Silent Sundays: Captain Kidd's Kids (1919)

“Man overboard. Send in the janitor.”

This Silent Sunday film Captain Kidd’s Kids starring Harold Lloyd is the shortest silent film I have seen so far and one of the funniest.

            A Boy (Lloyd) has thrown himself a bachelor party in his apartment the night before he is to be married. He got so drunk he slept in a dresser drawer with a bandage around his head and a block of ice under his pillow. The Girl (Bebe Daniels) he is supposed to marry her mother has heard about how out of hand the party got that she refuses to let her daughter marry him. She is taking the Girl to the Canary Islands. The Boy decides to follow her.

            On the boat the Boy’s butler gets seasick. He makes fun of him mercilessly for it until he gets sick himself. He finds a place to lie down. Not too long after he lays down two men come to try to steal his wallet. The Boy puts up a good fight but he gets tossed overboard. The butler tries to throw a life saving tube and winds up going overboard as well. A dog also somehow gets thrown overboard as well. The two humans and the dog are adrift for twenty-four hours. They come across a pirate ship. The ship is not your typical pirate ship- it is a ship run by women!

            The Boy is very happy at first until the women make him work. He starts off with the task to wash the ship but gives up as soon as the mop is placed in his hands. Then he is sent down to help the cook. He and the cook do not get along after he bugs the poor cook to no end. After they get into a big fight the captain of the ship makes the Boy walk the plank. One of the girls likes him. She goes down to the dungeon and lets the other male prisoners they have caught go so they can try to take over the ship. The women crowd around the Boy and the one girl pirate. They get a rope around his neck and try to hang him.

            The women’s ship was all just a dream. The Boy wakes up right where he fell asleep on. The rope he fell asleep on somehow got wrapped around his neck. He sees the Girl and her mother. He gives the mother a piece of his mind and lets her know that they are going to be married.

            Captain Kidd’s Kids was hilarious from beginning to end. Harold Lloyd was so funny. All the things he did were so slick and so quick. I thought it was genius how at the beginning when the Boy was drunk he had a bandage on his head and a block of ice under his pillow his head hurt so bad. Captain Kidd’s Kids is only twenty-one minutes long and is available to view on Youtube. 

Silent Sundays: Why Change Your Wife (1920)

“When a woman meets her ex-husband she realizes all she has lost: when she meets the wife she realizes all he has lost”

            Why Change Your Wife? is the first silent film I have seen from Cecil B. DeMille. I hate to say I was expecting a better film after seeing some his later more popular films. I was also expecting a bit better because Gloria Swanson is the star and she was one of the biggest things in the silent era. The film was not totally awful it had its moments that were funny and interesting.

            Robert Gordon has been married to Beth (Swanson). Beth “gladly gave up her husband’s liberty when she married him.” The poor man is trying to shave and she just keeps bothering him. In fact Beth just bothers Robert. He tries to love her and wants her to be more of a woman rather than a dowdy one who is perfectly boring.

            One day Robert decides to buy Beth some risqué lingerie. He is embarrassed beyond belief seeing the models barely dressed. One of the models Sally Clark (Bebe Daniels) recognizes him from when she was younger back home. She puts on the most exotic of the lingerie dresses the store has as well as some exotic smelling perfume. Robert of course does not recognize her. He likes the way Sally looks in the negligee and orders one for Ruth. Sally is upset when she sees Robert write on the card “Mrs. Robert Gordon.”

            That night Robert tries to lighten the mood. He puts on a Fox Trot but Beth immediately walks over and puts an opera on. She does not want to dance with him she wants to listen to more cultivated music. The negligee comes. Robert tells Beth to put it on and come out when she is dressed. Beth in all her prudishness hates the negligee and does not want to come out. Robert is furious that she does not like it.

            The next day Robert gets tickets for a play in town. He calls Ruth to meet him in the city for dinner and the show. Ruth tells him she is having people over and some violin player will be there as well. He gets disgusted and tells her he will dine at his club that night and go to the show himself. After he hangs up Sally comes in. The store forgot to include a piece of the negligee in the box and has brought the piece. Robert takes Sally out to the show and to dinner. After the show he goes back to her apartment. They talk and listen to the latest music on her record player.

            Beth tries to wait up for Robert to come home. He had kissed Sally before he left and feels guilty for doing so. Beth wakes up when he gets home. He tells her he went out with a friend. She smells Sally’s perfume on him. The next morning Robert leaves. He tells Beth he wanted to marry a sweetheart not a judge and to live in a home not a convent.

            On the day the divorce goes through Beth goes out dress shopping with her aunt. Beth overhears two of the shop girls talk about her how she dressed more like Robert’s aunt than his wife and did not play with him like she should have and he wanted her to. Beth gets furious and rips up all her old clothes. She wants all her clothes to be indecent now.

            Robert marries Sally. He is stuck in the same pattern with Sally. He tries to shave without ripping his throat open and his wife is right there bothering him. Sally asks him to take her on vacation to Atlantic City for a few days. They get to the hotel and they see men flocking around a woman. Robert comes to find the woman all the men are breaking their necks to get a look at is Beth. She has had a great make over both physically and in attitude. All that night and the rest of the vacation his mind is on his former wife.

