Robbers and Trains and Violence--Oh My!

The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Starring: Justus Barnes, Gilbert 'Broncho Billy 'Anderson, George Barnes, Mary Snow, and Tom London
Director: Edwin S. Porter
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A gang of murderous outlaws successfully rob a train, but are later pursued by an equally blood-thirsty possee.

"The Great Train Robbery" is one of those "historically important" films that anyone but scholars and critics or the hardest of the hardcore film buffs "need" to see. While I have been aware of the film since at least my days as a wee film student in college, I don't recall actually watching it before now. So... have I missed much?

Well, yes and no.

In the "no" department, the film has all the exaggerated, hyped up gestures by the actors that make early silent movies (and bad late ones) so hilarious to watch. (There isn't a lot of that here, but there's enough to make me chuckle when I should be feeling shocked ) I am also not sure I accept the notion that this was the "first narrative film", but maybe years of writing roleplaying game scenarios has lowered the bar in mind as to what qualifies as a narrative; To my eye, there seems to be just as much of a structured plot in "The Astronomer's Dream" from 1898 as there is in this film.

On the "yes" side, I think it's safe to say that this is the first Western movie, and there are a number of tropes that we find here for the first time. From a pure entertainment perspective, the action is also very fluid and holds up nicely... and there's a level of violence that I found startling--shocking even--for a film of this age. In fact, the action--the prelude to and the train robbery itself, the posse chasing the bandits, and the climactic shoot-out--are all so well-staged and filmed that the ten minutes spent watching this movie seem a fraction of even that short time span.

If you are into silent movies--or just well-made films in general--I highly recommend you take ten minutes out of your day to watch "The Great Train Robbery. There are many versions it available for viewing on YouTube and elsewhere, but the one I've chosen to imbed in this post features an excellent original musical score by Andreas Brink.


By the way, you'll notice shocks of color while watching this. These have apparently been present on the film since the earliest releases. For me, some of these were very effective while others were more distracting than mood-enhancing for me.

'This is the Night' is fluffy nonsense

This is the Night (1932)
Starring: Roland Young, Charles Ruggles, Thelma Todd, Lila Damita, Cary Grant, and Irving Bacon
Director: Frank Tuttle
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

To cover up the affair between his friend Gerald (Young) and the wife (Todd) of an Olympic athlete (Grant), , and to allow them to continue to carry on, Bunny (Ruggles) arranges for an actress (Damita) to pose as Gerald's wife.

"This is the Night" is an amusing film that, to the modern lover of old movies, is remarkable primarily because it's the great Cary Grant's very first screen appearance. He is part of a cast made entirely of great performers, and his charm and screen presence leaps off the screen, even as he shares scenes with actors who also have strong presences as well as a lot more experience in the film medium, like Thelma Todd and Charles Ruggles.

Interestingly, Grant's charisma is actually an element that works against this film rather than for it. Grant's character, Stephen, is presented in dialogue that he is supposed to be menacing. Not only does his status as an Olympic Games-level javelin thrower worry Gerald, but Thelma Todd's character, Claire, implies that Stephen is a jealous fiend who beats her. None of this rings true, because even at his most suspicious and jealous and angry over being played for a fool while his wife carries on her extra-marital affair (or attempts to), Stephen comes across at most sardonic. Later in his career, Grant ably brought menace to his charm--in "Notorious" and "Charade" to mention two examples)--but at this point, his acting skills weren't developed to that point.

The lack of menace that Grant brings to Stephen's character undermined the central premise of the film for me: That Claire would be interested in Gerald over Stephen. Both men appear to be wealthy and urbane, but Stephen is far more handsome than Gerald, not to mention a world-class athlete and smart enough to be fluent in at least three different languages. I may not know what a woman wants in man, but seriously? What woman would choose Roland Young over Cary Grant, even if everything else but looks was equal?

While I can imagine that Claire would step out (or stay in) with Gerald when Stephen is away on one of his many trips, I can't imagine that she'd bother to attempt to carry on her affair with Gerald once they've almost been caught. Her jealousy over Gerald's fake wife therefore seems even more unbelievable to me; Stephen is clearly the keeper--even if he has an annoying habit of singing at random times--depending on how serious his mean/violent streak is.

