Although the print quality available is marginal, this is still a fun opportunity to see Miss Ralston at the height of her beauty. She did not get that title just as a publicity stunt, she actually was that gorgeous. I am going to repeat what I wrote here a few years ago - where do those comments go to? The first sequence was shot in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, CA. I lived just across 6th Street in 2011 and know the park well. In over 85 years it has changed very little and many of the surrounding buildings are still intact. A few decades ago this was Smog Central but that has all been cleared up and it is a wonderful park to visit - in the daylight!
7 Reviews
Nice Little Comedy
Michael_Elliott22 January 2013
Womanhandled (1925)
*** (out of 4)
New York playboy Bill Dana (Richard Dix) falls in love with Molly (Ester Ralston) but she prefers men who have grown up in the tough West. In order to become tough, Bill moves out West only to discover that the real cowboys are in movies and what's left are Eastern folks who don't even know how to ride a horse. When Bill hears that Molly is coming to visit him, he must set up the ranch to look like the West everyone has seen in movies. WOMANHANDLED isn't a complete success but I think for the most part there are enough good performances and laughs to make it worth sitting through. It should be noted that the version on the Treasures Vol 5: The West collection only runs 55-minutes as a long sequence was taken out for some reason and the ending is also lost but well detailed in the production notes. With that said, I thought both Dix and Ralston were extremely good together and certainly helped sell the romance a lot better than many other actors would have. This is especially true for Dix who was wonderful in his part and made you really believe he was this East coast guy who was about to get a rude awakening out West. I also thought Cora Williams was fun as the aunt and the rest of the supporting cast are actually strong as well. The comedy in the film for the most part works and this is especially true during the first half. One of the best jokes has Dix saving a little child from "drowning" and another sequence dealing with a couple homeless guys. Again, the film is far from perfect but I think it's quite clever for the most part and silent film buffs should enjoy it.
*** (out of 4)
New York playboy Bill Dana (Richard Dix) falls in love with Molly (Ester Ralston) but she prefers men who have grown up in the tough West. In order to become tough, Bill moves out West only to discover that the real cowboys are in movies and what's left are Eastern folks who don't even know how to ride a horse. When Bill hears that Molly is coming to visit him, he must set up the ranch to look like the West everyone has seen in movies. WOMANHANDLED isn't a complete success but I think for the most part there are enough good performances and laughs to make it worth sitting through. It should be noted that the version on the Treasures Vol 5: The West collection only runs 55-minutes as a long sequence was taken out for some reason and the ending is also lost but well detailed in the production notes. With that said, I thought both Dix and Ralston were extremely good together and certainly helped sell the romance a lot better than many other actors would have. This is especially true for Dix who was wonderful in his part and made you really believe he was this East coast guy who was about to get a rude awakening out West. I also thought Cora Williams was fun as the aunt and the rest of the supporting cast are actually strong as well. The comedy in the film for the most part works and this is especially true during the first half. One of the best jokes has Dix saving a little child from "drowning" and another sequence dealing with a couple homeless guys. Again, the film is far from perfect but I think it's quite clever for the most part and silent film buffs should enjoy it.
Yassuh, me no like-um!
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre1 October 2002
"Womanhandled" stars Richard Dix as Manhattan playboy Bill Dana (no relation to the 1960s TV comedian of that name). While visiting Central Park, he rescues bratty little Percival (Eli Nadel) from the lake -- some nice location shooting here -- and then he meets the boy's aunt: the blonde and beautiful Molly (Esther Ralston). Striking up a conversation with Molly, Bill mentions that his Uncle Lester owns a ranch out west. This leads Molly to believe that Bill is a rootin'-tootin' Westerner ... and she's impressed. Of course, Bill doesn't set her straight on her mistake.
This being a very contrived comedy, Bill goes out west to Wind River, Texas, hoping to get some genuine cowboy experience so he can impress Molly. At Uncle Lester's ranch, he discovers that all the cowboys have left to get jobs in cowboy movies (which pay better), and taken their horses along. Bill and Lester manage to round up a few swaybacked nags (with clearly visible ribs) and a few two-legged varmints to play cowboy. Comic actor Tammany Young looks absolutely hilarious in an ill-fitting cowboy get-up.
