Category: 1920s

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Kings of the Turf (1941)/Saved from the Flames: 54 Rare and Restored Films (1896-1944)

The life of a cart horse from birth to adulthood is detailed with questionable humor in Kings of the Turf. I’m sure there is someone out there that finds such things amusing, but for me, it’s quite a bore and very forgettable. It’s too fictionalized of an account to feel informative and not appealing enough to bother otherwise.   Sports

As the title suggests, Saved from the Flames is a collection of rare films that were made during the days of nitrate films. Comments on the films are available after the cut.

Oscar Nomination: Best Short Subject, One-reel (Kings of the Turf)

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The Unholy Three (1925)

This film has the exact same plot and two of the same actors as the 1930 film with the same title. The main difference is this is a completely silent film. In most ways, the talkie version is superior. A main plot point revolves around a ventriloquist and talking parrots which is a bit strange for a silent film. It is cute that they solve that issue here using speech bubbles. The patsy in this film is also less appealing, making it questionable why the love interest would want to switch alliances from her gang. The one preference I have in this version is the chimpanzee. The remake cheapens out by just using a man in a costume versus the real thing and it comes across as ridiculously silly.

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Buster Keaton: The Short Film Collection (1920-1923)

I didn’t want to fill the blog with individual reviews for each of the nineteen films from this collection, but I also didn’t want to completely ignore them either, especially as a way for me to remember each one I’ve watched. There’s another earlier collection that I also intend to watch, though they mostly contain works starring Fatty Arbuckle who has thus far not impressed me. To see the reviews of this set, click the title link.

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Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)

After a young girl suffers a horrible attack on the night of her confirmation, she is then abandoned by those who should be looking out for her. Despite the damage she suffers, she somehow refuses to lose her kind nature or soul in the process. Louise Brooks somehow brings such innocence and heart to her role as the lead character. A little more love and no-one would be lost in this world indeed.

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The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

I didn’t think I’d enjoy an over two hour, silent version of a title I’d seen only a month ago, but I surprisingly really liked this version and found the time passed quickly. A brown-faced, dressed like an over-enthusiastic yoga instructor Douglas Fairbanks leads this film and even at the age of 40, his athleticism is impressive. While I often find the emoting in silent films to be over excessive, there’s something about Fairbanks’s smile and posturing that, while bordering on hammy, seems much more natural to his personality. The set design and costuming is lavish and it ranks high in the list of black and white films I sincerely wish I could see in color. While there are some off-putting racial caractures, the cast seems rather diverse for the time period, including Anna May Wong, Sôjin Kamiyama, Noble Johnson, and Matilde Comont playing one of the male suitors.

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The Last Laugh (1924)

I generally hate the soundtracks that accompany silent films, but I also don’t like watching them with no noise whatsoever. It’s quite the conundrum. F.W. Murnau is a master at directing silents though, so the soundtrack on this one generally faded into the background. I’ve wanted to watch more Emil Jannings after seeing The Last Command and he’s just as good here depicting the emotional desperation that a simple but proud doorman feels after being discharged from his prestigious post. So much is done with essentially no words. I do wish that the ending, taped on as it was, could have also featured the reactions of his family and neighbors who had earlier rejected him.

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The Jazz Singer (1927)

Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer isn’t a great movie, but Neil does give it his all and the soundtrack is great. This version of The Jazz Singer has neither of those bonuses. Ostensibly considered the first sound picture, it doesn’t even have much actual synchronized sound other than a couple of songs and lines of dialogue. What it does have is black face, over emoting, and Al Jolson’s ‘singing’. I find the general story appealing, the internal conflict between following tradition or following your heart. I’ll just have to search for a better version.

Oscar Nomination: Best Writing, Adaptation

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He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Clowns are creepy. A scientist who faces the ultimate betrayal from his wife and his patron, then chooses to become a clown so he can reenact that betrayal night after night is incredibly sad. Lon Chaney plays the role of this man, who as a clown is known only as HE, to perfection. The humiliation is willingly subjects himself to is heartbreaking. If all that isn’t enough, there’s some wonderful visual transitions in the film that are worth the watch on their own.

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Nanook of the North (1922)

As a pioneering documentary film, Nanook is an incredible anthropological record of the Inuit people, who were already more modernized than shown in this somewhat staged film. While there are bits of questionable othering and dumbing down of the subjects, making the film as a definite product of its time, it painstakingly shows various mechanisms as to how native cultures survived so long in the frozen far North.

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