Monthly Archives: February 2022

Thunderbolt
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Written by Jules and Charles Furthman, Josef von Sternberg and Herman J. Mankiewicz
1929/US
Paramount Pictures
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020499/reference
First viewing/YouTube

Warden: Listen Doc, you just gotta see that this man lives. Do something. I’ve got to execute him tonight.

George Bancroft has some marvelous bits in this gangster/love triangle/deathrow tale. The rest is pretty “meh”.

Jim ‘Thunderbolt’ Lang (Bancroft) is the boss of a gang of vicious thugs. He is wanted for bank robbery and murder.  Ritzie (Fay Wray) is his moll.  But lately she has fallen for straight arrow banker Bob (Richard Arlen) and attempts to break up with Thunderbolt. Nobody quits the Thunderbolt and he makes it his mission to assassinate Bob.

His mission fails.  He is apprehended, tried, and sentenced to death.  Thunderbolt will not rest until Bob dies before he does.  So he frames him and soon Bob is his neighbor on death row.

Bancroft is great, as always, in this.  The part where he tries to get an annoying dog to come to him is hilarious.  On the other hand, I have never seen Wray or Arlen give such stilted performances.

George Bancroft was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar.

Catch the glance George Bancroft gives singer Theresa Harris.  Definitely pre-Code!

Coquette
Directed by Sam Taylor
Written by John Grey and Allen McNeil from a play by George Abbott and Ann Preston Bridgers
1929/US
Pickford Corporation
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Norma Besant: I’ll tell you somethin’ I never told any other man, ever! Just the way you are, now, you’ll be the best lookin’ man there. Now, will you come?
Michael Jeffery: No.
Norma Besant: Well, you’re the first man I ever told that to the just didn’t naturally melt away.
Michael Jeffery: I reckon I’m different from the other men – you’ve never told that to.

I can’t believe Mary Pickford won an Oscar for overacting terribly in this romantic tragedy.

Norma Besant (Pickford) acts like a five-year-old around her beloved Daddy.  She is a consumate flirt who tries her craft on any man available including Daddy.  Daddy keeps an eagle eye on her.  She is being courted by Stanley, a man in her social circle, but has fallen in love with Michael Jeffrey (Johnnie Mack Brown).  Daddy doesn’t like Michael because he is not of their class and has a reputation as a shiftless hothead.  He orders Norma never to see him again.  The lovers agree to separate for six months so that Michael can get himself established in a good job.

Michael can’t stay away and returns 3 months later.  Norma doesn’t listen to Daddy and ends up sneaking out with Michael to his mother’s cabin and does not return until 4 a.m.  Daddy is outraged and shoots and kills Michael.  Daddy’s attorney urges Norma to tell several lies on the stand to protect Daddy from the death penalty.

I watched this for Mary Pickford and was disappointed.  I thought she went over the top both as the belle of the ball and as a tragic heroine.  She acts about 5-years-old in her scenes with Daddy.  Pickford produced the picture and possibly there was no one to restrain her.   Other than that, the production is quite adequate and watchable.

Mary Pickford won the Academy Award for Best Leading Actress.

Clip  – I thought the father looked so much like Anton Walbrook it was eerie

Desert Nights
Directed by William Nigh
Written by John T. Neville et al
1929/US
Metro Goldwyn Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Hugh Rand: [Overcome by Diana’s beauty] Three years away from the world – – a man almost forgets there are women like you…

Fun, short romance/adventure with John Gilbert and Mary Nolan.

Hugh Rand (Gilbert) is the manager of a diamond mine somewhern in southern Africa.  The mine is preparing for the arrival of Lord Stonehill (Ernest Torrence) and his daughter Lady Diana (Nolan).  They ask Rand to guide them on a lion hunt.  When he sees how beautiful the daughter is he agrees.  So begins a somewhat stormy romance.

Hugh offers to show Mary some rough diamonds and suddenly some thugs with guns arrive to assist Mary and her “father” (also known as Steve) in pocketing the entire tray worth millions of dollars. They then kidnap Hugh to force him to  guide them to safety on a trek through the Kalahari desert.  But water runs out.  Hugh is determined to recover the diamonds.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gilbert in anything but very serious roles.  Here he has a dashing cockiness reminiscent of Errol Flynn. Nolan is gorgeous and is very good as a sly conwoman and love interest.  Available free on YouTube.

John Gilbert tribute – what a gorgeous man!

The Letter
Directed by Jean de Limur
Written by Monta Bell and Jean de Limur from a stage play by W. Somerset Maugham
1929/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Howard Joyce: Damn clever, these Chinese.

The original adaptation of the Somerset Maugham story has many pleasures and makes an interesting contrast to the 1940 version with Bette Davis. Jeanne Eagels is a revelation.

If you have seen The Letter (1940), you already know the plot.  Leslie Crosbie (Eagels) is the wife of a rubber plantation manager (Reginald Owen) living in Malaysia.  She is bored with this existence.  She is also vain, selfish and vidictive.  She has been having a long term affair with Geoffrey Hammond (Herbert Marshall).   One night when her husband is out of town she writes a letter begging Geoffrey to come to her.  He is now living with a Chinese “half-caste” woman and wants to break it off with her.  So she shoots him.  This happens in maybe the first five minutes of the film.

Leslie is put on trial for her life.  She claims Geoffrey made advances on her and forced her to defend herself.  Things seem to be going in her favor.  Then the letter she wrote on the night of the murder surfaces, complicating Leslie’s life enormously.

Eagel’s take on her character is far less sympathetic than Davis’s.  Nevertheless, they are two great performances by accomplished actresses.  This movie is only 65 minutes long – it was lost for years – but manages to convey the whole story.  It leaves out a lot of the nuance contained in the later film.

Eagels, who had sad and eventful life, was nominated for the first posthumous Academy Award.  She died of a drug overdose shortly after the film was released.  The Letter was the American film debut of both Marshall and Owen.  Herbert Marshall, who plays the lover here, played the husband in the 1940 version.

Painted Faces
Directed by Albert S. Rogell
Written by Fanny and Frederic Hatton; story by Frances Hyland
1929/US
Tiffany-Stahl Productions
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Now there’s some sad things known to man
But ain’t too much sadder than
The tears of a clown
When there’s no one around – Hank Crosby, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder

Joe E. Brown gives a nuanced performance in this pre-Code courtroom drama.

Hermann (Brown) performs as the  clown Beppo in a vaudeville show.  One fateful night, a performer named Roderick arrives.  He has been making unwanted advances to a young fellow performer.  Her boyfriend is insanely jealous.  When Roderick is murdered, the young man is found with a gun in his hand.

Herrmann ends up on the jury for the young man’s trial on capital murder.  (We will overlook how improper this would be as he knew all the principals personally).  We move to the jury room where eleven members want to go home and will vote guilty on the first and all subsequent ballots.  Herrmann is the sole holdout.  He won’t explain himself but keeps repeating that the evidence is circumstantial and he just knows the boy did not do it.  Far be it from me to spoil a mystery.

I had never seen a picture with Joe E. Brown from back in his heyday and was curious so decided to try this out.  I was impressed.  Brown gives a nuanced performance in which he moves from pathos to comedy with ease. He even maintains a creditable (German?) accent throughout.   I enjoyed the film.

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles – 1970 performance

The Mysterious Island
Directed by Lucien Hubbard
Written by Lucien Hubbard from the novel by Jules Verne
1929/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Count Andre Dakkar: Who am I? I’m a scientist – who asks nothing, but to be left alone. Here on my island we don’t think of kings or rank or power. Here the humblest workman in my shops, the peasant who tills my field, is my equal. We work with but one end: to study, to learn, to be free! To seek happiness, each in his own way.

This early silent-talkie science fiction film suffers from many limitations but is a bit of fun nonetheless.

The setting is the mainland realm of Hetvia, ruled by the evil Baron Falon (Montagu Love), and the adjacent Mysterious Island which is benevolently governed by Count Dakkar (Lionel Barrymore). The people appear to be Eastern European or Russian. Dakkar is not only an egalitarian leader but a brilliant scientist who has invented a submarine that can explore the deepest depths of the sea. He has a theory that the place in occupied by a humanoid race that can breathe underwater.

Dakkar’s daughter Sonia is in love with his assistant Nikolai. Falon vehemently objects saying a Count’s daughter should not mix with a mere employee. Secretly, he covets Sonia for himself.

Nikolai volunteers to take the submarine on a test run. Later Dakkar joins them. With Dakkar gone Falon invades the island and kidnaps Sonia. He then takes a second sub down. The confrontation between the two rulers is interrupted with attacks by a crocodolian-like monster, a giant squid, and thousands of humanoids.

Despite the big budget and glamor studio backing, this is mighty similar to a good/bad 50’s B-film.  The miniature work is laughable as are the monsters and humanoids.  But it’s good fun for a lazy afternoon nonetheless.