8 Great reels that make you ask for more. Will Hays says
Jackie Coogan Films are the sort the World needs…
Print Advert - Wyoming County Times, 20th
December 1923
Introducing the screening of four films from his personal
collection Christopher Bird delighted us with an evening of films connected
with Charles Dickins and, to a lesser extent Lon Chaney.
First was Mrs Lirriper’s Lodgers (1912), an almost
complete film previously considered lost and rescued by Chris from a pile of
rubbish at the end of a antique collector’s garden. Painstakingly restored with
over 400 manual fixes, the film, based on a story from Dickens, was a delight,
telling a moral tale in limited time with the constant thought in our heads
that this very nearly didn’t exist but for a collector’s endless curiosity.
Next up were three short 35mm films exchanged for a
reassuringly expensive pint of lager – we all have our price and clearly the
seller was happy to offload these potentially explosive nitrate curios.
Included was a precious glimpse of a young Lon Chaney, looking dashing in one
of the few elements of his early films still extant, this from Tangled
Hearts (1916). Back to the Dicken’s theme and another previously lost film,
Oliver Twisted (1918) starring Fred Evans, aka Pimple, as an actor
playing Bill Sykes who seems to stagger over the fourth wall as he feels his
way through an approximation of the story from our main feature clutching a
wooden club and a three-legged toy dog. To watch Fred at work is to marvel at
the consistency of British humour, always daft, always knowing.
Last of the shorts was Hello Hollywood (1927) a
fascinating look behind the camera at eth sprawling estates and backlots of the
major studios. Lon Chaney was mentioned in one intertitle and we also saw the
set of Paris used in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
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| You've got to pick a pocket or two... |
Containing roughly equal parts Dickens and Chaney was the
main feature, Oliver Twist (1922) which was shown from a 16mm print
again from Chris’ collection. This is another lost and found which on
rediscovery in Yugoslavia in 1973, had to have intertitles inserted with help
from star Jackie Coogan and producer Sol Lesser for Blackhawk Films restoration.
The film is close to complete, missing perhaps a reel out to the original
eight, but making total narrative sense and more.
Directed by Frank Lloyd, the film makes light of the
complexity of Dickens’ original work – some 370 pages and 170,000 words, rather
more than you need for a film. That said, like so many early films, it was
based on a story that most people knew very well as the Pimple short further
proves, including Nancy’s horrific demise – so fearful that Pimple has to
change actress twice.
This feature was made just before Lon Chaney really hit the
big time but, as with every one of his films that I’ve seen, he is submerged in
character and all you see is Fagin, not a man heavily made up and radically
adjusting his body shape to present the image of an older man, twisted by
poverty and the evil that men do in picking a pocket or two. It’s fascinating
how so many of the characters are recognisable in look and feel even at this
early stage but Fagin is not as semitic as the Ron Moody portrayal.
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| The well meaning and well-to-do see the good in the boy... mostly. |
This is not a starring role for Lon though, that privilege
goes to eight-year old Jackie Coogan who had already made four features since
his debut in The Kid and was looking good on it. It’s rare to find a child
actor this accomplished but this is even more striking given the vintage. His
expression is flexible and controlled and he knows how to hold himself even
when there’s no dialogue or action directly involving him. He too is completely
submerged in his role and is a very impressive Twist… not without an
instinctive humour that places him apart from the more obviously terrorised
Mark Lester! This is a tough role for a junior.
Elsewhere there is sterling work in bringing life to Dickens’
– genuinely iconic – cast of characters from the cheeky tea-leaf The Artful
Dodger (Edouard Trebaol), the corpulent Mr. Bumble (James A. Marcus) to the
battered but brave Nancy (Gladys Brockwell) and her loathsome man Sikes (George
Siegmann); ultimately brought down by his own fears… Dickens was writing well before
Freud but very few of his characters can escape from conditioning and context.
On the other side of the tracks there are a series of well-to-do
saviours including the Maylie family with Rose (Esther Ralston) and a Mr Brownlow
– no, not that one – all seeing the good in Oliver even when fate and his
companions sometimes work against his fortune and character.
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| Jackie Coogan and Esther Ralston on the right |
Talking of Mr Brownlow, our version, Kevin, interviewed Jackie Coogan extensively for his Hollywood series and also used the rushes of the full meeting for Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000), on which Christopher Bird worked as Editor. Two degrees of Kevin Brownlow and beyond. Coogan was very impressed with Chaney’s contribution in spire of his father’s warnings that the elder actor would try and steal scenes… well, good luck to anyone trying to distract from young Jackie and I reckon Lon did a great job.
John Sweeney put in a marathon shift and accompanied the whole programme with the seemingly endless variation of light and tone he has at his finger tips. In spite of the circumstances, Oliver remains good whilst so many around him are made bad through situation and malice, John sort out the enduring truths of Dicken’s social morality and gave them full voice as we watched the shadows on screen. Classic and classy all round.
Another Bioscope super show and with tea and Tunnocks tea
cakes, who could ask for anything more?
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