Looking back with hindsight, a film directed by John Ford and starring Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart in the only film they ever made together, you would think this was a spectacle. And you'd think wrong.
This film has the same issues that all of John Ford's early films have. The script is bad. Starting to think it's more a him problem than a broader screenwriter issue. Especially considering the writing credits for this one go to Maurine Dallas Watkins, who wrote the play "Chicago" which is now one of the best ever and the film version won an Oscar almost 100 years later.
All of the early Ford films have painful dialogue, even the silent ones which have to be very picky about what dialogue they put on the intertitles. The jokes are so stale and their deliveries are at times awful. In this one Ford implements his own version of the popular shorts. We've got slapstick similar to Chaplin, a bit of interesting circus acts, and even some blackface that is reminiscent of Al Jolson. All of these are knockoffs so they aren't even as entertaining as the originals which are dated, and the blackface rightfully doesn't age well. All of this is surrounding a story of two strangers meeting once in prison and getting married without much of any characterization for either. Jackie Ford has not yet learned to show us interesting stories instead of explicit dialogue that is unnatural and lacking. Then there is the baseball game for no reason.
Nothing about this film makes sense nor is any good. The only reason I don't hate it more is because Tracy and Bogart are not awful and the print quality isn't the best so maybe I missed parts that make this tolerable.
As I said at the beginning, this film is only notable having this crew together before their egos kept them all separate.
This film has the same issues that all of John Ford's early films have. The script is bad. Starting to think it's more a him problem than a broader screenwriter issue. Especially considering the writing credits for this one go to Maurine Dallas Watkins, who wrote the play "Chicago" which is now one of the best ever and the film version won an Oscar almost 100 years later.
All of the early Ford films have painful dialogue, even the silent ones which have to be very picky about what dialogue they put on the intertitles. The jokes are so stale and their deliveries are at times awful. In this one Ford implements his own version of the popular shorts. We've got slapstick similar to Chaplin, a bit of interesting circus acts, and even some blackface that is reminiscent of Al Jolson. All of these are knockoffs so they aren't even as entertaining as the originals which are dated, and the blackface rightfully doesn't age well. All of this is surrounding a story of two strangers meeting once in prison and getting married without much of any characterization for either. Jackie Ford has not yet learned to show us interesting stories instead of explicit dialogue that is unnatural and lacking. Then there is the baseball game for no reason.
Nothing about this film makes sense nor is any good. The only reason I don't hate it more is because Tracy and Bogart are not awful and the print quality isn't the best so maybe I missed parts that make this tolerable.
As I said at the beginning, this film is only notable having this crew together before their egos kept them all separate.