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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439,015 | 1,617,546 | 224,357 | 6 | Visiting Goldfish | Melies always kept the American market in mind when he made film and early on sent his brother to New York to open up an office . where said brother produced westerns for the company . He liked to employ Francis Ford , who later became a big star and gave his brother Jack his start . . . . who became John Ford . So the... |
438,663 | 1,617,546 | 16,582 | 6 | Stealing from the best | A very strong Alice cartoon as the movie concentrates on Julius , with Alice relegated to a small but key role . Julius goes courting , but another suitor is favored , so he decides to commit suicide - - just to give you an idea of how standards about what is appropriate for kiddie cartoons have changed in eighty years... |
438,865 | 1,617,546 | 452,497 | 6 | Combining Skills | Jack Duffy combined two useful show business skills - - the ability to take a good comedy fall and the ability to make himself up as an old man - - and used these skills to good comic effect to play an old geezer who could take the bone-breaking falls that were common in this era of the movies : made up he looked like ... |
438,686 | 1,617,546 | 224,377 | 6 | Every Cliche in twenty minutes | The beauty of this two-reeler - - and its physical beauty has faded with the aging of its colorwork - - is that it seems to encompass every single western cliche in 20 minutes . Although it does lack a couple of the plotlines , it includes fancy shooting - - Dennis Moore , Dennis Moore , galloping through the sward . .... |
439,051 | 1,617,546 | 45,003 | 6 | Overwrought , But Decent . | Bret Harte's " The Outcasts of Poker Flats " is one of his two best known stories ( the other is " Luck of Roaring Camp " ) and while his reputation has receded over the past century , his humanism and warmth towards the unlikely inhabitants of Gold-Rush California is worth remembering and enjoying . But while the stor... |
438,796 | 1,617,546 | 79,174 | 6 | Remembrance of Things Past | Decent , post-Warners-stint fare from Chuck Jones . Although Mr . Jones seems to have exhausted all his really great ideas by 1965 , what remains is still better than any other animation of the era . While not a picture to seek out , if you are in the audience when it plays , you won't suffer . |
439,031 | 1,617,546 | 249,661 | 6 | Be a man ! | Once you get over the extremely weak premise of this movie - - that Earl Rodney can't tell his parents that he is married to Dorothy Devore as they have chosen another bride for him , so he comes home with Dorothy disguised as a man - - this movie is played out with charm and good humor . Of course it all ends with the... |
439,221 | 1,617,546 | 121,471 | 6 | VH-1 And Before | One of the numerous musical short subjects that the movie studios churned out , this one purports to offer you a sampling of songs from the Gay 90s and the Mauve Decade - - the latter being the first decade of the 20th Century . First they show you someone singing the song int he style of a Vaudeville performer of the ... |
438,517 | 1,617,546 | 31,536 | 6 | You're in trouble . Serious Trouble . | Once again , through no fault of her own , Kay Francis is in trouble and must get out of it through brains and determination . This time it's Bogey , doing a minor variation on Duke Mantee from PETRIFIED FOREST . As in most of Kay's vehicles from this period - - Warner's was pushing Bette Davis as their leading female ... |
438,969 | 1,617,546 | 27,136 | 6 | Good and Loud | Good camerawork helps this stylishly shot although slightly stagily performed version of Doyle's THE ALLEY OF FEAR . The principals are excellent in their roles , but the supporting actors tend to ham it up a bit . Wontner gives a witty performance as Holmes and Ian Fleming - - no , not that Ian Fleming - - is an intel... |
439,377 | 1,617,546 | 27,143 | 6 | Good Late Girl Friends | Although Thelma Todd never developed the chemistry with Patsy Kelly that she had earlier in the series with Zasu Pitts , there are signs of a relationship that looks possible here : Thelma a bit ditzy but willing to stand up to Miss Kelly's unending - - and to me - - annoying brashness . The story - - about the two of ... |
438,371 | 1,617,546 | 201,564 | 6 | Talky silent | Decent entry in the silent series directed by Elvey . The cast is well chosen , the acting is fine , and this one has a lot of movement in it , but the whole movie is marred by the fact that Holmes is a cerebral character , and there is no way to do a mystery without a lot of talk . |
