User Reviews

Charles Ray (as Benjamin "Ben" Harding) is a country boy who loves baseball; he's the pride of small town Brownsville. His sweetheart, Colleen Moore (as Mazie Palmer), has a batting average of 1,000 in Mr. Ray's affection - however, he barely gets to first base! John "Jack" Gilbert (as Jim Blair) is a rival for Ms. Moore's affections; he is not only a heel, with a tendency to drink and gamble - Mr. Gilbert is also more well-heeled, being a banker's son. When St. Paul Pink Sox, a big league team, is stranded in Brownsville, Ray gets to strut his stuff; then, he is offered a major league spot. Will success spoil Ben Harding?

Ray is convincing as "The Busher", displaying the little mannerisms which made him so successful in this type of part. His face and body movements expertly portray the "innocent country boy" type. He says, "Gosh!". Entering a social, he pats his hair down with a licked hand. His performance at the "Box Social" is charming - at this occasion, the men "bid" on women they can only see as shadows behind a screen. Moore and Gilbert are fine in the supporting roles; both would become major 1920s stars.

The St. Paul Pink Sox? It might have been a combination of the Boston Red and White Sox. Ray's curve ball nicely strikes out into one of the title cards, and that "Box Social" sure looked fun. It's difficult to believe a major league baseball team considers you finished after one bad game, though; if that were true, there would be no baseball.

****** The Busher (5/18/19) Jerome Storm ~ Charles Ray, Colleen Moore, John Gilbert, Jay Morley

Apparently Charles Ray (who stars in this movie as Ben Harding) was quite a famous actor in the silent movie scene of the 1910's, playing essentially variations on the same character - the small town boy who gets dazzled by the bright lights of the big city. In this movie, the character gets set in the context of baseball. Harding is a pitcher for the local team in Brownsville. Brownsville is a small, rural place where people care about each other, and where Harding has a crush (I call it that because it seems so appropriate for the overall innocence of the town!) on Mazie (Colleen Moore.) But Harding's talent brings him to the attention of the big league "St. Paul Pink Sox" where, once introduced to big league life in the big city, Harding forgets his roots and becomes so full of himself that he ends up being let go by the Sox. His baseball career quickly over, Harding returns to Brownville and reconnects with those he had forgotten, finally leading the local team to a big win over rival Centerville.

The story's nothing special. The basic idea of the wayward, prodigal son returning home and re-connecting has been around, after all, at least since the days of Jesus! Still, this is a pleasant movie, and I liked Ray in the lead. Like the movie, he was simple and straightforward, an almost underplayed performance (especially by silent movie standards) that I really liked. The movie blends together drama and comedy and romance into a workable story, and some of the "onfield" action gave an interesting enough look at baseball of that era.

There's certainly nothing wrong with this; there's also nothing especially spectacular about it. It's just a nicely made film revolving around a familiar theme and starring a very likable lead. (6/10)

Nice little film about baseball and love in rural America in 1919.

Charles Ray stars as the local hero in the "bush" league who gets his chance in the major leagues but is a failure. He comes back home in disgrace but gets a second chance by winning the big game back in the bush leagues. His reward is a second chance at the big league and winning the local sweetheart (Colleen Moore).

Snappy 55-minute film is a showcase for Ray who was a big star in silent films. The film is also good for early looks at Moore and John Gilbert (who plays the banker's son) who would both be superstars of the 20s.

In 1919 baseball was the passion of America, and this film is full of little touches of baseball humor and slogans. Worth a look.

Ben Harding pitches for the local Brownsville baseball team. When a major league team (the Pink Sox) is forced to make a stop in Brownsville, they set up an exhibition with Ben's team. Ben impresses the Pink Sox' manager, and, in due time, Ben is signed to a contract to play for them. He says goodbye to his girl, Mazie. But his time in the limelight turns him into a smug person, and he shows an interest in another woman. Meanwhile, Mazie is being wooed by Jim Blair. Ben is eventually tossed off the Pink Sox. He returns home, disgraced. Can he salvage his reputation and win back his girl? Of course he can ... this is a Charles Ray film.

This is a pleasant film, runs around 55 minutes, and gives a nice glimpse of how baseball was played 100 years ago. It was interesting to see the umpire standing behind the pitcher. As someone who once umpired a little league game from that position, I can tell you that you can't see a damn thing and it's murder trying to call balls and strikes. Ray makes an appealing hero, and Colleen Moore is very cute as his girl. John Gilbert, billed as "Jack Gilbert," is so young as to appear unrecognizable.

This disjointed baseball yarn has trouble getting past first base as it haphazardly weaves on and off the field with flat stereotypes. Riddled with editing errors its a sloppy mess that somehow tries to maintain it's balance on the yearning expressions of the leads and some totally uninspired camera-work on the diamond.

Country boy pitching talent Ben Harding impresses a big league manager who gives the untested hayseed a shot in majors. In no time at all Harding develops a huge ego (typical of today's stars but not back then) and is sent packing after having an on the field meltdown. Humbled and humiliated he gets another chance to redeem himself and win the girl.

The Busher is a slap dash production of insipid emotion and incoherent editing as it lurches from one moment to the next before making little or no sense as director Jerome Storm attempts to keep it patched together in its less than an hour's running time by re-using some of the game scenes crammed into moments that have neither rhyme nor reason.

Charles Ray as Ben does a commendable enough job of transitioning from innocent bumpkin to pampered star but he's given very little to work with in between while Coleen Moore as the love interest flutters appropriately. John Gilbert provides a lightweight heavy but even he looks confused as to what his role is.

"The Busher" is a somewhat charming little feature. It's a rural romance, where the hero is temporarily corrupted by the city-a common type of American picture during the silent era. The baseball part serves to distinguish it from other such fare, although its star Charles Ray had already appeared in a similar project, "The Pinch Hitter" (1917), so maybe there isn't much there to separate. The baseball footage is okay, although there is some bad continuity during the big league game, and Ray clearly can't really throw a ball (he lightly tosses it and adds wasted motion in his windup). "The Busher" also features some nice art titles.

A star from the mid teens to early twenties, Ray seems to have specialized in this role of country bumpkin making good and winning the affections of his sweetheart (here played by Colleen Moore, who would become a bigger star later in the 20s). Ray has all sorts of hesitations and odd mannerisms down pat for the type, but I've seen better, such as by Richard Barthelmess ("Tol'able David") and Robert Harron ("True Heart Susie"). Another would-be star, John Gilbert, gives what I consider the best performance here, though. He's a slick and gleeful opponent to the hero; it's just too bad his part was so small. Additionally, Margaret Livingston plays Pearl Devere, the woman from the city, which she also played in "Sunrise" (1927).

Sentimental and charming silent film starring Charles Ray as Ben, a bashful small town farm boy who loves baseball and is the pride of the town based on his great curve ball. He lives in the kind of pleasant country town of yesteryear where the doings include box socials, square dances, and old-timers gossiping in the general store sitting around the pickle barrel. When the St. Paul Pink Sox get stranded in town for a day, Ben asks these new fellows to choose sides and play some ball - not realizing they are professional ballplayers. He manages to strike out a top player and is soon invited to join the team. The other players think he's a rube and decide to "break him in", and soon our fellow has acquired city ways, city clothes, and a city vamp chasing after him - - and he forgets his small town friends.

This is a very enjoyable film - a real treat to see. Colleen Moore is very young and lovely here - but it is Charles Ray who plays the innocent country boy with so much charm, vulnerability, and emotion, he completely steals this film. There is a very entertaining scene showing a bid for lunches at the "box social" in which the men can only see the ladies via shadow play - Charles Ray elicits much emotion in this scene, as well as another scene where he receives a telegram and is worried that someone has died - everything he's thinking registering on his handsome, open face. By the way, watch for a very young and slim John Gilbert in this, as the banker's son, a rival for the affections of Colleen Moore. The Kino DVD of this features a nice-looking print and fast-paced, snappy ragtime piano score that suits the film to a tea.

