Appointment TV… Kidnapped (1917), MS and KBTV with John Sweeney

Back in the days when you couldn’t stream on demand and when even recording on VHS just wasn’t enough, the pull of certain television shows was such that you just had to watch them live. Who shot JR?, Ross and Rachel’s wedding, the fight between Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin over Diedre in Coronation Street, certain things you were desperate to watch and to share in the knowledge that everyone else was as well.

Throughout lockdown the Kennington Bioscope have been broadcasting shorter films on their YouTube channel but tonight was something else as, in addition to a programme of shorts, there was a full feature film with live accompaniment from John Sweeney and an introduction from Fritzi Kramer, America’s premier silent-blogger with Movies Silently and the woman who crowdfunded the restoration and DVD release of the film in question. 

The face of KBTV

As usual KB MC, Michelle Facey, held the whole programme together, the Kennington Bomb-chelle, surrounded by a magnificent floral display and briefed to the hilt on the treasures we were about to watch. There were times when it was clearly live – the odd glitch that merely added to the collective buzz - yet it’s amazing how quickly the KB has evolved its offering over the five episodes – or webisodes if you will, although I know most of you won’t  - under Cyrus Gabrysch’s technical direction, Michelle’s presentation as well as Tod Higginson’s facilitation of the live chat – he also does the translations. The chatter was enlivened by Fritzi feeding us good-humoured background as the film progressed; if Swanson had access to a keyboard (and was alive), this is exactly her tone of voice.

The audience was again international, from the Wild West to Walthamstow (the Untamed East) via the Highlands of “Scotch” and the lowlands of Holland with a number spreading the word via social media snaps of Michelle on the big screen. In our world this was an event and we were re-connecting with a shared experience unlike almost any other since the middle of March. Marshall McLuhan may have declared TV, cool as opposed to “hot media” radio, but he reckoned without the “lean-forward” engagement of social media immediacy and, indeed, the Piano Cam showing us Cyrus, John and Costa’s accompaniment.

So, to the films…

All white mate?

For a man of so many names, it is surprising that Marcel Peréz is the most successful silent comedian most people have not heard of. Marcel, also known as Robinet, Tweedy, Tweedledum, and Twede-Dan was a very talented filmmaker who devised and directed as well as performed. I especially like his deranged serial The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola (1913) but his shorts are near always great value. Robinet’s White Suit (1911) is typical of his high-energy style, man wears impossibly clean suit which gradually gets filthy with the passing of unfortunate events until, ta-dah!, he bumps into a group of painters and their cans of matt white!

Not rocket but comedy “science” with every element mixed to perfection. Cyrus Gabrysch added to the alchemy hitting all the notes in exactly the right order.

Then off to the Turin for a gorgeous travelogue, The River Pescara (1912), watching boats head through the soothing waters to the coast. Costas Fotopoulos accompanied helping us keep a cool head on this hottest of June days.

As with other KB episodes, both shorts came courtesy of the EYE Filmmuseum and the Jean Desmet Collection.

When the river Pescara meets the sea...

"A film for all the family"… Kidnapped (1917), with John Sweeney

Fritzi’s aim in putting this film out on DVD was to recreate the typical programme of a night at the picture house in 1917 and along with the feature there are various short films including some of the same players all from the Edison Film Company and their series of Conquest programmes. Conquest was designed, as Fritzi quoted, to create “… the open road to entertainment and knowledge…” and to provide “… the first definitive contribution in the propaganda to popularise clean and wholesome films for all right-thinking Americans.”

Directed by Alan Crosland – who would make The Jazz Singer a decade later – this is the first feature-length adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped and as per the positive reviews of the time, is a very decent and highly watchable effort. I have my own special relationship to this story after having been given an illustrated copy of the book for Christmas aged two and, being told I couldn’t read it, them opening it up to discover that no, I couldn’t read. Things have changed on that front but I poured over the pictures as a toddler and was delighted to see how many of the scenes are replicated in this film.

David asks a friendly crone if she's seen a big castle...

Raymond McKee stars as a slightly too old David Balfour (17), who is robbed of his inheritance by his evil Uncle Ebenezer (Joseph Burke) who first tries to arrange his accidental death on a rickety staircase in the tower of his castle and then arranges for him to be abducted by the nefarious crew of the brig, Covenant. Captain Hoseason (Franklyn Hanna) who has plans to sell him into slavery in the Carolinas.

