Lazybones (1925), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

 

Dave Glass’ introduction included a visual essay starting with William Fox (of whom more later at the KB) which then focused on an overview of the director of tonight’s main feature, Frank Borzage with a reminder of his chief elements of style, his longevity and quality. He made four features in 1925 starting with perhaps Norma Talmadge’s finest performance and finest film, The Lady and ending up with Lazybones (1922) – an outstanding year commercially as well as artistically.

 

The title may indicate a romantic comedy with some predictable turns of fate to enable the titular character, Steve Tuttle (Buck Jones) redemption as a hard-working, hero and yet the film is so much more than that and is an a-typical romance in which the main character’s laziness is a more existential challenge to his self-awareness. When the need arises, he is decisive and quick to action, but he is faulted by an unwillingness to challenge his heart even as he often does the right thing and has moral courage. Borzage – and Frances Marion’s script – enable our full sympathy but there’s something unsaid, un-done and unfulfilled which at the last is revealed as a very smart piece of filmmaking.

 

Mr Glass covered the arrival of Herr Murnau at Fox where he was sent to encourage and review other director’s to add more Germanic nuance to their work but seemingly he spent as much time watching Borzage at work as advising him, the results of this cross-continental pollination are there for all to see in the combinations of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor with a bit of George O’Brien and a bit more of the splendid Mary Duncan (City Girl and The River being two of the greatest films about love made by each director or any human).

 

Buster Jones... how's he gonna to get the day's work done?

Buster Jones is a handsome chap albeit no Charles Farrell I hear my wife – and a number of others –cry, but he’s got his charms and here is conveys “Lazy” in ways that belie his casting in so many westerns. He’s a careful ploy by Borzage, playing against type and in ways which the audience really can’t pin down. Bones is indeed lazy and he gets caught napping even by the local fish quick enough to leap off the line after waking the somnambulant fisherman, insists that his ragged roof doesn’t need fixing as it’s not raining and asks his Mom (Edythe Chapman) to remind him to fix their wonky gate: “that darn gate!” says everyone who passes through it today, tomorrow and for years to come.

 

Jones looks like one of life’s easy winners and yet here he presents as a man preparing himself for disappointment by prevarication: why look life square in the eye when you can just sleep it off. Borzage makes sure his audience isn’t lulled into the dream by wrong-footing us and heaping humiliations on Steve, and us, as time and again he’s caught napping. It’s enough to drive Erich von Stroheim out of the theatre in floods of tears.

 

We are waiting for something to happen, something to reveal the hero within as good defeats evil in a world in which bad men do not profit for being rotten bullies by being promoted. Turns out that it’s that American Dream we used to hear about.

 

Zasu Pitts and Jane Novak

It begins with Frank’s gentle routines being disturbed by the arrival of his sweetheart Agnes Fanning (Jane Novak) and her fearsome mother (Emily Fitzroy). The two ride in by tandem and Mrs Fanning’s stiff-backed posture lets you know to expect the worst… She cannot disguise her disgust at Steve and certainly doesn’t want his relationship with Agnes to develop. Steve manages to get his jalopy running and momentarily impresses before it blows up, he tells Agnes he has plans and whilst in a more typical film there would be a hidden secret to rescue his fortune here you cannot be so sure.

 

Mrs Fanning much prefers the local “Beau Brummel”, Elmer Ballister (William Bailey) who she has lined up for her elder daughter Ruth (Zasu Pitts); he’s a real go-getter and full of it. She writes to Ruth telling her to return from her teaching post and prepare herself for wedlock. But Ruth has been rather busy away from home having married a sailor and born his child only to be rapidly widowed following his death at sea. She returns home with her child convinced that no one will believe that she has ever been married and in a moment of desperation, throws herself into the fast-running waters on the edge of town. Now we see how fast Lazybones can move if he wants to as, hearing her cries he wakes from his slumber-fishing to dive in and save her.

 

Safely on the riverbank, Ruth tells all and Steve agrees an unlikely plan to save her reputation by looking after her baby daughter until she has the strength to confess all to her mother. He returns home with the baby spinning the tale of finding her abandoned and spurred on by Elmer’s callous disdain, announces that he will adopt. Ruth is safe for the moment but when she finally tells her mother the old harridan refuses to listen or believe taking a stick to her terrified daughter in a genuinely shocking moment. Mrs Fanning may well be the wicked witch of the mid-West but a shadow of shame hangs momentarily across Emily Fitzroy’s brow before she grits her teeth in cruel resolve.

 

Steve finds a baby

Ruth cannot take her baby back and Steve realises that he’s in for the long haul. Agnes cannot face this with the inevitable implications concerning the child’s true father, and she tells poor Steve that she will never speak to him again… her final card played to her lasting regret. Events move forward to 1915 with Kit now a young girl (played by Virginia Marshall) who is still regarded with suspicion by the locals. Agnes sees her trying to befriend a local child only for the mother to pull her away whilst Steve tells his adopted daughter that it’s all his fault for being lazy.

 

War comes and Steve listlessly enlists only to find himself an accidental hero after he sleeps through the order to advance and ends up capturing a German squadron from the rear. He returns to a hero’s welcome and to find Kit all grown up and looking mighty pretty (Madge Bellamy). Kit is in love with one Dick Ritchie (Leslie Fenton) who has even fixed that darn gate. Richie proposes but Steve also realises that he has feelings for his young ward…OK, that’s a bit from left field but it’s not the only surprise as events play out in a very European way…

Lazybones packs an accumulation of little punches that leave your thoughts provoked long after the film has stopped playing. It is an intelligent film from Mr Borzage and one that stands the test of time with a message that nothing should be taken for granted in a world of false formalities. Zasu Pitts is a vital counter to the easy-going, she’s a remarkable performer with a uniquely-unsettling way here wilting in front of our very eyes as the woman with her life ruined by the need to keep up her mother’s appearances. Emily Fitzroy is also good as her sister Ruth whose heartbreak is slower burning but none the less real.

 

Madge Bellamy and Buck Jones

Don’t be lazy, make real choices and don’t sleep on the job of life. Borzage’s woke agenda still speaks powerfully.

 

All of this was added extra force by the immaculate improvisations of John Sweeney on the piano as he matched the subtle turmoil on scream meeting every triumph and disaster with carefully conceived flourishes melding with the action in that uncanny way he does, holding us rapt in the space between the thoughts and expressions.

 

The plan unravells in The House of Flickers

A seemingly more straightforward task was provided in his accompaniment of the evening’s first film, The House of Flickers (1925) a short directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starring James Parrott who, as I’m sure you all know, was the brother of the even more famous Charles Joseph Parrott also known as Charlie Chase. It’s a fast-moving comedy about a man trying to sell his picture house only for a cheeky chimp to mess up the nitrate in the projection booth. It features lots of guest players and none more famous that the primate, name of Josephine, who would later steal the limelight from Buster Keaton in The Cameraman. Also featured is The Wonder Dog Pal as Pete the Pup who gives a performance of nuanced dexterity as you would expect.

 

The Kennington Bioscope has never shied away from working with animals or, indeed, children should the need arise.

Can’t buy you love… Greed (1924), BFI with Stephen Horne

Back in 2011 I’d watched the ARTE four-hour “restored” version of Erich von Stroheim's Greed but seeing a mere 132-minute version projected with live music really brought the core of the story emphatically to life.I'm not saying I agree with MGM's decision to strip down vonStroheim's vision but what's left is still so good it's better than most films.

Stephen Horne accompanied in style matching the film tonally and synchronising mood but also style as he played along on accordion as Mac squeezed out hymns to Trina on the unglamourous Oakland beach. Stephen’s played to Greed before but not that frequently which made these perfectly sequenced multi-instrumental moments all the more impressive.

Decades of practice makes for perfect and had the film been nearer its original length of 9-10 hours; I’m sure he would have kept pace (possibly with a break or four...). As it was, the accordion, flute, piano – whether played straight, deliberately-distorted with paper placed on the strings, or with those same strings plucked – and other effects matched and enhanced one of the most distinctive and brutally believable of all silent films.

