Golden Turkeys? Two films by Edward D. Wood Jr, BFI Blu-ray out now!

Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture.

Edward D. Wood Jr

 

Like many other young film nerds, I gobbled up the Medved’s Golden Turkey Awards book when it was first published in 1980. It was part of a shift in film appreciation triggered by the availability of VHS, Betamax and Video 2000 machines that provided a means of distribution for the first time outside of cinemas, TV and actual celluloid. The UK music press had already provided me with a grounding in “cult” cinema and a generation of musicians who looked back to the media we grew up with and that we missed. Anyone borne after 1980 would probably take it for granted that we can access any old trash somehow, but at the time this was almost privileged information, available only to those willing to physically search it out driven by a need to know.

The ”so bad it’s good” trend was only of fleeting interest for soon the mainstream got wind of things and drove introverted inverted cultural snobs so far the other way that we’d find the good in anything and, why not? Nobody sets out to deliberately make bad films, least of all Ed Wood and others who cared deeply about making entertainment about their special interests be they angora sweaters or Bela Lugosi. It’s easy to mock Medveds, but thank you for your service, you started an industry and sparked cultural rubbernecking that has grown and grown including Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic, books and continued fascination.

Now it's 2026 and the British Film Institute are issuing two of Ed Wood’s films and you have to feel that, at last, this is recognised as “so Ed it’s good”. We have a restored versions of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) along with Bride of the Monster (1955) - both newly remastered using 4K scans - and it’s time to celebrate Wood’s possibly foolhardy and definitely fearless attempts to entertain us.

Plan 9 is everything you’ve heard about and more and yet one of the main issues the Medved’s raised about Wood’s supposedly scrappy mise-en-scène is fixed by making the film available in the correct aspect ratio making the various scripts, pillows and non-dramatic props invisible as designed.

Lugosi in uniform, 1914

This leaves just the variable performance of the actors and script to deal with along with a plot that seems to have a life of its own in terms of fitting in science fiction, horror and light relief. There is also the Bela Lugosi “problem” as the actor had sadly passed away before filming leaving his friend to incorporate what scenes he could from an unfinished project, possibly The Ghoul Goes West? Wood had tried to help Lugosi after discovering his health issues and his dire financial straits. He tried to generate money through these films to help and whilst that was less than successful a visit to the sanitorium from a certain Frank Sinatra with a cheque for $1,000 was a pleasant surprise*. So, Ed did good.

Lugosi is most famous for playing Dracula in Tod Browning’s 1931 film and whilst he may have got typecast there was so much more to this former officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, who acted from 1902 on the stage and, after the war, made 14 silent films in Weimar Germany before emigrating to America and working on Broadway and in a number of films including The Silent Command (1923) and The Midnight Girl (1925) in which he cuts a very dashing figure, six feet one inch tall and looking down on the rest of the cast. This imposing physicality served him well both o stage where he played Dracula over a thousand times (he claimed) and then in the film. The downside of success was typecasting and as the thirties wore on he struggled to get roles outside of his genre despite the odd big-ticket/small role appearance in Lubitsch’s Ninotchka (1939) with Greta Garbo.

His health was impacted by old war wounds and he became addicted to a variety of pain killers and his career went in every decreasing circles of horror with the odd comedy like the improbable British film, (Old) Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1953). So, Ed Wood’s offers were most welcome when the director began offering him roles such as the anonymous and rather bizarre narrator in Glen or Glenda (1953) and a generic mad scientist in Bride of the Monster (1955). This latter film had a big budget by Wood’s standards, some $70,000 with which to make a mad scientist tale all based in a mysterious old building with a basement lab for experimental attempts to change men into supermen.

Loretta King, Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson

Dr. Eric Vornoff is that excited scientist and his motivation is not only to prove everybody wrong, especially those in the old country but also to create a super army of atomic-powered soldiers with which to achieve global dominance. It begins on a dark and stormy night as two regular Joes ask for shelter from the storm and end up being the victim of Dr Eric’s pet octopus in the swamp and then death by unsuccessful atomic experiment.

In the local town there have been newspaper reports of a monster dwelling in the swamp and who has now accounted for over a dozen disappearances. Leave it to intrepid journo, Janet Lawton (Loretta King) to lead the investigation and her lacklustre fiancé Lt. Dick Craig (Tony McCoy) who looks as unsure of what he let alone she is going to do next. His easy-going boss, Captain Robbins (Harvey B. Dunn) is far more assured, especially as he has a budgie on his shoulder for most to the film.

Throw in the mighty Tor Johnson as Lobo, the Doctor’s henchman with the power of ten and the heart of considerably more, and you have all the ingredients for a fun yarn one that certainly repays a replay with the new commentary from the BFI’s dynamic duo of William Fowler and Vic Pratt.

 

Ed Wood's claim that only one of his films made a profit and author Rudolph Grey** suggests that it may be Bride of the Monster, also mentioning that Wood had oversold the film and could not reimburse all of the backers. Be that as it may – and there’s an incredible amount of detail about both these films – it’s a last coherent hurrah for Bela Lugosi.

