2 and ½? Three Women (1924)

 

This posting is late, for which I can only apologise, but I found myself in crisis and desperate to see the restored version of the film Lubitsch made directly after it, Forbidden Paradise (1924) only to discover, from reading this very blog, that I’d seen it in 2018. In the cut and thrust of silent film watching these things can happen, an overdose of Ruritanian comedies, too much Pola (is that even possible?) and perhaps a Touch of the Lubitsch’s can all contribute but you never lose that Lubitsch Feeling which is why his extremely coherent body of work can confuse your random-access memory?

 

I was pointed towards Forbidden Paradise after reading the director’s biographer Joseph McBride* on this run of early Hollywood films. He is disappointed in Three Women in comparison with the more experimental and engaging film that followed it, Ernst’s third in his first full year in America and fourth overall after starting with Rosita in 1923. McBride notes “intermittent felicities…” but marks down Three Women’s “clumsy construction, uncertainty of tone and lack of inspiration…” in comparison to the excellence of The Marriage Circle, the first of the 1924 hattrick.

 

Watching this good-looking release on the Kino-Lorber Blu-ray I wouldn’t have expected to agree with most of these sentiments based on the pacey and touch-filled opening sequences but the narrative does lose its way and we also get precious little screen time for the third woman, Marie Prevost whose presence does lift the last third of the film, it’s just a shame she isn’t given more to do. This is a Lubitsch though and it’s like a rushed early Beatles album or an off-colour Vermeer; it’s still very good and entertaining.

Pauline Frederick

Based on the 1914 novel Lillis Ehe (Lilli's Marriage) by Yolande Maree (originally Iolanthe Marès) part of a popular series of “moral” novels set in the Berlin demimonde and clearly appealing to Lubitsch’s interest in the compromised classes. Here there is bad behaviour amongst the civilised high society now relocated to New York City, as human frailty feeds human greed and innocence is taken advantage of and corrupted by the dishonest and cruel although one wonders how Lew Cody can’t be spotted a mile off so slight are his charms in comparison to say Adolphe Menjou?

 

Anyway… what we do have going for this film is the formidable Pauline Frederick as Mrs. Mabel Wilton and the film kicks off with her character carefully weighing herself on the scales against a stark black backdrop which allows us to focus on her ongoing concerns about getting old… a proto-Smouldering Fires moment for the fabulous-looking 40-year-old. Still, it’s how you’re made to feel and especially by a society that favours sheen over substance.

 

Have you any idea how much wealth is represented by that woman you have just held in your arms?

 

Mabel attends a vast charity ball for the Eastern Red Cross Committee at a “Waldorf Astoria” impressively designed and choreographed by Lubitsch complete with slides, merry-go-rounds and jollity on a grand scale. An eye-catching attendee is penniless but for some reason desirable Edmund Lamont (Lew Cody) who dodges his creditors and makes a beeline for Mabel after helping her off the slide and being advised by his pal/also creditor Harvey (Willard Louis) about her three-million-dollar fortune.

 

Lew Cody

Cue some “touches” as the $tar-struck Edmund looks on Mabel’s jewellery, focusing item by item as Lubitsch reveals his heart’s desire even as he begins the process of seducing his target. There are pretty young women all around him but he only has eyes for Mabel’s diamond necklace, gold rings and dazzling bracelet. Gradually the images run together and it’s all Edmund can do to stop himself from fainting. Greed! He offers her a nightcap and accompanied by Harvey, who acts as a somnambulant chaperone after polishing off all the chocolates – another trademark visual ellipse - the three head to Mabel’s home. Her ardour is finally cooled by a letter from her daughter Jeanne (May McAvoy) who reminds her that she’ll be 18 in a few days… her mother suddenly feels very old and stares at the mirror.

 

So far so good, and there are a lot of delicious moments at Jeanne’s party in Berkeley, California as lovelorn Fred Armstrong (Pierre Gendron) tries to find the right moment to give his sweetheart the $500 bracelet he’s had to pawn his watch for and pledge his troth. His progress to this goal is interrupted and thwarted by split-second misfortunes as Lubitsch plays out a dance of frustration with said watch repeatedly being pulled from and returned to Fred’s pocket… as his last chance is lost when she opens her mother’s present of a diamond bracelet.

 

Why have you come without my permission?

 

Her mother’s present depresses Jeanne with its crass over-compensation for lack of attention and even when she returns home she’s unwelcomed by Mabel who is far too busy being romanced by the man who she’s just gifted $100,000 for sure-fire investments to. This inattention soon becomes heavily ironic when, after saying she was too busy to spend time with Jeanne, Lamont also makes his excuses and sees the daughter instead. As Mabel mopes alone at home, Harvey spots his pal with a younger woman at a nightclub only to realise that it was Jeanne the next day whereupon he informs Lamont of the daughter’s worth as the betrayals mount up.

 

May McAvoy and Pierre Gendron

Now, there are various ways this could all play out and this is where the story diverges from could have been a more satisfying and believable analysis of mother-daughter relationships, faithless gold-diggers and their good-hearted molls – Marie Prevost could have rescued things – but this descend into unlikely melodrama.

 

Frederick and McAvoy give things a good shot and what we do see of Prevost is, of course, eye-catching, but it was still early days for Lubitsch in this new environment and a lot more was in store.

 

Back to Lew Cody… he does his best but he doesn’t quite convince as sophisticated enough to win the affections of either let alone both women, and I’m quite sure Marie Prevost’s character would have him exactly where she wanted him. All this said, Cody has his own style and was apparently a great raconteur, highly popular, a pal of Buster’s and the husband to be of Mabel Normand. Given a better scenario his character and its arc could have been much more compelling.

 

Three Women is still well worth watching though and I would love to see it on the big screen as opposed to just the splendid Kino-Lorber Blu-ray which comes with a stirring new score from Andrew Earle Simpson and an excellent commentary track from Anthony Slide.

 

It’s available direct from Kino or other online retailers selling US worldwide.

Marie Prevost abides...

 *How Did Lubitsch Do It? by Joseph Mcbride (2018, Columbia University Press) Buy it on Amazon!!

Our divine voyage… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 42, Day One

And so we came, by planes and boats and trains, back to the home of silent film festivals, Pordenone North of Venice and a very fine town indeed. My first time here since 2019 having been stymied by the lockdown and then by C-19 itself but not this year in spite of attempts by wild publishing horses to keep my mired in gobbledegook: get thee behind me Croydon!

 

Before the biggest of finishes we were served a reminder of the importance of this festival, breadth, rarities, new discoveries and men on horseback. Star of the Day was Pauline Frederick in The Love That Lives (1917) which had some foreshadowing of The Crowd and Stella Dallas… Pauline made me cry in 2019 with Smouldering Fires and she had me welling up again with her performance in this dramatic tragedy. She had a pair of the most penetrating eyes in Hollywood and here she looked so much younger as a put upon young mother who is preyed on by her boss and her drunken husband.

 

Her transformation by the end would have made even L Gish baulk at the physicality, she looked thirty years older yet still with enough love and grit to provide divine inspiration. Philip Carli accompanied with sensitivity and spirit.

 

Pauline Frederick

Meanwhile, in Ruritania – Part 2 of the GCM’s deep dive into mythical monarchies – there was some confusion in La reina joven (1916), a Spanish film – rare to see one of this vintage for me – as a romance between a Queen and an anti-monarchist went in ways that you might not expect. Said Anti-Royalist Rolando (Ricardo Puga) bravely rescues the young Queen Alexia (Margarita Xirgu) after her horse bolts and he throws himself around the beast’s neck to bring it to a halt… we almost saw it, but the editing was not so brave as the hero.

 

Anyway, once Alexia fails to die from the shock – the levels of distress-induced female mortality were so high at this time, someone should have investigated – things progress in resolutely non-romcom ways, as despite their romance, neither will change course. Oh, if only there was an evil Archduke to stir things up and thereby avoid criticism of legitimate political concerns about the Spanish system of government… Ace accompaniment was from Mauro Colombis who had fun with all the regal romance and that horsing about.

