Civil Engineering, Module One… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Day Eight

And, just like that, it was over but not before a final day with some incredible highs and a desperate search for a restaurant that wasn’t fully booked prior to the evening’s special event. Amidst the cut and thrust of a silent film festival it’s possible to completely forget that tonight was Saturday night and the locals were out for a good time too even if it was strange for us to contemplate: no live accompaniment, just recorded, not always sitting down or, indeed, sitting quietly with outbursts of boisterousness that would certainly concern those she say “shush” in the Verdi balconies.

 

Each to his own as we say in the patriarchy and we had plenty of energy of our own for Neil Brand’s new score for The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) which was arranged by George Morton, and performed live by the mighty Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone conducted by Ben Palmer. Giornate artistic director, Jay Weissberg, described before hand how Neil Brand had wanted to score a western and asked him for suggestions and the film he had in mind had been a formative silent screening for him and soon Neil was equally enamoured with this unusual story of civil engineering and the human heart.

 

At the Kennington Bioscope Kevin Brownlow once revealed that Samuel Goldwyn’s wife had been the Imelda Marcos of silent film preservation. The great mogul had stored all of his films in her closet and, in order to make room for her shoes, she cleared them out except for the ones featuring Ronald Coleman and Gary Cooper. So, we have Mrs Goldwyn and her fondness for these terribly ugly men, to thank for Barbara Worth still being extant!

Vilma Bánky

Despite their physical shortcomings, these two men are two big reasons to celebrate this remarkable film but it also features some of the most stunning cinematography of the era and if you think Abel Gance was impressive in capturing equine movement on frame than check out Henry King and his cinematographers George Barnes, Thomas Branigan and Gregg Toland. Overwhelmed by this biggest of projections we could almost be alongside Ronald and Gary as the sun-baked, sand-drenched, landscape swirls around you in a crystal clear golden-yellow.

 

And on top of all that you have Vilma Banky… born Vilma Koncsics in what is now Hungary and exported to distract the Yankees as much as she causes both Coop and Ron to lose their focus on business. The film starts like an outtake from Greed as a young woman (Vilma Banky) buries her husband in the sand and then battles to save her daughter from a sandstorm. It’s a brutal and photographed so clearly it could have been made tomorrow. The woman perishes but her daughter, Barbara, is found alive by a Mr Worth (Charles Willis Lane) and grows up to be played by Vilma.

 

The story then settles into Mr Worth and his business partner/rival, McDonald (Ed Brady) efforts to try to change the landscape by damming the Colorado River in order to irrigate the Californian plains. Coleman plays Willard Holmes who works with the rival whilst Cooper plays Abe Lee, the boy Barbara grew up with. Their romantic rivalry runs parallel to business as the mood gets mean as McDonald refuses to recognise the need for additional reinforcements on the dam… In a film like this that’s never a good sign. This all culminates in the inevitable flood and a terrifying sequence in which the townsfolk flee the deluge with not all making it. Henry King could also martial a cast of thousands and, looking back to 3 Bad Men, this is another classic silent human stampede.

 

The implications of all this for construction projects is clear in terms of risk management and the importance of senior stakeholder buy-in for completion to full safety and technical requirements. But I suppose the film was mostly about the spirit of enterprise that made the West and the loves of the lovely people who exemplify the best of humanity: civic minded and careful people who try to bring everyone with them in the joint enterprise of society. Sadly, current political systems lack many who are trained in Prince 2 project management and who care to put people ahead of profit.

 

The score was quite simply huge, with Mr Brand adopting a musical project management of his own in terms of establishing clear objectives for mood and narrative cohesion and meeting every single one in the most joyous and potent of ways. Tonal milestones – deserts, sandstorms, epic landscapes, love, hate and everything in between – were nailed with his schooling in seemingly the entirety of cinematic composition in evidence mixed with his flair for melody. There were rousing themes that pricked the hairs on the back of our necks and we fell in love with simply everyone of the cast but especially Vilma!

 

As with his other scores, Robin Hood, Blackmail, The Lodger et al, you feel that Neil builds out from the heart of each film, working his way outwards in building a musical structure that not only hangs off the narrative but supplements it. This is the very essence of meeting specification and, with Mr Palmer swinging the baton, the Orchestra Verdi lifted the roof and our spirits. We always hope for such a big finish and, yet again, we got one.

 

Forgotten Faces (1928) with Stephen Horne

 

I’ll tell you someone else who always delivers on promise and to spec, and that’s the mercurial Stephen Horne who here delivered one of the biggest musical surprises of the week by “playing” silence during the nail-biting sequence in which Clive Brook’s character leads his mortal enemy and ex-wife as played by Olga Backlanova, up darkened stairs in the moments before she realises who her mysterious guide is… it was unexpected, meta and perfectly timed.

 

In this well-crafted family thriller, directed by Victor Schertzinger, Olga plays a mixture of the shark in Jaws and Anthony Perkins’ character in Psycho, she is violently over the top and hysterical in every way – the Jack Nicholson of her day! Against this Russian fire-cracker is faced the utterly controlled Clive Brook as gentleman thief “Heliotrope” Harry who, along with his trusted right-hand man, Froggy (William Powell) is responsible for the most principled of crime sprees.

 

After one precisely-timed raid on a gambling house sees the police arrive almost in time to catch them, Harry returns home to find his wife Lilly in bed with another man as their baby daughter screams in the hallway. He despatches the other man and, realising his jig is up, leaves his baby with a well-to-do couple who he knows have recently lost a child before kindly handing himself in. Froggy keeps tabs on the daughter whilst Harry duly serves his time and she grows into Mary Brian, a fine young woman who he has given the best chance in life.

 

But, when Lilly tricks Froggy into revealing her daughter’s whereabouts and then taunts Harry in prison about taking her back, he knows he must find a way to stop her. Can he do so without breaking his strict moral and his promise to the prison governor not to harm his hellish ex?

 

OK, there are holes in this scenario but Brook is terrific, such a measured performer – a Rolls Royce if you will – whilst Olga is Olga. MY eyes may have moistened more than once, heart strings were tugged but on Brook could make for such a charming criminal who is father first and foremost.

 

Desdemona Mazza, Ivor Novello and Gabriel de Gravone

L’Appel du Sang (1919) with John Sweeney

 

After our musical Messi and Ronaldo, we also had the compositional equivalent of Mo Salah with the studied elegance of Mr John Sweeney accompanying Louis Mercanton’s tale of love, lies and longing set in Sicily. John’s elegant lines made the most of this film’s spectacular scenery from the island and also Rome, as well as the suitably classic love tangle passing in front of both.

 

This was Ivor Novello’s film debut and his Maurice Delarey is an odd creation, with even his wife, Hermione Lester (Phyllis Neilson-Terry) describing him as “like a kid”, he’s immature, full of enquiry and lust for life (his grandmother was from Sicily) unlike his bookish other half and they make the most unconvincing of partnerships. Hermione has disappointed her intellectual, much older, “best friend” Émile d'Arbois (Charles Le Bargy aged 62 here) in marrying a man of her age (both actors were 27) if not maturity.

 

She brings her new husband to the family pile in the hills of Sicily and he spends all his time having adventures with Gaspare (Gabriel de Gravone), one of the family retainers, including night fishing, yomping and swimming… it’s hard not to impose a modern “coded” view of their relationship. Interestingly both Novello and Neilson-Terry were cast to reflect the original author’s descriptions and so the physical mismatch was intentional. Novello looks so boyish and young and when he is in Sicily his Sicilian nature resurfaces, bringing recklessness and compulsive behaviour. All that midday sun for the Englishman – although, lets be honest, he was Welsh.

