As Millicent Martin – Daphne’s mum in Frasier – almost sang, That Was the Year, That Was and I realise that’s a cultural reference to a
satirical TV show popular in the UK 60 years ago but the films I’m about to
list are from half a century earlier so… keep up! We’re increasingly in a world
in which everything is happening at the same time, an all-at-once cultural smorgasbord
from which every generation picks what they want and new controversies rise
from old in cinemas, Talking Pictures TV, $treaming sites and our beloved
retailers. This is the best I can do in the post festive drop down especially
as I don’t really do New Year. It’s always best to look beyond and push
straight on through to the other side, even if that’s 2025 and all that goes
with it but we can take it, we’ve not only been there and seen it all before,
we’ve experienced it ever-present in films, books and what used to be called “social”
media. So, I remember the passing year and rage into the next, thinking of the
very best in my opinion and in no particular order!
1.
Get Your Man (1927) with Meg
Morley, BFI
She will make a fine wife, son. Imagine an innocent young
girl… in an age when there aren’t any!
The BFI kicked off the year with a couple of fine seasons, one
focused on the iconoclastic programming of the old Scala cinema and another on
the almost unique filmography of director Dorothy Arzner who was able to smash
the Hollywood glass ceiling with a mixture of brilliance and independence. She worked
with Bow on her first talkie, The Wild Party (1929), also screened, and this
rarely-screened gem which was shown on a precious 35mm recovery/restoration and
even though it’s still missing a couple of reels, still impressed as Clara’s supernatural
energies were allowed full expression
It was indeed, as the BFI blurb put it, “a triumphant
celebration of female sexuality…” a modern day fairy-tale set in France and
where Bow’s character wins over the heart of rich boy Charles “Buddy” Rogers in
a lovely sequence set in a wax museum choreographed by Arzner’s partner Marion
Morgan. Clara’s pluck blows away every obstacle and dusty preconception as l’ancien
régime has to surrender to classless, young love.
2.
The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric
(1933), with Inge Thomson, Catriona Macdonald, HippFest at Home
This film sits amongst better-known works of the thirties
showing island life on the extremes but actually predates Robert J.
Flaherty’s docudrama Man of Aran (1934) – the Irish island, not Arran. Director Jenny Gilbertson
(née Brown) had made a number of short documentaries and was encouraged to make
this film by the great Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson, director
of Drifters (1929) and the man who coined the term "documentary" in a
review of Flaherty's Moana (1926).
The result is every inch as powerfully evocative as these
other films with Jenny’s previous experience of the island, the documentary A
Crofter’s Life in Shetland (1931), showing a year in the life of the rugged
folk of Hjaltland… more Norse than Gallic and only 30 miles closer to Scotland
than Norway. She was self-trained and this is even more remarkable when you
consider that she not only wrote but filmed and edited her work. The Rugged Island is a drama and yet it still feels
like a genuine intrusion on the lives being portrayed, the irony here being
that Gilbertson’s was sometimes described as an “amateur” and yet clearly she
was consummate in terms of technique and direction with only one professional
actor - Enga Stout – with the rest being her friends and others she’d cast
locally.
This is exactly why I shall be returning in person for the
next Hippfest in March ’25!
3.
East Lynne (1913) Restoration
Premiere with Colin Sell, Kennington Bioscope
Oh, Willie, my child dead, dead, dead! and he never knew
me, never called me mother!
As Christopher Bird said in his introduction, East Lynne
is not a lost film as such but when quality is, as Kevin Brownlow says, the
main thing archive cinema has to sell itself to modern audiences, this film has
certainly been missing in terms of the vibrancy, contrast and tasty tints we
glimpsed today. Chris obtained an almost complete nitrate copy from a private
collector which, compared with the black and white copy held by the BFI is
missing the first reel but comes with an extra three minutes and those higher quality
tints. Together with fellow Bioscoper Bob Geoghegan and the BFI the restoration
work is ongoing and the hope is to present the finished item at Le Giornate del
Cinema Muto in Pordenone.
Even Rachel Lowe admired this British film and it’s a visual
feast as it is with good use of depth-of-field, form and texture by director
Bert Haldane and his photographer Oscar Bovill. That said, there are some
impressive performances from a very modern-looking cast led by Blanche Forsythe
as Lady Isobel, handsome Fred Paul and the steadfast Archibald Carlyle and
who-ever it was playing Barbara Hare, the sister of the man falsely accused of
a murder committed by Isobel’s would be paramour, Captain Levison, as played
with pantomime menace by Fred Morgan.