 

Queen Alexia takes to horse

A horse, a horse, my kingdom or a horse, yelled one British King according to Shakespeare, but Harry Carey had loads of horses, exactly when he needed them. Carey’s a handsome cowboy and it’s a treat to see the festival highlight him in his pomp after only really seeing him in talkies and with his good friend John Wayne (The Searchers, that final shot… Wayne standing at the door with his hand holding his arm like Harry used to, magnificent).

 

Carey’s a fabulous actor and has lots of physical motifs that indicate concern or casual thoughtfulness, a thumbnail stare here, a pensive thumb to the lips there… he might well have been studying Asta Nielsen. All of this plus his ability to fight and act make him a magnetic screen presence and these three simply whipped by with Stephen Horne riding along with gusto.

 

Most striking of all was the partially two-strip tinted Man to Man (1922) directed by Stuart Paton which featured some outstanding vistas and dynamic action as Steve Packard (Harry C), fights to clear his name, rescue the family ranch and win the heart of Terry Temple (Lillian Rich). To do this he must overcome the extreme disapproval of his grandfather, Old Hell-Fire Packard (Alfred Allen) and his confederate, Joe Blenham (Charles Le Moyne) who is the wrongest of wrong-uns.

 

Again, it’s striking how much of the wild western formula was in place this early with an impressive mass stampede of cattle organised by the baddies to ruin the ranch and the extended man-to-man combat of the closing sequence. Then there’s Harry who was rightly lionised by Wayne, he’s the real deal and I look forward to watching more of his gun-totin’ horseplay as the week unfolds.

 

 

The Divine Voyage (1929) with Antonio Coppola and the Octuror de France, Gala 

 

I missed this one last year at the BFI and so was especially keen to see it on the big Verdi screen and with a stunning new score from Antonio Coppola who conducted a nine-piece ensemble who translated his dynamic lines and simply gorgeous themes to accompany this magically-real story of hope and faith in spite of everything from capitalist carelessness to mutinous muscle men and the cruel sea itself. The music was packed with interest and recurring themes that are still replaying in my head and all done in the service of Julien Duvivier’s striking narrative and sumptuous visuals. The whole village turns out to wave ships off in good hope and to cheer their return, well the global Pordenone village does the same for works and music like this! Brava Antonio and the Octuror de France ensemble.

 

 

There is so much pleasing late-silent technique on show from Duvivier in this film – Renoir’s “rigorist poet” in action – with a roving camera that moves in and out of buildings, follows crews as they race to the harbour side or to confront wrong-doing. Close ups of locals cast for “face” that rival Dreyer for impact and rapid cutting that shows the influence of both Russian and German directors. The locations, Paimpol in Brittany, Louvigny sur Mer in Normandy and Ermenonville are superbly photographed and edited to create an impression of a people on the edge, battling unforgiving nature. Were you watching Michael Powell?

 

The film’s critique of blind capitalism is one of the reasons it was heavily censored at the time, and it begins with an act of desperate revolt when a mariner Kerjean (Henri Valbel) who has defaulted on his rent, attempts to assassinate unforgiving businessman Claude Ferjac (Henry Krauss), Ferjac in his chateau. Ferjac runs the town with a callous calculation and he will push the citizens to the brink before the story is through. Times is very much money and Ferjac makes it clear to the local mariners that manning the insufficiently repaired La Cordillère is of far more importance than the risk to their lives. Captain Jacques de Saint-Ermont (Jean Murat) makes their case but he knows there’s no way of changing Ferjac’s mind. The meeting between the boss and the sailors shows the hatred and fear they feel for this man and the desperate calculations they have to make for their families.

 

There’s further intrigue with Ferjac’s daughter Simone romantically attached to Captain Jacques and the two meet in the bay, separated by a fishing net, both trapped in their relationships with her father who will listen to no one be it the curate (Louis Kerly) or Jacque’s mother (Charlotte Barbier-Krauss).

 

The ship sets sail and includes the last-minute arrival of a mariner from outside the area, Mareuil played by Thomy Bourdelle who gives a stand-out muscular performance as the faithless opportunist upon whose actions so many lives will rest. Simone visits the Curate in his church and dedicates herself to repainting the frescoes and especially the painting of Maris Stella, she who is the “Star of the Sea”. Things swiftly go awry on the voyage as Mareuil decides that stealing the cargo is the way forward – another heartless capitalist? – and persuades most of the men to revolt, throwing one unfortunate who refuses into the sea to drown. His group overpowers the captain and his men, taking control just before the sea, as it was always going to do, erupts in a storm that would challenge even the finest of ships.

