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

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

 

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

 

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

Vilma Bánky

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Forgotten Faces (1928) with Stephen Horne

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Desdemona Mazza, Ivor Novello and Gabriel de Gravone

L’Appel du Sang (1919) with John Sweeney

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

The Red Dance (1928) with Masterclass student Andra Bacila

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Grazie mille!!

Punishment and reward… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 43, Day Six

 

In receiving her richly-deserved Jean Mitry Award, the BFI’s Bryony Dixon pointed out the importance of this festival in terms of enabling international collaborations but also as a peer group for the often embattled national archives. The Giornate had inspired Dixon along with others to elevate the reputation of British silent cinema and with the restorations not just of the Hitchcock back catalogue but also key films from Anthony Asquith especially, it has been mission accomplished with more to come. It’s a group of people who inspire each other and as an outsider in professional  media terms, I’ve always been impressed with the dedication of Bryony and others to the main goals of preservation and education. The value is in the content and to be able to achieve what she has in over three decades at the BFI is remarkable – hers are the giant shoulders on which other generations of archivists will stand.

 

At a time when the DFI are stopping filmic preservation and shifting entirely to digital, you realise the odds that are stacked against the archives – when even Germany won’t invest in the original media who else is going to stay in the game? That the other Mitry Award went to Mark-Paul Meyer from the EYE Cinema Museum in Amsterdam says it all. Long may you protect and survive.

 

Pavement Butterfly (1928) with Günter Buchwald, Frank Bockius and Mirko Cisilino

 

This week we’ve witnessed the evolution of Anna May Wong’s performance and prestige from bit parts as racial cliches to the full flourishing of her talent in Song and this film, both made in Germany. In her home country, Anna May Wong had struggled since her first film in 1921 to gain substantial roles and also characters that weren’t stereotypes. Yet in Europe for this film and Song (1928), her first film with director Richard Eichberg, she is not only a desirable and acceptable romantic lead, she is the star.

 

Eichberg simply took her natural talents and ran with them and with this freedom of expressiveness there’s  critique of Western culture’s willingness to believe the worst of people of Asian origin: first the crowd at the circus where Wong’s character Mah works, turn on her very quickly assuming she has killed her magician partner and then later, when she is blackmailed by the man who committed that murder, her artist and romantic interest, all too readily thinks she has stolen the money.

 

For anyone who gets frustrated by such “misunderstandings” the film’s ending is richly satisfying reminding me of Hindle Wakes screened here last year, a blow for self-determination for women in general at a time when their choices were so much more limited. We don’t know what Mah will do but she’ll make her way, her way. It’s interesting to note the differences in the British and German versions of this ending too, as noted in the catalogue essay from Yiman Wang, in the latter Mah says “Ich gehöre nicht zu euch” (“I do not belong to you”) whereas for the former “I don’t belong to your world. I belong to the pavements.” - she has to know her place or the remains of Empire would crumble, clearly… (see below for more stirring Tales of Empire).

 

It’s The Eyes!!

 

There are so many close-ups of AMW in this film showing her stillness and presence from every angle and catching one of the most interesting technicians of the period who conveys so much with so little movement. Much of this stems from her extraordinary eyes but she knows how to use them and how to under-react for the camera to maximise the impact on the audience engrossed in the big screen.

 

Fred Louis Lerch plays the handsome but hopeless Fedja Kusmin an artist who lacks the purity of trusting the thing he loves and the wickedly convincing Alexander Granach as Coco the Coincidental Clown who pops up throughout the film to throw mischief in our heroine’s way. Elwood Fleet Bostwick is Mr. Working a rich business man who encourages the young artist and Tilla Garden has a fine turn as his daughter Ellis who is also interestingly enough a woman who knows her mind.

 

Günter Buchwald, Frank Bockius and with Mirko Cisilino on saxophone accompanied with the tightest of sets, bursting into life during the loft party sequence featuring the remarkable dancing of an un-named couple of hyperflexible and ultra-syncopated boys from the Cabaret, bringing out the full flavour of the gorgeous locations of Nice and underpinning the emotional narrative with the subtlety that Anna deserves. Another fabulous evening show in a week full of them!

 

Stronger than Death (1920) with Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius

 

I was standing outside the Teatro Verdi discussing the drumming of Frank Bockius with Catalonian accompanist, Florenci Salesas who pointed out from a musician’s point of view how tonally flexible and supportive of the narrative his percussion is. From the explosion of jazz technique in Saxophone Suzi to Frank’s use of subtle Indian flavours or the martial beats for the British troops in this film, he’s able to switch from rhythm section to lead player in ways that are exceptional. The hardest working drummer in Pordenone and probably anywhere!

 

Here he and Donald Sosin provided an improvised score for another of the great faces of silent film, Anna Nazimova who plays a renowned dancer, Sigrid Fersen who has a heart condition that will kill her if she has just one more dance (I know…). She has come to India to find a rich husband which seems slightly at odds with her otherwise cool bohemian aesthetic and gets one she didn’t bargain for in a love and hate triangle featuring a racist British Colonel Boucicault (Charles K. French), his caring son Doctor/ Major Tristam Boucicault (Chris Bryant) and a wealthy man of mix-race heritage James Barclay (Herbert Prior).

 

Barclay is reviled by the ex-pat Brits as he is of mixed race – terms “of the period” are used to describe this unfortunate situation not of his own making – and he hopes to gain respect by marrying Sigrid. He’s backed by the local priests though who in a surprising development are looking for revenge on the British for something or other. Lots happens but the worst of it is when the Colonel shoots Tristram’s dog Wickey. As if I could hate him more…

 

It's a load of old hooey BUT it has Naz and she is brilliant as usual. Bryant’s also good in spite of his parenting, perhaps there’s hope for the World.

 

 

Raskolnikow (1923) with Richard Siedhoff

 

We all had the same thought after this stunner ended – Lotte Eisner was wrong, there are more than three expressionist films with this adaptation of Crime and Punishment being as emotionally titled as Caligari and with crazy-angled set design to match plus the same typography. Maybe she didn’t have access to the full cut of the film and certainly this restoration was a feast for the eyes…

 

Directed by Robert Wiene it adapts Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment in ways that carry the force if not the substance – how could it? Gregori Chmara is just fabulous as Rodion Raskolnikow who finds meaning in his life after wasting so much of his own and killing two women in a bungled robbery. So many heist movies follow similar lines but none examine the nature of guilt in so detailed a way. String cast, a-mazing set design which might jar initially but soon melts behind the human stories presented in unrelenting close-ups.

 

Too much to say, so little time, more films to see!

 

We were also treated to avant garde shorts from the studio of Joris Ivens which contained some interesting ideas and some irritating… as a migraine sufferer I couldn’t watch the five minutes of flashing lights from Willem Bon’s Is Er etc… covering my closed eyes with the programme and I’m speaking as a regular gig-goer. This was something like the brain-washing scene from Funeral in Berlin. The audience might well be under Dutch control for all I know, which is no bad thing in itself from experience! Gerard Saan’s Botsingen (1934) with its clever comparison of billiard balls with human activities provided an entertaining counter point, the eight-ball dropping pleasingly in the corner pocket after a repeat showing complete with sound.

King Harold… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 43, Day Six

In spite of the relatively advanced stage of my silent film condition, I had never seen Harold Lloyd’s Girl Shy even though I must have seen Speedy, for instance, at least ten times. Tonight it was an absolute revelation and with Daan van den Hurk’s sparkling jazzy score, played by the serially impressive Zerorchestra - conducted by the man himself - the roof on the Teatro Verdi was lifted so high we could see clearly that this week’s rain had stopped. Jazz is energy.

 

As with Saxophone Suzi the accompaniment illustrated the potency of jazz for Jazz-Age films and whereas Neil Brand’s cue had been more of the period – Benny Goodman or Paul Whiteman big bands “hot jazz”, van den Hurk’s score was more post-Bebop/Birth of the Cool and sometime in the modish fifties with beautiful blends of brass and reed instruments mixed with scintillating vibraphone runs and a rhythm section that kept the beat note for note with Lloyd’s tight script.

 

The era of the music was forgotten as we synchronised in sympathy with the themes, a repeated passage that caught perfectly Harold’s longing for respect, a cure for his stammer and love of Jobyna Ralston. This was the second of seven films in which the two appeared and their famous chemistry coupled with the fact that her timing and range are crucial to his story working. I’ve seen plenty of romantic comedies of this period – Lubitsch’s Three Women just this morning (see below) – but few have the feeling that the stakes are as real as this.

 

That’s crucial to the film’s laugh-ratio as we acre about the two connecting and are inflected with their awkwardness and little triumphs or setbacks on a personal level. You can’t look at those faces for so long without falling in love with their love just a little bit and, this wonderful, rousing score made sure you still felt it as happiness filled the square outside the Verdi as everyone, and I mean, everyone, was beaming!

 

Three Women (1924) with Philip Carli

 

Ernst Lubitsch’s touch is strong with this one especially in the breakneck opening third from Pauline Frederick’s character Mabel inching the weights on her scales to disappointment to Lew Cody’s weaselly Edmund eying up her jewels one by one at the ball when they meet. Then there’s lovelorn Fred Armstrong (Pierre Gendron) trying to find the right moment to give his sweetheart, Mabel’s daughter Jeanne (May McAvoy) the $50 bracelet he’s had to pawn his watch for, his progress is thwarted by split-second misfortunes as Lubitsch plays out a dance of frustration with said present repeatedly being pulled from and returned to Fred’s pocket… his last chance is lost when she opens her mother’s late-arriving gift of a diamond bracelet.