438,598 | 1,617,546 | 25,190 | 6 | A Good Short | Keaton's first screen work after his career collapsed at MGM due to drunkenness , the breakup of his marriage and frustration is a pleasant little piece . True , it lacks the absurdity bordering on surrealism of his great silent shorts , but it does have Keaton at work in a sound film doing what he had always thought w... |
438,946 | 1,617,546 | 27,390 | 6 | Midnight in the Drugstore | 1936 was the year Harman and Ising began to create good cartoons , but they remained wedded to a sentimental childishness that stopped them from achieving great cartoons . Ising would eventually overcome that , but Harman never quite did . Here , the problem is that we know the main character is sleeping , so his dream... |
438,860 | 1,617,546 | 209,356 | 6 | The Best is Yet To Come | A one-reeler from Charley's ' Jimmy Jump ' period , this is a competent comedy with a number of good set-piece gags , but almost nothing in the way of either character development or extended gags - - it's amazing how going from eight to 16 minutes opened up the ability of Charley and Leo McCarey to make not just a goo... |
438,719 | 1,617,546 | 38,121 | 6 | Woof | This RKO short subject is about the training of coast guard dogs , told from the viewpoint of one of the dogs involved - - at least the voice-over narration is supposed to be the reminiscences of one of the dogs , a Doberman Pinscher , leading up to the World War Two service of the dog on a Pacific Island , fighting ag... |
438,450 | 1,617,546 | 1,227 | 6 | My Father Was A Fugitive Aramaean | In the middle of the American Civil War , in a peaceful valley , a foraging Union soldier meets a Confederate Picket and shoots him . What will the Confederate soldier's mother do when she discovers the refugee she has sheltered may have killed her child ? Griffith , reviled for the racism of BIRTH OF A NATION , someti... |
438,814 | 1,617,546 | 1,316,026 | 6 | The Film Professor | Martin Scorsese , besides being a highly distinguished and successful film director , has spent a lot of his adult life educating people about film , first at New York University and through his filmed lectures - - items like A PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH MARTIN SCORSESE THROUGH American MOVIES AND MY VOYAGE TO ITALY . And ,... |
438,794 | 1,617,546 | 48,644 | 6 | Not a Movie | This 13 minute ballet performed to Dukas ' " The Sorceror's Apprentice " is included in the new DVD of the Powell-Pressberger TALES OF Hoffman . Powell did a movie of it , using the brilliant Freddie Francis as cinematographer . It provides a telling counterpoint to that movie and clearly illuminates why TALES is a gre... |
438,883 | 1,617,546 | 163,767 | 6 | Differences | It is always a fascinating conundrum for me to look at early Japanese films , because there are so many differences from the way their American equivalents would be done . Technically , this is much more elaborately drawn and backgrounded than an American cartoon would be in the era , but the animation is not as sophis... |
438,990 | 1,617,546 | 20,770 | 6 | Creaky But Amusing | Clancy ( Charles Murray ) and MacIntosh ( Lucien Littletfield ) are a pair of stock comedy Irish and Scottish plumbers who have been partners for twenty years ; but when Clancy accidentally buys some shares on margin , MacIntosh's Scotch thrift rebels and their partnership breaks up . In the meantime , their children a... |
439,325 | 1,617,546 | 203,567 | 6 | A Superior Keystone | In the midst of the large number of awful comedies Sennet produced in this period - - he seems to have been too involved in the production of comedy features , as well as the unraveling of the Triangle Corporation - - there are a few that stand out today as watchable . The films Arbuckle turned out before he left for h... |
438,393 | 1,617,546 | 16,409 | 6 | Mute Swan Makes Talky Silent | Well-filmed but slow silent version of Molnar's THE SWAN is hampered by far too many title cards . Frances Howard , soon to be Mrs . Sam Goldwyn , makes a lovely Princess , Ricardo Cortez makes an excellent tutor and Adolphe Menjou makes , as always , a funny and aristocratic Prince , but it takes twenty minutes until ... |
438,574 | 1,617,546 | 368,164 | 6 | Jumping at Lightning | This is one of Charley's Jimmy Jump one-reelers , produced when he was re-establishing himself as an on-screen presence , but before he went to his beautifully constructed two-reelers . As a result , the characterization and plot are cut down to a bare minimum and the result , while sustained by his wonderful gag const... |
439,338 | 1,617,546 | 51,629 | 6 | OK Oater | Standard fare beautifully shot . Joel McCrea and Forest Tucker give good performances in this story about a cavalry troop under move , constantly under attack . The real star is the cinematography , shot in beautiful color and featuring some of the best scenery outside a John Ford western . Be sure to see it in wide sc... |
