Back home… Foolish Wives (1922), Timothy Brock, Il Cinema Ritrovato 36th Edition (Part One)

OK, remind me how this goes again, we leave the country that has held us prisoner since 2016, sorry 2020, and land in a place where almost everyone wears face masks and where films of all eras are screened every day from 9.00 till passed midnight. Some how we’re supposed to sleep, eat and socialise and to take care of the other routines as the Celsius hits high 30s… and, somehow, some of us are supposed to write stuff about it? The pleasure and the pain of this festival is precisely down to their being too much to do… so, turn off you mind, turn on your out of office, relax and float downstream on the Reno.

 

Herewith begins my highlights of the first few whirlwind days… let’s start with a biggie.

 

“Sooner or later those romantically inclined American wives who believe the superficial polish of Old Worldling and his fascinating ways are the essential qualifications of a husband will be disillusioned. They are sure to come to the realization that the man for the American Woman – is the American Man.”

 

Foolish Wives (1922) 

 

The first million-dollar movie acclaimed the publicity… and, spectacularly, Erich von Stroheim delivered on the ROI and Universal had another hit on its hands from the most complex man in most parts of Hollywood whose productions had the skill of DeMille, the scale of Griffith and a dark heart the latter could never think or feel. The son of a hatmaker, the Austrian was all too aware that clothes maketh the man and, for that matter, how far you need to go to get a hat to get ahead, his incredible drive seeing his not only create himself anew in the USA but also emerge from the field of European theatricals to be trusted with audacious projects such as this one, the controversial Blind Husbands (1919) – screening later this week here – and his masterwork, Greed (1924) of which I had the pleasure of seeing the four hour reconstruction screened at the BFI a few years back.

 

He arrived in 1909 and how he built his reputation in less than a decade is a story for another time but what you can see in this film is the extent of his control, basing it on a “novel” he didn’t write, and using huge reconstructions of Monte Carlo and a cast of thousands, he effectively played a version of his invented self. Instead of a bourgeois Viennese faking German aristocratic airs, he’s a phoney Russian military officer, Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin, accompanied by his two cousins, minor white Russian royals who have fled the unfortunate events in their home country.

The three live in a grand villa and frequent the Casino and all the best places so they can work their various whiles on unsuspecting rich tourists, the more American the better. This is a slick crime caper movie from before the days when slick crime capers set in this period were all the rage. But Erich is making sure we see the seedier side as well, he and his two “cousins” may smile and be villains too, charming con artists, but he has a debauched sexuality which is revealed early on when Cesare Ventucci, a local tradesman/counterfeiter visits with his young daughter Marietta (18-year old Malvina Polo) who is distastefully described as “half-witted”, clutching her dolly. Marietta attracts reptilian glances from the Count, who even licks his lips (not for the last time) and if we were under any misapprehensions about the true depths of this man’s character von Stroheim makes is crystal clear right from the off.

 

It might even be described as “Hitchcockian” in another country, another decade… but the director is making us complicit in his character’s agendas from the get-go, and, as we want redemption for all our lovable rogues, he’s giving us a tricky moral maze to navigate. Also, about that redemption… this film was made in Hollywood but this is not a “Hollywood director”. The Count is charming us all if we let him, suspending our own disbelief despite all of the evidence of all that is put before us, call him Boris by any other name, or Don. This is just fantasy or is it real life?

 

Von Stroheim puts so much detail in the films of his I’ve seen and this was to have been over six hours long and split in two screenings if he’d had his way. The length was as grandiose as the location, designed by Richard Day, his debut as art director, and who later won seven Oscars and worked on Greed, and this presented the studio with all the dull problems you’d expect and with his presented cut of 31 reels, soon reduced to 14 for its New York premiere and then another four, including the spectacular extended opening. This restoration produced by MoMA and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, contains no previously unseen footage, but does attempt to recreate the balance and sense of that first theatrical release as well as the sparkling clarity, via digital processing. Scenes have been returned to their original order, the 1928 re-release – the basis of most version to date - intertitles have been replaced with the original texts, adding tinting and recreating the spectacular colour effects of the climactic fire sequence.