 

I still feel that the film loses its way after this point and whilst its still has good moments it takes the all too limited appearance of Marie Prevost as Edmund’s good-time girlfriend to lift the closing segment. There are missing pieces to the narrative which might explain what comes across as Two and a Half Women, but Lew ain’t no Adolphe Menjou and the likelihood of both women falling for him seems remote. The narrative moves along too quickly off screen with Jeanne’s marriage and Fred’s qualification as a doctor all of a rush.

 

So, OK, it’s not The Marriage Circle but it is still a very amusing film with much to appreciate especially with Philip Carli’s knowing accompaniment which delighted the audience packed in to see The Lubitsch! This was the third of the director’s three films from 1924, after the MC and before Forbidden Paradise with Pola Negri! I wonder if Ernst saw something of his Polish collaborator in the marvels of Giornate poster girl Marie P? As Michelle Facey said, the following year’s Kiss Me Again with Clara and Marie has to be top of the list of lost films that need finding!

Historia de un Gaucho Viejo (1924) with Mauro Colombis

 

Who is the gaucho, amigo?

Why is he standing in your spangled leather poncho

And your elevator shoes?

Bodacious cowboys

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker

 

As the week progresses and between film, talking, eating, drinking and um, blogging, things get a bit light-headed so forgive me for another impenetrable cultural reference if you are under middle age XL… But there was at least a film about Gauchos and a fascinating trip to Argentina it proved especially as the Spanish intertitles had to be translated in real time – good job that man! – competing with Mauro Columbus’ spirited accompaniment – your efforts are much appreciated amigos!

 

The film was Historia de un Gaucho Viejo (1924) which presents as something like a western but with altogether more political overtones explained by Andrés Levinson in his catalogue notes. The main character Anastasio Ríos (José J. Romeu) is not just a leader of men but a fighter for democracy in a story set before the introduction of the secret ballot in 1912. He kills Contreras, the chief of police (Ramón Podestá), in self defence and whilst you’d expect this to lead to a life of crime, he’s more of a freedom fighter trying to right the injustice inherent in rural society at this time.

 

After a successful raid to liberate some cattle wrongfully taken by the authorities, he offers one of the men, Don Luna (actor unknown) leadership and, as the two fight honourably with knives they end up hugging in recognition of the other’s bravery and honour. This is no Duke Wayne bar brawl but something that feels altogether more rough and real.

 

There are some uncompromising characters such as “El Zorro” (Ernesto Etchepare) who is at one point bravely leading the police away from his fellow and then another trying to sexually assault Mercedes (Mycha Flores), Ríos’ daughter who is already involved with another man. He serenades her with a guitar so some “western” tropes are universal.

 

Shot around the small town of San Rafael, located at the foot of the Andes in the south of the province of Mendoza, the backdrops are stunning especially with the residual colourisation. It’s another fascinating education from Le Giornate and I am loving this South American road trip!

 

 

For the Soul of Rafael (1920) with José María Serralde Ruiz, Günter Buchwald, Frank Bockius, Gabriel Rigo (masterclass student)

 

Someway north of the Argentina, round Mexico way there was another remarkable score being played out by the above four piece, which featured pianist José María Serralde Ruiz expertly inter-weaving Mexican music of the period into the largely improvised score. Masterclass student, Gabriel Rigo provided flamenco flourishes on guitar with Günter Buchwald on violin and Frank Bockius hitting anything that didn’t move. It’s always a pleasure the see the musical combinations the Giornate throws up and this one was especially fit for purpose.

 

The film provided another rare opportunity to see one of the surviving Clara Kimball Young features, an actress who was on a level with almost anyone in the 1910s yet who has faded from memory after her career stalled in the mid-1920s. She’s a highly watchable actor, similar perhaps to Norma Talmadge but without the archive, or Lillian Gish without the lengthy career.

 

Here she’s Marta a young woman raised in a convent who has been pledged to marry Rafael (Bertram Grassby) the unruly son of matriarch Dona Luisa (Eugenie Besserer) who hopes she will civilise her boy and keep him on the straight and narrow. Before she leaves, Marta rescues and American Keith Bryton – such a British name Keith! – from being killed by native Americans by putting her ring on his finger. Naturally she falls in love with The Man with the Ring and doesn’t realise that, according to native practice, she has married him.

 

That’s not the only “crickey!” in the plot and the reviewer from Moving Picture World, May 15, 1920 nails it: The story moves on from this point to a happy ending, but with much action of tense and strenuous nature in between. Still, it’s entertaining and fascinating to see the actress and the kind of film that made her such a success with audiences of the time.

 

Still, the accompaniment was excellent and it was good to hear the injection of contemporary themes from the ensemble.

 

 

Dog walking brilliance!! Animals on Film…

 

When Winter Comes (US? 1921?)

 

Just as I’m missing my dog Mungo, here popped up a splendid short documentary of a family holiday told from the point of view of their dog. There are lovely shots of canine joy in the snow with colorised sections too. It’s one of the unidentified films so, hopefully someone will identify the filmmakers. Meanwhile, I can’t wait for my little four-legged fluffball to meet snow come this winter!

