Live Life Smiling… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026, Day Eight

Swedish smiles highlight the last day.

 

I’ve been coming to Le Giornate del Cinema Muto for just under a decade so I’m relatively new round here but even so I’ve seen a lot of silent film – it’s just a social habit… I can control it. I’m not an addict or if I am I’m a functioning one… Anyway, there are always surprises every year and who would have thought that three lost films and another showing a Swedish family taking the mickey out of our opening gala night’s hero, Douglas Fairbanks, would be one of the highlights of the last day and, indeed, the whole week.

 

The session was in celebration of actress/director Pauline Brunius who we had already seen playing the Field Marshall’s femme fatale wife who runs off with Gosta Ekman in her husband John W Brunius’ comedy Gyurkovicsarna (SE 1920). Sadly very few examples of her directing work survive by the SFI’s Magnus Rosborn was not going to let that get in his way and proceeded to describe the films with productions stills and whatever snippets that remain and, through his wit and fabulous comic timing, he was able to give us a real feel for these film’s style and comedy.

 

He talked us through DE LÄCKRA SKALDJUREN (SE 1920), OMBYTTA ROLLER (SE 1920), HERR VINNERS STENÅLDERSDRÖM (SE 1924) and then showed us the whole of Lev Livet Leende (SE 1921) on wonderful 35mm from the SFI archive. Brunius had begun in the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1891 but moved into theatre and from there into film. Interestingly, as with say Gerda Lundequist (who made just two films, Gosta Berling Saga being one) she preferred the stage to the studio and, unlike her fellow ballerina, Jenny Hassleqvist, she never rose to prima roles and sustained a parallel career in dance and film.

 

Lev Livet Leende (SE 1921) is a loving send up of Douglas Fairbank’s cheerfulness and positivity. He had published an autobiography, Making Life Worth While, in 1918 and the family take his motto to the ultimate conclusion and there are some impressive impressions of the Fairbanks fizzog!

 

Stephen Horne provided accompaniment for the fragments on the first two, the seven minutes of the second and the whole of the last and provided his own coherent backdrop to these tales of the Vinner family series that ran from 1920-24. Seven were made but only one survives complete with fragments of the three above.

 

George O'Briem: thank God the two halves fit together!!

The Big Western Finish: The Iron Horse (US 1924; 132 min)

 

Time to address the huge George O’Brien in the room and John Ford’s lyrical, folkloric tale of the building of the cross-continental railway in the USA. We watched the Photoplay restoration from 1984 and with John Lanchbery’s score performed by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone conducted by Ben Palmer. This was a powerful performance from a full orchestra but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the score – being just 60 years after the film and 42 away from now – was somehow stuck in the middle.

 

Every time an Irish, Chinese of Native American made an appearance there was a little musical reference to their cultural origin followed by a snatch of the American Anthem, Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Yellow Rose of Texas. Now, this could well have been intended to highlight the many immigrants and natives who helped forge this great nation but, in these days when cultural origins are not seen as a good in of themselves, it raised a few hackles for me.

 

You can’t imagine the undertrained and scruffy ranks of ICE agents cheering this film? And, in terms of the blood count, a lot of native Americans were despatched in the name of progress here… not to mention the impact in flora and fauna: America’s God-given right to conquest is viewed a little differently now and The Right can’t really complain given the bloody history Westerms have never shied away from presenting.

 

As for the film… it’s complicated just like its director John Ford a Republican who apparently briefly appeared as a Klan member in Birth of a Nation? Well, Ford’s baddy here is actually a white man who incites the Cheyenne whilst the Pawnee are working with the white men and there are many films which came after this one which dealt a less even hand to the Native Americans although I’m not saying it's twenty first century politically correct…

 

Chief John Big Tree is un-credited as the Cheyenne Chief but Ford paints his tribe as heroic in their own way… mislead by white greed. As the above still shows, there was respect and he avoids Griffiths’ simplistic view and need to demonise.

 

That’s not to say that The Iron Horse isn't entirely objective... there’s some sugar in there as, not for the first time or the last, Hollywood improves History… although some would say merely by celebrating US history you are painting to rosy a picture of a century of ethnic cleansing and injustice across the board. But, within that context, it does pay tribute to the millions of ordinary people who fought to make a better land.

 

At the start we see a man called Brandon (James Gordon) who has a dream to build a railroad across the USA, his friend Thomas Marsh (Will Walling) is not convinced and thinks it’s all moonshine. Brandon’s son Davy and Marsh’s daughter Miriam play games based on surveying - the acorn has not fallen far from the tree. Brandon and his son set off as Miriam cries and their other friend, Abraham Lincoln (Charles Edward Bull) tells Marsh that one day men like him will be building Brandon’s dream…

 

Cut forward many years and Abraham has become president – just like we all knew he would… In spite of the Civil War raging, he approves the construction of a single railway and, as predicted, Marsh is one of the men working to make this happen as the Union Pacific Railway Company builds westward and the Central Pacific heads east…

 

It’s dangerous work with the constant threat of Native American raids during one of which a pony express rider comes bolting out of the dust followed by dozens of Indians, he heads towards a locomotive carrying Marsh’s team and somehow managers to scramble on board. It turns out to be Davy, who’s grown up (as strapping George O'Brien) and fighting for his father’s dream. He and Miriam (now Madge Bellamy) have instant sparks a-flying but for some reason she’s engaged to Peter Jesson (Cyril Chadwick) who apart from being old enough to be her dad looks absolutely like a wrong ‘un.

 

If the first half of the film sets up the “history” – perhaps almost too forensically – the sense is all about the human elements as betrayals start to happen and Davy is almost killed by those who would keep the railway longer and through their lands. It’s a civil engineering thriller as well as a how America was made to be epic and can still be read on a number of levels including the real human cost.

