Originally posted to Facebook on 4/17/2018
The Flying Ace was our fourth film from 1926, and the first to feature an all black cast. In fact this is probably the first film we've seen in this project that features African Americans in any kind of capacity for more than a minute or so. It was directed by Richard Norman, a white man who specialized in making so-called "race films." Obviously mainstream Hollywood had minimal interest in those kinds of films in the late twenties, and this film was made at Norman's own studios, in Florida.
The film's plot involves a WWI flyer, played by Laurence Criner, who is tasked with solving the theft of a large sum of money from a local train station. The female lead is played by Kathryn Boyd, and initial suspicion falls upon her character's father. Not unlike a Columbo episode, it is revealed to the audience fairly early on who the criminals are, though some of the details of the crime are filled in over the course of the film. And in many ways this does seem like an episode of a detective show -- both because of its short running length, and because of its evident low budget. In some ways it also reminds me of 1912's The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, which we saw back in 2016 -- but of course that film was made more than a decade earlier, which was an eternity in terms of the development of movies during this era. The earlier film was innovative for its relative sophistication and realism, and for its use of a film within a film. The Flying Ace by contrast does not feel particularly innovative from a film-making standpoint, but it was of course pioneering in that it gave black actors an atypical chance to appear on the big screen in non-stereotypical parts, and black audiences the chance to see them. I don't know whether the kids were able to recapture a bit of that feeling or not. None of the actors in this film had the opportunity to really become established movie stars, though Laurence Criner popped up regularly in Hollywood movies for the next few decades. This of course continued to be a problem in Hollywood, and is a problem today as well, but as we head into the thirties and forties, I'm hoping we'll get a chance to see Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, and a few of the other rare black movie stars from the early days of sound.
Next week we see our fifth film from 1926, Tell It to the Marines, the third film in which we've seen Lon Chaney. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/15/2018
Flesh and the Devil was our third film from 1926, and it starred John Gilbert and Lars Hanson, both of whom we've seen as leads before, and Greta Garbo, whom we haven't. It is also the first film we've seen directed by Clarence Brown, who is not a well-known name today, but who shares the distinction with Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, and Robert Altman for having the most Best Director Oscar nominations without ever winning. We'd seen Gilbert recently in 1925's The Big Parade, and Lars Hanson even more recently in 1926's The Scarlet Letter, directed by Victor Sjöström. Like Hanson and Sjöström, Garbo had recently moved to Hollywood from Sweden, where she was an established film star, and had in fact already appeared on screen there with Hanson.
In this movie close friends Hanson and Gilbert are soldiers together, and become involved in a love triangle with Garbo. This film often lapses into melodrama, but the relationship between Gilbert and Garbo is surprisingly naturalistic, probably enhanced by their real-life off-screen relationship.
But, not unlike Wings, the movie's ultimate aim is to elevate the importance of the two men's friendship over their rivalry for Garbo, though this is undermined by the fact that their friendship is strained less by their mutual love of Garbo than by the fact that Gilbert hides the truth from Hanson. Garbo, as it is gradually revealed, is basically amoral and hedonistic, which results in some strong scenes for her, but also serves to lower the moral stakes, as it absolves (or at least the movie seems to think so) Gilbert and Hanson of any responsibility for the various consequences, including those in a particularly manipulative finale. Still, the film is notable for its performances, the chemistry between Garbo and Gilbert particularly.
Next week, we see The Flying Ace, our fourth film from 1926, which is what used to be called a "race film," and features a cast of African-American actors, who have been notably missing in almost all of the films we've seen to date. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Flesh and the Devil was our third film from 1926, and it starred John Gilbert and Lars Hanson, both of whom we've seen as leads before, and Greta Garbo, whom we haven't. It is also the first film we've seen directed by Clarence Brown, who is not a well-known name today, but who shares the distinction with Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, and Robert Altman for having the most Best Director Oscar nominations without ever winning. We'd seen Gilbert recently in 1925's The Big Parade, and Lars Hanson even more recently in 1926's The Scarlet Letter, directed by Victor Sjöström. Like Hanson and Sjöström, Garbo had recently moved to Hollywood from Sweden, where she was an established film star, and had in fact already appeared on screen there with Hanson.
In this movie close friends Hanson and Gilbert are soldiers together, and become involved in a love triangle with Garbo. This film often lapses into melodrama, but the relationship between Gilbert and Garbo is surprisingly naturalistic, probably enhanced by their real-life off-screen relationship.
But, not unlike Wings, the movie's ultimate aim is to elevate the importance of the two men's friendship over their rivalry for Garbo, though this is undermined by the fact that their friendship is strained less by their mutual love of Garbo than by the fact that Gilbert hides the truth from Hanson. Garbo, as it is gradually revealed, is basically amoral and hedonistic, which results in some strong scenes for her, but also serves to lower the moral stakes, as it absolves (or at least the movie seems to think so) Gilbert and Hanson of any responsibility for the various consequences, including those in a particularly manipulative finale. Still, the film is notable for its performances, the chemistry between Garbo and Gilbert particularly.
