The music of chance... Strolling Players (1925), with Cyrus Gabrysch, Kennington Bioscope

 

Sex and silent film, it’s full of objectification and attitudes that today we frown upon and yet… here we find four men sizing up young Lya de Putti, whose heads transform into pig’s as they imagine our heroine with no clothes on. OK, those clothes do seem to disappear but I think Karl Grune was making a point, wasn’t he? To put this even further in context, Felix Salten, the writer of the film later went on to write Bambi; so, make of that what you will.

The sexist pig-heads was one of a number of striking visual set pieces that illustrate Grune’s story of a star being born, a tale as old as time indeed, as young actress meets successful player, Axel Swinborne (Eugen Klopfet), and we all know the rest… or do we, for this film ends in a way that, whilst I obviously can’t reveal, does leave the audience surprised.

We were watching the BFI’s 35mm print of Strolling Players (Komödianten or Comedians, certainly more Max Wall than Jimmy Tarbuck!) and this is, possibly, the only celluloid copy left in the World, yet another reminder of the rarities on view at the Kennington Bioscope and the vital role played by our national film archive. Why travel a thousand miles when you can see these treats in Lambeth? Blessed are the hobbyists, the collectors, the projectors, the historians and the programmers!

The story spins on coincidence – we are all after all merely players on the stage and there’s more than one reference to Shakespeare – starting with the arrival of a group of strolling players at makeshift theatre/public house in the village of Gotten. They’re performing Faust and it’s fair to say that the locals aren’t giving the cast the respect they might possibly deserve despite the presence of a looming Fritz Rasp looking almost cherubic in blonde curls and a striking leading lady (Lya De Putti), listed just as “The Sentimental”.

The director of the troupe (Viktor Schwanneke) knows this rejection well and as he’s always done and no doubt always will do, rouses his weary gang for a morale-boosting meal.

Miles away in the big city, we see Swinborne’s latest triumph and his determination to take a holiday on the completion of this run. He duly heads off on a train only, and what does this say about the safety of German trains at this point, to catch the train door handle on his waistcoat and fall out at high speed. Rescued by railwaymen, he’s taken to the inn where the players are staying and Lya volunteers to tend to him after he’s unceremoniously dumped on an upstairs bed.

The next morning the great actor is remarkably unscathed – what a lucky break as he remarks… and going down stairs to find out where he is, catches the players in rehearsal, in the very play he has just starred in, right at the moment for his cue to rush in and find his faithless lover and then shoot her dead. Maybe it’s the new lease of life or just the look on Lya’s face, he offers to join them for the evening’s performance and, unlike the previous evening’s Geothe, tonight is a huge hit and he raises everyone’s game.

His faithful dresser (Hermann Picha) comes to collect him the next day and just as he thanks the director for his generosity, he tells Lya that she could be a successful actress if she lets him guide her career. She’s persuaded and heads of to, of course, guaranteed success.

Lya de Putti, a World-class slinker!

In the cut and thrust of theatricality there’s always complications and, just as Swinborne comes to love his protégé so do others, including a handsome young prince (Owen Gorin) and no wonder given the stunning fashions on display for the Austro-Hungarian aristocrat de Puti. She has to choose between her loyalty to Swinborne and her primal attraction to the younger man… it’s a tough call and this emotional maze confounds our expectations in a denouement that dodges and dives in every effort to avoid the predictable.

Lya’s magnetic presence does much to elevate the film, she may be posh but she’s got a look that connects in a very earthy way and as she was to show in Variety and many more, she knows how to play the camera and to pull the watcher in with earnest, raw expression. She’s part Pola, neo-Nazimova - that hair! - with a hint of a more virtuous Valeska Gert - a Euro-pudding of the most adult-deco proportions. 

Cyrus Gabrysch underpinned this emotional commitment with improvisations that captured the emotional storms and romantic sweep of this tug of love. This was a fiercely committed approach that was buoyed by clusters of muscular chords and lilting lines; I haven’t seen Cyrus play for sometime but he was lost in music and completely plugged in to the action on screen. Stirred and shaken.

 

Ralph Lewis and Norma Talmadge

Going Straight (1916) with Colin Sell

As if this BFI gem wasn’t rare enough, we were also treated to another early Norma Talmadge film, following on from last time’s stunning 16mm copy of A Helpful Sisterhood (1914). As with that film, I’d already seen Going Straight (1916) but never like this 35mm versions, which whilst showing its age, which I like, was full of gorgeous texture and tints showing Norma in fabulous close up as the 21 year-old showed the growing confidence in her craft.

 

Norma featured in hundreds of short films for the Vitagraph Company from 1910 to 1915. Then, having joined Triangle Pictures, she made longer form films of which Going Straight, was one of the first. Directed by Chester M. Franklin and Sidney Franklin the picture clearly shows the guiding influence of DW Griffith who oversaw a lot of the production at Triangle. There are expert intercuts and parallel scenes, close ups reminiscent of Pig Alley and the action is tightly marshalled throughout.

Talmadge is superb, acting naturalistically and given ample close ups to demonstrate her restrained playing which has more in common with Gish and Pickford than some of the more dramatic queens of the era. She plays Grace the wife of successful businessman, John Remington, played by Ralph Lewis. The two live in wedded bliss with their young family in one of those sizable wooden properties we brick-bound Brits envy. However, despite this apparent normality, both Grace and John were once part of a group of professional criminals known as the Higgins gang. Grace finds a clipping about their trial and a flashback explains their violent past.

Eugene menaces

Higgins/Remington’s second in command was Jimmy Briggs, played by the excellent Eugene Pallette, full of violent menace, who, after doing his time spots John, who offers to help him on the straight and narrow. Unwilling to change his greasy spots, Briggs threatens to reveal Grace’s criminal past and John has little option but to join him on one last robbery. He goes to commit the crime with Briggs whilst Grace stays over at a well-healed friend’s house after a card party. As it turns out – in a coincidence not too uncommon at the time – Briggs and John are burgling the same house.

What could possibly go wrong?

It is undeniably melodramatic but Talmadge is believable and understated even in the most fraught moments. She has a number of close ups that allow her to illustrate the emotional shifts in the story and her facial transitions are quite the special effect and as viewed on this wonderful 35mm copy, stunning. She’s another whose looks appear to be almost “out of time” and could have made her successful in any period of screen acting. It’s a face you enjoy reading on many levels and has a fascination and a depth that would grow to place her in the upper echelons by the early Twenties.

Colin Sell’s fingers danced along creating a sprightly symphony to accompany the players’ hard work and as with all good accompaniment the sound and vision blurred into a deliciously satisfying whole – sorry, the new range of home-made catering at the Bioscope naturally encourages such comparisons!

Another special occasion in Kennington, introduced majestically and expertly by Michelle Facey as we have come to expect!