Quirks, strangeness and charm… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 42, Day Seven

And so, to penultimate day and, as the minstrel sang, “I’m still standing…” or rather sitting, a lot, in the dark, watching. Today there was charm Sonia Delaunay’s innovative shaping and it was approaching midnight when Mae Murray moved to a convent, taught children, had her ankles runover by truck and, oh my, was inspired to take up her bee-stung lips and walk! If there was such a thing as a typical day at Le Giornate, this wouldn’t have been it, at all.

 

So, let’s start at the very ending as that’s a very good place to start as dozens of cinemutophiles (TM P. Hutchinson of Worthing) staggered out of the Verdi trying to process what we’d just seen with Circe, the Enchantress (1924) which progressed from a saucy mythical entree, Circe/Cecilie Brunner (Murray) turning men into pigs (I know, right?), through nightclub low-jinks with her gaggle of male admirers, to the aforementioned redemption sequence. It was undoubtedly great fun and considering it was a lost film for so long, a miracle of mythical proportions that it exists at all especially as it shows us so much of why Mae was a true star.

 

While she is more than capable of inhabiting the role of an enchantress ancient and modern, we also get a chance to see her dance as well as pout and she can dance having, as Artemis Willis puts it in the catalogue notes, pioneered the path from Ziegfeld Girl to Hollywood star. There’s one number influenced by modern ballet – say Denishawn or even Isadora Duncan – then a dance with a jazz ensemble. This is American cabaret and there’s even a moment when Cecilie jumps into a water feature in the club and her men follow her. There’s one gay character, not even coded and there’s William Haines too who always has a twinkle!

 

Interesting that this festival has feature both Billy and his friend Eleanor Boardman who won the "New Faces of 1922" contest and travelled to Hollywood together. He’s good as Cecilie’s most passionately lost paramour surrounded by harder hearts in the group all still unable to resist their lady’s allure. It’s only when surgeon Peter Van Martyn (James Kirkwood, Sr.) arrives on the scene that things change as he’s got the moral strength to stand apart and Cecilie finds that very attractive.

 

The film has some ten minutes missing but the sense remains even if the final turn-around is a jolt. It matters not as Murray the Enchantress is in full bloom. Willis quotes Florence Lawrence writing in the Los Angeles Examiner, “The story…gives the piquant star a vivid and chameleon-like characterization. She is alternately the spoiled and petted darling of a circle of rich adorers, and the wistful woman, beseeching attention from the one worthwhile man in the whole of her acquaintance.”

 

Accompaniment was from a spirited trio comprising Günter Buchwald (piano and violin), Aaron van Oudenallen (sax and woodwind) plus Frank Bockius who I believe is a percussionist and without whom no GCM 42 day is complete!

 

Peter C. Leska, Mady Christians and Diana Karenne

Eine Frau Von Format (1928) proved to be the most delightful of any of the Ruritanian stream, with a superb performance from Mady Christians which caused my hardened heart to melt with a pitch perfect performance of wit and intelligence, timing and a smile that charms as it disarms. Christians enjoyed a long and successful career including as Priscilla Queen of the Deserters in The Runaway Princess (1929) and many more. She’s got such presence and whilst obviously not a stunner in the manner of Russian diva, Diana Karenne, she draws the eye with expressiveness and energy.

 

She plays Dschilly Zileh Bey the ambassador from Türkisien who has been sent to negotiate the acquisition of an island from Princess Petra of Silistria (Karenne, who it was good to see again after the rediscoveries of her work screened at this year’s Cinema Ritrovato Bologna). In this she must compete with the ambassador from neighbouring Illyria, Count Géza von Tököly (Peter C. Leska) and we’re into classic romcom territory from the get-go. The Count tries to woo Princess Petra and moves her reception forward a day so that he can be alone with the Princess, but Dschilly responds by reversing that and leaving him to think on his feet as guests arrive in their dozens to rain on his private parade. This is only the beginning of a light-hearted competition that demonstrates its operatic origins as it makes light of the diplomatic love triangle, if that’s what it is?

 

In their catalogue essay, Amy Sargeant and Jay Weissberg quote a positive review from La Dépêche (02.08.1930) “It’s a lively, graceful work, with all the colour of Viennese operetta and in a thoroughly modern vein. It takes place in the midst of enchanting locales, on a marvellous island that bears a strong resemblance to those of Lake Maggiore, and the perfume of the Borromean Islands wafts ceaselessly in the luminous air.”

 

Meg Morley provided her own musical travelogue with accompaniment that was as airily in touch with the film’s tone as well as location in time and space. There were some sumptuous recurring motifs and the playing generated the same good humour as Mady on screen, in terms of all-round engagement a festival highlight!

Hope Hampton

Now, you’ve either got or you haven’t got style and for sure Sonia Delaunay’s stands out a mile. Here we had a collection of short films showing her design as well as her influence in the case of Ballet Mécanique (1924), that classic of cubist/Dada cinema from Fernand Léger, a member of the Delaunay circle, along with Dudley Murphy. Then there was striking haute couture in two-colour Kodachrome which highlighted model and actress Hope Hampton’s shock of red hair as much as the designs from Vionnett, Poiret et al. Hampton was in The Gold Diggers (1923), James Cruze’s Hollywood (1923), The Truth About Women (1924) and fair few others into the talkies.

 

Others shorts from Germaine Dulac and Marcel Duchamp were shown along with L’ÉLÉLÉGANCE (1926) directed by Sonia Delaunay and Robert Delaunay and The Delaunay Keller-Dorian Colour Test (1928). All of which made my chance meeting with some friends in Venice and our visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection make artistic sense of the last eight days. Cinema was part of the artistic innovation of the early part of the last century and there was a boldness and dynamism which still strikes as “new” and challenging in 2023.

 

Masterclass student Andrea Goretti provided artful accompaniment! Welcome on board.

 

Now for the quickfire round:

 

The slapstick special today included Modern Love (1929) which gave a rare chance to hear Charley Chase talk, the film was an early sound film with a mix of sound and music with title cards before we get to dialogue. Charley was in his usual mess as his dress designing wife (Kathryn Crawford) has had to keep their relationship secret and then gets an offer of work in Paris with a new customer, François Renault played by the super Jean Hersholt. It’s a fine mess but you know our hero will win through and it’ll be a lot of fun in the process. It must be said that this hybrid format was not that popular at the time and the recording quality of the voices was not hi-fidelity, age or original process/both.

 

The Oath of the Sword (1914) a story of a Japanese family whose son goes to study in the USA and who pledges an oath with his beloved to return on his return. Time passes, as does he with flying colours but all this Americanisation is as nothing when he returns to find she has married a US airman… cue the sword and that oath…

 

Harlem Sketches (1935) directed by Leslie Bain was a slice of cinéma verité showing the black community of Harlem in New York City. The title cards talked of their “miserable existence” and there is much poverty in evidence as well as defiance and humour. The film was banned in some American states, including Ohio, whose censorship commission turned down the print: “Reason for Rejection: Showing Negroes of Harlem banded together in groups carrying banners displaying Communistic ideas. Advocates equal social rights for Negroes.”

 

That future the artists in Europe could see wasn’t coming anytime soon to certain communities, was it?

 

Mady makes her point.

Murray Mae but Rudolph will... The Delicious Little Devil (1919)

Long believed lost, this film was rediscovered in the early 1990’s and is a precious example of early Rudolph Valentino as well as the bee-stung lips of Mae Murray. This was Murray’s twentieth film and she certainly has star billing out-pouting Pickford (as you’d expect) and throwing herself around like a ditzy dervish.

Mae in full flow

Murray had a few years on Pickford and her performance background had been dance rather than straight drama. She was part of Vernon Castle’s troop on Broadway, became a star in the Ziegfeld Follies and then made her first film in 1916 at the grand old age of 30… Movement aside – and there’s no denying the sheer zest! – Murray had great timing - she wasn’t quite the actress Mary was but then who was?

Here she’s ranges from delicious to quite demented in a vehicle high on laughs and improbable, knowing, narrative. She’s not really a devil but she pretends to be…

Edward Jobson and Rudolph Valentino

Mae plays Mary a youngster with a good heart and an irrepressible joie de vivre that makes it hard for her to hold down regular employment. She gets a good job at a hotel but can’t resist play-dancing with one of the guests shawls… her co-workers are impressed and listen wide-eyed to her story of a childhood of carefree spinning in what looks suspiciously like a medieval European town… but her boss is not and he fires her on the spot.

Back home she lives with her mother and Uncle Barney McGuire (Richard Cummings) with her father Patrick (Harry Rattenbury) seemingly too lazy to be bothered even living with either child or wife?

Ma,Uncle Barney and Mary

Paddy turns up when he’s told there’s a new wage-earner in the house only to be disappointed as she has quickly re-joined the ranks of the unemployed… What is she to do?

