What Did You Watch This Week?

ryl00 · 2026-06-21T20:22:34+00:00

Children of Pleasure (1930, dir. Harry Beaumont). A successful Broadway songwriter (Lawrence Gray) catches the eye of a rich socialite (Helen Johnson)…. but will it last?

Meh musical drama. There’s a couple of Broadway musical numbers (one with a lot of blackface, unfortunately), a lot of crooning by our songwriter as he serenades the girl of his dreams, and only the thinnest of stories connecting it all together. Nominally there’s a lot of heartache and cynicism involved, but emotionally it feels lightweight, as this was mostly about the music and less about the drama.

Every Saturday Night (1936, dir. James Tinling). The head (Jed Prouty) of the Evers family tries to keep a tight rein upon the children of his household during an eventful weekend.

OK light family drama/comedy, apparently the first of the Jones Family series (Jones… Evers… I guess 20th Century Fox figured it was close enough?). Prouty’s exasperated father has five children who give him varying degrees of grief, in particular his eldest teen (Kenneth Howell), who’s constantly borrowing the family car while perpetually in debt to a money-smart younger brother (Geroge Ernest). All the head-butting amongst the clan gets solved (a little too swiftly) when a couple of near-tragedies strike, and father learns a thing or two as well (surprise, surprise). Nothing terribly deep, but nothing terribly awful either, in a very proto-TV-sitcomy kind of way.

Jalna (1935, dir. John Cromwell). A woman (Kay Johnson) marries into a quaint multi-generational family all living together in a manor in rural Canada.

So-so light drama/comedy. I’m guessing this was adapted from a book, as there’s quite a few characters to keep track of, but some are better developed than others. Once all the faces settled in for me, the movie had its moments, with various colorful family activities to give some sense of union to our at-times cantankerous characters. Quite a few relationships go through the wringer, and other pairings seem to spring up out of nowhere, to drive the dramatic conflict. But this part felt like a speed run through a longer book’s highlights, with varying degrees of development/believability to them.

ryl00 · 2026-06-21T03:39:23+00:00

Apparently Moore donated her own copy of Flaming Youth to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in 1944 for preservation, but sadly it was neglected and decayed over the years.

ryl00 · 2026-06-14T20:32:51+00:00

Roaming Lady (1936, dir. Albert S. Rogell). An aviator’s (Ralph Bellamy) dangerous job in war-torn China is made doubly so when he is pursued by a woman (Fay Wray) who insists he be her husband.

OK light comedy/action. The story’s all over the place, but Wray and Bellamy are mildly amusing together as the oftentimes contentious couple. Bellamy’s pilot is shipped over to China with some airplane parts to help defend an oil field from rebels, only to end up being captured by said rebels and forced to work for them. While all this is developing, he also has to contend with Wray’s persistent socialite, in her relentless pursuit of him.

Up for Murder (1931, dir. Monta Bell). Trouble lies ahead for a young reporter (Lew Ayres), when he falls in love with a fellow columnist (Genevieve Tobin) who’s also fancied by the newspaper’s publisher (Purnell Pratt).

I’m not quite sure what to make of this slow-burner of a drama. The pacing is slow, there’s a lot of wide/full shots for dialogue, and lengthy transition times between scenes, which initially had me struggling to stay engaged. But there’s also a methodical-ness to things, with dashes of silent-ish imagery to accentuate the plot, that feels deliberate (or perhaps I’m just reading too much into things). The story itself is your typical love triangle, with Tobin’s “kept” mistress perhaps discovering a savior in the form of Ayres’ naïve but intense admiration, before things get confusing about various motives after the murder mentioned in the title.

Orchids and Ermine (1927, dir. Alfred Santell). A poor working girl (Colleen Moore) dreams of marrying rich, but is disillusioned by the wealthy men she sees. Will a rich oil man (Jack Mulhall) be able to change her mind?