 

Hermione goes off to save d'Arbois who is dying in Africa leaving Maurice free to explore further and to fall in love with the fisherman Salvatore (Salvatore Lo Turco)’s daughter Maddalena (Desdemona Mazza) and there’s a beautiful shot of them finally embracing, silhouetted in the half darkness of a cave with the sea behind them. This can not be good though and to add complication, Salvatore is a mad man with easy access to weaponry…

 

Overall a dreamy film, especially with John’s playing, and worth it for the visuals and early Ivor!

 

The Red Dance (1928) with Masterclass student Andra Bacila

 

This film’s approach to history could be said to be exemplified by the appearance of an aircraft clearly not of 1917 vintage but this is the least of its crimes against Russian history. In terms of its treatment of Rasputin, the Boney M pop song, Rasputin, is more historically accurate and the general depiction of white and red Russians as inter-changeable baddies is mind wobbling given the century and more of poor treatment the Tsars had imposed on the populace. Criticise the Revolution and outcomes by all means but there were plenty of reasons for one to happen…

 

All this aside, Raoul Walsh’s mini-epic is, as you’d expect, full of grand scale and great characters. Dolores del Río as Tasia, a politicised activist determined that people should be able to read after the Tsarist regime bans schooling and arresting her father and shooting her mother on the spot in front of her blackboard and pupils. Ivan Linow plays Russian Bear Ivan Petroff, a likeably roguish army officer who is prone to sexual assault and steaking horses with which to exchange for marriage to Tasia.

 

Ra, ra Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen is played by Demetrius Alexis, and various other actual characters appear as 2D cut-outs. Talking of which, likable Charles Farrell is the most unlikely Grand Duke Eugene, a Russian toff with a heart of gold who wins Tasia’s heart. It struck me that Farrell is a fine romantic actor so long as he’s with a talented other half and you can add Delores to the list with Mary Duncan and Janet Gaynor in this respect.

 

Long story short, the stakes are raised when the people revolt and the Cossacks are on the defensive. Now it’s the Trotsky look-alikes and the evil revolutionary leader with a Germanic monocle who are the enemies of the people. This disappoints Tasia who announces that “women’s only cause is love…” and it may be true that love is all you need but this messy lack of faith in governance via tradition of revolution echoes our present plight and, yes, there’s an agitator called Boris.

 

Excellent accompaniment was provided by Masterclass student Andra Bacila, one of many new and younger faces at this year’s festival. As the BFI’s Bryony Dixon said in her acceptance speech for the Jean Mitri award, the Giornate is a focus for world-wide efforts on film preservation and long may this continue.

 

And that, m’lords, ladies and gentlepeople, concludes the proceedings from this blog on Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 43! Thank you too all of those who made it happen and who I spent time with – let’s twist again in 2025!!

 

Grazie mille!!

Rudy can't fail... The Eagle (1925), with Neil Brand, 10th Hippodrome Silent Film Festival

 

Back when Arthur was young, I went to watch Kevin Brownlow introduce this film at East Finchley’s ultimate picture palace, the Phoenix Cinema, and he shared his coversations with one of the silent era’s most calmly professional directors along with clips from films I just had to see. Since then, I’ve watched them on the big screen; Flesh and the Devil (1926), The Signal Tower (1924) and The Goose Woman (1925). Brown never disappoints and brings out the best in his actors; a real warmth of performance amongst the smoothly worked narratives.

 

Watching first time my focus was on Rudolph Valentino as this was the first of his films I’d seen (and I still haven’t seen either The Sheik or The Son of the Sheik…) but now I was watching as much for Louise Dresser, who was so heart-breaking in The Goose Woman and is grand again here playing Csarina Catherine the Great as passionate and impetuous with a penchant for young officers and for executing those who don’t please her.

 

Her scenes with Valentino as the dashing Lt. Vladimir Dubrovsky, are wry – if conflicting - with sexual role-reversal as the predatory monarch tries to get her man tipsy, offers him a career path based on favour and generally behaves like a man. Dubrovsky has enlisted to be a fighter and not a lover and absents himself even though he knows this will seriously affect his prospects both in military life and, well, just life.

Louise Dresser and Rudolph Valentino

 

This isn’t any man Catherine is sexually harassing though, it’s one played by Rudolph Valentino. No other silent actor comes with quite so much baggage as the Latin lover, the man who broke so many hearts that people seemingly took their own lives rather than face up to life without him… Surely, he had to take himself that seriously too? But no, what we find is a very handsome man who can act and who has a deliciously inclusive sense of humour to prick the bubble of heroic pomposity: think Antonio Banderas in an Aldomorvar film: a little camp but in that masculine way only the most “secure” can carry off.

 

Valentino’s Dubrovsky is one of the bravest officers in the imperial elite and arrives at a parade for the Csarina at the film’s start full of promise. He’s a man of action and spotting a runaway carriage he leaps onto the Csarina’s favourite horse, and she did like her horses… (“not true…” says History) and sets off in pursuit – Brown’s cameraman fast behind – pulling level, jumping on and pulling the horses to a halt in classic cowboy style.

 

The party he rescues includes a beautiful young noblewoman, Mascha Troekouroff, played by the delectable Vilma Bánky, who has great chemistry with Valentino and pretty much every single thing around her. She would star with him again in Son of the Sheik, her beauty and intelligence matching his own with a challenge that his persona needs; she’s not being swept off her feet by anyone.

Rudolph and Vilma

 

Pleasantries are exchanged and there’s an instant connection but Mascha ‘s head is not easily turned and her Aunt Aurelia (Carrie Clark Ward) is the one waving enthusiastically after Dubrovsky as their carriage pulls away. He laughs but his quick thinking has earned him that awkward appointment with his Czarina who is more than happy to see her horse returned unharmed…

 

It’s not a good day on balance for Dubrovsky as he receives the news that his father is seriously ill because of his estate and fortune being stolen by the by the villainous Kyrilla Troekouroff (James A. Marcus on fine form). Dubrovsky won’t take this lying down and soon turns himself into a Robin Hood figure – The Black Eagle – who leads his father’s remaining loyal staff into an escalating set of countermeasures aimed at over-throwing the usurper.

 

Encountering a man who has been employed to teach French (incidentally, the language of the Tsarist court even up to the pre-revolutionary period…) to Kyrilla’s daughter, Dubrovsky takes his place as a means of breaking in and causing chaos. Yet, when he arrives, he sees that his student is to be the beautiful girl he rescued in the runaway carriage.

James A. Marcus as the Fearless Kyrilla!

 

Thus, things go as rom-coms go with enough will-they/won’t-they to keep you guessing as Bánky and Valentino work their humorous rapport as far as they can without popping the dramatic bubble. Kyrilla is revealed as more bullying buffoon than despot as the threats of imminent retribution from the Black Eagle un-nerve him more and more: you do wonder how he ever managed to take control of the Dubrovsky estate… still, he does have a bear chained in his wine cellar for playing “jokes” on guests.

 

Brown directs with deceptive efficiency and with more than the odd flourish. Not for nothing was he “blind-tasted” as Lubitsch by one Hollywood insider according to Kevin Brownlow, with some innovative shots including an amazing dolly shot along the full length of Kyrilla’s banquet table. It’s a very well-made film with sumptious sets from the legendary William Cameron Menzies, and the restored print is in superb condition; watching it is indeed, as Mr Brownlow said at the Phoenix, “…seeing silent film as it really was”.

 

Accompaniment was provided by Mr Neil Brand who had dressed for the occasion and entered his music room in colour before sitting down to accompany in back and white. His themes went well beyond those chromatic limitations though and he gave us the rich romance and visceral daring the film deserved. As festival director Alison Strauss put it in her introduction, we were watching “together, alone” and the improvised music gives the immediacy that binds us as viewers, sat in front of screens from Worthing to the Winter Palace.

  

Who is The Black Eagle?! 

