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438,842 | 1,617,546 | 436,577 | 6 | Is That Henry Hull ? | After seeing Henry Hull in dozens of movies , always playing the old geezer with the rasp in his voice , it is astonishing to watch him in this , when he was actually a matinée idol on Broadway , with a stage accent to match . This short scene is between him and James Dale , who plays a dramatist who wants Hull to appe... |
439,007 | 1,617,546 | 227,668 | 7 | It's Your Turn in the Barrel | Melies provides us with a simple magic trick - - or is it so simple ? - - as , dressed in Greek garb , he stuffs nine young women in chitons , one after another , into a barrel . It's not terribly elaborate , but it is very well done , as he presents us with simply a magic trick , combining his skills as a stage magici... |
438,504 | 1,617,546 | 2,199 | 7 | Not so many things | This movie is not the first feature picture . That distinction appears to go to an Australian film , NED KELLY AND HIS GANG from about 1906 . Others , particularly the Italians , had made a few films of more than a couple of reels before FROM THE MANGER TO THE CROSS came out . Nonetheless , this movie is historically v... |
439,044 | 1,617,546 | 495,502 | 7 | Nice | A very good Snub Pollard short . Snub has always been a problematic comedian for me , since he looks so weird and was always teamed up with Marie Mosquini as his love interest . . . . it makes you wonder why Lon Chaney never got the girl or Marie didn't talk him into going to a barber . Snub also seemed to not have muc... |
439,350 | 1,617,546 | 495,492 | 7 | Hats Off ! | One of the better of the Paul Parrott comedies for Roach - - his poor health caused him to retreat behind the screen where he directed some very funny comedies starring Laurel & Hardy , The Girl Friends series and a few for his brother , Charlie Chase . Here this tale of how Paul tries to elope with Jobyna Ralston star... |
438,581 | 1,617,546 | 258,254 | 7 | A Charming Trifle | This little short shows an entirely different society from the one we are used to , one in which a woman coyly throws her hat into the water to attract a man's attention , where lovers exchange tintypes , and in which , when they wish to neck at the beach , they use umbrellas to hide their activities from passersby . T... |
438,579 | 1,617,546 | 2,233 | 7 | Biting the hand that feeds you | A send-up of Griffith's THE LONELY VILLA and other movies of that sort , such as THE GIRLS AND DADDY , THE LONEDALE OPERATOR and many others , as the heroine , thinking that burglars are trying to break into her home phones her husband at the office , who rushes home . . . . well , who tries to rush home in his chauffe... |
439,449 | 1,617,546 | 26,257 | 7 | Ah , symbolism ! | Strange little animated fantasy about newlywed animals who take a rocketship to go " dancing on the moon " , using all the Fleischer special effects . Doubtless the symbolism renders this full of Hidden Sexual Meaning , but that symbolism lifts it well above the level of typical , puerile animation of the era between B... |
438,784 | 1,617,546 | 132,179 | 7 | I'm on the Bad Guy's Side | One of Melies ' super-productions , like VOYAGE A LA LUNE and LA ROYAUME DES FEES , this is a bit of fairy tale , about a minstrel who rescues his love from dungeon , with lots of sparklers , the usual wonderful Melies camera trickery and , in the print I was fortunate enough to see today , lots of hand-tinting . While... |
438,965 | 1,617,546 | 365,076 | 7 | Good Clips | Actually , very good clips , and the narrative makes a very good claim to proving its thesis : that the sexy Pre-Code dramas and comedies actually represented a realistic depiction of the 20th century morality until Joseph Breen clamped down , making the Production Code not just voluntary , but mandatory . There is a g... |
438,818 | 1,617,546 | 4,475 | 7 | Good , Standard Keystone | This Keystone from the end of 1914 , involving the usual suspects running around some plumbing issues will not hold many surprises for those familiar with Keystone in this period , or , indeed , with the works of the Three Stooges , who often played inept plumbers . It is , nonetheless , very nicely performed , especia... |
438,889 | 1,617,546 | 10,925 | 7 | Sennett beats the Kaiser | A funny and stylistically interesting feature from the Sennett studio directed by wunderkind Richard Jones . Although his comedies generally featured human-looking comics for Sennett and Roach , as opposed to the grotesques made popular at Keystone , in this one he combines the two styles : the Allies look and act like... |
438,920 | 1,617,546 | 32,598 | 7 | The Battle Behind the Scenes | Looking at a Jules White-directed Keaton short , one can almost see them battling behind the scenes , White a proponent of smashing things and slapping people , and Buster trying for elaboration . Given that they shot these shorts on a three-day schedule , there is a lot of cheating going on , mostly through undercrank... |
438,357 | 1,617,546 | 35,293 | 7 | The Cat Creeps | Guy Kibbee stars as Scattergood Baines in another outing , well directed by Christy Cabanne . This time it is a murder mystery : two eccentric old ladies have died , leaving their fortune to their cat , and suddenly murders begin to happen . . . The Scattergood Baines series , from a series of stories by Clarence Buddi... |
438,618 | 1,617,546 | 212,460 | 7 | Models | A train , waiting in front of a tunnel , is suddenly struck by another train emerging from the tunnel . This is one of the earliest cases of models being used for rail cars , although at least a couple of the Edison battle recreations of the Spanish-American War were shot in bathtubs . This film was made possible by th... |
438,829 | 1,617,546 | 468,196 | 7 | Bathing Beauties | Sound may have been threatening , Sennet and the Christies may have been showing the strain , but the 20s were still roaring when George Marshall supervised this short comedy for Fox . There is a reasonable story , lots of bathing beauties , great production values and plenty of comic takes and pratfalls and , of cours... |
439,017 | 1,617,546 | 43,891 | 7 | Another Fine Tim Holt B Western | This is another of the good B Westerns that Tim Holt did for RKO from when he took over the franchise about 1940 through 1952 , with a pause during World War Two for Air Force Service . Besides the usual values , including good comic relief by series sidekick Richard Martin , we get a slightly off-kilter performance by... |
439,168 | 1,617,546 | 221,290 | 7 | Special Effects | Some brilliant stop-motion , wirework and the early equivalent of blue-screen photography powers this early Pathe special effects short , inspired by - - the invisible thief of the title shows up waving a copy - - H . G . Wells ' THE INVISIBLE MAN twenty-eight years before Claude Rains became a movie star in the title ... |
439,131 | 1,617,546 | 26,160 | 7 | Singing and dancing | Cab performs a couple of his songs in his wild , seemingly effortless fashion and threatens the camera in this soundie from 1935 . Although he seems strangely contained in this short , any chance to see Calloway perform his music should not be missed . |
438,530 | 1,617,546 | 19,711 | 7 | Not Quite Saludos Amigos | This early effort by directorial jack-of-all-trades Richard Thorpe quickly shows its stripes as a musical-comedy western - - it opens with the Mexican army captain leading his cavalry in a cantering chorus that works very nicely . This is a western with a little bit of something for everyone , including a clip of Rex t... |
439,030 | 1,617,546 | 246,564 | 7 | Broad and enjoyable comedy | Gale Henry directs and stars in this amusing tale of an incompetent female detective set in " Chinatown " in 1918 ; a member of the local Tong has stolen a formula for glasses that will enable people to see what's in chop suey , and she is charged with recovering the plans . What results is sequence of puns and chases ... |
439,214 | 1,617,546 | 151,846 | 7 | Homer Brightman | This is a better than usual Woody Woodpecker from director Don Patterson as he and the buzzard - - playing lumberjacks somewhere or other - - go at each other , starting with a good slapstick over flapjacks - - Woody never had enough to eat - - and escalating , in best cartoon fashion , to dynamite . Given Patterson's ... |
438,443 | 1,617,546 | 495,440 | 7 | Bobby Vernon | Bobby Vernon has just been married to Lila Lee , but her parents object and kidnap her to Reno , where , if not rescued , they will be divorced . It probably wouldn't hold up before a judge , but it does produce a fairly funny movie . The thing is , Vernon is not particularly funny in this amusing comedy . Yet he had a... |
438,908 | 1,617,546 | 50,446 | 7 | Where do you get these ideas | Odd little cartoon , even for Chuck Jones , about a cat , raised by eagles , who flies by whirling his tail around . Sort of like a reversed Pepe Le Pew , full of cute little bits and a large bulldog to torment . A treat for cat lovers . |
438,654 | 1,617,546 | 37,061 | 7 | Saving the British Way of life | That old hero of the Penny Dreadfuls and Boys ' Papers , Sexton Blake , the Poor man's Sherlock Holmes joins the effort to save the British way of life in this entertaining potboiler . We start out with a hair-raising murder of a man with a cut off hand and head on from there in a wonderful little murder drama , full o... |
439,063 | 1,617,546 | 38,992 | 7 | Miscellany | Another delightful one-reeler from Pete Smith . We get to watch Lena Horne sing " Ain't It The Truth ? " in a bubble bath , watch some close-up sleight of hand exposed and see a three-year-old balance on knives while eating an apple , while Smith makes bemused comments . A lot of fun . |
439,296 | 1,617,546 | 30,569 | 7 | Working up to KIPPS | The comparison was inevitable when I saw this movie the day after I saw Carol Reed's version of KIPPS . However , while KIPPS is a serious movie leavened with humor , this is a comedy leavened with a lot of tension , and eased by the occasional song : Jimmy O'Dea sings a typical comedy piece about ' The Pride of the Co... |
438,460 | 1,617,546 | 28,367 | 7 | The Code of the West | Not as well known as the 1948 John Ford version , this one does not spoon feed the issues to the viewer . Harsh , uncompromising and utterly devoid of false bonhomie , Boleslawski made this at almost the same time as the screwball classic , THEODORA GOES WILD . |
438,486 | 1,617,546 | 85,657 | 7 | Hard Times | A brutally depressing script and some fine low-key performances by Peter Strauss and Pamela Reed and some good location shooting in Ohio power this fine TV movie about hard times in the rustbelt . As the mills close and the union jobs disappear , the blue-collar workers are threatened by everyone : management , owners ... |
439,239 | 1,617,546 | 217,768 | 7 | Night Club Acts | A superior short from Joe Henabery , featuring several good night club acts , including ' Bazooka ' Bob Burns a popular performer of the period : a hillbilly Will Rogers with a homemade trombone he called a ' bazooka ' . No nightclub ever featured this array of talent , but as a short variety show a lot of fun . |
439,266 | 1,617,546 | 45,898 | 7 | Rashomon Don't Care Either | The musical comedy biopic gets the Rashomon treatment in this faked-up biopic of Eva Tanguay , one of the great stars of turn-of-the-century vaudeville . Mitzi Gaynor , as always , gives a great performance and it's a pity that , with the exception of the movie version of SOUTH PACIFIC , she was always Fox's B musical ... |
439,229 | 1,617,546 | 4,150 | 7 | The film makers must be crazy | The plotters , anticipating Motana's death , mourn " him as his hair , stuffed into the bodies of toads , smokes over their fire " reads one of the title cards . This is , after all , a documentary about the Kwakiutl Indians . And yet , clearly , it is a directed story film . It's an unusual sort of film these days ,... |
438,352 | 1,617,546 | 215,846 | 7 | Powered by Donald Pleasance | This play was a shocker when it first came out in 1912 , and we can see the reasons why even today , with its calm look at the difference in the way in which society treats fornicators : for men it's winked at , for women it's the worst sin that can be committed - - unless sanctified after the fact by the benison of ho... |
438,752 | 1,617,546 | 136,313 | 7 | Selling to the Theater Owner | This late silent Koko the Clown cartoon has Max pestered by an ink salesman , so he throws him through the door , whereupon Koko and Bimbo announce that if they were salesmen , they could sell anything to anyone , and so they do , to Scotchmen and scrubwomen . Although Fleischer had already made the move into sound car... |
439,125 | 1,617,546 | 346,008 | 7 | Why a Duck ? | Because they couldn't afford to get Eddie Cantor , I guess , for this landmark film of a live duck singing " Ma , He's Making Eyes at Me " . What ? A film of a singing duck is a landmark ? Yes , because it is one of the earliest sound films in what became the Movietone process , the sound-on-film method that has been t... |
438,707 | 1,617,546 | 141,146 | 7 | Kelly from the Emerald Isle | Two years before Walt Disney added a sound track to his third Mickey Mouse picture and " produced the first sound cartoon " , Max Fleischer was producing " Car-Tunes " using the Phono-film system that later evolved into the modern movie-sound system . This series , including the ' bouncing ball ' did not use the sophis... |
439,018 | 1,617,546 | 52,242 | 7 | Kershner directs Corman feature | This is a surprisingly strong AIP feature , a first for Irvin Kershner as writer and director . Although stylistically it seems , at first sight , little more than an expanded DRAGNET episode in which you get to see the criminals ' viewpoints , this largely no-name cast gives a bunch of decent performances with some we... |
439,014 | 1,617,546 | 223,508 | 7 | Stage and Film Magic | Melies started out as a stage magician , but he quickly learned and invented a lot of film magic too , which he uses to great and good effect in this effort : the one where he slices the boy in half is wonderful . It's a thirty-second magic act , little more , but must have been a real jaw-dropper when originally shown... |
438,684 | 1,617,546 | 225,469 | 7 | The New Magic | Melies began as a stage magician and his movies always show this influence and technique . However , he was certainly not averse to using cinematic magic even when the stage magician knew how to make these illusions without a stopped or masked camera . He uses film techniques to make eggs come out of his assistant's mo... |
438,385 | 1,617,546 | 144,970 | 7 | Zez Confrey | I am sure that most of the audience of today , if it has any interest in this short , is interested in seeing Babe Ruth , one of the great baseball players of all time . Well , I'm happy to see him too , but for me the best part of this movie is Zez Confrey , one of the great jazz composers of the first half of the 20t... |
438,451 | 1,617,546 | 63,483 | 7 | Marvelous Movie For Actors - - the rot sets in | Joanne Woodward gives a marvelous performance - - which , of course , is a done deal . Miss Woodward , I am convinced , is no more capable of giving less than a marvelous performance than I am of flapping my arms and flying to the moon . With a marvelous supporting cast including Estelle Parsons , Geraldine Fitzgerald ... |
439,335 | 1,617,546 | 223,507 | 7 | In Living Color | My first reaction is that this is nothing spectacular for Melies : ordinary stage conjuring , done with plenty of verve and pleasure in his presentation , and just enough under-cranking to add special vivacity to his presentation . However , the print that is preserved is beautifully hand-tinted and still , after ninet... |
438,926 | 1,617,546 | 6,357 | 7 | The Movie Star | This is one of the movies that made Douglas Fairbanks , along with Mary Pickford , Gloria Swanson and Charlie Chaplin , the leading member of the new American aristocracy , the Movie Star . It is a pure star vehicle , with Fairbanks leaping gracefully over park benches and wire fences , leavened with a little social sa... |
439,153 | 1,617,546 | 19,746 | 7 | Picaresque | Delightful late silent version of the often-filmed picaresque story about the young nobleman who decides to travel to Paris with an acting company . Early Cavalcanti outing shows the influence of the French surrealists , particularly Epstein's FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER in the early scenes , and his fluid camera and sy... |
438,417 | 1,617,546 | 59,102 | 7 | A Safe Bet | One of the strongest of the Pink Panther shorts , this succeeds by a series of gags on the same theme : a safe cracker attempting to break into a safe inside of which is the Pink Panther - - the panther itself , of course . It also is strengthened by not having the two problems of many of the Depatie-Freleng cartoons .... |
438,831 | 1,617,546 | 487,661 | 7 | Welcome to Our Hearts Again , Iolanthe | This elaborate and well-staged silent version of Hertz ' play is exceedingly well produced for 1913 : it starts off by introducing the actors by name and role , then showing them in double exposure in street clothes and in costumes . The production values are also elaborate and the look of the set designs reminds one o... |
438,975 | 1,617,546 | 358 | 7 | An interesting bypath | An early attempt by Zecca , Pathe's leading director in this period , at scene changes . All of them are done by fade . This technique would be abandoned , resulting in the standard French look through the 1920s , most notably in Louis Feuillade's movies , in which the camera sits in one location . The result is a much... |
439,288 | 1,617,546 | 23,562 | 7 | Choppy Production | There are a number of problems with this production : first is the way that Claude Gillingwater's role is written : an expert for twenty years in playing a range of grouches , here he is just out-and-out mean for no good reason . He starts mean , he gets meaner and it ends with him protesting at a baby's being baptized... |
438,668 | 1,617,546 | 19,760 | 7 | A Little Perspective , Please | Given the effusion over CHELOVEK S KINOAPPARATOM in the commentary section of the IMDb , I expect this will be a tad out of place , but I feel that this is a very good , although not groundbreaking movie . First , what we have here is a portrait of a city - - Moscow , I believe , on the lines of MANHATTA and the more f... |
438,857 | 1,617,546 | 28,578 | 7 | Goood Programmer | A standard RKO programmer about the loves and lives of midshipmen at Annapolis is enlivened by three factors : cast , location shooting at Annapolis and the usual handsome work of Christy Cabanne . The cast includes Van Helfin in his early , semi-villain phase , Arthur Lake at the end of his juvenile period - - the fol... |
