One day from Hasselqvist Tuesday and things were turning very
nasty in the USA… why are things always so ornery over there Mr Lincoln? This was part the third of Stahl’s ode to Abe, A Call to Arms (1917) in
which Benjamin Chapin’s Lincoln, faced with the revolt of the southern states,
wrestles with having to break the promise of none-violence made on his mother’s
death bed.
It’s well done and the president’s speech about refusing
to let stars fall off the union flag was meant to rouse the thousands of Americans
needed to fight the Germans in Europe. Cut to huge military parades down 5th
Avenue and shots of Mr Chapin in character leading 10,000 boy scouts. Gabriel
Thibaudeau accompanied the spectacle in fine style.
On to more practical matters next with a Polish
advertisement illustrating the wonders of the oven: your wife has time to go
out with her pals and still make sure you have hot food when she returns. Sadly,
this has practice broken down in modern times and there will be hollow laughter in Hertford
at that sentence…
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| Don't walk away Renée |
Dunungen (In Quest of Happiness) (1919) with Stephen Horne
Time for another Swedish film crush, this time on Renée
Björling, who leaves her mark in this likeable – if disjointed - tale of romance
across class and social divides. She plays Anne-Marie, a baker’s daughter who
falls for the local mayor’s son, Mauritz (Ragnar Widestedt) much to the
displeasure of his parents and the delight of her own.
Mauritz is a bit of a wuss and he dotes on the “sweet” Anne-Marie
– her nickname Dunungen, means “a downy little bird”, an innocent… but
Mo’ doesn’t really know his own mind and is simply overtaken by events too
complex for him to grasp: 1. Anne-Marie grows up and 2. Love is about quality
and not just convention.
Mauritz’ future looks bleak as his folks send him off to
bargain with rich Uncle Teodor Fristedt (Ivan Hedqvist – a very familiar face from
scandi-silents and a fine performer to boot*), in an attempt to get him to gift
his nephew an industrial plant
The film was also directed and written by clever clogs Hedqvist,
another adapted from a story by Selma Lagerlöf’s - Dunungen in 1894. The cinematography
is from the great Julius Jaenzon (who worked with Stiller and Sjostrom) so it
looks divine throughout. There are also beyond-snazzy intertitles from Arthur
Sjögren - like the liner notes for a Bjork
LP or Tove Janson doodling - I know, Iceland and Finland… still very Scandinavian!
The film was a huge success but is far from complete
which resulted in some narrative patch-work which you had to overlook in order
to focus on the main characters; the story is not just about crossing barriers
of class but also age and was therefore well programmed alongside the following
film.
Stephen Horne accompanied mostly on piano which meant I
was almost surprised when he began playing the flute: how he keeps such clear
tones on the wind instrument whilst duetting with himself I’ll never know: and
no, it’s not just practice (my bet’s on magic).
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| Pauline Frederick and Clarence Brown |
Smouldering Fires (1925) with Neil Brand
I’d seen this one before, so I knew what to expect but Pauline
Frederick and Neil Brand conspired to make me cry with Smouldering Fires and I’m
not afraid to say it! Frederick gives perhaps the performance of her career as
the business woman who leaves it too late for love or at least too late for
love with a much younger man – even Tully Marshall was in tears. All the leads
are great in Clarence Brown’s film and not for nothing is it one of Kevin
Brownlow’s favourites including Malcolm McGregor as the man she falls for and Laura
La Plante’s as the woman he in turn falls for.
Frederick had years of stage experience even before her
film career and yet Brown told Brownlow that she suffered from terrible nerves
for the first couple of days of the shoot, not surprisingly as, a film star at
41 playing her age at that time – as now – could backfire. Baby-faced McGregor
wasn’t much younger at 32 but La Plante was just 20 and looked it. It’s all to
Frederick’s benefit though and you can’t take your eyes off her.
There are also some great “Brown touches” for example
with the jazz-dancing feet showing how hard it is for Frederick’s character to
keep up with extreme youth. One of Hollywood’s very best.
While I watched, Neil Brand was weaving emotionally potent
lines that spoke of his depth of experience and ability to convey the flavour
of classic cinema scoring. As Pauline pulled us one way he snuck in and sucker
punched the audience good and proper.
In the afternoon I skipped a shocking Stahl feature – The
Child Thou Gavest Me (1921) – check Silent London’s analysis as it sounds very dark! – and
reclaimed my well-worn seat for four John H. Collins' shorts from Edison.
Collins was married to Viola Dana who made an appearance in the last, The
Portrait in the Attic (1915) as a young woman/teen mourning her dead mother.
Dana’s a class act and popular too, there was an audible gasp when her name
came on screen.
There were two films with the impressive Gertrude McCoy
one a daft family feud film called The
Last of the Hargroves (1914) and the other a serial What Could She Do? (1914). The latter involved the tribulations of
a young woman making her way in the world after the death of her father… Gertrude’s
character narrowly avoids crime and joins the police force at the end of
episode two. We were left hanging wondering what became of her…
There was also a health and safety gone mad film, Making a Convert (1914) in which Elsie
MacLeod finally gets the point about Safety First!
Next a candidate for the daftest film of the whole
Best of all was the spirited accompaniment from Günter
Buchwald (piano), Mirko Cisilino (trumpet), Frank Bockius (drums) – well played
lads despite distractions on screen!
Note Dal Fronte with Sandro Buzzatti and Zerorchestra
The evening focused on a special event; a screening of films
showing the Italian experience in the Great War accompanied by readings from
Sandro Buzzatti and music from Pordenone’s very own Zerorchestra; a nine-piece jazz-infused
combo who performed a mix of their own compositions with arrangements of
popular war songs.
I have to confess to knowing little about the Italian
effort in the war beyond the basics and the coverage showing the battle against
Austria-Hungary 3,000 metres up in the Alps is stunning. ON soldier told of how
men bringing supplies had to dive for cover in the snow for over four hours
after they came under heavy fire, they emerged nearly frozen to death under
cover of the night. The War was fought on so many fronts and this footage was sobering
especially accompanied by details of the growing casualties. Buzzatti read in
Italian but after a while it didn’t matter at all for his meaning was clear in
any language.
The day closed with, latest in the Honore De Balzac thread was Paris at Midnight (1926) as directed by E. Mason Hopper and featuring pretty much zero French content. I was expecting some action in, y’know, Paris and, furthermore, by night but… this was essentially a melodrama set in a guest house which gradually reveals a tale of three women and their relationships with their fathers.
There are significant chunks missing which does interrupt
the flow and we don’t have as much of the Parisian partying seen in stills from
the film, still, once it settles down the Frances Marion scripted adaptation is
great fun with Lionel Barrymore as anti-hero Vautrin, a self-proclaimed Don
Quixote figure and a jaw-dropping Jetta Goudal as Baroness Delphine de Nucingen.
José María Serralde Ruiz accompanied in splendid style on
piano!
*For another fine showing from Ivan Hedqvist the actor,
see Vem Domer (1922) showing at the
BFI on 4th November – Jenny Hasselqvist’s in it! Not to be missed.
And did I mention
that tomorrow, with Mauritz Stiller's Balettprimadonnan
(1916), is Hasselqvist Tuesday!?
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| Jenny Hasselqvist: world-class ballerina and actress |
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