 

Back on land, the body of the murdered man is found and there’s a harrowing passage as his wife, Jeanne (Line Noro) is told of the news and leads a march to confront the man responsible. Ferjac is busy hosting a lavish dinner party to announce the marrying off of Simone to one of his business contacts, she cannot even hold her glass to toast the depressing nuptials and then Jeanne arrives followed by dozens of the locals who are now convinced that the ship has sunk and there’s only one man to be blamed. It’s a powerful set piece – fake elegance rudely interrupted by anguished poverty.

 

This is only the narrative entrée though and the Divine Voyage is yet to really begin… there’s a magical realism at play and faith, fate and hate will all have their roles as the full story enfolds. Duvivier maintains not only the pace but also a startling consistency of cinematic expression throughout as well as bringing out some extraordinary performances.

 

What a way to end this first day back “home”, as festival director Jay Weissberg said in quoting his predecessor, David Robinson.

Gypsies, tramps and thieves... Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone Day Four

“…ninety years from now, when all the war pictures and propaganda films and arty productions have been forgotten, some old white-beard is sure to mumble, ‘There was a girl named Marion who looked awfully cute in boy’s clothes.’” Delight Evans, Screenland, July 1926

Another epic day out here in the capital city of Friuli-Venezia Giulia with magnificently restored cowboys to start, followed by doctors, divas, death and Duck Soup, before a trio of women against the odds finishing at 1.00AM sharp… and all’s well!

In the Teatro Verdi the tone for the evening was set by the collective joy of seeing Laurel and Hardy in Duck Soup (1927) – a once-lost now found and restored by Lobster Films. There’s a new trend this year of applauding leads on screen but with Stan and Oliver our laughter is the salute and this early partnership is a hoot as the two boys, hoboes on the run who attempt to rent out a mansion to Lord and Lady Tarbotham (Madeline Hurlock classy and serene here and all too keen to take a bath as you’d expect from a former Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty).

There’s no greater comedy hit than one shared and, in this theatre and with this audience we were grinning like loons as a mass forgetting of the everyday took hold and we were sucker punched time and again.

And then came Marion.

This year’s poster girl is already established as one of the major stars of the Twenty First Century silent renaissance and in Beverly of Graustark (1926) she is gorgeously funny. Davis never made a seriously revered film (although Show People comes close: it is loved) but it doesn’t matter as she was the queen of romantic comedy drama for much of the Twenties producing a string of major hits that allowed audiences to laugh themselves out of the day-to-day and onto the screen in sympathy.

There’s no better sight than Marion’s looks straight to camera eyes twinkling with the latest daftness. Mabel started it and Stan followed but Marion took it to another jazz-age level; her face bubbling and alive, as knowing as anyone, with perfectly timed beauty, an irresistible smile.

Here she has many reasons to be comically shocked as she plays an American who has to impersonate her cousin, Prince Oscar of Graustark (Creighton Hale) after he injures himself in a skiing accident. If the Prince doesn’t make it to the Graustark coronation on time the deals off and the nasty General Marlanax (Roy D’Arcy who is always good to watch in this kind of role).

And so the Prince formerly known as Beverly has to dress as a man and convince the cabinet and court to save the throne and she does such a splendid job that even politically-active and military trained goatherd Danton (Antonio Moreno, “Sweet Santa etc…”) can’t see that, with that skin, those eyes and all the rest, that she’s less of a man than he’ll ever be.

It’s exquisitely daft but the timing is absolutely perfect throughout and, this was reinforced by a masterclass in sympathetic accompaniment from maestro John Sweeney on piano and the Gene Krupa of Stummfilm, Frank Bockius. They ripped through the narrative with such clarity of purpose and a collective flexibility that encompassed grandeur and pratfall almost within the same phrasing. The film informs the music and the music informs the response, we laugh and they pay back, performance enhanced by sheer delight.

I have literally got this t-shirt!

