Monthly Archives: March 2024

The Cardboard Lover

Title card: The French Riviera – Where American tourists think a chateau is a hat… and the Big Casino is the ten of diamonds.

Marion Davies is once again adorable and Nils Asther is dreamy but it’s not as good as the similar story told in The Patsy released the same year.

Sally (Davies) is on holiday in the French Riviera with her American flapper friends. She is an awkward but lovable goofball and starstruck to boot. She tries to get an autograph from handsome tennis champ Andre (Asther) without success. Andre is having problems with his duplicitous lover Simone. So Sally volunteers to help Andre make Simone jealous. If you don’tknow where this is going you need to see some more romcoms.

This is cute but it drags at only 50 minutes. But Davies is charming and I think Asther is the most beautiful of all the early Lotharios so I didn’t mind much. The print on YouTube is pretty poor but watchable.

The Jazz Singer

Opening Title Card: In every living soul, a spirit cries for expression – – perhaps this plaintive, wailing song of Jazz is, after all, the misunderstood utterance of a prayer.

Well, I waited this long to see the first talkie.  It didn’t amount to much.

The Rabinowitzes have been cantors at a synagogue for four generations.  The current cantor (Warner Oland) is determined that his son Jakie will follow in his footsteps.  However, young Jakie sneaks off whenever he can to sing in saloons. When Dad strikes Jakie for his latest indiscretion, he runs away vowing never to return.  This breaks his mother’s (Eugenie Bessemer) heart.  Dad disowns Jakie.

Jakie makes it big thanks to sweetie Mary Dale (May McCoy).  But just as he is headed for his first opening night on Broadway, Dad falls ill and needs to find a replacement to sing on Yom Kippur.

Most of the elements of this movie irritate the hell out of me.  First, I just cannot comprehend the appeal of Al Jolson.  I suppose he can carry a tune, but his delivery is completely over the top.  He also seems annoyingly full of himself.  I don’t think any of his songs can be called “jazz”.  The story and its emphasis on long-suffering motherhood is melodramatic to the max.  Just an historically important dud in my book.

Chicago

William Flynn: Cut the bull! I’m not your husband – I’m your lawyer!

This story has been remade so many times because it’s a good one.

Roxie Hart’s (Phyllis Haver) husband Amos (Victor Varconi) is totally besotted by the totally amoral gold digger.  Her lover (Eugene Palette) is fed up with her, however.  You don’t walk out on Roxie though and loverman winds up with a bullet in his chest.  Roxie calls Amos in a panic and the poor sap is up to his ears in trouble trying to help her.

The story proper concerns Roxy’s trial, which rapidly becomes a media circus.  Roxie’s lawyer is a money grubbing shyster and the prosecutor is running for public office.  Our heroine loves the publicity.

This story originated in a Broadway play and was remade as Roxie Hart (1942) with Ginger Rogers and the Bob Fosse Broadway musical and movie Chicago.  It’s a gritty, funny satire on the print media and the justice system that resonates to this day.  The performances here are all spot on.  I had not seen Varconi before and found him very appealing.  I had to keep rubbing my eyes and asking myself is that really Eugene Palette?  I thought the running time could have been trimmed by 20-30 minutes without harm but other than that thoroughly enjoyed the film.

Cecil B. DeMille is thought to have directed most if not all of this film.  He was talked into taking his name off the credits because the story was not compatible with the message he was sending with The King of Kings released the same year.

Clip – Eugene Palette and Phyllis Haver

My Best Girl

Maggie Johnson: I love you, Joe… but I can never, never marry you.

Every romcom trope is utilized in Mary Pickford’s last silent film.

Maggie Johnson is a lowly stock room clerk in a big department store.  She meets and falls in love with Joe Grant (Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers) who is a new hire.  Unbeknownst to her, Joe is actually the owner’s son and has been placed there to see how he can do incognito.  Also unbeknownst to her is that his parents are eager to anxious to announce his engagement to a woman from their social set.  Misunderstandings ensue.

I’m not a huge Mary Pickford fan but this is a cute film. Pickford would go on to marry Rogers after her divorce from Douglas Fairbanks in 1936.

The Patsy

Patricia Harrington: [dreamily gazing up at the sky] Isn’t that a marvelous moon?
Tony Anderson: Not bad, for a town this size.

Marion Davies is adorable in this silent comedy.  Throw in Marie Dressler and you’ve got a winner.

The Harrington family consists of Pa (Dell Henderson), Ma (Dressler), older daughter Grace (Jane Winston) and teenager Pat (Davies). Ma and Grace are mercenary snobs.  They both browbeat poor Pat and Pa.  Pat is a lovable but awkward goofball.  In addition, she has a giant crush on Grace’s beau Tony (Orville Caldwell), who hardly knows she exists.  Pat goes to Tony for romantic advice and is told to get a personality.  Her attempts make her look slightly insane. But …

I don’t associate King Vidor with comedies but this one is quite fun.  Davies is a talented comedienne.  Dressler is more severe than the usual but very good.  Some of the gags go on for too long near the end but I was thoroughly entertained.  Well worth a try.

According to IMDb, this film gave Dressler, who was in a career slump, a much needed boost.

Marion Davies impersonates Mae Murray, Lllian Gish and Pola Negri

I saw this more than a week ago before I went on vacation.  It started off incredibly strong.

George Bancroft plays a crime kingpin. Drunkard Clive Brook witnesses him committing a bank heist and eventually becomes Bancrofts’s friend and loyal minion. Evelyn Brent is Bancroft’s moll.  Intrigue, violence, and a love triangle ensue.

I absolutely loved the first half of this movie which is nice and sordid. The last half is a bit too melodramatic for my taste. I’m always glad to see George Bancroft on a cast list and he is excellent here. Clive Brook is absolutely outstanding as the drunk but once the melodrama starts he starts overacting. I remember not liking Brook in anything before so was impressed overall.  There is some good German expressionist lighting. Overall a good movie.

Whenever I see one of von Sternberg’s early films I wonder what he would have done if he had not been sidetracked by his fascination with Marlene Dietrich.

Ben Hecht won the first Academy Award given for Best Writing, Original Story.

The scene where Clive Brooks’s acting starts to go downhill (some might think it’s a spoiler)