Originally posted to Facebook on 1/8/2018
Ben-Hur was our fourth film from 1925. It was directed by Fred Niblo, and is the second film we've seen starring Ramon Novarro. We'd previously seen a short version from 1907, and Ben and I saw the 2016 version when it was in the theaters, so we were somewhat familiar with the plot.
The story revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Novarro), a Jewish resident of Jerusalem, who comes into conflict with his childhood friend, the Roman Messala (played by Francis X. Bushman) and ends up separated from his family as a slave on a Roman galley, trying to recover what he's lost and reunite with his family. In the 2016 version a significant amount of time was spent detailing the deteriorating relationship between Ben-Hur and Messala -- and indeed this was probably the most interesting part of that movie. In the 1925 movie that is all telescoped -- Messala is, from the start, a much more straightforward antagonist. The key sequences of this film (and the 2016 version as well) are the battle at sea, and the chariot race. Both were groundbreaking at the time, and still hold up as well as you would expect in a big-budget film of this kind -- and, consistent with the reputation for the general disregard for safety in silent films, both were rumored to have resulted in the deaths of stuntmen or extras.
Another element that would have captured the attention of contemporary audiences was the Technicolor sequences -- something I became aware of only in preparation for this viewing. I didn't tell the kids ahead of time, and they were suitably impressed ("How did they do that?" asked Alli) -- though it's questionable whether these sequences really add anything beyond spectacle to the movie. However that is in keeping with the spirit of the film, which too was largely spectacle, and it was certainly something we hadn't seen before during this project. We'd previously seen hand-colored movies from the early days of cinema, but this was the first film for us with color captured during filming -- in this case using two-strip Technicolor, which didn't register the full spectrum, but for a specific palette was bright and dramatic.
These color sequences were mainly used for the religious segments of the film (though a few other random sequences were in color as well), presumably to imbue those segments with an added significance, which was in tune with the film's general approach towards Christianity. The subtitle of the film (and the book) is A Tale of the Christ, and the filmmakers clearly intend the film to revolve around Ben-Hur's spiritual awakening, but from a purely storytelling perspective, many of the religious sequences seem extraneous, especially the recapitulation of biblical stories which don't involve Ben-Hur directly. Additionally, the decision was made to not show Jesus Christ directly, often only showing his hand reaching in from off-screen. I imagine this was done in order to be respectful, but it ends up reading as a bit odd, as if Jesus Christ is being played by Thing from the Addams family. It is also a different approach than had been used in previous movies, including, for example, 1916's Intolerance which we'd watched a year earlier, and which had an on-screen actor playing Jesus, including in the biblical 'cast the first stone' scene which is in both films.
But this film does succeed as a strong example of a big-budget action-focused blockbuster, perhaps the truest embodiment of that category that we have yet seen. Novarro carries the film quite capably, as he did in 1923's Scaramouche. I preferred that earlier film, because it filled out its characters better, and was a little more thoughtful, but Ben-Hur is on a larger scale and is much more of an epic, recalling some of the similar large-scale films we'd seen from a decade earlier (e.g. Cabiria, Intolerance, Last Days of Pompeii, etc.)
Our next film is Lazybones, our fifth film from 1925, and the first time we'll see Frank Borzage as director. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
The Gold Rush (1925)
Originally posted to Facebook on 12/24/2017
The Gold Rush was our third film from 1925, and our fourth feature starring Charlie Chaplin -- the third which he directed. By this time Chaplin was deep into auteur mode, obsessively re-shooting scenes and pouring enormous resources into something that by design was going to be received as essentially light-hearted. This of course is not unique to Chaplin -- the same is true of the Marvel movies and many other films -- but it does sometimes intrude on the viewing experience when you realize that a joke which barely registers was the result of weeks of shooting and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although, given the amount of care that was given to the film, it is a little surprising that the plot is as ramshackle as it is -- being basically an excuse for a series of set pieces. It involves a search for gold, a romance, and a story about surviving the elements -- but they are awkwardly integrated, and the romance -- if it even rises to that level -- seems particularly perfunctory. (Chaplin re-edited and re-released this film in 1942 -- and perhaps tightened things -- but in the spirit of this project, we watched the 1925 version.)
I think, too, that The Gold Rush is a victim of its own fame. Many of the bits have become so well-known and endlessly copied that it is difficult to see them fresh. It is impossible that Chaplin eating a shoe, or turning into a giant chicken in the eyes of his cabin-mate, or pantomiming dancing dinner rolls, would register in the same way as it did to an audience in 1925. One thing that I did learn on seeing this film for the first time, though, is that the dancing dinner rolls sequence literally occurs because Chaplin's character explicitly announces that he is now going to do a funny bit involving dinner rolls -- and in a dream sequence at that. This brazen approach seems worth copying; there's no need to invest in lengthy set-ups if a character can just announce, "Now here's a funny bit!"
The foregoing notwithstanding, I enjoyed the film -- and perhaps would have enjoyed it more if I'd seen it outside the context of its status as a classic. Alli remarked that a scene where the female lead, Georgia Hale, and her friends stood Chaplin up for dinner made her feel sad -- so I guess Chaplin's pathos still has some power, as manipulative as it can be. (Georgia Hale, BTW -- whose character's name is "Georgia" in this film, possibly for the same reason that Tony Danza's characters were often named Tony -- had a very short career, but, in addition to this film, also had a significant role in one of the missing silent-era films that I most hope is rediscovered: 1926's The Great Gatsby.)
Next week we see Ben Hur, our fourth film from 1925, and our second film starring Ramon Novarro. It is also the second time in this project we've seen an adaptation of this story, the first being a short from 1907. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Gold Rush was our third film from 1925, and our fourth feature starring Charlie Chaplin -- the third which he directed. By this time Chaplin was deep into auteur mode, obsessively re-shooting scenes and pouring enormous resources into something that by design was going to be received as essentially light-hearted. This of course is not unique to Chaplin -- the same is true of the Marvel movies and many other films -- but it does sometimes intrude on the viewing experience when you realize that a joke which barely registers was the result of weeks of shooting and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although, given the amount of care that was given to the film, it is a little surprising that the plot is as ramshackle as it is -- being basically an excuse for a series of set pieces. It involves a search for gold, a romance, and a story about surviving the elements -- but they are awkwardly integrated, and the romance -- if it even rises to that level -- seems particularly perfunctory. (Chaplin re-edited and re-released this film in 1942 -- and perhaps tightened things -- but in the spirit of this project, we watched the 1925 version.)
I think, too, that The Gold Rush is a victim of its own fame. Many of the bits have become so well-known and endlessly copied that it is difficult to see them fresh. It is impossible that Chaplin eating a shoe, or turning into a giant chicken in the eyes of his cabin-mate, or pantomiming dancing dinner rolls, would register in the same way as it did to an audience in 1925. One thing that I did learn on seeing this film for the first time, though, is that the dancing dinner rolls sequence literally occurs because Chaplin's character explicitly announces that he is now going to do a funny bit involving dinner rolls -- and in a dream sequence at that. This brazen approach seems worth copying; there's no need to invest in lengthy set-ups if a character can just announce, "Now here's a funny bit!"
The foregoing notwithstanding, I enjoyed the film -- and perhaps would have enjoyed it more if I'd seen it outside the context of its status as a classic. Alli remarked that a scene where the female lead, Georgia Hale, and her friends stood Chaplin up for dinner made her feel sad -- so I guess Chaplin's pathos still has some power, as manipulative as it can be. (Georgia Hale, BTW -- whose character's name is "Georgia" in this film, possibly for the same reason that Tony Danza's characters were often named Tony -- had a very short career, but, in addition to this film, also had a significant role in one of the missing silent-era films that I most hope is rediscovered: 1926's The Great Gatsby.)
Next week we see Ben Hur, our fourth film from 1925, and our second film starring Ramon Novarro. It is also the second time in this project we've seen an adaptation of this story, the first being a short from 1907. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Big Parade (1925)
Originally posted to Facebook on 12/17/2017
The Big Parade was our second film from 1925, and the first time we have seen John Gilbert in a leading role. We'd seen him once before in a smaller part, behind Lon Chaney in He Who Gets Slapped (which just last week was added to the National Film Registry.) This is also the first film we've seen directed by King Vidor, who continued working up through the late fifties, and was nominated for five directing Oscars along the way.
This film follows a somewhat familiar arc as John Gilbert is introduced as a less-than-serious young man, and becomes battle-hardened and cynical as a result of his experiences during World War 1. Between the early scenes of him as a civilian and the later battle scenes, his character is stationed in a French village, where the main focus is the growing relationship between him and the female lead, played by Renée Adorée (who, like Gilbert, would be dead before the next decade was out.) This section, I think, is the most flawed portion of the film. It is not just that the film is not terribly convincing in portraying Gilbert and Adorée falling in love, but also that an hour is spent in the attempt. This delays the most effective portion of the film -- the depiction of the war -- which includes a tension-filled sequence during which Gilbert and the other soldiers slowly march through a forest filled with snipers whittling down their outfit, one by one. Following that there are also the series of trench warfare scenes that one would expect in a WW1 film. I strongly suspect that these latter scenes influenced 1930's All's Quiet on the Western Front, which has a similar kind of intensity. That film, though, depicted a lengthy campaign which helped to communicate how the attrition and constant state of fear weighed upon soldiers, whereas The Big Parade shows Gilbert's growth and alienation in a much more compacted time-frame. Also, unlike the later film, The Big Parade is less conspicuously anti-war, focusing much more on Gilbert's specific story.
This is the first true war film that we've seen (excepting Chaplin's Shoulder Arms), and the first to attempt to depict combat with any degree of verisimilitude, which made it a worthwhile viewing despite its other flaws. It is probably at least partially a result of the particular films that we've selected, but it does seem that Hollywood was a little slow to fully engage with WW1, which is a big contrast with, for instance, the approach during WW2 a couple of decades later.
Next week we move on to our third film from 1925, Chaplin's The Gold Rush -- the fourth feature of his we'll see. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Big Parade was our second film from 1925, and the first time we have seen John Gilbert in a leading role. We'd seen him once before in a smaller part, behind Lon Chaney in He Who Gets Slapped (which just last week was added to the National Film Registry.) This is also the first film we've seen directed by King Vidor, who continued working up through the late fifties, and was nominated for five directing Oscars along the way.
This film follows a somewhat familiar arc as John Gilbert is introduced as a less-than-serious young man, and becomes battle-hardened and cynical as a result of his experiences during World War 1. Between the early scenes of him as a civilian and the later battle scenes, his character is stationed in a French village, where the main focus is the growing relationship between him and the female lead, played by Renée Adorée (who, like Gilbert, would be dead before the next decade was out.) This section, I think, is the most flawed portion of the film. It is not just that the film is not terribly convincing in portraying Gilbert and Adorée falling in love, but also that an hour is spent in the attempt. This delays the most effective portion of the film -- the depiction of the war -- which includes a tension-filled sequence during which Gilbert and the other soldiers slowly march through a forest filled with snipers whittling down their outfit, one by one. Following that there are also the series of trench warfare scenes that one would expect in a WW1 film. I strongly suspect that these latter scenes influenced 1930's All's Quiet on the Western Front, which has a similar kind of intensity. That film, though, depicted a lengthy campaign which helped to communicate how the attrition and constant state of fear weighed upon soldiers, whereas The Big Parade shows Gilbert's growth and alienation in a much more compacted time-frame. Also, unlike the later film, The Big Parade is less conspicuously anti-war, focusing much more on Gilbert's specific story.
This is the first true war film that we've seen (excepting Chaplin's Shoulder Arms), and the first to attempt to depict combat with any degree of verisimilitude, which made it a worthwhile viewing despite its other flaws. It is probably at least partially a result of the particular films that we've selected, but it does seem that Hollywood was a little slow to fully engage with WW1, which is a big contrast with, for instance, the approach during WW2 a couple of decades later.
Next week we move on to our third film from 1925, Chaplin's The Gold Rush -- the fourth feature of his we'll see. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Metropolis (1927)
Originally posted to Facebook on 12/12/2017
We skipped ahead with this film, seeing 1927's Metropolis a week after seeing our first film from 1925, because it happened to be showing on the big screen at the Alamo. Unlike the only previous silent film we'd seen in a theater (1928's Speedy), there was no live band, only a pre-recorded score.
Like last week's Battleship Potemkin, this film had been on my radar to see for half-a-lifetime -- and in this case it appears that it was actually a lucky thing that I held off, because, due to successive discoveries of old prints, only in the last decade has it been available in anything near its originally released length of two and a half hours.
I should say at the outset that it is immediately obvious why this is considered a classic. All four of the previous Lang / Harbou films we've seen have been innovative and imaginative in some fashion, but this one most strongly combines ambition and focus.
The plot pits those who dwell above ground against a working class living below ground. It seems as though some aspects of this might have been inspired by Wells' Time Machine, though the analogy is not exact. The protagonist, played by Gustav Fröhlich, is the city leader's son, and during the movie he gradually comes to understand the foundation of his and his father's position. Without giving away too much, he encounters a saintly spiritual leader of the underground workers, played by Brigitte Helm, an insane scientist played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and an evil robot that Klein-Rogge creates, which is given Helm's appearance.
I think I've used the phrase feverish to describe a number of silent films -- and I think that is indeed one of the few advantages the best silent films have over their sound counterparts -- the focused emotional intensity that can sometimes be invoked by music and images uninterrupted by dialog. In Metropolis that is played out in a literal fever dream that Fröhlich has midway through the film, which mixes a montage of actual plot events with fantastical images, including statues of the seven deadly sins coming to life. After this sequence, I whispered to Alli, "Now the crazy part begins." She laughed (or pretended to), but it is a testament to the film that there were indeed impressive and iconic set pieces yet to come.
One could nitpick individual scenes and choices, but there are only two things that I think are worth singling out. First, the tentative and muddled politics. The main thematic driver of the film is the separation between the working and managerial classes, which would, one would think, tilt it towards a Marxist viewpoint. But, if so, it lacks the courage of its convictions, and is as unlikely to please Marxists as capitalists, because, while it singles out class struggle as the city's key flaw, it suggests no need for any great structural changes -- but instead that there be -- somehow -- a bond of affection between the two classes. I would have preferred either less overt politics or politics I oppose rather than this kind of weak tea. The second flaw, is, I think, in the male lead. Fröhlich is not actively bad, but is a little muted and not quite charismatic enough to carry the film, and suffers by comparison to Helm and Klein-Rogge. We have of course seen Klein-Rogge's charisma in several films now, and Helm -- while she occasionally overplays the counterpoint between her dual roles -- is at least always interesting.
Next week we return to 1925, our second film from that year being The Big Parade, the WWI drama starring John Gilbert. The link, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
We skipped ahead with this film, seeing 1927's Metropolis a week after seeing our first film from 1925, because it happened to be showing on the big screen at the Alamo. Unlike the only previous silent film we'd seen in a theater (1928's Speedy), there was no live band, only a pre-recorded score.
Like last week's Battleship Potemkin, this film had been on my radar to see for half-a-lifetime -- and in this case it appears that it was actually a lucky thing that I held off, because, due to successive discoveries of old prints, only in the last decade has it been available in anything near its originally released length of two and a half hours.
I should say at the outset that it is immediately obvious why this is considered a classic. All four of the previous Lang / Harbou films we've seen have been innovative and imaginative in some fashion, but this one most strongly combines ambition and focus.
The plot pits those who dwell above ground against a working class living below ground. It seems as though some aspects of this might have been inspired by Wells' Time Machine, though the analogy is not exact. The protagonist, played by Gustav Fröhlich, is the city leader's son, and during the movie he gradually comes to understand the foundation of his and his father's position. Without giving away too much, he encounters a saintly spiritual leader of the underground workers, played by Brigitte Helm, an insane scientist played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and an evil robot that Klein-Rogge creates, which is given Helm's appearance.
I think I've used the phrase feverish to describe a number of silent films -- and I think that is indeed one of the few advantages the best silent films have over their sound counterparts -- the focused emotional intensity that can sometimes be invoked by music and images uninterrupted by dialog. In Metropolis that is played out in a literal fever dream that Fröhlich has midway through the film, which mixes a montage of actual plot events with fantastical images, including statues of the seven deadly sins coming to life. After this sequence, I whispered to Alli, "Now the crazy part begins." She laughed (or pretended to), but it is a testament to the film that there were indeed impressive and iconic set pieces yet to come.
One could nitpick individual scenes and choices, but there are only two things that I think are worth singling out. First, the tentative and muddled politics. The main thematic driver of the film is the separation between the working and managerial classes, which would, one would think, tilt it towards a Marxist viewpoint. But, if so, it lacks the courage of its convictions, and is as unlikely to please Marxists as capitalists, because, while it singles out class struggle as the city's key flaw, it suggests no need for any great structural changes -- but instead that there be -- somehow -- a bond of affection between the two classes. I would have preferred either less overt politics or politics I oppose rather than this kind of weak tea. The second flaw, is, I think, in the male lead. Fröhlich is not actively bad, but is a little muted and not quite charismatic enough to carry the film, and suffers by comparison to Helm and Klein-Rogge. We have of course seen Klein-Rogge's charisma in several films now, and Helm -- while she occasionally overplays the counterpoint between her dual roles -- is at least always interesting.
Next week we return to 1925, our second film from that year being The Big Parade, the WWI drama starring John Gilbert. The link, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Monday, February 18, 2019
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Originally posted to Facebook on 11/16/2017
Our first film from 1925 was the iconic Soviet silent film Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein. This is certainly one of those silent films that comes right off of a film-school syllabus, and it's been on my list to see for a long time -- probably since The Untouchables was in the theaters and I read in reviews about the origin of the baby carriage scene. The movie takes place during the failed revolution of 1905, and obviously is intended to link that revolution to the successful revolution of 1917, and propagandistically valorize the failed revolutionaries.
The film has three main sections -- starting with mounting dissatisfaction onboard ship and an eventual mutiny. Then the growing movement sparked by this mutiny and the subsequent crackdown on the Odessa steps, and lastly a showdown at sea. The characterization of most of the characters is very thin -- deliberately so -- but despite this being a clear choice, it does serve to distance one from the action -- and it is never really clear how poor conditions on-board ship are linked to a greater civilian movement. As the first section began to drag a bit, I began to wonder if this wasn't perhaps one of those classics that had aged poorly -- but the entire Odessa Steps sequence made it clear why this film has entered the canon. The scenes of the Russian military wading into civilian protesters without regard for casualties is not only dramatic (and sadly resonant with any number of similar instances that have played out on television over the last few decades), but also dramatically and innovatively shot. The third sequence returns to the medium-energy of the first section, and, as a result, is rather anti-climactic. I think in the end the lack of actual characters, and the enormous differences in tension and energy between the middle part of the film and the surrounding sections, make this a very flawed film -- certainly from an entertainment perspective -- and the politics of it are of course coming from a very dark place. But the middle section alone more than justifies a watch.
Next week, we skip ahead briefly to 1927 before returning to our second film from 1925. Our first film from 1927 is Metropolis, which we viewed slightly out of order because it happened to be playing on the big screen at the Alamo. Metropolis is of course another iconic film, and the fifth Fritz Lang film that we've seen, featuring a few of his regulars. The link, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Our first film from 1925 was the iconic Soviet silent film Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein. This is certainly one of those silent films that comes right off of a film-school syllabus, and it's been on my list to see for a long time -- probably since The Untouchables was in the theaters and I read in reviews about the origin of the baby carriage scene. The movie takes place during the failed revolution of 1905, and obviously is intended to link that revolution to the successful revolution of 1917, and propagandistically valorize the failed revolutionaries.
The film has three main sections -- starting with mounting dissatisfaction onboard ship and an eventual mutiny. Then the growing movement sparked by this mutiny and the subsequent crackdown on the Odessa steps, and lastly a showdown at sea. The characterization of most of the characters is very thin -- deliberately so -- but despite this being a clear choice, it does serve to distance one from the action -- and it is never really clear how poor conditions on-board ship are linked to a greater civilian movement. As the first section began to drag a bit, I began to wonder if this wasn't perhaps one of those classics that had aged poorly -- but the entire Odessa Steps sequence made it clear why this film has entered the canon. The scenes of the Russian military wading into civilian protesters without regard for casualties is not only dramatic (and sadly resonant with any number of similar instances that have played out on television over the last few decades), but also dramatically and innovatively shot. The third sequence returns to the medium-energy of the first section, and, as a result, is rather anti-climactic. I think in the end the lack of actual characters, and the enormous differences in tension and energy between the middle part of the film and the surrounding sections, make this a very flawed film -- certainly from an entertainment perspective -- and the politics of it are of course coming from a very dark place. But the middle section alone more than justifies a watch.
Next week, we skip ahead briefly to 1927 before returning to our second film from 1925. Our first film from 1927 is Metropolis, which we viewed slightly out of order because it happened to be playing on the big screen at the Alamo. Metropolis is of course another iconic film, and the fifth Fritz Lang film that we've seen, featuring a few of his regulars. The link, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/24/2017
Our fifth and final film from 1924 was He Who Gets Slapped, our second film starring Lon Chaney, and our fifth directed by Victor Sjöström, who had relocated to Hollywood since 1921's The Phantom Carriage. This is also the first film in which we've seen John Gilbert or Norma Shearer.
The premise of the film is that Chaney is a scientist, and his patron, Baron Regnard, conspires with Chaney's wife to take credit for his work, publicly slapping him when he confronts the Baron. Chaney then returns home, where his wife reveals her part in the plot, and slaps him as well. The film then jumps forward, and in the intervening time Chaney has become a circus clown, where he has developed a starring act in which he gets slapped repeatedly by other clowns to mass acclaim -- a bizarre development not just because of its fetishistic aspect, but also because of the vertiginous mid-career shift between research scientist and circus clown.
John Gilbert and Norma Shearer are stunt riders, apparently one of the rare non-clown positions in this particular circus. There is a slight love triangle, in that Chaney is in love with Shearer, but he recognizes that she loves Gilbert, who is closer to her in age, and, crucially, isn't a clown with severe and masochistic psychological problems. When the Baron reappears, however, and begins to pursue Shearer, it provokes in Chaney both a protective instinct, and also a desire for revenge. This revenge motive recalls the previous film in which we saw Lon Chaney, 1920's The Penalty, as does his acting style, which is forceful and charismatic in both films, though not exactly naturalistic in either (an approach that would have been difficult in full clown make-up in any case.)
And it is this performance that, I think, makes this more of a Lon Chaney film than a Victor Sjöström film. Sjöström's assured hand is still visible, but the over-the-top luridness feels much more like The Penalty than any of Sjöström's earlier films.
Next week we being 1925 with our first Russian film, a film I've been intending to watch since I saw The Untouchables more than a quarter-century ago: Battleship Potemkin. Additionally, since we are starting 1925, I've added our planned films for 1926. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Our fifth and final film from 1924 was He Who Gets Slapped, our second film starring Lon Chaney, and our fifth directed by Victor Sjöström, who had relocated to Hollywood since 1921's The Phantom Carriage. This is also the first film in which we've seen John Gilbert or Norma Shearer.
The premise of the film is that Chaney is a scientist, and his patron, Baron Regnard, conspires with Chaney's wife to take credit for his work, publicly slapping him when he confronts the Baron. Chaney then returns home, where his wife reveals her part in the plot, and slaps him as well. The film then jumps forward, and in the intervening time Chaney has become a circus clown, where he has developed a starring act in which he gets slapped repeatedly by other clowns to mass acclaim -- a bizarre development not just because of its fetishistic aspect, but also because of the vertiginous mid-career shift between research scientist and circus clown.
John Gilbert and Norma Shearer are stunt riders, apparently one of the rare non-clown positions in this particular circus. There is a slight love triangle, in that Chaney is in love with Shearer, but he recognizes that she loves Gilbert, who is closer to her in age, and, crucially, isn't a clown with severe and masochistic psychological problems. When the Baron reappears, however, and begins to pursue Shearer, it provokes in Chaney both a protective instinct, and also a desire for revenge. This revenge motive recalls the previous film in which we saw Lon Chaney, 1920's The Penalty, as does his acting style, which is forceful and charismatic in both films, though not exactly naturalistic in either (an approach that would have been difficult in full clown make-up in any case.)
And it is this performance that, I think, makes this more of a Lon Chaney film than a Victor Sjöström film. Sjöström's assured hand is still visible, but the over-the-top luridness feels much more like The Penalty than any of Sjöström's earlier films.
Next week we being 1925 with our first Russian film, a film I've been intending to watch since I saw The Untouchables more than a quarter-century ago: Battleship Potemkin. Additionally, since we are starting 1925, I've added our planned films for 1926. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/16/2017
As mentioned last week, our sixth and final film from 1922 arrived late, after we'd watched all of our other films from 1922 and 1923 and most of 1924. The reason for the late arrival was that the film, while not lost like so many other silent films, was not readily available streaming or via DVD, and the version we received was as a result of a Kickstarter project by Ben Model, funded by ~300 contributors, including me.
When Knighthood Was in Flower was similar in some ways to 1922's Robin Hood and also to 1923's Scaramouche, in that it was a big-budget historical entertainment, setting personal stories against the backdrop of some approximation of real events. It is probably a little more concerned with the historical side of things than Robin Hood, but not so much as Scaramouche, which seemed genuinely if fitfully interested in the events of the French Revolution.
Marion Davies stars as the sister of Henry VIII, played by Lyn Harding -- already portraying him as the overweight, capricious, man of appetites that is now, and may have been then, the standard depiction. Davies is set to be married off to the King of France, but falls in love with a captain of the royal guard, played by Forrest Stanley, who is well below her class. This and subsequent events are surprisingly not that far from the actual historical truth (based on my typically cursory Wikipedia research), but they are played very much in the vein of a romance, and the plot could easily have been transplanted a hundred years earlier or later. Marion Davies is charming and charismatic, and mostly eclipses her costars, though apparently Stanley, Davies, and the director (Robert G. Vignola) were a recurring trio at around this time, and collaborated on several movies.
Next week, we return to 1924 to see our fifth and final film from that year: He Who Gets Slapped. This will be the second film we've seen starring Lon Chaney, and the fifth directed by Victor Sjöström -- but the first after his move to Hollywood. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
As mentioned last week, our sixth and final film from 1922 arrived late, after we'd watched all of our other films from 1922 and 1923 and most of 1924. The reason for the late arrival was that the film, while not lost like so many other silent films, was not readily available streaming or via DVD, and the version we received was as a result of a Kickstarter project by Ben Model, funded by ~300 contributors, including me.
When Knighthood Was in Flower was similar in some ways to 1922's Robin Hood and also to 1923's Scaramouche, in that it was a big-budget historical entertainment, setting personal stories against the backdrop of some approximation of real events. It is probably a little more concerned with the historical side of things than Robin Hood, but not so much as Scaramouche, which seemed genuinely if fitfully interested in the events of the French Revolution.
Marion Davies stars as the sister of Henry VIII, played by Lyn Harding -- already portraying him as the overweight, capricious, man of appetites that is now, and may have been then, the standard depiction. Davies is set to be married off to the King of France, but falls in love with a captain of the royal guard, played by Forrest Stanley, who is well below her class. This and subsequent events are surprisingly not that far from the actual historical truth (based on my typically cursory Wikipedia research), but they are played very much in the vein of a romance, and the plot could easily have been transplanted a hundred years earlier or later. Marion Davies is charming and charismatic, and mostly eclipses her costars, though apparently Stanley, Davies, and the director (Robert G. Vignola) were a recurring trio at around this time, and collaborated on several movies.
Next week, we return to 1924 to see our fifth and final film from that year: He Who Gets Slapped. This will be the second film we've seen starring Lon Chaney, and the fifth directed by Victor Sjöström -- but the first after his move to Hollywood. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (1924)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/5/2017
Our fourth film from 1924 was Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge, the follow-up to Siegfried, again directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou. It takes place shortly after the previous movie, and stars Margarete Schön as Kriemhild. Most of the other cast also carries over from the previous movie, including Theodor Loos as her brother King Gunther, and Hans Adalbert Schlettow as his advisor Hagen Tronje. One addition to the cast is Attila the Hun, played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who also played the title character in Dr. Mabuse. Early in the film Kriemhild agrees to marry Attila, with the intent of using him to seek her revenge. Once in his kingdom, she conspires to invite her brother and his retinue to visit. The conflict escalates once they arrive, and Gunther and Hagen Tronje are eventually besieged, surrounded in a dining hall by Attila's army. This film is much more focused and intense than the previous film -- there are no dragons or subterranean treasure hordes -- and, I think, it is better for that single-mindedness. Schön does not give a particularly varied performance, but she is a strong and forceful presence, unlike the previous film where she largely played a more supporting role to Siegried. It must be said too, that, unlike the previous film, in which Siegfried was represented as more or less heroic, in this film Kriemhild is depicted as obsessed and borderline unbalanced; she is clearly the protagonist, but she is not shown entirely sympathetically.
The movie does, though, have some of the same questionable markers of German nationalism as the previous film. The Huns, for instance, are portrayed as essentially subhuman, which is probably the film's deepest flaw. Klein-Rogge, in fact, wears so much make-up for his depiction of Attila that I did not recognize him until I looked the movie up later on IMDB.
For our next film we return to 1922, for our sixth and final film from that year: When Knighthood was in Flower, our first film starring Marion Davies. We watched this one out of order because it was recently restored using a kickstarter campaign, and did not arrive until we had finished all of the other 1922 films (and the 1923 films as well.) The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT.
Our fourth film from 1924 was Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge, the follow-up to Siegfried, again directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou. It takes place shortly after the previous movie, and stars Margarete Schön as Kriemhild. Most of the other cast also carries over from the previous movie, including Theodor Loos as her brother King Gunther, and Hans Adalbert Schlettow as his advisor Hagen Tronje. One addition to the cast is Attila the Hun, played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who also played the title character in Dr. Mabuse. Early in the film Kriemhild agrees to marry Attila, with the intent of using him to seek her revenge. Once in his kingdom, she conspires to invite her brother and his retinue to visit. The conflict escalates once they arrive, and Gunther and Hagen Tronje are eventually besieged, surrounded in a dining hall by Attila's army. This film is much more focused and intense than the previous film -- there are no dragons or subterranean treasure hordes -- and, I think, it is better for that single-mindedness. Schön does not give a particularly varied performance, but she is a strong and forceful presence, unlike the previous film where she largely played a more supporting role to Siegried. It must be said too, that, unlike the previous film, in which Siegfried was represented as more or less heroic, in this film Kriemhild is depicted as obsessed and borderline unbalanced; she is clearly the protagonist, but she is not shown entirely sympathetically.
The movie does, though, have some of the same questionable markers of German nationalism as the previous film. The Huns, for instance, are portrayed as essentially subhuman, which is probably the film's deepest flaw. Klein-Rogge, in fact, wears so much make-up for his depiction of Attila that I did not recognize him until I looked the movie up later on IMDB.
For our next film we return to 1922, for our sixth and final film from that year: When Knighthood was in Flower, our first film starring Marion Davies. We watched this one out of order because it was recently restored using a kickstarter campaign, and did not arrive until we had finished all of the other 1922 films (and the 1923 films as well.) The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT.
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924)
Originally posted to Facebook on 9/26/2017
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried was our third film from 1924, and also our third directed by Fritz Lang, written, like his previous films, by his wife Thea von Harbou. We've watched a fair number of German films from the 1920s over the last year, and I think it is not simply a post-hoc observation that their intense and often fantastical tenor reflects to some extent the turmoil in post-war Germany. Still, it is hard to know what to make of the fact that this particular film was a favorite of Hitler's, especially since there are elements of the film where one can understand why that might be the case. Its hero, for instance, physically resembles the Nazi ideal, and the film has a strong strain of German nationalism, and even opens with a title card reading "Dedicated to the German People."
But whatever baggage this film carries, it is the first time in this project that we've seen this kind of high fantasy. It could not be more different than the previous film we saw directed by Lang, 1922's Dr. Mabuse. That film was "modern" and cynical; Siegfried is mythological and largely sincere. Siegfried himself, the protagonist, is played by Paul Richter, who also had a prominent part in Dr. Mabuse. Within the first thirty minutes he slays a dragon, and discovers a strange dwarf-like race who possess a magical treasure hoard. The dragon is especially noteworthy; it is essentially a large puppet -- Henson-ish, but less whimsical. It of course pales beside modern digital effects, but is unlike anything we've seen previously. It noticeably does not move much from its initial location, but otherwise stretches its neck and tail, and bends down to drink. Siegfried attacks it with surprisingly little provocation -- though perhaps dragons were universally recognized as a public health risk. After killing the dragon, and having a few other adventures, Siegfried eventually ends up at the court of King Gunther, where he petitions the king for the hand of his sister, Kriemhild, played by Margarete Schön. Gunther agrees, but only -- in true fantasy RPG fashion -- if Siegfried will help Gunther with another task.
There were a few things that marred the film for me. One of the more prominent was that Siegfried himself is not particularly sympathetic -- he mocks his followers, and threatens people's lives for trivial reasons. Near the end he becomes sympathetic by default as several characters conspire to betray him, at which point Kriemhild, now his wife, endangers his life on at least two occasions by making implausibly stupid mistakes. Given that the second film in the series is entitled Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge, it is probably not a spoiler to reveal that things do not go well for Siegfried as a result.
Next week we will see that second film, marking our fourth film from 1924. This list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried was our third film from 1924, and also our third directed by Fritz Lang, written, like his previous films, by his wife Thea von Harbou. We've watched a fair number of German films from the 1920s over the last year, and I think it is not simply a post-hoc observation that their intense and often fantastical tenor reflects to some extent the turmoil in post-war Germany. Still, it is hard to know what to make of the fact that this particular film was a favorite of Hitler's, especially since there are elements of the film where one can understand why that might be the case. Its hero, for instance, physically resembles the Nazi ideal, and the film has a strong strain of German nationalism, and even opens with a title card reading "Dedicated to the German People."
But whatever baggage this film carries, it is the first time in this project that we've seen this kind of high fantasy. It could not be more different than the previous film we saw directed by Lang, 1922's Dr. Mabuse. That film was "modern" and cynical; Siegfried is mythological and largely sincere. Siegfried himself, the protagonist, is played by Paul Richter, who also had a prominent part in Dr. Mabuse. Within the first thirty minutes he slays a dragon, and discovers a strange dwarf-like race who possess a magical treasure hoard. The dragon is especially noteworthy; it is essentially a large puppet -- Henson-ish, but less whimsical. It of course pales beside modern digital effects, but is unlike anything we've seen previously. It noticeably does not move much from its initial location, but otherwise stretches its neck and tail, and bends down to drink. Siegfried attacks it with surprisingly little provocation -- though perhaps dragons were universally recognized as a public health risk. After killing the dragon, and having a few other adventures, Siegfried eventually ends up at the court of King Gunther, where he petitions the king for the hand of his sister, Kriemhild, played by Margarete Schön. Gunther agrees, but only -- in true fantasy RPG fashion -- if Siegfried will help Gunther with another task.
There were a few things that marred the film for me. One of the more prominent was that Siegfried himself is not particularly sympathetic -- he mocks his followers, and threatens people's lives for trivial reasons. Near the end he becomes sympathetic by default as several characters conspire to betray him, at which point Kriemhild, now his wife, endangers his life on at least two occasions by making implausibly stupid mistakes. Given that the second film in the series is entitled Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge, it is probably not a spoiler to reveal that things do not go well for Siegfried as a result.
Next week we will see that second film, marking our fourth film from 1924. This list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Girl Shy (1924)
Originally posted to Facebook on 9/17/2017
Girl Shy was our second feature from 1924, and second starring Harold Lloyd (not counting 1928's Speedy, which we saw separately.) He plays a young man from a small town who has virtually no experience with women, but who is nonetheless writing a book called "The Secret of Making Love." In it he details his methods of romancing various types of women. Two in particular are dramatized: The vampire (for whom acting indifferently is the strategy), and the flapper (for whom the strategy is to be a "Cave Man.") It was a little amusing that, even this far back, this kind of pick-up artist advice was already part of the culture enough to be a target for parody. Lloyd, though, delivers his book to a publisher, where it is roundly mocked by the various readers. One woman references 1921's The Sheik, which we saw earlier this year, exclaiming, "I'd love to meet the sheik who wrote that stuff." While in the big city Lloyd meets and becomes involved with the female lead, played by Jobyna Ralston, but, later, when he feels that he won't be able to provide for her, he lies to her and tells her that he was never really interested in her. (This kind of romantic-comedy behavior always seems like sort of a strange staple to me; a good chunk of 1923's Safety Last -- the last Harold Lloyd film we saw -- also involves him lying to his girlfriend as a result of his financial situation.) In any case, she ends up getting engaged to someone else, and the last section of the film is a long chase scene where Lloyd uses a variety of different modes of transportation to travel into the city and attempt to stop the wedding. This parallels Safety Last as well, in that the climax of the movie is most characteristic of the received image that people have of silent comedy.
All in all this is a good-to-decent comedy, but it probably ranks third for me in comparison to the other two Lloyd films we've seen, just because the plot and the comedy are both a bit thin, excepting the final sequence. However, it is true that the story in this film is more cohesive and less episodic than in either of the other two Lloyd films we've seen.
Next week we see our third film from 1924, entitled Die Nibelungen: Siegfried. This is the first of a two film sequence, which together will be the third and fourth films we've seen directed by Fritz Lang. The list as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Girl Shy was our second feature from 1924, and second starring Harold Lloyd (not counting 1928's Speedy, which we saw separately.) He plays a young man from a small town who has virtually no experience with women, but who is nonetheless writing a book called "The Secret of Making Love." In it he details his methods of romancing various types of women. Two in particular are dramatized: The vampire (for whom acting indifferently is the strategy), and the flapper (for whom the strategy is to be a "Cave Man.") It was a little amusing that, even this far back, this kind of pick-up artist advice was already part of the culture enough to be a target for parody. Lloyd, though, delivers his book to a publisher, where it is roundly mocked by the various readers. One woman references 1921's The Sheik, which we saw earlier this year, exclaiming, "I'd love to meet the sheik who wrote that stuff." While in the big city Lloyd meets and becomes involved with the female lead, played by Jobyna Ralston, but, later, when he feels that he won't be able to provide for her, he lies to her and tells her that he was never really interested in her. (This kind of romantic-comedy behavior always seems like sort of a strange staple to me; a good chunk of 1923's Safety Last -- the last Harold Lloyd film we saw -- also involves him lying to his girlfriend as a result of his financial situation.) In any case, she ends up getting engaged to someone else, and the last section of the film is a long chase scene where Lloyd uses a variety of different modes of transportation to travel into the city and attempt to stop the wedding. This parallels Safety Last as well, in that the climax of the movie is most characteristic of the received image that people have of silent comedy.
All in all this is a good-to-decent comedy, but it probably ranks third for me in comparison to the other two Lloyd films we've seen, just because the plot and the comedy are both a bit thin, excepting the final sequence. However, it is true that the story in this film is more cohesive and less episodic than in either of the other two Lloyd films we've seen.
Next week we see our third film from 1924, entitled Die Nibelungen: Siegfried. This is the first of a two film sequence, which together will be the third and fourth films we've seen directed by Fritz Lang. The list as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Last Laugh (1924)
Originally posted to Facebook on 9/4/2017
The Last Laugh was our first film from 1924, our second directed by F.W. Murnau, and the first time we've seen Emil Jannings. Later, in 1929, Jannings was the first recipient of the Best Actor Oscar. In those early days, the acting Oscars were not given out for a specific movies, so Jannings won for two films. One of those was The Way of All Flesh, which has the sad distinction of being the only film with an Oscar winning performance that is now lost.
The Last Laugh, though, was dramatically different than Nosferatu, the last film we saw from Murnau. Unlike a lot of the German films we've seen from this period it is not supernatural in any sense, and is essentially a slice-of-life drama centering on Jannings, a hotel porter, who takes great pride in his position, and is devastated when he is demoted to a washroom attendant. The film is more or less realistic for the bulk of its running time, excepting perhaps the deeply cynical coda. From a stylistic point of view this film has almost no title cards, to such an extent that it was clearly a conscious choice. There is a bit of cheating here and there with diegetic text -- newspapers and handwritten notes -- but on the whole it is surprisingly clear and seamless.
At first glance The Last Laugh is similar to any number of social protest films we've seen about people who fall between the cracks of society, including films like Ingeborg Holm, or several of Victor Sjöström's other movies -- or even Griffith's Way Down East. In those films, the implicit message is that the society is responsible in some sense for causing or not alleviating some social ill. In this film it is communicated that Jannings really is too old to perform his job effectively, and that the hotel has reasonable grounds for demoting him. And in fact the hotel, though a bit callous in how they handle the situation, reacts in a relatively humane way -- in that Jannings is demoted rather than fired outright. I am really not certain what social message Murnau intended to be drawn from this film -- if any. He does not seem to be saying that Jannings should have continued in his existing job, nor that his new job caused any dramatic financial hardship. It is instead his self-respect that is wounded, but it is not clear if Murnau is pointing the finger at any person or institution in particular. One might conclude that the tragedy stems -- a la Death of a Salesman -- from Jannings drawing so much of his identity from his profession, but if so Murnau never really shows his hand and provides a moral in the way that Arthur Miller does ("He had the wrong dream!"), and that ambiguity is one of the things that elevates this film.
Our next film is Girl Shy, our second film from 1924, and also our second Harold Lloyd feature (not counting Speedy.) The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Last Laugh was our first film from 1924, our second directed by F.W. Murnau, and the first time we've seen Emil Jannings. Later, in 1929, Jannings was the first recipient of the Best Actor Oscar. In those early days, the acting Oscars were not given out for a specific movies, so Jannings won for two films. One of those was The Way of All Flesh, which has the sad distinction of being the only film with an Oscar winning performance that is now lost.
The Last Laugh, though, was dramatically different than Nosferatu, the last film we saw from Murnau. Unlike a lot of the German films we've seen from this period it is not supernatural in any sense, and is essentially a slice-of-life drama centering on Jannings, a hotel porter, who takes great pride in his position, and is devastated when he is demoted to a washroom attendant. The film is more or less realistic for the bulk of its running time, excepting perhaps the deeply cynical coda. From a stylistic point of view this film has almost no title cards, to such an extent that it was clearly a conscious choice. There is a bit of cheating here and there with diegetic text -- newspapers and handwritten notes -- but on the whole it is surprisingly clear and seamless.
At first glance The Last Laugh is similar to any number of social protest films we've seen about people who fall between the cracks of society, including films like Ingeborg Holm, or several of Victor Sjöström's other movies -- or even Griffith's Way Down East. In those films, the implicit message is that the society is responsible in some sense for causing or not alleviating some social ill. In this film it is communicated that Jannings really is too old to perform his job effectively, and that the hotel has reasonable grounds for demoting him. And in fact the hotel, though a bit callous in how they handle the situation, reacts in a relatively humane way -- in that Jannings is demoted rather than fired outright. I am really not certain what social message Murnau intended to be drawn from this film -- if any. He does not seem to be saying that Jannings should have continued in his existing job, nor that his new job caused any dramatic financial hardship. It is instead his self-respect that is wounded, but it is not clear if Murnau is pointing the finger at any person or institution in particular. One might conclude that the tragedy stems -- a la Death of a Salesman -- from Jannings drawing so much of his identity from his profession, but if so Murnau never really shows his hand and provides a moral in the way that Arthur Miller does ("He had the wrong dream!"), and that ambiguity is one of the things that elevates this film.
Our next film is Girl Shy, our second film from 1924, and also our second Harold Lloyd feature (not counting Speedy.) The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Extra Girl (1923)
Originally posted to Facebook on 8/19/2017
Our fourth and final film from 1923 was The Extra Girl, starring Mabel Normand. This is the second feature in which we've seen Normand, the first being 1914's Tillie's Punctured Romance made almost a decade earlier. And, while she was one of the three principal leads in that film, in this film she is clearly the star. She is easily up to the task of carrying the film -- and one imagines she might well have had a long career if she hadn't died of tuberculosis at the age of 37 in 1930. (Strangely, the director, F. Richard Jones, also died of tuberculosis at the age of 37 in 1930.)
The film was interesting in that it belongs to that durable genre of Hollywood films about Hollywood films. I don't believe it is the first of its type, but it is the first that we have seen as part of this project, and it is clear that by 1923, the glamour and mythologization of Hollywood and its stars was already firmly established. While in some ways the film enhances that mythology -- depicting the dream of someone from middle America moving to Hollywood and getting into the movie business -- in other ways it helps to puncture that mythology, showing how the relatively few on-screen stars are made possible only by an enormous network of people and infrastructure acting in various off-screen capacities.
The film begins in Normand's hometown, and spends a lot of time on a subplot revolving around her parents trying to marry her off to a local suitor played by Vernon Dent, despite her preference for another local played by Ralph Graves. In the midst of this she enters a Hollywood contest, and ends up winning, which provides her with a good reason to leave town. The remainder of the picture takes place in Hollywood, where Normand works in some of the above-referenced support roles in the film industry. There is a long set piece in which a lion gets loose, and chases Normand and others around a studio lot, spectacularly jumping through a transom above a door at one point. I think most or all of these scenes are shot artfully so that the actors do not appear to be in danger, though I wouldn't be shocked if that were not the case, given what we've seen in previous films. The lion does seem genuinely enraged at one point, so I am pretty confident that modern standards of animal treatment were not in place.
A third set of scenes revolve around Graves and eventually Normand's parents following her out to Hollywood. Her parents end up being swindled out of their life savings, the consequences of which account for most of the remainder of the film. The film ends on a rather sexist and tacked-on note, but on the whole it is fairly entertaining, though a bit fragmented plot-wise.
Our next film will be our first from 1924, and our second directed by F. W. Murnau: The Last Laugh. I've also added our planned list of films from 1925 to the spreadsheet, which is, as always, here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Our fourth and final film from 1923 was The Extra Girl, starring Mabel Normand. This is the second feature in which we've seen Normand, the first being 1914's Tillie's Punctured Romance made almost a decade earlier. And, while she was one of the three principal leads in that film, in this film she is clearly the star. She is easily up to the task of carrying the film -- and one imagines she might well have had a long career if she hadn't died of tuberculosis at the age of 37 in 1930. (Strangely, the director, F. Richard Jones, also died of tuberculosis at the age of 37 in 1930.)
The film was interesting in that it belongs to that durable genre of Hollywood films about Hollywood films. I don't believe it is the first of its type, but it is the first that we have seen as part of this project, and it is clear that by 1923, the glamour and mythologization of Hollywood and its stars was already firmly established. While in some ways the film enhances that mythology -- depicting the dream of someone from middle America moving to Hollywood and getting into the movie business -- in other ways it helps to puncture that mythology, showing how the relatively few on-screen stars are made possible only by an enormous network of people and infrastructure acting in various off-screen capacities.
The film begins in Normand's hometown, and spends a lot of time on a subplot revolving around her parents trying to marry her off to a local suitor played by Vernon Dent, despite her preference for another local played by Ralph Graves. In the midst of this she enters a Hollywood contest, and ends up winning, which provides her with a good reason to leave town. The remainder of the picture takes place in Hollywood, where Normand works in some of the above-referenced support roles in the film industry. There is a long set piece in which a lion gets loose, and chases Normand and others around a studio lot, spectacularly jumping through a transom above a door at one point. I think most or all of these scenes are shot artfully so that the actors do not appear to be in danger, though I wouldn't be shocked if that were not the case, given what we've seen in previous films. The lion does seem genuinely enraged at one point, so I am pretty confident that modern standards of animal treatment were not in place.
A third set of scenes revolve around Graves and eventually Normand's parents following her out to Hollywood. Her parents end up being swindled out of their life savings, the consequences of which account for most of the remainder of the film. The film ends on a rather sexist and tacked-on note, but on the whole it is fairly entertaining, though a bit fragmented plot-wise.
Our next film will be our first from 1924, and our second directed by F. W. Murnau: The Last Laugh. I've also added our planned list of films from 1925 to the spreadsheet, which is, as always, here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Three Ages (1923)
Originally posted to Facebook on 8/7/2017
Three Ages was our third film from 1923, and out first feature starring Buster Keaton, though we had previously seen him in the 1918 Fatty Arbuckle short The Bell Boy. Keaton is probably my favorite of the silent era comedians -- the least corny, and the most single-mindedly comedic. It isn't entirely a typical feature, because it is broken up into three intercut sections, each set in an historical era (Stone Age, Roman, and "modern" -- i.e. the 1920s), and each starring Keaton as the protagonist, Margaret Leahy as his romantic interest, and Wallace Beery as his rival. We've seen Wallace Beery a few times previously, most recently in 1922's Robin Hood. Margaret Leahy, on the other hand, appears to have made her first and last film appearance with this movie.
This film turns out to be the source of a few recognizable clips which I've seen excerpted elsewhere. For instance this scene: (http://bit.ly/2ugktZC), and this one (http://bit.ly/2wjS55Y). There are a few other set pieces throughout, but the jokes are largely hit or miss, including unfortunately one slightly racist bit, which was thankfully brief. The only scenes that actually made me laugh were a section with Keaton and a lion during the Roman portion, but there were other amusing sequences too (as well as some lame bits -- e.g. His wristwatch is a sundial!)
I've seen some discussion of the idea that Three Ages was a parody or an homage to Intolerance. But, though the idea of switching between various historical periods may seem similar, this movie has a very different structure. Griffith's film had four basically different casts and stories, which paralleled each other only in that they ostensibly revolved around the same theme. Keaton uses the same cast in each of the three stories, and all three stories have a similar plot: Keaton as the underdog in competition with Beery for the affections of Margaret Leahy. If Three Ages directly references or mocks Intolerance in any overt way, it is only very minimally.
Overall this might not be the first film I'd recommend to someone interested in Keaton, but it's a decent movie on its own merits, and a pretty good signpost for where he was heading in his subsequent more ambitious films.
Our next film is our fourth and final one from 1923: The Extra Girl, which stars Mabel Normand, whom we last saw in the 1916 short Fatty and Mabel Adrift, and, before that, in 1914's Tillie's Punctured Romance. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Three Ages was our third film from 1923, and out first feature starring Buster Keaton, though we had previously seen him in the 1918 Fatty Arbuckle short The Bell Boy. Keaton is probably my favorite of the silent era comedians -- the least corny, and the most single-mindedly comedic. It isn't entirely a typical feature, because it is broken up into three intercut sections, each set in an historical era (Stone Age, Roman, and "modern" -- i.e. the 1920s), and each starring Keaton as the protagonist, Margaret Leahy as his romantic interest, and Wallace Beery as his rival. We've seen Wallace Beery a few times previously, most recently in 1922's Robin Hood. Margaret Leahy, on the other hand, appears to have made her first and last film appearance with this movie.
This film turns out to be the source of a few recognizable clips which I've seen excerpted elsewhere. For instance this scene: (http://bit.ly/2ugktZC), and this one (http://bit.ly/2wjS55Y). There are a few other set pieces throughout, but the jokes are largely hit or miss, including unfortunately one slightly racist bit, which was thankfully brief. The only scenes that actually made me laugh were a section with Keaton and a lion during the Roman portion, but there were other amusing sequences too (as well as some lame bits -- e.g. His wristwatch is a sundial!)
I've seen some discussion of the idea that Three Ages was a parody or an homage to Intolerance. But, though the idea of switching between various historical periods may seem similar, this movie has a very different structure. Griffith's film had four basically different casts and stories, which paralleled each other only in that they ostensibly revolved around the same theme. Keaton uses the same cast in each of the three stories, and all three stories have a similar plot: Keaton as the underdog in competition with Beery for the affections of Margaret Leahy. If Three Ages directly references or mocks Intolerance in any overt way, it is only very minimally.
Overall this might not be the first film I'd recommend to someone interested in Keaton, but it's a decent movie on its own merits, and a pretty good signpost for where he was heading in his subsequent more ambitious films.
Our next film is our fourth and final one from 1923: The Extra Girl, which stars Mabel Normand, whom we last saw in the 1916 short Fatty and Mabel Adrift, and, before that, in 1914's Tillie's Punctured Romance. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Safety Last! (1923)
Originally posted to Facebook on 7/9/2017
Safety Last was the second film we watched from 1923, and it was the first feature starring Harold Lloyd that we’ve seen as part of this project -- though we did separately see 1928’s Speedy last year at the Alamo in Winchester. Additionally we’d also watched a couple of Lloyd shorts prior to starting the 1920s, so the kids are pretty well familiar with him.
This film is most famous for the final sequence involving Lloyd precariously climbing the side of a skyscraper, and, at one point, in perhaps the most iconic image of the silent era, hanging from the hands of a giant clock. That sequence is definitely prominent, but occupies only the last quarter of the film. The bulk of the film involves Lloyd trying to get ahead in the city so that he can send for his girlfriend (Mildred Davis, to whom he was married in real life), who is waiting back in their small hometown. Like a lot of comedies we’ve seen from this period -- or from any period -- the plot isn’t all that cohesive -- there are a lot of random gags and sequences that are shoehorned in a little awkwardly, including the final sequence. The jokes are hit or miss, and I think it’s pretty understandable why the climbing sequence is the portion that still lingers on with something of a half-life in the popular consciousness, though there are some other interesting or amusing bits. One of the recurring sources for these bits -- and I am aware that this is a well-trod romantic comedy trope -- is Lloyd doing an awful lot of borderline pathological lying to his girlfriend about his level of success. This seemed a little wrong-headed to me, and it’s strange that this is so accepted in popular culture when it’s considered almost sociopathic in real life.
Our next film is our third from 1923, and our first feature starring Buster Keaton: Three Ages. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Safety Last was the second film we watched from 1923, and it was the first feature starring Harold Lloyd that we’ve seen as part of this project -- though we did separately see 1928’s Speedy last year at the Alamo in Winchester. Additionally we’d also watched a couple of Lloyd shorts prior to starting the 1920s, so the kids are pretty well familiar with him.
This film is most famous for the final sequence involving Lloyd precariously climbing the side of a skyscraper, and, at one point, in perhaps the most iconic image of the silent era, hanging from the hands of a giant clock. That sequence is definitely prominent, but occupies only the last quarter of the film. The bulk of the film involves Lloyd trying to get ahead in the city so that he can send for his girlfriend (Mildred Davis, to whom he was married in real life), who is waiting back in their small hometown. Like a lot of comedies we’ve seen from this period -- or from any period -- the plot isn’t all that cohesive -- there are a lot of random gags and sequences that are shoehorned in a little awkwardly, including the final sequence. The jokes are hit or miss, and I think it’s pretty understandable why the climbing sequence is the portion that still lingers on with something of a half-life in the popular consciousness, though there are some other interesting or amusing bits. One of the recurring sources for these bits -- and I am aware that this is a well-trod romantic comedy trope -- is Lloyd doing an awful lot of borderline pathological lying to his girlfriend about his level of success. This seemed a little wrong-headed to me, and it’s strange that this is so accepted in popular culture when it’s considered almost sociopathic in real life.
Our next film is our third from 1923, and our first feature starring Buster Keaton: Three Ages. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Scaramouche (1923)
Originally posted to Facebook on 7/7/2017
Scaramouche was our first film from 1923, and it was superficially similar to Robin Hood in that it was a big budget Hollywood costume drama. However, whereas Robin Hood was primarily an adventure film and a Fairbanks vehicle, Scaramouche seems a little more interested in its story and setting. It takes place just prior to and during the French Revolution, and has brief appearances by actors portraying Danton and Napoleon. The title character, played by Ramon Novarro, is just back from college, and, within the first several minutes of the film, is involved in a conflict with a nobleman (played by Lewis Stone), who kills one of Novarro’s friends in a duel, and also emerges as his main romantic rival to the female lead, played by Alice Terry. Lewis Stone went on to star as Judge Hardy in more than a dozen Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney in the sound era, while Ramon Novarro, although best known for his leading roles during the twenties, continued acting up until his murder in the late sixties, including on such television shows as Dr. Kildare and Bonanza. (He was murdered, by the way, by two men who robbed him by posing as male prostitutes. I did not share this fun fact with the kids.)
The movie itself is certainly melodramatic, and perhaps derivative of A Tale of Two Cities and other similarly themed stories, but it does proceed with a certain seriousness of intent, and with some interest in the ambiguities of the French Revolution. One interesting device that it employs, and which I’ve seen in other films of this period as well, is to occasionally show a written letter, initially appearing to the viewer in French, but then fading into an English equivalent. This is a decent solution to maintaining the verisimilitude of the setting while still allowing the audience to understand the contents of the writing -- and it appears that it was something of a convention at the time. I think in the end it is too disruptive to the audience’s suspension of disbelief, and probably faded from use for that reason, but it’s interesting to see it as a transitory device.
Next week we see our second film from 1923: Safety Last. This is our first feature starring Harold Lloyd -- excepting 1928’s Speedy, which was not technically part of this project. It is also the source of the iconic image of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock face, and, after Caligari, is the second feature in this project that I’d previously seen in its entirety. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Scaramouche was our first film from 1923, and it was superficially similar to Robin Hood in that it was a big budget Hollywood costume drama. However, whereas Robin Hood was primarily an adventure film and a Fairbanks vehicle, Scaramouche seems a little more interested in its story and setting. It takes place just prior to and during the French Revolution, and has brief appearances by actors portraying Danton and Napoleon. The title character, played by Ramon Novarro, is just back from college, and, within the first several minutes of the film, is involved in a conflict with a nobleman (played by Lewis Stone), who kills one of Novarro’s friends in a duel, and also emerges as his main romantic rival to the female lead, played by Alice Terry. Lewis Stone went on to star as Judge Hardy in more than a dozen Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney in the sound era, while Ramon Novarro, although best known for his leading roles during the twenties, continued acting up until his murder in the late sixties, including on such television shows as Dr. Kildare and Bonanza. (He was murdered, by the way, by two men who robbed him by posing as male prostitutes. I did not share this fun fact with the kids.)
The movie itself is certainly melodramatic, and perhaps derivative of A Tale of Two Cities and other similarly themed stories, but it does proceed with a certain seriousness of intent, and with some interest in the ambiguities of the French Revolution. One interesting device that it employs, and which I’ve seen in other films of this period as well, is to occasionally show a written letter, initially appearing to the viewer in French, but then fading into an English equivalent. This is a decent solution to maintaining the verisimilitude of the setting while still allowing the audience to understand the contents of the writing -- and it appears that it was something of a convention at the time. I think in the end it is too disruptive to the audience’s suspension of disbelief, and probably faded from use for that reason, but it’s interesting to see it as a transitory device.
Next week we see our second film from 1923: Safety Last. This is our first feature starring Harold Lloyd -- excepting 1928’s Speedy, which was not technically part of this project. It is also the source of the iconic image of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock face, and, after Caligari, is the second feature in this project that I’d previously seen in its entirety. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Robin Hood (1922)
Originally posted to Facebook on 7/4/2017
Robin Hood is our fifth film from 1922. It is the fourth film we’ve seen starring Douglas Fairbanks, but the first swashbuckling costume drama -- which is the type of film for which he is probably most famous. It is also the first that is not explicitly a comedy, though it is certainly light-hearted. It also stars Wallace Beery (whom we last saw in the 1917 short Teddy at the Throttle) as King Richard -- and Alan Hale as Little John. Alan Hale, in addition to being the father of Alan Hale Jr. from Gilligan’s Island, reprised his role as Little John sixteen years later in Errol Flynn’s 1938 version of Robin Hood.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this film is how long it takes Fairbanks as the Earl of Huntingdon to become Robin Hood. The first half of the film depicts his adventures in the service of King Richard, including jousting tournaments, wooing Marian (played by Enid Bennett), and accompanying Richard as he leaves for the crusades. Fairbanks is his normal athletic, exuberant self -- which is perhaps appropriate to our received image of Robin Hood, but a little odd when you consider that by the time he becomes Robin Hood he has lost everything from his former life -- or has every reason to think he has, in any case. This is the kind of movie where there are an awful lot of people throwing back their heads and laughing flamboyantly -- which as I think about it is something I don’t recall ever actually having seen happen in real life. Overall I probably would have preferred the movie to either be more dramatic, or more genuinely funny, and perhaps done a little bit less coasting on Fairbanks’ charisma -- but it had a professional sheen, and was intermittently enjoyable in a broad crowd-pleasing way.
Next week I’d planned to see our sixth and final movie from 1922, but I haven’t received it yet, so until it arrives we are going to move on to our first film from 1923: Scaramouche. I’ve also added our planned films from 1924 to the list, which can be seen here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Robin Hood is our fifth film from 1922. It is the fourth film we’ve seen starring Douglas Fairbanks, but the first swashbuckling costume drama -- which is the type of film for which he is probably most famous. It is also the first that is not explicitly a comedy, though it is certainly light-hearted. It also stars Wallace Beery (whom we last saw in the 1917 short Teddy at the Throttle) as King Richard -- and Alan Hale as Little John. Alan Hale, in addition to being the father of Alan Hale Jr. from Gilligan’s Island, reprised his role as Little John sixteen years later in Errol Flynn’s 1938 version of Robin Hood.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this film is how long it takes Fairbanks as the Earl of Huntingdon to become Robin Hood. The first half of the film depicts his adventures in the service of King Richard, including jousting tournaments, wooing Marian (played by Enid Bennett), and accompanying Richard as he leaves for the crusades. Fairbanks is his normal athletic, exuberant self -- which is perhaps appropriate to our received image of Robin Hood, but a little odd when you consider that by the time he becomes Robin Hood he has lost everything from his former life -- or has every reason to think he has, in any case. This is the kind of movie where there are an awful lot of people throwing back their heads and laughing flamboyantly -- which as I think about it is something I don’t recall ever actually having seen happen in real life. Overall I probably would have preferred the movie to either be more dramatic, or more genuinely funny, and perhaps done a little bit less coasting on Fairbanks’ charisma -- but it had a professional sheen, and was intermittently enjoyable in a broad crowd-pleasing way.
Next week I’d planned to see our sixth and final movie from 1922, but I haven’t received it yet, so until it arrives we are going to move on to our first film from 1923: Scaramouche. I’ve also added our planned films from 1924 to the list, which can be seen here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922)
Originally posted to Facebook on 7/1/2017
Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler is our fourth film from 1922, and the second we’ve seen directed by Fritz Lang, after 1921’s Destiny. Like that earlier film it was co-written with Lang by his wife, Thea von Harbou, based on a novel by Norbert Jacques. It was very reminiscent (perhaps consciously) of Louis Feuillade’s French serials that we saw last year: Fantomas (1913) and Judex (1916). All three feature a criminal mastermind -- a vigilante in the case of Judex -- with extraordinary abilities. All are extremely long; Dr. Mabuse is not a serial like the other films, but it is is constructed so that it can viewed in two sittings, and is, in total, approximately four hours. However, there is a much darker edge to this film than the earlier two. The first intertitle reads: “You’re hopped up on cocaine again, Spoerri! You know that I won’t stand for it. If I see you in such a state once more, I’ll kick you out like a dog,” followed by Spoerri saying, “If you kick me out, I may as well put a bullet through my head!” So, issues of whether this is appropriate viewing for a nine-year-old aside, one immediately knows that this is not going to be a light hearted fantasy. Dr. Mabuse (played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Harbou's husband prior to Lang) has his fingers in a variety of criminal enterprises, and in addition has the ability to somehow hypnotize people into doing his bidding. I don’t know if the phrase “will to power” is ever used explicitly, but that concept is openly talked about by some of the characters, and the entire film is framed as a battle of wills between Mabuse and a police detective, played by Bernhard Goetzke (who also played Death in Destiny.) Goetzke is an equally intense, brooding presence, though the kids and I did begin to observe midway through that he didn’t seem to be very good at his job; Dr Mabuse maintains the upper hand throughout most of the film.
One surprising aspect of the film was that it explicitly discussed expressionism -- which means that this was a label that was actively being used at the time, and not something that has been applied retroactively. Dr. Mabuse is asked at a party what he thinks of expressionism, and he replies, “Expressionism is just an idle game. But then again, why not? Everything today is an idle game.” That statement, while underlining a certain cynical worldview consistent with the tone of the film, also seems to suggest a certain ambivalence about expressionism, though the film itself is rather firmly in the expressionist camp. The house at which that party occurs is filled with expressionist artwork, and there are a variety of other moments throughout the film which amplify that. One of the more bizarre comes early on when Cara Carozza (a member of Mabuse’s mob, played by Aud Egede-Nissen) is doing an odd dance at a nightclub, during which, midway through, two giant heads with long phallic noses slide out onto the stage and chase her around. I’m not sure why a nightclub would think this would be an appropriate climax to a dance number, but postwar Germany definitely appears to have been a strange place.
Like the earlier serials, this film did start to sag a bit as it wore on, and I expect a shorter version would have been just as effective. I suspect, too, that the length has something to do with why this film isn’t more well known. It has as many memorable scenes and performances as several of the more famous silents we’ve seen, but also has perhaps just a little too much filler.
Next week we see our fifth film from 1922, and our fourth starring Douglas Fairbanks: Robin Hood. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler is our fourth film from 1922, and the second we’ve seen directed by Fritz Lang, after 1921’s Destiny. Like that earlier film it was co-written with Lang by his wife, Thea von Harbou, based on a novel by Norbert Jacques. It was very reminiscent (perhaps consciously) of Louis Feuillade’s French serials that we saw last year: Fantomas (1913) and Judex (1916). All three feature a criminal mastermind -- a vigilante in the case of Judex -- with extraordinary abilities. All are extremely long; Dr. Mabuse is not a serial like the other films, but it is is constructed so that it can viewed in two sittings, and is, in total, approximately four hours. However, there is a much darker edge to this film than the earlier two. The first intertitle reads: “You’re hopped up on cocaine again, Spoerri! You know that I won’t stand for it. If I see you in such a state once more, I’ll kick you out like a dog,” followed by Spoerri saying, “If you kick me out, I may as well put a bullet through my head!” So, issues of whether this is appropriate viewing for a nine-year-old aside, one immediately knows that this is not going to be a light hearted fantasy. Dr. Mabuse (played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Harbou's husband prior to Lang) has his fingers in a variety of criminal enterprises, and in addition has the ability to somehow hypnotize people into doing his bidding. I don’t know if the phrase “will to power” is ever used explicitly, but that concept is openly talked about by some of the characters, and the entire film is framed as a battle of wills between Mabuse and a police detective, played by Bernhard Goetzke (who also played Death in Destiny.) Goetzke is an equally intense, brooding presence, though the kids and I did begin to observe midway through that he didn’t seem to be very good at his job; Dr Mabuse maintains the upper hand throughout most of the film.
One surprising aspect of the film was that it explicitly discussed expressionism -- which means that this was a label that was actively being used at the time, and not something that has been applied retroactively. Dr. Mabuse is asked at a party what he thinks of expressionism, and he replies, “Expressionism is just an idle game. But then again, why not? Everything today is an idle game.” That statement, while underlining a certain cynical worldview consistent with the tone of the film, also seems to suggest a certain ambivalence about expressionism, though the film itself is rather firmly in the expressionist camp. The house at which that party occurs is filled with expressionist artwork, and there are a variety of other moments throughout the film which amplify that. One of the more bizarre comes early on when Cara Carozza (a member of Mabuse’s mob, played by Aud Egede-Nissen) is doing an odd dance at a nightclub, during which, midway through, two giant heads with long phallic noses slide out onto the stage and chase her around. I’m not sure why a nightclub would think this would be an appropriate climax to a dance number, but postwar Germany definitely appears to have been a strange place.
Like the earlier serials, this film did start to sag a bit as it wore on, and I expect a shorter version would have been just as effective. I suspect, too, that the length has something to do with why this film isn’t more well known. It has as many memorable scenes and performances as several of the more famous silents we’ve seen, but also has perhaps just a little too much filler.
Next week we see our fifth film from 1922, and our fourth starring Douglas Fairbanks: Robin Hood. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Nosferatu (1922)
Originally posted to Facebook on 6/29/2017
Nosferatu was our third film from 1922, and the first we’ve seen directed by F.W. Murnau. As with a few of the other films we've seen recently, this too is one of the rare silents that is still somewhat known in the modern era. I had never seen it before (though I had seen Shadow of the Vampire, which was a fictional depiction of its making.) The plot is taken directly from Dracula, which famously led to a lawsuit from the estate of Bram Stoker, and many copies of the film were destroyed as a result. Max Schreck plays Count Orlok (i.e. Dracula), with Gustav von Wangenheim as Hutter (i.e. Harker) and Greta Schröder as Ellen (i.e. Mina.)
This is the fourth German film we’ve seen from the 1920s, which is partially the result of our selection process, but also reflective, I think, of a certain uptick in German creativity post WW1 -- as all four of the German films we’ve seen have been innovative or unusual in some way. Three of them, including this one, could be considered horror films in some sense, but I think this was the purest horror film by modern standards. In The Golem, the title character was menacing, but was similar to the Frankenstein monster, in that he wasn’t entirely evil or even consistently hostile -- just potentially dangerous. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, on the other hand, was so eccentric and artificial that it evoked more of a dreamlike state than true horror. Nosferatu, though, had a truly malevolent villain, and had the most pure “shock” scenes, such as the title character rising out of his coffin, or attempting to lick blood off of the lead's cut hand, or staring maniacally at the protagonist from an adjoining building. Other aspects don’t work quite as well, such as use of stop motion -- which was perhaps intended to communicate unearthliness at the time, but today comes off as more of a gimmick, or even comically. I certainly wouldn’t suggest that this movie would scare a modern audience, but you can see the techniques of modern horror film begin to be assembled, and there are certainly moments that still convey tension.
Next week we see our fourth film from 1922, and also our second directed by Fritz Lang: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. The list as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Nosferatu was our third film from 1922, and the first we’ve seen directed by F.W. Murnau. As with a few of the other films we've seen recently, this too is one of the rare silents that is still somewhat known in the modern era. I had never seen it before (though I had seen Shadow of the Vampire, which was a fictional depiction of its making.) The plot is taken directly from Dracula, which famously led to a lawsuit from the estate of Bram Stoker, and many copies of the film were destroyed as a result. Max Schreck plays Count Orlok (i.e. Dracula), with Gustav von Wangenheim as Hutter (i.e. Harker) and Greta Schröder as Ellen (i.e. Mina.)
This is the fourth German film we’ve seen from the 1920s, which is partially the result of our selection process, but also reflective, I think, of a certain uptick in German creativity post WW1 -- as all four of the German films we’ve seen have been innovative or unusual in some way. Three of them, including this one, could be considered horror films in some sense, but I think this was the purest horror film by modern standards. In The Golem, the title character was menacing, but was similar to the Frankenstein monster, in that he wasn’t entirely evil or even consistently hostile -- just potentially dangerous. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, on the other hand, was so eccentric and artificial that it evoked more of a dreamlike state than true horror. Nosferatu, though, had a truly malevolent villain, and had the most pure “shock” scenes, such as the title character rising out of his coffin, or attempting to lick blood off of the lead's cut hand, or staring maniacally at the protagonist from an adjoining building. Other aspects don’t work quite as well, such as use of stop motion -- which was perhaps intended to communicate unearthliness at the time, but today comes off as more of a gimmick, or even comically. I certainly wouldn’t suggest that this movie would scare a modern audience, but you can see the techniques of modern horror film begin to be assembled, and there are certainly moments that still convey tension.
Next week we see our fourth film from 1922, and also our second directed by Fritz Lang: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. The list as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Foolish Wives (1922)
Originally posted to Facebook on 5/21/2017
Foolish Wives was our second film of 1922, and the first we’ve seen directed by (and starring) Erich von Stroheim. The production was famously troubled and over-budget (as can be verified by watching the made-for-TV movie Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies) -- and resulted in a six-plus hour running time before it was taken away from Stroheim and cut down to the length that survives today.
The movie itself -- or what remains of it -- revolves around Stroheim and two of his cousins, presenting themselves as Russian nobility, and trying to regain their former wealth. (The Russian revolution, of course, had happened just five years earlier.) The film begins strongly, with Stroheim playing a charming rogue, working with counterfeiters, and trying to seduce the wife of the American ambassador. However the charm begins to wear, particularly in a subplot involving Stroheim having carnal designs on a mentally disabled (or ”half-witted”, as the film puts it) daughter of one of his associates. I wasn’t terribly thrilled at having to explain this to the kids in as PG a fashion as possible -- nor at another scene where someone used the phrase “free, white, and twenty-one.” The film ends rather arbitrarily and abruptly, perhaps as a result of the studio’s radical re-cutting, but for long stretches it was entertaining to watch Stroheim play a sophisticated con artist. He has a real charisma, though the more you read about his actual personality, the harder it is to avoid drawing parallels with his character. Bizarrely Stroheim was still allowed to direct several subsequent films, and continued acting well into the fifties, including his role in Grand Illusion, and in Sunset Boulevard (along with so many other silent film figures.)
Next week we’ll see our third film from 1922, which is another iconic silent film that is still somewhat known today: Nosferatu. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Foolish Wives was our second film of 1922, and the first we’ve seen directed by (and starring) Erich von Stroheim. The production was famously troubled and over-budget (as can be verified by watching the made-for-TV movie Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies) -- and resulted in a six-plus hour running time before it was taken away from Stroheim and cut down to the length that survives today.
The movie itself -- or what remains of it -- revolves around Stroheim and two of his cousins, presenting themselves as Russian nobility, and trying to regain their former wealth. (The Russian revolution, of course, had happened just five years earlier.) The film begins strongly, with Stroheim playing a charming rogue, working with counterfeiters, and trying to seduce the wife of the American ambassador. However the charm begins to wear, particularly in a subplot involving Stroheim having carnal designs on a mentally disabled (or ”half-witted”, as the film puts it) daughter of one of his associates. I wasn’t terribly thrilled at having to explain this to the kids in as PG a fashion as possible -- nor at another scene where someone used the phrase “free, white, and twenty-one.” The film ends rather arbitrarily and abruptly, perhaps as a result of the studio’s radical re-cutting, but for long stretches it was entertaining to watch Stroheim play a sophisticated con artist. He has a real charisma, though the more you read about his actual personality, the harder it is to avoid drawing parallels with his character. Bizarrely Stroheim was still allowed to direct several subsequent films, and continued acting well into the fifties, including his role in Grand Illusion, and in Sunset Boulevard (along with so many other silent film figures.)
Next week we’ll see our third film from 1922, which is another iconic silent film that is still somewhat known today: Nosferatu. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sherlock Holmes (1922)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/18/2017
Sherlock Holmes was our first film from 1922, and it was based on the same play as the 1916 version we'd previously seen. The earlier version was written by and starred William Gillette. This version stars the famous stage actor (and Drew Barrymore’s grandfather) John Barrymore, the first movie in which we’ve seen him. It also marks the first film appearance of Roland Young (as Watson) who later starred in the Topper films. But even more notably, this is the first film appearance of William Powell, who was in a number of excellent films throughout the thirties and forties -- which I look forward to seeing if this project makes it that far. As so often happens though, the cast in this case is better than the film. This movie differs from the earlier film mainly in that there is a long prologue explaining some backstory of the subsequent plot. This section purports to show Holmes, Watson, and Powell’s character when they were together at college. This ends up being rather distracting, however, because Barrymore was 40 at the time, and Roland Young was 35, and neither looked remotely like a college student. Even more importantly, the whole sequence is totally unnecessary; any backstory can be easily inferred, as shown by the earlier movie. At some point after that sequence the movie starts to converge on the plotline that we were more familiar with, which had some of the same holes and pacing problems as the earlier film. Some of the action was a little more dynamic though, and the title cards took an interesting stab at a slightly more naturalistic style of dialogue, with sentences trailing off, and characters interrupting themselves. In addition there was an interesting aerial shot of London, presumably taken from an airplane. The only precedent I recall which we’d seen previously was a brief shot from a plane in 1914’s Perils of Pauline, which was nowhere near as striking.
Overall, though, the two versions of Sherlock Holmes are of similar quality. I probably prefer the earlier film; it was slow and padded and not entirely logical, but it had a consistent tone, and conformed more to the idea of Sherlock Holmes as primarily a creature of the mind. I suspect the biggest drag on both movies is that the play itself doesn’t translate naturally to film -- or to a silent film in any case.
Next week we’ll see our second film from from 1922, Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sherlock Holmes was our first film from 1922, and it was based on the same play as the 1916 version we'd previously seen. The earlier version was written by and starred William Gillette. This version stars the famous stage actor (and Drew Barrymore’s grandfather) John Barrymore, the first movie in which we’ve seen him. It also marks the first film appearance of Roland Young (as Watson) who later starred in the Topper films. But even more notably, this is the first film appearance of William Powell, who was in a number of excellent films throughout the thirties and forties -- which I look forward to seeing if this project makes it that far. As so often happens though, the cast in this case is better than the film. This movie differs from the earlier film mainly in that there is a long prologue explaining some backstory of the subsequent plot. This section purports to show Holmes, Watson, and Powell’s character when they were together at college. This ends up being rather distracting, however, because Barrymore was 40 at the time, and Roland Young was 35, and neither looked remotely like a college student. Even more importantly, the whole sequence is totally unnecessary; any backstory can be easily inferred, as shown by the earlier movie. At some point after that sequence the movie starts to converge on the plotline that we were more familiar with, which had some of the same holes and pacing problems as the earlier film. Some of the action was a little more dynamic though, and the title cards took an interesting stab at a slightly more naturalistic style of dialogue, with sentences trailing off, and characters interrupting themselves. In addition there was an interesting aerial shot of London, presumably taken from an airplane. The only precedent I recall which we’d seen previously was a brief shot from a plane in 1914’s Perils of Pauline, which was nowhere near as striking.
Overall, though, the two versions of Sherlock Holmes are of similar quality. I probably prefer the earlier film; it was slow and padded and not entirely logical, but it had a consistent tone, and conformed more to the idea of Sherlock Holmes as primarily a creature of the mind. I suspect the biggest drag on both movies is that the play itself doesn’t translate naturally to film -- or to a silent film in any case.
Next week we’ll see our second film from from 1922, Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Destiny (1921)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/11/2017
Destiny was our fourth and final film from 1921, and the first we’ve seen directed by Fritz Lang. As with many of his films, it was co-written with his soon-to-be wife Thea von Harbou. Its plot is episodic; the framing story involves a woman (played by Lil Dagover, the female lead from 1920’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) trying to reclaim her fiance, played by Walter Janssen, from a personified Death. In response, Death, played by Bernhard Goetzke, challenges her to save the lives of any of three men who are all fated to die -- which sets up the episodic middle portion of the film. These sequences take place in an unspecified Muslim country, in Italy, and lastly in China -- and the leads in each sequence are played by Dagover and Janssen, in local dress and sometimes make-up, most egregiously in the Chinese segment. Needless to say, these segments mar the film significantly, particularly the Chinese segment, which is intended to be comedic, but is instead cringe-inducing. This is all the worse since the framing story is actually quite strong and atmospheric -- with a weary stoic Death, surrounded by burning candles representing the length of people’s lives. Those sequences, along with some of the darker or more philosophical moments have the makings of a strong, intense film, perhaps somewhere in the same neighborhood as The Phantom Carriage. However the three interludes (or “Stories of the Lights” as they’re identified by the title cards) are not only racist (to varying degrees) but they are also lighter in tone, which saps some of the intensity. Fritz Lang, of course, was famous both for his silent and sound films, and was one of the key links between German Expressionism and noir. I believe we’ll be seeing more of his films along the way, and I hope that I’ll like them more than I liked this one.
Next week we begin 1922 with Sherlock Holmes, which is based on the same play as the 1916 version we saw starring the play’s author, William Gillette. This 1922 version stars John Barrymore, and has some other prominent actors as well. Additionally, I’ve added films from 1923 to our viewing plan, which should take us out through the end of May. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Destiny was our fourth and final film from 1921, and the first we’ve seen directed by Fritz Lang. As with many of his films, it was co-written with his soon-to-be wife Thea von Harbou. Its plot is episodic; the framing story involves a woman (played by Lil Dagover, the female lead from 1920’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) trying to reclaim her fiance, played by Walter Janssen, from a personified Death. In response, Death, played by Bernhard Goetzke, challenges her to save the lives of any of three men who are all fated to die -- which sets up the episodic middle portion of the film. These sequences take place in an unspecified Muslim country, in Italy, and lastly in China -- and the leads in each sequence are played by Dagover and Janssen, in local dress and sometimes make-up, most egregiously in the Chinese segment. Needless to say, these segments mar the film significantly, particularly the Chinese segment, which is intended to be comedic, but is instead cringe-inducing. This is all the worse since the framing story is actually quite strong and atmospheric -- with a weary stoic Death, surrounded by burning candles representing the length of people’s lives. Those sequences, along with some of the darker or more philosophical moments have the makings of a strong, intense film, perhaps somewhere in the same neighborhood as The Phantom Carriage. However the three interludes (or “Stories of the Lights” as they’re identified by the title cards) are not only racist (to varying degrees) but they are also lighter in tone, which saps some of the intensity. Fritz Lang, of course, was famous both for his silent and sound films, and was one of the key links between German Expressionism and noir. I believe we’ll be seeing more of his films along the way, and I hope that I’ll like them more than I liked this one.
Next week we begin 1922 with Sherlock Holmes, which is based on the same play as the 1916 version we saw starring the play’s author, William Gillette. This 1922 version stars John Barrymore, and has some other prominent actors as well. Additionally, I’ve added films from 1923 to our viewing plan, which should take us out through the end of May. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
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