'Timeless' is a sweet modern-day silent film

Timeless (2013)
Starring: Joel Feitler and Candice Dayton
Director:  Micah Mahaffey
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A young genius (Feitler) builds a time machine in order to prevent the death of his wife (Dayton).

"Timeless" is a silent short film that isn't a century or so old; as of this writing, it's not even a decade since it was made. Micah Mahaffey wrote and directed a small number of silent short films back in the early 2010s, and if any of the others are as good as this one, I'll probably write about and embed them in this space.

The most impressive thing about this film is that Mahaffey tells a complete story in under three minutes. I have watched a lot of short films over the past few years, and more often than not, filmmakers present vignettes rather than giving us something with a beginning, middle, and end. Here, we are treated to all the niceties you'd expect from a well-crated tale--including a denoument!

I was also impressed by the fact that Mahafferey clearly understood the limitations of his budget and resources, and he worked within them to pull off some nice special effects. He could have easily overreached and given us something that looked cheesy. Instead, he gave us something that looked just right.

The only negative points I can raise about the film is that I didn't quite buy the notion that the grieving widower seemed too young to build a time machine--it seemed like something that would have taken him a decade or more (at least), not just three years. Another thing I didn't quite like was the organ music score. It wasn't that the music was bad... it was that it was an organ. (I think I understand the reasons for both of these negatives. The first goes back to Mahaffey working with the resources he had available, and as a young filmmaker, it's natural he would a young cast to draw on so the time machine had to be invented within a short timespan. As for the second... well, it is a silent movie, so why use organ music? However, I think this story would have  been better served by a grand piano.)

I recommend taking a few minutes to check out "Timeless" for yourself. I hope you like it as much as I did.

When setting off Fourth of July Fireworks...

... do NOT follow the example set by Betty Grable.

Happy Independence Day to the U.S.A.

Little Known Fourth of July Fact:

Dancer and actress Cyd Charisse is why
fireworks are now labeled with safety warnings.

Getting ready for the Fourth of July!

U.S. Flags? Check!
Star-spangled Shorts? Check!
Fireworks and More Fireworks? Check!

Lilian Bond is ready to celebrate Independence Day! How about you?

Musical Monday with Holly Macve

"The Corner of My Mind" is a song with beautiful, haunting lyrics and a visually fascinating video... it's country-western music by way of Yorkshire, England, and brought to us by Holly Macve.

I think even if you don't usually like country-western music, you may like this song. Take a listen!



And here are some pictures of Ms. Macve, because posting pictures are one of things I do around here! (And you can read more about her, here.)

'Ring Up the Curtain' has Harold Lloyd bringing down the house

Ring Up the Curtain (1919)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, Bud Jamison, and William Blaisedell
Director: Alf Goulding
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An incompetent stage hand (Lloyd) gets the hots for a flirtatious leading lady (Daniels) and ruins a performance as a result.

"Ring Up the Curtain" is a fun little tale that demonstrates the importance of having a good backstage crew supporting the performers on stage... because all the complications in this picture arise from the bad choices made by a theatre owner (William Blaisdell) in hiring a bunch of drunks. He compounds his error by firing them all, except for one, as a troupe of vaudevillians are about to put on a performance. His catastrophic mistakes are to our benefit, however, as the chaos Harold the Useless Stagehand is hilarious to watch.

The film isn't perfect, though. After a strong start, featuring the sacking of the drunken stagehands, about a minute is wasted on the theatre owner abusing Harold and some shtick with a bowler hat that drags on for too long. Once Bebe Daniels and the rest of the acting troupe shows up, the film gets back on target.

The good outweighs the bad here, though. The scene were Harold out-and-out sexually harasses Bebe Daniels in the middle of the performance and ends up on stage fighting with her husband (played by Harry Pollard) is already comedy gold, but it's made even funnier by the way Harold forces an actor practicing his lines to hold the rigging ropes in the wing.

But don't just take my word for how fun this little movie is; I've made it easy for you to check it out by embedding it below, via YouTube.

