POKER WIDOWS (1931) Arthur Stone, Patsy O'Leary

[Richard M Roberts]

Another one of those Mack Sennett-Educational talkies that helped close the studio in 1933, we put it up for the completists.

Directed by Leslie Pearce, and featuring Arthur Stone, Patsy O'Leary, Wade Boteler, Gertrude Astor, Lincoln Stedman, George Gray,
George Byron:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om4NZR_jDyk

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Ed Watz]

I like your straightforward analysis, Richard. If you made an audio commentary track for this bupke, I think you could turn it into something hilarious. But I wouldn't want to put you through that kind of torture - seeing this twice!

[William Ferry]

Richard, that's one of the most concise, and certainly one of the funniest reviews I've ever read. It ranks right up there with the critic who described a 121-minute WWII epic as two hours too long.

[Richard M Roberts]

It has always boggled my mind just how clueless Mack Sennett was about Talkies. Here was the man who had made dizzyingly fast paced silent comedies who didn't seem to have ever figured out sound comedies needed pacing as well, and he didn't even seem to figure it out after several years! Didn't he watch his own shorts? Even Educational figured it out in their own productions faster than Sennett.

And the dialogue in the Sennett talkies is always nothing near realistic, and the leaden "romantic" comedies like this one just go absolutely nowhere. In fairness, the Sennett talkies get slightly better by the time he moved distribution to Paramount, mainly due to suddenly having major talents like Bing Crosby and W. C. Fields making comedies for him, but it was too little, too late for the man who had ponied up the dough to make HYPNOTIZED with Moran and Mack.

Hal Roach may not have always had brilliant ideas, but he and his staff both in front and behind the camera figured out talkies quicker than anyone else who was producing short comedies during the transition. Let's not even bring up Al Christie.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Rob Farr]

Even Paramount figured out how to make a successful Mack Sennett talkie feature: Million Dollar Legs. And Sennett had nothing to do with it.