The Eagle is now available on spruced up Blu-Ray from Kino and is well worth filing between Camile and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse if you like your Latin Lover in alpha order or, Monsieur Beaucaire and Cobra if you’re going by date.

 

The Hipp-fun carries on and you can still catch up on most of films, intros and Q&As via the festival website and the Falkirk Community Trust YouTube channel.

Way out West with Vilma… Kennington Bioscope, Silent Western Saturday

In his introduction to The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), Kevin Brownlow revealed that Samuel Goldwyn’s wife had been the Imelda Marcos of silent film preservation… The great mogul had stored all of his films in her closet and, in order to make room for her shoes, she cleared them out except for the ones featuring Ronald Coleman and Gary Cooper.

Those men are two big reasons to celebrate this remarkable film but it also features some of the most stunning cinematography of the era and if you think Abel Gance was impressive in capturing equine movement on frame than check out Henry King and his cinematographers George Barnes, Thomas Branigan and Gregg Toland. In close quarters to the excellent restoration projected tonight you could almost be alongside Ronald and Gary as the sun-baked, sand-drenched, landscape swirls around you in a crystal clear golden-yellow.

Vilma Banky

And on top of all that you have Vilma Banky… but today was about more than just one film and one generation but a celebration of the vast breadth of silent westerns; a genre so broad it deserves sub categorisation.

I hadn’t seen a single film on the programme for the inaugural Bioscope Silent Western Saturday, but it featured familiar names, Bronco Billy, Tom Mix, Rex the Wonder Horse… Somehow these once hugely-popular stars persist in memory alongside the real characters they emulated. More than just history, Westerns are part of America’s mythology – in some cases the real cowboys and cowgirls became performers on stage, circus and in film and eventually, inevitably, a cowboy-actor became president followed, more recently, by a low-down, no good, dirty double-crossing gambler.

William S Hart resists!

Programme 1: Shoot 'em Up Starter Thundering Hoofs (1924)

Kevin Brownlow introduced this action-packed opener with a clip from his Hollywood series in which he’d interviewed Hoofs’ director, Albert S. Rogell. Rogell explained how his star, Fred Thomson, former athlete and Great War veteran, had fallen under a four horse stage coach during the film’s set piece chase in which he has to jump on and pull the vehicle to a halt. He ended up in hospital with leg injuries while his director figured out how to finish off the scene using a stunt double - the ground-breaking Yakima Canutt.

Fred Huntley, Willie Fung and Fred Thomson in Thundering Hooves (1924)

Again, those blurred lines between reality and fiction. Thomson’s a likeable hero with considerable energy and the twinkling smile of a genuine star. His honest cow-poke, Dave Marshall, is more than a match for the scheming Luke Severn (William Lowery) and succeeds in relieving him of both the girl, Carmelita Estrada (picture-perfect, Anna May) and the horse, Silver King the Horse - played by, of course, Silver King, a horse.

The story was written by one Marion Jackson, which may or may not have been a nom de plume for Frances Marion, Thomson’s wife.

Lilian Henley played along with a lightness of touch and a refusal to over-play the wild-west chord sequence on the piano: all in keeping with Thomson’s playfulness and Hoofs’ romantic heart.           

Programme 2: The Early Western

John Oliver talked us through the genesis of the Western with a mix of Eastern-Westerns and Western-Westerns… Initially the genre was mostly filmed out East with the very first western, Cripple Creek Bar-room (1899), being filmed on a New York City roof. As films drifted towards better lighting conditions in the actual west, the authenticity increased along with the scale of the scenery.

Mabel Normand and Dark Cloud in The Squaw's Love (1911)

The Squaw’s Love (1911) directed by Griffith for Biograph showed how the treatment of Native Americans also changed over this time. Here they were the centre of the story – albeit including Mabel Normand in make-up – in an adventure of their own.

By the time of The Indian Vestal (1911) Indians were seen massacring a group of settlers and making off with a blonde child who becomes their medicine woman (Viola Barry). After years of providing mystical services for the tribe she meets a white trapper (Hobart Bosworth) and one thing leads to several others.

Custer’s Last Fight (1912) was historically interesting for showing how Custer was viewed thirty years after his demise but it lacked the dynamism of the fictional films being too concerned with fact. It was still fascinating all the same: even defeats need to be explained away by the ultimate victors.

Broncho Billy’s Adventures (1911) ended the morning on a light-hearted high as Billy (Gilbert Anderson) intervenes to make sure true love runs smooth as he fends off would be suitors for a hotelier’s daughter (Edna Fisher). Not your typical Billy but he couldn’t get the girl all of the time.

Meg Morley accompanied for this section with the surity of a sharp-shooter waiting to pounce on the slightest shift in tone and narrative. She and used some intriguingly unresolved progressions for Broncho Billy that stuck in my head for hours.

Programme 3: A Cowboy's Best Friend

Lunch consumed, the pace picked up in two fast and furious action films featuring horses, or rather ponies and a wonder horse. The pace was breakneck and, in spite of three horses being top billed in Rex’s film, the stories were dramatically compelling.

"Thrills? Man, you never knew what the word meant before!"

Saved by the Pony Express (1914) saw Tom Mix jumping on an off a succession of ponys to illustrate the importance of this fast moving postal service in saving your pal from wrongful conviction. Whilst in The Devil Horse (1926), we got to see how a horse could fight, fall in love and “hate Indians”; truly Rex was a wonder as well as being a horse – if not a politically-correct one.

John Sweeney played along at full gallop crashing down hard on the deeper notes with all the force of Rex’s thundering hooves.

Programme 4: Women Out West

Michelle Facey presented a session on female western stars and went so deep into her subject she uncovered a film featuring a troop of – currently – unknown actors. Michelle had clearly been burning the midnight oil lamp, locked in her North London garret with stacks of primary sources and the ghost of Vilma Banky, she brought back to screen a series of wonderful western women.

Josie Sedgwick was a crosspatch Calamity Jane in The Sawdust Trail (1924) and I just wish we could have seen a bit more to see her land one on the sneaky “Hoot”(yeah, sure…) Gibson.

Texas Guinan

A Girl of the West (1911) featured Lillian Christy as the pugnacious Polly Dixon, a girl who can handle horse, fists and rifle as well as any man as she proves in foiling an audacious robbery. Apparently the decade featured over 60 serials featuring such women of independent thought and deed: that sounds like a trend to me.

The Substitute (1911) was the mystery film and the only named contributor is Lillian M Rubenstein which is a shame because the actress playing Jennie Rock a fearless telegraph operator and station agent, is superb, full of character and guile. Another case for The Silent Detective…

Two Little Rangers (1912) was directed by Alice Guy Blache and featured Vinnie Burns a stuntwoman turned actress as the eldest of two feisty sisters who put paid toe “Wild Bill” Gray’s nefarious plans. At one point Vinnie’s character fashions a bow and arrow out of sticks and – presumably – a garter strap: there’s resourceful!

Vinnie Burns at Cliffhanger Point in Fort Lee, NJ for Two Little Rangers (1912)

Last up was Texas Guinan, once described as “the female William S Hart”, in South O'Santa Fe (1919). Texas plays a tough girl throughout and you’re in no doubt that she as deadly as the males.

Lillian Henley and Meg Morley took turns on the old Joanna.

There was so much detail to savour; it would be good to learn more…

Programme 5: William S. Hart The Narrow Trail (1917)

Kevin Brownlow showed us his own 35mm print taken from the original camera negatives and reminded us that once upon a time “they all looked like this”. The print was indeed very sharp, with the odd century-old blemish but an authentic look, free of digital clean-up – an analogue experience created by light patterning photosensitive cells.

For me this was the film of the day, an almost flawless 75 minutes of pacing, performance and glorious scenery – including San Francisco Bay.

