Electric Gypsy… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Day Three

Let’s start at the big finish shall we, let’s begin with the pure diva pomp and circumstance of Italia Almirante Manzini playing the Queen of the Gypsies in Zingari (IT 1920) which brought the Teatro Verdi to its feet with a combination of on-screen energy and the startling accompaniment from a super group comprised of Günter Buchwald, Elizabeth-Jane Baldry and Frank Bockius, let’s call them Baldry, Buchwald and Bockius or BBB for short (or B³ for even shorter). I appreciate that gypsy is an archaic term now and that Romani is now favoured, but this film is called “Gypsy” and no offence is meant (certainly not to my wife’s family, who have the heritage).

 

My Uncle played violin for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for 30 years and I remember him giving me a list of violin music to help understand the development of the modern style from Paganini to Jascha Heifetz as he also stressed the influence of Romani music on classical style. It wasn’t just Brahms who used to frequent "Zum Roten Igel*" (The Red Hedgehog) tavern in Vienna to listen to the gypsy musicians’ ferocity and dexterity and he was far from alone in being influenced by the techniques and sentiment.

 

And our pulses did quicken when Günter Buchwald unleashed the “gypsy” in his violin playing tonight, sure he can play the piano but this was him letting rip with glorious runs, double bowing and tapping (? I still don’t know how these things work?!) an instrument that is as vocal as any, with guttural scratching, lighting quick phrasing and pure tonal power. Not for nothing have I previously described Elizabeth Jane Baldry as the Hendrix of the Silent Film Harp and she matched the pace with startling runs of her own, again showing the flexibility and tonal variety of her harp. Elizabeth also sang as Günter played piano and Frank Bockius had, as usual, come to the party to swing and bring order and the beat to even the wildest improvisation.

 

It was the accompaniment that this spirited adaptation of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s opera Zingari (Gypsies), which was a huge success across the western world after its 1912 London debut and which was based on Alexander Pushkin’s narrative poem The Gypsies (1827). The film was directed by directed by Mario Almirante and is essentially an extended exercise in showing off Italia Almirante-Manzini. Shot throughout with huge rings of mascara with dark lipstick, there must be a close-up of the actress every minute, with lighting and camera angle centred on her full regular features, head normally tilted with an imperious angle.

 

Italia Almirante Manzini has a regal moment

As Vielka, daughter of the Gyspy King Jammadar (Alfonso Cassini) she is fierce and unruly, determined to sacrifice everything for the man she loves, Sindel (Amleto Novelli… who is a total miva!) even though he is from a rival clan and physically puts the old man in his place when challenged, starting the feud that runs the entire narrative. Vielka is supposed to marry Gudlo (Franz Sala), whose not a patch on Sindel so no wonder she burns their farmhouse and gets herself exiled. Will there be any happy ending, do operas ever have happy endings?

 

Feelings run high but then they always do in opera and in diva film even though there were claims in contemporary reviews that Almirante Manzini was distancing herself “ever further from the art… of certain divas, and marvellously moves toward reality and life itself…” (La Rivista Cinematografica, 11^th October 1921). I don’t think that’s sustainable when you look at the actual proto-realism of Francesca Bertini or even the elevated theatricality and movement of Lyda Borelli who just had more range… but this is a very impressive performance that utilises so much of the diva art!

 

Brava!!

 

Suzanne Grandais in Le Coeur et L’Argent (1912)

Louis Feuillade shorts with Daan van den Hurk, Elizabeth-Jane Baldry

The hardest working harpist in Northern Italy was also on call for a wonderful quartet of Louis Feuillade shorts in the morning session… I don’t want to be mean to David Wark but his French colleague had clearly advanced the art in a number of ways in the years following the Biograph shorts we’re seeing. All three of the films demonstrate a lighter touch in terms of both the narrative, the subject matter and the performance, communicating their purpose with fewer grand gestures and perhaps with the expectation of more audience empathy.

 

The films were part of a series, La Vie telle qu’elle est (Life as it is) made on reduced budgets with fewer actors, designed to be £modern and intimate” as Bernard Bastide says in the catalogue notes. Sadly, according to Bastide, whilst the series started well, it was not ultimately successful although for me at least the settings, more naturalistic performances and – crucially – using the same stock of actors, gives the films a continuity of tone and quality.

 

les vipères (FR 1911) was very much a film for today with a bailiff taking pity on an evicted servant (Renèe Carl) and asking her to look after his sick wife (Alice Tissot) and her domestic duties. Soon rumours spread like a meme on social media and before you know it the spark of doubt has grown into full-on outrage. As with now, nothing is learned and pain only ensues as the poor woman leaves the village for the sake of her good Samaritan and his wife.

 

Le Nain (FR 1912) is a startling take on a form of disability with more than a nod to Cyrano – these programmes don’t just form themselves you know! Delphin (later in Zero for Conduct (1933)) is a successful playwright who falls for the beauteous star of his latest success, Lina (Suzanne Grandais) but cannot dare tell her the truth that although he is an adult he has only the stature of a boy and still lives with his mother (Renée Carl again). He conducts a correspondence with the actress and they form a virtual relationship via the phone with a clever shot showing them talking, each at home and with a split-screen showing Parisian roads between them. It’s as brief as Saturday’s Cyrano was colourful and long but poignant all the same.

 

Suzanne Grandais is also the female lead in the next two Le Coeur et L’Argent (1912) and Erreur Tragique (1913) when she survives an assassination attempt by means of horse after her husband believes she is seeing another man after seeing them in the background of a movie: honestly, how much more meta do you need!?

 

"Fought in the war did you young Arlen, I ran away to sea as a boy!!"

 The Blood Ship (US 1927) with Donald Sosin

 

It was time for some bitter sea shanties and the unique ultra-violent stylings of Mr Hobart Bosworth by now getting on in years but still more than capable of leering with psychopathic rage out from the screen. The Blood Ship is based on the 1922 novel of the same name by Norman Springer and is very much tailor-made for a Hobart Bosworth blood bath. The star of the unforgiving Behind the Door had earned his sea legs at a young age after apparently running away from home at 12 then working as a cabin boy on a sea clipper for three years before work on an artic whaler. The son of a Civil War naval captain, he clearly heard the call of the sea but he became involved in theatre aged 18 when invited to work as a stage manager helping to produce backdrops, work he hoped would enable him to study art. Quite the shift for a man who, in Norman Springer’s words, looked like the sort of “hard case” you would find working the toughest seas… because, he actually was.

