Things You Never See on the Screen (1935) User Reviews

Re-titled by some as BREAKDOWNS OF 1935 . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 1 March 2015]

. . . THINGS YOU NEVER SEE ON THE SCREEN might be better remembered for its rant from director Busby Berkeley, "Where's my @#$%Ing ostrich?!" (It turns out that James Cagney had corralled all the livestock on the Warner Bros. lot on his set for A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM.) Though the rest of this crude bloopers reel may not be all that humorous, at least the brothers' minions took the time to annotate many of their Line Flubbers by name (as well as some of the movies involved) by "title cards" (a courtesy dispensed with when the name of these one-time annual releases was changed to "BREAKDOWNS OF 19XX" the following year). Though a few of these explanatory notes are worded in such a fashion that they would be politically incorrect today, and many of the "in-joke" references would have been as incomprehensible for 1935 movie theater audiences as they are for people alive now, this initial blooper reel format has only degenerated during the past 80 years. THINGS does NOT include any clever ad libs, and features very few moments that can elicit so much as a chuckle. Sadly, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, and Edward G. Robinson somehow were unable to mess up any of their line readings on the Warner Bros. lots in 1935. (Or maybe the person initially in charge of bloopers took bribes to "lose" a few!)

Sucks

[mrdonleone · 2/10 · 13 November 2020]

Nathaniel artist in history this movie actually shows nothing at all not even what it promises to show it doesn't show this movie just sucks.

"If It's a Good Picture, It's a Miracle"

[boblipton · 8/10 · 6 August 2014]

Warner Brothers used to sweep up the more amusing examples of Great Actors blowing a take in their Great Pictures -- usually accompanied by some profane language -- attach some titles and show them at the Christmas parties. By 1938 this was a yearly tradition, called "Breakdowns" and stitched together by a clip of Porky Pig hitting a thumb with a hammer and stuttering "Son of a b-".

In this 1935 version, we get to see Jimmy Cagney and Warren Williams blowing a lot of takes, as well as Busby Berkley complaining about the Ostrich That Got Away. The titles include a number of suggestions for musical cues to "Leo", presumably Leo Forbstein, the conductor of the house orchestra. Very funny.