Film Summary CDXLVIII (Unholy Three)

A truly bizarre and over-the-top film.

Our story starts at a carnival attraction. At first everything seems to be on the level. The carnival act has all your typical attractions. The overweight woman, the Siamese twins, the strong man, the little person pretending to be a child and even a ventriloquist Act.
But there's an undertone of crime to it all. The ventriloquist actor along with the Hercules strongman and the Midget, are running a scheme to steal goods whatever they can find off the poor boobs at the attraction. They also have the help of a fairly attractive young woman whoin a kind of romantic relationship with the ventriloquist guy.

The whole Carnival goes awry when the midget kicks a small boy in the face for insulting him. This starts a fight with the Hercules man fighting the crowd and everyone else getting involved at the same time. This leads to the closure of the carnival and our four main characters have to find a new line of business.

The man who does the ventriloquist act pretends to be an old lady taking care of a small baby boy who's being played by the Midget. Than theres the well grown son who's actually the Hercules man.
There's also the woman who's pretending to be his granddaughter.

They're running one of the most ridiculous / clever schemes I've ever seen on film. They owned a bird store where the ventriloquist actor pretends to be the bird, to convince rich people to give them loads of money for a fairly average parrot. Which they then take home and then have to call the shop up later to find out why their bird isn't talking.
So the old lady then purposely goes to their home, scope the place out with her infant grand-son while pretending to deal with the bird. Then the whole gang comes back in the middle of the night and Rubb's the rich people blind.

There are several schemes going on at the same time. And it would work out really well if all of these men weren't incredibly greedy and wanted to steal all the profits for themselves.
There's also a lot of conflict between the ventriloquist and he's kind of girlfriend.
She's flirting with this really nice but incredibly dorky guy who's working at the bird shop as the straight man. He doesn't know about any of the schemes or any of the costume Antics. He's just a guy who is trying to make a decent living and he in this random girl or kind of hitting it off. Not only does she think that he's sweet but she kind of admires his honest lifestyle.

Oh! There's also a monkey.  He plays a pretty important part towards the end of the film.

I was not expecting this movie to be as good as it was.

It's one of those movies that when you look at it on the surface you think; ''Oh it's another one of those, here's some strange looking people. Let's laugh at them for their physical Oddities.''
But really the movies a bit more than that. Oh sure they play up these people's attributes but there's some actual characterization to each character and you want to get invested in there frankly ridiculous story.

The film has some weird pacing and sometimes I feel like the script doesn't really know where it wants to take the story. Because they have two or three different plots going on kind of at the same time.
You have the scam by the main characters, you've got their escape after one of them accidentally murder somebody on a botched robbery attempt. And then you have this courtroom drama towards the end that that feels a little patch on.
It's movie that could have had another half an hour added to it. Maybe round out some of the internal conflicts between the gang members while they're in that cabin. Or add a little bit more time to the courtroom drama so that we can get something a bit more substantial out of it.

But really there's just too much in this film to love. The entire premise is fascinating, the general atmosphere is really fun. The camera work (though basic) keep the story going on at a fair enough Pace.

The acting is just wonderful. Everybody puts a decent amount of commitment to the roles and all of their roles are so well-defined that it's easy enough to keep track of what's going on. Lon Chaney has this really mean authoritarian streak to him which completely clashes with his perceived grandmother character. John Miljan makes a really fun Hercules man.
Be sides just playing a typical tough guy. He doesn't really get to express too much else. Although he does have this weird fearful relationship with the overpowering monkey at the beginning of the film. The two of them certainly don't get along.

Harry Earles just gets to chew the scenery on everything. Sometimes he has to pretend to be a child which is comedic enough in its own right. But then afterwards when he gets to Just  be a typical guy it's even more amusing because he's still dressed in the drab of the children's clothing. But he's sitting there smoking a giant cigar and giving lip to everyone around him. He's a Class Act in this movie. he just steals the screen every time he's on. And not because of his stature but because of his ridiculous personality. He commands so much presents and it's just wonderful to watch.

Lila Lee gets the play a really fun character as well. Her overall tone and demeanour flip-flops between stoic tough criminal girl and the person who just wants to escape the petty life of crime. And she's torn. She has to deal with a very Square man who she's falling in love with a former lover who doesn't want to let her go and the continued harassment and worry of the other two guys who just see her as another diversion.

I don't know if I sold anyone on the story. I'm very tired while trying to write this. But I just want to try and get my thoughts out regardless.
I think this is a wonderful movie. It's got so much charm and the story is just so amusing. It's a Christmas film.
I guarantee it's a Christmas film you haven't seen before and I've certainly never seen it being played on television. So if you want to watch a new Christmas movie that you haven't seen me for this would certainly be up there.

This movie also kind of disprove something I said in the last film I watched. Where I said 1930 was a transitional year and a lot of film writers just didn't know what they were doing. Maybe that's true to a degree, but this movie is so much better made then 'Party Girls' it's cinematography and audio were leagues beyond that last film and it's screenplay is just better.