This is the first Charles Ray film that I've seen. He was the embodiment of clean-cut American goodness and was enormously popular in the silent era.

And it's easy to see why. Not only does he have devastatingly good looks, he is also very charming and is able to convey a shy humility that is very touching. There is a deep emotional undercurrent to all his work - and he openly cries in this film. This is a type of acting not often seen with male actors - he is vulnerable and soft and utterly beguiling.

The story's not bad either - a simple baseball yarn as a naive country boy is selected for a big city team and is temporarily corrupted by the decadence of city life.

In support are two future stars - the 19 year old John Gilbert and the 18 year old Colleen Moore. Gilbert is very funny as the arrogant son of the local banker trying to woo Colleen away from Ray. And she's great too as the little country girl who is devoted to Ray.

Highly recommended. It is available on Grapevine Video. It's a good print too - and catch those animated title cards - very cool!

Reviewing and rating a movie like THE BUSHER is difficult in that you really can't place the same standards on this film as you would a sound film or even a silent film from only a few years later. That's because until about 1912, there really hadn't been feature films as we think of them today. Most films were incredibly short in length and a 10-minute film was about average. Complex films were certainly NOT the norm, though a few exceptions come to mind (such as the Italian film CABIRIA, several D. W. Griffith epics and the delightful DADDY LONGLEGS). Generally, when we think of the "great" silents, they are the ones made in the 1920s--and often the mid to late 1920s.

So, for 1919, THE BUSHER is a definite standout film, though had it been made just a few years later I would have rated it lower as my expectations would have been a lot higher. For example, the plot seemed extremely melodramatic (and similar to a Horatio Alger story) and was a lot like an old fashioned stage production in that sense. But, for 1919, this was NOT seen as clichéd and so this can easily be forgiven.

As for the rest of the film, it was shot on location in what looked like a small town and offered a lot of heart. From a historical or nostalgic point of view, it was a lot of fun to watch. Baseball fans in particular will love the old uniforms, gloves and style of play and can forgive the somewhat archaic characters. Those NOT enamored with history, nostalgia and baseball still might enjoy the film, though with kids craving explosions and mindless entertainment, this film might be too taxing or cerebral for some viewers.

"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.

Busher, The (1919)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Pretty good drama about a bush league baseball player (Charles Ray) who is a hero in his small town when he gets a shot at the majors. He goes there and is a major bust so he returns home as a loser but soon a second chance comes up and this might help him get the girl of his dreams (Colleen Moore). This 55-minute feature is pretty short on actual story but it's still pretty entertaining thanks to some of the baseball scenes. It's funny to see the sports dramas from 1919 had the same formula that sports movies today still have. Ray, a major star at this point in time, manages to give a good performance as the good ol' boy, which is apparently a role he would play quite often. I thought he fit the role quite nicely and he really made you believe that he just walked off the farm. Moore is also pretty good as the love interest but John Gilbert doesn't get too much to do as the rival. I think the main reason people should check this out is for the old-time baseball outfits, gloves and fields. Being a major baseball fan I found this stuff to be the most interesting and it was scenes like these that really made the film keep working even when the story itself starts to drag.

If this represents the level of quality of Charles Ray's films (and I'll bet it does; it comes from Thomas Ince's well-oiled factory) I can readily understand his stardom. The movie is very well made, and very well directed by Jerome Storm, whom I've never heard of, but the man directed at least 47 films between 1917 and 1932, and he did a nice job here.

Ray himself is delightful. He's cute as a button (you just want to put him in your pocket) and very skilled. He was also quite good playing a continental rake in The Garden of Eden, so the man had some versatility. So what the hell happened with Ray? I can understand his star falling, but why wasn't he able to transition to decent second leads and character parts? He couldn't even have been a wisecracking sidekick? He looks perfect for it.

