Masquerade (1929) - A clunky but charming mess from the dawn of sound

If you are looking for a masterpiece, keep walking. But if you have a soft spot for that weird time when movies first started talking and everyone looked terrified of the equipment, this is for you. 🎞️

It is definitely worth a watch if you are a film nerd who likes seeing how the 'Lone Wolf' character started out. Most regular people will probably hate it because it moves like a turtle in peanut butter.

The story is about Michael Lanyard. He is this famous thief who is trying to be a good guy now, but of course, a big diamond goes missing at a party.

Leila Hyams plays the love interest and she is actually quite good, even if she has to stand perfectly still while talking. Back then, they hid microphones in things like vases of flowers or behind heavy curtains.

You can tell because the actors all lean in toward the furniture when they have something important to say. It makes every conversation feel like they are sharing a very loud secret with a lamp.

There is this one scene at a masquerade ball where the costumes are just... strange. One guy is wearing what looks like a giant bird cage on his head, and nobody mentions it.

The movie is based on a book by Louis Joseph Vance, and you can feel the 'bookiness' of it. People give these long speeches that no human has ever said out loud in a real house.

I found myself staring at the backgrounds a lot. The sets are clearly just painted flats that wobble slightly when someone closes a door too hard.

Speaking of things that wobble, the plot has some massive holes. Like, why would a master thief leave his calling card in a place where he is trying to prove he wasn't there? 🤡

Also, Jean Harlow is in this! Well, she is an uncredited extra, basically. If you blink to rub your eyes, you will miss her entirely. It’s funny to see her here before she became a massive star in things like Hollywood Bound later on.

The sound quality is pretty rough. There is this constant hissing sound in the background, like the movie was filmed inside a giant radiator.

The 'Lone Wolf' himself, played by Alan Birmingham, is a bit of a stiff. He has this pencil-mustache that looks like it was drawn on with a Sharpie right before the camera started rolling.

He tries to be suave, but he mostly just looks like he’s worried he forgot to turn the stove off at home. Compared to other crime films of the era like Smooth as Satin, this one feels a bit more like a stage play that got lost on the way to the theater.

I noticed a guy in the background of the party scene who just stands there holding a glass of water for about four minutes without moving a muscle. I think he might have been a mannequin, or maybe he was just really committed to the role of 'Guest #4'.

The pacing is all over the place. We get ten minutes of people talking about a robbery, and then the actual robbery happens in about thirty seconds in the dark.

It’s a bit like watching Alraune if you took out all the creepy science stuff and replaced it with British people being polite about crime. 🕵️‍♂️

One thing I actually liked was the lighting in the office scene. They used these long, dramatic shadows that make everything look way more dangerous than it actually is.

But then someone speaks and the illusion is kind of broken. The dialogue is very clunky. "I shall find the perpetrator of this heinous act!" No one talks like that, Michael.

Things I jotted down while watching:

• The villain’s hat is way too small for his head. It’s distracting.
• There is a lot of pointing. People point at doors, point at jewels, point at each other.
• The music just stops randomly in the middle of scenes.
• I’m pretty sure the 'diamond' is just a piece of glass from a chandelier.

It’s not a good movie by modern standards, but it has this weird energy. It’s the sound of the 1920s gasping for air as they tried to figure out how to make 'talkies' work.

If you enjoy seeing the seams of cinema, you’ll have a decent time. If you want a tight thriller, maybe go watch The Cat's Whiskers instead for something lighter.

I fell asleep for about two minutes near the end when they were explaining the legal stuff. When I woke up, the main guy was hugging the girl and everyone looked happy, so I guess it worked out.

It’s a fascinating failure. It’s the kind of movie you watch on a rainy Sunday when you’ve already seen everything else on your list and you just want to see some old-fashioned melodrama.

Just don’t expect the Lone Wolf to actually do anything particularly 'wolf-like'. He’s more like a polite golden retriever in a tuxedo. 🐕

Anyway, it’s short. That’s the best thing I can say about the editing. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, even if the middle section feels like it was edited with a pair of garden shears.

Final thought: The masquerade masks are actually kind of terrifying. There is one that looks like a melting pig. Nightmare fuel.