Priscilla, Queen of the Deserters… The Runaway Princess (1929) with Phil Carli, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Streaming, Day Six

Marry! How does a princess marry? Someone she’s never seen, who’s picked for her? I wouldn’t marry a prince for anybody!

Even before the royal escapees became hot news, there were others who dreamt of live without the constrictions of “duty”. It’s not for everyone, clearly, especially given the huge social spotlight of these days and the lack of freedom of choice earlier sensibilities brought. Australian-born novelist, Countess Elizabeth Russell certainly felt the pressure of expectation, living a life of suffocating duty only enlivened by lengthy country walks with her many dogs and her writing of “The Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight” (1905) on which this film was based.  

This was an Anglo-German co-production between British Instructional Films and the German company Laender Film, with direction from Anthony Asquith for this English version and shotting split between Berlin and Hertfordshire Hollywood (Welwyn Studios). It’s an endearing fairy tale, entertaining without being that dramatically compelling or funny - not quite up there with Asquith’s Shooting Stars, Underground or A Cottage on Dartmoor – but a decent British film.

Mady and Paul Cavanagh

It does feature a winning performance from Austrian actress Mady Christians who’s Wilhelmina Marie Alexandra Victoria, Princess of Lothen-Kunitz, Grand Duchess of Gerstein… call her Princess Priscilla for short, is a bundle of innocence, energy and “Ruritanian” pluck! Natural charm combined with an ease of expression that covers the comedy and the drama with an earnestness that overcomes a rather predictable situation. She’s just turned 21 and decides to make a break for it when she is told she is to marry the Prince of Savonia, no doubt some old fuddy-duddy!

Accompanied only by her Professor (Fred Rains, father of Claude!), the two head off to London via Amsterdam for adventure and a normal life. Cycling on her estate Priscilla meets a Charming Man (Paul Cavanagh) who is immediately taken with this strange, pretty woman. He follows her as she makes her way on the train away from responsibility and towards the freedoms of London. She also has her first encounter with a group of forgers led by Norah Baring, who’s screen intensity instantly creates a new dynamic with knowing looks that could ignite celluloid with one glance from a hundred paces.

Norah Baring

The action picks up as Princess and the Prof change trains and the CM follows them along with a detective tasked with catching the forgers. The two only just make it into the baggage car and then exchange notes, with This Charming Man pretending to also be a detective, so that the two of them, Hand in Glove, can prevent the future Queen from being dead… (that’s enough Smith’s references, ed.).

The remainder of the film is a mixture of proto romcom and caper movie with some great shots of London especially when 'Cilla rides down Fleet Street up top on a double decker only to be kicked off with no ticket just yards from Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and Devereux Arms public houses… The steam train crossing the old bridge with St Paul’s in the background is an iconic shot of the vestiges of steam punked London.

Claude H. Beerbohm and Paul Cavanagh

Goaded by the Handsome Man, ‘Cilla determines to get a job to show she’s independence and, after failing as a roller-skating mannequin/model, she gets a job as a delivery worker using the fake fiver given to her by Norah’s Forger, before her handsome fella sabotages her delivery of millinery to, guess who, the forgers. Head forger decides that she’s the perfect person to deliver their manufactured money as she’s so dopey and innocent. Besides… she just keeps turning up!

 

Now then, will Priscilla get caught up with the criminals and will she ever find out who the handsome man is? I suspect you can have a good guess but it’s fun finding out even if the forgery storyline is a little undercooked and you feel like an opportunity has been missed about the whole Runaway Princess situation.

Up top with St Paul's in the background

That said, Mady Christians is excellent as the innocent but resilient royal and there’s some great support from Norah and Paul Cavanagh, not to mention Claude H. Beerbohm as the detective. Generally, Asquith favours the humour and this is a satisfying romantic comedy, with almost zero dramatic tension, that would soon be christened screwball. All is never as it seems, but we know that!

I wonder if there was anything deeper about the royal desire for escape. Turns out you can’t really escape your responsibilities or your destiny as the sone of a man who was Prime Minister for eight years, perhaps Anthony knew this better than most.

Cricklewood Babylon… Shooting Stars (1927) on Blu-ray and DVD

“The success of the production will depend to a great extent upon the excellence of the photography… The most modern form of technique is involved.”

After featuring this superb restoration at last year’s London Film Festival Archive Gala, the BFI have now released Anthony Asquith’s bravura debut – nominally directed by A.V. Bramble - on a generously-priced Blu-ray/DVD dual format set and it’s a worthy package for this gem.

Persuading ourselves that we had little credibility as a film-making culture began almost as soon as the first British hands cranked a camera. Perhaps moving images were seen as too cheap a trick for a nation with such a proud theatrical history yet, all the same, quality films were made in the UK and there’s a growing number restored and projected that show that we could hold our own.

Annette and Brian sitting in a tree...

Here Asquith – already seeped in film culture – takes aim at the darker and dafter side of the business and creates one of the first domestic films about film: a narrative that manages to be both effective as satire and affecting as a story of love gone awry.

This film opens with a stunning overhead tracking sequence that you could have sworn belonged in a German studio rather than one in Cricklewood. The stars of the film are stars in a film – Prairie Love -  and after an amusing opening showing Annette Benson being filmed in a blossom tree cosying up to Brian Aherne on a wooden horse (and wearing the most outrageous cowboy chaps), the camera looks down on the stage then follows the characters as they move around the studio.

By the time the motion has finished Benson has removed her phoney blonde wig and Ahern’s four-wooden-legged friend has been revealed: they’re not “acting” now and are a man and wife about to see their relationship move into very stormy seas.

Benson’s character, Mae Feather has walked up the stairs to another stage on which they are filming a comedy featuring madcap Andy Wilkes (Donald Calthrop… last seen blackmailing Anny Ondra) a man of no fixed moustache.  Bizarrely, she sees him as an alternative to her handsome husband Julian Gordon (Aherne)… maybe she’s short on laughs or just finds handsome boring.

Brian Aherne on his steed

Mae skips seeing her own film to stay in with Andy whilst Julian ends up on his own, watching their film next to a couple of school boys – he’s barely older than them and even starts cheering himself on screen, easily lost in the process. Julian’s clearly very imaginative and easy to play but this miss-aligned love triangle cannot carry on for ever and in a moment of madness Mae loads a gun due to be fired at her husband on stage…

As previously mentioned in my rave after the live presentation, Asquith brings out the best in his performers, especially Annette Benson who manages to bridge the gap between spoilt bractress, bored stage-wife and guilt-ridden devastation whilst still retaining a lightness of touch that makes her likeable. It’s her emotional flexibility that makes the story special as the reality of her violent plan could simply have appeared as ruthless.

Insert "gets the bird" line here

But there’s regret and the realisation that sometimes we get so mired in routine we forget to find the obvious truth but will it be too late? You have to hope for the best – that’s usually the best you can hope for… and all plays out in the film’s superbly anxious closing sequence.

No spoilers – you have to see for yourself.

The film has a surprisingly-high consistency of tone for a first time effort but Asquith’s script notes – quoted at the top - showed how well he had already thought through the photo play before the shooting began: the sequence described above is pretty much as he planned it although credit must also go to his cinematographers Henry Harris and Stanley Rodwell – the “expert cameramen” he sought.

Donald Calthrop and Dorothy "Chili" Bouchier

Live, the score from John Altman and the Live Film Orchestra swung in an emotionally-emphatic way and the studio version on this disc reveals levels of more nuanced feeling  – with a predominant theme of bittersweet endeavour: love’s labour’s inevitable loss amongst misaligned affection and ambition. It’s a hard mix to get right and whilst some may feel the score a little too defined at times, for me it enhances the flavours already present. Hearts will be broken and it’s almost as if the protagonists know this from the start: not that this sentimental premonition will ever stop them trying.

The crew of Prairie Love

Shooting Stars comes with an extensive side order of extras including an illustrated booklet with revelatory essays from Bryony Dixon, John Altman, Henry K Miller and Chris O’Rourke.

There are seven shorts, the longest of which Starlings of the Screen (1925, 15 mins) is of the most interest to me as it features my friend Nikki’s Great Aunt Sybil Rhoda who, in addition to acting in Hitchcock’s Downhill (1927) and Boadicea (1927) also enjoyed a career as a chorus girl and model. She lived to 102 and only passed away in 2005 - by all accounts one of the family’s great characters!

Then there are further glimpses backstage including Secrets of a World Industry  - The Making of Cinematograph Film (1922, 8 mins),  Around the Town: British Film Stars and Studios (1921, 2 mins),  Opening of British Instructional Film Studio (1928, 4 mins) and a chance to Meet Jackie Coogan (1924, 11 mins)

It’s a very handsome package and available on Monday 21^st March direct from the BFI online Shop and other less reputable digital emporia…  Either at home or in cinema I cannot recommend Shooting Stars highly enough not just for fans of silent cinema but for anyone who expects good storytelling from cinema and to simply be touched sat there, almost alone, in the silvery darkness.

Shooting Stars (1927), John Altman, Live Film Orchestra, BFI London Film Festival Archive Gala

Annette Benson, naughty white dove and Brian Aherne

So, to the Leicester Square Odeon for one of the few occasions in the calendar when silent film gets to be the big shot… even in this palace built for the talkies. The red carpet was rolled out and in the absence of the film’s original stars this could be construed as a recognition of the special audience silent cinema attracts although it’s probably just Festival branding…

This was Anthony Asquith’s first feature and, whilst he may have co-directed with A.V. Bramble and co-written along with John Orton this feels very much like what was to come with Underground and A Cottage on Dartmoor. In short, Shooting Stars is another late period British silent that shows we were much, much better than we thought.

Annette Benson: new favourite actress alert!

Shooting Stars is one of the first British films about film-making – although Hollywood had got there much earlier with the under-rated Souls for Sale, the lost Merton of the Movies and others. The business of film provides perfect fodder as the impudent young director sets about the delusion industry with relish… But then what do you expect from Herbert’s son, ex-Winchester and a Balliol alumnus: he was a bright lad with a background in confidence.

Newly restored by the BFI National Archive, the film was presented with a live score by BAFTA and Emmy award-winning composer John Altman whose work includes some of the more elegant sections of Titanic and who, more importantly, has worked with the genius Nick Drake.

Beach cheeky: Donald Calthrop

Here he employed the 12-piece Live Film Orchestra to superb effect in playing his elegantly-energetic themes.  The music moved with the emotional flow of the film with sections of jazz-age swing flowing into romantic themes that hopped between the action on film and the action being filmed and which were infused with the promise of somehow-inevitable sadness even amid the hope. At times the playing seemed to be within the film; echoing the characters’ sentimental journeys with sweetly mournful lines from Chris Garrick on violin, Simon Chamberlain on piano, Jim Hastings, Bob Sydor and Robert Fowler on woodwind: is there anything sadder than the Clarinet?

That’s not to say that Shooting Stars is a sad film it is funny, saucy and very poignant: a study of human frailty and hope. Annette Benson is quite superb as aspiring superstar Mae Feather – enough of a prima donna to bring the show to a halt when nipped on the lips by a dove but somehow lost in her marriage to the blue eyed and frankly dashing leading man Julian Gordon (Brian Aherne who is so-o cool he manages to carry off the most outrageous pair of cowboy leathers).

A British Coop?

Benson isn’t quite pretty enough to be a Hollywood star but she is all the more interesting for that especially playing alongside this Anglo-Gary Cooper. She’s bored and he’s a bit detached not even bothered enough to stop her going to see their own flick with the cheeky comedian Andy Wilkes (Donald Calthrop – the blackmailer from Blackmail). Andy’s rather underfed in comparison with Julian but he’s funny and at least he pays attention.

The action shifts from studio to homes as Mae goes out to stay in with Andy whilst Julian ends up watching his own film next to a couple of school boys – a marvellous glimpse of cine-watching culture as the actor, almost forgetting his own story starts to cheer along with the audience as he (acting) comes to the rescue.

Andy struggles with the telephonics

Their triangulated affections play out across the backlot and studio with some eye-popping set pieces from Asquith and his cameramen Henry Harris and Stanley Rodwell. There’s an audacious opening when the camera pulls back from a cosy blossom tree cuddle to reveal the mechanisms of the studio and then the camera floats overhead as the characters move from stage to stage. As BFI head curator Robin Baker pointed out in his introduction, the script prepared by Asquith shows just how much of these shots were already in his head. The consistency of tone is remarkable throughout and he clearly works so well with the performers.

With apologies to the BFI... the camera floats over the action within the action...

Then there is a marvellous final sequence that I won’t discuss save to say that it is a suitably emotional coda to a wonderful film: pure cinema in a way that wouldn’t be equalled for decades once the microphones popped up to restrict movement, imagination and the visual drama. This film moves like the best of European silent cinema but is very British all the same.

The restoration was another triumph for the BFI and Robin’s pre-show demonstration of the “before and afters” illustrated just how much had to be done. The film looked spanking new even though only one reel of the original negative survived. Watching this wonder, in cinema and with such a score brought more audience engagement than a dozen iMax/3D films involving grim-faced crime fighters and Norse gods. It was almost too much of a shock to walk out to the outside world where Leicester Square was being loudly serenaded by a longhaired man with an electric guitar.

Mae's mellow in the process of being harshed...

As my friend Mary from Santa Barbara would say: “don’t let it harsh your mellow…” and it didn’t.

BFI, can we see this one again please?

There’s more detail on the film on the BFI site with an excellent essay from Bryony Dixon - How to make your first (silent) movie count.

The Live Film Orchestra site is here whilst John Altman’s Facebook page is here – he really has worked with everyone – and there’s an interview with him talking about Nick Drake on MIMO. He also received the Anthony Asquith Award for Achievement in Film Music for Hear My Song...

Red carpet for silent film...

The razor’s edge… A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)

Anyone still contending that the British silent film industry lacked quality in comparison with its continental cousins, will have had their arguments weakened over recent years with the restoration and re-evaluation of films by Maurice Elvey, Miles Mander and Alfred Hitchcock all of which demonstrated Hollywood finesse mixed with European élan and very distinct British sensibilities.

Then there's Anthony Asquith whose 1928 film Underground enjoyed such a renaissance last year and who has often been compared with Hitchcock upon the basis of that film and A Cottage on Dartmoor produced the following year. The comparisons are apt as I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so uncomfortable watching a silent film as when Joe holds his barber’s razor at the exposed throat of Harry… the world and the watcher hold their breath hoping that that sharpened steel won’t slice through vulnerable skin yet, horribly, shockingly, it does… “was that an ear?!” gasped my wife…well no, but it could have been…

As with the film we need to rewind to find out what happened and how… Cottage starts in the most thrilling of ways as a young prison escape drops down onto the grass and starts running for dear life across the moors. Asquith follows his progress across the barren moorland – it’s a very modern start establishing desperation from the off.

The man sees a cottage in the distance and, narrowing his eyes, runs on ever more determined to reach his goal… The scene shifts to the interior where a young mother Sally (Norah Baring) is caring for her baby, both so vulnerable and alone. The door bursts open: wind, rain and Uno Henning (for it is he) force their way into the warmth… “Joe!” mouths the girl…she knows him and precisely why he’s come.

Asquith’s style is dynamic and builds the level of tension very skilfully. Joe has unfinished business and yet there’s more going on between the two than simple hate…

After this momentous overture, the film pauses and takes us back to explain how these passions came to be roused…

Sally and Joe work in an upmarket barbershop, providing grooming services for well-heeled clients who don’t have the time to shave or file their nails… nowadays this would be a beauty parlour or whatever the term would be for a modern male boutique.

It's always the quiet ones...

Joe has eyes for Sally and is taking his time about making a move. He has tickets for a talkie but drops them in his nervousness allowing one of his colleagues to step in and make the offer to someone else.

A new customer arrives – the far from metrosexual Harry (Hans Adalbert Schlettow) and starts to impress Sally. He owns land in Dartmoor along with a nice cottage; he’s confident and cash-rich: Joe is consumed with envy to top up his sexual frustration.

Harry takes Sally to the talkies and Joe follows – a night of guaranteed misery ahead. The following sequence is precious as Asquith shows us the cinema’s reaction to a new-fangled talkie showing us just what 1929 thought of the revolutionary but potentially faddy new gimmick. The band stop playing after the supporting silent features and break out the beer and sandwiches, old people struggle to hear the dialogue, straining their ear-trumpets screen ward whilst others fall asleep, deprived of the need to concentrate and ground down by stilted, squawky dialogue…

It’s fascinating in what it reveals of contemporary reactions but most of all it shows how knowing and blasé audiences have always been: go on, how many times have you lifted your 3D specs to peak at the time wondering how long you have till closing time? The drama must always come before the effects.

Just like Alfred, Anthony counter-positions this humour with the enfolding unease of the slightly too intense and extra-ordinary Joe…who, as the audiences tries to work out the talkie directs his unwavering gaze towards Sally.

The next time we see this uncomfortable triangle it’s back in the boutique where Joe is shaving Harry whilst Sally is polishing his nails. It’s an awkward moment at the best of times but Joe has a blade that is oh so sharp just centimetres from Harry’s stubbly neck. Harry chats up Sally and injury is piled on agony as Joe spots a large sparkly ring on the beautician’s finger…

Joe can stand no more and in a move that almost breaks the silence he makes the mistake that will alter all of their lives.

“Don’t move! Or I’ll cut his throat!”

Sally falls back in shock and the shop reels in panic as Joe’s thoughts are translated into potentially deadly action. For agonising seconds the situation is poised and then a policeman is called in, there’s a shout and something dreadful happens. Joe is caught between instant remorse and the desire for revenge…

Away to prison and his escape years later… surely he is intent on settling his account with the couple. But it’s not to be that simple as Sally quite shockingly hides him from the police and even trusts him alone in her room with the child… And there’s more as Harry returns and, after his initial shock and Sally’s pleading agrees to help Joe escape.

This is no ordinary love triangle and I won’t spoil the resolution. Needless to say Sally feels more for Joe than he realised and maybe Harry understands that… and the possibility that he wooed her away with his promise of financial security?

Ultimately Joe’s love for Sally is pure and passionate yet he is prevented from acting on it by his own timidity and social pressures. He’s a very modern hero/antihero who loves Sally as much as his own life.

This was the third time I’d watched Cottage and it affected me more than the first two – there’s some disturbing truths smuggled into this one.

The three leads are all excellent with Nora Baring perfectly cast as the girl who might say no and Uno Henning a ball of Teutonic energy, submerged in a mess of confliction.

I watched the BFI DVD which features a specially-written score from Stephen Horne, whose trademark lyricism is entirely in tune with the film’s spirit, helping to bring out the flavour of true love lost amidst the desolate moorland.

“Over the moors, take me to the moors…Oh Dartmoor, so much to answer for…” as Stephen Morrisey might well have sung.

Tunnel of love… Underground (1928)

Brian Aherne and Elissa Landi

My first trip to the BFI this year and an unexpectedly rewarding one. Having once read a lukewarm review of Anthony Asquith’s second feature (his first as sole director) I was expecting an interesting film with an excellent orchestral score from Neil Brand. But the film proved to be surprisingly strong and a joy for trainspotter and cinéaste alike.

Anthony Asquith was the son of a British Prime Minister and his high-bearing has seemingly hindered his proper recognition as one of this country’s leading silent film directors. But the restoration of this previously almost un-watchable film, along with A Cottage on Dartmoor, has enabled a thorough re-assessment of his ability.

Waterloo rush hour

Underground is a confidently made film which wears its European influences proudly on its sleeve using expressionist and montage techniques which make the most of the four excellent central performances and some great London locations.

There’s a fight scene that features swift inter-cutting and point of view shots and which continues to echo in one of the characters thoughts as he strokes his wounded chin plotting his revenge… the camera tracks one of the characters as she leaves a power station and speed s up to a run at full tilt and then there’s a bold sequence of the two lovers on an open top bus speeding through fascinating London streets (South of the river I think, from Waterloo to  Kennington?).

Most of all, there’s the Underground itself. The film opens and closes with the same shot of a tube train entering and then leaving a station. Asquith could have chosen any location but he plumped for the stylishly subterranean: the “Tube” …then as now a crowded and unpredictable transport system, full of every aspect of humanity, all in enforced and unpredictable interaction.