Next week, we see The Flying Ace, our fourth film from 1926, which is what used to be called a "race film," and features a cast of African-American actors, who have been notably missing in almost all of the films we've seen to date. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The General (1926)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/10/2018
The General was our second feature starring Buster Keaton, after 1923's Three Ages, and our second film from 1926. It's also one of the handful of films from this period that I'd seen before we began this project.
Keaton plays an engineer during the Civil War who becomes involved in chasing and recovering a stolen train. This is apparently based on an actual event, but only very loosely. What this film has in common with a lot of the better silent-era comedies is a certain precision and timing, which is striking even when it is just coordinating a few performers in a mundane setting, but really achieves a type of impossible grace when it is performed with multi-ton trains that are being choreographed with a such a seemingly light touch. This is all enormously impressive, but I have to admit I did not find it as funny as I'd remembered, perhaps because I was too familiar with so many of the sequences. The thing I found the most amusing this time around was Keaton's character's frustration with his leading lady, Marion Mack, who is given a little more comedic business than many of the female leads in the comedies that we've seen thus far. Interestingly the kids made vocal observations about Keaton playing a Confederate, jokingly booing when he succeeded at this or that. The film itself is not political (except in the sense that being apolitical is political), and Keaton could easily have been playing a Union soldier with a change of uniform and one or two title cards -- but the kids still found his allegiance off-putting, at least enough to joke about. I'm not sure how funny they found the whole thing, but then I never really am. Allison, after seeing the famous scene where Keaton throws one railroad tie at another to knock it off the track, remarked "skillz", so I think she was at least a little bit impressed by the athleticism and scale of the movie.
Even though I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped, it is clear that this is just objectively a better film than Three Ages, to the extent that objectivity means anything when talking about films. For the bulk of the movie, the jokes serve the story and are not shoehorned in arbitrarily. One could perhaps criticize the romance for being perfunctory, but the main body of the film flows naturally, rarely dragging and without much fat or obvious exposition.
Next week we'll see Flesh and the Devil, our third film from 1926, and our first starring Greta Garbo. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The General was our second feature starring Buster Keaton, after 1923's Three Ages, and our second film from 1926. It's also one of the handful of films from this period that I'd seen before we began this project.
Keaton plays an engineer during the Civil War who becomes involved in chasing and recovering a stolen train. This is apparently based on an actual event, but only very loosely. What this film has in common with a lot of the better silent-era comedies is a certain precision and timing, which is striking even when it is just coordinating a few performers in a mundane setting, but really achieves a type of impossible grace when it is performed with multi-ton trains that are being choreographed with a such a seemingly light touch. This is all enormously impressive, but I have to admit I did not find it as funny as I'd remembered, perhaps because I was too familiar with so many of the sequences. The thing I found the most amusing this time around was Keaton's character's frustration with his leading lady, Marion Mack, who is given a little more comedic business than many of the female leads in the comedies that we've seen thus far. Interestingly the kids made vocal observations about Keaton playing a Confederate, jokingly booing when he succeeded at this or that. The film itself is not political (except in the sense that being apolitical is political), and Keaton could easily have been playing a Union soldier with a change of uniform and one or two title cards -- but the kids still found his allegiance off-putting, at least enough to joke about. I'm not sure how funny they found the whole thing, but then I never really am. Allison, after seeing the famous scene where Keaton throws one railroad tie at another to knock it off the track, remarked "skillz", so I think she was at least a little bit impressed by the athleticism and scale of the movie.
Even though I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped, it is clear that this is just objectively a better film than Three Ages, to the extent that objectivity means anything when talking about films. For the bulk of the movie, the jokes serve the story and are not shoehorned in arbitrarily. One could perhaps criticize the romance for being perfunctory, but the main body of the film flows naturally, rarely dragging and without much fat or obvious exposition.
Next week we'll see Flesh and the Devil, our third film from 1926, and our first starring Greta Garbo. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Saturday, April 13, 2019
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/7/2018
The Scarlet Letter was our first film from 1926. We saw it at the Library of Congress's Packard campus, which is more than an hour's drive south, in Culpeper. The main reason I decided to make a trip that long with the kids was that the 1926 version of The Scarlet Letter -- despite being a well-rated and popular picture at the time -- is not easily available, either streaming or on disc. A good print exists for it, and it is occasionally shown on TCM, but for whatever reason it does not appear to be obtainable via my normal method of half-heartedly googling. By contrast, the 1934 version with Colleen Moore can be purchased from multiple sources, and I saw more than one complaint from people who thought they had ordered the earlier version and received the later. Their vocal and proportionate responses were much as you might expect.
I had never been to the Packard campus before, and did not know what to expect. As it turns out it has very much of a museum approach to screenings. No popcorn was available, for instance, much to the kids' disappointment, and we had to go through a metal detector prior to the movie. Additionally there was a short lecture before the film, which was interesting -- I did not know, for instance, that Sjöström had spent a good chunk of his childhood in the United States -- but not generally the approach we'd been taking with this project.
As with He Who Gets Slapped, this film unites director Victor Sjöström with an established Hollywood star -- in this case Lillian Gish -- whom we hadn't seen since 1920's Way Down East. It also stars Lars Hanson, another Swedish émigré, who had worked with Sjöström before coming to Hollywood, and would do so again, both in Hollywood and also after they'd both returned to Sweden.
