Painted Faces

"Painted Faces" is a film best enjoyed by someone who is willing to cut the film a lot of slack. It's a bit old fashioned and dated...plus the story has many portions that are tough to believe. But, it also is entertaining and worth seeing.

When the film begins, there is a murder and a young singer is found with the murder weapon...standing over the body. While it looks like an open and shut case, most of the film takes place in the jury room...where one lone holdout, Hermann (Joe E. Brown) refuses to vote guilty. Why? What secret insight does he have in the case?

This film is in many ways like the classic "12 Angry Men"...though made almost three decades earlier. It might just be the first lone holdout juror film--a familiar theme in some films of the 30s, 40s and 50s...as well as TV shows such as "The Odd Couple" and "All in the Family". But it's also quite strange---especially in having Brown speaking with an odd Dutch accent (IMDB says Scandinavian but in the film one of the jurors refers to him as Dutch). It also was a rare film in that you see Brown perform a lot of acrobatics he learned when he traveled with the circus in his pre-Hollywood days.As for the ending...it's really tough to believe and strange. What also is strange is that despite Brown in the lead, it's NOT a comedy! Odd but worth your time.

I love this great example of early Joe E. Brown. He delivers a great performance in a role that is more dramatic than most of his work. A brilliant comic, he shows his chops as a good serious actor here. Watching it, I am amazed that it's from 1929. It seems to pace much more like a 40s film noir or modern romantic comedy. And the plot is more robust than many of the earlier talkies. It keeps you entertained and doesn't bog down or plod. The scenery and props works is excellent as well. The writers do a great job of telling a compelling story and the circus atmosphere is interesting and captivating. All in all, it was a very decent movie for it's time.

It's maybe not one of Brown's funniest movies or even one of his best. But I think it's an important movie in his career and likely one that was instrumental in propelling him to stardom. I gave it a solid 7.

Antique, static, early talkie, a sort of bad Lon Chaney version of TWELVE ANGRY MEN. Joe E. Brown gives a good performance as Hermann, a clown on the jury (yes, he plays a clown and he is on the jury) who is the lone holdout for acquittal, but between poor sound recording and his stage-Dutch accent, the whole thing turns into a mess. Brown is excellent in the circus scenes (yes, circus scenes) when he is doing his clowning, but otherwise, there is not much here of interest.

... as in I have no idea why Joe E. Brown plays his part with a (German?) accent here. It just makes him harder to understand and adds nothing to his character.

At first it looks like you are going to get two maudlin melodramas for the price of one. The first maudlin melodrama starts as an entertainment team enter a vaudeville house where they are going to be working and discover that a man who hit on the female half of the team is playing there too. Her partner - they are planning to get married - threatens to kill the guy if he touches her again.

So predictably, one night, the lethario performer is found dead in his dressing room with the man who threatened to kill him standing over him holding the gun that shot him. Now here the poverty row roots yield a little humor. The dead man's dressing room looks more like a utility closet. Oh, and you never see the actual dead man's face when he was alive. The accused claims he picked up the gun and found the man dead, and that he is innocent.

Fast forward to the trial, actually the end of it. Since when is the girlfriend of the accused allowed to sit at the defense table? And why is the judge doing the prosecutor's job for him, with jury instructions that sound like he is telling the jury to convict the guy?

So the bulk of the film is in the jury room - and kudos to the makers of the film for including women on the jury. Almost 30 years later it is still "12 Angry Men" after all. Eleven of the jurors vote guilty on the first ballot. The holdout is of course Joe E. Brown's character. He has no real reason for his objection other than he believes the circumstantial evidence claim by the defense and is adamant in his objection. This goes on for five days. When the foreman says he has had enough and is going to tell the judge that they are hopelessly deadlocked, Brown makes a deal with the jury. He says he wants to tell them a story about circumstantial evidence that will change their minds. If it does not, he says, he will vote guilty with the rest of them.

This must be some story, but all I can say is watch and find out. I will tell you that before this last part of the film I was going to give it a 4/10. This last part raises it to a 6/10. It is very interesting seeing Joe E. Brown so early in his film career. This is right before he begins his six year career with Warner Brothers and makes some of his best films. I think he had the kind of comic career there that Buster Keaton could have had in talking films if only Buster had been lucky enough to join up with an outfit that understood his talents as well as Warner Brothers seemed to get Brown.

I'd recommend this one for those interested in both the comic and dramatic talents of Joe E. Brown.

I'm amazed that a previous reviewer found the sound recording of poor quality. I thought the sound recording was exceptionally good. There was no noise at all on the track and every word came across not only clearly and distinctly but with just as much recording precision as you would expect of any movie made before 1950! But it's certainly right to compare this movie with "Twelve Angry Men". I thought "Painted Faces" came out well ahead. It was brilliantly acted by Brown in an extremely difficult role. If you see the movie twice, you'll know what I mean. The actor actually signals the plot. But I didn't pick it up the first time either. Now that is ACTING! Some reviewers though he overdid the accent, but I found it quite convincing. And what a powerful plot it is! And I thought Albert S. Rogell's directorial work was absolutely brilliant. As the cover notes on the excellent Alpha DVD tell us, Rogell directs this movie with a naturalistic, overlapping style of dialogue that prefigures later works by Hawks and Altman. I haven't praised the other actors yet. ALL are brilliant. And Brown himself gives the performance of his life!