Noah Young Movies

Harold Lloyd plays Ezekial Cobb, a missionary's son who has spent his entire life in China. Cobb is sent to his father's home church in California, where it is hoped he will find a wife. A true babe in the woods, Cobb is befriended by politician Jake Mayo (George Barbier). Mayo is a cog in a crooked political machine whose bosses plan to set up a "reform" candidate for mayor, so that they can continue their underhanded activities unmolested. The candidate drops dead, so Mayo sets up the innocent Cobb as the mayor-to-be--a "cat's paw" to deflect attention from the system's corruption. But once elected, Cobb takes his duties quite seriously and begins to clean up the town. The machine frames Cobb with planted evidence of wrongdoing, destroying the lad's political career. Undaunted, Cobb remembers the story of an ancient Chinese leader, who, similarly disgraced, took the law in his own hands and executed all known criminals in his last days of power. Cobb orders that every crook in town be rounded up and brought to a dark cellar. He insists that they confess their crimes or face instant death--and backs up his words by "beheading" two of the crooks on the spot! Actually, these executions are cleverly designed magical illusions, and no one is really killed; but the terrified criminals are so hoodwinked by Cobb's apparent cold-bloodedness that they literally climb over one another to confess. Cobb is exonerated, and honesty is restored to his administration. While not Harold Lloyd's best feature film, The Cat's Paw is definitely his most unorthodox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Harold Lloyd's second talkie finds The Bespectacled One playing a shoe clerk in Honolulu. Harboring dreams of becoming an executive, Lloyd passes himself off as a millionaire to heiress Barbara Kent. As the plot merrily rolls along, Harold stows away on a ship bound for the mainland, and ends up at the top of a dizzying skyscraper. In a reversal of his dilemma in 1923's Safety Last, Lloyd must find the safest way to climb down the building--with the dubious assistance of bumbling black janitor Willie Best (here derogatorily billed as "Sleep 'N' Eat"). Attempting to extend his silent-film technique into the talkie era, Harold Lloyd is successful about half the time. The climactic building-climbing sequence, though amusing, pales in comparison to Lloyd's earlier excursions into "high and dizzy" humor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The protagonists of Thief in the Dark are the members of a travelling spiritualist troupe, criminals all. When one of their seances goes awry at the home of a wealthy gentleman, the head crook bumps off the host and escapes with the loot. This leaves the boss' young assistant George Meeker holding the bag when the cops arrive. With the help of the murdered man's daughter, Meeker clears himself and tracks down the real killer. Billed as "supervisor" of Thief in the Dark was Kenneth Hawks, the brother of legendary director Howard Hawks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's too bad that most of Ken Maynard's silent westerns for First National apparently no longer exist. From all accounts, Gun Gospel was one of the best of the batch. Maynard plays one of a trio of mountaineers who've been falsely accused of rustling. Fatally wounded in a skirmish with the actual crooks, the oldest of the mountaineers extracts a promise from Maynard that he'll never again use a gun. Our hero is as good as his word, using fancy rope tricks to subdue the villains. Inevitably, however, Maynard is forced to wield a gun to protect the heroine (Virginia Brown Faire) from the bad guys. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although they had appeared together in several films before this two-reeler was made, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were still a ways off from adopting the comic personas that made them famous. Here, the boys form a trio with James Finlayson, who lent them great support in later films. The picture opens with Finlayson playing millionaire Cyrus Brittle, who awakens with a hangover and no remembrance of the events from the night before. His butler (Hardy) informs him that apparently he has married some woman (Charlotte Mineau) who is waiting for him downstairs, along with her daughter (Edna Marian) and whacko brother (Noah Young). The new wife and in-laws are extortionists, plain and simple, so Brittle calls on his trusty attorney. Since the lawyer happens to be Stan Laurel, and he, Brittle and the butler all run away together, a melee is just about guaranteed. They hole up in a fancy seaside hotel, and news of their wild parties reach Brittle's unwelcome in-laws, who swoop in on their prey. The lawyer sees them in the lobby and he creates a disguise to evade them -- the butler appears with a queen-sized "wife," which is actually the lawyer sitting on Brittle's shoulders. The family, not one hundred percent fooled, follows this "couple," as does a policeman. All parties visit an amusement park, where the "wife" amazingly remains intact through a series of rides. Finally the disguised runaways are lost in the crowd, but the policeman sees a man in a bowler hat escorting a very tall lady. Convinced this is the trio, he lifts the woman's skirts. But it's a real woman, and she gives him a hearty sock in the eye. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