This screening was part of the Bioscope’s 7th
Silent Film Weekender and it’s hard to compete with the range and passion of
this gathering of like minds in Charlie’s old workhouse.
4.
The Phantom Carriage (1921), with
Stephen Horne, Kennington Bioscope
After a few years of this silent film business, you have
seen most of the cannon and have your own list of The Greats but all such
classifications are blown out of the window when you see a screening like
tonight’s with the right venue, the right audience and a supernatural
accompaniment from Mr Stephen Horne that not only sent chills but brought out
the full flavour of Victor Sjöström’s film and, indeed his own performance.
Not only was Sjöström probably Sweden’s finest silent film
maker, he ranks as one of the finest of any era. Here with his fourth
adaptation of one of Selma Lagerlöf’s works, he shows again why he is such a
good interpreter of her work. Selma’s work is passionate and poetic and
deceptively complex in expression and narrative form but I think Sjöström got
her depth of meaning more than his contemporaries Stiller and Molander. As his thoroughly-disturbing
performance shows, he may well have had a personal connection with this story
as Chris Bird suggested in his introduction, for the Swede’s father was abusive
and alcoholic just as his character David Holm. A film that never ceases to
smash through the door and grab you.
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| Gerda Lundquist |
5.
Gösta Berling’s Saga (1924), with
Matti Bye, Eduardo Raon and Silvia Mandolini, Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII
"Finally, the vicar was in the pulpit..."
It’s fair to say that my Christmas came early with this
presentation of this latest version from the Swedish Film Institute which is
not just a restoration of the Saga but a remix and extended cut being not only
some 20 minutes longer than the 1975 restoration which most of us have only
seen up till now via the Kino release. It’s also in a slightly different
narrative order with the party sequences and their two dramatic exiles
re-sequenced as well as variations elsewhere, with a more dynamic mix for the
burning of Ekeby and Gösta’s rescue of Marianne, a longer intro and new
intertitles that carry more of the original author’s poetic wonder.
Now, I’m not saying that Mauritz Stiller’s magnificent
adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s epic novel is perfect in fact there’s a reason
he was no higher than her second favourite film director of the Nobel
Prize winning author*, but the ambition wins you over along with incredible lead
performances. Lars Hanson oozes confusion guilt and self-loathing, Gerda
Lundequist – Sweden’s Sarah Bernhardt, a legendary stage actor – brings her
power and poise to the screen whilst Jenny Hasselqvist, who had a parallel career
as prima ballerina with the Royal Swedish Ballet, is magnetic, micro-managing physicality
with emotional expression. There’s also young Greta Gustafson who radiates an
unknowing allure that would see her soon off to Hollywood with a name change,
some dental work and flattering lighting.
The restoration is crisp and revelatory, never has the
camera work of the great Julius Jaenzon here looked so fine from the gorgeous
sweeps of the lakes and forests to the shots on set and the performer’s expressions.
It’s an epic restored in an epic way and I can’t wait to see it again at the
BFI on Sunday 19th January where I promise to keep my introduction short
and to the point!
Ticket details here!
6.
Judex (1915-16), accompanied by
many hands, Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII
I can’t deny that there was a sense of triumph having watched
the whole series and thoroughly enjoyed Louis Feuillade’s sense of drama, his
eye for dynamic framing, his direction and team building and his ability to
keep the narrative ball rolling even when you think he’s backed himself into a
dramatic dead end. That’s 12 episodes and one big Prologue with not a second
missed for lack of sleep, breakfast or headache… probably!
It's not quite up there with Les Vampires but it does have
the essentiality of Musidora playing Diana Monti aka Marie Verdier, a scheming
opportunist who becomes more and more dominant the longer the story unwinds.
Judex himself as played by René Cresté, is a goodie version of Fantômas, part
Sherlock Holmes, maybe part Eugène-François Vidocq – an actual French criminal
turned criminalist. Feuillade had been criticised for glorifying his evil
masterminds and so here was one of good intent even if he does kidnap and fake
the death of the businessman responsible for his father’s death and many
others, Favraux (Louis Leubas) before imprisoning him for life in a remote
castle. And that’s just the start…
7.
Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em (1926), BFI
with Meg Morley
This blog has been driven by obsession and a subjective
emotional “canon” from its earliest days (no, please don’t look!) and Louise
Brooks has, of course been the main one, with a copy of Pandora’s Box on
DVD bought from a second-hand shop in Park Street, Bristol in 2005 starting off
the whole interest – yes, Bristol, it’s really your fault! This film is one of
the few remaining unseen on-screen and viewing the BFI’s worn, warm and
wonderful 16mm flickering on the NFT2 screen, with Meg Morley’s wonderful
syncopations and sparkling improvisations following an introduction from Bryony
Dixon has, to paraphrase the poet, helped make not only my day, my week, my
month and even my year.
They may have been chalk and cheese but Evelyn Brent and
Louise Brooks make for a good team in this light-hearted drama in which the
former plays the sensible big sister who has to rescue her less sensible
sibling from all kinds of trouble. It’s a gas and we do get to see Brooksie
dance which is always a bonus!
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| Conchita Montenegro |
8.
The Woman and the Puppet (1929),
with Günter A. Buchwald, Bonn Silent Film Festival 2024 streaming
Every so often a silent film not only surprises you but
pulls you to the edge of your armchair and has you blinking at the screen in
delight. So, it is with the story and the actress in La femme et le pantin
(1929) in which Conchita Montenegro’s dancer not only beguiles and bewilders
her puppet, Don Mateo, she completely un-mans him in the most feminist of ways
reaching right out from 1929 with dazzling power and beauty. If anyone has a
thousand ships that need launching… here’s your woman!
Based on Pierre Louÿs’ 1898 novel of the same name, the
story was adapted as an opera in 1911 by composer Riccardo Zandonai, and it was
also filmed as That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
by Luis Buñuel. The first film version was an American film made in 1920 and directed
by Reginald Barker, starring Geraldine Farrar, which is a little surprising
given Louÿs’ background of erotic prose and poetry. Indeed, he was the man to
whom Oscar Wilde dedicated the original French publication of Salome. Director de
Baroncelli’s film is presumably far bolder than any Hollywood film could have
been as, indeed, is his star performer and, it’s difficult to see anything like
a literal adaptation being made anywhere else but France at this time. It is an
eye-popping and an expectation-confounding work!
9.
The Blue Bird (1918) with Neil Brand
and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto
Maurice Tourneur's film featured regular collaborators such as
art director Ben Carré, cinematographer John van den Broke and editor Clarence
Brown. This was 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. 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.
10.
Saxaphon-Susi (1928) with Neil
Brand, Frank Bockius and Francesco Bearzatti, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto
Miss Saxophone was the 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! 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.
Any programmers reading… I think I’d like to see this one
again please!
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| Ra Messerer |
11.
The Second Wife (1927) with Gunter
Buchwald and Frank Bockius, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto
To Uzbekistan and this extraordinary film from Mikhail
Devonov based on a story by Lolakhon Saifullina, a polish woman who married an
Uzbek man and converted to Islam. It’s a reflection of the enormity of the old
USSR and the challenges Moscow faced in co-ordinating so many diverse cultures
into one modernising state. Saifullina worked for the Sharq Yulduzi studio
writing scripts sensitive to the issues of Uzbeki women her along with former
legal consultant Valentina Sobberey. The result is a tale in which women and
children are exploited by old male custom and dominance even as the modern day
watcher is aware of the wider context of Stalin’s impending first Five Year
Plan and the eventual costs of converting an agrarian economy into an
industrialised one.
Director Devonov does not lapse into bucolic orientalism and
focuses on the story and the depiction of prevalent practices of early marriage
and polygamy. Here a merchant’s first wife Khadycha cannot have children and so
he has a second wife, Adoliat (Ra Messerer) who can. A child duly arrives and Khadycha tries to
destroy her competitor. She is far from alone in malevolence as his brother Sadiqbai
(Mikhail Doronin), steals money whilst his older brother is away and also preys
on young boys, as things escalate elsewhere. It’s propagandist but still shows
the harshness of unresolved “tradition” and male power.
 |
| Eille looks down at Alexandra Palace, photo credit Yves Salmon |
12.
Silent Sherlock, London Film
Festival, Alexandra Palace Theatre with Neil Brand, Joseph Havlat and Joanna
MacGregor with Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble
This was the grandest of archival screenings at the London
Film Festival for some time and featured the first fruits of the BFI’s
restoration of Stoll Films Sherlock Holmes films. The Stoll corporation made
three series of 15 episodes and two feature films, all featuring Eille Norwood
as the great detective a performer that Conan Doyle approved of in the role,
both on stage and on screen. The three films featured new scores from Neil
Brand, Joseph Havlat and Joanna MacGregor who conducted the Royal Academy of
Music Soloists Ensemble, leading from the piano.
The programme is ongoing and I can’t wait for the further
adventures of both the BFI Restoration Team as well as The Great Detective in
2025.
*Lagerlöf berated Mauritz Stiller for his adaptation of The
Gösta Berling Saga calling it “cheap and sensational”.
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