Epic in Essex… Robin Hood (1922), Saffron Hall, BBC Symphony Orchestra

"Robin Hood should be made lavishly or not at all…” Douglas Fairbanks

Robin is in the heart of Prince John’s castle, he’s up against dozens of soldiers in a huge fortress with impenetrable walls, chased up stairways and surrounded on all sides by the solid steel: the cold-stone certainty of death. The situation looks hopeless and yet he’s laughing, bouncing towards danger and improvising joyful escape… this, I should imagine, is pretty much how Neil Brand felt when composing his new score.

You are almost floating on a cloud of sound in the intense confines of Saffron Hall, as purpose-built acoustics allow the full-force of the BBC Symphony Orchestra to blast forth. I’ve seen many loud rock gigs but this is the most elegant noise: precision volume… you are aware of all the players with Timothy Brock pulling forth the different sections like Thor controlling the weather. Blasts from the brass and agitation from the strings, lightened by the woodwind and relieved by percussion. Waves of sonic satisfaction with music that fills the huge spaces of Fairbanks and Allan Dwan’s film whilst moving in perfect sympathy with Robin and Marion’s romance, Prince John’s evil schemes, King Richard’s noble course, the merry men… and, don’t worry Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Mr Brand has your back…

Douglas Fairbanks or is it Neil Brand?

Robin Hood is a mighty film, from the unsurpassed dynamism of its producer, writer and lead to sets designed to induce shock and awe. Mr Brand’s lionhearted score matches the action and emotion step for pirouetting step. It is a powerful work and full of joy – a celebration, not just of this film but of the art of scoring itself; a sequel of sorts to Neil’s series on the subject.

I’d previously seen Robin Hood at London’s Cadogan Hall with John Scott conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing his own score. That was a special evening but I have to say that the epic played better in Essex, lifting the spirits with all the agility of Fairbanks himself.

Big cast and even bigger set

It’s hard to believe that Dwan had to work hard on his star to make the film; he just didn’t see Robin as cinematic enough but, after interesting Doug in archery, the idea of incorporating Richard’s crusades hooked him in. “The robust, heroic figure of Richard… stirred me at once. The period contained every dramatic element: a strong religious impulse, a kingdom undermined by treachery… fair maidens won by valour… all the colour of the adventurous Middle Ages…” purred Fairbanks (according to Robert E. Sherwood in The Best Moving Pictures of 1922-23). It’s not my period, but this is, of course, the Twelfth Century as viewed through Hollywood’s rose-tinted time-telescope.

The film’s centrepiece was Richard’s massive castle, the largest physical set of the silent era even bigger than Intolerance’s Babylon. Fairbank’s biographer Tracey Goessel reports that one million feet of lumber were used along with thirty tons of nails and twenty thousand yards of “heavy velvets”.

Our baddies: Guy and John

The story goes, as told by Dwan to Brownlow in The Parade…, that Fairbanks, doubting even he could fill these gigantic spaces, considered cancelling the project upon seeing the almost completed set. This seems unlikely given Fairbanks’ intentions for the film and his reported reaction to first the set from French director Robert Florey: Doug had already worked out the new stunts he was going to perform against this backdrop he knew it would make his movement all the more dramatic.

As The Film Daily critic wrote, “Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood out-spectacles all that we have seen before on the screen...” and it is precisely his juxtaposition of relentless kinetics against overwhelming scale that makes this proto-blockbuster complete. Well, that and the thousands of extras – in knitted hemp “chainmail” – on horseback or in Lincoln Green.

And the part of Wallace Beery is played by Richard I...

There is also the monumental presence of Wallace Beery as King Richard who plays a far greater part in this tale than later versions. Beery’s energy magnifies Fairbank’s own and the two dominate from the opening pageantry onwards.

The film features a good hour of set-up before the first arrow is set loose from Robin’s bow. At this point, the future outlaw is the noble Earl of Huntingdon, right-hand man to the King and therefore the man in the way for the wicked King John (Sam De Grasse on top form, with evil beard and unforgiving fringe) and his henchman Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Paul Dickey).

Robin and Marian

Huntington’s a fighter not a lover but soon changes his mind when he encounters Lady Marian Fitzwalter (Enid Bennett) who is also attracting the attention of the dark Prince and his loathsome pal, Guy. It feels like the film is deliberately marking time before the fireworks start but the score brings out the most form this sequence with some splendid romantic lines as Robin and Marian fall in love.

Richard and Huntington head off for the Holy Land leaving a Squire (Alan Hale) to look after Marian but the country at large is completely at the mercy of Prince John and the bodies are soon hanging from the battlements, maidens are being whipped and peasants tortured as The High Sheriff of Nottingham (William Lowery) enforces his master’s presidential orders…

It’s only a matter of time before Robin makes his return and the real story can begin but first he must overcome the connivances of Gisbourne…

The Merry Men

A year passes and the fun begins with Friar Tuck (Willard Louis), Will Scarlet (Bud Geary), Alan-a-Dale (Lloyd Talman) and Little John (Mr Hale) all in place: the men make merry and conduct a resistance in King Richard’s name, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor…

In many ways, Robin Hood is a superhero film; an individual changing the course of events through physical prowess and mental strength. Its appeal is universal and enduring not because of historical truth but because we all need to believe that good will eventually triumph in the end.

Tonight its glorious monochrome was amplified by a super-powered score to renew our faith in heroes once again.

Robin Hood is available on DVD from Kino but this score deserves a release on its own. Here’s hoping…

Gloria excels… Stage Struck (1925), Barbican with the European Silent Screen Virtuosi

I will always be very grateful to Lucy Porter as the last time I saw her she was giving me a publishing industry award (two actually…) and, dressed in bow tie and dinner suit, my resemblance to John Gilbert was – arguably - never more in evidence. Here she was introducing two films from her silent film idol, Gloria Swanson which showcased the appeal of one of the era’s very best performers as well as Lucy’s superb judgement.

Like most modern viewers I initially viewed Gloria through the twisted prism of Norma Desmond – a woman traumatized by her fall from fame in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard and yet watching her younger self in Teddy at the Throttle (1917) and Stage Struck, you forget the future; drawn in by her incredibly  vibrant, intelligent performing. She had the same kind of star power as Mary Pickford or Joan Crawford – wide-eyed girls next door with that little bit more who worked their socks off.

Above all else, as Lucy Porter said in her Sight and Sound article, you are captivated by just how likeable Gloria Swanson is… like Mary you simply want her to win.

Jennie's dream self

Directed by Allan Dwan, Stage Struck famously features opening and ending sequences filmed in the early two-colour Technicolor highlighting Swanson’s character Jennie Hagen’s dreams. Jennie works as a waitress in a café yet wants to be a star actress. The opening section is a pure dream of theatre from Dwan and his cinematographer George Webber, that shows Jennie superstar actress being rapturously received by her audience before declaring herself Salome and rising up some phantom steps to receive her famous platter… it looks as much like an Aubrey Beardsley picture as Nazimova’s film.

Jennie's Dream Boat: Lawrence Gray

As Salome stands triumphant the head of John the Baptist transforms into a plate of beans which begin to slide off the tray as the daydreaming arms that hold it drift back to reality with a bump.

In the frenetic every-day of the eatery the food needs to be a fast as the customers who steam in between shifts at the local factory. Jennie needs to be quick on her feet but too often she is distracted by thoughts of Orme Wilson (Lawrence Gray) – a man who flips pancakes with the aplomb of a cocktail mixologist much to the delight of the young women who gather at the window to watch him.

Beans for Baptist

Orme has distractions of his own though and longs to meet an actress like the dozens who are stuck on his bedroom wall – how can Jennie compete with all this two-dimensional perfection? There’s a funny sequence in which she mimics the pouting and preening of these impossible starlets only drawing the line at an image showing one with hardly a stich – really, Orme!

Jennie dreams of opening a restaurant with Orme but she has a plan to become an actress by correspondence course… Just $5 to hopefully show him she’s as good as any of them.

The Water Queen arrives

But the arrival of a steam boat carrying a theatrical troop brings Orme’s dreams closer to fruition. Led by Buck (ex-Sennett mainstay Ford Sterling) the players include one brassy blonde lead actress called Lillian Lyons (Gertrude Astor) who immediately catches his eye and Orme jumps at the chance to meet her.

Their first rendezvous at the café is sabotaged by Jennie with a series of comic accidents in the kitchen. Swanson is so winning in these moments, tough but vulnerable especially when measured against the towering thesp.

Jennie has pin-up envy...

There seems little she can do to knock Orme off course until, spotting her aspirations, quick Buck makes her an offer she can’t refuse… and the stage is set (literally) for a battle between blonde brawn and brunette grit… Gloria always seems to pick fights with the bigger girls, first Bebe Daniels and now Gertrude Astor: she never knows when she’s beaten!

This was very much Swanson in her comic pomp more defined than in her earlier work with Sennett and de Mille and with a romantic determination and pure will to happiness that sits far more comfortably than her Desmond desperation. This was the “face” she had then but it was also the spirit and the skill.

Jennie tries to be the actress Orme wants...

Teddy at the Throttle (1917), screened before the main film showed more of Gloria’s raw ability at just 18 working with animals and Wallace Beery, her husband at the time… just. Lucy Porter pointed out that their relationship was very much on the rocks at the time, so much so that Mack Sennett made sure they didn’t have to rehearse together. None of this impacted on the end result, a gag-packed spoof on the Perils of Pauline and other damsels who end up chained to train tracks… Swanson performed all of her own stunts but then her relationship with Beery clearly showed that she was afraid of nothing!

Gloria and Lawrence Grey in publicity still from Stage Struck

Superb accompaniment was provided by the European Silent Screen Virtuosi comprised of Geunter A Buchwald on piano and violin, Romana Todesco on double bass and Frank Bockious on percussion. They gave the films plenty of swing and perfectly matched the mood as virtuosi should.

Stage Struck was restored some time ago and looks well for its age, a shame the film is not available on home media. There’s an horrible bootleg copy of YouTube but this film and Gloria deserve a lot more. That said, seeing it in cinema with improvised accompaniment and a live – laughing - audience was the bee’s knees and we left buzzin’…