Amira Kheir band + Sumurun (1920) at the BFI

Pola and Jenny: girls on top

There’s a moment in Sumurun when our two heroines meet. It’s the only time in the film that they’re together and they glance with resolute smiles at each other knowing exactly what to do next, confident women trying to make their way in a tough world.

The film, billed as One Arabian Night (its US title) was being presented as part of the Birds Eye View film festival, part of which takes place at the BFI. A new score was provided by Sudanese singer, Amira Kheir with the support of a four-piece band.

Aud Egede Nissen and Jenny Hasselqvist

The result was an extremely interesting accompaniment with the score highlighting the film’s amazing pace and, surprisingly, given the atmospheric African flavour (which could be more about the mysterious than mirthful), bringing out the humour more than I remembered.

Carry on follow that camera… Sumurun is a screw-ball comedy and one could almost imagine Aud Egede Nissen, whose Haidee “manages” the harem, as Joan Simms leading the girl’s revolt with a brisk wink and some quick thinking.

Pola Negri

After laughing at the portrayal of Ms Negri in The Tailor Made Man musical, I owe Pola some redress: she’s superb in this picture displaying an open energy and self-aware sexuality that drives all the sheikhs mad. She can also dance too although not as well as Jenny Hasselqvist who’s even worth watching when she’s just walking – her ballet training providing her with an uncanny grace and control over seemingly every movement and expression.

But the whole cast performs well and this might well be down to the fact that many had already been in the theatrical version of the play including Pola and the Director Ernst Lubitsch who also plays lovelorn Yeggar, the Hunchback Beggar, revealing himself to be an actor of decent expression with comedy, pathos and tragedy all within his range.

Ernst Lubitsch

Lubitsch directs well as you’d expect given his other desert epics, The Loves of Pharaoh (1921) and The Eyes of the Mummy (1918).  Escapist German cinema was doing well in the post-war period and it had an ambition matched only by the US.

Sumurun is announced as a pantomime in six parts and it is important to remember that. For many years the only version available was the truncated One Arabian Night which lost the plot and generated many a negative, fixed opinion but, more recently, audiences have had the chance to view the whole story and the film’s reputation is on the rise. It’s not an absolute classic but it is very silly in parts and is very coherent.

Sumurun (Hasselqvist) is the Sheikh’s favourite from his over-crowded Harem, but she has eyes for another, the Cloth Merchant Nur-Al Din (Harry Liedtke) whilst, at the same time, the young Sheikh (Carl Clewing) longs for her… and this is all before we really meet Yannaia (Pola), whom everyone fancies.

Yannaia is a dancer travelling with a motley bunch led by Yeggar, who jealously guards his prize asset: a woman he can never attain and whom he loves more than any of her paramours. Yannaia is “talent spotted” by Achmed, the Slave Trader (grubbily played by Paul Biensfeldt) who realises that she will make an excellent addition to the Sheikh’s harem.

Yannaia rebuffs Yeggar

By this time The Sheikh (a menacing turn from Paul Wegener and his wispy beard) has caught Sumurun looking longingly for Nur-Al (even though her eyes fall with disappointment on the young Sheikh…) and almost kills her.

He’s distracted by the promise of this new dancer and travels incognito to witness some eye-popping contortions from Yannaia who by this stage has also caught the eye of the insatiable (endlessly frustrated) young Sheikh.

Sumurun refuses to beg for her life...

The troop are made an offer they can’t refuse for Yannaia  and yet Yeggar tries his best, eventually collapsing in despair and taking two pills that will render him in a death like sleep (c’mon it’s a pantomime!).

Meanwhile… Haidee arranges for Sumurun to visit the merchant’s house so they may further their mutual interest… Here we meet Puffti (Paul Graetz) and Muffti (Max Kronert) the merchant’s two servants who looked Weimar cabaret ready and annoyed my wife no end with their Charles Hawtrey-on-speed mannerisms… (she never did a summer season at Butlins whereas, in my youth, I worked two!)

The young generation

They smuggle Nur-Al Din back to the palace and past the suspicious eunuchs… and finally, Sumutun is able to dance for him with Hasselqvist delivering an effortless turn with her balance and strength clearly evident. Oh I like a happy ending… or is it?

Now things get really complicated as Yannaia arrives “oven-ready” with Yaggar not far behind in his seemingly hopeless quest to save and get the girl.