I have never read The Scarlet Letter, nor seen any other adaptation, but I had a pretty good idea of the plot just through cultural osmosis. As an aside, the logo of a company at which I worked for several years is the word Harris, with the A in Harris dramatically drawn in red. While working there I occasionally asked what this scarlet A was meant to represent, and whether it implied that something shameful had occurred that the company was being punished for. I don't believe this ever amused anyone besides me, but it did make me think that there were probably a few layers of executive leadership who had a limited knowledge of English literature. In case any of them are reading this, Hester Prynne (played by Gish) lives in 17th century Massachusetts, and becomes pregnant through an affair with a local minister (played by Hanson.) Unwilling to expose the father, she is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter A -- for adulteress -- and she and her daughter live under that burden of shame, while the minister also, secretly, lives with similar shame and guilt. The lead role is very much on-brand for Gish, who again plays a living martyr. Additionally, though she was in her mid-thirties at this point, she credibly plays someone who I believe was supposed to be a decade younger. Hanson too, does a solid job of playing someone tormented by repression and guilt. Sjöström's direction is as good as you'd expect, though a bit more conservative than in his earlier films.
The original novel was written in 1850, and set two hundred years earlier, and the movie of course follows suit. I think, at times, setting a story in the past allows one to reflect on what has and hasn't changed -- but just as often I think it allows the audience to undeservedly congratulate themselves for living in a more enlightened age. I think that is why many films about civil rights, for instance, are set in the past, and I think that criticism could apply to this film as well. As a story about specific people, I think it works fairly well -- but I think the specific situation they find themselves in manifests itself in such an archaic way that it creates a barrier to linking it to a universal experience.
Next week we see The General, our second film from 1926, and our second Buster Keaton feature. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Scarlet Letter was our first film from 1926. We saw it at the Library of Congress's Packard campus, which is more than an hour's drive south, in Culpeper. The main reason I decided to make a trip that long with the kids was that the 1926 version of The Scarlet Letter -- despite being a well-rated and popular picture at the time -- is not easily available, either streaming or on disc. A good print exists for it, and it is occasionally shown on TCM, but for whatever reason it does not appear to be obtainable via my normal method of half-heartedly googling. By contrast, the 1934 version with Colleen Moore can be purchased from multiple sources, and I saw more than one complaint from people who thought they had ordered the earlier version and received the later. Their vocal and proportionate responses were much as you might expect.
I had never been to the Packard campus before, and did not know what to expect. As it turns out it has very much of a museum approach to screenings. No popcorn was available, for instance, much to the kids' disappointment, and we had to go through a metal detector prior to the movie. Additionally there was a short lecture before the film, which was interesting -- I did not know, for instance, that Sjöström had spent a good chunk of his childhood in the United States -- but not generally the approach we'd been taking with this project.
As with He Who Gets Slapped, this film unites director Victor Sjöström with an established Hollywood star -- in this case Lillian Gish -- whom we hadn't seen since 1920's Way Down East. It also stars Lars Hanson, another Swedish émigré, who had worked with Sjöström before coming to Hollywood, and would do so again, both in Hollywood and also after they'd both returned to Sweden.
I have never read The Scarlet Letter, nor seen any other adaptation, but I had a pretty good idea of the plot just through cultural osmosis. As an aside, the logo of a company at which I worked for several years is the word Harris, with the A in Harris dramatically drawn in red. While working there I occasionally asked what this scarlet A was meant to represent, and whether it implied that something shameful had occurred that the company was being punished for. I don't believe this ever amused anyone besides me, but it did make me think that there were probably a few layers of executive leadership who had a limited knowledge of English literature. In case any of them are reading this, Hester Prynne (played by Gish) lives in 17th century Massachusetts, and becomes pregnant through an affair with a local minister (played by Hanson.) Unwilling to expose the father, she is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter A -- for adulteress -- and she and her daughter live under that burden of shame, while the minister also, secretly, lives with similar shame and guilt. The lead role is very much on-brand for Gish, who again plays a living martyr. Additionally, though she was in her mid-thirties at this point, she credibly plays someone who I believe was supposed to be a decade younger. Hanson too, does a solid job of playing someone tormented by repression and guilt. Sjöström's direction is as good as you'd expect, though a bit more conservative than in his earlier films.
The original novel was written in 1850, and set two hundred years earlier, and the movie of course follows suit. I think, at times, setting a story in the past allows one to reflect on what has and hasn't changed -- but just as often I think it allows the audience to undeservedly congratulate themselves for living in a more enlightened age. I think that is why many films about civil rights, for instance, are set in the past, and I think that criticism could apply to this film as well. As a story about specific people, I think it works fairly well -- but I think the specific situation they find themselves in manifests itself in such an archaic way that it creates a barrier to linking it to a universal experience.
Next week we see The General, our second film from 1926, and our second Buster Keaton feature. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Kid Brother (1927)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/1/2018
The Kid Brother was our fourth film from 1927, and the last we saw at the AFI's silent film festival last fall. It was our fifth film starring Harold Lloyd, and the third where his female lead was Jobyna Ralston, whom we'd seen just the previous day in Wings.
