During our second week of shorts from the 1920s, we watched a Chaplin film, an experimental French film, three Disney shorts, and two silent shorts from Laurel and Hardy.
In The Pilgrim (1923) -- which at 47 minutes I've rather arbitrarily classed as a short -- Chaplin plays an ex-convict who disguises himself as a priest, and is taken in by a community who mistakes him for another priest. This is complicated by the fact that one of his friends from prison is in the same town and recognizes him. Chaplin reliably plays his normal persona, and has many of his typical cast-mates present: Edna Purviance, Mack Swain, and his brother Sydney Chaplin. Like many of his films, it's divided into a sequence of set pieces, but it's one of his more muted outings -- comedically, visually, and from a story perspective.
Ménilmontant (1926) came in a DVD set called "Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s," an imposing title. The film itself is relatively accessible though, its most "experimental" feature being its lack of title cards. This makes it occasionally opaque; however we have seen a number of commercial films that used few or no title cards (including notably 1924's The Last Laugh.) It tells the story of two sisters played by Nadia Sibirskaia and Yolande Beaulieu, who are orphaned early in the film, and their subsequent lives in the city. It was written and directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff, a Russian working in France. The film begins and ends with violence, a jarring framing device -- though what occurs during the main body of the movie could potentially have worked independently. In addition to the lack of title cards, another technique which felt innovative was the use of a few striking images of characters fading in and out, showing elapsed time. I expect there are earlier precedents for this, but it was used effectively, and was less clichéd than showing clock hands turning, or using more conventional cuts.
Steamboat Willie (1928) is the most iconic short that we watched during this session, having introduced Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and having been excerpted and parodied extensively. The short's events are fairly random, but the through-line is Mickey, Minnie, and Pete traveling on a boat, making music using various on-board animals. Although this film has synced sound, there is little if any dialog; the sound is confined mostly to music tracking the on-screen action, with some additional interspersed muttering. I should remark, too, that the gracious and thoughtful Mickey Mouse of which I got a lifetime's supply on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse animated TV show when the kids were growing up -- had not yet emerged. This Mickey Mouse is rather less benevolent, particularly to the other animals that don't seem to have been granted Mickey's mysterious ability for abstract thought.
That carries through to Plane Crazy (1928) in which Mickey builds a plane, looking with admiration at an image of Lindbergh (before he became disillusioned by Lindbergh's politics during WWII.) In his drive to become an aviator, he again uses animals in various cavalier ways. At one point, while airborne, Mickey terrifies Minnie by recklessly steering the plane in an attempt to get her to consent to a kiss. When she still refuses, he kisses her anyway, and in response she jumps out of the plane. Dark stuff. As with the previous film, there's very little dialog; I believe Minnie says "Who me?" at one point.
The third Disney film The Skeleton Dance (1929) doesn't feature any of Disney's famous characters, but is pretty well described by its title, and is basically five and half minutes of skeletons dancing around and making music -- as well as some black cats and owls.
It's hard to judge how innovative or impactful any of these Disney films were at the time. It's certainly true that we haven't seen anything like them previously in this project, and that within a few years Mickey Mouse had attained an iconic status that persists to this day. But it is also true that we didn't find any of these cartoons particularly funny. This may in part because we were brought up with their superior successors, including the Looney Tunes cartoons that became popular in the next decade -- but I find it hard to believe that even by the standards of the time a lot of the gags in these shorts weren't a bit limp and repetitive.
Along similar lines, Big Business (1929) was the first of two Laurel and Hardy shorts we saw, both silent, and although Laurel and Hardy became more famous in the sound era, their act, with its barbed friendship, already appeared to be largely in place. It involves them as two traveling salesman -- selling Christmas trees -- and particularly their feud with a hostile customer, played by James Finlayson. This particular short was not on the same level as the canonical silent comedians that we saw last week, with much less visual imagination, but it did have a certain sense of escalating destructiveness which was well-executed.
The second short of theirs that we watched -- Liberty (1929) -- was not quite as focused. They play prison escapees, and a huge chunk of the film involves them trying to rectify having earlier put on each other's pants. Also a live crab somehow winds up in one of the pairs of pants. This is all exactly as clever and high-brow as it sounds. James Finlayson from Big Business shows up again, as the owner or employee of a music store outside of which Laurel and Hardy wreak havoc. Eventually they end up on supposedly elevated girders of an in-construction building -- a situation both contrived and derivative, echoing the last week's Harold Lloyd short Never Weaken, except a decade later. However, on the plus side, and in a bit of continuity from Ménilmontant, this short has very few title cards -- and the ones that it does have could easily have been eliminated (e.g. "What did you do that for?")
That completes our sampling of short films from the 1920s, and our survey of the 1920s in general. I plan to summarize that experience in another post at some point, but next week we're moving on the 1930s with our first feature from 1930, the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers.
Showing posts with label 1928. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1928. Show all posts
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Sunday, June 23, 2019
The Battle of the Sexes (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/20/2018
The Battle of the Sexes was our thirteenth and final film from 1928. It is the fifth film we've seen directed by D.W. Griffith, but the first since 1920's Way Down East. It is also the second time we've seen Phyllis Haver, after seeing her in 1927's Chicago, and the first time we've seen Jean Hersholt, who was a well-known character actor in the late silent and early sound era, but is more famous as the namesake of the Academy Award for contributions to humanitarian causes.
The change in D.W. Griffith's fortunes since Way Down East is quite dramatic. This is a eighty-eight-minute low-budget film, and there is nothing that would indicate to the viewer that its director just fifteen years earlier had the clout to make films requiring thousands of extras and enormous sets recreating ancient Babylon. Its story, too, is relatively simple. Jean Hersholt is real estate magnate, with a wife (played by Belle Bennett), and two near-adult children, played by Sally O'Neil and William Bakewell. Hersholt becomes infatuated with Phyllis Haver, who is young, selfish, and carefree -- a role similar to the one she played in Chicago -- and his marriage and finances both suffer.
Overall this movie is mainly interesting for the people involved in making it. It is not particularly striking or memorable taken on its own merits, though it is also not quite terrible; this mirrors Hersholt's lead performance, which is not actively bad, but is also not dynamic nor sympathetic. Haver, on the other hand, has a echo of the charisma she showed in Chicago, but has much less material to work with here.
As mentioned above, the low budget makes this movie atypical compared to the other Griffith films we've seen, and results in a claustrophobic look, with most of the action occurring in either Hersholt's or Haver's apartment, with a brief detour to a dance hall. Perhaps the only thing that makes this recognizably a Griffith film is his focus on how poorly women are treated by men and by society. This concern is not presented in a modern way, and it is deployed selectively and usually paternalistically, but it is a connective tissue between this film and his earlier work.
So that concludes 1928. My goal of watching four films a year has admittedly gotten a little bit out of control, and unfortunately 1929 doesn't look much better. But I've added our planned films for 1930 to the spreadsheet, and for that year at least I've managed hold the line at five. On the other hand, before moving on to 1929, I've decided to go back and watch three earlier films we've missed, starting with 1924's Michael, which is the second film in this project directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Battle of the Sexes was our thirteenth and final film from 1928. It is the fifth film we've seen directed by D.W. Griffith, but the first since 1920's Way Down East. It is also the second time we've seen Phyllis Haver, after seeing her in 1927's Chicago, and the first time we've seen Jean Hersholt, who was a well-known character actor in the late silent and early sound era, but is more famous as the namesake of the Academy Award for contributions to humanitarian causes.
The change in D.W. Griffith's fortunes since Way Down East is quite dramatic. This is a eighty-eight-minute low-budget film, and there is nothing that would indicate to the viewer that its director just fifteen years earlier had the clout to make films requiring thousands of extras and enormous sets recreating ancient Babylon. Its story, too, is relatively simple. Jean Hersholt is real estate magnate, with a wife (played by Belle Bennett), and two near-adult children, played by Sally O'Neil and William Bakewell. Hersholt becomes infatuated with Phyllis Haver, who is young, selfish, and carefree -- a role similar to the one she played in Chicago -- and his marriage and finances both suffer.