Yannaia leads the young Sheikh on

You will have to watch the movie to find out how this complex love heptagonal works out…
Lubitsch directs these complexities with relish, his familiarity with the play no doubt an advantage.  The cutting is fast and the camerawork from Theodor Sparkuhl inventive and assured.

The film is dominated by the two leading actresses with Hasselqvest’s sophistication contrasting with Negri’s raw power and sass: you can take the mickey out of Pola’s style but she was undoubtedly more honest in films like this than many a Hollywood leading lady.

If only she’d have had a von Sternberg to lead her Hollywood career?

Aud Egede Nissen completes the female dominance with her knowing performance but the cast are all clearly having a ball. Tip of the hat also to Margarete Kupfer as the old woman who looks after  Yaggar  and Jakob Tiedtke as Head Eunuch – tough gig.

Some eunuchs yesterday...

Amira Kheir was ably supported by a band comprising Nadir Ramzy on oud, Ben Hazleton on double bass  and Elizabeth Nott on percussion (I didn't catch the name of the forth musician - will track it down) who all played their socks off. Amira has been hailed as the Diva of the Sudanese desert by the Journal du Mali and here she expertly trod the path between ethereal lines and the need to reflect the comedy. The band seemed to be following the rhythm of the film with the many chase scenes and pratfalls counter-balanced against the love stories.

Yannaia auditions...

For her first “go” at a film score, Ms Kheir did exceptionally well working with the film rather than over it as can sometimes happen when genres “clash”. But Amira was fully aware of the pitfalls telling London Jazz News: When I write music independently, the driving force is always what I want to express. When scoring a film, the driving force shifts to trying to best interpret what someone else tried to express and lending my own relationship with music to that.

This she certainly achieved, enriching one of Lubitsch and Negri’s most energetic collaborations and sending the audience out into a bitter London evening with an extra bounce in their step.

The Kino DVD of Sumurun is available from the usual online retailers.

Amira’s debut album, View From Somewhere is available from emusic and direct from her own website.

Birds Eye View is now in its tenth year and runs until 10th April.

 

Mary Duncan talks, then walks… Morning Glory (1933)

Mary Duncan - blonde ambition

My wife wandered into the living room and, taking one look sighed: “isn’t she beautiful?” whilst I was thinking “isn’t she clever?”.

We were watching Katherine Hepburn in Morning Glory, the Lowell Sherman comedy drama which was to earn her the first of her four Oscars… and pondering the nature of her appeal. Like Ingrid Bergman and others, Hepburn had the kind of aesthetic beauty which one acknowledges without necessarily being distracted by (ooh, hark at him!) , leaving room to focus on the remarkable acting ability on show.

Katherine Hepburn

Lazily, this may be something other women respond to more than men but the only thing I can be sure of is the reaction in our house and we were both knocked out by Hepburn’s ability and charm. Another one of those “what have I been missing?” moments for me – sometimes you can take the “greats” for granted.

But, whilst Katherine Hepburn took me by surprise I was interested in this film primarily to see Mary Duncan in a talkie.

Adolphe Menjou and Mary Duncan

The star of City Girl and The River was a very powerful silent film actress and she retired not too long after this film. Before having success in the silents, Duncan had been an adept stage actress and she shows it here as the over-reaching theatre star Rita Vernon: all haughty self importance and peroxide pride. She’s almost unrecognisable from the brunettes of those earlier films but…that is indeed acting and very fine too.

It’s Hepburn’s film though and it’s easy to be impressed with her uncanny precision in delivering a vast amount of dialogue and rapid shifts in emotional charge - unpredictable!

Katherine Hepburn

Hepburn plays Eva Lovelace, a naïve but determined young actress who has traveled to New York to make it on Broadway on her terms: in plays she feels worthy of her talent.

She lands in the office of impresario Louis Easton (Adolphe Menjou) who is busily casting for his new play alongside one of his writer s, Joseph Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks Jnr). Sheridan’s a bit of an intellectual who’s about to start work on a worthy German play to be entitled The Golden Bough.

Rita Vernon sweeps in and is assured that she will land the plum role in this worthy drama only if her next play proves to be a hit. She flirts with Easton and they obviously go back aways…a business partnership flirting with disaster…

C. Aubrey Smith and Katherine Hepburn

Meanwhile, Eva befriends old hand Hedges (the wonderfully one-paced C. Aubrey Smith) whom she convinces to be her coach. Hepburn throws out dialogue like so much molten rock and barely pauses for breath to appreciate what she’s just said but it’s done with such energetic control and controlled force. You feel you’re watching one of the great technicians film has ever produced.