In this film Lloyd lives with his father, who is the local sheriff, and his two older brothers, all of whom are bigger and stronger than Lloyd. Ralston arrives with two shady partners as part of a medicine show, and becomes involved with Lloyd. Lloyd and Ralston have a decent chemistry, perhaps by virtue of having worked together so often, and in this film their relationship is depicted as relatively healthy, unlike, for instance, in Safety Last and Girl Shy, where Lloyd did an awful lot of lying to his female lead, or in The Freshman, where he was borderline delusional. His brothers and father are also depicted as somewhere in the vicinity of a believable family, and not just as comedic foils.
The plot meanders a bit, but eventually the other two figures from the medicine show end up stealing town funds with which Lloyd's father was entrusted, casting suspicion on him. The final section of the film shows Lloyd finding the thieves and recovering the money. This last sequence is surprisingly violent, with Lloyd at one point trying to hold one of the thieves underwater until he drowns.
Seeing a movie like this in a theater is obviously a different experience than seeing it on television. For silents particularly, the live accompaniment makes a difference, but also for comedies it is interesting to hear what people actually find funny. The kids were a little critical on the way home about what they saw as overly effusive laughter from the audience. Usually I'm in sympathy with this point of view, and it often seems like there's a certain amount of performative laughter when people are watching older comedies. But the particular scene they were criticizing involved Lloyd putting human sized shoes on a monkey in order to fool his pursuer about where he was -- which seemed kind of amusing to me at the time. In general, though, Lloyd's movies usually make me smile more than laugh, but they are reliably charming, and this one is in that same vein.
After our detour into 1927, our next film, The Scarlet Letter, is our first from 1926. It's the first Lillian Gish film we've seen in a while, and also the sixth Victor Sjöström film. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Kid Brother was our fourth film from 1927, and the last we saw at the AFI's silent film festival last fall. It was our fifth film starring Harold Lloyd, and the third where his female lead was Jobyna Ralston, whom we'd seen just the previous day in Wings.
In this film Lloyd lives with his father, who is the local sheriff, and his two older brothers, all of whom are bigger and stronger than Lloyd. Ralston arrives with two shady partners as part of a medicine show, and becomes involved with Lloyd. Lloyd and Ralston have a decent chemistry, perhaps by virtue of having worked together so often, and in this film their relationship is depicted as relatively healthy, unlike, for instance, in Safety Last and Girl Shy, where Lloyd did an awful lot of lying to his female lead, or in The Freshman, where he was borderline delusional. His brothers and father are also depicted as somewhere in the vicinity of a believable family, and not just as comedic foils.
The plot meanders a bit, but eventually the other two figures from the medicine show end up stealing town funds with which Lloyd's father was entrusted, casting suspicion on him. The final section of the film shows Lloyd finding the thieves and recovering the money. This last sequence is surprisingly violent, with Lloyd at one point trying to hold one of the thieves underwater until he drowns.
Seeing a movie like this in a theater is obviously a different experience than seeing it on television. For silents particularly, the live accompaniment makes a difference, but also for comedies it is interesting to hear what people actually find funny. The kids were a little critical on the way home about what they saw as overly effusive laughter from the audience. Usually I'm in sympathy with this point of view, and it often seems like there's a certain amount of performative laughter when people are watching older comedies. But the particular scene they were criticizing involved Lloyd putting human sized shoes on a monkey in order to fool his pursuer about where he was -- which seemed kind of amusing to me at the time. In general, though, Lloyd's movies usually make me smile more than laugh, but they are reliably charming, and this one is in that same vein.
After our detour into 1927, our next film, The Scarlet Letter, is our first from 1926. It's the first Lillian Gish film we've seen in a while, and also the sixth Victor Sjöström film. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Wings (1927)
Originally posted to Facebook on 3/30/2018
We saw Wings, our third film from 1927, at the AFI Silver the day after seeing The Lodger and Blackmail. This was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (or Outstanding Picture, as the award was then called), and the first film in which we'd seen either Clara Bow or Gary Cooper, though the latter had only a small part.
The film is a WW1 movie about two friends who become wartime pilots, both in love with the same woman back in their hometown. The two friends are played by Charles Rogers and Richard Arlen, and the woman back home is played by Jobyna Ralston, whom we've already seen in a couple of Harold Lloyd films, and who married her co-star Richard Arlen. Ralston, though, is only in the film briefly, though she is talked about by the male leads a fair amount. The real female lead is Clara Bow, who is also from their hometown, and who unrequitedly pines for Rogers. Unlike Ralston, who stays home, Bow joins the war effort and ends up as an ambulance driver, eventually running into Rogers, though he is drunk and doesn't recognize her. It is immediately apparent why Bow was a star -- she is charming and charismatic, though in a cutesy way that is a little dated. However her role in this film is mostly superfluous; she contributes to a number of scenes, but nothing critical to the main plot. The real theme, if there is one beyond spectacle, is the friendship -- or love, really -- between Rogers and Arlen, and how it is elevated above their conflict over Ralston.
