schlesinger , made YOU OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES as a way of saying he w... |
439,487 | 1,617,546 | 19,485 | 6 | Silent Duvivier | This late silent film by Duvivier is a well enough told story , but nothing remarkable , with none of the brilliance that would regularly infuse his works from 1930 . One looks for poetic realism in Duvivier's work , for evil women - - consider the unspeakable mother in 1926's POILE DE CARROTE - - , but there is none o... |
438,484 | 1,617,546 | 39,158 | 6 | British Noir | This decent British noir , about a petty crook who gets out of prison and is caught between the police looking for a murder and the crooks who got him put in prison in a smash and grab job is a lot grittier than American noir . WIlliam Hartnell is very believable as the ex-con and Joyce Howard is fine as the not-too-br... |
438,402 | 1,617,546 | 70 | 6 | The Organizing genius of Capitalism | Although those mired in an antiquated theoretical framework may mistake this movie as a Marxian commentary on the oppression of the free worker and the destruction of useful property that rightfully belongs to the proletariat , in actuality , it is no such thing , but a paean to the organizing genius of of capitalism .... |
438,723 | 1,617,546 | 26,337 | 6 | You Are There ! | It's odd how certain images get so into the public mind that they become ridiculous in themselves . Here is the chubby-looking , pencil-mustachioed Frank Buck , strolling around the jungle in pith helmet and shorts , to order the natives in how to capture pythons , monkeys and tigers for zoos in the United States . It ... |
438,381 | 1,617,546 | 147,695 | 6 | A Good Paul Terry Silent | Although in his forty years of regular production of cartoons , Paul Terry never climbed to the top of the heap - - he only garnered two Oscar nominations , one in 1944 and 1945 - - he usually produced a fair , if undistinguished product . This one , featuring Farmer Al Falfa and the usually cast of miscellaneous anima... |
438,841 | 1,617,546 | 23,844 | 6 | From Stan and Ollie to Ralph and Ed | I wonder if Jackie Gleason was very familiar with this series ? Everyone comments on the fact that Gleason's Ralph Kramden and Carney's Ed Norton owe a lot to Mr . Laurel and Mr . Hardy - - but I find that Gleason's characterization owes a lot more to Billy Gilbert in this movie , one of the Roach studio's ' Taxi Boys ... |
438,852 | 1,617,546 | 252,542 | 6 | Charles Ray Earns His Reputation | Charles Ray gives a fine performance in this movie , released before his star-making turn in THE COWARD . While he is out trying to raise money to pay the rent , his sick mother is evicted from their home . While their friends move her back in , Ray goes in search of the landlord and winds up killing him . Ray gives a ... |
439,220 | 1,617,546 | 30,668 | 6 | Something Old and Something New | This pretty good RKO B western stars George O'Brien , whose career , which was going pretty hot in silent days , wound up in this series of solid B westerns for RKO . After he retired in 1940 , his mantle was picked up by Tim Holt . The entire series is entertaining , even if there are usually some flaws - - in this on... |
438,786 | 1,617,546 | 21,932 | 6 | Romeo and Juliet in the Mafia | Some parts of this movie have not survived seventy-five years well , and at times the dialogue limps . Robert Young , as the young lover , speaks in a voice that is annoying in the high register . Constance Cummings is a beautiful young woman and a good actor . Boris Karloff handles his rather small role gracefully , w... |
438,492 | 1,617,546 | 35,289 | 6 | Saright with me | This very amusing Monogram comedy has a number of strong points , including a silly plot which you can largely ignore , since it is pretty much obvious how it is going to turn out from the beginning , . But it has a marvelous comic turn by Irene Ryan ( best known as ' Granny ' on the Beverly Hillbillies ) , the dependa... |
439,472 | 1,617,546 | 32,613 | 6 | Now , Which One is Paul Muni ? | He's the goofy Quebecois trapper speaking with an accent , that's who . With World War Two raging in Europe , Great Britain was trying to make sure that the French-speaking Quebecois didn't decide to throw another revolution , which is why Laurence Olivier played one in 49TH PARALLEL . Nothing loath , Warner Brothers ,... |
438,627 | 1,617,546 | 227,627 | 6 | Oops ! | At first this appears to be simply another of the rather boring actualities of the last decade of the 19th Century , one of those very short films in which the real interest is seeing something that happened far away in a theater , the mere illusion of immediacy , perhaps , enough for a 19th century rube , but surely a... |
439,332 | 1,617,546 | 235,261 | 6 | Motion Pictures are first pictures | This is actually a fairly decent little short subject , and it's not because of the fair choreography , the unmemorable singing or Knox Manning's usual pompous delivery of overwritten lines like ' savage as the night from which it comes ' . It's because the unnamed set designer and Technicolor DP Charles P . Boyle agre... |
439,311 | 1,617,546 | 132 | 6 | Learning to Play the Game | at this stage in the history of the cinema , there was no copyright protection for individual films , so successful efforts were often redone by competitors . . . . and the ways in which they wound up doing things differently tells us more about their weaknesses and strengths than their original works . This is Melies ... |
438,409 | 1,617,546 | 30,485 | 6 | Classic Eberhardt | This high-speed version of one of Mignon Eberhardt's classically plotted mysteries is directed by Noel Smith , one of Warner's experts in short features , timing in at a bit less than one hour . Mr . Smith spent much of the 1930s and 1940s directing second feature westerns and mysteries . Half a dozen people are isolat... |
438,754 | 1,617,546 | 403,144 | 6 | Pour Le Sport | This fairly typical late silent Paul Terry cartoon is about hunting , as Farmer Gray and the cat go riding camelback for dinosaur , lions , monkeys and squirrels . It is a little livelier than usual as instead of using the shotgun , the farmer teaches the dinosaur to play fetch a la Gertie and cavorts with the monkeys ... |
438,360 | 1,617,546 | 24,050 | 6 | Spreadin ' the Jam | Harman and Ising produced this Cubby Bear cartoon for Van Beuren and the difference in quality shows . Although Cubby comes off as a variant of Bosko , every technical detail is handled better than under van Bueuren's home staff : sound , music , backgrounding , voice and animation are all clearly superior . What happe... |
438,819 | 1,617,546 | 142,854 | 6 | Typical | By this point in his career , Woody had settled into a routine sort of cartoon - - a fight with either Wally Walrus or or the Buzzard , plenty of gags on a somewhat catch-as-catch-can basis . In many ways , the style is reminiscent of MGM's Tom and Jerry cartoons , whence writer for this one , Heck Allen had come and w... |
439,261 | 1,617,546 | 32,668 | 6 | Land Shark | Warner's TIGER SHARK plot - - usually with Edward G . Robinson in the lead and a top director like Howard Hawks or Raoul Walsh directing - - gets the B treatment among lumberjacks . Stanley Field , of course , doesn't have the range of Robinson , but John Payne is fine in an early outing as the juvenile lead , and Glor... |
439,498 | 1,617,546 | 409,723 | 6 | Psycho Marching Band | A well-written and executed script manages to triumph over some mechanical line readings to produce an amusing short . I wonder about these Generation Y comedies . which seem to be about the oppressing need to succeed in over-blown instances of trivia . Are they satirizing high school relationships , where the politics... |
438,619 | 1,617,546 | 170 | 6 | First of Two | Although the Internet Movie Database lists this as an 1897 Production , the British Film Institute DVD release of Paul's films in 2006 claims this was part of his original Alhambra show in 1896 and proved to be so popular it was remade two years later . Perhaps the IMDb dating is a compromise of the two editions . In a... |
438,411 | 1,617,546 | 35,113 | 6 | The Art of Redemption | This pretty good propaganda programmer has officer George Murphy fouling up , being busted out and reenlisting as a common sailor , where he runs into Pat O'Brien and Jane Wyatt , Murphy's ex-fiancée and O'Brien's sister . It's interesting to watch the two stock Irishmen play off of each other , each in their usual reg... |
438,753 | 1,617,546 | 17,507 | 6 | Mountain Climbing | Director Charley Bowers , who would leave Mutt & Jeff that that year of 1926 to produced elaborate , live-action cartoons starring himself ( such classics as WILD ROOMER ) , has the unlikely pair go mountain climbing , dealing with the cartoon laws of physics and various wild animals , including a mountain goat with mo... |
439,142 | 1,617,546 | 26,116 | 6 | Merrily We Roll Along | One of a standard series of cartoons for Termite Terrace over the next decade , in which the gags are set up by puns on the titles in a bookstore or magazine shop ( Clampett's BOOK REVIEW ( 1946 ) for example ) . Here , it's advertising posters for popular commercial products . About two-thirds of them are no longer so... |
