It's taken me a while to get to this.
In appraising an old movie, there is entertainment and there are the ideas preserved in it. This movie may entertain some but more than likely a modern viewer will find the entertainment aspect lacking, and the movie a bit slow-moving; much like Metropolis, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Silent movies just proceed at a different pace which I find to be on the irksome side. You'll be predicting the movies plot points before they arrive. Its reputation as a comedy bewilders me, or at least its reception as one (in the modern era) does.
It's value as a product to move ideas is intact. The socialism guiding every frame makes its points clearly and explicitly. Really... you're not going to miss the point. And the movie adopts various structural mirroring devices that are on the hoary side.
Time is not kind to certain projects. I found myself begging for the long middle portion to speed up or be over with quickly. I felt this was a very average quasi-silent movie that is in our hands today because the production design was a little more novel than most. We just love superficialities like that here in the modern world. (See Blade Runner and it's 387 special editions). I say quasi-silent because the sound appears in concentrated, intermittent segments.
In appraising an old movie, there is entertainment and there are the ideas preserved in it. This movie may entertain some but more than likely a modern viewer will find the entertainment aspect lacking, and the movie a bit slow-moving; much like Metropolis, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Silent movies just proceed at a different pace which I find to be on the irksome side. You'll be predicting the movies plot points before they arrive. Its reputation as a comedy bewilders me, or at least its reception as one (in the modern era) does.
It's value as a product to move ideas is intact. The socialism guiding every frame makes its points clearly and explicitly. Really... you're not going to miss the point. And the movie adopts various structural mirroring devices that are on the hoary side.
Time is not kind to certain projects. I found myself begging for the long middle portion to speed up or be over with quickly. I felt this was a very average quasi-silent movie that is in our hands today because the production design was a little more novel than most. We just love superficialities like that here in the modern world. (See Blade Runner and it's 387 special editions). I say quasi-silent because the sound appears in concentrated, intermittent segments.