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438,917 | 1,617,546 | 13,308 | 8 | Real Gone - - Well , Mostly | Before commenting on this series , I should warn you : apparently only two of these survive in any real form and I've only seen one of them - - Episode Two , titled , appropriately enough , ' Round Two ' , so my comments may or may not be of much use . Well , here goes . This is great . It was made by a bunch of people... |
439,506 | 1,617,546 | 24,012 | 8 | Pretty Durned Good | This is an excellent early sound serial , with an wonderful cast - - including the always hissable Noah Beery Sr . as the villain , the now too frequently forgotten Tully Marshall and , of course , Johnny Mack Brown in the lead . The crew is also topnotch , including Demille cinematographer Alvin Wyckoff and some great... |
439,097 | 1,617,546 | 242,849 | 8 | Evolution | Although D . W . Griffith is usually honored as the inventor of modern film grammar , most of the groundwork was laid down a decade earlier by George Smith of England . This is one of his early films . But even this particular Athena did not spring fully born from the mind of Zeus , and we can see that Smith is using a... |
439,360 | 1,617,546 | 70,577 | 8 | My Fair Lady | Shaw's best-known play - - although many people know it only from its musical version , MY FAIR LADY - - is produced for the small screen . The story is given a more feminist handling than it usually is , made possible by treating Henry Higgins as more of a childish bully than he is usually portrayed - - James Villiers... |
438,771 | 1,617,546 | 43,812 | 8 | Strong Cast of Unknowns Helps Good Crawford Programmer | The title of this review says it all . In 1951 , who knew who Ernest Borgnine , Richard Kiley and Charles Buchinsky were ? But in this Columbia noir , made after Broderick Crawford became an unlikely star because of ALL THE KING'S MEN has the lead going undercover to investigate racketeering on the docks , we see how g... |
438,731 | 1,617,546 | 35,141 | 8 | Black Out in Black and White | A series of black-out gags , the sort of tidbits you might get in the news reels in the era , but sharply written by Warren Foster and beautifully directed by the inimitable Bob Clampett and narrated in the radio-perfect voice of - - - Elmer Fudd ? While a couple fall flat , you might get an idea of how good this is by... |
439,083 | 1,617,546 | 8,892 | 8 | Mother Love Among The Big Trees | Hilarious comic take on Hart's patented Good Bad Man role sees him as a rough tough lumberjack , " Blue Blazes " Rawden - - apparently Hart's cameraman , Joe August , wanted to photograph primary forest , so they set it up that way . When Hart kills saloon-owner-regular-villain Robert McKim , he inherits not only the s... |
439,008 | 1,617,546 | 225,583 | 8 | Where Did You Get that Hat ? | Melies gives his audience another variation of his most popular and imitated - - including by him - - story of L'AUBERGE MYSTERIEUSE , as a man tries to get undressed for bed and new clothing keeps reappearing on him , particularly a long series of most unflattering headgear . Melies ' comic agitation as he tries harde... |
438,455 | 1,617,546 | 151,935 | 8 | The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword | One of the best of Van Beuren's " Tom & Jerry " series in which they pull out a pencil and proceed to draw figures in the air which join the action : an early prefigurement , if you like , of Chuck Jones ' classic DUCK AMUCK . Van Beuren was one of the cartoon factories that flourished from about 1925-1936 . It release... |
439,314 | 1,617,546 | 235,373 | 8 | But Twins Come in Pairs | . . . . or Pares if it shows up on a sign here . The first half of this movie has the gang running an athletic club and raising money for it by a shoe-shine stand with one of their typical Rube-Goldbergesque contraptions or wheels and gears and pulley belts . . . . just the sort of thing I used to design myself when I ... |
439,370 | 1,617,546 | 28,442 | 8 | Delightful Hogwash | Ah , the bygone glories of the French Foreign Legion story . Almost everyone knows BEAU GESTE , from the 1939 version starring Gary Cooper . This was a lesser brother . Great actors , great direction , great cinematography and a script full of - - nowadays - - laughable bits . Claudette Colbert plays Cigarette , the Da... |
438,423 | 1,617,546 | 19,723 | 8 | Good Technique | A convicted spy manages to avoid being hanged from a bridge when the rope breaks and flees for his life and freedom in this short silent film from Charles Vidor , his first as director . Hungarian-born Vidor would go on to become a specialist in big , lush productions , including musicals like Gene Kelly's breakthrough... |
439,165 | 1,617,546 | 14,991 | 8 | Lithuanians and Letts Do It | A fine film version of one of Elinor Glyn's silly romances . Miss Glyn founded the genre of what is today variously called the Romance Novel , the Gothic Romance or , in the trade , the Bodice-Ripper , since the heroine always winds up with a torn bodice or blouse . It happens here , too . The excellence of this versio... |
438,881 | 1,617,546 | 418,757 | 8 | Beautiful Black and White | This cartoon from Digital Meme's excellent four-DVD set of early Japanese animation has a fairly predictable story line , but it is told with some verve and much good humor . In addition , this is taken from a fine print and shows a lot of beauty in its black-and-white drawing and excellent animation - - it shows a car... |
439,190 | 1,617,546 | 23,584 | 8 | This is Frank Tuttle | Frank Tuttle was a highly competent house director for many years , working for Sam Goldwyn , Paramount and so forth , turning out well-made movies in which the style served the story . In our day of auteur worship and the insistence that , if a critic can't tell who directed a film without looking at the credits , it ... |
439,009 | 1,617,546 | 227,536 | 8 | You Can't Turn Your Back on Them | Melies most frequently imitated piece - - including by him - - was his L'AUBERGE MYSTERIEUSE . Here , wearing a comic outfit , he enters a room , to be devilled by unseen spirits which move things around , steal his hat and generally make him want to leave the room . It's all done with Melies ' usual flair and good hum... |
438,403 | 1,617,546 | 6,145 | 8 | Superior Keystone | One of the excellent and innovative comedies that Roscoe Arbuckle directed and starred in during his last couple of years at Keystone . Although for his own starring vehicles he retreated to simpler plotting and camera work , in these , he experiments with lighting , camera movement . elaborate plotting and fairly elab... |
438,972 | 1,617,546 | 469 | 8 | The Invention of a Grammar | Despite the tongue-in-cheek Marxian film-school analysis of the films in THE MOVIES BEGIN DVD set by Ms . Liddell-Hart and the amiable and seemingly unsophisticated enthusiasms of Snow Leopard , these films retain a fascination for those of us who are interested in old films for their own sakes . For those of us who ar... |
438,801 | 1,617,546 | 216,016 | 8 | Symbols | Even when we look at one of Melies ' films and don't know what he is going on about , still , we are carried along by his speed , his good humor and his inventiveness - - after all , his films at this stage rarely last more than a minute . Here , we have a piece that might be called " The Alchemist's Dream . " The old ... |
438,430 | 1,617,546 | 23,719 | 8 | Tracy Adds Some Salt | This Borzage soaper about the trials and tribulations of a youngster on the edge of being sent to reform school - - Ralph Bellamy plays the juvenile court judge in a relaxed , almost boneless manner . He was a fine actor and before he got typecast as the dull guy who loses the girl to Cary Grant , he gave a bunch of in... |
438,984 | 1,617,546 | 14,883 | 8 | War Against Mice | An early Felix the Cat short which has most of the hallmark's of Messmer's fantastic imagination . Felix is working in a barber shop when his boss shows him an extra : the mice have declared war against the cats . Although it does not show the ' playing with light ' touch of the best Felix the Cat silents , there are p... |
438,586 | 1,617,546 | 546 | 8 | More Than A Footnote | Although Edwin S . Porter is well known as the director of THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY , the landmark short that combined a good story line , cross-editing and other remarkable techniques for its era , his role in American cinema history has largely been relegated to a footnote : Edison invents the motion picture camera , ... |
439,434 | 1,617,546 | 24,334 | 8 | Pre-Code Nice Girl | One of Wellman's terrific Warner's B movies - - the one before this was HEROES FOR SALES and the next would be THE WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD - - about how nice girl Loretta Young became gangster Ricardo Cortez ' moll and how an over-the-top Fanchot Tone tried to redeem her . Brilliant opening montage keeps things moving un... |
438,726 | 1,617,546 | 1,146,438 | 8 | Great Pulp | In bygone days people used to read cheap magazines printed on cheap pulp paper . These were full of stories which , if not particularly literary , were full of action , color and plot . Later these moved to the movie serials and B movies , whence they were lifted , in the 1970s and 1980s , as the inspiration for movies... |
439,352 | 1,617,546 | 7,137 | 8 | With a Bullet | A typically funny Mr . & Mrs . Sidney Drew comedy , as Sidney falls in love with a charming young widow - - played , of course , by Mrs , Drew - - and , in short order , marries her , only to discover too late her constant obsession on Husband Number One . In desperation he . . . well , that would give away too much of... |
438,987 | 1,617,546 | 33,622 | 8 | Father of the Bride | Another of Benchley's Mr . Doakes shorts - - some of which were produced at MGM and others at Paramount , this casts Robert Benchley reduced to a nullity as the father of the bride - - and the similarity of Spencer Tracy's performance nine years later in the classic Minnelli comedy is amazing . Although these short sub... |
439,446 | 1,617,546 | 148,009 | 8 | Nether Fish Nor Fowl Nor Good Red Meat - - But Very Good Nonetheless | Frank Tashlin was one of the few cartoon directors to make a full transition to live action features - - the other best known one was Gregory LaCava - - but his cartoons were exceedingly realistic in character , gag structure and camera placement , while his live action movies were cartoonish - - think of SON OF PALEFA... |
439,246 | 1,617,546 | 14,672 | 8 | Silent History Done Right | Slow but beautifully-mounted story of the American revolution . Griffith's story-telling seems a lot less heavy-handed than in his earlier historical epics and his tableaux work is fully integrated into the action . Lionel Barrymore is an utter swine , Neil Hamilton is poor but dashing and Carol Dempster is . . . . wel... |
439,479 | 1,617,546 | 39,493 | 8 | Enter the Mynah | Chuck Jones ' Inki cartoons are rarely seen these days , because Inki is a small , stereotyped Hottentot with a bone in his hair , and we have come to see such images as racist and demeaning . Here , on exhibit in a circus and deviled by two dogs , one of whom would be developed into the high-pressure Charlie Dog of ha... |
438,991 | 1,617,546 | 111,272 | 8 | The Amazing Disappearing Derek Jacobi | Another of the fine Brother Cadfael series about a medieval monk who solves the murders that crop up continually around his monastery - - amazing that anyone is still alive in the neighborhood . But I write this review not to bury this series , but to praise Derek Jacobi , who , like the late Alec Guinness , has the un... |
438,691 | 1,617,546 | 150,243 | 8 | Pleasant fun | One of the better efforts from the Van Beuren studio . Although not the best cartoon studio in any department , Van Beuren often ran a very pleasant second . Here the jokes are better conceived and timed than usual , with the ranks of Dan Cupids dressed in Mountie outfits , since " We always get our man . " In this cas... |
438,978 | 1,617,546 | 24,154 | 8 | And I saw | Another of the great jazz-scored Betty Boops , in this case , Don Redman singing " I Heard " with the cartoon sequence set in a saloon , a mine and a graveyard . Redman isn't well known today . Imagine , if you will , Nat King Cole doing scat with a ' jungle music ' background . Fast , furious and , like all the pre-co... |
438,761 | 1,617,546 | 20,337 | 8 | One Long Arabian Night | 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... |
439,321 | 1,617,546 | 790 | 8 | Early sci-fi | It is frequently and falsely claimed that Porter created the story picture in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY . Melies was creating such films already , most notably in A TRIP TO THE MOON . Likewise , D . W . Griffith did not invent cross-cutting , although he did establish its usage as standard and produced what Lillian Gish ... |
438,704 | 1,617,546 | 18,396 | 8 | Mr . Laurel & Mr . Finlayson | There was a Stan Laurel before Oliver Hardy , and this 1927 pairing with Jimmy Finlayson - - who , a year later , would be relegated to the role of brilliant supporting actor in their comedies - - shows the Ollie-less Stan at his best . The direction , by Clyde Bruckman , is brisk . The gags all grow out of situations ... |
439,327 | 1,617,546 | 29,928 | 8 | Concerto for Horns and Violence | The Captain , fed up with what he considers slovenly housekeeping on the part of Mama , takes over the housekeeping on a washday , with the usual predictable results . This is the strongest of the Captain & the Kids Series from MGM that I have seen , and the result can be laid squarely at the feet of its director - - o... |
438,790 | 1,617,546 | 14,497 | 8 | The Usual Sheik Led the Usual Captive Across the Usual Dessert | So reads a title card in this not brilliant but enormously entertaining comedy-drama from 1923 . Rupert Hughes did the screenplay and the direction from his own novel and he has a great main cast , including Eleanor Boardman , Richard Dix , Mae Busch , William Haines , Lew Cody . . . . well , the list goes on and on , ... |
438,672 | 1,617,546 | 18,275 | 8 | A Bit of Everything | Another of the terrific comedies that Hoot Gibson starred in for Universal before they dropped his contract in a panic at the dawn of the sound era - - I suppose as he wasn't a relative of Carl Laemmle , it was ok . this one shows Hoot displaying his easy-going charm as he and two other claimants compete for a valuable... |
438,727 | 1,617,546 | 1,285,239 | 8 | What We Do For Others We Do For Ourselves | This is an excellent and heartfelt Hallmark TV movie about a workaholic whose personal life has collapsed around him , who organizes and leads a Christmas choir of men living at a homeless shelter . Working my way through this intellectually , I find a lot of flaws in this picture : its episodic nature , its easy inter... |
439,086 | 1,617,546 | 14,419 | 8 | A different Stan Laurel ! | We're all used to seeing Stan Laurel as the slightly more dimwitted half of Laurel and Hardy in brilliantly-timed gag sequences that play off their characters . This one , produced several years before his regular teaming with Mr . Hardy , is a bit different . The humor lies in the silly and pun-filled title cards and ... |
439,318 | 1,617,546 | 22,031 | 8 | Follow the Bouncing Ball | This is one of the earlier Betty Boop cartoons featuring a celebrity artist : in this case , Rudy Vallee . Although it does not measure up to the three great Betty Boops with Cab Calloway , it is very amusing . Notice the use of the Bouncing Ball . This device dates from Fleischer's first musical talking cartoons in 19... |
438,585 | 1,617,546 | 1,002 | 8 | Griffith the Comedy Director | Griffith's better-known pieces are either epics or melodramas , but he also turned out a fair number of comedies in his more than 500 pictures , both of the running - around - in - weird - costume farce variety that was later taken up by Mack Sennett ( Sennett was , at this time , an actor and writer in Griffith's trou... |
438,706 | 1,617,546 | 28,127 | 8 | Firsts | A remarkable cartoon for the period . First , it was Carl Stallings ' debut as Termite Terrace's musical director , a position he would hold for twenty years , producing a remarkable body of work . Second , it was Frank Tashlin's second directorial credit - - his first was three years before for Van Beuren - - and his ... |
438,766 | 1,617,546 | 4,838 | 8 | When World Collide | An excellent melodrama as Tsuru Aoki marries American sailor Frank Borzage - - a curly-haired fellow before he turned director - - despite a family curse that causes volcanoes to ' empty their bowels ' when daughters marry - - apparently no such penalty befalls the men . Sessue Hayakawa , in heavy makeup , is unrecogni... |
439,289 | 1,617,546 | 383,574 | 8 | Topnotch Action Comedy Sequel | Gore Verbinski has had a rocky career . Some of his movies have been very funny but commercially unsuccessful , like MOUSE HUNT , and some have just been annoying , like THE Mexican . However , here , aided with a script that never takes itself seriously and topnotch actors - - Johnny Depp repeats his astonishingly eng... |
438,933 | 1,617,546 | 9,732 | 8 | With a bullet | An excellent early short comedy for Harold Lloyd's ' Glass ' character . He plays a meek conservatory graduate who wows the matrons and winds up playing in a western saloon , where Snub is the bartender and Bebe the Salvation Army lass . Harold is , of course , confused for a dangerous character and the gags flow fast ... |
439,088 | 1,617,546 | 181,680 | 8 | Max's American Debut | After Charlie Chaplin left Essannay , they needed a new comedy superstar and who but Max Linder , who had been France's leading comedy movie star - - and the world's - - for ten years ? So Max left Paris and came to Chicago . Here in Max's second American film , we can see him adapting his style from the realistic Fren... |
438,636 | 1,617,546 | 16,359 | 8 | Stan finds his timing | Although he had been starring in short comedies for eight years when he made this movie , Stan Laurel had done little to make it apparent he was one of the great talents of film comedy . Some of his movies of this period are watchable only by the most dedicated of completest . Yet , in this movie , we see he had finall... |
439,462 | 1,617,546 | 123,297 | 8 | Flea For Your Life ! | A sort of all-star Our Gang comedy , in which all sorts of Roach's regulars and mini-stars - - except Stan Laurel - - appear . The sole gag here is that a bunch of fleas gets loose at the gorgeous Martha Sleeper's wedding , causing all sorts of consternation . See if you can spot Charley Chase . |
438,875 | 1,617,546 | 249,790 | 8 | Sticking to Reality | In an era when American comedy was moving from primitively shot vaudeville scenes towards the brilliantly cut but emotionally retarded efforts of Mack Sennett , and most European comedies were casually tossed off bits of fluff like BOUT LE ZAN STEALS AN ELEPHANT , which may amuse the modern eye with its trained elephan... |
