"The Busher" (1919) stars Charles Ray, Colleen Moore, John Gilbert, Jay Morley, Otto Hoffman, and others, and examines with comedy/drama and a good amount of mise-en-scene Ray being noticed as a potential major league baseball prospect as a major league team becomes stranded in the sticks (the bush). He makes the grade, changes some of his bush-league habits as a person - for a while - fails in a crucial moment, is released from his team as a failure, goes home and learns his lesson. That's it in a nutshell, with Colleen Moore supplying the genuine love interest and Ray's film father supplying the understanding and moral support and gentle urging "growing-up-wise" needed to keep Ray on an even keel. I'd watched this before, a very long time ago, and with the bad print I'd watched just kicked it off as something I'd seen, let's move on. This time was a different story. If you like baseball stories, you'll like this one, though you may absolutely love it if you come from a small town that you might define as "hick". You're a hayseed probably, not a bad thing at all, but you'll far better understand this film than someone from the culture of tough inner-big-city. If you like baseball, even if you love it - if you're from the big city and are strictly an urbanite, you'll find this one very tepid in 2020.
My father's parents were both born in a tiny hamlet in northeastern Indiana that was then utterly rural and very far behind the mentality of the big cities even at the very turn of the twentieth century. In some ways, that particular hamlet remains that way today. The only thing that has radically changed is due to communication, the automobile, and modern electronic devices that have revolutionized nearly all society in the world as a whole. Well, "The Busher" genuinely portrays the rurality of farm life in middle America (and other places, too, I would think) in 1919. There is an amazing reality to the portrayals. Finding that kind of America today will probably be an improbability, though I wouldn't know for certain. The portrayals of the people in Ray's hometown in the film reminded me of my grandparents in many ways. My grandfather became quite a cosmopolitan guy by the time he was in his forties, but my grandmother remained - though the rock of the family in some ways - very "countrified" in an old-fashioned way; even her vocabulary and speech patterns.
Be aware from the beginning what you're in for with "The Busher", but it's a very old-fashioned kind of film - some would say it's a cliché, though this is, frankly, seminal to what has become clichéd and even hackneyed to the point it's become comically stereotypical. "The Busher" was trying to do that in 1919, but those people and their manner still existed extensively in those years. The coming Depression and the second World War changed the entire mentality of the world for the most part, let alone America. I think "The Busher" is an outstanding film of its type. But also be aware that several cut off points for edit cut-to this or that are missing, shortening some scenes almost to irritation. Other than that, it's something I'd highly recommend. My print is a recording from TCM done in October of 2007.
My father's parents were both born in a tiny hamlet in northeastern Indiana that was then utterly rural and very far behind the mentality of the big cities even at the very turn of the twentieth century. In some ways, that particular hamlet remains that way today. The only thing that has radically changed is due to communication, the automobile, and modern electronic devices that have revolutionized nearly all society in the world as a whole. Well, "The Busher" genuinely portrays the rurality of farm life in middle America (and other places, too, I would think) in 1919. There is an amazing reality to the portrayals. Finding that kind of America today will probably be an improbability, though I wouldn't know for certain. The portrayals of the people in Ray's hometown in the film reminded me of my grandparents in many ways. My grandfather became quite a cosmopolitan guy by the time he was in his forties, but my grandmother remained - though the rock of the family in some ways - very "countrified" in an old-fashioned way; even her vocabulary and speech patterns.
Be aware from the beginning what you're in for with "The Busher", but it's a very old-fashioned kind of film - some would say it's a cliché, though this is, frankly, seminal to what has become clichéd and even hackneyed to the point it's become comically stereotypical. "The Busher" was trying to do that in 1919, but those people and their manner still existed extensively in those years. The coming Depression and the second World War changed the entire mentality of the world for the most part, let alone America. I think "The Busher" is an outstanding film of its type. But also be aware that several cut off points for edit cut-to this or that are missing, shortening some scenes almost to irritation. Other than that, it's something I'd highly recommend. My print is a recording from TCM done in October of 2007.