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.