ACQUITTED. Columbia, 1929. Lloyd Hughes, Margaret Livingston, Sam Hardy, Charles West, George Regas, Charles Wilson, Otto Hoffman. Director: Frank Stayer. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   Lloyd Hughes, a doctor who’s been convicted of murdering a patient, treats Margaret Livingston, another inmate (who knows the difference between good and bad but doesn’t always pay attention to it), and falls in love with her.

   When she’s released, she persuades her former lover (Sam Hardy), the man who set her up to teach her a lesson and framed the doctor, to have the doctor released.

   This doesn’t classify as a quality dramatic production (Harry Cohn, King of the B’s, produced it), but its nicely paced 63 minute running time is just right for the working-out of this sentimental drama. Hardy is a good-bad guy, and it’s his strong performance that remained in my mind when I wrote this review, a month later.

THE LADY. Norma Talmadge Film Corp., 1925. Norma Talmadge, Wallace MacDonald, Brandon Hurst, Alf Goulding, Doris Lloyd, Marc McDermott, Paulette Duval. Screenplay by Frances Marion. Director: Frank Borzage, director. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   Polly Pearl (Norma Talmadge) marries the dissolute son (Wallace MacDonald) of a British aristocrat. The father disinherits his son who gambles away what remains of his money in Monte Carlo and dies, leaving Polly with an infant son.

   She is singing in a Marseilles dive when her father-in-law turns up with his lawyer and attempts to take custody of the child. Polly entrusts the child to a British couple (a curate and his wife) and then spends years looking for him. Their reunion leads to momentary tragedy but the possibility of an eventual happier resolution.

   Norma Talmadge shines as the unfortunate Polly and the gifted director handles the unpromising materials with consummate skill, spinning cinematic gold out of straw.

BOMBSHELL. MGM, 1933. Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan, Pat O’Brien, Franchot Tone, Una Merkel, Ted Healy, Ivan Lebedeff, C. Aubrey Smith, Isabel Jewell. Screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Jules Furthman; photography by Harold Rosson and Chester Lyons. Director: Victor Fleming. Shown at Cinecon 46, Hollywood CA, September 2010.

   There’s not an admirable character among the characters in this steamroller satire of a star (Harlow) victimized by her family, studio and everybody she comes into contact with.

   Lee Tracy as her lover and publicist, with not an honest bone in his body or an apparent ounce of concern for Harlow’s well-being, and Frank Morgan as her alcoholic father are the most blatant exploiters of the vulnerable actress, but every other actor in the film, with the possible exception of Pat O’Brien, plays a role that ensures complicity in the studio’s manipulation of every aspect of her life for the maximum return on her box-office potential.

   It was apparently an open secret at the time of the film’s release that Harlow’s role was based on the tragic career of Clara Bow, a talented and enormously popular actress whose not so private peccadilloes contributed to ending her career.

   Both Harlow and Bow exuded a sexuality that propelled their careers into the stratosphere, with Bow’s meteoric career a victim to sound, Harlow’s to a medical problem that her mother, a devotee of Christian Science, refused to have treated.

   Bombshell was probably intended to be a satiric comedy, but the dark undertones of the constant breaching of Harlow’s character’s privacy that undermines any sense of self-worth, has a sour, almost vicious cast, that I found offensive.

Editorial Comment:   Bombshell is scheduled to be shown on TCM next Tuesday night (March 15th) at 9:30.

THE STOLEN VOICE. World Film Corp., 1915. Robert Warwick, Frances Nelson, Giorgio Majeroni, Violet Horner, Bertram Marburgh. Screenwriter/director: Frank Hall Crane. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   When society matron Belle Borden (Violet Horner) is entranced with the world-famous tenor Gerald D’Orvilie (Robert Warwick) her jealous suitor, the sinister mesmerist Dr. Von Gahl (Giorgio Majeroni) renders D’Orville mute.

   Belle immediately loses interest in the silenced tenor, who travels abroad, exhausting all of his fortune in an attempt to recover his voice. Reduced to utter penury, Gerald is rescued by someone he once salvaged from the refuse heap of humanity, rising to new heights as a silent screen star. When Dr. Van Gahl sees Gerald in his new-found glory on the screen he has a fatal heart attack, which immediately restores Gerald’s voice.

   I’ve skipped over several interesting features of which the most striking is the rescue by Gerald of his co-star from the raging rapids which are pulling her to a violent death. But you’ll get no more details from me. I’ve whetted your appetite enough already. (By the way, I loved the film. Or hadn’t you guessed that already?)

Editorial Note:   Robert Warwick’s movie and television career began in 1914 and did not end until 1962, two years before his death, with a substantial combined 242 total credits on bot screens. Moviewise, his roles seem largely to have consisted of minor roles in bigger films, and bigger roles in B-movies.

   Catching my eye, though, looking down through the list of movies he appeared in, are several he made for Preston Sturges in the early 1940s: The Great McGinty (1940), Christmas in July (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), and Sullivan’s Travels (1941). He was third-listed in the latter, after Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake.

  ●   A PHILISTINE IN BOHEMIA.   Vitagraph, 1920. Nellie Spaulding, Edna Murphy, George de Winter, Rod La Roque. Based on a story by O. Henry. Director: Edward Griffith. Both this film and the one following were shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   A charming short film in which Kate, whose mother runs a boarding house, is taken with Mr. Brunelli, a roomer who has the airs of an aristocrat. One day he invites her to dinner at the Restaurant Tonio where everybody seems to know him and confirms Kate’s suspicion that he must be a count.

   To her surprise, he reveals himself to be Tonio, the restaurant owner and chef, a spaghetti “prince” but not a true aristocrat, a species of disreputable roomer with whom the Irish boarding-house owners have had most unpleasant experiences.

   Relieved, Kate allows Tonio to kiss her, delighted that she has found a plebeian suitor that her mother will accept.

   Edward/Edward H./E. H. Griffith had an extensive list of directorial credits for silent films, and was also the director of the first version of Holiday (1930), which a good friend has told me he finds superior to the Cukor remake with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

  ●   THE VIOLIN OF M’SIEUR.   Vitagraph, 1914. Etienne Girardot, Clara Kimball Young, James Young, Napoleon the Dog. Director: James Young.

   When violin teacher Pere (Etienne Girardot) is separated from his beloved daughter Yvonne (Clara Kimball Young) by the FrancoPrussian war, he wanders for years until a chance encounter leads him to his daughter, now grown, married and the mother of a child, and a happy and prosperous future.

   I know you’ll want to know this: the dog saves the day. I’m glad he got a credit.

THE BIG CIRCUS. Allied Artists/Warner Brothers, 1959. Victor Mature, Rhonda Fleming, Red Buttons, Gilbert Roland, Vincent Price, Kathryn Grant, Peter Lorre, Adele Mara, David Nelson, Howard McNear, Steve Allen. Screenplay by Irwin Allen, Irving Wallace, Charles Bennett, based on a story by Irwin Allen. Director: Joseph M. Newman.

   Hokum is usually a detrimental comment on anything, but in this case it is a compliment to this bright entertaining circus movie from producer Irwin Allen.

   Victor Mature is ideally cast as Hank Whirling, a man with sawdust in his blood, who has just split with his partners, the ruthless Borman brothers, and needs to float a loan to keep the Whirling Circus in business. To that end he ends up saddled with banker Randolph Sherman (Red Buttons) and publicity agent Helen Harrison (Rhonda Fleming), neither of whom he wants.

   The Whirling Circus is a family affair; the prime players being ringmaster Hans Hagenfeld (Vincent Price), sardonic clown Skeeter (Peter Lorre), high wire and trapeze stars The Great Calinos, Zach and Mary (Gilbert Roland and Adele Mara), their catcher Tommy Gordon (David Nelson), and Hank’s sister Jeanie (Kathryn Grant) who dreams of working the trapeze one time before she settles down (her mother fell to her death from the trapeze).

   Money problems and his unwanted partners aren’t all that plague Hank — sabotage paid for by the Bormans is making his life doubly difficult: a lion escapes and threatens a press party, a fire breaks out and threatens the animals, a train wreck kills two people, one of them Mary Calino, and strands the show. Add to that bad weather and the bank threatening to sell the show to the Bormans and only a miracle can save them.

   Said miracle being Zach Calino walking the high wire across Niagara Falls But just before he is to make the walk his wife (Adele Mara) is killed in the train wreck and Zach loses his nerve. Hank makes him mad enough to go through with it, but at the risk of losing his oldest friend.

   And now the saboteur within the circus plans to strike while the circus plays in New York on the Steve Allen Show while Mature has to keep a low profile to avoid the man sent from the bank to foreclose (Howard McNear — Floyd from the Andy Griffith Show).

   It all builds to a suspenseful finale as the killer is trapped in the center ring as the cameras roll, after trying to kill Jeanie when she makes her debut with Zach Calino on the trapeze.

   The mystery element is done fairly well, with suspicion falling on almost everyone — particularly Vincent Price — mostly because he is Vincent Price, and in 1959 when this was released almost no one would have guessed who the real culprit would turn out to be.

   Less a least likely suspect than an almost unthinkable one — at least then. Granted, we perverse minded mystery fans probably would have guessed, but then we’re a suspicious and mistrustful lot given to cynicism and thinking the worst of suspects.

   A good many circus films have been made, and most of them are usually quite good; the setting seems to bring out the best in everyone involved. This one holds its own despite the cliches like the lovers who start out hating each other, or Buttons repressed banker, or even Grant as the girl who just wants a home that doesn’t have wheels on it.

   The movie is certainly worth seeing, and a fine cast is in fine fettle along with a well written script and more than competent direction along with good camera work and a catchy score add up to a film that is probably better than it deserves to be.

   All the performers are at their best with Buttons more subdued than usual, and Kathryn Grayson in a non-singing role is fresh and attractive. Rhonda Fleming is as gorgeous as usual, and no movie was ever worse for the presence of Gilbert Roland. Price and Lorre both have their moments, and Victor Mature has a nice presence in the kind of part he often played as a fast talking faster thinking promoter with a heart well hidden behind the million dollar smile.

   On a note of irony, at one point after the train wreck the circus is stranded and Mature has the idea to use the elephants, “like Hannibal,” to get to their next play date. The next year Mature played Hannibal in Edgar Ulmer’s film of that name. Whether the reference is an in joke or a coincidence I don’t know.

   For those interested, you can even download the Dell comic book version of the movie for free. The movie itself is available on DVD from Warner Archives.

   The Big Circus may not be as gaudy as de Mille’s wide screen Greatest Show on Earth or Samuel Bronston’s Circus World (with John Wayne), but it is entertaining and smart, hits all the marks, and delivers exactly the thrills, smiles, and laughs it intends, and does so with a more than usually attractive and capable cast. It’s pretty big entertainment, even on the small screen.

THE SCOUNDREL. Paramount Pictures, 1935. Noel Coward, Julie Haydon, Stanley Ridges, Martha Sleeper, Ernest Cossart, Alexander Woollcott, Everley Gregg, Rosita Moreno, Eduardo Ciannelli, Lionel Stander. Written & directed by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur.

   The gem of movie-watching in last October’s spooky season was an off-beat ghost story with the unlikely title The Scoundrel, written and directed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (who appear as derelicts in one scene) and starring Noel Coward in his screen debut.

   This is a wonderful thing, witty, moving and quite creepy at times as it tells of Tony Mallare, a powerful publisher, unredeemed cynic and the devil with women (Coward naturally, at the top of his archly-amusing form), surrounded by back-biting sycophants and spurned lovers, who dies in a plane crash and returns to walk the earth for a month to see if he can find someone who will cry for him.

   Sounds hokey, I know, but Scoundrel has the wit, talent and imagination to carry it off. The first half of the film is brittle comedy, with everyone speaking in epigrams, topped easily by Coward at every turn, dispensing bons mots like loose change falling from his pockets as he breaks hearts with the lethal grace of a gunfighter in a western.

   Surprising, then, to see this drawing room comedy suddenly pirouette into bizarre drama when Mallare returns to seek redemption.

   Hecht and McArthur wisely use no special effects, but suggest Mallare’s otherworldliness by careful mise en scene and Coward’s remarkable acting, which somehow detaches him from the players around him.

   The contrast between his casual elegance earlier and the agonized isolation as he roams about, tired, wet and despairing, is … well, it’s haunting!