It's not for nothing that wimpish Willie Angle (Johnny Harron) is known as "Willie the Worm." Victimized and dumped on by everyone with whom he comes in contact, Willie is too shy and cowardly to retaliate. But when his doctor informs him that he has only six months to live, Willie's worm turns, and he gets even with all his tormentors. By the time he learns that the diagnosis was incorrect, it hardly matters; Willie has proven to himself that he always had the gumption to stand up for his rights. This comes as no surprise to heroine Mary O'Shane (Sally Phipps), who has loved Willie all along. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Until the rediscovery of Duck Soup in the 1970s, this comic short was thought to be the first time that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared together in something akin to their now-familiar personas (before teaming up, Laurel and Hardy appeared in quite a few of the same films at the Hal Roach studios -- just not as a duo). It isn't quite yet a Laurel and Hardy film -- the boys are given silly names (Stan is Ferdinand Finkleberry and Ollie is Sherlock Pinkham) instead of using their given names. In addition, as Judge Foozle, James Finlayson's role is as important as the boys'. There are also smaller details which indicate that the duo was still a ways off from refining their act -- the titles refer to Laurel as "the world's second worst detective" and Ollie is the worst. The way we know Laurel and Hardy now, it would be the other way around. But there is a lot that is familiar -- the bowler hats which get switched around (although Stan's isn't exactly the same as he would wear in later films), and many of the pair's mannerisms here would become part of the act. While this was a funny picture, it would still be a few more films before the team was considered official. Which picture signals this is still up for debate -- many (including Hal Roach and Stan Laurel himself) claimed it was Putting Pants on Phillip, others say it was The Second Hundred Years. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Harold Lloyd plays a wealthy young spendthrift who is upset that his name is being used to bring parishioners into a storefront mission in the poorer part of town. He heads to the mission to have it out with the minister, only to fall in love with minister's daughter Jobyna Ralston. Realizing that the use of his name as an endorsement was an honest error on Ralston's part, Harold decides to help the girl's father attract worshippers and hymn-shouters. He goads a bunch of thugs and pluguglies into the mission, then makes certain that they stay--and secures their undying loyalty--by saving them from being arrested. Harold and Jobyna decide to get married, whereupon Harold's wealthy chums, dismayed that he is marrying beneath his station, kidnap the poor fellow to prevent him from making a "mistake". Harold is rescued by his tough-guy slum pals, but not before they've gotten themselves drunk and commandeered a double-decker bus. The climactic chase is as hilarious and exciting a piece of celluloid as has ever been produced, but it is merely the capper to an uninterrupted stream of brilliant sight gags. Long underrated, For Heaven's Sake is one of the cleverest and most consistently entertaining of all of Harold Lloyd's silent vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Saddled with an overprotective mother, little Mickey Daniels is prohibited from playing with the rest of the Our Gang kids. Thanks to his understanding grandma, Mickey manages to escape his bedroom prison long enough to play on the gang's self-constructed airplane ride -- and to get into a fight with neighborhood bully Johnny Downs. Urged on by Granny, Mickey stands up to Johnny and finally gets the best of him. The whole spectacle is witnessed by Mickey's mom, whose attitude slowly shifts from outrage to delight that her son is eminently capable of fending for himself. Originally released on May 31, 1925, the silent two-reel Our Gang comedy Ask Grandma was reworked in 1930 as The First Seven Years, complete with the closing gag in which the feisty Granny pummels the bully's brute of a father. Unfortunately, most TV prints of Ask Grandma (retitled Grandma Knows Best) lack the delightful flashback sequence in which Mickey Daniels plays his own mother during her tomboyish youth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This silent, two-reel Our Gang comedy finds the kids enjoying target practice with a variety of weapons, from an air rifle to a bow and arrow. Tired of shooting at imaginary targets, the youngsters accept the invitation from Mickey Daniels to hunt real "big game" on his family's farm. After harmlessly "capturing" several barnyard animals, the kids try to bag a bear -- but end up the pursued, rather than the pursuers. One quickie gag, in which black youngster Allen "Farina" Hoskins' eyes bulge when he sees the bear, has often been cut for television showings; also frequently missing is a longer scene in which little Joe Cobb suffers the ill effects of his first cigarette. It's a Bear was originally released on July 27, 1924. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This one-reel comedy that Stan Laurel made for Hal Roach was basically a remake of a film he did the year before for Gilbert M. Anderson, The Pest. It even begins the same way: Laurel, a door-to-door salesman, is trying to sell his wares in front of an institute for the deaf. He tries making hand signals to a woman (Helen Gilmore), but she takes affront to his motions and charges after him. Stan's product this time around is a patent medicine that supposedly cures just about everything. No one is interested in it, however, except for one drunk (Mark Jones), who wants it because he has run out of bootleg liquor. Undaunted, Stan continues to hound prospective customers; he even proves that his medicine would make a great car wax, but his efforts are futile and the car's owner (Noah Young) turns him down. Finally he comes upon four apartment doors in a row and knocks on all of them. The angry woman from the film's start is behind one of the doors and Stan quickly runs away. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide