medwardb1976

A reviewer has said "Back Pay is Griffith's only surviving talkie so it's impossible to tell if she was playing a part or if her voice was really her voice." I would like to answer that. In the late '70s I was at a film event that had King Vidor as a guest of honor (at least I think it was him, to the best of my memory). Mr. Vidor (or whoever it was) said that Corrine Griffith wasn't successful in talking films, "because she had a southern accent, and so it was good-bye Corrine!" That part I remember distinctly. This would indicate to me, that the voice in the film is really hers, and that is how she actually talked. As to the opening scene, I get the impression they have her singing "They Didn't Believe Me" in order to establish the period in which the story was supposed to be. That song was a huge hit during the teens and 1930 audiences certainly would have understood the time frame by that--since the clothes don't give anyone a clue. Finally I would like to say that no matter how good or bad the film is--any time we have a talking film of a silent star, it is priceless in the sense that we can know what they sound like. I think of how Mabel Normand and Fatty Arbuckle made so many pictures together. Fatty made several shorts in the 1930s just before he died, so we can know what he sounded like. Mabel never did make any talkies, and so we don't know how she sounded. Now someone might say, "Well who cares how they sounded?" Well, I like to know what people sound like, don't you? I think that's just natural curiosity and it's nice when it can be satisfied.

I find it somewhat odd that no one has seen the old silent versions of "Our Gang," and that it is supposed to be lost except for fragments. In the 1960's there was a series for children called "The Mischief Makers." This was a syndicated series featuring the silent "Our Gang" movies with an added sound track of Wurlitzer organ music and child commentators who were a boy and a girl, "Bobby and Bonnie." I used to see it as a child on L.A.'s Channel 9 in about the years 1964-65. There is currently on U-Tube a clip of the animated opening and closing of the program produced by Gene Deitch in 1960. Now I have heard that some silent comedies that were put on TV as similar series in the '60's had mostly clips that were used and that the dastardly editors of the time would destroy the rest of the silent film. I hope this is not the case with Our Gang/The Mischief Makers. But I do remember the series and the characters well.

First off, even though I saw the film some years ago, I can't forget Evelyn Brent's electric performance in a supporting role in which she manages to steal every scene from the star throughout the movie's first half. In fact, as I recall, Lucy just wisely keeps a low profile in her appearances with Ms. Brent, who is just too much to compete with. But finally her character takes a final exit. After that Lucy does come alive as the star and shines from then on, rising above the mediocre material of this B- film. And Lucy Recardo she is not!

What I like most is Lucy's line at the story's high-point: "I'm going to take just one more crack at making a gentleman out of you, and if that doesn't work, we're really in trouble!"