Life, live from Lambeth... Faces of Children (1925), with Meg Morley, Kennington Bioscope

Back home to the Cinema Museum for one of the great films of the French silent, and one accompanied with consistently inventive Verve, the odd delicious Blue Note and Stax of syncopated stamina from Meg Morley; two hours of emotive, compelling improvisation with hints of period classical as well as Meg’s diverse jazz chops. She won’t agree but she made the evening and was so in tune with Jacques Feyder’s tale of childhood grief.

The film was critically-acclaimed yet a commercial failure and for a long time this it only circulated as a two-reel 9.5mm condensed version – available on YouTube and worth watching! – and as Christopher Bird said in his excellent introduction, this encouraged the young Kevin Brownlow to seek out more complete versions. The film was finally restored over a twenty-year period starting with the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique in 1986 and ending with Lobster Films in 2004 but it is still rarely screened which is exactly why we need the Kennington Bioscope more than ever!

Never work with animals or children unless, that is, the children are exceptional actors… was my observation of first watching this film on DVD. My cold shrivelled soul had prepared me for the worst with this tale of youthful anguish but, once again, I was so wrong as it is a naturalistic marvel and one that at almost a century’s years’ distance, it was made in 1923, rings true with unflinching honesty and the director’s iron grip on the dimensions of love and pain. Children are childish, but also easily desolated and whilst Feyder’s players are casually cruel, they learn their lessons hard.

Jean Fores and Victor Vina

A good deal of this is attributable to the film’s remarkable lead Jean Forest, who was just 12 at the time and plays with the controlled intensity of someone twice his age; that’s direction but also a natural talent. The director had featured him in his previous film, Crainquebille (1922) and probably wrote Faces… with him in mind – you can only make this kind of story work with such a freak of acting nature. He is not alone though, with the actor playing his stepsister, Arlette Peyran also remarkable.

Feyder hits us hard right from the opening, showing the funeral of the boy’s mother; ten-year old Jean is numb but expected to stand with his father Pierre Amsler (Victor Vina), the local mayor, through the ceremony as his five-year old sister Pierrette (Pierrette Houyez) is distracted by play. In ten potent minutes, the director introduces the main players and the situation against a stunning backdrop of Saint-luc, a village nestled high in the Swiss Alps. It is a beautifully location for a sad occasion and the worst of all situations: a mother dead leaving her young children all too early.

Amongst the serious adult mourning, Jean looks on in shocked silence as the funeral process unfolds and his mother’s coffin is lowered down the stairs in their chalet. Pierette is too young to understand and is told that Mama has gone away for a while, but Jean is old enough to understand that he’ll never see his mother again. The procession extends out of the house and through the snow-covered streets to the cemetery at the edge of the town. Jean follows alongside his weeping father whilst we keep cutting to see Pierrette playing with a neighbour… The boy braves the entire ceremony before finally collapsing in sadness… you’d need a heart of stone not to be moved but Feyder isn’t just creating a melancholy drama; these are well-drawn characters showing natural grief.

Rachel Devirys and Victor Vina

The months pass with father and son paying due respect to the departed but Pierre begins to worry about his children’s’ care with no mother. He starts to court a milk maid Jeanne Dutois (Rachel Devirys) but hasn’t the heart to tell Jean of his intentions. There doesn’t appear to be anything calculated in this new relationship as events will bear out… and what we see of Pierre, is what his children see, a man subdued by responsibility and grief.

Jean mourns his loss intensely, saying his prayers in front of a portrait of his mother each night. The portrait comes to life and his mother (Suzy Vernon) smiles down at him. This is one of only a couple of moments of magic realism in a film otherwise anchored so much in reality but again this is not just the faces of children but their imagination

The new couple agree to marry but Pierre cannot tell Jean and sends him away with his godfather, Canon Taillier (Henri Duval) who is to break the news as best he can… As Jeanne and Pierre marry the priest tells Jean who resolves to support his father and make the best of things. Things get off to the worst possible start as Jean returns home to find himself locked out; he cannot convince his new stepsister, Arlette (Arlette Peyran) that this is his home too and, having got off on the wrong foot, their relationship swiftly deteriorates.

Jean returns to the village

Jean is relegated to a small back room as his sister shares his old room with Arlette – he resents everything that moves the family on from how they were. Jeanne is unrelentingly kind and fair minded never giving Jean a real reason to dislike her but he doesn’t need one as he works through his anger at the nearest targets: the symptoms of his mother’s absence and not the cause. It’s a film in which a lot happens even as not much happens, the audience has to connect the emotional dots; intuit emotional states and route for simply everyone!

