Tweet Dane & Arthur late silent MGM

Karl Dane and George K. Arthur were MGMs resident comedy duo much like Paramounts Beery & Hatton and Fox's McLaglen and Lowe. That is they made a series of comedy/adventures together. What is the survival status of the duo's DETECTIVES(1928) and CHINA BOUND(1929)? Bob Youngson included clips from both in his "MGM Big Parade of Comedy" which was in 1965. As we all know MGM had the vault fire in 1967 and "Detectives" which had a released date near LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT may have been warehoused closed to the Tod Browning film. AMG's Hal Erickson intimates that "China Bound" is a survivor but seldom revived because of racial content concerning Chinese stereotypes. Youngson's clips from both films, as well as the clip from Keaton's THE CAMERAMAN, looked great in his compilation movie.

This I didn't know!--though Arthur solo I've thought great in every picture of his I've seen (my favorite being Lady of the Night). Dearly love to see China Bound...strictly, of course, for the moral self-satisfaction of deploring those horrid stereotypes!

Karl Dane and George K. Arthur were MGMs resident comedy duo much like Paramounts Beery & Hatton and Fox's McLaglen and Lowe. That is they made a series of comedy/adventures together. What is the survival status of the duo's DETECTIVES(1928) and CHINA BOUND(1929)? Bob Youngson included clips from both in his "MGM Big Parade of Comedy" which was in 1965. As we all know MGM had the vault fire in 1967 and "Detectives" which had a released date near LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT may have been warehoused closed to the Tod Browning film. AMG's Hal Erickson intimates that "China Bound" is a survivor but seldom revived because of racial content concerning Chinese stereotypes. Youngson's clips from both films, as well as the clip from Keaton's THE CAMERAMAN, looked great in his compilation movie.

"Detectives" survives. We ran it at Cinecon several years ago. "I believe "China Bound" survives as well.

ROOKIES, DETECTIVES, and CHINA BOUND all survive, and have been shown at various Cinephile conventions in recent years.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Thanks everyone, that's a great survival rate. Their BABY MINE(1928) costarring Charlotte Greenwood is apparently one of their lost films.

Both Participated In A "Rookies" Unit Produced By Will Harris For A Publix Tour

Both Participated In A "Rookies" Unit Produced By Will Harris For A Publix Tour

CHINA BOUND was shown at Capitolfest in Rome, NY on August 12, 2007.
It went over very well. I certainly enjoyed it (but I knew I would!) and would like to see more of Dane & Arthur's MGM's.

More on Dane & Arthur here:

viewtopic.php?p=26365

[silentfilm]

I have this herald and about 10 vintage photos from Rookies. I'd love to see it sometime. I know it was screened at Cinecon in the 1990s.


George K. Arthur, Karl Dane, E.H. Calvert

BROTHERLY LOVE reportedly survives, as does an incomplete print (but incomplete to what extent?) of ALL AT SEA. BABY MINE and CIRCUS ROOKIES are believed lost. The big question is when is TCM going to run one of their existing films?

BUSTER KEATON in BROTHERLY LOVE ?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018727/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

Unless it can be confirmed by someone who's seen the film, Keaton doing a cameo in Brotherly Love seems dubious - that credit appears nowhere else in the thorough filmographies used in Keaton and Vance's Remembering Buster Keaton and other books.

My guess is that these photos with Keaton and Dane are simply publicity gag stills from the time of Free and Easy (1930) in which Dane appeared as himself. Buster's costume matches with another still from that film:

The Keaton Free and Easy (1930) image you posted
-taken two years after Brotherly Love (1928) - is remarkable:
Buster with a similar hairdo, aged face, and tie & coat
(with an added vest not seen in the Dane photos)...
I guess you may be right....

But, here's why I asked.
1. The Brotherly Love plot supposedly involves a barbershop scene

http://silenthollywood.com/brotherlylove1928.html
Oscar (Karl Dane), a burly guard at Newberry Prison, gets into an argument with Jerry (George K. Arthur), a barber. Jerry tries to run away but is arrested as a fugitive and sent to Newberry. Both men fall in love with Mary (Jean Arthur), the warden's daughter. Oscar has the smallish Jerry put on the prison's football team to show him up, but he proves instead to be a hero. Oscar runs afoul of the law and is sent to a rival prison. Arthur is released but tries to return to prison so as to play <br soft>against his rival in the big game. Jerry wins the game and Mary becomes his bride.

2. Keaton had worked before with both Jean Arthur and director Chuck Reisner, who in 1928 shot Steamboat Bill, Jr. (for United Artists) and Brotherly Love (for MGM, where Keaton had just signed) .

3. A Brotherly Love still was (seemingly) taken on the same set as the Dane Keaton photos-
I'd've posted this still earlier, but I haven't got around to removing the watermarks yet.




CORRECTION/UPDATE (BELOW):

I spoke with curators at the UCLA archive several months ago about their holdings of "Brotherly Love." Alas, all they have is a set of synchronized sound LPs that are too fragile to listen to. No film, dangit.
Here's their catalog entry:
http://cinema.library.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search_Arg=brotherly%20love&SL=None&Search_Code=FTIT&CNT=50&PID=awbHej7E0Jq_wd2Twjae0nYbuiCP&SEQ=20130410041318&SID=1 :(

Here are stills from DETECTIVES (1928) with Marcelline Day:

4. A Brotherly Love still was (seemingly) taken on the same set as the Dane Keaton photos-

Thanks for that last photo. Interesting to compare with the stills with Keaton, Dane also seems to wear the same costume (underneath the towels), so they were almost certainly taken at the same time.

It would be nice indeed if a hitherto unknown Keaton appearance turned up, however brief, and if it turned out that this had escaped the filmographies only because the film hasn't been seen. On the other hand, it seems likely that even a cameo by Keaton would have been recorded somewhere, in some of the contemporary film reviews or film yearbooks.

Doubtful IMDb credits keep appearing - not too long ago, both Chaplin and Keaton were listed in the cast of The Criminal, a 1915 short featuring Norma Talmadge. Some alert Nitratevillains were able to quickly fix that!

Doubtful IMDb credits keep appearing - not too long ago, both Chaplin and Keaton were listed in the cast of The Criminal, a 1915 short featuring Norma Talmadge. Some alert Nitratevillains were able to quickly fix that!

Until recently, Keaton was also listed in the cast of Arbuckle's A Reckless Romeo, along with a helpful trivia note reporting that Buster can be seen smiling and laughing in the film.

Is it possible to be any cuter than Marceline Day???

I spoke with curators at the UCLA archive several months ago about their holdings of "Brotherly Love." Alas, all they have is a set of synchronized sound LPs that are too fragile to listen to. No film, dangit.

Here's their catalog entry:

http://cinema.library.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search_Arg=brotherly%20love&SL=None&Search_Code=FTIT&CNT=50&PID=awbHej7E0Jq_wd2Twjae0nYbuiCP&SEQ=20130410041318&SID=1