Early talking films are invaluable relics of a dead civilization–namely the 1920s. The acting, pacing, diction, style and behavior are as incomprehensible and different from anything we now consider normal as sitting around a cave might be with its cro-magnin inhabitants. The movies aren’t really useful anymore to us in the way they were intended to be–as engaging stories. Instead they are abstractions–documents that tell us something different than was intended.

You’ve never heard of the above-posted 1929 pre-code talkie ‘The Lady Lies’. I know you haven’t. I mean–I am certain you haven’t. But its obscurity is very much the point of today’s little Friday Exercise In Film Fun. I doubt you’re going to watch the whole thing–even I haven’t–nor am I suggesting you should. Instead, I suggest simply moving the cursor to any random point in the movie and watching a couple of minutes. Then move to another part of the movie–preferably one not too close by so the plot doesn’t start to make any sense–and watch a little of that. As this exercise continues, you’ll find yourself getting increasingly lost in a strange dreamland of a vanished world, one in which people speak of things that make no sense, sit and stand and walk and smoke and talk and eat in ways we barely recognize. The fragmentation of the viewing experience actually makes watching the film much more interesting than if you were attempting to decipher the story and gain some entertainment value from the proceedings. I love doing stuff like this—it’s akin to an archeological dig where the available findings don’t quite jell but provide intriguing clues. As for early talkies, I’m grateful that they exist on YouTube as watching them in the manner they were intended–sequentially and in one tiresome sitting–is awfully tough. I believe it was Leslie Halliwell who said that the Marx Brother’s ‘The Cocoanuts’ was “the only early talkie that can now be watched without severe discomfort.” If he followed my advice and watched ‘The Lady Lies’ (or any of a number of other early talkies) in the manner which I suggest, I like to think he’d change his mind. Happy weird viewing!