The battle between the children hots up as Arlette tries to involve herself in the others’ games. She invades their little island where they are trying to roast chestnuts only to be repelled and pushed into the water by Jean: whatever she dishes out he sends back with increasing spite. Jean is tormented a boy trying to process adult grief and lashing out at anyone who even inadvertently increases his sadness.

Through it all his parents remain patient and Arlette – as we grown-ups can see – makes every allowance. Of course, this only makes things worse as Jean finally begins to push things too far and lives are put at risk. The closing segments of the film see Feyder rapidly pick up the pace and torture the audience with the prospect of unbearably unhappy endings: you’ll just have to sit through these moments yourself because I can say no more without spoiling things…

The Battle of Boiled Chesnuts

As controlled film making, Faces of Children ranks with the best of French (and indeed Belgian) silent cinema. The leads are all superb and whilst the three children are the obvious standouts it’s also worth highlighting the performances form those adults forced to work with them… and Rachel Devirys is especially nuanced as Jeanne.

The cinematography from Léonce-Henri Burel and Paul Parguel is also superb, especially in the later nighttime scenes whilst they capture the majesty of the background locations as well as the intimacy of the children’s interior lives. Both had worked with Gance and it shows in the snows, day and night during the desperate torch-lit search as the whole village spreads out on the snow looking for a missing child.

And, throughout the full drama Meg Morley produced nuance and emotionally sophisticated narrative accompaniment of her own. I haven’t been going to the KB enough over recent months but I was glad to be back ,,, there is indeed, no place like "home"..

 

David Wyatt: There was a tribute to Bioscope stalwart and multi-talent Dave Wyatt who recently passed away. Dave was one of the core group at the Bioscope and had a fascinating career in film before becoming a collector and contributor to this priceless south London enterprise. Rest in silence Mr Wyatt and thank you for all the joy you brought!

Marie Prevost is… Up in Mabel’s Room (1926), Günter A. Buchwald & Zerorchestra, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Streaming, Postscript...

Gary dearest, I thought you were so naughty but I’ve found you are so nice… 

Sounds just like a movie.

 

Oh, this was so much fun and with accompaniment recorded right at the start of this year’s festival at the screening in Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, it had that live energy some of the streaming films don’t always get, although, to be fair this was an ensemble, with the local group Zerorchestra improvising alongside Günter A. Buchwald’s piano and violin. I had planned to be there for the festival but a last-minute Covid infection put paid to all that leaving me to relish the Giornate’s online offering and imagine everything I was missing… the films, the gelato, the relaxed late night’s discussing the films and much more. This film was the perfect finale for the streaming version though, setting us up for a physical return in 1923, sorry, 2023!

 

Directed by E. Mason Hopper, this perfectly executed farce was based on the play by Wilson Collison and Otto Harbach from 1919, and like every successful comedy of this type it relies on perfectly executed performances and timing, whether from the performers and director or in the editing suite. There’s also some exceptionally pithy title cards courtesy of F. McGrew Willis’ script and Walter Graham’s text… and if a picture paints a thousand words, the expressions on Marie Prevost’s face are a British Library’s worth of inuendo!

 

Harrison Ford and Marie Prevost

Marie plays Mabel Ainsworth returning from Europe on a cruise-liner, who has just divorced her husband, architect Garry (The Original Harrison Ford) after finding him in a lingerie department buying what she presumed was a present for another woman. Big mistake Mabs, as young Garry was buying you a silky see-through with both your names on it… too late she decides that he’s a keeper not a creeper and she knows she must do right by him, whether he likes it or not. Remember that embroidered nightware though, it will be important later. Also important will be her meeting on board with man-about-town Carl Gerard (Arthur Walkers) and his rather less outgoing spinster sister, Henrietta (Maud Truax).

 

Among new friends Gary Ainsworth was posing as a bachelor. He figured his secret marriage in Paris was like a vaccination… it hadn’t taken.

 

To Garry’s office where we meet his neighbours, Insurance Broker Jimmy Larchmont (Harry Myers) and his fearsome wife, “his top-go signal”, Alicia (Sylvia Breamer) who announce a party to celebrate their six-month anniversary, as so many don’t make it to their first, cue wince from Garry. Next to them is Leonard Mason (Paul Nicholson), a gay bachelor who is in love with vivacious Sylvia Wells (Phyllis Haver) who rather takes a shine to Garry, even as the latter advises his pal Paul on how best to broach the subject of asking her on a date. 

