The sun’s out, cracking the flags in London on the hottest
day of the year and we just don’t care, we’re sat in the dark in a 108-year old
purpose-built cinema watching ultra-rare British silent films, well, mostly silent…
Phonofilm programme
'Mainly Men - A Night in the Music Hall 1925-1928' a selection of early sound
shorts of cabaret acts presented by Tony Fletcher
Tony Fletcher’s sessions on early sound films are a bit of a
tradition at the BSFFS and they are always fascinating, rewarding his ling hours
of subterranean research. They show the ghosts of musical hall past and give a
real insight into the performance style and cultural mores of variety as well
as the period of silent film. They also prove, without doubt, that we are a country of
weirdos with a sense of humour to match.
We started off with gondoliers in Clapham with Billy Merson
singing his popular ditty, “You and I and my Gondola” a parody of more earnest poetry
from the likes of Robert Service. Then Charles Patton pleaded “If Your Face Wants to Laugh, Well Let It”
and in a way we almost did. The Plattier Brothers turned a gag involving
bird-song into a sketch which was gruesome in so many ways as one brother flirted
with the other using only the sounds of nightingales; they were French you see,
and such esoteric whimsy was no doubt a novelty.
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| Billy Merson played the Manchester Palace Theatre in 1921, once nightly and every afternoon. |
Dandy George was more typical fare teasing a highly-drilled
terrier into performing tricks and at one point holding him by the feet as he “stood”
to attention. We simply don’t know how many terriers he worked with over the
years after his first “partner” Rosie passed after a short retirement. A Doggy Ditty followed from George
Jackley which was more properly A “Dodgy” Ditty by today’s standards but who
doesn’t still make jokes about their mother-in-law? Ahem.
Teddy Elben’s version of He
Walked Right In featured the fab Phonofilm Cabaret Girls strutting their
stuff including the “new Black Bottom Dance” – there were four girls but only
three danced due to constraints of space and the need to keep Teddy in shot.
Now, Hal Jones, who I am sure you all know as the famous Lancashire Comedian, sang a
song about Swistles which seemed to be a condensed milk not unlike that produced
by Nestle. It was a shaggy dog of a song which featured a laboured refrain that
proper got my goat… still, it were funny and I did used to so love condensed
milk sandwiches myself: colly-olly sarnies as my Mum called them.
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| Kids, don't try this at home |
Jack Hodges – The Raspberry King and a big influence on
Spike Milligan (remember the Phantom Raspberry
Blower of Old London Town…), was an inventive musical comic who in addition
to fruity flavours also mastered the musical saw.
The highlight for me was the Coney Island Six – American jazz
musicians who not only could play but dance as well. In Syncopation and Song (1927), they took turns in
singing, dancing and swapping instruments whipping up a storm of high-energy
trad that almost had us up and dancing in the aisles. And that’s jazz!
Ships That Pass in the Night (1921), Cyrus Gabrysch
“Despite its lack of
plot and pessimistic tone… Whatever its value as entertainment, it is
undoubtedly an artistic success.” The
Bioscope, 29th September 1921
Bit of a tone poem this one and controversially so… the
audience split in fierce debate over whether this mountain drama was too
mannered, too lacking in event and, indeed, whether it was good at all and,
even, better than Black Narcissus!?
Ships don’t just pass in the night and this was an absorbing
and unflinching tale about honesty and difficult loyalties. Adapted from
Beatrice Harraden’s novel of the same name, published in 1893, the story is a
deliberation more than a drama and, set amongst your actual Swiss alps at Davos
Platz, is lovely to look at… as amongst all this casual beauty, life slips
away.
Francis Roberts plays Robert Allisten a “disagreeable man”
who is an architect on the way up, he’s devoted to his work and his mother
equally and she (Irene Rooke) to him; clearly the love of her life. Just as his
designs for a new city hall are accepted he is delivered a “death sentence” – a
diagnosis of TB which, in this pre-antibiotic age, could only be treated by a
shift to altitude. So it is that he must tear up his blueprint and abandon his
ambition.
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| Beatrice Harraden |
In a Swiss kurhaus he prepares to convalesce in misery
barely touched by the lives of those around him and feeling an obligation to
keep living if only for his mother’s sake. He encounters his emotional counter
in the form of bookseller’s daughter Bernadine Holme (Filippi Dowson) who is a
warm a he is cold.
Also, there are the Reffolds, he (Arthur Vezin) dying and
she, Einifred (Daisy Markham) still vibrant and looking for life. Contrasts are
clear between this relationship and Robert’s with his mother: he is obliging
himself into misery whilst Einifred is refusing to end her life just because
her love is losing his. Einifred finds an enabling conscience in Bernadine who
is happy to spend time with her husband; she also looks straight into the heart
of uncomfortably dark truths but sees only light. So, it is that she is amused
rather than repelled by the difficult architect and gradually his Vulcan heart
begins to melt.
It moves quicker than a glacier and is thoroughly absorbing
as it wrong foots all expectations of polite romantic progression as death
takes people as casually as breathing. Percy Nash who directed a decent 1920
version of Hobson’s Choice (available
on BFI Player) clearly relished the mix of interior and exterior spectacular
and fills his deceptive, possibly transgressive teapot with a simmering mix of
very British pragmatism.
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| Random pic of Daisy Markham, this film is digitally-speaking, deep, deep undercover... |
Joan Ritz – Nash’s Maggie in Hobson – plays the mother of an alpine family befriended by Robert
whose husband dies – literally slipping away – while out on the slopes with the
former Architect. The family is distraught, even Robert feels it, but we’re all
so fragile. For himself, Robert feels too much obligation for his obsessively
devoted mother to move on, only when she dies can he decide for himself whether
to commit to more love with Bernadine.
There aren’t many films that address the ties that bind in
such a direct way and Percy Nash’s film is quite unlike any other British silent
that I’ve seen in this respect. It’s not so much that nothing happens – plenty does
– but the drama is all in the emotion and not the action which is underplayed
to the extent of sometimes being off-screen.
All of this was duly noted in an accompaniment from Cyrus Gabrisch
who relished the emotional pacing and dynamic scenery, filling those spaces
with compact lines that weaved around the delicate drama on screen. It must
have been interesting to play for such a “narrow band” picture - especially when you haven't seen it beforehand - but Cyrus’
musical statements defused slowly along with the rarefied flavours of the film.
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| French Soldiers in Bolibar |
The Marquis of Bolibar [AKA The Betrayal] (1928), Stephen Horne
If Ships was perhaps too real, our final film of the day was magically-real with strange things afoot in the Peninsular War in 1811, with the French lined up against the British and the Spanish, occupied, and stuck in the middle.
Directed with panache by Walter Summers and photographed
superbly by Jack Parker, this was a good-looking if patchy film shot partly in Malta - in Ħaż-Żebbuġ and Mdina - featuring thousands of Maltese extras for the battle scenes. Perhaps
unsurprisingly given Summers action-film experience – this was the film made directly
after The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands (1927) - the story opens in
dynamic style as French soldiers move in on a British encampment. Led by
Lieutenant Donop (Michael Cogan) they emerge from dark smoky waters like Martin
Sheen in Apocalypse Now (kind of) and
sneak up the shore to spy on the enemy.
It’s a set piece that isn’t quite matched through the rest
of the film but there are many stylish moments that come close and whilst we
were warned that the plot may be a little wayward, it did make sense in an
uncanny way, helped in no small measure by the spirited accompaniment from
Stephen Horne fresh from recent travels to the Americas and taking this all in
his stride.
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| Elissa Landi |
The story revolves around a promise from the titular Marquis
(Jerrold Robertshaw) to help the allies re-take his town through three
warnings. The first will be a plume of smoke which is their signal to block off
the town, destroy all bridges (there are some explosive moments) and prevent
any relief from outside. The second will be the church organ playing at which
point the people will rise up and civil disruption will distract the French.
The final and decisive message will be the delivery of the Marquis’ knife,
signalling that the town is ready for storming. The Marquis is confident and
predicts that he’ll easily find his way back into Bolibar and be eating off the
table at French army HQ. Unfortunately, Lt Donop has heard every word and makes
good his escape to report back.
The tone changes – almost alarmingly - after the breathless
news is broken and we meet the officers, each of whom has enjoyed a liaison
with the Colonel Bellay’s late wife Francoise-Marie (Elissa Landi). There’s
young blonde Lt. Gunther (Carl Harbord) whose flashback reverie is rudely
interrupted by the boorish Captain Brockendorf (Evelyn Roberts) who, despite
the impediments of character and moustache also enjoyed a dalliance as did Dapt.
Egolstein (Cecil Barry) and, of course, our brave Donop. As for the Colonel (Hubert
Carter) it’s hard to see what the young woman saw in him, but he remains obsessed
with this lost love.
Bolibar does indeed smuggle himself into the French officers’
mess but it found out and sentenced to a firing squad. Before he dies though he
tries to speak to his friends but then enigmatically tells the men that God
will them in what needs to be done.
Before the Lord can start moving in mysterious ways, we
learn that the Colonel has discovered a young Spanish woman who looks exactly
like Francoise-Marie, La Monita (also played by Elissa Landi – so versatile!).
Naturally, the officers also see the similarity and fall for her as much as F-M
Mark 1. There follows a courting that is almost all a-forgetting that there’s a
bloomin’ war on and, needless to say, the men’s actions start to fulfil the
Marquis’ prophecies almost as if there was an invisible guiding hand…
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| Cast of thousands |
It’s hokum but enjoyable and it’s not always about the
quality it’s exactly the experience of sharing a film in plush seats with very
fine accompaniment. On this point Mr Horne delivered providing musical special effects
were sometimes the film lacked them: a duet inside from the Sun.
As we walked outside, blinking in the unseasonal bright, we
managed to get all of the way across the road before entering the welcoming shadows
of a public house.
Day One done and the next day was to be even hotter…
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| Take your seats and remove your hats. |
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