The Chaplin Touch… A Woman of Paris (1923), BFI with Mark Fuller, Cinema Unbound

Hollywood had been taught a new and sophisticated attitude to sexual relations by, of all people, Charlie Chaplin in a Woman of Paris…

Michael Powell, A Life in Movies

 

There was a moment when Edna Purviance’s character Marie St Clair, is being visited by her former love Jean Millet (Carl Miller) to discuss his painting her portrait. She’s seemingly done well for herself but as one of her maids opens a draw to fold away her washing, a man’s shirt cuff falls to the floor and catches the eye of Jean who notes as does the audience, the significance of such familiarity with a man’s wardrobe. It’s the economy of the moment and Chaplin’s cinematic intelligence that catches our attention now as we sit and do the maths for subsequent releases such as Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle (1924) or Three Women (1924) and Monte Bell’s Lady of the Night (1925).

But we weren’t here to discuss the influence of Chaplin on his contemporaries but the impact of this film on an 18-year-old Michael Powell who at this point was just a regular cinema- loving bank clerk based in respectable Ringwood, Hampshire as Archers expert Mark Fuller explained in his informed introduction. I would say that Mark has forgotten more about Powell and Pressburger than most remember if not for the fact that I don’t think he forgets any details of these two. His diligence and thirst for knowledge led him to the rediscovery of Smith (1939) a short film Powell made to promote the Embankment Fellowship Centre with Ralph Richardson (and Wally Patch!).

"... using objects for their metaphoric and metonymic value..."*

Years later, interviewed by Kevin Brownlow in an unpublished article for Time Out, Powell recalled how he was collecting everything in a “romantic sort of way… and I looked on films the way that people did then, as a wonderful new plaything, but not serious…”. Then he saw A Woman of Paris, in either the Boscombe Hippodrome of Boscombe Cinema near Bournemouth, and “I was absolutely knocked by it, because suddenly the whole medium grew up.”

For Powell, Chaplin a clown with “all the power in the world”, had not only made a “grown-up” film, he’d done it out of pure love and loyalty for his long-time on-screen partner Edna Purviance, who was given the prominence you would expect of an Italian diva or a Pickford, Gish or Talmadge in a project with something of his innocence but also sense of tragedy based on the worldview you could expect of a man who grew up in the poorhouse. Charlie and Edna had also been romantic partners until his marriage to Mildred Harris but they remained firm friends and he supported her throughout her life.

The film was not a smash hit – perhaps Powell suggested, it was not just realistic but too realistic – but he felt more modern viewers should be made aware of it and the influence it had on the cinematic language of the twenties and beyond. Modesty would have forbidden but we certainly watched this film with fresh eyes after learning of its impact on Powell himself. Props to the BFI for including it in the Cinema Unbound programme and to bringing in Mr Fuller to explain the connection.

Adolphe Menjou and Edna Purviance

Charlie Chaplin not only wrote, produced and directed the film by 1976, he had even written the music for it which today we heard on a recording conducted by Timothy Brock. I must admit that I don’t always like Chaplin’s score but this one, possibly because if was for Edna, rang so true to the narrative and was like an audio commentary on his intent from the 87-year-old to his 34-year-old self. It was the last of his films he scored and it was to be his final completed work.

Chaplin was frustrated by the reaction to the film and it’s a shame for Edna that it didn’t raise her profile in the way it did for Adolphe Menjou who was to feature in Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle and many more. Edna is superb though and in addition to wearing some fabulous costumes that would have graced a Borelli or a Boardman, gives such a nuanced and commanding dramatic performance. Her timing is, of course, perfect and whilst Chaplin’s comedies had always required dramatic chops, here she’s inverted her usual performance with some controlled comedic touches mixed with a dominant and thoroughly convincing lead performance as a woman torn between two lives and loves.

There are Germanic touches in the sets and lighting and the film feels almost more European than American but what would you expect from a boy from Kennington. But the themes and the timing – sometimes comic and otherwise tragic – are all his own.

Edna looks nervously towards the future

The film opens with a bravura shot of a small house in a French village with the enclosing camera gradually revealing the figure of a young woman staring with concern from her bedroom window. The young woman, Marie St Clair (Purviance) nervously packs her bags in her room and as her father creeps up the stairs and locks her door, Chaplin gradually reveals the scenario: an elopement is being planned and both sets of parents disagree.

Marie’s lover Jean Millet (Carl Miller) helps her climb down from outside her room and they walk to his house where an equally frosty reception awaits. What has caused this parental disapproval is not made clear but it’s deep-seated. Refused entry back home, the couple head for the station to catch a train to Paris: their city of hope. Jean leaves Marie to go and collect his things but, tragedy strikes when his father has a heart attack and dies. A fateful miss-communication then occurs as the lovers telephone each other and Marie, thinking than Jean has just got cold feet, heads off to Paris alone.

A year later she seems to have found her feet exceptionally well, being the kept woman of Pierre Revel (Menjou), “the most eligible bachelor in Paris”, living in luxury and spending her time socialising or being prepared for the next occasion along with her proto-flapper buddies Fifi (Betty Morrissey) and Paulette (Malvina Polo). Everything is well except for the fact that Pierre is planning to marry the wealthiest spinster in Paris. The story is revealed in the papers but Marie doesn’t know until her helpful friends show her, she hides her disappointment well: she’s learned a great deal of city ways. Pierre tells her that it won’t change their relationship but she’s not convinced.

Parisians un-winding...

She sulks and stays in whilst her friends head off to an outrageous party in the Latin Quarter… Chaplin gives a good party and clearly enjoys showing the risqué side of life as the drunken debauch is topped off by an elegant striptease in which a young woman (Bess Flowers - sometimes dubbed the Queen of the Hollywood Extras) is gradually revealed to the on-screen audience as a white sheet is slowly unwrapped: glasses and monocles are raised even by the women and a drunken man faints in dis-belief.

Fifi tells Maria she can’t miss out and she heads over only to open the door to the wrong address, a small apartment home to a struggling artist: it’s Jean. So, chance has re-united them and whilst their guards are now up, Marie invites Jean to paint her. As Jean arrives wide-eyed at her opulent home Marie finds out with a shock the reason for his none-appearance and her sympathy shifts back but there can be no simple reconciliation especially when Marie sneaks at peek at her portrait and, rather than paint her in the stunning satin gown she has chosen, Jean depicts her as she was when he left her. This can’t be healthy and it’s a very neat touch from the director.

Carl Miller

But as romance is re-kindled, parental dissatisfaction again plays a part as Jean’s mother – disapproving of Marie’s lifestyle – makes him promise not to marry her and he agrees only for Marie to overhear at the door… The course of true love never runs smooth and in real life second chances are few yet Chaplin’s players are compelled to try and there’s a very elegant mess building that he plays out as well as in any of his comedies. The relationship between Marie and Pierre is especially well handled, so many then transgressive aspects left unsaid but the full meaning conferred perfectly by these two wonderful players.

Ultimately the film stands as testimony to Chaplin’s enduring qualities as an instinctive and innovative filmmaker as well as to his loyalty and influence. It should also ensure that Edna Purviance’s reputation remains as simply one of the finest screen actors of the period: not just a "straight guy" or a foil but the emotional foundation on which he built some of his finest work. As for Mr Powell, we can see the inspiration he took from this work and the role Chaplin had in inspiring his fellow Englishman: a daisy chain of genius.

Powell loved this simple intertitle as Pierre laughs at Marie's frustration: a perfect moment...

Edna abides...

*Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema (2003), Jeffrey Vance,  New York: Harry N. Abrams. 

The gypsies and the tramp… The Adventurer (1917), ZRI, Kings Place

ZRI describe themselves as a Viennese tavern band and when I first saw them they were producing an exhilarating take on Brahms and the gypsy music from which he took so much inspiration. He was a regular drinker and listener at a Viennese tavern called The Red Hedgehog (Zum Roten Igel…) where he immersed himself in the music of tavern bands, inspired to compose his Hungarian Dances and much more.

These ‘Gypsy’ bands were diverse included Jews, Greeks and Russians as well as Hungarian Roma, they might even have included the odd tramp or two. Which may or may not have any bearing on the latest step in their evolution, they may well have rushed off to play an evening of Schubert in Stoke Newington but this afternoon they were attempting something completely new: accompanying a silent without a safety net for the first time.

These are all superlative musicians, classically-trained and disciplined, yet also capable of extemporisation and improvisation the two do not always go hand in hand. Matching wits against Charlie Chaplin at his most mercurial in The Adventurer, is probably not the safest place to start but it’s what Brahms (probably) would have wanted had he (somehow) been given the choice.

Henry Bergman, Marta Golden, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell and Charlie Chaplin

ZRI seem to feed off each other as much as their notation and adding a sixth member to the dynamic allowed them to add an extra dimension and, not only were the group watching the film as they played they were also laughing – especially Iris Pissaride who soldiered on with the santouri through every smile. As accordionist Jon Banks said afterwards, even though you know what’s coming it’s still funny and the band are more than tight enough to roll with every unexpected plop of ice cream, kick and pratfall.

The score was a mix of Charlie-contemporary flavours from Limehouse Blues, Brother Can You Spare a Dime (sung so expressively by cellist and multi-tasker extraordinaire Matthew Sharp) to a final acapella version of Chaplin’s Smile which moistened many a watching eye. There were also more “classical” pieces with rip-roaring escalations of Ben Harlan’s clarinet and Max Baillie’s violin which are trademark ZRI, bringing “the gypsy” out from the more ordered settings of Brahms and others.

They split the film into four parts, freezing the action and playing “interludes” which may be sacrilege for some, but it worked as the tone was maintained and quite clearly the players were enjoying themselves.

Edna Purviance, Marta Golden and Charlie Chaplin

The Adventurer was Chaplin’s last film for Mutual and shows the maturation of his style as he began to reach for longer form comedy. Even though he had settled his tramp persona this film features a more malicious Charlie than some might expect. For a start he is an escaped convict, there’s no back story on his innocence or otherwise, and then there’s his fondness for alcohol and life’s baser pleasures. He nobly dives in to save a drowning woman at a seaside resort but quickly switches target when he sees her daughter (the divine Edna Purviance). He also saves the girl’s would-be suitor, big and beardy Eric Campbell, only to drop him back in the water again.

Charlie’s battle with Eric intensifies as he gains acceptance in polite society and with the girl’s parents, even her father, played by Henry Bergman, who is a judge who vaguely recognises him… Eric also spies mischief when Charlie’s mugshot is shown in the newspaper and the police return only to provide our (anti?) hero with more opportunities to humiliate them through swiftness and comic invention few could match. Forget “sentimental” Chaplin, this is Charlie the Punk and he wears it well.

ZRI: Max Baillie, Jon Banks, Matthew Sharp, Ben Harlan and Iris Pissaride

So punk and classical do mix and this was a thoroughly enjoyable – sold out – adventure for band and audience from which only a live Charlie was missing. As ever the live setting brought out the best in both sight and sound; it’s almost as if Charlie knows we’re laughing (long before 1917 he was *sure*.)

I hope ZRI carry on this adventure as they are made for jazz-age capering. Chaplin was a world-wide success by 1917 and you can imagine The Adventurer being screened not just in Vienna and Hungary but in New York with jazz, klezmer, classical and all manner of folk music similarly deployed as accompaniment.

Both music and silent cinema were expressions of migrated creativity and ZRI’s music shares its roots with the same sources, the melting pot of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which itself fed out West as the Twentieth Century began to take its toll.

More details of ZRI are available on their website - I urge you to seek them out! 

“Smile though your heart is breaking, smile… ”

Money can’t buy you love… Charlie Chaplin: The Essanay Comedies, BFI BluRay/DVD

Charlie Chaplin became the most famous man in the world when working for Essanay in 1915. In Beatles terms, if the Mutual Comedies are his Rubber Soul, Keystone Please, Please Me, then the films of this period are his A Hard Day’s Night – a real, albeit uneven, progression in the definition of his style and comedy character.

This new BFI set is the result of a 12-year project, led by Lobster Films and the Cineteca di Bologna, and features all of Chaplin’s Essanay output on two disc Blu-ray and DVD. The films are fully restored and presented alongside exclusive special features – all released for the first time in the UK.

This was a transitional period for the pop-cultural superstar as he cemented his fame and developed his style. Keystone had been punk cinema, instant scenarios developed through improvisation and riffing off the talents all around, Mack, Mabel et al. But at Essanay with more control and bigger budgets, Charlie was able to produce more measured comedies albeit still at some rate of production – with 15 films released between February ’15 and March ’16 and his departure.

Edna and Charlie

Included were some average fare but also what Glenn Mitchell, in his accompanying essay, considers Chaplin’s first true classic, The Tramp (11^th April 1915) and The Bank (9^th August 1915) described as an “undisputed classic” by Frank Scheide in his piece.

After his barnstorming year at Keystone Charlie knew his earning potential was far greater elsewhere and he negotiated a huge deal with Essanay, a company famous for the Bronco Billy westerns - drama as well as comedy. You can take the boy out of Walworth but this 25-year old still knew his way round the block and, reputedly, Charlie had himself paged when meeting Essanay exec GM Anderson – Bronco Billy himself - at the Alexandra Hotel in Chicago thereby drawing a large crowd – instant proof of popularity.

Ben Turpin was just a little too funny for Charlie's tastes!

Relations with Anderson and his Essanay co-owner, George K Spoor, were not always to be smooth – particularly the latter. The company was to not only frustrate his ambition for longer form features nixing the idea for a feature called Life – but also re-cut some of these two reelers such as the Burlesque on Carmen (April 1916) and Police (27^th March 1916) by including outtakes and, for the former, shooting additional footage with Ben Turpin.

There is a freshness here and an inevitable clash between the creativity of the star and the moneymen: Charlie’s velocity was simply too great.

His New Job, released on 1^st February, was appropriately Chaplin’s first Essanay film (featuring a then unknown Gloria Swanson as a typist!) and A Night Out followed just two weeks later, released on 15^th.

That's Gloria in the corner!

The latter featured Charlie’s new leading lady, the Edna Purviance, who was all but one of his films for the next eight years. He cast her after they had met socially and she more than justified his faith by providing a deeper emotional foil for him to interact with – Edna would muck in with the best of them but she could also act.

Chaplinitis had already begun but reached its full flowering in 1915 with merchandise, comics, books etc… There were Chaplin look-a-likes… and the kind of multi-media explosion you might think started with those mop-tops fifty years later.

Lloyd Bacon, Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance in The Tramp

None of this promotional excess would have worked had the product itself not been so good and by the time of The Tramp (11^th April 1915) you can see the brand equity reaching its initial peak. This film shows Chapin’s increasing emotional content with our hero tramping off alone in the hope of better romantic fortunes at the film’s conclusion. In his earlier films, Chaplin had not always been sympathetic and indeed he had been an irritant; drunk and malicious but here he was beginning as a romantic hero and an everyman not guaranteed to win in love or war… someone 1915 could really identify with.

Interestingly Chaplin would still dip into earlier characters and in A Night in the Show (20^th November) he played a drunken dandy and an unruly reprobate: Mr Pest and Mr Rowdy. This was an adaptation of the old Fred Karno sketch Mumming Birds and is a hoot; a precious example of his origins in live performance.

Mr Pest and Mr Rowdy

Work (21^st June) was also descended from the stage sketch from his time with Fred Khano and filmed at the imposing Bradbury Mansion – the only thing missing is Shaggy and Scooby Doo! Slapstick with irony…

A Woman (12^th July) featured some old school British drag, which for some providing further evidence for that minority who found Charlie a little crude. It wasn’t just in the US though as the film was seemingly banned in Sweden until 1931.

Charlie gets the wrong end of the stick...

The Bank (9^th August) is indeed just about the pick of the bunch from the opening gag about Charlie storing his mop in the safe to the endless battles with Bristolian Billy Armstrong. The slapstick is balanced perfectly with romance and action as Charlie mistakes Edna’s intentions and falls hard for a woman out of his class. There’s a genuinely dramatic closing sequence but never a guarantee that Charlie’s heart will triumph.

Police (27^th March 1916) was Charlie’s last Essanay film to be made and ends the run on a similar note: Chaplin is trying to go straight and it all boils down to whether his co-burglar (Wesley Ruggles) will persuade him to make his crime worse or whether Edna’s goodness will turn his fortunes. He does better here but, as he walks off into the sunset, arms aloft as in celebration of his new possibilities, a stray copper pops into view to chase him back from the sunset.

Charlie defends Edna

That’s just a small sample of the delights in the set. Sold?

Charlie Chaplin: The Essanay Comedies is released on 23^rd January and you can pre-order your copy from theBFI Shop. The films have never looked so good in digital form and come with fresh music from silent-scoring experts the Mont Alto Orchestra and Robert Israel. It is a sumptuous celebration that no fan of silent comedy will want to be without, Chaplinitis may have peaked in 1915-18 but it’s never really gone away.

And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make…

Slapstick and Bristol fashion… The Kid (1921), Colston Hall, Slapstick Festival Day Two

There was a moment during this gala screening when I looked along the line to see the faces of my family lit up with smiles. Both generations had already been laughing at Buster Keaton chased by hundreds of cops and Charley Chase pursuing a woman he doesn’t know is his wife but then Charlie Chaplin comes along to offer something more complex: a comedy about poverty, loss and fragile chance.

If Charlie had been set a test to cope with this scenario without being mawkish… he couldn’t have passed it better. The Kid is a sentimental film but Chaplin steers perfectly clear of the obvious dangers and those moments, and there are those moments, when the emotionalism is switched dangerously high, are handled with exquisite ease. There's a look between mighty five-year old Jackie Coogan and his surrogate father that is searing and not soppy. It is the look of a man who knows parental loss and a supernatural performance from young Jackie.

But then... there is a dream of a dog flying on angel wings as Charlie and his angels fly around the Slums of Heaven with manic abandon. It comes just at the right moment in the film a sequence designed to undermine overt sentimentality.  So, right back 'atcha 21^st Century Cynics: this is mad fun and our Charlie deliberately flies towards the Sun on waxen feather wings but he doesn’t crash or burn he glides straight to the heart of funny.

I’d never seen The Kid, on purpose, holding off for a live screening and tonight the Colston Hall, the Bristol Ensemble, ably conducted by Timothy Brock and the fulsome support of an open-minded and good-humoured Bristol audience delivered wonderfully well.

If today’s sessions at the Slapstick Festival proved one thing it is that watching comedy is always – always – better as a group exercise. Live music creates new connections with the films and a joke shared is often laughter squared.

In the splendid, care-worn, space of the Colston Hall, the European Silent Film Ensemble played along to Keaton’s massed Cops (1922) and Charley Chase’ Mighty Like a Moose (1926) – what a title! Then came the main feature with the Ensemble playing the UK premier of Charlie’s own score, conducted by Mr Brock.

The most striking thing about the main feature is how cinematic the writer, director and star’s vision was. The film is told with supreme economy - a narrative that could be convoluted and strained is perfectly paced and key moments fall as lightly as feather’s dropped from dog angel’s wings…

The performance of Coogan is like that of a man four times his age – his father was on hand to help gear him up for the emotional moments but he winked at Charlie and told him he knew what he was doing. Edna Purviance as the mother who gains a career and loses her child, shows just why Chaplin rated her so highly whilst Chaplin himself is not the focus of the film you might expect – he’s almost ever-present but is smart enough to under play and generous enough to let the other leads and some super support actors take the limelight.

Compere Robin Ince had said he’d once been asked to write an article on whether Charlie was still funny: his response was that it could be a very short piece beginning “Yes…”. Of course he is, and my family and the two thousand-strong audience proved it.

The Colston Hall

This was my first day at the Slapstick Festival – now in its 12^th year – and it was a rewarding one – work commitments meant I missed out on the opening day a mistake I won't make next year!

I arrived left foot still hot from the M4, just in time to see David Robinson’s session on Mack Sennett – a man who made over a thousand films and who brought so many talented comedians to screen. Robinson focused on “four and a half” plus a few more…

Ford Sterling and Mabel Normand

First up was Mack himself in heavy disguise playing a French interior designer (of sorts) intent on delivering the eponymous item in D. W. Griffith’s A Curtain Pole (1909) – Dutch Talmadge’s  climactic chariot charge from Intolerance clearly had its origins here although she never worked out how to put the horse into reverse.

Then we had marvellous Mabel Normand bouncing her way through a choice of racers in The Speed Kings (1913) with “father” Ford Sterling trying to force her to choose his favourite for some un-specified reason. Everything feels improvised but Sennett films the - actual – races very well. He learned with DWG at Biograph and knew how to throw a film together, ad hoc and energised thanks to his dynamic performers.

Charlie as a Cop: Ford's not in this one as well?!

We had the one and only glimpse of Charlie Chaplin as a Keystone Cop in A Thief Catcher (1914) again featuring Ford Sterling – David Robinson warned that it wasn’t the best film but conceded that John Sweeney’s piano improvisations turned it into something more: audience plus expert live accompaniment equals pure joy!

Don’t Weaken (1920) again featured Ford Sterling just as I had probably seen enough of the ham of the hour but this was a different side to Sterling who played a convincingly-graceful dance teacher trying to impress newly-enriched Charles Murray’s daughter played by Harriet Hammond. The two men box and Murray is getting pasted until the Dancing Master is distracted by Harriet’s pins. Way more sophisticated than Benny Hill.

Hurry up Harry... 

Finally there was Harry Langdon in His Marriage Wow (1925) with the deeply-unsettling Vernon Dent as A Pessimist - Prof. Looney McGlumm trying to dissuade him from marrying Nathalie Kingston. I’m still haunted by Dent’s soul-sucking stare of disapproval…

Next up was a session on writer Anita Loos from Lucy Porter who bounded on stage with all the energy of a Mabel Normand clutching a handful of written notes and Loos’ two autobiographies. Loos played fast and, er, loose with the facts but was spot-on viscous in her observations on contemporaries – especially poor Norma Shearer.

Anita... there's one huge flaw in your argument...

 In her defence, Anita could be just as hard on herself plus she could write! We watched The New York Hat (1912) with accompaniment from harpist, Elizabeth – Jane Baldry who played in complete sympathy with the emotional cadence of Mary Pickford’s performance – I’ve never been so shocked by a father’s demolition of a feathered hat.

Then we were treated to the inexplicable The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) written by Tod Browning with intertitles by Anita Loos. Here again the redemptive power of a comedy audience was proved as – having previously been a bit Home Counties about the drug taking, I just saw  a stoner comedy performed with self-depreciating zest by Douglas Fairbanks and Bessie Love as the little fish blower…

Coke Ennyday's on the case!

Only Fairbanks could possibly follow that and so he did in Wild and Woolly (1917) written by Anita Loos and directed by her water-carrying husband-to-be John Emerson and filmed by some bloke called Victor Fleming.

It is a splendid romp about a rich boy wannabe cowboy who gets sent out to scope out an investment opportunity for his pa. The western townsfolk get wind of the greenhorn’s delusions and make like it’s 1880 all over… Plans are set to entertain his fantasy with a train robbery and an Indian uprising but soon the fake bullets turn real and, delightfully, Doug turns out to be just as brave as he wants to be…

Tip of the ten gallon hat to Mr Sweeney – westerns must be murder on the keyboards with the relentless rhythm of trains and horses always interrupted by contrapuntal gun fights and saloon brawls!

Then came the evening and the pun-fight at the Colston Hall…

Cops on the run

Buster’s Cops! (1922) was a massed symphony of un-policed chaos that builds exponentially towards one of the most existentially bleak comedy climaxes in silent film.

But then what could be more post-structurally challenging than the battle Charley Chase has with himself in Mighty like a Moose (1926)… one to watch our Charley: a reputation on the rise!

The Mooses: Vivien Oakland and Charley Chase

Superb accompaniment was provided by the European Silent Screen Virtuosi comprised of Gaunter a Buchwald on piano and violin, Romina Todisco on double bass and Frank Blockhouse on percussion.

There was also a surprise appearance from St Helen’s favourite son (sorry Johnny), Bernie Clifton who, in the spirit of Slapstick, not only showed that comedy is for life and not just Christmas (he’s 79) but also sang Charlie’s Smile – two minutes in which the World slowed and Chaplin again reminded us that humour is often the only hope we have.

The Slapstick Festival continues until 25^th but watch their website for 2017…