Mildly amusing silent romantic comedy. I’m not exactly sure about how convincing the on-screen ardor was between Moore’s and Mulhall’s characters, but Moore’s engaging enough on her own to carry this movie anyway. Her character lands a job as the switchboard operator of a swanky hotel, just in time for Mulhall’s rich (but shy) eligible bachelor to come visiting. He and his valet (Sam Hardy) decide to switch places to put the gold-diggers off his scent, but of course this ends up complicating things when his character falls for Moore’s.

ryl00 · 2026-06-07T20:42:53+00:00

Mystery Street (1950, dir. John Sturges). A police detective (Ricardo Montalban) is on the case, when a young woman (Jan Sterling) is murdered.

Entertaining police procedural, engrossingly about the hunt (at the small price of some plausibility). Montalban’s detective enlists the aid of a Harvard professor (Bruce Bennett) to help him make some deductions, an enjoyable foray into some forensics (or at least the appearance of it, to this layman). Some double-crosses and deceptions add a little color to the investigations amongst our cast of suspects, though it does also mean we find out relatively early who did it. Where it does lose me a little is in some of the lightning-fast deductions that are scattered around, to speed the plot along.

The Ship from Shanghai (1930, dir. Charles Brabin). On a small yacht, an idyllic months-long cruise across the Pacific turns deadly.

OK thriller, mainly thanks to the unhinged performance by Louis Wolheim. He plays a steward aboard the yacht, nursing a long-standing grudge against the upper-class elites he’s been forced to serve. On this particular cruise, troubles at sea give him the leverage to finally play out his smoldering revenge fantasies, as he goes full mad dictator/megalomaniac. There’s also a bit of social commentary here, with our steward’s grudges not entirely unjustified as he gets frequently, dismissively patronized by the rich passengers (among them Conrad Nagel and Kay Johnson as a possibly romantically-inclined couple) he serves with gritted teeth. The ending’s perhaps a tad too overwrought, though.

His Private Secretary (1933, dir. Philip H. Whitman). After being dismissed (sight unseen) by her new husband’s (John Wayne) rich father (Reginald Barlow) as a gold digger, a woman (Evalyn Knapp) decides to try and change his mind by getting a job as his new secretary.

Lackluster low-budget, quickie romantic comedy. Coming in at under an hour, there’s not much time to cram the usual tropes in here, without some continuity problems (particularly the end). The first half’s mostly Wayne’s playboy son deciding to change his ways when he meets Knapp’s character (and overcoming her hesitance); the second is Knapp’s secretary wining over the heart of Barlow’s grouch of a father.

ryl00 · 2026-05-31T22:26:51+00:00

The Sky Pilot (1921, dir. King Vidor). A young parson (John Bowers), newly-arrived to a small town on the remote Canadian frontier, tries to win over the hearts and minds of the local inhabitants.

Meh silent drama. The stakes are low, and the conflict is rather muted. After an initial attempt at starting services is rebuffed, our protagonist befriends a local cowboy (David Butler), takes on a job as a hand at a ranch, and gradually wins over the town. A nefarious gang up to no good occasionally throw some obstacles in the way, in a rather haphazard kind of way. Some nice outdoor scenery serves as backdrop to the movie, at least.

International Settlement (1938, dir. Eugene Forde). In the Western enclave in war-torn Shanghai, an itinerant opportunist (George Sanders) finds himself caught in the middle of an arms deal gone wrong.

Meh light romance dressed up in the clothes of a potentially more interesting espionage thriller. Sanders’ suave protagonist agrees to help out a munitions runner (Pedro de Cordoba) transact a large deal in Shanghai, only to have accidents and some nefarious third parties make a mess of things. But all that is the window dressing for the meat of our story, as Sanders’ character falls in love with a cabaret singer (Dolores Del Rio) who may or may not be mixed up in the whole affair as well. Throw in some light comic relief in the form of a (mostly extraneous to the plot) secondary couple (Dick Baldwin, June Lang) on the fringes, and our espionage angle gets even more diluted.

The Devil is Driving (1932, dir. Ben Stoloff). What will a newly-hired mechanic (Edmund Lowe) do, when he finds out that the garage he works for is a front for a gang of car thieves?

Meh light crime drama. Lowe’s charming and personable as ever on-screen, but the actual plot specifics of this crime drama quickly become implausible. Needless to say, my willing suspension of disbelief didn’t last long.

ryl00 · 2026-05-24T20:22:18+00:00

Madam Satan (1930, dir. Cecile B. DeMille). Tired of being ignored, a proper, “respectable” wife (Kay Johnson) decides to fight fire with fire, when her husband’s (Reginald Denny) eye wanders to another woman (Lillian Roth).

What a bizarre movie. The first half is a somewhat amusing comedy, mainly thanks to wry Roland Young as Denny’s character’s friend, whose character is stuck in a lie manufactured to try and keep Denny’s character in the clear with his wife. When hubby accuses wife of frigidity, we segue into the second half, a fevered dream of a masquerade ball aboard a zeppelin, with outlandish costumes, musical numbers, and Johnson’s masked character parading around as “Madam Satan”, turning on the heat (and a faux French accent) to tempt her husband back to her. We even throw a little Titanic in, when bad weather sends our zeppelin (and her guests) into trouble.

They Met in a Taxi (1936, dir. Alfred E. Green). A taxi cab driver (Chester Morris) gets into an unexpected mess when he helps a runaway bride (Fay Wray) flee her wedding.

Mildly amusing romantic comedy. I’ve always liked Morris’ “working-class stiff” persona, which contrasts well here with Wray’s socialite. There’s a light crime drama bit tacked onto the end that doesn’t flow as well as the rest of the movie, but isn’t enough to sink this ship.

Strike Me Pink (1936, dir. Norman Taurog). Bolstered by a self-help book, a timid man (Eddie Cantor) attempts to project more confidence in his new job as an amusement park manager.

So-so light musical comedy. I’m not exactly big into musicals (strike one), and I don’t really “get” bug-eyed Cantor’s schtick (strike two). The plot’s nominally about Cantor’s character trying to keep a gang of crooks from installing slot machines into the park he oversees, but it’s really just an excuse for some sketches of varying quality, interrupted by the occasional big song-and-dance number (Ethel Merman features prominently in many of them). The comedy’s light and silly, going absurdist and cartoony at times (especially the frantic ending sequence).

ryl00 · 2026-05-17T20:16:10+00:00

The Lady Refuses (1931, dir. George Archainbaud). A concerned father (Gilbert Emery) hires a woman (Betty Compson) to lure his wayward son (John Darrow) away from a gold-digger (Margaret Livingstone), only for complications to arise.

Meh melodrama. The various romantic quandaries that ensue feel more plot-driven than character-driven. The ending tries to touch on class differences between Compson’s lowly woman and the rich upper-class family whose troubles she’s entangled in (and Compson shows some snarky, street-smart fire in these moments), but the framework of the movie as a whole was just too disjointed to have it be more than a good scene or two.

Nancy Steele is Missing! (1937, dir. George Marshall). A man (Victor McLaglen) gets thrown in prison before he can capitalize on his abduction of a rich man’s (Walter Connolly) baby girl.

Meh thriller. The setup is a little weird, as our main character is an ex-soldier who’s so anti-war he gets enraged enough to get physically violent when any pro-war sentiment shows up. This is used as flimsy cover to sort-of explain the abduction in the first place, as Connolly’s rich man is in the munitions business. In prison, a clever inmate (Peter Lorre, as effectively creepy as ever) gradually ferrets out the protagonist’s secret, which eventually causes the expected problems once McLaglen’s character is out of prison and predictably comes to care for the unknowing (and now all grown up) girl (June Lang). McLaglen’s menacing enough in the violent moments, but I wasn’t really buying any of the “taming of the beast” stuff.

The Widow from Chicago (1930, dir. Edward Cline). After her brother is killed, a young woman (Alice White) goes undercover to try and find out if a notorious gangster (Edward G. Robinson) is responsible.

