History is addictive and that’s not something my tutor would
have expected me to say when I under-delivered on my essay tackling Stalin and
the Nationalities… but one thing, literally, leads you to another and to make
sense of things, to get the bigger picture, you always have to keep on digging.
In the case of Julia Crawford Ivers, a woman who I knew nothing about pre-lockdown,
I am now starting to understand just a little of her motivation as both a
writer and director.
This handsome Blu-ray set from Kino Lorber, includes four
films either written by or written and directed by Ivers and compliments her
film, The Call of the Cumberlands (1916) included on the company’s
exhaustive but not exhausted boxset of Women Film Pioneers. If she has
been known at all, it has mainly been as the principal screenwriter for William
Desmond Taylor – with whom she made some twenty films – and, naturally, as one
of the suspects in his murder (for which my sources tell me, the main suspect
is MMM, but keep that under your hats…).
This set majors on The Intrigue, a science fiction
spy adventure from 1916, and whilst it’s very interesting it was A Son of
Erin (November 1916) written and directed by Ivers that drew my eye the
most as it had a number of thematic parallels with Cumberlands (January
1916); humble men making good, steadfast romance in a changing world and corruption
in public office.
Where an honest man is needed most… in politics!
Both films star Dustin Farnum as likeable men from
traditional backgrounds – the mid-west in Cumberlands and ol’ Ireland in Erin (aka
Éire in old English money) – who are drawn away from their trueloves, Sally and
Katie, both played by Londoner Winifred Kingston who later became Mrs Farnum
(remaining so until his death in 1929). More connections and they’re also both
in The Intrigue in un-credited roles. In both roles the women sacrifice a
lot in order to support their man’s ambition and whilst they trust that this
will be rewarded, there is no guarantee. Any echoes in Ivers’ support of Taylor
are purely speculative but she was an all-rounder, who had fulfilled so many roles
in cinema and who produced as well as directed and certainly let the likes of Taylor
and Frank Lloyd take the full credit for some collaborations.
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| Winifred Kingston and Dustin Farnum |
Farnum is a happy go lucky fella Dennis O'Hara, a “simple
soul” who dreams of being a New York Cop, so many of whom were indeed Irish.
Katie sells her best pig to the local landlord to fund his trip out to America
leaving herself vulnerable to the Englishman’s unprincipled advances as well as
the chance her man just will not make it. Dennis duly arrives in the city and
fails to secure anything other than work as a navvy; another famously Irish
occupation.
The City is corrupt though and we see the unofficial alliance
between the councillor O'Keefe (Wallace Pyke) and city contractor, Hardy (Lee Willard), both of whom are paying of a police
force that also collects protection money from local retailers, including one
who appears to be a madam. Against all this is a civic reformer, John D. Haynes
(Hugo B. Koch), a man clearly in need of allies.
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| Selling her best pig |
Dennis’ popularity earns him the chance to join the force –
they need the “dago vote” in the next election - and he progresses to sergeant –
“the Big Brother of the tenement block”, a few decades before that phrase would
change in meaning. Ivers spends good time on establishing her characters and
there’s a nice scene with Sgt O’Hara sharing an apple with a street seller. Trusted
by all sides, his crooked Captain finally tests him, by asking him to collect
the protection money. He refuses and ends up in court as part of a newspaper
investigation into corruption. Here he shows his honesty and loyalty and gets a
job as a building inspector where he helps uncover a corrupt concrete racket. Finally, he is enlisted by Haynes to help in his campaigning
and helps to persuade the East Side to vote for reform.
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| The honest man enters politics |
Back in Ireland, the evil landlord tries to hide Dennis’
letter inviting Kitty to finally join him and assaults her instead only to be
rebuffed by her greater intensity. This is exactly what happens to Kingston’s character
in the Cumberlands, both physically best male aggressors; so much for damsels
in distress, Ivers’ women are forces to be reckoned with! Having given
everything she had to help Dennis succeed, Kitty heads off in the sure and
certain knowledge that their partnership will be stronger than ever.
OK, it’s not a great film and Ivers’ is not a great director
but she is a very competent film maker and creates entertaining stories with characters
that ae recognisable and rewarding to watch; inspiring cinematic ideals for the
largely working class, “simple souls” who watched in their millions.
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| As in Cumberlands, Ivers' uses natural light to create sentimental shots |
The Intrigue has more dash and daring do yet is also
interesting from a political perspective. The story concerns and American inventor
Guy Longstreet (Cecil Van Auker), who comes up with a deadly X-Ray gun that
could win either side the Great War currently being fought across the Atlantic.
The US was not involved at this point and the film reflects this both in the American
military’s lack of interest in the weapon and in the ultimate fate of the
deadly ray-gun.
In the middle of all this is a competent caper directed by Scotland’s
Frank Lloyd described in Anthony Slide's engrossing commentary
as perhaps the consummate Hollywood director with over 125 feature films
across a forty year career that included the singular feet of three Oscar
nominations in one year (1929). Here he is certainly still learning his craft
but there are some good cross-cuts linking characters and their thoughts,
repeated use of “iris outs” when changing scene and some in-camera trickery enabling
one character to consider his options in close up whilst his friend and collaborators
appear in long shot/as small versions below, in his mind’s eye.
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| The weapon maker weighs up his options... |
The cinematographer having to perform these feats was none
other than Ivers’ son, James van Trees who enjoyed a long career himself, there
on merit and not just family connections, not eventually anyway! Interesting
how “small” a place Hollywood is at this stage and how interconnected so many
are.
Having been rejected by his own war pigs, Longstreet takes
his device to Europe and looks to sell to one side – un-named but in Germanic
uniform – whilst the other sends it’s best spy to follow progress as the
American returns home to finish construction of the mass destruction elements
of his weapon. Rather than send A Man, who would be obvious, they decide to send
Countess Sonia Varnli as played by stage star Lenore Ulrich who we have already
seen working as a nurse in a field hospital. The Countess decides to send her
assistant as played by Florence Vidor, as herself and to smuggle herself on
board as a peasant girl. Florence’s husband was of course King, and he has an
uncredited appearance as a chauffeur. I hadn’t realised that after divorcing
King Vidor in 1924, Florence would go onto marry famed violinist Jascha Heifetz,
one of the greats and a huge influence on my violinist Uncle.
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| Florence Vidor and Lenore Ulrich |
But I digress, Anthony Slide is slightly disappointed in Lenore’s
performance and I have to confess I’d hoped Florence would have been given more
to do as her "understudy", but the latter is mostly impressive if patchy. A discovery of David Balasco – along with so many from Mary
Pickford to Barbara Stanwyck – Ulrich had been in films sporadically since 1911
but seems a little ill at ease here, over emoting initially and, as Slide
observes, seemingly happier to play the role of peasant girl than sophisticated
Mata Hari. She does OK but there is the occasional hand to forehead moment and
her huge expressive eyes are quite distracting in close up!
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| Lenore Ulrich's big eyes, spy... |
The big baddy in all this is the Baron Rogniat as played by
Liverpool’s own Howard Davies (by the way, coming in 2023, Silent Scousers:
a study of the La’s who starred and the Maggie’s who made it (Faber)) who
knows exactly how to wield and evil moustache. He aims to steal the weapon’s
secrets and kill off the inventor… only the Countess/cleaning woman can save
the situation! Yes, again we have yet another woman of agency from Ivers and
one who will indeed dictate the outcome she thinks best.
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| On the right, Howard Davies from Liverpool |
That I won’t spoil as these are all films that should be
seen by anyone who wants to see that bigger picture of early Hollywood; the
three dimensional jigsaw puzzle that has a smaller and smaller section devoted
to DWG the further we move into the second century of cinema.
The Intrigue also comes with the surviving fourth
reel of The Majesty of the Law (1915), written and directed by Ivers’
along with all of Ben Blair (1916) directed by William Desmond Taylor from Ivers’
script. There’s also an essay in the booklet from Ivers’ expert, film historian
April Miller. It’s available direct from Kino Lorber in the US but you will
need to order from Amazon.com to get delivery to Europe.
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| No sheep were harmed in the making of the film... probably. |
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