Bill's got some cowboys, he's got some horses. Now he needs Indians. Bill prevails upon the African-American laundress and her family to slap on some warpaint and pretend to be Red Indians.At this point "Womanhandled" enters the delirious realm of double-decker racial stereotypes. There's some "yassum" dialogue in the intertitles while these stereotypical blacks impersonate stereotypical Amerindians. Of course, Bill says that they're Blackfeet.
Just when Bill is all set to play cowboy, suddenly Molly shows up with her bratty nephew and her strait-laced Aunt Clara in tow. This is a pretty good set-up for a comedy, but after setting up its premise the film dissolves into dumb jokes. Gregory La Cava, an expert comedy director, is saddled with poor material here.
There's some 'book-end' material at the start and close of the movie, involving a couple of vaudeville-ish comical tramps who live in Central Park. I really dislike it when humour is at the expense of homeless people. I'll rate "Womanhandled" 3 points out of 10.
This being a very contrived comedy, Bill goes out west to Wind River, Texas, hoping to get some genuine cowboy experience so he can impress Molly. At Uncle Lester's ranch, he discovers that all the cowboys have left to get jobs in cowboy movies (which pay better), and taken their horses along. Bill and Lester manage to round up a few swaybacked nags (with clearly visible ribs) and a few two-legged varmints to play cowboy. Comic actor Tammany Young looks absolutely hilarious in an ill-fitting cowboy get-up.
Bill's got some cowboys, he's got some horses. Now he needs Indians. Bill prevails upon the African-American laundress and her family to slap on some warpaint and pretend to be Red Indians.At this point "Womanhandled" enters the delirious realm of double-decker racial stereotypes. There's some "yassum" dialogue in the intertitles while these stereotypical blacks impersonate stereotypical Amerindians. Of course, Bill says that they're Blackfeet.
Just when Bill is all set to play cowboy, suddenly Molly shows up with her bratty nephew and her strait-laced Aunt Clara in tow. This is a pretty good set-up for a comedy, but after setting up its premise the film dissolves into dumb jokes. Gregory La Cava, an expert comedy director, is saddled with poor material here.
There's some 'book-end' material at the start and close of the movie, involving a couple of vaudeville-ish comical tramps who live in Central Park. I really dislike it when humour is at the expense of homeless people. I'll rate "Womanhandled" 3 points out of 10.
Give It Back to the Indians
boblipton6 August 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I post this review in disagreement with the comments posted by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre who, I feel, has missed much about this movie. First, a minor factual error: the cowboys that Richard Dix uses to impress Esther Ralston are not bums picked up by the railroad siding; they are the current crop of cowboys, even though they hail from the Bowery and round up cattle using Ford Model Ts instead of mustangs.
That taken care of, let us consider the picture. It is in the mold of the social comedies that Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was highly successful at doing until he switched to swashbucklers with THE MARK OF ZORRO -- there is even one small Fairbanks-style gag when Dix hops over some border greenery. Like many of the successful Fairbanks vehicle of the 'Teens, it is a comedy of manners, in which Fairbanks takes on some current fad and shows how a good attitude will solve most problems.
The contrived problem posed by the plot is that Richard Dix is in love with Esther Ralston -- and why not? -- and her mania centers, as does Oscar Wilde's best known comedy of manners, on the sort of man she wants to marry. He need not be named Ernest, but he must be a man of the West, a man's man, not someone who has been Womanhandled until he is effete. So Dix goes out to his uncle's ranch, only to discover, as Mr. MacIntyre notes, that all the 'real' cowboys have gone into the movie business, and those who are now doing the work like their creature comforts.
Mr. MacIntyre does not like the gags involved, but his mislike of them is largely based on what he calls 'a very contrived comedy.' Aye, that it is. Very few comedies of manner survive their own era. Oscar Wilde's do because the writing is so very witty. WOMANHANDLED seems to have survived on the basis of its gags; certainly the usually tough audience at the Museum of Modern Art roared at them... and some of them were surprisingly subtle.
SPOILER: Consider this one: the ranch has a Black (or Negro, or African American or Colored) family, she as the cook, he doing odd chores. They have three boys. When Miss Ralston, her aunt and her horrid small cousin come to the ranch, Richard Dix dresses this family up as Indians. "What tribe are they?" She asks him. "Blackfeet." The contemporary audience may have laughed at these Black people being forced to pretend to be Indians, but I laughed at Miss Ralston's naive acceptance of them as Indians.... and realized, a second later, that such ridiculous casting was standard in that period in Hollywood, and so the gag had three targets.
Miss Ralston and Mr. Dix are not comic actors, and that, in my opinion, hurts this movie slightly. Still, the careful construction means that you don't need comedians; good straight actors will do nicely. That slight flaw makes this movie less than perfect to me, but I still award it a 9 out of 10.
That taken care of, let us consider the picture. It is in the mold of the social comedies that Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was highly successful at doing until he switched to swashbucklers with THE MARK OF ZORRO -- there is even one small Fairbanks-style gag when Dix hops over some border greenery. Like many of the successful Fairbanks vehicle of the 'Teens, it is a comedy of manners, in which Fairbanks takes on some current fad and shows how a good attitude will solve most problems.
The contrived problem posed by the plot is that Richard Dix is in love with Esther Ralston -- and why not? -- and her mania centers, as does Oscar Wilde's best known comedy of manners, on the sort of man she wants to marry. He need not be named Ernest, but he must be a man of the West, a man's man, not someone who has been Womanhandled until he is effete. So Dix goes out to his uncle's ranch, only to discover, as Mr. MacIntyre notes, that all the 'real' cowboys have gone into the movie business, and those who are now doing the work like their creature comforts.
Mr. MacIntyre does not like the gags involved, but his mislike of them is largely based on what he calls 'a very contrived comedy.' Aye, that it is. Very few comedies of manner survive their own era. Oscar Wilde's do because the writing is so very witty. WOMANHANDLED seems to have survived on the basis of its gags; certainly the usually tough audience at the Museum of Modern Art roared at them... and some of them were surprisingly subtle.
SPOILER: Consider this one: the ranch has a Black (or Negro, or African American or Colored) family, she as the cook, he doing odd chores. They have three boys. When Miss Ralston, her aunt and her horrid small cousin come to the ranch, Richard Dix dresses this family up as Indians. "What tribe are they?" She asks him. "Blackfeet." The contemporary audience may have laughed at these Black people being forced to pretend to be Indians, but I laughed at Miss Ralston's naive acceptance of them as Indians.... and realized, a second later, that such ridiculous casting was standard in that period in Hollywood, and so the gag had three targets.
Miss Ralston and Mr. Dix are not comic actors, and that, in my opinion, hurts this movie slightly. Still, the careful construction means that you don't need comedians; good straight actors will do nicely. That slight flaw makes this movie less than perfect to me, but I still award it a 9 out of 10.
Don't believe the negative comments--this is really good.
planktonrules3 August 2012
Warning: Spoilers
This film can be found in the recently released DVD collection "Treasures of the West"---a collection of mostly short films from the earliest days of movies until 1938. Oddly, about 15 minutes of the film is missing in this version. Part of it is because the end is missing--due to the degradation of nitrate film stock over time. Part of is that apparently the folks releasing this collection thought one sequence was overlong and abbreviated it! So beware that my review is of an incomplete print.
While some of the reviewers hated this and the accompanying audio commentary seemed to agree that it wasn't a very funny film, I strongly disagree. While it's not a laugh a minute film filled with broad slapstick, it is a clever little situation comedy that poked fun of the romantic notions of the old west. "Womanhandled" begins in a park in New York. Richard Dix meets a very attractive young lady and her amazingly bratty nephew. He's enamored and wants to make a good impression. So, when he learns she's infatuated with the old west, he pretends to have western roots as well as a ranch in Texas. He's awfully crazy for the girl--so crazy that he actually goes west and plays cowboy to toughen himself up and be able to convince her he's a tough hombre. Unfortunately, he soon learns that there is no old west like you see in movies. These 'cowboys' ride cars and are actually afraid of horses!! But, when he learns that she is coming there to see him, Dix gets all the ranch hands to pretend they are just like the folks in the movies--and she's duly impressed. However, being a comedy there is naturally a twist--and you'll have to see the film for yourself to see what I mean.