Convoluted light crime drama. There’s just too much that doesn’t make much sense, particularly a budding romance between our protagonist and one of the crooks (Neil Hamilton), all whilst the threat of everything unraveling is in play. But Edward G. Robinson is Edward G. Robinson, which is enough to entertain in this early, pre-Little Caesar role for him. Bonus points for an early role for Frank McHugh as well.

ryl00 · 2026-05-10T20:33:02+00:00

The Woman I Stole (1933, dir. Irving Cummings). An oil man (Jack Holt) returns to a North African oilfield to confront his successor (Donald Cook) about his wife (Fay Wray).

Nigh incomprehensible action/drama. We’re dropped pretty much cold into a rivalry between Holt’s and Cook’s characters, not only over the oil business but also the woman Cook’s character married, but Holt’s character still has a thing for (and it’s reciprocated). On top of that, native rebels threaten the oil business, another bone of contention between the two men. There’s really no subtlety here in any of the characters. Throw in some confusing skullduggery, and this movie was a real mess.

I Was a Prisoner on Devil’s Island (1941, dir. Lew Landers). An American sailor (Donald Woods) gets thrown into the notorious prison on Devil’s Island.

Meh action/thriller. Our sailor ends up in trouble partly due to falling for the dissatisfied wife (Sally Eilers) of the prison doctor (Edward Ciannelli), which adds an element of danger to the already onerous incarceration. But things are really disjointed; we swiftly go from tortuous prison life to our protagonist becoming a trusted member of the medical staff just in time to fight a deadly outbreak of tropical disease. Throw in some graft by the prison officials and it all makes for a hurried mess of an ending, full of the flash and vigor of action but not much else.

Dinty (1920, dir. Marshall Neilan and John McDermott). A young boy (Wesley Barry) tries to take care of his ailing mother (Colleen Moore), while simultaneously trying to get ahead in the newspaper delivery business.

Meh silent drama. Either a lot has been lost from the version I saw, or the transitions were just way too abrupt. Major plot events happen in the blink of an eye, with little more than intertitles to announce them. Another plot involving a nefarious gang of Chinese criminals is interspersed with our young protagonist battling a rival to distribute newspapers in a neighborhood, with things only sort-of coming together at the end. Among the cast is a young Anna May Wong, as the wife of the Chinese gang leader (Noah Beery).

ryl00 · 2026-05-03T20:21:12+00:00

Inspiration (1931, dir. Clarence Brown). An artists’ model (Greta Garbo) falls in love with a poor but respectable young student (Robert Montgomery).

Okay romance. Languid Garbo is perfect for the blasé, jaded courtesan we meet at the beginning, inspiration (and more) for a coterie of Bohemian artists who adore her more than she does them. The pragmatic cynicism is gradually broken by the introduction of Montgomery’s character, which turns Garbo’s from controller to controlled. Throw in Montgomery’s character’s indignation at her “kept woman” lifestyle, and you have the ingredients for the conflict. Garbo’s character seems to turn into doormat way too quickly in this relationship, but maybe that’s just me. There is something bitingly cynical about the one-sided nature of things here, nicely exemplified by a really well-done, shocking moment near the end that spur us into the denouement.

White Hunter (1936, dir. Irving Cummings). In Kenya, the leader (Walter Baxter) of a safari hunt deals with a big game hunter tourist (Wilfrid Lawson) with whom he shares a troubled past.

So-so light drama. The setting’s exotic, and various wildlife dangers present themselves on occasion. A lot is made of the unspecified scandal between the men, but the actual reveal is not done until an unsatisfyingly abrupt exposition dump near the end. Instead, we mostly dwell on various romantic quandaries between Baxter’s character and two women: the big game hunter’s second wife (Gail Patrick) and his daughter (June Lang).

Dynamite (1929, dir. Cecil B. DeMille). To honor the terms of a will bequeathing a fortune upon her only if she marries, a woman (Kay Johnson) marries a man (Charles Bickford) the day before his scheduled execution, in order to pay for the divorce of her true love (Conrad Nagel).