 

Looking at the actual history of the Transcontinental project the impact was severe in terms of the workers and the indigenous population. This was an exercise in expanding the white man’s economic opportunities by and large…

 

"We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, children." General Sherman

 

The Native Americans are shown as battling the construction in the film, with the aid of some traitorous white men… but the fact remains that many hundreds lost their lives and tribes lost territory with previous agreements being as nothing to the need to forge ahead with rail.

 

According to Chinese American Historian, Ellen Lee, writing for the BBC and elsewhere.

 

-          Some 20,000 Chinese workers were involved with the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) failing to hire enough white workers

-          around 1,200 of whom died of avalanches, explosions, and other accidents

-          After the construction was completed in 1869, “…every effort was made to eradicate any and all people of Chinese descent from the United States via local and state laws, mob attacks and lynchings.”

 

Even for Ford’s beloved Irish there was a cost with some 3,000 Irish labourers working on the Union Pacific portion of the Transcontinental Railroad Between1865 and 1869. Hundreds died from explosions, landslides, accidents, and disease during construction.

 

So, Ford may have shown the immigrants co-operation on the project but as usual the reality was more mixed.

 

The film’s climax shows the completion of both sets of tracks culminating in a re-enactment of the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869. Replicas of the two locos involved, the Union Pacific No. 119 and Jupiter are used, even though they are claimed to be the originals (which were scrapped in 1910).

 

A country “united” by rail… and surely will Miriam and Davy will suit. But today this film leaves the taste of iron fillings in your mouth.

 

Talking of history… The Spies Who Came in From the Dull

 

Marshall Neilan’s Diplomacy (US 1920) is all about a piece of paper and is the most plodding of confections. The entire action seems to involve people on either side of the pre-war divide, trying to prevent a crucial peace agreement from being delivered to the allies. Now, you might think that there’s more than one copy of such an important document and that with so many of the recipients in the film, that is shouldn’t be too hard to deliver this news but no… there are devious counter agents of no fixed allegiance who want to make mischief.

 

Too many times .this boils down to a forensic examination of very little  - people hide in rooms and papers are stolen before being revealed and then one of the super spies is revealed by a bluff that an envelope contained a confession from the key conspirator that his accomplice slowly tears open – and I mean very slowly – before revealing the full story.

 

I work in marketing and publishing and even I know this is not really spying (I’ve seen all the John Le Carre’s) and this seems a) far to slow to work and b) a paper trail with far too many points of failure.  

 

Accompaniment cam from Masterclass student Lulu Chen who did a fabulous job with what was in front of her. I look forward to seeing and hearing more of her in the future!

 

Phantom Tram Ride of the Day Award: Tram Ride Through Rochdale (GB (1905)

 

Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon’s 4'59" of 35mm magic remains a powerful document of the times. It has been snowing in Rochdale, as it so often does, and its denizens are walking gingerly across the road. It adds an extra element to the scenes of normally sure-footed Lancastrians as well as a fairy-tale dusting to one of the most deprived areas of the towns of near the Pennines.

 

Philip Carli accompanied and I’ll go t’ th’ foot o’ our stairs, he was wearing a fine period suit and silk cravat!

 

Italia Almirante Manzini and Andrea Habay

Is there a Diva in the House? La grande passione (1922)

 

“This adaptation of  Alessandro Varaldo’s novel… is excellent. The subject itself was illogical in some respects … [yet Mario] Almirante has lent it poetry and beauty, striving for as much humanity as possible to make the  narrative appear more real..” 

Carlo Sircana, La Rivista Cinematografica (25.03.1924).

 

Italia Almirante Manzini was most certainly available and gave one of her most forceful performances of the week and in another of her major successes. Directed by Mario Almirante this one was a complex tug of love involving Italia’s character Maria, her much older husband Carli (Joaquin Carrasco) and their two children, her ex-lover and general bad sort Cesare (Joaquin Carrasco) along with a new man who sees her in trouble and wants to help André (Andrea Habay) … Oh, Italia what have you gotten yourself into now?!

 

It's a very well-paced film as the full entanglements of Maria’s life are only gradually revealed and all this only really after she catches the attention of the well-intentioned stranger, Andre, who sees her in an emotional turmoil and wants to help. Soon enough he gets in deeper and when her heartless lover returns to the picture, a duel is called and Maria faces losing one or both. Ultimately hers will be the choice that breaks the fewest hearts…

 

A new performance by Italia Almirante Manzini is always a brilliant new assertion of the art of Italian cinema; but perhaps never as in this film has the great actress been able to conquer the public…”

“Arro” in La Rivista Cinematografica (10-25.05.1924),

 

Gabriel Thibaudeau accompanied with some marvellous flourishes and a real feel for the dramatic love on screen. One of the best of Manzini’s films this week!

 

 

Encore plus de problèmes à la scierie: La Glace à trois faces (FR 1927)

 

Three women were in love with a man.

But was he in love with any one of them?

Fitting to end this week on a riddle or at least a film by Jean Epstein who always required his audience to complete the story either emotionally or intellectually. In this case the tale of one man and three women… and the director makes it absolutely unclear that we won’t know the exact nature of the relationships between the four people. So. We need to watch carefully.

 

An adaptation of the eponymous short story by Paul Morand, also referred to as Three-Sided Mirror, this features a young adventurer (René Ferté) and his relationships with three women:

 

1.       a beautiful Englishwoman, Pearl (Olga Day)

2.       a Russian artist, Athalia (Suzy Pierson_ and

3.       a charming factory worker, Lucie (Jeanne Helbling)

 

The relationships are shown in order with the director’s usual oblique style and we experience the good, the unsure and the diffident as life moves on for the young man with no cares in the world. Whatever happens… it just goes to show. It just goes to show…

 

John Sweeney accompanied and he was well aware of Jean’s wayward ways.

 

And that's it for another year of the ITY Daily Pordenone Blog! Thank you for reading! Apologies for the vast amount of words... but it is always thought provoking and inspiring.

Thank you too for The Queen of All This, Pamela Hutchinson over at Silent London - excellent work there as is usual and she remains the gold standard!! 

See you all in 2027 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto #46!

 

 

Sadie’s hard rain… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026, Day Seven

This was always going to be Gloria Swanson’s day with a stunning presentation of one of her landmark and most-influential films but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of action of this fine festive Friday.

 

The day started with more evidence, as it were needed, that Italia Almirante Manzini is the most under-rated diva in Italian silent film with a story as operatic as they come and daft in the stylish way only Italy can get away with. La Statua di Carne (1921). Giornate cover girl Manzini plays two roles a chaste florist Maria and a worldly, outgoing singer called Neomi Keller which is nearly weird as, they are doppelgangers and I’ve just started reading a book on this very subject by Naomi Klein*, who has so often been confused with the lunatic conspiracy theorist and bad historian, Naomi Woolf.

 

Traditionally doppelgangers spell trouble and in this story, they are in the mind of Maria’s grieving lover, Count Paul Santarosa (Lido Manetti) much as the Kim Novaks are on Jimmy Stewart’s in Vertigo: are we seeing what Paul sees or is there more to this than it might appear? Based on Teobaldo Ciconi’s 1862 play, inspired by his passion for actress Celestina De Martini Peracchi, it had been adapted before and some critics found it dated in 1921 although there seems to have been general praise for the production and Manzini’s dual performance. Vate La Pesca in La Rivista Cinematografica (Dec ’21) thought she acted “… too proudly for the characters to appear at their fullest…” and yet his colleague in the same publication, Aurelia Spada raved about her “carnal sexuality” and rich, “masterful metamorphoses”.

 

India Almirante Manzini

There’s good support from Alfonso Cassini as Paul’s good-hearted best pal Marquis Chatonnet as well as Bianca Renieri as Martha who is Maria’s BFF and marries the Marquis. They all meet when Maria and her friends find the two nobles the worst for wear and assume that their down and outs in need of some hot food. The lads like being liked for just who they are and play along although their secret is eventually out much to Martha’s delight as she immediately asks Chatonnet to marry her and he agrees!

 

The wit of the first half drops away as Maria’s congenital frailty leads to her death and Paul’s falling into the deepest well of mourning. Until he is dragged along to the theatre to meet Neomi and is struck by her remarkable similarity to the woman he mourns. For a while he worships this living statue memorialising his love but observed and observer are bound to have feelings outside of the moribund…

 

The costumes are outstanding, and the drama is rich with Daan van den Hurk providing mesmerising accompaniment.

 

 

Phantom Tram Ride of the Day: Bird’s Eye View of George Street, Sydney, NSW (AU 1906) just wins out over Oscar Lahousen de Vevremont’s elegant Eine Fahrt Mit Der Straßenbahn Durch Klagenfurt (AT 1926). There’s more risk involved in providing a bird’s eye view especially in the middle of Sydney in a country known for its dangerous fauna.

 

Weimar Uncensored: Genuine (DE 1920)

I’ve had a 43-minute incomplete copy of this as an extra on Eureka’s Caligari Blu-ray but this was an 83 minute reconstruction based on the French version which had some significant changes from the original German one – the Third French Republic still censored films. Directed by Robert Wiene it has the look of his other film, and both meet Lotte Eisner’s strict criteria for Expressionist films:

 

·       Focus on Inner Emotions rather than external reality

·       Visual Distortions: exaggerated sets and lighting create a surreal atmosphere

·       Hyper-Expressive Performances – oh my yes!

 

Genuine was to be another “Stilfilm” aimed at making the same success as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari with the same creative team and with some new, perhaps too many, ideas. Fern Andra is the titular character in her first staring role and whilst she creates an intriguing and disturbing possible witch, temptress/trapped object of desire, she’s not as well formed a character as Cesare in Caligari.

 

She is bought at a slave market and dressed in outlandish clothing in a locked room where she toys with the men brought to see her by the mysterious Lord Melo (Ernst Gronau). Is it an experiment or a ritual or is it even real? The French censors found the original version too much and insisted on a framing sequence in which Percy Melo (Harald Paulsen) who has painted the image of a high priestess named Genuine, then falls asleep and dreams the whole thing.

 

Be that as it may, once released Genuine continued to manipulate men’s baser feelings and the poor confused things seem to have had trouble assimilating the narrative… A film ripe for re-evaluation.

 

“Every evening at the Marmor-Haus, tempers clash rather vigorously – some boo, others even applaud, all in dispute over the merit or demerit of a work that in my eyes is nothing more than an interesting poisonous plant.” 

Fritz Olimsky, Berliner Börsenzeitung (05.08.1920)

  

Mauro Colombis on piano and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry on harp brought the magic and the mystery, genuinely atmospheric. Not a dream.

 

Sitcom: Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew. Programme 2

 

Anyone who doesn’t just love this comedy couple by now needs to see their doctor as there is so much warmth in their relationship as Sid improvises making second wife Lucille laugh out of character but she’s not the only one as the entire cast seems to be having a ball. By Might of His Right (1915) has Sid see off his annoying Harvard educated brother-in-law by faking boxing skills whilst His Wife Knew All About it (1916) sees him dating their new cook to help enliven her social life: his friends see and jump to all the wrong conclusions egged on by Lucille!

 

It's the comedy of relationships – not just the central one – and Sid’s gags are top notch. Sadly, there are very few of these films in existence partly because he died in 1919 aged only 55. He had the gift alright, and I hope more people now get to see it!

 

Philip Carli was absolutely the man for this job and accompanied as if he was sat in the same room as the Drews! He was, of course, dressed for the occasion!

Countess Marguerita de Cippico on the left and right...

