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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 *****

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Laurel and Hardy... and Santana

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



Thanks to Heather C. for the link!

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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

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Feline Follies (1919)

Tom and Kitty get their groove on

Directed by Otto Messmer
Produced by Paramount

A cat named Tom is hanging out in front of his house when he hears a "meow" from down the street.  His curiosity piqued, he runs off and meets Miss Kitty White and immediately professes his love.  Tom prepares for a night out on the fence with his new girl and woos her with his guitar by the trashcan.  But is he prepared for the consequences of his new relationship?  And what mischief will the mice cause while Tom is out on his dates?

Don't let the name fool you.  This is the first of the Felix the Cat cartoon shorts.  Tom will get a name change in later episodes.  This is the episode that kicked off a series of cartoons that ran from 1919 until 1936.

So is it any good?

Not really.

Feline Follies is the first animation during the marathon to remind me of The Simpsons episodes that show classic Itchy and Scratchy cartoons.  It has that repetitive style that I find grating.

As far as the story, there aren't any laughs throughout. There's nothing inventive from a modern audience perspective.  Every gag has been done better on episodes of Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes.

SPOILERS! And the ending!  The closing shots are of Tom arriving to find his girl with a dozen kittens running around with our hero as the apparent father. Tom runs away to the gas plant, places a hose in his mouth and turns on the gas.  Fade out.

Is that supposed to be funny?  There are actually ways to pull off that joke, but you never get a moment to realize how Tom is reacting to the situation.  The dearth of laughs leading up to the final scene make the finale not funny, but horrifying.

The animation is okay (beyond my problems with the style) and it is only four minutes long, but I cannot recommend this one for anyone.

* out of *****

Watched on YouTube

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Out of the Inkwell: The Tantalizing Fly (1919)

Directed by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer
Produced by Max Fleischer

An artist sits down to draw his latest creation (a clown), but is constantly distracted by a fly in the room.  Perhaps his drawing can assist him in dispatching the insect?

There really is not much more to the plot than the above. This one may be the shortest film I have watched yet during the project, clocking in at under four minutes.

The fun of this is the interaction between the animated world and the real one.  The artist attempts to shoo the fly away, but the clown gets annoyed enough that he begins attacking the fly as well.  There's a sense of whimsy to the entire affair that will make you smile.

If The Tantalizing Fly were any longer I'd say to stay away, but at less than four minutes, it seems perfectly timed.  And it's an early animation by Max Fleischer who will create some amazing Superman cartoons!

*** out of *****

Watched on Google Video
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)

Directed by Robert Wiene
Starring Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher
Produced by Decla-Bioscop AG

Francis and Alan are friends, but in love with the same woman.  A fair arrives in town featuring the mysterious Dr. Caligari and his amazing somnambulist, Cesare.  Alan asks Cesare for his fortune and the sleepwalker tells Alan he will be dead by dawn. When Francis' friend is found murdered the following morning, suspicion falls on Caligari and Cesare.

Francis begins his own investigation and discovers that the suspects are in their trailer at the fair during a subsequent murder attempt.  Who is the killer?  And what other secrets remain in the cabinet of Dr. Caligari?

This is the most visually stunning movie I have seen to date. It's surreal.  It's Salvador Dali through the eyes of Tim Burton.  Every wall looks like it is about to fall over.  Every door and window looks like someone has grabbed the corners and stretched them to bizarre proportions.  Jagged pathways that seem to stretch for a mile are only a couple of feet.  The town bureaucrats sit on stools five feet off the ground.  Even the ladderback chairs look like someone forgot when to stop adding to their backs.  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a wonder of production design.

If the movie were only the marvelous sets and imagery, this would be a good movie.  The interplay between the plot and the imagery is what makes the film soar.  At its heart, this is a mystery, and the plot continually shows viewers just enough to make them think the answer is obvious, just before violently yanking the rug out from under you.

The only misstep in the entire film is toward the end.  Much of the initial reveal of the killer and his methods are shown through characters reading books and placing the printed pages on the screen.  At this moment, the film slows to a crawl.  Obviously, in the sound era, it would have been easier to convey a lot of information quickly.

SPOILER!  The end of the movie shows that the surreal nature of the movie is not simply a stylistic choice, but an integral element to the plot.  Francis is revealed to be an insane asylum inmate and the entire movie is his fantasy.  Caligari is the institution's director and Francis' love is a delusional woman believing herself to be a queen.  Once you realize this is all Francis' imagination, the look of his fantasy makes a lot of sense.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a great film.  More than just an experiment in mood and surrealism, it has a plot that is well served by its setting.

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

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly
Photos from The New York Times and

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