 

 

The Blood Ship was one some two dozen nautical films he made and it gives him full rein to bring his weather worn features and remarkable sensitivity for both red-hot fury and despair, to the role of a man robbed of life and liberty who is seeking revenge for more than he knows… and he ramps up the righteous anger with emphatic force as the full extent of his betrayal is revealed.

 

Directed by George B. Seitz it concerns The Golden Bough, a trading ship run by the brutal Captain Angus “Black Yankee” Swope (Walter James) a man who in the late 1880s was “cursed from Liverpool to Singapore as the cruellest master that sailed the Seven Seas…”. We find him ordering the lashing of a would-be mutineer aided by his equally unforgiving First Mate, Fitz (Fred Kohler who would play so many henchmen – he had a face for cruelty). The other crew seethe silently and only the Captain’s daughter Mary (Jacqueline Logan) tries to help the poor man.

 

Swope is a cynical abuser and he knows that treating his crew mean will keep them in line and that they’ll escape the first chance they get without his having to pay them and as the ship’s hull touches the dock they’re all off. Meanwhile at Knitting Swede’s Lodging and Beds, where sailors are parted from their money and new “recruits” shanghaied, the handsome, some might say too handsome John Shreve (Richard Arlen) takes it all in before out muscling the Swede’s henchman (our own Syd Crossley). Then he tries to protect Mary when she attempts to escape her father’s ship and meets the mysterious brooding figure sat smoking a pipe at his table…

 

Both men volunteer for Swope’s ship though, John because he wants to protect Mary and the latter for reasons all of his own. This being a Hobart Bosworth production you just know there will be a hate-filled battle at the end of the film and few actors could match his convincing ferocity and righteous indignation. There is good support from Arlen and all including Blue Washington who is gifted with a dramatic role that doesn’t entirely rely on the usual racial stereotypes of this era – he has agency and isn’t the butt of the usual jokes, until the very end that is…

 

Donald Sosin accompanied as he has on this restorations recent Blu-ray release.

 

In addition, we saw a number of shorts that influenced our Charlie of which Max Linder’s Le Renez-vous (FR 1913) was the slickest and funniest as our handsome hero uses his charm to somehow secure a date with two different women at the same house… a victim of his own success one could say. Neil Brand accompanied this section and he has refined a slapstick technique all of his own with well timed and forceful lines that bring out the full flavours of the Verdi’s mighty Fazioli.

 

God’s Half Acre (US 1916) with John Sweeney

 

This film was impressive but also confusing as a missing reel left most of us wondering what had happened to whom and why? Still… it all worked out fine in the end even though we had to check the catalogue to find out why? Well made and on the sentimental side with a nursing home and a care home for children it provided a glimpse into the welfare provision of the United States at this time – TLDR: fine if we have the room and the generosity of spirit.

 

Henry Norman (Jack W. Johnston) is a novelist who travels to a care home called Rainbow’s End in search of inspiration for his next novel he finds it in the form of the bullying manageress and one of the young women who volunteer, Blossom (Mabel Taliaferro) who he terms as “a dear little mite of wonderment”. Blossom falls for him, initially ignoring his intellectual superiority but then running away after finding both an excerpt of his writing and the fact that he is married. Oh, I do hope this misunderstanding can be somehow rectified in time?

The film also uses the phrase “Pink tea talk”… which suggests a non-caffeinated intellectual preaching to the masses or perhaps someone using herbal tea for mischievous ends?

 

It was left to The Belgians to confuse us even more but then we had come prepared for their surrealist larks – Impose No Meaning, hold back conscious thoughts and just be in the moments watching the whirl. Henri Storck’s Op de boorden van de camera (1932) was a skilful montage of pleasing images passed more pleasurably than Charles Dekeukeleire’s Histoire de detective (1929) in which a detective called H investigated the activities of a suited man in hat called Jonathan who wandered around with his own purpose and his own thoughts and reached his own conclusions about which we cannot speculate.

 

Mauro Colombis’ role on the piano carefully followed a similar brief.

 

There were two shorts from the increasingly pleasing Fleischer brothers to keep us grounded in the realities of pen and ink! Fortune Teller lining up the evening’s big finish perfectly

 

*My mate Jon Banks is a member of a group inspired by this period called ZRI after the tavern – they are virtuosi and highly recommended if you want your classical music to quicken the pulse and even get you dancing! Details are on their website here!

 

 

Love and Death… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Edition 44, Day Two

Harry Solter on the job. Photo from Biograph Project showing restored image on right vs old paper copy...

Oh, Willie, my child dead, dead, dead! and he never knew me, never called me mother!*

Morning Mr Griffith... Something about a woman hiding a jewel thief in case her husband thinks he’s her secret lover, then a bloke gets stranded on an island for years enough to grow a big beard and returns to suspect his wife of “moving on” and then pirate gold is hidden in a kitchen, next to the hob, almost impossible to find when the next generation need it? Yes, these were just three of the scenarios facing the American Bioscope players under DW Griffith’s direction in 1908 and, luckily, they were all able to act their way out of it! To appreciate these films is an act of imagination and sympathy, it’s enabling yourself to ignore 117 years of over sophistication and also the “presentist” view that where we are now is somehow where we’ve always been (and will always stay – even if we vote in authoritarians…) but… no, in 1908 things were quite different and these films remind us of what changes and what stayed broadly The Same.

John Sweeney appreciates this more than most and used to hearing him at the BFI and Bioscope, I have to say he blew the lid off of the slick top-of-the-range Fazioli (if Ferrari made pianos..) and made us believe in these stories.

Blanche Forsythe and the rotter, Fred Morgan

East Lynne (1913) with Philip Carli

East Lynne was all the rage in the 1910s as it had been since the publication of Ellen Wood’s novel of the same name in 1861 and the subsequent attempts to capture the book’s fire in a bottle narrative on stage. Now on film, in the first of a number of adaptations, director Bert Haldane probably assumed familiarity with the story, and that might certainly explain some of the pacing issues.

The DCP screened to day is the result of a restoration of a 35mm nitrate from the collection of Christopher Bird who said at the recent screening in London’s Kennington Bioscope that whilst East Lynne is not a lost film as such but when quality is, as Kevin Brownlow says, the main thing archive cinema has to sell itself to modern audiences, this film has certainly been missing in terms of the vibrancy, contrast and tasty tints we glimpsed today.

Chris obtained an almost complete nitrate copy from a private collector which, compared with the black and white copy held by the BFI maybe missing the first reel but comes with an extra three minutes and those high-quality tints. Together with film archivist Bob Geoghegan and the BFI the restoration work has continued leading to today at the Teatre Verdi – a rare surviving copy of a British feature film from the pre-war era. Graphic designer and blogging wunderkind Fritzi Kramer (aka Movies Silently) has been involved in reconstructing some of the film’s title cards and, as she said to Chris, melodramas like this have to be watched in the spirit in which they were made and meant to be received – “loving the hokum, not taking it too seriously”.

All too true and the film looks good, courtesy of DOP Oscar Bovill, even though the same few locations – “just through the bushes… yes, the same ones as before…” – do a lot of the heavily lifting for “The Outside”, and some of the background actors, notably the partially-animated blonde male servants and a Doctor far younger than his wig,  should have stayed off shot. BUT, and it is a very British But!, there are serviceable performances from Blanche Forsythe as Lady Isobel, handsome Fred Paul as the steadfast Archibald Carlyle and whoever it was playing Barbara Hare, the sister of the man falsely accused of a murder committed by Isobel’s would be paramour, Captain Levison, as played with pantomime menace by Fred Morgan.

As a trained historian (well, they tried!) I delighted in the nods to period politics when Carlyle goes up against the scheming Levison to become the local MP, there are placards calling for the abolishment of the Window Tax and the Corn Tax (Corn Laws), as well as in support of Chartism which indicate that Bad Fred is a radical Whig whilst the goodie is a Tory. The Chartists stood apart from both main parties and were calling for such things like a vote for all men over 21, secret ballots and an end to property qualification for MPs, and, of their six main demands, all but one – annual elections – were achieved by 1919. The fact that Mrs Wood’s next book was A Life’s Secret (serialised in 1862) which attacked what she saw as unscrupulous Trade Unionists tells us all we need to know of her politics. She’d fit right in these days mind…

*East Lynne was adapted into a play - East Lynne. A Domestic Drama in a Prologue and Four Acts by T. A. Palmer in 1874 and it was on stage where the story became a phenomena, almost guaranteeing success and the half-joking line “East Lynne’s playing next week”. It was also the source of much ridicule with Palmer’s line during Little Willie’s death scene, given birth to the term “dead and never called me mother…”

Italia Almirante Manzini in Notte di Tempesta (GIF from the excellent Silents Please!)

Notte di Tempesta (IT 1917) with Meg Morley

Not only do we get to be introduced to La Diva della settimana: Italia Almirante Manzini but we also got to hear jazz specialist Meg Morley on the Fazioli and, it might just be me, but amongst her perfectly in 1917-character improvisations there’s the occasional fluid line of which McKoy Tyner would be proud! Her playing whisked us through this stylish drama which, as with the above, was a melodrama made firmly in the theatrical tradition of the country from which they came.

I’m not sure if Manzini breaks in to the Bertini-Borelli-Menichelli champions league of elite Divas but she is a very effective performer. And, just when I really wished that I had my copy of Angela Dalle Vacche's Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema, I find myself revisiting the power of the other three in order to judge Italia, but she is her own woman at the end of the day with the author mentioning Manzini's "operatic, stylised, and statuesque" way of acting, which are much in evidence during Night of the Storm, with Italia as The Storm!

Manzini is stylish, sporty – she plays tennis although always in a way that keeps her in camera shot, leaving herself vulnerable to passing shots from the back line… she plays a lot more too in a film that often falls foul of its narrative convolutions but it’s fun, and anyone falling for a bad Count in this type of undertaking had better be prepared for the consequences.

The Bioscope reviewer of 25^th October 1917, as quoted in the magnificent Giornate catalogue was keen: “It is admirably mounted and its exteriors are full of the glowing sunlight and rich shadow which mark the Italian filmmaker as a supreme pictorial artist. The acting constitutes a good example of the emotional school…” and it does! As much as the light and the shade, this is the mark of a true Diva film!

I look forward to seeing more of her as the week progresses.

 

Japanese Paper Films with Yoko Reikano Kimura and Hikaru Tamaki

This was a treat I didn’t know I needed but through dozens of ultra-quirky flipbooks, so much pleasure was derived especially with the superb accompaniment of Yoko Reikano Kimura on koto, and Hikaru Tamaki on cello. It was a madly compelling session with so much humour and plain silliness all held together by the accompaniment and the ability of the two players to catch and match the mood! Excellent!

 

Fleischers!!

The Clown’s Little Brother (US 1920) leads me to suspect that Max and Dave Fleischer might be highly addictive with their hybrid cartoons showing Max in the studio as his creations create havoc on paper and on the ground. The use of filmic photo-reference gives The Clown a fluidity not always seen in animation at the time and when he is joined by his more dynamic little brother… things go blotto! Later in the day there was more madness with Jumping Beans from 1923. Fleischer's greatest success was still to come with his extraordinary Superman cartoons, his eye for detail as well as motion was unmatched.

This was followed by another in the Ukrainian Children’s Films strand, Lazar Frenkel’s Robinson on His Own (UkrSSR, 1929) which showed the what unites little boys is always greater than what divides them. Daan van den Hurk accompanied both films with elan, humour and humanity.

There were two hours of Charlie Chaplin from the Chaplin Archives and many rare actualities with Stephen Horne accompanying the fact and the fiction.

