Horror and Sci-Fi films old and new, weirdo trash, arthouse, forgotten gems, well loved classics, and I'm watching the original Dr Who from the beginning.
The Great Gabbo is one of the earliest appearances of the trope of the ventriloquist's dummy who becomes autonomous. But, despite a menacing turn by Erich Von Stroheim, any tension or creepiness fizzles out with a talky script and interminable padding from song and dance numbers.
"The Great Gabbo" (Stroheim), is a famous ventriloquist in a double act with his dummy "Otto", who can talk and sing while Gabbo himself smokes, drinks, eats and pulls flags from his mouth. Off stage, he is less popular, driving away his girlfriend and assistant Mary (Betty Compson) with a mix of megalomania, eccentric superstitions, and the inability to express any form of feeling or emotion without using Otto. This is not going to end well.
Stroheim has plenty of on-screen presence and it doesn't feel like playing an egoist with brutal streak is much of a stretch. The tone is that of humourless melodrama, although there is one hilarious scene in a restaurant with Otto the dummy entertaining the crowd while Gabbo eats dinner.
The film feels as though it had an ultra-low budget, particularly in any scenes of Gabbo's act, with shots of him intercut with stock shots of an audience, but never the two in the same frame.
Beyond that though, The Great Gabbo constantly grinds to a halt with endless song and dance numbers killing any creepy mood or tension. The film was made only two years after The Jazz Singer first introduced sound to the movies, so perhaps producers still thought that was enough of a novelty to keep people entertained.
From their sometimes underappreciated silent era, That's My Wife
is quintessential Laurel & Hardy, featuring the key ingredients of a
well-structured script, great chemistry between the stars and a scheme
that may be fool proof, but certainly isn't idiot-proof.
The script spends little time getting down to the action, and the gags
are not strung together at random, but are driven by the plot, as well
as driving it forward. Olly has a rich uncle who has promised him a
large sum of money, provided he is happily married. Unfortunately, this
is not the case, with Mrs Hardy having stormed out of the marital home
in disgust at their malingering houseguest, Mr Laurel, just minutes
before the arrival of said uncle. So, Stan is pressganged into putting
on a dress and posing as the love of Olly's life, even when Uncle
insists on a visit to a raucous nightclub.
Much mileage is got out of Stan’s poor attempts to pass as a woman, from
his fondness for cigars to his dumbbell cleavage enhancement, but there
is no shortage of slapstick, such as the recurring gag with a hapless
waiter and a cake. Far from becoming repetitive, jokes like this start
to take on a feeling of inevitability, that somehow when Laurel and
Hardy appear in people’s lives, chaos and misfortune inevitably follow.
But as well as their effect on other people, all the best Laurel and
Hardy films are also about the effect they have on each other, and the
way they seem inexorably stuck with each other. Indeed, by the end, Olly
has lost his wife and his chance of getting his hands on a big sum of
money, and all he has left is Stan.
For completists, a interesting companion piece to this film is a 1926 silent comedy called Along Came Auntie. Only Olly appears on appears on screen, Stan's contributions being purely on the writing side.
The plot has similar basis to That's My Wife, with a woman, played by Vivien Oakland, set to receive $100,000 and a truckload of diamonds from her aunt. Said Aunt is not a fan of divorce, which proves awkward as Vivian has, unbeknown to her current husband, taken in first husband Vincent Belcher (played by Olly, initially hard to recognise, being several pounds lighter than usual and hiding behind a big moustache) as a lodger in order to cover her mounting debts.
Much slightly strained farce ensues, with the film most noticeable for what it lacks compared to That's My Wife. Firstly the action all takes place in one house, often feeling like a filmed stage comedy, whereas the second part of That's My Wife moves out of the house and into the nightclub. Secondly the script does not have the same structure or pacing of That's My Wife, seeming both rushed and tiresome in places, and the characters bland and uninteresting. Thirdly, what is really lacks is the chemistry and partnership of Stan and Olly, again emphasising what a bright idea it was to pair them up together.
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is of interest more for the part it plays in cinema history and the once-in-a-lifetime cast rather than the actual content of the film. Presumably anxious to show off the new medium of talking pictures, MGM did not waste valuable time writing a script. Instead, the studio bosses simply rounded up their brightest and best talent, shoved them on a stage, pointed a camera (just one by the look of things) and let them get on with songs, dances and comedy routines. The entire thing is filmed with all the cinematic flair of a parent recording their child’s school play, and the rigid camera and uninspired angles often sap much of the energy and talent of the performers for the viewer. Of course, a non-stop parade of variety acts would be perfectly fine for those watching in a theatrical setting, as the immediacy and the atmosphere from the audience would more than compensate for the repetitive format. However, this film was made to an empty house, making the corny banter of hosts Conrad Nagel and Jack Benny fall flat, something not helped by having them address the non-existent theatre audience, rather than the camera. Unlike other films that use the revue format, The Hollywood Revue of 1929 has no story, either to link the skits or run in the background, surprising, and a little frustrating, given that silent pioneers – including some on this bill - had been hard at work developing cinema in order to tell stories. They had also invented a few tricks and techniques that were unique to the medium, but these are few and far between here. There are a couple of cinematic touches, such as the opening number where the picture goes (presumably intentionally) negative, or, more successfully, where Bessie Love initially appears in miniature (inside Jack Benny's pocket of all places) before growing to full size to complete her number. In fact, the effect is so successful that it is repeated later in the film with Marion Davies and her soldier-themed routine. Despite this there are enough points of interest both on and off screen for fans of the films and the history of early Tinseltown to watch The Hollywood Revue of 1929 at least once. For a start, it marks the first on screen appearance of the song Singin' in the Rain, more than 20 years before co-writer Arthur Freed, in his later capacity as an MGM producer, would use it as the basis of the classic film of the same name. We also get to see early talkie appearances from silent stars such as Laurel and Hardy, in an enjoyable routine playing bungling magicians, and Buster Keaton, doing pratfalls in a scene that lacks the purely cinematic invention of his classic work. Meanwhile, Joan Crawford, introduced as "the personification of youth, beauty, joy and happiness", shows off her lesser known song and dance talents. While it may make for an uneven, often grating watch, not helped by the nearly two hours running time, there is no denying the place of The Hollywood Revue of 1929 in the story of cinema as a medium. Films like this were part of a process that separated those, like Crawford or Laurel & Hardy, who could adapt to sound from those who couldn't, such as, sadly, Keaton.