438,936 | 1,617,546 | 1,260,585 | 6 | The Vitagraph Studios | Roy Mack directs another nice musical short at the Vitagraph Studios out in Brooklyn - - if you go out to the neighborhood , you can still see the company logo on the chimney , although it hasn't been used as a studio in decades . Production shifted for the war in 1942 and never got moving again afterward . Rita Rio - ... |
439,425 | 1,617,546 | 24,022 | 6 | Pre-Code Baby | George Stevens graduated from cameraman to director at Roach , but eventually RKO offered him more opportunities , so off he went . This short looks a lot like the Boy Friends series at Roach - - ex-Roach director Fred Guiol is a writer and ex-Roach regular Grady Sutton appears in front of the camera - - but the humor ... |
438,884 | 1,617,546 | 26,130 | 6 | Good Natured Tyler | Tom Tyler , today probably best remembered for playing the villainous Luke Plummer in John Ford's STAGECOACH starred in a series of B westerns in the mid-thirties , usually called ' Cyclone Tom ' . Good talent behind the camera , including director Webb , screenwriter Oliver Drake and editor Fred Bain make this a pleas... |
438,467 | 1,617,546 | 8,918 | 6 | Decent but Title Heavy | I saw this one under a handicap : they didn't have a camera with a suitable aperture , so the left of the image was cut off down to Academy ratio and there was no accompaniment - - two conditions under which one should not see a silent film . However , it was that or nothing and so any reader is warned that my opinion ... |
438,350 | 1,617,546 | 30,502 | 6 | Use Woodbury to Soap Away Those Spots | This is a zippy little comedy-mystery as Joan Woodbury honestly alibis nightclub owner Bradley Page and the police , in the person of Alan Lane try to break her story . The cast , which includes Jack Carson in an early sizable role and Cecil Kellaway is headlined by Parkyakarkus , a popular dialect comedian of the era ... |
439,184 | 1,617,546 | 268,580 | 6 | Early Semon - Better Than I Expected | I have expressed in the IMDb a mislike of Larry Semon's work , venting my spleen at length in my review for his THE SHOW ( 1922 ) . However here , where he is merely the lead comic and not the whole show , he has turned out a pretty good slapstick comedy . He shares the interesting pratfalls with his colleagues , inclu... |
438,827 | 1,617,546 | 39,032 | 6 | The Thrill of Keenan Wynn ? | A goofy Columbia musical : let's remake Hawks ' HIS GIRL Friday as a musical , only instead of Cary Grant , Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy , we'll have Keenan Wynn , Evelyn Keyes and Allyn Joslyn , and instead of it being about newspapers and death , it will be about - - - nightclub producers ! Sounds like a waste ... |
438,347 | 1,617,546 | 30,548 | 6 | Wild Shooting in O'Brien Western | This is another of the solid B westerns that George O'Brien starred in for RKO in the 1930s . A good cast , including Laraine Day , so young she can't read her lines convincingly , and Stanley Fields doing his Wallace Beery imitation help to fill out this story about mining in the old west . The real standout in this p... |
438,743 | 1,617,546 | 43,830 | 6 | Interesting but slow | Mickey Rooney tries life behind the camera in this potentially interesting but occasionally plodding true confessions story of Helen Walker - - here doing a rather good Claire Trevor imitation - - sprung from prison to take part in a plot to steal a priceless supply of ' oil of myrrh ' from an old lady . The story is i... |
438,533 | 1,617,546 | 28,398 | 6 | Gollywhoppers ! | A nice little second feature , the last directed by silent perennial Chester Franklin - - brother of Sidney Franklin , with whom he co-directed a lot of children's movies in the teens . We needn't go too much into the details of the plot , which are pretty harmless as you might expect of anything with Rin-Tin-Tin Jr . ... |
438,643 | 1,617,546 | 23,992 | 6 | Another Weeper | A well-intentioned but predictable soap opera . Although the script is better than most of Miss Stanwyck's roles of the period , this story , like most of her early roles , creaks , this time with unhappy sincerity and an over-the-top ending . The direction is capably handled and the cast is excellent . Otto Kruger , b... |
439,452 | 1,617,546 | 2,122 | 6 | Suffer the little children | Slow but powerful and earnest piece decrying child labor . As the factory owners live a life of ease and short takes , the workers - - including children - - suffer a life of hardship and long takes . Loom for future star director James Cruze - - director of THE COVERED WAGON - - who was a contract player for Thanhouse... |