Harrison and Phyllis Haver

These characters all have elements of a classic farce set-up, which is completed when Mabel arrives just in time to hear that Garry has clearly told them all he’s a bachelor… Information is power and we all know the young draughtsman hasn’t a chance, but at this point the poor sap doesn’t though and rebuffs his ex-wife’s advances when she pops into his office on the grounds that they’re no longer wed and kissing would just not be proper. All the same she catches him unaware winking at his office assistant Simpson (Arthur Hoyt) causing Garry to worry that he’ll gain a reputation as “a swivel-chair sheik…”

 

The El Rey Night club was one of those places where twenty dollars wouldn’t buy enough food to widen a worm’s waistline.

 

One celebration leads to another after Garry is shocked to see his secret ex arrive at the Larchmont's party at the El Rey club with the Gerards. Mabel has so successfully rubbished the good name of her previous husband that the men promise to exact revenge if they see the swine. Garry panics and proposes to Sylvia, using the engagement ring which his lovelorn pal his pal Leonard had given to him for safekeeping. As usual, Mabel is the quicker thinker and extracts the maximum torture from the “bachelor boy” as she talks of her unknown previous husband and the special gift he had given her; perhaps Sylvia would like it as a wedding gift? 

Arthur Walkers, Maud Truax, Sylvia Breamer, Phyllis, Paul Nicholson and Harry Myers 

From this comes an invite to the Mason’s for a weekend away, to celebrate the new couple's engagement and which will involve combinations of most couples in ways that I’d need a spreadsheet to fully transcribe. The misunderstandings fly thick and fast as Garry, aided by his valet, Hawkins (William Orlamond) set out to recover the incriminating lingerie – the “doo-dad” – from Mabel’s room before she uses it to blow his cover and his fresh and instantly regrettable, engagement.

 

You’ve been hanging on her door all day, you’re a regular doorknob!

 

Cue grown men hiding under beds, dancing as if wearing ladies’ lingerie (I know) and being assaulted by three women in search of imagined burglars… it’s a richly comedic closing segment that would have been hilarious to watch with an audience instead if on a laptop with my family checking I was OK after every few minutes of snorting. Sooner or later, everyone ends up in Mabel’s room…

Listen baby, I can explain everything so that even you can understand it!

  

It’s a classic farce and fascinating to see the Anglo-American tradition expressed so well in silent film. Hopper directs with precision and great timing which, as we all know, is the essence of good humour. He has a cast of great reactors; shock, stunned, outraged, surprised and even frightened all freely expressed and played as perfectly as the instruments in Günter and the Zerorchestra accompaniment.

 

Talking of which, the boys in the band were perfect and spirited and the fact they were improvising in front of an audience adds extra frisson and humour. The music is perfect in tone for this delightful comedy and also great for dancing… who wouldn’t want to cut a rug with Marie and Harrison.

 

A band not unlike Günter A. Buchwald & Zerorchestra

Prevost is, as every time I watch her, pitch perfect, full of sass and perky emotion, she’s not only the best winker in Hollywood but one of the most endearing comedians of her age. She’s the queen of emoting on clue, that perfect timing again, but also thoroughly likeable and believable. She should have gone on to be huge in the wise-cracking pre-codes and throughout the thirties but it wasn’t to be.

 

Still, with films as strong as this to display her wit, beauty and talent she won’t be forgotten and when she’s recalled it will be in the knowledge that, despite her early passing aged 40, she was capable of creating so much cinematic happiness.

 

Normal men... The Most Dangerous Game (1932), Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-ray, Out Now.

 

Hunting is as much a game as stud poker only the limits are higher.

 

I’ve just been to see the latest superhero film, Black Adam, starring Dwayne the Rock Johnson as the titular anti-hero and coming in with a budget of some $190 million, relatively modest for such films. Back in 1932-3 King Kong was something like a superhero film, laden with state-of-the-art special effects, and it had a then big budget of $672,254.75, which is worth around $15 million in 2022 indicating that film production costs have vastly outpaced inflation. The directors of King Kong, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper were producers on The Most Dangerous Game, which was shot on the same sets at night when most of the crew we asleep.

