Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Man Who Robbed the Bank of Kashmir and Jammu

A Throw of Dice (1929)
directed by Franz Osten
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

History book movie-making, which is to say an exercise in the numbers of extras a Maharaja’s cooperation and a Maharaja’s millions would buy you at the end of the Jazz Age. The on-location fantasy I expected was somewhat subverted by the realities of this sort of privately-financed operation: lots of desperately poor, confused-looking men running through the dirt streets of an anonymous Indian town. No doubt the camera crew wasn’t allowed anywhere near the actual palace. The story – that is, the popular myth - is good enough for fire-side narration, but in 1929, any moviegoer worth his nickel admission would want considerably more in the way of on-screen spectacle, an idea that Hollywood men like Douglas Fairbanks implicitly understood and catered to. Those corrupt Indian kings of a corrupt British system could buy anything, but it takes more than money to out-dream the Dream Factory.