 

With Sled and Reindeer... (1926) with Donald Sosin

 

Erik Bergström’s documentary was screening as part of Swedish Nature and Ethnographic Films strand and featured a young woman and her family’s struggle to make a life farming deer in the far north of the country. There were breath-taking backdrops accentuated by an opening tracking shot – from a train? - of pure white snowy forests on endless mountains.

 

It is a recent restoration from the SFI and in addition to looking gorgeous, captures a way of life that one presumes has disappeared. The fascination then as now was man living in balance with nature. Life and death were seen in this film as part of that process. A terrible beauty.

 

 

All my colours… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 43, Day Five

 

The effort put into making this film far exceeds anything attempted thus far in France. No bluffing, no pompous blarney, or gibberish preface. No political or social theory, no boring or muddled intertitles… Beauty, truth, art – there’s the secret of the success of La Sultane de l’amour.

La Cinématographie française (18^th October 1919)

Myriad lights, they said I'd be impressed

Arabian nights, at your primitive best...

Siouxsie and the Banshees, Arabian Nights

Some films are almost too impractically beautiful to exist, too unlikely to have been made given the exchange between huge effort and end results, no matter how charming, that make you sad the moment the action stops and they fade from view. Two films today met this criteria, The Blue Bird (1918) and La Sultane de l’amour (1919) – the first I’d seen but not “live” and the second I’d never heard of making it whack me even harder when the first image of the colourised Gaston Modot smiles on screen. Surely they’re not going to keep this up for the whole film? Yes indeed they do and it’s quite any colourised film I’ve seen before with gorgeous deep richness the result of an impeccable digital restoration in 2021 were carried out by the CNC laboratory using three tinted and stencil-coloured nitrate copies from the Cinémathèque française.

 

It's introduced as a missing story from the Arabian Nights... or it might as well be, with nasty Sultan Malik (Paul Vermoyal) bored, bored, bored and looking for some romance or at least aggressive male sexual behaviour. He despatches three knights to find him an appropriate female and yet when Kadjar (Monsieur Modot) discovers Princess Daoulah, the “Sultaness of Love” (France Dhélia – see above!) she informs him that she has other plans…

 

Problematic leader Sultan Malik (Paul Vermoyal) 

Not that it’s any of Kadjar or indeed the Sultan’s business, but Princess D’s plans are centred on the handsome man who recently rescued her from drowning, unknown to her but revealed to us as the hand-tinted rosy-cheeked Prince Mourad (Sylvio de Pedrelli) who, as it happens, is definitely thinking along the same lines. Sadly, Daoulah’s perfectly reasonable request to be left the heck alone, is ignored by the sexually malfunctioning Sultan who decides to kidnap her and use the tried and always successful techniques of abuse and torture to make her fall for his extremely well-hidden charms.

He's the poorest of leaders though alienating Nazir (Marcel Lévesque) his court jester/advisor by abusing him and making fun of his physical disabilities – see, there’s a pattern here – whilst his general administration is building up resistance from the population and other royals including Princess Zilah (Yvonne Sergyl) and Mourad. As tension mounts there’s plenty of dancing, vestals and cross-dressed eunuchs… this is not a film that holds back in presenting the excesses of Arabian socio-political structures. My main concern is that, lacking any kind of industrialised workforce, they’re going to have to wait a long time for the Sultan to be overthrown. Unless true love can win out…

 

Accompaniment was provided by Mauro Colombis on piano, Frank Bockius percussion and  Elizabeth-Jane Baldry on harp. The combination added mystery and flavour to this magical reality and we not only did the time warp again, reality folded around us in ways that will inform our dreams for weeks to come.

 

An absolute cracker!!!

The audience leaving the Teatro Verdi last night...

The Blue Bird (1918) with Neil Brand and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry 

M. Maeterlinck's poem has been transferred from a book to the screen, and it is a safe assertion to say that seldom, if ever, has the atmosphere and spirit of a written work been more faithfully reproduced in motion pictures.

New York Times, 1918

Maurice Tourneur's The Blue Bird was released just over a year after the director's collaboration with Mary Pickford in The Poor Little Rich Girl and featured such regular collaborators as art director Ben Carré, cinematographer John van den Broke and Editor Clarence Brown. If that film was Revolver this was the full Sgt. Pepper - a flight of fantasy from start to finish: silent psychedelia in full bloom at a time when the World needed to believe in eternal truths and the truth of eternity.

 

When in the heart of their fantastic journey to find the Blue Bird, the two youngsters meet not only their dead grandparents but their dead brothers and sisters, there are at least ten of them... this was a time when infant mortality was high and life came with the flimsiest of "guarantees".

