Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Tad Pole . . . whose main claim to fame seems to be that she was not THE Betty Jane Graham of COVER GIRL (1944). In fact, 1944 marked the final year of the ORIGINAL "Little Miss Vitaphone's" film career as a minor, which ran from when she was 4 years old in 1927 through her "big break" in the Vitaphone Family in the Warner Brother's puff piece, AN INTIMATE DINNER IN CELEBRATION OF WARNER BROS. SILVER JUBILEE (1930--which was certainly NOT intimate, nor a dinner that looked as appetizing as sliders from White Castle) to the role of "Autograph Seeker" in BR0ADWAY RHYTHM (1944). How is it that Betty Jane Graham Number One had a hiatus of 22 years (!!) following her minor acting career, only to have her major acting body of work consist solely of coming out of retirement to play the "bit part" in John Wayne's EL DORADO (1966), before she succumbed to mortality two weeks shy of her 75th birthday in 1998? Though I haven't seen most of her other 45 minor film roles, she seems such a presence rattling off the names of everyone from Warners Brothers stars Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler to the scrub lady and team videographer (oops!--I'm confusing this with the endless reading of the roster on opening day in a baseball park--sorry) that it seems life's promises were somehow snuffed out for Betty Jane Graham Number One by the improbable emergence of a Betty Jane Graham Number Two the exact year that One reached her majority.

Leslie Howard Adams This 1930 short proclaimed to be Warner's Silver Jubilee (25 years-old, and going strong.) And, indeed, it was. The brothers entered the business in 1906, as theatre exhibitors in a converted store in New Castle, Pa. Okay, close enough. They begun making films in 1912, but their first full-blown movie, "My Four Years in Germany", appeared in 1918. They acquired the 40-acre Beesmyer Ranch, on Sunset Boulevard, in 1919.Their filing of the certificate of incorporation in Delaware on April 4, 1923 (remember this date)signified the legal birth of the company. They acquired the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn in 1925, and First National in 1927. (Those who are fond of sticking Vitagraph, Vitaphone and First National on all Warner Bros. films might want to remember the 1925 and 1927 dates.) And, then, 43 years after their 25th birthday party in 1930 ( listed on this page and can be seen on TCM from time-to-time), Warners tossed themselves a 50th Birthday Anniversary, which, according to most math standards, actually occurred in their 67th year.Hocus-Pocus and right before our eyes, Warners de-aged themselves seventeen years. And set a bad precedent in doing so, as the current generation in the industry thinks such matters as public records should not be made public and thereby keep them from getting calls to play teen-agers when they are pushing 35.At least, Warners had 1923 as their incorporation birth-year to back up their claim of only being fifty in 1973. That might be the solution for actors to want to shave years...get incorporated...and then you can play teen-agers when you are only two-or-three years old or, at the worst, get turned down for being too young.

theowinthrop I'm giving this short subject a few points more than it deserves, because there are some faces in it that one rarely if ever saw or heard in early talkies. Among them are Broadway stars Otis Skinner (see OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY and KISMET), and Marilyn Miller, as well as young Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Hammerstein II, Al Dubin, and such faces as Walter Huston, Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Pidgeon, Loretta Young, Sidney Blackmer, and Ona Munson. I can even add the Fred Kohler Sr. and Beryl Mercer. It's pleasant seeing faces of some importance or still vibrant memory there.But having said that I look at the bulk of the celebrities. The chief spokesperson is a young girl, Betty Jane Graham, as "Little Miss Vitaphone". Vitaphone, of course, was the process that the Warners used to bring talkies to Hollywood. Ms Graham is polite and well spoken. She is a pretty child. That said, there has absolutely no spark of talent or panache in her. If you check the thread on her, she had a career into the 1940s, but increasingly it fell into not even supporting parts but extras. Finally she must have gotten the message and left films entirely.I have heard of Evelyn Knapp (barely) and Louis Fazenda, but who on earth are Leon Janney (any relation to television star Alison Janney?), Claudia Dell, or James Rennie? The stars of tomorrow. Their credits barely suggest anything.In the other comments on this thread, there are complaints that the brothers Warner failed to use such figures as George Arliss, Richard Barthelmess, or (my God, how could they?!) John Barrymore. Yes, indeed, they did. They also did not bring in their champion man of song Mr. Al Jolson. A song is sung at the end by some well intentioned crooner with a forgettable name, who looks like he's got a great future in half-empty concert halls. He is warbling a slightly passable ditty with words by Mr. Dubin. As I listened to him sing this, and saw Ms Miller was in that room, I wanted to cry. The tune is not a standard, but with a bit of friendly or sexy push it might have been. Or if Mr. Jolson had been around it might have been.I take it this was done as publicity (to show off some of the big and so-called promising names) for the studio. As such they may have grabbed whoever was available (due to shooting schedules) on that day or two it was shot. So, as a museum piece it is curious enough to merit a "7" out of generosity to Otis and Marilyn in particular. But otherwise I felt like a lot of good film stock was wasted in this work.

boblipton This short subject, nominally in celebration of Warner Brothers' silver jubilee -- the only thing I can think of is that they may have opened their first theater in 1905; they didn't go into production for another dozen years -- is an excellent primer for putting faces to names. If you are a fan of old movies, you have seen these actors, but you may not be able to link the faces with the names.Besides the players, various composers and lyricists are shown. It is amusing, given what happened later, to see Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II -- but they are seated next to, respectively, Lorenz Hart and Sigmund Romberg.This is not, otherwise, an interesting short subject --the moviegoer was intended to be overwhelmed by the sight of so much talent and probably was. Now it is simply a historical artifact.