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In the spring of 2009, I thought it might be a good idea to scour IMDB for hundred-year-old movies with no reviews and little in the way of available information. I then reviewed them myself, in the guise of turn-of-the-century film critic Barnabas Carruthers-Jones.

The site stopped posting my reviews, once it became obvious that I was a big liar and had made up any details about the movies which weren't already available on the site. Maybe I was betrayed by my tendency to bestow actors with nicknames such as "Rabbit's Foot" and "The Original Rubber-Legs."

Well, here's the offending material. Take any details with a grain of salt-water taffy.

Even the most ignorant of plough-share pushing commoners would be capable of seeing this film for the travesty it is. This torturous exercise in simple-minded antick would make the least dis-criminating spectator feel insulted. While not as horridly awry as the disgust-inducing series of "Professor Puddenhead's Patents" vehicles, its own dearth of merits is truly contempt-able.

The pair of nit-wits portraying the bride and her bridegroom are most unconvincing in their respective roles. Why Charles K. French and Lottie Briscoe were not cast for this is an enigma. Rather, the audience is punished by the presence of two unknown noodle-heads who look as though they just stepped off the back lot of the Urban Trading Company Studioes.

Mark my words; this ex-cursion is a thorough doldrum! Any cinema parlour would be advised to eschew this rubbish forthright.

Even amidst my darkest of hours, I have been able to find solace in the knowledge that I have been fortunate enough to exist in a time where such capable and adroit film-makery as this is present. A masterwork of Chaldean proportion, this moving picture stands head-and-shoulders above director Francis Boggs's other offerings.

So impressed was I by the cinemat-ography on display that I was convinced our hero was altercating against a genuine grissly bear! Though, retro-spectively, it is clear that Mr. Grissly was an actor in the guise of a bear, this does not sour the illusion; the give-and-take in this scene is a master-stroke.

Boots And Saddles is a magnum opus which will withstand the tests of time, and deserves to be viewed by all. Any man who fancies himself a connoisseur of the moving picture will be well chuffed to spend his time enjoying this feature. In recognition of this and these, I bestow this piece with the highest numerical score I have yet awarded any film: an eighty per-cent. Bully!

Attention, goldbrickers and other manner of scallywags; you may re-joice! Your emperor has been crowned in the form of one Sheldon 'The Original Rubber-Legs' Brentcross. The perfomance he delivers as the lackadaisical fumble-fingers in this film is of a caliber yet to be matched by his comick peers. Your funny-bone's ribs will be tickled, I assure!

Mr. Brentcross fills the role of a lowly sausage vendor at a carvinal, and chances upon a mis-placed unit of jewellery. His journey to locate the bauble's right-ful possessor is hampered by a fiendish ring-master intent on collecting it for himself. Our hero's endeavour soon trans-forms into comedick chasery from one end of Coney Island to the opposing end.

Hi-jinks and whacky fun for all ages is in store. I advise visiting your local establishment post-haste for a light-hearted romp along the board-walk, without even leaving your seat!

Upon first arriving in theatres, much bally-hoo was made about this film's title. Though it sounds far too gruesome for viewing by decent people, the burial in the film's title is in fact one of a playful nature; children at the shoreline use bucket and spade to cover their father with a mound of sand. One could have inferred this from the re-placement title "Frolics on the Beach at Coney Island", so I feel as if I am not ruining a surprise for the reader-ship.

The film itself is a mockery of the very art-form! For threescore and ten minutes, the view-providers in the theatre are subjected to the camera's un-flinching gaze as the moppets mentioned above pour end-less spade-fuls of sand upon their target. The father figure barely moves through-out the entire ordeal! His role could have been filled by a man-sized rock! His very relation to the whelps is betrayed only by his beach-hat labelled "FATH R" {sic}.

With no dialogue or plot, this picture's only facet of re-demption is that it may be used to clear out a theatre when conventional methods have been ex-hausted.