 

The film is a sumptuous collection of such moments and visual set pieces, a hyper-creative comfort blanket that smuggles through the simple message that there's not only no place like home but that kindness must spread out from there into the heart-broken World beyond. There are tightly-defined fantasy constructs - humanised versions of fire, water and light, dogs, cats and wonderful "moods" such as vibrant dancers embodying The Joys of Pure Thoughts and the slightly less impressive Sleeping-More-Than-Necessary (not going to happen here at Le Giornate…).

Tourneur draws pure and naturalistic performances from his cast of children, 12-year old Tula Belle as Mytyl and Robin Macdougall as Tyltyl who react and act with genuine thrill to every new wonder. It's a child's film with many adult concerns.

The accompaniment from Neil Brand on piano and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry on harp brought the magic out across the auditorium and melted our stubborn hearts.

Song (1928) with Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

 

I attended the talk and Q&A with Yiman Wang the author of To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World and one of the questions for this actress who struggled to sustain her successes, was when she really showed her qualities as an actor. Yiman pointed to Shanghai Express (1932) directed by Josef von Sternberg and co-staring Marlene Dietrich who, she contends, came of second best to Anna May. I would argue that Piccadilly and Song also allow her considerable expression, especially in comparison to her Hollywood work.

 

In this newly and magnificently restored version, Wong shows full command of her abilities moving effortlessly from drama to comedy and playing with the audience with her controlled expression. She was, as she said, never really a dancer but she could act dancing which is what she does here and in the British film. She ended up paying 200 guineas to learn in Britain in the thirties as people expected her to sing and dance given her oriental background.

 

Anna May Wong excels here because it’s a rare part that allowed her to just be and not just an exotic token or worse still, something sinister. She responds to the camera’s frequently intense gaze with naturalistic gestures and a positive focus on her character and rides out some of the more extraordinary plot elements and costumery with ease and good humour. She’s equally at home fighting off attackers, coming to the rescue during a train robbery and selflessly supporting a selfish man who can’t see further than his own infatuation.

 

The story is set in Istanbul and there are some lovely establishing shots of what would become the scene of Liverpool FC’s Champions League triumph almost 80 years later. Anna May plays Song, a poor woman eking out a living by catching lobsters on the beach. She is spotted by two men who proceed to assault her only to be fought off by a passer-by, Jack Houben (Heinrich George). It’s a pretty grim fight that’s only won when Song gets stuck into help her rescuer.

 

Jack takes Song back for shelter at his humble home and frightens her to death as he demonstrates his profession – a knife thrower. Jack decides she could be an asset to his act and before long she’s dancing in front of the regulars at the homely music hall where he works. Song and Jack’s life seems to have settled but the arrival of a famous ballet dancer is about to upset the precarious balance of their apple cart. There are posters for Gloria Lee (Mary Kid) all over town and Song decides to use one to make an improvised table in Jack’s house, without realising she’s an old flame and that flame is about to be rekindled…

 

Song is a melodrama with some sharp plot turns but Richard Eichberg directs it well enough helped by some excellent cinematography from Heinrich Gärtner and the designs of Willi Herrmann. Whilst Mary Kid makes for an unconvincing ballerina, Heinrich George makes for a believable thrower of knives and, of course, Anna May Wong's smile and ready tears steal the show.

 

Stephen Horne has previously said that, as a young accompanist, he had played along to Song sight unseen (the days before preview discs) and the film’s frequent narrative lurches had made for an engaging challenge. Today he and percussionist Frank Bockius, knew exactly what is coming and their improvisations enriched the film in ways that helped elevate it in the canon of Anglo-German silents and, indeed, in the career of the talented and beautifully-determined Anna May Wong!

History, man... Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 43, Day Four

In my part of the media when we’re not slapping you in the face with a paywall or clogging your smart phone with “behaviourally targeted” advertising, we aim for engaging and valuable content. Today at the Giornate was a high-value one with so many films, long and so short you could call them photographs. In short, Peak Pordenone with surprise after surprise and a sense of incredulity about what we had just seen, that it even exists let alone a century down the line. Blessed are the archivists and the programmers, the projectionists and the people who help you down the stairs in the Teatro Verdi.

 

 

Moxov Qiz [The Leper] (1928) with Abror Zufarov and Sobirjon Tuyokov

 

I’m starting again in Uzbekistan with an outstanding film – the best of the strand so far – and a powerful tale about the treatment of women in parts of the Muslim community in the early days of the last century – thereby also highlighting the corruption of the Tsarist regime. This would not be the first touch with issues that remain of modern concerns on today’s programme.

 

Directed by Oleg Frelikh this was based on a treatment by Lolakhan Saifullina (who co-wrote The Second Wife) of a novel by French author Ferdinand Duchêne, a magistrate in Algeria, where he observed the struggle between traditional life and modernity. A young woman, Tyllia-Oi (Ra Messerer, who was also in The Second Wife) marries a wealthy merchant Said-Vali (Grigol Chechelashvili) and soon falls foul of his temper by wearing the Russian style of clothes he favours rather than traditional dress – “don’t forget you’re a Muslim…”.

