In Devon everything is fine… Lorna Doone (1922), with Costas Fotopoulos, Kennington Bioscope

The new Bioscope season kicked off with a screening of Kevin Brownlow’s own 16mm print of Maurice Tourneur’s florid Lorna Doone, in which the director proves that you can indeed fit a quart into a pint pot.

Richard Doddridge Blackmore’s novel has everything the moors the merrier in fact with passions surging like waterfalls, opening the doors to death on two occasions and muscles being rendered from the flesh of evildoers. This is, indeed – perhaps – a story that “outlives modern literature… never old, never new… a literary heritage of Civilization…” but all that aside Tourneur made a fun film even if Madge Bellamy looks a little too modern with her thick eyeliner and jazz-age pout.

Before we hit those highlights though, Kevin talked us through Tourneur’s backstory with clips from his own collection illuminated by Colin Searle’s sparklingly sure-handed piano improvisations. We started with The Wishing Ring: An Idyll of Old England (1914) which as a young collector her almost left behind in Keswick Library believing it to be a British film and, therefore, of less interest! He managed to grab the copy and it’s an interesting curio, very much highlighting the step-change in technique that the French director was about to help lead.

Whereas the camera is fairly static, the close-ups are limited and the staging is formal, by the time of Alias Jimmy Valentine (1915) there’s a stunning use of angled camera, meticulous stage direction over an open plan office which forms the basis of a bank robbery. It’s far too good not to copy and low and behold, a clip from Fritz Lang’s Spiders shows an almost identical sequence.

John Bowers and Madge Bellamy

Tourneur was regarded as on the same level as DWG and DeMille by the time of Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) with Mary Pickford playing the wealthy child in a cast full of very tall people and normal sized sets on which he was rightly confident that the protean Canadian could present as a 12-year old. This film and his famous The Blue Bird (1918) demonstrated his way with fantasy with the latter being described by one projectionist as like dreaming when you’re awake.”

 

By 1922 Tourneur had shifted away from the fantastic to the historic and Lorna Doone (1922), filmed near the Thomas Ince Studios in New York and not Devon, England as the director requested, is full of fluid moments of striking storytelling whilst being as plot heavy as a month of EastEnders.

One moment has always struck me especially hard and that is when the Doone Gang attacks young Lorna and her mother’s carriage; heavily outnumbered their carriage is driven into the sea and Lorna’s mother is pushed to the ground as her daughter is taken. The gang rides off, we can almost hear the girl’s pleas, the camera shows her mother trying to raise herself from wet sand, a cut showing the sea lapping around the carriage after the tide has come in and the back to the mother, face down in inches of water…

It's a sign.

The film is far from grim but it has the occasional moment of artful violence in between a narrative that just won’t stop. Set in the late seventeenth century it tells the tale of various families in the Exmoor across the borders of Devon and Somerset. It begins in the White Horse Inn – famous among the taverns of old England - I’m sure you probably know it… where two youngsters meet, John Ridd (Charles Hatton), son of a farmer and Lorna (Mae Giraci), daughter of the Countess of Lorne… it’s love at first sight and the young lad, on hearing his new friend is to travel through the dangerous lands of the Doone bandits, gives her his pen knife. In spite of warnings from others, the Countesses troop head off and duly get ambushed by the rogues on the coast – rather brutally, as above, with the head of the clan, disgraced former nobleman (wrongly so in the book) Sir Ensor Doone (Frank Keenan) who decides to steal the child.

But John has followed and watches on helpless vowing to revenge himself on every one of the Doones!

Flip forward and we find Lorna all grown up as Madge Bellamy and living an uncertain existence amongst the Doones. She has caught the eye of Carver Doone (Donald McDonald) the most unhinged of the clan but can rely on the fatherly support of the suddenly decent Ensor: maybe she has allowed the man to remember the best of himself? It’s an uneasy existence though as Sir Ensor bats down Carver’s marriage request…pronouncing that Lorna can chose who she marries, so long as he lives.

The hunkiest man in Devon and the strongest.

Meanwhile John has grown up into John Bowers – the strongest man in Devon! He is out juggling logs in a stream when he is swept down river into the waters of the Doone Valley. He wakes to find a beautiful brunette leaning over him and they quickly realise who each other is: Lorna pulling out John’s long-cherished penknife. They have not forgotten.

But it is not safe in the valley and Lorna helps John escape back to his world: there can be no reconciliation for fear of Doone reprisals apparently… John returns to his farm, his heart a perfect L, for Lorna, for love… His cousin Ruth (Norris Johnson) looks on, lost in her own longing… an incomplete triangle that will break before the film is done. Lost more besides.

The plot is of its age and genre but Tourneur makes sure that Lorna Doone flies by at an irresistibly entertaining pace. The cinematography from Henry Sharp is also superbly advanced and delivers the richness and range you’d expect for his director.

Madge miscast?

Costas Fotopoulos came with his Old Romantics Toolbox brim-full of longing poignancy, laced with dramatic dynamics and horse-chasing rhythms… he added the classic to the classic and ensured that we arrived breathless at stories end.

Lorna Doone isn’t the best of Tourneur but tonight, with Mr Brownlow’s film, his introduction and the playing of Colin and Costas, we wouldn’t have been anywhere else.

Devon can wait… Lorna Doone (1922)

Richard Doddridge Blackmore’s novel Lorna Doone has fascinated me since I saw a lurid hardback cover for it in our local library as a child - something about the moors, surging waterfalls and high passion.  Yet, I never got round to reading it – too many dinosaur and sci-fi books to get through first - but I’m told it’s a hearty romance among the best of mid-Victorian romantic “historical” fiction.

Director Maurice Tourneur’s 1922 film version is reputed by those who may know to be perhaps the best of the many film adaptations of the book and I can see why. You not only get the usual Tourneur visual flair, soft-edged pastoral accompanied by his totally-controlled sets – and he even appears to craft the land itself at times – but also quick-moving narrative and action which covers a lot of ground with economy and energy.

Action and scale

Adapting Blackmore’s sprawl into a tight 87 minutes was no easy task but the stripped down story  in the film still has balance… although the florid opening titles are not encouraging, raving about a story that “outlives modern literature… never old, never new… a literary heritage of Civilization.”

Set in the late seventeenth century it tells the tale of various families in the Exmoor across the borders of Devon and Somerset and Tourneur sets his locations better than most in Hollywood at this time although we do have the odd incongruous mountain. It begins in the White Horse Inn – famous among the taverns of old England - I’m sure you probably know it.

John meets Lorna

Two youngsters meet, John Ridd (Charles Hatton), son of a farmer and Lorna (Mae Giraci), daughter of the Countess of Lorne… it’s love at first sight and the young lad, on hearing his new friend is to travel through the dangerous lands of the Doone bandits, gives her his pen knife. In spite of warnings from others, the Countesses troop head off and duly get ambushed by the rogues on the coast – rather brutally, the head of the clan, disgraced former nobleman (wrongly so in the book) Sir Ensor Doone (Frank Keenan) decides to steal the child and – seemingly – kill her mother.

Death on the beach

This scene is very atmospheric and the camera pulls away showing the travelers wrecked coach half submerged in the surf – almost surreal and reminiscent of gothic postcards of the period.

John has followed and watches on helpless vowing to revenge himself on every one of the Doones.

Madge Bellamy and Frank Keenan

Flip forward and we find Lorna all grown up as Madge Bellamy and living an uncertain existence amongst the Doones. She has caught the eye of Carver Doone (Donald McDonald) the most unhinged of the clan but can rely on the fatherly support of the suddenly decent Ensor: maybe she has allowed the man to remember the best of himself? It’s an uneasy existence though as Sir Ensor bats down Carver’s marriage request…pronouncing that Lorna can chose who she marries, so long as he lives.

Meanwhile John has grown up into John Bowers – the strongest man in Devon! He is out juggling logs in a stream when he is swept down river into the waters of the Doone Valley. He wakes to find a beautiful brunette leaning over him and they quickly realise who each other is: Lorna pulling out John’s long-cherished penknife. They have not forgotten.

Lorna and John get re-acquainted

But, it is not safe in the valley and Lorna helps John escape back to his world: there can be no reconciliation for fear of Doone reprisals apparently.

John returns to his farm, his heart a perfect L, for Lorna, for love… His cousin Ruth (Norris Johnson) looks on, lost in her own longing… an incomplete triangle that will break before the film is done.

Carver is inappropriate

Sir Ensor lives longer and weaker and soon crackpot Carver is counting down the days to when he can take charge of both the clan and Lorna. He seizes his moment when the old man looks to have expired and, as he hastily gathers a priest for a wedding, Lorna’s maid summons John.

John rips his way through the roof and scatters the wedding party against impossible odds and then all is saved by the resuscitated Ensor appears at the door buying the lovers enough time to escape before he falls dead at the feat of his unhinged successor.

John and Lorna are in pink-tinted idyll back at the farm and all might end there were it not for the appearance of the Countess of Brandir (one Gertrude Astor) who, summoned by a letter from Ensor revealing Lorna’s true past and inheritance, arrives just in time to put off Carver’s crew from a revenge attack.

Lorna and John agree that it’s important she goes off to London to resume being posh and it seems our lovers are to be split for the noblest of reasons… But don’t right off John who journeys to the capital in time to prevent the assassination of the King’s baby. But even in the euphoria of his deed he shows himself out of step with the sophisticates of court: the couple are stuck between their worlds and someone has to step over the line of demarcation.

Fortune favours at the Abbey

Even if that line is crossed, there are plenty of inconveniences back in Devon; remember Ruth, her steadfast heart now twisted by jealousy and then there’s the mad dog Carver, he’s never going to lie down until he’s put down…

OK, the plot’s of its age and genre but it is so well handled by Tourneur and Lorna Doone flies by at an irresistibly-entertaining pace. The cinematography from Henry Sharp is also superbly advanced and delivers the richness and range you’d expect from his director.