Starting a fight in prison may be common enough in prison movies, but starting a rice pudding fight is something else entirely, something that requires a special level of idiocy. Step forward Laurel and Hardy, who achieve just that in The Hoose-Gow (the name derives from juzgado, the Spanish word for courtroom).
We get a brief intro, establishing that Stan and Olly have (unwittingly, they say) been caught up in an armed robbery. Beyond that, there is little in the way of story, which does leave the film feeling a little rambling and unfocussed, not helped by the flat uninspired direction, which leaves the performers to take up the slack.
Luckily, they are up to the task, with plenty of slapstick, kicking, punching, gouging with pick-axes, tearing of clothes, accidentally chopping down a watch tower, and other assorted self-sabotaging stupidity and childish antagonism (as well as a reworking of the salt shaker lid gag from You're Darn Tootin').
No matter where Stan and Olly are, they never fit in, and this is no exception, with Olly's naivety and genteel manners, and Stan's timidity clashing sharply with the wily, rough looking convicts.
Just when the film feels like it is running out of steam, along comes regular foil James Finlayson as the top hat and tailed prison governor, and the second half of the film kicks in. After inadvertently puncturing the radiator of his car, Stan and Olly ill-advisedly decide to plug the holes and absorb the water with rice, leading to the aforementioned bust up.
Like so many of the food fights or bouts of destruction in Laurel and Hardy films, the whole thing starts off feeling stylised, almost ritualised, with people waiting for the other person to have their turn, even though they must realise they are about to get something in their face, before the pace and intensity gradually picks up. The Hoose-Gow is not the best Laurel and Hardy short, not least because it feels like they (presumably along with the rest of Hollywood) are still trying to figure out how to make sound and dialogue work in films. However, it is still a very funny and thoroughly entertaining way to spend 20 minutes.
They are best known for their talkie films, indeed, perhaps their voices are as well known as their faces, so the 30 or so silent movies of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy sometimes get overlooked. This is a shame, for two reasons; firstly, taken as a whole they help provide a fascinating insight into the development of cinema, both as a medium and a business, and secondly, taken individually, the best of them are some of the funniest silent comedies ever made.
Big Business is definitely in that second category, and features all of the classic elements of a Laurel and Hardy short. We have the established characters of the leads, Stan the well-meaning but dim bungler, and Ollie, with his trademark “withering glance” to the audience, trying and failing to maintain his dignity in extreme circumstances. We also have the duo making a mess of a simple job (selling Christmas trees door-to-door), a hapless third party caught up in the middle (in this case, one of their regular comic foils, James Finlayson), and a situation that, bit by bit, spirals out of control. In this case, a misunderstanding leads to an argument, which leads to tempers flaring, which leads to tit-for-tat destruction, which does not stop until Finalyson's house, along with Laurel and Hardy's car, are both destroyed.
The way it escalates is all too real and believable, and something that could have been stopped at any point by one of the parties taking a step back and acting like an adult. This makes Laurel and Hardy the precursor to comedy such as Fawlty Towers.
However, the way it is presented, by contrast, is deliberately artificial and plays up to the fact that we are watching a film. The escalating chaos is treated almost as a ritual or a chess game with each side standing patiently, waiting while the other takes their turn. This means, rather than rushing straight into a free-for-all, which would get boring after a few minutes, by starting with each bout of destruction as a deliberate and distinct thing, and gradually shortening the gaps between each one, it allows the pace to wind gradually up. By the end, the red mist has descended, and we have Finlayson lobbing an explosive at the car, at the same time as Stan is taking an axe to the piano.
The film also reveals a fascinating and often overlooked side of how Laurel and Hardy interact with each other. For all their bickering and infighting, they can quickly and easily band together against a common foe, almost as though sometimes, if there is one thing that annoys them more than each other, it is other people.
Finally, Big Business is an excellent demonstration of the part that title cards play in silent films. The captions helps set the sharp, unsentimental tone of the film at the start ("The story of a man who turned the other cheek - and got punched in the nose"), emphasise Ollie’s boundless self-confidence ("it's personality that wins") and drily underscore his reaction to a furious tirade from Finlayson ("I don't think he wants a tree"). Overuse them and you might as well be reading a comic strip, but deployed in just the right levels, they are the perfect complement to the images, which remain the primary source of plot and gags.
