Movie-Town

I recently found "Movie-Town" on YouTube and I recommend you try to find another source for the film...or perhaps there's a different copy posted on YouTube. All I know is that the copy I saw was in very rough shape. Instead of nice vivid two-color footage, the green-blue part of the film is almost black and the orange-red part is there....but not in great shape. Now this is due much to age...but also two-color Technicolor and Cinecolor are pretty ugly processes and never give you the full spectrum of colors. Oh, and incidentally, the sound also isn't all that good!

This film is from the Mack Sennett Comedies...though I didn't exactly think it was a particularly funny film. It's more an interesting curio, being such an early color film. It consists of Baron Gonzola trying to sell directors Mack Sennett and William Beaudine on his latest protoge, Marge (Marjorie Beebe). The beginning is set at a pool--where there's ample opportunity to gaze at Sennett's latest batch of bathing beauties. On hand also is Olympic champion Buster Crabbe...just before he went on to win the gold in the 1932 Olympics. Later, the action switches to a swank nightclub.

So is this film worth seeing? Probably not. But if you are a movie buff and you want to see and hear Mack Sennett as well as pre-Hollywood Buster Crabbe, then by all means watch. But it isn't that funny and the print quality is a serious detriment....so much so that I'm not going to rate this one as it doesn't seem fair based on the print.