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Victor McLaglen & Lili Damita
Date of Release: Oct 20, 1929
Studio: Fox
Director: Raoul Walsh
Music: John Philip Sousa, George M. Cohan, James Caddigan, Joseph A. Brennan, Geoffrey O’Hara, Al Dubin, Irving Mills, Jimmy McHugh, Irwin Dash, Sidney Mitchell, Archie Gottler, Con Conrad, Lew Brown, B. G. DeSylva, Ray Henderson, Lew Clare and Sidney Pollack
Leading Actors: Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, Lily Damita, Lelia Karnelly, El Brendel, Bob Burns, Jeanette Dagna, Joe Brown, Stuart Erwin, Ivan Lino, Jean Bary, Soledad Jiménez, Albert Dresden, Joe Rochay
The Cock-Eyed World is a sequel based on a silent film which had been based on a Broadway play, which had been turned into a talkie. The original silent film, What Price is Glory? was released in 1926, and re-issued as a synchronized sound short a year later. What Price is Glory? was the first outing of Fox’s synchronized sound system (Movietone Sound), and is famous for its use of profanity, only noticeable by lip-reading the actor’s mouths. I decided not to watch the first film after reading one modern day review which stated, “Glorification of war, amazing objectification of women, exploitation controversy and lots of sequels, oh boy!”. Unfortunately, the same statement could be applied to The Cock-Eyed World.
Although family friendly by today’s standards, as described by Butters in his book on film censorship, The Cock-Eyed World was considered “loud, crude, tough, loutish and decidedly vulgar in spots.” A complaint about the film decried, “It is misnamed… a more appropriate name would be the ‘sex life of the marines’.” Despite the complaints, The Cock-Eyed World was one of Film Daily’s 10 best films of 1929, and the ninth most profitable film of that year.
The film divides critics into two camps. Some feel it’s a fast-paced hilarious riot. Others find it tedious with terrible use of sound. Film historian Richard Barrios describes The Cock-Eyed World as “Unquestionably one of 1929’s most fluid productions, it demonstrated how a strong director could make sound film pay off. It’s also, today, a coarse and wearisome gust of Walshian misogyny and empty heroics, which no amount of technique could make palatable.”
The film follows two marines, Flagg and Quirt as they travel around the world on duty, and compete for women. From Vladivostok to Coney Island to South America, each locale provides a pretty, silly, girl for the men to fight over. The plot repeats itself in each new location, capped off with a battle scene towards the film’s conclusion.
The racist and sexist overtones are impossible to ignore. With lines like “she’s fat but nice,” “oh you’re still working from the back,” and “come here sweet stuff,” the humour does not stand up well after 86 years. Women exist solely for the pleasure of men. They are silly, speak in artificial high pitched voices, and interactions with other women are for the purpose of arguing over the men. The Spanish South American women (we’re never told where we are exactly, somewhere in “the tropics”) perpetually swish their skirts and hold their hands as though they are about to dance the flamenco. They speak in such a fast high-pitched way, that I’m fairly convinced they’re speaking gibberish that sounds vaguely like Spanish. Even with the limited material and terrible stereotypes, Lili Damita as Mariana is an excellent comic, though her role makes her painful to watch.
There are some eloquent moments about the futility of war and nature of the war machine, like the early line spoken by a soldier, “I ain’t got no home. I’m just roamin’ and fightin’ and preventin’ fightin’ to protect other homes.” But these small significant moments are lost in the middle of the womanizing and lame duck humor. The soldiers have nothing to redeem them, no charisma, no charm, just lots of bravado. It’s hard to imagine Flagg and Quirt were so popular that four films were made to feature them. As Richard Barrios writes, “…then as now, worthy intentions mean far less at the box office than lusty posturing.”
The Cock-Eyed World should not be classified as a musical, but as a “comedy with songs”. A few scenes feature dancing in a club, but there is certainly no organized dance or story-telling through dance to speak of. Despite a long list of credited composers, there is barely any music in the film. The first song occurs a good fifteen minutes into the film. In Vladivostok, the marines are joking around and getting ready for bed. The jocular mood is accompanied by a group musicians who are set up in the next room, (according to David Parkinson, during this period, producers were concerned that viewers could only “understand” musicals if they could see the source of the music on screen), playing an instrumental jig. Sergeant Flagg enters the room, and of course, his friends call for him to “give us a song boy!”. After 15 minutes of girl getting bravado and “sez you, sez me” humor, Flagg breaks out into a completely incongruous tenor ballad “So Dear to Me”.
“Over There” and “So Long” provide two all-too-short musical moments with wonderful chorus arrangements. The songs are played over scenes of the marines getting ready to deploy, and ships sailing into port, and help to set the scene and mood rather than advance the plot or give insight into characters’ feelings.
The Cock-Eyed World is made well-enough, with high production values and a coherent, if too long and slightly repetitive, script. The film suffers from poor restoration - the image is not always clear, and in the last half hour, the heads of the characters are cut off from the frame. Overall, the use of synchronized sound is advanced in comparison to its predecessors, and some of the visuals, particularly in the battle scene with aerial shots of bombs dropping away, are well done. The Cock-Eyed World is a good example of the desire of early filmmakers to capitalize on synchronized sound and draw in the pundits, but it’s not a movie musical.
Up next, The General!
Studio: Fox
Director: Raoul Walsh
Music: John Philip Sousa, George M. Cohan, James Caddigan, Joseph A. Brennan, Geoffrey O’Hara, Al Dubin, Irving Mills, Jimmy McHugh, Irwin Dash, Sidney Mitchell, Archie Gottler, Con Conrad, Lew Brown, B. G. DeSylva, Ray Henderson, Lew Clare and Sidney Pollack
Leading Actors: Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, Lily Damita, Lelia Karnelly, El Brendel, Bob Burns, Jeanette Dagna, Joe Brown, Stuart Erwin, Ivan Lino, Jean Bary, Soledad Jiménez, Albert Dresden, Joe Rochay
The Cock-Eyed World is a sequel based on a silent film which had been based on a Broadway play, which had been turned into a talkie. The original silent film, What Price is Glory? was released in 1926, and re-issued as a synchronized sound short a year later. What Price is Glory? was the first outing of Fox’s synchronized sound system (Movietone Sound), and is famous for its use of profanity, only noticeable by lip-reading the actor’s mouths. I decided not to watch the first film after reading one modern day review which stated, “Glorification of war, amazing objectification of women, exploitation controversy and lots of sequels, oh boy!”. Unfortunately, the same statement could be applied to The Cock-Eyed World.
Although family friendly by today’s standards, as described by Butters in his book on film censorship, The Cock-Eyed World was considered “loud, crude, tough, loutish and decidedly vulgar in spots.” A complaint about the film decried, “It is misnamed… a more appropriate name would be the ‘sex life of the marines’.” Despite the complaints, The Cock-Eyed World was one of Film Daily’s 10 best films of 1929, and the ninth most profitable film of that year.
The film divides critics into two camps. Some feel it’s a fast-paced hilarious riot. Others find it tedious with terrible use of sound. Film historian Richard Barrios describes The Cock-Eyed World as “Unquestionably one of 1929’s most fluid productions, it demonstrated how a strong director could make sound film pay off. It’s also, today, a coarse and wearisome gust of Walshian misogyny and empty heroics, which no amount of technique could make palatable.”
The film follows two marines, Flagg and Quirt as they travel around the world on duty, and compete for women. From Vladivostok to Coney Island to South America, each locale provides a pretty, silly, girl for the men to fight over. The plot repeats itself in each new location, capped off with a battle scene towards the film’s conclusion.
The racist and sexist overtones are impossible to ignore. With lines like “she’s fat but nice,” “oh you’re still working from the back,” and “come here sweet stuff,” the humour does not stand up well after 86 years. Women exist solely for the pleasure of men. They are silly, speak in artificial high pitched voices, and interactions with other women are for the purpose of arguing over the men. The Spanish South American women (we’re never told where we are exactly, somewhere in “the tropics”) perpetually swish their skirts and hold their hands as though they are about to dance the flamenco. They speak in such a fast high-pitched way, that I’m fairly convinced they’re speaking gibberish that sounds vaguely like Spanish. Even with the limited material and terrible stereotypes, Lili Damita as Mariana is an excellent comic, though her role makes her painful to watch.
There are some eloquent moments about the futility of war and nature of the war machine, like the early line spoken by a soldier, “I ain’t got no home. I’m just roamin’ and fightin’ and preventin’ fightin’ to protect other homes.” But these small significant moments are lost in the middle of the womanizing and lame duck humor. The soldiers have nothing to redeem them, no charisma, no charm, just lots of bravado. It’s hard to imagine Flagg and Quirt were so popular that four films were made to feature them. As Richard Barrios writes, “…then as now, worthy intentions mean far less at the box office than lusty posturing.”
The Cock-Eyed World should not be classified as a musical, but as a “comedy with songs”. A few scenes feature dancing in a club, but there is certainly no organized dance or story-telling through dance to speak of. Despite a long list of credited composers, there is barely any music in the film. The first song occurs a good fifteen minutes into the film. In Vladivostok, the marines are joking around and getting ready for bed. The jocular mood is accompanied by a group musicians who are set up in the next room, (according to David Parkinson, during this period, producers were concerned that viewers could only “understand” musicals if they could see the source of the music on screen), playing an instrumental jig. Sergeant Flagg enters the room, and of course, his friends call for him to “give us a song boy!”. After 15 minutes of girl getting bravado and “sez you, sez me” humor, Flagg breaks out into a completely incongruous tenor ballad “So Dear to Me”.
“Over There” and “So Long” provide two all-too-short musical moments with wonderful chorus arrangements. The songs are played over scenes of the marines getting ready to deploy, and ships sailing into port, and help to set the scene and mood rather than advance the plot or give insight into characters’ feelings.
The Cock-Eyed World is made well-enough, with high production values and a coherent, if too long and slightly repetitive, script. The film suffers from poor restoration - the image is not always clear, and in the last half hour, the heads of the characters are cut off from the frame. Overall, the use of synchronized sound is advanced in comparison to its predecessors, and some of the visuals, particularly in the battle scene with aerial shots of bombs dropping away, are well done. The Cock-Eyed World is a good example of the desire of early filmmakers to capitalize on synchronized sound and draw in the pundits, but it’s not a movie musical.
Up next, The General!
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