Now, getting back to the start of the day, it turns out that yer cain’t watch enough William S Hart westerns; they’re all different, pack a moral punch and he’s just so durned watchable! This is why the efforts that have gone into restoring and recreating one of his best films, The Gun Fighter (1917) are to be applauded and a parade should be run for Mr Kevin Brownlow, Christopher Bird and Fritzi Kramer. Kevin had found some 35mm elements in a French archive and this was mixed with a 9.5mm “home cinema” reduction and completed with new intertitles from Fritzi who, whilst being a famous silent film blogger by night is also a graphic designer by day.

The restored film is indeed very strong, a philosophical western which contained more moral conundrums than the earlier films screened today – both of which were good but not as complex. It showed how Hart’s work was developing rapidly and taking more risks with his character’s moral journeys; the actor/director seemed to know how far he could push his audience’s sympathy and, unlike other prominent directors of the time, he was more concerned with ambiguity. He’s a fantastic actor and clearly relished the greys and that’s why this film is so important.

On Monday we had seen French newsreel showing a studio of colourists working in their dozens with magnified images and a pantograph machine allowing them to precisely colour film stock and today we saw the results of this process with Gerolamo Lo Savio’s Otello (1909). We all love a bit of colour and Othello is one of the plays I’d most like to see at this running time… and, by the Bard, it works! That Iago though; what a get.

Elettra Raggio

We had two Italian films with impressive if lower league divas. The first was Il Fauno di Marmo (1920) directed by Mario Bonnard and starring the loverly Elena Sangro as Princess Maria married to the Duke of Helgoland (Ugo Bazzini). The narrative is convoluted and uncertain but the film looks fantastic from the outrageously opulent dresses to the sumptuous locations in and around Rome.

Elettra Raggio is striking too in her surviving film La morte che assolve (1919) which is a complex tale of redemption between estranged family members which deserves more attention. Luckily, it’s available on DVD and so I feel compelled to go on at more length later about this remarkable writer, director and performer. I always love seeing Diva films in Italy, even more than I like hearing classic era progressive rock still being played on Italian radio…

Quickfire round, your starter for ten: Oh, Doctor! (1925), Oh, Reginald Denny you are a funny one, a very enjoyable romp about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Pauline Frederick having trouble with useless men

The Moment Before (1926), Pauline Frederick looking absolutely stunning as a gypsy woman falling foul of her circumstances in a story told in flashback right at the moment of her death. Eat your heart out David Lynch! One of the strongest actors around in the silent age and another one of those timeless/modern faces. Ace.

It was so very late when John H Collins’ A Wife by Proxy (1917) came on and in spite of a clunky beginning it won me over with some smart direction and cracking character development. Mr Collins is for sure the Irish Lubitsch with some excellent touches in this tale of a young Irish lass, Jerry McNairne (Mabel Taliaferro – Viola Dana wasn’t available!) sent over to the America to work with her cousin Norton Burbeck (Robert Walker). Norton will inherit a fortune if he marries by November but his scheming cousin works with a crooked couple to distract him using the womanly allure of brassy Beatrice (Sally Crute).

I loved the performances from all concerned, good detailed direction, and the two women were standouts. You’ll never beat the Irish.

Pauline Frederick’s tears… plus, It’s War!! Pordenone Day Three

One day from Hasselqvist Tuesday and things were turning very nasty in the USA… why are things always so ornery over there Mr Lincoln? This was part the third of Stahl’s ode to Abe, A Call to Arms (1917) in which Benjamin Chapin’s Lincoln, faced with the revolt of the southern states, wrestles with having to break the promise of none-violence made on his mother’s death bed.

It’s well done and the president’s speech about refusing to let stars fall off the union flag was meant to rouse the thousands of Americans needed to fight the Germans in Europe. Cut to huge military parades down 5^th Avenue and shots of Mr Chapin in character leading 10,000 boy scouts. Gabriel Thibaudeau accompanied the spectacle in fine style.

On to more practical matters next with a Polish advertisement illustrating the wonders of the oven: your wife has time to go out with her pals and still make sure you have hot food when she returns. Sadly, this has practice broken down in modern times and there will be hollow laughter in Hertford at that sentence…

Don't walk away Renée

Dunungen (In Quest of Happiness) (1919) with Stephen Horne

Time for another Swedish film crush, this time on Renée Björling, who leaves her mark in this likeable – if disjointed - tale of romance across class and social divides. She plays Anne-Marie, a baker’s daughter who falls for the local mayor’s son, Mauritz (Ragnar Widestedt) much to the displeasure of his parents and the delight of her own.

Mauritz is a bit of a wuss and he dotes on the “sweet” Anne-Marie – her nickname Dunungen, means “a downy little bird”, an innocent… but Mo’ doesn’t really know his own mind and is simply overtaken by events too complex for him to grasp: 1. Anne-Marie grows up and 2. Love is about quality and not just convention.

Mauritz’ future looks bleak as his folks send him off to bargain with rich Uncle Teodor Fristedt (Ivan Hedqvist – a very familiar face from scandi-silents and a fine performer to boot*), in an attempt to get him to gift his nephew an industrial plant

The film was also directed and written by clever clogs Hedqvist, another adapted from a story by Selma Lagerlöf’s - Dunungen in 1894. The cinematography is from the great Julius Jaenzon (who worked with Stiller and Sjostrom) so it looks divine throughout. There are also beyond-snazzy intertitles from Arthur Sjögren     - like the liner notes for a Bjork LP or Tove Janson doodling - I know, Iceland and Finland… still very Scandinavian!

The film was a huge success but is far from complete which resulted in some narrative patch-work which you had to overlook in order to focus on the main characters; the story is not just about crossing barriers of class but also age and was therefore well programmed alongside the following film.

Stephen Horne accompanied mostly on piano which meant I was almost surprised when he began playing the flute: how he keeps such clear tones on the wind instrument whilst duetting with himself I’ll never know: and no, it’s not just practice (my bet’s on magic).

Pauline Frederick and Clarence Brown

Smouldering Fires (1925) with Neil Brand

I’d seen this one before, so I knew what to expect but Pauline Frederick and Neil Brand conspired to make me cry with Smouldering Fires and I’m not afraid to say it! Frederick gives perhaps the performance of her career as the business woman who leaves it too late for love or at least too late for love with a much younger man – even Tully Marshall was in tears. All the leads are great in Clarence Brown’s film and not for nothing is it one of Kevin Brownlow’s favourites including Malcolm McGregor as the man she falls for and Laura La Plante’s as the woman he in turn falls for.

Frederick had years of stage experience even before her film career and yet Brown told Brownlow that she suffered from terrible nerves for the first couple of days of the shoot, not surprisingly as, a film star at 41 playing her age at that time – as now – could backfire. Baby-faced McGregor wasn’t much younger at 32 but La Plante was just 20 and looked it. It’s all to Frederick’s benefit though and you can’t take your eyes off her.

There are also some great “Brown touches” for example with the jazz-dancing feet showing how hard it is for Frederick’s character to keep up with extreme youth. One of Hollywood’s very best.

While I watched, Neil Brand was weaving emotionally potent lines that spoke of his depth of experience and ability to convey the flavour of classic cinema scoring. As Pauline pulled us one way he snuck in and sucker punched the audience good and proper.

In the afternoon I skipped a shocking Stahl feature – The Child Thou Gavest Me (1921) – check Silent London’s analysis as it sounds very dark! – and reclaimed my well-worn seat for four John H. Collins' shorts from Edison. Collins was married to Viola Dana who made an appearance in the last, The Portrait in the Attic (1915) as a young woman/teen mourning her dead mother. Dana’s a class act and popular too, there was an audible gasp when her name came on screen.

There were two films with the impressive Gertrude McCoy one a daft family feud film called The Last of the Hargroves (1914) and the other a serial What Could She Do? (1914). The latter involved the tribulations of a young woman making her way in the world after the death of her father… Gertrude’s character narrowly avoids crime and joins the police force at the end of episode two. We were left hanging wondering what became of her…

There was also a health and safety gone mad film, Making a Convert (1914) in which Elsie MacLeod finally gets the point about Safety First!

 Next a candidate for the daftest film of the whole week year: Lev Kuleshov’s The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the country of the Bolsheviks (USSR 1924) in which the titular Mr West of the USA is sent to the Soviet Union armed with only arms and a sharp-shooter named Jed. It’s very 2018 and I like the fact that the Yankees shoot first (there are no questions). Someone’s taking the mickey and it’s everyone. Still, you do have to laugh...

Best of all was the spirited accompaniment from Günter Buchwald (piano), Mirko Cisilino (trumpet), Frank Bockius (drums) – well played lads despite distractions on screen!

Note Dal Fronte  with Sandro Buzzatti and Zerorchestra

The evening focused on a special event; a screening of films showing the Italian experience in the Great War accompanied by readings from Sandro Buzzatti and music from Pordenone’s very own Zerorchestra; a nine-piece jazz-infused combo who performed a mix of their own compositions with arrangements of popular war songs.

I have to confess to knowing little about the Italian effort in the war beyond the basics and the coverage showing the battle against Austria-Hungary 3,000 metres up in the Alps is stunning. ON soldier told of how men bringing supplies had to dive for cover in the snow for over four hours after they came under heavy fire, they emerged nearly frozen to death under cover of the night. The War was fought on so many fronts and this footage was sobering especially accompanied by details of the growing casualties. Buzzatti read in Italian but after a while it didn’t matter at all for his meaning was clear in any language.

The day closed with, latest in the Honore De Balzac thread was Paris at Midnight (1926) as directed by E. Mason Hopper and featuring pretty much zero French content. I was expecting some action in, y’know, Paris and, furthermore, by night but… this was essentially a melodrama set in a guest house which gradually reveals a tale of three women and their relationships with their fathers.

There are significant chunks missing which does interrupt the flow and we don’t have as much of the Parisian partying seen in stills from the film, still, once it settles down the Frances Marion scripted adaptation is great fun with Lionel Barrymore as anti-hero Vautrin, a self-proclaimed Don Quixote figure and a jaw-dropping Jetta Goudal as Baroness Delphine de Nucingen.

José María Serralde Ruiz accompanied in splendid style on piano!

*For another fine showing from Ivan Hedqvist the actor, see Vem Domer (1922) showing at the BFI on 4^th November – Jenny Hasselqvist’s in it! Not to be missed.

And did I mention that tomorrow, with Mauritz Stiller's Balettprimadonnan (1916), is Hasselqvist Tuesday!?

Jenny Hasselqvist: world-class ballerina and actress

Melting the glass ceiling… Smouldering Fires (1925)/ Now or Never (1921), London Kennington Bioscope with Cyrus Gabrysch and John Sweeney

Watching Clarence Brown’s work as editor on Tourneur’s The Blue Bird, I was reminded of one of the former’s films mentioned by Kevin Brownlow in an introduction he gave for Brown’s The Eagle at a screening at the Phoenix.  A tantalising clip was of Smouldering Fires  was shown at that event yet, not tempted by grimy YouTube nth gen copies; I’ve yet to see the film… holding out for the quality, context and company it deserved.

Patience is its own reward as, out of nowhere, it did come to pass that Mr Brownlow was to present his own copy at the Cinema Museum as part of the monthly Kensington Bioscope screenings of unusual and hard to find and, in this case, almost impossible to project, silent celluloid.

Tully Marshall, Malcolm McGregor and Pauline Frederick

So it was that we headed back into the depths of South London, memories stirred by the Walworth Road, the White Bear theatre pub and the absence of the once-unavoidable smell of garlic from Pizzeria Castello Restaurant on the Elephant roundabout.

This was my first visit to the Cinema  Museum and… what a great venue, full of the musky remnants of the picture house past and a viewing room making full use of the former hospital’s spaces. There were excellent home-made flans and the unique warmth generated by a room full of many dozens of silent film buffs (is there a collective noun? How about a Silence of…or a Pickford of...?).

Mr Brownlow mingled – our living connection to so much of the silent past. He told a story of a phone call from Harold Lloyd in response to a fan letter he’d written from school in the late forties… film stars just don’t do that anymore but then maybe they don’t make fans quite like Kevin either.