 

The local Russian authorities are all in the deep pockets of her husband but he still has reason to fear officer Igor Karonin (Andrei Fait who was also in Battleship Potemkin (1925) and much more) who intercepts a message for help from Tyllia-Oi and uses it to blackmail her into sexual favours. He provides some measure of protection for her but after he is sent to a new station in Moscow, she shows too much emotion to her husband when he breaks the news and he uncovers her affair.

 

Ra Messerer

His retaliation is savage and, branded am adulteress and, even though her father makes a complaint about her abuse, the Russians are easily bought off and won’t go against the wishes of the religious court which finds her guilty under Sharia law. She must return to her father who must give Said-Vali a full refund on her dowry… but the highest price is paid in the disgrace and the woman must bear full responsibility.

 

Frelikh directs with subtlety and grace even with this most disheartening story and there are plenty of compositions showing the location and nature as well as the way of life. The transitions between shots are immaculate and the cinematography of Vladimir Dobrzhanskii is outstanding. There was certainly a propogandist agenda to this film but given the source material – based on experience of North Africa – this kind of story is entirely possible in the culture of the time. . Forgetting religion, how many women live like this still?

 

Any country would be proud to have this film as part of their cultural history and the accompaniment from Abror Zufarov and Sobirjon Tuyokov was at once so evocative of their country as well as in perfect tune with this sad and sobering film, one that deserves wider exposure and I hope it gets a screening in the UK soon.

 

The Land of Promise (1924) with José María Serralde Ruiz

 

Directed by Ya’acov Ben Dov, this was another film with propagandist purpose and a “straight” documentary covering the “repopulation” (words can’t be careful enough…) of the land of Palestine by Jewish settlers in the years up to 1924. The initial screening in the UK was followed by a lecture by Leonard Stein of the World Zionist Organization, who claimed that prior to the Balfour Declaration, “Palestine had become a desolate country... a miserable swamp.” (Daily Telegraph, 22^nd December 1924) and it’s one repeated in the film.

 

The arguments against and for this are there for all to research. The screening is a call to make ourselves better informed without rushing to judgement – this is what a trained historian is supposed to say. As a film it is very well made and not dissimilar to Russian works of the period in presenting the results of collaboration for the cause.

 

The accompaniment from José María Serralde Ruiz was well played by conveyed a level of anger that, for me, distracted from the viewing experience. It’s up to the viewers to be historical in their interpretation of this source material and the rights and wrongs of the document, the aims of Zionism and rights to land. If any film encapsulated the significance of cinema as a means of historical record then it’s this one.

 

And yes, Balfour has a lot to answer for but his government were shooting my great grandfather’s comrades in the streets of Liverpool a little over a decade before this during the Transport Strike.

 

Le Hugenot (1909) with Donald Sosin and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry

 

This short film will have been programmed to illustrate another key factor about the movement of people as Louis Feuillade’s short feature showed the religious persecution of the Huguenots in the 16^th Century including The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 with modern estimates of the numbers killed ranging from 5-30,000. Whilst the film finishes in a call for peace before God, tens of thousands fled France for protestant countries such as England and via boat.

 

The Pride of the Clan (1917) with Donald Sosin and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry

 

It was time for some fun and to marvel again at the epic skillset of Mary the 1st here directed by the genius Maurice Tourneur. Mary is Marget MacTavish who takes over as Chieftain after her father drowns at sea. She’s about to marry Jamie Campbell (Matt Moore) and there’s some silliness with couples in the clan biting sixpence in half so they can hang it around each other’s necks – HG Wells should have sued! But it’s all in fun even when Jamie is revealed to be of noble birth and his birth mother tries to sweep him away to polite society.

 

Well, you know Mary, d’yea think she’ll allow that the noo?

 

Excellent locations from Tourneur create a genuinely Caledonian feel and Elizabeth-Jane’s harp added further Celtic magic along with Donald Sosin’s lines crashing like so many waves against the granite cliffs of this hitherto unknown southern Hebridean island. Great fun!

 

Folly of Vanity (1924), with Philip Carli

 

Once again we were left on a high with this inventive film about the early married life of Alice and Robert Farnsworth as played by the mighty Billie Dove and Jack Mulhall in the style of a proto-screwball comedy. They’ve never had an argument in, oh, six months or so of marriage until Alice buys some fake pearls and wants to go to a party hosted by Mr (John St. Polis) and Mrs Ridgeway (Betty Blythe with the vamp-ometer set to kill!). Mr R has a famous pearl collection and these parties have a reputation for being, louche…

 

They go, they row as Mrs R tries to tempt Robert as her Mr drops temptation round Alice’s neck with a pearl necklace so she can rekindle its lost lustre… There’s a floor show at the party that wouldn’t be out of place at the Moulin Rouge and the charm continues when the guests are invited to the Ridgeways yacht/ocean liner with the couple intent of achieving both their targets.

