Bruce Calvert wrote:If you didn't like Paths to Paradise or Hands Up!, then I doubt that you will like any of his other features. The Night Club does have Wallace Beery as a villain, but it's still a pretty low budget feature.
I had the same basic problem with both films.
In the case of Hands Up! I started the film with considerable enthusiasm. I'm also a Civil War buff, and knew something as grim and pompous as that war was would be and easy target for laughs. Of course, The General had already been one of my pet films for several years, and sound comedies like Uncivil War Birds and A Southern Yankee had also scored with me. Furthermore, I had thoroughly enjoyed Advance to the Rear (1960), the film that had inspired F-Troop, and, on paper, the plots of Hands Up! and Advance to the Rear had a lot of common ground.
With Paths to Paradise, I went into it, as everyone in here would imagine, with considerably more reserve, but was quickly won over by the Chinatown sequence, which I found both cute and clever. I'm also a fan of detective films, so again, I was easily winnable. Besides, Compson was pretty likable too.
In both cases then, by the the end of the first reel I had positive feelings about both films. By the end of the second, I was allowing for the need to set up plot. By the end of the third, I'd already began to grow weary of all the various tricks and double-crossing. By the end of the fourth, I was already thinking about how much better these films would have been with Charley Chase in the lead, and by the start of the sixth all I was waiting for was some sort of smash finishes to pull these things out of the fire. In Hands Up!, it never came. Even the "Utah or Bust" sign I'd been expecting ended up being "To Salt Lake City." Paths to Paradise was slightly better, but zooming around in process photography backdrop thrills me about as much as the Sennett Cyclorama, and while a bunch of cops on motorcycles looks impressive in a chase, it just isn't terribly funny to me if there's no interaction with Griffith. So its all pretty dull, and when the film ends abruptly (because of the missing reel), it seems a relief. Only bit I really liked in that chase was the tire changing sequence.
So, in conclusion, I still don't see that the big deal regarding Griffith was about. I'm willing to keep trying, but as Bruce suggests, this is looking pretty futile for me.
DBP