   The character of Anthony Mallare, incidentally, is playing a character based on Horace Liveright, the publisher whose name became synonymous with American Literature in the first half of the 20th century, the man who brought Dracula, with Bela Lugosi, to Broadway. But he’s chiefly remembered for his self-indulgence and lavish parties — and because his funeral was attended by only three mourners!

   I’ll just add that the supporting cast includes Lionel Stander and Eduardo Ciannelli as poets, some lovely actresses I never heard of, and Alexander Woollcott as a critic, who help make this a film whose like you will not see again.

MARRIED?   Jans Productions, 1926. Owen Moore, Constance Bennett, Evangeline Russell, Julia Hurley, Nick Thompson. Director: George Terwilliger. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   The complicated plot of this romantic action film brings together Eastern socialite Marcia Livingston (Constance Bennett) and Dennis Shawn (Owen Moore), the rugged foreman of her lumber holdings, in a “temporary” marriage arranged by elderly, aristocratic Mme du Pont (Julia Hurley), owner of an adjoining property.

   The marriage is intended to unite the two holdings and thwart the machinations of an unscrupulous corporation intent on gaining control of both properties. The unlikely couple turns out to be a good match but only after some hairbreadth escapes from situations that any fan of silent chapter plays will appreciate. The most innovative is a reversal of the heroine and an electric saw routine, here threatening the hero with death by buzzsaw.

   A wildly improbable adventure film that was wildly entertaining.

● PAMPERED YOUTH. Vitagraph, 1924. Alice Calhoun, Cullen Landis, Wallace MacDonald, Ben Alexander. Director: David Smith. Both this and the film below were shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   This is a real curiosity, a two-reel condensation of a seven-reel adaption of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons. William K. Everson notes that it is a “16mm blow-up from a badly battered 9.5mm print that Kevin Brownlow rescued from a market-place in France during the 1960s.”

   The condensation preserves the outlines of the decline and fall of the Ambersons, climaxing in a spectacularly staged fire sequence that reunites the remaining impecunious Ambersons (Isabel and her son George) with the successful suitor she once spurned, Eugene Minafer, also clearing the way for the marriage of George to Eugene’s daughter Lucy.

● DAYDREAMS. Angle Pictures, London, 1928. Elsa Lanchester, Charles Laughton, Harold Warrender, Dorice Fordred , Marie Wright. Based on a short story by H. G. Wells. 25min. Director: Ivor Montagu.

   A strikingly designed, delightful short film in which a housemaid (Lanchester) fantasizes about a rich marriage followed by a series of adventures in which Laughton figures importantly as a lascivious villain, all of it resolved when Lanchester, awakening from her day-dreams, walks away from her mundane job.

[UPDATE] 09-18-11. Thanks to a comment left by Mike White, Walter’s review of Pampered Youth has been amended to correctly identify Eugene Minafer’s daughter. Her name was Lucy, not Fanny. Thanks, Mike!

   (Mike was the long time editor and publisher of Cashiers du Cinemart. You might wish to visit his website at http://www.impossiblefunky.com.)

  WAYWARD. Paramount, 1932. Nancy Carroll, Richard Arlen, Pauline Frederick, John Litel, Margalo Gillmore, Burke Clarke, Dorothy Stickney, Gertrude Michael. Based on a novel by Mateel Howe Farnham. Director: Edward Sloman. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   Showgirl Nancy Carroll marries Richard Arlen, whose very upper-class family is not at all happy with his new wife. They are stuffy and Carroll’s theatrical background and breezy manner alienate most of the family except for a black-sheep in-law (John Litel), who drinks too much and shares Carroll’s dislike of formality.

   The family is dominated by Arlen’s mother, splendidly played by a stern and unforgiving Pauline Frederick. Misunderstandings abound until Arlen finally sees through his mother’s duplicity and forces her to back down and accept Carroll into the family.

   Carroll, Frederick and Litel bring the film fitfully to life, but Arlen’s inability to stand up to his mother for most of the film makes you wonder what Carroll saw in him in the first place. A ’30s soaper that added little luster to the program.

Editorial Comment:   Besides the cast and crew,there’s no other information about this film on IMDB — no synopsis, no comments, nor any other external links. There has never been an official release, and in all likelihood there never will be one. Quite surprisingly, though, if you were so inclined to try, you should be able to find a copy on DVD rather easily on the collector-to-collector market.