 

So far so pre-code and boy, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet as Alice falls overboard and into the wildest party in the undersea empire of Poseidon. Henry Otto directed this green-tinted gratuity and he directed the steamy heck out of it with more mermaids than there are stars in MGM and an eye-poppin’ amount of flesh on view. The fact that England’s finest, Maurice Elvey directed the other parts of the film makes this all the more shocking, mind you, he’d be filming in Blackpool a few years later for Hindle Wakes and, well, there’s stuff goes on there that also blows the mind!

 

Lulu McGrath

Also seen:

 

Pre-Cousteau underwater adventures including J. Ernest Williamson’s Wonders of the Sea (1922) which seemed to be mostly Lulu McGrath in a swimming costume floating past the coral and angel fish. Neil Brand accompanied in fine style, resolve of steel not to musically quote Yellow Submarine.

 

Columbian films including Garras de Oro (1927) which was essentially an astonishing attack on Teddy Roosevelt’s failed attempt to enable Panamanian separatists to put the canal in more controllable hands. Columbia wins and Uncle Sam takes a bloody nose. How often does this happen. More history and suitably learned accompaniment for this spy thriller from Stephen Horne.

 

Then we had Feminist Fragments 2. Queer Eyes, Loose Lips and Detachable Limbs which was another superb collection of rare Nasty Women grooves including pro-wrestling, Alice Guy’s Les Fredaines de Pierrette (1900) and films that generally showed a surprising amount of feminist feeling or nuanced non-hetero-normative expression. There was also Queen Lyda Borelli the 1^st as St Barbara the patron saint of explosives and she does exactly what it says on the pack of dynamite! Also, watch out for roller skates, they’re dangerous!

 

 

What's in the box Lyda?

 

PS I skipped Dreyer’s Leaves from Satan’s Book (DK 1920) and am of course sorry for that but I had a crisis in Croydon to deal with remotely. And no, that’s not code for something else…

 

 

 

Dancing days… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 43, Day Three

 

The Truth, we can’t handle the truth, I mean I don’t even know if it is indeed Monday and not Saturday as time does flex and Richard O’Brien’s insightful poetry on the subject creeps into the corner of my mind to stay there on and off all day. To be fair we do spend a lot of time in the dark at this festival and also in the past, but there are certain jolts to the system that make you question wider realities. For the second day in a row one of these came from the Uzbekistan strand, The Minaret of Death (1924), with a film which showed the harsh history of a country that was then part of the new Soviet Union and even now, years after the block’s disintegration, the British Government informs that no travel can be considered safe. The Time Warp opens doors to dystopias past, current and future.

 

That said… at the end of the day up pops Anny Ondra with Saxophon-Susi (1928) the peppiest film of the week and accompaniment from three cats who really can swing and hearts are warmed, feet are twitching and, honestly, anything is possible in this world. More on this late-breaking news as we get it…

 

The Minaret of Death (1924), with Abror Zufarov and Sobirjon Tuyokov

 

The film was the first product of the Bukhino production company founded in April 1924, in what was then the Bukhara People’s Soviet Republic and was based on a 15^th Century legend about the daughters of the noble Khiva Khan, Dzhemal (here played by Nadezhda Vendelin) and Selekha (Valentina Baranova) who are kidnapped and taken prisoner by the Emir of Bukhara (Aleksei Bogdanovskii) a cruel mad with an over-sized harem. He has two sons, a good ‘un Sadyk (Oleg Frelikh) and a proper wrong ‘un Shakhrukh-bek (Iona Talanov) both of who fight over “ownership” of the women.

 

Nadezhda Vendelin and Oleg Frelikh admire the view

There’s a contest involving chasing after an animal carcass which the Sadyk wins only for his brother to steel his prize, Dzhemal for his harem. He then kills the Emir for pointing out his misinterpretation of the rules and blames his new concubine for the murder imprisoning her in the Minaret of Death. Now, the 12^th century brick tower, Kaylon Minar, does exist and is the tallest tower in the region also known as the Tower of Death as criminals were thrown from the top for centuries. We see some examples of this which provide dark reminders of the justice meted out by ISIS and others, and this is what will happen to the girls unless Shakhrukh-bek can think of something quickly.

 

It's a fast-paced film and with something to say about the treatment of women under non-Soviet, ie Muslim culture but also despots. The Soviet authorities did not like the film though and as per Nicora Karimova’s catalogue notes, it was declare ideologically inadmissible for distribution by the People’s Commisariat of Education – to exotic, frivolous and possible Americanised with all the lavish beauty of the harems. It also didn’t say enough about contemporary life and the kind of new country the soviets wanted to forge unlike The Second Wife screened yesterday. One thing it did aid was the role women were playing in film and, in general in a society in which they rarely appeared in public places or without their parania long robe and face covering, as per Minar. Sometimes even a “frivolous” entertainment can be an agent of social change.