Colleen Moore is a breath of spring here, as usual. Moore illustrates the odd fact about the silent era that you can play lead after lead for years and not be considered a star but merely an "artist." She needed the China doll hair to make her stand apart, and to find her "wholesome flapper" niche.

As for Gilbert, this was when he was doing anything and everything for Ince, and he's the spoiled rich boy here. I've seen it alleged that Gilbert without the mustache didn't register somehow, but I don't find that true here at all. He looks dreamy, and of course there's nothing wrong with his acting in this small part.

It's a very outdoorsy film (well, it's a baseball picture) and the movie gets the small town ambiance very well: chickens flapping around the homestead; a municipal baseball field; a tacky little local movie house; the arrival of a telegram inevitably assumed to mean a death. The brief big city scenes are well done as well, and there is a handsome urban hotel lobby in one scene.

This is the kind of non-slapstick (but still with a physical component) comedy of manners that hasn't endured from the silents as easily as the comedies of the silent clowns (it's the kind of movie Swanson was making with Bobby Vernon's unit for Sennett before the unit was dissolved and she was suddenly being asked to learn pratfalls). It's gentle and sweet and quietly amusing. Glad it has survived, and been restored so nicely.

How is it possible that there are still people who believe that full-length features were still rare as late as 1919? Thomas Ince alone produced fifteen of them in the year of which this is one.

Here's a brief list (only chosen from extant and available films) from around the world for 1919 (most are longer than The Busher which is quite a short feature) - Madam DuBarry (classic Lubitsch), Herr Arnes pengar (Stiller), Nerven, El Automibil gris, Die Pest in Florenz, Sangen om den eldroda blomman, Um Krone und Peitsche,His Majesty, the American (Fairbanks), The False Faces, Synnöve Solbakken (excellent Swedish film), Blind Husbands (Von Stroheim), The World and Its Woman, South (magnificent documentary), When the Clouds Roll By (Fairbanks), Eyes of Youth, El Golfo, The Greatest Question, Heart o' the Hills,A Romance of Happy Valley,Through the Toils, Wagon Tracks, Back to God's Country, The Twin Pawns, Bolshevism on Trial, La Belgique martyre, Le Bercail, The End of the Road, The Kinsman, Should a Woman Tell?, The Sentimental Bloke, The Man Beneath, A rosa do adro, Victory (Tourneur), Az aranyember, Die Austernprinzessin (Lubitsch), Ett farligt frieri, The Wicked Darling, Burglar by Proxy, Out Yonder, The Swindler, Young Romance,The Roaring Road, Broken Blossoms (Griffith), J'Accuse, Opium, Daddy Long-Legs (Pickford), The Hoodlum, Praesidenten (Dreyer), Male and Female (DeMille), Mod Lyset, Hara Kiri (Fritz Lang), Dunungen, Die Teufelskirche, For Better, For Worse, Don't Change Your Husband, The ABC of Love, Delicious Little Devil (Valentino), When Bearcat Went Dry (Chaney), True Heart Susie (Grfifith), Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Yankee Doodle in Berlin, The Glorious Lady, Getting Mary Married, The Lads of the Village..........

My own pick of the year - Top Ten: Synnöve Solbakken, Herr Arnes pengar , Praesidenten, Dunungen, Mod Lyset, The Sentimental Bloke, When the Clouds Roll By, Blind Husbands, Die Austernprinzessin and South.

Runners-up: Die Teufelskirche, Nerven, Hara Kiri, Back to God's Country, Daddy Long-Legs, Madam DuBarry, Ett farligt frieri, Broken Blossoms, Die Pest in Florenz and Male and Female

Also Ran: The Busher is a pleasant enough film but a little tough-going for anyone not from the US who has difficulty is appreciating the charms either of Charles Ray (the 1921 Ol' Swimmin' Hole is a rather better film) or of US small-town culture or of the game of baseball.