1938 Directed by Sam Newfield
Using a conventional Western story with an all dwarf cast, the filmmakers were able to showcase gags such as cowboys entering the local saloon by walking under the swinging doors, and pint-sized cowboys galloping around on Shetland ponies while roping calves.
Billy Curtis Yvonne Moray 'Little Billy' Rhodes Billy Platt John T. Bambury Joseph Herbst Charles Becker Nita Krebs George Ministeri Karl 'Karchy' Kosiczky Fern Formica William H. O'Docharty Jerry Maren August Clarence Swenson Franz Balluck Josefine Balluck Christine Buresh Lida Buresh Stephen Chase Marie Winters
Thank you @Cosmo for the last (and worst) of the recommendations. Not only did you recommend a film you hadn't watched, you also picked one that you expected I would not enjoy. And then you insisted on watching it with me, which went against the whole purpose of the recommendations.
Anyway this was a really lame film. It was actually much more wholesome than you'd expect a 1938 Western starring only little people to be. Few elements of the film revolve around their short stature - a couple of gags here and there - but mostly it is just a super generic and dull melodramatic Western. Thus it couldn't even be enjoyed on a trainwreck level.
Thank you @Cosmo for what was a short (60 mins) recommendation at least.
This one is entirely as bad as it sounds in the synopsis. The musical numbers felt like cut sequences from munchkin-land in the Wizard of Oz. Obviously the cast was typecast and hired strictly based on height, and it shows in the performances which were as plane as white bread. This is exploitation cinema at its peak in a very exploitative era in Hollywood, and I had a hard time even laughing at this one.
1938 Ranked
1930's Ranked
Westerns Ranked
Westerns in the 1930’s Ranked
Comedies Ranked
Early Comedies Ranked
Musicals Ranked
Early Musicals Ranked
Crime and Law Enforcement / Investigation films Ranked
Chase Scenes Ranked
The first, and mercifully only, "all midget western" justly earns its status as one of the worst movies of all time. It's a 1930s B-picture western where all the cast are dwarves, that's it, that's the "joke". Don't for a second think that this might be like Todd Browning's Freaks (1932) in being a film that presents as exploitation but is actually a subversive and empathetic portrait of those whom society looks down on. No, this never rises above the level of "haha it's funny because they're short!" Is it automatically hilarious that the cast ride shetland ponies instead of horses? Do you split your sides at the sight of a dwarf in a 10 gallon hat walking under some…
Viewed on YouTube
The Terror Of Tiny Town (1938) is a musical western starring "Jed Buell's Midgets". According to IMDB, the idea for the picture came about when producer Jed Buell overheard an employee of his production company, Spectrum Pictures, bemoaning the state of the film business and remarking that "if this economy doesn't turn around, we'll have to start making pictures with midgets". Buell loved the idea and put in motion what eventually became this film.
The film starts off with a weird introduction with The Hero and The Villain boasting who will come out the "bigger" star after the movie is shown. The film does have a couple of good comedic moments but overall one feels guilty about having any enjoyment out of such an exploitive film.
It is interesting to see, through film, how much society has changed.
Last night on a whim I was struck with the inspiration of revisiting a rather bizarre 1930's film, one which was viewed like a decade ago. In most regards this is a standard 1930's musical Western... about an hour long, a few songs, stereotypical characters where the heroes are in white and the villains in black... only this stands out as the entire cast is comprised of people who were known then as midgets but now the acceptable term is dwarfism. It was an idea from producer Jed Buell... to clarify, the credits say that the cast is “Jed Buell's midgets” as if he had a troupe of them and probably exploited them with them barely getting any of the…
This is raw exploitation. Visual "jokes" abound, and all of them at the expense of the dwarf/LP actors. It's disgusting. I had a vain hope that there would be some humanity here, but the film takes its time ogling mockingly the actors in situations that emphasize their statures. The story never addresses this--the joke is entirely that they are LP in a big world with no sign of taller people. "Isn't it funny to watch them crawl into small spaces?!" it seems to say, over and over again.
It makes me feel dirty, then, to have to say that the performances were kinda terrible, too. The singing is kinda bad despite the songs' being catchy enough, and the acting is…
The novelty alone makes this a MUST SEE picture! A midget western! Doing exactly what a regular sized person would have done in one of these 1930s low budget cowboy flicks. But since these are all little people one keep smile at it. Politically incorrect, I know, but so SO awesome!
Dear god music was boring in the 30's.
Sure it's exploitative, but really we've got plenty of this type of exploitation these days, it's just on TLC instead of film.
Not the giant Hollywood misfire or “what were they thinking moment” that I was expecting
It was actually surprisingly respectful, and not too exploitative (for the standards of 1930s hollywood) but that inversely made this just spectacularly boring to watch.
Almost the opposite of the prom (which I watched the same night) in that I respect this film, for not being a completely misfire; and not ideological deranged but this makes it was less fascinating to watch.
Also broke my own rule and watched a second balderdash film. Truly the criterion collection for garbage unwatchable cinema!
Classical Hollywood did an amazing job convincing the world that films were prestigious, glamorous, and upper crust, to such a degree that you can almost forget that it used to be a straight-up carny industry. When film was invented, shorts and spectacle films literally traveled with fairs and carnivals. Nickelodeons and Edison's peep shows would blanket a street corner with attract-advertising and an actual barker calling you in to separate you from your nickel. When the studios went "legit," the second and third and fourth tier producers who were left on the outside of the velvet rope stayed carny as hell, which nurtured the roots of the race films, exploitation films, sexual hygiene films, and, yeah, stag.
In that environment,…
Odd movie, to say the least. It's billed as "the world's first all-midget motion picture." And by "billed" I mean a guy literally walks on stage before the action starts to say this to the audience. However, because all the actors are little people, you sort of....forget about it after a while. And then it's just a sub-so-so western. Anyway. I watched this on YouTube because I was listening to a podcast where Jello Biafra referred to George W. Bush as "The Terror of Tiny Town." Maybe not the best movie recommendation algorithm, but what the hell else am I doing with my squandered, pathetic life?
