kenpfred Reviews

The Medicine Man (1930)

Similarities between The Medicine Man (1930, Jack Benny, Tom Dugan) and The Music Man (1962 Robert Preston, Shirley Jones and Ron Howard)

[8/10 · 11 December 2020]

It's amazing how much the story line of The Medicine Man resembles that of The Music Man. In both a shyster comes to a small town and tries to bilk them out of their money, but falls in love with a girl from the town and changes his ways. The Medicine Man had little music and it was usually played over the talk, but The Music Man took the story and converted it into one one the best musicals ever made. The Medicine Man had a little more comedy in it, with Tom Dugan ( my wife's great uncle) playing someone who could cheat you out of your money without you even knowing it ( like when he was giving change the people who bought the elixir) , a skit that was copied 10 years after by Laurel & Hardy. By the way Tom also played Bronski in To Be or not To Be (1941, also with Jack Benny, and Carol Lombard). His line "Heil Myself " was copied by Mel Brooks in 1962.

Lights of New York (1928)

Comparison of the way silent film actors really experienced conversions to talkies.

[10/10 · 15 June 2019]

This movie was very good despite the fact that the film company did not hire a well known actors. The way they had such problems with microphone placement in the 1952 movie "Singing in the rain "didn't seem to be evidenced in "The Lights if New York". Also it was not only Foy who extended this short into a full length feature film, Tom Dugan, besides playing one of the henchmen, he was also a screen writer who wrote more dialogue every day after filming, helping to make it to 57 minutes. He was in Vaudeville for 25 years before breaking into the film industry. He was in 263 other films until his death in 1955. I may sound like I'm partial to him , since he is my wife's great uncle. Fred Lamberti