Excellent, Without a doubt!!

As Good As It Gets

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This is an odd film but not sympathetic. It is odd because, although it takes its title from a novel by humorist and poet Don Marquis, it really does (apart from a couple of the names of the characters, a woman on the run - a persecuted suffragette in the novel - and the existence of the ship) have nothing whatsoever to do with the novel. Perhaps the fay humour of Marquis was an inspiration....Odd because La Rocque (always, like Fairbanks, a swashbuckler at second degree) is here taking on Fairbanks not so much in his swashbuckling roles as in his superb zany comedies (The Mystery of the Leaping Fish or When the Clouds Roll By. And in theory it should have all the ingredients f a classic zany comedy - a woman on the run from a man with a sponge who is trying to wash her back takes refuge ("Don't let him wash my back" "Never!") at the home of a man whose house and property is being auctioned around him as he tries to bath and shave, much to the delight of the elderly women at the auction. They chase off to the coast, followed mysteriously wherever they go by a coffin-like box (in fact there are two boxes, one containing the villain and the other a priceless tapestry, but they never manage to work that out).The woman has a will printed on her back - the question of how quite it got there is never explained - a will which later transfers itself impossibly onto a door.Meanwhile the robbery of the tapestry, designated a "federal" matter - the FBI had been set up in 1908 but Hoover became director in 1924 and it was during the Prohibition years that it attained its real importance - gets escalated up through an absurd chain of command until army, air force and navy are all mobilised to bomb and bombard the ship where our hero and heroine, quite unaware of the cause for the attack, are trying to get an ancient sea-captain to marry them.This is really a very heady cocktail and at points it works well but somehow it does not quite make the grade, always lapsing back into more mundane farce (Horne would make his name as a director of shorts for Hal Roach in the first years of the talkies) and it is a little difficult to put one's finger on why. Zany humour is tricky except for those rare beings like Keaton for whom it seemed second nature, and requires the creation of a whole world of counter-reality which here never quite comes off.I think perhaps the other reviewer is correct in seeing two principals as the main weakness. They make a good job of remaining earnest despite the absurdities but they lack the bravura indifference to reality shown, say, by Keaton and McGuire (one of the best comic duos in the whole of film history) in Crisp's The Navigator and they do not have that touch of the manic that distinguished Max Linder or Dougie Fairbanks or for that matter Alice Howell or the much under-rated Martha Sleeper. Here, veteran comic Jack Ackroyd, who plays the servant Wiggins, has to work hard to keep the adrenaline going. Snitz Edwards as the villain is a bit wasted.Still such humour is sufficiently rare in the US tradition to be well worthy of notice.

After a dedication, "To those who believe in Santa Claus, thirty miles to the gallon, and other fairy stories," a flashback to the year 1725 shows bare-chested Rod La Rocque (as Jeremiah Cleggett) adventuring aboard the pirate ship "Jasper B" in its glory days. His taking over of the ship, and wedding a Spanish maiden on board, starts a tradition - each generation's "Cleggett" must marry on his twenty-fifth birthday, aboard the old ship known as the "Jasper B", or lose his inheritance.In the present (1926), Mr. La Rocque (now as Jeremiah "Jerry" Cleggett VIII) turns twenty-five, and knows he has to marry a woman on the deck of the old "Jasper B", or lose the family fortune, according to tradition. Trusty companion and valet Jack Ackroyd (as Wiggins) wants his hunky pal to remain single, but La Rocque finds the ideal lass in Mildred Harris (as Agatha Fairhaven), who is also inheriting a fortune. But Ms. Harris' disinherited stepbrother, Snitz Edwards (as Reginald Maltravers), wants to stop the potentially wealthy couple from reaching the alter.La Rocque became a top star in Cecil B. Deville's "The Ten Commandments" (1923), and remained popular through the 1920s. "The Cruise of the Jasper B" is a good film to see an appealing La Rocque in his peak of popularity as a star (and it provides a generous look at his physique). It would have been nice to see Vilma Bánky as his leading lady in this one; instead of the current Mrs. La Rocque (Bánky), we get a former Mrs. Charlie Chaplin (Harris). Mr. Ackroyd, the "spoof" prologue, and the "chase" scenes are highlights.****** The Cruise of the Jasper B (12/13/26) James W. Horne ~ Rod La Rocque, Mildred Harris, Jack Ackroyd