Douglas Fairbanks Jnr and Katherine Hepburn

Easton and Sheridan come out and encounter Eva who seems just like any other wannabe but there’s something more, not least her gently patronising letter from George Bernard Shaw… Sheridan in particular isn’t sure she’s a total whack-job.

Time passes and Vernon’s play is a smash. Hedges encounters Eva on her uppers in a run-down, Hopper-esque café. He takes her for some food and drink at Easton’s party where, indulging in rather too much of the latter, she lets rip with some impromptu Hamlet and Juliette… It’s impressive and embarrassing at the same time but you do wonder why it’s clearly going to take most of the film for the penny to drop – the kid can act!

To be or not to be...wherefore art thou...?

There’s some off-screen impropriety with Easton taking advantage of Eva… she’s still at his apartment the next morning when he enlists the help of a shell-shocked Sheridan to help “solve” the situation. Sheridan you see has developed feelings for the young woman who, remarkably, only has eyes for the older man… go figure.

Eva drops from view, still holding an unlikely candle for Easton as Sheridan prepares his great literary play for production. Rita has earned herself the right to star in the show even though Sheridan knows she’s not right.

Rita dictates her terms

But, having held off pushing her claims for a bigger contract, Rita tries to force the producers’ hand on the night of the first performance. Duncan is superb at this point, bullying the men with convincing ease… yet it doesn’t work. There’s a convenient under-study who is perfect for the role and just might prove herself up to the task!

This denouement is so obvious that the film spends little time on it, swiftly cutting from Eva’s dressing room doubts to her standing ovation. This much is taken for granted yet the film’s real point is about sustained success.

Reality bites...

Eva’s dresser is an ex-star who warns her against being a “morning glory”… Eva finishes the film fully aware of the pitfalls but swearing – like all the rest – that she won’t be afraid and will take her future as it comes.

It’s an uneven film with good performances over-coming a bumpy narrative. It doesn’t resolve the human aspects of career crash and burn with the clear assumption is that it’s better to be “in” success than out of it…Eve is defiant and yet the look on her dresser’s face suggests she hasn’t really headed her warning.

Mary Duncan hands over to Katherine Hepburn

In real life this was the start of Heburn’s long years of success and the end of Duncan’s moment as she married carpet tycoon (oh yes!) and polo player Stephen ("Laddie") Sanford. That’s show business, but we shouldn’t fret about Mary’s long life after film.

The future Mrs Sanford

She devoted herself to good causes and came to be described as the "Queen of Palm Beach society”… an epithet she disliked in deference to the many other ladies of prominence in the area such as Rose Kennedy and the Duchess of Windsor... You don't have to be in the movies to be a queen.


Morning Glory is available on reasonably-priced DVD all over the place. Buy it from Movie Mail where corporation tax is always paid.

Adolphe Menjou and Mary Duncan

Billy & Joan, tailor made... Spring Fever (1927) & West Point (1928)

I’m off to see The Tailor Made Man at London’s Arts Theatre for the second time - not used to seeing musicals at all let alone more than once…it really is that good and you should go see it! So, time to put in some more “revision” on the main character: Mr William Haines one of Hollywood’s most likeable and brilliantly self-less performers.

These two light comedies were made back-to-back around the turn of 1928 and were both directed by Edward Sedgwick as vehicles for William Haines and rising co-star Joan Crawford.

Comedy shorts

Spring Fever is the clear winner with a stronger story line, more golf, wittier inter-titles and considerably more Joan than West Point. The latter film is more formulaic with Billy as the wise-cracking recruit-to-hero in military setting he was forced to play a number of times… interesting type-casting, not just given Haines’ sexuality but also the pre-occupations of the times. The US was not at war and yet it felt the need to press the importance of its military and its discipline.

Spring Fever is freed of this agenda and is a more straight-ahead hetero love story with wayward Billy being forced to submit to honest self-discipline to earn Joan’s love.

He works in a factory as under-ambitious shipping clerk, Jack Kelly, a live-for-the-moment guy who enjoys taking the mick out of his grumpy boss Mr Waters (the marvellously expressive George Fawcett) but who none-the-less keeps an eye out for his old pop (Bert Woodruff).

George Fawcett and William Haines

There’s a great sequence when Kelly walks behind his boss mimicking his every move as he grumps his way across the shop floor. Haines is just so relaxed and free in his expression; he even pinches the derrière of a male co-worker en route – out and proud!

Jack and Mr Waters share one passion in common and that is for golf, “…invented by the Dutch in an effort to make the Scotch forget bagpipes…” Jack earns time at the local golf club as a reward for teaching Mr Waters some superior technique: it’s his big break and he intends to make the most of it.

The club...

But Jack is smitten when he comes across socialite Allie Monte (Crawford) who just happens to be dating the club pro Johnson (Edward Earle). Initially unimpressed with Jack’s bluster – and his back swing at her backside – “I’ve never hit anyone on the links before…” - Allie is soon won over by his way with golf instruction.

Allie meets Jack

Jack breaks the course record and resolves to “marry for money” to secure his future. In a convoluted twist he ends up marrying Allie as she is now without her fortune, her father having lost everything… It’s one of the first decent things he’s done but Allie re-buffs his charity once she finds out.

It’s a slightly unusual structure but one that, sure enough, will give the hero another chance and one involving a golfing dénouement intrinsically linked to his romantic fortunes!

Crawford and Haines have a real rapport and his spark and her intelligence make for a winning combination of unparalleled acting energy!

Tailor Made Man makes a lot of the Marion Davies link but they could have included Ms Crawford as well – she made five silent films with Haines and was a life-long friend. Then again,  a take on Davies is one thing but Crawford has a whole lot more reputational baggage – it would be nice though to see this wide-eyed young woman reclaimed from some of the perceptions of her over-wrought later period.

Joan the, young, woman

If Sedgwick was trying to repeat the actors’ chemistry in West Point he didn’t succeed …it’s a well-made but formulaic film and there’s less logic at the heart of the story. Know-all boy meets sweet girl, then meets the army and things just meander towards a some-what forced dramatic climax which echoes Haines’ break through role in Brown of Harvard.

Haines plays Brice Wayne a playful and frankly cocky young man who isn’t about to let military service interfere with his sense of humour.

The man of a few faces...

It starts well enough on the ferry to West Point, Brice convinces some fellow recruits that he’s an officer and Haines improvises a hilarious dental inspection. Brice then tries to ingratiate himself with a pretty fellow passenger, Betty Channing (Crawford), by pretending to be blind…funnier than it sounds.

Betty turns out to be the daughter of an inn-keeper providing accommodation for recruits…had to work a female role in there somewhere.

In Haines’ earlier military vehicle, Tell it to the Marines (1926) Eleanor Boardman’s nurse was attached to the unit whilst there was also the strong lead offered by Lon Chaney who anchored the story and enabled Haines to bounce off at will.

William Haines and William Bakewell

Here we get 'Tex' McNeil, Brice’s best buddy (played by William Bakewell) who is not as butch as his name would suggest and who appears to have as much of a crush on him as Betty – is this a deliberate sub-text?

Whilst it’s love at first sight for Tex, Betty’s not immediately impressed with the cut of Brice’s jib but we soon see that he’s not as selfish as he makes himself out to be - secretly paying off a fellow recruit’s debt.

There's obviously something about a man in uniform...

But as Brice continues to kick against the imposition of Corps discipline, his sporting super-power is revealed to be football. But his success only serves to make his head swell further and to drive a wedge between Brice and his comrades.

Eventually something has to give and Brice is kicked out of the team and also resolves to resign his commission… he doesn’t feel part of the Corps and the Corps is pretty much in agreement.

It is only the intervention of the loyal Tex which persuades them to give him one more chance…It’s the big Army vs. Navy game: can Brice redeem himself and win the hearts of his comrades as well as the disaffected Betty?

The Big Game

West Point has its moments and Haines is good as per usual but things are a bit rushed and lacking in dramatic tension!

Both films are available from Warner Archives and Spring Fever in particular is worth seeking out. The print isn’t as good as West Point but is mostly decent: who wouldn’t want to play a round of “Fours” with Joan Crawford and William Haines.

The Tailor Made Man continues at the Arts Theatre until 8th April – go if you get the chance: hopefully it’ll soon get an extended run on Shaftsbury Avenue or maybe even Broadway! It deserves the chance not least for helping us remember the remarkable William Haines!

Mountain girl… The River (1929)

Before Murnau there was Borzage… uniting Mary Duncan and Charles Farrell in this tale of backwoods sensuality.

It’s remarkable how many cast and crew were shared by the two directors over the short, intense period when they were both at Fox. Duncan was in Murnau’s lost 4 Devils as well as City Girl whilst Farrell starred in that film as well as Borzage’s Seventh Heaven and Street Angel with Janet Gaynor who was also in Sunrise…

Charles Farrell and Mary Duncan

The two directors shared expressionist techniques with the American heavily influenced by the German: pre-code and pre-crash these two helped set the high water mark of silent film creativity before the financial world took a tumble and Murnau met with his untimely ending.

That The River survives at all is a near miracle and, indeed, fair chunks of the recovered film were beyond saving including the beginning, three scenes and the whole of the climactic final reel. Yet, what does remain, is the very heart of a film often described as one of the most erotic of silent movies.

Allen John arrives at the camp

Much of this lies with the emotional honesty of the two leads, particularly Mary Duncan who proves again what a technically gifted actor she was. Playing an earthier character than in City Girl she transforms from predator to love-struck saviour as Charles Farrell’s innocent but ever-present sexuality wins her over.

Duncan is Rosalee, hard-bitten girlfriend of the local gangmaster Marsdon (Alfred Sabato) at a backwoods dam construction site. Bored with her bullying paramour she has an affair with one of the men but Masrdon kills him and his taken off to face justice.

Marsdon is arrested

Farrell plays Allen John a real backwoods-man who has built his own boat to explore up river. Unable to get past the dam he lands in time to prevent the dead man’s deaf mute friend Sam (Ivan Linow) from exacting revenge.

The men of the camp head off to the city for the winter and Rosalee is astonished to see a naked Allen John floating past the river’s leathal whirlpool and towards the shore. Just as he’s about to climb out of the water she surprises him leaving him to hide behind a rock… very much at the mercy of this confident and frankly quite forward woman. A lovely scene that sets the tone of their relationship.

Place inappropriate caption here...

Allen John soon becomes fascinated by Rosalee – one of the first woman he’s ever met beyond his mother. She teases him relentlessly not used to men of such clean living niavity. Allen John is forever missing his train and rocking up at Rosalee’s shack. She knows what he’s after but he – genuinely – doesn’t.

As Rosalee begins to warm to the big sap, she is prevented from taking action by the pet crow, Marsdon has left behind often seen looming in expressionistic shadows – there’s even a mement when Rosalee tries to move him away form the light only to leave him in a place where he creates an even bigger shadow… expressionist humour?

Winter looms and Allen John misses the last train till Spring. He buys provisions for Rosalee but she spurns his offer – she’s underestimated his good heart. She throws the food into the river but, together they rescue it.

The sexual tension rises and Duncan’s physicality is strikingly brought to the fore as she shows her longing for the young man. But then there’s that bird… she tries to kill it as it interrupts their flow once again but Allen John stops her. In her anger she stabs him with a blade which luckily breaks before it can penetrate his chest…

Spoilers:  Driven to frustration, Allen John goes out into the snow and starts manically chopping down trees – a metaphor to show how he can provide for her every bit as well as Marsdon.

He’s relentless and, failing to stop him Rosalee leaves him to it. He returns to his boat but fall unconscious as his fire goes out. He’s found the next morning by Sam who brings his friend to Rosalee’s – he is near death.

The two fight to revive him and as Rosalee sends Sam off to get help, she realises that the last chance is to use her own body heat… opening her coat she climbs into the bed and lies as close as she can to the man she now knows she loves.

It’s a wonderful scene and probably a quite shocking one for the time. Even if the film’s actual ending was extant, Allen John’s revival would still be the story’s pivotal moment… there were tears in our living room.

Possibly in recognition of this, the reconstruction fairly rushes through the final scenes which see Marsdon’s violent return and Rosalee’s plunge into the whirlpool. Whilst Sam drags off Marsdon to his fate, Allen John dives in and rescues her: the two are re-born.

I’ve written about other partial silent films but this one feels more balanced because of the remaining focus on the love story although it would have been good to see the whirlpool rescue! Farrell and Duncan have real chemistry which no doubt persuaded Murnau to cast them in City Girl.

I watched the Edition Filmuseum DVD which is replete with a booklet and extensive PDF extras. There’s a video essay from Janet Bergstrom on Murnau and Borzage at Fox and on a second disc, three short westerns from 1915 and 1916 starring a young Frank Borzage.

Available direct or from the BFI (not online though, you'll have to visit!) this will warm the cockles of anyone’s heart.