THE SHAKEDOWN (1929)

For once the East Coast Execs got it right, noting the underlying quality of this modest programmer and sending it back in front of the cameras to add prestigious/expensive Talkie sequences to the completed silent cut in spite of a ho-hum reception from 'the trades' and new Universal chief Carl Laemmle, Jr.  (Those additions now lost, the full silent exists in a superb print out on KINO.)  After directing more than a score of 2 & 5-reel Westerns, 27-yr-old William Wyler moves confidently to this modern MidWest story; tough, funny, touching, about a gang of crooked boxing promoters moving town-to-town, fleecing small-town rubes with a fixed bout by sending likable ‘advance man’ James Murray ahead to warm them up, posing as a local boy bravely stepping into the ring against unbeaten Battling Roff (former pro boxer George Kotsonaros).  But this time, Murray gets too involved with a girl (Barbara Kent) and a freckle-face orphan tyke (Jack Hanlon, phenomenal!) and can’t go thru with the scam.  Wyler seems unable to put a foot (make that camera placement) wrong, with a fabulous economical narrative style getting his story to run in just over an hour by telling us three or four things at once.  (The occasional immature/showoff shot great fun.)  The film openly looks back at Chaplin’s THE KID/’21, but also ahead to King Vidor’s THE CHAMP/’31, even more to Meredith Willson’s THE MUSIC MAN/’62, though here the surrogate father/son story (really more Big Brother) takes precedent over the romance, and in very emotional fashion.  Plus the boxing scenes really hold up: Wyler shooting with kinetic elan; Murray in fabulous ‘fissick’ as his young pal says.  (His rapid decline after Vidor’s THE CROWD/’28 and this unaccountable.)  Barbara Kent is fine as the girl, but Murray & Hanlon are the main event.  (Hanlon debuted as one of the kids following Buster Keaton everywhere he goes in THE GENERAL/’26.)  This one a real find.

ATENTION MUST BE PAID: Look fast for the guy in the ring holding up the Round # card; it’s Wyler.

DOUBLE-BILL: One more silent before Wyler did his first all-Talkie, HELL’S HEROES/’29, his exceptional version of THE THREE GODFATHERS (made twice by John Ford; by Richard Boleslawski; many more).