Originally posted to Facebook on 3/9/2017
Tol'able David was our second film from 1921, and also the second film we’ve seen in which Richard Barthelmess plays the male lead. He’s the title character, and tol’able apparently is a contraction for “tolerable”, although it doesn’t seem like a word that’s used often enough to really warrant a contraction. He’s the youngest son in a farming family, who are depicted as having an idyllic if tenuous rural life. However, a series of tragic events occur, forcing him to grow up and shoulder more responsibility. The film was paced and executed decently well, but I thought Barthelmess overplayed his character’s boyishness in the earlier portions in the film. This was presumably to create a contrast with the later portions, but Barthelmess was too obviously a full-grown adult for it to seem credible. He also had patches of overacting, in particular a scene in which he told his quasi-girlfriend (Gladys Hulette) that he didn’t want to see her anymore, and then dramatically turned his head and marched off. This made the kids laugh significantly more than any of the deliberately comic scenes.
Next up is The Phantom Carriage, our third film from 1921, and the fourth film we’ve seen directed by Victor Sjöström. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
The Kid (1921)
Originally posted to Facebook on 3/2/2017
The Kid was our first film from 1921, and our third feature starring Charlie Chaplin. But it actually feels more like our first proper Chaplin film, because the first (1914’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance, which some claim is the first surviving feature length comedy) was before Chaplin had really refined his screen persona, and the second (1918’s Shoulder Arms) was only forty-five minutes long, and was more akin to some of his shorts than a full-length movie. The version of The Kid that we saw was actually somewhat edited by Chaplin himself in 1971, apparently to remove a few scenes in which he didn’t appear. The main victim of this editing according to the internet was his regular female costar Edna Purviance. His other co-star -- the title character -- was Jackie Coogan, the archetypal child actor who was cheated out of his earnings by his parents. He also famously starred as Uncle Fester in the 1960s TV version of The Addams Family, and continued appearing in movies up through the 1980s. The clarity of the print was unusually sharp, possibly due to its popularity and various re-releases over the years, and it was the most relaxed of Chaplin’s films that we’ve seen, with fewer acrobatic or closely-timed sequences than usual. Most of the comedy was of a domestic sort, with Chaplin trying to raise Coogan in a less-than-ideal fashion, after finding him abandoned as a baby. The most elaborate bit is a dream sequence in which Chaplin imagines himself in a sort of an urban heaven. I didn’t find the movie enormously amusing, but it was pleasant and charming, and certainly showed Chaplin’s increasingly polished style. Additionally Coogan was not as annoying as you might imagine a young child in this sort of role might be.
Our next film from 1921 is Tol’able David, which stars Richard Barthelmess, whom we saw just last week as the male lead in Way Down East. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Kid was our first film from 1921, and our third feature starring Charlie Chaplin. But it actually feels more like our first proper Chaplin film, because the first (1914’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance, which some claim is the first surviving feature length comedy) was before Chaplin had really refined his screen persona, and the second (1918’s Shoulder Arms) was only forty-five minutes long, and was more akin to some of his shorts than a full-length movie. The version of The Kid that we saw was actually somewhat edited by Chaplin himself in 1971, apparently to remove a few scenes in which he didn’t appear. The main victim of this editing according to the internet was his regular female costar Edna Purviance. His other co-star -- the title character -- was Jackie Coogan, the archetypal child actor who was cheated out of his earnings by his parents. He also famously starred as Uncle Fester in the 1960s TV version of The Addams Family, and continued appearing in movies up through the 1980s. The clarity of the print was unusually sharp, possibly due to its popularity and various re-releases over the years, and it was the most relaxed of Chaplin’s films that we’ve seen, with fewer acrobatic or closely-timed sequences than usual. Most of the comedy was of a domestic sort, with Chaplin trying to raise Coogan in a less-than-ideal fashion, after finding him abandoned as a baby. The most elaborate bit is a dream sequence in which Chaplin imagines himself in a sort of an urban heaven. I didn’t find the movie enormously amusing, but it was pleasant and charming, and certainly showed Chaplin’s increasingly polished style. Additionally Coogan was not as annoying as you might imagine a young child in this sort of role might be.
Our next film from 1921 is Tol’able David, which stars Richard Barthelmess, whom we saw just last week as the male lead in Way Down East. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Way Down East (1920)
Originally posted to Facebook on 2/18/2017
Way Down East was our fifth and final film from 1920, our fourth feature directed by D.W. Griffith, and our second starring Lillian Gish. As with his other features Griffith is at least as interested in hammering you over the head with a moral lesson as he is in making a movie, but at least this time his moral lesson is not perversely wrong-headed. The story concerns Gish, who is seduced by a womanizer, and gives birth out of wedlock. Needless to say, this is scandalous, and calamitously impacts her life, whereas her seducer suffers no immediate consequences at all. She eventually ends up as a servant for a family which includes the male lead, played by Richard Barthelmess. The moralizing -- even in a good cause -- is still annoying, but the more serious flaw with this film is that its two-and-a-half-hour running time is needlessly padded with superfluous sequences, including not just a secondary but a tertiary romantic couple. The scenes with the other two couples are intended to be comic relief, but comedy, like so much else, is not Griffith’s strong suit. The early scenes, too, could have been trimmed to focus more exclusively on the circumstances that result in Gish being conned, rather than introducing a raft of other characters whom we never see again. (Lowell Sherman, by the way, who plays the seducer, went on to direct Mae West’s first starring role in She Done Him Wrong, and Katherine Hepburn’s first Oscar winning role in Morning Glory.) Despite its various flaws, it is probably fair to say that this is the most polished and cohesive feature we’ve seen by Griffith, but of his four features that we’ve seen 1916’s Intolerance is still the only one with a non-negligible chance that I might someday watch it again.
So that ends 1920. Next week we begin 1921 with The Kid, our third Charlie Chaplin feature. I’ve also added the films planned for 1922 to our list, which, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Way Down East was our fifth and final film from 1920, our fourth feature directed by D.W. Griffith, and our second starring Lillian Gish. As with his other features Griffith is at least as interested in hammering you over the head with a moral lesson as he is in making a movie, but at least this time his moral lesson is not perversely wrong-headed. The story concerns Gish, who is seduced by a womanizer, and gives birth out of wedlock. Needless to say, this is scandalous, and calamitously impacts her life, whereas her seducer suffers no immediate consequences at all. She eventually ends up as a servant for a family which includes the male lead, played by Richard Barthelmess. The moralizing -- even in a good cause -- is still annoying, but the more serious flaw with this film is that its two-and-a-half-hour running time is needlessly padded with superfluous sequences, including not just a secondary but a tertiary romantic couple. The scenes with the other two couples are intended to be comic relief, but comedy, like so much else, is not Griffith’s strong suit. The early scenes, too, could have been trimmed to focus more exclusively on the circumstances that result in Gish being conned, rather than introducing a raft of other characters whom we never see again. (Lowell Sherman, by the way, who plays the seducer, went on to direct Mae West’s first starring role in She Done Him Wrong, and Katherine Hepburn’s first Oscar winning role in Morning Glory.) Despite its various flaws, it is probably fair to say that this is the most polished and cohesive feature we’ve seen by Griffith, but of his four features that we’ve seen 1916’s Intolerance is still the only one with a non-negligible chance that I might someday watch it again.
So that ends 1920. Next week we begin 1921 with The Kid, our third Charlie Chaplin feature. I’ve also added the films planned for 1922 to our list, which, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Monday, August 20, 2018
The Golem (1920)
Originally posted to Facebook on 2/3/2017
The Golem was the fourth film we watched from 1920, and our second German feature, after The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from earlier in 1920. Like that film, The Golem is one of the handful of silent movies that still has a certain residue of fame. It is actually the third in a series, but the first two are lost outside of a few clips. All three not only featured Paul Wegener as the Golem, but were co-written and co-directed by him as well. The first two were set contemporaneously, but this film was a prequel of sorts, and set centuries earlier, when the Golem was first created by a Rabbi in a Jewish ghetto. Needless to say, any inter-war German film about Jews immediately raises some concerns. Upon actually seeing the film, though, it struck me as mostly sympathetic to the Jewish characters -- the Golem of course being created mainly as a defense against expected attacks. Also, the Jewish villagers are not portrayed monolithically; neither as saints nor villains. However, they are not quite portrayed as ordinary human beings -- and are shown to possess odd powers -- including not just the power to bring the Golem to life, but also the ability to cast various spells. I do not think this is as much of a classic as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari -- in fact it is probably my third favorite film we’ve seen in 1920 -- but that speaks more to how strong a year 1920 has been than to the faults of this film. Probably the most analogous film we’ve seen in a similar genre was the 16 minute version of Frankenstein we saw from 1910 -- which, though only ten years earlier, is virtually an eternity ago in terms of film technique and sophistication. Interestingly the closest thing to a villain in the film is the character of Rabbi Famulus, the assistant to Rabbi Loew (played by Albert Steinrück) who brings the Golem to life. He is played by Ernst Deutsch who, three decades later, had a significant role in The Third Man.
Next week we watch our fifth and final film from 1920, which will also be the fourth feature we’ve seen by D.W. Griffith, and the second starring Lillian Gish: Way Down East. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Golem was the fourth film we watched from 1920, and our second German feature, after The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from earlier in 1920. Like that film, The Golem is one of the handful of silent movies that still has a certain residue of fame. It is actually the third in a series, but the first two are lost outside of a few clips. All three not only featured Paul Wegener as the Golem, but were co-written and co-directed by him as well. The first two were set contemporaneously, but this film was a prequel of sorts, and set centuries earlier, when the Golem was first created by a Rabbi in a Jewish ghetto. Needless to say, any inter-war German film about Jews immediately raises some concerns. Upon actually seeing the film, though, it struck me as mostly sympathetic to the Jewish characters -- the Golem of course being created mainly as a defense against expected attacks. Also, the Jewish villagers are not portrayed monolithically; neither as saints nor villains. However, they are not quite portrayed as ordinary human beings -- and are shown to possess odd powers -- including not just the power to bring the Golem to life, but also the ability to cast various spells. I do not think this is as much of a classic as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari -- in fact it is probably my third favorite film we’ve seen in 1920 -- but that speaks more to how strong a year 1920 has been than to the faults of this film. Probably the most analogous film we’ve seen in a similar genre was the 16 minute version of Frankenstein we saw from 1910 -- which, though only ten years earlier, is virtually an eternity ago in terms of film technique and sophistication. Interestingly the closest thing to a villain in the film is the character of Rabbi Famulus, the assistant to Rabbi Loew (played by Albert Steinrück) who brings the Golem to life. He is played by Ernst Deutsch who, three decades later, had a significant role in The Third Man.
Next week we watch our fifth and final film from 1920, which will also be the fourth feature we’ve seen by D.W. Griffith, and the second starring Lillian Gish: Way Down East. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Penalty (1920)
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/26/2017
The Penalty was our third film from 1920, and the first we’ve seen starring Lon Chaney. He plays a man who, as a boy, had his legs mistakenly amputated by a surgeon after a traffic accident, and who grows up to be a mob boss who plots revenge. It is every bit as lurid and manipulative as it sounds. Lon Chaney played the part by tying his legs tightly behind him, and could only work for ten minutes at a stretch because of the pain. He of course went on to more famous silent roles, including The Phantom of the Opera, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but this is the first entire movie of his I’ve seen, and it is immediately apparent why he was a star. He theatrically and athletically waddles and climbs from place to place, declaiming his various plans, and dominates almost every scene that he’s in. By contrast, the scenes depicting the proto-FBI organization that is attempting to bring him down take place in a static undistinguished office, and look as if they could possibly have been shot in a single day. This organization assigns a woman agent played by Ethel Terry to infiltrate his criminal organization and find out why he has assigned a large chunk of his criminal organization to the task of making hats, itself a clearly diabolical activity. This movie is not quite as eccentric as last week’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but compared to almost any other film we have seen recently, it is quite idiosyncratic. It probably most resembles the French serials Fantomas and Judex, but those had a significantly lighter tone. This movie is not entirely serious, but it has an intensity (sometimes verging on camp) that those movies lacked.
Next week we’ll see our fourth film from 1920, which, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is a well-known early German silent: The Golem. I am a little apprehensive about watching an inter-war German film focusing on medieval Jewry, but am fully braced for it. Our list of planned films is, as always, here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Penalty was our third film from 1920, and the first we’ve seen starring Lon Chaney. He plays a man who, as a boy, had his legs mistakenly amputated by a surgeon after a traffic accident, and who grows up to be a mob boss who plots revenge. It is every bit as lurid and manipulative as it sounds. Lon Chaney played the part by tying his legs tightly behind him, and could only work for ten minutes at a stretch because of the pain. He of course went on to more famous silent roles, including The Phantom of the Opera, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but this is the first entire movie of his I’ve seen, and it is immediately apparent why he was a star. He theatrically and athletically waddles and climbs from place to place, declaiming his various plans, and dominates almost every scene that he’s in. By contrast, the scenes depicting the proto-FBI organization that is attempting to bring him down take place in a static undistinguished office, and look as if they could possibly have been shot in a single day. This organization assigns a woman agent played by Ethel Terry to infiltrate his criminal organization and find out why he has assigned a large chunk of his criminal organization to the task of making hats, itself a clearly diabolical activity. This movie is not quite as eccentric as last week’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but compared to almost any other film we have seen recently, it is quite idiosyncratic. It probably most resembles the French serials Fantomas and Judex, but those had a significantly lighter tone. This movie is not entirely serious, but it has an intensity (sometimes verging on camp) that those movies lacked.
Next week we’ll see our fourth film from 1920, which, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is a well-known early German silent: The Golem. I am a little apprehensive about watching an inter-war German film focusing on medieval Jewry, but am fully braced for it. Our list of planned films is, as always, here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Summary 1910-1919
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/22/2017
Late last year we finished up our chronological viewing of the 1910s, and are now four films into 1920. I thought this would be a good time to single out the films that I most enjoyed or found the most interesting from that period. We watched nineteen shorts and thirty-one features, though the dividing line between the two was a little fuzzy at times, and included some ~45 minute "features." One of those shorter features that I liked was The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs [1912], directed by Léonce Perret and produced in France at Gaumont Studios. As I mentioned in the write-up, it could very easily have been adapted as an episode on the old Alfred Hitchcock show, and coming when it did at the dawn of features it seemed markedly more realistic than the shorts we'd been watching previously, which were largely melodramas or the tail-end of the Melies or Melies-inspired camera-trick films. Two other films, also from Gaumont, were the crime serials Fantomas [1913] and Judex [1916], both of which were over five hours in total length, and both of which were directed by Louis Feuillade. Judex is more consistent in tone, and is probably the better film; I could easily imagine it being rebooted for a modern audience. But Fantomas is more tongue-in-cheek, and more bizarre (for instance the drive-by attempt at murder via python, foiled only by the hero having the foresight to wear a python-proof suit.)
The two films that are likely on any in-depth film history curriculum -- and deserve to be -- are Cabiria [1914] and Intolerance [1916]. The shock of seeing the camera begin moving into a scene during Cabiria -- rather than just panning -- cannot be felt by a modern audience in the same way it must have been felt by a contemporary audience, but one can still apprehend that something new is happening. And it is has a number of elaborate and impressive set pieces as well -- including the dark and weird scenes where children are tossed into an oven embedded in the stomach of a statue of a local god. Intolerance builds upon Cabiria, and adds the famous Babylonian crane shots, as well as an insanely ambitious attempt to make a coherent movie out of four distinct time period. It doesn't completely succeed, and spends a lot of time burrowing down some weirdly misguided moral rabbit-holes, but it's an impressive film, both in its ambition, and in what it accomplishes. Both films are long, and periodically lose focus. Cabiria, though, at least, seems to always have entertainment on its mind, rather than trying to teach some questionable moral lessons.
Besides Feuillade and Leonce Perret, there were three other directors whom we saw more than once: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and Victor Sjöström. Victor Sjöström is the only one of the three all of whose films I liked. Probably the best of his three films we saw was Ingeborg Holm [1913]. Like The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, it was markedly more realistic than the films we'd been seeing up until that point, and stopped short of some of the sentimental cliches it could have employed, at least up until the very end. It was Dickensian in a sense, in that it told a story about an individual's misfortunes, but also had a focus on the institutional failures that had played a role.
The final feature I'll mention was the one that I personally found the most entertaining from this period: the Douglas Fairbanks feature When the Clouds Roll By [1919], directed by Victor Fleming. It was the funniest of the various comedies we'd seen -- including the films we saw by the canonical three silent comedians -- Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. To be fair to those three, all of their greatest work came in the twenties, and only Chaplin was making features in the 1910-1919 period. Fairbanks, too, probably did his major work in the twenties, but by 1919 he was already well established, and this film features his typical athleticism along with some intricate stunts and some fancy editing. Also it helps that he and his leading lady actually seem to like each other, always helpful in a romantic comedy, and surprisingly missing in a lot of the films we saw from this period (and even today, really.)
As far as shorts are concerned, I can't say there was anything that really stood out for me. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust [1912] was a good short from the period just prior to features becoming common. I understand there were several other versions with a similar story that Griffith and others shot, but this was the one we saw, and it was a good straight-forward western, sort of a natural evolution of The Great Train Robbery. The Immigrant [1917] was probably the best of the Chaplin shorts we saw, especially the first half which was set shipboard. From Hand to Mouth [1919] by Harold Lloyd was also intermittently amusing. Lloyd's films don't have the touch of obsesssiveness that Chaplin's and Keaton's do, but he does have more of an everyman quality that makes his protagonists a little more sympathetic.
So that's it for the teens for a while -- probably forever in that concentrated a dosage. I'm looking forward to the twenties quite a bit, because I'm expecting the films to be better and stranger and more ambitious, which certainly seems to be the case four films in.
The two films that are likely on any in-depth film history curriculum -- and deserve to be -- are Cabiria [1914] and Intolerance [1916]. The shock of seeing the camera begin moving into a scene during Cabiria -- rather than just panning -- cannot be felt by a modern audience in the same way it must have been felt by a contemporary audience, but one can still apprehend that something new is happening. And it is has a number of elaborate and impressive set pieces as well -- including the dark and weird scenes where children are tossed into an oven embedded in the stomach of a statue of a local god. Intolerance builds upon Cabiria, and adds the famous Babylonian crane shots, as well as an insanely ambitious attempt to make a coherent movie out of four distinct time period. It doesn't completely succeed, and spends a lot of time burrowing down some weirdly misguided moral rabbit-holes, but it's an impressive film, both in its ambition, and in what it accomplishes. Both films are long, and periodically lose focus. Cabiria, though, at least, seems to always have entertainment on its mind, rather than trying to teach some questionable moral lessons.
Besides Feuillade and Leonce Perret, there were three other directors whom we saw more than once: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and Victor Sjöström. Victor Sjöström is the only one of the three all of whose films I liked. Probably the best of his three films we saw was Ingeborg Holm [1913]. Like The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, it was markedly more realistic than the films we'd been seeing up until that point, and stopped short of some of the sentimental cliches it could have employed, at least up until the very end. It was Dickensian in a sense, in that it told a story about an individual's misfortunes, but also had a focus on the institutional failures that had played a role.
The final feature I'll mention was the one that I personally found the most entertaining from this period: the Douglas Fairbanks feature When the Clouds Roll By [1919], directed by Victor Fleming. It was the funniest of the various comedies we'd seen -- including the films we saw by the canonical three silent comedians -- Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. To be fair to those three, all of their greatest work came in the twenties, and only Chaplin was making features in the 1910-1919 period. Fairbanks, too, probably did his major work in the twenties, but by 1919 he was already well established, and this film features his typical athleticism along with some intricate stunts and some fancy editing. Also it helps that he and his leading lady actually seem to like each other, always helpful in a romantic comedy, and surprisingly missing in a lot of the films we saw from this period (and even today, really.)
As far as shorts are concerned, I can't say there was anything that really stood out for me. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust [1912] was a good short from the period just prior to features becoming common. I understand there were several other versions with a similar story that Griffith and others shot, but this was the one we saw, and it was a good straight-forward western, sort of a natural evolution of The Great Train Robbery. The Immigrant [1917] was probably the best of the Chaplin shorts we saw, especially the first half which was set shipboard. From Hand to Mouth [1919] by Harold Lloyd was also intermittently amusing. Lloyd's films don't have the touch of obsesssiveness that Chaplin's and Keaton's do, but he does have more of an everyman quality that makes his protagonists a little more sympathetic.
So that's it for the teens for a while -- probably forever in that concentrated a dosage. I'm looking forward to the twenties quite a bit, because I'm expecting the films to be better and stranger and more ambitious, which certainly seems to be the case four films in.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/13/2017
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was our second film from 1920, and, I think, our first German feature. It was also the first feature in this project that I had actually seen before in its entirety. It is, of course, famously bizarre and unsettling, with strange sets, slanted doors and windows, odd furniture, and ostentatiously unrealistic painted backgrounds. The only feature we’ve seen that is even close to this film’s artificiality is 1918’s The Blue Bird.
The plot concerns the hero, played by Friedrich Feher, who tries to prevent a sleepwalker named Cesare (played by Conrad Veidt) from terrorizing the city, at the direction of Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss), especially after his friend (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) and girlfriend (Lil Dagover) become targets.
So much has been said and written about this film that I’m not sure I have much to add. I think it largely lives up to its reputation; the acting is sometimes overwrought, and not every eccentricity pays off, but cumulatively it does capture a strange dreamlike state. The ending still feels like a mistake to me, but Ben did not anticipate it and I could hear him puzzling it out as he started asking questions while the film wound down. He brought it up a few times subsequently too -- so I guess it still has a certain power to fresh eyes. (Though on the flip side, the kids also noticed that Dr. Caligari was wearing white gloves, and for a while were reading the title cards in a Mickey Mouse voice, until I suggested that perhaps the joke had worn out its welcome.)
Next week we’ll watch our third film from 1920: The Penalty, with Lon Chaney. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was our second film from 1920, and, I think, our first German feature. It was also the first feature in this project that I had actually seen before in its entirety. It is, of course, famously bizarre and unsettling, with strange sets, slanted doors and windows, odd furniture, and ostentatiously unrealistic painted backgrounds. The only feature we’ve seen that is even close to this film’s artificiality is 1918’s The Blue Bird.
The plot concerns the hero, played by Friedrich Feher, who tries to prevent a sleepwalker named Cesare (played by Conrad Veidt) from terrorizing the city, at the direction of Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss), especially after his friend (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) and girlfriend (Lil Dagover) become targets.
So much has been said and written about this film that I’m not sure I have much to add. I think it largely lives up to its reputation; the acting is sometimes overwrought, and not every eccentricity pays off, but cumulatively it does capture a strange dreamlike state. The ending still feels like a mistake to me, but Ben did not anticipate it and I could hear him puzzling it out as he started asking questions while the film wound down. He brought it up a few times subsequently too -- so I guess it still has a certain power to fresh eyes. (Though on the flip side, the kids also noticed that Dr. Caligari was wearing white gloves, and for a while were reading the title cards in a Mickey Mouse voice, until I suggested that perhaps the joke had worn out its welcome.)
Next week we’ll watch our third film from 1920: The Penalty, with Lon Chaney. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Speedy (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/8/2017
Speedy wasn’t strictly part of our chronological movie viewing, since it’s from 1928, and we are just now reaching the 1920s, but it was certainly complementary. I saw it with the kids and my mom at the Alamo in Winchester, with a live band playing accompaniment. The film was enjoyable, if a bit fragmented. It really had four segments -- Harold Lloyd taking his girlfriend, played by Ann Christy, to Coney Island, then trying to keep a job as a cab driver, then a big fight scene between company goons and civil war vets, and finally a chase scene with Lloyd trying to drive his girlfriend’s grandfather’s horse-drawn trolley through various obstacles in order to beat a deadline. The last two are the most directly connected to the plot, while the first two are more extraneous. The Coney Island sequence, though somewhat isolated from the rest of the film, was interesting as a bit of a time capsule. The carnival rides were similar to modern rides, but a little different in style, and generally more dangerous looking. Several weeks later we saw Tillie Wakes Up, from 1917, and saw a similar visit -- possibly to Coney Island as well -- with a lot of the same (or similar) types of rides, but the comedic bits in Speedy were more sophisticated and better written. In the second section, Babe Ruth shows up as a terrified taxicab passenger for about five minutes. I imagine his scenes were shot in a day or two, but it was interesting to see them nonetheless, since Babe Ruth is one of the few figures from the twenties who is still a household name. In the third section, the mass fighting sequence was impressive in its scale -- dozens or hundreds of people fighting with improvised weapons. The trolley chase scenes were more familiar silent-movie territory, but still inventive. I don’t know if I really laughed during the film, but it was pleasant and engaging. The real highlight was the experience of seeing it in the theater with a live band. The band was made up of local musicians who had clearly studied the film beforehand, and chosen music appropriate to the on-screen action. I’m glad there are venues are still committed to presenting silent films in something approximating the manner that they were intended to be viewed, and I'm glad it was reasonably well-attended, so that hopefully similar opportunities will pop up in the future.
Speedy wasn’t strictly part of our chronological movie viewing, since it’s from 1928, and we are just now reaching the 1920s, but it was certainly complementary. I saw it with the kids and my mom at the Alamo in Winchester, with a live band playing accompaniment. The film was enjoyable, if a bit fragmented. It really had four segments -- Harold Lloyd taking his girlfriend, played by Ann Christy, to Coney Island, then trying to keep a job as a cab driver, then a big fight scene between company goons and civil war vets, and finally a chase scene with Lloyd trying to drive his girlfriend’s grandfather’s horse-drawn trolley through various obstacles in order to beat a deadline. The last two are the most directly connected to the plot, while the first two are more extraneous. The Coney Island sequence, though somewhat isolated from the rest of the film, was interesting as a bit of a time capsule. The carnival rides were similar to modern rides, but a little different in style, and generally more dangerous looking. Several weeks later we saw Tillie Wakes Up, from 1917, and saw a similar visit -- possibly to Coney Island as well -- with a lot of the same (or similar) types of rides, but the comedic bits in Speedy were more sophisticated and better written. In the second section, Babe Ruth shows up as a terrified taxicab passenger for about five minutes. I imagine his scenes were shot in a day or two, but it was interesting to see them nonetheless, since Babe Ruth is one of the few figures from the twenties who is still a household name. In the third section, the mass fighting sequence was impressive in its scale -- dozens or hundreds of people fighting with improvised weapons. The trolley chase scenes were more familiar silent-movie territory, but still inventive. I don’t know if I really laughed during the film, but it was pleasant and engaging. The real highlight was the experience of seeing it in the theater with a live band. The band was made up of local musicians who had clearly studied the film beforehand, and chosen music appropriate to the on-screen action. I’m glad there are venues are still committed to presenting silent films in something approximating the manner that they were intended to be viewed, and I'm glad it was reasonably well-attended, so that hopefully similar opportunities will pop up in the future.
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