Working very long overtime were Fay Wray as cast away, Eve Trowbridge and Robert Armstrong as her brother, Martin; playing drunk most of the time but possibly that was Bob’s way of coping with the insane schedule. The film’s a very neat 62 minutes, just two-thirds of the length of Kong with around a third of the budget, and directors Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack, pack a lot of disturbance and menace in that fraught hour, even with few moments still missing from the existing stock.

 

Dangerous Game is based on Richard Connell’s classic 1924 short story, which was much lauded and clearly touched a nerve, being reproduced in many compilations to this day and forming the basis of another RKO film in 1940 and, as film writer Kim Newman says in his video essay, influenced many films since. It’s a primal story that touches on the taboos underpinning our so-called civilisation.

What makes you think it isn’t just as much sport for the animal… as a matter of fact we admired each other.

 

Wray and McRea on a familiar-looking log bridge.

As Newman says, Dangerous Game is absolutely pre-code and, indeed, it’s “one of a run of early 30s horror films that goes too far…” with suggestions of Zaroff’s perversions; he only wants to have his evil way with Fay Wray after his blood is up and the hunt is done, ordinary hunting had not been exciting enough for his libido: arousal is part and parcel of the hunting experience for him. The idea of murder as a sport also ticks more than a few criminal boxes whilst we also see our hero breaking one of the baddies’ backs. It’s graphic, sexually overt and makes the audience complicit in the hunt whether we like it or not.

 

The story begins in a luxury yacht as a group of men have a rather civilised discussion with their friend renowned hunter Robert "Bob" Rainsford (Joel McCrea) about his sport and whether or not it is indeed a “sport”. Bob’s pretty sure of himself, he thinks his recently killed tiger “enjoyed” the cat and rife game but, just as he concludes his argument, their ship hits a rock and very swiftly sinks. Soon there are men clinging onto wreckage as numerous sharks pick them off one by one… the would-be hunters turned quickly into prey. Bob swims ashore, the lone survivor and climbing into a thick jungle, gazes out sadly at his sunken friends – the swellest crowd on earth - and the treacherous channel lights that led them onto the rocks.

 

Bob thinks his luck is in as he spots a large house and makes his way with relief knocking on a gothic door to be greeted by the mute form of Ivan (Noble Johnson), servant of the instantly creepy Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks), a white Russian who escaped with most of his fortune and made his home in this remote island and who has a huge tapestry in his cavernous hall of a satyr about to ravish a woman. He offers Bob room and board, his educated poise conveying a whole tonne of weird who later that evening confesses that, when I lost my love of hunting, I lost my love of life… and love!

Leslie Banks

 

He introduces Bob to the Trowbridges with Eve instantly trying to communicate danger signals to Bob whilst Martin’s boorish drunken ramblings offer a prosaic contrast to the very abnormal atmosphere built up by Zaroff’s intense talk of the new sport he has invented. Zaroff has hunted the world over and became jaded, despite a close encounter with a buffalo which left a scar he keeps touching in moments of high emotion.  These occur whenever the Count discusses the loss and then rediscovery of his lust for life: tried to sink myself to the level of a savage by becoming expert in the Tartar war bow, but what I needed was not a new weapon but a new animal…

 

Later that evening, Eve comes to Bob’s room as her brother has gone missing, the two investigate and find their host’s trophy room filled with the heads of his human prey and the truth is finally revealed as Zaroff captures them and reveals Martin’s dead body. The most dangerous game is about to begin as the Count challenges Bob and sets him and Eve off into the jungle with the promise that if they evade capture by dawn, he will let them live and leave. Bob’s situation is life and death whilst Eve’s is arguable worse… Zaroff doesn’t kill the female of the species and his threat is clear, only after the kill does man know the true ecstasy of love…

 

The game of “outdoor chess”, follows with hunter matched against hunter and pits the wholesome couple well against the evil count who is not averse to shifting the odds in his favour… for all his intellectualising and rationalisation might is right and “do as thy wilt shall be the whole of the law”, leads only one way. He is the true horror in this film, the ultimate in fascistic sadism who serves only his own appetites no matter the misery he causes. With dialogue lifted from Connell’s original story, he is undoubtedly the challenge to our core beliefs the author intended and still men hunt animals for sport and each other for justice, territory and belief.

