Tim Kelly is an orphan who runs away after his orphanage burns down. Presumed to be killed in the fire, he is able to roam the streets of New York freely. He meets Max Ginsberg, an old Jewish junk dealer with rheumatism, and the two strike a partnership and a close friendship.
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USA
USA
After the success of starring in Chaplin's The Kid (1921) Jackie Coogan would spend the rest of his childhood playing orphans and making The Kid rip-offs. Here is one of them. He's a little bit older, but pretty much wears the same clothes and just as resourceful as far as ghetto business helping out an old Jewish junk dealer. That gives Max Davidson, the regular Jewish character in Hal Roach short comedies, a rare large role. Silly story and still works to a certain degree without Chaplin because the kid is adorable. A fine little family movie full of charm all about the smiles and nothing to do with reality.
My largest complaint here may be that the scenes here often feel just a tad too dragged out, and so this feels a little slower than I wish it had. I think the movie could've been a little faster paced without losing anything.
One of the things that I found so appealing here was how well the intertitles go with the rest of this, and I think there's just as many laughs from that, and it does allow for a mix of comedy, as there's certain kinds of jokes that only work in words. I do also feel like I had done much of the requisite prep for this, thanks to things like More Dangerous than Dynamite>/A> giving me the…
A story that turns on impossible coincidences usually turns me off. But in The Rag Man, the pleasure of the relationship between the orphan and his "adopted" business partner/father is so winning I can forgive that completely. It may not compare favorably with The Kid, but on it's own it's a sweet, watchable time capsule from 1925 New York.
I'm an absolute sucker for plucky orphans so this had me from the get-go. Coogan is so cute and charming it's easy to see why he wins over curmudgeon Davidson. As tends to be the case with silents it's over-acted at times but the story is sweet and I always love a happy ending.
A solid if not spectacular comedy drama which sees a young Irish orphan become friends, family, and "business partners" with a down on his luck old trash picker. Davidson is great as the old man. Coogan, true to the times, is a little too over the top, especially during the most dramatic moments. The historical scenes of Manhattan are treat. A real time capsule. Also refreshing how the film treats the culture clash between the boy and the old man (he's Jewish). Their differences are genuinely celebrated. America as melting pot at its greatest.
The Rag Man follows a plucky Irish gamin (Jackie Cooper) who works his way into the heart of a Jewish junkman (Max Davidson). The film is a paean to the virtue of honesty, as both of our incredibly likable leads refuse to lie or cheat despite life handing them dire and impoverished circumstances. Karma, The Rag Man tells us, will come around.
This charming silent comic melodrama really wants to be a talkie—there are a great number of gags on the title cards. Fortunately, this works just fine. If the story is slight, the comedy is not.
Jackie Coogan is astonishingly good in a role that could have easily been saccharine before saccharine had even been around for all that long. Coogan would go on, decades later, to play a very different charmer—The Addams Family's Uncle Fester!
Slavish imitation of The Kid curdles the sentimentality into mawkishness and leans almost entirely on the supposed adorableness of Coogan to see the picture through, but without Chaplin's anarchic counterbalance, this is just Victorian sanctity-of-childhood kitsch. Primordial enough to retain some emotional power, but mostly a chore.
One of those "enjoyed it while I was watching it, no need to ever see it again" sort of movies.
After co starring with Charlie Chaplin in 1921's The Kid, Jackie Coogan became Hollywood's first real child star. This film plays on that earlier film's success (once again he's an orphan that befriends a poor tradesman who lives alone) with diminishing results. Still, this is a pleasant movie, and Coogan still had a cute and likable screen presence.
Directed by Edward F. Cline and written by Willard Mack, it opens with a Jackie's orphanage burning down and him taking up with a Jewish ragman (Max Davidson), whom he asks for a job. The old man puts Jackie to work buying and selling junk, which his natural charm makes him good at.
The story here, like so many children's films, gets…
Foreign + Silent: Weekly Challenge 2019
Less than five minutes into The Rag Man, little Jackie Coogan has already fallen two stories out of a burning orphanage while tangled in a smoldering bedsheet, and subsequently gets blasted by what I believe is a real fire hose. Nothing so harrowing follows for the rest of the story, which centers around Coogan and his adoptive father, an impoverished Jewish rag man. At first hesitant to take in a steet urchin, Max Ginsberg’s heart is warmed by Coogan’s can-do attitude and impressive business skills. At just over an hour, The Rag Man is a quick and pain-free watch.
