Friday, August 26, 2016

Wish Wynne (1929)

Wish Wynne, a very opinionated woman wearing a beret and a careworn face, sits with her dowdy (and silent) friend Hilda, and points people in the audience they both know. Other patrons are still arriving before the show. Wish makes bitchy comments about the women they know there, and tells a small boy sitting beside her to stop kicking against her foot - "Little brute! Trod on my corn!". An usherette is seen in background selling boxes of sweets to a couple in the back row.
The lights go down and the show starts. It's obviously a silent film; we hear piano accompaniment and Wish keeps up a commentary, reading the titles out loud - "Love and Passion... oh look, there's Richard Bartlemass". Through her comments we hear about the others in the film, then the plot, involving a motor race, a dinner party, a man stealing some papers from a desk, a woman being dragged into a motor car and being tied to a bed post then set on fire! Wish begs "Where's the 'ero? Where's the 'ero?!", and he eventually turns up to rescue the girl.

Wish claps her hands and says she's all worn out. When the lights come up at the end of the film she immediately jumps up and shouts out to her friend Emma across the cinema. Hilda powders her nose. Everyone starts to leave. Wish pushes past the small boy beside her, saying "Get out of the way, you kid!".

1 comment:

  1. Charming and entertaining short film. Thanks for sharing it.

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