Chances

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. And Anthony Bushell are the Prescott brothers in 1931's "Chances," and both are in love with the same woman, Molly (Rose Hobart). The two brothers go off to war while Molly does her part in the effort, Tom (Bushell) believing that Rose is waiting for him, while in fact, she loves Jack (Fairbanks Jr.) and only turned to Tom on the rebound. Jack and Molly meet while he is on leave, and when he returns to battle, he doesn't know how to handle the situation with his brother.

This is a very dated film done in that weird time that was the transition between silent and sound. This makes the dialogue pacing off and the film seem mannered and stagy. It's by no means a heavy look at war as some of the films made around the same time were, but rather focuses on the brothers' relationship and their mutual love for one woman.

Fairbanks Jr. Emerges as the best actor, giving a solid performance. Hobart is very serious and kind of boring, and Bushell is good-looking but callow. It's all very stiff upper lip and pip-pip.

"Chances" is a dark-looking film with some well-done battle scenes. One interesting bit of trivia about the cast is that all three leads lived to be 90 and above. One wonders if in later years, they even remembered this early effort.

An excellent look at WWI through the eyes of two brothers. Douglas Fairbanks gives an excellent performance opposite Anthony Bushnell and Mary Forbes.

Still watching this one after weeks of loving it... To start off I'll say I could have done without the drunken flower-seller in the Golden Lion and the seemingly meaningless 20 seconds of the German front. I can't judge the battle scenes because I find it so painful to watch horses in that situation in any film.

What I love are the romantic scenes with Doug Fairbanks Jr and Rose Hobart. She gets very little praise in the other reviews here, but I find her low-key presence and unglamorous facade quite appealing and so different from the overly made-up women in so many films.

Doug has so much star quality and glamor that I wonder his publicists didn't make more of him and help him get more money for his roles. But he seems to have gone out of his way to make sure they didn't associate him with his fabulously famous and talented father, so they must have erred in the other direction, not giving enough credit for his fabulous good looks and talent.

For those who love the gentility of kind family relationships and an old-fashioned style of romance, this is the film for them.

"Chances" is a story set during WWI and is about two brothers who fall for the same woman. It's a bit predictable but manages to overcome this and is a very entertaining film.

The story begins in 1914 and like so many naive people, Jack and Tom (Douglas Fairbanks Jr. And Anthony Bushell) are celebrating that they're going off to war. Little did folks at the time realize that the war would result in more than 20,000,000 deaths! Before going, Tom spends some time with his girlfriend (Rose Hobart) and then goes off to war. Little did Tom suspect that Jack also spent time with her and the pair fell in love. So, while Tom is anticipating marrying her, she is in love with his brother.

During the war, the brothers find it's not all fun and glory...in fact it completely sucks. But Jack is quite the hero and is rewarded with a leave to go home...where he picks up his relationship with Tom's girl. What's next? See the film.

This film was handled very deftly--with excellent direction, acting as well as some harrowing and realistic battle scenes. Well worth seeing and quite the tearjerker near the end.

This film is a weird hybrid of silent film and stage play, but it never quite manages to be a movie.

The battle scenes are impressively cinematic, well-staged and photographed in the D.W. Griffith mold, but what comes between them is very uneven.

The British accents come and go and the acting is stagy. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is engaging as a rake at the beginning but can't encompass the deeper emotions towards the end. Rose Hobart is much better at playing resentment and bitterness than romance, which is my guess why she slid from lead to character woman so quickly. Anthony Bushell is a wet noodle as the stolid brother, which is probably right, but no fun to watch.

And what was this project doing at First National (Warners) anyway? Paramount or MGM could function well with a bunch of rowdy English aristocrats at play, but they might as well be moon-men to the studio home of Jimmy Cagney and Edward G. A tommy-gun or malicious half-grapefruit would have helped this film immensely.

So, interesting as an awkward curio, but constipated compared to the great silent WWI films like The Big Parade or What Price Glory? and clumsy compared to the great talkies that would accompany WWII.