 

Make war no more: I’d seen Peace on the Western Front (GB 1930) at this year’s British Silent Film Symposium and was delighted to see it again. It’s a mix of recreated live dialogue from the IWM’s Toby Haggith and Clare Watson along with Stephen Horne’s beautiful accompaniment, and two sound discs (out of four) one of which was recently uncovered by dogged silent film researcher and writer Brent Reid. It’s a haunting film that has Moore Marriot’s old soldier explaining what the Great War was like to his grandson as the youngster has been playing with his toy soldiers.

 

It features footage from the front as it was in 1930, still very dangerous even if oddly quiet, as well as scenes of the reconstructed towns and cities of the various battles. As a slice of post-war life, it is incredibly poignant and as a lesson in history it is deadly serious as some modern politicians seem to view war in ways that would have been very familiar to Edwardian monarch states… the gap between politicians and humanity is growing.

 

A lighter look at the war was provided by Léonce Perret’s Lest We Forget (US 1918) which was released in January 1918 with the aim of reminding the US just how close they are to France – two great democracies who became republics at around the same time. The film starred and was produced by British actor Rita Jolivet also known as the Countess Marguerita de Cippico. She is great in the film as an all-action heroine would dances repeatedly with death, has luck and most importantly agency easily besting her male foes and, in the end, dramatically despatching the main baddy. Compared with her, the male lead playing her sweetheart Harry, Hamilton Revelle was made more for comedy.

 

This may have been about US /French goodwill, but Rita smuggled in a feminist main character!

 

Neil Brand did his patriotic duty with music of steadfast composition and firm resolve even as the Lusitania sank with Rita onboard…

 

A Tale of the Filial Devotion of Goro Masamune (1915)

 

The Art of the Benshi:

 

Time for silent film to get a bit shouty and we were back with the benshi for a cartoon about a snake that had broken in half Chongire Hebi (1930) and mysterious sea gods in Umi No Kyuden (1930). The main feature was A Tale of the Filial Devotion of Goro Masamune (1915) which is astonishingly old for a Japanese silent and this is evident in the limited technique involved in a very wordy story about weddings and quests featuring an all-male cast. For completists only as the record reviewers sometimes say about early releases from famous groups but this was history on screen and on stage too.

 

Benshi: Kataoka Ichirō, Ōmori Kumiko, Yamauchi Nanako

Accompaniment: Katada Kisayo (percussion), Kiyomoto Nobuakira (shamisen)

 

 

Some more German Pola: Das Martyrium (1920), is the precious last 20-odd minutes of Paul Ludwig Stein’s film featuring a lot of Negri action after she discovers that her late husband had left her inheritance only if she lives and sleeps in the room where he died, all painted grey and with bare lighting illuminating his portraits on each wall… a gothic nightmare and she plays it well.

 

 

Gloria Swanson and Raoul Walsh 

The Future is Now: Sadie Thompson (US 1928)

 

This cracking upgraded restoration* seems to sit outside of time and space and I kept on thinking that this just couldn’t have been a 1928 film: it felt like a pre-code as it eventually became with Joan Crawford and Rain. The battle between Lionel Barrymore’s born-again Christian Alfred Davidson and Sadie (Swanson) the former sex worker looking for redemption and a new start, is an epic one that brings in questions about criminality, religion and the nature of faith. Davidson – hard as he tries is only offering a get-out and it’s loaded with caveats that are ultimately self-serving. He bullies Sadie into “converting” even though it’s against her best interests to return to San Francisco to pay her penance in jail. He’s physically and intellectually dominating her no matter how strong she thinks she is.

 

The standard line of the time would have meant Sadie taking her medicine and ignoring her chances with Sergeant Timothy O'Hara (Raoul Walsh – who also directs) in the promised land of Australia but the film doesn’t take the easy way out. What our instincts are screaming out about Davidson the longer this Christian cat and satanic mouse game is played, turn out to be true and it’s to the film’s credit that it takes its audience right to the wire and knows we’ll work out the subtext.

 

As Pamela Hutchinson writes in her recent book on The Curse of Queen Kelly, Swanson had to fight to make this film with some studios traying to prevent her, but she was right, and it was one of her biggest successes. At just 28 she’d made a film that pointed to the future and it’s just a shame that Queen Kelly didn’t allow her to move even further… but you can find out all about that in the book and watch the reconstructed film.

 

Gloria Swanson has great hair in this film and sets the style in all ways for the coming decade – and all because she wanted to!

 

The accompaniment from Meg Morley was also as fierce and nuanced as Swanson with so much texture and depth. There are long sections of the performers engaged in intense but wordless debate and to be able to ride alongside with the same force of invention is quite something for a 98-minute film! Go, you good thing!

 

Simply one of the best things we’ve heard and seen all week!

 

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Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore

*The current copy of Sadie Thompson is a 4K upgrade of the restoration originally produced by Dennis Doros for Kino Lorber in 1987, and it is from this film that the image for the Giornate 2026 poster is taken.

“The Queen of Screen” … Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026, Day Six

Vera Kholodnaya was ‘The Queen of Screen’ that most people haven’t seen. She was a sensation in pre-Revolutionary Russia making over 50 films of which, sadly, only some five remain extant. She has a unique screen presence being both enigmatic and – objectively - remarkably beautiful as well as being a fine naturalistic actor. Her expressive face – huge eyes shining through generous amounts of dark eyeshadow – is matched by a dancer’s poise (she had classical ballet training at the Bolshoi Theatre no less) and an expressive physicality. At one point in this film, she almost shivers with disgust – a violent shake of her shoulders – whilst at other times she is more understated than you’d expect: carrying a lot within even though in torment… she’s the story in this story.

