June 12, 2023
BLU-RAY REVIEW:
Street Date June 13, 2023;
Undercrank Productions;
$24.95 DVD, $21.95 Blu-ray;
Not rated.
If the name Raymond Griffith has a familiar ring, it probably has little to do with his work before the camera. Throughout the ’30s, Griffith produced a string of successful features that included such veritable classics as Baby Face, The Bowery, Heidi, Drums Along the Mohawk, and the Ritz Brothers’ knee-slapping rejoinder to The Three Musketeers. His career as an actor was eclipsed at the dawn of sound. Actors whose voices failed to live up to their physiognomy didn’t make the transition, but in Griffith’s case, there was more to it than incompatible tonsils. A childhood bout with respiratory diphtheria parasitized his vocal chords, making it impossible for him to speak above a stage whisper. He’s best remembered for a brief appearance in the early day talkie All Quiet on the Western Front as the French soldier freshly-bayoneted by Lew Ayres. Together they spend the night in a fox hole with Ayres watching his enemy creep little by little into an early grave. But tonight it’s comedies, almost two of ‘em, with Undercrank Productions’ new-to-Blu-ray release of Raymond Griffith: The Silk Hat Comedian.
Even before home video gave the catalogs of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin a digital primping, the estates of the late comedians saw to it their respective negatives were well-preserved and the 35mm distribution prints in tip-top shape. Physical media put many a cinephile in touch with the works of the comparatively obscure Max Linder and Charlie Chase, but no matter where you look, Griffith was dubbed, “one of the best-kept secrets of silent comedy.” Chaplin’s other self was a little tramp. Lloyd had an ordinariness about him almost as wide as his daredevil streak. Keaton was born with a Great Stone Face, but baby-faced Harry Langdon never grew into his. Griffith was a gay rake, emerging from the womb tuxedo swaddled, a cocktail shaker in one hand, a walking stick in the other, and topped famously by a silk opera hat that from certain angles looks like a vinyl LP in search of a turntable.
Follow us on Instagram
Paths to Paradise (1925)
Paramount;
Comedy;
Stars Raymond Griffith, Betty Compson, Tom Santschi, Bert Woodruff, Fred Kelsey.
The location: San Francisco’s underworld, just up the block from the Bucket O’ Blood Tavern. Before traipsing one flight down to enter the unfriendly confines, an opening sight gag, staged in long take and timed to perfection, orients us to the seedy environs. A torpedo on the lam hightails it down the street and into a manhole just in time to elude the gaze of a flatfoot rounding the corner in hot pursuit. With the bull out of the picture, the rat hops out of the sewer, but never makes it into the bar. Instead we find an intrepid trio of excursionists looking to take in some local color in the bay area’s most disagreeable Chinatown gin mill. It’s a tourist trap in the most literal sense of the term, where greenhorns are detained just long enough to have their billfolds siphoned. For a cut of the take, cabbies pimp the dive to unsuspecting out-of-town businessmen as a fantasy destination where every fetish can be fulfilled if the price is right.
In the time it takes for a hack to poke his head in the door announcing a patsy in the back seat looking for a Chinese honky-tonk, the undercranked crew quickly transforms the juke joint into an opium den. The mark (Griffith) flies under several handles, the most common of which is the “Dude From Duluth.” A pleasure-seeker with underworld leanings, tonight he’s passing himself off as a police officer impersonating an occidental tourist looking to spend a night in hopped-up ecstasy. Up close, the badge he palms reads “Gas Meter Reader,” but from a distance it’s easy to confuse Dude with an arresting officer. He agrees to let the gang go so long as they place all of the stolen loot in his possession. So impressed by his chicanery was underworld queenpin Molly (Betty Compson), it isn’t long before the two join forces to gyp a wealthy twerp (Bert Woodruff) out of an Antwerp diamond meant to take up permanent residence on his daughter’s ring finger. Ingenious Dude cooks up a fender-bender with the bride’s father to get his home address.
Whether it’s flipping bellhops for their tips or acknowledging every page in the hotel lobby hoping that one of them may lead to something, a delightfully cheeky arrogance informs the Dude’s every move. Rather than a confectionary courtship to add marquee value, the romantic subplot involving our competitive jewel robbers provides a support system for the laughs to build on. The stealthy Dude trying to avoid a spotlight supplied by a playful dog having a flashlight wrestled from its jaws is up there with the best silent comedy has to offer. There’s also a nifty chase with the camera positioned about four feet above the backseat of a speeding roadster. The score is provided by Ben Model, organist and pioneering spirit behind Undercrank Productions. For those fortunate enough to have seen silent films with live musical accompaniment, Model’s performance couldn’t have sounded more authentic had the music come from only the right TV speaker.
SPOILER ALERT: Other than the names of the director and stars and the poster art, the less I know about a movie going in the happier I am. This was the exception to the rule. Nowhere in the press release, on the packaging, or at the head of the feature are viewers informed that the film is missing its final reel. (Paramount should have followed MGM’s lead and taken better care to preserve their library.) Long thought lost, an incomplete print turned up in 1970. I was 15 and barely aware of Groucho and Buster, let alone a cult item like Raymond Griffith. Knowing at the outset that the picture would end with title cards explaining the action would have cushioned the blow. It’s not that I wasn’t grateful to see the film even in its truncated form. Next time, give a brother a warning, because damn if this didn’t feel like coming to the end of a book only to find the last 10 pages had been ripped out.
Subscribe HERE to the FREE Media Play News Daily Newsletter!
You’d Be Surprised (1926)
Paramount;
Comedy;
Stars Raymond Griffith, Edward Martindale, Dorothy Sebastian, Tom McGuire, Earl Williams, Roscoe Karns.
When it comes to print quality, the title isn’t kidding. For those of us who grew up on muddy dupes of silent films projected at the wrong speed, restorations like this are a blessing. The story, not so much. Based on a stage play, the entire picture takes place on a houseboat with ceilings higher than most Washington federal monuments. It’s Friday the 13th and Griffith stars as a coroner sent to investigate a murder that took place during a swanky party. Laughs mount as one by one the cops in attendance begin to outnumber the suspects. Once again it’s a diamond necklace at risk. The jewel’s owner knows who clipped it, but when the lights dim and the crook is asked to return the loot to its case, he winds up with a knife in his back. This scene is played out several times throughout the course of the picture until it’s finally Griffith’s turn to play lights out, to uproarious results.
Even with a running time of 65 minutes, being stuck aboard this floating mansion gets to be a drag. Credit the film’s best performance to a black cat slinking throughout the picture with bad news following him at every brush against a pant leg or nylon stocking. Unlike Paths to Paradise’s sparkling romantic coupling, Dorothy Sebastian is a prop for Griffith to ogle. The film plays out in real time with Griffith winning the girl he didn’t know before the picture started.
Also included is Raymond Griffith: Silent Comedy’s Silk-Hatted Secret, a 12 minute documentary introduction to the career of this all but forgotten figure.