Ultimately, though, this hardly matters, because everything about this film is good-natured, with the characters strolling in and out of rooms while constantly quipping and engaging in light slapstick humor. (There's a running gag with Gerald's manservant inadvertently causing Clair to be near-naked in pubic--although, alas-alack, we viewers never get to see Todd in her unmentionables in this one, despite the fact she was regularly parading around in them in the short comedies she was making for the Hal Roach Studio around this time.) Making the audience laugh seem to be the main motivating factor in how this film is constructed, and by the time it's over, all of its events add up to little more than lighthearted nonsense... and since I had the feeling there were no aspirations beyond that, I felt perfectly fine with that.

While "This is the Night" is certainly worth watching for Cary Grant fans, it is equally worthwhile for anyone who just enjoys fine comedic performances. Charles Ruggles and Thelma Todd are in particular fine form here--Todd is the closest thing this film has to a villain, and she's fantastic; Ruggles is alternatively the funniest clown in the picture, or the most sympathetic character, and he is perfect in every scene.

As for the top-billed stars of the film, Roland Young and Lila Damita, they were consistently outshone by the supporting cast. In Young's case, it was because everyone else had better lines and better jokes (in addition to the fact that it was unbelievable that Todd would be pursuing his character over Grant's), but with Damita, it was an issue of screen presence. She wasn't a bad actress, and she was certainly pretty, but she just didn't have the ability to command the screen the way even neophyte Cary Grant did. (This actually seems to be a common observation I make about these 1930s romantic comedies; the characters around whom the story supposedly revolves are often the least interesting ones, performed by the blandest of actors and actresses. The latter isn't the case here, but the former certainly is.)

"This is the Night" is fast-paced and very funny. It kept me entertained from beginning to end, and it would have gotten a Seven of Ten Star-rating if not for two very distracting things. First, most outdoor night scenes are tinted blue, possibly to show that romance was afoot, but to me it was just annoying. Second, there's a scene where Young locks Damita in her bedroom... and then a few minutes later demands that she unlock the door, or he's going to break it down. He had just locked the door, the key should still be in the lock since he didn't appear to take it--and despite my granting that this film is just a bunch of fluffy nonsense that's an error so glaring that it was the final factor that pushed it from a Seven to a Six.

Nonetheless, fans of Thelma Todd, Charles Ruggles, and Cary Grant will find the time spent watching "This is the Night" to be time well spent.

The Milla Jovovich Quarterly

Presenting the Moods of Milla...

Glad Milla...

... Sad Milla ...

... Mad Milla!

'Suspense' is one of the earliest cinematic thrillers... and it's still highly effective

Suspense (1913)
Starring: Lois Weber, Sam Kaufman, Valentine Paul, Douglas Gerard, and Lule Warrenton
Directors: Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A young woman (Weber) is home alone with baby when a homicidal hobo (Kaufman) decides to break into the isolated house.

"Suspense" is a film that lives up to its title. It's a very early cinematic thriller that doesn't waste a second of its ten-minute running time on anything that doesn't build suspense. From establishing the house's isolation, to presenting the home invader in a sinister fashion, though the husband's desperate attempt to make it home to save his wife after her plea for help is cut off in mid-sentence... it's all edge-of-your-seat stuff. The film is strengthened further by fairly restrained performances (compared to what you might find in other films from this time).

What makes "Suspense" even more entertaining and engaging for modern viewers is the creative and, for the time, innovative approach taken in the cinematography. There's an impressive use of three-way split-screen at various points in the film when the wife is on the phone with her husband, as the deadly intruder is drawing closer. There are also numerous shots that use mirrors to expand the visual depth of a scene, or to allow the viewer to see what is going on in two different directions. Overall, the way the film elegantly shows events happening simultaneously at different locations, or tries to give a sense of a 360-degree view of the unfolding action, is exciting stuff even more than 115 years later. (The only thing that keeps this film from getting a Ten of Ten rating is that the ending isn't quite what it could have been, I think. But it's a very narrow miss.)

Several different versions of "Suspense" is available for viewing on YouTube. It can also be found streaming on Netflix as part of the "Early Women Filmmakers" package under the Classics category. The Netflix version has a better musical soundtrack than any of the ones I checked out on YouTube, but for those of you without Netflix who want to take ten minutes to watch this great film, I've embedded the best of the YouTube versions below.