439,495 | 1,617,546 | 20,739 | 6 | The Old Dark Pirate Ship | There was in the 1920s on stage and the 1930s in the movies a genre of ' Old Dark House ' shows , so-called for the J . B . Priestley novel of the same name . Priestley's novel was eventually made into a wonderful movie by James Whale with some great stars playing people with ordinary problems who are forced to take sh... |
438,603 | 1,617,546 | 234,114 | 6 | Trick Film Comedy | This Vitagraph film from 1907 is a fairly good trick comedy for the era . A mad scientist figures out how to convert electricity to a liquid - - which reminds me of the Thurber story about his aunt who thought electricity was leaking from empty light sockets - - and he proceeds to spray it on slow moving people , where... |
438,815 | 1,617,546 | 150,733 | 6 | A Superior Terry Toon | This better than usual Paul Terry cartoon is directed by Mannie Davis , brother of Termite Terrace's Art Davis and the best director that Terry managed to hang onto for a long time . It is , as you might guess from the title , a version of Cinderella . Besides the usual competently timed gags , it is rendered superior ... |
439,043 | 1,617,546 | 16,454 | 6 | Calling Doctor Howard ! | If you think you've seen this movie before , you have . Director Del Lord and writer Felix Adler migrated eventually to the Columbia shorts department , where they wound up doing Three Stooges movies , and this short , about how barbers Billy Bevan and Andy Clyde head out west to find gold and discover it already minte... |
439,072 | 1,617,546 | 60,325 | 6 | Decent Genre Movie | Although this movie has a reputation of being absolutely awful - - apparently Roger Ebert rates it a bomb - - and , while it is clearly a rip-off in every imaginable way of the Leone-Eastwood collaborations , down to Tony Anthony - - playing ' The Stranger ' dressing in a poncho - - the technical work on this movie is ... |
438,641 | 1,617,546 | 234,212 | 6 | An education in eight minutes | MGM shorts come in several varieties . There are the CRIME DOES NOT PAY series , in which a grim story is told . There is the Robert Benchley short , which is very funny and nothing is learned . There is the Pete Smith special , in which we may or may not learn anything , but there will be smirking , and there is the C... |
439,100 | 1,617,546 | 9,977 | 6 | Was ever a woman so rudely wooed ? Why , yes . | This is the sort of rough comedy that Ford had been making at least since the previous year's BUCKING Broadway and would continue to make regularly through DONOVAN'S REEF . It is not a particularly distinguished member of the club - - which includes the Oscar-winning THE QUIET MAN . but any John Ford picture is worth l... |
438,673 | 1,617,546 | 23,030 | 6 | Not So Grand Hotel | This poor knockoff of Vicki Baum's GRAND HOTEL - - or perhaps the MGM extravaganza produced the same year as this last gasp from Tiffany Productions - - is short of major stars in front of the camera , even though it does contain some notable names such as Theodore von Eltz , J . Farrell MacDonald and Henry Walthall fr... |
438,531 | 1,617,546 | 16,235 | 6 | Bad History Great Spectacle | Cruze attempted to follow up the success of THE COVERED WAGON with this rousing story of the founding of the Pony Express in the early days of the Civil War . Plenty of talent is entertainingly displayed , from Wallace Beery as " Rhode Island Red " ( puh-leeze ! ) at his coyest and the ever-delightful Betty Compson to ... |
438,576 | 1,617,546 | 61,997 | 6 | A Solo act | A sharp script manages to save one of the late , Chuck-Jones-produced Tom & Jerries as they do a spy movie spoof . At the end it degenerates into roughly-drawn random violence - - as opposed to the exquisitely drawn random violence of the best Hanna & Barbera Tom & Jerries . Before that end , however , it is pretty goo... |
438,600 | 1,617,546 | 155,055 | 6 | Professionally Amusing | Mr . & Mrs . Sidney Drew starred in a series of polite situational comedies , first for Vitagraph and then for their own company , releasing through Metro . Mr . Drew - - uncle of John , Lionel and Ethel Barrymore - - died after his son was killed in the first world war and his wife - - who wrote and seems to have dire... |
438,622 | 1,617,546 | 25,598 | 6 | How You Gonna Keep ' Em Down on the Farm ? | Roach's ' The Girl Friends ' series plods on with Patsy Kelly taking the place of Zasu Pitts and with second-string director Gus Meins helming the venture . The result is a decent little comedy short with plenty of funny gags , but without , alas , the warmth and chemistry that Miss Pitts was able to bring to her relat... |