Sylvia Bremer and William S. Hart

Hart is mesmeric in this film and, in spite of his 53 years, his Ice Harding is a believable leading man effortlessly shifting from heartless highwayman to a lovelorn loser in search of a perfect second chance, he covers it all with actorly grace whilst sitting in the saddle with the true conviction of a western soul.

He’s saved by the love of a good woman Betty Werdin (Australian-born Sylvia Breamer – the spit of Helena Bonham-Carter!) who has more in common with him than he knows. There’s an excellent fight sequence in which Ice takes on half a dancehall in something approaching method-brawling; it’s people like William and Lillian that brought authenticity to the early screen.

Neil Brand accompanied in emphatic style throwing in some resounding themes and noir flavours reflecting the film’s cinematic prescience: Laura and lassoes… whose heart can you really trust when the lies run so deep?

Programme 6: Mrs Goldwyn’s favourite men

The day ends as it began with Mr Brownlow introducing the stunning Barbara Worth. The film starts like an outtake from Greed as a young woman (Vilma Banky) buries her husband in the sand and then battles to save her daughter from a sandstorm. It’s a brutal beginning and photographed so clearly it could have been made tomorrow.

Vilma Banky in The Winning of Barabara Worth (1926)

The woman perishes but her daughter, Barbara, is found alive by a Mr Worth (Charles Willis Lane) and grows up to be played by Vilma. This western is definitely in the Civil Engineering sub-category and tells the story of how Mr Worth and his business rival, McDonald (Ed Brady) try to dam the Colorado River and irrigate the Californian plains.

Ronald Coleman plays Willard Holmes who works with the rival whilst Gary Cooper plays Abe Lee the boy Barbara grew up with. Their romantic rivalry runs parallel to business as the mood gets mean as McDonald refuses to recognise the need for additional reinforcements on the dam… In a film like this that’s never a good sign. Sometimes the story doesn’t quite match the splendour of the scenery but it is a magnificent thing all in all and fitting end to a day of surprises and high quality.

Cyrus Gabrysch accompanied filling the huge spaces with Death Valley cool as humanity fights for life and love against overwhelming heat and the onrushing Colorado River.

Ronald, Vilma and Gary

All thanks to those who organised and volunteered – it was the warmest day of the year outside on the streets of Kennington but inside we drifted the high plains sipping a heady brew of past glories tasted amidst live light and music.

Kevin Brownlow and Clarence Brown… The Eagle (1925)

Rudy can't fail...

The theory of “six degrees of separation” has morphed into “six degrees of Kevin Bacon”… but how about “two degrees through Kevin Brownlow”?

Mr Brownlow met so many silent actors and directors and through him we have a direct connection to Mary Pickford, Eleanor Boardman, Edward Sloman, Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks!) and... many others. He’s a living link to the silent masters and his role in preserving and regenerating interest in their work is not to be under-estimated.

Watching him introduce Clarence Brown’s 1925 romp,The Eagle, at East Finchley’s Pheonix Cinema, you sense that he would shy away from such praise: he remains incredibly enthusiastic and is far more interested in his subjects than himself.

Vilma Bánky and Rudolph Valentino

Clarence Brown is clearly a director Brownlow thinks has been over-looked and in need of a re-appraisal and he was given due credit in what was rather more than an introduction to this film. The highlight was Mr Brownlow’s personal recollections of meeting Mr Brown and of discussing his work on camera in 1969…even though CB claimed he didn’t think the film was rolling. It’s a fascinating document and Brown is one smart cookie.

Brownlow also took us through lengthy sections of some of Brown’s other films:

- The Goose Woman (1925) – Louise Dresser heart-breaking as the opera singer who has thrown it all away for a broken family (shamefully a film that’s still on my list!)

- The Signal Tower (1924) – an action movie which left us hanging on a cliff-hanger as two trains ran towards collision and Wallace Beery menaced Virginia Valli

- Smouldering Fires (1925) - Pauline Frederick as the ahead-of-her-time, macho factory owner who we suspect may need to learn about love and work-life balance

- Flesh and the Devil (1926) Greta Garbo smouldering with John Gilbert in the first of their many romances.

