Review of The Two Barks Brothers

"The Two Barks Brothers" is an American 17-minute live action short film from 1931, so this one is almost 90 years old and of course it is still a black-and-white movie. But it does have sound. The running time is typical for what the likes of the Three Stooges released during that time for example or also Our Gang. The crucial difference is that this one is about dogs. Well, actually it is about humans and we hear human voices, but all the characters are played by dogs. "Played". When they bark (we only see, don't hear) we hear people talk because the mouth is open for example. This is part of an MGM series of short films going by the name Dogville and one of the latter and more known installments I believe. Very very bizarre to me and looking at all the stuff I have seen, that means something. Sadly, different does not equal good in this specific case. Somehow it didn't feel right and as we heard how child actors were treated back then I don't even want to know how animals were treated because there was surely no observation or something like that. I must say I did not find the outcome really funny either. The better moments were maybe still when they actually included caine-related words on several occasions like a mother calling her child "puppy". Mildly funny. But not enough to cut the cake. The story was also relatively shallow and it seemed to me as if they were trying to get real emotion in, which honestly just wasn't possible. Maybe they thought the dogs for the kids in the audience and the voices for their parents? Anyway, I don#t think it is working out sufficiently, but looking at how famous animals in films were back then, a huge attraction in general and also for example on the aforementioned Our Gang / Little Rascals, I am not too surprised they made films like this one. I give it a thumbs-down though. Only worth seeing for film historians perhaps.