 

The accompaniment from Uzbek musicians Abror Zufarov and Sobirjon Tuyokov added greatly to the enjoyment of the film which now we can see as more of an Arabian Nights fairy tale or, further East, Shiraz. It speaks to the culture of an independent nation and one with a rich tradition and a hopeful future.

 

Marcella Albani pestered by Paul Wegener

Dagfin (1926) with Günter A. Buchwald

 

We spent rather longer in 1920s Germany than some might have hoped and there was an audible gasp once Akt Neun began of Joe May’s 141 minute epic Dagfin (1926) and a woman behind me had to be revived with smelling salts. Not that it was an altogether bad film in fact it had many splendid moments, gorgeous alpine scenery and a fascinating theme.

 

Here we have Paul Wegener showing exactly what he can do as Sabi Bey, an eastern European despot who has killed and abused for decades in order to maintain his power with the aid of henchmen like Garron (Nien Soen Ling). He manipulates people including Axel Boysen (Alfred Gerasch) the former husband of glamorous skier Lydia (Marcella Albani) so that he can compromise her and take over her life in effect. He murders Boysen and has Lydia’s beau Dagfin Holberg (Paul Richter) place in the frame convincing him also that Lydia is really to blame.

 

By helping the couple he is able to mislead them in ways that send shudders down the spine but Sabi Bey is also being hunted by the last surviving member of a family of political rivals he killed - Assairan (Ernst Deutsch). Sabi-Bey is in complete control, moves ahead of anyone telling them just what they want to hear and it says so much for Wegener that he can generate a small amount of sympathy in the role.

 

Props too for the Stakhanovite efforts of Günter A. Buchwald who played with fluid invention for the whole two hours and 31 minutes and on the violin as well as the piano, sometimes both at the same time. How he does it is still unrecorded… there’s magic in the air!

 

Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915), with Philip Carli

 

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille it may be but this rather slight film didn’t feel like it belonged with the heavyweight fare normally associated with The Canon being Revisited. The film is a sequel to Chimmie Fadden directed, written and edited DeMille and also starring Victor Moore as the dry-witted, laconic New Yorker. Maybe like so many follow ups, it failed to capture the original magic. Maybe, I just wasn’t in the mood (don’t worry, that’s going to change in about two sentences…)?

 

This time Chimmie is charged with heading out West to kickstart a fake gold rush by pretending that he’s found gold, so that the railroad company he works for can make more money. No matter how you goof around, that’s not a very nice premise. Anyway, off he goes, has some genuinely good gags – remarking when a group of cowboys shoot their guns to alarm him in a bar that if they kept practicing they’d “almost make it in New York” – before finally realising that cheating folk is wrong.

 

More does have a winning smile and Philip Carli gave him good-hearted support.

 

Anny Ondra and the temptations of sax-based puns

Saxaphon-Susi (Miss Saxophone) (1928) with Neil Brand, Frank Bockius and Francesco Bearzatti

 

Now for today’s most legal of highs, a mood-altering event with fabulous cast and sincerely joyous accompaniment from a powerhouse ensemble that left the Teatro Verdi at severe risk of an outbreak of dancing! Lemme tell you that Neil Brand is a classy guy, his heart is positively "18 karat" with respect to the beat and the band and you don’t need me to tell ya that Frank Bockius is one helluva hide-hitter and can click those sticks to anything. On top we had Francesco Bearzatti who was blowin’ like it was 1928 and can really play that popsicle stick! They were attuned and they were the strawberry jam on top of this most perfect cream scone of a comedy.

Up on screen we had Anny Ondra showing us how fine she could look and how well she could dance and also make comedy – not for nothing should she have been called the Czech Republic’s Queen of Happiness or maybe most of Europe’s. She plays Anni von Aspen, a poor little rich girl daughter of the lecherous Baron von Aspen (the marvellous Gaston Jacquet) who wants to trade places with her working gal pal Susi Hille (Mary Parker), a cabaret dancer who gets the chance to become a Tiller Girl in London. They swap assignments with Susi heading off to posh school and Anni having to learn her dancing ropes fast.

 

On the boat over they meet some fine English gentlemen including Lord Herbert Southcliffe (Malcolm Tod) who takes a bet that he can get in to meet the Tiller Girls backstage and then another bet that he will marry this special one called Susi (Anni)… It’s not much of a plot but it’s enough to make this amongst the most enjoyable and warmest of comedies with this fabulously charming cast.

 

I think I’d like to see this one again please!

 

Couple of top shorts to mention:

Villa Malpenga (IT 1907-1910) a lovely candid film of real folk being happy! 

Man With White Suit (IT?, 1910-1913?) a trick film which featured every trick imaginable as a man falls asleep and dreams on his balcony… serious questions about the sobriety of cast and crew. Marvellous!

 

This is one of a number of unidentified films screening at the Festival, more details on Silent London - if you have any suggestions or clues, all are welcomed!