438,387 | 1,617,546 | 203,424 | 8 | Excellent Introduction to McLaren - - ignore it | Look at his movies , instead . Our age has somehow gotten the idea that the artist is more important than the art . I don't feel that way . If it weren't for the art , we wouldn't care about the artist more than any random stranger , so let the art be worthwhile . Sometimes these documentaries offer you insight in tech... |
438,553 | 1,617,546 | 16,006 | 8 | Excellent Talmadge Soaper | Norma Talmadge stars in a ' Madame X ' story in which the lower-class Talmadge must give up her infant son for his own good and then spends the rest of the movie suffering . When Norma catches her husband cheating on her , he calls her ' a common trollop ' - - no , I don't have that backwards - - and abandons her . Aft... |
438,666 | 1,617,546 | 22,560 | 8 | The Masquers | This short is one of four of the shorts produced by the Masquers Club and distributed by RKO in the early 1930s , now available on DVD from Encore Home Video . This wild burlesque of westerns , directed by Arthur Rosson stars Ned Sparks in his usual frozen-faced performance , as the sheriff , Antonio Moreno as the Mexi... |
439,250 | 1,617,546 | 29,421 | 8 | Transitional Masterpiece | Iwerks directed this during his brief stay at Termite Terrace , between the collapse of his own studio and his return to Disney . Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett animated , and it's an interesting piece because it shows the hand of all three animators : Iwerks ' strong but predictable story line , Clampett's outrageous ga... |
438,546 | 1,617,546 | 33,892 | 8 | Bob Clampett | As usual for Bob Clampett in this period , another fine comedy newsreel with an armed forces theme - - with the war going on in Europe and a draft in this country , it was a natural theme and the beginning of the flag waving period . The credited writer is Dave Monahan , the best of Termite Terrace's writers for ' fake... |
438,909 | 1,617,546 | 9,996 | 8 | Fragments of beauty | Only a small part of this cartoon survive , about a minute and a half of lovely images by the foremost cartoonist of the the early 20th century . Several of Windsor McCay's cartoons are considered classics of the art , such as GERTIE THE DINOSAUR and THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA , but the draftsmanship and execution of... |
438,514 | 1,617,546 | 29,428 | 8 | Dreaming of Wackyland | Bob Clampett , director of this cartoon , was one of the great cartoon directors that made Looney TUnes and Merrie Melodies so great . His greatest strength was his ability to take images and ideas and stretch them endlessly and his great masterpiece , PORKY IN WACKYLAND is the great exemplar of that . But here , in th... |
438,846 | 1,617,546 | 142,325 | 8 | Pete Smith | In 1934 , MGM released ten " Goofy Movies " , mostly consisting of " Wotaphony Newsreels " - - a parody of Vitaphone newsreels from competitor Warner Brothers and a cut-down silent from the 1908-1914 era with Pete Smith's sarcastic voice-over on them : in this case " Super-Stupid Pictures presents PASSIONS OF HORSE PIS... |
438,938 | 1,617,546 | 1,252,330 | 8 | Regrets | What is Charles Burnett , the director of brilliant , oppressive tales of Black life like KILLER OF SHEEP and MY BROTHER'S WEDDING doing directing a made-for-TV movie on the Hallmark Channel ? The flip and glib answer is that he is a director and can use the work , but watching this movie with its constant level of pai... |
439,118 | 1,617,546 | 44,781 | 8 | - - See a Peter Lawford Movie | This is a surprisingly strong romantic comedy starring Peter Lawford and Janet Leigh . At first they seem to be playing their stereotypical roles - - Lawford is immensely rich , and annoying : he spends too much , so his fund trustee - - played by the ever dependable Lewis Stone - - hires common , sensible , penny-pinc... |
439,366 | 1,617,546 | 154,841 | 8 | Behind the Closed Doors | Another fine short comedy from Charley Chase's peak period . In reality , this can be said about any Chase short I've seen from about 1926 through his last silent short , MOVIE NIGHT , and wonderful shorts keep showing up from other periods , including the times he directed Billy West in the Teens and well into the sou... |
438,911 | 1,617,546 | 25,446 | 8 | The Girl Friends | One of the best of the ' Girl Friends ' series starring Todd and Kelly after Zasu Pitts dropped out of the series . On the brink of leaving Hollywood forever , Thelma Todd gets to do an important screen test , and the studio is full of comedy veterans doing their shticks , including the always-enjoyable Billy Gilbert d... |
438,939 | 1,617,546 | 855,966 | 8 | Camera Tricks | This is a funny variation on a chase farce as a pickpocket escape from les flics by use of a lot of camera tricks . Although they are crude to the modern eye , they are executed with excellent speed and fine humor . More than that , this short subject is an example of a stage of importing Georges Melies ' pure trick fi... |
439,319 | 1,617,546 | 22,668 | 8 | Betty Goes Hawaiian | The Betty Boop cartoons - - or " Talkartoons " were always superior musically to the competition but Disney usually was better in terms of animation . The Fleischer Brothers , however , were always ahead technically , both with sound ( in 1924 ) and here , were the dance numbers are clear animated using rotoscope . |
438,515 | 1,617,546 | 278,123 | 8 | A Flea in Her Bridal Bed | If you are unfamiliar with Max Linder's films , it might be worthwhile to tell you that he was the first international comedy star and that Charlie Chaplin said he learned a great deal from watching his films . In his film career , which extended from 1905 through the mid-1920s , he typically played variations on the y... |
439,276 | 1,617,546 | 228,550 | 8 | Le Jazz Hot | This is another variation of Melies ' most popular and imitated - - especially by him - - theme first expressed in L'AUBERGE MYSTERIEUSE , as a a composer or music teacher suddenly finds the instruments in his salon running amok , causing much comic havoc These are always a pleasure to watch , especially given Melies '... |
439,028 | 1,617,546 | 10,233 | 8 | Sprightly | One of the last comedies directed by Eddie Cline before he left Keystone to direct Buster Keaton's shorts , this is an excellent little comedy with a fine performance by Ford Sterling out of his Dutch Comic makeup . Nice little gag with Louise Fazenda's hat and one of the funniest title cards I have come across : " You... |
438,714 | 1,617,546 | 164,040 | 8 | A League of Their Own | Old-time baseball player Clyde becomes the manager of a girl's softball team in this comedy that plays to his strength as a comic reactor . Lots of good jokes , far more believable situations than most Columbia comedy shorts , probably due to Charley Chase as one of the producers . Highly recommended . Andy Clyde start... |
438,534 | 1,617,546 | 22,724 | 8 | Al St . John Underacts ! | He screams , he rants , he pulls at his hair , he throws a radio through a wall and dives after it . For Al St . John this is underacting . He was one of the best fall takers in the industry , ranking with Buster Keaton and Lupino Lane , but his idea of acting was to behave like an agile toddler throwing a tantrum . Af... |
438,791 | 1,617,546 | 1,659 | 8 | Mabel Normand , Dramatic Actress , Meet D . W . Griffith , Comedy Director | Mabel Normand stars in this comedy-drama from D . W . Griffith in the year 1911 . She would go to Vitagraph , then return to the fold , working for Mack Sennett at Biograph and Keystone . In the meantime , here she is under the direction of the Master , and she acquits herself very nicely indeed . She is wonderful in t... |
439,032 | 1,617,546 | 251,116 | 8 | Billy at his best | A truly superior effort by Billy West , most successful of the Chaplin imitators . In this one , he winds up as a waiter at a cabaret and has to take part in a comic boxing match . Although he misses Chaplin's gracefulness by a hair , there is no reason to look down on this effort . While the gags echo Chaplin gags of ... |
439,128 | 1,617,546 | 23,393 | 8 | Satchmo ! | A rare chance to see a young Louis Armstrong - - in a leopard skin , no less - - sing and play " I'll Be Glad When You're Dead " and other songs during his Hot Five period . The ' story ' , such as it is is a trifle , but does not detract from the performance . |
439,164 | 1,617,546 | 337,420 | 8 | Slick Electioneering Propaganda | This is as slick a piece of campaign film as ever came out of Hollywood - - barring , of course , the anti-Upton Sinclair stuff turned out as newsreels in the 1930s during his campaign for governor of California . President Coolidge is presented as a simple man of the people who helps his cousin with the haying when he... |
439,236 | 1,617,546 | 24,659 | 8 | When Sir John Mills was in kneepants | Bright farce played at a good speed is sure to delight those who enjoy the form . The big plus for this movie , though , is the fact that half of it takes place at a music hall , and half a dozen excellent acts fill out the film . This is an early writing credit for Frank Launder and is the movie debut of Will Hay . |
439,342 | 1,617,546 | 9,369 | 8 | Everyone loves Mabel | Dogs love her , cats love her , jackasses love her and squirrels love to run up her pants legs . Well , who can blame them , right after a scene where she is shown diving nude . . . . with a suitably long lens of course . Darn it . There is nothing terribly novel about this Cinderella story of a movie , but it is all c... |
