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