No Lady

Just watched No Lady on Talking Pictures and I must confess that I enjoyed it. True the story is silly but the film was far better than I expected. There was little evidence that it was made just four years into the talkies and Lupino Lane was a superb acrobatic comedian. This production did him justice.

A very early British talkie (hence poor sound quality but on the version I saw on TPTV there is sound all the way through). Starring the talented Lupino Lane - a master of timing and slapstick. What elevates it above many comedies of the period is the amount of external shots (of Blackpool) at the beginning of the 1930's - not just a lot of cheap interior sets with two dimensional acting. The actors show carryover influence of both silent movies and theatrical stage. The baddies are stereotypical in the extreme and come from a fictional European country with silly hand signals as greetings - two years before Hitler came to power. There must have been a reasonable budget given the number of actors and dancers involved even if some were roped in holidaymakers. It isn't very sophisticated, especially the dance routines, but you can see why audiences enjoyed it at the time. Basically a comedy with some good touches, not to be taken too seriously and in context, and a fascinating view of Blackpool.

Henpecked Lupino Lane, Lola Hunt, and his five stepchildren go on a holiday to Blackpool. There, he is mistaken for a spy from Ptomania, whose associates plan to crash the British glider in the competition, winning fifty-thousand-pound prize for Ptomania.

It's all an excuse for long sequences shot wild -- that is, without sound -- in which Lane performs his amazing acrobatics and slapstick routines around the holiday town. Those sequences are quite good, but the cheapness of the production, the poor sound track, and the slapdash writing don't make this particularly good. It reminds me of the proposition that Buster Keaton made to the higher-ups at MGM, to make silent films with talking sequences. I expect the scenarios would have been better than this mishmosh of sequences from THE ADVENTURER, cross-dressing, and puns. Still, it's always fun to see Lane run up a wall. With Sari Maritza and Wallace Lupino.

No Lady is a curious British comedy. Lupino Lane shows almost Chaplinesque skills but as a director he certainly could not make this film flow well.

Lupino plays a hen pecked second husband of a harridan and her children, one of whom looks suspiciously looks like a vertically challenged young man.

Thet go off to Blackpool for a holiday. We see scenes of the Pier, the Lido and Lupino gets mistaken for some kind of crook. Once the bad guys realise their error, they go after him but Lupino disguises himself as a woman to escape everyone but attracts the attention of a lot of elderly suitors.

The film is mainly a silent, it has some knockaround fun, you even get a song and dance number. It is rather silly, it showcases Lupino in an uneven way but I cannot say this is a good film.

The movie itself is really only about a 5, but for me, when Lupino Lane really gets going, he can do no wrong.

For several years now, I have found myself bored to death over movies that are directed to be more concerned with presenting their "story" than with what they DO with the narrative. Most movies are written by a bunch of hack writers anyway, and few stories have any depth or value to them that can keep me engaged. RATHER, I am interested in any movie that allows truly talented actors to show off their skills.

Now it turns out that Lupino Lane is as good an acrobat as Buster Keaton, and probably as good a pantomimist and dancer as Chaplin or Lloyd. So here I am delighted to find a featurette that really displays his talents—and in a talking picture while the actor is still at his prime, no less.

Not that it couldn't have been even better, but... you can't have everything (although I'll never know why).

Fortunately, there is enough innocent silliness, cartoonishness, pantomime, acrobatics and else at play here, and briskly moving along at a pace to keep my interest.

If you don't know Lupino Lane, you might want to start with a wonderful compilation of clips from his movies, with super music, on the DVD "SlapHappy: Vol 1 (3 Funnymen...)".

If you find those clips amazing, astounding and hilarious, then you should try out some complete silents. After that, if you, like I, cannot possibly get too much Lupino Lane, then you should check out this movie (you can buy it at Amazon UK).