 

Erich and Miss DuPont

The other characters are almost as nuanced as the Count, with Maude George as Her Highness Olga Petchnikoff and Mae Busch as Princess Vera Petchnikoff, ugly sisters on the inside but not without good humour and some compassion; professionals without the Count’s unhealthy singlemindedness and tastes. They distract rich American Andrew J. Hughes (Rudolph Christians who was replaced by Robert Edeson’s back view after dying during production) whilst the Count attempts to seduce his much younger wife, Helen (Miss DuPont aka Patricia Hannon from Kentucky) in front of his very eyes. They first meet on a sunlit hotel veranda and the start of the seduction is so very well signified with not a moment out of place as by almost imperceptible gesture, stolen glances, over newspaper and book, yes Foolish Wives by Erich von Stroheim (100% meta) the two begin to connect and to collude. She is, after all, a bored young wife who is reading about romantic fantasy and quickly interested in the attractions of foreign nobility.

 

The Count is sexually voracious – a predator in every way – and we soon learn that he has not only wooed their maid Maruschka (Dale Fuller, excellent here as in Erich’s Greed and The Wedding March, proper skilled actor) but made her pregnant. He keeps making her promises we know he won’t keep and maybe, at the time he means it, maybe… but people pleasing won’t save him for ever and she will have her revenge at some point.

 

It’s all but pointless to describe the narrative in too much detail as its detail on screen is so full of nuance that only by viewing can you fully appreciate (yes, that is a cop out) but to see it on the giant screen in the Piazza Maggiore, was special. Which brings me to Timothy Brock’s extraordinary score and the performance of L’Orcestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna which he conducted. His score was technically brilliant in terms of the Russia themes he borrowed and interwove to support the grandiosity on screen and also the delicious lines of his own written to map every strange and unusual nuance from von Stroheim’s screen. It felt complete with the film and completed that magical connection between the place, the audience and the film that makes live silent screenings so compelling and which makes this place, almost uniquely, a truly silent city.

 

Brava Mr Brock, Bologna and Erich’s cast and crew. Glad to have you all back where you belong*.

 

*Get Back screens at the Piazza on Thursday, natch.

 

 

A house is not a home... Miss Lulu Bett (1921), BFI

The family beast of burden, whose timid soul has failed to break the bonds of family servitude…

 

This film is an almost perfect exemplar of a Hollywood studio film of this period featuring a superb performance from Lois Wilson in the lead and smoothly satisfying direction from everyone’s third-favourite de Mille… William ranking behind his brother Cecil and then his daughter Agnes a hugely successful dancer who was not “pretty enough” for films but became a huge star on stage and then choreographed a dozen stage musicals revolutionising the genre over a long career.

 

Clearly, she was given the kind of encouragement from father William that is solely lacking in the Master of the Deacon house, Dentist and Justice of the Peace, Dwight (Theodore Roberts), who seems to treat his family as slaves, especially his sister-in-law Lulu. In its own quite gently comic way Miss Lulu Bett is as powerful as many more serious dramas with a story of a family drudge, run down not just by the domineering but also everyone else; a modern-day Cinderella five years before Colleen Moore’s Ella Cinders, but of a genre and a general situation many endured.

 

Ethel Wales, Lois Wilson and Milton Sills

Based on Zona Gale’s Pulitzer-prize winning play and bestselling novel with a screenplay by Clara Beranger, the film reflected Gale’s activism and concern with suffrage and women’s right to choose their own destiny. It was still commonplace for family hierarchies to leave the unmarried supporting their parents, I have this in my own story with a great grandmother looked after by her eldest daughter, Mabel. When my Nain married in the mid-1920s, Mabs, the elder sister, objected on the grounds that she should be wed first but her elder brother stepped in on our Jenny’s behalf. So, thank you Uncle Alec, without whom I wouldn’t be here.

 

As a member of the National Women’s Party, Gale lobbied for the 1921 Wisconsin Equal Rights Law and she was also an Executive Member of the Lucy Stone League which concerned itself with opportunities for women beyond the right to vote. A century on it’s hard to understand some social attitudes although perhaps a lot less difficult after the last five years…

 

Theodore Roberts is shocked, shocked I tell you!

