Post by rmichaelpyle on Mar 11, 2011 9:31:07 GMT -6
Last night I was swept up in a blackhole of the past. I swirled uncontrollably into the center of completely 1920's American theater projected onto a screen and let my heart and soul ride out the magnetic intake until an end occurred somewhere, and then I realized I still had a smile on my face.
I watched "Captain Applejack" (1931) with John Halliday and Mary Brian. Now, I will admit that if you only care for modern kinds of movies, films where a premise MUST be rooted in some semblance of reality, where credulity is not only realistic and pragmatic, but part of the watcher's begotten psyche - DON'T WATCH THIS FILM!! However, if you want just a good time - where the acting is just okay, and sometimes arguably, or even laughably, marginal - here's your pre-code. And pre-code it is! There's even a scene where a lead grabs a woman's breast - something you might see in a soft porn film in the 60's!
Just an interlude here: John Halliday is an actor I always enjoy watching. He's suave without - unfortunately - being Cary Grant; he's a good lead without - unfortunately - being Ronald Colman; he's a very decent bad guy, but - unfortunately - is too suave and too good a lead to be thought of as bad. He's one of those early 30's actors who we have totally ignored or forgotten today because there are/were better. He's also not really of the 30's. He was already 50 in the 30's, having begun with Lubin in 1911 when he was already 31 years old! In the very early 20's he worked with people like Norma Talmadge, but he went on to the theater and worked mainly there until 1930. He made 12 pictures in 1931 alone, so he was a busy guy. I've always enjoyed him in "Consolation Marriage" (1931) with Irene Dunne, and most would remember him as Seth Lord in "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), his second to last film. He retired in 1941, died in 1947 at the age of 67.
Now, the premise to this sizzling nitrate. Man needs to sell house. Large house. Large, old dark house. Very, very large old dark house. Others live there, too. Anyway, he finds a parchment. Maybe, it could be surmised, a treasure lies buried somewhere in the house. Cut to next part of film. Man has dream. He's a pirate on a ship. He ends with a treasure. Cut back to reality in the unreal house where man wakes up because Mary Brian walks in a discovers him ranting and raving in a pirate voice. Meanwhile - huge, huge, only-in-Hollywood storm rages outside, this driving into the house through the owner's good graces several outsiders who need to be inside. Or - did they already have plans to be inside? Anyway, let's do away with reality for good and get back to plot. People all turn out to be rotten to the core - sort of like pirates' hearts are supposed to be - and try to find the treasure. You mean, you are asking, all these people KNOW about the treasure? Anyway, in the end Halliday gets Brian, the baddies get theirs, there IS treasure - afterall - in the house - what did you expect?
? THE END
Halliday is much better than I had expected; although, like somebody on the IMDb said, this would have been a very memorable film had Ronald Colman been the lead, or somesuch actor. Mary Brian is Mary Brian. I'd rather watch her in 1929's "The Virginian", but this was what I decided to watch. So there. Also in the cast, by the way, were Kay Strozzi (possibly the worst actress on film I've ever seen! BUT! Wow! not too bad with the stretches of womanhood), Alec B. Francis (funny in the part, in my opinion, just as he was supposed to be), Louise Closser Hale, Claud Allister (not quite as silly-assed as he'd been the year before in "Bulldog Drummond"), Arthur Edmund Carewe, Julia Swayne Gordon, William B. Davidson (yes, again), and Otto Hoffman.
It's been shown on TCM before. If you can find it, I swear you'll love it if you like the early, early talkies. BUT - if you find them on the edge of a precipice and you don't wish to go over with them - stay away!
I watched "Captain Applejack" (1931) with John Halliday and Mary Brian. Now, I will admit that if you only care for modern kinds of movies, films where a premise MUST be rooted in some semblance of reality, where credulity is not only realistic and pragmatic, but part of the watcher's begotten psyche - DON'T WATCH THIS FILM!! However, if you want just a good time - where the acting is just okay, and sometimes arguably, or even laughably, marginal - here's your pre-code. And pre-code it is! There's even a scene where a lead grabs a woman's breast - something you might see in a soft porn film in the 60's!
Just an interlude here: John Halliday is an actor I always enjoy watching. He's suave without - unfortunately - being Cary Grant; he's a good lead without - unfortunately - being Ronald Colman; he's a very decent bad guy, but - unfortunately - is too suave and too good a lead to be thought of as bad. He's one of those early 30's actors who we have totally ignored or forgotten today because there are/were better. He's also not really of the 30's. He was already 50 in the 30's, having begun with Lubin in 1911 when he was already 31 years old! In the very early 20's he worked with people like Norma Talmadge, but he went on to the theater and worked mainly there until 1930. He made 12 pictures in 1931 alone, so he was a busy guy. I've always enjoyed him in "Consolation Marriage" (1931) with Irene Dunne, and most would remember him as Seth Lord in "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), his second to last film. He retired in 1941, died in 1947 at the age of 67.
Now, the premise to this sizzling nitrate. Man needs to sell house. Large house. Large, old dark house. Very, very large old dark house. Others live there, too. Anyway, he finds a parchment. Maybe, it could be surmised, a treasure lies buried somewhere in the house. Cut to next part of film. Man has dream. He's a pirate on a ship. He ends with a treasure. Cut back to reality in the unreal house where man wakes up because Mary Brian walks in a discovers him ranting and raving in a pirate voice. Meanwhile - huge, huge, only-in-Hollywood storm rages outside, this driving into the house through the owner's good graces several outsiders who need to be inside. Or - did they already have plans to be inside? Anyway, let's do away with reality for good and get back to plot. People all turn out to be rotten to the core - sort of like pirates' hearts are supposed to be - and try to find the treasure. You mean, you are asking, all these people KNOW about the treasure? Anyway, in the end Halliday gets Brian, the baddies get theirs, there IS treasure - afterall - in the house - what did you expect?
? THE ENDHalliday is much better than I had expected; although, like somebody on the IMDb said, this would have been a very memorable film had Ronald Colman been the lead, or somesuch actor. Mary Brian is Mary Brian. I'd rather watch her in 1929's "The Virginian", but this was what I decided to watch. So there. Also in the cast, by the way, were Kay Strozzi (possibly the worst actress on film I've ever seen! BUT! Wow! not too bad with the stretches of womanhood), Alec B. Francis (funny in the part, in my opinion, just as he was supposed to be), Louise Closser Hale, Claud Allister (not quite as silly-assed as he'd been the year before in "Bulldog Drummond"), Arthur Edmund Carewe, Julia Swayne Gordon, William B. Davidson (yes, again), and Otto Hoffman.
It's been shown on TCM before. If you can find it, I swear you'll love it if you like the early, early talkies. BUT - if you find them on the edge of a precipice and you don't wish to go over with them - stay away!
