La danse de mort (1948)

 A captain lives with his embittered wife and their daughter in an island where he is the commander of a military prison. The arrival of a physician who is an old friend of the couple shakes the already fragile foundations of their marriage. There is also a young prisoner who is summoned to work as a servant at the captain's house, and with whom the captain's daughter falls in love.

Interesting drama based on a theater play. The excellent cast is another great asset of the movie, which is never boring and manages to convey a claustrophobic atmosphere throughout its duration.

Rating: 54

Scamps and Scandals (1919)

Second viewing; previously viewed (but not reviewed) on February 20, 2020.

A guy wakes up with the telephone ringing. He'd given a party the night before and now he has a hangover and his house is in a state of disarray. His girl is on the phone. Her father disapproves of her boyfriend and makes her hang up. The guy then gets mixed in a series of unlucky incidents, some of them outdoors and some indoors, involving the girl's father, the police, and the girl's other suitor. There is a car chase in the middle section and the last act happens at the wedding ceremony which is about to be celebrated between her and her other suitor.

Slapstick comedy featuring some clichés of the genre and no apparent distinctive plot point or environment. Some continuity jumps and the rather abrupt ending makes one wonder whether some parts were missing.

Rating: 40

Passing the Buck (1919)

Second viewing; previously viewed (but not reviewed) on February 20, 2020.

Set at a hotel, the plot revolves around a suitcase full of jewels. A bunch of turbaned thieves try to steal it and the protagonist, who is apparently the hotel detective, endeavors to stop them from achieving their goal. Other characters are a guest couple who are also thieves, a janitor, a desk clerk, a cook, and a cat.

Poorly inspired slapstick, the highlights of which are the episode with a roasted chicken and the one on top of a building.

Rating: 35 (down from 45)

The Midnight Cabaret (1923)

Second viewing; previously viewed (but not reviewed) on February 20, 2020.

A series of disasters and conflicts arise inside a cabaret. A frog jumps into a customer's dish, some bandits living upstairs from the cabaret steal food through a hole in the floor, older customers try to seduce a young dancer who is the protagonist's girlfriend, the protagonist splatters ink into a customer's face when he tries to communicate through a tube on the wall with his dancer girlfriend, a loud customer allies with the bandits and they start a bomb attack, etc.

Slapstick of a typical kind.

Rating: 37

The Gown Shop (1923)

Second viewing; previously viewed without a subsequent review on February 20, 2020.

The film revolves around a series of accidents involving the gown shop's employees, the manager, and a few clients. The protagonist is a salesman at the shop who gets in conflict with his boss and with another employee. The incidents involve ladders, a pond with fishes and even a small alligator, a revolving door, a clothes iron, etc.

Routine example of the slapstick genre, with frantic action and the use of an indoor space, its configuration and objects as instruments of disaster.

Rating: 35

Bears and Bad Men (1918)

Second viewing; previously viewed on February 21, 2020, but not reviewed.

The characters are two feuding rural families, some bears, a couple of actors, a newcomer who is bad at fishing. The protagonist spends the movie either running from the rival family's shots or running from the bears. In the last section he and the newcomer climb a hill and are chased by the bears.

The protagonist's relation to the members of his family is a little obscure. At first I thought he was the wife's brother, but IMDB gives him the same last name as the woman's husband. It seems he must be the couple's son, though he seems to be roughly the same age as them. The bears seem to pose no threat to humans: all they do when they get near one is lick him. Anyway, this is not a memorable piece of slapstick, but it has some imaginative sequences and is overall watchable.

Rating: 43

Horseshoes (1923)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on February 21, 2020 (unreviewed)

A boxing champion offers a prize to anyone who can withstand one minute fighting him without being knocked down. A guy wins the prize by putting horseshoes inside his gloves. A second act has our (anti)-hero meeting the boxer in a pool hall. In the third act there is a car chase.

Run-of-the-mill slapstick with the usual elements of the genre and nothing extraordinary about it.

Rating:34

Kid Speed (1924)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on February 22, 2020 (and not reviewed then).

A beautiful woman's father promises her hand to the man who wins an automobile race. Two rivals covet that prize: a thin man and a fat one. Prior to the race, the thin man loses control of his car, provoking a series of disasters. He then has a fight with his rival. The race occupies the last part of the movie, with the fat contestant trying to exclude his rival by dishonest means.

Routine slapstick which is not hard to watch and has some well filmed car sequences.

Rating: 37

Lightning Love (1923)

Second viewing; previously viewed on February 22, 2020 (and unreviewed at that occasion); both viewings were of the same incomplete version (I don't know whether a complete version of this film still exists)

Two rivals are visiting a young lady. One is thin, the other is fat. The other characters are the lady's father, who is ill with gout, a servant, a dog and a monkey. There is a storm which shakes and moves the house.

Apparently all that was missing from the version I saw was the mid-section, since the film seems to begin and end in the right place, but there is a jump in continuity in the middle. 

This is an utterly forgettable yet watchable slapstick comedy.

Rating: 32

Greater Love Hath No Man (1911)

 This is a delayed posting; I watched this film on December 7, 2020.

Set at a mining town, this revolves about a love triangle amidst a miners' riot. The details of the plot may be read at IMDB.

Though its details are not so vivid in my memory, I recall I didn't like this movie. It's a tale of sacrifice, with some action and a desert chase, if I remember correctly.

Rating: 20

The Girl in the Arm-Chair (1912)

This is a delayed posting; I watched this movie on December 7, 2020.

This about a young man who rejects a woman. Later, his addiction to gambling leads him to commit an embarassing act. The rest of the plot is at the IMDB page.

Though I didn't remember its details, a quick glance at IMDB's detailed summary was enough to refresh my memory and confirm that this film has a very questionable morality. I really didn't like it, except perhaps as a window to another era's ideology.

Rating: 15

Making an American Citizen (1912)

This is a delayed posting; I have watched this film on December 7, 2020.

I think this IMDB summary is accurate enough: "A recent immigrant learns several hard lessons about how husbands in America are expected to behave."

I remember not having liked this film, but cannot elaborate, mostly due to not having that viewing experience fresh in my memory.

Rating: 23

Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913)

This is a delayed posting. I watched this film on December 8, 2020.

I think this IMDB synopsis is accurate enough: "A man must marry by noon or lose his inheritance. It's 11:50 a.m. and he can't find his fiancée."

I remember not having liked this film, but the exact reasons are lost in oblivion.

Rating: 14

Discontent (1916)

 This is a delayed posting; I watched this film on December 8, 2020.

An old man living in a home for war veterans decides to move in with his relatives, but he is a divisive and chronically dissatisfied character and he eventually becomes intolerable to everyone around him.

This is sort of a moral tale, and I remember not finding it entirely uninteresting.

Rating: 38

The City Slicker (1918)

 This is a delayed posting. I watched this film on December 27, 2020.

The titular character employs himself at a small hotel and modernizes it, introducing some gadgets such as retractable beds, etc. There is also a love interest and a violent rival.

I wish I had done a review of this film immediately after I watched it. All I can say after 4 months is that I enjoyed it moderately.

Rating: 55

Kino-glaz (1924)

 Alternative spelling of the title: Kinoglaz

English title: Kino Eye

Documentary set in the Soviet Union. It mostly centers on the so-called Pioneers, who were children who served the Soviet regime mostly by spreading government propaganda and health campaigns and doing charity work; there are segments with other themes, .e.g., a depiction of a lunatic asylum, etc.

Mildly interesting documentary with some avant-garde affectations which consist in playing some sequences in reverse. The asylum segment is probably the most curious one.

Rating: 43

Staroye i novoye (1929)

 Alternative Russian title: Generalnaya liniya

English titles: Old and New; The General Line

In early 20th-century Russia, a poor farmer woman endeavors to form a cooperative. She must fight the State's unresponsiveness, the lack of cohesion and discipline of other poor farmers, the opposition of rich farmers, and the inclemency of the weather.

The hardships of rural life have been the subject of great movies, but this is not one of them. It has some striking imagery, but its narrative virtues are scant. Being a propaganda piece for the Soviet Union, one wouldn't expect a balanced approach from it, but even for a propaganda piece this is abusively didactic. The funny thing is: despite all that, I just do not think it is effective as propaganda. The poor are depicted in such a way that one simply cannot believe that they could be successful at farming. Unfortunately, reality would prove that the hard way, and the Soviet collectivization process resulted in massacres and starvation.

