SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

JLRMovieReviews Brian Aherne is David Garrick, the famed English stage actor, in this fictional film and accidentally offends the Comedy Francaise, who has invited him to come and perform there. He tells his British people and fans he has to go and show them how a true actor acts. When word of this gets back to them, they concoct a plan to embarrass him. By way of playing the parts of an innkeeper and the staff, they initiate their plans. But Olivia de Havilland, an unexpected guest, shows up needing a room in the inn and of course you know what develops. Aherne seems to be too hammy or showy an actor for me. Either that or he doesn't seem to emote much charm or personality. Melville Cooper, in his own sly way, really steals the film from both the leads as the supposed innkeeper and the brains of the group; and Luis Alberni has a memorable bit going mad amongst the band of actors. On one hand, the film's whimsicality is the whole appeal of it, but, on the other hand, it doesn't seem to have enough substance to it and is TOO frothy. But you can spot a young Lana Turner and a young Marie Wilson (Martin and Lewis's friend Irma) as part of the troupe. All in all, if you like the leads, you'll probably like "The Great Garrick," but a more charismatic actor would have made the film a more satisfying experience for me.

Robert J. Maxwell Brian Aherne is The Great Garrick, the famous 18th-century English actor who is all talent and ego. He's invited to perform in Paris by the famous Comedy Francaise but he demurs, thinking it infra dig, until he's persuaded to go to France and "teach the French how to act." The members of the French troupe get word of this and plan to trick Aherne by taking over a wayside inn, pretending to be the staff, and engaging in all sorts of routines designed to drive Aherne nuts. Only at the end will they reveal themselves, having convinced Aherne that they are as talented as he is.Aherne is a pretty sharp guy though and he quickly picks up on the fact that he's dealing with actors instead of waiters. I mean -- he knows an actor when he sees one. So while the troupe exhaust themselves with all kinds of antic shenanigans -- a waiter goes nuts, a duel to the death takes place in the dining room -- Aherne yawns and ignores it all.But then he makes a mistake. Olivia De Havilland shows up accidentally at the inn. Aherne takes her for just another performer in on the plot to embarrass him. They fall in love. It all ends happily.I had a tough time with it. It's based on a stage play and it shows. It isn't so much that the sets are stagy. It's that the story is played out like a filmed stage production. When an actor has something important or funny to say, he stops and turns his face to the camera. The effect is uncanny and a little unsettling. Every gesture is outlandishly broad. The viewer is quickly exhausted.And, to be honest, the plot itself may have potential but the potential isn't really developed. Maybe I'm getting cranky and losing my sense of humor. That's what my psychiatrist, Dr. Francois M. Arouet, keeps telling me, in between hints that I ought to pay my bills more regularly. I never found "Charlie's Aunt" funny either, and I have to squeeze to get a couple of smiles out of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." But I think I'm right when I claim that this play lacks much in the way of laugh power. I've always been right. Well, except once, when I thought I was wrong but it turned out I'd been right all along.Here's an example of one of many duds. Aherne and his comic sidekick, Edward Everett Horton, are about to clamber aboard a carriage, and Horton makes some remark about all the friends that Aherne has acquired over the years. "I played Shylock in Dublin," Aherne replies earnestly, "I have no friends." There is a pause for laughter.Is there anything funny in this exchange? If there is, it slipped by my apperceptive apparatus. What's amusing about Shylock in Dublin? Is there some anti-Semitic content that I'm missing? Is it that the Irish of the period were being conquered and exploited by the English and that all the English, Aherne included, were loathed in Ireland? There's nothing particularly bad about Brian Aherne's performance though. He's supposed to be a narcissistic ham and he certainly gets that across. (It's the Comedy Francaise that's ennervating.) And Olivia De Havilland as the damsel in distress is delightful. Her beauty combined in an unexpected way the darkness of her hair and eyes with the porcelain quality of her skin. Yet it's more than just her appearance. She's full of a kind of breathless virginity. She's extremely feminine. She might welcome a man as much out of a desire to nurture him as out of sheer horniness. The musical score, tinged with symbolism, is easy to listen to.Well, I'll not make any kind of final judgment because I think this is the kind of movie that might appeal to a lot of people for different reasons, while leaving some of the rest of us a little cold. If you don't get with the program after the first fifteen or twenty minutes, you might as well give up because the rest of it doesn't really go anywhere.

DS3520 "The Great Garrick" is truly one of the very worst of Warner Brothers' productions of the 1930s. The studio which, during this period, gave us such diverse classics as "Forty-Second Street," "Charge of the Light Brigade," "Public Enemy." and "I Was a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" among others, failed miserably with this utterly dreadful exercise in film making! Audience reaction must surely have ranged from weary to teeth gnashing! Something akin to fingernails scratching against a blackboard! This is difficult to believe when one considers that the cast is first-rate, led by Brian Aherne in the title role, ably paired with the always lovely Olivia DeHavilland. A stalwart group of character actors, including Edward Everett Horton, Lionel Atwill, and Melville Cooper provide support........but even THEIR presence cannot save this flick from its tedium and sheer silliness! Three cheers to Warner Brothers for the splendid entertaining flicks that studio has provided us with during the Golden Age.........but this God-awful turkey must rank up there with the equally inane "Boy Meets Girl" as among the very worst they had to offer the film-going public!

Dr_Shafea Together with even more underrated, ONE MAN RIVER(1934), this is probably James Whale's most neglected classic, a witty, self- reflexive, consistently enjoyable 18th century period comedy on the life of egocentric English actor, David Garrick, played to perfection by Brian Aherne. Ernest Vadja's dialogue is clever and delightful, plus a haunting period photography by Ernest Haller. The film also boasts some wonderful cast that includes the lovely Olivia de Havilland, Edward Everett Horton, Lionel Atwill, Melville Cooper, Fritz Leiber, and Marie Wilson. David Garrick's talent is well-known everywhere in Europe. The film opens in London where Garrick tells his audience that he has a new starring role coming up, guest starring in the production of "Don Juan" with the Comedie Francaise in Paris. While the crowd reacts the news with disdain, Garrick convinces his audience that he is leaving to teach the French. Meanwhile, at a country inn in France the members of the Comedie Francaise are furious about Garrick's insult, so they all conspire to embarras him and teach him "a lesson in acting." The real fun begins when the sly Garrick and his amiable old companion (Edward Everett Horton) figure out the hoax and play along the game.A true Hollywood gem, there are moments in THE GREAT GARRICK that are quite remarkably hysterical, so funny that the film deserves to be ranked along with the great comedies of the period. Tragically, THE GREAT GARRICK was never released on video. At all cost, I suggest you get a copy and enjoy it. They don't make 'em like this anymore.