 

This is the first of Yevgeni Bauer’s films I have seen on the big screen and the 35mm print was warm without being perfect but for an actor for whom we only have 10% of her output, that’s more than good enough. Bauer’s style is always a delight, his mise-en-scene is rich in detail and feels solidly part of the world. His characters move across these spaces in carefully choreographed movements – like figures on a chess board – and whilst the scenes are mostly tableaux there is a fair amount of camera mobility with one memorable pull-in on a dolly for a wedding banquet which is then pulled back. He was also a pioneer of montage. This was Tsarist Russia during the Great War, but it was far from isolated from European culture – indeed, the language of the royal court had been French and not Russian.

 

Vera Kholodnaya on a typical Yevgeni Bauer set

Based on the novel by French writer, Georges Ohnet, A Life for a Life (1916) is the story set firmly in the Russian upper-class set. Mrs Khromova (Olga Rakhmanova) is a wealthy industrialist who runs her factory very effectively – a strong female character and one you might not find in some other cultures at this time? She has a birth-daughter, Musya (Lydia Koreneva) and another she has adopted, Nata (Kholodnaya). Both girls are of marrying age and, whilst Nata has attracted the attention of the wealthy merchant Zhurov, (Ivane Perestiani) she does not love him. Into their lives comes the wastrel Prince Vladimir Bartinsky (Vitold Polonsky) who has no money and plenty of debts. He woos Musya as she is the only daughter who will inherit from their mother, yet, he has lost his heart to Nata who has no money nor, being adopted, the rights to any.

 

A bargain is struck between the two men and Zhurov offers to help the prince marry Musya in return for having a free run at Nata… thus do both men abuse the trust of the family. Zhurov makes the prince’s case to Madame Khromova but she is only finally swayed by the affection her daughter shows for this dubious character. Musya hardly knows what she’s getting into, and her mother warily takes the chance… which, as we already know will be a big mistake.

 

This is a not unfamiliar set up but the resolution, after so much bad behaviour from the Poncey Prince led to a ripple of applause and the odd whoop! A film that is of particular value for its period, its director and its star.

 

Accompaniment came from Daan van den Hurk who did all three proud.

Phantom Tram Ride of the Day: Promenading Rothesay (GB 1906-1909) was a lovely slide through the surprisingly beguiling Rothesay, packed with Glaswegian trippers no doubt unconvinced of the weather prospects on the nearby Isle of Arran. I’m sure you all know but the 13th-century Rothesay Castle is unique in Scotland for its circular plan. All the better for keeping the English out!

 

We also experienced A Ride on the Peak Tramway, Hong Kong (GB 1900) which had more gradient but less gravitas. Still, second place is no disgrace for what was a regular part of my sister’s old commute when she worked for HSBC.

 

Mary Pickford and Thomas Meighan

Now THIS is a Marshall Neilan film I can do business with:

 

It was time for an unseen-by-me Mary Pickford and as with her Doug, she’s a shot in the arm for any jaded festival-goer on Day Six of reading, watching and blogging. If only I had a tenth of her energy in M’Liss (US 1918) still it was the perfect caffeinated treat for the early session.

 

Mary plays feisty underdog with quirky gimmick weapon (a sling and NO, this is not being written with AI…) Melissa 'M'liss' Smith, who lives in the mining town of Red Gulch in the High Sierra with her old man, John Benson "Bummer" Smith (Theodore Roberts) who spends his time bumming favours, drink and food after losing his fortune – a fool for gold. His estranged brother, who doesn’t have a nickname, does have a fortune and when he dies it’s headed out West but not if various interested parties have anything to do about it.

 

You can, of course, tell which way this one is going but if I add the words: Thomas Meighan plays school-teacher Charles Gray, to the mix, you can be sure that there’s going to be some Irish going down. I loved this one. Uncompromising fun the Mary way! YES. Oh and Tully Marshall’s in it as is Monte Blue as “Mexican Joe” (yeah, right!).

 

John Sweeney, cocked his ten-gallon hat to one side and road most excellent side-saddle on this from start to finish. A wild and western ride!

 

Irie Takako and Tokihiko Okada,

The Art of the Benshi: The Water Magician (JP 1933)

 

Kenji Mizoguchi’s film felt like a good book or a high-quality streaming series on Apple TV… there’s a deliberate and detailed logic driving every character and their actions with a narrative that also didn’t cheat. It fell as “full” and as rich as Bauer’s stage tableaux.

 

Irie Takako plays Tomo, a "mizugei" (water artist) touring with a circus troupe in Kanazawa. She meets a coach driver, Kinya (Tokihiko Okada) and encourages him to overtake the rickshaw that has just outpaced his one-horse power and whilst they win the race, he breaks his axle. This is the start of a love affair between the two that sees them battle to make a living during tough times for the Japanese economy. She funds his law studies but is eventually forced into making compromises that lead to tragedy…

 

I like the way that no compromises are made – as so often in Hollywood and the performances are top notch all round. A very mature film from the centre of silent film excellence at this stage in film history.

 

Our Benshi was Ōmori Kumiko who put in some shift over 120 minutes and dozens of characters and she was accompanied by the Matsumura Makia (piano), Katada Kisayo (percussion), Kiyomoto Nobuakira (shamisen). We could get used to this! But overall a fab discovery for me!

 

Brutus joins the assasination of Julius Ceasar...

Early Cinema: Greco-Roman Antiquities - Prog. 2

 

More swords and sandals with a collection of early Italian short films that would later be parts of feature films and starring some of the same actors. Most notably we find Amleto Novelli as Mark Anthony in Enrico Guazzonis Bruto (1911), and we know they will work together again as will the actor and Enrique Santos in whose Santa Cecilia (1911) he is also found. There was also Fernanda Negri Pouget – Ophelia in yesterday’s Hamlet – and future star of The Last Days of Pompeii (1913).

 

It's been a feature of the week that we’ve been seeing the pools of actors in Sweden, Italy and Germany who were often in films together. All part of growing familiarity but also a reflection of the relatively small groups involved in film at this stage.

 

Donald Sosin accompanied in classic style although not wearing a toga.

 

Firenze: Love isn't, apparently, all you need...

Weimar Uncensored: Pest in Florenz (1919)

 

As Michael Cowan and Anton Kaes point out in their catalogue essay, scriptwriter, 29-year-old Fritz Lang had seen so much death and destruction in the army and beyond that it’s no wonder it was an influence on his films throughout his career and especially in his early work. This is a large-scale big budget film in which as they continue “allegorical archetypes” do battle: Death, a seductive courtesan, tyrannical religious leaders and a would-be saviour/hermit. There’s very little of the personal relationships needed to really hold the attention and to power engagement. This might well explain why Lubitsch’s Madame Dubarry – released the same year and featuring Pola Negri wiped the floor with it at the box office.

 

Never-the-less this is some statement and one that I would happily watch again just not late night on the Thursday of Le Giornate! There are excellent performances from Marga von Kierska as the courtesan who leads a sexual revolution and then Theodor Becker as Medardus, a hermit who is almost the solution as he battles faith, reality, human nature and ultimately Plague, as personified by Julietta Brandt walking through the crowds like some 21^st Century sci-fi alien playing the violin. It’s clearly an important work in many ways sand is well directed by Otto Rippert.

 

Günter Buchwald (piano and fiddle) and Frank Bockius (percussion) played their socks off and I loved the almost heavy metal tone of the introductory section but once again both men proved that the Devil doesn’t necessarily have all the best tunes, Pordenone’s accompanists do!

 

Masking… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026, Day Five

Teinosuke Kinugasa’s A Page of Madness or Kurutta Ippeji stands apart from American and European sensibilities even as it borrows elements and then re-interprets them in the most technically proficient way. It’s powerfully disturbing and addresses the human condition in timeless ways, placing demands on the audience few films ever do with an unconventional narrative structure plus the absence of intertitles…

 

Kinugasa later said that “… story was less important than technical experimentation: tracking shots, close-ups, rapid montage, flashbacks, dissolves, irises, etc. In this film I used almost every avant-garde technique.” It’s a puzzle to unravel and the meaning creeps up on you prompting wrong-footed self-reflection in an age when we know so much more about the difference between our inner selves and the aspects we present to the world: we know all about “masking” and in the film actual masks are put on everyone’s face to hide their true feelings.

  

Not for nothing did Kinugasa chose The Last Laugh as his favourite film and here it’s the magnificent performance from Masuo Inoue which holds the film and encapsulates the meaning… his face is its own mask with naturalistic reactions to the disorientation all around. He anchors the story and provides us with an identifiable “main character” but is he a reliable witness to what is apparently on screen. Is his character someone we can base our interpretations on?

 

Masuo Inoue

In terms of meaning, having previously seen the 2007 restoration with only musical accompaniment, it’s less specific than what we saw today. Firstly, this is a new restoration that is slightly longer than previous versions and which looks amazing for a film once considered lost. There was also the added dialogue provided by tirelessly expressive benshi, Ichiro Kataoka, alongside music from Matsumura Makia (piano), Katada Kisayo (percussioni), Kiyomoto Nobuakira (shamisen) which was very well worked adding more layers of counter-point to the experience.

 

This is not a new thing as in a 1977 interview, Kinugasa confirmed that a benshi was used on the original run with Aaron Gerow writing that legendary benshi Musei Tokugawa narrated the film at the Musashinokan theater in Tokyo*. There is a specific meaning if not a script and a story isn’t a purely “surreal” or impressionistic tale although from memory it’s interesting how much of the story I recognised from watching at the Barbican in 2013!

 

Just to confuse things, there’s also a suggestion from scholar Alexander Jacoby*, that the director re-edited the film on its rediscovery to remove more traditional narrative sections and to conform more precisely with contemporary avant-garde perceptions…

 

Whatever the truth, it doesn’t matter because what we saw tonight was stunning silent cinema an Le Giornate at its considerable best. A tough tale but as my neighbour said, it was exhilarating!!

 

*Both from A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan ((2008), Centre for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan.

 

Weimar Uncensored: Blondes Gift (1919)

 

Hubert Moest’s Blonde Poison tried its best to be some kind of pre-code Weimar saucepot and yet despite the best efforts of Blondie Loni (the fizzy Hedda Vernon) it didn’t quite work out due to her lack of chemistry with the hapless Ernst Deutsch as Rolf Roem, her lovelorn first boyfriend who was somehow enthralled by her he was willing to blow his entire inheritance on making her happy when clearly she had an appetite for darker pleasures with the cruel and monocled Georg (Paul Hartmann).

 

Good cameos from Reinhold Schünzel as her nasty dad Adolf as well as Eduard von Winterstein as her Chauffeur who only drove in 4^th gear… and fun accompaniment from Mauro Colombis!

 

Phantom Tram Ride of the Day Award: Today we were travelling mindfully along the street SPÅRVAGNSINVIGNINGEN I KARLSKRONA (SE 1910). Fun facts about Karlskrona! It is known as Sweden's only baroque city and also has the country’s largest naval base – so, hello sailors!

 

Gösta Ekman and Pauline Brunius

Swedish Comedy: GYURKOVICSARNA (SE 1920)

 

Now here was a film I could certainly do business with as those two ugly mugs/Not Lars Hansons, Gösta Ekman and Nils Asther played twins the eldest in a large family who were starting life as adults. Nils is Bandi (snigger…) who takes over as the master of the house whilst the slightly younger Geza (Gösta) sets off to join the army after having to be forced to show how smart he is in the school exams.

 

He makes for an interesting comparator with William Haines as the uncouth raw recruit in yesterday’s Tell it Too the Marines, being just about likeable even as he messes up time after time. The difference could well be in the script as Geza romances the Colonel’s daughter Jutka (Violet Molitor) and then elopes with the Field Marshall’s wife, Baroness Hetvics-Janky played by Pauline Brunius, who was married to director John W. Brunius.

