Flicker Flashbacks No. 3, Series 2

Spoiler if you believe the two films shown in this short are "His Desperate Deed"(1915) and "The Prospector's Daughter" (1912). TCM ran MAKE MINE MEMORIES (revised title of FLICKER FLASHBACKS) early on September 30, 2013. The heroine in both films is Blanche Sweet as stated by the narrator, but Blanche is not in either of the reported films. A check of her credits on the IMDb reveals that the first film with Harry Carey and Henry Walthall is "Broken Ways" (1913) and the second with Dorothy Bernard and Charles West is "The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch" (1912). In any case the snippets are interesting to see movie making in comparatively primitive times; and it is interesting to see one of the early screen "goddesses" in action.

This is an early directorial credit for Richard Fleischer, a fine director of film noir. He spent the last ten years of his life working to get the early, unappreciated work of his father and uncle, silent cartoons like Ko-Ko the Clown and early sound cartoons like Betty Boop, available for people who could see how great they are. And here he is, making fun of other early film makers' work. Well, it was a job.

This "stitch together early silent movies and make fun of them" genre of shorts was something most of the studios did. The best of the lot was the Goofy Movie series from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which had the advantage of Pete Smith's snarky narration. The rest fall into the "Our grandparents were dumb" viewpoint. It's an attitude that persists to the present day, particularly in the fine arts. Certainly it's good for new artists to have something to say that hasn't been said before in that particular way, but the attitude shown here quickly becomes tiresome; at least, it becomes tiresome when the art you grew up with and still love gets the same treatment.

Eventually, if the art is really good, it gets a further reappraisal. Here's my reappraisal of this movie: it's poor; far worse than the movies it makes fun of.