The Haunted House (1921)

Keaton's hands are glued to his pockets... don't ask.

Directed by Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton
Starring Buster Keaton and Virginia Fox
Produced by Joseph M. Schenk Productions

Buster runs the teller window at the local bank, but he's not very good at it.  He tricks the time lock on the vault to help a pretty girl, gets himself caught in the vault door and pours glue all over his hands and the money he's distributing.  The latter incident actually helps foil a bank robbery.  Buster's hands are stuck in his pockets so he cannot "put 'em up," and when he finally tries to give the robbers the loot, it sticks to everyone's hands and feet. 

The robbers make their escape to a house they have rigged to appear haunted and frighten off the police.  Keaton, who is inadvertently blamed for the robbery, escapes and seeks refuge in the same house.  Can Keaton foil the robbers and clear his name?

This is my least favorite Keaton film thus far.  The opening with the glue has a couple of amusing moments, but is repetitive and not particularly inspired.  I did enjoy Keaton's solution for freeing his fellow employee from being glued on the floor.  Other than that, the first half is pretty dull.

The second half which takes place at the "haunted" house is marginally better, but still not as great as One Week or his work with Fatty.  There's an inventive gag with a staircase that turns into a slide, but frankly it's overused and wears out its welcome pretty quickly.  There's an incredible visual of the robbers assembling a body that comes to life that is really a sight to behold. The rest of the gags primarily involve the robbers running around the house in sheets.  Again, some smiles, but not many laughs.

There is a fun coda at the end as Keaton has a near-death experience and ascends the staircase to heaven, only to discover stairs have the same design as the haunted house.  It was a moment I saw coming, but still loved the execution of.

Keaton's previous comedies were funny and relentless.  The Haunted House is more amusing and tedious.  Still, I cannot wait to see more of his work.

**1/2 out of *****

Read More

The Sheik (1921)

Don't make me angry...

Directed by George Melford
Starring Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres and Ruth Miller
Produced by Paramount Pictures

Ahmed is a powerful Arabian sheik.  When he says jump, his followers say how high.  When he wants the casino to himself, the casino closes.  And when he wants Lady Diana in his harem, she'd best get in line with the idea.

Of course, Diana is a wealthy, independent Englishwoman and wants no parts of this.  Ahmed, not willing to take no for an answer, kidnaps the woman and makes her a servant.

Eventually, Omair, an enemy of Ahmed, decides he wants the woman for himself and HE kidnaps her.  Ahmed, now realizing he is in love with Diana, mounts an attack on Omair's stronghold to win the woman back.  Can Ahmed save Diana?  And will she reciprocate his feelings?

All right, first, let's talk about the good stuff.  There are a couple of action set pieces here that are well done, particularly Ahmed's attack on Omair's lair at the end.  It did a great job of ratcheting up the tension throughout and the final fight between Ahmed and Omar was great.

As to the rest, I didn't care for this one at all.

I came into The Sheik looking forward to my first dose of Rudolph Valentino.  He's billed as a magnetic personality that brought people back to his romantic adventures over and over again.  His name is synonymous with the male ideal.

For me, the dude simply has crazy eyes.  I mean look at this:

Or this:

Or this:

This is the way he looks throughout the entire movie.  If there's a reason for women swooning, I do not get it.  His acting took me right out of the movie for its running time.

In terms of story, this is borderline misogynistic.  At one point, he says he does not understand why making Diana suffer is not bringing him pleasure.  He forces her to wear certain clothes and serve him.  By the mid-point of the film, she has become subservient to him.  When the two profess their love at the end, you don't know if she's fallen for the sheik or if she's suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Finally, at the end of this film, just as you are about to have an interracial romance, it is revealed that Ahmed is actually European and was adopted by a Mideast sheik.  So it's no longer taboo for them to be together!  I am sure this was necessary in 1921, but it struck me as just silly.

I had high hopes for this one based on the reviews, but was ultimately disappointed.

** out of *****

Read More

Destiny, or Der müde Tod (1921)

The wall of Death's garden

Directed by Fritz Lang
Starring Bernhard Goetzke, Lil Dagover and Walter Janssen
Produced by Decla-Bioscop AG

Death has come to a small town for some real estate.  He's inquiring about the land next to the cemetery.  He's interested in planting a garden. After some deliberation, the town decided to sell to the stranger.  He surrounds his new garden with a 100 foot high wall with no visible way in.

A young, very-much-in-love couple comes to the town and eats at a local establishment.  The stranger sits at their table and watches them.  When the woman enters the kitchen for a moment.  When she returns, she finds that her fiance has left with the ominous man.

She runs to the garden, searching futilely for a way in.  Then, she sees the ghosts of the recently departed descending the hill toward the wall.  She sees her man.  The ghosts pass silently through the wall.

But the woman has a plan.  She creates her own near-death experience to gain access to the garden.  Death is surprised to see her as it is not her time.  She implores him to release her fiance as love is stronger than death.

The chamber of candles

Death is willing to negotiate.  See, he looks upon his job as a curse and if love truly could conquer death, he'd be free.  He leads the girl to a chamber of candles, each one representing a life.  When the flame dies, so does the person. 

He shows her three candles.  If her love can keep just one of the flames from being extinguished, she can have her love back.  Can she keep the candles lit?  And will Death honor his side of the bargain?

Destiny is a gorgeous film filled with big ideas about life and death and visuals to match.  Above is a description of the framing story, but there is a significant time spent with the lives of the people represented by the three candles.  Each of those individual tales is compelling, but my favorite was the third with its elements of magic and the supernatural.

The acting does what it needs to do.  The "stranger" played by Bernhard Goetzke provides the right balance of menace world-weariness.  The young couple (Lil Dagover and Walter Janssen) are very good in the framing story, but shine playing multiple roles in the three interior stories.

Gorgeous

But it's the visuals and story directed by Lang that make this film soar.  I love the wall surrounding Death's garden.  I love the chamber of candles.  I love the magic carpet and magic wand of the final tale.  A prison tower turning into an elephant with a cage on top?  Brilliant to watch.

My overall thoughts?  How has this not been remade?  It's gorgeous and full of ideas that were original in their time.  Terry Gilliam needs to get on this project stat!


***** out of *****


Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly
Photos from Six Martinis and the Seventh Art

Read More

1921: An End for Fatty

1921.  World War I officially ends setting the stage for the 20s to roar.  Adolf Hitler becomes Fuhrer of the Nazi party, setting the stage for the next great war and a number of Indiana Jones adventures.  And in pop culture news, the first Miss America pageant is held in Atlantic City.

In film news, the big story was the fall of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.  After signing a contract with Paramount, Arbuckle threw a large party to celebrate in San Francisco.  A few days later, little known actress Virginia Rappe died.  Allegations swirled that Arbuckle sexually assaulted the actress.  It did not matter that he was never found guilty.  Media attention and sensational stories ended the career of one of comedy's biggest stars.


In other film news, Charlie Chaplin makes his first feature film, The Kid.  Heartthrob Rudolph Valentino begins his ascension to the ranks of leading men with The Sheik.  D.W. Griffith makes Dream Street, widely considered to be the first sound film.

What are watching?  The Kid and The Sheik for certain.  Griffith's Orphans of the Storm, Fritz Lang's Destiny, and Cecil B. DeMille's The Affairs of Anatol are all available on Netflix Watch Instantly.  I'm also going to try to see Henry King's Tol'able David and The Three Musketeers with Douglas Fairbanks.

Read More

The Last of the Mohicans (1920)

NOTE: I'm only going to give general impressions of this one.  The transfer I saw was terrible.  Almost turned it off bad.  Westlake Entertainment is responsible for it.  The starting print may have been bad, but there are points when half the frame is not even on the screen. Ugly.

Directed by Maurice Tourneur
Starring Theodore Lorch, Harry Lorraine, Nelson McDowell
Produced by Maurice Tourneur Productions

The Last of the Mohicans is a film adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's novel.  The story focuses on a love story between an Indian warrior and a British commander's daughter set against the backdrop of battle and betrayal at Fort William Henry during the French and Indian War.

Noble Mohican Uncas and his father attempt to warn the British of the impending attack by the French and Huron tribe.  Cora and Alice Munro head to Fort Henry to meet their father, but are betrayed by their Huron guide, Magua.  Fortunately, the Mohicans and their friend Hawkeye happen upon the women and attempt to lead them to the fort.  What follows is a series of adventures with the Munros taken captive and the Mohicans mounting a rescue, ultimately leading to a showdown between Uncas and Magua as Cora's life hangs in the balance.

I previously saw Tourneur's The Blue Bird (1918), one of my favorite films of the previous decade.  And I love Michael Mann's 1992 adaptation with Daniel Day Lewis (yes, it is flawed, but the soundtrack and the ending chase remain amongst my favorites in cinema).  So, needless to say I was excited for this one.

What a disappointment.

Little of Tourneur's visual inventiveness from The Blue Bird is here.  It's a fairly straightforward telling of the story.  It is very different from the 1992 version with the central romance here being an interracial one as opposed to the modern tale's focus on Hawkeye.  It's well-edited and appears to be well shot, but it's pedestrian compared to the director's previous work.

The acting in this is just bad.  Barbara Bedford as Cora has no reaction to anything.  She is just blank throughout.  No emotion at all.  And that is critical because you have to buy that three different characters would be fighting for her.

A lot of the rest of the movie is hard to judge.  The print was bad enough that in medium and long shots you could not differentiate the characters.  All of the British characters looked exactly the same in their scenes.  That made it tough to follow.  Here's a sample shot:

or

Try reading that

I am not going to do a formal star review of this one because of the viewing issues.  My impressions of it were not good, but it seems unfair to judge based on the transfer I saw.

Watched on Netflix DVD

Read More

Just Pals (1920)

The pals hanging out

Directed by "Jack" Ford
Starring Buck Jones, Helen Ferguson, George Stone
Produced by Fox Film Corporation

Bim is the town bum.  No one associates with him.  Parents advise their kids to be careful or they may grow up to be Bim.  He sleeps in a hay loft all day and complains that watching people work makes him tired.  His only interest is in the pretty school teacher Mary Bruce, but she only has eyes for the local banker Harvey Cahill.

One day, a runaway boy named Bill gets caught riding the rails through town and Bim intervenes to protect the boy.  Bim takes Bill under his wing, much to the dismay of the town.  Mary advises Bim that his ward should be going to school so off Bill goes to be educated.  However, Bill is bullied by the other boys because of Bim's social status. 

Bim decides to try to get a job, but he needs a uniform.  Bill attempts to steal one from a rail car, but the train takes off with Bill on board, forcing the boy to jump and injure himself.  The town doctor sees there is a reward for the missing boy and conspire to take Bill from Bim.

All of this, plus a conspiracy by Cahill to embezzle funds from the memorial fund run by Mary and a bank robbery that Bim finds himself smack in the middle of?  Can Bim go straight?  Or will he end up hanging from a tree limb, wrongfully accused?  And who is Bill's dad?

John Ford = horses

Just Pals is a really enjoyable series of adventures in the life of a loveable loser.  The plot is cliche today (man on the wrong path has his life changed by the unexpected introduction of a child).  However, this is really well done.  John Ford is the director here and seems incapable of shooting a bad frame.  I've included a couple of extra pictures with this one simply because of how beautiful this one was in its simplicity.

There are a lot of genres here: drama, comedy, mystery, western.  None of the transitions feel jarring.  The plot move at a breakneck pace and there is a lot of forward momentum and character moments of the course of a 50 minute running time.

The acting is also great.  Buck Jones is fantastic as the lead.  He is funny, sympathetic and has that charm that no matter what he is doing at any moment, he's always likable. George Stone plays Bill and is a natural actor.  Bill's every action in the film feels completely organic to the plot.  The other characters are pretty generic, though I did find the local law enforcement officer to be hysterical throughout.

A simple moment, perfectly framed

By the end, Bim is the only one in town who is actually without blemish.  Mary gives Cahill the money from the fund, despite her better judgment.  The townspeople all end up at a prayer meeting where no one gives to the collection plate.  Bim is a bum, but he's the only person with a heart of gold.

I really liked this film.  It's a simple tale, simply told, but I think that is its virtue.  Great acting and great directing go a long way.

**** out of *****

Watched on DVD from Netflix

Read More

Way Down East (1920)

The amazing ice floes ending from Way Down East

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess
Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions

Anna Moore lives with her mother in the country.  The poor family needs money and Anna heads off to visit her rich relatives in Boston for a loan.  The extended family is less than thrilled to see their country bumpkin niece show up.  Anna sticks around for a ball and meets Lennox Sanderson, who we are told has three specialties: "ladies, Ladies and LADIES".

Lennox proposes to Anna and all seems well.  Except Lennox tells his betrothed to keep it a secret, then pays someone to pretend to be a priest and marry them.  Off they go on their honeymoon and, after a few reluctant moments, the sham marriage is consummated. 

The marriage of course results in a pregnancy, which forces Lennox to come clean.  Anna is on her own and gives birth to a boy.  But the boy is sick and dies in short order.

Anna is now a social pariah (having a baby and no husband is a big no-no) and is evicted from her room.  She wanders into another town where she meets up with the Bartletts and finds work on their farm.  She keeps her past a secret from them, but catches the eye of the Bartletts' son David.  She resists his advances, ashamed of her past.

Soon enough Lennox ends up at the estate across the street from the Bartletts.  Will Anna's secret be revealed to her new adoptive family.  And can David love her in spite of her past?

Way Down East is the tale of two movies.  One has impressive acting by the two main leads and a climax as visually stunning and engaging as any I have seen in the silent era.  The other is pretentious, in need of editing and full of characters who appear to be in a different movie.

Let's talk about the first.  Lillian Gish is easily now my favorite actress of the silent era thus far.  She is natural in most scenes, but when the emotional moment comes, she goes for it.  And it never seems over the top.

Richard Barthelmess is someone I hope to see more of.  He is great as David, underplaying his role for much of the movie.  He is pitch perfect in his confusion when Anna's secret comes to light, then he is fantastic in his rage at Lennox when he discovers the circumstances behind Anna's pregnancy.

If a 2-1/2 hour movie can be saved by a ten minute ending sequence, this is one comes as close as any.  Anna runs from the Bartletts' home into a winter storm, ultimately collapsing near an icy stream bank.  The ice breaks away from the shore and large chunks of the ice start flowing down river.  David chases her onto the river, jumping from ice chunk to ice chunk to reach Anna before the ice floes go over the waterfall.  It's a thrilling chase, masterfully edited and perfectly acted.

Unfortunately, the film has a lot of problems as well.  Griffith has developed this annoying habit with his language.  It's flowery as though written by someone who wishes he were a poet, but doesn't have the skill.  A sample:

Time and place - in the story world of make-believe
Characters - nowhere - yet everywhere
Incidents - never occurred - yet always happening

Beyond the language, his film style conveys a sense of over-the-top imagery that is out of place.  At one point, a bird lands on Gish's shoulder, demonstrative of her goodness and harmony with nature.  It's unnecessary.  The audience is already on her side. 

A lot of the secondary characters are completely unnecessary.  The Bartletts are surrounded by townsfolk who attempt to serve as comic relief.  Unfortunately, it's hard to make the audience laugh at the inept constable when you've just killed off our heroine's baby. 

Finally, there is one moment in its sheer lunacy I need to point out.  The Bartlett patriarch, Squire, is told secondhand that Anna had birthed a child out of wedlock.  He is angry, but his wife says he needs proof.  So the next morning he gets up bright and early and rides a sleigh to Anna's former town.  He arrives at noon.  He walks into her old room and ask the landlady if it's true.  She confirms it in two sentences.  He then goes back out, gets in his sleigh and drives back.  The guy just went ten hours round trip to have a 90 second conversation.  And that is proof.  It's completely unnecessary in the story.  He could have just acted on the initial claim and you could have had the same result.

You could have cut this movie by almost half and had a lot of the same impact.  A lot of the opening 45 minutes is plodding and unnecessary.  There's a lot of melodramatic filler throughout the movie that could have been lost and I would not have missed it.

It's hard to say whether this is good movie or bad movie.  There are moments I loved and moments that were painful to sit through.  I guess I'd give it a middle of the road:

**1/2 out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly

Read More

The Mark of Zorro (1920)

Directed by Fred Niblo
Starring Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De La Motte, Naoh Beery
Produced by Douglas Fairbanks Pictures

California's natives are being oppressed.  The Spanish Governor and the armies are merciless with the poor and if some of the more well-off families are starting to feel the pinch.  Of course, oppression also serves to create a champion for the people and California's champion is the mysterious Zorro.

Members of the army sit in taverns discussing the mysterious "Z" carved onto the cheek of one of their comrades.  Sergeant Gonzalez brags about how he will take down the mysterious masked man.  Into this scene walks Senor Diego Vega, the son of a rich and respected of Californian society.  Vega is a weakling who cannot stomach the idea of violence and Gonzalez continues his rant against Zorro.  Diaz leaves, but soon the masked man appears. 

The army men draw swords, but Zorro draws a gun and herds them all behind the bar.  He challenges Gonzalez to a duel.  The ensuing battle finds Zorro playing the part of cat to Gonzalez' helpless mouse.  Zorro is vaulting over tables and onto mantles, mocking his opponent the entire time.  After having his bit of fun, the mysterious swashbuckler makes his escape.

Zorro's antics do not sit well Captain Ramon.  Ramon is a skilled fighter and is pursuing the hand of Lolita Pulido, a rich family whose fortune is threatened by the Governor.  The Pulidos would rather see their daughter marry Vega in order to secure the family fortune.  Lolita of course has an encounter with Zorro and now she only has eyes for the bandit.

Can Zorro unite the caballeros against the Governor and his men?  Who will win the hand of Lolita?  And just who is the mysterious Zorro?

This.  Was.  Awesome.

This is my favorite version of Zorro (though I have not seen the 1940 version yet).  Fairbanks is amazing in the title role.  Leaping over obstacles, climbing walls, using every object at his disposal to elude and torment his would-be captors.  The guy is Bruce Wayne.  He has the playboy secret identity. He has the mask.  He even has his own version of the Batcave.  No wonder a viewing of Zorron played prominently into Batman's origin.  It's all here.

Zorro proves to be a comedic hero as well.  He's not content to simply escape the army; they have to look like fools in the process.  When he leaves the tavern at the beginning, the army leaves to pursue him. So he reenters the tavern through a window and waits for them there.  When he's being chased later, one of his pursuers gets stuck on a fence.  Zorro doubles back to free the man, but the soldier never turns to see who freed him and continues on his merry way.

I liked Fairbanks turn as Vega as well.  He is constantly playing with his hat and thinks he can win the hand of the girl through magic tricks.  Very funny stuff.

It's not a perfect film.  There are moments that drag.  Zorro must give a rousing speech at the end that kills a lot of the momentum the film had.  The ending is very contrived with the army announcing they are now inexplicably with Zorro.  Still, The Mark of Zorro is a great, fun movie for all ages.  The first real swashbuckler!

****1/2 out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly

Read More

Leslie Nielsen has passed on...

Very sad news.  Leslie Nielsen has died at the age of 84.  A talented dramatic actor who parlayed his serious look and tone into comedic gold in Airplane! and The Naked Gun series.  Forbidden Planet is one of the great sci-fi adventures ever.

Read More

Why Change Your Wife? (1920)

A very pre-Titanic Gloria Swanson

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Starring Gloria Swanson, Bebe Daniels, Thomas Meighan
Produced by Famous Players-Lasky Company

Robert Gordon lives a frustrating life.  The simple act of shaving is constantly interrupted by his wife Beth.  She won't let him play the music he likes.  She doesn't like his smoking.  She hates his dog.  She doesn't like his drinking and thinks the money spent on his wine cellar could better serve those who are starving.  He tries buying Beth some negligee and meets a fetching young model Sally while making the purchase.  Beth of course is completely embarrassed by the purchase as it offends her moral sensibilities.


One night, he surprises Beth with tickets to a show.  She made alternate plans to host friends to hear Radinoff, a violin player that Robert can't stand.  With Beth refusing to go, Robert attends the show with Sally (who conveniently arrived to drop off a missing piece of the lingerie).  They go back to Sally's place and Robert finds she is a woman who likes his music, who lights his cigarette, who drinks.  At the end of the evening, they kiss.  Robert instantly regrets it and leaves.  Beth however smells perfume on Robert's clothing and the two are soon divorced.

Everything is reversed.  Robert marries Sally, who immediately begins complaining about his dog and his smoking.  She even interrupts his beloved shaving ritual.  Beth learns that she was viewed by others as a prude and begins donning sexier gowns and dresses.  When the couple goes away for the weekend, they find Beth coincidentally there as well.  Robert notices the change in the woman who now even loves dogs.  The two are still obviously in love.  But can fate push them back together?  And where would that leave Sally?

This is a REALLY dated movie that is completely saved by its third act.  In the first act, Robert drinks too much, smokes too much, spends money on frivolous things, and stays out late.  If that sounds like your typical teenager, you are not far off.  Only, the movie treats his vices like a virtue.  Some sample title cards:

Molten lead on the skin is soothing compared to a wife's constant disapproval...

A husband hates to have his soul improved too soon after dinner - particularly when he is thinking how charming his wife will look in her new negligee.

It is the wife's conscience that 'doth make cowards of us all.'

That's right.  Robert is the hero here.  The adulterer, drinking, smoking, spending guy is who we are cheering for.  But more than that.  The wife is denigrated for no great reason throughout the early part of the film.

During the second act, there is more of the same in the relationship between Robert and Sally.  However, add to that the sexy out fits Beth takes to wearing.  They look like tablecloths.  I have seen the pattern on her bathing suit hanging as curtains on dining room windows.  Obviously, this is a product of the times and you get the point when she is surrounded by every stereotypical manly man (including a pilot and a war hero).  For me, it looked a little silly.

The third act turns more melodramatic and the acting really shines.  Robert and Beth, trying to escape one another, end up on the same train from the hotel back to town.  As they walk from the train car, Robert slips on a banana peel (seriously) and suffers a serious head injury.  Beth takes Robert back to her house, where a doctor declares that the head injury has placed a strain on his heart and he cannot be moved for 24 hours.  Sally arrives and of course immediately wants to move her husband.  They fight with Beth ultimately winning by threatening to scar Sally's face with acid.  When Robert has recovered enough to move back with Sally, the wife realizes her husband still loves Beth and tries to throw the acid in her face.  Only the acid was really harmless eye wash.  Beth had punk'd Sally.

With Sally's superficiality revealed, Robert can stay with Beth and enjoy a wife who pours his drinks and lights his cigars (Freud would have something to say about the move from cigarettes) while wearing lingerie.

Swanson is fantastic and completely sells every emotion in the final act.  She is caring and compassionate with the injured Robert.  She turns ferocious in protecting her love from Sally.  The look she shoots Bebe Daniels' Sally as they are fighting is pure rage and hatred.  What could have been an embarrassing end to the film turns into its saving grace.

So the ultimate message is:

And now you know what every husband knows: that a man would rather have his wife for his sweetheart than any other woman: but Ladies: if you would be your husband's sweetheart, you simply must learn when to forget that you're his wife.

Wives are by design to be critical of their husbands.  But by not acting like a wife, they can be great wives.

Or something.

**1/2 out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly

Read More

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

Jekyll becomes Hyde

Directed by John S. Robertson
Starring John Barrymore, Charles Lane and Brandon Hurst
Produced by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation

Dr. Henry Jekyll is a paragon of virtue.  When he's not seeing to his experiments in his laboratory, he is operating a free clinic to take care of the poor.  His fiancee, Millicent Carew, is in love with him, but finds herself playing second fiddle to his other pursuits.  Her father George believe that Jekyll is suppressing his baser instincts and that resisting temptation is ultimately unhealthy.  He takes the idealistic doctor out for a night on the town, and, after meeting the exotic Gina, Jekyll finds his faith shaken.

However, he channels that into a new quest.  He wants to separate the good aspect of man (the soul) from the evil traits inherent in all men.  Jekyll formulates a drug that turns him into the embodiment of carnal lust and rage, a creature he names Mr. Hyde.  Jekyll's alter ego can do all of the things the doctor dare not, including loving and leaving Gina.  But as the villainous Hyde begins harboring more murderous feelings, Dr. Jekyll begins to lose control over his transformations.  Can the good doctor put his evil doppleganger under wraps or is it already too late to save his soul and the woman he loves?

I love Victorian era dramas and horrors.  Not just any, but those that ping pong between the upper crust of society and the foreboding gas-lit shadows of a dreary London.  This movie oozes atmosphere in a way that you cannot get from any other period or any other place.  The interiors are lush and opulent and the exteriors are dingy and menacing. A perfect setting for the strange case of Jekyll and Hyde.

John Barrymore plays both the good doctor and his alter ego and he is fantastic in both.  Early on, when he transforms into Hyde, it is all a trick of facial contortion and the way he sets his eyes.  The make-up comes later and only accentuates the look Barrymore gives the character.  Unlike later versions, the monster he creates seems human and that makes him all the more frightening.

Barrymore is also very good as the doctor.  Understated at first, the viewer can feel his desperation and frustration as he loses control over Hyde.  The evil aspect of his role is more showy, but he carries off the more subtle aspects well.

The rest of the cast does well in their roles, with the exception of Martha Mansfield as Millicent.  She does a lot of staring at nothing with little to no emotion. When she finds out about the death of a loved one, she does not look sad as much as annoyed, as though someone just informed her toilet paper was stuck to her shoe.

The movie poses some interesting if simplistic food for thought about the nature of good and evil.  Jekyll is good, Hyde is evil.  Yet Jekyll's desire to experience evil without repercussion is what sets the drama in motion.  Hyde may ultimately fail in his relationships, but at least he puts forth some effort.  Jekyll's work may be altruistic but it ultimately keeps those would love him at arm's length.  Jekyll's vision is clearly not right.  Should we yield to temptation to keep our sanity as George suggests.  Or is it better to simply not dabble in such supernatural thoughts as Jekyll's friend Lanyon admonishes him at the outset.

Needless to say, I loved this movie. Much better than the 1912 version.  Definitely recommend.

****1/2 out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly

Read More

Number, Please? (1920)

A baby, a nickel and an operator cause Harold problems

Directed by Hal Roach, Fred C. Newmeyer
Starring Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis and Roy Brooks
Produced by Rolin Films

A despondent Harold Lloyd rides a roller coaster at the amusement park, but the twists and turns cannot help him take his mind off of his love.  After the ride, he sees the girl with her new boyfriend and tries to impress her at a carnival game, but his distracted throws prove costly.  When the girl's dog runs away, Harold has a chance to get back in her good graces.

After finding the dog, the girl wants to go on a balloon ride with the suitors, but her pass is only good for two.  Whoever can get her mother's permission first gets her hand.  Harold tries the telephone while Roy drives to the mother's house.  Who will win?  And how does a stolen purse come into play.