Meanwhile, over at the out of town Peach Tree Inn, manager Larry McKean (William V. Mong) is trying to think of the big idea that will save the joint from closing. Talking with aged owner Mr Musk (Burt Woodruff) and his wife (Martha Mattox) he comes up with the idea of a new jazzier approach led by a woman with a dark past (and a bright future…). He’s looking to bring a touch of sophisticated sleaze to the suburbs.

"A good future for a girl with a past."

Mary sees this intriguing ad in the local paper (Press advertising to the rescue again!) and finds a backstory for her non-existent “past” in the strange tale of the Duke de Sauterne who has been causing a scandal in Europe romancing a famous dancer, Gloria du Moine, who has left him and gone into hiding.

Mary turns up at the auditions to find Larry rapidly offending a long line of dancers thereby narrowing the odds to an elegant tall woman (Gertrude Astor) applying too much foundation and Mary who stands below the lady grabbing as much of the cast-off dust as she can.

Larry falls for it... never sell to a salesman eh?

Mary clumsily slips and looks to have lost her chance until her wayward syncopation gets the band playing some righteous rag-time. Mary jitters around and Larry is impressed… all the more so when that phoney history is revealed.

Mary’s opening night is a hoot as she descends down the Peach Trees long staircase to perform the Peacock Walk; her own creation. For all her moves, Murray plays this for laughs, especially as she almost gets stuck after bending over backwards just a little too far.

The Peacock Walk almost ends with a cramped crab...

Amongst the audience is young Jimmy Calhoun (fresh-faced, mascara-encrusted Rudolph Valentino!) who is instantly impressed with Mary’s flexibilities. He is the son of construction tycoon, Michael Calhoun (Edward Jobson) a self-made man expecting perhaps too much of his son and heir.

Jimmy romances Mary and all looks good until Dad tries to show her up at a dinner party – he thinks she’ll drink too much and make a fool of herself but Mary doesn’t drink – not even to maintain her exotic cover story – and she doesn’t rise to the bait, much to her dark-eyed boyfriend’s pleasure.

What an absolute cad!

But the evening takes a turn when the Duke de Sauterne (Bertram Grassby) arrives to reclaim his girl. Turns out the Duke is no gentleman at all and had to leave Paris after his many misdemeanors were in the process of catching him up.

Mary and Jimmy eat carefully...

Spotting the fake du Moine he doesn’t let on, clearly fancying his chances of leveraging his knowledge to disreputable effect…


Will Mary get revealed as a good girl with a bad future and will gentleman Jimmy manage to win her in the face of the Duke’s aggressive persistence… even if he does will his father let him marry so far below his station? There’s a lengthy car chase, some fisticuffs and a chance reunion that combine to settle things in a frantic closing section.

Crickey, Jimmie's a bit macho ain't he?!

Robert Z. Leonard directs Harvey F. Thew’s scenario with pizazz and it’s an energetic hour of top-notch tom foolery. Murray maybe didn’t have the striking USPs of the top tier but she acts very well and, excessive face-pulling aside, makes for a very likeable little devil.

Mr Valentino performs longing looks to no doubt dazzling effect in spite of the heavy make-up of the time. It’s Murray’s film but clearly we’re going to see a lot more of him!

I watched the Milestone DVD (the film is on a double disc with Swanson Valentino film Beyond the Rocks) which features a sprightly performance of a 1922 cue sheet by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra! Milestone and Mount Alto always do right by these precious little devils.

Erich's pop opera… The Merry Widow (1925)

After the huge cost and commercial failure of Greed, somehow Irving Thalberg entrusted Erich von Stroheim to make another film and the result was the director’s biggest hit. It is also one of the few films he made after Blind Husbands that was not cut to bits by the studio and survives almost as he had intended… which makes it all the more surprising that von Stroheim later professed it his least favourite film.

Whatever the compromises Erich may have felt necessary, The Merry Widow still emerges as a tribute to his ability and one which has more than a little sense of the unease which he seemed to revel in. There’s an undercurrent of decadence and fetishist obsession as the nobility indulge themselves – doing as they wilt. There’s an exclusive club called Fredericks where scantily-clad, musicians play blindfolded in locked boudoirs whilst in Paris, Maxim’s plays host to all manner of jazzy debauchery.

John Gilbert

Then there are the leads: Roy D'Arcy’s Crown Prince Mirko face twisted in a semi-permanent malevolent teeth-baring grin almost steals the show whilst Mae Murray’s unique presence makes for a quirky love interest for the classically handsome John Gilbert – that’s not to say that she isn’t wonderful.

Dastardly Roy D'Arcy

But, it’s not quite what you’d expect of an opera adaptation and, indeed, von Stroheim, focuses only the latter third of his film on the widow who is making merry and the initial sequence on how she came to be. In doing so he made a gently subversive film that is loaded with smuggled meaning as well as being a testament to his sheer cinematic skill.

Danilo and Sally's stunning waltz

The story is so well framed with shot after winning shot all in sumptuous lingering detail. The camera pulls in and out of these glorious settings although there’s not too much lateral movement until late in the film when a superb sequence of tracking shots at just above head height, show off Murray and Gilbert's waltzing… as if von Stroheim had saved it up for just this moment.

It’s light years away from Greed’s grinding realism and yet, scratch the surface and the same grotesque human frailties are all there. Even Murray’s Sally O’Hara is cruel as she punishes Gilbert’s Prince Danilo for jilting her, almost to his death in fact whilst Danilo is a smiling sexual predator at least at the film’s start. That you find such qualities in the heart of a comic opera says much about von Stroheim’s smarts as well as the continuing appeal of this film.

D'Arcy, Murray and Gilbert

Orson Welles told von Stroheim that he was ten years ahead of his time whilst the director retorted that it was twenty… he’s still just about keeping pace though with as much darkness as light.

The film starts in made-up Monteblanco – a bit like the overblown eastern European kingdoms later to be found in Marx Brothers films – with a grand procession for King Nikita I (George Fawcett) and his Queen Milena (Josephine Crowell) from their loyal subjects (a title card hints at the reality).

Gilbert, Murray and D'Arcy

The next in line to the thrown is the nasty Crown Prince Mirko (D'Arcy) followed by his cousin the devilishly charming Prince Danilo (Gilbert) and underpinning the regime is the vast wealth of Baron Sixtus Sadoja (a brilliantly un-hinged Tully Marshall).

Into the debauched world of the princes arrives a travelling troop of American performers led by Sally O'Hara (Mae Murray) and as the two vie for her attention, there can only be one winner.

And she can dance...

Sally performs at the local theatre and we see Murray’s dancing background put to good use in a performance that beguiles the nobility. Von Stroheim saucily shows their binoculars focusing on various elements of Sally’s anatomy, Baron Sadoja can’t get enough of her feet, Mirko leers at her torso whilst Danilo aims higher, gazing at her face… are you watching Mr Hitchcock?

Admiring the view

Danilo is initially only playing games with Sally and orders his men not to reveal his regal standing to add extra spice to the pursuit. But, as he gets close to his goal, in a private room at Fredericks, Sally breaks down and he realises that she means more than just another notch on his many bedposts.

Jealous Mirko gate-crashes their moment with a host of revellers and Danilo faces them off by announcing that he will marry Sally.

Face off: George Fawcett and John Gilbert

Now this of course not good at all and Mirko is joined by both King and Queen in trying to persuade him that he cannot marry a mere commoner. Overwhelmed by the Queen’s appeal to put country before feelings he leaves Sally all dressed up with no wedding to go to…

Baron Sadoja is on hand to offer her a way forward and she accepts his proposal if only to spite the royal family who depend so much on his wealth. Sadly for Sadoja, he doesn’t make it any further than a kiss on the shoulder on their wedding night… Now Sally begins to enjoy her payback spending her inheritance living it up in Paris.

Greed: Part Two

Attempting to secure these funds for the Crown, Mirko sets off in pursuit followed by a crushed and confused Danilo… we think we know how this will all play out but Sally is set on some revenge and the question is how far is she prepared to go to get it…

Von Stroheim reportedly wasn’t happy with Gilbert and Murray’s performances but this is rightly regarded as a great showing from the latter and the director certainly lavishes enough camera time on his star in lingering close-up. One feels a little protective of Murray given how cheap the shots still are concerning her fall from grace post marriage and MGM walk-out. This is possibly the after effects of the MGM publicity machine – shooting anyone down who stepped out of line (I believe Mr Gilbert had the same experience…) – here, judging from her exuberance, was an off-beat actress with a decent heart.

Mae Murray

I watched the Warner Archives DVD which is available direct or from Amazon. It comes with a lively accompaniment from Dennis James played on the Moller Pipe Organ in the Atlanta, Georgia Fox Theatre: the authentic sound of twenties cinema.

Trivia… Exotica legend Xavier Cugat plays the Orchestra leader at Maxim’s whilst some folks named Joan Crawford and Clark Gable were extras in the ballroom dancing scenes.

Talking of the differences between his film and the1932 re-make, Von Stroheim said: “Lubitsch shows the king on the throne first, then in the bedroom.  I show him in the bedroom first so you know what he is when you see him on the throne.”