 

It's a bit of froth but its amusing and well made and, of course the two boys were major exports to Hollywood a few years down the line. Pauline Brunius is also worth watching which is good as there’s more to come!

 

Stephen Horne accompanied and added zest to the comedy cake mix.

 

Another Marshall Neilan film: The Girl at Home (1917)

 

This was a very professional lesson-in-life film with Jack Pickford’s Jimmie Dexter leaving his Mom (Olga Grey) and sweetheart, Jean (Vivian Martin – a girl with curls just like Jack’s big/little sis) to go to college and better himself. He doesn’t realise that – following a family financial set back, it’s Jean who is funding his studies.

 

The little twit gets sidetracked by a glamorous older woman cabaret artist, Diana (the very glam Olga Grey – actually 21 at the time, a year younger than Jack) and there’s a to-do when she forges a cheque to buy an expensive stole. It was a cautionary tale with a surprisingly bitter side to it…

 

Neil Brand kept the varsity rag on track.

 

Czech Avant-Garde is all about brand building!

 

The second part of this programme was a real treat with a high standard of film making even when most of the films were adverts employing avant-garde techniques rather than purely art. A tale as old as time… There were films encouraging citizens to invest their money in banks and not hide it under their beds as well as one extolling the value of Czech tractors. Best of all was a film showing how typewriters are made and using stop motion animation to illustrate the complexities of the common or garden Remington which Zbrojovka Brno made in Czechoslovakia under license from Remington-Rand.

 

Prague, City of 100 Spires (1928) showed up the city to fine effect although I only counted 46 spires… but that’s being churlish. Prague in the glow of lights (1928) also made the city look gorgeous and the beer is so fine.

 

Accompaniment was provided by the jazzed, inventive hands of Masterful Meg Morley on piano and the free-hitting Prince of Percussion, Frank Bockius. They were so in tune and instinctively giving each other space as they improvised as you’d expect from two such accomplished jazz players. They took two solo spots which enabled Meg to play the strings with a book as she progressed her melodic lines using the keys and then Frank took scoring syncopation to new heights by striking out what was effectively an extended drum solo mixed with an unseen array of percussive objects.

 

As Jack Kerouac might have said, Frank was “... kicking his drums down the cellar and rolling the beat upstairs…” They were something else and the applause was long!

A Typewriter.

Marie jewel recovered and Lon finds his charm… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026, Day Four

There’s an incredible story behind the finding of Seven Sinners (1925), which was long considered a lost film until May 2015 when film hunter Joel Archer located it in Queensland, Australia in the hands of a film projectionist Ron West who had been given it by a cinema-owning family based in Melbourne and kept it along with other treasures – on nitrate 35mm – in his farm shed. The seven reels were 80% salvageable and after restoration by the Academy Film Archive gaps have been filled and whilst there are some compromised areas it is a wonder, in parts looking as fresh as the carnation in Clive Brook’s buttonhole.

 

As Michelle Facey writes in the catalogue entry, this was from a period when the film’s star, Marie Prevost was Warners’ “Queen of the Screen”, described in their ad for this film as “a feminine character of alluring charm… an actress whose spontaneous art mirrors every human emotion…” And Marie does not disappoint in this smart crime caper with a heart of gold and delightful performances all round. It has a script as precise as a safe-breakers touch and a cast who never miss: it’s a real Spritz of a film!

Marie Prevost and Clive Brook

 

Marie is Molly Brian who breaks into a rich house with her partner in crime, “Handsome Joe” Hagney (John Patrick), they’re surprised by what appears to be a resident in a dressing gown and firing a pistol. Joe escapes but the man, who turns out to be Jerry Winters (Cool Clive Brook), also turns out to be a crook intent on robbing the jewels from the same safe, one that Molly opens with alacrity much to his delight. They’ll go halves only they won’t go anywhere because in walks an elder couple, Pious Joe McDowell (Claude Gillingwater) and wife Aimie (Mathilde Brundage) who say that they’re minding the house for the owners only they’re not, they’re in the same profession as the other three.

 

Those of you good with figures will have worked out we have five sinners although though not all of that number knows the truth and, with two more sinners to add plus an actual policeman, I’ll leave the narrative summary there.

 

Accompaniment was provided by John Sweeney in full flight. Delighting in every twist and turn from a cast who like many from this period, you can almost hear talking. This is a must watch when you get the chance.

 

Joel is at Le Giornate and got a round of applause when his part in the recovery came up on screen. Imagine if we all still thought that this film didn’t exist? “Go, you good thing!” is, I believe, the saying in Brisbane!

 

Sheffield 1902, then, as now, a city divided by football...

Tram Ride of the Day: The award has to go to the elegantly entitled Tram Ride Through the City of Sheffield as recorded by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon in 1902 when, as I’m sure you all know, Sheffield United FC finished tenth in the First Division just behind their rivals Sheffield Wednesday. So, any extra glum fizzogs on view must have been Blades fans.

 

Sheffield still has the trams but they’re not as much fun and neither are Wednesday or t’ Blades… but they’ll be back. In 1902 Steel City was very much a hub of industrial activity and trams revolutionised peoples access to work.

 

BREAKING: The TRotD Award has now been shared with the extraordinary A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire (US 1906), directed by Miles Brothers just before the San Francisco Earthquake on 18^th April which destroyed many of the buildings we see with the exception of the ferry terminal according to Dr Lawrence Napper of Kings College London. There’s more detail to be found on these events and the activities of the film makers in the programme and online.

 

Tom Santschi and Edward Hearn

Saddle up and ride! Also, “don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys… Part 675”

 

No trams out west only trains but all we saw were horses in the two short westerns in the Rediscoveries strand.