Kidnapped was set against the backdrop of the Jacobite Rebellion and some actual events, in particular the "Appin murder", which occurred in the aftermath and for which the chief suspect was one Alan Breck Stewart. In the film, the Covenant accidentally rams a boat carrying Breck (Robert Cain in fine swashbuckling form), killing all but him. The crew soon realise who their new companion is and attempt to kill him and take his money, together with young david, Breck proves more than a match for them and even outnumbered succeeds in fighting them off.

Robert Cain about to swash...

Beck and David escape to the Highlands trying to dodge the Sassenachs as they resolve their own political differences through honest dialogue (seriously, take a flipping note Trump and Johnson). They witness the killing of the King’s loathed agent, Colin Campbell (Horace Haine) at Appin and are assumed to be the assassins by the English soldiers. They escape to safety with rebel Cluny McPherson (Samuel N. Niblack) before planning how to recover David’s fortune from his Scrooge of an Uncle.

The famous dénouement is a classic case of entrapment and whilst I am fairly sure a smart modern lawyer could get the old man off, here at least, justice is done!

John Sweeney accompanied live with the piano cam allowing us to wonder even more about how he flexes the musical narrative and tone with such apparent ease; the sounds and the sights are bound together instantly in his hands.

David has troubled dreams

You can order copies of Fritzi’s Kidnapped DVD which comes with the main feature and the four shorts that accompanied the Conquest programme: Friends, Romans and Leo, Little Red Riding Hood (also based on a true story?), Quaint Provincetown and Microscopic Pond Life. Ben Model provides excellent accompaniment of his own and there’s a twelve-page booklet from Ms Kramer providing more details. It is an education and a joy! Links to retailers can be found on the Movies Silently site right here. 

Another superb live experience to lighten the locked-down load but if you missed it and or simply want to relive the show, it’s on the Bioscope’s YouTube channel.

Superb! Until the next time… PJ

Supplementary: The full title of the book is essentially a plot summary and a little like a pre-internet collection of key tags:  Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson.

It’s well worth seeking out by boys and girls of all ages and there’s even a sequel, Catriona, published in 1893 and featuring, women, unlike the film which has just one “Old Crone” and, as Fritzi pointed out, was sold on the basis of the “all-male” cast. How times were to change…

All Kidnapped screenshots lifted from the Kidnapped DVD. Buy it, buy it now!

“Ready for my claws-up, Mr DeMille…” Male and Female (1919)

So much to admire about Cecil B. DeMille and so much to lay at his door...

A highly-gifted director, he created America’s first feature The Squaw Man in 1914 along with the adult sophistication of The Cheat a year later. He seemed to effortlessly create good-looking, seamless stories yet he found out what he thought audiences “really” wanted and started to give it to them – the first director to sell out or the first director to just cash in.

Amongst his key themes were an unashamed focus on his female leads coupled with a penchant for historical epics that enabled the depiction of less inhibited times and, simply put… less dressed times.

Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan and Lila Lee

Male and Female is an early template for this approach and there are clear comparisons with his later work… In 1932’s The Sign of the Cross it’s Claudette Colbert famously bathing in goat’s milk (it’s not pasteurised…it barely goes past her chest!) whilst here we have twenty-year old Gloria Swanson alone with just a few maids and a couple of cameramen in a giant and completely gratuitous sunken bath.

Gloria and Claudette take their baths

The later film has an extraordinary escalation of savage punishments with alligators and then gorillas moving in on bikini clad Christian girls tied under logs whereas Male and Female has the famous scene with La Swanson at the mercy of a lion: the no doubt heavily-drugged beast, just about capable of laying its paws on her unclothed back…

Scantily clad and in animal peril...1932 and 1919

Now, this is all very thrilling but is it good, honest film making or just the first major steps in the development of Cecil’s cinema of exploitation…?

Male and Female is an adaptation of JM Barrie’s highly successful stage play, The Admirable Crichton from 1902.  One feels that the themes of class and entitlement examined by the play’s dislocation of the “natural order” were played down in DeMille’s film… starting with the re-titling – “now, why didn’t I think of that…” Barrie sardonically commented.

The admirable Thomas Meighan

Never-the-less, things start well enough as DeMille shows the pampered household of Lord Loam (Theodore Roberts) and Lady Agatha 'Aggie' Lasenby (Mildred Reardon) and her family as they start their day: shoes cleaned, room service, maid-assisted bathing: all mod cons.