Trivia: Lois Weber appeared in over 140 films, and she directed or co-directed roughly 100 of those. During the early 1920s, she was counted among Universal Pictures' best directors, but after her personal production company went bankrupt, her career stalled.

Happy Labor Day!

Cathy O'Donnell had to work on this Labor Day, but I hope most of you out there had a chance to enjoy some rest and time with friends.

'Hard Luck' is one of Buster Keaton's Best

Hard Luck (1921)
Starring: Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, and Joe Roberts
Directors: Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

After repeatedly failing to kill himself, a broke, impoverished, and unloved young man (Keaton) gets a sudden opportunity to turn his life around, be a hero, and possibly even find romance with a beautiful woman (Fox).

"Hard Luck" is at once one of the funniest and darkest comedies I've seen from Buster Keaton. It opens with Keaton's character being beaten down by Circumstance one time too many for him to bear, and then follows him through a number of attempts at killing himself (hanging, getting run over by trains and cars, trying to get himself crushed by a falling safe, drinking poison), all of which fail with hilarious results. Yes, you will find yourself laughing at this character who is trying to end his misery.

Even after it looks like his luck may be turning around, and he'll have a chance to find some semblence of stability and happiness in his life, viewers who are paying attention will see that this is initially a false hope; our suicidal hero falls in with a group of rich people among whom he will never fit in and that he will certainly find himself rejected and dejected once again. This is made even clearer when his new friends go on a fox hunt and he tries to join them but is left behind while trying to get on a Clydesdale. The jokes and physical gags during this part of the film are as funny as the various failed suicide attempts, and the humor isn't quite as dark, because you will find yourself buying into the character's new-found hope.

"Hard Luck" is at its best when Keaton's character finds himself in the middle of a robbery and kidnapping, and he defeat a gang of desparados led by a hulking brute (who is played by Joe Roberts, who has never been as menacing as he is here). The stakes are as high as they can possibly be--because if Keaton fails, he will be dead and the lovely Virginia Fox will most certainly be raped. The clever way by which Keaton's character singly takes on and defeats an entire gang of armed men features one of the best application of the silent movie standard of characters running in and out of rooms while fighting or pursuing each other. It was an old bit in in 1921, but Keaton puts a different spin on it, as well as adds some dramatic and hilarious complications.

Despite his heroism, however, Keaton's character still ulimately ends up without prospects and love... or so it seems. The film has one last big joke, which, according to sources, was not avaible in prints for decades... much to Keaton's disappointment, because he described it in at least one interview as his favorite part of this, one of his favorite works. (This last gag also ultimately brings light to the darkness of this movie, with a final twist that demonstrates that no matter how hopeless life can seem, no matter how much hard luck you're being beaten down by, happiness can be waiting any moment. That's the message I took from the final moments of the film, so I'm glad that lost footage was found and restored.)

After watching several versions of "Hard Luck" available on YouTube, I think the one I've embedded below is the most complete one that is easily available. I strongly encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to take 25 minutes out of their day to do so. If you are a Keaton fan, you won't regret it... and if you're not familiar with his work, you may just find yourself a new filmmaker to admire.




Note: September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Look out for those around you... and if you're ever in the mindset of the Keaton character in "Hard Luck", please remember that things CAN get better. I know; I've been there.

'Three Chumps Ahead' is lots of fun

Three Chumps Ahead (1934)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Eddie Phillips, Benny Baker, and Frank Moran
Director: Gus Mein
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Thelma (Todd) is being pursued by a man (Phillips) she believes to be rich, but her roommate Patsy (Kelly) thinks he may be too good to be true. Although Thelma's suitor tries to pawn Patsy off on his brother (Baker), it merely gives Patty a chance to confirm her suspicions... at which point Patsy goes from trying to break up the happy couple to taking advantage the man's deception while exposing him.

"Three Chumps Ahead" is one of the best short comedies starring Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly. It's a tightly scripted where every character is deftly and firmly established through both their actions and dialogue, every joke and gag grows organically from the story, and there isn't a wasted moment or shaky performance to be found. This is a film where each cast member gets to play to their strengths as performers, and where they have good material to work with. Even better, the film has an ending I didn't see coming until its set-up was unfolding (and which I won't comment on, because I'll ruin one of the best parts of the film).