One is always considered mad, when one discovers something which others cannot grasp…

 

Plan 9 from Outer Space is famously less coherent and that is not just due to Bela having passed away before filming but also budget and time pressures that give it a made-up-on-the-hoof feel. You keep on waiting for things to make sense and for the various clips of Maila Nurmi aka Vampira as “Vampire Girl” and Bela Lugosi as the “Ghoul Man”, to fit together but only in Ed Wood’s mind does it completely work. But, and this is the important part, he gives it his best go!

 

As with many of his films, this one opens with a portentous introduction and it’s from the bizarre Criswell aka the Amazing Criswell aka Jeron Criswell King a psychic who claimed he could foresee the future although his strike rate was rather lower than Nostradamus. A one-time TV announcer he is perfect for this gig, insisting that it may all have happened even though we can see clearly enough what actually happened. Criswell released a record, The Legendary Criswell Predicts Your Incredible Future (1970), on Horoscope Records and which is quite hard to find in its original format although it was re-released on CD (also collectable now).

 

We find Lugosi’s character mourning the recent death of his wife who we soon see walking undead through the graveyard as mists swirl around her. But that’s not important right now as the Earth is seemingly being visited by flying saucers which the government and the armed forces are trying to keep secret.

Vampira... all part of the aliens' plan!

Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his wife Paula (Mona McKinnon) see these strange visitors as do police patrolmen Larry and Kelton (Carl Anthony and Paul Marco) and army officers Lieutenant John Harper (Duke Moore) and Colonel Tom Edwards (Tom Keene) although no one is keen to admit it at a senior level. Meanwhile the deaths pile up with the mourning Lugosi character dying only to be also resurrected and threatening Paula, albeit using only his hypnotic eyes with his cape pulled over his face (a necessity given Bela’s passing with Tom Mason “playing” him during the film). Soon enough, Inspector Daniel Clay (big Tor Johnson again), has also been slain in the graveyard although, not for long…

 

Now we meet the aliens who, for budgetary reasons look pretty human and are Eros (the appropriately named Dudley Manlove) and Tanna (Joanna Lee) who are on a mission to warn humanity about their development of weapons of mass destruction which threaten the entire universe… Soon, they reason, man will move from splitting atoms to splitting sunbeam particles and this would cause a chain reaction that would take down everything. For some reason, re-animating dead people is a key part of their plan but, as this results in stumbling mute ghouls (partly because Vampira refused to speak her lines and, sorry, Bela was no more…), their role in things is unclear.

One can appreciate the aliens’ concerns but their means of managing the risks are unclear… and the Amazing Criswell could, frankly, be more specific in his summing up at the end.

With these films more than almost any other, you really need ALL of the special features below, especially those included in the limited edition!

People of Earth not really listening as usual...

Special features

•                     Both films remastered by the BFI using 4K scans from 35mm Fine Grain Duplicating Positives

•                     Plan 9 From Outer Space presented in 1.85:1 and 1.37:1 ratios

•                     New audio commentary on Plan 9 From Outer Space by writer Ken Hollings and the BFI’s Vic Pratt

•                     Archive audio commentary on Plan 9 From Outer Space by filmmakers David DeCoteau and Ted Newsom

•                     Criswell Predicts 2026 (2026, 11 mins): Ken Hollings celebrates Wood’s masterwork in this video essay

•                     Mark Kermode on Plan 9 (2026, 4 mins): the critic introduces the film

•                     Out of Step: Other Worlds Are Watching Us (1957, 13 mins): journalist Daniel Farson investigates the British saucer flap in this ground breaking Rediffusion television show

•                     Kadoyng (Ian Shand, 1972, 60 mins): another space visitor plans to sort out stupid humans in 1970s England, in this fab Children’s Film Foundation feature

•                     All About Ed: Archive interviews with family and friends (2011, 96 mins total): interviews with Wood’s entourage

•                     Bela Lugosi leaves the sanatorium (1955, 5 mins): the master of horror chats to reporters following his rehabilitation

•                     New audio commentary on Bride of the Monster by the BFI’s William Fowler and Vic Pratt

•                     Archive audio commentary on Bride of the Monster by filmmakers David DeCoteau and Ted Newsom

•                     White Lite (1968, 3 mins): far-out film homage to Bride of the Monster by artist Jeff Keen

•                     Theatrical trailers

•                     Image galleries

•                     FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Will Sloan, Jaye Hudson, Mark Pilkington, Vic Pratt, William Fowler, Jane Giles and Jan Manthey

 

You can order the set direct from the BFI online or visit the Southbank and watch a film too!

"I said FIRST pressing only ya big lunk!" Tor Johnson is cross at missing out...

* His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra (1987) Bantam Books, Kitty Kelley

 

**Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr, Rudolph Grey

  

The Medveds gift the Golden Turkey Award...

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 trans-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 Westerns 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. That's an un-historical approach and therefore daft: everything in context.

 

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, he had something about him... 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!

 

.

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!