            To make a ridiculously long story short Robert and Beth do get back together and do get remarried.

            Gloria Swanson was twenty-one when she made this film. She looked stunning. Even as the frumpy wife at the beginning she just captures your attention and does not let go. I loved the scene where Beth realizes she needed to change. Swanson played that very well. Bebe Daniels was alright. I liked her more at the beginning of the film than throughout the rest.

            Why Change Your Wife? was alright. I got bored with it pretty quick. I really liked seeing all the clothes it is fascinating to see what was fashionable in the 1920s (and come on who does not like the style of the 1920s?). DeMille’s direction is nothing to write home about. The title cards were are worth a ton mentions. They were hysterical and extremely witty. Why Change Your Wife? is worth seeing at least once. It is available to view on Youtube. 

42nd Street (1933)

“Sawyer, you listen to me, and you listen hard. Two hundred people, two hundred jobs, two hundred thousand dollars, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It's the lives of all these people who've worked with you. You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give and give. They've got to like you.”

            42^nd Street is one of the best musicals and best pre-codes I have seen. The film is full of musical clichés that were most likely old even in 1933. It is no wonder the musical was all but dead besides bad camera angles and sound. By the time 42^nd Street was released cameras had become more sophisticated and sound had greatly improved. Along with Gold Diggers of 1933 I think 42^nd Street is the best musical of that year. It is not the story but the performances that pull you into the film.

            Famed stage director Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) is putting on a new show. Hundreds of girls audition for the part. Seasoned vets like Ann “Anytime Annie” Lowell (Ginger Rogers) and Lorraine Fleming (Una Merkel). The two women have been through the ringer so much they personally know Marsh’s assistant Andy with Lorraine constantly trying to get his attention. There is a new young naïve face among the girls named Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler). This is her first time auditioning for anything. By accident she runs into Billy Lawler (Dick Powell) an actor with the company. Billy is a nice guy and immediately has a sweet spot for Peggy. He puts her in the front lines and she gets chosen for the chorus.

            The only reason the show is going on during the Depression is because some small town guy named Abner Dillon forked over seventy-thousand dollars and only if stage star Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels) was the star. Marsh and his men are concerned with Dorothy because she needs to be sweet with Dillon to keep his money in the show but she always sees her old vaudeville partner Pat Denning (George Brent) on the side. Dorothy loves Pat she feels terrible that she has been a success when he was the one who taught her how to be a performer. He says does not want to be an anchor around her neck anymore.

            At rehearsals one day Peggy collapses from exhaustion. Pat is there waiting for Dorothy so he sits and talks to Peggy. They hit it off very nicely. When Dorothy blows Pat off because she is with Dillon, he takes Peggy out for dinner. Dorothy sees them leave together and she gets jealous. When Pat takes Peggy home he is attacked by men that Marsh hired to scare him away from Dorothy during the play. Dorothy comes by Pat’s place the next day. He has his bags packed to go to Philadelphia to find some work. She tells him that is for the best they should not see each other anymore.

            At a party in her hotel room Dorothy has enough of Dillon. She is upset that Pat was with Peggy. Dillon is drunk and acting like a moron along with another woman. Dorothy calls Pat to come over but by the time he comes she is drunk. Peggy is in the hotel too where she was at a party. She runs away from the party and runs into two men who want to hurt Pat again. Peggy followed Pat to Dorothy’s room and tries to warn him but Dorothy in a jealous drunkenness tries to get at the poor girl. Dorothy falls and breaks her ankle.

            The show is in a spiral. Dillon says he can save the day he has just the girl to take over the lead part. Apparently in just one day he has fallen for Ann and wants her to be the lead. Ann herself knows she cannot play the lead and suggests Peggy for the part. Marsh has nothing else to do and puts Peggy in. For the five hours leading up to the show Marsh works Peggy to bone.

            The hard work pays off and Peggy does a great job.

            As I said the performances are what saves this film from being too clichéd. All the praise in the world goes to Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel. These two completely steel the film in every one of their roles. The moment Rogers comes on the screen she is hysterical. She is wearing a monocle, a big hat, and carries a small dog and a cane and speaks with a British accent. Merkel picks Rogers out right away and just gives her grief. Every line Rogers and Merkel utter is snarky, sarcastic, quick, and witty. Bebe Daniels I have never seen in a film before but I have heard of her from researching silent films. Daniels was a very good actress and very pretty. Her singing and dancing were alright. George Brent I just love. He is the type of man I want to meet and fall in love with. He was handsome and his character was so sweet and nice. Dick Powell’s role is small. He has a few dancing and singing numbers. Warner Baxter I have seen in only one film before, he is a good actor but kind of forgettable. Ruby Keeler is just bad. Her singing is terrible and her acting gets annoying after a while. But I will say she was a good dancer.

            42^nd Street is a great musical and 1930s pre-code. It was so successful it saved Warner Bros. from bankruptcy. The studio really knew how to make really good racy pre-code musicals. 42^nd Street is a mix of cute musical with subtle sexual comments or suggestions and quick mean remarks. I loved sitting through the film not just for things I mentioned but also for the direction. Some of the camera angles were really good. 42^nd Street is a musical to just be enjoyed and to have a great laugh.