This Harold Lloyd short had me for about half of the 25 minute running time, then it just started becoming tedious.  The opening on the roller coaster was very funny as was most of the search for the dog.  When Harold ties the the animal's leash to the carousel, you know what's coming, but the execution is very good.

Once Harold starts trying to make the phone call, it becomes repetitive, obvious and unfunny.  All of the phones are being used.  The operator connects him to wrong numbers.  He doesn't have a nickel to put in the payphone.  His facial reactions are all basically the same and the obstacles are all relatively the same.

Once he is suspected of stealing the purse, it has moments of humor, but is again pretty repetitive. The one great laugh out loud moment was how he enlists a small boy to help him elude the police.

Technically, it's very well done.  It's well shot, well edited and the print on YouTube was gorgeous.

This is an okay comedy.  Not great, but certainly not bad.  The opening and closing seem to be going for a Charlie Chaplin feel, but it never quite get there.

**1/2 out of *****

Watched on YouTube

Read More

One Week (1920)

Keaton attempts to build a house.

Directed by  Edward F. Kline and Buster Keaton
Starring Buster Keaton, Sybil Seeling and Joe Roberts
Produced by Joseph M. Schenk Productions

Buster Keaton has just married his girl and is being driven from the ceremony by his former romantic rival.  The newlyweds receive an envelope informing them Buster's uncle has given them a house.  Unfortunately, they find the house in boxes waiting to be assembled.  When the girl's former suitor decides to cause mischief by switching the boxes around, the result is a home that looks like it was designed by Salvador Dali.  Can the couple make the best of a crazy situation?

The story here is paper thin, but that is okay.  The whole tale exists only to give Keaton a canvas for some amazing sight gags and physical comedy.  There's a moment in the first few minutes where Keaton is straddling two cars when a motorcycle drives in between the cars and hits the comedian.  It's completely unexpected and gives the viewer a moment of "how did anyone not die making these movies?".

The house reminds me of Tom Hanks' The Money Pit.  There's a particular moment when one of the floors sags in a way reminiscent of the classic 1980s comedy.  Characters are also subjected to multiple two story drops, including one where someone runs off the second floor, hits the ground and keeps on running. 

The tale is slight, but Keaton is hysterical.  I laughed out loud twice watching this and I am not one prone to laugh out loud.  Very well done.

**** out of *****

NOTE: This was Keaton's first film without Fatty Arbuckle.

Watched on Google Video
Photo from The Spirit of Discordance

Read More

Spiders, Part 2 (1920)

Kay Hoog learns the secrets of the Buddha-head diamond

Directed by Fritz Lang
Starring Carl de Vogt, Ressel Orla, Georg John
Produced by Decla-Bioscop AG

Remember the moment early in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where Indy awakens on his plane to find the pilots have bailed out and left no parachutes.  Inspired by his desperation, our hero grabs his two reluctant traveling companions and leaps from the plane in an inflatable raft.

Now imagine that Dr. Jones' plan the entire time was to take a plane to a remote Asian jungle and leap from it in nothing but a life raft.  Imagine it was not borne out of necessity and survival instinct, but instead was always the preferred way of leaping from the plane.

You have just gained an understanding of the awesomeness of Kay Hoog.

Early in Spiders, Part 2, Hoog accompanies the police on a raid of the house where his arch-nemesis Lio Sha is hiding out.  Hoog elects to take a biplane and leap from the aircraft onto the roof of the house.  Without a parachute.  He does this not out of desperation or necessity.  He leaps from a low flying airplane because IT'S HIS PLAN!  He does it because he's Kay Hoog and if he has the opportunity to jump out of a plane, he's taking it.  He does it because it is the coolest way to go in.

Spiders, Part 2 is the follow up to the appropriately titled Spiders, Part 1.  The previous chapter found Lio Sha expressing her love for Hoog and him telling her to pound sand.  He was in love with the Incan princess he had just rescued.  Sha responds by killing said royalty.  Now Hoog is out for revenge.

He gets his opportunity as both Hoog and Sha's shadowy Spiders are after the Buddha-head Diamond.  Legend tells that the diamond can restore power throughout Asia to... it doesn't matter really.  The jewel is a MacGuffin to get our players moving.

After raiding Sha's house (she escapes), Hoog discovers her plan and traces the Spiders to an opium den in a secret Chinese city under San Francisco.  He pretends to smoke the wacky tobacky and pass out, but is pretty quickly captured anyway.  The Spiders trap him in a chamber that fills with water.  He escapes.  How?  Well... The movie is never clear on that.

The walls are closing in on our hero.

Hoog does however stow away in a crate aboard Sha's ship The Storm Bird.  His crate has a well-appointed library with a reading light and ninja gear.  He may as well be sitting in his study at home.  He sneaks out of the crate in his ninja garb to intercept messages between the Spiders.

Ultimately, the search for the diamond leads them to a London diamond magnate and his daughter Ellen.  You immediately know Ellen is destined to fall for Hoog.  You also know she's got to be kidnapped by the Spiders.

Hoog is now on a mission to retrieve the diamond AND save Ellen.  It's a race to the Falklands with our hero one step ahead of the villains.

Fritz Lang is still clearly developing as a director.  There are parts of this film that are incomprehensible.  The pieces are there but the transitions could be clearer.  At times, the story seems to meander listlessly.  Still, it has an energy and story unlike anything I've seen in the 1910s.

My two regrets about Spiders are that a) Lang never made the third and fourth chapters, and b) Hollywood has never revisited this material.  There are some fun ideas here.  Secret cities guarded by tigers under San Francisco.  Wifi across the ocean 100 years ago.  Booby-trapped evil lairs where the walls threaten to crush you (see the trash compactor scene in Star Wars).

If you are looking for a fun, throw-back, popcorn flick, it is hard to go wrong with the Spiders series.  Because Kay Hoog is the originial Dr. Jones.

**** out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly

Photo from Silent Volume

Read More

1920: Hollywood Royalty Gets Married

We are kicking off decade number 2 here at 100 Years and the cultural event of the year was the marriage of filmdom's two biggest stars: Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.  Because both were divorced (the start of a Hollywood tradition), they approached their European honeymoon with concern about crowd reaction (Pickford had only divorced weeks earlier from her previous husband).  In the end, they were treated like royalty and mobbed by adoring fans everywhere they went.  They also bought a mansion and named it "Pickfair", apparently beginning the unnecessary tradition of combining the names of Hollywood couples.

In national news, 1920 saw the first radio broadcast and the first votes for women.  As far as film milestones go, this is a quiet year.  Fairbanks moves from comedies and westerns into the swashbucklers that defined him with The Mark of Zorro.  Buster Keaton headlines his own comedy short without Fatty Arbuckle for the first time in One Week.  And the first true color animation appears in the form of The Debut of Thomas Cat.

What are watching?  I'm finally viewing my first Fairbanks feature with The Mark of Zorro.  I also want to track down Keaton's solo debut.  Beyond that, I'm eying D.W. Griffith's Way Down East, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with John Barrymore, and Cecil B. DeMille's Why Change Your Wife (all on Netflix Watch Instantly).  Also, I'm a huge fan of Michael Mann's Last of the Mohicans so Maurice Tourneur's version is a must watch.

And of course, Kay Hoog!  Spiders, Part 2!  More goofy awesomeness!

NOTE: An anonymous commenter pointed out that the picture in the original article was not in fact Pickfair.  After careful research (okay, 15 seconds of googling) I confirmed and have updated the picture (which comes from The Silver Screen Affair.

Read More

What the Daisy Said (1910)

Directed by D.W. Griffith (uncredited)
Starring Mary Pickford, Gertrude Robinson, Joseph Graybill
Produced by Biograph Company

Two girls seeking romance turn to a gypsy to have their fortunes read.  But the gypsy may just be playing the girls for his own purposes.  When their father intervenes and is attacked, complications ensue.

This is a slight tale that takes us back to 1910 and a D.W. Griffith short. The story is pretty unremarkable.  Even Pickford is pretty boring as one of the girls the gypsy is leading on.

The only thing of note here is Griffith's editing style. It's a number of quick cuts that seem normal today, but would have seemed extraordinary at the time.  Griffith also characteristically films outdoors, which sets him apart from most directors at the time.

In the end, What the Daisy Said just lies there. There's nothing to it.  It is the definition of "meh".

** out of **** stars

Watched on DVD through Netflix

NOTE: Once again, we jump back in time because this was included on the Daddy Long Legs disc. Consider it a cinematic sorbet as we enter the 1920s.

Read More

Decade Wrap-Up: What I Learned in the 1910s

I already covered my top ten and some other thoughts on specific films.  Here are some general things I took away from the decade:

Women Rule - Mary Pickford.  Lillian Gish.  Theda Bara.  The biggest stars in the world (with the exception of Charlie Chaplin) were all women.  Almost every film seemed to revolve around a woman in the lead.  Pickford was at one point the highest paid actor or actress and head of her own production company.  One hundred years later it seems like we are so much further behind.

Special Effects in 1910?  Hell yeah! - Was I completely naive?  Apparently.  The monster's creation in Frankenstein was amongst the first scenes I viewed in my project.  And it turned every assumption I had going in on its head.  That theme continued and peaked with Intolerance, The Blue Bird and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Title Cards Are Cooler Than I Expected... - One of my concerns going into 100 Years was that the silent movies would be man talking, then title card with dialogue, then woman talking, then title card with dialogue, repeat.  It's the way every silent movie parody works, right.  Happily, title cards are used mainly for scene transitions or to let the viewer know time has past or to relay key dialogue.  In other words, there are not very many of them. 

...Unless They Are Not - I did run into two title card issues.  First, in films like L'Inferno and King Lear, the cards only telegraph what is about to happen on screen.  Very tiresome.  Second, in films later in the decade, filmmakers became more flowery and poetic in their prose.  And frankly they only succeeded in sounding pretentious.

Silent Era Actors May Be Better Than Today's Actors - Imagine Al Pacino, or Robert DeNiro or Julia Roberts acting without their voice.  You always know what is going on in Mary Pickford's head by her expressions and movements.  You see Lillian Gish's mouth moving and you know what she is conveying through her eyes and the reactions of those around her.  Making a silent film is a great exercise for any aspiring filmmaker or actor.  In fact, I'm guessing most programs already do it.

Final thoughts - I went into this with two ideas.  First, to calibrate my brain to the times that the movies were made.  I figured immersing myself in films from an era would more easily allow me to compare them.  I still have my modern perspective, but I am definitely learning to appreciate each movie as a product of its time.

Second, I wanted to fill in the gaps in my film knowledge.  This decade, I feel like I've been majoring in D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chapling with a minor in Mary Pickford and Buster Keaton. Mission accomplished.

Onto the 1920s!

Read More

Decade Wrap Up: Top Ten of the Tens

I steal my ideas from the best

Man, time flies when you are having fun.  Of course, it also slows to a crawl when you are watching L'Inferno.  I can't believe I am through decade number one.  Ten percent done.  I watched 54 movies from 1910 through 1919.

What follows are my favorite ten films. These are not necessarily the "best" movies technically. I don't pretend it's an exhaustive list (while I did catch 54 movies, I also "only" saw 54).  These the ones that stuck with me and gave me a real appreciation for cinema a hundred years ago.

1. Intolerance (1916) - My favorite feature by the decade's best director.  D.W. Griffith's basically invented the language of cinema and Intolerance is his most ambitious project.  Beautiful to look at with compelling stories (particularly the modern and Babylonian tales). 

2. Shoulder Arms (1918) - Once I started watching Charlie Chaplin films, I was always looking forward to the next one.  Shoulder Arms is a funny comedy that pulls off an incredibly delicate balancing act between propaganda and critique.  And the tree disguise is amazing.

3. The Blue Bird (1918) - Easily the prettiest movie I saw.  The effects work throughout is great and it even held my son's attention.

4. Algie the Miner (1912) - One of the first films to center around a stereotypical gay character and it shows a real sophistication in the telling.  It could have descended into farce and parody at any moment.  Thankfully, it never does.

5. Broken Blossoms (1919) - The other side of Griffith's work shows he can do an intimate drama as well as a large spectacle.  Lillian Gish is amazing here.

6. Spiders, Part 1 (1919) - This movie is about Kay Hoog.  Kay Hoog is a yachtsman, a skydiver, an adventurer and a treasure hunter.  In other words, Kay Hoog is the coolest fictional character ever.

7. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) - If you haven't seen this, you have not seen surreal.  It's better at mood than story, but that is okay by me.

8. Frankenstein (1910) - You always remember your first and this one kicked off the project.  I watched this one on-line three times in a row.  Loved it each time.  I then watched it a fourth time after reading this review at The Silent Volume and it completely changed my view of it.  If you haven't seen it yet, watch it first, then read The Silent Volume piece.  Then try not to watch it again.

9. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1916) - A mash up of several plots with a convenient yet convoluted ending, but you can feel the sense of wonder the filmmakers had in showing some of the first undersea images ever.  The sharks look alien and the moment when the crew of the Nautilus fights them is awesome.

10. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) - There's a reason this film is featured on my banner.  I did not give it the best review the first time around, but I've fallen more in love with this one with each rewatch. The Snapper Kid is awesome (though he's no Kay Hoog).


Honorable Mentions: Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913), A Natural Born Gambler (1916), The Tramp (1915), The Unchanging Sea (1910), The Bell Boy (1918)

Some other observations after the jump:


Best Animation - The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918)
Most of the animation did not tell a story, so I am separating it into its own category.  I was fascinated by Winsor McCay's stuff, but The Sinking of the Lusitania was amazing in its detail.  Just the idea of attempting an animated documentary has an audacity I love.

Biggest Disappointment - The Birth of a Nation (1915)
I won't say more about it.  You can read my review and further analysis. 

Worst Movie - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910)
Hey, my high school is putting on a production of The Wizard of Oz. Let's bring a camera down and film it!

Most Bizarre Casting - Elmo Lincoln (pictured) in Tarzan of the Apes (1918)
Honestly, just look at that picture and tell me you see Tarzan in it.  Anywhere.

Most Interchangeable Films - Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), The Little American (1917), Amarilly of Clothesline Alley (1918) and Daddy Long Legs (1919)
I was shocked when I reviewed my top ten and realized Mary Pickford did not appear once.  She was my second favorite performer of the decade after Chaplin.  Then I looked again.  She is fantastic playing basically the same character in a handful of movies that didn't entirely work for me.  The only real stretching that she did was in Stella Maris.

Movie I Forgot I Saw - King Lear
Seriously.  When did I see this thing?

Photo from The Huffington Post

Read More

Daddy Long Legs (1919)

Mary Pickford does precocious better than anyone

Directed by Marshall Neilan
Starring Mary Pickford, Milla Davenport, Percy Haswell, Fay Lemport
Produced by Mary Pickford Company

Jerusha "Judy" Abbott (Pickford) is a young orphan girl who gets her name from a phone book and a gravestone.  At the age of 12, she finds herself the leader and guardian of the hard-scrabble youth of the John Grier home.  And protection is something they constantly need.  The matriarch of the orphanage is an overbearing dictator who burns children's fingers on the stove for misbehaving.

Judy attempts to organize a strike against the hated prune, accidentally finds herself drunk, steals a doll to provide a literal moment of happiness to a dying child and defends the children from the dictatorial trustees.  One of the trustees takes a liking to the precocious Judy and convinces a new trustee to sponsor her for college.  The trustee wishes to remain unknown to Judy.  She only catches a glimpse of his elongated shadow and nicknames him Daddy-Long-Legs.

Once at school, Judy sets out to write the great American novel so she can pay back her anonymous benefactor.  She also finds herself in the middle of a love triangle between the young Jimmie McBride (Neilan) and the older Jarvis Pendleton (Mahlon Hamilton).  Will she find love with either of the men?  And who is John Smith, her mysterious sponsor.

The good news first: Mary Pickford is predictably solid as Judy.  She is humorous and sympathetic, sometimes in the same moment.  She shines during the orphanage scenes, where she is initiating a lot of mayhem with a mischievous smile and a gleam in her eye. 

The other stand out performance is Davenport as the head of the orphanage.  It's a one dimensional part, but she takes it and runs with it.  There's a moment where Judy thinks she's gotten away but the headmistress knows right where she is.  Davenport gives this evil smile, anticipating capturing her tormentor.  Well done.

That said, this movie is a tonal and structural mess.  Judy is 12 years old and an orphan.  Then she's in college with a grey-haired man pining for her.  She an uneducated orphan who can't pronounce half of the words she uses.  Then she's a published author.  It's possible some time went by, but there is no hint of that in the movie.

The movie also downshifts without a clutch between humor and tragedy.  After Judy cleverly steals the doll and brings into her dying friend, the next scene is the child actually dying.  There's no transition between these moments.  They just happen.

Daddy Long Legs spends a lot of time establishing that Judy is the only reason these orphans have any joy in their lives.  Then she heads to college... and completely forgets about them.  Oh, that is until she writes a book about her orphanage experience.  It seems odd that the girl wouldn't use her position at the end of the film to help the other orphans.

The other recurring theme in Pickford movies is present here: creepy old men love Mary Pickford.  Pendleton looks like he's in his 50s.  Judy is at most in her teens. When he professes his love for her, she points out he's more suited to be her grandmother.  The film even knows this is weird.  So why does it keep pushing the romance?

There are a lot of plot threads that pop up randomly and are dropped.  Jimmie is accused of running someone over with his car and taken off at gunpoint.  Never referenced again.  A girl falls down a well.  Did she ever get out?  Pendleton breaks a tail light on his car.  No reason for that to have been in the script either.  And what is with the random appearance of the honest-to-goodness Cupid?  It's an out of place moment of fantasy.

Finally, Neilan has no sense of pacing in this movie.  There's a scene where Judy and another orphan are drunk.  There are amusing moments, but it goes on WAY too long.  There's a moment in the scene where a dog ends up drunk as well.  We spend over a minute of screen time just watching the dog stumble around.  It was funny... for the first ten seconds.

This is not a bad film, but it's not a great one either.  It's another solid performance by Pickford in an okay story, but terribly put together.

** out of *****

Watched on DVD through Netflix

Read More

Another View of... 1919

A look at other sites' takes on the "current" year.

The Oyster Princess by I Shoot the Pictures
This one gets a "highly recommend" from a fellow LAMB and I may need to make time to see it.  The premise sounds like a great comedic set-up, and the screenshots definitely have me intrigued.


Spiders, Part 1 by Silent Volume
Chris Edwards provides a great recap of the first Fritz Lang movie I caught in my marathon.  The opening of his recap shows he had a similar reaction to the awesomeness that is Kay Hoog.

Broken Blossoms by Movie Feast
Doug Tilley enjoyed this one from D.W. Griffith in his short capsule review.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Film Forager
Alex enjoyed this as I did (mainly for the visuals and mood).  So why read her review?  Three words: German. Crispin. Glover.

Read More

Sunnyside (1919)

I have no idea what is going on here...

Directed by Charlie Chaplin
Starring Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Tom Wilson
Produced by First National Pictures

Charlie is a farmhand we can all relate to.  He's woken in the morning for work, but just wants five more minutes.  He waits impatiently for a hen to deliver his breakfast (directly into the pan no less).  And when he should be paying attention at work, he's day dreaming (with predictably catastrophic results).


The only person that keeps his full attention is the village belle.  But when a city slicker comes rolling into town, Charlie finds himself in competition with the newcomer for the girl's hand.  Will he win her hand?  Or was it all just a dream?

Seriously.

Was it all just a dream?  Because I'm still confused.  This feels like an experiment from Chaplin, but it's one gone awry.  It's not funny.  It's not interesting.  It just meanders about for the first half and then turns into a convoluted mess once the romance is introduced.


There are moments that feel like they should be funny, but they just don't go anywhere.  The only truly funny sequence in the story is the opening as the farmer tries to get Charlie out of bed.  From there it is all downhill.

One other scene worth discussion is a moment where Charlie is knocked unconscious and dreams of four fairies dancing about him in the woods.  It feels out of place and doesn't give you any direction as to how to feel.  Is it meant to be funny? It seems like it's trying for whimsy, but not quite getting there.

