Modern Times (1936)

Why it's here:
Hailed as the last great silent film, this is an interesting piece. It is not exactly silent. There are sound effects and some minimal dialog. The film utilized "sound" but it did not showcase it. It is made like a silent film -- with a silent ethos and a visual comedic style. And it is a masterpiece.

Specs:
Hour and a half, black and white, silent (sort of)

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):
8.0

More about the film and our reaction to it:
First of all and most unexpected was the amazing Paulette Goddard - who is impossibly beautiful. I'd heard of her before but never seen her in anything. She has a modern look, expressions and movements, and reminded me palpably of Courtney Cox, only more beautiful. She is an extremely appealing co-star, but ultimately, the film is Chaplin's.

He is simply remarkable in this wonderful story of the down and out Tramp -- his last screen appearance as such. Chaplin was loathe to enter the sound era and did so only grudgingly. He made this film years after everyone else had given up the ghost of silents. But in holding on and in releasing this, he made me realize why everyone should have been loathe to give up the silent era. This type of comedy may not ever be seen on a large scale again, but it is superb and is still extremely watchable.

Chaplin's Tramp starts out the film as a worker in a factory assembly line on funny machinery doing funny maneuvers to the machine parts. Through various mishaps he is in and out of jail and various other jobs for the rest of the movie, linking up part way through with a spunky poverty stricken girl trying to make the best of life for herself and her little sister. Chaplin and Goddard do manage to achieve a great measure of success and togetherness, and slink off into the sunset together, but not before Chaplin performs the funniest song ever.

Interestingly, though this is a "silent" with little dialog and though Chaplin does not speak in the movie, he does sing. His song is the first time his voice had ever been heard on camera! The routine is a nonsense song accompanied by pantomime and it's hard to describe why, but is very very funny. We watched and re-watched the scene on Youtube more times then I'd care to know.

Iconic shot:
The banner image gracing the top of this website is the most iconic shot from the movie. So, for this post, I'll share one of Goddard.

The Broadway Melody (1929)

Why it's here:
In response to our disappointment with The Jazz Singer, I searched for a real first introduction to sound. This one, billed as the first "all talking, all singing, all dancing" sound film seemed to fill the bill.

Specs:
About 2 hours. Black and white (was actually released with a short two-color Technocolor sequence for one of its big song numbers; however, that sequence is now believed to be lost.) It is available on dvd; our library actually had a copy. Talkie -- a real talkie all the way through.  For more info about the transition from Silents to Sound, check out that topic.

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):

6.0

More about the film and our reaction to it:
The "thrill" of seeing a movie with dialog after 20 films, amounting to nearly 30 years of silents, was not inconsequential to us. We got to feel some part of what audiences at the time must have felt to have been able to listen to a movie.

However, once the initial excitement has passed, you are left (again) with a fairly second-rate picture. This was a melodramatic story underpinning a pretty good musical, but just too over the top for our tastes. The love story was a bit seedy and harsh - with a lecherous rich guy preying on the ingenue and an older sister's fiance falling for same ingenue.

It's interesting for the opening footage taken (probably from a plane) looking down at New York City. Incredible. And for the glimpses into the backstage inner workings of a Broadway show.

Iconic shot:

Steamboat Willie (1928)

Why it's here:
The first "talkie" cartoon.

Specs:
8 minute short. Black and white, animated talkie

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):

6.67

More about the film and our reaction to it:
What was cool about this was learning that the title Steamboat Willie was a play on Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr - also part of the festival. It is so great to not just read that trivia note, but to read it having just seen Steamboat Bill Jr. Details like that, in context, make this festival so fun.

This was a far more satisfying talkie experience than The Jazz Singer, though, like The Jazz Singer, it didn't really have much dialog. Mickie only says one thing.

But with or without the incentive of synchronized sound, the film is cute and worth watching as a very early example of a cartoon character with which we are all so familiar.

I suppose it won't surprise anyone to hear that the kids enjoyed it more than I did.

Iconic shot:

The Kid Brother (1927)

Why it's here:
We needed to beef up on Harold Lloyd after seeing Safety Last!. What I had wanted to include was The Freshman, but despite exhaustive search of all sources available, could not find it. This was a worthy substitute.

Specs:
An hour and 20 minutes, black and white, silent.
It isn't clear to me exactly when the film is set, but it is a Western, probably meant to be in the late 1880s or so.

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):

7.75 

More about the film and our reaction to it:
How much thoroughly better a viewing experience is a movie like this -- with a plot, good acting, humour and pleasant on-location cinematography -- than a movie who's job it is to simply capitalize on the fact of sound like The Jazz Singer, also released in 1927. Here, Lloyd is a bit more nuanced and interesting a character than he played in Safety Last!. The film isn't quite so hilarious, but its value lies elsewhere.  This is a slower-paced, sweeter, romantic picture. Harold is quite an appealing romantic lead and has great chemistry with his co-star Jobyna Rawlston. Yet it's still funny and full of great slapstick moments.

Harold's "look" doesn't translate well to still photos. When you watch him in a film, he moves with a nice grace and has a fresh, attractive, modern quality to his face. Yet in stills, he usually just looks dorky. Its too bad, because this is probably not winning him scores of modern fans. But he deserves modern fans. His films are really good.

He has another big strike against him, in terms of winning popular support today, and that is a too-protective nature toward his films while he was living and too active a trust with respect to copyrights now. His films were not shown on tv when people my age were growing up (by his choice, as he didn't care for the medium); so now, though people can get them on dvd, most haven't heard of him. And because his estate has actively secured copyrights and kept a tight hold on his material, people can't easily stumble upon videos of his work online -- to get to know and appreciate him. All of this makes him pretty obscure -- I can't find his films at my library nor though Netflix; even if you were inclined to rent his work on Amazon or iTunes (which I am!), you're out of luck.

It might not happen without effort, but if you get the chance to see his work you should.

Iconic shot:

The Jazz Singer (1927)

Why it's here:
This is widely billed as the first talkie and we included it on our list for that reason. Also, the film is extremely iconic and is spoken of almost any time movies are spoken of, especially the musical number with Al Jolson singing "Mammy" at the end. It had to be included.

Specs:
About an hour and a half long, black and white. And, I'm sorry, but this really is not a talkie. It is somewhere in the middle between silent and talkie.

For more info about the transition from Silents to Sound, check out the page devoted to that topic.

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):

3.5

More about the movie and our reaction to it:
Finally! Woo hoo! And no I'm not excited about a talkie, but rather about the first film that we get to pan! We hated this movie. I suppose it would be fairer to say that most of us hated it. I probably would have tolerated it better, maybe even enjoyed it a bit, if everyone else in my family hadn't been complaining the whole time.

The movie had two major strikes against it: first, though billed as the first "talkie," there was precious little spoken dialog in the film. The film is primarily a silent (with title cards) all the way through. Just a few key scenes were wired for sound, though all the song numbers were. My kids were seriously disappointed that after all these silents and just when they were ready to dive into "real" movies with spoken dialog, that experience was withheld from them.

The second drawback is that the movie just isn't that good -- as a silent or as a sound. It highlights one of the major problems of this transition era: When the whole point of your endeavor is the fact of having "sound!", rather than the telling of a story, the audience gets treated to second rate stories. We've seen such great silents in our festival. The story here couldn't hold a candle to most of them. It was dull and plodding and overly dramatic. My family didn't care much what happened to any of the characters, and by the time Al Jolson sang "Mammy" they had little charity left to spare for that iconic moment in cinema.

If you watch, just make sure you explain to your family first that this isn't a full talkie; then, at least yours won't have to suffer the disappointed expectations that mine did.

Iconic shot: