The Brit! Girl... Carnival (1931), Projecting the Archive, BFI

 

There are some screenings you just have to turn up for, this was the first public projection of a 35mm restoration print completed using two nitrate elements in 1997, a genuine photochemical restoration long before the new digital techniques, and the craft in evidence added to the feeling of being really treated. The BFI National Archive’s Curator, Jo Botting, was on hand to provide us with details of the work undertaken as well as the film’s star, Britain’s Clara Bow, the sensational Dorothy ‘Chili’ Bouchier who certainly had ‘It!’ – so much so she was named after the popular song, I Love My Chili Bom Bom whilst working as a sales girl at Harrods. I had only previously seen her as a bit part player in Shooting Stars (1927) in which she was cast after being spotted by director Anthony Asquith modelling at Harrods, and then in Maurice Elvey’s silent Palais de danse (1928).

 

It’s the age-old story of an older man, Silvio Steno (Canadian Matheson Lang, 42 and about a foot taller than our Chili) and his attractive (much) younger wife Simonetta (Chili B) whose attractiveness to every scoundrel in Venice and beyond will inevitably give him pause for jealous thoughts. To add that extra spice, the two are actors and in one of those parallels that seems initially too convenient, are playing Othello – Shakespeare’s Patron Saint of Green Eyes – and his poor wife Desdemona. They are introduced as he is rather convincingly throttling her only for a fellow cast member, Nella (Kay Hammond) to burst the bubble as she casually lights a cigarette immediately defusing our expectations whilst also storing them up for later on.

 

Carnival was originally filmed in 1921 as a silent directed by Harley Knoles and also starring Matheson Lang – it was based on his play after all - as Silvio/Othello along with Hilda Bayley as Simonetta and Ivor Norvello as her paramour Count Andrea Scipione of which more later. According to the BFI notes this film featured more of the play and its allusions to the unfolding action as well as more location shooting. It’s still extant so I’d love to see how it compares. Chili had been very impressed with the film and she had dreamed of playing the role and so, as Jo Botting pointed out in her excellently informed introduction, she wrote to Wilcox when the film production was announced to her him to cast her for the part.

Chili Bouchier and Matheson Lang

I can see that Novello would make for a better Scipione and Chili was disappointed in the one provided her by German actor Joseph Schildkraut, bought over from Hollywood. According to Jo Botting, quoting Chili, he would arrive at the studio every day, “short, sallow and balding and would re-appear on set two hours later, resplendent in his military uniform, heightened by shoe lifts, corseted and sporting a hair piece.”

 

Here Chili is every inch a star even at the age of just 21 during filming, especially in the stunning costumes of Scottish designer Doris Zinkeisen who also provided the stage designs too in this very effective recreation of Venice which mixes stock footage with stunning interiors, shadowy on set canals and watery alleys as our characters move about in hopeful secrecy. What happens on the rio di San Salvador stays on the rio di San Salvador unless you forget to draw the curtains on your gondola windows…

 

Doris had, according to one press piece quoted by Jo “… the knack of making actors and actresses look perfect in both face and form… the elixir of a film star’s life.” She and her sister Anna were both talented artists and whilst the latter became a sculptor, Doris pursued a career as a theatrical costume and set designer and also worked in film, providing Dorothy Gish, with her risqué gowns for Nell Gwyn (1926) directed, of course, by Mr Herbert Wilcox. There’s an interesting piece here about the two sisters and their extraordinary lives.

Every word demonostrably true... 

Here she had the perfect model in Bouchier and she slicked back her Bow-esque unruly curls and dressed her in tight-fitting silver culottes topped off with silver elaborate head gear, with feathers on top. The bodice gave the impression that the actress was wearing nothing underneath and, if the Brits had ever had a code, this would definitely be “pre…”. Schildkraut was also similarly well-adorned in a dark bodysuit accentuating his feline grace… perhaps that was the issue for Chili, she’d spent too much time with male dancers at ballet school, all with their own hair and height! We certainly see plenty of her dance skills at the carnival as Alfred Rode and His Royal Tzigane Band play but will those feet become guilty in ways later described by George Michael?

 

Earlier on as the troupe rehearse Othello, and Silvio bemoans the lack of passion thinking his own character flawed in conception as surely a little infidelity should not prevent such a marriage as Othello and Desdemona’s from being pulled apart. It seems to reinforce the foreshadowing of the earlier strangulation scene especially as Simonetta does indeed attract many men and has been flirting with Scipione. Still, she seems fully committed to her Silvio and their young son and promises him a special costume for the impending Carnival.

 

Earlier she had been compromised by Scipione in a clinch on a gondola trip which was unfortunately spotted – before she pushes him away, by her good for nothing brother Lelio (Brian Buchel) who naturally uses this knowledge to blackmail her so that he can take Nella to the ball. This raises Silvio’s suspicions and playing the part of the jealous Othello, perhaps this is only natural. His sister Italia (Lilian Braithwaite) also has no time for Simonetta and has been playing Iago for some time it seems, pouring poison into her brother’s ear at every opportunity.

 

Shine on Dorothy Chili Bouchier!

Silvio is called away to see a dying friend though and Simonetta responds with childish petulance – she cannot bear to miss her Carnival and to wear her costume. Her husband has to travel overnight and so she decides to go to the Carnival anyway, to enjoy the dance and the freedom with Scipione even though she must suspect the younger man will see this as his big chance for conquest.

 

Unfortunately for everyone, Silvio has missed the last train and, as he returns to the apartment he soon stops enjoying the spectacular-coloured fireworks and wonders where his wife has got to… Are our players doomed to re-enact Othello off stage as well as on? Or will there be a deeper lesson to be learned? I hope you all get the chance to see for yourself as this film deserves more exposure.

 

The film has some issues with tone and pacing and being an early British talkie, sometimes moves slowly but all of this is mitigated by the brilliance of Zinkeisen’s design as well as Bouchier’s genuine star quality. Carnival was intended to propel her to home-made stardom but it didn’t work in the end, especially as other, less interesting choices, were forced on her. She spent more time on theatre work as the thirties progressed and was still working into the 1980s before being “rediscovered” as one of the last surviving stars in Britain, especially after the publication of her memoirs Shooting Star: The Last of the Silent Film Stars was published – copies still available on eBay and Abe Books at reasonable prices!

 

She died just shy of her 90^th birthday in 1999 almost exactly 25 years ago as Jo pointed out. None of those present at this screening will forget Chili any time soon, her star still twinkles - indeed, in the BFI's NFT 1 last night, it shone!