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.