1927 Directed by Frank R. Strayer
Wally and Ray are cousins intent upon getting the fortune of their Scots grandad, an aviation nut. They become mixed-up with the U. S. flying corps and are wafted over the enemy lines in a runaway balloon. Through misunderstanding they are honored as heroes of the enemy forces, and sent back to the U.S. lines to spy. Here they are captured and almost shot, but everything ends happily. Only 20 minutes of this 6 reel comedy are extant.
USA
USA
been a lulu fan since 2009 and now i remember why i fell in love with her in the first place 💖
A lavish slapstick film from Paramount, featuring two of the stars of, erm, the traumatic riding-the-rails masterpiece, Beggars of Life. There’s a lovely hot-air balloon, and it’s nice to see Louise Brooks, but you can’t really judge a film where only parts of three reels remain, or award any stars to a movie where some cunt (Wallace Beery) kicks a donkey. The gags are notably variable but ambitious, the scale of the film impressive.
Look, this isn't the Wallace Beery picture Barton Fink would write, it's boorish nonsense banaly executed (my standards for silent comedy may be skewed by having really only seen the classics) but boy, you love to see it burning there on the screen, barely clinging to existence, a last burst of legacy before it gets lost entirely. The Decasia style beauty from destruction is dulled somewhat by a score that suits the mood about as well as the trench setting suits broad slapstick, but it's the images that matter and I'm happy to hold them in my memory while I can.
Only a tiny 27 minute fragment survives, and it's nothing all that remarkable, like a more simplistic Laurel & Hardy film. But to see a film that was thought lost, desperately clinging onto life despite intense damage, was weirdly heartwarming. Giving me those Dawson City: Frozen Time feels.
6 /10
some questionable 'aerial' shots, but still fun.
From the 6 movie Enduring Modernity: The Transcontinental Career of Louise Brooks component of the 2019 Melbourne Cinémathèque season.
This 27 minute fragment (roughly one third of the original film) is made up of three scenes from a lost film that was written for the comedy team of Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton and directed by Frank R. Strayer. Beery and Hatton play cousins who join the US Army Air Service and are caught up in aerial battles over the front lines in France during WWI. Louise Brooks plays the dual roles of twin sisters Griselle/Grisette, one of whom is loyal to France and the other to Germany.
The only Brooks footage that has survived is a Griselle segment where she plays a circus performer who interacts sympathetically with the two leads.
The most interesting element of what survives…