Overall this movie is mainly interesting for the people involved in making it. It is not particularly striking or memorable taken on its own merits, though it is also not quite terrible; this mirrors Hersholt's lead performance, which is not actively bad, but is also not dynamic nor sympathetic. Haver, on the other hand, has a echo of the charisma she showed in Chicago, but has much less material to work with here.
As mentioned above, the low budget makes this movie atypical compared to the other Griffith films we've seen, and results in a claustrophobic look, with most of the action occurring in either Hersholt's or Haver's apartment, with a brief detour to a dance hall. Perhaps the only thing that makes this recognizably a Griffith film is his focus on how poorly women are treated by men and by society. This concern is not presented in a modern way, and it is deployed selectively and usually paternalistically, but it is a connective tissue between this film and his earlier work.
So that concludes 1928. My goal of watching four films a year has admittedly gotten a little bit out of control, and unfortunately 1929 doesn't look much better. But I've added our planned films for 1930 to the spreadsheet, and for that year at least I've managed hold the line at five. On the other hand, before moving on to 1929, I've decided to go back and watch three earlier films we've missed, starting with 1924's Michael, which is the second film in this project directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Mysterious Lady (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/15/2018
The Mysterious Lady was our twelfth film from 1928, and the second we've seen starring Greta Garbo, after 1926's Flesh and the Devil. It is also the second film we've seen directed by Fred Niblo, after the 1925 blockbuster Ben-Hur.
The film stars Conrad Nagel as an Austrian military official, who meets and falls in love with Garbo -- secretly working for Russia. She steals military plans entrusted to him, and he chases her east, posing as a piano player. This is perhaps the first real spy film we've seen, pre-dating the Cold War spy vogue by a couple of decades. Also notable, it takes a fair amount of time showing the relationship between Garbo and Nagel build; there is a long sequence before he knows the truth, in which they simply spend the day together, hiking and enjoying each other's company. This is effective and surprisingly unusual, and in strong contrast to, for instance, Flesh and the Devil, where Garbo and John Gilbert are almost immediately infatuated with one another.
Of course, the kind of intensity of feeling on display in Flesh and the Devil is one of the strengths of silent film, and choosing a more prosaic route gives this film something of the feel and pacing of a sound film -- and it probably would have been just as good or better had it been made a few years later; the scenes with Nagel playing the piano while undercover in enemy territory might have worked quite well in a sound film for instance.
This is the kind of film that I think gets lost in the shuffle a bit. It is not startlingly excellent, but is strong and sure-footed, perhaps verging on slick. It's unlikely to show up on any lists of the great silents, but nonetheless tells a good suspenseful story and presents leads with real chemistry -- a standard which more films should aspire to, and which is certainly an enormous improvement over last week's The Road to Ruin.
Next week we'll watch The Battle of the Sexes, our thirteenth and last film from 1928, and the fifth film we've seen directed by D.W. Griffith, the last being 1920's Way Down East. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Mysterious Lady was our twelfth film from 1928, and the second we've seen starring Greta Garbo, after 1926's Flesh and the Devil. It is also the second film we've seen directed by Fred Niblo, after the 1925 blockbuster Ben-Hur.
The film stars Conrad Nagel as an Austrian military official, who meets and falls in love with Garbo -- secretly working for Russia. She steals military plans entrusted to him, and he chases her east, posing as a piano player. This is perhaps the first real spy film we've seen, pre-dating the Cold War spy vogue by a couple of decades. Also notable, it takes a fair amount of time showing the relationship between Garbo and Nagel build; there is a long sequence before he knows the truth, in which they simply spend the day together, hiking and enjoying each other's company. This is effective and surprisingly unusual, and in strong contrast to, for instance, Flesh and the Devil, where Garbo and John Gilbert are almost immediately infatuated with one another.
Of course, the kind of intensity of feeling on display in Flesh and the Devil is one of the strengths of silent film, and choosing a more prosaic route gives this film something of the feel and pacing of a sound film -- and it probably would have been just as good or better had it been made a few years later; the scenes with Nagel playing the piano while undercover in enemy territory might have worked quite well in a sound film for instance.
This is the kind of film that I think gets lost in the shuffle a bit. It is not startlingly excellent, but is strong and sure-footed, perhaps verging on slick. It's unlikely to show up on any lists of the great silents, but nonetheless tells a good suspenseful story and presents leads with real chemistry -- a standard which more films should aspire to, and which is certainly an enormous improvement over last week's The Road to Ruin.
Next week we'll watch The Battle of the Sexes, our thirteenth and last film from 1928, and the fifth film we've seen directed by D.W. Griffith, the last being 1920's Way Down East. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Road to Ruin (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/7/2018
The Road to Ruin was our eleventh film from 1928. This film stars Helen Foster as a high-schooler who makes the mistake of smoking cigarettes and seeing boys, which, as the title suggests, inevitably leads to cataclysmic disaster -- and in rather short order too, as this film is only sixty minutes long. Despite the fact that it has a respectable rating on IMDB, and was apparently a box-office hit, this is perhaps the worst feature film that we've seen as part of this project. It reminded me of sub-par after-school specials, warning against various arguably risky behaviors, but in a risibly alarmist and hysterical tone -- and transparently taking perverse pleasure at showing the consequences. We have seen many films with misguided or wrongheaded moralistic authorial viewpoints -- most of the Griffith films we've seen, for instance -- but never with the kind of clunky writing and lack of dramatic structure on display in this film. It has rather poor production values as well, though some of that may have been the fault of the print, which was not in terribly good shape.
One of the reasons that I'd originally decided to add this film to the project was that IMDB had listed it as being directed by Dorothy Davenport, the widow of Wallace Reid (whom we'd seen in Carmen and Hawthorne of the U.S.A.) However it appears that she directed the sound remake in 1934 (also starring Helen Foster), while this film was directed by Norton S. Parker. This led to my first successful IMDB correction, so I suppose the viewing wasn't a total loss.
Next week we'll watch The Mysterious Lady, our twelfth film from from 1928, and the second starring Greta Garbo. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Road to Ruin was our eleventh film from 1928. This film stars Helen Foster as a high-schooler who makes the mistake of smoking cigarettes and seeing boys, which, as the title suggests, inevitably leads to cataclysmic disaster -- and in rather short order too, as this film is only sixty minutes long. Despite the fact that it has a respectable rating on IMDB, and was apparently a box-office hit, this is perhaps the worst feature film that we've seen as part of this project. It reminded me of sub-par after-school specials, warning against various arguably risky behaviors, but in a risibly alarmist and hysterical tone -- and transparently taking perverse pleasure at showing the consequences. We have seen many films with misguided or wrongheaded moralistic authorial viewpoints -- most of the Griffith films we've seen, for instance -- but never with the kind of clunky writing and lack of dramatic structure on display in this film. It has rather poor production values as well, though some of that may have been the fault of the print, which was not in terribly good shape.
One of the reasons that I'd originally decided to add this film to the project was that IMDB had listed it as being directed by Dorothy Davenport, the widow of Wallace Reid (whom we'd seen in Carmen and Hawthorne of the U.S.A.) However it appears that she directed the sound remake in 1934 (also starring Helen Foster), while this film was directed by Norton S. Parker. This led to my first successful IMDB correction, so I suppose the viewing wasn't a total loss.
Next week we'll watch The Mysterious Lady, our twelfth film from from 1928, and the second starring Greta Garbo. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Beggars of Life (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 9/18/2018
Beggars of Life was our tenth film from 1928, and the first film we've seen starring Louise Brooks. The screenplay was adapted by Benjamin Glazer, who also wrote the screenplays for 1927's 7th Heaven and 1926's Flesh and the Devil. It was directed by William Wellman and costarred Richard Arlen, both of whom we encountered in 1927's Wings. It also prominently features Wallace Beery, who has popped up in several films we've seen.
Arlen plays a hobo who enters a house looking for food, and finds a recently murdered man. He also finds Louise Brooks, who admits to the killing, though in self-defense. The two quickly leave, with Brooks disguised (not terribly convincingly) as a boy. They try to put some distance between themselves and the dead man while avoiding trouble, and eventually meet up with a band of other hobos, including Wallace Beery.
This depiction of homeless transients treated in a serious way feels new compared to the other American films we've seen as part of this project, certainly as embodied in a big-budget film with name stars. This film in fact felt to me like a premonition of the end of the twenties, and the beginning, in some sense, of the thirties, when poverty and hunger and hand-to-mouth existence became much more focused in the national consciousness. It has a grittiness and a danger to it -- up until the point, about halfway through, where the hobos, led by Beery, decide to hold a mock trial, which devolves into a series of limp jokes involving misuse of legal terminology. The film to that point had seemed basically naturalistic, but the artifice and theatricality of the trial broke the spell (for me at least), and though the film eventually rallied, it never quite recovered.
Beery gives the most charismatic performance in the film, dangerous but charming and mercurial. Arlen and Brooks play their parts as worried, fearful, and increasingly dependent on one another -- less vivid than Beery, but completely appropriate to their roles. There is, also, interestingly, a black character named "Black Mose", played by Blue Washington, who is given a significant amount of screen time. He is played and written stereotypically, but, as I discussed with the kids, I am genuinely unsure whether this is better or worse than the complete absence or extremely minimal roles for black actors which has been the general practice in the vast majority of the films we've seen to this point.
Next week we'll see Road to Ruin, our eleventh film from 1928. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Beggars of Life was our tenth film from 1928, and the first film we've seen starring Louise Brooks. The screenplay was adapted by Benjamin Glazer, who also wrote the screenplays for 1927's 7th Heaven and 1926's Flesh and the Devil. It was directed by William Wellman and costarred Richard Arlen, both of whom we encountered in 1927's Wings. It also prominently features Wallace Beery, who has popped up in several films we've seen.
Arlen plays a hobo who enters a house looking for food, and finds a recently murdered man. He also finds Louise Brooks, who admits to the killing, though in self-defense. The two quickly leave, with Brooks disguised (not terribly convincingly) as a boy. They try to put some distance between themselves and the dead man while avoiding trouble, and eventually meet up with a band of other hobos, including Wallace Beery.
This depiction of homeless transients treated in a serious way feels new compared to the other American films we've seen as part of this project, certainly as embodied in a big-budget film with name stars. This film in fact felt to me like a premonition of the end of the twenties, and the beginning, in some sense, of the thirties, when poverty and hunger and hand-to-mouth existence became much more focused in the national consciousness. It has a grittiness and a danger to it -- up until the point, about halfway through, where the hobos, led by Beery, decide to hold a mock trial, which devolves into a series of limp jokes involving misuse of legal terminology. The film to that point had seemed basically naturalistic, but the artifice and theatricality of the trial broke the spell (for me at least), and though the film eventually rallied, it never quite recovered.
Beery gives the most charismatic performance in the film, dangerous but charming and mercurial. Arlen and Brooks play their parts as worried, fearful, and increasingly dependent on one another -- less vivid than Beery, but completely appropriate to their roles. There is, also, interestingly, a black character named "Black Mose", played by Blue Washington, who is given a significant amount of screen time. He is played and written stereotypically, but, as I discussed with the kids, I am genuinely unsure whether this is better or worse than the complete absence or extremely minimal roles for black actors which has been the general practice in the vast majority of the films we've seen to this point.
Next week we'll see Road to Ruin, our eleventh film from 1928. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Lonesome (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 8/26/2018
Lonesome was our ninth film from 1928. It was directed by Pál Fejös, and starred Barbara Kent and Glenn Tryon. We'd seen Kent before in a small role as Lars Hanson's younger sister in 1926's Flesh and the Devil, but this is the first time we've seen the other two. (Kent, interestingly, died rather recently at the age of 103, in 2011.)
This film is the first we've seen with synced dialog, though only during three brief scenes. I didn't tell the kids ahead of time, and their excited reaction when Kent and Tryon began talking for the first time was gratifying.
The plot overall is about two lonely young people in the city finding each other and falling in love. It reminded me of the early sections of The Crowd -- in its urban setting, and its slice-of-life approach. Its scope was narrower though -- covering a single day -- and in that respect it could be described as a 1920s version of Before Sunrise -- though the later film was much more textured and probing. The best scenes in this movie are of Kent and Tryon getting to know each other, and starting to relax in each other's presence. It is notable how confident the movie is about having relatively little plot -- but unfortunately the few plot threads that are present result in a disappointingly stupid ending.
The synced dialog also detracts from the movie, though of course it was one of my motivations for selecting the film, and also one of the things that lends it historical significance. But it was nonetheless extraneous and distracting, particularly the latter two talking sequences. The first sequence took place on the beach, and though superfluous, and clearly present only for the novelty, it was at least in keeping with the film thematically. The second sequence looked as though it was shot on a dark empty sound stage -- the beach and surroundings where the leads are supposedly talking mysteriously vanish for a few minutes. The final scene takes place in a police station, and the writing, pacing, and acting are embarrassingly bad -- understandable given the infancy of talking pictures, but still not a welcome development. Overall, this movie would have been better as a straight silent, though I'm not sure we would have seen it had that been the approach.
Next week we'll see Beggars of Life, our tenth film from 1928, which features our first encounter with Louise Brooks. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Lonesome was our ninth film from 1928. It was directed by Pál Fejös, and starred Barbara Kent and Glenn Tryon. We'd seen Kent before in a small role as Lars Hanson's younger sister in 1926's Flesh and the Devil, but this is the first time we've seen the other two. (Kent, interestingly, died rather recently at the age of 103, in 2011.)
This film is the first we've seen with synced dialog, though only during three brief scenes. I didn't tell the kids ahead of time, and their excited reaction when Kent and Tryon began talking for the first time was gratifying.
The plot overall is about two lonely young people in the city finding each other and falling in love. It reminded me of the early sections of The Crowd -- in its urban setting, and its slice-of-life approach. Its scope was narrower though -- covering a single day -- and in that respect it could be described as a 1920s version of Before Sunrise -- though the later film was much more textured and probing. The best scenes in this movie are of Kent and Tryon getting to know each other, and starting to relax in each other's presence. It is notable how confident the movie is about having relatively little plot -- but unfortunately the few plot threads that are present result in a disappointingly stupid ending.
The synced dialog also detracts from the movie, though of course it was one of my motivations for selecting the film, and also one of the things that lends it historical significance. But it was nonetheless extraneous and distracting, particularly the latter two talking sequences. The first sequence took place on the beach, and though superfluous, and clearly present only for the novelty, it was at least in keeping with the film thematically. The second sequence looked as though it was shot on a dark empty sound stage -- the beach and surroundings where the leads are supposedly talking mysteriously vanish for a few minutes. The final scene takes place in a police station, and the writing, pacing, and acting are embarrassingly bad -- understandable given the infancy of talking pictures, but still not a welcome development. Overall, this movie would have been better as a straight silent, though I'm not sure we would have seen it had that been the approach.
Next week we'll see Beggars of Life, our tenth film from 1928, which features our first encounter with Louise Brooks. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 8/19/2018
Our eighth film from 1928 was The Man Who Laughs, an American film with a German director and leading man in Paul Leni and Conrad Veidt, respectively. This is the first film we've seen directed by Leni, and the second time we've seen Veidt, after 1920's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This is also the first time we've seen Mary Philbin, Veidt's costar.
Veidt plays Gwynplaine, the son of a nobleman who is murdered for political reasons at the beginning of the film. Gwynplaine, then a child, is mutilated so that his face is formed into a permanent grin. He ends up joining a traveling theatrical troupe, and when we see him as an adult, he is in a romantic relationship with a blind girl name Dea -- played by Philbin -- whom he had discovered as a baby.
Veidt's appearance famously inspired the look of the Joker, but the two characters are not similar at all from a dramatic perspective. Gwynplaine is actually remarkably well-adjusted, given the circumstances -- though he is anxious and ambivalent about his relationship with Philbin, feeling that she only loves him because she is unable to see his disfigured appearance. Dea is written and played as a saint, resulting in a rather static performance. Though Philbin was an established star, it's hard to imagine what she could have done to make this role more dynamic. Much more interesting is the role played by Olga Baclanova, the Duchess who has inherited Veidt's father's land, and who is in jeopardy of losing it once Gwynplaine's existence comes to light. She plays the role as hedonistic, threatened, and eventually desperate.
This was another Movietone release, meaning that we heard the actual score that was released at the time. Like Sunrise, there were actual wisps of human speech on the soundtrack -- crowd noises and such -- and in one scene, unprecedented so far in this project, Gwynplaine's name is actually heard being called, though it isn't synchronized or tied to any particular person.
Though this is often categorized under the rubric of German expressionism transplanted to America -- much like Sunrise -- it actually seems closer to the gothic over-the-top films of Lon Chaney -- because of its lurid nature, and its focus on disfigurement and the inner lives of those afflicted. So it was not surprising to me that Lon Chaney had been offered this role, but for scheduling reasons hadn't been able to accept. And it is very easy to imagine him in this film; though Veidt does a good job, you could easily see Chaney's intensity and charisma dramatically elevating the role -- but perhaps at the expense of its relatability.
Next week we watch Lonesome, our ninth film from 1928, which will be the first time in this project that we've heard synchronized sound in a commercial feature film. The list, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Our eighth film from 1928 was The Man Who Laughs, an American film with a German director and leading man in Paul Leni and Conrad Veidt, respectively. This is the first film we've seen directed by Leni, and the second time we've seen Veidt, after 1920's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This is also the first time we've seen Mary Philbin, Veidt's costar.
Veidt plays Gwynplaine, the son of a nobleman who is murdered for political reasons at the beginning of the film. Gwynplaine, then a child, is mutilated so that his face is formed into a permanent grin. He ends up joining a traveling theatrical troupe, and when we see him as an adult, he is in a romantic relationship with a blind girl name Dea -- played by Philbin -- whom he had discovered as a baby.
Veidt's appearance famously inspired the look of the Joker, but the two characters are not similar at all from a dramatic perspective. Gwynplaine is actually remarkably well-adjusted, given the circumstances -- though he is anxious and ambivalent about his relationship with Philbin, feeling that she only loves him because she is unable to see his disfigured appearance. Dea is written and played as a saint, resulting in a rather static performance. Though Philbin was an established star, it's hard to imagine what she could have done to make this role more dynamic. Much more interesting is the role played by Olga Baclanova, the Duchess who has inherited Veidt's father's land, and who is in jeopardy of losing it once Gwynplaine's existence comes to light. She plays the role as hedonistic, threatened, and eventually desperate.
This was another Movietone release, meaning that we heard the actual score that was released at the time. Like Sunrise, there were actual wisps of human speech on the soundtrack -- crowd noises and such -- and in one scene, unprecedented so far in this project, Gwynplaine's name is actually heard being called, though it isn't synchronized or tied to any particular person.
Though this is often categorized under the rubric of German expressionism transplanted to America -- much like Sunrise -- it actually seems closer to the gothic over-the-top films of Lon Chaney -- because of its lurid nature, and its focus on disfigurement and the inner lives of those afflicted. So it was not surprising to me that Lon Chaney had been offered this role, but for scheduling reasons hadn't been able to accept. And it is very easy to imagine him in this film; though Veidt does a good job, you could easily see Chaney's intensity and charisma dramatically elevating the role -- but perhaps at the expense of its relatability.
Next week we watch Lonesome, our ninth film from 1928, which will be the first time in this project that we've heard synchronized sound in a commercial feature film. The list, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Circus (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 8/10/2018
The Circus was our seventh film from 1928, and the fifth Chaplin feature that we've seen, the most recent being 1925's The Gold Rush.
This film began with a song playing over the opening credits, sung, as it turns out, by Chaplin himself. The kids found this quite surprising, though we'd heard some tinny isolated singing on a Movietone track during 1927's Sunrise. But Chaplin's voice in this case seemed to me a little too clear and resonant to truly be of the era -- and sure enough when I researched it, it turned out to be an addition he'd made in the late sixties, when he was nearing eighty. He added a new score along with his vocals, raising the question of how different the film we watched was from the one audiences saw at the time. Hopefully the changes were minor.
Chaplin again plays a variation on his tramp, starting the film penniless and in trouble with the law, but eventually being hired by the circus -- because he is unintentionally funny. There is a love triangle between him, the ringmaster's daughter (played by Merna Kennedy), and a tightrope walker (played by Harry Crocker), though it takes quite a while for that story to develop. The majority of the film consists of various medium length bits -- such as a chase through a hall of mirrors, or Chaplin getting locked in a cage with a lion. There aren't as many long set pieces as we've seen in his previous films, and there are a few surprisingly violent scenes showing how Kennedy's father, played by Al Ernest Garcia, mistreats her. There was one recurring bit that we kind of enjoyed -- a donkey that had somehow taken a dislike to Chaplin, and would occasionally appear from nowhere and attack him. In essence, though, with the plot being as thin as it is, the film became the sum of its parts -- and its parts ranged from tedious to mildly amusing. I think it is notable too that this film has very few of the iconic scenes that are shown in Chaplin clip reels -- in strong contrast, for instance, to The Gold Rush. I wasn't a huge fan of the earlier movie either, but it was far more ambitious than this one.
It is interesting how few films Chaplin was making by this point. By comparison, Buster Keaton starred in a film or two every year from the early twenties up through the mid-thirties (though he had lost creative control by the time sound films arrived.) Harold Lloyd appeared with similar frequency during the same time period. Chaplin, though, starred in four major films in the twenties, two in each of the thirties, forties, and fifties, and a final film in the sixties. It is probably too easy to ascribe this to his personality or his increasing exactitude about his films -- though I've read stories along those lines. But to the extent that his perfectionism played a role in his decreased appearance on the screen, it seems like a misplaced impulse, in part because his films are not notably stronger than his peers'; in fact most of them, including this one, are in the same "pleasantly amusing but hit-or-miss" category.
Next week we move on to The Man Who Laughs, our eighth film from 1928 -- featuring two German émigrés, Paul Leni as the director, and Conrad Veidt as the lead. Veidt, of course, we saw way back in 1920's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It also will be our first film with Mary Philbin, who plays the female lead. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Circus was our seventh film from 1928, and the fifth Chaplin feature that we've seen, the most recent being 1925's The Gold Rush.
This film began with a song playing over the opening credits, sung, as it turns out, by Chaplin himself. The kids found this quite surprising, though we'd heard some tinny isolated singing on a Movietone track during 1927's Sunrise. But Chaplin's voice in this case seemed to me a little too clear and resonant to truly be of the era -- and sure enough when I researched it, it turned out to be an addition he'd made in the late sixties, when he was nearing eighty. He added a new score along with his vocals, raising the question of how different the film we watched was from the one audiences saw at the time. Hopefully the changes were minor.
Chaplin again plays a variation on his tramp, starting the film penniless and in trouble with the law, but eventually being hired by the circus -- because he is unintentionally funny. There is a love triangle between him, the ringmaster's daughter (played by Merna Kennedy), and a tightrope walker (played by Harry Crocker), though it takes quite a while for that story to develop. The majority of the film consists of various medium length bits -- such as a chase through a hall of mirrors, or Chaplin getting locked in a cage with a lion. There aren't as many long set pieces as we've seen in his previous films, and there are a few surprisingly violent scenes showing how Kennedy's father, played by Al Ernest Garcia, mistreats her. There was one recurring bit that we kind of enjoyed -- a donkey that had somehow taken a dislike to Chaplin, and would occasionally appear from nowhere and attack him. In essence, though, with the plot being as thin as it is, the film became the sum of its parts -- and its parts ranged from tedious to mildly amusing. I think it is notable too that this film has very few of the iconic scenes that are shown in Chaplin clip reels -- in strong contrast, for instance, to The Gold Rush. I wasn't a huge fan of the earlier movie either, but it was far more ambitious than this one.
It is interesting how few films Chaplin was making by this point. By comparison, Buster Keaton starred in a film or two every year from the early twenties up through the mid-thirties (though he had lost creative control by the time sound films arrived.) Harold Lloyd appeared with similar frequency during the same time period. Chaplin, though, starred in four major films in the twenties, two in each of the thirties, forties, and fifties, and a final film in the sixties. It is probably too easy to ascribe this to his personality or his increasing exactitude about his films -- though I've read stories along those lines. But to the extent that his perfectionism played a role in his decreased appearance on the screen, it seems like a misplaced impulse, in part because his films are not notably stronger than his peers'; in fact most of them, including this one, are in the same "pleasantly amusing but hit-or-miss" category.
Next week we move on to The Man Who Laughs, our eighth film from 1928 -- featuring two German émigrés, Paul Leni as the director, and Conrad Veidt as the lead. Veidt, of course, we saw way back in 1920's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It also will be our first film with Mary Philbin, who plays the female lead. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Cameraman (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 8/5/2018
The Cameraman was our sixth film from 1928, and the third feature we've seen from Buster Keaton, after 1926's The General, and 1923's Three Ages.
Keaton in this film plays a struggling photographer, selling on sidewalks. After taking the photo of a young woman, played by Marceline Day, he becomes infatuated with her, finds that she works at a newsreel organization, and attempts to join the staff. As with many of the films we've seen from the famous silent comedians, this film uses its loose plot as a device on which to hang several not-terribly-connected sequences. For instance there is a long piece where Keaton goes on a date of sorts with Day to a communal swimming pool, and shortly after that there is a long sequence where he is filming gang warfare in Chinatown. The latter sequence is obviously fraught, although it does appear that the actors engaged in the gang warfare were mostly Asian, rather than white actors made up as Asians. Additionally, just prior to the brawl, Keaton acquires a monkey sidekick, the result of him running into an organ grinder's monkey, after which the organ grinder exclaims "Now, see! You kill-a de monk!" though of course the monkey turns out not actually to be dead. When I read that title card aloud, Ben sort of laughed, and then explained, "I just thought it was funny that your voice got kind of sad when you realized how racist it was." But whatever you think of the presence of organ grinders and Chinese gang members, it did seem a little funny to me that somebody might have left a theater for five minutes while Keaton was at the pool with Day, and come back to see Keaton's character trying to film brutal gang violence while a small monkey mans a machine gun next to him -- and perhaps wondered exactly what they'd missed in those five minutes.
The movie has a few of the iconic Keaton scenes that are regularly excerpted when people are showing clips -- for instance the scene of him atop a wooden structure that collapses as he's filming. I laughed a few times during this film, and enjoyed it probably about as much as Three Ages. It wasn't as good as The General -- in part because watching The General didn't summon up the image of an exhausted room of writers grasping for ideas, with somebody eventually pitching, "Maybe a monkey joins him?"
This was one of his last silents -- and will probably be the last feature of his that we watch. There's a completionist side of me that has a desire to sit down and watch all of his films -- but I also have a strong desire to move this project out of the twenties, where it has been lodged since early 2017. We are, however, planning to watch some of his short films between the planned features from 1929 and 1930.
Next week we move on from Keaton to Chaplin, watching The Circus, our seventh film from 1928, and our fifth by Chaplin. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Cameraman was our sixth film from 1928, and the third feature we've seen from Buster Keaton, after 1926's The General, and 1923's Three Ages.
Keaton in this film plays a struggling photographer, selling on sidewalks. After taking the photo of a young woman, played by Marceline Day, he becomes infatuated with her, finds that she works at a newsreel organization, and attempts to join the staff. As with many of the films we've seen from the famous silent comedians, this film uses its loose plot as a device on which to hang several not-terribly-connected sequences. For instance there is a long piece where Keaton goes on a date of sorts with Day to a communal swimming pool, and shortly after that there is a long sequence where he is filming gang warfare in Chinatown. The latter sequence is obviously fraught, although it does appear that the actors engaged in the gang warfare were mostly Asian, rather than white actors made up as Asians. Additionally, just prior to the brawl, Keaton acquires a monkey sidekick, the result of him running into an organ grinder's monkey, after which the organ grinder exclaims "Now, see! You kill-a de monk!" though of course the monkey turns out not actually to be dead. When I read that title card aloud, Ben sort of laughed, and then explained, "I just thought it was funny that your voice got kind of sad when you realized how racist it was." But whatever you think of the presence of organ grinders and Chinese gang members, it did seem a little funny to me that somebody might have left a theater for five minutes while Keaton was at the pool with Day, and come back to see Keaton's character trying to film brutal gang violence while a small monkey mans a machine gun next to him -- and perhaps wondered exactly what they'd missed in those five minutes.
The movie has a few of the iconic Keaton scenes that are regularly excerpted when people are showing clips -- for instance the scene of him atop a wooden structure that collapses as he's filming. I laughed a few times during this film, and enjoyed it probably about as much as Three Ages. It wasn't as good as The General -- in part because watching The General didn't summon up the image of an exhausted room of writers grasping for ideas, with somebody eventually pitching, "Maybe a monkey joins him?"
This was one of his last silents -- and will probably be the last feature of his that we watch. There's a completionist side of me that has a desire to sit down and watch all of his films -- but I also have a strong desire to move this project out of the twenties, where it has been lodged since early 2017. We are, however, planning to watch some of his short films between the planned features from 1929 and 1930.
Next week we move on from Keaton to Chaplin, watching The Circus, our seventh film from 1928, and our fifth by Chaplin. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Wind (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 8/1/2018
The Wind was our fifth film from 1928, reuniting Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, and director Victor Sjöström from 1926's The Scarlet Letter. All three, particularly Sjöström and Gish, had been prominent figures in the movie industry since the beginning of features, and we have seen them all multiple times. Also returning from The Scarlet Letter was Frances Marion, who wrote or adapted not only these two films, but several others we've seen, including 1917's Tillie Wakes Up, 1918's Stella Maris, 1925's Lazybones, and 1927's The Red Mill. She later went on to be nominated for three writing Oscars, winning two.
Like The Crowd last week, The Wind is a rather well-known film which, however, does not appear to have an easily obtainable English language release. I again bought a Spanish language DVD ("El Viento"), but we instead ended up watching a version DVRed off TCM, where it happened to be playing. I'd hoped that the TCM version would have featured a better print, but sadly that was not the case. Often the picture was muddy or too dark, and it could clearly use a significant restoration. TCM actually prefaced the film with a 1983 introduction by Gish herself, taped when she was almost 90. In it she tells a few stories about the making of the film -- which I thought about showing to the kids until I saw an article (https://bit.ly/1SIaaTM -- spoilers included) which convincingly debunked them.
The film itself concerns Gish traveling west alone, to live with her cousin, played by Edward Earle. Once there, she finds she is not entirely welcome, especially by his jealous wife Cora, played by Dorothy Cumming, and eventually she is kicked out of their house. At that point, the most palatable options presented to her are marrying one of two suitors -- either Sourdough, a sixty-something prospector-ish character, played by William Orlamond, or Lige, played by Hanson. She unsurprisingly chooses Hanson, despite Ben's vocal disagreement ("If you have the chance to become Mrs. Sourdough, you take it.") The movie eventually heads into rather dark, pre-code, PG-13ish territory. Among other things, Gish's character, having been not only pummeled by life, but also now living in an inhospitable climate, including the constant wind, begins to show signs of mental deterioration. She gives a very good, skittish performance, probably her best that we've seen -- similar to the martyrs she's played before, but more layered and calibrated. Sjöström's direction is characteristically assured as well -- not showy, but with personality; I suspect that personality would shown through even more strongly had we been watching a better print.
Next week's movie, our sixth from 1928, is The Cameraman, a Buster Keaton movie - the third film of his we've seen. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Wind was our fifth film from 1928, reuniting Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, and director Victor Sjöström from 1926's The Scarlet Letter. All three, particularly Sjöström and Gish, had been prominent figures in the movie industry since the beginning of features, and we have seen them all multiple times. Also returning from The Scarlet Letter was Frances Marion, who wrote or adapted not only these two films, but several others we've seen, including 1917's Tillie Wakes Up, 1918's Stella Maris, 1925's Lazybones, and 1927's The Red Mill. She later went on to be nominated for three writing Oscars, winning two.
Like The Crowd last week, The Wind is a rather well-known film which, however, does not appear to have an easily obtainable English language release. I again bought a Spanish language DVD ("El Viento"), but we instead ended up watching a version DVRed off TCM, where it happened to be playing. I'd hoped that the TCM version would have featured a better print, but sadly that was not the case. Often the picture was muddy or too dark, and it could clearly use a significant restoration. TCM actually prefaced the film with a 1983 introduction by Gish herself, taped when she was almost 90. In it she tells a few stories about the making of the film -- which I thought about showing to the kids until I saw an article (https://bit.ly/1SIaaTM -- spoilers included) which convincingly debunked them.
The film itself concerns Gish traveling west alone, to live with her cousin, played by Edward Earle. Once there, she finds she is not entirely welcome, especially by his jealous wife Cora, played by Dorothy Cumming, and eventually she is kicked out of their house. At that point, the most palatable options presented to her are marrying one of two suitors -- either Sourdough, a sixty-something prospector-ish character, played by William Orlamond, or Lige, played by Hanson. She unsurprisingly chooses Hanson, despite Ben's vocal disagreement ("If you have the chance to become Mrs. Sourdough, you take it.") The movie eventually heads into rather dark, pre-code, PG-13ish territory. Among other things, Gish's character, having been not only pummeled by life, but also now living in an inhospitable climate, including the constant wind, begins to show signs of mental deterioration. She gives a very good, skittish performance, probably her best that we've seen -- similar to the martyrs she's played before, but more layered and calibrated. Sjöström's direction is characteristically assured as well -- not showy, but with personality; I suspect that personality would shown through even more strongly had we been watching a better print.
Next week's movie, our sixth from 1928, is The Cameraman, a Buster Keaton movie - the third film of his we've seen. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sunday, June 9, 2019
The Crowd (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 7/29/2018
Our fourth film from 1928 was The Crowd. It was the second film in a row (after last week's Show People), and the third overall, that we've seen directed by King Vidor. Rather frustratingly, there doesn't appear to be an English-language DVD of this film available by a commercial publisher. I ended up buying a Spanish version ("Y El Munda Marcha"), which was fine; the title cards are still in English, so there is no difference when the Spanish subtitles are turned off. However the print was still not all that great -- an occupational hazard when you are watching silent films, but The Crowd is not some obscure rarity that has survived only through chance; it's a well-known movie, was nominated for a couple Academy Awards at the time, and was one of the first 25 features added to the National Film Registry in 1989, along with only five other silents. It's very strange that there isn't a decently well restored version of this film available for the American market.
In any case, the film stars James Murray and Eleanor Boardman. Neither are well remembered today, though Boardman had a brief but significant career, and was in some interesting films, including 1926's Tell It to the Marines which we saw earlier in this project. She also happened to be married to King Vidor at the time of this film. Murray's career was much more checkered, and he died in 1936, after many years of alcoholism and erratic behavior. The film covers the courtship and marriage of John and Mary Sims, and tracks their early lives through various ups and downs. It actually starts with John Sims as a boy, growing up in a small town, before he moves to New York City, but those scenes are almost completely superfluous and could have been covered by a line or two of dialog later in the film. Ideally the film could have started with the movie's iconic shot of a camera climbing up the side of an office building, dissolving through a window, and showing Murray in a dehumanizing sea of desks -- and that is in fact the way 1960's The Apartment started, explicitly paying tribute to that scene. And that shot also shows some of the influence of German Expressionism in American films -- sort of a white collar equivalent to Metropolis. That influence pops up intermittently through the film, another example being the maternity ward when Murray first sees his son.
I was a little disappointed by the film, probably in part because of the expectations set by its "classic" status, but also by Murray's performance. The film hits a lot of the notes you would expect in a mature film about ordinary people -- showing their ambitions and hopes meshing unevenly with day-to-day realities -- and it is indeed refreshing to see a couple on-screen arguing about something as prosaic as getting the toilet fixed. They face more serious challenges together as well, but Murray can barely keep it together under even regular circumstances. His emoting is almost a caricature of what people envision silent film acting to be. It doesn't completely distract from the film's virtues, but it does make one feel a little more sympathy for Boardman's family's disapproval of him. Another flaw is that Boardman plays a distinctly second fiddle in the film. Almost all of her frustrations are in reaction to Murray's choices or circumstances. A more modulated approach -- more emphasis on her inner life, and saving Murray's hysterics for a few key scenes -- would have strengthened the film significantly. I think the overall theme, though, of how people's relationships to one another provide meaning regardless of how mundane their lives seem, or how frustrated or despairing they may be, has almost universal appeal -- and is also what drives It's a Wonderful Life, for instance, which may well have been influenced by this film.
Next week, we'll see The Wind, our fifth film from 1928, and a re-teaming of the stars and director from 1926's The Scarlet Letter, all three of whom (Victor Sjöström, Lillian Gish, and Lars Hanson) we have seen multiple times before, together and apart. The overall list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Our fourth film from 1928 was The Crowd. It was the second film in a row (after last week's Show People), and the third overall, that we've seen directed by King Vidor. Rather frustratingly, there doesn't appear to be an English-language DVD of this film available by a commercial publisher. I ended up buying a Spanish version ("Y El Munda Marcha"), which was fine; the title cards are still in English, so there is no difference when the Spanish subtitles are turned off. However the print was still not all that great -- an occupational hazard when you are watching silent films, but The Crowd is not some obscure rarity that has survived only through chance; it's a well-known movie, was nominated for a couple Academy Awards at the time, and was one of the first 25 features added to the National Film Registry in 1989, along with only five other silents. It's very strange that there isn't a decently well restored version of this film available for the American market.
In any case, the film stars James Murray and Eleanor Boardman. Neither are well remembered today, though Boardman had a brief but significant career, and was in some interesting films, including 1926's Tell It to the Marines which we saw earlier in this project. She also happened to be married to King Vidor at the time of this film. Murray's career was much more checkered, and he died in 1936, after many years of alcoholism and erratic behavior. The film covers the courtship and marriage of John and Mary Sims, and tracks their early lives through various ups and downs. It actually starts with John Sims as a boy, growing up in a small town, before he moves to New York City, but those scenes are almost completely superfluous and could have been covered by a line or two of dialog later in the film. Ideally the film could have started with the movie's iconic shot of a camera climbing up the side of an office building, dissolving through a window, and showing Murray in a dehumanizing sea of desks -- and that is in fact the way 1960's The Apartment started, explicitly paying tribute to that scene. And that shot also shows some of the influence of German Expressionism in American films -- sort of a white collar equivalent to Metropolis. That influence pops up intermittently through the film, another example being the maternity ward when Murray first sees his son.
I was a little disappointed by the film, probably in part because of the expectations set by its "classic" status, but also by Murray's performance. The film hits a lot of the notes you would expect in a mature film about ordinary people -- showing their ambitions and hopes meshing unevenly with day-to-day realities -- and it is indeed refreshing to see a couple on-screen arguing about something as prosaic as getting the toilet fixed. They face more serious challenges together as well, but Murray can barely keep it together under even regular circumstances. His emoting is almost a caricature of what people envision silent film acting to be. It doesn't completely distract from the film's virtues, but it does make one feel a little more sympathy for Boardman's family's disapproval of him. Another flaw is that Boardman plays a distinctly second fiddle in the film. Almost all of her frustrations are in reaction to Murray's choices or circumstances. A more modulated approach -- more emphasis on her inner life, and saving Murray's hysterics for a few key scenes -- would have strengthened the film significantly. I think the overall theme, though, of how people's relationships to one another provide meaning regardless of how mundane their lives seem, or how frustrated or despairing they may be, has almost universal appeal -- and is also what drives It's a Wonderful Life, for instance, which may well have been influenced by this film.
Next week, we'll see The Wind, our fifth film from 1928, and a re-teaming of the stars and director from 1926's The Scarlet Letter, all three of whom (Victor Sjöström, Lillian Gish, and Lars Hanson) we have seen multiple times before, together and apart. The overall list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Show People (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 7/27/2018
Show People was our third film from 1928. It was directed by King Vidor, and starred Marion Davies and William Haines, all of whom we've seen before during this project -- Marion Davies in 1922's When Knighthood was in Flower and 1927's The Red Mill, William Haines in 1926's Tell It to the Marines, and King Vidor as the director of 1925's The Big Parade.
This was another film with a Movietone soundtrack, signaling the incipient end of the silent era, and the kids were impressed that, for the first time, we heard the MGM lion roar. ("Whoa!" they said.) Until recently I had actually believed that the point of the MGM lion -- and its roar -- was to signal to audiences that they were watching a sound film -- but we've seen the lion roaring silently on films dating back a few years, so obviously that was incorrect.
Show People is a Hollywood movie about Hollywood, similar in some ways to 1923's The Extra Girl, but its humor is broader than that film, which is especially notable when you remember that a long sequence in the earlier film involved Mabel Normand not being able to tell the difference between a dog dressed up as a lion and a real lion. Marion Davies in this case plays the newcomer to Hollywood, and is eventually helped out by William Haines, who is a slapstick comedian at a minor studio. Haines, as we saw a few months ago, held his own against Lon Chaney in Tell It to the Marines, perhaps surprisingly. But he does less well up against Marion Davies in this picture. She is clearly the star of the film, and gives her normal charismatic performance, though she is a bit less charming and more self-centered than in previous films. In fact, the major arc of the film follows her rise up the Hollywood ladder, forgetting her friends along the way. But she is obnoxious not only on the way up, but also when she rights things at the end. Haines also is fairly obnoxious in his role, and never quite shows his character's core of seriousness as he did in Tell It to the Marines.
Neither The Extra Girl nor this film was intended as a brutal satire of Hollywood exactly, but this film has a little more of an insider feel than the earlier one, which gives it that much less bite. It reminded me of the phenomenon of celebrities who have been mocked on Saturday Night Live showing up in person, to signal that the mockery is all in good fun -- whether or not that is (or should be) the case. And there are a number of celebrity cameos throughout the movie, playing themselves, including William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, and John Gilbert. Some show up only briefly in a single shot, but some, like Charlie Chaplin, are mentioned by name, and actually have a short scene with the lead characters. The Extra Girl had a few celebrity cameos as well, but nothing close to the star power of this film.
I think I would have preferred if this film had taken a stronger approach in one direction or another -- either to have been funnier, or to have had less two-dimensional characters, or to have been more scathing about Hollywood. But it was entertaining, and it was certainly interesting to see the impression Hollywood had or wanted to create for itself at this point in its history.
Next week we move on to The Crowd, our fourth film from 1928, which was also directed by King Vidor. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT.
Show People was our third film from 1928. It was directed by King Vidor, and starred Marion Davies and William Haines, all of whom we've seen before during this project -- Marion Davies in 1922's When Knighthood was in Flower and 1927's The Red Mill, William Haines in 1926's Tell It to the Marines, and King Vidor as the director of 1925's The Big Parade.
This was another film with a Movietone soundtrack, signaling the incipient end of the silent era, and the kids were impressed that, for the first time, we heard the MGM lion roar. ("Whoa!" they said.) Until recently I had actually believed that the point of the MGM lion -- and its roar -- was to signal to audiences that they were watching a sound film -- but we've seen the lion roaring silently on films dating back a few years, so obviously that was incorrect.
Show People is a Hollywood movie about Hollywood, similar in some ways to 1923's The Extra Girl, but its humor is broader than that film, which is especially notable when you remember that a long sequence in the earlier film involved Mabel Normand not being able to tell the difference between a dog dressed up as a lion and a real lion. Marion Davies in this case plays the newcomer to Hollywood, and is eventually helped out by William Haines, who is a slapstick comedian at a minor studio. Haines, as we saw a few months ago, held his own against Lon Chaney in Tell It to the Marines, perhaps surprisingly. But he does less well up against Marion Davies in this picture. She is clearly the star of the film, and gives her normal charismatic performance, though she is a bit less charming and more self-centered than in previous films. In fact, the major arc of the film follows her rise up the Hollywood ladder, forgetting her friends along the way. But she is obnoxious not only on the way up, but also when she rights things at the end. Haines also is fairly obnoxious in his role, and never quite shows his character's core of seriousness as he did in Tell It to the Marines.
Neither The Extra Girl nor this film was intended as a brutal satire of Hollywood exactly, but this film has a little more of an insider feel than the earlier one, which gives it that much less bite. It reminded me of the phenomenon of celebrities who have been mocked on Saturday Night Live showing up in person, to signal that the mockery is all in good fun -- whether or not that is (or should be) the case. And there are a number of celebrity cameos throughout the movie, playing themselves, including William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, and John Gilbert. Some show up only briefly in a single shot, but some, like Charlie Chaplin, are mentioned by name, and actually have a short scene with the lead characters. The Extra Girl had a few celebrity cameos as well, but nothing close to the star power of this film.
I think I would have preferred if this film had taken a stronger approach in one direction or another -- either to have been funnier, or to have had less two-dimensional characters, or to have been more scathing about Hollywood. But it was entertaining, and it was certainly interesting to see the impression Hollywood had or wanted to create for itself at this point in its history.
Next week we move on to The Crowd, our fourth film from 1928, which was also directed by King Vidor. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 7/14/2018
Before seeing our final film from 1927, we instead saw The Passion of Joan of Arc. It was our second film from 1928, since I have now retconned Harold Lloyd's Speedy into this project (which we saw back in August of 2016 when we were still working our way through 1916.) Like the earlier film, the reason we saw Joan of Arc out of order was that it was playing at the Alamo -- where, in addition to seeing it on the big screen, I actually won a raffle for the Blu-Ray just prior to the showing -- though to be fair my chances were quadrupled since Bianca and the kids were there as well.
The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer -- who continued directing up through the sixties -- and starred Maria Falconetti as Joan, who had made two films in the teens, but none subsequent to this movie. Falconetti was in her mid-thirties at the time of the film, and could potentially be taken for younger, but was clearly not 19 -- which in some ways downplays the absurdity of the trial, during which the film is almost entirely set. The film mentions at the very beginning how remarkable it is that we have the actual court proceedings from six hundred years ago -- essentially a transcript (which is available at https://bit.ly/2LgRkli as well as many other places.) And the majority of the film is drawn from that transcript. The closest reference point I have to the events in this movie is Shaw's Saint Joan -- which also liberally used that same transcript. But Shaw's play is much wider ranging -- including Joan's rise and fall, and, while it includes Joan's misery near the end of her life, it also has Shaw's characteristic wit and charm, as well as musings about Joan as an early emblem of Protestantism and nationalism -- whereas this movie covers only the last few days of her life.