There is more than one version of this film. I have watched the version entitled Old and New; there is also a version entitled The General Line; with the help of a book, I located the parts which were supposed to differ and watched them; the differences were small, except for the ending which is very different in the two versions.

Rating: 34

Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov (1924)

 English title: The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks

An American executive travels to the Soviet Union. He takes a bodyguard dressed in full cowboy outfit with him. From U.S. magazines he had acquired the notion that the bolsheviks were violent and dangerous. In the Soviet Union he falls prey to a gang of hoodlums who stage a false kidnapping in order to extort money from him.

Pretty awful propagandistic comedy which has absolutely no political insight and fails miserably even as mere slapstick. The main actress looks exactly like (or is made here to look exactly like, perhaps) Olive Oyl, the character who appeared in 1919 in the comic strip Thimble Theatre.

Rating: 20

La belle américaine (1961)

 English titles: The American Beauty; What a Chassis

*spoilers ahead*

A factory worker (Marcel) is thinking of buying a motorcycle from a friend, but instead buys an expensive car from a rich widow for a ridiculously low price (she is avenging herself on his late husband's mistress to whom the car had been bequeathed). Marcel sees his life suffer a complete turnaround after the purchase. His boss feels humiliated and fires him. Next he falls victim of the swindled mistress who wants him to sell her the car. She locks him in the trunk and, after a while, abandons him and the car in a deserted road. She then warns Marcel's wife who comes to his rescue. After many failed attempts to get the trunk open, he is saved by a thief who breaks it open and runs when he sees there is someone inside. Marcel then takes the car to a service station but instead of putting gas in it they wash it and get Marcel and the car completely soaked.  At a VIP party to where he is led by a series of traffic incidents, he is then mistaken for an important person and meets the Secretary of Commerce. After that, he loses the car after he parks it and forgets to set the brakes on. The car slides on its own until it enters a barge which takes off. It is eventually found, but Marcel gets in yet more trouble when he surprises an activist in the act of painting some anti-American words on the car. The police arrives and takes Marcel by mistake thinking he is the one doing the painting. Marcel goes to prison and they only set him free when his wife arrives with a letter from the Secretary of Commerce. At home, a final disaster happens when Marcel's wife is trying to move the car but unwittingly sets it in reverse, thus destroying her brother's ice cream stand. Marcel then has an idea: he converts his car into an ice cream stand. The film ends at a horse race where Marcel is selling ice cream from his converted car. He decides to buy his friend's motorcycle when he has made enough money from his ice cream business.

*end of spoilers*

Agreeable comedy with a bland type of humor and enough incidents to make it entertaining. It's very well done in terms of staging and acting, and, though there is nothing very deep or groundbreaking about it, its depiction of a certain working class milieu at a certain time is certainly of some sociological value.

Rating: 51

Conte d'été (1996)

 English title: A Summer's Tale

Gaspard is spending his vacations at the beach. He expects to meet Léna with whom he had struck a fragile relationship a while ago and who went on a trip to Spain. He then meets Margot, an ethnologist working a summer job as a waitress at her aunt's restaurant. They become close friends. Since Léna does not appear to be coming to meet him, Gaspard starts to date another girl he met through Margot.

Story of a guy who gets in some trouble over his romantic affairs. As was his use in some of his past movies, the author could have chosen a proverb to illustrate this story, say "The weak man is like a leaf in the wind" or something like that. The succession of events, punctuated by some long stretches of dialogue, is competently crafted but, while not exactly disagreeable to watch, rather banal in essence, resembling a soap opera in style. The encounter of the protagonist with his awaited girlfriend, supposed to be the film's climactic point, was badly handled, with the girl's character coming across as somewhat caricatural. It's hard for the viewer to understand how she could arouse any man's passion.

Rating: 45

Manina...la fille sans voile (1952)

 English titles: The Girl in the Bikini; The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter

A student hears about a Phoenician sunken ship containing a treasure; coincidentally, he had found a jug while diving at the same spot where that ship supposedly sunk. He makes a deal with a cigarette smuggler to take him by boat to that place so that he can search for the treasure. He reencounters a girl he had met on his previous visit, and falls in love with her.

Awful adventure-cum-romance story which is only made watchable by the lovely landscapes of Corsica and Tangiers, its pretty (though here incompetent) leading actress, and one slightly amusing sequence in a classroom.

Rating: 21

My Six Convicts (1952)

 A psychologist leads a pioneering study among inmates of a big prison, measuring IQs and assessing skills. He has to use prisoners as assistants, and eventually wins their confidence. An escape plan puts him in danger.

Second-rate prison drama, with surprisingly little exploration of the actual experiment being performed. The plot focuses instead in the relationship between the psychologist and the inmates. The script is very unrealistic in a juvenile way. Certain details intrigued me, but since I don't know the prison rules which were applied in that place and time, I can't make an informed judgement. For example, there is a subplot in which an elaborate plan is put in action to smuggle the wife of an inmate into the prison so they can see each other. I wonder why she couldn't have just visited him. Weren't visits allowed? Anyway it's a poor film, both as entertainment and as a depiction of prisons.

Rating: 31

Fric-Frac (1939)

 An employee (Marcel) at a jewelry store meets two thieves -- a man (Jo) and a woman (Loulou) -- at the races. Marcel feels attracted toward Loulou and she in turn thinks he may somehow be useful to them in a robbery of the jewelry store. It so happens that the jewelry store's owner's daughter has her mind set on marrying Marcel.

Comedy which depicts the Parisian underworld. Its excellent cast enlivens a serviceable but otherwise not especially remarkable script. The opening sequence is set during a motor-paced racing event. It's funny that that sport exists since the 19th century and I had never even heard of it.

Rating: 53

Anzio (1968)

 Italian title: Lo sbarco di Anzio

A war correspondent follows the assault on Anzio in Italy during World War II. He goes through several adventures, first with a battalion, then with a small group of soldiers who see their outfit be destroyed.

Mildly entertaining war drama which according to some IMDB user reviews departs considerably from the real events it purports to depict. The script, especially the dialogue, is amusing in a style that was customary in Italian cheap movies of that era. In fact, the screenplay (based on a novel) is attributed to an English guy, but some Italian names are credited with the "adaptation". It is unclear who did the original work, the English guy or the Italian ones. One actor (Falk) is said to have written his own lines, and his lines are equally amusing, in that same style of the rest of the movie. In the latter part of the movie, there are pseudo-philosophical asides from the protagonist about man's motives for making war; they are very amusing, in the same manner of the rest of the movie.

Rating: 39

Nightfall (1956)

 The protagonist is chased by two criminals and watched by an insurance investigator. They want a suitcase full of money stolen from a bank by those two criminals. Through flashbacks we are told how the protagonist ended up with that suitcase. He was camping with a friend when the two criminals suffered a car accident in the vicinity.

The plot, especially in what regards the characters' behavior, does not make much sense, and the film's watchability is due primarily to location shooting in some interesting locales, both urban and rural.

Rating: 34

Hardcore (1979)

*mild spoilers ahead*

The young daughter of a businessman disappears, and he hires a detective to look for her. The detective discovers that she was in a pornographic movie, and shows it to the girl's father, who is shocked. The detective continues his search, but is eventually dismissed due to a lack of results, after which the father himself sets out to find his missing daughter. He begins to investigate the underworld of pornography, and, having obtained some photos of the other actors from the film in which his daughter appeared, he starts looking for those people in the hopes some of them can provide some information about his daughter's whereabouts. He persuades a prostitute to help him in his quest, in exchange for a pay.

Despite its potentially shocking subject matter, this film failed to ellicit any kind of emotion in me. The progression of the plot is quite predictable, and the dialogue and characters are not very interesting. It seems to have been thoughtfully written, in regards to the social and psychological issues which it tackles, and which are not devoid of interest in themselves, but somehow the end result just does not come across as particularly realistic or insightful.

Rating: 32

Julietta (1953)

*spoilers ahead* 

A young woman (Julietta) is engaged to be married to a prince (Hector). This is the end of her seaside vacation, which she is spending in the company of her mother and her sister. They are bound for Paris, where the prince awaits them. She is not eager to meet him, because she doesn't love him. At an intermediary stop, a passenger (André) gets off, but forgets his cigarette case. Julietta notices the forgotten object, and tries to restore it to its owner. She reaches him at the station, but the train leaves without her. André now must find a place for her to stay until she can catch the next train in the following day. The problem is that, due to a convention, all the hotels are full. So, Julietta must stay with André in his big mansion. This will lead to further complications as André brings his fiancée (Rosie) to spend the night with him in his mansion. André hides Julietta in the attic. Julietta becomes enamoured of André, and does not make things easy for him while she is there. An interesting coincidence which spices things up is that Rosie is best friends with Hector, and invites him to have dinner with them at the mansion. Of course, in the end, André falls in love with Julietta, and Rosie finds in Hector her ideal man. 

Romantic comedy which feels a little antiquated today, but probably was less so in 1953. The goings-on are a bit repetitive, with the title character provoking a series of troubles for the male protagonist, and the latter having to come with implausible excuses for his strange behavior. Overall, a rather weak film. Though not exactly disagreeable to watch, it is not really interesting in any way.

Rating: 31

Le magot de Josefa (1963)

English title: Josefa's Loot

*spoilers ahead*

 A young poet (Justin) has a compositional partnership with an older musician (Pierre). Justin employs Pierre in a scheme to defraud Justin's mother (Josefa) of money. Pierre travels to the small town where Josefa lives and owns a grocery store cum bar, and tells her that Justin has bought a car from him with a bad cheque, and then wrecked the car in an accident. Josefa refuses to compensate for her son's misdeed, even after Pierre threatens to send Justin to jail. It so happens that Josefa, an Italian immigrant widow who had previously lived in the U.S.A, is not the rich person she pretends to be. Pierre learns that the town's mayor, whom he had seen harassing Josefa for her attention, is Justin's biological father and, after his failure to extort the money from Josefa, he tries his luck with the mayor. Concurrently to all that, Josefa has some troubles with a group of noisy customers who on top of their bad behavior will not pay her. During her absence from the bar premises, those customers, emboldened by some reckless words spoken by the mayor in a moment of anger, break into the building and accidentally set it on fire. Everything is finally settled after Pierre threatens to bring the mayor to justice on the count of incitement to disorder. The mayor pays for Josefa's destroyed property and Josefa leaves town with Pierre. The two are in very good terms with each other.

Comedy which depicts some aspects of life in a small town in France. The leading actress is very funny in this; she finally found a comedic outlet for her indefectible portrayal of a stereotypical Italian woman. The plot becomes somewhat convoluted (and implausible) when the female protagonist's past life  is told verbally in a long exposition, but aside from that the film flows well. One might also question the film's ultimate point: it seems to side with Parisian crooks over small town people, which it paints as bigoted and morally lax. Overall, however, the humor is gentle and there are some really good sequences, e.g., the priest dancing the tango at the bar, the gravedigger and Pierre talking at the graveyard, Pierre and Josefa in the church talking and listening to his song, etc.

Rating: 56

A Bullet Is Waiting (1954)

 A plane carrying a sheriff and his prisoner crashes and due to circumstances they have to take refuge at a house where a young woman lives with her father, who is away.

As one IMDB user (rudy-30) noticed, this is apparently inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest. However, 'inspired by' does not make this an inspired script, and what we get are old clichés about the indefectible duo comprised of evil law enforcer and his maladjusted victim, who is really the better man. There is also the inevitable romance. A curious thing about the movie is that it plays exactly like a Western, except for modern utilities like airplanes and automobiles.

Rating: 36

Knock on Any Door (1949)

 After a holdup in a bar, a cop is killed by the robber. A young man with a criminal past is recognized by witnesses, but claims innocence. He turns to a lawyer who used to be his friend. The lawyer tells the jury the history of hardships the defendant has endured.

Liberal propaganda which resembles in plot You Only Live Once (the scene where an employer bullies the protagonist until he fires him is nearly identical in the two films). Knock on Any Door has some amusing underworld characters and the plot moves fast enough to keep one from getting too bored. Its social message is noble and to a certain extent pertinent, but it's delivered with such an amount of exaggeration that it falls flat. Take the sequence I mentioned earlier, for example: a sadistic employer driving his employee mad with anger. It's either unrealistic or something that the government would have no control over, unless it paid every former criminal a salary for not working at all.

Rating: 45