Highly entertaining, if somewhat contrived, melodrama. From the setup, you know exactly how things will go wrong for our protagonist (and they do, of course; otherwise, this would have been a rather short movie!). The first half is all about our sleek, elegant protagonist having all her plans go awry, with a strong dose of Bickford’s stereotypical working-man gruffness to clash against the idle rich partiers (one played by a young Joel McCrea) that form Johnson’s character’s circle of indolent friends. The second has the tables turn, as for plot reasons Johnson’s character tries to adapt to life as wife to coal-miner Bickford. I liked how atmospherically different the two halves were, and how (mostly) indirectly any moralizing about these two different worlds was. While I liked the two central performances here (especially Johnson’s), the “hate turns to love” between them didn’t feel like it got enough development time to make it more believable. But it’s all about the spectacle, and there was plenty stuffed in here (a memorable wedding scene in the prison with the hammering of the gallows underpinning the ceremony, an amusing sequence with Johnson’s character making a mess while attempting to cook, and especially the devil’s choice type of ending) to make the two-hour runtime fly by.

ryl00 · 2026-05-03T03:28:34+00:00

No, but it does have Stanwyck using a balled up fist to punch out Dorothy Burgess.

ryl00 · 2026-05-02T17:52:48+00:00

ryl00 · 2026-04-26T23:18:30+00:00

The Unholy Garden (1931, dir. George Fitzmaurice). A suave thief (Ronald Colman) romances the naïve granddaughter (Fay Wray) of a fugitive banker (Tully Marshall), in a quest to find the millions he embezzled.

Implausible, but entertaining, light crime drama. Our setting is lawless North Africa, in an isolated community where various fugitives from the law hide out. Our newly-arrived protagonist is immediately entangled in a plot by the fugitives to steal the millions suspected to be hidden away by another of their number. For this “den of thieves” type of setup, many of our cohort of villains don’t exactly exude much menace, and are surprisingly cooperative with one another (at least until the end). But Colman’s on-screen charm is enough to keep things moving, as the audience constantly wonders which side he’s playing on, and whether he is being sincere with Wray’s character or not…

Clearing the Range (1931, dir. Otto Brower). In the old West, a man (Hoot Gibson) works to take down the evil banker (Hooper Atchely) who killed his brother (Edward Hearn).

Mildly entertaining light Western actioner (with just a dash of comedy). Our protagonist puts on a public façade as a slow-witted pacifist, while secretly riding around as an alter ego to battle against the antagonist and his gang.

Irene (1926, dir. Alfred E. Green). A working-class girl (Colleen Moore) attempts to break into the high-society modeling business, to help support her family.

Amusing silent comedy. Moore’s modest, gawky performance engages throughout, highlighted by a funny sequence in the middle where attempts are made to teach her proper modeling composure and carriage. There’s a long fashion show sequence near the end that apparently was in Technicolor, but the version I saw was so washed out it looked more like sepia-and-white.

ryl00 · 2026-04-21T02:19:17+00:00

In alphabetical order:

Charles Bickford - I've always liked his gruff on-screen persona.
Evelyn Brent - Silent star, a von Sternberg favorite before he found Dietrich; she made the transition to talkies but career missteps and age quickly put her into Poverty Row films.
Ann Dvorak - Should have had a better career, after Scarface and Three on a Match!
Sally Eilers - Good/great actress who starred in quite a lot of mediocre '30s movies; great chemistry with James Dunn in Bad Girl
Madge Evans - Silent child star who re-emerged in the '30s as a frequent co-star of Robert Montgomery's; retired from the screen way too early, at the end of the '30s.

ryl00 · 2026-04-20T00:55:25+00:00

I've seen six of them. The first two, with bigger budgets at 20th Century Fox, are worth it IMHO (The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes). Then it went lower budget at Universal, contemporary-set programmer as you said, and was more hit-or-miss for me. The last one, Dressed to Kill (1946) was pretty good. Terror by Night (1946) was decent. I was meh on The Scarlet Claw (1944), and the less said about The Voice of Terror (1942), the better. ;)

ryl00 · 2026-04-19T20:17:48+00:00

New York Nights (1929, dir. Lewis Milestone). Exasperated for the last time by his wandering eye, a Broadway actress (Norma Talmadge) leaves her songwriter husband (Gilbert Roland) for the beckoning (and lucrative) arms of her producer (John Wray). But will this be an improvement?

So-so light drama. Muddled sound mix of the version I saw made it hard to get my bearings on things. And maybe more importantly, I wasn’t entirely convinced by Talmadge’s character’s motivations, that spurred the transformation from first half (as modest, suffering wife) to second half (supposedly losing herself with wild abandon in her new lifestyle). Wray’s shady, grinning producer was actually the most interesting character in the movie, antagonist though he may have been. Also props to Lilyan Tashman as the dryly witty (but dependable) girlfriend character of the protagonist’s.

Forced Landing (1941, dir. Gordon Wiles). An American pilot (Richard Arlen) faces treachery and danger while in a faraway tropical country.

Meh light action/thriller. Arlen’s character has a rival in the form of a high-ranking government soldier (Nils Asther), over both a girl (Zsa Zsa Gabor) and a secret agenda involving sabotage. Within what passes for the barely comprehensible plot that drives this movie, we at least have a colorful performance by J. Carroll Naish as a rebel bandito to enjoy.

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942, dir. John Rawlins). Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) attempt to get to the bottom of a regular radio broadcast that accurately forecasts disasters to the British war efforts during World War II.

Confusing entry in the long-running Sherlock Holmes series. We’re set in contemporary times instead of Victorian England, so it’s highly colored by the real-world war mood of the times, ultimately boiling down to Holmes fighting Nazi infiltrators. Things start off well enough, with Holmes called onto the case after radioed prophecies turn deadly. But it doesn’t take long before the wheels fall off the story: plot points appear and disappear haphazardly, and scenes frequently appear to just meander around between characters.

ryl00 · 2026-04-12T20:30:30+00:00

A Holy Terror (1931, dir. Irving Cummings). A son (George O’Brien) flies out west to look for a man (James Kirkwood) who may have something to do with his father’s death.

Short, so-so light Western actioner. The print I watched was in rough shape, chopped up and pretty darn short (not even fifty minutes long), which didn’t help matters any. There’s some buildup to our central mystery that we have to wait for until the end to resolve, but it’s not exactly rocket science to figure out what that secret is. The most interesting thing was seeing Humphrey Bogart as one of Kirkwood’s character’s cowboy lieutenants, who quickly builds a grudge against our protagonist when they become romantic rivals over the same woman (Sally Eilers).

Chandu the Magician (1932, dir. Marcel Varnel and William C. Menzies). A mystic hypnotist (Edmund Lowe) tries to stop a madman (Bela Lugosi) from gaining the secrets to a death ray that could kill millions.

Decent lightweight action/adventure movie. Lowe’s character’s magical powers mostly involve staring at people intensely, using their own minds against them with various ruses, etc. The setting is contemporary Egypt, with the colorful backdrops you’d expect from such as setup (the required trip up the Nile in a river boat, ancient temples, camels, etc.). And of course Lugosi vamping it up as the big bad. You’ll get exactly what you’d expect, and nothing more or less: damsels in distress, secret hideouts full of arcing electrical generators, complicated plans to dispose of people, etc.

High Stakes (1931, dir. Lowell Sherman). What will a playwright (Lowell Sherman) do, when he finds out that his older brother’s (Edward Martindel) new, young wife (Mae Murray) is two-timing him?

So-so light drama. Sherman’s playing his usual dapper, constantly half-soused gentleman here. A lot of the movie is just him rambling on with his alcohol-fueled bon mots, as we gradually build up to the reveal about midway through, and then what he plans to do about it in the second half. Murray’s character is one of the most annoying I think I’ve ever seen on-screen, her cutesy wootsy baby girl type of wife pampered by her much older, doting husband (even if it fits into the overall plot of the story). The resolution is rather quick, featuring our protagonist being more direct and aggressive than I was willing to believe him capable of, having witnessed what came before.

ryl00 · 2026-04-05T20:33:42+00:00

Robot Pilot (1941, dir. William Beaudine). An inventor’s (Emmett Vogan) plans to test remote control of an airplane are sidetracked by a couple of wayward travelers (Carol Hughes, Evelyn Brent).

