Movie Review: Florence Foster Jenkins

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland



















Michael's Movie Grade:A-

Review: Intelligent, funny and moving. A fantastic film.


This film is really great. It is very funny, often times laugh out loud so. However the drama is equal effective. The combination between the drama and comedy is done amazingly. Neither the drama, nor the comedy, get in the way of each other. In fact the compliment each other very well. The comedy makes the drama better and the drama makes the comedy better.

The entire cast for this film are fantastic in their roles. Despite them being well known actors and actresses, you see them as the characters rather than the people playing them. They feel like they are the people their playing. They are very funny, but they never play it in a way that the characters feel less real. This allows the comedy to be as funny as it is and the dramatic scenes to be as great as they are.

The time period used for this film is represented great. It looks very authentic, and allows the film to have a great look different from most films today.

This is simply a great film.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Michael's Christmas Movie Guide: The Unholy Three (1925)

 

Note: Okay this may not really be a Christmas movie, but some very important story points take place during the Christmas season,  particularly Christmas Eve.


Fantastic silent film.

Though this was far from director Tod Browning's first film, it was the one that truly defined who he was a director. Though his early films had some strange stuff, this film was very weird as you would expect from this director. Browning would go on to direct such films as Freaks, The Unknown and Dracula (1931). All of these films reveled in the bizarre and strange. In this film Browning also worked with actor Lon Chaney, who he had great collaborations with such as The Unknown, London After Midnight, Where East is East and West of Zanzibar.

The story involves three former sideshow performers a ventriloquist named Echo (played by Lon Chaney), a midget (played by Harry Earles), and a strongman (played by Victor McLaglen), who work with a pickpocket named  Rosie O'Grady (played by Mae Busch (who my fellow Laurel and Hardy lovers should recognize)), whom Echo is in love with. The work at a pet shop as a cover for a man named Hector (played by Matt Moore), who loves Rosie. After a robbery on Christmas Eve  ends with murder, the whole gang turns against each other and Hector is blamed for the robbery.

This is a great film. The weirdness works perfectly and just adds a great atmosphere (especially a very strange scene involving an ape). The actors are perfectly cast. The story is quite a good one as well.

This film would be remade in 1930 as a talkie. Though that film would also star Lon Chaney, it would be directed by Jack Conway, instead of Tod Browning. The remake would be Lon Chaney's only appearance in a talkie (and his last film) as he would die shortly after.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/14037/The-Unholy-Three/articles.html
imdb.com

Silent Film of the Month: Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride (1925)

 

Runtime: 21 minutes. Studio: Joe Rock Comedies. Directors: Joe Rock, Scott Prembroke. Writer: Tay Garnett . Producer: Joe Rock. Main Cast: Stan Laurel, Julie Leonard, Pete the Dog. Cinematographer: Edgar Lyons.

It is October and that means it is time for scary creepy movies. However the silent film of the month this month is neither scary nor creepy, but it is funny. We are instead going to look at Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride, a comedic variation on the famous horror story of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde starring Stan Laurel.

Stan Laurel of course would later go on to be half of possibly the movies' greatest comedy duo, Laurel and Hardy. However both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had fairly good film careers before teaming up. Stan had been the star of quite a few short films, and even worked briefly as a director of short subjects (he would even direct Yes Yes Nanette which would feature Oliver Hardy in a supporting role, before the two would become a team). Oliver Hardy worked mainly as a villain in many short comedies playing against such silent stars as Larry Seamon and Billy West.

Some of Stan Laurel's best films before teaming with Oliver Hardy were a series of movie parodies. These films were made for the Metro studio (MGM had not been fully formed yet) under the supervision of former cowboy star G.M. Anderson (who also help produce some of Charlie Chaplin's films in 1915).  Probably the most famous of these would be Mud and Sand (made for the Quality Film Studio), a parody of Blood and Sand. Blood and Sand stared Rudolf Valentino, and Stan Laurel spent much of that short parodying Valentino's mannerisms. This film was made later for independent producer Joe Rock (who also directed some of the films Stan made for him, including my Silent Film of the Month), but was obviously a callback to these earlier films.  However in Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride there is little to no kidding of John Barrymore. Rather this film is a parody of the Dr. Jeckell and Mr. Hyde story rather than a direct parody of a star who had played in a previous film version.

The story of this film centers around the prim and proper English gentleman Dr. Pyckle (played by Stan Laurel). When Dr. Pyckle takes a potion he created he becomes the childish prankster Mr, Pride, who annoys the whole town with his practical jokes.


This is an excellent film and my favorite film Stan Laurel made before teaming with Oliver Hardy. It is very funny and Stan Laurel is perfect at playing these characters that are quite different from the Stan character we usually see him play. I think the reason these parody films are some of Stan's best films of this era are because they give Stan a ready set character. While many of other earlier films of him feel like they are searching for a character for him to play and they haven't quite figured the character out yet.

This film looks very good. One reason for this is that it was shot on already existing sets on the Universal Studios Lot.

Despite how this film ranks among one of Stan Laurel's best solo films it was not seen as such at the time by critics. Critics saw it as good, but not as good as Stan Laurel's previous work.

This film was considered lost for years but it wasn't. It was owned by archivist Raymond Rohauer, who for some reason didn't allow the public to see the film. Strangely though clips from the film did appear in Jay Ward's (of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame) TV show Fractured Flickers, which used silent movie clips with new humorous narration. However today we can luckily see the film.

During the period where Stan Laurel was working for Joe Rock (which includes this film), he was in-between time periods of working at Hal Roach studios, where the best Laurel and Hardy films were made. He had left working for Metro in 1923, because of problems with Louis B. Mayer, and went to work for Hal Roach. In 1924 Stan left Hal Roach for Joe Rock. However in 1926 he would come back to Roach as a writer and director. By 1927 he was appearing in front of the camera again, where he would be paired with Oliver Hardy and make movie history.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
The Life and Times of Laurel and Hardy by Amy Dempsey.
Stan Without Ollie: The Stan Laurel Solo Films 1917-1927 by Ted Okuda and James L. Neibaur
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015763/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_130