Back to the film…. everyone has written Lulu off – destined for spinsterhood and chained to the household chores. Lois Wilson is a revelation, emoting in an understated way and carrying a lot of subtle meaning. This is the only film I’ve seen her in and watching it for the second time – the first at an excellent Kennington Bioscope weekender in the before times – you appreciate more of the seamless directorial skill and Wilson’s ability to hold not only the narrative but our belief together. She gives her character strength and the willingness to repay her light-hearted and inconsiderate oppressors the benefit of the doubt. Driven by duty and her own sense of honour she’s also just waiting for an opportunity to re-join the World outside the kitchen.

 

Dwight sets the tone but Lulu’s half-sister Ina (Mabel Van Buren) does nothing to help her, not so much a wicked stepsister as a lazy one. Their mother, Grandma Bett (Ethel Wales) is no better, dodging her duties as easily as she deflects Dwight’s supposed dominance, usually by stomping off out of range. The Brett’s two daughters also have their own techniques for avoiding the bully’s blasts, youngest Monona (Mae Giraci) is far too quick for the old man, feigning deafness and fading from view when it suits whilst Di (Helen Ferguson) is the apple of his eye, being, unlike her spinsterish aunt Lulu, eminently marriable. The only problem is that Dad has eyes on more socially advanced suitors than Di’s boyfriend Bobby Larkin (Taylor Graves).

 

Lulu listens intently to tall tales

Lulu has to suffer a thousand unkind cuts from Dwight, she’s both relied upon to cook and clean whilst at the same time blamed for being too useless to get married. It’s no joke but never say never… Lulu’s chance comes in the unlikely form of Dwight’s likeable blow-hard of a brother Ninian (Clarence Burton) who returns from a supposedly action-packed World tour and regales the family and their friends with stories of daring do. Lulu is by this stage transfixed after Ninian shows her just the slightest kindness yet even this is inspired by the family friend, teacher Neil Cornish (Milton Sills) who is the one to ask where she is and looks on in despair when Lulu swallows the big fat fibs.

 

Ninian takes Lulu, Dwight and Ina for a meal and makes a joke of asking her to marry him by slipping a cigar band around her figure as she jokingly promises to honour and obey. Only trouble is, Dwight’s a JP and, therefore, they had accidentally had a proper ceremony and are now man and wife. Ninian’s up for giving it a go and Lulu takes the chance too, feeling there’ll be no other.

 

She moves in with her “husband” but a few days later he reveals that he’s already married to a woman who left him years ago and whilst he’s not sure is still alive, there’s a big chance she will be. That’s big of Ninian and it’s also big of Lulu that she puts principle first and reluctantly returns “home”.

Milton Sills ain't fooled

Now things really kick off as she discovers the house in a mess and the family bickering over chores… you’d think they’d be pleased to see her but no, she’s putting Dwight’s reputation at risk and has to accept the blame and the ignominy of being rejected by her husband after just one week. Yet Lulu discovers new depths: “The only thing I’ve got left is my pride and you’ve got to let me keep that…” and she works upwards from there.

 

There are superb performances not least from Theodore Roberts who would have been a shoo-in for Best Cigar-Chomping, Blood-Vessel-Busting Oscar had they been invented at this point, whilst Milton Sills is a steadfast lead with future salvation written all over him. But it’s Lois Wilson who wins out and she’s great value for a story that makes it’s point without getting too improbable of tiresome… we’re all for Lulu and, as the poet said, you’ve got to hope for the best and that’s the best you can hope for and Lulu Betts does not disappoint with an uplifting ending that blows the roof off!!

 

The film is available on Blu-ray from Grapevine and is online too if you peruse YouTube. Great to see it getting this screening in London though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mad love… A Santanotte (1922) with John Sweeney at Ciné Lumière

This was a rare screening as part of the Ciné Lumière’s The Wave: Italian Women Filmmakers season and it was a short, sharp shock of Neapolitan drama that, as accompanist John Sweeney pointed out, was reminiscent of Francesca Bertini’s Assunta Spina (1915) one of the major works of the classic Diva period of Italian film. Whereas the earlier film was ground-breaking, using edgy, improvised scenes against a backdrop of the Bay of Naples, A Santanotte (The Holy Night ) could be accused of being a little dated by this time but it is a powerful film none-the-less with much to admire including, of course, the ferocious poise and stark beauty of Rosè Angione as Nanninella.