By the end, I lost track of whether we were in a dream or not.  Actually, I think I just stopped caring.  And that's the first time I've said that about a Chaplin film.

*1/2 out of *****

Photo from Observations on film art

Read More

Spiders, Part 1 (1919)

Kay Hoog is way cooler than you

Directed by Fritz Lang
Starring Carl de Vogt, Ressel Orla, Georg John
Produced by Decla-Bioscop AG

Kay Hoog is the handsomest, most awesome man in the world.

He's Indiana Jones.  He's James Bond.  He's got a dash of Chuck Norris.  He's the ultimate adventurer playboy.

During the party that opens the action, all of the guests are wondering when Kay Hoog is going to arrive.  Will he win the big yacht race against Japan tomorrow?

Hoog arrives with a message in a bottle.  It's from a missing professor with a map to an Incan city of gold in Peru.  He's not racing any yachts tomorrow.  He's got a treasure to find.  If any of the attendees hoping to see a boat race are put out, they are not letting on.  Every man at the party wants to be him and every woman wants to be with him.

All except one, that is.  Lio Sha leads the mysterious Spiders who also have designs on the Incan gold.  They break into Hoog's mansion and steal the map.  That does not sit well with our hero.  He asks a friend to take him to Peru by balloon and parachutes from the basket.  You get the sense he travels by balloon not because it makes sense, but because he needs to choose the most dangerous path.  Hoog walks into the bad guys' lair and steals back his map (and another treasure map).  A chase ensues, but of course our lead gets away.  He's Kay Hoog!

Ultimately, Hoog and the Spiders descend upon the Incan city.  Hoog rescues a priestess from a snake and she is immediately smitten.  Why?  Because he's Kay Hoog.  That's why.

Sha is captured and about to be sacrificed, but Hoog saves her.  Our hero escapes the city with his priestess, while Sha and the Spiders try to get the gold.  But could a curse await the greedy, shadowy organization?


Spiders, Part 1 is silly, but a ton of fun.  Lang keeps the action moving throughout, never allowing his camera to stay on one scene to long.  Sometimes his editing is too frenetic and, particularly during the film's climactic showdown, you lose track of who is who.

Still, as a light adventure romp this was very entertaining.  None of the actors have much to do, but that somehow seems okay.  The film ends on a cliffhanger of sorts that leads to Part 2, released in 1920 (Spiders was originally to be a four part series, but only the first two were made).

Lang is a director on my shame list so I am anxious to see more of his work.  There's a lot of promise here, but the execution is uneven.  That said, Spiders may have been my most fun experience watching a 100 Years film yet.

*** out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly
Photo from The Silent Era

Read More

A Sammy in Siberia (1919)

Lloyd up a tree... you'd think that would be funny...

Directed by Hal Roach
Starring Harold Lloyd, 'Snub' Pollard and Bebe Daniels
Produced by Rolin Films

An American soldier in Russia becomes separated from his troops through his overwhelming in eptitude.  While lost in a Siberian forest, he crosses paths with a woman who has escaped from the Russian soldiers that have invaded her home.  Can the American protect the woman and her family from the invaders?

Another Harold Lloyd comedy and this one is a tonal mess.  In the opening scenes as the woman's home is attacked, her father is shot.  He falls over.  He seems dead, but this is a comedy so a couple of minutes later he is up and walking around like nothing happened.  Still having the old man seemingly killed is not the best way to get the funny bone going.

Lloyd doesn't show up until about two minutes in.  He cannot keep his hat on and marches off in the wrong direction from his comrades.  He's chased by a wolf and ends up in a tree to escape.  The woman comes along and pets the wolf.  See?  The wolf that was chasing him through the forest was really docile.  Hilarious, right?

Of course, once Lloyd crosses paths with the enemy, he becomes a model of bravery and skill.  He singlehandedly dispatches a dozen men from the woman's home (despite his earlier ineptitude).

This is material handled with a much defter touch in Shoulder Arms.  The only real positive here is it is only seven minutes long so you can get through this short pretty quickly.

*1/2 out of *****

Read More

Laurel and Hardy... and Santana

Here's Laurel and Hardy groovin' to Santana....



Thanks to Heather C. for the link!

Read More

Broken Blossoms (1919)

Barthelmess with the amazing Lillian Gish

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp
Produced by United Artists

Cheng Huan leaves his native China on a mission to sow the tenets of Buddhism among those in England.  However, he soon finds himself as a shopkeeper in the Limehouse district of London, spending his days smoking opium.  His only joy comes from seeing the young Lucy pass by his store.  Despite her ragged clothes, Cheng sees her inner beauty and admires from afar.

Lucy lives a difficult life herself.  She is the daughter of a prize fighter, Battlin' Burrows, who thinks nothing of taking out his aggressions on the girl.  So miserable is Lucy that she literally must grab the corners of her mouth to force a smile.

After one particularly violent attack by her father, Lucy wanders from her home and collapses in Cheng's doorway.  The former missionary takes the girl in and cares for her.  Though clearly smitten, he never takes advantage.  Can the two find love?  And what will happen when Battlin' Burrows learns his daughter is with a foreigner?


Broken Blossoms seems like almost an experiment in movie-making from D.W. Griffith.  Can he take the techniques he used to tell the massive, epic stories in Intolerance and The Birth of a Nation to not only tell a much more intimate tale, but to make that story feel just as epic?

On this count, the movie almost entirely succeeds and even surpasses his earlier work.  The final act of the film is assembled into a dizzying array of close-ups, medium and long shots that feel very modern in their editing.  Toward the end, Griffith intercuts between Battlin's boxing match and a tender moment between Lucy and Cheng. The impact gives Lucy's scene even more tension as the action in both the ring and Cheng's apartment build.

The three main leads are fantastic. Gish brings a melancholy to the performance that no other actress could have matched.  In the end, as she tries to hide from her father, her terror becomes crazed beyond anything I have seen before.  You believe she is in fear for her life.  Barthelmess brings a dignity and nobility to his role and Crisp is menacing as the brutish antagonist.

None of that is to say the film is perfect.  There are moments that become tedious, particularly in the second act as Cheng cares for Lucy.  Although we are told she was with Cheng for only one night, the events of the film made it seem to stretch longer than that.

The other major flaw from a modern perspective is the treatment of the "yellow man" in the film.  While it's easier to look past the derogatory references to the minority characters as indicative of the times, having a white actor play Cheng was distracting.  In order to look Chinese, Barthelmess walks through the film with his eyes half-closed and his eyebrows pointing up.  He never struck me as Asian as much as he did sleepy.

Unlike the problems of racism in The Birth of a Nation, which structured its story as an argument for racism, the treatment of the Chinese is a minor quibble in what is an otherwise great film.  Definitely recommend.

****1/2 out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly (also available at the Internet Archive)
Photo from Another Nickel in the Machine

Read More