The Time, the Place and the Girl (1929) User Reviews

Another LOST film, with a good cast

[overseer-3 · 11 August 2005]

This film is lost. Yes, it is. I am sick and tired of reading "F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre" reviews on the IMDb of films that are completely and irrevocably lost like this one, and stating he has seen them recently. He does it constantly, one after the other. Since he's just reading about them in old Photoplay magazines and the like, and putting his own spin on them, knowing that no one can check his "facts" about films that have been lost for 70-80 years, he's obviously just flaunting himself falsely. Notice he never states where or how he gets to view these lost films. It's a joke!

I know you probably won't print this review, IMBb, but sorry, this one made me break my silence.

Update: Someone else complained about Gwynplaine's fake review and IMDb removed his review. (I wish they'd take more of them off).

A film with themes unique to the roaring twenties...

[AlsExGal · 29 October 2022]

... but unfortunately the film portion is lost. The complete soundtrack remains and is available at the internet archive if you want to listen and get an idea of what it must have been like.

Reviews of the time describe it as starting with a college football game in which the star player (Grant Withers) gets a big head over his exploits on the field. They mention that the first part was rather routine, but that the last half is a pretty good comedy. It makes this turn by having Withers' character hired by an investment firm because his new boss figures this football hero is so good with the ladies that he can talk women into making bad investments. This plan blows up in the boss' face when one of those women turns out to be his own wife. Betty Compson, usually the heroine and definitely the hardest working actress of 1929, plays the errant wife. It includes several songs, including one- "How Many Times?" written by Irving Berlin. The director was Howard Breatherton, who is mainly remembered for directing B westerns. But he did direct a couple of features in his time including this film and "Ladies They Talk About" starring Barbara Stanwyck.

It is described as having a football game along with the roar of the crowds, and I'd like to know how Vitaphone could adequately stage a football game since the camera could not move an inch during this time. The film ran with a Pathe comedy short entitled "Beach Babies" as well as the short "Roy Sedley and His Night Club Review".

It's too bad all of this is lost - the feature and the shorts - because all of it sounds instructive if you want to learn about life in the roaring 20s.