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Reviews
The Black Camel (1931)
Great for Chan fans, Painful for film fans!
A terrific restoration of another atrocious film! To put this review in short, if you can sit through an hour or so of Bela Lugosi portraying a Latin-American dignitary meowing like a cat(!) and El Brendel picking his nose(!) don't call us, we'll call You! Yes, it's That bad!! I'm the world's #1 Marjorie White, the only reason at all I pick out these films, to see her, but what an insult to not only the viewer, but to her memory as well, it's hard to imagine how her spunky talent got stuck in a bowser like this one! Yes, this is another in the "lost and best forgotten" category, several moderately talented actors grossly miscast in this loser, give me a script and a camera, even I can do better than this! End of story!
Just Imagine (1930)
Gets worse each time I see it!
Going through my old movies, I watched JI again first time in a long while, I had forgotten how incredibly BAD it really is! (See my previous post). Worse than REEFER MADNESS, worse than anything Ed Wood could conjure up, in fact, a friend and I were amateur filmmakers in the '60s, with a hand-held 16mm camera & battery-operated tape recorder for sound, the junk we made were D.W.Griffith & Cecel B. DeMille epics compared to this one!! There is but one scene, the "Don't Swat a Fly" song & dance number of White and Albertson, but even that one has to be removed from the context of the whole film to enjoy at all.
If this was a sci-fi "thriller" of 1930, I'm glad I didn't live back then to imagine what 1980 would be like!! SSSOOO BAD, it can't even be classed as "so bad it's good". If there were a negative rating system, this one would be at the very top of the list, WWAAYY beyond classification in ANY category! Many films, good or poor, have been lost over time, but how this one survived is beyond my comprehension: It should have been destroyed in 1930, and the producers/writers court-ordered to pay back the money invested! I could go on and on, but anyone who posts to say it's any good, should be considered an enemy of society!
Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
maybe not 100% lost?
Although I accept the fact that this film is indeed lost, I've never seen it in my life, BUT, to contradict the reviewer above who says it was destroyed in a 1931 fire, at some point in the past ten years (cant remember exactly) I saw on internet a copy of this film was being shown at one of UCLA's theater programs. If that's true, there's at least one copy in someone's private collection, out there somewhere. Never give up hope! re: the Spanish version of Dracula Universal 1931 was considered lost for decades until someone found a print copy in a Havana Cuba Warehouse early 1990s, it's now restored and widely available! Keep hoping and keep searching: You'd be surprised where these "losties" turn up!
Her Bodyguard (1933)
eminently forgettable!
I've been fortunate to obtain a long-sought-after copy of this film, and I'm really disappointed with it - I'd thought it would be a Marjorie White smash ala HAPPY DAYS, but I was wrong! The storyline is droll, the entire plot revolves around the endless rehearsal for a Broadway musical that never happens, only the sub-plot of Wynne Gibson and her bodyguard add any flavor at all. Gibson's acting is dull and flat, none of the characters, not even Marjorie, as Lita LeRoi, add any zest or life. I'm the world's #1 Marjorie White fan, she usually outshines the rest of the cast, even in her famous one-scene walk-ons, but not in this one. Marjorie has only one short scene revolving around her, and it's just DUMB! She's a yak-aholic seems to throw in as much verbage as possible into the scenes, to where "Ballyhoo" the newspaper reporter, and McCarthy, the bodyguard, suggest she jump off the Brooklyn Bridge to get rid of her, she's so simple-minded she thinks it a great idea! Saved by a stereotypical Irish cop (with his thick New York brogue). White plays a distant second to Gibson's lead and it seems her scenes were added to lengthen the film, because her part is only vaguely related to the main story, and not connected at all! Don't waste your time, Unless you're a true Marjorie White fan, in which case you'll be badly disappointed. Skip this one, or toss it in the dustbin of losers best forgotten!