High signs… Slapstick Festival Day Two & Three, Bristol Watershed and Cathedral

Paul McGann stood in the pulpit of Bristol Cathedral not unlike Lars Hanson’s priest in The Saga of Gosta Berling and he told it, with all the confidence and power of the truly convicted. There are many takes on introducing film but Mr McGann brought the passion of a silent enthusiast with the technical appreciations of a skilled actor. He introduced the films but he also set the scene but detailing choice moment of performative brilliance from Charlie, Stan and Buster, whetting audience appetites for relishing something new even amidst familiarity. When Charlie wipes Edna’s face with a soapy sock he’s reminding her of a mother long forgotten and when Stan realises he doesn’t have money in his wallet but luncheon vouchers, he gives the most devastated and bloody hilarious response; straight to camera – to us – help!!

The gala featured Chaplin’s The Vagabond (1916), one of his breakthrough two-reelers for Mutual in which he rescues Edna Purviance from a group of gypsies who stole her as a child and turned her into a drudge. It’s a life of slavery and the more I watch Charlie the more I think of his upbringing and his politics; his tramp obviously standing outside of accepted society, intervening as he sees fit. Not so archaic after all.

On the Saturday we’d see a couple of Charlie’s films from the First National period including Pay Day (1922) in which he is married and working as a builder who tries to hide some of his pay from his wife. In Their Purple Moment (1928) Stan and Ollie try to do the same so they can afford a night out on the tiles and off the hook. Of course, it doesn’t work out this way and their wives rumble them with Stan’s substituting her coupons for his stash leaving him with steak dinner for five, including two good-time girls and their cabbie, in a dangerous night club.

Mr and Mrs Keaton

The main feature was Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality (1923) the first of his features and a huge leap for comedy kind. Keaton used his budget to shift the legendary Canfield and McKay feud back to the 1830s and the early days of rail with miles of track laid for a ramshackle train pulled by a replica Rocket – preferred for comedic reasons to more historically-accurate locos. Buster plays young Willie McKay returning South to inherit his father’s “estate” only to find the Canfield family ready to avenge the death of one of their own at his father’s hands.

There’s an exception in the family view of Willie in Virginia (Natalie Talmadge who is quite good but lacks the spirit of Constance and the presence and technique of Norma) who invites him around for dinner. Only southern hospitality can prevent Old Joseph Canfield (Joe Roberts in his last film) and his sons from killing Willie and there’s a good deal of comedy business before Buster makes a break for it and ends up rescuing Virginia in an iconic scene at the falls. It’s a thrilling film with real drama added to the gags by one of the greatest comedy auteurs. We also get three generations of Keaton with Buster and Natalie’s baby boy as the young Willie and a trademark high kick from Joe Keaton at the railway station: he good knock a man down far easier with foot than fist!

Once again, The European Silent Screen Virtuosi joyfully accompanied with Günter A. Buchwald, Romano Todesco and Frank Bockius filling the cavernous spaces with perfectly judged improvisations.

Train kept a rollin'... just!

There’s more to learn about even those we know the most and another key strand from this year’s festival was those less well-known but who were once stars. Of these none shone quote so bright as Marie Prevost, one of Lubitsch’s favourite American actresses who featured in three of his Hollywood films, The Marriage Circle (1924), Kiss Me Again (1925) – of which, sadly, only a trailer remains and Three Women (1924) in a long career. She started out as a Sennett bathing beauty – legs to die for and in some of the most iconic stills of the period – achieved stardom in the twenties and gradually faded into smaller roles in the thirties.

Michelle Facey introduced and provided all of these details and much more about the actress’ backstory. A show of hands showed at the start that most in the audience were indeed not familiar with Prevost outside of the silent film glitterati in my corner! She certainly impressed us all in On to Reno (1928) with a performance as Vera, a young desperate housewife, that showcased her ability to mix toughness and vulnerability with an emotional dexterity not a million miles from Clara Bow. In films like The Racket you see Prevost’s street smarts but here, whilst she suffers no fools, least of all under-achieving husband, Bud (Cullen Landis) who’s lack of drive is about to lose them their house, you see someone the audience would find very relatable.

Vera is offered a thousand dollars to stand in for one of her company’s divorce clients, who can’t be bothered to spend three months in Reno, to enable her to register the qualifying absence from husband, Herbert Holmes (Ned Sparks). Whilst this proposition is oddly sanctioned by her boss – the law is clearly different in the USA – it makes for a whole heap of misunderstandings and fast moving, door-slamming, naked swimming, mayhem ensues. It’s pre-pre-code but also proto-Ray Cooney farcical which leaves a smile as well as a laugh on your lips.

John Sweeney’s accompaniment amplified the action as usual and made sure we enjoyed the full Prevost.

I hope we see more of Marie’s films now and that the diligence of keepers of the flame like Michelle is rewarded with more recognition for Marie’s skills and star appeal. For those wanting to find out more about MP I can recommend Stacia Kissick Jones’s Marie Prevost Project on her site; She Blogged by Night – which is an interesting tale of film research in itself.

Lilyan and Monte share a drink

I missed Reno when the Bioscope screened it last year and I also missed their screening of Ernst Lubitsch’s So This is Paris (1926) which, again, was remis of me as it is as funny as any the director’s films from this period – for me anyway! Here again we had misunderstandings between two couples but with the added flare of the director’s unique use of visual signifiers to embellish the live actions. Mary Pickford, famously fractious with Ernst after Rosita, said that all he did was “direct doors” but as Kevin Brownlow said in his introduction, Lubitsch could direct doors better than most could direct people.

Thus it is that Suzanna (Patsy Ruth Miller), wife of Doctor Paul Giraud (Monte Blue), looks up from reading a racy novel about desert romance to see the naked chest of a “Sheik” across the road in a neighbouring apartment. It’s actor Maurice Lalle (Andre Beranger) who has just finished a rather unconvincing rehearsal with his wife Georgette (Lilyan Tashman, who impressed Greta Garbo very much in this film, so I’m told by KB’s MF…) who’s disenchantments are far broader when it comes to her hubbie… Things get very “Parisian” when Paul is despatched to tell the naked performer to tone it down, as the Doc and Georgette are old friends – possibly more than friends.

Andre and Patsy

There begins a four-way tangled web as Paul and Georgette renew their dancing partnership and Maurice attempts to sheik up Suzanna’s love life. Monte Blue makes for a superb drunk and cuts a pretty sharp Charleston as well. It’s all so perfectly balanced and timed and, as has been said, one of the most criminally overlooked Lubitsch films.

Accompaniment was from The European Silent Screen Virtuosi and I loved the precision of their extemporised standards Ain’t She Sweet and The Charleston. Surely Slapstick needs to review the unofficial – and, indeed, merely rumoured/made up – Ban on Dancing?!

Paris has a brief bit of young Myrna Loy as the Lalle’s maid and five year’s earlier Patsy Ruth Miller was an uncredited bit-part player in One A Minute from 1921; ever heard of it or it’s star Douglas Maclean?

Young Patsy Ruth Miller and Douglas Maclean

Maclean made 23 feature films and was a big star for most of the twenties with a mix of Harold Lloyd’s looks and his hero Douglas Fairbanks energy. As with the latter had made what he termed “straight comedies” in which he acted a role rather than played a persona with action gags thrown in. In One A Minute (1921) he plays Jimmy, returning home after finishing college to manage his late father’s drug store and meeting an attractive young woman en route, Miriam (Marian De Beck) who we just know will be important later on…

Jimmy finds the store on it’s uppers and about to be outcompeted by a new super-drugstore run by Silas P. Rogers (Andrew Robson) who is, you guessed it, Miriam’s dad. If only Jimmy’s father had completed his research into a cure-all powder… but, what the heck, Jimmy invents one anyway and somehow, his improvised panacea actually works! It’s frothy stuff but Maclean is eminently likeable and you can see why this star shone.

Accompaniment was from Maestro John Sweeney and he made Maclean, glean!

Paul and Serge were on fire!

As ever there were many delights to be found in the sessions and Serge Bromberg’s Retour de Flamme session literally featured flames with live action peril for Paul McGann as he was “volunteered” to hold a film cannister as Serge set fire to some nitrate film stock; it was alarmingly impressive showing how many lost films met their end on this unstable storage. Still, even a century or more on, Serge and his team, plus others supplying films for this year’s festival like Steve Massa (author of Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy and Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, and The Forgotten of Silent Comedy) and Ben Model (who’s Undercrank Productions releases rare and previously lost material), keep on finding and restoring.

Serge featured some Laurel and some Hardy before uniting the two on a restored Duck Soup (1927) when their magic combination was really starting to come into focus. My Granddad Jim Joyce loved the duo and I remember watching them with him: “watch these, they’re really funny!”.

Last word goes to David Robinson who not only met the boys but was also present at Charlie Chaplin’s last ever recording session as he put the music to Woman of Paris in the 1970s. He showed us Pay Day (1922) as well as The Idle Class (1921) two films made for First National that if not prime Chaplin certainly only by comparison with the quality of his major works. Both films showed Charlie’s social conscience and he doesn’t get credit these days for his political subtexts; he’s not so much sentimental as socialist.

Colourful Aimée 

David also showed us the work of John Bunny, one of the first American comedy stars with Bunny All at Sea (1909) and Bunny in Society (1909) which featured an uncredited appearance by Our Mabel Normand which almost made me stand up, shout and point! Mabs was magnetic and these two prints were in stunning quality.

Less well known is British actress Aimée Campton a popular stage actress who made films in France as the character Maud. We saw Les Charmes de Maud (1912) together with the recently unearthed Maud Clubman aka Maud and the Batchelors (1914) with Dan van den Hurk accompanying; another performer of real style to hold in our collective silent conscience.

Another splendid silent Slapstick with so much passion on view. See you next year Bristol and long may you screen!

You should also read PH's take over at Silent London - a ball was had by all!

Charlie and Edna