 

Bernhard Goetzke and Lil Dagover

Der müde Tod (1921), with Ilya Poletaev

Made in 1921 when there were over half a million war-widows in Germany, Fritz Lang’s stunning Destiny or Der müde Tod (literally The Weary Death) suggests that love is stronger than death but no less avoidable. To a nation still mourning the Great War’s devastation, its gothic kindness would have touched so many: fairy-tale frankness masking a more eternal and hopeful message that we go on beyond...

Death is played rather convincingly by Bernhard Goetzke who carries his dark duties with a heavy heart and weary resolution: it’s not easy being the man in black but he wears it well and is nothing if not fair. Lil Dagover is the Maiden who tries to reason with The Glum Reaper after the untimely demise of her love (Walter Janssen) her selfless pursuit of his life touching even his grief-drenched soul.

It is interesting that the man is in distress and not the damsel; she is relentless and willing to risk all and give all to save her love. It is a sad sign of the Weimar’s new hopes that we get to see Lil Dagover playing something of the swashbuckling hero, not that she wasn’t capable just that actresses would be less “allowed” later on and by no means just in Germany.

Ilya Poletaev accompanied on three keyboards: piano, harpsicord and organ bringing dynamism and vivid shades of dark and light as the action demanded for the three segments in which The Maiden fights for her love and the Verdi was, not for the first or last time, transfixed!

The message? Love is stronger than death.

 

A certain Mr Fairbanks was so impressed he would take ideas for his new film about Bagdad...

 

PS: DONNA… In the early evening there was a memorial drink for film historian Donna Hill who passed away not long after this event in 2024. Donna was someone I knew mostly through social media and from our discussions of not just silent film but also cats and the music of Bauhaus. I still owe her a gelato but she was a warm and imaginative person who was always so willing to discuss her passions. Her death affected many in this community and I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that this was going to be the first Giornate in which her absence was going to be truly felt. Rest in peace.

 

 

The march begins… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Edition 44, Day One

In Pordenone we travel through distance as well as time, moving across countries and continents as much as in style and substance, all of this was so long ago and yet not so far when it is so near and, in the present circumstances, the straight raised arms of smiling school children in shocking salute still brings a collective shudder. We were watching the youngsters in Emilio Gallo’s Colonia Alpina documenting the hillside community he established with his wife in 1923 and which allowed children for poorer backgrounds in the cities to experience the beauty of the mountains of Biella in Piedmont; a tonic for those with breathing issues from the smoggy lowlands and with those casual actions a reminder of everyday life under authoritarianism.

 

We were in Italy too for the gorgeous array of shorts showing the coastal district of Liguria in north-western Italy. It’s a spectacular location with territory crossed by the Alps and Apennines mountain range and there are steep multi-storey fishing villages literally hanging off the rock side. Below are the brave fisherman and in these films from 1901 to 1934 you get a real sense of the topographical diversity of this country. Pordenone is also near the alps but is 211 miles away from Genoa and its an eight-hour train journey – all for only 35 Euros. Maybe next year?

 

Gunter Buckwald enjoyed his time beside the seaside on accompaniment.

Charles Inslee in Call of the Wild (1908)

To New York and three films directed by DW Griffith for American Bioscope as part of the Early Cinema strand, courtesy of The Biograph Project who have taken paper copies of film cells help in the Library of Congress for copyright reasons where there is no original film, and recreated some of Griffiths’ earliest work. Here we can see the bridge between Victorian melodrama and the emerging new media and it is fascinating to see the technical language of film developing along with the art of acting.

 

The Planter’s Wife (1908) was an adaptation of a stage play from the 1880s and featured Arthur V. Johnson and Claire McDowell as the hard-farming Hollands. Mrs H decides that agriculture might not be for her and runs off with the dastardly Tom (Harry Solter) only for her sister, Tomboy Nellie (the great Florence Lawrence) to save the day. Somehow. Romance of a Jewess (1908) also features Flo Law as the titular young woman who follows her heart and falls for a native American man (using modern parlance) with unpredictable consequences. Interesting scenario but maybe these racial types were easier for the director to work with? There’s more in The Call of the Wild (1908) featuring Charles Inslee (in redface?) as a successful college footballer who isn’t allowed to move beyond his native American heritage. This was the racism Griffith would handle.

 

Philip Carli handled accompaniment.

 

After America, then, well then… we all went to Hell or at least as far as Purgatory with our good friend Dante Alighieri… in Il Purgatorio Helios & Ambrosio 1911 then Il Purgatorio (1911). Directed by Giuseppe Berardi and Arturo Busnengo these were Helios Films attempts to compete with Milano Films blockbuster L’Inferno (1911) and it’s remarkable how similar on tone these two shorter films are with the latter feature? Just as Griffith’s sets would include the AB logo to try and protect copyright, so too was it difficult to prevent other’s copying and cashing in on bankable projects. The Helios films were cheaper, shorter and quicker to release – out first and enjoyable especially with inventive accompaniment from Daan van den Hurk and Frank Bockius

 

Signore Alighieri is still awaiting his royalties… damn it!

 

A change of pace and showing as part of the Ukrainian Children’s Film strand with The Three (UkrSSR 1928) featuring accompaniment from Donald Sosin. This film involves three lads from different backgrounds ending up in a Crimean summer camp of sorts with “hilarious/heart-warming results” at a children’s pioneer camp. It’s hard to ignore the context of the early Stalinist regime despite the film’s good nature it was still propaganda made in the first year of the first Five Year Plane which brought so much death and misery to Ukraine.

 

Now it was time for the opening night gala and it began as these things always should with a Boxing Kangaroo this time a live action/animation from the imaginative nib of Dave Fleisher in 1920. This was followed by just under a minute of watching Charlie Chaplin walking in his garden in 19157 and in glorious colour courtesy of the Chaplin Archives – Chaplin Family Home Movies, Mauro Colombis accompanied.

 

Linda Moglia & Angelo Ferrari - Cyrano de Begerac (1925) 

Cyrano de Bergerac (IT 1922-1923), with Ben Palmer and the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone

 

When Edmond Rostand wrote the original play in 1897 he had little idea that someone would not only film his work but then take three years of painstaking Pathe Stencil post-production to add colour. At almost two-hours long Cyrano stands almost uniquely as an extant colourised feature from this period and is even more remarkable on the big screen and with Ben Palmer conducting the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone. Sumptuous doesn’t do it justice and with the auditorium filled with these lush orchestrations of Kurt Kuenne’s score further illuminating a film that revels in its own excesses in full expectation that the audience know exactly what’s coming.

 

You all know the story but as with the 1924 Peter Pan I saw last month at the BFI, this follows the play more than most adaptations. Like everyone I’m a sucker for tints and this restoration looked gorgeous on the Verdi screen, but the story draws you in until the very last whilst the acting is so strong especially from Linda Moglia (Roxane) and Pierre Magnier (Le plus gros nez!). The cinematography by Ottavio De Matteis is also stunning and you really have to take your plumed hat off to those colourists: the film was followed by a mass outbreak of carpel tunnel syndrome which was only alleviated by the advent of technicolour… probably!

 

All this and I found a new record store in town… what a start!

An industrialist calls… The Old Dark House (1932), Eureka Masters of Cinema 4K Ultra HD (UHD)

 

You’ll have to stay here; the misfortune is yours not ours…

 

Strange that a very British story described by its author, JB Priestly, as featuring "forms of post-war pessimism pretending to be people…" should find itself as one of the prototypical “old dark house” stories but such was the fate of his 1927 novel Benighted. It was directed by James Whale who had been a British officer in the Great War and discovered his love of drama as a prisoner of war. After the war he became involved in the theatre as an actor, scene designer and later director before heading to Hollywood and success with Frankenstein. He was a determined advocate for this film and I can see why although on first viewing a long time ago, I spotted little of the pointed subtext to but there is so much to be relished in revisiting this bleak night with the benefit of hindsight, excellent commentaries and extra special features!

 

Priestley’s social commentary would use extraordinary and super-natural circumstance in order to show his characters in sharp relief and interacting outside of normal class lines. This also suited the filmmaker looking to send a chill through his audience as was the vogue during pre-code times: it’s one thing to meet a monster outside of your comfort zone and yet another to meet people you’d rather avoid from other walks of life and beyond. It is a dark and stormy night and the people are indeed in a forbidding location but it’s in each other where the horror actually resides. For Whale, having seen the depths of evil in the war to end all wars and observed it all as a sexual outsider – his love was illegal after all – this was rich territory.

 

It begins as so many of the best stories do, in the heart of rain-sodden Wales “somewhere in the mountains…” as a couple, Philip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart) are attempting to drive themselves and their friend Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) to Shrewsbury where “nothing ever happens”. The Wavertons are cold, wet and bickering but Penderel is in annoyingly good humour urging them to drive on with a chorus of “we’re singing in the bathtub…”. He’s exactly the kind of wise-cracking guy you need to make an old dark house thriller!

 

Ernst Thesiger

Said bleak mansion duly arrives and the threesome are “welcomed” at the old house’s old oak door by darkly scarred face of the barely verbal retainer Morgan (Boris Karloff) who eventually lets them in to meet the Femm Family, a febrile mix of the neurotic and the manic who prove conclusively that the family that hates together, stays together. First up is the singular figure of Ernst Thesiger as the fretful Horace a man so full of concerns that you wonder how he’s lasted this long especially once his partially deaf and wholly spiteful sister Rebecca (Eva Moore) arrives.

 

You’re afraid Horace, you’re afraid aren’t you. You don’t believe in God and yet you’re afraid to die! You’ve seen his anger in the sky and you’ve heard him in the night and you’re afraid, afraid, afraid… where’s your mocking now?

 

As Horace panics after the Wavertons explain about the mudslides and the floods, his sister lambasts him for his faint heart, his superior attitude melting away in that face of his fear and yet their house is built on rock and will be safe. Or will it…? Hell is other people and there’s even more to the Femms than appearances suggest.

 

Gloria Stuart and Eva Moore

The Femms agree to the three friends taking shelter even though “no beds, you can’t have beds…” Horace brings them a drink and raises a self-pitying toast to “illusion” with the world wearily witty Penderel saying he’s precisely the right age to drink to that. Horace then pulls as face saying, I assume you are one of the generation slightly, shall we say, “battered by the war”? as if it’s a cliché he’s almost too bored to utter. The exchanges are clipped and precise, the meaning often ambiguous. Hell is other people indeed.

 

Horace confesses that he is worried about Morgan who on a night like this is likely to drink and become a dangerous brute. He directs his comment at Margaret who, ignoring the signal, decides to change into her evening gown an action that is clearly contrary to common sense but civilised society must continue even as Rebecca berates her morality reminded of her “wicked” younger sister Rachel “handsome and wild as a hawk” who died a painful death, “godless to the last”. It’s an uncomfortable watch, the younger woman willowy in a silk dress as the elder, her face distorted in the mirror by her religious mania, turns on her warning of the inevitability of physical and spiritual decline. And Morgan is seen looking on…

 

Nice weather for ducks!

 

If Rebecca has issue with the demure Margaret, she’s about to need a bigger sneer as two more drivers through the storm arrive in the form of wealthy self-made businessman Sir William Porterhouse (the genius Charles Laughton!) and his young friend Gladys DuCane (Lilian Bond) a perky showgirl, real name Perkins!

 

Gloria and Boris

Once you’ve started making money it’s hard to stop… I may not be this and I may not be that but you don’t catch me pretending to be what I’m not!

 

There’s an immediate rise in the film’s energy as Sir Bill’s outspoken outbursts unsettle the upper middle-class audience and the urbane Penderel has to speak out in Gladys’ defence as her sugar uncle’s mix of self-importance and self-pity are revealed. The dialogue is smart and well-delivered as the evening draws on and issues of class begin to be over-shadowed not just by concerns about Morgan’s sobriety but also by whatever or whoever lurks above in the dark landing…

 

It's such a string cast with so many intriguing interactions that the fact things mostly take place in the one big room and wouldn’t be out of place on the stage, is secondary to the suspense between the characters and the situation. It’s all about atmosphere and having viewed it a number of times now, there’s not a wasted word. Whale directs with crispness and builds that air of unsettling mystery so well aided by the exceptional cinematography of Arthur Edeson.