438,973 | 1,617,546 | 17,747 | 7 | Well Timed Farce | A year after they had a hit with the social comedy SKINNER'S DRESS SUIT , director Seiter and actor Reginald Denny teamed up again in this sharply-turned farce . reminiscent of the sort that Clarence Badger was doing with Raymond Griffith over at Paramount . There are the usual complications that lead to the situations... |
439,036 | 1,617,546 | 413,769 | 7 | A Comedian Not Named Billy | I was once asked if all of the silent film comedians were named Billy . " No , " I replied , " Several are named Sid Smith " and the Sid Smith who appears in this one is one of the best . Along with ex-Keystoner Harry MacCoy , he shows up in this short for Columbia based on a wildly popular comic strip of the era , ' T... |
438,544 | 1,617,546 | 931,445 | 7 | Bad Accents | One of the failings of the movie industry is that Paul Scofield has not been hired for enough jobs . This has been a blessing for the British theater , of course , but it would be pleasant to have more of his roles recorded . Fortunately he appeared in this and a few other BBC TV productions and while Noel Coward's com... |
438,509 | 1,617,546 | 32,916 | 7 | Play or Pay | Warner Brothers continued its campaign to get Kay Francis to break her contract not just by lowering the quality of her vehicles , not just by loading her dialogue with ' r's or putting her in horse operas , but now by lending her out to other studios . She was the highest-priced actress on the Warner's lot and they di... |
438,874 | 1,617,546 | 299,493 | 7 | Love and Laughs | I must admit I am a sucker for Charley Chase's short silent comedies . They combine full , three-act stories , fine acting and strong comedy gags that arise out of believable situations . The modern movie goer , used to witty dialogue and color photography - - well , color photography anyway - - may lack the patience t... |
438,379 | 1,617,546 | 248,468 | 7 | And the Kitchen Sink | Of the four or five big producers of silent comedy in the 1920s - - Roach , Sennett , Educational , Christie and , oh , probably one or two others - - whose work survive in some quantity , Christie ranks down near the bottom for my taste . Most of their stuff is competently done , but rather mechanical , with the set-u... |
439,412 | 1,617,546 | 248,473 | 7 | Nothing Special | This Al St . John short was directed by his uncle , Roscoe Arbuckle , anonymously , after his acquittal for the manslaughter of Virginia Rappe caused him to be banned from performing . Yes , I know . It doesn't make sense . The plot is so simple that the movie can be followed despite having Czech titles : St . John pla... |
438,496 | 1,617,546 | 32,398 | 7 | By Cheating , of course | An early " cheater " , a cartoon put together by using clips from earlier cartoons with enough filler to make it a " new " picture . Of course , this being a Fleischer Popeye , it's funny and there are plenty of " Impossikible " stunts . A good introduction to Popeye . |
438,861 | 1,617,546 | 32,930 | 7 | Freleng Gags | Friz Freleng had one rule when doing movies : lots of perfectly-timed gags - - and if some aren't top-notch , the pacing carries you along . This one takes a while before you get to the good gags - - the first that I think top-notch is when the umpire comes out , but the pacing is always funny . As with almost any Frel... |
438,351 | 1,617,546 | 23,762 | 7 | Charley and the Desert Song | Another delightful Charley Chase short that starts out with Charley in Paris , 20 years after the Great War , singing ' Madamoiselle from Armentieres ' . continues with him joining the Foreign Legion to avoid paying a bar bill and winds up with him caught at an Arabian harem . Although it's not a tightly constructed wo... |
439,431 | 1,617,546 | 11,078 | 7 | Cops and Robbers | William S . Hart plays one of his ' good bad man ' roles , this time not in the wild west of the cattle ranges , but in the wild west of San Francisco . Hart gives one of his usual fine performances as he returns from World War One a hero and has to decide between his old life in a criminal gang and a new life as a cop... |
438,561 | 1,617,546 | 26,379 | 7 | Four Stars Out of Five | In an effort not to alienate his wife's wealthy aunt , newly-wed Charley must masquerade as a boarder in his own home while his wife pretends to be married to an old beau . Although not one of Chase's best comedies , there is no shortage of laughs in this outing for Charley . His long-suffering reaction to the frequent... |
438,390 | 1,617,546 | 12,940 | 7 | The Mexican Army to the Rescue ! | An excellent silent western starring the now unfortunately forgotten J . B . Warner . Told with good humor and interesting camerawork , we have Mr . Warner in love with a lovely Spanish senorita , his life saved by a jumping bean , then leading the Mexican army to rescue a woman from the Ku Klux Klan . Surviving prints... |
439,481 | 1,617,546 | 37,346 | 7 | Sailing Into Danger with Edward G . Robinson | Robinson's career as a leading man was on the downslide at this point and he was jerkily moving into starring support roles like his turn in DOUBLE INDEMNITY when he made this one , a handsome Fox programmer with noir lighting in which his role is a bit of a retread , combining the lovesick dope of TIGER SHARK , the ma... |
438,751 | 1,617,546 | 72,303 | 7 | Nice Scenery | A rather tired plot of people looking for sunken treasure decently directed and performed by a German crew - - except for the female performer who parades around in brassiere and briefs as if she spends the rest of her time wearing leather and an SS uniform . The usual betrayals occur and for the most part it is forget... |
439,292 | 1,617,546 | 814,280 | 7 | Chang Apana | This interesting short documentary is available as an extra feature on the recently ( 2006 ) issued DVD of CHARLIE CHAN IN Egypt . It concerns a Chinese cop in Honolulu who flourished from 1898 through 1934 by the name of Cahng Apana . While there is little doubt that the idea of a pidgin-speaking police officer in Hon... |
438,900 | 1,617,546 | 20,061 | 7 | Hoot of the Rodeo | There's just enough of a story to hang on this picture to keep it coherent . Otherwise , it's Hoot Gibson displaying his easy-going charm and some excellent footage of the action at the rodeo at Soldier's Field in Chicago . It's a lot of fun . This was the era when B movie western stars like Hoot deservedly made a lot ... |
439,111 | 1,617,546 | 25,768 | 7 | Over the top with technicolor | Someone was foolish enough to give Leon Erroll technicolor and a decent budget , so he spent it . You don't see chorines wearing purple any more , and more's the pity , say I . Erroll milks the gags for all they are worth . |
439,423 | 1,617,546 | 33,552 | 7 | Down at the mouth | Oscar-nominated short has various farm animals , their mouths animated to look as if they are speaking , with various wisecracks , catchphrases and , in one case , an owl singing a couple of lines of a Bing Crosby song . More interesting for its novelty aspects , it's short enough to be amusing . |
438,465 | 1,617,546 | 22,500 | 7 | Beautiful movie | A pretty fair movie - - look for Myrna Loy as she begins her ascent to Queen of Hollywood . The real star for me in Jame Wong Howe's magnificent photography , lovely deep focus work ten years before Greg Toland ' revolutionized ' pictures with it . |
438,370 | 1,617,546 | 33,549 | 7 | Fast Burlesque Humor | This is a surprisingly funny programmer from Monogram . Somehow , a bean manufacturer under pressure ( ahem ! ) from the Beans Syndicate to gouge the US Government in war contracts accepts a bundle from Britain of two little girls , who turn out to be Harry Langdon and Charley Rogers . Of course , it could happen to an... |
438,662 | 1,617,546 | 25,812 | 7 | The Story of Ruth | Ruth Etting was a Broadway star who made occasional passes at the movies , but they never took . An interesting biopic , LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME , starring Doris Day as Miss Etting and stolen by Jimmy Cagney was made in the mid-fifties at MGM ( not Warners ) . How much truth is involved is a matter of conjecture . In this ... |
439,365 | 1,617,546 | 4,991 | 7 | A Seat on the Trolley | Another of the Mr . & Mrs . Sidney Drew movies , in which they take a small situational comedy and play it with great charm . In this , Mr . Drew is tired of having to give up his seat on the trolley to women with squalling brats , and so he buys a doll and passes it off as his own baby . This sequence is a lot of fun ... |
438,962 | 1,617,546 | 14,692 | 7 | Superior Silent Oater | Well-handled western with both Hoxie brothers makes excellent use of a non-standard plot , although the horses look a bit skeptical . The action and twists keep on coming at a good clip and some excellent photography by Harry Neumann rounds out a movie that is well worth your time . |
438,746 | 1,617,546 | 10,322 | 7 | The Illustrated Title | This very early film by Michael Curtiz is purported to be the sole surviving effort of his produced while he was still in Hungary . Hungary had quite a thriving film industry , but by the 1930s it was a purely domestic industry , some of the film community having gone to Germany - - among them Curtiz - - and later to t... |
438,541 | 1,617,546 | 14,702 | 7 | Beau Cinema | What can anyone say about this ? Beautiful print , some fine acting by Barrymore - - wonderfully subtle for the period in the early sequences and quite appropriately over-the-top at the end . Given the uniformly over-the-top performances he was called on to make towards the end of his career , the well-preserved Barrym... |
439,225 | 1,617,546 | 347,286 | 7 | Bad Luck | There is a word in Yiddish that can be transliterated as " Shlamiel . " Nothing ever works out for a shlamiel . If one apple in a barrel is wormy , that is the one he bites into . If he plugs a device into a socket , the wiring will be faulty and he will get a shock . If there is a banana skin anywhere in the city , he... |
438,828 | 1,617,546 | 22,396 | 7 | Don't Skip This One | This is a very funny sound short for Charlie Chase , playing the Duke of Chasewick , but hired by Dell Henderson to play himself , and disabuse his wife and daughter of any fondness for nobility . Charley gets into a very funny fight at the beginning of this short , and has some lovely support , not only from a young J... |
438,658 | 1,617,546 | 24,550 | 7 | Freedonia's Going to Peace | A typically good Charley Chase short subject , this one is marred a little by a hasty ending , but getting there is a lot of fun . Armistice has just been declared , and if War is Hell , then getting out of France is even worse , as Sergeant Chase and his squadron first continue fighting a battle with a cow and then , ... |
438,821 | 1,617,546 | 142,362 | 7 | Good Work | Let's see , Walt Disney invented Oswald , produced him for Charles Mintz and then discovered that he owned no stake . . . . Mintz basically cheated him out of it and everyone in his studio except Ub Iwerks and Carl Stalling . So he turned around and invented Mickey Mouse , which was basically Oswald with mouse ears ins... |
438,547 | 1,617,546 | 24,569 | 7 | Is it 1933 already ? | This is an amazingly strong Merrie Melody from this period . While most of Leon Schlesinger's staff hated this series because the cartoon would usually come to a halt during the obligatory song number , the usually boring Earl Duvall showed precisely how to do this sort of cartoon : a good version of the number , a goo... |
439,187 | 1,617,546 | 24,448 | 7 | Suffering Sylvia Sidney | Sylvia Sidney was Paramount's low-class weeper star in this period , with a lower-class accent and a beautiful face that could suffer stoically or break out in helpless tears just when the plot demanded it . In this one , she has just gotten out of prison because she and her husband were involved in a badger game and o... |
438,490 | 1,617,546 | 154,594 | 7 | Your grandson is facing a grave crisis . We believe his first tooth is arriving . " So reads one of the titles in this episode of one of the many charming Mr . & Mrs . Sidney Drew comedies from this period . Although most people now think that silent comedy was slapstick and little more , there were a large number of... | null |
438,919 | 1,617,546 | 2,659 | 7 | His Master's Silence | To appreciate why this comedy is so very funny , you need to stop and think about the story : a youngster , home alone . Gangsters come and break in . Desperately the child calls on the phone for help . Parents race to save the child . No , it's not HOME ALONE , it's several of D . W . Griffith's better known shorts . ... |
438,963 | 1,617,546 | 17,970 | 7 | When cliffhangers had them hanging off cliffs ! | Exciting late-silent 10-episode serial , with all the hallmarks of the genre , including daring cavalry rescues , gold robbers and , of course , the beautiful white girl being burned at the stake by savage redskins . They don't make ' em like this anymore , and the reason they don't is that the serial died out : there ... |
439,140 | 1,617,546 | 22,273 | 7 | Lysistrata Redux | This sprightly programmer , starring Marie Dressler , transforms the story to modern politics ca . 1931 . Dressler and the women are anxious to close the speakeasies - - this was made during Prohibition . There is a strong cast of women , including Polly Moran , Joan Marsh and Karen Morley . The men are played by suppo... |
438,945 | 1,617,546 | 150,212 | 7 | Swing Symphony | This is another fine Swing Symphony from Walter Lantz ' shop . His music department had excellent connections to the Los Angeles Jazz scene , and would hire them for these efforts , as in THE GREATEST MAN IN SIAM . So this effort spotlights the title song . Alex Lovy , who would in the 1950s become the house director f... |
438,412 | 1,617,546 | 14,600 | 7 | Rin-Tin-Tin : Nature vs . Nurture and the Issue of Free Will | Raised by wolves , Rin-Tin-Tin comes into contact with people in the ill-defined far north of Canada . Will he submit to his training and go frolic with she-wolves , or become the loyal servant of man , help catch the baddies and make the Warner Brothers a truckload of money ? In a town where they've always known that ... |
438,701 | 1,617,546 | 14,606 | 7 | The wages of sin in eighty minutes | Welcome to the world of Tod Browning , a world of sideshows and thieves , vampires and murderers , where men cut off their arms for love and wear dresses for revenge , the world of Dracula and FREAKS . Browning was a true original . He had a long association with Lon Chaney that ended only with death . In Browning's wo... |
438,760 | 1,617,546 | 50,946 | 7 | And then he slipped away , unnoticed | Maurice Elvey's last film is a brittle comedy with a serious theme as an old-line British advertising firm finally decides to not automatically fire women after they get married . . . . and the newly married leads find out that progress has its costs . Elvey had a long career in British films , forty-four years behind ... |
439,473 | 1,617,546 | 20,103 | 7 | The Moving Camera | George Fitzmaurice was one of the great commercial stylists among directors in the 1920s . He suffered an eclipse in the early talkie era but was fighting his way back into the majors when he died in 1940 . This means , of course , there are a lot of problems with this movie . The screen actors don't know how to do dia... |
439,282 | 1,617,546 | 2,639 | 7 | Not the First , But the First Regular | There had been cinematic animations before Bray turned out this , his first animated cartoon , as far back of Blackton's Sketches in 1896 . But animation remained a labor-intensive and expensive form of movie , because someone had to draw each frame . Bray's studio was notable on two points : first , a lot of talent in... |
438,932 | 1,617,546 | 6,809 | 7 | Smile for the camera | A sprightly early Fairbanks film . Although too much of the story is told through intertitles , Douglas usual physical gags , including much building climbing and witty situations make for a good time . Look for Erich von Stroheim ( who was also an assistant director ) as a member of the Weazels Gang . |
438,449 | 1,617,546 | 26,015 | 7 | Roman A Clef | This is a biography of Hetty Green , the Witch of Wall Street , a woman who went head to head with the other robber barons of the Gilded Age and who usually came out ahead . They had to change the name for fear of lawsuit by her heirs . It was the common , if apocryphal story of how she made her son go to a free clinic... |
439,038 | 1,617,546 | 31,799 | 7 | Bob Clampett | Clampett left Warner Brothers , did the Beany & Cecil puppet shows and seems to have dropped from the consciousness of animation fans . Yet there was no one with a wilder sense of cartoon stretching than he . He spent much of the late 1930s doing Porky Pig movies ( when he produced his first masterpiece , PORKY IN WACK... |
438,728 | 1,617,546 | 224,067 | 7 | Young Scrooge , Old Scrooge and Middle Aged Scrooge | Seymour Hicks , in a long and distinguished career , had a specialty of playing Scrooge on stage for many a decade . He first essayed the role in 1901 , when barely past thirty and got bad reviews because he couldn't play ' old ' well - - he got better at it . In his time , he committed the role to film twice : in this... |
438,993 | 1,617,546 | 10,729 | 7 | Plot Twists Aplenty | A rich young man checks into a hotel room to commit suicide , when his design is thwarted by blackmail and murder in the room opposite his - - elaborately staged for his benefit . Why does he wish to kill himself ? Is the confidence game being run on him as simple as it seems ? Don't make your mind up too soon . Script... |
438,588 | 1,617,546 | 288,252 | 7 | Dystopian Comedy | Amusing little fantasy about a man who buys an artificial arm and discovers it picks everyone's pocket . Blackton was a leading exponent of trick shots in early American films - - like Melies , he had been a stage magician , and the stop-motion effects are slickly done . |
439,345 | 1,617,546 | 8,571 | 7 | Silent Western | Prime early William S . Hart western . Although it lacks the elaborate and fantastic structure of Hart's HELL'S HINGES . the prints of this survive better . The story is nothing surprising to someone familiar with western films , but it is told with a simplicity and honesty that lift it far above ordinary Saturday Oate... |
438,953 | 1,617,546 | 22,261 | 7 | and Duke the Dog | Some fine acting , by adults and children alike enliven this screen version of Booth Tarkington's novel in his Penrod series about ordinary kids living ordinary lives . The humor is nicely done and low-key , in the style of Roach's OUR GANG series and features some excellent comedy performances by such adult actors as ... |
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