The First Auto

This film about the displacement of the horse by the automobile was made by Warner Brothers as a morality tale on the perils of resisting progress - like talking pictures such as this early experiment in sound technology. Not only are there synchronized sound effects and music in this film. There are actually a few words of dialogue such as the father speaking the son's name - "Bob", and the word "Go". Nothing more complex than that was possible at the time.

The beginning is light and breezy - you have a man, Hank Armstrong, with a champion race horse - 'Sloe Eyes - and a successful livery business. His son, Bob, courts a local girl and at the same time dreams of building horseless carriages. He has competition for the girl's hand - a fellow that does not like to fight fair - and he enters importantly into the plot near the end of the film. In time, father and son come to a parting of the ways when the father sees Bob's boosting of and participation in the auto business as betrayal.

There are a few interesting things to note in this film. One is William Demarest as comic relief throughout the movie. Another is Barney Oldfield playing himself. Finally there is the bizarre fact that the fellow who plays Bob died in an automobile accident at the age of 27 during the time this film was being made. If the ending seems a bit incomplete or unsatisfactory because of his absence, this is the reason.

First Auto, The (1927)

*** (out of 4)

Hank Armstrong (Russell Simpson) is a lover of horses. He breeds them, races them and cares for them more than he does his own son (Charles Emmett Mack). Our story runs from 1895-1905 as we see the horses being put out of business by the "horseless carriage" and we see Hank fall apart as he refuses to let go and accept where the future is going. There's a lot of nice stuff in this film, which would turn out to be the sixth movie Warner would release with sound effects and a musical accompaniment. I personally find these effects to be quite distracting and to me they never really add much to a film except for an early part of sound history. Another negative thing is that this silent movie has more inter-titles than any other film I can think of. There was a time when we were reading more than watching so needless to say there was too many but this might have been done due to a tragedy that happened during filming, which I'll mention later. Outside of those issues this is a very pleasant film that manages to be both funny, touching and quite silly at the same time. The highlight of the movie is a scene where the rich family in town get their new car and decide to take it out for a spin. After reading the instructions on how to drive, dad takes off and soon hell breaks loose. We've seen this type of scene before but it's handled so well here you can't help but laugh. Another memorable scene happens early one when Hank's favorite horse dies giving birth and he "rides" her into Heaven. This scene could have been a disaster but it works quite well and manages to be very sweet even though I'm curious what they did to the horse to get it to remain so still. The performances are all pretty good and that includes Simpson who is almost too good because his character is such a jerk that it's hard to gain sympathy for him. Patsy Ruth Miller, who most will remember from THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, is also pretty good and it's fun seeing Barney Oldfield, a major name in early autos. The tragic side to this film is that Charles Emmett Mack, a discovery of D.W. Griffith, was on his way to film the racing scenes at the end of the movie when his car was struck by a farm truck and he was decapitated. It's quite ironic that this would happen while on the way to film the racing scenes.

Horse-loving gentleman Russell Simpson (as "Hank" Armstrong) races his beloved mare "Sloe Eyes" in the 1895 Logan County Fair, in scenic Maple City, Michigan. He wins first prize, and celebrates by bringing "Sloe Eyes" to the local tavern; but, Mr. Simpson is saddened by the fact that son Charles Emmett Mack (as Bob Armstrong) is not present to see his father's triumph. Instead, Mr. Mack parties, in the city, with pretty Patsy Ruth Miller (as Rose Robbins). Yep, Simpson and Mack are suffering from a "generation gap".

Mack is a member of the "Horseless Carriage" generation, and is enthralled with the newly developing automobiles. When "Sloe Eyes" succumbs to a stroke, it seems like Simpson's older generation is passing in favor of Mack's auto-crazy youth. But, the passing mare leaves a young colt, "Bright Eyes", with enough horse sense to give primitive kerosene-powered buggies a run for their money. Yet, for the hoof set, it's a losing battle; and, the automobile takes control of the streets. Estranged from his son, Simpson slips into madness and despair. Then, an opportunity to reconcile with young Mack meets with tragedy…

The tragedy depicted on-screen was nothing compared to the tragedy occurring off-screen; co-star Charles Emmett Mack was killed (decapitated, reportedly) in a real-life automobile accident on the way to a filming location fro this film. This sadness accompanied the premiere of "The First Auto", as audiences were well aware of Mack's passing. The film is valuable for its early automobile scenes, which were then much of the population's collective memory. Mack could not, obviously, complete his assignment; and, the movie suffers without two essential Mack scenes, near the end of the story.