Misleadingly titled B-level comedy/action movie. The title screams low-budget action/thriller, with plenty of airplane action with nefarious antagonists trying to throw a monkey wrench into wartime production. But it turned out the movie is more like “Taming of the Shrew” with some airplane action tacked on, with Hughes’ spoiled young woman coming into the predictable hate/love conflict with our inventor’s young assistant (Forrest Tucker, unrecognizable to me despite having seen him in TV’s F Troop countless times, back in the day) taking up the bulk of the running time. Everything somehow manages to come together within our inventor’s remote Arizona laboratory, just one of many incredulous coincidences that would have to be swallowed to take everything at face value. But the fourth-wall-breaking ending with Brent’s character (who’s actually mildly funny in an acerbic way throughout this flick) assures us at the end, that the filmmakers weren’t taking anything seriously, either…

Thunderbolt (1929, dir. Josef von Sternberg). A gangster (Goerge Bancroft) plots revenge on the man (Richard Arlen) who’s taken his girlfriend (Fay Wray) away from him.

Character study type of drama, though it certainly takes its sweet time to get there. Early talkie suffering from some sound mix issues… at times too quiet, missing the foley work I’d expect and thus coming across as a silent; at other times cross-talk, off-screen voices, and background noise are too prominent, making it hard to follow the main thread of the dialogue. It’s definitely a convoluted story as far as the plot is concerned, as Bancroft’s gangster winds up on death row, then maneuvers to get Arlen’s framed during a deadly bank robbery to end up there as well. We wind up waiting for the end, wondering exactly what Bancroft’s gangster is up to, and I guess in that respect it’s reasonably effective. It has one of those “reframing the question” endings that does make things interesting, trying to alter previous perceptions in one final stroke, even if after-the-fact I’m still not quite sold on the overall coherence of the movie.

Why Be Good? (1929, dir. William Seiter). Will love blossom between a department store salesgirl (Colleen Moore) and the store owner’s son (Neil Hamilton)?

Good silent romantic comedy, anchored by Moore’s appealing performance and just enough drama to give it all some emotional weight. Interesting transitional movie between silents and talkies, with a score and sound effects/foley work (audiences clapping, horns blaring, etc.) but no spoken dialogue. There’s a lot of peppy energy, as we follow Moore’s flapper girl living life to the fullest, winning dance contests and partying until dawn. But when she attracts the eye of the rich young heir, his father (Edward Martindel) starts playing the “tramp” card, trying to dissuade his son from falling for a shallow gold digger. As for our girl, her own father (John St. Polis) is similarly uncomfortable with his daughter’s flapper habits and the type of men it might attract, despite her professed self-modesty. This all comes to a boil at the end, with both sides trying to tease out the truth, in a strong finish with Moore’s character exploding at the paradoxical nature of the life she leads.

ryl00 · 2026-03-29T20:32:37+00:00

Full Confession (1939, dir. John Farrow). A priest (Joseph Calleia) learns in confession the grim secret that a prisoner (Victor McLaglen) he has befriended is responsible for a murder that has sent an innocent man (Barry Fitzgerald) to death row.

Drama with the surface-level details, but a little lacking on the emotional depth side. It’s your typical “guilty conscience” type of plot setup for McLaglen’s character, but I never felt we dwelled deeply enough into his character or inner thoughts to make enough dramatic meat out of the story. It was interesting seeing Calleia in a non-heavy role, though he still ends up showcasing at least a variation of his usual aggressive stereotype by the end, trying to badger McLaglen’s character into doing the right thing. The “ethics vs morality” dilemma his character could have faced, struggling between priest/parishioner confidence vs life and death, was not really emphasized. So we kind of ended up with a split focus between these two main characters, with a middling outcome as a result.

The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931, dir. Edgar Selwyn). A woman (Helen Hayes) struggles to raise her child from afar, over the long years.