Holding this all together is the head butler, Crichton (Thomas Meighan) a man of supernatural calm who most assuredly knows his place and that of his staff. In spite of this, Crichton hankers after the affection of young Lady Mary Lasenby (Gloria Swanson) who, inspire of her indolence and high-level airs, has an allure the seasoned servant cannot resist – is this a crush based on position or can there ever be anything more for them… as people and as a man and woman.

Lila Lee and Crichton's shoe...

This situation is mirrored by the crush the young scullery maid, Tweeny (Lila Lee) has on Crichton…. He is out of her reach, devoted to the family and to one member above all others.

How the attract such devotion is hard to fathom as Lady Mary is rude and exacting, her cousin Honourable Ernest 'Ernie' Wolley (Raymond Hatton) is a wastrel and even her intended Lord Brockelhurst (Robert Cain) seems more interested in other women… almost all of them. Clearly Mary could do better… but how? These people seem the victims of their status almost as much as the people in their service.

Go on a boat?!

Someone has the bright idea to go on a cruise and they take their servants and other possessions with them. All is going swimmingly for a while with the toffs actually fairly bored by the rigours of the wider ocean… But all this changes as the ship is driven onto rocks by a distracted sailor and so begins the fight of their lives.

The family manage to escape to a desert island (in reality, just off the coast of Santa Barbara) where Crichton soon proves his worth, much to the chagrin of his betters who cannot see why he feels so empowered – he may be able to start fires and build shelter, but they’re still “paying his wages” aren’t they?

Gilligan's Island!

Crichton immediately realises that the party has little chance of survival unless he takes charge and helps them. After some initial indignation, the family are forced to fall in as they realise the real dangers of their new world. Thus society becomes inverted and Crichton becomes their lord and master.

 
Whether this Orwellian turn-about was in Barrie’s original play, I’m not aware, but it feels slightly at odds with the deference and respect he has otherwise shown the family: to suddenly start squad bashing and bullying them – even for their own good – seems like power has gone to his head.

Never-the-less, the new alpha male, finds himself the centre of attention as Tweeny and Mary compete for his affections… Lord Brockenhurst is a long way away…and up to no good anyway with a maid re-employed from Loam's household.

What's good for the goose etc...

Crichton has a fantasy which he now shares with Mary that he had been a Babylonian king in an earlier life and she had been a Christian slave. DeMille gladly takes us back to the brutality and opulence of this imagined time and even throws in some lions and a young Bebe Daniels for good measure.

Things don’t end well for the slave girl Mary and this is a guilt Crichton feels he still carries with him: now is his chance to put things right.

Swanson, Bebe Daniels and Meighan in Babylon

But, just as it seems that Mary and Crichton will become the island’s first couple wed in a Christian ceremony, a boat is sighted and his own expertly-constructed coastal fire alarm brings their rescuers to them…

Back in Blighty, will Mary stay true to Crichton once he is relegated to his old post and, more to the point, will he still feel it appropriate to marry this woman so clearly above his station.

The ending is not what you might expect but that’s maybe more down to the play than the film! I won’t give it away… it’s still an interesting premise.

Back to life...

In spite of DeMille’s sheer “obviousness” it’s difficult to entirely dislike his work at this early stage. Things were gentler than they ended up in later works and there is an interesting message in the work he chose to adapt even submerged beneath his populist embellishments.

It’s also worth mentioning Gloria Swanson who gives the kind of performance that made her one of *the* stars. Here at twenty I found it hard to reconcile her with Norma Desmond but you watch Teddy at the Throttle and her other earlier shorts of the post-war period and you start to understand her abilities. Maybe not as funny as Mabel or as energetic as Mary, she, never-the-less, brought her own unique sensibilities.

Her eyes were incredibly expressive and she was a demure clothes horse when she chose to be. She also has an intelligence that unpins her performance and a slightly quirky beauty which helped her to stand out. Was she well served by Mr DeMille? Certainly in this film she stars and her bravery in pushing on with the lion scene – in spite of his misgivings (reverse psychology?) – deserves respect.

Did it add much to the story? Probably not, but certainly did to the spectacle… no one ever lay down with a live lion!

Male and Female is available from  Amazon on its own as part of the Swanson box set. This also includes a number of her shorter comedies and excellent new scores all round.