Join Harold & Bebe and go 'Back to the Woods'

Back to the Woods (1919)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, Bud Jamison, Marie Mosquini, T. Henderson Murray, and Arthur Housman
Director: Hal Roach
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A city slicker (Lloyd) and his man-servant (Pollard) head into the country where they run into lions, bears, a flirtatious Native American girl (Mosquini), and gun-toting hillbillies (Jamison and Daniels).

"Back to the Woods" is a great short film that delivers an even mix of situational comedy and slapstick and features Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels not only at their best and working with some excellent material.

Lloyd plays another one of those love-starved/sex-starved characters that seems to have been his bread-and-butter during the late 1910s. His character is less obnoxious than in, for example, "Ring Up the Curtain" and "Hey There". which is good because if he had been he probably would have gotten shot by Bebe Daniels' character. Their interaction throughout the picture is mostly as equals, as they rescue each other from bears and the psychotic backwoodsman played by Bud Jamison. It makes the film more palatable to the modern viewer, I think.

The characters played by Lloyd and Daniels in this film are also more appealing that the ones they portrayed in "Off the Trolley" where they were equals who were equally interested in getting laid but also equally unpleasant personality-wise. While "Back to the Woods" has characters who are an example of opposites attract, "Off the Trolley" is one of perfect mates).
Aside from the character interplay between Lloyd and Daniels, the most amusing parts of the film are scenes involves them interacting with bears... and it appears to be Lloyd in some of the scenes with an actual bear.




The version of "Back to the Woods" I've embedded below is not only the one I found online that's the clearest visually, but the music track is also better and more thoughtful than much of what is provided for many of these films. Check it out--it's well worth 10 minutes of your day!

Christmas is coming!

Although the Thanksgiving turkeys haven't even been cooked yet,  it's also worth noting that there are only 30 days to Christmas! (Janet Leigh and her little helper encourage everyone to get the shopping and wrapping done early this year, so as to avoid stress.)

Musical Monday with Becca Krueger

It's Thankgiving later this week. Many people are traveling to visit relatives in other cities, states, and perhaps even other countries. By Friday night, many may be feeling like the characters in the song "Hit the Road, Jack" and feeling less than thankful. I hope this won't be case for most of the visitors to this blog... maybe this cover of the Ray Charles song and video from Becca Krueger and her band will be like a happy talisman that will keep everything nice and peaceful!

'Done in Oil' is a pretty good picture

Done in Oil (1934)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, and Arthur Housman
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A struggling artist (Todd) is both helped and hindered by her friends (Kelly and Housman) when the three concoct a scheme to manufacture an image for her as a famous French painter who's come to the U.S.

"Done in Oil" is one of the better films teaming Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd. Instead of trying to make Kelly being loud and obnoxious funny just because she's loud and obnoxious while also subjecting viewers to clumsily executed, overlong slapstick routines, this film goes with situational comedy. In other words, this film avoids the things that drag down many of the entries in this series of films and instead takes the approach that elevated the winners. This is a movie where the comedy grows out of character interaction and satirical commentary that holds up to this day.

This is Patsy Kelly's film. Her character both creates and solves most of the film's conflicts as she bumbles through the story in a hilarious fashion. She and Housman share one of the film's most amusing scenes--where she creates a "work of art" and he critiques it as she goes. Kelly is also very funny in a bit that pokes fun at the "blackface" performances. At this point in the evolution of cinematic entertainment, the once-common practice of white actors dressing up like black people was increasingly viewed as distasteful, and Kelly doing it here is an amusing send-up of those performances. Over all, this film might contain the best performance I've seen from Kelly in this series yet.

Meanwhile, Thelma Todd serves as this picture's "straight man". She has very little to do but to be the launching pad for the antics and ridiculousness of the rest of the characters, but given how ridiculous they get, the island of stability and normality that she provides gives an important contrast. I think this is yet another testament to what a talented actress she was; she commanded the scene when she was called upon to do so, but she was equally adept at staying in the background while others took center stage. Not all actors are capable of that. (All that said, Todd did also get to show her funny side in this picture--at the very beginning as she and Kelly are ending a session where Kelly had been posing as Juliet for Todd as she painted; and toward the middle when she discovers that the ruse of her being a French painter visiting the States has attracted three actual French art critics.)

The only complaint I can mount about "Done in Oil" is that it's another entry in the series where I wish a little more care at been put into the script writing. The action in the kitchen (where Kelly and Housman are trying to stage Todd's fete with the art critics) and that in the living room (where Todd is trying to entertain and ultimately get the three Frenchmen to look at and buy her paintings) feel too disconnected. There should have been more inter-cutting between the two locations and sets of characters.

"Done in Oil" is included in the three DVD collection, together with all the other films in which Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd shared the screen.

From the InspiroBot Zodiac...

What the Stars dictate about people born between November 22 and December 21 (according to the all-wise, all-knowing InspiroBot:

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving!

Here at Shades of Gray, we're hunting and gathering everything needed for a great Thanksgiving feast! We hope that all our visitors will be getting together with family and friends and be thankful for the time you have with one another.

Meanwhile, someone decided to remind Elizabeth Montgomery that November is National Native American Indian Heritage Month…

Musical Monday with Tom & Jerry

In 1931, the Van Beuren Studios launched the Tom and Jerry series of animated shorts. Stylistically, the series inhabits a middle-ground between Felix the Cat of the 1920s and the first few years of Betty Boop cartoons... but they often manage to be more trippy than even what those series had to offer. Tom and Jerry didn't enjoy the popularity of those other characters, though, and their adventures came to an end in 1933.

By Milton Knight

There were 26 Tom and Jerry cartoons released. The good ones are very good, but the bad ones... oh, my God! The bad ones are so bad that even the audiences of the 1930s must have been bored or perhaps even offended by them.

Right now, though, I'm going to give my thoughts on the best Tom and Jerry cartoon I've watched so far. It's embedded below, so you, too, can watch it right here. I think you'll find it will brighten you day!



Piano Tooners (1932)
Starring: Margie Hines (various voices)
Director: John Foster and George Ruffle
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A pair of zany piano tuners step up to save a opera diva's recital and end up turning it jazzy.

"Piano Tooners" is a cheerful cartoon with fun musical numbers and playful visuals that will keep you smiling from from the opening song through the grand finale where the big-boosmed diva literallyblows the roof of house. In between, we're treated to dancing, piano-playing mice, one of the weirdest music recital ever put on film, a maid transforming into a jazz singer, and Tom and Jerry's innovative piano-tuning techniques.

The experience of watching is further enlivened by a steady stream of visual side gags that come and go in the blink of an eye, as well as miscellaneous comedic nonsense that ranges from cute to risque. I was particularly amused by all the gags involving the diva, and I found the bits with the mice very cute.

But take a look for yourself. Let me know what you think of it, either here or on my Facebook page!

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'An Unseen Enemy' is a little creaky but still worth watching

The Unseen Enemy (1912)
Starring: Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish, Grace Henderson, Elmer Booth, and Harry Carey
Director: D.W. Griffith
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Recently orphaned sisters (Gish and Gish) may be the victims of more than just robbery when their corrupt maid (Henderson) and her safe-cracking boyfriend (Carey) decide to steal part of their inheritance.

"The Unseen Enemy" was a surprising treat. While its a historically important film in that it's the debut picture of future silent movie super-stars Lillian and Dorothy Gish, it's also a thrilling little drama that has held up surprisingly well. While viewers will have to have some level of tolerance for the sometimes overly dramatic acting styles of the day, this is a film with  well-drawn characters, a multi-pronged and fast-moving plot, a nicely staged action sequence involving speeding automobiles... all of which leads to a satisfying conclusion.