Norah Baring and Brian Aherne

The opening sequence is precious and very familiar for those, like myself, who undertake this most egalitarian of commutes … Asquith relishes the scene as passengers squeeze on  board  and vie for seats. We focus on one particular seemingly uncouth character, Bert (Cyril McLaglen) who sneaks into a seat left by one more chivalrous traveler for a woman. But Bert changes tone when an attractive young woman Nell (Elissa Landi) sits next to him and tries to impress her but she’s too sharp for him and throws his hat over at some schoolboys.

Bert’s not to be deterred though and follows Nell as she tries to exit at the Waterloo Station escalators… here she meets a entirely more attractive proposition, Underground Porter Bill (Brian Aherne) who helps her on her way and then delays Bert by tripping him.

The story is run on co-incidence and the constant reconnection of the component characters is often achieved through simple chance… it matters not and adds a gentle sense of dislocation to an otherwise realistic narrative.

So it is that Bert somehow tracks Nell down to the store where she works and tries to romance her. He ends up with a bouquet but little else as it is clear she has another already firmly  in mind.

Cyril McLaglen and Brian Aherne

At the pub Bert drowns his sorrows and when Bill arrives there’s a scrap in which the porter emerges victorious and the electrician has his lights punched out. But Bert’s not one to forgive and forget. He persuades Kate (Norah Baring), a poor seamstress who rooms in his digs to help him gain revenge. For some reason the girls has a crush on Bert and having previously discarded her, he promises marriage if she’ll accuse Bill of assault in front of Nell and the swaying passengers of the Bakerloo Line.

The plan seemingly works and Bill faces ruin if found guilty. But Nell doesn’t believe it and, following Kate’s visit to her store to buy adornments for her impending nuptials, Nell puts two and two together and sets off to clear Bill…

Brian Aherne helps Norah Baring

The drama ramps up considerably but I won’t say more: it’s well worth a night out. Needless to say there’s a chase scene which would give many a modern adventure a run for its money: relentless and suspenseful, “visceral” as Neil Brand said.

The leads are all outstanding, with only McLaglen bringing a little ham; he still makes a convincing “bad sort” and is just the wrong side of “likeable rogue”.  Elissa Landi is a very striking actress with a protean smile: you wonder how she’s going to finish off some of her expressions… happiness that twists imperceptibly to a frown. She's very in the moment and, from the sound of it, quite under-used in subsequent Hollywood films. Oh and if you thought Asquith was posh, Elissa was a descendant of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria (yes, that one!).

Norah Baring and Brian Aherne

Brian Aherne makes a very ‘andsome man in a uniform and an upstanding leading man: you really want him and Nell to work out. But it’s Norah Baring who has to handle the most tortuous transitions, alone in her room, distraught and unable to channel her romantic devastation except through the displacement activity of aligning her flower pots. A nuanced performance that near rips your heart out.

The post-prandial panel discussion was also very lively with the man from the London Tansport Museum revealing the back story to the Tube’s golden age and pointing out the odd “blooper” such as  the use of Northern Line carriages on the Bakerloo Line as well as some scenes shot in Waterloo and City Line carriages…he was sure there was a logical explanation.

Bryony Dixon highlighted Asquith’s experience of international film including a period in Germany at UFA and a working holiday with Mary Pickford and Doug Fairbanks. Underground is most notable for Asquith’s decision to focus on the lives of ordinary folk breaking with the English obsession with period drama and the lives of our social betters. Here was a story for everyman.

The Rivals

Neil Brand was still flowing along to his musical response to the film. After his success with Blackmail he had sweated hard over “second album syndrome” with this emotionally unpredictable film. He completely re-worked his first half hour once he’d become attuned to the story’s core. The archivists and restorers play their vital roles but only the musician’s get to actually work alongside the directors.

His approach is to score the music along with the individual moments in the narrative and let the story arc take its course. This is particularly important in a film like Underground in which events unfold in unpredictable ways. Here his music had an energy and urgency which perfectly complemented the pace of Asquith’s film. Lovely stuff – even if it was slightly out of sync due to a BFI technical glitch.

Elissa Landi and Cyril McLaglen

There's an interesting video on the BFI website discussing the film and the story of the restoration. And, if you go to the Barbican site there's a podcast with Neil Brand talking about his score.

Underground now begins national release in the UK and will get a DVD release in the summer – catch it if you can to see a British silent film director every bit the equal of Hitchcock.