William Wellman, the director, served in WW1 as both an ambulance driver and as an aviator, so he no doubt brought a lot of his own experience to the film, and the film is notable for its depictions of flight, which required the lead actors to actually learn how to fly. We see them at times in the cockpit, with planes flying behind them, and there are numerous scenes of dogfights and other maneuvering, which apparently were not faked. There is other playful camerawork besides -- a long shot through a number of tables at a French nightclub eventually arriving at Rogers on leave, animated bubbles illustrating Roger's drunken perception, etc..
The film -- maybe uniquely among the WW1 movies that I've seen -- is not particularly anti-war. It shows a certain amount of death and destruction, but does not weigh in on the rationale behind the war, or the post-war alienation of the participants. This is not All's Quiet on the Western Front, or even The Big Parade. In fact, in one of the less believable subplots, there is an enemy pilot, presumably modeled on the Red Baron, who chivalrously refuses to engage when an Allied plane malfunctions, and who later provides some information to the Americans about a wounded pilot. From my perspective, the refusal of a war movie to grapple with war, or at least acknowledge more strongly that the war was more than a background for a love triangle, comes across as a little callow. But there is enough diverting about the picture to understand why it was popular and why it won the Academy Award.
Our next movie was the final film that we attended at the AFI series. It was The Kid Brother, our fourth film from 1927, and our fifth film starring Harold Lloyd, if one counts 1928's Speedy. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
We saw Wings, our third film from 1927, at the AFI Silver the day after seeing The Lodger and Blackmail. This was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (or Outstanding Picture, as the award was then called), and the first film in which we'd seen either Clara Bow or Gary Cooper, though the latter had only a small part.
The film is a WW1 movie about two friends who become wartime pilots, both in love with the same woman back in their hometown. The two friends are played by Charles Rogers and Richard Arlen, and the woman back home is played by Jobyna Ralston, whom we've already seen in a couple of Harold Lloyd films, and who married her co-star Richard Arlen. Ralston, though, is only in the film briefly, though she is talked about by the male leads a fair amount. The real female lead is Clara Bow, who is also from their hometown, and who unrequitedly pines for Rogers. Unlike Ralston, who stays home, Bow joins the war effort and ends up as an ambulance driver, eventually running into Rogers, though he is drunk and doesn't recognize her. It is immediately apparent why Bow was a star -- she is charming and charismatic, though in a cutesy way that is a little dated. However her role in this film is mostly superfluous; she contributes to a number of scenes, but nothing critical to the main plot. The real theme, if there is one beyond spectacle, is the friendship -- or love, really -- between Rogers and Arlen, and how it is elevated above their conflict over Ralston.
William Wellman, the director, served in WW1 as both an ambulance driver and as an aviator, so he no doubt brought a lot of his own experience to the film, and the film is notable for its depictions of flight, which required the lead actors to actually learn how to fly. We see them at times in the cockpit, with planes flying behind them, and there are numerous scenes of dogfights and other maneuvering, which apparently were not faked. There is other playful camerawork besides -- a long shot through a number of tables at a French nightclub eventually arriving at Rogers on leave, animated bubbles illustrating Roger's drunken perception, etc..
The film -- maybe uniquely among the WW1 movies that I've seen -- is not particularly anti-war. It shows a certain amount of death and destruction, but does not weigh in on the rationale behind the war, or the post-war alienation of the participants. This is not All's Quiet on the Western Front, or even The Big Parade. In fact, in one of the less believable subplots, there is an enemy pilot, presumably modeled on the Red Baron, who chivalrously refuses to engage when an Allied plane malfunctions, and who later provides some information to the Americans about a wounded pilot. From my perspective, the refusal of a war movie to grapple with war, or at least acknowledge more strongly that the war was more than a background for a love triangle, comes across as a little callow. But there is enough diverting about the picture to understand why it was popular and why it won the Academy Award.
Our next movie was the final film that we attended at the AFI series. It was The Kid Brother, our fourth film from 1927, and our fifth film starring Harold Lloyd, if one counts 1928's Speedy. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Blackmail (1929)
Originally posted to Facebook on 3/26/2018
Blackmail was our first film from 1929, which we saw out of sequence because it was shown directly after The Lodger during the AFI Silver Theater's run of silent films last fall, again with live accompaniment. Ben actually nodded off towards the end of the film, but I think that was more due to the fact that it started at 9:30 PM than a reflection on the film itself.
Like The Lodger, it is an Alfred Hitchcock film, the second of his that we've seen. It was made in the dying days of silents, and was released in two versions -- the silent that we saw, and a sound version. The film is recognizably Hitchcock's, alternating between playfulness and suspense as in almost all of his films. The key sequence, early in the film, during which the film's lead (Anny Ondra) is assaulted and defends herself, is excellent and, I think, deserves to be as well known as the Psycho shower scene, or Cary Grant being attacked by a crop duster, or any number of other canonical Hitchcock sequences. After the movie, I googled the equivalent scene from the sound version of Blackmail, and it was nowhere near as effective -- the shot sequence is different, and some of the sound doesn't match the events that are ostensibly occurring.
That scene sparks the blackmail from which the film gets its title. The rest of the film has a few other strong set-pieces, but also has some undermining flaws. Probably the biggest logical problem with the film is that if the immediate response to the inciting incident was for Ondra to hire a lawyer and go to the police, most likely everything would have been cleared up in short order. Another problem is that, near the end of the film, the antagonist (played by Donald Calthrop) flees into The British Museum, for no other reason than to provide a pretext for him to be chased through a variety of interesting sets. This too is a signature of Hitchcock in a way -- entertaining and incredibly contrived, not unlike, say, a shoot-out on Mt. Rushmore.
Our next film, Wings, was also part of the AFI's series, and was our third film from 1927. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Blackmail was our first film from 1929, which we saw out of sequence because it was shown directly after The Lodger during the AFI Silver Theater's run of silent films last fall, again with live accompaniment. Ben actually nodded off towards the end of the film, but I think that was more due to the fact that it started at 9:30 PM than a reflection on the film itself.
Like The Lodger, it is an Alfred Hitchcock film, the second of his that we've seen. It was made in the dying days of silents, and was released in two versions -- the silent that we saw, and a sound version. The film is recognizably Hitchcock's, alternating between playfulness and suspense as in almost all of his films. The key sequence, early in the film, during which the film's lead (Anny Ondra) is assaulted and defends herself, is excellent and, I think, deserves to be as well known as the Psycho shower scene, or Cary Grant being attacked by a crop duster, or any number of other canonical Hitchcock sequences. After the movie, I googled the equivalent scene from the sound version of Blackmail, and it was nowhere near as effective -- the shot sequence is different, and some of the sound doesn't match the events that are ostensibly occurring.
That scene sparks the blackmail from which the film gets its title. The rest of the film has a few other strong set-pieces, but also has some undermining flaws. Probably the biggest logical problem with the film is that if the immediate response to the inciting incident was for Ondra to hire a lawyer and go to the police, most likely everything would have been cleared up in short order. Another problem is that, near the end of the film, the antagonist (played by Donald Calthrop) flees into The British Museum, for no other reason than to provide a pretext for him to be chased through a variety of interesting sets. This too is a signature of Hitchcock in a way -- entertaining and incredibly contrived, not unlike, say, a shoot-out on Mt. Rushmore.
Our next film, Wings, was also part of the AFI's series, and was our third film from 1927. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
The Lodger (1927)
Originally posted to Facebook on 3/7/2018
We saw our second film from 1927, Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger, at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring during a silent film festival held there in the fall. It included live accompaniment -- something we hadn't experienced since we saw Speedy at the Winchester Alamo. The movie itself was one of Hitchcock's earliest films, and the first of his we'd seen.
The plot concerns the title character, played by Ivor Novello, taking a room at a boarding house run by the parents of the female lead, played by June Tripp. Her boyfriend is a policeman who is working on the case of a serial killer who is murdering women -- blondes, in fact -- on a periodic basis.
Novello exhibits a variety of strange behavior from the start, and as time goes by more and more evidence begins to link him to the crimes. At the same time he and Tripp become romantically involved. This is all surprisingly effective for most of the movie, and it is unfortunate that the film's major flaw is a disappointingly anti-climatic ending.
As suggested by the description above, many of Hitchcock's tendencies are already in place. At the same time, this film also has some of that odd silent-movie intensity which distinguishes it from most of Hitchcock's later films.
Our next film was seen on the very same night at the same venue: Hitchcock's Blackmail, from 1929. This was our first film from 1929, and obviously our second Hitchcock film. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
We saw our second film from 1927, Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger, at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring during a silent film festival held there in the fall. It included live accompaniment -- something we hadn't experienced since we saw Speedy at the Winchester Alamo. The movie itself was one of Hitchcock's earliest films, and the first of his we'd seen.
The plot concerns the title character, played by Ivor Novello, taking a room at a boarding house run by the parents of the female lead, played by June Tripp. Her boyfriend is a policeman who is working on the case of a serial killer who is murdering women -- blondes, in fact -- on a periodic basis.
Novello exhibits a variety of strange behavior from the start, and as time goes by more and more evidence begins to link him to the crimes. At the same time he and Tripp become romantically involved. This is all surprisingly effective for most of the movie, and it is unfortunate that the film's major flaw is a disappointingly anti-climatic ending.
As suggested by the description above, many of Hitchcock's tendencies are already in place. At the same time, this film also has some of that odd silent-movie intensity which distinguishes it from most of Hitchcock's later films.
Our next film was seen on the very same night at the same venue: Hitchcock's Blackmail, from 1929. This was our first film from 1929, and obviously our second Hitchcock film. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Orochi (1925)
Originally posted to Facebook on 3/1/2018
Orochi was our seventh and final film from 1925, and our first Japanese film. It is an early samurai film, starring Tsumasaburô Bandô, and was part of a DVD series called "Talking Silents", which attempts to recreate the experience of seeing silent films in a Japanese theater. Apparently the custom in Japan at that time, in addition to having musicians as in Western theaters, was to have an in-theater narrator explaining and commenting on the movie.
This is an interesting approach, and the entire series looks like a great resource, since most of its films do not appear to be readily available from any other source. By and large the film was understandable without any narration, though, and the constant talking became distracting at times.
