Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Poor Nut (1927) Film Review - Cinecon 44 Screening

Plot Summary - Silent romantic comedy about a shy, geeky and bookwormish college student (Jack Mulhall) who, when he's not busy studying botany or pulling a cactus out of the ground for examination, has been writing love letters to the "college queen" of a rival school who he has admired via her picture in the paper. She writes back, under the mistaken impression he's a star athlete and in the best fraternity in college - not! Well, even though dating her own school's "college hero", she still seeks to meet her secret Adonis - and gets the opportunity when the two rival colleges hold a big track meet. Realizing this fickle gal is not going to like what she sees when she meets him, our man plots to really try and become an athlete - and goes out for the track team. Meanwhile, there's a pretty female botany student (Jean Arthur - hurrah!) who actually thinks our boy is the bee's knees. And guess what, when the college queen actually does see him in person for the first time - she, in fact, does think he's a wimp (ssssss and a big Bronx cheer on her).

Review - This is a cute film which I thought was pretty entertaining - and hey, I usually get pretty drowsy for films screened in the evening but, even though quite tired by the Saturday night of Cinecon when this was shown, this one did hold my interest (even when I'm home I almost never watch a silent film at night, but stick to watching earlier in the day when I can concentrate better). Okay, I probably would have preferred a more attractive leading man in this (it's just really hard to imagine Jean Arthur liking this guy so much). Shy, geeky and bookwormish is fine by me, but this guy just didn't make my heart go pitter patter - - perhaps Richard Barthelmess with glasses (just a dream). Rating - 8/10 stars

No comments: