Yet another Top Ten, 2025 in live silent cinema...

Have you noticed that there are more and more best-of lists this year? Most are aimed at generating engagement either with heated debates on the socials or via ecommerce, but some are just the outpourings of unquiet minds, butterflies who just need to bring some order at this disturbing time of the year between normal service and Christmas’ mourning. This is one of those, it punctuates the space between regular rants about live screenings and hot digital media – or lukewarm in the case of the last post. So, here we go after the year in which I published the THOUSANDTH post on this blog and crossed the one MILLION words mark… I’ll try be brief.

Gösta Berlings saga (1924), BFI with John Sweeney

January was the hottest month as a cool breeze blew in from Sweden as the BFI screened the SFI’s restoration of Mauritz Stiller’s adaptation of Nobel laureate Selma Lagerloff’s novel. I was honoured to introduce the film and to interview Sonja Kristina, the granddaughter of Gerda Lundequist (who played the matriarch of Ekeby), who then attended the event with her children and grandchildren.

The film is long and may have its faults but it is a major work and features Lars Hanson, the young Greta Gustafson and my favourite Silent Film Principal Dancer/Actor, Jenny Hasselqvist. The restoration looked stunning bringing new vibrancy and order to the film and, cometh the three hours cometh the accompanist - John Sweeney topped things off with energy and invention, as ever the perfect player for the long dance!

Dans l’Hellade / In Ancient Greece (1909) from Christopher Bird's collection

Museums of Dreamworlds… Kennington Bioscope Programme of Antiquities

This was a collaboration between the Bioscope, the BFI and the Department of Greek and Latin, at my daughter’s alma mater, University College London as part of Museums of Dreamworlds: Silent Antiquity in the BFI National Archive. Introduced by the BFI’s Bryony Dixon, and presented by Professor Maria Wyke from UCL it was a selection of films from 1901 to 1927 all of which drew their inspiration from the classical world of Greece and Rome – very loosely in some cases!

Most of the films were from the BFI’s archive with one - Dans l’Hellade / In Ancient Greece (1909) from Christopher Bird’s collection on 28mm digitally scanned by the Cinema Museum. The project asks “…how did silent cinema design its Greek and Roman dreamworlds? What did cinema gain from recreating the distant past? What did the past gain from being recreated in moving images?” On the night, we found some answers and some more questions and we also discovered how Helen’s fabulous face and fancy for the tailors of Troy led to the war between Sparta and Troy: even now we know these stories so well we can understand these jokes.

A 1919 Erdmann with colour filters!

 

Early Colour Live!, Birkbeck University with John Sweeney, Christopher Bird and Iain Christie

Another collaboration and a set of early colour films on celluloid from Chris Bird’s collection and hand-cranked by the man himself on his own projector. We saw hand-coloured film that would have required sixteen images hand colouring for every foot of film equating to one second, Pathé’s pioneering stencil colour system, William Friese Greene’s Biocolour and more all revealing the sophistication and relentless innovation of cinema’s first decades.

Such treats do not come around very often and here’s hoping for more from the gang in 2026.

 

Inka Länta

With Reindeer and Sled in Inka Länta’s Winterland (1926), Hippfest at Home, Hippfest #15

 

I wasn’t able to get to Falkirk this year but luckily was able to enjoy the online edition. As online presentations go, Hippfest at Home is perhaps the most successful in capturing the atmosphere and the feeling of actually being there. You have establishing shots of the live introductions shot from the back of the stalls showing the lovely old stage of the oldest cinema in Scotland, the Hippodrome (1912) and then the option of seeing the film and the musicians accompanying. As always, Alison Strauss leads from the front with such relaxed expertise and enthusiasm – this kind of impassioned poise is reflected across the whole team who love the films but also the audience and the combination is what makes this impossible festival work so well.

Pick of the pics was this dramatized documentary about the reindeer herding lives of the Sámi people who co-existed with them in the most precarious of ways in the far north of Sweden, across Scandinavia and even into Russia. The screening encompassed Sámi old and new with the UK premiere of a new score by Sámi-Finnish joiker and electronic musician Hildá Länsman plus sound designer Tuomas Norvio, collaborating with the Norwegian Sámi musician Lávre Johan Eira and Swedish composer, cellist and bass guitarist Svante Henryson. Traditional forms of Sámi song – “joik” - were deployed alongside moder instruments and electronica to create a visceral and sometimes startling score to this restored documentation of this remarkable people.

Hotel booked; I look forward to the 16^th Edition in March!

Betty Balfour

The Sea Urchin (UK 1926), with Colin Sell, 8th Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend

April and it was time for an early breakfast and the finest coffee that Lambeth can provide as we dove into this mini-Giornate del cinema muto in Charlie’s old workhouse home. Highlights came thick and fast and included the World Premiere of the new Nasty Women full programme, Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy, with Colin Sell, presented by Michelle Facey. There were British films, Boy Woodburn (UK 1922) (35mm) with Cyrus Gabrysch playing, introduced by Lawrence Napper and with Ivy Duke and Guy Newall on screen, along with rare US prints, Clive Brook in The Yellow Lily (US 1928) (35mm) with Ashley Valentine and introduction by Liz Cleary

My favourite was The Sea Urchin (UK 1926) (35mm), with Colin Sell and introduced by Lawrence Napper which included Britain’s Queen of Happiness, Betty Balfour (more of whom is coming in ’26 with a recently rediscovered film… check out the KB website!). It was a proper delight with The Sea Urchin in question being our BB’s Fay Wynchbeck who as the film starts is a disruptive student in a Parisian girls’ boarding school. Her singing and dancing leads the other girls slightly astray and there’s a fabulous shot of their after-hours partying through the keyhole which Alfred H would have been lauded for. Fay has rich relatives but there’s a family feud in her way… I swear Colin Sell laughed at parts as he played along with glee!!

Christopher Bird at the EMG gramophone (picture from Lynne Wake)

Un Chien Andalou (1928), 35mm nitrate, live 78 RPM DJ Chris Bird, BFI

June was a mixed blessing as I couldn’t make it to Cinema Ritrovato but at least I had the BFI’s Film on Film long weekend to provide the look and feel of nitrate and celluloid! This was a wonderful weekend with lots of colourful treats and my chance to stay awake (see original post in October, 2017) for all of Lubitsch’s wonderful The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg (1927), but my favourite live cinematic experience had to be the surreal presentation of Bunel’s masterpiece in NFT1.

"NOTHING, in the film, SYMBOLIZES ANYTHING. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis." [Luis and Salvador...]

Luis Buñuel’s original score was a “mash up” – as The Kids now say – of Argentinian Tango music with Wagner et al, thereby inventing Classical Lounge Core without knowing it. Chris Bird, who collects shellac as well as celluloid, was tasked with cutting from one to the other by playing contemporary pressings on two 78 rpm turntables, one of which was a top of the range EMG machine from 1932 which produced remarkable clarity and range. It was the hip-hop triumph of the season and exactly the kind of madness the creators wanted!

 

Anna May Wong in The Thief of Bagdad

 The Thief of Bagdad (1924), with Neil Brand, BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

The BFI’s Anna May Wong season was my favourite of the year and included one great day in which I caught up with her in two of the great silent fantasy films which I had been waiting to see on film and on screen. Peter Pan (1924) caught the eye with JM Barrie’s hand-picked pocket rocket betty Bronson and its closeness to the original play as well as accompaniment from Costas Fotopoulos but The Thief of Bagdad (1924) featuring a dazzling Douglas Fairbanks and epic accompaniment from Neil Brand featured more AMW and was on such a scale it have NFT1 buzzing!! I could happily watch both films every day of the week!

Italia Almirante Manzini abides

Zingari (IT 1920), with Günter Buchwald, Elizabeth-Jane Baldry and Frank Bockius, Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto 44

This was the pure diva pomp and circumstance of Italia Almirante Manzini playing the Queen of the Gypsies in Zingari (IT 1920) and it brought the Teatro Verdi to its feet with a combination of on-screen energy and the startling accompaniment from a super group comprised of Baldry, Buchwald and Bockius or BBB for short. The film tells the story of Vielka, daughter of the Gyspy King Jammadar (Alfonso Cassini) who is fierce and unruly, determined to sacrifice everything for the man she loves, Sindel (Amleto Novelli) even though he is from a rival clan and physically puts the old man in his place when challenged, starting the feud that runs the entire narrative.

Vielka is supposed to marry Gudlo (Franz Sala), who’s not a patch on Sindel so no wonder she burns their farmhouse and gets herself exiled. Will there be any happy ending, do operas ever have happy endings? Günter let loose his inner gypsy on violin and the others followed on with one of the most passionate accompaniments of this year’s Giornate!

The German Retreat and Battle of Arras (GB 1917), Laura Rossi, Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto 44

Made when the Great War looked like it might be winnable and has a propagandist purpose beyond earlier films in showing the changed momentum of the conflict to those back home. It is also historically significant for the events it memorialises, the techniques it uses to do this and its intent.. Geoffrey H. Malins was director of photography as he had been for the two Somme films and this film is another great technical achievement and awe-inspiring in the greater context.  It didn’t feel triumphant though, more grimly determined to help complete the job and this was partly down to the excellence of Laura Rossi’s musical choices.

Laura has scored for the other films and was on hand to hear her new composition played in the Teatro Verdi by the Orchestra di Pordenone & Coro del Fruili as conducted by Andrej Goričar. Her score enabled us to really see the film, devoid of any post-facto contextualisation, in ways that were connected to the original intent. She allowed us a bit of both but underscoring the documentation on display to allow our own interpretation – a most historical musical agenda, incredibly effective and created.

 

Lillian Gish

Way Down East (1920), with Stephen Horne, BFI, Too Much: Melodrama on Film

Another film that anyone professing to blog about silent film should surely have seen already but as with the two above, I’ve been waiting to see it “live” on film and with an ace accompanist. I was not disappointed and am persuaded that Lillian Gish probably influenced Griffiths’ development of the story. Working not only with the best actor he also had one of the best cameramen and had clearly been watching the works of Sjostrom and Weber as this story is uncompromising. It’s also a surprise to see the film take the approach it does to Gish’s unmarried mother character and, indeed, to see her fight back against the guilty party: This man – an honoured guest at your table – why don’t you find out what HIS life has been?

This feels more Gish than Griffith but either way it’s a direct hit on the Patriarchy where you least expect it. Anna’s driven by a rage of frustrated indignity at the unfairness of her situation and the fact that through no fault of her own she is denied happiness in the arms of the man she actually loves – played by Richard Barthelmess.

Stephen Horne provided yet another one-man orchestral score off the hoof and covered this film’s vast space and time with constantly evolving mood and melody all played on three or was it four instruments with just the two hands, or so he says!

 

The UK forecast...

Thank you to all who have programmed, played, introduced and archived this year, lets do even more in 2026 as I write my way towards my second million words…

 

 

 

Redwood Creaky? The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), Redwood Creek Blu-ray

This is as much about the media as the message… Redwood Creek are a Kickstarting operation who specialise in “direct transfers” from original materials which don’t always match the look and the quality of “filmic” restorations. But they do what they say on the celluloid can and reproduce otherwise rare cuts and hard to find films. It does, however, come in a range of quality which may disappoint as much as it delights.

 

I’ve backed a few of their campaigns, The Magician – no tints and not as pleasing to watch as the Warner Archive DVD – then L’Inferno (1911) – one of the most important films in history and here in a slightly murky “red tint”, “never seen before” apparently but again not as good as the DVD from the Cineteca Bologna restoration which has a much sharper tone and texture with a variety of tints and which runs slightly longer*? Warning Shadows, which whilst being good in places, again just doesn’t even have the or clarity of the Kino DVD, and then there’s Eerie Tales (1919) which shows on my Blu-ray player as “Untitled Project” – it’s a writable Blu-ray again – but is pretty clear, albeit a 720p type of experience more than a 1080p experience.

 

In each case Redwood Creek massively over-perform on their targets and are clearly meeting a demand by picking some excellent films. So, I don’t mean to criticise their choices but there’s enough debate on Nitrateville and elsewhere on their quality and from people who know far more than me**. All I can say is that whilst I have been disappointed with past releases I did really enjoy watching this one!

 

Marguerite Gance

The reasons for this are a mix of the film itself, a decent transfer – from a clean 16mm copy and without the tints of the Kino DVD nor the French restoration of La chute de la maison Usher  – and the intriguing accompaniment from Belgian composer Laurent Pigeolet.  A composer known for his "extension" of Léos Janacek's works, most famously Sonata 1/X/1905, Pigeolet also composed the music for the restorations of The Magician, Warning Shadows and By the Law. It’s a very atmospheric and lyrically satisfying score that feels of the period as much as the visuals and as uncanny in the literal sense.

 

Poe wrote about the dangers of unfettered fascination and in Epstein’s film it closes in all around us; a fog to shroud our hidden passions from which, perhaps, for those who paint and for those who write, there may never be any escape in life or in death. Jean Epstein’s take on Edgar Allen Poe’s story reflects the writer’s style, his “totality” in which every aspect of the tale has a bearing on the narrative but it was, apparently, too much for co-scripter/assistant director Luis Buñuel who walked out over this divergence from the original story, especially, one assumes the ending but I’m keeping mush.

 

Jean Debucourt

Usher is an outstandingly creepy film - pathetic fallacy run wild with simply everything connected to mood and intention be it architecture, weather, landscape, clothing, candles or oils. It’s oppressive and there’s no respite from the get-go as the audience joins the un-named visitor - Charles Lamy – on his mission to help his friend Roderick Usher (Jean Debucourt). Summoned by a letter, which he studies using a magnifying glass almost as if the meaning was buried deep within the script, we are pulled directly into this close-up world of disorientation and distress.

 

The merest mention of his destination scares the customers at an isolated inn – probably a freehold - and only one man is willing to take him anywhere near this forbidding place. When he finally arrives, he sees Roderick, who leans out from the strange house almost as if he’s bound to it. His wife Madeleine (Marguerite Gance, married to Abel...) is almost a ghost, a feverish presence who is painted obsessively by her husband, his every brushstroke seeming to almost touch her as much as the canvas. Epstein frames Madeleine within shadow, cuts to Roderick’s hands as he moves them to his pallet and brushes and shows her fear as he paints her essence.

 

The house of the Ushers

As elsewhere in the director’s work – see the recent Eureka Blu-ray release of Finis Terrae (1929), slow motion is used to emphasise the strangeness of these moments and nothing at all looks or feels normal. The hall of the house is huge with monumental stone steps leading down to a grand fire lighting a vast stone floor: more of a cauldron than a living space. Unholy winds blow drapes suggesting uncanny movements filling the walls… there’s dread and only the visitor’s good humour to sustain us.

 

“… she seemed to give the painting, the strength that was ebbing from her body.”

 

Roderick must paint and his wife must pose, but it doesn’t appear to do either of them any good. In this version, “by some quirk of heredity, every male descendent of the Usher family devoted himself passionately to painting his wife’s portrait…” and Roderick is compelled to see this through to the end as, indeed, is his subject.  As his visitor studies, his host’s brush strokes seem to be transferring his wife’s life onto the canvas then, suddenly, there are shots of melting candles on the wane and Madelaine’s haunted desperate face falling into multiple exposures including one of which is negative… showing her literally void of natural light and life. Is this death by oil painting?

 

As in life so in death as the strangest of burials follows as they carry Madelaine to the family vault, through damp paths, across a lake and onto an island, her long white veil flowing out of the casket like her soul fading away into the night. Roderick refuses to accept that she’s dead and tries to get them to leave the coffin lid open… yet here’s a doctor strange with his glasses often whitened out by reflection, blind to his pleas. All the same, the story has someway to run as uncanny winds blow souls and silk alike through the headstone-chill of the house. Unquiet slumbers indeed...

 

The Redwood Creek Blu-ray is pretty hard to find now but copies occasionally turn up on eBay, it’s only real USP is the score and the fact it is physical media. The French restoration is a superior watch and it was restored in 1997 by the Royal Belgian Film Archive working with the Cinémathèque française, in collaboration with the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna, the Nederlands Filmmuseum, and the Archivo Nacional de la Imagen – Sodre (Montevideo).

 

A variety of sources were used including an original French 35mm nitrate positive held in the archives of the Cinémathèque française and a tinted black and white copy from the Nederlands Filmmuseum. A tinted black and white copy from the Fernando Pereda collection the Archivo Nacional de la Imagen – Sodre (Montevideo) was used as a guideline for the colours.

 

In 2013, the film was digitally restored by the French Film Archive and set to music by Gabriel Thibaudeau, whose score was performed by the Octuor de France.

 

The French restoration

In comparison the Redwood Creek Blu-ray uses a 16mm print source of unknown provenance they say it is “the first 4K restoration” but whilst it’s definitely the first 4k transfer of this particular source the amount of restoration is unknown. It matters not but, as I said, it looks fine and is perfectly watchable!

 

The French version comes in at some 64 minutes and 10 seconds whereas the Redwood Creek source is 65:43, possibly running a bit slower as I can’t find any difference in content.

 

At the end of the day, it is one of the finest French silents so, whatever way you can, it’s important to view!

The French restoration remains free-to-view on the Cinematheque website – which can be found here.

  

Jean Debucourt checks la qualité de l'impression...

*If I was that sort of person (I am, and I will…) I would compare the transfers of the “English” version of L’Inferno – running at 65 minutes and 44 seconds with the Cineteca version taken from the Italian source. Just to muddy the waters we have Terror Vision distributing a 2024 Blue-ray of their own, tinted, restoration of a 4k transfer of the English source which comes with the Redcreek 2022 “restoration” “modified by Terror Vision”, a black and white “alternative restoration”, Pigeolet’s score and others from Mike Kiker and HALEY as well as an excellent commentary from James L Neibaur.

 

That’s five versions I have now if you include the DVD version with the horrible Tangerine Dream score… I first saw the Tangs at the Liverpool Empire in 1977, they made some great music but this isn’t their finest!

 

**I’m sharing again this link from DVDFreak which, amongst other things, found that the “new tinted print” and “a new 4K scan…" “shared the exact same crop values, film damage and stability issues (on identical frames) as a previous version aired on German / French TV station Arte back in 2003...” suggesting much about quality and control and specifically how “new” anything actually was.

Redwood Creek on left, Cinémathèque française on the right.

Jangle all the way? The Bells (1926), Image Entertainment DVD

 

Hear the sledges with the bells—

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

Edgar Allen Poe, The Bells (1849)

 

Time for a seasonal treat as we career towards 2026 and this one is a film that has come to my attention because those crazy guys at Redwood Creek are launching another well-funded Kickstarter to, checks notes, produce a Blu-ray-R of a 4k scan and a 4k “restoration” from a “version with blue and lavender tints.. from an original tinted nitrate 35mm reduction print…" It is - apparently - "...truly miraculous to find a 35mm copy of The Bells in a private collection, a complete copy which has stood the test of time with flying colours.”

 

More on this breaking news later but, based on previous output from this outfit, I thought I’d see what is already out there and landed upon a 1998 version produced for video by the esteemed David Shepard’s Film Preservation Associates along with accompanying music compiled and performed by Eric Beheim and the William Pratt Players. This was released by Image Entertainment in 2000 and also includes Rene Clair’s Paris, qui dort (1925). This version of The Bells was produced direct from a 35mm nitrate print which features a range of tints as well. This sounds to me like at least an equivalent quality source and a transfer that, based on past form, might well be more interesting to view*?

 

Lionel Barrymore

Anyway… the film, directed by James Young who also adapted the screen play from the Le Juif Polonais/The Polish Jew (1867) play by Alexandre Chatrian and Émile Erckmann as well as the 1871 English version by Leopold Lewis which, as the opening titles reveal, was performed in the U.S. in the 19th century by the great Sir Henry Irving.  These works, plus an opera, and numerous compositions, were inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, The Bells published after his death in 1849 and which relentless rhythms contain the hints of bitter compromise you would expect form such a darkly humoured soul. Poe also invented detective fiction and it’s ironic that his untimely death at just 40 has never been satisfactorily explained.

 

“… the tintinnabulation that so musically wells ... From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells…”

 

The Bells is not a long poem but it covers a lot of ground, with the titular objects denoting differing stages of life from younger possibilities to the joys of Christmas, weddings and the final chimes for the dead. So it is that this film – and those plays - also feature a Christmas murder and the ringing condemnation of sleigh bells that rattle in the mind of the guilty party’s hallucinations as he cannot escape the consequences of his selfish slaughter.

 

Foreshadowing?

We begin in the 1860s, in a hamlet set at the foot of Mount Snow-top in a fictional European country of Alsatia where we find an inn run by Mathias (Lionel Barrymore) a landlord more intent on winning friends in order to become Burgermeister - a chief magistrate - than turning a profit. His wife, Catherine (Caroline Frances Cooke) looks on in frustration at his generosity/weakness/lust for power as the clientele make merry on the never-never. Meanwhile his chief creditor, Jerome Frantz (Gustav von Seyffertitz) is playing a waiting game his eyes set not only on the business but also on trading off marriage to the couple’s beautiful daughter Annette (Lola Todd).

 

Annette meanwhile rides in the back of a haywain, playfully hiding herself from Christian (Edward Phillips), the handsome young trooper who has just been appointed as the town’s “gendarme” – Alsatia mixes so many languages. He picks her up as she falls with the straw and it’s clear the two are already an item. Jerome will just have to wait until Mathais’ inevitable bankruptcy.

 

I can make criminals confess their crimes and good men tell of their good deeds.

 

No fun at the Fair... Boris Karloff

The fair comes to town and director James Young goes to town on the celebration perhaps borrowing some leftover props from The Hunchback of Notre Dame or some other period piece with giant papier-mâché heads and gaudy wonders abounding. This is where the story takes an uncanny turn as first we need a stern-faced Mesmerist (Boris Karloff – yay!!) who can not only persuade young women to levitate but can also see deep into a man’s soul and persuade him to reveal their deepest innermost secrets.

 

Also operating on the edges of accepted science is a fortune teller (Laura La Varnie) who is so shocked after reading Mathais’ palm that she kicks him out of her tent and gives him back his money. So, to summarise, clearly something horrible is going to happen and our main character is going to have reason to feel very guilty!

Gustav von Seyffertitz

Cue Christmas – even though there was no Noddy Holder to confirm it… there are plenty of decorations and abundant free booze from the landlord who would be magistrate! A huge feast is held at the inn and Annette accepts Christian’s engagement ring as Frantz looks on in disgust. Young creates a grand party as the revels dance on a swirl and it’s all building up as a counter point to the arrival of Baruch Koweski (E. Alyn Warren), the Polish Jew, a travelling merchant from Warsaw, seeking solace from the unyielding snowstorm outside. 

Christmas brings to Mathias no “Peace on Earth” nor any “Good will” from his neighbour Franz…

He sits down to drink with Mathias who is keen on forgetting his money worries and celebrating but when he reveals that he has a small fortune in his money belt, we can see that the landlord quickly works out how he can solve his money troubles on one foul swoop… As the tint shifts from the sepia brown of most of the film to stark green and the deed is done with black drops of blood tellingly falling on the pristine snow.

Lola Todd and Edward Phillips

Telling everyone that he has inherited money from his rich uncle Mathias has seemingly got away with it but soon the murder is uncovered even though the body cannot be found and, as Christian begins to investigate, presenting his case to the newly installed magistrate, Mathais feels the weight of guilt. He starts to have visions and to not only see his victim but also hear the sleigh bells tolling for him. He refuses the investigations of Koweski’s nephew and the intervention of the Mesmerist who needs to no special powers to see how guilty this man is…

 

Much of the rest of the story takes place across the face of the masterful Barrymore who fills the screen with anguish, his eyes filled with fear as he battles his conscience and attempts to escape his own regrets. This is classic Poe even though the plays were only drawing from his influence and for this film, Young would have had ample examples of Poe-esque angst from other filmmakers not least Griffith and his adaptation of the author’s Tell-Tale Heart, The Avenging Conscience (1914). Barrymore is relatively restrained and keeps the possibilities in play even as his Mathias is subsumed in dreams both day and night. Young presents some ghostly double exposures and a superb court of the mind as Mathais dreams himself on trial.

Mind trial

The accompaniment on this disc is well played using an electric organ with sounds that don’t quite replicate a full ensemble of actual instruments but the choice of melodies by Eric Beheim is strong and the accompaniment is very successful overall – top marks for the faultless use of sleigh bells too! Timing is all.

 

The DVD is long out of print but you can still find it on eBay and around for half the price of the upcoming Redwood Creek Blu-ray-R. This new disc can still be supported and does come with blue and lavender tints as opposed to the sepia and green of the Image DVD. The stills on the Kickstarter page look clear and sharp plus there’ll be a new score from the impressive Belgian composer Laurent Pigeolet. Their blurb does say that James Wong Howe was the cinematographer but it was L. William O'Connell who does such a good job.

As ever, your choice but it’s certainly an interesting film either way!

*This, of course, depends on how Redwood Creek deploy the modern digital assets at their disposal although there have been doubts expressed about how they work on “restorations” with a very interesting analysis to be found at DVDFreak which, amongst other things, found that the “new tinted print” and “a new 4K scan…" “shared the exact same crop values, film damage and stability issues (on identical frames) as a previous version aired on German / French TV station Arte back in 2003...” suggesting much about quality control and raising questions about how “new” anything actually was.

You pays your money and takes your chance... see my next post for balance on their Fall of the House of Usher Blu-ray-R.

Season's Greetings!

Wild oats... Way Down East (1920), with Stephen Horne, BFI, Too Much: Melodrama on Film

A simple story of plain people.

… within the heart of man, the truth must bloom that his greatest happiness lies in his purity and constancy.

In her introduction Pamela Hutchinson found just the right phrase as she always does, DW Griffith had paid some $165,000 for the rights to this piece of old Victorian melodrama and presented its points in new ways, not just cinematically but with an evolved narrative and the performative power of his star. More than anyone, perhaps, the director is seen as a Victorian moralist increasingly out of step with the changes in sentiment that were rapidly taking place amongst his audience and catalysed by external events as well as the messaging and style of the new media of which he was in some ways a master.

Griffith has taken a battering in recent decades for work that, even some contemporaries derided as racist and now, as we see new elements of those old feelings rise again, his role in popularising them, the sheet-wearing Klan and a-historical rumour mongering feels even more out of place. He’s not the first nor last US director to play fast and loose with history and, whilst he didn’t make the first feature film in history (that’d be Australia’s Ned Kelly (1906)) or innovate as much as claimed he made very good, very popular and very influential films of which Way Down East is possibly the best example.

I was an ignorant girl betrayed through a mock marriage…

Lillian Gish in full flow...

Whilst it is a major work, the only real genius on display was at least a foot shorter than DW and with strawberry blonde ringlets. This would be Lillian Gish who threw herself into this roles in ways that genuinely makes you shudder and worry, as King Vidor did when she went full waif in La Boheme, that it might not just be her character that was doomed. She is spellbinding and creates so much more out of her character than even Antony Paul Kelly’s script intended. She is the American Asta Neilsen with acting that is completely unconscious of the camera as it radiates thought even sometimes with the casual aid of an inanimate object held for a pensive second and signifying so much.

As Pamela mentioned Gish was not the only one who doubted Griffith’s investment but it wasn’t just Parker and Grismer’s original play that was largely jettisoned but Kelly’s script too as the Director worked up his narrative with his performers* albeit with his usual final say as when Gish wanted to present her half-frozen face and arms after plunging them in the ice floe towards the end. We get a glimpse of the Lilly-Ice (sorry) but sure enough she’s soon got her hair back in order. A stunt person was used but still both Gish and co-star Richard Barthelmess spent time on cardboard ice blocks and in a freezing river. At one point the actress fainted and not surprisingly considering her preparation involved walking about the frozen location without a coat and preparing herself for the actual blizzard in which they filmed.

All of these moments make for one highly emotional conclusion to a film that at almost two and a half hours, is not for the faint-hearted. That this time flew by is down to the skill of the performers on and off screen, with Stephen Horne providing yet another one-man orchestral score off the hoof and covering this vast space and time with constantly evolving mood and melody all played on three or was it four instruments (plucking the piano strings definitely counts as extra).

Lowell Sherman plays such a scoundrel!

Sanderson belongs to a class which, if it cannot get what it wants in one way, it will go to any length to get it in another.

 

The story begins in rural, humble, in New England, where a young woman, Anna Moore (Gish) is asked by her mother to go to appeal to their rich relatives, the Tremonts, in Boston for money. She arrives all naïve just as her aunt Emma Tremont (Josephine Bernard) is hosting a party. Condescended to by her cousins she has some support from her stylish blue stocking sister (Florence Short) aka The Eccentric Aunt, who gets her up to speed with fashion with one Madame Lisette providing Miss Gish’s stunning array of gowns – was she ever this well dressed in any other film?

 

Trouble comes in the form of the dashing Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman), who not only sponges off his rich daddy, but spends his time in pursuit of his speciality: “ladies”. He becomes fascinated by Anna and after gaining her trust arranges a phony marriage ceremony so he can have his evil way with her. If this seems a bit convoluted it’s worth remembering the source material and the need for the most elaborate humiliation possible for our lead character. Telling her that they need to keep their marriage a secret for fear of his father disinheriting him, he puts Anna up in an apartment and then, once she gets pregnant, abandons her to a boarding house

 

As all this progresses we have been gradually introduced to the family of Squire Bartlett (Burr McIntosh) the richest farmer around but a man by the kind of unyielding Christian principles you’d expect to find in a DW Griffith film, just not in this context. He comes complete with a kindly wife (Kate Bruce) and a handsome son David (Richard Barthelmess)… I’m sure you think you know where this is headed… There’s also a gaggle of comedy characters which serve to pad out the plot but also to create an uneven tone from time to time. There’s the gurning Constable Rube Whipple (George Neville), bumkins "Hi" Holler (Edgar Nelson) and Seth Holcomb (Porter Strong) who is kind of being romanced by the scene-stealing entity known as Martha Perkins (the most excellent Vivia Ogden!).

 

Richard Barthelmess

Incoming key sub-plot reveal… the Squire’s niece, Kate (Mary Hay) is a live wire who has attracted the attention of, erm, local academic The Professor (played by Creighton Hale in that Creighton Hale sort of way, actually very funny on this occasion!). But more on these two in a few lines…

 

Back in the boarding house, Anna’s baby gets ill and Gish goes into overdrive nursing the poor scrap and is genuinely heart-rending when her efforts come to nought. Pamela was correct, this is not a film you can watch without shedding a tear – hence it’s screening as part of the BFI’s Too Much: Melodrama on Film season – and the sadness here is almost unbearable. As the beat goes on, Anna’s landlady Mrs Poole (Emily Fitzroy) without a scintilla of pity condemns her guest for having a baby – albeit now a dead one – and for not being married, telling her to pack her bags.

 

Cue poverty and Anna’s forlorn trudge to find some place to work and stay before she, just about, gets work with the Bartletts, Mother and David calling on the Squire to give her a chance after she almost walks away. Things are looking up as she proves herself a hard-working asset until, inevitably, Lennox turns up… a neighbour of the Bartletts and someone with bigger fish to fry socially than an old conquest, not to mention his lecherous plans for young Kate. It’s all set up for a doozy of a second half…

Lil lost in the details not unlike Asta...

Without a doubt it’s one of Griffith’s best and indeed Gish’s and whilst she may well have been watching the acting of Asta, other influences may also have impacted the narrative and style here, not least perhaps the more advanced moralising of Griffiths’ contemporary Lois Weber. It’s quite a shock to see Gish’s character turn the tables on her accuser and ask: This man – an honoured guest at your table – why don’t you find out what HIS life has been? For Griffith the moral is about civilised mankind becoming monogamous and faithful under their god but this is a more basic call to a kind of neo-feminist equality of responsibility. When first confronting Lennox he asks her what would happen if her new friends found out about her past life and she immediately shoots back with “Suppose the find out about YOUR past life!”. He takes it in his stride, smiles and smarms “Oh, it’s different with a MAN! He’s supposed to sow his wild oats.”

This feels more Gish than Griffith but either way it’s a direct hit on the Patriarchy where you least expect it. Anna’s driven by a rage of frustrated indignity at the unfairness of her situation and the fact that through no fault of her own she is denied happiness in the arms of the decent David, who is even better without the yellowface of the previous year’s Broken Blossoms…) and one can only imagine how Gish directed her sister Dorothy in Remodeling Her Husband (1920) – a lost film that represents her only feature as director made just before Way Down East. Lillian Gish was at the peak of her powers, a master of cinema.

Intricate shot from Billy Bitzer...

Another potential influence on this film was from northern Europe with the style of Victor Sjostrom in films like the unforgiving The Outlaw and His Wife (1918) as well as the cinematography of everyone’s go-too Swedish cameraman, Julius Jaenzon. Sjostrom used locations to reflect externalised emotions and Way Down East’s extraordinary climax partially filmed in an actual blizzard and with Lil on those ice floes, is a still forceful depiction of humanity pushed to the edge of endurance by the torment of others and societal cruelty: a cry for forgiveness and understanding lest we crush love and natural justice.

Boston born Johann Gottfried Wilhelm “Billy” Bitzer excels throughout the film capturing Gish’s emoting in frequent close up as well as the glorious countryside and the frozen expanse of Vermont. There are lovely scenes of Gish and Barthelmess against a background of a lake and forests whilst White River Junction and the ice floes of the Connecticut and White rivers, were used for the big finish. The film was more expensive than either of Griffith’s best known films and returned a huge profit being one of the four highest grossing silent films.   

This was my first viewing and I saw it in the right way - on 35mm, projected on the big screen with an informed and entertaining introdcution and with one of the finest accompanists in the silent show business! I thank you all!

  

*Martin Williams, DW Griffith: First Artist of the Movies (OUP, 1980)

Filming in the frozen water: ice and hardboard!

Miss Gish's costumes designed by Madame Lisette

Clara take a bow... Poisoned Paradise: The Forbidden Story of Monte Carlo (1924), NFPF Restoration Streaming

“Nothing but the highest praise can be accorded Clara Bow… Her performance both when she is at the heights of exaltation, and when she is cast into the depths of despair, is nothing short of inspired. There is every reason to suppose that she will become a great favorite in a short time, and her performance in this picture will do much to put her there.”

Exhibitors Trade Review

 

It’s true, there’s nothing that makes this film so thoroughly enjoyable than the emergent presence of Clara Bow and it seems that this was as remarkable then as it still seems now. Written by Waldemar Young, the film is based on the 1920 novel Poisoned Paradise: A Romance of Monte Carlo by Robert William Service a Preston born lad who went to Canada where he became known as the Bard of the Yukon. In reality he spent little or no time in the Gold Rush but having been posted there by his bank, he soon picked up plenty of stories. After success, he certainly spent ample time on the Riviera and could have been inspired by any number of bad nights on the tables of the Casino.

 

Service knew how to tell a popular tale and with sentences rich in imagery and emphatic subtext - portents of destiny - you can see why he was so successful: "Strange! Always drawing. Did I ever tell you that your father was an artist?" In the film this sentiment is echoed after the opening scene of a suicide of his father who shoots himself after losing his all. The portentous intertitles lead us into the narrative from the get-go.

There was a boy in London...

Young Hugh and his fatally ill Mother find out the elder Kildaire has passed away after leaving them to pursue the dream from which he was distracted… “You too will be an artist, but you must be brave my little son: for you have a hard, hard life in front of you…” the rest of the story is trailered right there, who could resist turning the page, or waiting for the next reel. 

“There was a girl in Paris…” shifts the scene with similar economy to Margot, a young girl living in poverty, collecting a bottle of cheap wine in a bar and watching as a local woman, Madame Tranquil, returns with success from Monaco: “God bless Monte Carlo – I bring back a fortune – champagne for all…” Margot takes the bottle to her grandmother who, promptly chases her with a kitchen knife for trying to eat some bread. She falls down the stairs chasing Margot and dies. Luckily Madame Tranquil decides on the spot to adopt her with her new wealth.

Strange how like the whirring wheel Life itself is… the hazards… the final click of the ball of destiny…

It's all a façade!

To Monte Carlo and the Casino! Unchanged season after season, down the magic years… where we meet hustler Monsieur Martel – sometimes called “The Rat” – played by Raymond Griffith with the excess of verve you’d expect. He’s spotted near the roulette by Krantz (George Andre Beranger), the secret service officer who escorts him out of the building as we switch to a grown-up Margot about to throw away her savings on the unforgiving tables remind me how I once took ten Euros into the Casino and came out with eleven… we broke the bank! 

Clara’s reaction shots are all consuming as she loses and she looks fabulous dressed in a mink stole and with a top hat. Then it’s time to visit the grown-up Hugh (Kenneth Harlan), living the life of an impoverished artist in Monte Carlo where usually the only artists are conmen and not painters. Things are looking up though as he’s just sold a painting and can now afford to eat. He’s living in the same Hotel as Margot and The Rat and is as big a mug as you might expect falling for an old line from one Mrs Belmire (Carmel Myers) for whom he ends up paying for dinner. 

Back at their rooms, Margot is in misery, broke and with The Rat harassing her. It’s not just her though and the rogue has been stealing from other guests too forcing Hugh to leave his wallet on a chair and hi door ajar in an attempt to lure the thief into making a move. Sadly, it’s Margot, desperate, who cracks and grabs his stash but he can’t help but feel sorry for her after she tells him her misfortunes – Bow again excelling with her emotions bursting through that expressive prettiness, she’s hypnotic. No wonder then that it is then that Hugh has A Brainwave! 

I have it! Since mother died I have no one – you shall come and be my housekeeper!

 

Clara Bow and Kenneth Harlan

As brother and sister… exclaims the intertitle as they set up home with Hugh’s room divided by a curtain to protect his housekeeper’s modesty but, surely, no one can seriously believe that even with an especially acute artistic temperament, he cannot have missed the ever-so-slightly-gorgeous flaw in his plan…?

Ah well, he’s soon distracted by another man of improbable motives in the form of Professor Durand (Josef Swickard) who has come to break the Bank of Monte Carlo and avenge those who had fallen under its spell. He has worked out the perfect mathematical formula to predict when the numbers will come up and whilst it is another crazy plan we just know that this one is going to work. 

In another shock development, Hugh hears that he has sold all of his paintings and, despite feeling that the Prof is a one sandwich short of a Monet Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe, decides to fund his project. At the same time Hugh doubles his money at the Casino and gets the bug, impressed with his luck. Margot is not impressed but plenty of others are namely Mrs Belmire who Hugh still sees as a romantic interest. Of course, this means that he has her firmly in the “sibling” zone, even though Margot has grown rather fond of the big lug… she calls his bluff and threatens to go off and set up her millenary shop in Paris but something tells her she needs to stay.

The rock on which it stands is built of human skulls! …I shall destroy it!

Mr Griffith, the Rat!

It is, as you can tell, a very bitty narrative but things start to firm up in the second half of the film as all of the connections are revealed and the other “artists” try to work out how the Professor keeps on winning. It’s enlivened by the performances of Griffith and Bow especially and there’s a lovely scene when Martel comes a calling to take advantage of Margot when her “brother” is away and she absolutely batters him – it’s something we love to see in silent film, a “nasty woman” taking charge of the situation! In comparison Kenneth Harlan seems too old for the part but is solid enough although I don’t believe he could even hold a paintbrush.

For such a low-budget movie some of the exterior sets do seem rather extravagant and it suddenly struck me that we might be witnessing the leftovers from Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (1922) and this turns out to be the case with footage borrowed as per the notes on the NFPC page on which you can watch the film. Apparently the studio told the press that the star were being sent to Monte Carlo but they forgot to mention it was the one built, no doubt way over budget, by “Von”. Nevertheless, it does add some atmosphere to the tale. 

Ben Model perfectly recreates the contemporary feelings of the film with a spirited, playful accompaniment that indicates he’s clearly having a ball playing along with the dazzlers on screen. All in all, a very entertaining experience and one you can have for free at the NFPF site which isright here. As it’s that time of year they would appreciate support in funding this and further restorations and you can send them a Christmas gift at this location. It’s better to give than receive and they are the Professors of Preservation who have definitely found the right formula!

About the Restoration (from the NFPF site): “UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Stanford Theatre Foundation worked from the only surviving element of Poisoned Paradise, a deteriorated 35mm nitrate print. Two missing sections were replaced with stills and intertitles, some derived from the source novel (courtesy of David Stenn). The preservation, which also recreated the film’s tinting scheme, was funded by Saving the Silents, a collaborative project organized by the NFPF and supported by the Save America’s Treasures program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service. Further funding was provided by the Stanford Theatre Foundation. A recent NFPF grant funded scanning and digitization of the preservation print.”

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Responsible gambling...

Detectives in drag...

So, you stay on one side of the curtain and I'll be on the other... you'll be like my sister/mother/housekeeper...