No Lady

A very early British talkie (hence poor sound quality but on the version I saw on TPTV there is sound all the way through). Starring the talented Lupino Lane - a master of timing and slapstick. What elevates it above many comedies of the period is the amount of external shots (of Blackpool) at the beginning of the 1930's - not just a lot of cheap interior sets with two dimensional acting. The actors show carryover influence of both silent movies and theatrical stage. The baddies are stereotypical in the extreme and come from a fictional European country with silly hand signals as greetings - two years before Hitler came to power. There must have been a reasonable budget given the number of actors and dancers involved even if some were roped in holidaymakers. It isn't very sophisticated, especially the dance routines, but you can see why audiences enjoyed it at the time. Basically a comedy with some good touches, not to be taken too seriously and in context, and a fascinating view of Blackpool.

Henpecked Lupino Lane, Lola Hunt, and his five stepchildren go on a holiday to Blackpool. There, he is mistaken for a spy from Ptomania, whose associates plan to crash the British glider in the competition, winning fifty-thousand-pound prize for Ptomania.

It's all an excuse for long sequences shot wild -- that is, without sound -- in which Lane performs his amazing acrobatics and slapstick routines around the holiday town. Those sequences are quite good, but the cheapness of the production, the poor sound track, and the slapdash writing don't make this particularly good. It reminds me of the proposition that Buster Keaton made to the higher-ups at MGM, to make silent films with talking sequences. I expect the scenarios would have been better than this mishmosh of sequences from THE ADVENTURER, cross-dressing, and puns. Still, it's always fun to see Lane run up a wall. With Sari Maritza and Wallace Lupino.

I'm inserting reviews for all films I'v seen that lack one, this rarity has recently been shown on talking pictures, so more people will have a chance to see it, possibly someone will write a more favorable review? well here is mine... Staring, directed and co-written by Lupino Lane, he plays a henpecked stepfather who when holidaying in Blackpool is mistaken for an enemy spy, in a plot involving the sabotage of a radio controlled glider contest! The plot is as irrelevant as it is unlikely, this film is simply an excuse to showcase it's star, it all comes down to is he funny? Well on this evidence Mr Lane joins the long list of successful stage comedians whose talents did not translate to the silver screen, not awful, but of curio value only.

No Lady is a curious British comedy. Lupino Lane shows almost Chaplinesque skills but as a director he certainly could not make this film flow well.

Lupino plays a hen pecked second husband of a harridan and her children, one of whom looks suspiciously looks like a vertically challenged young man.

Thet go off to Blackpool for a holiday. We see scenes of the Pier, the Lido and Lupino gets mistaken for some kind of crook. Once the bad guys realise their error, they go after him but Lupino disguises himself as a woman to escape everyone but attracts the attention of a lot of elderly suitors.

The film is mainly a silent, it has some knockaround fun, you even get a song and dance number. It is rather silly, it showcases Lupino in an uneven way but I cannot say this is a good film.

Contrary to the previous review Lupino Lane was very much a film star.He made 76 films,the majority in Hollywood.He appeared in The Love Parade for Ernst Lubitsch.He gave up making films because he preferred the stage.In 1939 he scored his biggest ever hit with Me and My Girl.The first 16 minutes are quite funny.Lane with domestic strife with his wife and stepchildren.The scene then switches to Blackpool,where there is a lot of location shooting,a lot of it shot silent.The rather silly plot involving Sari Maitza then comes into play.However the best parts of this film are the silent sections where clearly his expertise as a silent screen performer and director came into play.There is a sequence where he is on a folder which is as poor a process as you will ever see.