Zasu Pitts

I deliberately wait to watch the “cannon” projected and with live music (and maybe one day someone will screen Sunrise without a pre-recorded score and I’ll see that too!) and the connection and experience of the work is always better. An informed and sympathetic audience helps too and those of us sheltering from 30-degree London knew full well that we were swapping rare metropolitan summertime for even rarer classic film.

Von Stroheim wanted to film the whole of Frank Norris' 1899 novel McTeague but everyone, except him, knew it was impossible. But what remains is unsettlingly life-like... rich in the details of everday desparation and human failure.

Gibson Gowland

The cast were chosen for their looks and not in a John Gilbert or Norma Talmadge way… Gibson Gowland is rough-around-the-edges McTeague a man who cares for small birds but with suitable provocation might throw you down a ravine if you crossed him. His best buddy Marcus is played by a Jean Hersholt realistically out of condition and in ill-fitting clothes and slicked down hair whilst the woman who comes between them, Trina, is played by Zasu Pitts like a cross between a drugged-up Lillian Gish and Stan Laurel. Pitts is the standout performer here and her transition from scared little mouse to deranged miser is played out through her manic saucer eyes and protean contortions the equal of Lon Chaney’s.

Her Trina is terrified of McTeague, none more so than on their wedding night but sublimates all in the pursuit of more money; a psychosis derived from either winning $5000 on the lottery, marrying her brutal dentist or both.

Jean Hersholt and Gibson Gowland

If there’s one sequence that gives away the film’s tone and the director’s signalling it’s this marriage which takes place in McTeague’s dental practice. As the vows are being read the camera looks down on the priest and couple then, with stunning deep-focus, reveals a crowd outside watching a funeral procession: in the midst of life (and this film) we can expect death. Stephen made light work of this unexpected duality and the moment had me in mind of Mahler’s First Symphony when the composer interweaved a funeral march with a folk dance; a mix he remembered having experienced as a child.

The funeral procession passes by outside during the vows...

If Trina’s character is mercurial McTeague’s an open book: a “slow-witted “man with anger issues. It’s interesting that von Stroheim dedicated the film to his mother as of the two mothers featured in Greed, one, McTeague’s, spends her life worrying about what might become of her son whilst the other, Trina’s, is a good old German mutter - about which Erich would know plenty - prone to cartoonish exploits with her husband and their three smaller children.

Mother McTeague pleads with her wastrel husband in a restored sequence (still only)

I re-watched the reconstruction and the story is a much fuller one – there’s an opening sub-plot dealing with McTeague’s father, a drunkard who spends all his time and money on booze and other vices, ignoring his poor wife’s entreaties to give her money… as well as much more details on those living in the block where McTeague’s dental practice is located, especially Maria the Mexican who sells the unwanted junk she is given to a man called Zerkow. Zerkow becomes obsessed himself with the idea of hidden treasure denied to him by Maria but this sub plot is missing entirely from the studio cut. 

Zerkow dreams of golden avarice are restored in still form for the ARTE restoration.

The reduced version still works though as it focuses on the main three characters… it’s less novelistic but still compelling in detail and the patient way von Stroheim dismantles good humour, civilised behaviour and all hope.

It does remind me of Zola and other late nineteenth century "realists" and the characters are largely doomed mostly by their own decisions. Their world is horrible and not unlike our own: how would we act in Greed?

The closing section is remarkable, prefiguring dozens of desert pursuits in later westerns, it shows the options fatally running out for men, horses and even birds. The story is wound up by a classic device which rams home the central point that the consequences of selfishness are terminal and damning in this world not just the next.

Death Valley '24

Greed was shot by von Stroheim entirely on location including weeks in Death Valley for this sequence. That’s a measure of his insane commitment to make something “real” and possibly lasting. Despite his torment at the studio’s butchery, posterity holds his film up not only as one of the greats but also as a missed opportunity for Hollywood to advance the art of movie making. Of course, they were never going to take the chance…  We mourn what was lost and savour what remains of this unique production.

The tinted birds in the restoration may indicate the connection between gold and freedom?

