The Rocket Bus (1929) is a very weird, very fun magic carpet ride

You should probably watch this if you are into those old silent comedies that don't make a lick of sense. If you hate slapstick or grainy footage where everyone moves a bit too fast, stay away.

First off, the title The Rocket Bus is a total lie. There is no rocket and there is barely a bus after the first ten minutes.

What you actually get is a magic carpet. Which is honestly way better for a movie from 1929.

Our main guys are Harald Madsen and Carl Schenstrøm. They were like the Laurel and Hardy of Denmark back then, often called Pat and Patachon.

Carl is so tall and thin he looks like a human pencil. Madsen is the short, round one who seems to do most of the worrying.

They play these bus drivers who look like they have had a very long shift. Their uniforms are slightly too big and they look generally exhausted by life. 🚌

They find this carpet in a pile of junk. At first, they just think it is a regular rug, which leads to some funny bits of them trying to shake the dust out of it.

Then it starts floating. The look on Madsen's face when his feet leave the ground is priceless.

The special effects are... well, they are from 1929. You can practically see the strings holding up the carpet in a couple of shots.

But there is something so charming about the way they wobbled through the air. It looks more like they are sitting on a very unstable piece of plywood than a magical artifact.

They end up flying all the way to save a girl's father. This girl is played by Janice Adair, who mostly just has to look distressed while wearing a lot of eyeliner.

The father is being held by a Caliph. I have no idea why a movie about London busmen ends up in a stereotypical desert palace, but here we are.

The transition from the city streets to the palace feels like the movie just decided to be a different genre halfway through. It is not smooth at all.

Frank Perfitt plays one of the villains and he has this way of glaring at the camera that is supposed to be scary but is just funny now. He looks like he is smelling something bad just off-screen.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Rocket Bus (1929) through its definitive frames.

There is a scene where they try to sneak into the palace and Madsen keeps tripping over his own feet. It goes on a bit too long, but his timing is still pretty good.

I liked this way more than Phantom Justice. That one was way too moody and slow for me, whereas this at least has a flying rug.

One thing I noticed was the crowd scenes in the market. Half the extras look like they are just waiting for their paycheck and the other half are staring directly at the lens.

It makes the whole thing feel like a school play with a really big budget. Which I kind of love? 🎬

The writers, like Val Valentine and Scott Sidney, clearly just wanted to throw every joke at the wall. Not all of them stick.

There is a recurring gag with a hat that just stopped being funny after the third time. But then they do something clever with the carpet's shadow and I'm back in.

It is definitely better than A Woman of the Sea if you want to actually laugh. That one is a bit of a downer compared to this nonsense.

The music in the version I saw was this bouncy piano track that never stopped. It was a bit much after an hour.

Also, the ending is incredibly abrupt. They save the guy, they get on the carpet, and boom—the movie is basically over.

I wish we saw more of the bus company's reaction to their employees flying away on a rug. That seems like a missed opportunity for a joke.

Gladys Hamer pops up too, but she is barely in it. It really is the Madsen and Schenstrøm show.

It is a weird little artifact of a time when movies were still figuring out what they could be. It is messy and the pacing is all over the place.

But if you find a copy, it is worth a look just for the sheer absurdity of the premise. Just don't expect any actual rockets.

It is the kind of movie you watch on a Sunday afternoon when you don't want to think too hard. It’s light, it’s silly, and it has heart even when the plot falls apart.