SilentComedyMafia.com

Just for that I would have banned you 200 years ago.

Gary Johnson wrote:Just for that I would have banned you 200 years ago.

My point proven yet again.

Lets see, the whines continue, someone who has been lucky enough to see a video copy of KING OF JAZZ whines that he cannot see a better one, poor baby. Bob Birchard says that I am right that SEVEN MEN FROM NOW is not a B western, but then says folk should go ahead and call it one if they feel like it cause he says so, atta boy Bob and hey, while you’re at it…….bloviate this. Mike Gebert moans that there’s a fat chance that he’ll ever see Berthold Viertel’s LITTLE FRIEND (hey I have a copy of that, and I’m always happy to share it with friends and…….oh yeah, fat chance Mike). And it looks like LouieD is trying to get himself banned from Nitratevile, it appears that is becoming a badge of honor.

Another dull, whiny, misinformed day at Nitratevile.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Richard M Roberts wrote: And it looks like LouieD is trying to get himself banned from Nitratevile, it appears that is becoming a badge of honor.

Just trying to wake people up over there, that's all. It seems a bunch of people form Australia are having a hard time understanding how restoration works.

There's a poster complaining about Filmuseum not releasing DVDs fast enough. Has no idea why they "take time with releases" . Well it takes a lot of restoring films plus adding a music score, etc etc. Europeans take time with their efforts so the finished product will be an achievement to be proud of. Sometimes when reading posts I refer to it as WhinyVille.

Pasquale

Michael Hayde gets the award today for dealing with the Nitratevile Nameless One determined not to be undone by facts and wanting desperately to be right that KID AUTO RACES AT VENICE was made before MABELS STRANGE PREDICAMENT. I think my favorite bit was “Lonesome (and I’ll bet he is lonesome) Luke’s” cry, “Chaplin said that it took three days to film MAKING A LIVING, not twenty-three! That's a big difference”, showing a complete lack of understanding as to how short comedies were made in general, like Sennett made them one at a time. The twenty-three days, as Michael patiently explained to him, was the number of days the film spent in production, not principal shooting, and for a more complicated one-reeler like MAKING A LIVING, with location shots at the LA Times, and a number of different locations, as well as being the first film of a new star comic, so indeed some test footage may have been shot and discarded, as well as weather issues to contend with, the extra time makes perfect sense, especially as it would have been only one of several Keystones all in production under separate units at the time.

But not to Lonesome Luke, and we may yet see more denials of reality emit from his deservedly anonymous fingers if the level of OCD he or she has already demonstrated is a fair warning, and all over the most inconsequential of nitpicks. What does it matter really one day, one film over the other when Chaplin, after his first character makeup had not gone over particularly well in his first short, finally decided “Hey, I’ll just swipe Billie Ritchie’s get-up, no one will know him over here in the States, and it will do me just fine.”?


And I see that the Nitratevile Ninnies have now created a “B+ Western” category that never ever existed in Film Nomenclature to define SEVEN MEN FROM NOW. Nitrateviles new motto: “Film History pulled out of our asses!”


RICHARD M ROBERTS

I don’t know whether the stupidity level or just the number of posts dropped over at Nitratevile today, it’s a hard call, but the main bon-mot of brainlessness was John Aldrich’s proving he knows nothing about THE LAST OUTLAW, which I must agree with David Shepard (and how often does that happen?) is indeed a fine and true B Western with Harry Carey, Hoot Gibson, and Henry B. Walthall, that unfortunately, though released by RKO, has not been owned by RKO since the mid-40’s, when John Ford and Harry Carey bought the rights for a planned remake that never happened. It was never in the C and C or any other RKO television packages, and it has never been shown on TCM (though it did get one showing on the old TNT before they realized there were rights problems). There are some 16mm collectors prints around, I have a very nice one of those, and it has run at Cinecon and Cinevent over the years, and is available on the grey markets. It really is a good western, with fine performances by all the cast, and though Ford purists bemoan that he only worked on the script and didn’t direct it, Christy Cabanne’ actually does a fine job, keeping the comedy below Ford-standard sledgehammer levels and focusing on the performers. Definitely worth checking out.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

After all these years I don't know how the info of Ford working on the script of this western escaped my reading retention. Was this mentioned in McBride's bio on Ford?

Gary Johnson wrote:After all these years I don't know how the info of Ford working on the script of this western escaped my reading retention. Was this mentioned in McBride's bio on Ford?

It was mentioned in both Mcbride and Eyman's bios I believe, but it was not a secret, Ford has a story credit on the film.

Ford originally had set up the film and planned to direct it, being his and Carey's reunion after the Silents, but for some reason, Ford backed out of the project and Cabanne' helmed it. Then Ford and Carey planned to remake it in the 40's, but Ford's wartime service, then Carey's death, stopped that from happening.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Damn my Alzheimer's....