438,421 | 1,617,546 | 27,490 | 6 | Cute | Two minutes of three dimensional shapes - - cubes , dowels and so forth - - in motion around themselves , this is an exercise in moving symmetry . Although I usually have little patience for such abstract films , this one is very short - - as I said , two minutes - - and doesn't have time enough to bore the watcher . I... |
438,503 | 1,617,546 | 18,710 | 6 | Marry In Haste , Repent in Seventy Minutes | This is a bright little silent farce of newlyweds Marie Prevost and Harrison Ford - - no , not that Harrison Ford , but the one first one who had his name in a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Although many silent farces fail because of the lack of good lines and that slammed door whose noise makes you jump , this wo... |
438,878 | 1,617,546 | 781,492 | 6 | Ship Was Never This Shapely | One of a series of Billy Dooley's short comedies from the mid-twenties , this one is a bit lighter on the bone-breaking slapstick and heavier on the physical construction of gags , as Billy , still in his sailor suit , comes home and everyone tries to make him feel at home - - so to speak - - by making things more like... |
439,108 | 1,617,546 | 10,023 | 6 | Dog Doesn't Bite Man | This is one of forty shorts that Harold Lloyd made in 1919 . It's fast , it's furious , and it has a lovely gag sequence in which Harold tries to steal a sausage , loses it to a dog and . . . . well , it's very funny . Too fast and furious to make much sense , but a lot of fun . |
439,039 | 1,617,546 | 13,841 | 6 | Actually Saw the Thing | We have here a high-priced costume drama with a standard story : they're in love but they're both so noble they can't tell each other , so we have to go through the entire movie . I have found myself not too fond of Miss Talmadge's movies , so you need to take that into account in this review . Nevertheless , this turn... |
439,037 | 1,617,546 | 436,918 | 6 | There's a New Man In Town | After Harold Lloyd began to move into longer movies - - by 1921 he was doing 3-reelers and would soon be do solely features - - Hal Roach looked for anew comedian to star in his light comedies , a more realistic one . He tried Eddie Boland , who was a fine comedian , for a season , then eventually put Charley Chase bac... |
438,425 | 1,617,546 | 40,390 | 6 | Musical Film Noir ? | This is a pleasant musical programmer from Fox in 1948 , directed by old hand Lloyd Bacon . Dan Dailey does some nice hoofing , Charles Winninger does his patented Old Time Entertainer bit , Barbara Lawrence knocks your eyes out in another small role and makes you wonder why she didn't have a major career . Fay Bainter... |
439,104 | 1,617,546 | 33,907 | 6 | Shticks | These Mexican Spitfire movies are usually little more than a collection of bits from comedy short subjects , and RKO was one of the two best studios for short subjects in this period - - Columbia was the other with the Stooges and Andy Clyde . Lupe Velez does her broken English doubletalk , Leon Errol does a bit of his... |
439,476 | 1,617,546 | 1,166,108 | 6 | Modern B Movies | It used to be that movie stars who could no longer draw a crowd in large enough to justify a big studio contract would end their days in B movies , movies made to fill out a double bill , where they could still attract some people , and perhaps fill out the tail end of their contracts . Nowadays they go into TV series ... |
438,608 | 1,617,546 | 194,553 | 6 | The Whole is Less Than The Sum of Its Parts | Another High Concept Movie that doesn't quite work out . Harold Lloyd made some of the funniest comedies in the 1920s , right ? Right ? So if we take the funniest parts of of his funny movies and make a movie out of just them , it will be even funnier , right ? Right . Well , no , actually . Yes , Harold Lloyd's movies... |
438,867 | 1,617,546 | 25,513 | 6 | Christy Cabanne | This Monogram drama from 1934 is from the period when they were still trying to make good movies , before they focused on cheap second features . It has a good script , a fine supporting cast , including Edgar Kennedy , who gets to do one of his patented slow burns , and Maidel Turner , who is excellent as a well meani... |
438,999 | 1,617,546 | 1,280 | 6 | A long lustrous night | Among the earliest scenes on record are various short films of city scene : Paris , New York - - even a Lumiere short about a lion in a London zoo . But those were made a decade and a half before and at this time the film-makers of Denmark were arguably the most advanced in terms of technique and film grammar : no long... |
438,604 | 1,617,546 | 1,285 | 6 | First American Feature ? | Or first American serial ? It was released as five short subjects in successive weeks because it was believed that the American film-goer would not sit still for a fifty-minute movie . In that sense it is an interesting curiosity . How is it as a movie or series of movies ? For 1909 , very good indeed . The acting is a... |