 

The film is one of the few surviving examples of director Elvira Notari’s work and she certainly picked up the torch from Bertini and Gustavo Serena in terms of presenting Naples red in tooth and claw and very frequently in the background. There’s a real sense of place as well as authenticity and even though the story is based on a popular Neapolitan song, it certainly puts the opera into the soap. There may be an entire film PhD in the influence of national song on early cinematic narrative but this film is of the streets as well as on them with a heroine having to chose between rich comforts/poor love and being forced into a corner by the entitlement of her posh paramour, Gennariello (the director’s son, Eduardo Notari) who will stop at very little to have the one he shouldn’t have.

 

Rosè Angione, Alberto Danza and Naples

Another sidebar: why do we lap up songs and stories about the value of pure, unconditional love and end up allowing ourselves to be ruled by man like Gennariello? Just a thought especially in a hundred-year-old film made just as Il Dulce came to power in Italy, the ultimate loser narcissist who based part of his “act” on Italy’s superman, Maciste, a fictional character…

 

Anyway… our hero here is a young waitress who supports her wastrel of a father by working all the hours to keep in the stupor he has become accustomed to. Nominally a professional shoe-shine man, Daddy (Antonio Palmieri) drinks as he earns and spends most of his daytime sleeping off the night before.

 

Into their lives come two friends, Tore Spina (Alberto Danza) and Gennariello who both go to Nanninella’s window in an attempt to woo her. Tore is the more decisive and instantly connects with the young woman with his deep dark intensity and his winning words of song. Gennariello hangs back, he is not ennobled by love, only reduced, and can only watch as romantic alchemy happens in front of his very eyes and the two begin courting.

 

Rosè Angione, Alberto Danza and Eduardo Notari

What is a rich boy to do? Well, cheating is the first thing that comes to mind and spotting Drunken Dad, he soon hatches a plan that will rely on the lowest aspects of human motivation and we expect nothing less. Gennariello begins to buy the man drinks and to build his support for his candidature whilst undermining his friend Tore.

 

Meanwhile things are moving fast between Nanninella and Tore and she has soon impressed his mother (Elisa Cava, with a face like finely carved granite). She approaches Drunken Dad for his daughter’s hand but, having been thoroughly prepped by his generous wine merchant, he rebuffs her and ignores his daughter’s pleading as per normal.

 

Nothing can come between the lovers though and soon they are inseparable once again forcing Gennariello into framing his “pal” for the murder of Nanninella’s now dead, dead-beat Dad. She doesn’t believe it but the authorities do and the only way to clear her love’s name is to make the ultimate sacrifice and to force her selfish suitor to reveal all. It’s a long shot and… well, you know what Italian silents are like.

Caring for an abusive father.

There’s an interesting cameo from a young actor – an un-named acting student – playing Carluccio a shoe-shine boy who tries to help Nanninella and Tore. The lad does a grand job and pulls together the strands of what would otherwise be a slightly confused narrative: Gennariello takes advantage of a drunken slip and names the wrong guilty party but still the only way of getting the truth is the hard way.

 

Rosè Angione gives good Diva and has the most intense curls to go with her excellent arm-ography and physicality. As with all films of the classic Diva era, there’s no holding back and whilst she no Borelli or Bertini she is very watchable as are all the cast.

John Sweeney is, of course, the man for this tragi-comic dance and he treated us to a rich blend of poignant lines that blended perfectly with the performances and floated with seeming ease of conviction across the Bay of Naples and across the impressively cool lofty ceilings of the Ciné Lumière. Turns out Hot Media is the coolest thing to watch during a heat wave and John was on hot form too!

Arrested!

