What Have You Watched Lately (American and British Films)?

[rmichaelpyle]

Watched "Kid Courageous" (1935), a Western starring Bob Steele, and directed by his father, Robert N. Bradbury, Sr. Actually, Bob Steele's real name is Robert North Bradbury, Jr. He changed it around the time sound came in and used it for the rest of his life. Fine Western for a "B". Couple of the stunts were fantastic! One of them, where a man hides in a hole until a wagon rolls over him, where he grabs the bottom of the wagon and hangs onto the underneath part of it until it stops, then gets off and confronts the baddies, was done just the year before by Yakima Canutt in a John Wayne Western, and this may be Yak doing the same thing - I don't know - but it's a fabulous stunt that we, as viewers, just take for granted.  ALSO - saw several leitmotifs that were used in the 1981 Harrison Ford epic "Raiders of the Lost Ark", including a whip and the mine.  Obviously, someone who helped write that movie knew this old "B" Western!  At least it would seem so.  Also in this Steele Western were Rene Borden, Lafe McKee, Kit Guard, Arthur Loft, John Cowell, and others.  Well worth the watch if you enjoy the early "B" Westerns.

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My daughter and I were in a laughing mood yesterday and were sitting in the den rather bored so I said, "Let's watch a short film on Netflix". So she checked her Smartphone for a listing of short films available on Netflix and we found a list of 8 that were put in some collection at some time. The first one we picked was only about 5 minutes long, an animated film from 2008 called The Half Man! We laughed as we started it. It looked like a combo of Claymation and regular animation, very strange. A little girl's father is sliced in half vertically and all his organs are exposed. He drives her to school and then he goes to work at his factory job and has an accident and all his organs start falling out. Somehow he makes it home and the little girl was already there. The father - or what is left of him - collapses in her bed, and she uses what is left of her father's body as a blanket to cover herself with. The End.

After it was over - and we were pretty stunned - Tina said, "Maybe this is supposed to be allegory for depression", and then we laughed all over again.

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[rmichaelpyle]

I watched a couple over the last few days. First off, "Shadows Over Shanghai" (1938) with James Dunn, Robert Barrat, Ralph Morgan, Linda Grey, Edward Woods, and others.  This one could possibly confuse a few modern viewers because of its setting.  This takes place right about the time Japan began its takeover of China during the "Warlords Wars", a time when American missionaries were being rudely ousted, too.  The history is interesting in itself and complex, but relatively unknown today to most Americans.  Nevertheless, the film is a melodrama that takes place within the surrounding history, but is about the personal lives involved in getting an amulet bracelet to San Francisco - IF the parties involved can get away from Shanghai.  Ralph Morgan turned in a remarkable performance - again - I think he's often forgotten, or thought about as a horror film actor, or thought about as the brother of Frank Morgan, or, or, or.  James Dunn turns in his typically serviceable performance.  What is distracting, when one thinks about it, is the fact that James Dunn and Linda Grey have about as much chemistry between them as two burnt out embers - none!  Other than that, a good action film that keeps you watching.

Also watched "By Appointment Only" (1933) with Lew Cody, Aileen Pringle, Sally O'Neil, Edward Morgan, Edwin Martindel, Wilson Benge, Claire McDowell, Pauline Garon, and a couple of others.  This is definitely poverty row stuff, but fairly well done.  If you know about Nabokov's Lolita, you'll be thinking about it during this film.  Sally O'Neil begins the film at age 14 (she was about 25 in real life) and Lew Cody looks as if he's a wolf for her.  He tried to play the opposite, of course, but there's just something about Lew Cody.  He was a wolf in real life...  'Nuff said.  Anyway, there's a predictable ending, which is moral by our standards of today.  Film is quite worth watching.  It's got enough pluck to make it quite enjoyable, really.  Still, this is trailer trash with some pizzazz.  Sally O'Neil is quite pretty, by the way.  She's worth the look alone.  Aileen Pringle was perfectly cast as the long suffering fiancé (?), if she was ever fiancéd, and looks her age, too, something that took me a little bit by surprise.  She'd aged a bit since the silent days only a few years before.  However, catch that waistline of Lew Cody.  Had to be nearly 50"...  No little spring chicken himself.  He died the next year after this film was released, for the record, at the age of 50.  Easily looked that in this film.  Good luck trying to find a print with a watchable sound track.  This one was serviceable, but the one from Alpha is unwatchable.  This one was a bootleg, though the film is definitely public domain.

