Every October we travel in time and space to Pordenone in
north-western Italy for a week of silent film, socialising and the odd few
hours of sleep. In these Covid-curtailed times we’re still transported
digitally and emotionally if not physically by the streaming of an event many
call home, as Le Giornate Cinema Muto goes online-only. It’s the best we
could hope for as we hope for the best… for cinema and for culture.
Festival director Jay Weissberg captured the moment as he
introduced a collection of travelogues, taking us from monochrome New York to silent
London, via tinted Ostend and eternal Egypt, a magical carpet ride of spaces and
people that are recognisably the same as those we know. He quoted from a Michel
Robida article: “A journey in one’s armchair – a journey of the mind – is
the nicest kind of journey, because it’s what we want it to be, because there
are no obstacles, and all our dreams are granted.”*
There’s certainly something dreamlike about the Svenska Biografteatern footage of New York from 1911 – used in August Blom’s Danish film, Atlantis (1913) amongst others – which captures the attitude of the locals proudly being photographed in front of impossibly tall buildings, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, the Flatiron Building on 5th Avenue and Broadway… It’s a glimpse of the future world as viewed by our great grandparents – railways over head and below, constant motion as motor cars vie with horse-drawn carriages and electric trams, with one family standing out as they’re chauffeured behind the ghost camera, that of Antoinette Lochowicz, identifiable via its number plate.
Accompaniment for our tour was provided by Mexico’s José
María Serralde Ruiz, whose well-travelled improvisations perfectly matched our
feelings of awe and longing, trapped, as surely now as the moment when the
light first struck the nitrate elements of the time.
Tonight’s main feature was the recently restored Penrod
and Sam (1923), the second of the film adaptations of Booth Tarkington’s
novels about young Penrod Schofield as he grows up in a small town that is an
idealised mid-western America before the Great War. Tarkington wrote three
books on Penrod, and later The Magnificent Ambersons, and there are
public domain audiobooks of his trilogy if you’d like to hear more. The story
as seen through the film, is something of an updated Tom Sawyer, with plenty of
underlying adult themes if you look hard enough.
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| Sam (Joe Butterworth) and Penrod (Ben Alexander) |
The opening title cards dedicate the film to “The spirit
of Boyhood which always has been and always will be the same… “ and what
follows is a superb capturing of childhood concerns from director William
Beaudine who brings out some extraordinary performances from his cast of kids
and, indeed, their pets – take a bow Cameo aka the noble Duke, Penrod’s dog. Beaudine
was adept at working with youth and went on to direct Mary Pickford’s
child-like fable Sparrows (1926) as well as a talkie remake of this film in
1931 and many more including Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966) which
may or may not be as childish as it sounds.
Right here in 1923, he captured the life of a pre-teen as
accurately as the Swedes shot those New York streets with be-freckled Ben
Alexander (11 and a ½) coached and edited to a very impressive performance as the pugnacious
Penfold. Penfold, together with his best mate Sam Williams (Joe Butterworth),
lead a gang of boys dedicated to re-enacting battles based on very-specific
childish logic and they also have a boys-only members club called the In-Or-In
Lodge, which has a strict no-girls allowed policy – not even for Majorie Jones,
Penfold’s “most beautiful girl in the world” – and a rigorous ’nishiashun
ceremony.
Penfold is immediately shown to be, almost literally, at
war with big Roddy Bitts (Buddy Messinger) the son of the richest man in town,
and the story starts with light-hearted run ins between Roddy’s rebels and
Penfold’s “Federal” forces. The rules of engagement are largely non-contact and
wooden swordfights can only be won by first contact with the opponent’s
clothing.
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| Boy's club |
Interestingly Roddy’s most valiant soldiers are his “colors”,
two black brothers Verman (Joe McCray) and the younger Herman (Gene Jackson) who are both treated as equals in the gangs even though they look noticeably
poorer. Again, both lads give excellent performances and their position in the
film feels so much more natural than other black performers in many other productions of the time.
Herman gets captured by Penrod and Sam and hidden in
Penrod’s elder sister’s wardrobe until further notice. War is Hell.
We soon get to meet that sister, Margaret, (Mary Philbin,
who’s next film was a staring one,
in Erich von Stroheim’s Merry-Go-Round) as well as the parents, Dad (the
super Rockcliffe Fellowes) and Mom (Gladys Brockwell, possibly Brooklyn’s eye-roll
champion of 1915…) and the family dynamic unfolds. Dad’s about business, his
evening cigar and the newspaper whilst Mom looks after the housework not
covered by their black housemaid and Margaret is in love with Robert Williams (Gareth
Hughes), Sam’s elder brother.
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| Ideal American Family |
Herman’s escape from his wardrobe cell, hidden under one
of Margaret’s dresses is typical of the tone of the film’s mostly slapstick first
half but things do take a darker turn as the boys themselves take things too
far in victimising their underserving enemies, bookish Georgie Bassett (Newton
Hall), whilst their deserving ones, Robby, backed up by Dad (William V. Mong), up
the ante by levelling false accusations and getting Penrod a “good lashing”
from his father’s belt.
There’s a growing dislike between Penrod and Robby that
gets more intense and, as they’re destined to become grown-up rivals like their
fathers, there’s no particular happy ending other than the wealthiest having
the fewest real friends. Even Mr Burns has Smithers…
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| Mary Philbin and Gladys Brockwell |
Stephen Horne’s accompaniment played deeply on the
narrative and emotional vectors as he presented slapstick lines at helter-skelter
pace, aiming, as he said in the after screening discussion, “… to create the
feeling that it was fun but… slightly out of control and that at some point
(the fun) would come to an abrupt halt!” It was the kind of sure-fingered and thematically premeditated improvisation we’ve come to expect from Mr Horne and he rounded off the viewing experience with
rich dashes of humour and a melodic flourish.
Also in the discussion, Katherine Fusco, associate professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, observed that the boys are imitating the adults and also instructing them as it is only through remembering how it felt to be a boy that Penrod’s father is able to help his son whereas Robbie’s Dad is millions of dollars away from being able to empathise. This has echoes today but it's fascinating to see how US writers and film makers have always been suspicious of capital wealth – not so much as socialists - far from it - but in the way that money brings conflicted priorities that, if not addressed after salutary lessons are learned, will bring nothing but bad fortune to you and those you are supposed to love.
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| Celebrating the spirit of '76! |
So, Penrod and Sam was far from child’s play
(sorry) and is a typical Pordenone gem, one that was very well polished by this Library
of Congress restoration!
* Images de Paris. Girouettes. Les rêves tournent au
gré des vents, La Presse, 22nd October 1934
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| Duke waits to hear his master's voice... |
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| Pordenone |
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Lovely write up. Thank you
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading!!
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