Although Griffith manages to deliver a story that has everything (romance, comedy, drama) in less than 1/3rd the time it takes most modern crime dramas with stories like this, it's not a perfect effort. In addition for viewers to a need to have tolerance for some over-the-top acting at a couple points, the dramatic scene shown in the picture I've used to illustrate this piece ends up being a tad more silly than suspenseful. It starts out tense, and there's a couple moments during the sequence where Griffith manages to recapture the suspense, but there's an easy way for the girls to get out of the threatening situation they're in, and even when they try to take it, Griffin cops out and makes it so they don't succeed.

I'm aware that these days one is supposed to react with faux outrage when the names D.W. Griffith and Lillian Gish are mentioned, and we're supposed to run for the fainting couch at the merest suggestion that one should watch a film Griffith directed or one that Gish appears in--because, you know, of the terrible, TERRIBLE sin against all of humanity that is "The Birth of a Nation". However, since I have a greater interest in the art of film than I have in over-the-top hystrionics that would even embarrass Elmer Booth (the most prolific over-actor in "An Unseen Enemy"), I appreciate Griffith as a man who had a talent for cinematic storytelling and who recognized potential when he met with actors. (Sure, it would have been easy for him to see the talent in the Gish sisters, who came to him already seasoned stage actresses, but he also saw the greatness in Bessie Love who had no acting experience and was just looking for a summer job.)

I recommend you check out "An Unseen Enemy", right here and now, as I've embedded it below.

'On the Loose' is worth catching

On the Loose (1931)
Starring: Thelma Todd, ZaSu Pitts, John Loder, Claude Allister, Billy Gilbert, Otto Fries, Dorothy Layton, Oliver Hardy, and Stan Laurel
Director: Hal Roach
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A chance encounter with a rich Englishman (Loder) gives a pair of young women (Pitts and Todd) hope that they'll finally have dates that doesn't take place at the Coney Island amusement park. They hope in vain, because, to a pair of wealthy Brits, there's nothing as exciting and exotic as a trip to an American amusement park.

"On the Loose" is what more of these Thelma Todd-starring short films should have been like--more situational comedy and less slapstick. More of them should also have quiet scenes like the one featured here where we just have the lead characters chatting with one another. Little moments like that makes the characters more appealing. If more films had followed the pattern of this one--presenting a complete story with a beginning , a middle, and end, and focused on characters and situational human instead of lamely executed slapstick routines and incompletely written scripts--this could have been a great series of films instead of a mediocre one with flashes of greatness every now and then. (Patsy Kelly, who replaced ZaSu Pitts after the first batch of films, might have seemed less obnoxious if she'd had material to work with.)

As for the cast, Hal Roach (doing double-duty as both studio boss and director on this one) gets excellent performances out of everyone. Thelma Todd in particular shines in this picture, giving a nuanced performance that adds a tremendous amount of fun to every scene she's in. ZaSu Pitts delivers one of her typical, competent and amusing performances; she's also doesn't have to do any awkwardly staged, badly executed physical bits.

Meanwhile, British actors John Loder and Claude Allister provide some great moments as the gentlemen who sincerely believe they are showing their dates the greatest and most unusual time they have ever experienced. (Allister repeatedly ending up between couple Otto Fries and Dorothy Layton is a very funny running gag, and it's literal punchline is one of the film's high points.)

One thing I found fascinating about this film is the amusement park setting. I remember some of the things portrayed as being present in "fun houses" when I was a kid, as well as the shooting galleries. With some of the others, I was amazed that such rides/activities could even exist in the 1930s they appeared to be so prone to getting participants injured. I haven't been to an amusement park or traveling carnival in 25-30 years, so I found myself wondering if any of those sorts of games and activities even exist anymore. Maybe I need to get out more!

"On the Loose" is one of the films included on the two-DVD collection of all the films Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts co-starred in