Summary
A gelatinous fever-dream stitched from celluloid scraps, Mystic Mush drifts through a nameless boardwalk town where moonlit puddles reflect cracked carnival lights and every laugh feels like a chipped tooth. James T. Kelley’s hobo-magus, half Prospero and half dust-cloud, shuffles out of the oceanic dark towing a moth-eaten top-hat that births rubbery illusions: a rose that coughs up feathers, a pocket-watch dripping molasses, a chorus girl who melts into taffy. Madge Kirby’s runaway heiress, eyes wide as trolley bells, trades her pearl choker for a ticket to nowhere, chasing the rumor that somewhere inside the fun-house mirrors lies a corridor back to childhood. Instead she finds Jess Weldon’s ringmaster, a velvet ghoul whose grin keeps re-appearing on other faces—barkers, cops, even her own reflection—until identity feels like a borrowed coat. Hankmann and Charley Chase ricochet through the midway as twin anarchy agents, limbs spring-loaded, selling exploding cigars and philosophic riddles to sailors who evaporate at dawn. Vernon Dent’s sheriff, a blubbery colossus stitched into a uniform two sizes too small, pursues shadows with a butterfly net, convinced the town itself is a runaway criminal. The plot, if one dares call it that, folds like taffy: a midnight auction where souls are swapped for popcorn, a ballroom waltz danced on the ceiling, a tribunal of wax dummies who sentence every heartbeat to silence. By the time the celluloid itself begins to bubble—frames blistering, emulsion sliding like undercooked egg—viewers realize the only exit is to wake up inside another dream. The final shot: Kelley alone on a derelict pier, peeling the moon like an orange, revealing a black hole where tenderness should be.
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