Pardon Us (1931)

The boys hatch a plan to brew their own beer and sell what they can’t drink. Unfortunately they sell it to a cop and are sent to jail. It’s prohibition, remember. What was supposed to be another two-reeler, ended up their first feature-ish length film when they failed to edit out the boring parts. Or, in actuality, thought it was all good enough.

An early indication of efficient storytelling is how they go from concocting their brewing plan straight to being carted off to jail. No beer brewing antics, no arrest or trial bit, just “Let’s brew beer” to the close of the prison gates. But in reality they just wanted to do prison bits, so that’s all they did. Plus a scene in a cotton field wearing blackface. Yea, that was a thing.

Unpopular opinion: Laurel and Hardy’s comedy does not hold up. The big gag here is that Laurel has a bad tooth that causes him to make a rude mouth sound after every sentence. He can stop this by poking the side of his face. See him offend people when he forgets to poke his face! See him forget what side of his face he needs to poke! See him forget how blankets work! Pardon Us is rife with innovative punchlines like “Oh, yea?” and “Say, what is this?”

My hot take can be greatly influenced by mood, my company, and where I am in my film education. I fully acknowledge this. I don’t wish to dismiss a performer or performance too hastily and I should watch each film a second time before opening my big fat keyboard. But this is my third Laurel and Hardy film, one of their highest rated, and it, like the others, stunk.

I’ve rated higher films with more things wrong with them. Bad acting, bad editing, bad camera work, bad dialog. Here there is only one flaw, but it’s a fatal one. Pardon Us is uninteresting. Just a lot of pointless running around and goofy reaction shots. I have never before watched a film this short that felt so long. AMRU 2.

Safety Last! (1923)

A young man (Harold Lloyd) goes to the big city to become successful enough to marry his sweetheart. Things don't go as planned, but he tries to keep up appearances. Then become complicated when sweetheart travels to the city to visits him at work. So, he climbs the building to make some extra cash. You know the scene where he hangs from a clock face. It's real famous.

As a kid I was told Lloyd actually performed these stunts on the building, with eight fingers (two were blown off a few years earlier), without a stuntman. Well, turns out, not so much. A stunt man was used, and Lloyd wasn't nearly as far off the ground as it seemed. The bricks were modified to give him a solid grip. The stunt man didn't spill the beans until Lloyd died. Also, he didn't want to diminish the real danger of the stunts.

Lloyd would marry his almost 22 year old co-star two months before the film's April fools day release. He discouraged her from continuing her career shortly thereafter.

Safety Last! has some fairly clever visual gags and the wall climbing in the third act holds your interest, however the film is sometimes tedious despite the 70 minute run time. This is one of about a billion silent comedies Hal Roach has his name on. He is credited as "Presenter" and writer, and uncredited as producer.

Paper-thin story, tired comedy mixed in with some better bits, capped off by cool stunts in the third act, and you have a very watchable film. AMRU 3.

General Spanky (1936)

Our Gang (or The Little Rascals) make a feature film set at the beginning of the Civil War. Buckwheat is a slave on a riverboat, whose master calls him something. When slave owner disembarks, he realizes he is missing one of his slaves. So, Buckwheat goes around looking for someone to be his master. He befriends Spanky, falls off the boat, live with a kindly slave owner (which apparently is a thing), and try to thwart a Yankee attack. Boy, is this a movie that didn't need to exist.

To force myself to play Devil's advocate, I will mention that the Yankees were not depicted as evil. And that Spanky chooses to be Buckwheat's friend rather than his master. But it does present the idea of good vs. evil slave owners, effectively glossing over the tragedy of slavery. Something acceptable in 1936 but not today. What is not acceptable in any day is how unoriginal, unfunny, and otherwise uninteresting this film is.

I understand that movies making light of slavery and the civil war were made, and General Spanky was no Birth of a Nation, but still. If the best you can say about this uninteresting, unfunny, sometimes tedious film is that it could have been worse, then consider giving it a wide berth. AMRU 2.

"Here I is!"

One Million BC (1940)

Hikers lost in a storm stumble on a cave being investigated by an anthropologist. He tells the group a story about the ancient people who once lived there.

One upon a time there were two tribes. The Rock tribe was brutal. The men take what they want from the weaker. The women and children eat after the men's dogs, and the old are lucky if they eat at all. The Shell tribe, however, share their food. They eat vegetables, sing, laugh, and enjoy life.

One fateful day, after his meat is taken a young rock tribesman (Victor Mature) makes the mistake of striking the chief (Lon Chaney Jr). After a fight, our young hero is banished from the Rock tribe and limps away. He happens upon the Shell tribe, who take him in. At first he is confused by all this sharing and caring, but there's a hot blond (Carole Landis), so he wasn't complaining.

Our hero saves a child from what looks to be a poor man's sleestak. I think he killed it less out of fear and more out of pity. As someone who studied Anthro for a bit, I need to divorce myself from the terrible science here. Some films seem not try to get the science right, but BC appear to have tried and failed miserably. I choose to suspend disbelieve on this point, so no more from the nerd.

Legendary director D.W. Griffith apparently walked away while making this project because of a disagreement with Little Rascal's producer Hal Roach. D.W. thought there aught to be character development somewhere in there. Silly directors, am I right people? Hal and Hal Jr finish the direction.

About a year and a half ago I saw Valley of the Dragons, which I liked. I understood it lifted some of the giant lizard scenes from One Million BC. What I didn't realize is that it lifted virtually the entire story from it as well. Two tribes, misfits, love interest, dino attack, volcano, bigger dino attack, happily ever after (except for the people who died). Valley focused the story more on the conflict between male leads and making them modernish (and blaming Jules Verne), but at best you can call it a slight reimagining.

One brief note about pretty Carole Landis. Lovely and charming, her career never really took off. She ran through a series of failed marriages when she decided to off herself at the ripe old age of 29. In keeping with the tragic figures theme, she had taken her first name after Lombard.

The sets looked good and the silly dino sequences were ambitious for the day (sleestak-man not-with-standing), and the scene of a woman being swallowed by lava was quite effective. The story, however, was dull. Not bad, I suppose, from a director accustomed to producing silly one-reelers, but it's hard to develop story when characters don't talk. D.W. was right. I suppose I need to see the Raquel Welch version now. AMRU 3.