This cruise would have been a most enjoyable one if it were not for the two leads. True, it is rewarding to see the legendary Mildred Harris (who in real life was to play a key role in the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII), but as an actress (at least in this film) she is neither particularly charismatic nor endearing. However, Miss Harris is the lesser of our worries. It's Rod La Rocque who lets the film down. True, he starts well on a suitable note of swaggering self-mockery, but unfortunately he keeps it up. He plays the whole movie on this one note, his only variation being to exaggerate his overwhelmingly hearty performance even further.In order to counter Mr. La Rocque, the director (and/or his astute film editor) switch a great deal of the audience's attention to the support cast led by Jack Ackroyd and Snitz Edwards, who sprint through a great many routines, some of them amusing and some of them so way-out that the plot takes on a thoroughly surrealistic tone. This odd progression from social satire to exaggerated vaudeville slapstick to surrealism, I found somewhat off-putting. To my mind, this material not only really needs both a director with a great deal more nous than James W. Horne and leads who project a far more personable and ingratiating charisma than Rod La Rocque and Mildred Harris.Timing is everything with a screenplay like this. Watching the movie unfold, I had the constant impression that the timing was not quite right. Some of the situations were not sufficiently well-prepared, and there were at least two continuity gaps. Also some of the shots were held too long, while others were too short. All sorts of odd things were happening, but they didn't all jell as neatly as the auction episode right at the very beginning of the "modern" story. I liked the mirror episode; and I loved the auctioneer with his two pairs of glasses; and I enjoyed the bits with the movers removing objects from literally right under our hero's nose. All the business with Snitz in the box should have been just as funny, but it was not as adroitly handled. In fact, for me, it wasn't really until the satiric element took control of the screenplay again in the "Federal matter" fiasco that I laughed as loudly as I had previously at the women with all their hand-mirrors held aloft at the auction.However, now forewarned about the many peculiar exaggerations presented by both a wayward plot and a less-than-sensitive director, I decided to watch the movie again as soon as possible. Maybe I was missing out on what could be a unique movie experience? So I've now watched the movie on the 10/10 Alpha disc, and this time I came away with much the same impressions. We see far too much of Rod La Rocque who seems so eager to show off his muscular torso that he doesn't bother to bring a bit of charisma to his acting. Mildred Harris, alas, also not only lacks charisma, but does precious little to divert our attention from the other players. In addition to the emptily flashy La Rocque, Snitz Edwards and Jack Ackroyd also tend to overplay their roles and overstay their welcome. A bit of judicious cutting would improve this movie no end.AVAILABLE on DVD from both Grapevine and Alpha. Quality rating: eight out of ten and ten out of ten, respectively.

Allegedly, Rod La Rocque didn't make it in the Thirties, because he slapped a producer who had made the moves on Mrs la Rocque, silent star Vilma Banky.We certainly missed out because of that. But then again, how would Errol Flynn ever have found a niche with Rod La Rocque around? 'Cruise' is vintage La Rocque, and at every turn the viewer is smitten with his infectious grin and invited to share the fun by those intelligent dark eyes. In the movie he is fifth or something generation of rich merchants, a direct descendant of glamorous pirates, down on his luck. The whole house with all the furniture and all his clothes is being sold at an auction while he is still in bed, and the women bidders are suitably titillated by his increasing nakedness. He combines his efforts to that of a lovely woman who, by some strange coincidence, has the will of her deceased uncle printed on her naked back ... The swashbuckling is supreme, the pacing is riveting, and La Rocque reigns!