reviewId int64 363k 588k | userId int64 33.9k 15.9M | itemId int64 1 1.42M | rating float64 1 10 | title stringlengths 1 10.9k ⌀ | content stringlengths 81 11.6k ⌀ |
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438,789 | 1,617,546 | 118,001 | 9 | Pure Westlake : Comedy of Depression | A great adaptation of one of Donald Westlake's sad-sack comedies , in this case about Antonio Banderas , an unsuccessful art gallery owner who ekes out his income by a variation on the Bible Salesman scam . He winds up engaged to a funny , screeching Melanie Griffith , in lust with her sister - - and Melanie's gangster... |
438,964 | 1,617,546 | 20,371 | 9 | Sea Wolf sans Nietzsche | Tourneur's last silent movie shows his full command of the silent film grammar - - much of which he invented - - in his beautiful compositions and still camera , punctuated for excellent effect by purposeful moving and process shots . He never uses the camera to make the viewer gasp at his brilliance , but only to punc... |
438,869 | 1,617,546 | 9,737 | 9 | Great WWI Melodrama | An excellent melodrama from World War One , with von Stroheim as an over-the-top Hun who rips the hair from Belgian children , knocks down grandmothers , shoots them , tries to rape women and destroys German soldiers ' musical instruments with the statement " You are here to fight , not to fiddle ! " - - the Man You Lo... |
438,480 | 1,617,546 | 16,550 | 9 | Give It Back to the Indians | I post this review in disagreement with the comments posted by F . Gwynplaine MacIntyre who , I feel , has missed much about this movie . First , a minor factual error : the cowboys that Richard Dix uses to impress Esther Ralston are not bums picked up by the railroad siding ; they are the current crop of cowboys , eve... |
438,871 | 1,617,546 | 234,111 | 9 | An Understandable Failure | Porter's last follow up to LIFE OF AN American FIREMAN is a much better movie with a better sense of story and a definite sense of something to say about what a policeman does . However , while it does have its moments of excitement , like rescuing a drowning woman or overtaking a runaway horse , it lacks the big set p... |
439,367 | 1,617,546 | 37,932 | 9 | Wagon Wheel Joe goes it alone | A lovely little B picture with all the usual Joe Lewis touches . . . . people ripping up pillows and auras of lurking fear . Also , alas , an ending that comes out of nowhere , because , apparently , the auteur has lost interest in the movie , or perhaps because as a B picture it has to fit into a slot . |
439,123 | 1,617,546 | 3,158 | 9 | It veers | Griffith and the best of his stock company - - Lilian Gish and Bobby Harron , Lionel Barrymore in heavy makeup and Alfred Paget - - slew surefootedly from comedy to tragedy and back to comedy - - comedy ? In a story about a lynching ? Yes indeed . Gish and Harron are , as always , wonderful in this western shot out in ... |
439,383 | 1,617,546 | 935,076 | 9 | Real Gone | Before commenting on this episode 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 o... |
439,162 | 1,617,546 | 16,129 | 9 | Fatty Ham | Yes , I know , Roscoe Arbuckle didn't like to be called ' Fatty ' , but I couldn't resist the joke . This is a fine Lloyd Hamilton short from his peak period , directed by Roscoe . The two work together with lots of good gags and Roscoe's usual attention to the details of shooting the picture in an interesting manner .... |
439,092 | 1,617,546 | 16,395 | 9 | Better than Barbara Stanwyck ! | I think Miss Stanwyck was a great actress , but when I look at the version of STELLA DALLAS that King Vidor directed her in twelve years after this silent version . . . . . well , something always bothered me about it . WHY was she supposed to be such a monster ? She was Barbara Stanwyck . All right , she wasn't dresse... |
439,420 | 1,617,546 | 234,146 | 9 | Funny ! | This short subject , one of a long series of Kennedy's ' Everyman ' series at RKO , somehow manages to be simultaneously typical of the series , amazingly funny , and say something real about the human condition . Edgar and wife - - played by his usual spouse in this series , Florence Lake - - have witnessed the life s... |
438,941 | 1,617,546 | 121,531 | 9 | Hydrophobia | Alas , Max has a neurosis about getting wet , so his fiancée throws him over : she tosses her engagement ring on a ribbon into the ocean and announces that if Max wants to get her back , he must produce the ring on a ribbon . Max is particularly good playing a bit of a maniac , and he is at his most amusing here , firs... |
439,426 | 1,617,546 | 25,136 | 9 | Annie's Got Ants in her Pantry | Wonderful , off-kilter late Chase effort has him playing the part of four brothers , with clearly distinct personalities , all of whom meet Betty Mack , causing her no end of confusion . He also sings in this one , a patter song with the refrain " Annie's Got Ants In Her Pantry . " Look out for Stymie Beard in a small ... |