The story revolves around Bandô, who is a samurai-in-training, but is ejected from his school because of a series of altercations. From there his life spirals downward, and he gets mixed up in various nefarious activities, resulting in a stint in jail. During all of this time the narration delivers his inner feelings -- which are mainly about how put-upon he is, and how others are misjudging him. This has a grain of truth to it -- some of his problems are due to misunderstanding -- but enough are self-created that his complaining about how nobody sees his true soul starts to be a bit amusing, though it doesn't seem as though that was the intention. There are a few impressive fight scenes, particularly a tightly choreographed scene near the end of the film where Bandô fights off dozens of other swordsmen single-handedly -- a scene that is not too uncommon in action movies today, but is very different than contemporaneous action films by Douglas Fairbanks or the like. The film would have been better if there had been more scenes like this, and fewer where he is walking from place to place, Eeyore-style, feeling sorry for himself. (And the less said about the scene where he pats himself on the back for not raping a woman who has been kidnapped on his behalf, the better.) I imagine Bandô is somewhere in the lineage of film stars that led to Toshiro Mifune, and he has a similar kind of charisma, though not on the same level as Mifune (who I can only imagine would have been an enormous silent star had he been born earlier.)
Next week, having completed our films for 1925, rather than moving on to 1926, we will see our second film from 1927, for similar reasons to why we saw our first film from 1927 -- Metropolis. During November of 2017, the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring had a silent festival with live accompaniment, at which we attended several films. The first -- our second film from 1927 -- was The Lodger, an early film by Alfred Hitchcock. The running list is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Orochi was our seventh and final film from 1925, and our first Japanese film. It is an early samurai film, starring Tsumasaburô Bandô, and was part of a DVD series called "Talking Silents", which attempts to recreate the experience of seeing silent films in a Japanese theater. Apparently the custom in Japan at that time, in addition to having musicians as in Western theaters, was to have an in-theater narrator explaining and commenting on the movie.
This is an interesting approach, and the entire series looks like a great resource, since most of its films do not appear to be readily available from any other source. By and large the film was understandable without any narration, though, and the constant talking became distracting at times.
The story revolves around Bandô, who is a samurai-in-training, but is ejected from his school because of a series of altercations. From there his life spirals downward, and he gets mixed up in various nefarious activities, resulting in a stint in jail. During all of this time the narration delivers his inner feelings -- which are mainly about how put-upon he is, and how others are misjudging him. This has a grain of truth to it -- some of his problems are due to misunderstanding -- but enough are self-created that his complaining about how nobody sees his true soul starts to be a bit amusing, though it doesn't seem as though that was the intention. There are a few impressive fight scenes, particularly a tightly choreographed scene near the end of the film where Bandô fights off dozens of other swordsmen single-handedly -- a scene that is not too uncommon in action movies today, but is very different than contemporaneous action films by Douglas Fairbanks or the like. The film would have been better if there had been more scenes like this, and fewer where he is walking from place to place, Eeyore-style, feeling sorry for himself. (And the less said about the scene where he pats himself on the back for not raping a woman who has been kidnapped on his behalf, the better.) I imagine Bandô is somewhere in the lineage of film stars that led to Toshiro Mifune, and he has a similar kind of charisma, though not on the same level as Mifune (who I can only imagine would have been an enormous silent star had he been born earlier.)
Next week, having completed our films for 1925, rather than moving on to 1926, we will see our second film from 1927, for similar reasons to why we saw our first film from 1927 -- Metropolis. During November of 2017, the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring had a silent festival with live accompaniment, at which we attended several films. The first -- our second film from 1927 -- was The Lodger, an early film by Alfred Hitchcock. The running list is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Freshman (1925)
Originally posted to Facebook on 2/4/2018
The Freshman is our sixth film from 1925, and our third starring Harold Lloyd (not counting 1928's Speedy.)
Many of the films we've seen recently don't particularly conform to the stereotypes associated with the twenties, but unlike those films The Freshman is filled with Jazz Age images -- college life, boozy parties, and the sort of cavalier attitude that is now shorthand for this period. Lloyd fits in well with this type of youth culture; though he was 32 in 1925, he passes for younger, and is not immediately laughable as a college student.
Lloyd in this movie is just entering college, and is determined to be a football hero and a generally popular figure on campus. Instead he ends up a target of mockery for his attempts to fit in. At the same time, he begins a tentative romance with his boarding house's landlady's daughter, played by Jobyna Ralston, whom we saw in our last Lloyd feature, 1924's Girl Shy. Though this film is more thematically linked than some of his previous films, it does have some long comic sequences, including a college party, and the football scenes for which this film is probably most famous. These latter scenes seem reminiscent of a similar sequence we saw in 1923's Three Ages with Buster Keaton, which was perhaps an influence.
Another interesting note about this film is that Lloyd came out of retirement in 1947 to star in an unofficial sequel named The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, directed by Preston Sturges. Hopefully we'll get a chance to see that film too, if the project lasts that long.
But next week we see our seventh and last film from 1925, an early Japanese samurai film named Orochi. The up-to-date list is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Freshman is our sixth film from 1925, and our third starring Harold Lloyd (not counting 1928's Speedy.)
