Queenie Marie… The Sideshow (1928), with Cyrus Gabrysch, Kennington Bioscope

There was magic in the air tonight in Kennington, together with passion and the Christmas joy of sharing a present, unwrapped in front of the entire room – a film no-one had seen before, a surprise to everyone, not a sideshow but very much the main event. The Bioscope’s MC, Michelle Facey, has been in pursuit of this film for over two years as part of her ongoing mission to restore Marie Prevost to cinematic consciousness and to help rehabilitate an actor so wronged by the puerile taletelling of Mr K Anger as well as a studio system that discarded her in such a callous way in the thirties.

 

Anyone whose seen Prevost in Lubitsch’s Marriage Circle or even her brief but vital role in Three Women, knows what a powerful performer she was and how she holds the eye like few others from the period with relaxed expressiveness, flashes of wit across her huge eyes and a smile that knows far more than it seems to be letting on. She’s got range and moved from being one of Mack Sennett’s bathing beauties to sophisticated comedies as well as dramas like this one, adding charm and depth to her already compelling screen magnetism.

 

Michelle had been searching out more of Marie’s films and tonight’s 35mm print was from a 2003 restoration held in the vaults of UCLA which took much dogged negotiation including providing proof of the Bioscope and Cinema Museum’s capabilities as well as a reference from the BFI. Nothing phases Facey when it comes to film history and tonight was yet another special evening with this screening of a film that has only been shown three times this century and not in the UK since – probably – its year of release.

 

The Sideshow is not a major film but it is a very unusual film and one with much to recommend in terms of entertainment and historical context. It’s a Prevost vehicle which represents her at near the height of her popularity and noteworthy for that reason alone in showing us her star power but it’s also a film that features a little person as a major character and not just a circus amusement. 'Little Billy' Rhodes plays P.W. Melrose, a cigar-chomping owner of his own circus, having risen through the ranks after starting out as a side show performer himself.

 

He's an astute and determined businessman who looks after his people and, mostly, has good grace and sound judgement. A couple of drunken men show him disrespect as his right-hand man Gentleman Ted Rogers (Ralph Graves) hails the acts in the circus side show – even after Ted tells them he owns the circus – but Melrose has heard it all before a thousand times and walks off chewing on his ever-present cigar.

 

It's a really good performance from Rhodes who was abandoned by his father once his condition was identified and, after experiencing what he described as dreadful poverty, was taken in by a showman who acted as his manager as he progressed from Vaudeville to Broadway and then onto films. He later appeared in The Wizard of Oz but here is not only the smartest man in the room, he’s also romantically interested in a new arrival at the circus.

 

Cue Marie Prevost as acrobat Queenie who has come in search of work after her family trapeze act disbands. She has an instant rapport with Ted but Melrose fall for her too. Meanwhile strange accidents keep on happening at the circus, an explosion in the payroll caravan and the death of a trapeze artist which looks like his equipment was sabotaged. Queenie comforts his daughter and Melrose tells her mother that he’ll keep on paying her late husband’s wages as long as he’s running the circus. Queenie tells him he’s a good man but his gruff exterior hides his broken heart.

 

It's pretty clear that someone is working on behalf of a competitor who has already tried to buy Melrose’s circus and now wants to lower the price… well, they should definitely pick on someone their own size.

 

Billy, Marie and Ralph Graves on a very collectable lobby card!

The film shows a lot of circus life both in the big tent with genuine acrobats, magicians and clowns along with the sideshow staples, the Tall Man (R.E. 'Tex' Madsen), “Fat Lady” (Martha McGruger), Thin Man (Chester Morton), Fire Eater (Jacques Ray), knife-thrower (Steve Clemente) and his long-suffering assistant (Janet Ford), Tattooed Man (Bert Price) and, putting Lon Chaney to shame, an Armless Man (Paul Desmuke) who can open his own bottles and light his own cigarettes! As with Little Billy in real life, the options for these outsiders were limited in the America of the time and “show” business in a human zoo was better than most.

 

Erle C. Kenton directs this tale very effectively and there’s some excellent scenes aboard a train as double crossers try to dispose of Ted by getting him to stick his neck out and look for the next signal, an old trick which involves pushing the distracted passenger off to their doom. Elsewhere, the sheer number of sharp objects dangerous practices on site easily enables the creation of a sense of jeopardy as Melrose’s crew finally realise that there’s a traitor in their midst leading to a breathless finale.

 

The review in Variety February 1929 damned with faint praise, “It’s not badly done and the old circus stuff somehow holds together for a story…” before being so grossly offensive it made Kenton’s point for him by saying that it was “impossible” to make a hero out of a “freak”. You wonder at the mentality which cruelly pervaded this America that some want to make great again as if all compassion and understanding was holding it back somehow.

 

Against this is the marvel of Marie who is exactly the kind of advanced caring soul the planet always needs and who’s acting always contains such humanity and heart as much in comedy as drama. This may have been a mid-budget Columbia “quickie” but she gives it her all as she always does, grounds the story and raises the emotional stakes in the manner of a true star.

 

Cyrus Gabrysch, the Bioscope’s founder, accompanied in dramatic fashion losing the audience in this rarity as yet again Kennington hosted the rare and almost impossible to see and appreciate. Had Michelle not fought so hard to bring Marie to Charlie’s house we would have had to rely on secondary sources such as Variety which we can all now attest was wrong-headed on this film and which utterly underestimated the persuasive Prevost!

.

Marie in a basket... what could possibly go wrong?

On tonight’s undercard we also saw some delightful shorts:

 

Bill and the Greasy Pole (1911) in which “Bill” must carry a twenty-foot pole through Paris to a fir and… it’s very difficult to hold onto.

 

Rope Making by Hand in Kent (1912) was truly fascinating showing the entire process from raw materials to groups twisting long sections together using wooden tools and elbow grease. I could watch this film for hours.

 

A Christmas Carol (1910) was the Edison version and summed up Dickens’ classic in around a dozen minutes. Directed by J. Searle Dawley it featured both Viola Dana and her sister Shirley Mason (their family name was Flugrath) as Bob Cratchit’s children. Scrooge’s nephew was played by Harold M. Shaw who later married their elder sister Edna Marie Flugrath who was also an actor.

 

A marvellous Christmas treat especially with maestro John Sweeney accompanying!

So, the Bioscope goes from strength to strength and thank you to all the collectors, programmers, projectionists, and helpers who make everything work so well. A particular cheer for the dynamic Michelle Facey for her Prevost perseverance and excellent introduction which showed such diligence and commitment to her subject. We sometimes forget that the KB runs on passion alone and what a spectacular engine that is!

 

Here's to 2025!

Spot the Flugraths!

Cabin fever… By the Law (1926), Barbican with Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne

It is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected… When the unexpected does happen, however, and when it is of sufficiently grave import, the unfit perish. … unable to do the unexpected, (they) are incapable of adjusting their well-grooved lives... In short, when they come to the end of their own groove, they die.

Jack London, The Unexpected (1906)

 

There were several moments as this extraordinary film reached its climax when I lost track of which musician was making which noise so closely aligned were Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne, especially as the former plucked the heavy strings whilst hammering their keys and Martin used snare, cymbal and bass drum in rapid polyrhythmic clusters. This was a classic Sunday afternoon Barbican silent film screening and the accompaniment plus the kind of knowledgeable and adventurous audience created such an atmosphere with this film that it was irresistibly entertaining. We were also left challenged by the force of Lev Kuleshov’s film and the eternal questions it addressed: mortality and morality, gold at the heart of all evil, a Soviet version of Greed, a proto noir mixed with post-revolutionary nervous exhaustion…

 

Now, I don’t suppose Jack London had all this in mind when he wrote The Unexpected*, the short story on which this film was based, in 1905**. That said, at 21 he had joined the Klondike Gold Rush goldrush in July 1897, with his sister's husband, one Captain Shepard. He suffered as many others did from malnutrition in the cold remote conditions and developed scurvy, losing four of his front teeth… and being marked for life by striations on his face. Later on, he covered the Russo-Japanese War in early 1904 for the San Francisco Examiner which saw him briefly imprisoned in Japan: honestly, he makes Ernest Hemmingway look a little lightweight!

 

So it was that London’s prose was filled with his personal experience of otherwise civilised folk faced with having to adapt to new “grooves” as the quote at the top references and you can see how the frozen wastes of the Yukon, the ephemeral nature of capitalist values and the poison at its heart enabled Kuleshov to, just about, get funding from Soviet production company Goskino for what was the cheapest film made in Russia, as the Barbican’s programmer, Tamara Anderson, said in her introduction pointed out that this might be a record that it still holds.

 

We had faces then... Aleksandra Khokhlova

The results are extraordinary on any budget, with superb performances from the director’s wife Aleksandra Khokhlova, her screen husband as played by Sergei Komarov and especially Vladimir Fogel as the villain of the piece… or is he? That is the question or rather the willingness of the others to decide on his crime and subsequent punishment.

 

It’s interesting for a soviet Russian film to have kept the story’s Yukon setting but this is a film about greed and the “rules” of society. The protagonists are five emigrees from old Europe all in search of gold and the freedom it will bring. Their leader is the Swedish Hans Nelson (Komarov) who is married to the English Edith (Khokhlova) whilst Dutchy’s country of origin speaks for itself (he’s played by Porfiri Podobed). Then there’s Harky (Pyotr Galadzhev) and the Irish Michael (Fogel) who is the butt of a lot of the camp’s jokes as well as being the manual labourer – the class system is alive and well even in miniature.

 

We find the group preparing for the day as Michael fetches water from the river and plays his penny whistle for his dog – much to the slight annoyance of Hans – but to our delight especially as it gave Mr Horne the chance to weave some playful lines on his flute. Michael’s easy-going nature is curtailed by his duties and after cooking breakfast for the team he is told to prepare the equipment for relocation after Hans announces that the current location will not produce the gold they want. Having just sat down to eat he shares a bemused look before trudging of, breakfast interrupted, leaving the others to pick off his food.

 

Michael is however just about to save their bacon, as it were, when during the dismantling of the mine he gives the waters one last chance and slushing the dregs around a washing pan finds the golden nuggets at last. As he labours we repeatedly cut back to the camp with the other four lounging in the early morning sub smoking and relaxing after eating their meals and his. They quickly absorb his role in reversing their fortunes and celebrate by dancing together, his exclusion a signal of the mockery to come now that he has made them rich.

 

Vladimir Fogel

Things reach a head after Michael returns from hunting to find them eating lunch without him and laughing about his “envy” – the standard slur for the workers from Capital - and the tone shifts in an instance as, gun in hand he blasts first Harky – who slumps forward almost comically, head balanced in his food and preventing the table from collapse – and then Dutchy. The other two are in shock but Edith responds the quicker trying to wrest the gun away as her husband sits slack jawed before finally pounding Michael into submission. It’s the most desperate scene and, as London had written, completely unexpected.

 

Now Hans and Edith tie Michael up and must treat him as a prisoner through the long winter months until he can be tried “by the law” … What follows is an exploration of the morality of these cultured people in the circumstances of wild nature as the cabin is flooded and isolated in bitter conditions, can they hold out till Spring to take their man to the police and the courts and where does the authority of the law reside?

 

Edith clutches her bible and Hans is the more pragmatic but still restrained by his own code and Kuleshov makes the most of the tension with quick cuts interspersed with frequent close-ups and the constant reminder of their isolation on the freezing lake. Michael meanwhile has an unknowable, conflicted persona, the hard-working whistler who looks after his dog and who was turned into a rage by hard-hearted teasing and who seems unable or unwilling to explain why he killed.

 

The management relax as their worker discovers their fortune...

There is so much to work out in the film and a number of possible readings and it was a privilege to be sat head scratching with the rest of the audience as Stephen and Martin whipped up the most visceral improvisations for the wild interiors of this battering wilderness. Food for the heart and mind at the Barbican as you would expect.

 

*Published in McClure's Magazine, Aug 1906, London's story is apparently based upon actual events involving prospectors at Latuya Bay, Alaska 1900. Details here from historian David Reamer in the Anchorage Daily News.

 

**The script, co-written with Viktor Shklovsky also incorporated elements of London’s story, Just Meat (1907).

Jack London prospecting in Alaska 1897, he was just 21.

Ruthless Robinson - Black Tuesday (1954), Eureka Masters of Cinema #300

 

I’ve got those Black Tuesday blues

Black Tuesday, Black Tuesday,

I pray for that day to never come…

That’s when my life on this earth will be done.

 

There’s a certain formula to noir, even though only the French had codified the form at this point, yet the use of these elements doesn’t preclude the possibilities of refining the components and making a film that both engages and leaves the jaded modern viewer impressed and not a little shocked. So it is with Hugo Fregonese’s Black Tuesday which is now being released in a crystal clear 4k transfer from those fabulous folk at Eureka. Not being familiar with the work of this much travelled Argentinian director I have to conclude on this evidence at least that he is indeed a master of cinema. I want to see more and could have seen more at Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato in 2022 when a retrospective of his work clashed with my usual pursuit of silent film restorations.

 

The film is the last of the much-travelled Fregonese’s in Hollywood and represents the darkest of takes on the nature of crime and humanity’s rules of survival. As critic and co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato Ehsan Khoshbakht, who programmed the retrospective says, it has the biggest “kick” of the director’s films in terms of morality and nihilism. Noir was well populated with anti-heroes but few as genuinely frightening as Edward G. Robinson’s Canelli whose logic still stands in an era of global anti-truth and burgeoning conflicts. Might is right has never changed, and we’re about to see this creed tested again over the next few years.

 

For Fregonese escape was a way of life for his characters, it certainly was for him based on his field of operations and, much as we feel the flight or flight in 2024, there’s little comfort to be offered in Black Tuesday even as we’re engaged in the taught narrative for the get-go.

 

Edward G Robinson

The opening is as stylish show of flair that marks this mid-budget film out from most of its peers as we enter the cells of condemned men all counting down the days and in some cases hours until their fate. One man, Sylvester (Don Blackman) starts tapping out a rhythm on his stool and singing a plaintive song about Black Tuesday, the traditional day for public executions in the USA and as his words roll out the camera tracks across the faces of the men. Canelli prowls his cage like a lion full of hate and guile, still looking for any chance, then the cool and collected Manning (Peter Graves) still working on an intricate match-stick model of a bridge where possibly he has stashed $200,000 of stolen money) and then onto one prisoner who cannot stand the music and its reminder of his impending fate.

 

They all appear doomed and yet, the scene shifts to a couple sitting outside the prison in a car, Canelli’s lady friend Hatti (Jean Parker) and one of his men, who are watching one of the prison guards Norris (James Bell) being dropped off by his daughter Ellen (Sylvia Findley). At the end of the day when the guard gets home he finds Hatti sitting inside his house with an offer he simply can’t refuse if he wants to see his girl again. Once again the camera angles are ramped up to highlight Hatti’s measured menace and as Norris sits down in his chair there’s a cross-fade to the electric chair being prepared for Canelli and Manning a foreshadowing of the guard’s own fate as much as theirs.

 

The film had benefited enormously from restoration and has a distinctive look anyway. Kodak Tri-X film used for the first time in a feature film and, as it was much more sensitive to low light conditions without impacting film grain, it enabled high contrast and easier setups in terms of artificial lighting. It helped enable the dynamic use of deep focus and depth of field by cinematographer Stanley Cortez who worked on The Magnificent Ambersons and, the following year, Charles Laughton’s brilliant Night of the Hunter. He spans the gap between expressionism and noire here creating a crystal-clear view of the darkness at the heart of men.

 

Depth of feels: James Bell and Peter Graves 

So many shots are simply stunning especially when Canelli, in extreme close-up, is telling the prison guard Norris that if he wants to see his daughter alive again, he better co-operate. Norris’ face is shown in profile in focus with Manning’s in the neighbouring cell, both are in sharp focus heightening this crucial moment and Norris’ fearful distraction. Canelli’s cackle when he knows he has his man is genuinely chilling… the perfect meld of performance, lens and direction as a good man is brought down and the escape plan is on…

 

Then there is the night of the men’s execution with the scene a in a starkly lit room with the journalists and onlookers jostling for the best view of the death scene about to spark in front of them. They enter filmed from a low angle with the electric chair looming large in the opposite corner. Norris fulfils his part of the bargain by strapping a gun under a chair which Canelli’s man Joey (Warren Stevens the star to be of Forbidden Planet and hundreds of TV episodes), impersonating a newspaper man, retrieves it and launches the escape plan.