438,433 | 1,617,546 | 16,013 | 9 | The Mystic Power of Love | At his peak in the 1930s and 1940s , to watch Frank Borzage with pleasure , you have to believe in love as something more than a variety of lust . It can be transformative when living ( as in the terrific and subtle A MAN'S CASTLE ) and , in the hands of performers like Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell , can even overc... |
439,316 | 1,617,546 | 154,637 | 9 | Oh , the Places You'll Go | This is one of the best of the wartime ' Private Snafu ' films made by Termite Terrace , usually written by Theodore Geisel ( aka Dr . Seuss ) . Because they were intended only for soldiers , they were usually far more open and frank than movies intended for civilian showings and concerned themselves with humorously de... |
438,721 | 1,617,546 | 29,343 | 9 | Definitely On | Veteran Comedy Director Eddie Cline leads Wheeler and Woolsey in one of their best vehicles . They pair off as partners in a pill manufacturing company who can't stand each other and wrestle each other for the company , with the loser to be the other one's manservant for a year . The duo's timing and delivery is far be... |
438,676 | 1,617,546 | 228,447 | 9 | Variations on a Theme : the Little Match Girl | Another of Melies dreams of an easier life as a poor chimney sweep - - recall if you will , that this dirty and dangerous task was performed by children who could fit into cramped , sooty chimneys - - falls asleep and dreams he is clean , caparisoned in rich clothes and seated on a throne , where officers and courtiers... |
439,189 | 1,617,546 | 16,651 | 9 | Mutt and Jeff | Mutt and Jeff never displayed much personality in the movies . They were , like many comedians of the silent era , two guys who did funny things and slowly faded away . Pairs like Laurel & Hardy were much more durable because they had actual personalities . Nevertheless . . . Nevertheless , this is the single best Mutt... |
439,247 | 1,617,546 | 40,262 | 9 | Daffy at his most annoying . . . | We have here Daffy being as obnoxious as he can be as he tortures Porky Pig , with whom he is sharing a room . This is an early McKimson , and one of his best . In a couple of years , Chuck Jones would take Daffy and remold his personality , but here we see a fine mechanical rendition of the little black duck . |
438,705 | 1,617,546 | 18,860 | 9 | the care and cares of the nouveau riche | Mr . Hardy inherits a large fortune and takes Mr . Laurel and his dog along to act as his butler - - - Mr . Laurel , that is . The Boys hadn't quite settled into their screen personae when this was made , so there is still a bit of backing and filling as Ollie comes home drunk and in high spirits on his birthday , whil... |
439,464 | 1,617,546 | 51,433 | 9 | King of Directors | Henry King , who directed this picture , had a long and distinguished career that lasted from 1915 from 1962 . He directed perhaps as many classic movies as anyone , from TOL'ABLE David ( 1920 ) through TENDER IS THE NIGHT ( 1962 ) . Yet if you look at his sound movies from 1935 on , you will see very little camera mov... |
439,406 | 1,617,546 | 17,067 | 9 | Thrilling | This fast-moving , late-silent serial is a model of the form as former Secret Serviceman " Lightning " Hutch " and his pals attempt baffle a gang of bad guys who are after the super-scientific poison gas - - and Clifford Price , who is after his girl . The cinematography by Leon Shamroy is modeled after the classic ser... |
438,593 | 1,617,546 | 5 | 10 | Best commercial American film ever ! | Of course , it's easy to be the best , when you're the only one , and this picture , as the first film released commercially by the Edison company - - there are a couple of test films that date from 1891 - - qualifies . Considering the standards of the time , it's also pretty good , demonstrating motion and composition... |
438,930 | 1,617,546 | 30,605 | 10 | Termite Terrace Burns the Mouse | In 1935 , Disney's MICKEY'S FIRE BRIGADE was a great cartoon . Three years later , under the direction of Frank Tashlin , PORKY THE FIREMAN took the same subject and did it forty times as well . Clocking in at 40 gags per minute , a sensible plot and excellent animation , this movie marked the end of Disney's dominatio... |
438,976 | 1,617,546 | 39,144 | 10 | Sprinkle Profusely With Crushed Duck | One of the funniest Daffy Duck movies as Daffy , selling cookbooks door to door , shows up at the Klondike Cabin of starving Yosemite Sam and his brother . Duffy at his brashest is hilarious and the sight gags have never been bettered . Freleng's strength was fitting gags into a story line that made sense . . . . of so... |
439,307 | 1,617,546 | 138 | 10 | Flattering himself | L'AUBERGE ENSORCELE is probably Melies ' most imitated single film : a traveler enters a hotel room and things don't just go wrong : thy go terribly pear-shaped as beds vanish and reappear , boots walk off and pants fly away in a side-splitting combination of stage and film magic . I have seen variations from Edison , ... |
438,414 | 1,617,546 | 17,414 | 10 | Harry Just Doesn't Understand | . . . . well , anything . And everything . People are a constant mystery to him . Not that he's been paying attention , but still . People are strange things , and so are non-people . Harry can get into discussions with inanimate objects with as much personal satisfaction as with people - - more , I would imagine , sin... |
439,011 | 1,617,546 | 230 | 10 | Bibbety Bobbety Boo | The earliest surviving of Melies super-productions - - the best known one , of course , is his Trip to the Moon , the story begins right where Melies can strut his stuff with the appearance of the Fairy Godmother . Some of the earliest sequences are beautifully hand-tinted . Of greater technical interest is Melies ' ex... |
439,012 | 1,617,546 | 242 | 10 | That Old Devil Georges | A priest is officiating at a convent , when suddenly he is transformed into the devil , who frightens away the nuns and turns the place into a outlet of Pandemonium . Another of Melies ' wonderful combinations of stage and film magic , this tells a fine little story of the triumph of faith . But how did he get into the... |
438,903 | 1,617,546 | 15,053 | 10 | Laughing at Comedy | Richard Talmadge has just been thrown over by the seventeenth only girl he'll ever love and his father , who has just invented a clockwork death ray says he needs excitement . So when his father's secretary , who is a spy , steals the key part and Richard has to rescue it and pretty Eva Novak , Richard thinks it's all ... |
439,505 | 1,617,546 | 149,790 | 10 | Better But as Funny ? | This was the first appearance of the redesigned Woody Woodpecker , intended to make him more appealing - - no buckteeth . The ongoing competition to turn out the best short cartoons in the business were still on . The Fleischers were out of it , Paul Terry was idling at Fox with his guaranteed contracts , and Disney wa... |
439,050 | 1,617,546 | 1,046,947 | 10 | Not a Great Movie , Just Great Performances | Yes , this movie has tremendous problems with the script . It would have taken very little to have put in a couple of prefigurements of plot points , such as Harvey's arrhythmia . The subplot with Maggie Walker and the Pole could have actually gone some place , and the issue of who got to give the bride away could have... |
439,294 | 1,617,546 | 43,726 | 10 | The Old Dark House | Edwina Black has died and an autopsy shows she was poisoned with arsenic . Meanwhile , her widower and his secretary ( played by the wonderful Geraldine Fitzgerald ) , who have been waiting for her to die , are preparing to go off to the Continent . While the police inspector ( played slowly and perfectly by Roland Cul... |
438,612 | 1,617,546 | 158,472 | 10 | Black on white | If you are reading this because you have seen Lotte Reiniger's DIE ABENTUR DES PRINZEN ACHMED and are wondering if this measures up to that movie , the first animated feature , then the answer is yes . It's Cinderella done in Reiniger's exquisite articulated figures , similar in concept to stop motion . The figure of C... |
439,317 | 1,617,546 | 312,544 | 10 | General Panic | You're a star of silent short comedies and your first feature is a bomb . What do you you do ? You cut eighty percent of it and leave the good parts . That's what happened here . Apparently his feature , PLAY SAFE wasn't a draw at the theaters , so they cut out almost all the explication and left in just enough to set ... |
439,075 | 1,617,546 | 1,235,057 | 10 | Ah , Nuts ! | From the always feverishly cartoon mind of Charley Bowers comes one of his few sound films , a burlesque of the Ripley's Believe It Or Not cartoon strip - - Ripley also appeared in a couple of series of movies doing his drawings . But the point of this review is to tell you about Charley Bowers , who led a weird life a... |
438,683 | 1,617,546 | 413 | 10 | Money is the Root of All Magic | Another lovely series of magic ticks for Melies , as a sneak thief tries to steal some moneybags from old nick - - and all Pandemonium breaks loose ! even by Melies ' standards , there is some excellent stage magic , as imp after imp - - and impishly cute girls they are too - - emerge from the box , step to the floor a... |
438,353 | 1,617,546 | 4,260 | 10 | First Arbuckle Masterpiece | Charles Murray is having trouble with his in-the-park flirting , so he goes to see a ' Trouble Mender ' . The answer to his problem is obvious : the trouble mender - - a man who spends his time moving through sliding panels , materializing hillbilly henchmen and himself - - will kill him . No more life , no more proble... |
439,010 | 1,617,546 | 227,527 | 10 | There Must Be More to the Story Than The're Telling | The prince breaks into the sorcerer's home and tries to do him in , to little effect as Melies uses his wonderful combination of stage and film magic , until a bunch of women - - presumably a band of good fairies - - come to the aid of the prince . You have some very fluid story-telling , wonderful effects and excellen... |
438,802 | 1,617,546 | 256,205 | 10 | To where ? | Surprisingly funny , dreamy little comedy as down-on-his-luck Ham looks for work , gets thrown out of his rooming house and tries to make it on the street - - in the best , gag-filled 20s comedy style . Ignore the early Ham and Bud comedies : this one really works as Ham sourly tries to make the best of things , despit... |
438,660 | 1,617,546 | 243,111 | 10 | Improvisation | All , right , Goodman was Big Band and not jazz and except for a few small pieces within , his music was rigorously orchestrated . But the thought of improvisation flows from this movie , from the hot , hot score to the fact that the characters and backgrounding are drawn just instants before they go into action - - so... |
438,502 | 1,617,546 | 2,350 | 10 | Who Is To Blame ? | Although publicized as a dramatization of Custer's Last Stand , this bears little relation to the events as known . It is a story of . . . . well , it is one of the most morally ambiguous pieces of Griffith's that I have seen . Griffith spent most of his career using his serious pieces to dramatize society's problems ,... |
438,966 | 1,617,546 | 465 | 10 | Magical | One of Melies ' elaborate story productions , ranking with VOYAGE TO THE MOON , using camera tricks , sleight of hand , elaborate costumes and interesting model work . Technically it will look primitive to the modern eye - - the sets are clearly sets , the models clearly models - - but it is all done with Melies ' verv... |
439,499 | 1,617,546 | 52,357 | 10 | Here's to Love on Our Own Terms | I feel a need to tell you a short anecdote about seeing this movie . When it was restored in the late 1990s , the New York premiere took place at the Ziegfeld . I managed to wangle my way in and saw so much in this movie I hadn't seen before , that can't really be seen except on the big screen . . . . and when I left t... |
438,694 | 1,617,546 | 50,209 | 10 | Someday they'll all be sorry | Here we have yet another rarely-seen and under-appreciated cartoon classic by Chuck Jones . Ralph Phillips ' three fantasies after he gets sent to his room for breaking a window are exactly the the sort of thing that any imaginative nine-year-old would think of , and the script is chock full of screwy lines like " My i... |
438,459 | 1,617,546 | 232,902 | 10 | Great Documentary & Great Music | An early and wonderful example of what tv can do when it sets itself to do something good . Stuff like this is now all over the History Channel , but you can't do better than Richard Rodger's music for this . Worth it for the score alone . |
438,967 | 1,617,546 | 43,400 | 10 | It don't add up | The last and craziest of the six Hubie & Bertie cartoons , about two decidedly non-country mice . In this one , the pair have been living in a cheese factory and , having eaten enough cheese for the next two thousand years , decide to end it all , by leaping into the mouth of Claude Cat , their dupe in the Oscar-winnin... |
438,788 | 1,617,546 | 632 | 10 | Why Isn't This Movie Better Known ? | Occasionally in looking at old movies , I see something that makes my eyes pop out : a wonderful bit of technique that was used once and then abandoned for no discernible reason , or technique well in advance of its usual dating . Well , such things turn up not infrequently in Danish movies . Nordisk led the world in f... |
439,399 | 1,617,546 | 10,316 | 10 | Will Rogers , Of Course | This was a big hit in 1919 when Will Rogers was starring in the Ziegfeld Follies and already famous for his easy-going wit . If you're used to his famous quotes like " I'm not a member of any organized political party ; I'm a Democrat " or his sound features , you'd be surprised at how well his personality makes itself... |
439,390 | 1,617,546 | 37,557 | 10 | We're in the Money | Alan Dwan was sent out in 1911 to find a missing film crew . According to the story , the director was out on a bender and he cabled the home office " You have no director . Suggest you disband company . " Back came a telegram saying " You direct . " With this telegram he went to the crew and said " Either I'm a direct... |
439,094 | 1,617,546 | 20,140 | 10 | Sprightly German Film By Russians | Ivan Mouskojine - - however you choose to transliterate his name - - was a fine movie actor . Starting out in Tsarist Russia , he fled and made a career for himself in France and Germany . One can certainly seem why . Here , playing " The King of the Swindlers " he works his way from Paris to New York with a great deal... |
439,391 | 1,617,546 | 20,122 | 10 | Charles Farrell : A Revelation | I have said here and elsewhere that in their collaborations it was Gaynor who carried Farrell , a competent actor who would have had a decent career based on his looks and talent rather than genius : think Richard Arlen . It was the teaming with Gaynor that made him , for a while anyway , a star . Or so I thought until... |
439,198 | 1,617,546 | 17,926 | 10 | Le Marquis de Marignan | This is the keynote role for Adolphe Menjou : he underplays the sophisticated clotheshorse , elegant , disdainful and a bit decadent , a role he played - - when he wasn't playing Runyonesque losers - - from 1917 through 1957's PATHS OF GLORY . In fact , Mr . Menjou was proudest of the fact that he usually made the best... |
439,416 | 1,617,546 | 6,813 | 10 | Everyone's a Critic | I've just had to revise my opinion of this movie . Previously I had thought it chaotically performed and edited . However , I have just come from the Museum of Modern Art where they have shown a print of this as part of a twelve-program series of Roscoe ' Fatty ' Arbuckle movies . It was the most complete print I've se... |
438,799 | 1,617,546 | 14,584 | 10 | All in color | Amazing mix of stop-motion animation and live-action little girl , all in color ! I can't identify the process , as Technicolor was not available in Europe when this picture was made and the technique looks lifelike . A certain amount of bleeding around the greens and yellows leads me to suspect this is a mixture of co... |
438,866 | 1,617,546 | 12,397 | 10 | Mary Pickford and Charles Rosher too | I doubt if the costuming involved in this movie fooled anyone for an instant . Mary Pickford is clearly Mary Pickford . But she was playing a role and the audience of the time - - and I - - have no problem accepting her in the part of a boy , any more than I have a problem with the fact that Peter Pan is invariably pla... |
438,591 | 1,617,546 | 882 | 10 | Tear Jerker | Excellent little split reel piece about a beggar and a gambling courtier . Griffith shows his mastery of cutting in this picture , and evidently got his bosses at Biograph to spend some money on costumes for the new year . Griffith begins to put together the rules of his grammar . . . . |
438,737 | 1,617,546 | 126,628 | 10 | Class Reunion | It's Hal Roach alumni day in this excellent entry in Edgar Kennedy's long-running ' Average Man ' series for RKO - - it ran from about 1933 until his death with a fine supporting cast of regulars including Florence Lake as his wife , Dot Farley as his horror of a mother-in-law and Jack Rice - - missing in this outing -... |
438,583 | 1,617,546 | 936 | 10 | Moods | There isn't much of a story here . A sailor promises to wed the girl who loves him , then goes away to other ports and forgets about her while she waits . When he finally returns , she has fallen ill and is dying and he pretends he has come back to marry her , to make her last few minutes happier . What makes this piec... |
438,787 | 1,617,546 | 10,600 | 10 | Oh , You Beautiful Doll | People speak of the Lubitsch Touch first showing up in THE OYSTER PRINCESS , but that movie always struck me me as a a good romantic comedy , dimmed by changes in fashion , creaking a bit in age . But this movie is the real thing : a silly story told with much flair and constant surprises . It begins with Lubitsch show... |
439,346 | 1,617,546 | 6,764 | 10 | Dark Comedy | This is one of the remarkable short comedies that Arbuckle turned out at the end of his contract at Keystone while he was in New Jersey , far from Sennett's grasp : quite possibly the best . Elaborate , realistic sets , varieties of characterizations - - here he plays an irascible doctor who is jealous of wife Mabel's ... |
439,203 | 1,617,546 | 259,227 | 10 | Tales of Offenbach | If Jacques Offenbach ( 1819-1880 ) is known today outside of France , it is as the guy who wrote the music for the Powell-Pressberger TALES OF Hoffman and also the music they use whenever a cancan is performed or Shopright announces a two-for-1 sale of canned goods - - that number , for those who are interested , is ac... |
439,201 | 1,617,546 | 11,960 | 10 | Love Grown Cold | One of the better of Lubitsch's rough mountain comedies , with Pola Negri as the wild daughter of the bandit chief ( all of the the bandits ' possessions are festooned with skulls , to show how dangerous they are ) who falls in love with the handsome lieutenant brought in to marry the daughter of the corpulent and inef... |
438,401 | 1,617,546 | 16,288 | 10 | The Beauties of Nature | This is the old story , familiar to everyone who has seen more than three westerns . What is remarkable about this movie is the contrasts in beauty : superb scenes of nature fill the screen : towering mountains , cattle moving slowly over the sprawling prairies , high waterfalls filling the vistas shot outdoors . In co... |
439,389 | 1,617,546 | 196,220 | 10 | Everything Worthwhile | Arnold Fanck started out as a geologist , but somehow became a director , first of documentaries , then in the creation of the genre of " Mountain Films " in which people go freeze their patooties off in the winter and thus reach a state of grace . It's a peculiarly German genre , although other people tried their hand... |
439,134 | 1,617,546 | 190,225 | 10 | You better save your confection for me | Fats Waller performs his best song and mugs for the camera with many a sky , risque comment in this 1941 soundie . A rare and impeccable record of one of the greatest showmen of jazz . If you haven't heard Waller sing this standard , you haven't heard it sung . |
439,029 | 1,617,546 | 16,222 | 10 | Mr . Laurel on a bender | An interesting and satisfying movie on several counts . First and most important , it is funny . Second , this was the year Mr . Laurel finally figured out who his movie character actually was : he went back to his days when he was understudying Chaplin in the Fred Karno pantomime troupe and did the solo drunk act , as... |
439,376 | 1,617,546 | 123,157 | 10 | Over the top at the bar | So : Charley comes home from Europe and his parents meet him at the dock with the girl they want him to marry , but when they point him out to her , he is standing next to a man who is wearing the same cap . So she thinks Charley is twenty years older than his parents and runs away . Charley meets her as he is struggli... |
438,777 | 1,617,546 | 247,577 | 10 | Never Was Such a Movie Since the World Began | You've probably never heard of the Thanhouser Company , nor any of the cast of this film , and if you've heard of the director , George Nichols , it was because a couple of years later he directed several of Chaplin's early movies . But in its heyday , the Thanhouser company was a major force in the advance of the arts... |
438,497 | 1,617,546 | 44,927 | 10 | A Better Mousetrap | Another of Chuck Jones ' hilarious psychological shorts , about the dangers teenagers are willing to run for romance - - in this case a seventeen-month-old mouse , who is being fed forged love notes by Claude Cat . But what's that note Claude got from the bulldog ? |
439,293 | 1,617,546 | 482,857 | 10 | Philosophic Western | How does an honest man make his way in a corrupt world ? Walter Hill has been investigating this question since his days as a screenwriter , with a couple of stopovers in Dashiell Hammett country ( his dauntingly unsuccessful version of Hammet's RED HARVEST , filmed as LAST MAN STADNING ) , comedies ( 48 HOURS ) , but ... |
438,693 | 1,617,546 | 40,422 | 10 | Marvin the Martian | The first and best of the Marvin the Martian cartoons . Although not quite the version he reached in later cartoons - - his voice is not quite as reedy and outer space does not look like it was designed by bad Bauhaus architects - - the joke are sharper in this one than they would be later . Dig the Chuck Jones tennis ... |
438,457 | 1,617,546 | 135,180 | 10 | High Tech Horror ! | This thirty-second short from 1903 shows demons burning women alive in . Melies had it hand-tinted and the colors are quite startling and alive . When I compare it to modern scenes of horror - - the hordes of undead in THE MUMMY returns , for example - - it comes off very well . Take a look . Your great-grandparents ma... |
439,451 | 1,617,546 | 339,444 | 10 | Dippy Doctors | Hilarious , chaotic burlesque musical short features Billy Gilbert as a German doctor in search of a missing watch . Such touches as cheering sections at operations and musical numbers at " Olivia from Bolivia " . Impeccable timing makes this a not-to-be-missed short . |
438,699 | 1,617,546 | 22,626 | 10 | Preachy , but brilliant | Walter Huston is supposed to be the star of this movie , and he does a fine job , as always . But wait . . . . . watch for the moment when the panic on the bank begins , and in less than thirty seconds , the bank goes from almost empty to a scene of madness , the American Madness of the title . It's one of the most bri... |