'Show Business' is full of funny business

Show Business (1932)
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Anita Garvin, Monte Collins, and Otto Fries
Director: Jules White
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A pair of vaudevillians and their singing monkey (Pitts and Todd) get a last minute gig as a replacement act in a touring show. Things start to go wrong even before they set foot on stage, as they end up at odds with the show's ego-maniacal star (Garvin).

At the center of "Show Business" is a professional lifestyle that was coming to an end by the 1930s--that of a member of a traveling variety show that criss-crossed the nation on any number of theatrical circuits. Muscians, chorus girls, actors, and comedians... all would travel together from engagement to engagement, essentially spending their lives on the road (or, more specifically, on the train tracks). Headliners would often be fixed, but smaller acts would drop in and drop out, which is where our heroines enter the picture

After a weak beginning that should have just been used to set up the monkey and the excuse for later showing viewers Thelma Todd walking around in a hat and her underwear, but which is crippled by Pitts doing some unfunny prop comedy involving a telephone and a half-eaten apple, followed by a just-as-unfunny bit involving a dresser drawer, the film really takes off. From the moment the action changes to the train station, and we're introduced to the film's antagonists, Anita Garvin and her manager Monte Collins, through to the final fade-out, we are treated to hilarious chaos and some fine comedic acting.

In "Show Business", Thelma Todd gets to show off what made her such a fantastic screen actress (and I'm taking about the skimpy outfit she's almost not wearing in the pseudo-catfight at the train station). There are multiple in this picture where her face says everything that's going through the character's mind, and just watching Todd's facial expressions change (as she goes from confused to angry, or self-righteously indignant to embarrassed) provide some of the film's funniest moments.

Anita Garvin also shines in this picture, playing a variant of the shrewish wife she'd portray in several Laurel & Hardy pictures, but here the main target of her ire is her manager played by Monte Collins while Todd and Pitts and their mon inadvertently make both their lives very difficult. It's a common in these kinds of shorts to see self-important characters be humiliated by the bumbling clowns with whom the audience's sympathies rests, and Garvin is so good at playing an obnoxious, self-entitled primadonna that her unraveling is extra satisfying. Meanwhile, Collins occupies an interesting place in the configuration of characters, swinging from threat to our heroines to an almost ally, as he tries to get them settled in the train so he can be spared any more abuse from Garvin.

The only disappointing member of the main cast here is ZaSu Pitts, but I don't think it's her fault. For the most part, she was stuck doing unfunny prop comedy, and her fidgety character seemed out of place surrounded by all the loud, overly theatrical types that occupy the rest of the film. That said, she had a couple shining moments in the part of the film at the train station, as she is trying to convince a police officer (Otto Fries) why it's a bad idea for him to make Thelma take off her coat; and later after she and Thelma wake everybody up on a sleeping car while trying to get into their bunk themselves.

Despite its weak opening, and a couple minor hiccups along the way (there is a point where some time must pass between scenes, but there's no indication of it, so the film feels a bit disorganized for few moments) "Show Business" is a fun entry in the Todd/Pitts series of comedies that benefits both for a strong script and the fact that most of its cast is in parts that let them play to their strengths as performers. (Although it's a shame that we never get to hear the monkey sing.

"Show Business" is one of 17 shorts contained in a two DVD set that features all of the films Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts made together.

Picture Perfect Special: It's June!

Born on June 25, 1925, June Lockhart got her start as a child actor on the stage, and began acting in film as a teenager during the early 1940s, with an emphasis on Westerns and other historical dramas.

By the 1950s, Lockhart had become a successful television acgtress. She had recurring roles on several series and was a frequent star or supporting actress on episodes of various anthology shows.

As the 1960s arrived, June became one of the most recognizable TV Moms for several generations of Americans, playing the mother on both "Lassie" and "Lost in Space". She also had a recurring as as Dr. Janet Craig during the last three seasons of "Petticoat Junction".

Lockhart has appeared in over 170 movies and TV shows, with her career spanning eight decades. She most recently appeared in the based-on-a-true story comedy "Zombie Hamlet" (2012) and the movie-industry based comedy "The Remake" (2016).

June Lockhart turns 94 today, and we here at Shades of Gray wish her a Happy Birthday!