Tuesday 9 October 2018

Pauline Frederick’s tears… plus, It’s War!! Pordenone Day Three


One day from Hasselqvist Tuesday and things were turning very nasty in the USA… why are things always so ornery over there Mr Lincoln? This was part the third of Stahl’s ode to Abe, A Call to Arms (1917) in which Benjamin Chapin’s Lincoln, faced with the revolt of the southern states, wrestles with having to break the promise of none-violence made on his mother’s death bed.

It’s well done and the president’s speech about refusing to let stars fall off the union flag was meant to rouse the thousands of Americans needed to fight the Germans in Europe. Cut to huge military parades down 5th Avenue and shots of Mr Chapin in character leading 10,000 boy scouts. Gabriel Thibaudeau accompanied the spectacle in fine style.

On to more practical matters next with a Polish advertisement illustrating the wonders of the oven: your wife has time to go out with her pals and still make sure you have hot food when she returns. Sadly, this has practice broken down in modern times and there will be hollow laughter in Hertford at that sentence…

Don't walk away Renée
Dunungen (In Quest of Happiness) (1919) with Stephen Horne

Time for another Swedish film crush, this time on Renée Björling, who leaves her mark in this likeable – if disjointed - tale of romance across class and social divides. She plays Anne-Marie, a baker’s daughter who falls for the local mayor’s son, Mauritz (Ragnar Widestedt) much to the displeasure of his parents and the delight of her own.

Mauritz is a bit of a wuss and he dotes on the “sweet” Anne-Marie – her nickname Dunungen, means “a downy little bird”, an innocent… but Mo’ doesn’t really know his own mind and is simply overtaken by events too complex for him to grasp: 1. Anne-Marie grows up and 2. Love is about quality and not just convention.

Mauritz’ future looks bleak as his folks send him off to bargain with rich Uncle Teodor Fristedt (Ivan Hedqvist – a very familiar face from scandi-silents and a fine performer to boot*), in an attempt to get him to gift his nephew an industrial plant

The film was also directed and written by clever clogs Hedqvist, another adapted from a story by Selma Lagerlöf’s - Dunungen in 1894. The cinematography is from the great Julius Jaenzon (who worked with Stiller and Sjostrom) so it looks divine throughout. There are also beyond-snazzy intertitles from Arthur Sjögren     - like the liner notes for a Bjork LP or Tove Janson doodling - I know, Iceland and Finland… still very Scandinavian!

The film was a huge success but is far from complete which resulted in some narrative patch-work which you had to overlook in order to focus on the main characters; the story is not just about crossing barriers of class but also age and was therefore well programmed alongside the following film.

Stephen Horne accompanied mostly on piano which meant I was almost surprised when he began playing the flute: how he keeps such clear tones on the wind instrument whilst duetting with himself I’ll never know: and no, it’s not just practice (my bet’s on magic).

Pauline Frederick and Clarence Brown
Smouldering Fires (1925) with Neil Brand

I’d seen this one before, so I knew what to expect but Pauline Frederick and Neil Brand conspired to make me cry with Smouldering Fires and I’m not afraid to say it! Frederick gives perhaps the performance of her career as the business woman who leaves it too late for love or at least too late for love with a much younger man – even Tully Marshall was in tears. All the leads are great in Clarence Brown’s film and not for nothing is it one of Kevin Brownlow’s favourites including Malcolm McGregor as the man she falls for and Laura La Plante’s as the woman he in turn falls for.

Frederick had years of stage experience even before her film career and yet Brown told Brownlow that she suffered from terrible nerves for the first couple of days of the shoot, not surprisingly as, a film star at 41 playing her age at that time – as now – could backfire. Baby-faced McGregor wasn’t much younger at 32 but La Plante was just 20 and looked it. It’s all to Frederick’s benefit though and you can’t take your eyes off her.

There are also some great “Brown touches” for example with the jazz-dancing feet showing how hard it is for Frederick’s character to keep up with extreme youth. One of Hollywood’s very best.

While I watched, Neil Brand was weaving emotionally potent lines that spoke of his depth of experience and ability to convey the flavour of classic cinema scoring. As Pauline pulled us one way he snuck in and sucker punched the audience good and proper.

In the afternoon I skipped a shocking Stahl feature – The Child Thou Gavest Me (1921) – check Silent London’s analysis as it sounds very dark! – and reclaimed my well-worn seat for four John H. Collins' shorts from Edison. Collins was married to Viola Dana who made an appearance in the last, The Portrait in the Attic (1915) as a young woman/teen mourning her dead mother. Dana’s a class act and popular too, there was an audible gasp when her name came on screen.

There were two films with the impressive Gertrude McCoy one a daft family feud film called The Last of the Hargroves (1914) and the other a serial What Could She Do? (1914). The latter involved the tribulations of a young woman making her way in the world after the death of her father… Gertrude’s character narrowly avoids crime and joins the police force at the end of episode two. We were left hanging wondering what became of her…

There was also a health and safety gone mad film, Making a Convert (1914) in which Elsie MacLeod finally gets the point about Safety First!


 Next a candidate for the daftest film of the whole week year: Lev Kuleshov’s The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the country of the Bolsheviks (USSR 1924) in which the titular Mr West of the USA is sent to the Soviet Union armed with only arms and a sharp-shooter named Jed. It’s very 2018 and I like the fact that the Yankees shoot first (there are no questions). Someone’s taking the mickey and it’s everyone. Still, you do have to laugh...

Best of all was the spirited accompaniment from Günter Buchwald (piano), Mirko Cisilino (trumpet), Frank Bockius (drums) – well played lads despite distractions on screen!


Note Dal Fronte  with Sandro Buzzatti and Zerorchestra

The evening focused on a special event; a screening of films showing the Italian experience in the Great War accompanied by readings from Sandro Buzzatti and music from Pordenone’s very own Zerorchestra; a nine-piece jazz-infused combo who performed a mix of their own compositions with arrangements of popular war songs.

I have to confess to knowing little about the Italian effort in the war beyond the basics and the coverage showing the battle against Austria-Hungary 3,000 metres up in the Alps is stunning. ON soldier told of how men bringing supplies had to dive for cover in the snow for over four hours after they came under heavy fire, they emerged nearly frozen to death under cover of the night. The War was fought on so many fronts and this footage was sobering especially accompanied by details of the growing casualties. Buzzatti read in Italian but after a while it didn’t matter at all for his meaning was clear in any language.


The day closed with, latest in the Honore De Balzac thread was Paris at Midnight (1926) as directed by E. Mason Hopper and featuring pretty much zero French content. I was expecting some action in, y’know, Paris and, furthermore, by night but… this was essentially a melodrama set in a guest house which gradually reveals a tale of three women and their relationships with their fathers.

There are significant chunks missing which does interrupt the flow and we don’t have as much of the Parisian partying seen in stills from the film, still, once it settles down the Frances Marion scripted adaptation is great fun with Lionel Barrymore as anti-hero Vautrin, a self-proclaimed Don Quixote figure and a jaw-dropping Jetta Goudal as Baroness Delphine de Nucingen.

José María Serralde Ruiz accompanied in splendid style on piano!

*For another fine showing from Ivan Hedqvist the actor, see Vem Domer (1922) showing at the BFI on 4th November – Jenny Hasselqvist’s in it! Not to be missed.

And did I mention that tomorrow, with Mauritz Stiller's Balettprimadonnan (1916), is Hasselqvist Tuesday!?
Jenny Hasselqvist: world-class ballerina and actress

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