Some may knock Madge B’s acting but I think she does very well and even verges on the understated when compared to Frank Keenan’s Ensor and Donald McDonald’s Dangerous Carver Doone! John Bowers may well be the strongest man in Devon but he still looks like David Walliams.

I watched the Kino DVD which is the 2001 restoration complete with a score from Mari Iijima that under-pins the action with several emphatically-catchy themes. It occasionally threatens to over—power the film but mostly serves it very well – light-hearted, adventurous and lovely (beach slaughter apart).

John battles the mad dog

The DVD is available direct from Kino Lorber or from the long and tax-avoiding river people. The book is still someway down my list as but daughter says I’ve got to read Bronte's Charlotte and Anne first along with a shelf or two of more worthy literature... bet they won't all be as much fun though. 

Fear itself… The Coward (1915)

The Coward was one of a number of films made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the American Civil War’s nominal ending. It tells a much smaller story than Mr Griffiths’ well-known epic from earlier in the year and focuses in on the more human reaction to war: the question of will I be able to fight?

Too often physical bravery is taken for granted and instinctive fear is treated as momentary doubt to be blown away by a sudden onrush of heroism or as a weakness to be pitied or laughed at. In The Coward the “hero” suffers deep shame and is only able to enlist under threat of being shot by his father… all armies need men like him: happy to slaughter those who run the wrong way.

Fearsome Frank Keenan

It’s not necessarily that this film won’t witness the ultimate triumph of heroism but the sympathetic way it deals with its counter-point that marks it out. The performance of the titular non-hero, Frank Winslow from baby-faced Charles Ray is naturalistic and convincing as the young man runs as terrified by his own perceived inadequacy as impending oblivion after all his letting not only his family and girl down, he’s letting himself down.

Written and produced by Thomas H. Ince and directed by Reginald Barker, The Coward starts off in the sunny South just as war breaks out. Frank’s father, retired Colonel Jefferson Beverly Winslow (Frank Keenan) sits reading a letter from Southern military command rejecting his offer to –re-enlist on account of age. Meanwhile Frank is out admiring peaceful nature with his sweetheart Amy (Margaret Gibson) but when they return to town, the declaration has been made and young men are falling over themselves to join up.

Margaret Gibson and Charles Ray

Frank’s worst fears have been realised and he is terrified of being a coward which seems distinct from being frightened for his own demise: is that a comment on societal indifference to the actuality of military conflict resolution at a time when Europe was ripping itself to shreds and America was seeing films showing the horror of its own war as never before?

Frank flees from the recruitment office

Frank enters the recruitment office, encouraged by the general hysteria and Amy’s pride, and almost manages it before, sickened with fear, he makes a break for home. He falls upon his mother (Gertrude Claire) and looks for some comfort but once his father hears we begin to understand why he’s more frightened of failure than death. The old man expects nothing but self-sacrifice and he treats his son as he would treat any other deserter by getting his gun and offering him the choice between a bullet sooner rather than later.

Frank joins up

Duly incentivised, Junior signs up with Dad in close attendance just in case and you have to say that theatre veteran Keenan is superb as the unbending force of Colonel Past: he may be unyielding but that look in his eye is not anger so much as deep regret and sadness… he knows all about war and he, unlike the thousands of ever-ready recruits, knows just what is going to happen to them.

So off goes Frank to serve the South but his involvement is short-lived as he runs back home after his first night watch: scared by the trees, the breeze and his own shadow. Father is disgusted and decides to take his son’s place in the war – off he goes, rifle in hand; back in the business.

Frank's disgrace is almost complete

But the Northern advance is swift and their home town is suddenly over-run forcing Frank to hide from the Yankees as they avail themselves of the Winslow house. As mother and the family servants – white actors Nick Cogley and Minnie Provost both in sad blackface – look after the intruders, Frank overhears their plans: they are exposed at the rear until reinforcements can arrive the following day… if the Confederates knew this they would be over-run...

Excellent battle scenes

OK… now the film changes tack as you might expect but it’s not without a twist in its final sequence. It’s also now that the war really starts and there are some well-realised scenes of battle from Barker and his cameramen Joseph H. August and Robert S. Newhard. After Birth the bar has been raised and after the slow pace and emotional intricacies of the film to this point, the action is now thick and fast.

If you look carefully you might even spot John Gilbert as “a young Virginian” although I missed him: these Yankees, they all look the same…

One of these men could be John Gilbert...

It’s not a major film but The Coward is none-the-less an interesting and entertaining one from a time of national self-reflection when the war was still in living memory and with some combatants still around to re-tell the tale.  As Birth also showed, some of the war’s issues were also still very much alive and kicking  but War never really grows old and Frank’s fears are as relevant and real today as they were a century ago.

War is hell

The Coward is available on Image Entertainment's Civil War Films of the Silent Era DVD from Amazon and probably elsewhere too.