Despite the film being slightly truncated, I had a great time watching this one. Clever, original and fun. And, if you do watch it, look for the 'Indians'!
While some of the reviewers hated this and the accompanying audio commentary seemed to agree that it wasn't a very funny film, I strongly disagree. While it's not a laugh a minute film filled with broad slapstick, it is a clever little situation comedy that poked fun of the romantic notions of the old west. "Womanhandled" begins in a park in New York. Richard Dix meets a very attractive young lady and her amazingly bratty nephew. He's enamored and wants to make a good impression. So, when he learns she's infatuated with the old west, he pretends to have western roots as well as a ranch in Texas. He's awfully crazy for the girl--so crazy that he actually goes west and plays cowboy to toughen himself up and be able to convince her he's a tough hombre. Unfortunately, he soon learns that there is no old west like you see in movies. These 'cowboys' ride cars and are actually afraid of horses!! But, when he learns that she is coming there to see him, Dix gets all the ranch hands to pretend they are just like the folks in the movies--and she's duly impressed. However, being a comedy there is naturally a twist--and you'll have to see the film for yourself to see what I mean.
Despite the film being slightly truncated, I had a great time watching this one. Clever, original and fun. And, if you do watch it, look for the 'Indians'!
Cute exposition of how the grass is always greener
morrisonhimself15 October 2019
Richard Dix gave, in my opinion, one of his best performances, with a different type of character from what we usually expect.
Leading lady was "American Venus" Esther Ralston, who was still active in TV until the 1960s.
They were surrounded by mostly forgotten actors but who should be remembered for their talent.
Apparently there is a reel or more missing, so some of the narrative seems pointless or out of place, but what is here is fun and very well worth watching -- although the print at YouTube is fuzzy and hard on the eyes.
But for a pleasant hour of gentle fun-poking at some stereotypes, I highly recommend "Womanhandled."
Leading lady was "American Venus" Esther Ralston, who was still active in TV until the 1960s.
They were surrounded by mostly forgotten actors but who should be remembered for their talent.
Apparently there is a reel or more missing, so some of the narrative seems pointless or out of place, but what is here is fun and very well worth watching -- although the print at YouTube is fuzzy and hard on the eyes.
But for a pleasant hour of gentle fun-poking at some stereotypes, I highly recommend "Womanhandled."
"All Men Are Womanhandled"!!!
kidboots16 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Just the funnest movie - just ambles along, full of cute little incidents
Before he can return in his new found western "he man" guise Molly pays a surprise visit and in a plot line straight out of Douglas Fairbanks' "Wild and Woolly" Bill enlists the help of the whole ranch to put on a show to keep Molly's dreams of the west alive!! As her mother says at the end whether from the east or west all men are "womenhandled". So many quiet chuckles, Bill's dealings with Molly's pesky brother and when they all sit down to eat and Bill puts on some rough western table manners for Molly's benefit. I agree, there must have been a reel missing, they could have had a lot of fun with the arrival of that gang of chorus cuties who showed up at the ranch 5 minutes before the end!! Both Olive Tell and Margaret Morris were also featured in the credits but apart from a few seconds at the start, none were seen. Morris played an old flame of Bill's
Was there ever a more beautiful actress than Esther Ralston, any movie where she is featured is so welcome. This movie happens to be a lot of fun!!
- boy meets girl, love at first sight but..... Molly has an idealized version
Before he can return in his new found western "he man" guise Molly pays a surprise visit and in a plot line straight out of Douglas Fairbanks' "Wild and Woolly" Bill enlists the help of the whole ranch to put on a show to keep Molly's dreams of the west alive!! As her mother says at the end whether from the east or west all men are "womenhandled". So many quiet chuckles, Bill's dealings with Molly's pesky brother and when they all sit down to eat and Bill puts on some rough western table manners for Molly's benefit. I agree, there must have been a reel missing, they could have had a lot of fun with the arrival of that gang of chorus cuties who showed up at the ranch 5 minutes before the end!! Both Olive Tell and Margaret Morris were also featured in the credits but apart from a few seconds at the start, none were seen. Morris played an old flame of Bill's
- that could have created a few situations!!
Was there ever a more beautiful actress than Esther Ralston, any movie where she is featured is so welcome. This movie happens to be a lot of fun!!
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