It Pays To Advertise (1931)

 

IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE  (1931)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Frank Tuttle

    Norman Foster, Carole Lombard, Eugene Pallette, 

    Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Lucien Littlefield,

    Judith Wood, Louise Brooks, Morgan Wallace

A laugh-free comedy about a couple of guys trying to scam their way to the top of the soap business. Louise Brooks, billed seventh, has a small role as a dancer, but you never 

see her dance and she quickly disappears.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2  (2017)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Chad Stahelski 

    Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ian McShane,

    Ruby Rose, Common, Claudia Gerini, Lance Reddick

    Laurence Fishburne, Franco Nero, John Leguizamo

The Boogeyman is back, and the bullets are flying and the bodies are piling up, with two more chapters (at least) yet to go. Somebody calculated the number of people John Wick kills in this and came up with 128. That seems a little low. 

Kiki (1931)

KIKI  (1931)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Sam Taylor

    Mary Pickford, Reginald Denny, Margaret Livingston,

    Joseph Cawthorn, Phil Tead, Fred Walton, Edwin Maxwell

Pre-Code Pickford, with Mary as a French chorus girl in love with a producer played by Reginald Denny. Pickford was in her mid-30s by the time sound came in, too old for the little-girl characters that had made her the screen's first female superstar. She made a few talkies (this was her next-to-last), but her transition to more adult roles didn't click with audiences and she retired in 1933. Not surprisingly, the best stuff in "Kiki" is visual, most  notably a musical number choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with the star in tails and a top hat gradually losing her pants. Pickford could do that sort of thing as well as anybody, including Chaplin, but movies were evolving and moving on, and they were about to move on without Mary Pickford.