438,863 | 1,617,546 | 22,613 | 6 | Talent Behind the Camera | This weeper is well directed , as you would expect with Frank Borzage directing . No one had a surer touch at directing a sentimental romantic drama than Borzage , and with James Wong Howe as the director of photography , you have some effective , beautiful shots . Together they know how to produce shots of depth and b... |
438,697 | 1,617,546 | 29,358 | 6 | High Production + Home Spun = Freak Show | Hal Roach was getting out of the short subject business when this movie was being made . He had fired Charley Chase , Laurel and Hardy were doing features only and he was negotiating to sell ' Our Gang ' to MGM , where the shorts would continue to be produced for another nine years . In the meantime , Roach was trying ... |
438,994 | 1,617,546 | 16,894 | 6 | What , no entertainment ? | Decent if not brilliant , this social comedy for Leatrice Joy is a bit of a disappointment , alas . It does turn the standard ' boy meets girl , boy loses girl , boy gets girl ' plot on its head in an amusing way : Clive Brook is newly divorced and paying more alimony to Lilyan Tashman than he makes when he meets Leatr... |
438,554 | 1,617,546 | 42,570 | 6 | It's a Vaudeville Show . Judge it as a vaudeville Show | Well , it's certainly not a great vaudeville show . There are none of the top acts of the form's heyday . What you have here are the animal acts - - the funny dog acts , the juggling seals - - some dancing , some singing , one or two sketches . You don't have any of the great monologists , certainly , nor the headliner... |
438,774 | 1,617,546 | 265,708 | 6 | Anoth Good Comedy that Leads Nowhere | This is another good comedy by Johnny Arthur that demonstrates why he never became a bigger star , even though he continued to work and work well far into the sound era . The modern film-goer , if he recognizes him , will probably know him from playing Darla's prissy-voiced father in Our Gang shorts from the mid-thirti... |
439,480 | 1,617,546 | 27,408 | 6 | The Worm Turns | This 1936 programmer starring Owen Davis , Jr . as Bunker Bean shows signs of having been a Douglas Fairbanks Sr . sort of show when it was originally produced for the New York stage in the mid Teens , as Bunker Bean , a downtrodden clerk , finds his nerve and self confidence at the hands of some spiritualist swindlers... |
439,407 | 1,617,546 | 7,308 | 6 | Mayhem in the Classroom | Pretty new schoolteacher Ethel moves in and both Billy and Babe want to be teacher's pet . This is one of the many comedies that Billy West did as the best of the Chaplin imitators . Physically he had down a lot of the mannerisms of Chaplin , even though in terms of characterization he remained fairly rough and ready ,... |
439,285 | 1,617,546 | 20,692 | 6 | Keep On Working | In 1930 , Hal Roach decided to put his old OUR GANG actors , Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman back to work in a series of short teenage comedies . Adding in Grady Sutton and giving them the usual fine Roach behind-the-camera talent - - this would be the last movie that George Stevens handled as a regular cinematographer... |
439,264 | 1,617,546 | 38,158 | 6 | But Where ? | A solid comedy-mystery from Monogram , the second directorial effort of long-time B director Phil Karlson ( best known today for the 1970s version of WALKING TALL ) is about a radio performer who is shot dead in a dark , locked radio studio during a performance . Jackie Moran is Jimmy Kelly , a page at the studio who w... |
438,506 | 1,617,546 | 16,871 | 6 | Be Careful What You Wish For | A good Gloria Swanson comedy programmer , this lacks the verve that her work with Alan Dwan showed ( MANHANDLED is a classic ) . The story , about how rich Eugene O'Brien falls in love with poor Gloria , but her aunt insists that she be trained as a lady while Eugene is off for six months in South America - - is decent... |
439,428 | 1,617,546 | 33,985 | 6 | Redo of the 1934 Version | This short was made during the fallow period in Disney shorts : Disney was concentrating on feature production , the strike that would result in much of his staff going off to form UPA was on and the result was that his bread-and-butter work , the shorts distributed by RKO showed a severe drop off in script quality . I... |
439,060 | 1,617,546 | 3,417 | 6 | There's A Ford In Your Past | Surprisingly funny , early Keystone as Ford Sterling and Nick Coghley fight over Mabel Normand , their weapon of choice being - cheese ! Sterling's usual over-the-top mugging works hilariously to express the vileness of the cheese . There isn't much to it other than that , and the ability of people to ignore a wedge of... |
438,395 | 1,617,546 | 31,427 | 6 | Early Propaganda | Although there had been anti-Nazi propaganda films released before this , all the way back to LITTLE MAN WHAT NOW , this set new records for anti-Nazi propaganda , so much so that it was banned in New York and recut . How is it as a movie ? Well , it's a PRC production , which means that it's done on the cheap and lack... |
439,251 | 1,617,546 | 7,260 | 6 | Solid Western - - Hart potboiler | A fairly standard silent western without much to lift it out of the standard mold . Although Hart would later become extremely proficient at choosing his vehicles , this one doesn't have much to recommend that would draw attention to it - - for Hart fans only . |
438,981 | 1,617,546 | 20,480 | 6 | It's not THE COCOANUTS , but . . . . | It is a watchable first-generation film musical . There are some obvious flaws caused by a mostly immobile camera and choreography better suited for the Broadway stage than the Hollywood sound stage , but there are some great strengths to it . Among them are its cast , including Arthur Lake , Sally Blane ( Loretta Youn... |
439,206 | 1,617,546 | 29,289 | 6 | No Mystery At All | This is a mediocre western programmer , utterly unremarkable and not worth your time , except for Ritter's singing of traditional songs , particularly his rendition of " Ride Around Ye Little Dogies . " The acting is more concerned with making sure that people speak clearly , and the gunfire sounds like cap pistols . |
439,381 | 1,617,546 | 234,392 | 6 | Poor Little Rich Girl | I must note that I love the silent ' Our Gang ' series and this is not one of the best of them - - which makes it , nonetheless , an enjoyable short subject . This one is more concerned with its plot than most of them - - Mary Kornman , who would like to feel mud squish between her toes , falls in with the gang and the... |
438,491 | 1,617,546 | 35,857 | 6 | Prat Falls | This is another amusing episode in the " Sergeant Doubleday ' series of streamliners from the Hal Roach studio , full of pratfalls and mugging . The streamliners were short features intended for double or triple bills , averaging about 50 minutes . This series is made amusing by the contrasting of Doubleday , a draftee... |
438,764 | 1,617,546 | 18,888 | 6 | Movies are made , not born | 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... |
439,286 | 1,617,546 | 329,708 | 6 | Ripping the Tinsel from the Tinsel | A very pleasant comedy from the Stern Brothers , this concerns a woman who , in her own words " want to be an actress in the worst way " , and no , the director , comedy veteran William Watson , doesn't step on his own lines . He allows the audience to supply the punch line . In the meantime , Mr . Watson shows us the ... |
438,378 | 1,617,546 | 492,163 | 6 | You've Got a Dirty Mind | Jack Duffy has two skills that made him the lead in a nice series of short comedies in the 1920s : the usual ability to take one of the bone-breaking falls that slapstick called for and the ability to make himself up as an old coot , which gave him a nice character and made the pratfalls more impressive . In this one h... |
439,133 | 1,617,546 | 150,926 | 6 | Black Music for White People | Hoagy Carmichael stands around looking like a stiff while Jack Teagarten's orchestra plays some of his songs : " I'm Wrong " , " Washboard Blues " , " Old Rockin ' Chair " and " Stardust " . While a fine songwriter , this particular soundie has no oomph and is too well-behaved and vanilla to be of much interest musical... |
439,027 | 1,617,546 | 247,331 | 6 | They don't ' em this way any more | A decent but unremarkable slapstick comedy , full of absurd exaggerations , some funny gags and little more . The theaters used to be full of this , but somehow audiences stopped caring for them in the sound era and this sort of humor found its final resting place in Warner Brothers cartoons . Now they don't even know ... |
439,329 | 1,617,546 | 247,333 | 6 | Good Gagwork | Bobby Dunn was another of the highly competent slapstick comics who worked a lot , had their own series of starring shorts and gradually faded from the scene . Here in this nicely done Arrow comedy - - probably intended for states-right issue - - he combines a countrified character with the popular genre of auto races ... |
438,730 | 1,617,546 | 35,883 | 6 | The Boys Play With Their Toys | Dorothy Arzner's last directorial effort is replete with her usual feminist slant on things as Merle Oberon - - playing a Norwegian - - is caught between romantic Nazi officer Carl Esmond , who wants to marry her and British spy Brian Aherne who loves her , which is all a great inconvenience to her winning the war for ... |
438,613 | 1,617,546 | 27,541 | 6 | Eburne and Fazenda | Maude Eburne and Louise Fazenda play off each other wonderfully , as two long-time friends and partners in a doughnut shop who part when one of Eburne's harebrained investments pay off and she leaves to get her daughter into society . The two bring an sense of cameraderie , irritation and mutual sympathy that is remini... |
439,299 | 1,617,546 | 36,845 | 6 | The Dollar Bills | Pine and Thomas were known around Paramount as ' The Dollar Bills ' because they were both named William and they could turn out a watchable second feature that would turn a nice profit on the cheap . For a decade or so they prospered , giving B talent a chance to shine in decently-written movies with good production v... |
438,782 | 1,617,546 | 170,686 | 6 | The Marines Take to the Water Hole | Jack Perrin and Harry Tenbrook , WWI Marine Corps vets , head out west to visit the father of their deceased buddy and get involved in a fight over water rights . There used to be a large genre of ' modern ' western , some examples of which survived through the collapse of the B Western in the 1960s . But while the mod... |
438,850 | 1,617,546 | 168,508 | 6 | Guy Kibbee , Nice Guy | Having starred in a toned-down version of Sinclair Lewis ' Babbit , Guy Kibbee was considered enough of a leading player to star in B movies - - in this case as a small-town dentist who inherits two million dollars from an uncle who , unknown to Guy and family , was a leading racketeer . Instead he and his wife - - pla... |
439,312 | 1,617,546 | 26,689 | 6 | Warner | This one is another fast and fun example of Warner's B work in this period , timing in at 75 minutes , with the usual cast of supporting actors talking fast to get the words out . Guy Kibbee plays . . . well , a typical Guy Kibbee role , except he's not a dolt this time , and it's Aline McMahon , usually cast in the pr... |
439,085 | 1,617,546 | 13,607 | 6 | Nice Scenery | Pleasant short feature - - it times out a bit under fifty minutes - - about Tom Mix , a government agent intent on stopping unlawful Chinese immigrants coming into the US via the Grand Canyon . This feature was shot in the Grand Canyon and so has some very nice scenery . Tom smiles a lot and the villains are appropriat... |
438,562 | 1,617,546 | 29,159 | 6 | Some Fun | This decent but unremarkable programmer has George Murphy sliding occasionally into his Irish brogue , as a reporter in foggy London who wants to go on vacation , but he needs to solve the mystery of ' the Umbrella Man ' and court Rita Johnson - - doing a Billie Burke imitation - - assisted and hampered by his dog and ... |
439,324 | 1,617,546 | 31,054 | 6 | Hold My Grapes | A superior entry in the series - - which means it is watchable . Most of the good lines are reserved for Reginald Denny , who infects those about him with energy . George Zucco performs his usual thankless role of the intelligent villain with his customary restraint . The plot is , as usual , exceedingly silly . To see... |
438,897 | 1,617,546 | 1,607 | 6 | Betrayed and Ruined | Mary is a good girl working as a waitress at an expensive resort , but when a rich , handsome young guest offers her an engagement ring , she accepts it . . . . . and shows up at his wedding to some one else with a baby , of course . Although this is certainly not one of Griffith's stronger pieces from this period , it... |
439,461 | 1,617,546 | 15,763 | 6 | another travesty | This time , as you can probably tell from the name , of Robert Louis Stevenson's DOCTOR JEKYLL & MR . HYDE . Long a favorite of straight adaptations ( there was a famous version featuring John Barrymore a few years earlier , and Frederick March would win an Oscar for his portrayal a few more years down the road ) , thi... |
438,625 | 1,617,546 | 23,347 | 6 | An All-Star Cast | That's how the credit reads at the start of the 1951 re-issue , and an all-star cast it is indeed , as a great cast of silent stars strut their stuff under the direction of Louis King in this variation of THE CHAMP , with Henry B . Walthall as an alcoholic ex-movie star and Leon Janney as his son . This cast knows how ... |
439,231 | 1,617,546 | 381,116 | 6 | Mixed Bag | Good performances , direction and interesting camerawork struggle with an indifferent script that lends little insight to this just-the-fact-ma'am handling of the DC Sniper . Dutton is little short of superb , but he can't do much with the material . The fisheye lenswork and overly crisp definition are , at first inter... |
438,537 | 1,617,546 | 24,744 | 6 | Put the Cossack to Sleep | Ahem . Those are Cossacks in their big hats there , dancing the kazatsky , although the female lead does look like a gypsy . Oh , well , just as in these early cartoons , inanimate objects could become suddenly animated and species were fungible , the distinction between a Gypsy and a Cossack wasn't important . I guess... |
439,084 | 1,617,546 | 29,066 | 6 | Guy Kibbee , Star ! | Guy Kibbee gets a rare leading role in this amiable comedy-mystery about some missing emeralds - - not who stole them , but how he's going to return them . Plus the usual murder or two . Kibbee plays his usual amiable buffoon , only sharper-eyed , and the whole thing plays like a travesty of THE THIN MAN . |
438,775 | 1,617,546 | 34,572 | 6 | Chester Morris Makes This One | This WWII story of melting pot recruits - - in this case , bomber pilots - - has all the usual wisecracks , including the one about Brooklyn - - is perfectly ordinary . Chester Morris , who is usually good , is particularly good in this one with his usual straightforward performance . This is the sort of movie that mad... |
438,943 | 1,617,546 | 277,865 | 6 | Max and his Pantomime Donkey | Max Linder strays further from his usual haunts of situational comedy , far into straight slapstick as he gets into a dispute over the woman he is courting with a pantomime donkey - - although whether the donkey wants the girl or Max i something I can not quite make out . In any case , Max and the Donkey go on the set ... |
438,902 | 1,617,546 | 19,123 | 6 | Good Comedy Western | Ted Wells was a late silent cowboy star , starring in some decent Hoot Gibson knockoffs when he made this comedy . He and Margery Bonner are in love but her aunt insists she marry either a society man or a hero , so his hands decide that he will be a made-to-order hero . . . . but society man Jack Pratt keeps getting t... |
438,738 | 1,617,546 | 372,584 | 6 | Music Hath Charms | When George Stevens moved form Roach to RKO , he spent a couple of years in the shorts department where one of his assignments was ' The Blonde and the Redhead ' series , which starred June Brewster and Carole Tevis , based on Roach's ' Girfriends ' series , but with much more lingerie in evidence . In this good entry ... |
438,951 | 1,617,546 | 434,602 | 6 | Prince Vidor ? | King Vidor was still working his way into the movie industry at this point , contributing a script for this nicely turned little comedy as Reggie Morris moves into his sister's house to take care of it while she is out of town and gets involved with his neighbor Photographed in a straightforward manner , the comic situ... |
439,435 | 1,617,546 | 21,308 | 6 | Saturday Afternoon Fare | Decent little oater about El Malo , a quixotic Robin Hood type Mexican bandit who falls in love with a singing Myrna Loy . Superior talent ( writer Oliver Drake among them ) , fine staging and good acting serve to make this a pleasant way to kill an hour or two . |
438,630 | 1,617,546 | 16,917 | 6 | Come Out , Come Out , Wherever You Are | This is the movie that got Stan Laurel out from behind the camera permanently at Roach . He was supposed to direct this movie and Oliver Hardy was supposed to play the role of the butler , but fell ill - - and so Laurel took the role himself . This was one of the ' All Star ' pictures that Roach was making at this time... |
439,077 | 1,617,546 | 19,085 | 6 | Juvenile Heroes | Amusing trifle with jaunty Harrison Ford and intrepid Junior Coghlan capturing hissable Ivan Lebedeff for the glories of newspaperdom and a front page headline : this sort of thing used to infest pulp magazines until it was driven into the comic books , but the charm of the stars - - also including the aptly-named Elin... |
439,102 | 1,617,546 | 11,358 | 6 | John Ford at Fox | John Ford - - still credited as ' Jack ' Ford - - moved from Universal to Fox and directed this Buck Jones comedy-drama as his first effort . He directed it competently for the era , without much in the way of flair , but it is interesting in that he would return to this theme of the ne'er-do-well who turns out to be a... |
439,152 | 1,617,546 | 28,981 | 6 | Near the End | An amusing cartoon that points up the major flaw with Mickey : he's just not very interesting . He's talented , graceful and so forth , but too much in control of any situation and lacks anything like an amusing character . The Disney solution was to give him a strong supporting cast , including Donald Duck , Goofy and... |
438,518 | 1,617,546 | 56,016 | 6 | Hurrah for supporting actors | Well meaning but wooden story of how Geronimo , with fifty Apaches , came to stand off the U . S . Army . Chuck Conners gives a creditable performance as a wooden Indian , and his soon-to-be real life wife plays the woman who loves him . Most amusing for Ross Martin as a wise-cracking sidekick and Adam West , four year... |
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