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Great reviews! That's interesting about Lew Cody. Yes, I can't picture him as anything but a wolf, though I've only seen him in one silent (Mickey). Speaking of which, I always wondered why Mabel Normand married him. They seem an unlikely pair.

By the way, I was very interested in your comments on Glorifying the American Girl. That's one I've been meaning to watch for ages, but have never gotten around to. Early talkies are fascinating to me in general.

[moderator]

Apr 2, 2015 15:19:32 GMT @jill said:

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...that looks so bizarre.

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We couldn't stop giggling for awhile after watching it. If you have Netflix you can watch it there; I checked YouTube but it's not there.

There was another animation film in that group of short films about an alien living on the moon. He is so excited when he sees a rocket ship leave earth headed for the moon and he gets his place all fixed up so that he can welcome them when they arrive. Then Neil Armstrong leaves the lunar module (that my Dad helped engineer!) and puts his first foot down -- and kills the alien because he was only a centimeter tall. LOL!!! Sometimes I just love to watch something totally different. "And now for something completely different .... SPLAT!"

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[rmichaelpyle]

I've watched two silents in the last couple of days. I re-watched "Mantrap" (1926) with Clara Bow, Percy Marmont, Ernest Torrence, Eugene Pallette, and others.  My print is on the anthology "American Treasures, The West:  1898-1938", and the print is nearly pristine.  It's been a while since I've visited this silent Pre-Code, and I'm still amazed at how it's still ahead of most of today's ideas about marriage!  There will be those who may actually find this offensive.  I think the idea was to find the idea offensive when you finally thought about it later because it moves like greased lightning and you never know exactly what's hitting you unless you stop to think clearly about it!  Directed by Victor Fleming, the title cards alone are worth the visit.  They're a hoot!  If you've never seen this, search it out, especially if you don't know much about Clara Bow.  If you're a Clara Bow fan, you've probably seen this.  Outside of "It", this IS Clara Bow, at least the movie version.  Her private life didn't seem to run as smoothly; indeed, it was a shambles just a few years after this.  Here in this film she loves the idea of "flirting" - if that's the word for what we see.  Anything in pants that has a shine to it - well, look out!  Clara's there and you're in trouble...

Last night I watched "Humoresque" (1920), the famous Fanny Hurst story that Frank Borzage so wanted to direct!  William Randolph Hearst got him the chance, but the studio heads at Famous Players-Lasky (Paramount) thought the scenario that Borzage wanted to present too gritty with Jewish Ghetto leitmotifs.  Nevertheless Borzage shot the picture his way and ended up with a major triumph that signaled the path of his director's career.  It certainly isn't difficult to see why this was a triumph.  It still plays marvelously.  Yes, it's dated in many respects, but this one has a director's sure eye about it, and it wraps the viewer into its web whether the viewer is aware or not!  The first three quarters plays perfectly.  It's the last few minutes that will have the modern viewer biting a lip.  Just a bit too much for today's credulity.  Gaston Glass is fine for his role here, too - until the end.  He didn't have the acting ability to pull off the necessary facets to make the final few minutes real.  Alma Rubens supplies the love interest. Glass's mother is played wonderfully by Vera Gordon - and she steals every solitary scene! Her husband is played by Dore Davidson.  Most probably know this story from the John Garfield/Joan Crawford version from 1946.  It's one of her triumphs, and it IS good.  But this one, the original - well worth the visit.  One more caveat:  prints have nitrate deterioration in several spots.  It's not as bad as some surviving films, but it's there, and it could possibly drive a few to scotch and soda...but stick around, it's a gem.  Recently released through Alpha at only $5.98 for the DVD.  Worth every penny!  (Now, I must warn you that the music track is pleasant enough, but continuously/continually played without enough variety - it may get to a few in the wrong way - turn down the volume to quite low and you'll enjoy it anyway...)

[rmichaelpyle]

I watched another Bob Steele Western, this one "Son of Oklahoma" (1932).  Story is incredibly far-fetched, but that is one of its draws, too.  A very, very young boy (perhaps 2 or 3 years old) jumps out of a wagon in the desert and is presumed lost by his mother and the man who was basically kidnapping both of them.  The father had already been left to die, although the "kidnapper" went back to try to find the child, and while not finding the child, shoots the father, leaving him for dead.  The boy grows up to be Bob Steele, and he's been raised by Julian Rivero.  In the meantime, Rivero and Steele have discovered and mined a gold mine.  Rivero has a daughter, Carmen Laroux, and she's not only pretty, but she's thought to be the one who Bob Steele should marry when she grows up.  Rivero's wife, and the lady who's now raised Bob Steele, is by now dead.  Good set up for what happens.  I'll leave the plot alone from here.  Suffice it to say that in the time it takes to finish the picture all's cleared up very well - and neatly, where the word fits.  This is no doubt a boy's vision of Western reality, and it's a boy's vision of how things are done in the world, and should be done in the world, and how things happen in the world - but as a man headed toward 70 I still enjoyed it a lot.  Love these Bob Steele Westerns.  Bought a slew of them from Alpha, and I'm having fun going through them one by one and watching them.

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I enjoyed watching Mantrap—quintessential Clara Bow, for sure.

I've not seen Humoresque. This sounds interesting indeed! I've ordered a copy of the Alpha—thanks for the tip on that. I'm pretty immune to nitrate decomposition, but will have scotch and soda on hand just in case. 

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The bad places generally don't bother me much unless it obscures something important, like what someone did at a crucial place in the plot.

I read something interesting awhile back about why so many films don't have the original intertitles. Apparently, that is due to nitrate decomposition—the titles disintegrated to a much higher percentage than the regular footage, although I've forgotten the technical reason. I'd always wondered why so many films have obviously new titles (and they usually don't bother to try to use an appropriate font to give an appearance similar to what the original would have been, unfortunately).

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Many times those very old fonts are no longer available, so it's understandable they can't reproduce them. Then there are the instances in silent films where there was a title card in a scene but only 2 or 3 frames of that title card are available and they are distorted or have huge artifacts in them or are faded to oblivion and you cannot restore them. For consistency in reading for a modern audience they just have to replace all the title cards to get a clean and easy readable look. I've done it -- these situations take WEEKS to fix correctly, time they don't want to spend on it because the longer they wait to get a "restoration" on the market the longer they do without profit.

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Yes, I imagine that is quite time consuming.

Jill, I wonder if you might know the identity of a bit of background music. I know you have an extensive knowledge of old songs. It's a pretty little tune I've heard used in several different piano scores, and I'm just curious as to what it is. There's a little of it here in the Mary Pickford short "100% American". It's just a tiny snippet, but see if you're familiar with it.

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Sorry, it must have been set to private by default when I uploaded for some reason. I changed the setting to public.

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On my Golden Silents YouTube channel the whole film is still up there. That particular piece being played in your segment is not vintage, it was the pianist's own composition and he sometimes interwove little bits of vintage music in with his own. I forget who the pianist was but with a little digging you should be able to find out; think it was listed on Treasures DVDs.

[rmichaelpyle]

I watched "Thunder in the Desert" (1938), a Western with Bob Steele, Don Barclay, Ed Brady, Louise Stanley, Charles King, and others.  Nice bit of hokum for an hour.  I was curious about a couple of the co-stars.  Don Barclay, who I'd never heard of, was an accomplished comedian and dialectician.  He played a rather comedic sidekick to Bob Steele in this outing, and was the weak link in the chain for the film.  Still, he had plenty of talent; it's just that this sort of character is a thing of the past.  On the other hand, the baddie all dressed in black, Ed Brady, playing a character simply known as Reno, was a slick baddie - again, someone I'd never heard of.  Well, Ed Brady made films beginning at least as far back as 1911, and the IMDb has him in at least 357 films!  These guys really did work for a living!!  Louise Stanley had almost nothing to do.  In the end - a ridiculous ending, may I add - it looks like she and Bob Steele are going to be possibly married:  ridiculous, because she had been engaged to the guy who turned out to be the real baddie of the piece; so, how did this other love come about?  Oh, well, it was a thirties "B" Western, and it played, as I already said, fine for the hour I watched.  Won't need to watch it again.