Mack was a rising star, but it's difficult to determine how he would have transitioned into talking pictures; certainly, this film positioned him well. Warner Bros. used some dialogue in the "sound effects" track of "The First Auto" (common practice, then), which reached critical mass with "The Jazz Singer". Mack was considered an actor of consequence; he was one of Director D.W. Griffith's best latter period "discoveries", making strong impressions in "Dream Street" (1921) and "One Exciting Night" (1922). "The First Auto" also features Barney Oldfield (a celebrity driver) and William Demarest (Uncle Charlie on "My Three Sons").

****** The First Auto (6/27/27) Roy Del Ruth ~ Russell Simpson, Charles Emmett Mack, Patsy Ruth Miller

Sound pictures were only a year or two away, but this silent looked, in spots, as if it had been made earlier.

The best silent movies used a minimum of inter-titles, but "The First Auto" was overburdened with them -- oh, granted, not as overburdened as some other movies, but still there were too many.

There are, though, several reasons to watch this movie, and only a few to cause head-scratching and puzzlement.

First, seeing the original Barney Oldfield, as himself, is probably reason enough to watch "The First Auto." Oldfield was a magic name in the early years of both autos and cinema, and was an automotive hero a long time before there was such a thing as NASCAR.

Second, seeing Russell Simpson as the lead is a treat. He was an excellent actor, but was nearly always relegated to a "with" role. Even if in top-line films, he was put into secondary positions, and obviously, just judging from "The First Auto," he was fully qualified to get top billing.

Finally, one has to see it to believe it: The "special effects" when a race car supposedly catches fire ... well, "primitive" doesn't begin to describe it.

Perhaps we need to give an "A" for effort; and to note how far we have come in effects is one very good reason to watch this.

One major player was killed before filming was complete, but the result is no "Plan 9 from Outer Space": "The First Auto" is seamless in how that actor's death is handled.

This really is a movie to watch, for the good cast (also look for the adorable Patsy Ruth Miller), for a good story, and to see how the world of movie-making has changed.

This movie is a nostalgic look back at another time. Both for us, here and now -- and for the audience it was originally made for in 1927. Just because both 1927 -- when the film was made -- and 1896-1906 -- the time-frame of the story -- are both behind us, we tend to jumble them together as being early 20th-Century, or "the past". Well -- 1896 was already the deep past for these filmmakers. They were looking backwards just as much as George Lucas was when he made "American Graffiti."

This is a patchwork of a film -- part comedy (including some old vaudeville routines. William Demerest and his clown companion are present for no other reason except comic relief. In vaudeville, the clowns in front of the curtain were there to mask the noise and movement of scenery and costume changes taking place on the stage behind the curtain.) Such clowning was obviously not necessary for the movies, but it's still there -- and we get to see what people were laughing at before stand-up monologue comedy was the only game in town.

The film is part melodrama as we see how a horse in the late 1890's could be the friend and companion of the pre-industrial era, and how the death of a man's horse could bring a man to tears. "A horse is loyal. A horse remembers! A horse knows what gratitude is!" -- words spoken by the father/livery owner who is then called a "Brute" (an animal) by his son.

With it's pre-talkie talking-and-scored soundtrack, it sometimes plays like a rough experiment in early film sound technologies (which exactly parallels the story of the first automobiles -- and how quickly they displaced the horse-centered life.) Within 3 years, silent pictures were as gone from the landscape as horse-drawn buggies. The equally experimental "special effects" fire in the engine of a moving race car isn't exactly the parting of the Red Sea -- but we still get the idea.

It also has the air of a headliner news-reel -- when surprise! Barney Oldfield, playing himself, races around the horse track so that all of America (at least those who went to the movies) could see him do what he was famous for -- speed racing!

At it's heart, however, this is a story. It is about family and about learning what matters (sometimes called family values), and of generations -- a father with both feet firmly planted in the pre-automobile age, and his son who is racing after the biggest technology of the time. They loose each other, almost loose everything else, and then find each other and move into the automobile age together -- where the father opens a car dealership and goes to the car races while the son spends his days at the horse shows. -- and "gosh, what's the world coming to next?" as a bi-plane soars overhead.

This is not a "great" movie -- but it is great fun, and a great window back both to 1927 and it's time of plenty before the stock market crashed us into the Depression; and to the 1927 recollection of 1896, when the lights of technology were just beginning to turn on. It is a wonderful piece of film history, now preserved for my great- and great-great grandchildren. --Thanks to all those doing film preservation -- we love it.