439,421 | 1,617,546 | 8,022 | 8 | Three for Triangle | This is an interesting and atypical short for Triangle . First , Louise Glaum , who was one of the leading vamps of the 1910s - - she usually played the bad girl in William S . Hart westerns - - stars here as the heroine , an atypical good girl role , and she is excellent at it . Second , it is an early leading role fo... |
438,806 | 1,617,546 | 277,834 | 8 | No Drag | Max Linder , the most consistently funny and successful film comic before Chaplin came on the scene , did not play a freakish , slapstick comedy . Instead , in film after film , he played a man about town whose stories were punctuated by nice comic bits . His career went into a tailspin after he returned from service i... |
438,481 | 1,617,546 | 370,634 | 8 | Simple and Funny | This Powers Universal Comedy from 1912 has a very simple premise : a family is going to have the pictures of the two youngsters , a boy and a girl , taken by a photographer . Nothing bizarre takes place , there are no unusual gags , yet this is a very funny comedy : the children torment each other - - and the photograp... |
439,302 | 1,617,546 | 23,479 | 8 | Just One of Those Things | A beautifully written and sometimes magnificently played serious movie . Chester Morris and Carole Lombard love each other , but she is terrified of the corrosive effects of the life of poverty that she foresees with Morris . So they break up and they drift into lives as a kept woman and a gigolo . The two are almost p... |
438,954 | 1,617,546 | 133,712 | 8 | Wit , Wisdom or Words ? | Although THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLES is not one of George Bernard Shaw's best plays , it is a pretty fair historical piece , boasting , as it does , one of his more genuinely witty characters , in the personage of John Burgoyne , sometimes Parliamentarian , sometimes playwright , and always , in this show at least , possesse... |
438,765 | 1,617,546 | 31,152 | 8 | The Community of Eccentrics | A sharply turned romantic comedy as Peter Coke attempts to sabotage an old-fashioned brewery and woo Nova Pilbeam at the same time . Part of the charm of this movie for me is that I see here one of the forebears of the Ealing comedies of the 1950s - - Ronald Neame worked on this , as well as S . C . Balcon , one of the... |
438,655 | 1,617,546 | 153,870 | 9 | The Craft of Cartooning | This is , I believe , the best Woody Woodpecker of the 1950s , and I lay the responsibility for this squarely at the feet of the writers , Michael Maltese , taking a break from working a Termite terrace and on his way , eventually , to Hanna Barberra where he would end his career , and Homer Brightman , who spent most ... |
439,129 | 1,617,546 | 23,855 | 9 | Duke Ellington | Ellington and his orchestra give you a hint of his ' Jungle Period ' music , and then move into " Stormy Weather " sung by Ivy Anderson . Although no one can beat Lena Horne singing this song , it's wonderful to hear a clean recording of Ellington's orchestra at this time , with its lush orchestrations . |
439,343 | 1,617,546 | 10,853 | 9 | Raw Beauty | There is a great power in this movie . William S . Hart abandons his familiar cowboy gear to play the role of a Mountain Man guiding a wagon train across the west while trying to discover the truth about his young brother's murder . If the language veers between the poetic scene-setting titles , and the eye-dialect dia... |
439,429 | 1,617,546 | 10,806 | 9 | Minor Griffith ? | True , there are no big set pieces . We don't see Richard Barthelmess leaping from ice floe to ice floe , we don't see the Little Colonel ramming a Confederate battle flag down a cannon's mouth . What we see are faces : a small boy watching a church elder eat ice cream ; Robert Harron , exultant at getting a scholarshi... |
439,270 | 1,617,546 | 223,412 | 9 | Fighting Fire With Fire | This piece marks a return to form for Melies ' story films after several comparatively weak ones in 1907 - - he seems to have been concentrating on the business end of things and leaving matters in the hands of subordinates while Pathe and Gaumont were spending money to eat up his market . Here , however , we have his ... |
438,823 | 1,617,546 | 19,791 | 9 | The Good News and the Bad | Well , let's get the bad news out of the way first : this very early Charley Chase short - - co-starring Thelma Todd ! - - is missing its soundtrack . Now for the good news : it doesn't need it ! This is essentially a silent movie , and the gags are well-constructed , as you would expect in any Charley Chase movie . Th... |
438,822 | 1,617,546 | 149,815 | 9 | And , by the way . . . . | In my comments about the Woody Woodpecker cartoon THE BARBER OF SEVILLE , released the same year as this one , I commented on the redesigned Woody . What I did not mention at the time - - and which was brought forcibly to my attention by viewing earlier WW shorts and these two on the newly released WOODY WOODPECKER AND... |
