Reviewer:
Poohbah70
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favoritefavorite -
December 13, 2019
Subject:
Tom Keene - What Gun?
has pretty well summed it up. However a few more comments from my side. Tom Keene is as stiff as they come in this one - but he gets a big, long kiss from girlfriend Sally Starr's sister, Mona Ray. Mona Ray seems to have been extremely short and she's 25 years old in this film - that's neither here nor there as she is a very entertaining part of the film, both as comedic actress and singer. Ida May Chadwick, the uncredited "step dancer" was on Broadway in 1924 in a play called "Paradise Alley" and there is little more to be found out about her on the internet. Hank and Tom MacFarlane do some nice rope twirling and Hank, the elder MacFarlane) sings and yodels a song during the barn dance. Harry Woods is also rather stiff as the bad guy. And, no, there is no gun play nor much else that is typical of westerns - more of a musical comedy with a perfunctory conflict plot for framework.
Reviewer:
bobsluckycat
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favoritefavorite -
February 15, 2014
Subject:
This Has To Be Seen To Be Believed
With nothing else to do, I looked up this little film, probably the last circulated by the Pathe Exchanges before they were acquired by the RKO Radio combine in 1930. Tom Keene (aka George Duryea) has the nominal lead as a cowboy. He's in love with Sally Starr and so is Harry Woods (in an early villain role at which he would become famous) and it all centers around a horse race at a rodeo. To get to that point however you have to endure a stage show at a barn dance, recorded in live sound (bad) backed by Abe Lyman & His Orch.
"Just A Cottage For Sale" by his un-credited male vocalist is quite good. The rest is tedious.
Mona Ray sings too and she and the McFarlane Brothers, who had been in a short earlier in the year, "Half-Pint Polly" also for Pathe, save the day. Tom wins the race and the girl and Harry Woods loses the race and the bet and is chastened by it. No big gun fight, no nothing.
This picture is a curio from the beginning of sound and inept even for then, but if you are a buff it's something you'll probably watch. Bears no relation to the exceptional westerns Tom Keene made once RKO entered the picture with better budgets and better scripts etc. Picture quality is very good, sound is atrocious.
Note: If you've ever seen "Lil Abner" the 1940 RKO Radio Picture, Mona Ray under that make-up played "Mammy Yokum". Not necessarily a bomb, but this picture comes close.
Honorable mention: Horse riding stunts and trick riding and racing was done by Kermit Maynard.
Reviewer:
Deichbrand_1 -
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August 27, 2011
Subject:
The right speaker seems like
to be totally drunken and abstained from this film. What a pity. Maybe he will sober up and participate in a new upload.