Saturday 12 January 2008

My Stars (1926) William Goodrich

The third of four collaborations between Roscoe Arbuckle (as William Goodrich) and actor Johnny Arthur, this one pokes mild fun at Hollywood like both the previous Arbuckle-directed films I've seen. Our hero loves a well to do young lady but she's a movie nut who would much rather gaze doe eyed at signed photos of her favourite stars than look at our boy. 'If only you could make love like him', she tells him referring to Milton Sills. So he dresses up in full Arab costume, fashioned from whatever he can find. Of course by the time he gets back, she's switched to a new photo and that's most of the fun.

We see Johnny Arthur as Milton Sills dressed as a sheikh, Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood guise and eventually Harold Lloyd. The story is ludicrous of course, reliant on a single repeated gag and Arthur's ability to pull off the characterisations. There's plenty of very obvious wirework too but it's joyfully dynamic and doesn't let up for a second. Johnny Arthur carries his role well and while leading lady Virginia Vance doesn't do much, she fits the part. I think my biggest problem with the film is that it felt like a live action cartoon which would have worked well with Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig.

1 comment:

RVChris said...

Thank you for your review of this short film. I came across an original ad of a showing for the film and was curious as to what it was like. You can check it out here if you're interested: http://recentlyviewedmovies.blogspot.com/2011/10/tales-from-archives-movie-church-nov.html