 

This restoration is presented in crisp 1080p on this Blu-ray from a 2K restored scan and features the longest, un-censored version. It remains a vital piece of filmmaking with superb performances and effects that place the players in the heart of back-projected rapids and wild nature. It’s not a film you’ll forget in a hurry and replays repeat viewing with a taught narrative that’s lean and mean.

 

As is usual with Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series, the special extras are indeed, extra special:

·         Optional English SDH

·         Brand new audio commentary with author Stephen Jones and author / critic Kim Newman

·         New interview with author / critic Kim Newman on the “hunted human” sub-genre

·         New interview with film scholar Stephen Thrower

·         There’s also a chunky collector’s booklet featuring a new essay by Craig Ian Mann, illustrated with archival imagery

 

The Most Dangerous Game is out on Monday 24^th October, and is deservedly part of the Masters series; influential and nearly perfect in its execution…

The first 2000 copies come with a Limited-Edition O-Card Slipcase so get in as soon as you can to place your order direct from Eureka.

Would you trust this man?

We're normal men, just innocent men...

One of the superb matte shots, depth of field and gothic energy

Sanctuary much… The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-ray, Out Now

To the towns people he was an inhuman freak, a monstrous joke of nature – and for their jeers he gave them scorn and bitter hate.

This is the UK Blu-ray debut of this Universal classic and it is a 4k transfer of the recent restoration from NBC Universal from two 16mm prints, which looks fabulous and really carries across the scale and daring of this huge feature – a million-dollar super-production. Surprisingly, I haven’t seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame before and so this disc held and extra fascination. Lon Chaney’s transformation is under more scrutiny than ever envisaged for the original screening experience but, once again, it is his performance and not the make-up that convinces and you soon forget the all too obvious prosthetics and just become submersed in this classic tale.

Victor Hugo’s novel of 1831, Notre Dame de Paris was, according to Kim Newman, as much about history and architecture as the hunchback. Then, as now, the building was under threat and Hugo’s novel helped to raise interest in the cathedral and, indeed, the author took part in restoration that helped preserve the building. According to Newman, the book helped create a social movement… but still has a lot more humour than the film, with Esmeralda charged with enchanting a goat, a satire on the French justice system. More on that goat later…

From an era of epic set design... the star of the film?

The film changed more than the story with a number of characters flipping from good to bad and a revision of the ending. This is a primal story that is clearly malleable in terms of meaning, sense of place and dramatic sweep with the cathedral the biggest character and narrative device, a place to hide, to haunt and to swing down from as well as being the ultimate sanctuary. There is nowhere else that Quasimodo can be and when Esmeralda is falsely accused, he carries her there shouting “sanctuary, sanctuary!”. But Notre Dame is also a place hiding the shadowy plotting of Jehan (Brandon Hurst) although the main villain in the book was his brother, the Archdeacon Claude Frollo, here played by Bristol’s finest Nigel De Brulier, as a good man.

 

It's also a refuge from the poverty beyond with the film retaining some political overtones, bemoaning “the King’s justice” and the struggle of the 15^th Century poor more reflective of Hugo’s time – during the early reign of King Louis Philippe I after the revolution of 1830, all far removed from the days of the Republic. Hugo was elected to the National Assembly of the Second Republic after the 1848 revolution calling for the end of misery, poverty and the death penalty as well as other 19^th Century concerns such as universal suffrage and free education. By 1923 all of these things were recognised as undeniably good so writers Perley Poore Sheehan, Edward T. Lowe Jr. and Chester L. Roberts were preaching to the converted.

The film starts with The Festival of Fools, the one day of the year when those “crushed by tyranny” could give themselves to unrestrained pleasure… His Majesty King Louis XI (Tully Marshall, who I always associate with the Clara Bow comedy Mantrap (1926)) rides through the throng, “a crafty oppressor of his people, whose dungeons were always full… “ which may be a little harsh on "Louis the Prudent" as he was called in the 1480s who founded what became the French postal system, built roads and unified France under a more administratively solid monarchy. It’s not my period but the needs of the story must…

Torrence, Chaney and De Brulier

We also see the poor of Paris huddled in the cavernous Court of Miracles … led by King of the Beggars, Clopin (man-mountain Ernest Torrence, who I also always associate with the Clara Bow comedy Mantrap), the enemy of kings… 400 years early.  He too is at the festival, watching from the steps of Notre Dame as the revelry gets wilder, he is chided by the Archdeacon before his brother Jehan crosses over to plot with Clopin… the downfall of Louis and a new world he can mould with the help of his lucky hunchback.

That freak is my slave, he will be useful to us…

There, high above the crowd, is Quasimodo, the “ugliest man in Paris” who will this evening be crowned King of Fools. He looks down on the crowd, pulling tongues and dangling precariously off the buttresses. Lon Chaney makes most of these moves himself, physically transformed so much that the outlandish prosthetics are barely necessary.

Patsy Ruth Miller

In his video essay, film historian, Jonathan Rigby describes the impact the film had including its blockbuster two-month stint at the Empire Leicester Square, which featured an “Impersonate Quasimodo” competition featuring seventeen contestants designed to encourage British acting talent. As Charles Laughton, Quasimodo in 1939, later said, Chaney wasn’t just a great actor but a magnificent dancer and clearly this physicality was an influence although we don’t know if Laughton entered the competition.

Having danced onto the screen, we get to meet the other main players, the newly promoted Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers (Norman Kerry, playing slightly gormless here) and his fiancée Fleur de Lys (Winifred Bryson) who watch the festival from across the cathedral square. Fleur’s attention is caught by a dancing goat – told you – who is being coached by a pretty gypsy called Esmeralda (Patsy Ruth Miller) who, even from a distance of a hundred metres, takes de Chateaupers’ mind completely off goat dancing.

Esmeralda is the most connected character in this film, being not only the adopted daughter of Clopin, who bought her off some gypsies because he always wanted to adopt but couldn’t be bothered with all the paperwork, as well as the object of Jehan’s wicked desires, not to mention her new admirer, who is forgetting all about his fiancée. Later in the day after Quasimodo’s coronation as King of Fools, he sees Esmeralda dancing and then he too has lost his heart to her fresh face and regular features, not to mention high-level armography and syncopation.

The kindness of Esmerelda

Passions run fierce and Jehan orders his man to kidnap Esmeralda, as that is the surest way to any woman’s heart, only for Quasimodo to be arrested and sentenced to a lashing. Before that, Esmeralda meets de Chateaupers, who takes her to a tavern before discovering that she’s not that kind of girl, suggestive moments when he pulls down the strap of her dress to reveal her naked shoulder before edging it back up again as she reveals her true heart.

From this point Esmerelda motivates the central characters and not anachronistic revolutionary thoughts. She shows mercy to Quasimodo as he calls for water after a brutal lashing in front of the cathedral… and if he didn’t know she was the girl for him beforehand he does now and his loyalty will not waver.

De Chateaupers takes Esmerelda to a nobles’ party only for Clopin to raise an army of beggars in order to go and “rescue her”, forcing her to intervene and go with her stepdad, to be with her own people. Minor character and coded gay poet, Gringoire (Raymond Hatton), rescued by Esmerelda after accidentally ending up in the Court of Miracles, brings the captain a note arranging a meeting with her in Notre Dame. She intends it as a last farewell and it almost is for De Chateaupers who is stabbed in the back by Jehan, who implicates Esmerelda.

No you don't Norman...

Will her Captain live to tell the truth or will Esmerelda fall victim to Louis XI’s lousy justice with a public hanging at Notre Dame? So many questions for the final part of the film and director Wallace Worsley masters his cast of thousands and stunning sets to full affect for a dynamic denouement. But it is his players that really bring the action with Chaney peerlessly acting through his make-up, dancing his feelings and ringing those bells for all he’s worth with a frightening intensity. Patsy Ruth Miller is also second MVP with a charismatic performance most of the others struggle to match, several roles perhaps being under-written given the need to squeeze so much into a single film from the epic source material.

 

The Blu-ray is released on 17^th October in a Limited-Edition O-Card Slipcase* and has the usual Masters of Cinema extra special features:

·         1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a 4K restoration conducted by Universal Pictures

·         Music by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum & Laura Karpman (presented in uncompressed LPCM stereo)  

·         New audio commentary with author Stephen Jones and author / critic Kim Newman

·         New interview with author / critic Kim Newman on the many adaptations of Victor Hugo’s novel |

·         New interview with film historian Jonathan Rigby

·         A collector’s booklet* featuring a new essay by journalist Philip Kemp, richly illustrated with archival imagery

 

*Both the booklet and the slipcase are limited to the first 2000 copies so I would urge you to order your copy now and you can do sodirect from the Eureka site.

It’s another important silent release from Eureka, an essential part of any silent film fan’s shelf and one that has not looked or sounded better since the 1920s!

A feast for your eyes...