439,378 | 1,617,546 | 780,566 | 6 | Always a Mcbridesmaid | This is another in the series of ' McBride ' TV movies that the Hallmark Channel runs . The series is pretty much in the model of the TV Perry Mason in which John Larroquette directs and stars . The mysteries , which are solved in court , are excellently composed classical mysteries with plenty of red herrings scattere... |
439,395 | 1,617,546 | 277,347 | 6 | The End of the Beginning | Larry Semon took over the Vitagraph comedy division , changed it from a drawing room comedy sort of production unit to one emphasizing more Keystone slapstick and starred and directed some good comedies with good cinematography . But eventually , although his stuff remained popular , his budgets ballooned out of contro... |
438,702 | 1,617,546 | 142,972 | 6 | Clyde really Cooks ! | Who was Clyde Cook ? One of several hundreds of silent film comics , whose short subjects are now largely forgotten . A small man with a large mustache , he made dozens of comedies which are now forgotten by all but a few old film buffs . Mr . Cook , alas , never seemed to develop much of a character or style . He was ... |
438,844 | 1,617,546 | 141,043 | 6 | Fishy Puns | An unusual , somewhat weak , but still enjoyable Felix the Cat . The Black Cat is playing baseball with a Black boy , when they find a map showing where some pearls are buried at sea , and construct a submarine - - out of a barrel and a stovepipe - - and steam off to find the treasure . Along the way they run into such... |
439,483 | 1,617,546 | 35,193 | 6 | Good Quick and Straight-Shooting | This Tim Holt western is a remake of the 1940 LEGION OF THE LAWLESS , starring George O'Brien , Holt's predecessor as RKO's leading B western star . The plot is a good one , about Tim Holt being sent to deal with the vigilantes who are ruining the town , and Cliff Edwards ( best known today as the voice of Jiminy Crick... |
439,234 | 1,617,546 | 21,764 | 6 | Pirates | Pretty good adventure flick as Wayne Morris , fed up with the petty piracy of Wall Street , goes into business for himself , highjacking rumrunners ' ships bound to Prohibition America . Some pretty good sequences featuring Fred Kohler as a sadistic gangster , although Thelma Todd is pretty well wasted as a role that c... |
439,501 | 1,617,546 | 45,754 | 6 | Horse Laughs | This is a pretty good comedy drama about how Polly Bergen inherited one horse , had all the smart guys in racing take her for a sucker but still managed to triumph - - at least to the extent of snaring Howard Keel . Polly Bergen is a little too one-note in her role , one that seems to have been tailor-made for Jane Wym... |
438,474 | 1,617,546 | 23,678 | 6 | The Trap Drummer | Joan Bennett's father lost his fortune in the stock market crash and now she earns her living as a hostess at her ex-butler's speakeasy and ekes out her income as a hostess for hire for country weekends - - no funny business . Of course she falls in loves with penniless artist Ben Lyons and that's two sides of the tria... |
438,578 | 1,617,546 | 37,167 | 6 | Silly fun | Googily little wartime fantasy about a cleaning lady who , convinced a lucky charm owned by her late husband ( played in two photographs by an uncredited Charles Laughton , Lanchester's real-life husband ) will keep her from harm , goes to Berlin to " give that blooming Mr . Hitler what for . " Ably supported by a cast... |
439,337 | 1,617,546 | 48,107 | 6 | As the title | Interesting RKO Sports short showing the work of a New York State game warden , protecting the roads from dam-building beavers , beavers from poachers and rivers from pollution . Apparently they do more than sit in towers and watch for forest fires ! |
439,058 | 1,617,546 | 248,375 | 6 | Stage Struck | Stage struck Colleen Moore - in an early role without her famous bob , but looking adorable nonetheless - - insists that she won't marry Earle Rodney because she is going to devote her life to the stage - - and the small-town stage at that , where the leading man shares his dressing room with a cow . This comedy is not... |
438,887 | 1,617,546 | 367,507 | 6 | Camera Movement and Cutting , too | Amazingly , for an American film of this period , there is evidence of camera movement , as the cameraman pans to the left to keep Roosevelt and Prince Henry in the frame , then moves back to show the remainder of the procession ; and a quite evident cut to show the interesting people at the tail . of the procession an... |
439,174 | 1,617,546 | 246,482 | 6 | Talent | A fairly good comedy short from 1925 , made more interesting by the talent involved : future Laurel & Hardy supporting actor Jimmy Finlayson stars ; Stan Laurel directs and co-writes ; James Parrott , brother of Charley Chase and future L & H director co-writes ; L & H cinematographer Art Lloyd is behind the camera and... |
