D.W. Griffith brings us a fine drama starring two great actresses

The Mender of Nets (1912)
Starring: Mary Pickford, Charles West, Mabel Normand, Dell Henderson, and W. Chrystie Miller
Director: D.W. Griffith
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a fisherman (West) cheats on his girlfriend (Normand) with the village net-mender (Pickford), the betrayed girl's brother (Henderson) swears vengeance. Will the mender of nets be able to rise to the challenge and become the mender of hearts before blood is spilled? 

 I generally don't enjoy silent dramas, because they are for the most part too,,, well, dramatic. The mostly thin plots, static camera shots, and the over-the-top gesticulating and emoting by the actors combine in waya that just doesn't hold my interest. There's been one director who's works have always captured and held my attention, though: D.W. Griffith.

Griffith's dramas always clip along at a fast pace and there's never a dull moment on screen. Even establishing shots and transition scenes are full of energy and creatively framed. Even a shot of Mary Pickford staring wistfully into the distance and the beginning to smile is more fascinating than the entirety of some other silent dramas I've come across.

"The Mender of Nets" is impressive visually, even holding up nicely when compared to modern films. The outdoor shots and sequences are particularly nice. The story is simple, but Griffith adds suspense and drama through editing techniques and perfectly timed scene changes that were groundbreaking at the time--and which go a long way to making this film watchable today.

This film also remains watchable because of the natural performances by most of featured actors. While there's plenty of silent movie drama emoting, it is tempered and balanced here by a feeling of genuine warmth in Pickford's performance and emotional pain and panic in Normand's performance. Similarly, Dell Henderson seems like a genuinely bloodthirsty lunatic. West gives probably the most "standard" silent movie drama performance, but even he is a little more subdued than what is typical, coming across more in a Shakespearean tragedy way than over-emoting and hyper animated. Griffith once again brought the best out of his cast.

Finally, the film remains impressive because its relatively simple plot occupied by straight-forward characters ends up emerging as multi-layered as it reaches its conclusion. It could have come across as overly sentimental and maudlin, but because Pickford and Normand have such screen presence, and they gave such good performances, it comes across as bitter-sweet and even a little thought-provoking.

The version I watched (and have embedded below) features a modern score that was commissioned specifically for this film. Some viewers dislike it when modern music is applied to silent movies, but when it's well-done--as it is here--I think it helps bring new life to old art.

Take a few minutes to enjoy this classic film, with its new elements (or without... you can simply turn down the volume if you don't want modernity creep into the 100+ year-old short film that you're watching in a digitized format.)

'Looser Than Loose' has a timeless quality, plus Charley Chase and Thelma Todd at their best

Looser Than Loose (1930)
Starring: Charley Chase. Thelma Todd, Dorothy Granger, and Dell Henderson
Director: James W. Horne
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Charley's quiet evening with his fiancé (Todd) is interrupted when his boss calls and orders him to round up a couple of escorts and entertain the firm's biggest client (Henderson) with a night of drinking and dancing. Charley (Chase) lies about the nature of the entertainment he's supposed to line up, and his fiancé insists on joining him as his date. Things go from awkward to awful when the client likes Charley's fiancé better than the escort (Granger) and insists they swap dates.

"Looser Than Loose" is another film that shows how wonderful Charley Chase and Thelma Todd were together on-screen. As I've stated in previous reviews, they seem to bring out the best performances in each other, and where they each occasionally overwhelm other actors they share scenes with, they don't do so to each other. I haven't seen all of the Chase/Todd pairings, but so far, this is the best one. They play off each other brilliantly in their first scene together--Todd in particular seems to be in fine form, with her

The way Chase and Todd balance each other out on screen is shown prominently in "Looser Than Loose". Here, we see Chase and Todd interacting extensively with each other, and then with other performers--Chase with Dorothy Granger, and Todd with Dell Henderson. Henderson is mostly passive in the scenes he shares with Todd, so it's hard to gauge how well they might play off each other, but Granger is absolutely overwhelmed in her scenes with Chase. She's emoting and gesturing and generally being very active, but she doesn't have the sort of magnetic screen presence that Chase has, so he ends up crowding her out by just being his usual on-screen self. This never happens when he is performing with Todd.

As for the story and comedy action of the film, it's a fast-paced affair that sees Chase yet again poking fun at middle class societal standards and hypocrisies of the "Jazz Age"--standards which don't seem to have shifted all that much when it comes right down to it. The script for "Looser Than Loose" could be reshot with a modern spin with very few changes. (The stunt-laden, car-crash filled, chaotic scene of prohibition-era booze-lovers fleeing what they think is a police raid would need a different motivation, but other than that I don't think any other changes would be needed.)

In fact, it is this timeless quality to many of Charley Chase's comedies that has me increasingly viewing him as one of the most underrated comedians and story-tellers of the early talkies era. (Chase may not have written the dialogue for his films, nor been the official director, but he was, by all accounts, very much in control of the subject matter and the general thrust of the scenes and gags in his films.

"Looser Than Loose" is one of 17 Charley Chase-starring short films in included in the Charley Chase at Hal Roach: The Talkies 1930-1931, and he shares the screen with Thelma Todd in most of them.

A case of murder most funny!

The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930)
Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Fred Kelsey, Frank Austin, Dell Henderson, Bobby Burns, and Dorothy Granger
Director: James Parrott
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When Ollie (Hardy) concocts a scheme to pass Stan (Laurel) off as the to a recently deceased millionaire, the two find themselves trapped in a creepy house with a killer and incompetent cops.

During the silent movie era and well into the 1940s, the "dark old house" sub-genre was very popular, both in straight-up mystery and horror films, and as the target of lampooning. With "The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case", the popular comedy team got their piece of that action.

The result is a mixed bag. The film features spot-on satirical takes on the genre's standards--stormy weather, creepy servants, overly complicated murder methods, and "big reveals" that don't make much sense and often have no foundation in the story--but the various set-piece gags mostly meander and peter out instead of coming to a comedic crescendo. What's worse, the film comes to one of the lamest endings I have come across.

Laurel & Hardy are excellent as usual. The strongest part of the film is its opening scene where they are sitting on a pier, Hardy taking a nap and Laurel doing a little fishing. It's also the most traditional "Laurel & Hardy"-esque part of the film. The bits where they arrive at the house in the rain, and later when they are chased by a "ghost" are also highlights of the film, but everything else is a little shaky. Nothing in this film is all that bad, but I feel that part of the problem is that the underlying plot was too big for its 30-minute runtime. I think, ultimately, the filmmakers felt the same way, which accounts for the fizzling gags, scant story (there's a gathering of heirs but hardly anything is done with them), and an abrupt and awful ending. I usually complain about films being too long, but this one could have benefitted from an additional 10 minutes spent on Laurel & Hardy interacting with the greedy family members and the creepy servants.

In the final analysis, "The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case" is worth checking out if you LOVE Laurel & Hardy or the "dark old house"-type movies. More casual fans of either can find far better instances of either to check out. That said, if you're an Amazon Prime member, you can watch it for free as part of your subscription package, and others can rent it (and two other Laurel & Hardy films) for a very reasonable price.