What Talkies Are You Watching?

[donnie]

Vincent Price was really good in Last Man On Earth (1964). I love that late 1950s and up to the mid 1960s beat quality that you just don't get anymore.

I have a 50's groove going on now myself (from all those instructional films) and am experiencing a strange compulsion to binge-watch Leave It to Beaver.

[Kitty]

I have a 50's groove going on now myself (from all those instructional films) and am experiencing a strange compulsion to binge-watch Leave It to Beaver.

Right?! I've been wanting to binge watch that for a while now. It's astonishing how many episodes from the first 3 seasons I've seen already. TVLand must have had the rights to only the first few seasons when I was a wee lass watching the channel, and when it was a very different channel than it is today.

[Mrs. Danvers]

50's TV programming is very comforting especially now! How I long for those days.
The early Beaver episodes when the kids were so young are the best!

[donnie]

50's TV programming is very comforting especially now! How I long for those days.

Yes, I love all the sitcoms of that era, especially Father Knows Best and the early My Three Sons episodes.

[BettyLouSpence]

For some reason I kept forgetting to post this, but over the last week or two I watched two Harold Lloyd talkies, Feet First (1930) and Movie Crazy (1932). I think Harold's voice fits his character. It's not too far off from how I'd heard it in my head.

[donnie]

I've never yet seen any of the HL talkies. How would you rank these against his silent features? (Though probably asking you to compare apples and oranges.)

[BettyLouSpence]

I admit I'm biased, but I prefer his silent pictures. His talkies certainly aren't bad by any means, there's much of the same energy to them as there are in his silents, and there were still physical gags I found funny. But there's a different armosphere to them that I can't quite put my finger on.

[BettyLouSpence]

I watched three talkies yesterday: Paramount on Parade (1930), Dangerous Curves (1929), and Call Her Savage (1932).

Paramount on Parade is an all-star musical revue put out by (you guessed it) Paramount to cash in on the popularity of these revues at the time. As such it has no plot, the only constants being the MCs Jack Oakie and Skeets Gallagher. I initially watched this for Clara Bow's musical number, but there were a few I really enjoyed. Buddy Rogers and Lillian Roth have a duet at the beginning, Maurice Chavlier has like three numbers to himself alone, child actress Mitzi Green did impressions, and Helen Kane had a skit where she taught in a school. There's also this bizarre one with Clive Brook, Warner Oland, William Powell, and Eugene Pallette. Looking on Wiki there were Technicolor sequences, but only two survive totally intact; the rest have either the footage or the sound missing.

Dangerous Curves stars Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Kay Francis and Joyce Compton (who played the snooping Eva in The Wild Party) in a drama set under the circus big top. Arlen is star tightrope walker Larry Lee, and Clara is bareback rider Pat Delaney, a surprisingly childlike and naïve role for Clara. Larry's girlfriend Zara Flynn (Francis) has cheated on him with his co-star Tony, and this has a negative effect on Larry's next performance, to the point that he is incapacitated. Pat has had an unrequited crush on Larry for some time now, and attempts to help repair his life by encouraging him to come back to the circus and even coming up with a new act for her and Larry to perform together. But Zara's influence is still strong on Larry...

Call Her Savage, starring Clara Bow, Gilbert Roland, Thelma Todd, and Estelle Taylor is easily the heaviest film of the three. Like, this is one of the quintessential pre-Code films. Clara plays Nasa Springer, a wild Texas girl from a wealthy family, and Gilbert Roland plays Moonglow, Nasa's half Native American friend. Nasa is sent to a Chicago finishing school by her father in an attempt to rein her in, but needless to say this doesn't work. Nasa marries Larry Crosby instead of the man chosen for her by her father, and old man Springer declares that he never wants to see her again (she still keeps touch with her mother Ruth (Taylor), however). Larry reveals to Nasa that he only married her to get back at his ex-gf Sunny DeLane (Todd), and gives her access to all the money she wants before abandoning her. Things just seem to get worse and worse for Nasa, but in the end she finds true love. Fun fact: the child actress who plays Nasa's mother Ruth as a child is still alive! Her name is Marilyn Knowlden, and she's 94 years old.

[donnie]

I've just watched Saturday Night Kid, the Clara Bow talkie from 1929. I really enjoyed this one. I was impressed with Clara's acting as Mayme throughout this one (especially in the scenes before, during, and after the roof garden party where Mayme's sister (Jean Arthur) has just stolen her guy. The tension between the two sisters is what drives this film. The drama/comedy revolving around the department store setting reminds me somewhat of My Favorite Girl, the Mary Pickford late 20's feature.

And speaking of Jean Arthur, I really got a kick out of her performance in this. What a mischievous little sneak! I also enjoyed Charles Sellon as Clem and Edna May Oliver as Miss Streeter.

[BettyLouSpence]

Glad you liked it! What did you think of that ending, btw, when

► Show Spoiler

Mayme starts slapping Janie?

I remember being so surprised the first time I watched it, haha!

I also really liked the scene between Mayme and her boyfriend where they're taking inventory in the department store after hours (after Janie lied to Mayme about having a "splittin' headache"... Janie's always lying )