Unlike many of the Thelma Todd-starring shorts (where she first co-starred with ZaSu Pitts and then later Kelly), its female main characters remain the focus of the story and the action. Todd and Kelly even have roughly the same amount of screen-time and importance to the story, with Kelly edging out Todd slightly, because her character is more aggressive and contributes more to moving the story forward. Even better, each actress has material to work with that suits their styles, with Kelly being brash without being so obnoxious or dull-witted that she becomes annoying; Todd getting to be elegant even while doing a prat-fall and flouncing around in response to Kelly's antics.

The only complaints I have with the film boil down to quibbles really, and they did next to nothing to impact the entertainment value of the film.

First, as much as I appreciate the speed with which this film moves, it might move a little too fast at one point: Although it turns out that Patsy had good cause to be suspicious of Thelma's boyfriend, it would have been nice if there had been a little clear evidence that she could have seized on before meeting his brother and, literally, beating the truth out of him. As things stand, Patsy comes across just a little too petty when she appears to be trying to sabotage Thelma's date out of jealousy, or possibly resentment over being treated like a servant. That said, Thelma wouldn't have been treating like a servant if she hadn't been disruptive, so there's a bit of a feedback loop going on.

Second, there's a cramped, impoverished feeling that permeates this film that I haven't noticed in previous installments in this series. The apartment and restaurant sets feel so claustrophobic that the end result reminded me of some of the lower-budget Poverty Row films I've watched over the years. I know part of this is by design--Todd and Kelly's characters are presented as working class, and Todd's beau can't afford to take her anywhere but a hole-in-the-wall establishment--but I wonder if this was also a reflection of budget concerns. I have read that these films were not earning the level of money that producer Hal Roach was hoping for, so maybe the team making them was receiving less money to work with as well? I'll have to see what develops as I keep watching. (I will be reviewing one Thelma Todd vehicle every week through the end of 2019, including several more of the ones she made with Patsy Kelly.)

Finally, Thelma Todd keeps her clothes on. While I never mind seeing an attractive woman in very little, it's usually twice as fun when it's Todd who's stripping down, because of the way she usually manages to still retain an air of elegance and dignity. Plus, some of her funniest bits have been performed in a slip or dressing gown. (I can't be too unhappy that Todd remains fully clothed, as there really isn't an excuse for it anywhere in the story, and this film is so strong because it's driven by the story rather than being a cobbled-together series of gags as some of them are. Of course, Them could also be remaining fully clothed, because by the time this film was released in 1934, the Hays Production Code was in full effect, and filmmakers had to be more careful with the raciness.)

"Three Chumps Ahead" is one of the short films included in Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly three-disc DVD collection. It's also one of the films that will make you feel the set is worth your time and money.

Princesses of Mars: Part 32

By Gary Martin

Once upon a time, they tried putting the Martian Princesses in chains...

By Walter Giovanni

... but they didn't live long enough to learn that the Princesses of Mars are always fighting and free!

By Bernard Diego

By Jay Anacleto 

By Phil Noto

'The Maze': Fine gothic tale with a weak ending

The Maze (1953)
Starring: Veronica Hurst. Richard Carlson, Katherine Emery, Michael Pate, Robin Hughes, John Dodsworth, Hillary Brooke, Lilian Bond, and Stanley Fraser
Director: William Cameron Menzies
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Kitty (Hurst) and her Aunt Edith (Emery) travel to Scotland to learn why Kitty's fiance, Gerald (Carlson) abruptly cancelled the wedding plans after inheriting his family estate and title.

Although "The Maze" was made and released in the early 1950s, it has an aura about it that feels like a horror film from Warner Bros. or Universal from the 1930s. It's soaked in a gothic sensibility from beginning to end, and it presents a nice, serious-minded spin on the "Old Dark House" genre to the degree that it's almost surprising the filmmakers pulled it off as successfully as they did.

Another key to this film's success is that it embraces the full spectrum of gothic tropes, including that of a young woman who, driven by love, ends up uncovering dark secrets. While Kitty's fiance is not a dark, brooding man at the beginning of the film, he rapidly turns into one once he is ensconced in his ancestral home of Craven Castle. Young Kitty and her aunt Edith (however reluctantly the latter is drawn into the shadows) spend the majority of the movie trying to outsmart the servants in the creepy castle and to force its secrets into the light--all in the service of saving Gerald from whatever mysterious fate he has apparently surrendered himself to. The film hits almost every gothic note, except that Kitty never gets to run down corridors in a filmy nightgown (even if she does carry a candle abound quite a bit). 

Kitty's quest to uncover the mystery of Craven Castle, and what has seemingly aged Gerald a decade or more in the space of a few weeks, is one that I found to be engaging. It became even moreso when it became clear that there indeed was some sort of monster creeping around the castle at night--and that there might well be some solid justification for why visitors were locked in their rooms at night. My curiosity became even stronger when the level headed Aunt Edith came face-to-face with the creature (after devising a way to not get locked in her room), but whatever she saw was alien and strange that her mind could not process whatever it was that she saw. This encounter thickened the atmosphere of gothic horror in film by adding a Lovecraftian touch to the proceedings. 

The film is further buoyed by strong performances by all cast members. Gerald's two creepy man servants (Stanley Fraser and Michael Pate) give the sense of being equally willing to keep the unwelcome guests at Craven Castle under control until they leave, or to kill them if they prove to be too much trouble. Meanwhile, Veronica Hurst, the film's real star despite Richard Carlson's top billing, gives an excellent performance as a strong-willed young woman who wants to redeem and recover the virile, kind and personable man viewers met during the film's first few minutes, or at least discover what caused him to change into a prematurely aged, bitter and loveless hermit. 

Speaking of Richard Carlson--the warmth with which he portrays Gerald McTeam in the early scenes of the film go a long way to making viewers invested in Kitty's success. The only flaw in Carlson's performance is that his transformation from Kitty's perfect husband-to-be into the haunted lord of a creepy castle in the Scottish highlands isn't sharp enough--there needed to be more menace in his performance during the middle part of the film. It would have made his transformation more shocking, and it would have made the scenes where Gerald is rejecting Kitty's pleas for him to let her help, as well as his interactions with old friends (whom Kitty contrives to get to the castle in hopes of snapping him out of whatever has gotten hold of him) more dramatic and moving. (A few years later, Carlson would give an amazing performance as a truly vile character in "Tormented"; if he could have tapped into a little of that for this role, he would have been amazing instead of merely good.

Carlson's good-but-not-perfect performance wasn't what made me knock this film down from a High Eight to a Low Seven on my Ten-Star rating scale. As strong as this film is for most of its running time, it starts to sputter toward the end, as Kitty and Aunt Edith follow Gerald, his servants, and some thing into the film's titular maze.

First, there's a ridiculous bit where Gerald & Company are escorting the thing through the castle, but are hiding it behind a sheet for no reason other than to keep it from the view of the film's audience. Secondly, the ladies' attempt to find their way to its center (where strange splashing sounds can be heard) starts to drag quickly, and soon becomes boring. The moment where they uncover the horror that the men of Craven Castle were trying to hide is extremely well done, as is the dramatic and fast-moving aftermath... but this is ultimately squandered during the film's denouement where the filmmakers went a little too far in capturing that old-time horror movie feel: Instead of letting Craven Castle's secret be something supernatural, we're treated to some pseudo-scientific, weak sci-fi babble when "curse" would have been far more effective. (In fairness, though, I am led to understand that the film is true to the novel upon which the script was based in this sense... but a bad ending is a bad ending.)

If you like gothic horror tales, as well as horror movies from the 1930s, I think you'll enjoy this film, despite the ending not being what it could have been.

Musical Monday: Runnin

If you like electronic music with an ethereal, hypnotic feel, I think you'll find "Runnin" a nice song to get your week underway with. The song is by Betical, which is a duo that consists of French brothers Max and Martin Hoet. They also directed the video for this song. (I have no idea who Tailor is; feel free to educate me, oh Denizens of the Internet.)



"Runnin" and its video were first released in June of 2019. It's my first encounter with Betical, and, while I like the visuals of this video more than I do the song, there's enough interesting here that I will be seeking out more of their music. Other suitable videos may also find their way onto Shades of Gray on future Musical Mondays.