'The Balloonatic' doesn't exactly soar

The Balloonatic (1923)
Starring: Buster Keaton and Phyllis Haver
Directors: Buster Keaton and Eddie Kline
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A young man (Keaton) becomes stranded in the wilderness after accidentally taking off in a balloon. Will the more out-doorsy girl (Haver) he encounters be his salvation, or will she be the death of him?

"The Balloonatic" is one of Buster Keaton's lesser efforts. It's a series of loosely connected skits that sees our hero move from a bad day at the amusement park to a worse time in the wilderness, with the connecting element no so much being Buster but the far more interesting character of the young woman he first tries to put the moves on at the amusement park (and gets a black eye and bloody nose for his fresh behavior) and then later crosses her path again in the wilderness. But, as fun as Phyllis Haver's character is, the film is still feels disjointed and directionless.

This isn't the first Buster Keaton short I've watched that felt like its elements didn't quite connect properly ("The Frozen North" springs immediately to mind as the worst "offender" so far), but it is the first that felt like it lacked heart, as well as being short of elaborate stunt-based comedy that's made his other shorts so spectacular.

For a film titled "The Ballonatic", this is flick is very grounded. Most of the gags are modest, the stunts little more than prat-falls, and the balloon isn't much more than a device to get Keaton's character from the amusement park into the wilderness. While here is a little business onboard the drifting balloon, I really wanted a little more airborne dangling action, so while this colors my opinion of the movie as a whole, it's also fact that there are several routines that are predictable and therefore feel like they've gone on for too long by the time the pay-off arrives; and that Keaton already did similar bits in other films, and did them better. (The fishing routines in both "Hard Luck" and "Convict 13" are funnier than the one here.)

That said, the film does feature some very funny interactions between Keaton and Haver (with her rescuing him, and he later trying to rescue her but her ultimately having to give up on being the damsel in distress and deal with the threat on her own). Keaton also has some very funny bits with a canoe, both in and out of the water. There's just nothing as wild or exhuberant as what viewers experience in some of Keaton's other films. The relationship between Keaton and Haver's characters is one of the most interesting ones in any of Keaton's shorts, but it doesn't quite make up for the shortcomings. This isn't a bad film--it's lots of fun--but it isn't as good as Keaton's other works.

But why don't you check out this film for yourself, below. Afterwards, you can let me know if you agree or disagree with my take on it.

'Counsellor at Law' is undeservedly obscure

Counsellor at Law (1933) 
Starring: John Barrymore, Bebe Daniels, Onslow Stevens, Isabel Jewell, Melvyn Douglas, Doris Kenyon, Thelma Todd, John Hammond Dailey and Vincent Sherman
Director: William Wyler
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

George Simon (Barrymore) is a workaholic and a highly successful attorney who clawed his way up from the gutter to an office high atop New York City in the Empire State Building. Over the space of a few days, he finds his professional and personal life crumbling to ruins.

"Councellor at Law" is a swift moving drama whose origins as a stage play are clearly evident throughout its run-time. While that's usually a negative in these reviews, this film is the exception that proves the rule. All the film's action takes place within the high-cielinged, art-deco rooms that make up the Law Office of Simon & Tedesco, so the limited locations and characters moving about as if they're following blocking on a stage and arriving stage left and existing stage right isn't a distraction. It also helps that the entire cast is made up of actors who are film veterans--some of whom got their start as child actors during the silent film days, like Bebe Daniels--and therefore are all giving cinematic-oriented performances rather than being stagey and projecting and emoting so the audience in the back rows can pick up on what's going on.

John Barrymore and Bebe Daniels, the film's stars, give particularly impressive performances. They both give perfect examples of what "show, don't tell" means. Daniels' character never expresses the deep love and respect she has for her boss, Simon, nor how much it pains her to see how blind he is to the disrespect and disregard he gets from the blue-blood wife (Doris Kenyon) he loves above everything else. Bebe had, literally, grown up on movie stages and at this point had more than 20 years of film acting behind her--and it shows. Similarly, Barrymore's best moments in the film come in near-wordless scenes, and the moments in the picture when he lost all hope and is contemplating suicide are some of the most impactful bits of filmmaking I've come across. (Barrymore's acting is top-notch, but he is ably supported by a director and technical crew who understood how to take full advantage of the black and media they were working in.)