Rightfully a classic and well served in this UHD edition: it’s never looked sharper or darker!

 

Melvyn, Gloria and Raymond

Spooky extra features:

 

• Audio commentary by critic and author Kim Newman and Stephen Jones
• Audio commentary by Gloria Stuart*
• Audio commentary by James Whale biographer James Curtis
• Meet the Femms – video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns
• Daughter of Frankenstein – an interview with Sara Karloff
• Rescuing a Classic – archival interview with director Curtis Harrington focused on his efforts to save The Old Dark House, then considered a lost film
• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation from a 4K digital restoration, presented in a new and exclusive Dolby Vision HDR (HDR 10 compatible) grade, with uncompressed LPCM audio!
• 2018 re-release trailer
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Stills gallery

 

Limited edition of 2000 copies:

• O-card slipcase, featuring artwork by Sara Deck strictly exclusive to this edition only
• A limited-edition collector’s booklet featuring a new essay on The Old Dark House by Craig Ian Mann, an essay by Philip Kemp and select archival material

 

You can and must order direct from Eureka come hell or high water, before the rains come and the distribution depot is destroyed by a mud slide!

 

*Fun fact: apparently James Cameron was so impressed with Gloria’s commentary on the original laserdisc that he cast her as the elder version of Rose in Titanic, amazing to think she spanned both pre-code and the modern era like this. Her commentary is indeed rather special!

 

Teardrop... The Flame of Love (1930)/ Dangerous to Know (1938), BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

And as another tear falls with definitive purpose as Anna May Wong shows herself at 33 years of age as a master of her emotional craft. Dangerous to Know is a surprisingly powerful film with mature sound technique and a very strong line-up including the indomitable Akim Tamiroff, Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan and young Anthony Quinn. Anna not only holds her own but raises her game to provide the film’s heart, soul and surprising ending. As with so much of her work, she acts between the lines to hand over more thought and expression than her script might define. Season curator Xin Peng said that she had not seen the film before planning out the programme and it was not only one of her favourites now but perhaps her subject’s best film. This season has been a revelation for this and much more.

 

I have questions about the AMW brand in 1930...

 

Hai-Tang aka The Flame of Love (1930), 35mm BFI print

 

She: How long I wonder Boris, will we two be together, just as we are now…?

He: Always Hai-Tang, surely it will always be so.

She: No Boris, the day will come when you and I will go another way, it must be so…

He: Hai-Tang my dear… I’m not going to listen to you. [Plays Beautiful Songs of Russia on the piano]

She [impressed]: You are right Boris, why think of tomorrow?

 

First up was a continuation of Anna May’s European adventure with her first major talkie, Hai-Tang aka the above title – the third film she had made with Richard Eichberg after Song (1928) and Pavement Butterfly (1929). It was co-directed with Walter Summers, who co-wrote the English-language script, and filmed at Elstree Studios by British International Pictures - another “euro-pudding” with continental ingredients all complicated by the need to accommodate spoken languages, in this case three, German and French as well as English as it ought to be spoken courtesy of Miss Wong’s extraordinary facility with language and dialect.

 

After the critical bashing she got for her American twang performing Circle of Chalk on the London stage, AMW invested two hundred guineas in a voice coach according to Xin Peng and her hard work paid off in this English version when, if anything she comes across as more fluent than her co-star John Longden who is a bit too sonorous and microphone aware at times (I know, in spite of the silent/talkie Blackmail…). The actress was equally diligent learning German six hours a day initially for Song (1928) – working harder than she ever did on childhood Chinese lessons in Los Angeles noted Professor Peng who quoted a German review noting that many of their countrymen could do with applying themselves as she had.

 

Anna plays Hai-Tang the star of a Chinese troupe of acrobats, and of a show including singers and dancers many of whom we get to see perform at a theatre mocked up on the giant Elstree sound stage. The setting is pre-revolutionary Russia with Longden playing Lieutenant Boris Borissoff, Adjutant to the Grand Duke whose troops are based in St Petersburg.

 

Variety dismissed the film as “just a programmer”, noting the “poor direction” and dialogue although it appears they were reviewing the French version which has Marcel Vibert as the Grand Duke whereas the English one has German actor Georg H. Schnell who is suitably imposing and brutal when he needs to be. The film is reasonably unconcerned with the issues of race except for “the Grand-Duke’s lady”, dance hall hostess Yvette (played in English and French by the Mexican Mona Goya who makes a good show of a French accent) who warns Boris to think of his career when it comes to his choice of romantic partner.

 

Orders? What are they to me? I tell you I will not go… we must fly… I would sooner die.

John Longden and Anna

As with all of these films though, AMW is an object of desire even if it is forbidden in some way – and not just by the coy British censors’ consideration of which prevents Mr Longden from connecting his lips with those of Ms Wong at any point no matter how much they declare their love. Forbidden love rarely is allowed to be consummated although, for the purposes of the plot, it’s fine to let the Grand Duke lust after Hai-Tang and he forces her to come to the Orpheum café a down-market venue hosting coarser entertainments and notorious venue in which the Grand Duke’s men do as they wilt.

 

So it is that the Grand Duke tries to take advantage of Hai-Tang with Boris hidebound by his rank and duty, exactly as she knew would happen but she agrees to go for the sake of his career. Who will stand up for her when the time comes?

 

The story is slight but AMW acts well and there is excellent support from Fred Schwartz (credited as Schwarz) as Birnbaum, the long-suffering and wise-cracking Jewish piano player: a relative outsider just like Hai-Tang and someone who is brave enough to try and set things straight once events get out of hand. It is also fascinating to see the dancers, jugglers and acrobats, no doubt fresh from the music halls of the west end. Variety, the spice of life!

 

Gail Patrick and Akim Tamiroff

Dangerous to Know (1938), 35mm

 

According to Xin Peng, directly after wrapping the above film, Anna May Wong was offered the role in the New York production of Edgar Wallace's hit 1930 play, On the Spot, with the writer ambushing her on her arrival in New York docks after she had sailed over from Southampton – she signed before she left the Port Authority recognising the opportunity to play a leading role with agency. The producers had finally decided on the novel idea of casting an actor of Chinese descent in the role of a character of Chinese descent and the resulting successful run would allow her to fully develop the character and thereby establish her stage credentials. When casting this film version eight years later, there was only one choice.

 

Wallace's play had been inspired by the career of Al Capone and featured Akim Tamiroff as Stephen Recka a gangster well on the way to establishing himself in straight society and who is always steps ahead of the police, press and politicians. Tamiroff has Edgar G Robinson energy and barely blinks in this film as a man driven by a ferocious need to prove himself, he’s the smartest man in the room and can also play Mozart better than a professional musician on his pipe organ. Yet there are still people who underestimate him and these include his own men, one of whom plots to replace him as the man behind City Hall with his own puppet mayor. Recka finds out and there’s a cold-blooded price exacted.

 

Steve Recka? That kind never gets into our house…

That’s why you must ask him. He’s very anxious to meet nice people and I’m very anxious to get re-elected…

Akim Tamiroff 

The only person to understand this man is his “hostess” Madame Lan Ying (AMW) a woman who provides the greatness underpinning Recka’s legitimate empire someone, no matter how incredibly intelligent he is, the “businessman” is taking for granted as he chases a position in polite society that might just be beyond him. We see this at his birthday party where establishment money gives him only begrudging respect he frightens them; he owns them and they do not like him for it. Yet, he charms them and they laugh at his jokes.

All the charm of a diplomat.

Yes and ten times the general ship.

 

Into this walks Margaret van Case (Gail Patrick) a woman from old money who is curious to meet Steve Recka whose reputation makes him a bit of a thrill for the socialite. Steve is instantly smitten and a flirtation begins much to Lan Ying’s distress, she sees a rival but deeper than that, an over-reach that can only result in trouble. So it proves as Steve tries and fails to woo Margaret and then, realising she loves a young bond salesman Phillip Easton (Harvey Stephens), frames him for robbery in an attempt to force her into marriage.

 

Mexican Anthony Quinn was a long-term friend of Anna's and in many of her films

It's fast-paced and there’s quick-witted support from Lloyd Nolan as Inspector Brandon and Anthony Quinn is good too as Recka’s lieutenant Nicky Kusnoff who along with Lan Ying, see’s Steve making mistakes as he searches for the ultimate negation of his criminal past.

 

The closing section is full of surprises and everything rests on Anna May Wong’s ability to break hearts and to bring her exquisite empathy out from the screen and into the audience. This is a superlative performance and certainly one of her very best. Even battle-hardened old marketing professionals were left shaken and stirred as those tears flowed and fragile courage also came forth. A very important stage in her acting journey!

 

There’s still two weeks to go of this season, details on the BFI website.

Never lands... Peter Pan (1924)/The Thief of Bagdad (1924), BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

 

Two blockbusters on a scale that influenced the next century of film right up to the mighty world of extended universes and modern franchises most specifically in the impact the former had on a certain Walter Disney but also in the incredible scale of the latter. Surely impressive appearances in both would help establish Anna May Wong as a rising star in Hollywood but in spite of her extraordinary ability to shine through and energise even the most confined role, it was not to be although she worked as hard as anyone could to maintain her own momentum and if it wasn’t going to be at home it would have to be away or even, far, far away. Still, she was noticed in Europe, especially in Britain and Germany, second star on the right, straight on till morning…

 

In the USA both films were amongst the most successful in 1924 with Thief bringing in $1.5million in 4^th place and the Christmas released Pan, eventually getting more than $600k. They were two of the six films Anna made in 1924 and the following year she made just two with four in 1926 and then a mixed bag of eight in 1927. Her last Hollywood film of 1928 was the Joan Crawford vehicle, Across to Singapore and she was uncredited but, for her first Anglo-German film she got star billing for Song (1928) and of course Piccadilly and Pavement Butterfly in 1929.

 

But these two films were spectacular and high impact proving her abilities in top-level company especially the phenomenon Fairbanks – so kinetic he makes Tom Cruise look like late period Ralph Richardson – and the mighty Betty Bronson who if ever there was a female equivalent to Doug, demonstrates it in Neverland. This was an afternoon of the highest quality with two major silent works that I had been saving up for the big screen with splendid accompaniment and a passionate informed audience. One of those special BFI days.

 

Mary Brian sews on Betty Bronson's shadow: this may hurt!

Peter Pan (1924,) with Costas Fotopoulos

 

Betty Bronson was a pocket rocket and was selected by JM Barrie over 100 others tested for the role¹ and we can absolutely see why. She made quite the impression on Fairbanks’ son Doug Jnr as he had later admitted she was his first crush on watching her in Peter Pan; she was 17 when she made the film and he was 15 when it was released and they were friends afterwards, the actor recalling in his autobiography that It was not fully requited. She only flirted with me…. No worries champ, you’ll be married to Joan Crawford within five years!

 

Betty is certainly full of Fairbanks’ zip in every single scene of this film, radiating health and laddish enthusiasm as the boy who never grows up. JM Barrie’s seminal Edwardian fantasy began as a play in 1904 before being novelised as Peter and Wendy in 1911. The first performance was at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 27 December 1904 with Nina Boucicault in the title role and so Peter was always played by a woman on stage which is noteworthy in itself in terms of the British drag tradition and the “trouser role”.

Anna May Wong brings the noise

 

The story and the film despite their fantastical nature are about parenthood and also loss with Peter possibly being inspired by the death of David the 14-year-old son of Barrie’s friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, a “Lost boy” who would never grow old and yet was happy to stay in Never Never Land. The character first appeared in the 1902 novel The Little White Bird, written for adults. The author ended up adopting Sylvia’s children after she and her husband died and this too is reflected in the story with Mrs Darling taking in the Lost Boys.

 

The film is a pure delight and a celebration of childhood with opening title cards explaining that viewers need to connect with their childish selves – no problem personally – in order to understand the photo play. It was lovely to see a number of children in the audience too, some very responsible parenting in evidence! The film has more of the intentions of the play along with a portion of the dialogue and is quite different to Disney’s 1953 cartoon which smooths out the sense of loss and the overt celebration of motherhood as well as the romantic frisson between Wendy and Peter. Disney, as ever, uncomfortable with reality.

 

Esther Ralston is key to setting the tone as Mrs. Darling, a woman of compassion and unconditional nurturing love. It is she who first encounters Peter in the children’s nursery and accidentally cuts off his shadow closing the window on him. She puts it in a draw and sees Peter again as he tries to retrieve what is perhaps a metaphor for his memory, soul and/or his loving existence on Earth… he recognises her but he can’t remember why, an extension of the same amnesia the younger Darlings experience after time in Never Land. Philippe De Lacy is boorish Dad Michael Darling who pranks his children and won’t keep his end of the bargain in taking his medicine instead feeding it to Nana the Dog, an extraordinary creation played by George Ali a puppeteer and animal impersonator who was incredibly flexible for a 58-year-old. He also plays lion and a crocodile… animal magic!

 

Mother Esther Ralston

Nana may only be a dog but is the children’s nursemaid making sure they get to bed on time and take their bath. Grumpy Dad chains her to the garden kennel meaning she is not on hand to protect the children when Peter and Tinkerbell arrive and, after Wendy (Mary Brian) sews Pan’s shadow back onto his feet, whisk them into the air and off to the island of Never Never Land. Wendy’s brothers John are played by Jack Murphy and Michael by Philippe De Lacy who went onto play the young prince in Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, before becoming a producer and director once he grew up!

 

They land in the Forest of Make-Believe and the fun really begins with mermaids, pirates and native Americans – not for nothing did this film come with a warning about the screening containing “racist attitudes, language and images, including red face”, it’s a document of its time. Here we find Anna May Wong as Tiger Lily, one of a group of “red Indians” who inhabit the forest, she’s not in many scenes but obviously brings the required pep to everyone although her band are unable to defeat the evil pirates led by the infamous Captain Hook! Ernest Torrence leaves no parts of the scenery unchewed and is spectacularly nasty as the pirate with the heart of lead… he’s the archetypical villain from Lex Luthor to Dr Doom up against a boy that can fly and knows no fear.

 

Peter and the Pirates... Ernest Torrence is terrfic.

We watched a 35mm copy from George Eastman House which ran at just over two hours with Costas Fotopoulos, seeing the film for the first time as well, filling his accompaniment with playful inventions suitable for an audience Barrie implored to go back to the nursery and once more believe in fairies as the play moved on.

 

Today was the 55^th anniversary of NFT2 and what better celebration than an audience clapping along as Betty Bronson urged us to signal out belief in magic and save poor Tinkerbell. Wonderful!

 

Doug on a magic carpet over a cast of thousands, still not sure how this was done?

The Thief of Bagdad (1924), with Neil Brand

 

Follow that and the BFI did with the shock and awe of Douglas Fairbank’s and Raoul Walsh’s epic adaptation of One Thousand and One Nights which was based on a story written by the actor under the pseudonym of Elton Thomas according to Kevin Brownlow and David Gill whose Photoplay restoration we watched. It is perhaps the ultimate Doug surpassing even Robin Hood (1922) and we had fabulous accompaniment from Neil Brand whose orchestral score for the former film demonstrated such an uncanny connection with the star and screen. Here, Neil was The Orchestra and for 164 minutes, albeit with a very short intermission, bringing his singular style and understanding of motion picture composition to the fore as the picture and the action towered over the rapt audience sat in NFT1.

 

The film’s sets were bigger than Hood’s and even Intolerance and were the work of William Cameron Menzies and they were so spectacular that Fairbanks fitted the action around them: there’s no elaborate staircase Doug can’t ascend with bounding flamboyance, no wall he can’t climb or descend or window he can’t slide down. He is his own special effect and, with his 21^st Century physique on topless display he is the epitome of health and efficiency – no chocolate on top of his cappuccino or cheeky pastry before the screening in the RFH for him… he reminds me of the moving statue in My Grandmother (1929).

 

Doug plays Ahmed, the Thief of Bagdad who starts the film off as self-interested and faithless taking whatever he wants whenever he wants to and laughing in the faith of authority of any kind. All of this changes when he chances to see and fall in love with The Princess of Bagdad (Julanne Johnston) and, after his cheeky ways lead him into more trouble than he can bear, he resolves to win her heart through honest endeavour. It’s interesting to see quotes in the intertitles from the Quran and to see Ahmed making peace with the Imam (Charles Belcher) who tells him, naturally, to follow his heart… try making this film these days and screening it in our flag-infested high streets?

 

Julanne Johnston and Fairbanks Snr

Against this regal and religious Bagdad stands Cham Shang, Prince of the Mongols (Japanese actor Sōjin Kamiyama) who wants to invade and enslave the kingdom and to have the Princess for his own. He has a spy in her handmaidens in the form of Anna May Wong who as you’d expect makes the most of her role especially in the scene in which Ahmed first breaks into the royal quarters and pushes a very phallic knife against her back, at least in the interpretation of filmmaker Michelle Williams Gamaker in her introduction.²

 

Ahmed must compete with the Mongols and also the princes of the Indies and Persia to bring home the greatest wonders from the furthest reaches of the world a grand quest involving flying carpets, flying horses, crystal balls and a box of delights. It is perhaps the most spectacular silent film ever made and certainly one of the most thoroughly enjoyable especially with Mr Brand’s flying accompaniment.

 

Both films are glorious and I am glad I waited to see them first on the big screen in a live setting. Now I can’t wait to watch my Blu-rays and work out exactly how the magic is wrought.

Meanwhile, plenty more Anna May Wong to come over the next three weeks... details on the BFI site.

 

Anna May Wong a spy in the house of love?

1.       According to The New York Times, 16^th August 1924 who reported that Bronson had sent a thank you telegram to the author: "I feel like a new Cinderella, thanks to you. I realize the importance of your trust in me and my tremendous responsibility. I am the luckiest girl in the world. Betty Bronson."

 

2.       Michelle Williams Gamaker featured a clip from her film Thieves (2023) part of her Fictional Activism initiative which is concerned with “… the restoration of marginalised film stars of colour as central figures, who return in her works as brown protagonists to challenge the fictional injustices to which they have been historically consigned.” Details on her website here.