Monthly Archives: December 2021

The Racket
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Written by Del Andrews from a play by Bartlett Cormack
1928/US
The Caddo Company (Howard Hughes)
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Nick Scarsi: Take a tip, Mac… change your racket.
Police Captain James McQuigg: I like my racket….

This was the last silent movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (until, arguably, The Artist (2011). It’s an action-packed prohibition-age gangster flick.

Police Captain McQuigg (Thomas Meighan) is an honest cop in a cesspool of city corruption. The city is divided into the territories of rival bootleggers Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim) and Spike. Scarsi is ready to make a move on his rival and tries, successfully, to get McQuigg transferred to get his worst foe out of the way. In the meantime, saloon singer Helen Hayes (Marie Prevost) makes a move on Joe, Scarsi’s beloved kid brother, out of spite.

The transfer does not deter McQuigg and he gets a lucky break when Joe is picked up for a hit and run accident.  After this, McQuigg brings Scarsi to his knees with the assistance of some reporters and Helen.  I  blinked and missed Walter Brennan’s appearance as an extra.

This is an entertaining movie with plenty of gunfights and some good acting.  I admire Louis Wolheims ability to be amusing and scary in turn in his part.  He had a promising career ahead of him as a character actor that was sadly cut short by his death from cancer in 1931.

Hook, Line and Sinker
Directed by Edward F. Cline
Written by Tim Whelan and Ralph Spence
1930/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Addington Ganzy: Why, do you realize that since nineteen-hundred-and-ten, they have discovered 52 new ways of dying?
Wilbur Boswell: Oh, and you don’t look well.
Addington Ganzy: Yes, why, uh, uh… People are dying this year that have never died before!

In the early thirties people went for a variety of clowns like Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers.  Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were a competing comedy duo at the time and they make me laugh the most consistently of all.

The plot, such as it is, has the duo playing Wilbur Boswell (Wheeler) and Addington Ganzy (Woolsey), insurance salesmen eager to con people out of their money.  They meet up with  Mary Marsh (Dorothy Lee), a sweet young thing who has recently inherited a hotel from her uncle.  Wilbur and Mary pair up immediately.  The hotel turns out to be very run down but the boys somehow figure out a way to renovate it and market it to VIPs.  This is quite inconvenient for some gangsters who had been using the place as a hideout.

It’s a throwaway plot used to place one gag after another.  The boys are good at physical humor but I also love the way they deliver their dialogue.  Some of the double entendres are quite risque and pre-Code.  I’ve seen several of their movies and am looking forward to more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIsdG9XGwfs

Couldn’t find many clips but YouTube has many of the complete films for free