Five Minutes from the Station (1930)
** (out of 4)
Vitaphone short has a man (Lynne Overman) bringing his boss (Berton Churchill) home even though his wife (Sylvia Sidney) doesn't want him there. The poor couple have to beg for food in order to serve the boss and both are heartbroken when they learn that the job the husband wanted is going to someone else. This is a rather dry early talkie that feels like half an hour instead of the fourteen-minute running time. That's not really a bad thing because the director gets a lot of stuff into the short running time and while the film isn't a total success it does work as a history lesson as the movie comes off very realistic of the Depression-era. The performances are very good with the still unknown Sidney standing out. Churchill had a pretty long career but he's probably best remembered for being one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild.
** (out of 4)
Vitaphone short has a man (Lynne Overman) bringing his boss (Berton Churchill) home even though his wife (Sylvia Sidney) doesn't want him there. The poor couple have to beg for food in order to serve the boss and both are heartbroken when they learn that the job the husband wanted is going to someone else. This is a rather dry early talkie that feels like half an hour instead of the fourteen-minute running time. That's not really a bad thing because the director gets a lot of stuff into the short running time and while the film isn't a total success it does work as a history lesson as the movie comes off very realistic of the Depression-era. The performances are very good with the still unknown Sidney standing out. Churchill had a pretty long career but he's probably best remembered for being one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild.