Having missed the inaugural KBSFW due to charity mountain-climbing-in-the-rain commitments I discovered just what I’d missed on the first day of the second edition: warmth, shelter and good company along with a diverse and enriching array of silent film all played by some of the nation’s finest accompanists.
Gathered in the Cinema Museum we kicked off
with three British films introduced by the BFI’s Bryony Dixon which, as she
pointed out, showed domestic silent cinema at its best simply being itself and
not trying to conquer the World. How we could benefit from this simple
truth in these times of faulty memory, failed logic and delusions of past and
future grandeur (I’m not going to edit that after Thursday’s result for either
party).
These films
showed everyday Britons – feuding, playing pranks, being oddball, inventive,
sing-a-long and ultimately believing in fair play for all: that’s who we are
and we don’t need to “take it back” from anyone because it’s never been taken!
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| Head of the Family (1922) |
The
Jest (1921) with John Sweeney
This was a
short-sharp shock of a film that took an everyday domestic in unexpected
directions…one of a series of “Grand Guignol” shorts directed by Fred Paul and
aimed at showing the sordid cruelty of “life as it really is…”
Barcelona (1927) with John Sweeney
A tour-de-force
of Sweeney-syncopation that showed the great British public dancing along to
Tolchard Evans and Gus Kahn’s contemporary hit – from jazz-babies on the beach
to a Bobby well on the beat… It culminated in a sing-along session during
which, I’m afraid, we audience didn’t cover ourselves with glory… Let’s make
this the Bioscope anthem though and work on this!
Head of the Family (1922) with John Sweeney
Based on a Sailor’s Knots by WW Jacobs it features
the unfortunate tale of Mrs Green (Daisy England) a widow who has re-married a
bully of a husband (Johnny Butt), who has spent two years not fixing his broken
boat and aims to sell of her long-lost son’s furniture in order to feed his
beer and sitting hobby.
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| The new "head" helps bring back the furniture... |
Inspiration
strikes as the poor lady meets a young sailor, Robert Letts (John Ashton), who
she suggests can take the place of her son in order to supplant Green as the
master of their house and property. Robert is at first unsure but is instantly
persuaded by embrace of his new “sister” Betty (Cynthia Murtagh).
A lovely flicker
that displays the British nod and wink throughout and also features the immortal
Moore Marriott who starred in of so many Will Hay films and Arthur Askey's I Thank You (oh yes!) providing much more of
the same – we’re at our best laughing with and at each other.
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| Moore Marriott and John Ashton |
Jazz
Mad (1928) with Cyrus Gabrysch
Time for
Hollywood and a film that reminded all of what an excellent actor Jean Hersholt
was. This was a 16mm film from Kevin Brownlow’s collection and one he’d once
traded but re-purchased: not a great movie but an enjoyable one clearly
emulating Emil Jannings “humiliation” films.
Jean Hersholt
plays Franz Hausmann a mid-European composer who has come to America to get his
symphony performed and to make his reputation. He is supported by his devoted
daughter Elsa (Marian Nixon) but the only gig he can get is playing a conductor
of an awful-on-purpose “Orchestra” who play to get pelted with food at a
nightclub.
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| Jean Hersholt as the humiliated Hausmann |
He reaches his
low point when the father of the rich boy Leopold Ostberg (George Lewis) Elsa
has fallen for, arranges for the loving couple to see what music her “genius”
of a father actually plays. Devastation follows – how low can Franz go?
Hara-Kiri (1928) with Stephen Horne
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| Marie-Louise Iribe - Hara-Kiri (1928) |
Marie-Louise
Iribe was one of so very few French female directors (and beyond: have you read
Silent Women yet?) and this film was perhaps the most visually inventive of the
day. The story opens with a woman packing in preparation to leave her husband.
The camera follows her around her room selecting items and positioning her
parting note and never showing us her face: it’s a bold opening and one that
the film doesn’t quite live up to.
The subject
matter is striking though – an inter-racial love affair between a mixed-race
European woman Nicole Daomi (Iribe) and the Japanese Prince Fujiwara (Liao
Szi-Yen). The man she is leaving is Professor Samura Daomi (Constant Rémy) a
man, crucially, who knows all of the old ways of honour and circumstance.
Nicole and the Prince head to the Alps to ski, climb and
share a room – would any Hollywood film be so frank? But tragedy strikes high
on a mountain as she slips and he dies trying to save her. Their scandalous
liaison has been revealed and back home the Shogun orders that honour be
restored in the traditional manner.
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| An exploitative Austrian film poster for the film... Honest Google it's art! |
The narrative
may run a little slow and deliberately but the mood is maintained amidst some
lovely-looking people and places… The set design from Robert-Jules
Garnier is stunning and astute cinematography makes the very most of this as it
does of the alpine exteriors. Costumes were designed by Shingo Tsutumi and
again are luscious in support of the film’s effort at authenticity.
Marie-Louise
Iribe has screen presence (for more of that, c.f. Jacques Feyder’s L’Atlantide from 1921) and continually
draws the eye with her strength and control. A very interesting film and one
that is rarely seen let alone screened … try finding a screen shot!
Mr Horne
responded with his usual invention throwing in a snatch or two of Japanese folk
music which I mistook for Ryuichi Sakamoto (now I know where he got it from!).
The Film Society Programme with Costas
Fotopoulos
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| Nadia Sibirskaya - Brumes d'automne (1929) |
The London Film
Society was dedicated to showing “fringe cinema” and art-house before we even
used suich terms. Here Tony Fletcher presented a rich-mix of six that had been
screened by the LFS.
Brumes d'Automne / Mists of Autumn (1928) I do love Dimitri Kirsanoff’s film
for its atmospherics and the sheer pleasure it takes in visual beauty, from
tyre tracks in the mud to rain falling on water and the puffs of smoke emerging
from a chimney. Then there is the strikingly-striking Nadia Sibirskaia whose
waters run as deep as those in the lake: she burns lets and ponders the end of
a relationship – does she consider her end or does she see the clouds break?
Regen / Rain (1929) Precipitation proceeds also in Joris
Ivens and Mannus Franken sodden city symphony… a classic of loose narrative
observation all filmed from a hand-held camera.
Lotte Reiniger’s
card-cut outs in Aschenputtel / Cinderella (1922) were chopping their toes
off to fit into those glass slippers… it doesn’t pay to fib about your
shoe-size!
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| Cinderella (1922) - at the ball |
A Film Director's Nightmare (1925) by Julius Pinschewer was a jangled
promo film for the KIPHO – showing some behind the scenes including a glimpse
of the above Lotte.
Fall of the House of Usher (1928) was dark disorientation from Melville
Webber exactly as Edgar Allen would have liked it.
Rachmaninioff's Prelude in C Sharp Minor (1927) Castleton Knight was convinced this
was inspired by Poe’s The Premature
Burial… if they had Classical MTV in the twenties: this is how it would
have looked: a thriller!
This was clearly
up Costas’ street and he must have really enjoyed the last especially: and
speaking personally, it was one of my father’s favourite pieces of music.
The
Red Mill (1927) with Costas Fotopoulos
When I was a
young silent film man I believed the line that Marion Davies was “discovered” as
a comedienne with Show People but it
doesn’t take a King Vidor to see what a natural talent she had for being funny
– even if he did help out discretely on this film.
Directed by Roscoe
Arbuckle under the assumed name of William Goodrich, his own name having been
so wrongfully-blackened by, amongst others, William Randolph Heart’s press
coverage… Here Hearst made some amends under pressure from his wife Marion, for
whom Cosmopolitan Productions was almost exclusively created.
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| Game for a laugh |
The story is
slight but overall very entertaining and features some Arbuckle slapstick set-pieces –
an ironing board that just won’t stand, the new sport of soap-suds skating and a
lots of “Boo!” in a haunted windmill. It’s a really good showcase for Davies’
enduring comic appeal: perfect timing, mimicry and that buzzed twinkle in her
eyes. She’s another with modern looks and style… she doesn’t mind being “made
down” for the role of Tina, a
scullery maid at the Red Mill Tavern who is berated for even sitting down by
her monstrous boss, Dillem (George Siegman).
She catches the
eye of visiting playboy Dennis Wheat (Owen Moore – the first Mr Mary Pickford)
and his valet Caesar Rinkle (Snitz Edwards) but he has his eye on girls with
more money and fewer freckles. Things change though when she swaps places with
the Burgomaster’s daughter Gretchen (Louise Fazenda), who is about to be
married off to Governor (William Orlamond) for political reasons but is really
in love with Captain Jacop Van Goop (Karl Dane).
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| Marian and Moore |
Dennis, attracted by Gretchen’s wealth also decides to
intervene in the race but meets a dolled-up Tina and falls in actual love… and
Roscoe sets the controls for the heart of the daft.
In the view of Lara Gabrielle Fowler – who is writing a
biography on Davies (the first in a generation!) and provided notes for today’s
screening: “It is a true silent classic and the joy that went into making it is
palpable.”
The
Man Who Laughs (1928) with Lilian Henley
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| Conrad |
At this point I
had to leave to re-acquaint myself with my family – it having been a long week!
This meant I missed what was the strongest film of the day which I would have
loved to have seen on the screen – Kevin Brownlow’s 16mm copy – and accompanied
by the always excellent Ms Henley.
But it had been
a long good day already and there’s more to come tomorrow!
A very
well-organised day from all at the Bioscope and a day of entertainment and
learning – the specially-prepared notes on each film were clearly a labour of
love and as I read Michelle Facey’s glorious background essay on Conrad Veidt’s
film I was kicking myself all the way home! And then I remembered Olga Baclanova…
I was missing Olga!!
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| Olga! |
End of Part One...
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