The movie reminded me in some ways of Martin Scorsese's Silence, both because of the religious interrogations, but also because I suspect one's reaction is necessarily going to be colored by one's own religious beliefs. If you view Joan's visions as, in some sense, true, and believe that she is really communicating with the divine in some way -- then she is a martyr. If you view her as very likely mentally ill and delusional -- which is my perspective -- then her cause and beliefs become less important than her mistreatment. In fact, the most interesting thing to me about her life is not so much her trial and conviction -- it is how a teen-aged girl was able to lead such an enormous movement at a time there were very few women of any age in positions of power. Shaw addresses this a little in his play (entertainingly if not particularly convincingly) but this movie is single-mindedly focused on her faith and anguish, emphasized by a barrage of close-ups, both of her and her interrogators -- with just enough dialog and change of scenery to keep it from being monotonous, a line which it does occasionally cross. It is the kind of approach that is well-suited for silent movies, and the uniqueness -- at least as far as the films we've seen so far in this project -- of having long uninterrupted interrogation scenes gives it an intensity which I am sure is part of its lasting appeal.
Next week, we'll return to 1927, watching 7th Heaven, our tenth and final film from that year. It will be the second film we've seen directed by Frank Borzage, and also the second film in which we've seen Janet Gaynor. The list as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Before seeing our final film from 1927, we instead saw The Passion of Joan of Arc. It was our second film from 1928, since I have now retconned Harold Lloyd's Speedy into this project (which we saw back in August of 2016 when we were still working our way through 1916.) Like the earlier film, the reason we saw Joan of Arc out of order was that it was playing at the Alamo -- where, in addition to seeing it on the big screen, I actually won a raffle for the Blu-Ray just prior to the showing -- though to be fair my chances were quadrupled since Bianca and the kids were there as well.
The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer -- who continued directing up through the sixties -- and starred Maria Falconetti as Joan, who had made two films in the teens, but none subsequent to this movie. Falconetti was in her mid-thirties at the time of the film, and could potentially be taken for younger, but was clearly not 19 -- which in some ways downplays the absurdity of the trial, during which the film is almost entirely set. The film mentions at the very beginning how remarkable it is that we have the actual court proceedings from six hundred years ago -- essentially a transcript (which is available at https://bit.ly/2LgRkli as well as many other places.) And the majority of the film is drawn from that transcript. The closest reference point I have to the events in this movie is Shaw's Saint Joan -- which also liberally used that same transcript. But Shaw's play is much wider ranging -- including Joan's rise and fall, and, while it includes Joan's misery near the end of her life, it also has Shaw's characteristic wit and charm, as well as musings about Joan as an early emblem of Protestantism and nationalism -- whereas this movie covers only the last few days of her life.
The movie reminded me in some ways of Martin Scorsese's Silence, both because of the religious interrogations, but also because I suspect one's reaction is necessarily going to be colored by one's own religious beliefs. If you view Joan's visions as, in some sense, true, and believe that she is really communicating with the divine in some way -- then she is a martyr. If you view her as very likely mentally ill and delusional -- which is my perspective -- then her cause and beliefs become less important than her mistreatment. In fact, the most interesting thing to me about her life is not so much her trial and conviction -- it is how a teen-aged girl was able to lead such an enormous movement at a time there were very few women of any age in positions of power. Shaw addresses this a little in his play (entertainingly if not particularly convincingly) but this movie is single-mindedly focused on her faith and anguish, emphasized by a barrage of close-ups, both of her and her interrogators -- with just enough dialog and change of scenery to keep it from being monotonous, a line which it does occasionally cross. It is the kind of approach that is well-suited for silent movies, and the uniqueness -- at least as far as the films we've seen so far in this project -- of having long uninterrupted interrogation scenes gives it an intensity which I am sure is part of its lasting appeal.
Next week, we'll return to 1927, watching 7th Heaven, our tenth and final film from that year. It will be the second film we've seen directed by Frank Borzage, and also the second film in which we've seen Janet Gaynor. The list as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Speedy (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/8/2017
Speedy wasn’t strictly part of our chronological movie viewing, since it’s from 1928, and we are just now reaching the 1920s, but it was certainly complementary. I saw it with the kids and my mom at the Alamo in Winchester, with a live band playing accompaniment. The film was enjoyable, if a bit fragmented. It really had four segments -- Harold Lloyd taking his girlfriend, played by Ann Christy, to Coney Island, then trying to keep a job as a cab driver, then a big fight scene between company goons and civil war vets, and finally a chase scene with Lloyd trying to drive his girlfriend’s grandfather’s horse-drawn trolley through various obstacles in order to beat a deadline. The last two are the most directly connected to the plot, while the first two are more extraneous. The Coney Island sequence, though somewhat isolated from the rest of the film, was interesting as a bit of a time capsule. The carnival rides were similar to modern rides, but a little different in style, and generally more dangerous looking. Several weeks later we saw Tillie Wakes Up, from 1917, and saw a similar visit -- possibly to Coney Island as well -- with a lot of the same (or similar) types of rides, but the comedic bits in Speedy were more sophisticated and better written. In the second section, Babe Ruth shows up as a terrified taxicab passenger for about five minutes. I imagine his scenes were shot in a day or two, but it was interesting to see them nonetheless, since Babe Ruth is one of the few figures from the twenties who is still a household name. In the third section, the mass fighting sequence was impressive in its scale -- dozens or hundreds of people fighting with improvised weapons. The trolley chase scenes were more familiar silent-movie territory, but still inventive. I don’t know if I really laughed during the film, but it was pleasant and engaging. The real highlight was the experience of seeing it in the theater with a live band. The band was made up of local musicians who had clearly studied the film beforehand, and chosen music appropriate to the on-screen action. I’m glad there are venues are still committed to presenting silent films in something approximating the manner that they were intended to be viewed, and I'm glad it was reasonably well-attended, so that hopefully similar opportunities will pop up in the future.
Speedy wasn’t strictly part of our chronological movie viewing, since it’s from 1928, and we are just now reaching the 1920s, but it was certainly complementary. I saw it with the kids and my mom at the Alamo in Winchester, with a live band playing accompaniment. The film was enjoyable, if a bit fragmented. It really had four segments -- Harold Lloyd taking his girlfriend, played by Ann Christy, to Coney Island, then trying to keep a job as a cab driver, then a big fight scene between company goons and civil war vets, and finally a chase scene with Lloyd trying to drive his girlfriend’s grandfather’s horse-drawn trolley through various obstacles in order to beat a deadline. The last two are the most directly connected to the plot, while the first two are more extraneous. The Coney Island sequence, though somewhat isolated from the rest of the film, was interesting as a bit of a time capsule. The carnival rides were similar to modern rides, but a little different in style, and generally more dangerous looking. Several weeks later we saw Tillie Wakes Up, from 1917, and saw a similar visit -- possibly to Coney Island as well -- with a lot of the same (or similar) types of rides, but the comedic bits in Speedy were more sophisticated and better written. In the second section, Babe Ruth shows up as a terrified taxicab passenger for about five minutes. I imagine his scenes were shot in a day or two, but it was interesting to see them nonetheless, since Babe Ruth is one of the few figures from the twenties who is still a household name. In the third section, the mass fighting sequence was impressive in its scale -- dozens or hundreds of people fighting with improvised weapons. The trolley chase scenes were more familiar silent-movie territory, but still inventive. I don’t know if I really laughed during the film, but it was pleasant and engaging. The real highlight was the experience of seeing it in the theater with a live band. The band was made up of local musicians who had clearly studied the film beforehand, and chosen music appropriate to the on-screen action. I’m glad there are venues are still committed to presenting silent films in something approximating the manner that they were intended to be viewed, and I'm glad it was reasonably well-attended, so that hopefully similar opportunities will pop up in the future.
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