Frederick "The Fumbler" Rains gives his all in this humour-riddled import from Great Britain. Hoping to use funds cultivated from gamings, our subject undergoes a venture through a string of dodgy-looking bungalows in the good shire of Brighton. Mis-haps occur due to confluences of clumsy-ness and shoddy buildsmanship.

Physical comickry is the order of the day when Mr. F. Rains is your "celebre du jour", and he makes good! The sequence involving Mr. Rains mistakenly garnishing his food-stuffs with chlorinated washing powders in the stead of salt is an apex of revelry. When he hic-coughs soap bubbles, the audience was in fits, and your re-viewer was no exemption! How such an illusion was filmed is a riddle indeed.

The only sore spot to be detected arises from repetition of themes and gaggery; each bungalow seems to be inter-change-able with the last. The grand finale is not to be missed out on. Though I will refrain from revealing the surprise, I shall provide one clue: it involves sticky molasses!

For those who took in a simple-minded excursion entitled "Rescued By Rover", I would recommend to set your expectations for this picture at precisely the same level. Lewin Fitzhamon's "No More Hats Wanted" may live up to its name, but that is the highest compliment it can be given.

The filmatic equivalent of a quilt stitched from a combine of nainsook and calico, it show-cases Mr. Fitzhamon's directatorial style to a "T": puerile pandering is at its finest (or, should I say, ugliest?). This film's success only further cements the entertainment industry adage that if you give the public scenes of people wearing all manner of hats, the dunder-pates will be clamoring to see it again and again. Any traces of a plot-line have been swept clean away, and what remains is a patchwork of flotsam discarded from pre-ceding attempts at auteurisme.

If features such as this continue to be produced, salvaging our amoral hat-indulgent populace would be in vain. Still, I cannot bring myself to saddle this film with a score lower than twenty per-cent, as many of the hats captured on film were indeed comical in nature.

As a rule, it is accepted by the public at large that arrays of films surrounding the ex-ploits of a gentleman character are frugal ventures designed to harness quick profit with little concern for the art of cinema. Their inferior quality is best re-presented by the dismal "Professor Puddenhead's Patents" films, wherein the medium reached its nadir when the titular Professor constructed an anti-Polio suit, only to predictably contract the dis-ease moments after leaving his laboratory.

With this knowledge in the public consciousness, it comes as a surprise that the chain of "Scroggins" films featuring Charles "Swivel Shoulders" Bolton are not as wretched as one would pre-judge! A hearty guffaw will be had by all as our pro-tagonist finds himself mistakenly enrolled to compete in a fiddle-faddle competition, only to come out on top, as the film's title would indicate.

Those who were doubled-over in glee at such prior installments as "Scroggins Goes in for Chemistry and Discovers a Marvellous Powder" and "Scroggins Gets the Socialist Craze" will be advised to take in this picture. I would also recommend this filmatic excursion as a humorous diversion for fellow samplers of fine cinema.

The depths of L. Fitzhamon's charlatanisme may never be fully measured, but "The Detective's Dog" may well be our best indicator thus far. Even a script as time-tested and predictable as 'pet bestows salvation upon master' is no match for Fitzhamon's directatorial numb-skullery. An offering which leaves a stronger residue of bile upon one's palate I have yet to sample.

The first mis-step is in the selection of canine picked to perform the titular 'Rover'; its screen presence appears to be massive enough to be capable of swallowing a carnival strong-man in one gulp! Any sensible human would sooner perish than risk being at the mercy of a creature of such imposing stature. That any sane detective would keep such a monstrosity as a familiar is bamboozling. Additionally, the predicament our buffoonish flat-foot lands himself in is not explained by a single iota! Back-story is simply an obstacle to be plowed over and left in our director's wake.

I would strongly dis-courage the reader from even the act of taking in this picture to gawk at its startlingly inferior quality. It is not worth your time or your dollars! Resist!