439,255 | 1,617,546 | 23,601 | 6 | As portrayed by Tom Brown and Culver | Interestingly conceived but erratically realized mixture of melodrama and documentary as the American Legion pays for a scholarship to Culver Military Academy for Tom Brown in honor of his Medal-of-Honor-winning father . The script is a little too neat and episodic , however , and apparently the young actors were not u... |
439,069 | 1,617,546 | 8,998 | 6 | Norma Talmadge Triumphs Over a Hacked-Up Scenario | I have had a great number of issues with the Norma Talmadge features I have seen . Her husband and producer , Joe Schenck , spared no expense in purchasing properties for her , but but while they might have been excellent stage shows , they were not well adapted for the screen - - a problem that Buster Keaton , who was... |
438,870 | 1,617,546 | 2,523 | 6 | Charming | This Edison short from 1912 is based on an O . Henry short story : a son of the idle rich falls in love with the daughter of a self-made man and , in order to gain her father's permission to wed her , offers to work at unskilled labor for thirty days . This being an O . Henry story , you can expect a sharp snapper at t... |
438,539 | 1,617,546 | 23,591 | 6 | Not a Great Cartoon , but . . . | Very few of the cartoons directed by Rudolf Ising - - or his partner , High Harman - - for Merrie Melodies were very good . They were still far too busy trying to create Disney look-alikes ( like Bosko , for Mickey Mouse ) , maintain their contracts and deal with their intermediary , Leon Schlesinger , whom they would ... |
439,271 | 1,617,546 | 223,506 | 6 | God Looks Out for Fools and drunks | Apparently a variation on LA CHUTE DE CINQUIEME ETAGE , this one is about a drunk who throws his wife and family out of the window - - at least apparently since the first half is not known to survive . Then , in sorrow , he tries to hang himself . Although Melies is primary remembered for his flights of fantasy and fea... |
438,416 | 1,617,546 | 54,681 | 6 | The Bears ! | A good cast struggles with a silly , mawkish script about how the children of tyrannical circus owner Nehemiah Persoff struggle for control of the circus - - a remake of HOUSE OF STRANGERS - - and the result is boring , but some pretty shots of mountains and great animal acts - - including trained polar bears and hippo... |
438,780 | 1,617,546 | 277,236 | 6 | Flirting in the Park | Larry Semon produces his take on a typical Keystone farce , the flirting-in-the-park routine , where pretty Florence Curtis is pursued by four typical Keystone types : the wealthy geezer , the mustachioed Italian , the derby-wearing tough and , of course , the big-footed cop . . . . and here comes Larry , if not to sav... |
438,826 | 1,617,546 | 405,424 | 6 | The Loan Shark | Edison had a good line of socially conscious features at this point , usually produced by some organization . Here with the Edison Company - - most notably Charles Ogle as the usurer - - we see a ' typical ' case of the victims of usury . Although offered as a ' realistic ' view of the effects of usury , it veers frequ... |
438,609 | 1,617,546 | 122,662 | 6 | Beautiful But Dumb | This documentary is beautiful . The photography and music , in fact , are so good , that Howard Hawks seems to have cribbed extensively from it for RED RIVER . But the narration is done in the style of a teaching nun explaining sex to a class of deaf pupils . What can you learn from this ? That people insisted on farmi... |
439,344 | 1,617,546 | 11,163 | 6 | Racing Vehicle | A star vehicle for Wallace Reid , and a sequel to his earlier success , THE ROARING ROAD . It's also one of the few decent prints of any of his majors roles that survive . Reid is an ex-racing driver now , settled down with a baby - - - played by his son , Wallace Reid , Jr . - - and his wife doesn't want him to speed ... |
439,143 | 1,617,546 | 403,237 | 6 | It's a romantic comedy because . . . . | A decently executed romantic comedy , this takes a highly delusional young woman who spends much of her spare time with an imaginary boyfriend . Then she encounters a handsome young man , charming , honest and , of course , they conceive an immediate dislike for each other . Since this made-for-TV movie is in a two-hou... |
439,135 | 1,617,546 | 285,760 | 6 | good for what ails you | Silly little comedy short about Rudy Vallee running a hospital where he cures his patients - - one of whom suffers from Pagliacci - - by means of music . Perked up by a rare onscreen appearence by Mae Questal , better known as the voices of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl . Vallee sings " Keep a Little Song Handy " , " Mammy ... |
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