Maciste in Hell (1925)

Originally posted to Facebook on 11/1/2018

Maciste in Hell is the second of a three film detour that we are taking before picking up the timeline again in 1929. It was made in 1925, our eighth feature from that year, and was part of a series featuring the title character Maciste, who had been a secondary character in 1914's Cabiria. Maciste was played by Bartolomeo Pagano, both in this film and in Cabiria, as well as in 25 other Maciste films in the silent era. (The series was later rebooted in the 1960s as well.) This was one of the last of the original run, and its director, Guido Brignone, directed the final four.

Cabiria was a sprawling, innovative art film, and it seems odd that it would have launched, if this film is at all representative, a series of essentially light-hearted adventure films. It is not entirely clear to me in what time period this film is supposed to take place -- but probably some time prior to the modern era. Maciste lives in a rural village, where he is targeted by demons who appear in human form, and try, a la Faust, to tempt him -- though unsuccessfully. Maciste takes this in stride, and after tending to some not-terribly-related local issues involving his cousin, he eventually winds up trapped in hell, battling to find his way out. The special effects in hell are perhaps not quite state-of-the-art, but they are extensive -- and likely would have been more impressive had we seen it on a better print. They certainly underline that this was the Italian equivalent of a major studio film.

The internal logic of hell seems a bit incoherent though. Pluto appears to effectively be the ruler, but the demons Nimrod and Minos both wear crowns, and Maciste encounters an animalistic Lucifer as well -- who presumably fits into the org chart somewhere. The characterizations in the film are unusually thin, even for what is essentially a comic-book movie. Maciste is inhumanly strong, and good-hearted, and not overly thoughtful; everyone else is good or bad as the plot dictates.

Next week we see 1920's The Toll Gate, our second film starring William S. Hart. Then we return to 1929 and finish out the decade. 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

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

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

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

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

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 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

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