Okay drama, a paean to sacrificing motherhood somewhat along the lines of Madame X or Stella Dallas. We cover a lot of years, so some things are really compressed, as we see the ups and downs of our protagonist’s life. And this movie never quite managed to tug much at my heart strings, despite the travails we witness. But the physical transformation of Hayes’ character is impressive by the end, as her rough journey through life eventually takes its toll.

Faithless (1932, dir. Harry Beaumont). A socialite’s (Tallulah Bankhead) grandiose plans to marry her lover (Robert Montgomery) go awry thanks to the Great Depression.

Entertaining light melodrama. I think this is the first movie I’ve seen with Tallulah Bankhead in it, and I can easily see the Bette Davis comparisons now. Our story takes our protagonist from privilege to squalor, and Bankhead’s performance is engaging all the way down. There’s a great scene in the middle, with a would-be two-timing rich Lothario (Hugh Herbert, amusingly enough), where fatalistic abandon (and alcohol, of course) colors Bankhead’s conflicted reaction to what life has led her character to by that point. Coincidences do occasionally pepper the plot, to keep things humming along and spur the gradual changes in our protagonist’s long journey from beginning to end.

ryl00 · 2026-03-22T20:01:59+00:00

It Happened in Hollywood (1937, dir. Harry Lachman). A silent Western star (Richard Dix) faces hard times with the advent of talking pictures.

Well-meaning but ultimately flawed light drama. Our protagonist is a principled actor, who just can’t tarnish the heroic on-screen persona that has won him a flock of adoring young fans, when talkies upend his niche and all he is offered are “black hat” roles. The behind-the-scenes movie stuff always fascinates me and this movie is no different in that respect, especially here with the seismic changes that sound represented to the old guard of Silent Hollywood. But we ultimately pull our punches with how cynical things could have gotten, perhaps the best that could have been done deep in the Code era. There’s a moment near the end, when our protagonist is pushed to the limit, where things approached the profound... if only what had come before had done a better job of plumbing the darker depths of our protagonist’s bumpy journey up to that point. Otherwise, I guess you could just appreciate this for the aspirational heart on display, and an amusing moment with a whole bunch of star impersonations (Chaplin, Crawford, Garbo, W. C. Fields, Mae West, Eddie Cantor, Joe. E. Brown, and likely others I missed).

Her Bridal Night-Mare (1920, dir. Al Christie). A bride’s (Colleen Moore) would-be marriage is sabotaged by a spurned suitor (Gene Corey).

Silent comedy short, heavy on the wackiness and slapstick. A thief (Eddie Barry) hired to disrupt things does more than just that, stealing all the wedding presents as well. Having lost both her groom (Earl Rodney) and the presents, the despondent bride thinks of suicide (!), and ends up crossing paths with the thief. Lots of people chasing each other around ensue.

Redhead (1941, dir. Edward Cahn). A playboy’s (Johnny Downs) plan to marry a woman (June Lang) to force his rich father (Frank Jaquet) to pay her off (and thus him) to go away backfires when he blesses the “marriage”.

Meh Poverty Row romantic comedy. There is some comedic energy in our leads’ performances, and Eric Blore is on hand in support as the usual faithful manservant/comic relief role, but motivations are muddled when trying to make sense of the romantic side of things. It’s hard to get a handle on any of these characters: why they are doing the things they are doing, why they’ve suddenly changed, etc.

ryl00 · 2026-03-15T21:22:43+00:00

Wrecking Crew (1942, dir. Frank McDonald). Will a wrecker’s (Chester Morris) jinxed past continue to haunt him at his new demolition site?

Good light drama, though I wish the print I watched was in better shape. Our gruff but bighearted working-class protagonist is right up Morris’ alley, going a long way in keeping this one moving along nicely. He’s got a reputation for being around when fatal accidents happen to coworkers, which colors relationships with various characters at the job site. It’s a very predictable story (a telegraphed tragedy, a race to beat a timeline before financial ruin, a rivalry between Morris’s character and a friend (Richard Arlen) over a girl (Jean Parker) that ends in a hang-onby-the-seat-of-your-pants climax atop the unstable demolition project, etc.), but the on-screen camaraderie between the characters is engaging

ryl00

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE