"Give me a rose to show how much you care…" Savage, Above The Arts Theatre

A rose is a rose… you can’t turn a rose into an orchid and it’s a rose, so why would you ever want to.

Claudio Macor’s latest play tackles the attempts by Danish Doctor Carl Peter Vaernet to cure homosexuality. He believed – against almost all medical and psychiatric advice of the time - that same-sex attraction was a disease which could therefore be medicated, treated and “eradicated… He believed that by injecting testosterone into both testicles, without anaesthetic of course, he could alter the laws of attraction.

Naturally the Nazi’s were highly interested in this barbarous tinkering and supported the mad Dane in his experimentation in the hope of freeing more room in concentration camps for other “deserving” minorities. Sadly, even when the war was over, the British also sensed an angle and funded his flight to Argentina where he died, un-ashamed in 1965.

But what of the lives and loves his merciless needles ruined? Macor prefers to believe in the Doctor’s ultimate failure as love holds stronger than the sharpest needle and the most painful procedure. More than this love conquers even the Nazi’s themselves as one of those abused strides off in proud defiance leaving his closeted lover and abuser to face his conscience alone.

This is an unflinching, honest play that is strongly played by a physically and emotionally fearless cast. At a time when even one of the would-be leaders of British government once supported the cause of a modern day “gay cure” it’s a reminder how cautious we must always be in accepting progress: vigilance, understanding and compassion must define any contemporary culture.

The play starts in stunning fashion in The Corner Light night club,  as the host Georg Jensen (Lee Knight) performs Lili Marlene gradually pulling off his drag as the words stick in his throat with the realisation that he must leave his love and all this behind. Denmark legalised homosexuality in the thirties but once they accepted German occupation in 1940 everything changed.

The song is a cry for loss of love and liberty made all the more passionate by our knowledge of what comes next. It’s a German song but nationality doesn’t matter; only truth and joy.

For you, lili Marleen, For you, lili Marleen

Two lovers leave the club, American Embassy attaché Zach (Nic Kyle) and Danish art gallery worker Nikolai (Alexander Huetson); they are walking a dangerous line in this new cultural reality and as they share what a few months ago would have been acceptable affections, they know the future is bleak. They talk of the future and ways to escape to be together but a stray embrace is caught in a spotlight and they are arrested.

We cut to the surgery of Doctor Carl Peter Værnet (Gary Fannin – late of the Reduced Shakespeare Company) and his prim nurse Ilse Paulsen (Emily Lynne) for whom looks will prove to be deceptive.  Værnet’s loony tune is sexual normalisation via genital injection… the practice being a perfect signifier of the intent.

A deal for the Doctor

Eager to invest in medical experimentation the Germans are all too willing to provide gay guinea pigs. General Heinrich Von Aechelman (Bradley Clarkson – Jimmy from Macor and Andrea Leoncini’s wonderful tribute to silent film great Billy Haines, The Tailor-Made Man!)  brings Nikolai to the surgery and with his approaches to Ilse and plan for sexual-cleansing he appears to be a full-blooded, compassion-free Aryan… and yet, the General is quite different at home.

He has “rescued” Georg for his personal service and the two enjoy a bizarre relationship of necessity – the General genuinely feels for his man but you sense the true power is always with the defiant younger man: even imprisoned and with no chance of escape Georg never submits his soul.

Meanwhile, the Doctor brings out his big needle and in the play’s most painful sequence we see his operation on a desperate Nikolai. It’s hard to watch but well done to Alexander Huetson lets rip in the most convincing fashion. As a man we were squirming in our seats but this actually happened: people were stupid enough to believe this would work and callous enough to put it into practice.

The result is proclaimed as a success by the deluded Doctor as he presents Nikolai with another naked prisoner – Georg. Nikolai’s failure to respond is hailed as proof of concept even though the poor man can barely stand. Now we see Ilse’s true colours as she rescues Nikolia who is not “cured” but broken, incapable of survival on his own. She contacts Zach… who telephones his man from America but as the years roll and the war progresses… is there hope? Will even Zach and Mikolai’s love survive the Doctor's brutal injections…?

Post war, British Major Ronald Hemingway (Christopher Hines) interviews the Doctor and is intrigued enough by his “cure” to affect his escape to Argentina… 

Gary Fannin and Emily Lynne

The plays relationships wax and wane with their components breaking and falling whilst some remain true. Zach escapes to America but he still suffers in a different way to Nikolai whilst the General wants the one he does have... but can never truly possess. The Doctor’s relationship to his subjects, co-workers, collaborators all vary and yet it is his relationship to the truth that never wanes. He is deluded in the most self-absorbed way and the play doesn’t need to linger on his motivations: they remain obscure, fatuous and hateful.

The cast generates an almost frightening intensity in the close proximity of the Arts Theatre's upstairs stage. Lee Knight makes for a defiant diva whose sensitivity is matched by his strength and glamour (strength through glamour: there's one you never thought of Herr Goebbels!) whilst Bradley Clarkson gives his General a tragic desire behind his cowardly devotion to duty: no wonder his character hates blondes.

Lee Knight and Bradley Clarkson

Nic Kyle’s Zach exudes positivity and get-up-and-go which increasingly runs counter to Nikolai’s torments: Alexander Huetson’s role was physically the most demanding and gives the play a visceral unease that brings the audience closer to its subject.

Emily Lynne’s Ilse offers sympathy and the quiet rage of a nurse forced into acts that harm not heal whilst Gary Fannin’s Doctor is a man adrift from morality and confounded by delusion. There is also vibrant support from young Kristian Simeonov as Goran – a cabaret dancer turned soldier and Christopher Hines as Major Ronald Hemingway whose British charm hides his hollow opportunism.

Alexander Huetson and Nic Kyle

Human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell explains in the introduction to the play how he had uncovered this story. It took him some time to persuade the Danish authorities to release papers concerning Værnet’s crimes and, as yet no explanation or apology has been forthcoming from either Denmark or Britain for allowing this war criminal to escape justice.

The play ends with the image of Doctor Carl Peter Værnet projected on the stage – we know you now sir and we won’t forget you. Nor will we easily forget this play.

Savage plays until 30th July and tickets are still available here but you better be quick! In these times of unrelenting press propaganda and a push towards more narrow-band nationalism it’s a vital, challenging night out - one that will leave you shaken, stirred and resolute.

Lubitsch goes Wilde - Lady Windermere's Fan (1925)

Almost from the get-go silent films tackled their theatrical cousins, retelling plays as if words really didn’t matter. Risky at the best of times such missions were surely impossible when it came to the sophisticated wordplay of Oscar Wilde.

Nazimova did it with interpretive dance and audacious mise en scène for Salomy but here Enrst Lubitsch takes on Oscar using the wit and sophistication of his direction. Sure there are some excellent performances but Ernst’s inch-perfect positioning, cross-cutting and way with purely visual messaging ensures that this take on a wordy, comedy of manners works.

He hardly needs to use title cards as the mood is established, explained and maintained throughout in what is one of the neatest films of the Twenties: so balanced and perfectly timed, shot and performed… I’m finally getting to feel that “touch” the grown-ups talk about – the delicate use of key signifiers to lift the tale above predictability and to convey small explosions of meaning in unexpected ways.

Take, for example, that fan… it’s everywhere: a symbol of marital love, a potential assault weapon, distraction under duress and incriminating evidence. It’s just a fan but Lubitsch uses it so very well.

Put that fan in the hands of an actress as undeniably fine as Irene Rich and you have a symbol of motherly sacrifice, unbreakable choices that have to be made and confirmation that true love does indeed conquer all.

Irene Rich

I was expecting a witty disappointment but what I got was a riveting 86 minutes that might just be one of the greatest cinematic adaptations o f a play: Lubitsch using massive, high and wide sets through which his characters drift in their torments in one sequence a wife and her would be lover changing places over a room that must be 80 feet long – there is no way they can meet in the middle: they are doomed by circumstance to orbit and never embrace in cosmic collision. Unless, that is, a new stellar object appears to play havoc with the order of this mannered and moneyed universe…

May McAvoy

All begins with Lady Windermere (May McAvoy) facing the troublesome decisions of where to seat her dinner guests at her impending birthday party: where to put the dashing and entertaining Lord Darlington (Ronald Colman), right next to her ladyship… at the head of the table perhaps? Talk of the Devil… the Lord arrives to bring handsome substance to her reverie… She presumes he’s come to see her husband… but not this time.

Meanwhile Lord Windermere (Bert Lytell) is discovering something even more disturbing… A Mrs. Edith Erlynne has written to him claiming to be his wife’s mother who was lost to disgrace a long time ago with her daughter having grown up believing her dead and a great moral example…

Bert Lytell

Mrs. Erlynne (superbly played by Miss Rich) duly arrives and uses this unfortunate connection to extract some financial support from Windermere – her elegant blackmail expressed through sight of a cheque and the Lord having to add a one to the five hundred he’s started writing following one smiling glance… His wife must never know of her mother’s disgrace. Rich was just 34 at the time and whilst that initially seems too young… when you do the maths it’s close enough.

Mrs. Erlynne begins to lead an “extravagant” life with Windermere’s support, “…not accepted by society but the subject of its gossip…” There’s a terrific scene at the races when “society” spies in fascination at the intriguing interloper: spy glasses from both men and women including The Duchess of Berwick (Carrie Daumery) leader of the pack. We see multiple points of view until Mrs E. sits down just in front of a group including Lady Windermere her husband, admirer and the gossips.

A day at the races

Examining the back of her head with her binoculars the Duchess is delighted to see that Mrs E is going slightly grey and then, seeing her jewels, ponders where her money comes from. All wonderfully bitchy in Oscar Wilde’s immortal way.

Sat with them is one of London’s most eligible Lord Augustus Lorton (Edward Martindel) who spies this fine filly and is intrigued. As the lady leaves he follows with the director showing their pursuit in longshot, small figures against a backdrop of advertisement-plastered walls: the camera gradually masqued to narrow the screen as Lord closes in on Lady…

The Lord in pursuit

Lorton goes to visit and Lubitsch uses the manner of his entrances to illustrate the developing relationship: at first formal, waiting to be shown through by the maid and then advancing from front door to drawing room with barely a pause: his familiarity only halted by Edith’s last minute swerve: he’s keen.

Meanwhile Darlington can’t help himself and casts aspersions about Lord Windermere’s relationship with Edith. Lady W can scare believe it but sure enough she discovers chequebook evidence of multiple payments to this strange woman… Rumbled, Windermere refuses to reveal all and asks his wife to take his word.

Things are coming to a head though as Windermere asks to re-introduce Edith to society at his wife’s birthday party but she threatens to use the lovely fan he has bought her to assault the interloper… Having invited Edith, Windermere’s un-invitation isn’t seen in time before she arrives to potential humiliation. Cue Lord Lorton who arrives to sweep her into the room – her daughter, the two men chasing her affections and so many idle tongues gathered all in one room…

I won’t give any more away save to say that the fan becomes a significant character almost in its own right.

Garden liaison

The film presents almost as Lubitsch in the raw; it’s very pared down with the focus on character and movement. The sets are elegant and but, as with the racecourse, recede far behind the foregrounded players all of whom are sophisticated and in the cases of the main leads, sensitive.

The cinematography of Charles Van Enger matches his director’s vision and allows for a story so reliant on words to transition so well to the silent screen.

Ronald Coleman and May McAvoy

Wilde and Lubitsch is a marriage made in Hollywood though: two men of subtle wit and piercing insights into polite society constrained by manners and rules almost designed to prevent happiness. Any triumph of love is almost accidental and always against the odds: perhaps these folk aren’t much different from those who watch them in the dark?

I watched the version on the More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894-1931 box set which comes with a sparkly new piano score – it’s available direct or from Amazon but is now collectable – time for a re-release!

House of cards… La maison du mystère (1923)

I must admit to some trepidation in taking on Flicker Alley’s three-disc collection of this serial – who has the time for the best part of seven hours of serial especially when the British summer is actually happening outside, as we speak!?

But, after a couple of episodes still peaking at the garden, nipping out to clear some weeds and eat salad, I was hooked and it turns out that you can very easily make the time to find out what happens in this tense thriller. Unlike many earlier serials, La maison du mystère (The House of Mystery), isn’t really episodic and plays like the chapters in the book, by Jules Mary, it was based on. It’s effectively one long narrative often picking up directly after the events of the previous episode.

Ivan

As such it holds your attention and you never feel there’s any padding or artificial rounding off to make the stories fit within the format: the film-makers respected their audience and only now can we see their full intent by watching each element back-to-back – there was no box-set gorging in 1923; you had to wait a week at a time!

For a French production this is, of course very Russian with Alexandre Volkoff directing and Ivan Mozzhukhin (as Ivan Mosjoukine) acting and co-scripting with Volkoff. The two maintain a superb continuity throughout and keep a tight rein on the narrative which could so easily sprawl.

Caught

The tone is playful and inventive with each episode featuring a flick of the director’s wrist: a wedding shown entirely in silhouette, an overhead shot of a group of police officers suddenly emerging and circling around a wanted man and a breathless chase across a broken wooden bridge with four men holding hands to hold it together – a sequence that lasts for half an episode and could easily have come from a much later era.

The Human Bridge

Volkoff and Mozzhukhin never tire of their story and across the years it was made – 1921-23 – and the decades covered by the story, they maintain integrity and tension: they never repeat themselves and fit in stories within each episode which add extra weight and flavour. It’s a rich experience and you feel exactly like you’ve just read a good book.

Jules Mary was known for writing around miscarriages of justice and this story is no different and, whilst I usually hate stories about innocents proved guilty, you have to see this one through to make sure that justice, if at all possible, is done. To this extent it does feel very “modern” HBO or Netflix with victory not easily won and with a magnetic star every bit as capable as John Hamm or Kevin Spacey with a “European” sensibility quite unlike Hollywood at the time – Mozzhukhin looks at the camera with worrying intensity and is matched by the malevolent complexity of   the remarkable Charles Vanel who would enjoy a 77 year career including Clouzot’s Wages of Fear and Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief.

Charles Vanel

Ivan Mozzhukhin (as Ivan Mosjoukine) plays Julien Villandrit the inheritor of a large mill who lives in a large country mansion in neighbouring grounds. When first encountered he is an excited youth, sprinting in shirt-sleeves to propose to the daughter of his neighbours, Régine de Bettigny (Hélène Darly). He’s so nervous he could burst and behaves with gauche uncertainty as he tries to build up the courage to pop the question to Régine’s parents.

The Mill and the House

Permission duly granted he bounds off home unable to contain himself and literally bumps into his best friend, Henri Corradin (Charles Vanel) who has also, secretly held hopes for Régine. As Julien hangs upside down from a tree, Corradin is speechless, full of loathing for this undeserving loon…

Hélène Darly and Ivan Mozzhukhin

And so it begins, as Hell has no fury like an industrialist scorned, and hatred brews that will shape the lives of this unequal triangle for ever.

A retired banker, Marjory (played by Bartkevitch) is a gentle giant who seems exceptionally fond of Régine but also her mother (Nina Raievska) gently embracing her hand as her ailing husband sleeps outside their opulent “cottage”. Then there’s the woodcutter Rudeberg (Nicolas Koline) a man of no fixed moustache and a keen amateur photographer…he is a camera and the camera rarely lies… although sometimes it withholds what it knows…

Nicolas Koline

We move forward to Julien and Régine’s happy marriage which is shown in a stunning sequence of silhouetted tableaux – it’s the type of device that sets silent hearts all a flutter and had me calling the rest of the family in to re-watch it. It’s a remarkable play – like shadow puppets but with each actor clearly discernible and in character: Julien and Régine tender and Corradin, thwarted, sneaking down stairs; making plans.

Corradin schemes

The pieces are in place but it will take a full seven years before the drama will really begin… this is a “long firm” of  a story: payback will take all but every one of the serial’s 400 minutes. Moving on… the young couple now have a precocious daughter, Christiane (Simone Genevois) – their family complete. Already turning slightly grey with the agony of disappointment, Corradin smirks when Julien struggles with the Mill’s financial difficulties and is determined that he must not only succeed, his friend must fail… totally.

Julien confronts Marjory

He focuses attention on the kindly Marjory who, in addition to secretly bailing out the mill –  repeatedly paying their outstanding bills – is also inordinately fond of Régine: really, really fond. Julien’s not made of stone and he soon begins to doubt the old man at first banning him from their house after one generosity to many and then violently confronting him. But, as Julien storms homeward, the old banker follows and, collapsing from the effort, reveals the truth: he is Régine’s father but this must never be revealed.

Julien runs for help but whilst he’s away, another assailant appears and is caught on camera by the shocked Rudeberg who snaps the old man’s final moments; its grim struggle mirrored in his lens.

Rudeberg's lens sees all

By the time Julien returns with help the picture he has described is far from what is found: it’s murder and he is very much in the frame…

Thus begins Julien’s epic struggle to prove his innocence and, after he is incarcerated, to get free to rescue his family and to bring the murderer and his traitorous friend to justice. Over the course of the series he adopts many disguises: itinerant, clown, foreign legionnaire – they all serve in the war – and disabled veteran who works for the Mill unrecognised.

It's an epic

Christiane grows up (to become Francine Mussey – whose open, pretty face impressed my son no end…) and never forgets her father – meeting him once when she is seven and then again after the war when she begins to help him. She form a life-long attachment for Pascal (Vladimir Strizhevsky), Rudeberg’s son which is bitter-sweet as his father has used his photographs of the murder to not only blackmail Corradin into supporting the boy but has, as a result, condemned her father to his half-life in prison and then on the run…

Francine Mussey

It’s a complex tale that unfolds at novel pace… and watching it almost all at once is not the way to fully appreciate it – filming took two years for various reasons, and audiences would have agonising waits between each episode: a huge dramatic tension guaranteeing their interest. More like old analogue TV and not digital-on-demand.

The actors are all superb, Varnel treading an expert line between friend and foe and Hélène Darly enduring years of faint hope and almost certain degradation. Nicolas Koline epitomises their shared skill of character consistency and the film’s efforts to show the moral frailty in extremes as he does the right thing by his son but is largely to blame for the whole long mess.

Hélène Darly

And Ivan… Ivan is simply magnificent; one of the very best performers of the era here allowed to go the full Alec Guiness/Lon Chaney in a succession of disguises whilst all the time his charcter gets older, worn down by war and defeat… yet still with hope and the unqualified, unwavering love of his wife and daughter.

The set is available direct from Flicker Alley or Amazon and comes with an energetic new score from Neil Brand: a musical marathon which retains common themes and under-pins events in perfect sympathy – it’s full of winning lines and carries a steadfast charm that is very much the story of Julien and Régine’s love and hope.

Ivan of many faces

Also included is a slideshow of rare production stills and a 12-page booklet featuring extensive notes about the serial’s cast and crew compiled by Lenny Borger and David Robinson.

It’s essential for all fans of Monsieur Mosjoukine and inventive European silent cinema.