Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Tuesday, February 19, 2013


The Watch List For 2/19/13

THE CRADLE OF COURAGE (1920) --- Bill Hart always went for great character names: he's "Square" Kelly here, a thief and crook operative who comes back from Great War trenches ready to turn over an honest leaf. Gangdom in silents was strictly bush-league, scruffy barflys casual burgling upscale houses on nearby blocks. The Cradle Of Courage presages mischief engaged by starting-out Veto Corleone in The Godfather: Part Two, only Cradle's got Bill to don copper blues and put rout to miscreant pals he once led. Frisco locations enhance Courage as Hart takes bracing walks up/down steep hills not many years after the '06 Quake leveled them. Bill in civvies is not startling remove from his frontier dress, as 1920 life is sufficiently old west to ease transition. Action's at minimum, though by then it mattered less for Hart's glare being threat enough to bad men. He does all he did best here --- Bill in a moral dilemma was surest thing to please fans of this greatest man of the plains. The Cradle Of Courage was but mildest tweak at the formula, and works. What's better still is an excellent transfer Grapevine Video supplies in their DVD release.


LIBERTY (1929) --- It's by nature funnier to watch convicts escape in striped uniforms that orange jumpsuits they'd wear today. Liberty has Laurel and Hardy skipping gaol for virtual tour of simpler times Culver City and breathtaking view of greater Los Angeles from highness of a skyscraper in progress, this faked to heart-stop conviction. If ever a short stayed in its makers memory, Liberty was one; twenty-five years later on This Is You Life, the team would reminisce with guest Leo McCarey about risks they took. Liberty was released January 1929, had a music/effects score (essential for fullest enjoyment) made up of pop tunes hummed widely then (and since by me). It's a polished subject befitting Roach's release arrangement with MGM and that company's resource to put L&H before widest-ever patronage.


Some of the Culver filming sites are still there, fans having made pilgrimage and matched brick-for-brick where Stan and Babe tried changing pants in avoidance of shocked onlookers. That's the trick of a first half ... the boys in their breaking out rush are in one another's trousers and there's no retreat to which they can right themselves. Observers happening by think there's something quite different (and unwholesome) afoot. Could Laurel and Hardy have gotten away with this five years later under Code watchfulness? Not likely. I wonder frankly how subsequent owner Library Films, Inc. managed a Liberty reissue, which apparently they did, without difficulty getting a Seal. Did PCA monitors sign their pass without looking?


Interesting too is Stan pants nearly fitting Babe --- well, at least they'll button in front. Hardy was less fat than robust in '29. A fitter word might be stout. Further Liberty bonus is Jean Harlow briefly glimpsed, not close-up unfortunately, but recognizable and at stardom's cusp. You could argue that Liberty is two one-reelers pasted in the middle, with pants-switch an initial concern and getting L/H off their high hurdle the next. Home movie moochers were later able to split it thus, piratical distribs circulating Liberty bits as dizzy-titled Skywalking, High Jinx, Crab Bait, among others (read fascinating detail of this in Scott MacGillivray's Laurel and Hardy: From The Forties Forward). Mile-up comedy wasn't typical of L&H, but Liberty hazard was real enough according to later account --- a fall, despite platforms installed below them, might well have been injurious. It's in part that, plus otherwise excellence, that puts Liberty among best Stan/Babe silents.


NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH (1940) --- You forget how fine a thing is for letting years pass since viewing. This is a British Hitchcock with all but Hitchcock to assure crackling good times and wit to rank high as when the Master made his lady vanish two years before. Well, why shouldn't staff remaining re-use what worked so beautifully for AH? Carol Reed directs after light-touch fashion of Hitchcock, his Nazis kidded as they'd not be again till Ernst Lubitsch did To Be Or Not To Be. You'd think Night Train was an outright sequel to The Lady Vanishes for drollsters Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford & Naunton Wayne) back aboard and befuddled as ever by sinister goings-on. The danger is real, however, and suspense easily maintains over a ninety-minute ride. I sat wondering how many more are as good as this, concluding that yes, most Hitchcocks, but also others written by inspired team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, who also penned The Lady Vanishes. These two would write and/or direct a brace of thrillers near or altogether the equal of Hitchcock at full steam (Green For Danger a classic I'll soon revisit). Night Train To Munich gets a full marks transfer from Criterion.

3 Comments:

Blogger Dave K said...

Just revisited NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH a couple of weeks ago. Terrific show and you gotta love the cable car finale!

LIBERTY falls into that surprisingly smallish group of late-period silents that require absolutely no inter-titles. The visuals tell you everything...EVERYTHING... you need to know to enjoy the story!

7:13 PM  
Blogger Steve Haynes said...

For another good train ride (with murder) BEFORE Lady Vanishes, try ROME EXPRESS with Conrad Veidt as a laughing psycho.

Very nice DVD from VCI.

12:27 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Steve, I have "Rome Express" coming up in a future "Watch List," the notes having been written over a month ago, but WL's are so stacked up in advance of publishing that it will be months before "Rome Express" actually pulls in. Notes I'm writing today won't actually show up on the site until sometime next Fall.

I do, by the way, REALLY like "Rome Express." It's one of the great viewing discoveries so far in 2013.

7:46 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024