First up was the Lloyd short Now or Never (1921) which was a  concentrated shot of the man’s fearless comic invention – even in the face of crashing train wheels Harold stays calm…hilariously so. Mildred Davis plays the girl charged with looking after a Lonesome Little Child called Dolly (Anna Mae Bilson) who takes her along on a train trip to meet her old flame only to find Dolly’s Dad (William Gillespie) is also on board… Harold is soon pressed into child-minding.

John Sweeney played along with prescient piano… he and Harry must have played this duet before – let’s face the music and laugh!

Then the main dish, Clarence Brown’s Smouldering Fires which, Mr Brownlow revealed, nearly convinced some studio bosses it was a Lubitsch and thereby helped ensure him a healthy contract at Universal. It is a very witty film with some great performances but it also carries a dramatic wallop that brings the best out of Pauline Frederick who gives a performance that a few years later might well have been Oscar-worthy.

Frederick had years of stage experience even before her film career and yet Brown told Brownlow that she suffered from terrible nerves for the first couple of days of the shoot. Playing the ”older women” at the age of 41 to baby-faced Malcolm McGregor’s 32 and Laura La Plante’s luminescent 20 must have been a challenge – one she met with a brave and extraordinarily honest performance. The experience of the great Tully Marshall is on hand to offer a counter-balance of expressive depth whilst the youngsters struggle to act through their prettiness.

Malcolm McGregor acts his age...

This is that rarest of things, a mainstream film aimed at the middle-aged market… and one that doesn’t take the easy way out.

It starts as almost as an office-based romantic comedy with a twist: the senior executive in Vale Inc. is a woman, Jane Vale (Frederick), who has inherited the firm from her father and worked tirelessly to far exceed his achievements by always putting the business ahead of herself and the chance for a personal life.                     

She chairs meetings eating away at her lunch and ruthlessly dismisses suggestions that are not in the best interests of her company. Her right hand man, Scotty (Tully Marshall) keeps a little pad to instantly terminate the contract of any employer displeasing Miss Vale; one of the board doodles an insulting cartoon lampooning her lack of love and he’s gone. Secretary Kate (Helen Lynch) dreams of being on stage and is let go after biting back and every time Scotty hands Jane one of his nice pencils she keeps it…

One of the young managers has a radical idea to improve productivity but Jane initially dismisses, when he argues his case and openly disagrees with her he looks set for the chop – “too ambitious” – but she relents and instead invites him onto the board, impressed with his honesty and integrity.

Gradually the two get closer and the staff begin to gossip. There’s an excellent sequence on the shop floor in which the camera literally follows the word-of-mouth as it works its way from machinist to machinist.

Robert arrives and faces humiliation as one of his more difficult charges, Kate Brown (Helen Lynch), over-steps the mark. A male co-worker laughs at Robert who knocks him down, there’s a brief fight and emerging victorious, Robert tells the whole factory there’ll be no more rumours running down the woman who is going to become his wife…

Jane listens on unseen and delighted at this unexpected declaration, after all these years of disciplined self-denial she may have found the love of her life… Scotty looks worried.

Things progress and the couple get engaged and then disruption is brought by the arrival of Jane’s younger sister, Dorothy (Laura La Plante). Initially Jane is convinced that Robert is just a gold digger – no one of his age would marry a woman of her sister’s age for anything other than financial gain, or at least she thinks.

Can Jane keep up with the youngsters?

But Robert’s feelings turn out to be way more complex than that and a uneven love triangle soon develops that threatens to render all parties’ lives a misery… things do not proceed as simply as you’d think.

The version shown was a 16mm print designed for home viewing. It is of a longer cut than some European versions and comes complete with the original tints. It was very hard to project and the Cinema’s projectionist in addition to spending days restoring the stock also had to proceed very cautiously during the screening with the odd stop and start.

But it was well worth it a superb film from Mr Brown and a great performance from Pauline Fredericks – both up there with the very best of silence.

Accompaniment was provided by Cyrus Gabrysch who calmly dealt with any interruptions and wove some lovely lines as the story veered from comedy to calamity…

A great venue and a great cast of characters on and off screen: next month’s treat is Bare Knees – another fun evening is in store. More details can be found on the Bioscopesite and, of course on Silent London.

Thanks also to Greta de Groat and her excellent Pauline Frederick website from which I appropriated some of the scans above.

Pauline takes direction from Clarence