The Two Barks Brothers

Dogs, looking uncomfortable in human clothing, act out another dumb "Dogville Comedy" for MGM. This time, District Attorney "Barks" runs for mayor while advocating Prohibition (a timely subject). The canine candidate's long-lost "hobo" brother gets a job with the local Beer Baron, a pooch named "Scartail Growler". Fortunately, his bark is worse than his bite. The dog-dialected hiring scene is a relative highlight. Hopefully, MGM provided their stars with enough dog biscuits to soak up the gin. Too bad they didn't let sleeping dogs lie. Animal rights advocates may want to have a pooper scooper nearby.

* The Two Barks Brothers (1931) MGM : Zion Myers, Jules White

This was probably more fun back in the day... now, the film methods, technology, and CGI are so advanced, this short is SO dated. The editing jumps are so obvious, and the humor is so grade level, it's pretty much kid-stuff. Probably shown between the feature films in theaters. A whole story featurette, only 17 minutes. kind of entertaining, but ain't no thang. Shown on Turner Classics here and there. Directed by Zion Myers, who seems to be king of the short films. died pretty young at 49, not sure why. can't find much information on him anywhere. Fun for the little ones, but adults will probably be pretty bored. At least it's over quickly.

This is a story of multi-breed dogs, in which one brother, a politician, is bent upon leading the community, and the other is "bent". There is a lot about gin-drinking because the year filmed was a prohibition year. And efforts to keep his brother from winning the political office are paramount here. The filming is better than "Lonesome Stranger", filmed with various breeds of monkeys, because the lip movements and gestures are more realistic. They don't contain paint-in teeth and mouth movement. A good animated film for it's time. Nowadays, as in "Babe" the animals move their mouths minimally.

Two Barks Brothers, The (1931)

** (out of 4)

Another entry in MGM's rather strange "Dogville" series, which had dogs "acting" out the roles of humans. More times than not films in this series would spoof popular, full length features but this one here pretty much hits at any "good brother versus bad brother" film. This time out, two dog brothers are the main characters and one is stolen as a puppy and raised by gypsies. Thirty years later he is a criminal but his brother is the D.A.. It takes a lot of patience to sit through this series no matter how bad or good the films are. Nothing here is actually funny but there is a surreal and strange nature to watching dogs "act" out various things. Included this time out is a rather amusing sequence on a farm where we see a dog milk a cow and another sequence where a chicken lays an egg right into a pan. Other tricks include dogs spitting, carrying a pale of milk plus various other site gags.

All the drama of the a Saturday afternoon serial, only done with dogs.