438,856 | 1,617,546 | 23,620 | 9 | Great Film Version of the Radio Serial | William K . Howard was given the task of turning a popular radio serial into a movie , and succeeded . A carefully-written script that actually paid attention to the way cases are tried was the first step . Some great support , particularly Skeets Gallegher and the great Zasu Pitts helps . A restless camera helps keep ... |
438,462 | 1,617,546 | 11,223 | 9 | Lloyd loves Lizzie | Tin Lizzie , that is , a model T . This is a beautifully constructed silent comedy of a Man and His Car . Lloyd Lloyd was the model for later Hal Roach comedians , and his plots and situations were recycled for later comedians . Here , it is done in its pure form . |
438,456 | 1,617,546 | 359 | 9 | ka-boom ! | Melies had a sense of playfulness about his films , and this is one of the more amusing ones : Melies takes a head - - which is Melies ' head , attaches it to some bellows , and blows it up like a balloon . True , there's no deep thought involved , but there needn't be . It's less than a minute and easily sustains the ... |
439,397 | 1,617,546 | 11,070 | 9 | The Subtle Brother | Although best known today - - if he is remembered at all - - as the brother of Cecil B . Demille and the father of choreographer Agnes Demille , William Demille was an excellent director in the silent era . He did not make the flashy pictures with the stunning scenes that his brother is best remembered for , but smalle... |
439,244 | 1,617,546 | 17,667 | 9 | Two hams and some hard-boiled eggs | Superb silent version of the story of Francois Villon . Although remade in the thirties as IF I WERE KING , with Frank Lloyd directing , Preston Sturges scripting and Ronald Colman starring , this version is even better . Barrymore , with a cohort of comedians , plays the comic fool and the wine-depressed Villon with a... |
438,573 | 1,617,546 | 23,721 | 9 | What would the Vanderbilts say ? | Muriel Evans has decided to defy family convention and take part in a beauty contest in Oceanside and her parents have hired " Fearless " who turns out to be timid Charley Chase to find her and stop her . This is one of Charley's better sound shorts in which Thelma Todd does not appear . It's strengthened by some nice ... |
439,287 | 1,617,546 | 25,766 | 9 | Lubitsch Without Lubtitsch | Samson Raphaelson , one of Lubitsch's favorite screenwriters , tackles the script of this comedy of manners , Frank Lloyd directs and Janet Gaynor stars , ably supported by an excellent cast - - and they pull it off . First , this is probably Miss Gaynor's most successful venture outside her usual acting vein in the ta... |
438,851 | 1,617,546 | 32,114 | 9 | High Peaks | At times this movie is brilliant beyond my powers of description to note . At other times it turns stupid . Langston Hughes ' poetry and powerful images dominate some scenes . At others we have the sight of Clarence Muse in a dress and veil , or Bobby Breen advancing the plot while Alan Mowbray does his best to make it... |
438,649 | 1,617,546 | 148,000 | 9 | Vally's Vish Market | This is an excellent Chilly Willy cartoon as the silent little penguin discovers that Wally Walrus is running a fish market . Jack Hannah , the latest in a long line of Disney refugees , directs Chilly with a series of Chaplinesque movements and gestures and steals one of Larry Semon's best gags along the way . Hannah ... |
439,455 | 1,617,546 | 41,443 | 9 | I can call gophers from the vasty deep | Topnotch Goofy Gophers cartoon , doing what they do best : pricking the vanity of the inept , in this case , a dog who wishes to give up doing slapstick cartoons for Warner Brothers and do Shakespearian roles instead . Although this cartoon is credited to McKimson , it shows the hand of Art Davis , the most under-rated... |
438,682 | 1,617,546 | 227,866 | 9 | He'll Stand On His Head For You | Another of Melies ' wonderful little trick films . although to the modern eye it is not difficult to penetrate as Melies splits himself into four Melies and proceeds to hold himself up , one in either hand and the last on his head , there is something here that the modern eye rarely sees ; the joy of the performer . Me... |
438,716 | 1,617,546 | 18,266 | 9 | A Puzzling Failure | This movie was a fairly famous failure in its day , cut down afterward to a great two-reeler , CHASING CHOO-CHOOS . Many reasons have been offered as to why it failed - - mostly pacing issues - - but taking a look at it , it doesn't wash . It is a well-constructed movie , the gags are funny and heartfelt all the way th... |
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