439,112 | 1,617,546 | 150,832 | 10 | No ham in the sandwich | Hilarious ! Joe and his partner are desperate to break into show business - - but no one can be this desperate ! They find themselves out in the boondocks . " You open the show " " We don't open any shows . " " All right , you close the show . " " I think we are the show ! " With Billy Gilbert as the dyspeptic stage ma... |
439,374 | 1,617,546 | 15,921 | 10 | Wooden Leg-o-phobia | The beauty of Charley Chase's great great comedies of the mid-twenties - - MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE , CRAZY LIKE A FOX and this , HIS WOODEN WEDDING is that they are first , very funny and second , complete stories . A perfect little farce goes on in twenty minutes , instead of two or three hours . The stories make sense , ... |
438,436 | 1,617,546 | 430,590 | 10 | Rib Tickling Ineptitude | One is Shaw and one is Lee and I'm sure they knew which was which , but I don't and I don't care . These two vaudeville performers have that wonderful one-on-one timing that is very rare today , a timing born of talent and experience . Abbott and Costello had it in spades , Martin & Lewis had it in their live shows , a... |
439,228 | 1,617,546 | 228,562 | 10 | Wow ! | Here's an amazing short film about someone you've never heard of : the man who works out how to take those traveling shots from impossible angles - - and then does it . Although nominally a promotional film for ICE STATION ZEBRA , we get to see some of the stunt work he does - - shooting skiers from head on while skiin... |
439,197 | 1,617,546 | 27,571 | 10 | Topnotch B Western | This enormously entertaining B western , combines sentimentality , mysticism , humor and interesting casting and acting as Buck buys a haunted ranch and turns it into a Dude ranch . The strong story is supported by a liable cast , including silent comedian Gertrude Astor in a funny turn as a society lady who thinks the... |
439,489 | 1,617,546 | 121,844 | 10 | The Professor | Max , who usually played a young Parisian boulevardier is newly married and doesn't wish to leave his bride behind when forced to go on a men-only vacation , so he sticks her in a suitcase and off they go ! This is one of the best Max Linder shorts I have seen , full of angst and bumping along , but what makes it even ... |
438,910 | 1,617,546 | 12,123 | 10 | The Dangers of Cheese | Based on McCay's cartoon strip , DREAMS OF THE RAREBIT FIEND , this concerns a tiny creature that eats everything and grows until it threatens the entire city . A seminal work , its influence shows up in Heinlein's novel THE STAR BEAST , Tex Avery's KING SIZE CANARY and in the final sequence of KING KONG ! Bizarre and ... |
438,638 | 1,617,546 | 24,775 | 10 | Spanky the Star ! | A somewhat atypical OUR GANG comedy . The focus is not on the interaction of the gang , but concerns itself with Franklin Pangborn's tribulations in taking a portrait photo of Spanky . Spanky gets to sock Pangborn frequently and hilariously . Look for a quick cameo by Laurel and Hardy . |
439,158 | 1,617,546 | 436,670 | 10 | Les pieds des vampires | Feyder's early feature is a very funny movie , biting the hand that feeds him , or at least that fed his employer , Gaumont . This is a send-up of Feudillade's serials like LES VAMPIRES , with some interesting cameos , including one by Musidora in costume . This movie is nominally the last four of the 1700 or so episod... |
439,310 | 1,617,546 | 222,946 | 10 | Elaborations | Having discovered - - whether purposefully or , as the story would have us believe , accidentally - - the magical qualities of the cut and used it in the previous years ESCAMOTAGE D'UNE DAME CHEZ ROBERT-HOUDIN , Melies elaborated it in this short in which a man suffers a series of terrible nightmares . As in the best o... |
438,685 | 1,617,546 | 222,729 | 10 | The Magic Act | Melies is best known for his 1902 version of VOYAgE DANs LA LUNE and he worked in an enormous variety of genres - - today we would call them genres , but at the time , he was just turning out stuff to fill in at his theater and to sell to people who wanted to show movies . But he began as a stage magician and although ... |
438,937 | 1,617,546 | 277,878 | 10 | Ailurophobia | In the days before Charlie Chaplin burst on the screen , there was one great international comedy star : France's Max Linder whom Chaplin called ' The Professor ' and who was the only influence on his screen comedy that he ever admitted to . In this one , Max is engaged to a girl - - called , as in all his shorts , ' J... |
439,267 | 1,617,546 | 222,762 | 10 | A Bedtime Story | Melies turned out a lot of poor movies in 1908 as he tried to compete with Pathe and Gaumont , who could outspend him , by sheer volume . Many of his surviving movies are , by today's standards , primitive slapstick , or unsubtly acted melodramas , shot far too simply to be interesting - - Griffith was learning his cra... |
438,735 | 1,617,546 | 145,790 | 10 | Statues Just Wanna Have Fun | The Greek legend of Pygmalion and Galatea get the Lotte Reininger silhouette treatment in this lovely and funny adaptation of the old Greek myth . Pygmalion falls in love with his statue of a beautiful woman and his prayers are answered : she becomes a live woman - - in this case she transforms from part of the painted... |
439,373 | 1,617,546 | 298,857 | 10 | Stick and Shtick | What a pleasure this is ! No story , no plot , just the results of what happened when Danny Kaye was attending one of Mehta's rehearsals and he asked Kaye if he would like to try conducting . Mehta claimed the orchestra sounded better with Kaye conducting . Certainly , they never laughed as much . Great classical music... |
439,241 | 1,617,546 | 90,671 | 10 | Jean Gabin Is Dead | And therefore , says Jean Yann's character , they can't make gangster flicks anymore . Except that Claude Lelouch can , in his own , slow , deliberate , quirky way . He introduces you to the principals over the course of ten years and punctuates the movie with all the set pieces except for the big robbery : that happen... |
439,497 | 1,617,546 | 228,925 | 10 | Molière | This is an excellent adaptation for the small screen of Molière's farce , with a fine cast headed by Donald Moffat in the title role , Tammy Grimes as the female lead and a young Victor Garber as one of the juveniles . Director Kirk Browning , a specialist in presenting theater on the small screen , keeps up visual int... |
404,958 | 2,020,269 | 61,217 | 1 | Someone , anyone , PLEASE make it stop ! ! ! | Sitting all the way through " Zontar , The Thing From Venus " can seriously lead to self-mutilation and , in case you have absolutely no experience with zero-budget 60's Sci-Fi at all , maybe even to suicidal tendencies ! You could laugh at the overall incompetence of this TV-production , but I don't suppose it was Lar... |
404,798 | 2,020,269 | 83,661 | 1 | Luke , I sacrifice virgins . . . | This is a totally unique movie ! Yes ? UNIQUE ! ! And why ? Because it has the most promising and potentially great sounding plot , about the sacrifice of young female virgins to a hideous sea creature on a remote island community , and yet somehow it manages to be an extremely boring and totally uneventful film ! Is t... |
405,852 | 2,020,269 | 372,832 | 1 | The scriptwriter must have been the first who got killed . . . | I have very few to add to what all the other reviewers already made more than clear ! This movie is awful ! Beyond awful . . . In fact , so insufferable that they have yet to come up with a term to describe the awfulness that is " Skeleton Man " . In case you expect your movies to feature a minimum of logic and plot , ... |
405,565 | 2,020,269 | 424,958 | 1 | Welcome to the RANCID Dollhouse ! | So you thought " Team America " and " Thunderbirds " were crap ? Then just wait until you see the marginal and totally retarded puppet-farce called " Disaster ! " . It's the ultimate reason for Muppet Show creator Jim Henson to turn in his grave . I guess I must have seen a different movie than the other two reviewers ... |
404,550 | 2,020,269 | 273,301 | 1 | Mean , sick-spirited and stupid war-exploitation . | Jungle Heat is an extremely violent but pretty retarded exploitation film , supposedly set during the final months of the war in Vietnam . The American army commanders haven't got many motivated heroes left so they're training local soldiers to fight against the dangerous Vietcong . Three lousy weeks for training and... |
406,004 | 2,020,269 | 213,802 | 1 | Worthless junk . | ' Legion of the Dead ' was my first movie directed by Olaf Ittenbach and I can't say I'll immediately purchase his other achievements now . Ittenbach is supposed to be a funky , amateur gorehound who stuffs his films with grotesque violence and cheerfully absurd characters . Well , it is gory all right , but even more ... |
406,288 | 2,020,269 | 83,803 | 1 | Totally worthless . . . | Much more frightening than the actual movies themselves is the fact that one continues to discover slasher movies that were released in the 1980's ! This decade truly is an inexhaustible source for low-budgeted and inane horror pictures that often ended up in oblivion shortly after coming out . " Deadly Games " is such... |
404,258 | 2,020,269 | 65,480 | 1 | Let's hope Tim Burton didn't look for inspiration here . . . | As I write this user-comment , Tim Burton's interpretation of the Sweeney Todd tale is making big money at the box office and the film even earned a couple of Oscar nominations if I'm not mistaken . I haven't seen it yet , but I sincerely hope Burton didn't look for inspiration and / or stylish trademarks in good old A... |
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