This “popular drama of passion” was one of Dora Film’s biggest hits and you can see why Elvira Notari became Italy's earliest and most prolific female filmmaker with over sixty feature films and about a hundred shorts and documentaries. She was a real renaissance woman with a degree in literature and a passion for dance too, she also married a cinematographer, Nicola Notari with whom she founded Dora Films before growing her own cast, well one of them at least. It’s a shame there not more of her work to see but what there is I look forward to watching.

 

Brava Ciné Lumière for screening this and John Sweeney for his accompaniment.

Don’t stop believing… Lawrence of Belgravia (2011), BFI Blu-ray, out now

 

I am completely obsessed with being famous, you know, forget these Big Brother people, I am an original I crave it more than anything else…

 

Released on Blu-ray for the first time, and previously unavailable on home media, one on the extras on this set includes the Q&A after the film’s screening at the London Film Festival in 2011 and shows Lawrence being more moved than he expected by Paul Kelly’s documentary of his life at that point. Kelly was sincere and treats his subject with the upmost respect whilst also highlighting a personality and approach that might well have contributed to his long wait for commercial success. All this said, Lawrence is a one off and someone we should celebrate, a man with a vision and who really means it (man) in a world of phoneys, sell outs and sycophants.

 

Only Lawrence could write to John Peel to ask him to return two copies of Felt’s Index single which the Liverpool-supporting legend was less than impressed with. Years later Peel told Pete Astor (ex-Weather Prophet) that he still remembered Lawrence’s response, “I’ve never had a letter as vitriolic and nasty….”  JP returned one of the singles but couldn’t find the other and so offered to cover the cost… Lawrence still has the note. He maintains that Peel’s not liking Felt was a major part in their downfall… although he kept the returned single and note. You feel the two should have got on very well given the chance but Peelie described their first album as having one of the worst titles in history and Lawrence never forgets.

 

In the indie eighties though, any listener to Peel or reader of the NME was well aware of Felt and their string of highly distinctive releases that laid the path for the post-post-punk style that wore its influence on velvet sleeves dominating the domestic underground through the C86 era. That NME compilation tape featured acts that went on to success such as Primal Scream, Wedding Present and We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It and others who were talented but stayed below the line, Bogshed, Stump and Glasgow’s legendary, The Pastels. Many still play but like most musicians, have relied on portfolio careers, often as “civilians,” to make ends meet but what is remarkable about Lawrence is that he’s still hanging in there expecting to be like his pal Bobby Gillespie who, he notes, has always avoided introducing him to Kate Moss…

Go-Kart Mozart on stage

Artistically I think we achieved what we wanted to achieve but commercially it was a disaster…

Like me, Paul Kelly first heard Felt on another classic compilation, Cherry Red’s Pillows and Prayers from 1983 which included Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt (Everything but the Girl), Thomas Leer and The Monochrome Set. Felt were quirky and atmospheric, standing out for Lawrence’s lyrics and plaintive delivery along with superb guitar from classically trained Maurice Deebank to which they added keyboards from Martin Duffy (now with Primal Scream). The band split in 1989 and Lawrence’s next project, Denim, should have been his commercial breakthrough with the excellent debut, Back in Denim a celebration of Glam Rock featuring contributions from The Glitter Band’s Pete Phipps and Gerry Shephard, and filled with wit, great hooks and a sampling of Chirpy Cheep Cheep. The critics loved them but they were swept away by far less worthy and ironic competitors of the Brit Pop explosion… many of whom also loved Felt and Denim.

This film is all about the life that Lawrence was leading though and not a history of Felt and Denim which Kelly neatly summarises with a compilation of cuttings showing gigs and reviews. It’s also something of a meditation on the craft of documentary with filming taking place over eight years to follow the debut album of Lawrence’s new project, Go-Kart Mozart (now Mozart Estate), and its launch. During that period Lawrence gets evicted from his flat in Belgravia and moves into a tower block overlooking tremendous views from Old Street across London and indeed to Paul Kelly’s flat in Shoreditch (?). There were various court cases and Lawrence was constantly harassed by the police during the period, with a single shot of medication hinting at the issue BUT the glory of this film is in the resilience, focus and ambition of its central character who would just love to be the first pensioner pop star.