While Barrymore and Daniels shine the brightest here, the supporting cast is also spectacular. Among the most remarkable performances are Thelma Todd in a small, but important role, as one of George Simon's shady clients with a case against an even shadier person who as wronged them; Doris Kenyon as Simon's snobbish wife whose actions demonstrates that he only has value to her so long as she can exploit his love for her and desire for acceptance in her social circles, with Melvyn Douglas taking a turn as a blue-blood leech with with lecherous designs on the wife underscoring this point; and Onslow Stevens and Isabel Jewell, as Simon's law partner and the office receptionist/switchboard operator respectively, providing office and period flavor for the story.

All in all, this film is an example of all the good things works from this period has to offer. It's got cool art-deco sets (since it's set during the 1920s, probably right around the time the stock market is getting ready to crash); a flawed hero who is obviously the embodiment of the film's major social and political messages but who is the creation of writers who have enough respect for the audiences intelligence that he isn't also a funnel-shaped mouthpiece for those messages; and snappy dialogue that moves scenes from lighthearted to dramatic with blinding speed.

I only have one real complaint about this film, and it relates to an otherwise excellent sub-thread about office romances/sexual harassment that runs through the film. While one of the clerks is constantly and crudely hitting on the receptionist, a young lawyer in the firm is just as constantly and politely asking Bebe Daniels' character on dates. She constantly rebuffs him with escalating hostility, because she is increasingly distraught over how everything is falling apart for George Simon, as well as Simon's obliviousness to how he is being badly used by people he thinks are on his side. Ultimately, the young lawyer has had enough of her coldness, stops pursuing her, but he hands her a letter of some sort during their last exchange. We never find out what's in that letter, and I really wanted to know what that was because that subplot (out of the many in the film) remains unresolved at the end.

"Councellor at Law" is an undeservedly obscure film. If you appreciate early talkies, or have been impressed with John Barrymore and Bebe Daniels in other roles, you need to see it.

It's Friday the 13th...

... and that means our old pal Jason is stopping by for a visit!

Visit Bryan Baugh's website here.

Christmas is coming...

... and Esther Ralston is putting the final touches on the decorations here at Shades of Gray! Have you gotten yours up yet?

Dawn of the Photobomber

Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914)
Starring: Charlie Chaplin and Henry Lehrman
Director: Henry Lehrman
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An attention-loving jerk (Chaplin) ruins the day of a film crew trying to document a boxcar race in Venice Beach.

"Kid Auto Races at Venice" is one of those films that show the more things change, the more they stay the same. Anyone who's been part of a crew trying to film or take photos when members of the public are around, has had to deal with "photobombers"--and even if you haven't had to deal with them directly, you've probably seen their handiwork in photographs and evening news stand-up sequences. Even as early as 1914, attention-whoring photobombers were common enough that Charlie Chaplin lampooned them in a delightful, mostly improved, short film.

This was Charlie Chaplin's second screen appearance, as well as the beginnings of his "Little Tramp" signature character, so those Chaplin fans who have yet to see this little film will find that checking it out below will be six, well-spent, enjoyable minutes. Everyone with an interest in filmmaking, or who has worked as a photographer, should also get a kick out of it. (The proceedings become even funnier when you realize that there are real photobombers photobombing in the background while Chaplin and Lehrman are making a film the film that's lampooning them.)

Musical Monday with Mariah Carey

Then there was that time that Mariah Caray hopped in a time machine and went on television to perform her hit Christmas song "All I Want for Christmas is You" before she was even born.

It's a Spider-Woman Sunday!

By Tradd Moore

It's winter, and Jessica Drew, the first and best Spider-Woman of them all, can't stand the cold. So she's going to leave the windswept cities of America behind...

By Frank Cho

... spread her wings and fly south...

By Bruce Timm

... to spend the next few months on a beach with her friend, Howard.

By Val Mayerik

The Last Pairing of Chase & Todd

The Nickel Nurser (1932)
Starring: Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, Geraldine Dvorak, Estelle Etterre, Hazel Howell, and Billy Gilbert
Director: Warren Doane
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A socially awkward efficiency expert (Chase) is hired to teach a millionaire's daughters (Todd, Etterre and Howell) the importance of being frugal with money. The young women endeavor to make his time with the a living Hell, partly by one of them switching places with their Swedish maid to he thinks he has an ally among the servants.

While Thelma Todd and Charley Chase were absolute comedy gold on-screen, "The Nickel Nurser" was the last film in which they would appear together. Todd had already been assigned to headlining her own own comedy series at the Hal Roach Studio, and she was also being "lent out" by boss Roach to other studios for parts in feature films. But, thankfully, she was also "lent" to Chase's production unit, so we got to enjoy Todd and Chase together one last time.

While "The Nickel Nurser" isn't the best film in which they appeared together--or even close to it--the scenes they share once again clearly display how they brought out the best in each other when performing together, and they are among the funniest and most focused in this otherwise chaotic picture.

The scenes where Chase and Todd play off each other--both of which revolve around the "trading places" game that the spoiled rich girls are playing--earned a full star by themselves, bringing this picture from a Low Six to a Low Seven rating. The problem here is mostly that the characters and their actions feel mostly unmotivated by anything we learn about them, and that the gags are mostly disconnected from any logic or thought-processes that a human being might have.

For example, why does Charley assume that he going to the household to teach small children about financial matters--and, more importantly why didn't the girls' father tell him he was going to be dealing with young women? And why is the butler so rude to Charley when he first arrives? There are funny bits related to these, but they are badly motivated. And the film opens with a truly mindless and pointless bit that has Charley crash though a door because he sat on a mouse trap. This sloppiness  in story-telling and illogic is not typical of the Charley Chase-helmed comedies I've seen so far.

Fortunately, things get better in the second half of the film, which also contains the scenes where Todd and Chase treat the audience to their fabulous on-screen chemistry. Charley gets locked out of his room, but needs to talk to Todd. She refuses to see him, because he is wearing only a night shirt... so of course he puts on a suit of armor that's on display in the hall. This is the sort of "logic" that is working in many of Chase's comedies--it makes sense as a solution to a problem, even if it's not the most practical one. The suit of armor is also one-half of the fuel for the film's insane climax--the other being a shotgun-wielding butler--and the way the action and gags build on each other in a tightly planned way is more like other Chase films than the first half of this picture, and it brings "The Nickel Nurser" to a close on a high note. (The climactic minutes of "The Nickel Nurser" feel like complete, unbridled chaos to the viewer, but that's only because the sequences are so carefully constructed and choreographed. In fact, given that Chase had co-writing credit on this film, and he would soon also be directing himself in his Roach pictures, I wonder if he stepped in and took control of this film to save it?)

While "The Nickel Nurser" isn't the best of Chase's films, nor the best he made with Thelma Todd, it's always good to see them together, and it makes this a highlight among the 15 films included in the two-disc DVD set Charley Chase at Hal Roach: The Talkies Volume Two, 1932-1933.

Christmas is coming!

And Mary Pickford has some advice that is good for you and the poor store clerks.

(Although we may have to send her to sensitivity training in the new year...)

'Redskin Blues' is full of toe-tapping music and weirdness

Redskin Blues (1932)
Starring: Anonymous Voice Actors
Director: John Foster and George Stallings
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Tom and Jerry are chased and captured by a hostile Native American warriors. Is this the end of our heroes?

Some of the cartoons starring the original "Tom & Jerry" duo are just plain awful,others have not aged well, but a few are full of funky weirdness that lasts throughout the ages and which should be as amusing to viewers now as they were 85+ years ago. "Plane Dumb", for example, is so full of racist stereotypes that it even made this indifferent-to-all-your-FeeFees GenXer cringe (although given the inexplicable and casual nature of the extreme transformation of the characters into a pair Step-n-Fetchit/Sleep-N-Eat clones, I wonder if there might not be a pop cultural reference/context/connection that's been muted by the passing decades).

When I first started watching "Redskin Blues",  which was released immediately after "Plane Dumb" in 1932, I feared I was in for another festival of racism. Our heroes are under attack by Indians, all of whom are wearing war bonnets... but this one veers off into unexpected territory, beginning with the war bonnets becoming the starting point of some surreal action and continuing straight through to an ending I am sure no viewer will see coming.

Now, I'm certain there are things in this cartoon that those out there who are looking for something to take offense at will need a fainting ouwill be clutching their pearls over, especially in the light of the cartoon's title and the fact the Native Americans are the villains of the story. (Well... as much as anyone can be a villain in this bit of nonsense.)

In the final analysis, I think there may be a couple of interesting points floating around in the madness that is "Redskin Blues"--music bridges cultural gaps, to name one--although I could also be assigning meaning to this cartoon the way I might see a wild boar riding a butterfly in one of those ink blot tests. At the very least, it's a crazy and entertaining cartoon that you can watch it right here, right now, via embedding from YouTube.

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