I cannot find this movie
I am unable to locate four academy award winners for best actor/actress, supporting actor/actress, best director and best picture. In Old Arizona is one of those four. Any help out there?
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MovieChat Forums > In Old Arizona (1929) Discussion > I cannot find this movie
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It's been on DVD for almost 4 years now.
shareJust saw it. You won't really miss anything if you don't see it, but since you are apparently a completist, that won't stop you. You are gonna watch it and after the ending you may wonder as well how on earth Warner Baxter could have won the Oscar for Best Actor. His performance is incredibly cartoonish, over-the-top and involuntarily humorous.
"El conejito"?
Well, people back in 1928 wasn't as cynical as today's people.
Argonautal; Saw it on TCM (05/06/09). Interesting antique of the early sound period, 1928. Though I thought FOX and Raoul Walsh handled the technical difficulties of the early sound equipment very well. As for WARNER BAXTERs' acting would have to see who the other nominees were before judgement could be made. That might HAVE been the best performance!
shareI'd have to think that you may not have seen too many 1920's films.
Most acting in silent pictures is overacted to say the least and I think the acting in this film is just an extension of that. Being one of the early talkies, I think the actors were just getting their barings with sound and some of the "cartoonist" acting of the silent pictures carried over to this production. I'm guessing that Warner Baxter's style of acting in this picture probably wasn't any different from the style of the other best actor nominee's in 1928-29. (I'm guessing because unfortunately I haven't seen Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, George Bancroft or Paul Muni's performances that they were nomineed for).
This film was odd, but most certainly NOT silent!
Let it be unsaid: insignificance is the locus of true increpation.
Well, of course it isn't silent, Flutch, but you seem to miss the point that silent movie-style acting bled over into early talkies.
shareI don't miss the point at all, but so what?
Let it be unsaid: insignificance is the locus of true increpation.
So then what was the point you were trying to make by saying that. And btw, in other late breaking news, 2001: A Space Odyssey wasn't a silent film, either.
shareSo then what was the point you were trying to make by saying that. And btw, in other late breaking news, 2001: A Space Odyssey wasn't a silent film, either.
shareIt's on TCM again a bit later today and I look forward to seeing it , , , for the first time. They did a lot of location shooting in Arizona and I always enjoy seeing "real" places so many years ago. That's why, though not a big silent film fan in general, I enjoy the many silent comedies especially that were shot out on the streets of L.A. And even five years later, Warner Baxter was still chewing the scenery in "42nd St."; it was more or less a hold over from the silents when gestures had to substitute for words. In any case, I'm sure it won't be so bad that I'll want to throw the cat at the TV set.
shareDidja throw the cat? if I had one I might have. Especially egregious was the NY 'accent' used by Lowe....... 'goil', 'toin', et al. And according to IMDB, they shot in CA and UT and nothing in AZ. I can say I saw it.
shareAs a third generation New Yorker, I can assure you that the dialect employed by Edmund Lowe was accurate given the time the film was set and shot as well (it was actually closer to Brooklynese, and given that Lowe's character was from Brooklyn, so much the better). It was a type of speech primarily heard among the Irish; having grown up in an Irish neighborhood, there were still people of my grandparent's vintage that pronounced the 'er/ir' sound as 'oi' (boid, voigin, poil are, respectively, bird, virgin and pearl. Therefore the 'oi/oy' combination was pronounced as 'er' - berl, terlet, sperl are boil, toilet and spoil. Brooklyn-born Mae West, when performing the song "A Guy What Takes His Time", sang the line "a hasty job really sperls the masters' touch...meaning 'spoils'. I rest my case.
This regional dialect died out over the generations, but to audiences watching IN OLD ARIZONA in 1929 it would have been immediately recognizable. In the future, perhaps a bit of research would prevent you from making pre-emptive put downs without comprehending what you're assaulting. I'm sure 97% of the lower life forms pontificating on imbd wouldn't get it, but it is absolutely ludicrous to judge a 1929 movie by 2014 standards. But I'm sure we'll continue to be enlightened by such drivel as "this movie is like really dated" and "the sound was like totally hard to understand and stuff". Please, go watch the latest X-MEN installment or some Vin Diesel movie with lots of explosions and CGIs.
This Western is in parts on Youtube, but a Blu-ray release is planned on June 4, 2013.
My source: Amazon.com