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Reviews
Music in My Heart (1940)
Very enjoyable if minor musical.
It's good to see a very young Rita Hayworth (before her Columbia make-over) looking terrific and having a lot of fun along with young and handsome Tony Martin who's in excellent voice singing pleasant songs including the Oscar nominated IT'S A BLUE WORLD. They give delightful performances and work well together.
A fine supporting cast is headed by the charming, underrated Edith Fellows who assists Martin in two numbers. While Alan Mowbray, Eric Blore, George Tobias and George Humbert all do well in the kind of parts they had played many times before but which was welcomed with glee by audiences of the thirties and forties.
Rita gets a chance to dance a little but her exceptional terpsichorean talents are wasted here.
A most enjoyable way to pass an hour.
Knyazhna Tarakanova (1910)
Will keep you interested to the end
Might well be one of the best films from 1910.
This true incident from the reign of Catherine the Great in Russia is strikingly similar to the plot of Katherine Hepburn's MARY OF Scotland with the clash between Mary and Queen Elizabeth. There's also the Queen's representative played by Fredric March who falls in love with Mary just as the Count Orlov falls for the Princess in this film made 26 years earlier.
Filmed pretty much as you might view it on a stage with little or no film sense, the story is sufficiently interesting to hold the attention and keep the viewer interested to the end. Extremely well done for 1910.
Drama v tabore podmoskovnykh tsygan (1908)
Good early silent from Russia
Good early silent one reeler that seems almost documentary like in execution (if somewhat crude) caters to the Russian predilection for tragedy. The simple plot moves quickly and is straight forward so we are able to follow it without any inter-titles.
According to the opening credits actual gypsies were used instead of professional actors but the acting styles are identical with that used in films made in other countries at the time, with the emphasis on broad theatrical gestures.
Unlike most American silents it is shot outdoors and while a bit melodramatic is still more interesting to watch and has more dramatic import than most films from this era.
The Man Who Had Everything (1920)
Jack Pickford proves he was a good actor.
In real life Jack Pickford was a "man who had everything". He was not only the brother of the rich and influential Mary Pickford but he was a good actor in his own right although not in the same top echelon as his more famous and more talented sister.
The film has an interesting plot and is fun to watch because Pickford gives a good performance, although at this young age (24), he already looks a bit dissipated.
As his father's secretary, Priscilla Bonner makes a sweet and touching heroine, but Shannon Day is much too obvious and mean spirited as the vamp. Character actor Alex B. Francis lends credibility to the not very credible role of the blind beggar who's reverse curse "May you always have everything you want" has a surprising result.
*****WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***************** "The Man Who Had Everything" casts Jack as the spoiled and selfish son of a millionaire, who finally comes to his senses and becomes a concerned and industrious human being, something he was too weak to do in real life
Dress Parade (1927)
Nice surprise for William Boyd fans
The story of the brash, egotistical and selfish young student/cadet/draftee/military man who goes to college/military school/or is drafted into the service, earns the animosity of his classmates and nearly loses the girl he loves (usually the commandant's daughter or his roommate's sister) until he redeems himself by unselfishly risking his own life to save a buddy in a climatic action sequence, was already a cliché in 1927. As early as 1911 Edgar G. Wynn starred in the first version of BROWN OF HARVARD. A re-make with Tom Moore as Tom Brown was made in 1918 and in 1926 the year before this film, William Haines had done it twice (with variations of course) in another remake of BROWN OF HARVARD and in TELL IT TO THE MARINES opposite the great Lon Chaney. Robert Taylor did it in 1938 as A YANK AT OXFORD, it's the sub-plot of Abbott and Costello's BUCK PRIVATES (1941) with Lee Bowman as the cocky hero and Rob Lowe took his turn (to the point of almost being obnoxious) in OXFORD BLUES (1984). "TOP GUN" (1986) with Tom Cruise was a high tech revision. And there were countless B-movie versions.
DRESS PARADE is little more than an uncredited re-make. Here we have the very likable William Boyd as the not so likable hero, eight years before his long run starring as Clarence Mulford's Hopalong Cassidy, giving a surprisingly good account of himself in what is basically a comedy role. The girl is adorable Bessie Love who has little to do except look pert and pretty and adorable, all of which she does very well. Hugh Allan is so very effective and shows such promise as Boyd's rival that you wonder why his screen career was negligible.
Donald Crisp learned both film acting and directing under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith but his skill as a director was minimal compared to his acting. His best work was as Buster Keaton's co-director for THE NAVIGATOR (1924), but Keaton undoubtedly deserves the major share of the credit for that magnificent comedy. Crisp does only a fair job directing this minor entertainment.
Much too formulaic to be anything more than a mild diversion except for fans of William Boyd who will be pleasantly surprised.