F Gwynplaine MacIntyre
When I play movie trivia with other movie fans, I often stump them with this question: What famous movie personality served in the German army during World War One, but became one of Hollywood's biggest stars in the 1920s? The answer is Rin Tin Tin. This Alsatian dog (his original name unknown) was found in an abandoned German army trench, where he apparently had served as a guard dog. He was brought to the States by an officer in the American Expeditionary Force, and soon proved to be extraordinarily intelligent.'Find Your Man' is not the only film with a title in the second person, but it's probably the only one for which the 'You' in the title is a dog. Rinty stars as Buddy, a dog in a remote timber camp. The backbone of the organisation (the lumber vertebrae?) is Dains, the evil foreman. Four-legged Buddy is the only witness when Dains kills a man and then frames Paul Andrews for the deed. The sheriff hustles Andrews off to prison. When Dains notices that Buddy won't stop staring at him (hounding him?), he orders a lumberjack named Mills (lumber Mills?) to kill the dog. One good bullet would end this movie right here, but instead of killing Buddy, Mills proceeds to tie him up and muzzle him, planning to sell him. Anybody who's into canine bondage scenes will rewind this sequence several times.Of course Buddy escapes, and of course there's a climactic race against time as Buddy rushes to the courthouse to clear Andrews. If you have to ask if justice triumphs, you've got no business reading this site.I'm genuinely impressed by Rin Tin Tin's acting; he quite convinced me that he was *listening* to the actors' dialogue in this silent film. Less impressive is June Marlowe, who seems to be in this movie merely for the sake of a pretty female lead. The blonde Marlowe is indeed pretty, but far too pallid and frail-looking to be hanging about a timber camp. As the (human) male lead, Eric St Clair is dull: fortunately, his role is more a plot device than an actual character. The photography throughout this film is excellent, especially in the exterior sequences, and the editing is brisk despite Mal St Clair's lacklustre pacing. I'll rate 'Find Your Man' 7 out of 10.