Many of the films we've seen recently don't particularly conform to the stereotypes associated with the twenties, but unlike those films The Freshman is filled with Jazz Age images -- college life, boozy parties, and the sort of cavalier attitude that is now shorthand for this period. Lloyd fits in well with this type of youth culture; though he was 32 in 1925, he passes for younger, and is not immediately laughable as a college student.
Lloyd in this movie is just entering college, and is determined to be a football hero and a generally popular figure on campus. Instead he ends up a target of mockery for his attempts to fit in. At the same time, he begins a tentative romance with his boarding house's landlady's daughter, played by Jobyna Ralston, whom we saw in our last Lloyd feature, 1924's Girl Shy. Though this film is more thematically linked than some of his previous films, it does have some long comic sequences, including a college party, and the football scenes for which this film is probably most famous. These latter scenes seem reminiscent of a similar sequence we saw in 1923's Three Ages with Buster Keaton, which was perhaps an influence.
Another interesting note about this film is that Lloyd came out of retirement in 1947 to star in an unofficial sequel named The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, directed by Preston Sturges. Hopefully we'll get a chance to see that film too, if the project lasts that long.
But next week we see our seventh and last film from 1925, an early Japanese samurai film named Orochi. The up-to-date list is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Lazybones (1925)
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/14/2018
Lazybones was our fifth film from 1925, and our first directed by Frank Borzage, who later won two Best Director Oscars (including the very first in 1929, though in that year there were two direction categories, one for dramatic pictures, and one for comedies.)
The title of this film is the nickname of the protagonist, played by Buck Jones. He adopts a baby girl from his neighbor, played by Zazu Pitts, who, after returning home from the city, is afraid to admit to her mother that she, though unmarried, has a child. Of course that deflects the social scorn to Jones, who nonetheless raises the girl to adulthood.
Up until the final act, Jones gives a solid performance as a flawed but basically heroic man, who accepts his choice with relative equanimity. Jones doesn't seem to have appeared in too many more non-genre films, instead starring in many many low-budget westerns up though the forties, and he probably would have continued doing so if he hadn't died at the Cocoanut Grove fire in 1942, the deadliest nightclub fire in history. In this film his character's name is Steve, but in the hundred-plus other films he made before his death he played such roles as Buck Roberts, Buck Pearson, Buck Weaver, Buck Weylan, Buck Dawson, Buck Benson, and at least a dozen other Bucks.
The film hits many of the plot points you might expect, though it takes a much lighter tone than similarly themed movies such as 1920's Way Down East, or the film we will be seeing in a few weeks, 1926's The Scarlet Letter. In part this is because Borzage takes a less melodramatic approach to the material, and also it is because the father-daughter relationship shelters both of the main characters to some degree from the world's judgment. Therefore it is extremely disheartening, after Jones returns from serving in WW1, that he develops romantic feelings for the girl he has raised from an infant. The film seems to realize at some level that this is wrong, but doesn't come close to understanding how much of a betrayal this would be to his daughter. It is truly bizarre that nobody involved with releasing this film realized that this plot development was wildly out of place in this kind of film. I'm tempted to blame changing mores, but it would be interesting to see if film reviews at the time had any similar objections.
Next week we move on to The Freshman, our sixth film from 1925, and our third starring Harold Lloyd (not counting 1928's Speedy.) The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Lazybones was our fifth film from 1925, and our first directed by Frank Borzage, who later won two Best Director Oscars (including the very first in 1929, though in that year there were two direction categories, one for dramatic pictures, and one for comedies.)
The title of this film is the nickname of the protagonist, played by Buck Jones. He adopts a baby girl from his neighbor, played by Zazu Pitts, who, after returning home from the city, is afraid to admit to her mother that she, though unmarried, has a child. Of course that deflects the social scorn to Jones, who nonetheless raises the girl to adulthood.
Up until the final act, Jones gives a solid performance as a flawed but basically heroic man, who accepts his choice with relative equanimity. Jones doesn't seem to have appeared in too many more non-genre films, instead starring in many many low-budget westerns up though the forties, and he probably would have continued doing so if he hadn't died at the Cocoanut Grove fire in 1942, the deadliest nightclub fire in history. In this film his character's name is Steve, but in the hundred-plus other films he made before his death he played such roles as Buck Roberts, Buck Pearson, Buck Weaver, Buck Weylan, Buck Dawson, Buck Benson, and at least a dozen other Bucks.
The film hits many of the plot points you might expect, though it takes a much lighter tone than similarly themed movies such as 1920's Way Down East, or the film we will be seeing in a few weeks, 1926's The Scarlet Letter. In part this is because Borzage takes a less melodramatic approach to the material, and also it is because the father-daughter relationship shelters both of the main characters to some degree from the world's judgment. Therefore it is extremely disheartening, after Jones returns from serving in WW1, that he develops romantic feelings for the girl he has raised from an infant. The film seems to realize at some level that this is wrong, but doesn't come close to understanding how much of a betrayal this would be to his daughter. It is truly bizarre that nobody involved with releasing this film realized that this plot development was wildly out of place in this kind of film. I'm tempted to blame changing mores, but it would be interesting to see if film reviews at the time had any similar objections.
Next week we move on to The Freshman, our sixth film from 1925, and our third starring Harold Lloyd (not counting 1928's Speedy.) The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)