MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: MIRACLES FOR SALE (1939)

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Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
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Wednesday, July 31, 2024

MIRACLES FOR SALE (1939)

Best known for Creep-Out/Horror silents with Lon Chaney*; Bela Lugosi’s atmospheric but hopelessly stiff DRACULA/’31; and that sui generis circus-world oddity FREAKS/’32, director Tod Browning proved unwilling to adjust his silent technique to fit modern synch-sound Hollywood. (Not unable, unwilling.) Only coming to terms with the inevitable on THE DEVIL-DOLL/’36 (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/12/devil-doll-1936.html), his last assignment before a final return three years on for this toss-away M-G-M programmer (not that studio’s strong-suit). And it’s surprising good fun, a sort of magician’s shaggy dog story about ex-illusionist Robert Young, now a magic act salesman & psychic debunker, trying to help desperate Florence Rice fight off a phony spiritualist (her secret sister) who’s gotten involved in some very real murders. Continuity and editing still a bit bumpy, and you won’t be able to figure out all the explanations, but the zip of magic tricks added to a nutty police procedural makes for good spritely stuff if you turn off the left side of your brain. Plus, snazzy lensing in an early outing from the excellent Charles Lawton Jr., later a fave of John Ford, Budd Boetticher & others for decades. Why Browning never got another shot after this more mysterious than anything in the plot.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Try THE UNKNOWN/’27; or perhaps THE SHOW/’27 which anticipates FREAKS. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-unknown-1927-mystic-1925.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-show.html

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Wednesday, July 31, 2024

MIRACLES FOR SALE (1939)

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