Milburn Morante had a long career in Hollywood, spanning from the teens to the 1950-51 season when he was doing small roles at Monogram. A tall gangly character made for slapstick, he made many silent comedies that I haven't seen, and I know him best for his small supporting roles (often unbilled) in poverty row sound films. What a shame that of his silents that are circulating, one of the easiest to find is KICK, a tasteless "comedy" dealing with a spineless husband who is dominated by his wife. She dreams of having a caveman style husband who will beat her to show his love. Simultaneously, Morante is having a hard time dealing with prohibition because he can't drink. So he gets a home brew kit, brews up a batch of beer, drinks it and gets plastered, hits his wife and gives her a black eye, and now she is happy because she knows he loves her, and presumably he's happy now that he is drunk again. Doesn't that sound like a laugh riot? Believe me, it's as tasteless and unfunny as it sounds. Harry Langdon's HEART TROUBLE is lost, yet this thing survives! Reelcraft films made dozens of comedy shorts during the 1920-21 season--I have seen one with Billy Franey and it was a good, solid piece of low budget slapstick. But this is a complete misfire. What were the makers of this thinking???? (And to add insult to injury, unless my timer is off, this runs OVER twenty minutes!)
2 Reviews
Prohibition: Films in bad taste and laws in bad odour
kekseksa18 May 2018
This film is certainly about as politically incorrect as any film can be but bear one little thing in mind. If you described a film where a husband gets drunk and treats his wife in the violent manner she secretly desires, very few people would think of this obscure little film but a great many would be able to quite correctly identify it as a description of one of the central scenes of Gone with the Wind.
Once one relativise a little the question of "bad taste" and puts aside reflex moral outrage, this unusual film has lots of interesting things about it. The most important thing is that it is made in the year of prohibition and this is actually its focus. The notion that a man's courage (and in fact Aleck is shown as a reasonable husband whose seeming domination is only bluster), because of the "death" of alcohol and that this creates an imbalance in the male-female relationship and turns him into a hen-pecked husband is quite a clever one even if not exactly feminist. And in the end it is not really intended to make any serious statement about male-female relationships so much as to symbolise in comic fashion the perverse effects of prohibition. It is no more to be taken seriously than the beggar's tale latr in the film of how he came to be crippled on July 1st (the day that prohibition came in).
Not only is it very well-crafted and filmed - Bull's Eye films were surprisingly classy - but we also have an unusual device of a family cat who acts as a narrator, commenting on events ("I've never known the man yet who could dictate to a woman without a little hooch under his belt"). Then there are Mr and Mrs Smith the neighbours - "perhaps you know them" - who read gas meters and romantic novels respectively and who discover the notion of homebrew.
A nice inclusion is the Darl Mac Boyle/Nat Vincent song "Bring Back Those Wonderful Days" (1919 and sung by black comedian Bert Williams in that year's Ziegfield Follies) which, although it never mentions alcohol, contains the line "drinking ginger ale makes us weak and pale" and which became a sort of anti-prohibition anthem and which Smith plays at one point on the piano to try and cheer up his unmanned neighbour.
Prohibition homebrew was quite a saga. Here is a recipe 1 can Blue Ribbon Malt Extract (apparently no longer available) 1 cake yeast (usually sold in the dairy section) 3/4 lb. to 5 lb. sugar (for a better beer, just use 2 cans of malt extract and no sugar) 5 gallons water
While the hero shops for the necessary, his wife goes for a make-over in the hope that a rise in the testosterone levels this will make a man of her husband. Anyway, yes, the brew is brewed, the cat gets drunk, the man is a man again and the wife (who has however been knocking her husband about) ends up with a black eye and yes, just like Scarlett O'Hara after the rape, she is happy about it.. But I don't think it is a great cause for moral outrage in a film that was part of a healthy popular resistance to one of the most foolish laws ever passed. It is not on of the best films of 1920 but it is far from being the worst.
Once one relativise a little the question of "bad taste" and puts aside reflex moral outrage, this unusual film has lots of interesting things about it. The most important thing is that it is made in the year of prohibition and this is actually its focus. The notion that a man's courage (and in fact Aleck is shown as a reasonable husband whose seeming domination is only bluster), because of the "death" of alcohol and that this creates an imbalance in the male-female relationship and turns him into a hen-pecked husband is quite a clever one even if not exactly feminist. And in the end it is not really intended to make any serious statement about male-female relationships so much as to symbolise in comic fashion the perverse effects of prohibition. It is no more to be taken seriously than the beggar's tale latr in the film of how he came to be crippled on July 1st (the day that prohibition came in).
Not only is it very well-crafted and filmed - Bull's Eye films were surprisingly classy - but we also have an unusual device of a family cat who acts as a narrator, commenting on events ("I've never known the man yet who could dictate to a woman without a little hooch under his belt"). Then there are Mr and Mrs Smith the neighbours - "perhaps you know them" - who read gas meters and romantic novels respectively and who discover the notion of homebrew.
A nice inclusion is the Darl Mac Boyle/Nat Vincent song "Bring Back Those Wonderful Days" (1919 and sung by black comedian Bert Williams in that year's Ziegfield Follies) which, although it never mentions alcohol, contains the line "drinking ginger ale makes us weak and pale" and which became a sort of anti-prohibition anthem and which Smith plays at one point on the piano to try and cheer up his unmanned neighbour.
Prohibition homebrew was quite a saga. Here is a recipe 1 can Blue Ribbon Malt Extract (apparently no longer available) 1 cake yeast (usually sold in the dairy section) 3/4 lb. to 5 lb. sugar (for a better beer, just use 2 cans of malt extract and no sugar) 5 gallons water
While the hero shops for the necessary, his wife goes for a make-over in the hope that a rise in the testosterone levels this will make a man of her husband. Anyway, yes, the brew is brewed, the cat gets drunk, the man is a man again and the wife (who has however been knocking her husband about) ends up with a black eye and yes, just like Scarlett O'Hara after the rape, she is happy about it.. But I don't think it is a great cause for moral outrage in a film that was part of a healthy popular resistance to one of the most foolish laws ever passed. It is not on of the best films of 1920 but it is far from being the worst.
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