Rambler

Sadly, some people feel that they know better than the director how a film should be. Since director Denis Sanders is now deceased, he cannot comment on the "special edition" DVD of his film, which basically removes the heart and soul from his movie--the people who loved Elvis and made him the phenomenon that he was (and still is, for that matter!) I have no problem with creating a concert-only version-the concert footage is superb and shows Elvis at one of the high-points in his career; just a few years before his death, but before his sad decline. It's great fun to watch him rehearse and horse around. However, it seems wrong to me to palm this off on the public as the film "Elvis: That's the Way it Is" when much of the footage has been removed! Denis Sanders wanted to show several aspects of Elvis World, reaching from the kitchen of the International Hotel all the way to Luxembourg. To be able to view the original version, I had to wait until an aging Laserdisc came available for purchase and then I realized how removing the non-Elvis material lessened the importance of the film, as the documenting of an important cultural icon. Hopefully, someone at Warner Home Video will realize the error of this and make BOTH versions available, if for nothing else than to right the wrong done to the film's director.

Ham and Bud will never be given the accolades that Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, or even Clark & McCullough have garnered. Their comedy is from a much different time, before the coming of Hal Roach and a more "sophisticated" form of slapstick. And while they may lack subtlety, and their laugh-making power has somewhat diminished, I find their films quite enjoyable, much more than contemporary Keystone comedies of the same era. "Midnight at the Old Mill" has some nice "Guignol" touches with mysterious doctors in black and Ham having to play a corpse at one moment. In a rather fancy touch, the original nitrate release prints have the outdoor scenes (at the Old Mill) tinted a dark blue. So it seems that Kalem thought a bit more of this outing than some other Ham & Bud films to go to the added expense of tinting. 8mm prints of this film were made available by Blackhawk Films many years ago, and occasionally show up on eBay, which is where I found mine!

Lloyd Hamilton became one of the most popular silent comics of the late twenties, largely forgotten today due to the dearth of available films, coupled with his early death in 1935. His incarnation as "Ham" was his first popular character, a fairly disheveled tramp figure. After parting with Bud Duncan, Hamilton developed the "meek" character that he became associated with. This entry in the series kind of hints at things to come as "Ham" is definitely the "star" while "Bud" is shoved into the background. It also dates near the end of the series. The story goes that after the end of "Ham & Bud," Lloyd Hamilton would have little or nothing to do with Bud Duncan.

This film does have a fairly coherent story and a funny boxing scene at the end, making it a fairly good Ham & Bud outing, one that can hold up to repeated viewings. Blackhawk Films released this on 8mm "back in the day"--heaven know where you might find it now.