Would you like to sin. With Elinor Glyn On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer. To err. With her. On some other fur?
Or would you prefer. To err. With her. On some other fur?
Rupert Hughes (as quoted by Mr K Brownlow, on the occasion
of his 81st birthday)
This was one of the first silent DVDs I bought partly because
of its cameos of Hollywood stars but mainly because of a fascination with
Eleanor Boardman who was later to star in The
Crowd and to feature so elegantly in Kevin Brownlow’s Hollywood series. Yes, there’s something about Eleanor and she’s
also caught up in the William Haynes legend, with them both winning a contract
through Goldwyn Pictures "New Faces
of 1921" and maintaining a friendship through the years of their
success and beyond: you got the feeling that they both rose above the daily
Hollywood grind from the get go.
Souls for Sale
is pretty light fare but it’s well made and does give a playful insight into
the business of show people with Boardman’s character accidentally falling into
the movies after escaping the clutches of her Bluebeard of a husband…
  |
| Charlie, Erich and Jean |
The glimpses behind the scenes are, of course, precious,
with Erich von Stroheim seen directing Greed, giving Jean Hersholt
instructions, and Charlie Chaplin playing along by over-actively directing
Mem/Eleanor in a “scene” from Woman of Paris. Elsewhere you can glimpse Hobart
Bosworth, Barbara Bedford, Chester Conklin, Raymond Griffith, June Mathis,
Marshall Neilan, Claire Windsor & many more! William Haines is also in
there, his first credited appearance, as Pinky (!) the assistant director to Richard Dix’s
square-jawed Frank Claymore.
Kevin Brownlow introduced on his birthday – no better
treat for him than sharing in his passion – and explained that the film was
partly a PR exercise to show that after numerous scandals, Hollywood wasn’t a
bad place, full of upstanding professionals.
The film was based on a novel by a man named Rupert Hughes
– Howard’s Uncle – who produced and adapted the screenplay and directed it.
Mostly known as an historian and writer, Hughes couldn’t understand why a film
company would buy an author’s work and then change so much. Here he made sure
his work would see the screen as intended and the rigour of his research pays
off in the detailed background to the film process.
 |
| Eleanor Boardman |
Boardman was already famous as the Kodak Girl model and
had already made three films but this was her first time as the main female
star and so, just like her character she was in at the deep end. She’d tried to
make a success on the stage in New York and made some head way but this, at 24,
was her biggest break yet in the movies.
She doesn’t flunk it and, for me, gives a very relaxed
and confident performance as Remember “Mem” Steddon (trips off the tongue doesn’t
it…) who falls into film work as a refuge from her psychopathic husband (Lew Cody)
and, against the wishes of her strictly-Christian parents – an echo of Boardman’s
own folks’ disapproval. Boardman was perhaps a natural, very interesting to
watch on camera and varied not only in her expression but her looks. She can
handle comedy as well as drama and gives a taste of her dowdy desperation in The Crowd when watching her disastrous screen
test: hands pulling her hair to a mess, tears running red down a face of real
misery.
 |
| Less regal Garbo?! |
She reminds me of a less regal Garbo, more down-to-earth
and not quite the force or presence but still very watchable and adaptable, he
relatively tall frame (over 5 feet 6… a giant in 1923!) making her both a graceful
clothes horse as well as the equal of the men.
The film starts off with a shot of Mem in the back of a
railway carriage with her husband Owen Scudder (Lew Cody), who is already
starting to frighten her with his weird intensity – first example of Boardman’s
ability to show unease. She’s desperate and jumps train at the first opportunity,
landing in the middle of a desert.
 |
| Not a real sheik... Frank Mayo, Eleanor B and Richard Dix |
She wanders for days and finally is saved by a Sheik on a
camel… or rather handsome actor Tom Holby (Frank Mayo) who is on a location
shoot for a film being made by director, Frank Claymore (Richard Dix). The crew
rescue Mem with stars Leva Lamaire (Barbara La Marr… see what they did?) and Robina
Teele (a feisty, Mae Busch) making sure the kid gets a break as well as medical
attention. Snitz Edwards is also on hand as the lovelorn Komical Kale, who is
unrequitedly in love with Leva who still mourns for her lost lover, Jim, who
died as his plane was engulfed in flames.
Meanwhile Scudder with a history of marriage and murder
behind him, manages to evade the cops at a railway station and then gets lucky
and a little richer by taking advantage of Abigail Tweedy (Dale Fuller) who he
convinces, cons and almost chokes before escaping. Of course, he’s not finished
with Mem just yet…
After finding work in a hotel, the end of season forces
Mem to try her hand in Hollywood and, we see her trying to sell her soul, to
get into a picture, any picture… there’s a great casting session with even Eve
Southern as Miss Velma Slade being told she’s only beautiful and there’s a pile
of those in this town (the film was also intended to discourage people from the
film business… ).
 |
| Billy Haines! |
In addition to Chaplin and von Stroheim, Mem gets a tiny
part in Fred Niblo’s The Famous Mrs. Fair and sees Marshall Neilan directing The Eternal
Three with Raymond Griffith, Hobart Bosworth, and Claire Windsor. Star-spotting
is half the fun although Kevin spoiled this by reading out the names of a table
full at one point: including Barbara Bedford, Chester Conklin, William H.
Crane, Elliott Dexter, June Mathis and ZaSu Pitts.
After a disastrous screen test with Frank Claymore and
the crew, he realises that she’s made more for drama than comedy and gradually
she starts to make her way with bigger and bigger parts. Eventually she gets her
big chance in a circus film after Robina gets injured. By this stage Scudder is
back on her trail and has decided that he’s in love with the now successful
actor…
But, it’s a stormy night over the circus set and there’s
not many places more dangerous than a film set based in a tent!
The ending is a tour de force as the storm hits and the
flames rise higher – all tinted yellow in the Warner Archive/TCM restoration. One
of the extras told Brownlow that the circus tent was soaked in paraffin for the
fire… which Hughes didn’t let people know there were horses inside as he didn’t
want them to clear a path for them; the result is chaotic but undeniably
dangerous with a least one injury to a dancer.
As a defence of the film industry, that doesn’t show the
health and safety standards in a good light but I guess the audience took it
all as part of the drama.
Meg Morley accompanied in fine style matching the epic with
the intimate in a film of many contrasting moods. There may have been a snatch
of Liszt at one point but as ever Meg melds these themes into an overall improvisation
that is unique to the moment and the setting.
 |
| Big productions! |
The Old Swimmin’ Hole (1921) with Meg Morley
Talking of William Haines, the next film starred Charles
Ray who bears more than a passing resemblance to the former. Based on a poem by
James Whitcomb Riley, the film was essentially a series of backwoods episodes
all told without intertitles. Directed by Joe De Grasse it was charming if a little
ambient, but like all poetry, something you had to just relax and focus on. Meg
Morley accompanied again and in a quite different manner; lots of light tones
and energetically reiterated figures that played so well along with the “children”
on screen.
I spotted Laura La Plante in Pickford curls as Charles’
love interest, so different from her close-cropped platinum bob of later years.
Another exceptional collection of films overall for the
weekend and I was sorry to miss the final parts of the second day. All credit
to the programmers, players, projectionists and volunteers who make the
Bioscope happen and happen so very well!
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