 

Robert N. Bradbury’s Beyond the Trail (US 1921) was a punchy tale of two brothers one good Clem (Tom Santschi) and the other, Bud, wayward (Edward Hearn). It’s amazing how much of the generic tropes of westerns are not only already in place but expressed in this half hour film but it’s no doubt all true up to a point. Clem takes the rap for his brother killing a man during a robbery and in exile comes across a lone woman (Patricia Palmer) and her baby who had been deserted by the father… Bud! Cue a return to the hometown and final showdown.

  

Marshall Neilan’s The Country That God Forgot (US 1916) had some excellent cinematography and the look of classic westerns to follow with one especially impactful shot of Mary Charleson silhouetted against the endless prairie beyond the doorframe of their homestead. We once again have Tom Santchi as the hero, this time a miner called Steve who finally strikes it rich only for his wife to desert him for another man called Craig (which is not very Rough and Rowdy as a name is it?). Steve’s a determined man though and sets off to put things right…

  

Asta und Connie genießen nach Feierabend ein Getränk im Posta...

Oh, show me the way to the next whiskey bar award:

 

Weimar Uncensored should have been entitled TOTALLY uncensored as it’s hard to know whether Conrad Veidt was just carrying on from the long nights before when filming Der Reigen (1920) or just very much in character. There are so many lounges lacking their lizards with this man at this stage but perhaps even he felt the pressure or keeping pace with Die Asta so much his senior at this point.

 

Seeing Nielsen acting on a screen this size is always a treat because you can see her face working the emotions with expression that is beyond thought. It’s a rare gift to be able to convey so much with so little deliberate effort – think Isabelle Huppert of Stephan Audran (I’ve overdosed on Claude Chabrol this autumn – thanks BFI!) – but here we see it in one of the very first screen actors and the first European star.

 

Directed by Richard Oswald and adapted from the 1897 play, La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler, the film shows Nielsen’s character Elena and her various relationships with men who either lack moral courage or morals in the case of Veidt’s vampiric Peter Karvan. She marries Albert Peters (Eduard von Winterstein) for status and security, preferring his brother Fritz (Theodor Loos), but happy enough to look after her step-daughter until Karvan re-emerges to blackmail her.

 

It's episodic and overwrought but whilst it might try your patience in some parts you’re rewarded by Asta in particular as well as the faint smell of absinth every time Connie walks onto screen and smooths his reptilian gaze across the screen.

 

Gabriel Thibaudeau accompanied the cabaret in style proving that there’s no good in sitting alone in your room, and we saw Willi Schaeffers dance too in the nightclub scenes!

 

Female Madness Programme Two was a more coherent session than the first consisting of dramas not documentaries all of which included portrayals of female hysteria and the ways it was perceived by the industry and audience in these early stages. Mario Caserini’s Amleto (IT 1908) drew on Shakespeare’s conception of Ophelia (and Hamlet’s) madness and it did make you wonder how far the view of women’s hysterics had advanced over three hundred years?

 

There was also Albert Capellani’s Pauvre Mere! (FR 1906) and Léonce Perret’s L'Angélus de la Victoire (FR 1916) which centred on a young couple from different classes being prevented from marriage by their fathers. The war begins and in the end they wonder what all the fuss was about… apart from Fabienne Fabrèges who gives a disturbing depiction of the young Jacqueline driven mad by news of her love’s demise on the front. And still we fight.

 

Fabienne Fabrèges 

Riccardo Tolentino’s Le memorie di una istitutrice (IT 1917) has Valentina Frascaroli as Jane Eyre in what must now be considered the definitive version even though it’s only 33'47 long… It’s like a speed read and a lot of fun!

 

Meg Morley and Elisabeth-Jane Baldry accompanied with a wonderful mix of piano, harp and vocals with E-J’s song for the forlorn Jacqueline after she learns of her lovers fate in the war. Haunting.

 

 

And for desert: Tell It to the Marines (1926) accompanied by Neil Brand and Frank Boclkius

 

This has long been one of my favourites not just for Lon Chaney being given the chance to act against type and using just his own face but also because it includes those two Goldwyn “New Faces” selectees of 1922 and lifelong buddies in spite of everything: Eleanor Boardman and William Haines. Three of the very best Hollywood people.

 

Directed by George W Hill, Tell it to the Marines is very well drilled with, quick changes in pace and excellent cinematography: silent Hollywood at its peak. There is some superb hand-held camerawork during the fight on the island not to mention stirring shots of the navy at sea – huge battleships rolling with the waves. Indomitable and not far away from being used in earnest.

Lon Chaney and Eleanor Bordman

 

It’s a meaty role for William Haines as he gets to play the shallow raw recruit who’s only in it for himself. He falls for Eleanor Boardman’s nurse mainly as she’s the prettiest thing in sight and it’s only later that he learns how much he really means it. An excellent performer, it’s no surprise he was so popular: he has an easy way and always seems to throw in the odd realistic gesture like…picking his nose! Boardman does her usual top-notch job with not a lot to play with. It’s good to see her as always on the big screen and on such a fantastic print - she is as ethereal as ever and it’s noteworthy that her best scenes are with Chaney – she rises to his level.

 

Without doubt it is Chaney’s film with his Postlethwaite complexion, iron jaw and smiling eyes. I’ve heard that he gained such expressiveness as the son of deaf and mute parents. This may have been the case but he’s also emotionally intelligent and able to submerge himself completely in character. So much so that his actions and gradual shift in concerns continue to surprise you throughout the film… he only reveals the decent heart when he wants us to see it.

 

Married to the navy, loyal to all his charges, selfless to a flaw… Chaney’s portrayal struck so true with the marines themselves that he became the first actor to be awarded an honorary membership in the Corps.

 

Neil Brand and Frank Bockius’s accompaniment was disciplined, powerful and playful all at the same time, as if they had absorbed the characters of Chaney and Haines and the spirit of a film which, when you've stripped all the flags away, is about love, sacrifice and togetherness. Neil had the music Frank had the rhythm, who could ask for anything more?