The Movie Album

A Vitaphone Short Subject.

A look at THE MOVIE ALBUM reveals stars from yesterday, but not always at their best & brightest.

This little film takes a somewhat supercilious look at sequences from old silent films, showing that even by 1931 they were considered by some within the movie industry to be passé. While a few celebrities are treated with respect - Sir Charles Chaplin, Wally Reid and the legendary John Bunny - others, such as Norma Shearer, Lillian Gish & Lionel Barrymore are gently ridiculed.

Movie Album, The (1931)

** (out of 4)

A rather bland short that only proves Mystery Science Theater 3000 wasn't the first to spoof or make fun of old movies. This "documentary" shows clips from various silent movies with the narrator adding sly comments usually meant to make the old footage look foolish. As a major silent film buff, I must admit that I didn't find the humor here to be funny but it's not because I'm a snob unwilling to laugh. The reason I didn't laugh is that the movie is just rather lazy and never really had any good jokes about the material we're watching. We get a few famous faces like Lionel Barrymore and Chaplin but we also get some footage from some films that (to my knowledge) hasn't been identified so seeing them here is the only way to view them. The movie runs a short 8-minutes so it's a mildly entertaining time killer but if you want the laughs then you'd be better off just watching one of the comedies from this era.