Garbo is the actress most associated with Brown who directed her in seven films including a number of talkies, he’s a much under-appreciated part of her success. But we were here to see another silent star and one I had never watched before, Mr Rudolph Valentino (I know… what can I say...).

Rudolph Valentino

No other silent actor can come with quite so much baggage as the Latin lover, the man who broke so many hearts that people seemingly took their own lives rather than face up to life without him… Surely he had to take himself that seriously too?

But no, what we find is a very handsome man who can act and who has a deliciously inclusive sense of humour to prick the bubble of heroic pomposity: think Antonio Banderas in an Aldomorvar film: a little camp but in a masculine way only real men can carry off!

Valentino is Lt. Vladimir Dubrovsky one of the bravest officers in the imperial elite serving the Czarina, Catherine (Louise Dresser). Spotting a runaway carriage he leaps onto his horse and sets off in pursuit, jumping on and pulling the horses to a halt.

Insert inappropriate comment here...

The party he rescues includes a beautiful young noblewoman, Miss Mascha Troekouroff (played by the delectable Vilma Bánky)… pleasantries are exchanged but he has an appointment with a more significant suitor, his Czarina.

Dresser doesn’t get much screen time but she’s, er... great as Catherine who struggles to negotiate the conflicts between her royal duties and her heart. She asks the young officer if he wants to be a general and almost swoons as he salutes her. But Dubrovsky has other duties to attend to in the form of his ill father whose estate and fortune are under threat.

Albert Conti and Louise Dresser

He runs away from his mistress’ proposal and she promptly puts a price on his head for desertion. Luckily for Catherine there is another officer – Dubrovsky’s pal Captain Kuschka (Albert Conti) who does want to be a general… and rather more besides.

Sadly Dubrovsky is not able to make it home to stop his father losing all as he dies leaving his land to be grabbed by the villainous Kyrilla Troekouroff (James A. Marcus, as cowardly as he is gluttonous).

Dubrovsky won’t take this lying down and turns himself into a Robin Hood figure – The Black Eagle – who leads his father’s remaining loyal staff into an escalating set of counter-measures aimed at over-throwing the usurper.

The Black Eagle and his merry men

Encountering a man who has been employed to teach French (incidentally, the language of the Tsarist court even up to the pre-revolutionary period…) to Kyrilla’s daughter, Dubrovsky takes his place as a means of breaking in and causing chaos.

Yet, when he arrives he sees that his student is to be the beautiful girl he rescued…

Valentino, James A. Marcus and Vilma Bánky

Thus things go as rom-coms go with love/hate heading only the one way for Dubrovsky and Mascha… Bánky and Valentino have tremendous rapport and she allows him to show his heroic humour.

Gradually Kyrilla is revealed as more buffoon than despot as the threats of imminent retribution from the Black Eagle un-nerve him more and more: you do wonder how he ever managed to take control of the Dubrovsky estate.

Dinner is served

Brown directs with a sure touch (not for nothing was he “blind-tasted” as Lubitsch by one Hollywood insider) and some innovative shots including an amazing dolly shot along the full length of Kyrilla’s banquet table. It’s a very well-made film and the print on view is in superb condition – watching it is indeed, as Mr Brownlow said, seeing silent film as it really was.

Accompaniment throughout was provided by Stephen Horne who really showed his versatility in the introductory mix – I especially liked the The Signal Tower’s dramatic train collision.  For the main feature his lyrical lines added flavour to the love story whilst he used a mix of flute, electronic keyboard and accordion to enrich the adventure.

Hearing silent film as it really was…

There’s a cheap DVD release for The Eagle but I would urge you to catch it if it is shown again and hopefully Kevin Brownlow will introduce it further. Time for a Clarence Brown season at the BFI perhaps?