This is How Movies Should Be Made

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This film is one that is a good example of the one-gag films early filmmakers were making. These early films featured a gag that was never relatively funny, but for an early film audiences were entertained as it was better than seeing workers leaving a factory or a train arriving. I'm guessing though that by the time this film was made these early gag films were out of style, and so a film like this would've worked better if it had been made years earlier, say in 1899 or even earlier.The film is all about some people, two women and a man, going on a picnic. One of the women is in love with the man so they hatch a plot to steal away from their companion so the two can make out. Where do they go to? Read the title.While the gag this film has is at least original, this movie was made at too late a time in filmmaking to be of any interest. This was after "The Great Train Robbery" , "A Trip to the Moon" and Hepworth's own "Rescued by Rover". It could be possible that this movie is fragmentary and the fat lady found out what they were up to...who knows?

This was made by Cecil Hepworth in the same year that he produced Rescued by Rover, and it seems incredible that the same filmmaker could make films of such varying quality in the space of one year. The entire film is basically working up towards a punchline which is as unfunny and uninteresting as the build-up before it. A courting couple on a picnic are prevented from enjoying a romantic liaison by their matronly chaperone, so when she falls asleep they sneak behind a hedge, leaving their hats visible at opposite ends of it so that, when she wakes up, the chaperone believes they are sitting far apart (as, undoubtedly, you would in her position). This one's pretty disappointing, it has to be said.

Of all the early film producers, those of Hepworth are generally among the better films to watch in the 21st century. Unlike MOST of the films of Edison and Lumiere, their films often had cute stories or a good sense of humor. It was in this light that I saw this film and saw it as a complete waste of time. Three people are having a picnic and NOTHING of any interest occurs. Absolutely freaking nothing! This is not too atypical of some of the early films, but Hepworth must have been caught napping or just scraped up some old deleted scenes to produce this. This film is SO DULL that it's not even of much interest to film historians. Find another early film--they're not all this pointless.

This one doesn't work very well, even considering its era. The whole film is only there to set up one gag, but it's not even a very good gag, and it's not carried out very well either. You always want to be charitable in evaluating these earliest films, because they did not usually have a lot to work with, and because almost everything they did was new at the time. But "The Other Side of the Hedge" comes across as routine and rather sloppy even by the standards of the era. Most other Hepworth-produced films had much more energy and creativity than this one does.