Bizarrely only a Spanish DVD is available of the film – industry indifference having passed down through generations of marketing and product development staff... When there are so many inferior films on Blu-ray you wonder how a such things come to pass. This is a major film, surely the film studies market alone is enough to justify a release of the ARTE restoration? That’s me as a publishing professional speaking and not as a silent movie fan… if you don’t monetise the great legacy of silent film you have to fight harder to preserve it and this is a golden (yes, on purpose) opportunity to do just that.

But. All this aside, huge props to the BFI for screening the film twice and for getting not only Stephen but the excellent John Sweeney to play along the previous week. I cannot complain at all about the quality and content!!

Sleepin' in the sun... Lazybones (1925)

Buck Jones

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” as Quarry Bank High School alumni John Lennon once said, yet for Steve Tuttle, life is what happens when he’s busy not even making plans. Named Lazybones by the locals he spends his time in relaxed denial always putting off till tomorrow what could be done today.

He gets caught napping even by the local fish quick enough to leap off the line after waking the faint-hearted fisherman, insists that his ragged roof doesn’t need fixing as it’s not raining and asks his Mom (Edythe Chapman) to remind him to fix their wonky gate: “that darn gate!” says everyone who passes through it today, tomorrow and for years to come.

There’s surely not much mileage in this lazy tale I hear you cry and yet Frank Borzage’s film is gently misleading; elegantly side-swiping the expectations of audience and Hollywood alike with a narrative that is far harder than it looks.

The director elicits some superb performances from his cast, chiefly from Buck Jones who was best known for cowboy roles and yet here creates a nuanced character as far away from genre preconceptions as you could imagine. Jones is a handsome chap and looks like one of life’s easy winners and yet here he presents as a man preparing himself for disappointment by prevarication: why look life square in the eye when you can just sleep it off.

No flies on Steve: they all get caught in the spider webs on his shoes...

Is he waiting for something to happen? When it does he is quick to react and demonstrates physical and moral courage and yet… will these acts change him into a more acceptable “hero”? Maybe he does enough and deserves security in his own nature after all it’s the energy and ambition of the more aggressively moral souls around him that create the misery. Lazybones is as much about the competitive consensus as it is about the titular slacker: he remains true to himself whilst the others in passing judgement lose out.

Emily Fitzroy and Jane Novak

Borzage’s composition and cinematography is suitably dream-like with cameramen Glen MacWilliams and George Schneiderman picking up the wonderful light of the rural settings: something so bright that any sensible man would shield his eyes and just lie back on a tree trunk to bask…

Written by Frances Marion from a play by Owen Davis the film is a tale of the unexpected that only really makes itself known in the closing sequences but I won’t give those away… 

Emily Fitzroy and Jane Novak

It begins with Frank’s gentle routines being disturbed by the arrival of his sweetheart Agnes Fanning (winningly-winsome Jane Novak) and her fearsome mother (Emily Fitzroy). The two ride in by tandem and Mrs Fanning’s stiff-backed posture lets you know to expect the worst… She cannot disguise her disgust at Steve and certainly doesn’t want his relationship with Agnes to develop.

Steve manages to get his jalopy running and momentarily impresses before it blows up, he tells Agnes he has plans and whilst in a more typical film there would be a hidden secret to rescue his fortune here you cannot be so sure.

Mrs Fanning much prefers the local “Beau Brummel”, Elmer Ballister (William Bailey) who she has lined up for her elder daughter Ruth (Zasu Pitts); he’s a real go-getter and full of it. She writes to Ruth telling her to return from her teaching post and prepare herself for wedlock. But Ruth has been rather busy away from home having married a sailor and born his child only to be rapidly widowed following his death at sea.

Zasu Pitts

She returns home with her child convinced that no one will believe that she has ever been married (no licence?) and in a moment of desperation, throws herself into the fast-running waters on the edge of town. Now we see how fast Lazybones can move if he wants to as, hearing her cries he wakes from his slumber-fishing to dive in and save her.

Ruth after the rescue...

Safely on the river bank, Ruth tells all and Steve agrees an unlikely plan to save her reputation by looking after her baby daughter until she has the strength to confess all to her mother. He returns home with the baby spinning the tale of finding her abandoned and spurred on by Elmer’s callous disdain, announces that he will adopt.

Ruth is safe for the moment but when she finally tells her mother the old harridan refuses to listen or believe taking a stick to her terrified daughter in a genuinely shocking moment. Mrs Fanning may well be the wicked witch of the mid-West but a shadow of shame hangs momentarily across Emily Fitzroy’s brow before she grits her teeth in cruel resolve.

Ruth cannot take her baby back and Steve realises that he’s in for the long haul. Agnes cannot face this with the inevitable implications concerning the child’s true father, and she tells poor Steve that she will never speak to him again… her final card played to her lasting regret.

Events move forward to 1915 with Kit now a young girl (played by Virginia Marshall) who is still regarded with suspicion by the locals. Agnes sees her trying to befriend a local child only for the mother to pull her away whilst Steve tells his adopted daughter that it’s all his fault for being lazy.

War comes and Steve listlessly enlists only to find himself an accidental hero after he sleeps through the order to advance and ends up capturing a German squadron from the rear. He returns to a hero’s welcome and to find Kit all grown up and looking mighty pretty (Madge Bellamy).

Kit is in love with one Dick Ritchie (Leslie Fenton) who has even fixed that darn gate. Richie proposes but Steve also realises that he has feelings for his young ward…OK, that’s a bit from left field but it’s not the only surprise as events play out in a very European way…

Lazybones packs an accumulation of little punches that leave your thoughts provoked long after the film has stopped playing. It is an intelligent film from Mr Borzage and one that stands the test of time with a message that nothing should be taken for granted in a World of false formalities.

In addition to Buster Jones, Zasu Pitts is also on song, giving her all in her uniquely-unsettling way as the woman with her life ruined by the need to keep up her mother’s appearances whilst Emily Fitzroy is also good as her sister Ruth whose heartbreak is slower burning but none the less real.

Lazybones is available on the Murnau and Borzage box set from TCM – very collectably-priced on Amazons but you can also watch it more cost-effectively on Netflix US.

Gloriously grotesque... Greed (1924)

I've just finished watching the near-four-hour restored version of Erich von Stroheim's "Greed". It took me a few sessions but it's definitely worth it to get a proper feel for how his vision for the fuller version of this once ten hours' long epic would have played out.

The film is renowned for its cost, its length and its director's ambition. Von Stroheim wanted to film the whole of Frank Norris' 1899 novel McTeague and he wanted to leave nothing out. His whole approach was uncompromising and stubbornly brave for a film of its period - any period really. The commercial pressure was no different in the early 20's from the era of "Heaven's Gate", Kubrick's never filmed "Napoleon" or any number of Francis Ford Coppola epics.

This tale of human frailty and the perverting, twisting power of greed pulls no punches either dramatically or visually. Von Stroheim cast an offbeat and strikingly un-attractive cast or at least one that didn't mind unforgiving lighting, unsympathetic make up and prolonged exposure via close ups. Gibson Gowland is McTeague, Jean Hersholt his buddy turned bitter nemesis Marcus and Zasu Pitts plays Trina who marries McTeague, wins the lottery and sets things off. All give honest and unflinching performances, but Pitts is particularly unsettling. She was more noted as a comedienne in her career bur maybe clowns make the transition to grotesquerie more easily than those more used to playing heroes?

There are few sympathetic characters in this film and almost all are made unpleasant by selfishness and a lack of human concern so prevalent in Hollywood then, now and forever. This is not a film to be taken for granted and it’s a hard, challenging experience.

It's paced like a book and reminds me of Zola and other late nineteenth century "realists". The characters are largely doomed and mostly by their own decisions. Their world is horrible and not unlike our own: how would we act in "Greed"?

The closing section is a work of genius, prefiguring dozens of desertpursuits in later westerns, it shows the options fatally running out for men, horses and even birds. The story is wound up by a classic device which rams home the central point that the consequences of selfishness are terminal and damning in this world not just the next.

Now...I think I need something light! Maybe Jean Harlow again in "Bombshell"!

But watch "Greed" if you haven't already seen it. Reconstructed youTube viewing here otherwise you'll have to track down a VHS copy; there's one left on Amazon!.