 

After a tense shoot out during which Manning is injured the men are picked up by a van and, after dropping off the other three from death row, more as a police distraction than a favour, Canelli arrives at the warehouse Hatti has prepared. They have brought the prison doctor (Vic Perrin) to tend to Manning as he and his $200,000 are very much part of Canelli’s plan. There’s also the prison chaplain Father Slocum (Milburn Stone) who more than anything is to provide a moral equivalence for the gang in the desperate hours to come. Norris’ daughter is also there along with Carson (Jack Kelly) the journalist replaced by Joey along with one of the prison guards, the one who really used to needle Canelli.

 

This stage of the film is even more intense than the first half as death hovers even closer to life than in death row as the gang are discovered and a siege begins. Canelli has no intention of surrender and starts to execute his hostages as the police close in. It’s the interactions between the “good” and the “bad” characters that keep the interest though, how can these men insist on other lives being worth less than their own? Is there no morality other than survival of the meanest and the basest of motives. The film pushes these questions to the absolute limit and the cast are universally up to the task.

 

First amongst these is, of course Robinson and for once the press puff was right in claiming this as the most ruthless Robinson of all time! His Canelli is not only believable but likeable in some moments, it’s like The Sopranos half a century earlier, business is business and ruthless is the way with apologies if the innocent just happen to get in the way.  

 

Eshan Khoshbakht describes Fregonese as “a master of creating claustrophobic spaces…” and the film with its sparse empty sound stages, unseen threat, sharp angles and extraordinary cinematography, is unpredictably engaging right to the end. I’m not surprised that the Nation Legion of Decency rated it “B” for “excessive brutality and low moral tone…” but the real horror is the amorality and not the manner of these deaths but their justification.

 

This is all typical of the director’s work as Khoshbakht points out, recalling the common themes from his Ritrovato notes including the constant self-justifications, the impact of their criminality on their motivation and the loneliness of the huge spaces in the film… these men are all islands with their past behaviours and future fortunes all inextricably and unavoidably linked. More than anything though, the physical escape is a reflection of their ongoing quest to be free of consequences and their inevitable demise: “escape as a way of life.”.

 

This set contains a highly informative video essay on Fregonese from the thoroughly well-researched Sheridan Hall, which explains his subject’s world-spanning career whilst putting this picture in the context of his other major works. It’s an essay that dovetails perfectly with Khoshbakht’s which is more centred on the film and you’re in safe hands with these two!

 

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Limited Edition (2000 copies) with O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow
• 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a 2K scan of the 35mm fine grains
• A new audio commentary with film noir expert Sergio Angelini, host of the Tipping My Fedora podcast
• From Argentina to Hollywood a new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on director Hugo Fregonese
• – No Escape another new video essay by Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City
• An interview with critic and co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato Ehsan Khoshbakht covering the career of Hugo Fregonese
• Theatrical trailer
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Black Tuesday by critic Barry Forshaw and film writer Craig Ian Mann

 

You can order Black Tuesday direct from the Eureka website and do it quickly because the Limited Edition is only 2000 copies and I sense we’ll be seeing more of Hugo Fregonese’s work!

 

 

Monkey business... Kennington Bioscope Silent Laughter Weekend, Day Two

I’d missed the first day of KB’s annual Comedy Weekender having to be dragged around the South Cambridgeshire countryside by a small but determined dog who knew I’d seen Pat and Patachon as well as Syd Chaplin’s legs last year in Pordenone. But nothing was going to keep me away from today’s programme with its mix of the rare, the classic and the impossible-to-see-anywhere-else! Only at the Bioscope my friends, only at the Cinema Museum…

 

Only on 9.5mm with Colin Sell

And, indeed, only on 9.5mm… the day began with live projection as, before our very eyes, films that are listed in many places as “lost” were projected for our delectation on the Bioscope screen. Chris Bird introduced and projected these treasures most of which were on celluloid some 80 to 100 years ago, using a 1950s Spectro projector upgraded to HID lighting – it says here in the notes! The format was intended for home use and, because the sprocket hole are between individual cells, the projected area is not dissimilar from 16mm which had whole at the side. The results look fabulous especially given their rarity and… where else can we see supposedly lost Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon and Oliver Hardy.

It's sobering as Chris noted that of the 123 American films released on 9.5mm almost half, 56 titles, only survive on 9.5… film preservation comes down to such fine margins, in this case just about 2/5ths of an inch.

 

As Chris went off to the projector, Dave Glass introduced each film starting with Our Gang – one of the most successful film series that went from 1922 well into the late 40s with an ever-changing cast of young tykes. This was the first film to be shot, the third to be released, as Fickle Flora (1922) which came with Big Business under the title Our Gang from Pathescope. Flora features a young girl torn between various suitors – the boy next door and a rich boy with long blonde curls and a bowl full of sweets.

Harold in a barrell

Harry Langdon, the fourth silent comedy giant, who changed the style of comedy by slowing down the action and whose first film doesn’t exist except it does on 9.5… made with Sol Lesser’s Principal Pictures Corporation, called The Capture of Cactus Cal (1925) on 9.5 but has now been identified as part of Horace Greely Jnr. The film was re-released by Mack Sennett in 1925 - but shot two years earlier by Alfred J Goulding for Lesser.

 

Next up an episode from the Hall Room Boys series featuring Neely Edwards and Bert Roach called High Flyers (1922). This was another series based on a comic strip which became a long running film series some 45 made which, again, has few survivors mostly on 9.5. The boys end up climbing up buildings high above San Francisco in pursuit of a baby flying high attached to balloons… and are helped by a monkey. No children were harmed in the making of this film but almost certainly Harold Lloyd was watching and planning his own high-rise act for two years later…

 

Talking of Harold Lloyd, he was next up in Rainbow Island (1917) described by Dave as “of its time” in terms of its attitudes and lo it came to pass after a message in a bottle lead Harry and his pal, Snub Pollard, to a treasure island inhabited by a tribe called the Bozos who soon capture the men and start fattening them for some comedy stewing…

 

The late David Wyatt identified a lot of the films in the 9.5 Catalogue and The Honourable Mr Buggs issued on a French 9.5mm was one of his favourites dedicated to him today by Mr Glass. It’s a Hal Roach featuring Oliver Hardy in black face as the nervy butler of Matt Moore’s Mr Buggs. This also featured Anna May Wong as lady crook, Baroness Stoloff as well as Sojin Kamiyama (recently seen as Billy the Butler in the Bioscope’s screening of The Bat!) as her criminal competitor.

 

Next was Paul (aka James) Parrott, brother of Charley Chase (born Charles Joseph Parrott), who, before he directed 22 of Laurel and Hardy’s best sound shorts, made a number of comedy shorts as the star for Mr Hal Roach. These included Winner Takes All (1923) featuring Jobyna Ralston who was to later team with Harold Lloyd to much success. Paul must compete in the multi-event Clear Valley Country Club tournament for the prize cup and the hand of the president’s daughter (Jobyna). Hilarity ensues… true love wins out!

 

Brother Charlie Chase directed the final film, which stared Snub Pollard in 365 Days (1922) which was a delightfully surreal tale of an extended family offered a large inheritance if only they can live together for a year without falling out. They build a collection of houses piled high on each other and proceed to try and control their tempers… fat chance!

 

Accompaniment was from the fluid fingers of Colin Sell and he contributed trademark good-humoured backing for this typically Kennington Sunday morning treat. Yes we had some big features to follow but this was the essence of the KB and someone needs to spend some time revising IMDB and other online sources.

 

Marion Davies and Lawrence Gray

The Patsy (1928) with Cyrus Gabrysch

 

An episode of Screen Snapshots (1924) was screened showing Marion Davies relaxing with friends including Sessue Hayakawa and his wife, Tsuru Aoki, Pauline Frederick and a number of others I was too slow to catch!

 

1928 was quite the year for King Vidor with The Crowd, generally regarded as one of the very best films of the silent era along with Show People – one of the finest comedies – proceeded by this film his first collaboration with the protean Marion Davies. Vidor had seen Davies’ comic turn at parties and noted her natural instincts as a crowd-pleasing comic, even if the laughs were at her own expense and also as a mimic. Not quite what her beau William Randolph Hearst had in mind for her at all… but The Patsy became her biggest hit to date following on from the more conventional comedy-dramatics such as When Knighthood Was in Flower, The Bride’s Play et al. Not that this was her first time in comedy-led features as Beverley of Graustark and others show, this was always her winning way and I’d be surprised if Hearst wasn’t really aware of this, especially as it was reinforced by her ability as a dramatic actor.

Here Davies is screwball and inventive, staring longingly at her sister’s boyfriend for comic effect and feigning madness in a series of unlikely hats she is funny throughout this film. She plays Pat, the youngest member of the Harrington clan, who is forever being picked on by her Ma (Marie Dressler in a career-rescuing and, as legend has it, life-saving performance) who favours her more elegant sister Grace (Jane Winton). Pa Harrington (Dell Henderson) tries to stand up for Pat but is usually slapped down…outnumbered by Ma and Grace.

Marie Dressler and Jane Winton

The family dynamics are well handled from the opening Sunday lunch in which Pat tries to work out the correct way of eating soup to her getting the scrag end of the chicken and having to fend for her own new clothes that are borrowed by big sis. Pat would like to do some borrowing of her own with Grace’s boyfriend, Tony (Orville Caldwell) who is completely oblivious only having eyes for Grace even after Pat tells him of her secret and unrequited love for a certain fellow (it’s YOU ya big dummy!).

But there’s nothing Pat won’t do for her sister even if it means sacrificing her own love. Davies shows good range with the pathos and comedy especially when attempting to win over wealthy gad-about Billy Caldwell (Lawrence Gray) – who has set his sights on Grace as well – Davies’ Pat impersonates not one but three of Hollywood’s finest. In three absorbing minutes Mae Murray, Lillian Gish and Pola Negri… all come to life in convincing fashion

Marie Dressler is absolutely fabulous; her every action pops out of the screen and she is brilliantly over-bearing. Henderson is good at hen-pecked and his revolt at the end is all the sweeter for it – real craftsmen at work here. And it was good to hear Bioscope founder Cyrus Gabrysch back on the keyboards playing for this comedic wonder with his instinctive and playful accompaniment.

 

Florence Lawrence 

Focus on Vitagraph with Glenn Mitchell and Dave Glass plus Timothy Rumsey

It was time for a live double act and, whilst Mitchell and Glass haven’t the vaudeville experience of say John Bunny and Charlie Murray they know an awful lot about them and the transition to filmic comedy via the Vitagraph company. Based in New York, Vitagraph was formed in 1897 by Albert E Smith, J Stuart Blackman and William “Pop” Rock, three Brits with backgrounds in entertainment from running billiard halls to prestidigitation. It grew into one of the leading comedy studios of the 1910s.

The two showed a bizarre trick film from 1907, The Disintegrated Convict followed by A Tintype Romance (1910) featuring Florence Turner not to mention Jean the Vitagraph Dog who is absolutely central to the plot! There were also films featuring perhaps the biggest comedy star pre-Chaplin, John Bunny, The Golf Game and the Bonnet (1913), Ralph Ince’s The Right Girl? (1915), Sidney Drew and wife in Boobley’s Baby (1915) and the great Larry Semon in Bullies and Bullets (1917).

In between the films Glenn and Dave provided the kind of witty background you’d expect at the epicentre of Silent London and we were royally entertained by the rich accompaniment from Timothy Rumsey!

  

Trade promotion for The Gorilla

The Gorilla (1927) with Costas Fotopolous and filmed introduction from Steve Massa

 

There are two ways of writing a murder mystery, speaking as the son of a crime writer (Cyril Joyce, former policeman turned novelist, who had 23 books published in hardback and paperback, many based on his experiences and forensically plotted) and this film follows what’s known as the Midsomer Murders Formula – the killer can be picked out of a hat and the rationale is invented to unravel in the final five minutes. Most murder mysteries follow this approach… motive, opportunity and means all established post facto.

The Gorilla is strong on animalistic atmosphere and comedy but it doesn’t quite match The Bat and certainly The Cat and the Canary for plotting, character and whodunnit mystery. This film has been missing for some time and was only rediscovered and restored relatively recently by the San Francisco Film Festival. It looks gorgeous, dark spooky mansion well-lit in tinted blue as the shadow of a huge primate is cast on its walls and an interior of yellowy-brown, immaculately highlighting the performers expression and their fear among the murder and mystery.

Based on the play by Ralph Spence, written in 1925, after both Cat (1922) and Bat (1920) it features our man of the day, Charlie Murray, as Garrity a comic detective who could make even Bob Hope seem calm and collected in the gloom of an old dark house. His partner in crime-stopping is Fred Kelsey, and between them, they must establish who the killer was in a house full of suspects all behaving like, well, suspects. Yes, even Alice Townsend, played by Marceline Day’s sweet-faced elder sister Alice, looks like she might have something to hide whilst her paramour Arthur Marsden (Gaston Glass) is immediately selected as the main suspect for her father Cyrus’ killer, being his secretary and all.

Charlie, Fred and friend...

As they gather in the library with their friend Stevens (and impossibly youthful Walter Pidgeon) a note from The Gorilla advises them all to leave as more will be killed if still in the house at midnight… well you know what that means. It’s a game of cat and mouse or, to be more zoologically precise, primate and primate as Garrity and his partner Mulligan (Fred Kelsey, described by Steve Massa in his filmed introduction as the perennial flat foot) stumble around for clues. Tully Marshall is superb as per usual as William Townsend the deceased slightly deranged brother and Syd Crossley adds comic value as the Butler who regardless of whether he did it or not just wants to go home.

Superb atmospherics were provided by Mr Fotopolous on piano as he illustrated the dark corners of the comedy and sprinkled light-hearted flourishes over the comic relief. These comedy horrors must be great fun to play as audience, music and sights on screen combine.

 

Mr Murray and Miss Bow

The Pill Pounder (1923), with Costas Fotopolous

Steve Massa also introduced this other recently discovered film and it is, of course, all the more precious for having a young Clara Bow in it – just 17 - as well as Mr Charlie Murray. The story of its rediscovery in an Omaha parking lot (!?!) has been all over the cineaste socials not to mention mainstream news and it is a big deal especially for Clara. It’s Murray’s film though as he plays a pharmacist/druggist aka the titular pounder of pills whose few pleasures in a stifled home life include a few hands of cards in the back of his store.

The customer is always wrong is his motto as he's cheated out of his winning hand by his pals who swap cards with every ring of the shop bell… His distraction leads to his being convinced that a bottle of “Fomo Seltzer”, labelled toxic by a pesky child, has poisoned Clara’s boyfriend (James Turfler) and the comedy goes into overdrive until the truth is revealed. Clara shows great energy and she was described in the Exhibitors Trade Review as “perhaps the most promising of the youngest actresses…” Got that right!

According to Steve, Murray appeared in over 300 films from 1912 to 1940 and was “the professional Irishman for hire…” with this one of a series he starred in for All-Star films after leaving Keystone. He went on to feature in the 1925 Wizard of Oz, as well as The Gorilla in a busy Twenties before making a series of seven films about The Cohens and the Kellys… guess which one he played?

Clara Bow and James Turfler

 

After seven hours in the dark, I had to move north just as the evening was hotting up. Here’s what I missed…

 

Charley Chase with Cyrus Gabrysch

Some very rare, and newly restored, comedies from one of the Five Greats (for me!) including Us (1927), All Wet (1924), What Women Did for Me (1927) and Derby Day (1923) Presented by author, film historian and Chase expert Richard M Roberts.

 

Then… an evening’s worth of short comedies from other masters:

Harold Lloyd’s Never Weaken (1921)

Buster Keaton’s The Paleface (1922)

Charlie Chaplin’s Behind the Screen (1916)

Charley Chase Assistant Wives (1927)

Laurel & Hardy Leave ‘Em Laughing (1928)

Piano accompaniment was from the tireless Costas Fotopolous!

 

Another silently spectacular Sunday at the Bioscope and thanks to all those who projected, preserved, presented and produced this wonderful weekend. It’s something to celebrate and the opportunities to see so much “presumed lost” is one to treasure.

 

 

Watching the detectives… Louis Feuillade: The Complete Crime Serials (1913-1918), Blu-ray

 

Louis Feuillade not only popularised the dramatic serial as we still know it, he did so during a period when his country was at war with the majority of these four epic series made during the Great War either in and around Paris or in the relative safety of Nice. In truth the form had many parents across the cine-world with America providing The Perils of Pauline starting in 1914 and Edison's – or someone’s - What Happened to Mary in 1912 then Germany, Viggo Larsen's Arsène Lupin contra Sherlock Holmes in 1910 and even earlier, in 1908, the French with Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset launching his series of six Nick Carter films: le roi des detectives! Carter le roi? Je ne pense pas, messieurs... cet homme vit à Baker Street!

Anyway, using the same techniques as these great and not so great detectives, Feuillade evolved the cinematic style across four series, Fantômas, Les Vampires, Judex and Tih Minh all of which left their mark and established motifs that have been used ever since. Some have been available on Blu-ray overseas but for the first time in the UK Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series has now pulled all together in one luxurious and absolutely essential box set celebrating the birth of the box set in many ways!

The films have all been transferred from 4K restorations from original 35mm nitrate originals where possible and the results create such an immediacy and connection with the material, it almost feels like you’re clambering on a roof top with Irma Vep, with the distant sounds of German guns only 70 kilometres away at one point, with the First Battle of the Marne, in September 1914.

 

René Navarre in disguise as Fantômas, the master criminal!

Fantômas (1913)

Adapted from a series of popular novels by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, Fantômas stars René Navarre as the eponymous criminal mastermind. Across the serial’s five episodes, Fantômas is pursued by Inspector Juve (Edmund Breon) and newspaper reporter Jérôme Fandor (Georges Melchior) as he carries out his nefarious schemes. As Kim Newman says in his video essay on the set, Fantômas is a supervillain, a “fusion of Professor Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes…” He’s certainly a master of disguise with each episode opening with Navarre in the disguise he will use in each story and, as Newman observes, we never really find out exactly who he us. He’s a universal and uncatchable master villain.

Each episode features Detective against Villain… and cliff-hangers are the order of the day. Fantômas is relentless and Juve is always one step behind. The serial was hugely successful and spawned many impersonators in print and on screen with both the public and, Newman again, the intellectuals, the surrealists attracted by the anarchy and the anti-establishment agenda.

 

Feuillade filmed so often on location, here at Avenue Junot...

Les Vampires (1915-1916)

 

Most people’s first introduction to Feuillade and probably the best and most entertaining of this set, the ten-episode Les Vampires tells of a group of vicious criminals who terrorise Paris, stopping at nothing to gain money and to disrupt the powers that be. They are led by the Grand Vampire (Jean Aymé) who adopts different guises and disguises in most episodes and his key operative (possibly even superior?) is the anagrammatical Irma Vep, played with such vibrant menace by Musidora (the rightfully legendary Jeanne Roques*), who helps to infiltrate elegant society, financial institutions and even the hero’s household for the Vampire cause. She is, as Newman says, the first female super villain, years ahead of Cat Woman and in every way transgressive – a challenge to audience and mankind from her first appearance on stage rousing the gathered gang members.

 

The hero in pursut is not a policeman but an intrepid reporter – one of the first of his kind - Philippe Guérande (Édouard Mathé) who is mostly helped (occasionally hindered) by the comic Mazamette, knowingly played by the fourth wall busting Marcel Lévesque who moves from working with the criminals – his family being under threat. It’s not the first example of characters’ mutability in the free-running serial that sees an ever-changing battle between the forces of order and disorder.

 

Les Vampires also had to contend with costumes of silk and wool with elasticated fabric still scarce...

As film scholar Elizabeth Ezra says in her video essay, the serial included a number of references to the ongoing conflict beyond with code breaking, gas attacks and other weapons of war such as the canon in episode seven and the exploding ship in episode eight all to redolent of events so close and yet, cinematically, so far. So many men were mobilised too and the original Vampire leader had to be called off, after the actor playing him, Louis Leubas, was called up.

 

Another fascinating observation from Ezra relates to the multiple personalities each character potentially presents, with this being an extension of paranoid delusion, Capgras Syndrome patients traumatised by the loss of loved ones belived that those around them had been killed and replaced by imposters in their bodies. Les Vampires is therefore full of people who are not quite as they seem, and there is frequent reference to loss, the serial may not specifically mention the conflict but it’s “haunted by the war” in Ezra’s words.

 

René Cresté, Édouard Mathé and Louis Leubas in Judex; secret lair

Judex (1916-17)

 

Judex is probably the first Masked Avenger – essentially a good version of Fantomas/Musidora possibly after an official reaction to the criminality of the first two serials. At this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, I was able to watch the screening of the entire series – 12 episodes plus prologue - with live accompaniment which really brought out the full flavour of Feuillade’s sense of drama, his eye for dynamic framing, and his team building and his ability to keep the narrative ball rolling even when you think he’s backed himself into a dramatic dead end.

 

It's not quite up there with Les Vampires but it does have the essentiality of Musidora playing Diana Monti aka Marie Verdier, a scheming opportunist who becomes more and more dominant the longer the story unwinds. Judex himself as played by René Cresté, is a goodie version of Fantômas, part Sherlock Holmes, maybe part Eugène-François Vidocq – an actual French criminal turned criminalist - certainly an outlier for The Shadow, Doc Savage and even The Batman. Feuillade had been criticised for glorifying his evil masterminds and so here was one of good intent even if he does kidnap and fake the death of the businessman responsible for his father’s death and many others, Favraux (Louis Leubas) before imprisoning him for life in a remote castle.

 

Judex has worked a very long game, disguised as Favraux’s secretary, to infiltrate his business dealings. His plan is soon complicated when he falls in love with the banker’s daughter, Jacqueline (Yvette Andréyor) who is soon targeted by the evil Monti! There’s great support from Vampires’ alumni Édouard Mathé as brother Roger and Marcel Lévesque as the comedic Cocantin whose swimming-costume clad fiancée Miss Daisy Torp (Lily Deligny) helps save the day. The kids are alright too and Le petit Jean (Olinda Mano) and The Liquorice Kid (Rene Poyen) deserved their own series!

René Cresté and Mary Harald

 

Tih Minh (1918)

Tih Minh is a change of pace - and technically the most polished - with a new cast of characters and a number of Feuillade’s regular cast playing them again. Set in the South of France the focus is on the goodies again with explorer Jacques d'Athys (René Cresté) who has returned from the Orient with a new fiancé from Laos, Tih Minh (Mary Harald) – a half Vietnamese heroine, interesting in itself - to be greeted by his mother (Madame Lacroix), sister Jane (Lugane) and maid Rosette (Jeanne Rollette) who is romancing his faithful, cheeky, manservant Placido (Georges Biscot).

 

The baddies are the mysteriously bearded “Asian” Kistna (Louis Leubas), Doctor Gilson (Gaston Michel) and the La marquise Dolorès (Georgette Faraboni) who has the real dash of stylish super-vixen, biting a rose with menace in the introductory segment. What they’re about is disrupting the old order… undermining the British Empire and controlling minds with chemical concoctions. They also hold a cellarful of chemically controlled young women… for what purpose we can only guess but there is some nudity revealed at this point… and, whilst you’d never see that in a British or American film at this point, it is a reminder that down the same avenue as entertainment is the darkened rue latérale of exploitation.

 

This serial looks stunning and it’s rare to see such detail and to feel the century melt away as you watch the performers inhabit their roles and the familiar spaces of Nice, with such clarity. The Palais de la Jetée and the beautiful Crystal Casino may be long gone but this is very much a travelogue for the jewel of the Riviera, magnificent views, glorious mansions and the warm breeze of a Mediterranean mistral running through the relentless, narrative parkour, pace of the storyline.

 

Without doubt as film historian and author David Kalat says in his commentary, Feuillade’s crime serials had a huge impact on Fritz Lang who responded with Dr Mabuse, Spies and much more not to mention Alfred Hitchcock and everyone that came after. The influence spread also to pulp magazines – The Shadow – as well as comic books, radio, television and one of the most successful Caped Crusaders also known as Bruce Wayne.

 

Musidora in command, hands on hips, sleeves rolled up...

Join me in investigating these suspiciously special features…

 

·         Limited Edition Hardcase Box Set [2000 copies]

·         Set includes all four serials across 9 Blu-ray Discs, all presented in 1080p HD from stunning 4K restorations courtesy of Gaumont Film Company, with uncompressed LPCM 2.0 audio on all serials

·         Fantômas – audio commentaries on In the Shadow of the Guillotine and Juve vs Fantômas by film historian and author David Kalat

·         Les Vampires – new audio commentaries on The Red Cipher and The Spectre by film historian and author David Kalat

·         Judex – new audio commentaries on the prologue, The Mysterious Shadow, Atonement, The Water Sprite and The Forgiveness of Love by genre film expert and Video Watchdog founder Tim Lucas

·         Tih-Minh – Brand new audio commentaries on The Potion of Forgetfulness, The Mysteries of Circé Villa and Justice by genre film expert and Video Watchdog founder Tim Lucas

·         Casting a Long Shadow –  new interview with critic and author Kim Newman

·         Pamela Hutchinson on Musidora –  new interview with critic, film historian and silent cinema expert Pamela Hutchinson on the star of Les Vampires and Judex

·         The Spectre of War in Les Vampires –  new video essay by film scholar Elizabeth Ezra, editor of European Cinema and France in Focus: Film and National Identity

·         Feuillade in Context – a new interview with writer, composer and silent film accompanist Neil Brand

·         A Closer Look at Feuillade – Brand new interview with critic, writer and film commentator Tony Rayns

·         Fold-out poster – yay!!

·         A limited edition 100-page collector’s book featuring new writing by Louis Feuillade experts Jonathan Rosenbaum, Calum Baker, Annette Förster, Wendy Haslem, Robin Walz and Leon Hunt on the filmmaker and his crime serials alongside select archival imagery

 

The set is released on 11^th November and can be ordered direct from Eureka, not home should be without it. As Neil Brand says in his video essay on the director, not only are these lengthy series with their lose plotting – “one damn thing after another” – enthralling and still engaging, they’re also a social document of the Third French Republic, the war years and the development of one of the most enduring genres in cinema. Where would The Avengers be without HYDRA or James Bond without SPECTRE? And just where would Netflix, Apple TV and everyone else be without crime and punishment? Where would any of us be? This is one to binge and relish. But you know that already.

 

*For more information on Musidora visit the Womens Film Pioneers Project pages and follow on from there. Pamela Hutchinson’s video essay on this Eureka set is also thoroughly recommended!