The view from Old Street

I want people to like a group that you can put on the back of your jacket with pride…

Lawrence designs Go-kart Mozart to be the first B-Side band in the World but can’t help himself in producing a set of potential A-sides covering his eternal concern with bringing the past and future together. But he’s very principled and won’t use his old music, he refuses to play any Denim songs at a warm-up gig for Go-Kart in Paris and, no matter how much money might be offered, he’s adamant that You’ll never, ever, see a Felt reunion.

In Paris Lawrence was expecting a series of press interviews, Nick Kent was mentioned, but in the end it was mainly students and bloggers (bless us!) but, as Kelly says on the commentary, these  came out better for it as he was more relaxed and gives fulsome, honest, answers giving out more to help structure the discussions than he would have done under Kent’s more probing questioning.

Lawrence is asked about his relationship with Nick Gilbert who left Felt as he thought it would spoil their friendship, Lawrence doesn’t get that, and success is more important to him than friends even though, he was the only best friend I’ve ever had in my life, so it was quite a big deal… but he would do the same thing now, my friend is the band.

It’s possibly the same with romantic relationships with Lawrence saying that whilst men fall in love in a second, it’s all downhill after the opening amazement, as the everyday reality dissipates the desire. Lawrence is very self-contained and maybe choses to be the island just as he dipped in and out of Kelly’s film; he reaches out when he needs to. There’s a dignity in his discipline and a feeling that he’s being true to himself, a success on his own terms which may not have the chart placings and wealth but is still some achievement for any of us.

What we get is a series of vignettes all of which help to build up this bigger picture. Lawrence buying a new hat, giving very specific instructions to his cover designer and recording elements of the album in painstaking almost Martin Rushent style (“that’ll be one drum beat at a time, Stephen…”) – he knows what he wants which is also a triumph. We also see him in the old Haggle Records in Essex Road and there was a yelp of recognition when he points out the irony that you could never haggle on any of the stock!

No haggling vinyl paradise

When I play a record, I sit there transfixed, mesmerised… and if it’s got a lyric sheet, I’m in heaven… it’s another world you’re entering into.

We see Lawrence presenting a radio show with his list of favourites very telling, supporting St Etienne – Bob and Sarah only briefly glimpsed - and then discussing The Felt Book – a Felt fanzine Foxtrot Echo Lima Tango. Lawrence talks about the introduction from Kevin Pearce, who was helping Lawrence to do a book on the band but decided that didn’t want to delve too deep and loose the myths, or as the singer says spoil the beauty of things… Pearce remembered the band’s gig with The Smiths and Go-Betweens at the Venue, where he was impressed with their wonderful short set played in atmospheric darkness, Lawrence told him it was down to a problem with the lighting and not design. Still, that’s the band rising through adversity, impressive even if not perfect… maybe it’s hard to collaborate when someone only insists on perfection or complete control?

 

The closing long-lens shots showing Lawrence looking out across from his balcony across London from Paul’s flat reflect his singularity, and that, even amongst the endless and confusing city he still has a vision that may yet make Lawrence a “pensioner popstar”!

 

The set comes with excellent special features:

·         Feature-length audio commentary with director Paul Kelly

·         A Q&A with Paul Kelly and Lawrence after a screening at the 55th London Film Festival in 2011

·         The original trailer, alternative title sequence, deleted scenes and poetry readings: Cat Meat on Slum Street (2009) and The Tortoise (2011)

 

There’s also an Illustrated booklet with new writing by Siân Pattenden, Michael Hayden and Tim Murray, poetry by Lawrence and song lyrics, notes on the special features and credits.

 

This is with the first pressing only, so you better be quick and order from the BFI Shop and you’ll also get a limited-edition postcard signed by Lawrence himself while stocks last!

There’s also a launch screening, Q&A and signing at Rough Trade East, London E1 on Wednesday 15 June with Lawrence and director Paul Kelly, hosted by Siân Pattenden. Still some tickets available…

 

If I’d have been born in the Sixteenth Century, I’d have been fine because I would have had a patron…

 

I hear you, Lawrence!

Lawrence with Vic Goddard