Milton Berle Movies

Sparrows, Mary Pickford's 1926 release, superbly combines the two elements--sentiment and adventure--that characterized Pickford's best work. At first glance, the film seems to be a horror picture, as satanic potato farmer Grimes (Gustav Von Seyfertitz) crushes a child's doll with his thumb and forefinger and tosses the plaything into the dismal swamps surrounding his lands. We learn that Grimes has been exploiting the children from a local orphanage, forcing them to work his farm day and night. Though collecting a hefty maintenance pay for the orphans, Grimes dresses them in rags and feeds them a starvation diet. Happily, Mary Pickford, the oldest of the orphans, has enough gumption to stand up to Grimes and prohibit him from inflicting any further atrocities. The plot thickens when a kidnaped child is left in Grimes' care in exchange for a generous portion of the ransom money. Mary rescues the abducted child, as well as all the other orphans, by leading them through the alligator-infested and quicksand-festooned swamp--a truly frightening sequence, made even more so by the use of real gators. Sparrows falters only in those scenes where Pickford, with genuine but somewhat misguided piety, "converses" with the Almighty, and in the final motorboat-chase sequence, which seems prolonged (and unnecessary!) after that heart-pounding swamp escape. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's hard to believe that this picture and the 1946 Humoresque were based on the same Fannie Hurst novel -- they're completely different in focus. There's no Joan Crawford, or Joan Crawford-type in this picture, but there is an older woman who walks away with the acting honors: Vera Gordon, who plays Mama Kantor, the mother from New York's Jewish ghetto, who prays for a son that will become a musical genius. Her prayers are answered, and her boy brings fortune to his family while acquiring a sweetheart, Gina Berg (Alma Reubens). But when war breaks out, he enlists and returns from action with a wounded arm. He tells Gina that they cannot marry because he cannot work. But when she faints, he catches her and realizes that he can use his arm after all. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Arguably the best of Charlie Chaplin's 12 Lone Star/Mutual comedies, Easy Street gives us a look at the environment in which Chaplin grew up, the slums of South London. Indeed the title of the film is likely a reference to the street where Chaplin was born, East Street in Walworth. Charlie begins this film as he seldom does, as a truly down-and-out derelict, huddled sleeping at the steps of the Hope Mission. The sounds of a service in progress draws him wearily inside. After the sermon, he is entranced by the beautiful mission worker and organist, Edna Purviance and stays after the service. Inspired by their ministrations he vows to reform, returning the collection box he has slipped into his capacious pants. Out on Easy Street a gang is pummeling members of the police department, removing their uniforms for the coins in their pockets. Toughest of all is the Bully, Eric Campbell, who menaces the other toughs, taking the spoils for himself. Charlie, passing the Police Station sees the recruitment sign outside and eventually builds up his resolve sufficiently to apply. His beat is Easy Street. He encounters the Bully who threatens him and is impervious to the blows that Charlie delivers with his nightstick. In a display of his great strength, the bully bends a gas streetlamp in two, whereupon Charlie leaps on the Bully's back, covering his head with the lamp and turns on the gas. (Chaplin was injured during the filming of this scene; the lamp hit him across the bridge of the nose, holding up production for several days).

As the Bully slumps to the ground, Charlie takes his pulse and decides to give him one more shot of gas for good measure. The squad is called to retrieve the unconscious Bully and Charlie is, for the moment, cock-of-the-walk, frightening away the other street toughs by simply spinning around to face them. His work also entails charity, as he helps a woman, (who turns out to be the Bully's wife) who has stolen food from a street vendor by stealing more food for her. Edna happens by and helps Charlie get her upstairs to her tenement flat. He's rewarded for his efforts by her ingratitude, nearly dropping a flower pot on his head. Edna takes Charlie across the way to another apartment where a couple have a large brood of children whom Charlie helps to feed by scattering bread crumbs among them as if he were feeding chickens. Meanwhile, the Bully awakens at the Police Station and despite multiple blows from the collective nightsticks of the cops, he escapes and returns to Easy Street. His fight with his wife draws Charlie from across the street and a chase begins, the Bully seeking revenge for his earlier capture. Charlie drops a stove on the Bully from a second-story window, knocking him out, but the street toughs capture Edna and toss her down some steps into a subterranean speakeasy. She is threatened there by a dope addict who injects himself with cocaine. Exiting the Bully's flat Charlie is mugged by the gang and himself tossed down into the cellar. Landing accidentally on the addict's upturned needle, Charlie becomes supercharged, defeating the junkie and all the denizens of the cellar, rescuing Edna. Peace is restored to Easy Street and a new mission is in evidence. The Bully and his wife, dressed in their finest, make their way to the services, under Charlie's approving eye. Edna approaches and Charlie greets her joyously and the pair stroll arm in arm towards the welcoming minister and missionary of The New Mission. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide

This Keystone comedy, Charlie Chaplin's 33rd, is the first feature-length comedy ever made and contributed to making Chaplin and his co-star Marie Dressler major stars. Chaplin plays a con artist (not the Tramp) who talks Tillie, an innocent country lass, into taking her father's savings and running off to the city with him. Once there, he re-establishes his affair with the beautiful Mabel Normand, abandoning Tillie, who must begin working at a restaurant, while Charlie and Mabel spend her father's money for new clothes. Meanwhile, Tillie's millionaire uncle is reported to have died in a mountain-climbing accident. When the opportunistic Charlie learns that Tillie has just inherited three million dollars, he immediately rushes over to propose. She joyfully accepts, but is suspicious when she learns of her inheritance. Later, at a wedding gala at Tillie's new mansion where Normand has begun working as a maid, Charlie sneaks off for a little tete-a-tete with the latter. Trouble erupts when Dressler catches them smooching. Suddenly all the slapstick craziness for which director Mack Sennett is famous erupts as Tillie grabs a pistol and begins chasing Charlie and Mabel, firing randomly. Just as the wayward Charlie is to be strangled to death, the "late" uncle suddenly appears and ejects all the celebrants. Charlie and Mabel, chased by Tillie, race out of the ruined mansion to a pier where they are followed by the ubiquitous Keystone Kops whom the uncle has summoned. Tillie ends up in the drink, and when rescued after numerous attempts, she rejects Charlie while consoling Mabel, saying, "He ain't no good to neither of us," as the Kops drag Charlie away. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide