Motion Picture News (Nov - Dec 1926)

Motion Picture N e w s f^£^?^ ions 01? CurreptProductior?s ^^<g^. "Midnight Follies" Educational-Mermaid — Two Reels) (Reviewed by Paul Thompson) HERE is slapstick par excellence and in the fullest measure. I would be willing to wager that any bill including this particular issue of the Mermaid comedy series will be voted .1 success, no matter what other things make up the program. With an amorous waiter and an old dodo craby about the feminine star of the midnight show in the cabaret and she not interested in either suitor, full opportunity is provided for fun, fun possibly not of the most exalted type but productive of laughs from the diaphragm rather than from the back of the laugher's head. Among the many incidents that stirred my so-called risibilities was the aforementioned waiter with the usual load of dishes passing constantly before a trapeze artist who is swinging back and forth across the dance floor. The manner in which he each time escapes by the narrowest kind of margin until finally he is caught by the aerial artist and sent in full flight to land at a supper party is hilarious. It is doing things on a wholesale scale; instead of one dish at a time there are the contents of a fairly wellequipped crockery store landed on the heads of the supper guests. All in all it is one of the best of the recent rough-house slapstick comedies of this genre released by Educational or any other company doing this sort of thing. It is a Jack White production directed _ by James Jones and photographed by William Nobles. The cast includes George Davis, Marcella Day, Robert Graves and Jack Lloyd. "In Vaudeville" (Pathe — Aesop's Fables — One Reel) PAUL TERRY transports his characters into a vaudeville house frequented by most of the inhabitants of the near-by jungle. Various animal acts are staged meeting with the emphatic approval or disapproval of the audience. They act like a lot of Romans in a coliseum and express their dislikes by turning their thumbs down. The asbestos curtain serves for a gladiator's sword in ending the act. The climax comes when the hippo, emulating a chorus girl, swinging out over the audience, motive power provided by a mule's kick, swings too far and crashes through to bring down (physically— not appreciatively) the entire house. That ends the performance. Romance plays its part in the animated cartoon because the inevitable stage-door Johnny who occupies a box finds his floral offerings to the fair tight-rope walker unacceptable. She tosses or kicks the bouquet back into the box from which he has been leering at her through his opera glasses. What the moral is I have forgotten, but, as with all in the scries, you do not need to knowit to enjoy the Fable.— PAUL THOMPSON. "I lu..k and Holidays" (Pathe-Sportlight— One Reel) ALMOST anyone might guess that this re lease has to do with angling, and it does. Grantland Rice and the photographer go fishing in many waters with the climax at II catching the tarpon, the king of fish. I. they arrive there they fish for many members of the piscatorial family in various sections with resultant good luck in landing their sought-for good camera shots to illustrate the subtitles. In one of the trout fishing , I have a vague idea that I detected the author himself making the casts a the catch. There is only one criticism I have to offer and that is that this series makes the man in the front of the house anxious to Ret up, put on his coat and hie him to the nearest store where fishing tackle is retailed and start on the long, long trail. It is insidious propaganda and should be suppressed. Otherwise I commend the latest Sportlight issue — PAUL THOMPSON "The Fighting Strain" (Universal-Mustang — Two Reejs) (Reviewed by Paul Thompson) IT is needless to state that the dastardly foreman, "Red Carson" (Jack Dawn), gets his, but the how and why of it is the business of Martha Budrow, author of the story, George Morgan, responsible for the continuity, and the director, Lew Collins. Curley Witzel, the star, does his bit to bring about the sort of ending that sends the patrons away contented. It proves that in Westerns, if not in real life, virtue — if backed by a good right alternating with a left for defense purposes — shall prevail. The picture shows the fallacy of judging a man by his clerical garb, for Curley turns up on the scene looking like the most inoffensive and mild theological student ever graduated with the ministry as an objective. But can he fight? Ask his uncle, Eddie Harris, the latter's old pal but present enemy, Bill Dyer, the latter's pulchritudinous daughter, Alma Rayford — and, most important, villain Jack Dawn and his pals. Curley arrives in the midst of a feud between his uncle and the latter's neighbor. He discards the clerical garb and the horn-rimmed spectacles and acts as a deputy sheriff with great success, his identity being undiscovered. Then at the finale when things look dark for Uncle Jake and a forced marriage by Alma to the villain, who puts in an appearance to change completely the complexion of the situation but Curley in person? Good comedy-drama with a novel twist leaving you shouting "Hurrah for our side." The Cast : Eddie Harris, Bill Dyer, JackDawn, Alma Rayford, Curley Witzel. Director, Lew Collins. "Barely Reasonable" (Universal-Mustang — Two Reels) (Reviewed by Paul Thompson) YOU never can tell. The fact that the unnamed hero (and he plays the principal role in this Western, yet is not mentioned in the program by name) arrives driving a smart roadster an dwearing so-called dude clothes should not have influenced Ben Corbett and Peewee Holmes to think he was a soft mark. But that is what they did think. They paid for their error because he not only outboxed Peewee, who had bullied him when they were kids together, but he made them look foolish when they tried to make him a laughing stock. There was a bad man roaming the district and they decided that Corbett should impersonate the same. He did. But unfortunately their plans went wrong. Corbett was put out of business and, while the bad man was captured ultimately by the unsophisticated youth from the Eastern college, who thus ran away with all the honors in the story, the villain had previously made them all look foolish by escaping his first arrest. Among those also present in this W. C. Tuttle comedy are Robert McKenzie, Dorothy Kitchen and the unnamed hero mentioned before. Vin Moore directed. October 21st release date. "Be Your Age" (Pathe-Hal Roach— Two Reels) (Reviewed by Paul Thompson) NOT much enthusiasm is aroused in this reviewer ovei this comedy The theme has possibilities which have not been realized ; the idea of a young man marrying a woman much older than himself for the sake of her money. Charles Chase is a good comedian given the right material ; here he is lost with nothing to do. Even his attempts to be coy in his flirtations with the wealthy aged heiress fall flat and are not funny. It all comes about because he borrows from his lawyer-employer ten thousand dollars to help his family out of a hole and the lawyer, who has proposed and been refused, sees in the marriage of his clerk a way to get hold of the widow's money. In the end she wisely (not only for a moving picture but for real life) decides that such a marriage is absurd and bound to be a failure. She calls it off and marries the lawyer instead. Even this union I would predict disaster for, but at least it frees Charley, so he can marry the ingenue and stand a chance of marital bliss. Forced, unfunny situations with no characterization whatsoever. The cast — Charles Chase, Gladys Hulette, Lillian Leighton, Oliver Hardy and Frank Brownlee. Leo McCarey directed under F. Richard Jones' supervision. "A Second Hand Excuse" Universal-Stern Rros. — Two Reels) (Reviewed by Paul Thompson) CHARLES KING featured and Francis Corby directing, tell part of the story. The other part really requires the use of the title because it is a not particularly amusing or entertaining or original farce. While the automobile used is not mentioned in the cast, it should be because it really carries the burden of the piece. I wonder what Hollywood would have done had Henry Ford never been born? Certainly one of their greatest props would have been missed. The most amusing thing in the piece is where King loses his mud-spattered trousers because he has sent them to a cleaner by a passing boy. He undresses in his car and is perfectly justified in this expedient, being on his way to call on his girl. The only trouble was that the traffic cop made him move the car away from the hydrant and cranking up in his B.V.D. condition affords much entertainment to passing Hollywood pedestrians and should to movie-goers. From then on, after he has kidnapped another man and appropriated his trousers, it is a question of working overtime to get laughs out of a poor defenceless Ford carrying a family of five and a more than weightfor-age added starter in the person of a neighboring fat girl. That is about all. The higher criticism cannot enter here. "Buster's Prize Winner" (Universal-Stern Bros. — Two Reels) (Reviewed by Paul Thompson) THE Buster Brown of our childhood and his inevitable dog, Tige, and the little girl next door. What memories of R. F. Outcault they conjure up. This time Tige is entered in a dog show and wins first honors as so intelligent a canine should by all the rules of the game, movie or other. He wins it under false colors, however, because he enters the cage of a dog whose owner has fixed the judge. Then starts the pursuit race as the crook carries off Tige. Buster and Mary Jane defy all laws of mechanics and make as good speed on their scooters as the thief does in a highpowered car, but justice is with the righteous again. Tige has been attacking the crook who leaps from his car to escape destruction. Then the reunion of the three pals. Arthur Trimble and Doreen Turner are the two kids who perform under the directorial eye of Gus Meins. As is true of most of the Buster Brown series, this is good for youth and age and will amuse, as they all invariably do.