When Connie met Johnnie… The Beloved Rogue (1927), John Sweeney, Kennington Bioscope

Michelle Facey’s well-researched introductions are a major feature of this temple of film ephemera, and she also turns a good phrase which is why I just have to steal her quip about the two main stars of tonight’s main feature. It truly was the meeting of two different cinematic cultures and Michelle showed a shot of Mr Barrymore, in costume, greeting Herr Veidt with a collection of some of Hollywood’s finest including script writer of this film, Paul Bern (the future, tragically short-lived, Mr Jean Harlow), Ernst Lubitsch and others.

 

I’d watched the Kino DVD of The Beloved Rogue some time ago but tonight we were treated to a 16mm copy that, as all the talk of the BFI’s Film on Film Festival reinforced, was a completely different experience, especially with this venue, this crowd and the wonderful improvisations of John Sweeney’s accompaniment. The source for the 16mm was different to that of the Kino version, no tints and missing the final chapter – a DVD transfer or the same generation print was used to close out the film – and, it looked and felt different, with the Bioscope’s projector whirring away at the back of the auditorium, there were new or newly-imagined details. The only true photographic memory is, of course, celluloid, a physical interaction with what has happened, light’s traces changing chemical compounds in ways digital is deluded if it imagines its impersonations are anything other than a facsimile.

 

John Barrymore’s attempt to out-Fairbanks Douglas has met with mixed reviews over the years, not least from himself (he described himself as a “ham” after the premier) and whilst his fan Orson Welles who liked the film but felt his idol was “not at his best”. But, whilst Barrymore felt he missed the mark by over-playing the colourful lead, François Villon: poet, womaniser and drinker who somehow also embodies the spirit of France, it’s not the easiest of briefs.

Jane Winton looks admiringly at John Barrymore

Based on an actual 13th century poet, The Beloved Rogue includes many florid moments invented (or over-invented) to add zest to this camp fantasy. It’s an all-too-easy target and yet… there’s an extraordinary energy around the crowd scenes in particular and Alan Crosland directs with style and free-running energy. The superb Conrad Veidt all but steals the show as a greasily ambiguous Louis XI and Marceline Day uses her clear, open expression to swoon-inducing effect as his beautiful ward Charlotte de Vauxcelles.

If there’s something about Johnnie and definitely Connie, it has to be repeated that there’s something about Marceline too, she has a very modern face and physique, and her wide eyes express something familiar and grounded. One of the great silent straight women, for Buster, for Harry Langdon, for Clara (Dorothy Arzner’s The Wild Party) and here for the good, the bad and the downright ugly. But that’s no way to talk about Conrad Veidt but here this most protean of silent performers seems to be inhabited by Richard III, doubled over in unctuous concern, turning his 6 feet 2 ½ inches frame into something frail and uncertain, deliberately allowing the 5 feet 10-inch Barrymore the higher ground. Veidt is morally ambiguous in effortlessly European ways and maybe John felt the pressure, just a bit…

Barrymore certainly shows a different side to his style as he throws the kitchen sink at creating a character big enough to fill William Cameron Menzies’ immense sets, rightly highlighted by Michelle as a stunning contribution to the film’s enjoyment. John certainly prepared well for the role and for a 45-year-old he’s rather ripped in the slightly odd torture scenes after he is captured by the film’s real baddie, the Duke of Burgundy. John’s in his shorts and gets beaten, flogged, dipped into flames and then winched high, before being selected as brutal entertainment for the wedding of the day…

Conrad Veidt

Set after Joan of Arc’s execution in 1431 (she came back strong after that didn’t she?) the film starts in a most un-funny way with the burning of Villon’s father at the stake… He was a patriot and fought in the name of a united France against the English and their Burgundian allies. His wife (Lucy Beaumont) prays that their son will inherit his spirit but, fully grown sadly he seems more concerned with spirits… Is this a redemptive story of fool to hero or does Villon play the fool to bide time?

Francoise’s roguish tendencies are fully developed as he gleefully steals wine to get drunk with his friends and leads the All Fools Day street celebration as the King of Fools. This section is very well realised by Crosland who generates a visceral charge by moving his camera through the celebrating hordes as snow swirls across the city. Snow in April: Paris in the Snow-time? Just what we need after a week of high temperatures.

Amongst the revellers is the striking Jane Winton as The Abbess, Mack Swain, striking in a different way, and Slim Summerville as Villon’s buddies Nicholas and Jehan as well as Angelo Rossitto (later to star in Tod Browning’s Freaks) as Beppo the Dwarf. As the party gets started Francoise is in pursuit of one of his favourite things as he evades the constabulary and comes down the rooftops to cheat an innkeeper of some wine. He heads of linking arms and skipping with Nicholas and Jehan – there’s a lot of skipping. Jigging and general dancing for joy: how else to convey energetic adventurism to scale?

William Cameron Menzies' sets are stunning

Having been crowned King of Fools, Francoise regales his rapt audience with a poem and them mounts a statue of the King just as the Duke of Burgundy arrives for an audience with his cousin. Francoise makes merry at Burgundy’s expense, knowing him as a man of ambition who wants the crown for himself. But King Louis, a “slave to the stars” has his judgement clouded by the advice of his astrologer and is loath to confront his rival. He comes out of the palace and has no option to support Burgundy against the crowd and ends up banishing Villon from Paris – “his life”.

Riding with him is his ward Charlotte who is appalled to finally see the reality of the poet she idolises: is the most inspiring wordsmith in France really an uncouth drunken fool? But things are about to get worse as she is promised in marriage to Burgundy’s lieutenant, Thibault d'Aussigny (Henry Victor), part of Burgundy’s plot to gain quick access to Paris.

In exile, Villon turns into a gallic Robin Hood as he hijacks the King’s gifts to Burgundy and climbs the walls to use the King’s catapult to fire the food and drink at the city in order to feed the poor. He ends up catapulting himself to avoid capture and crash lands, of course, into the rooms of Charlotte de Vauxcelles, what are the odds eh? This sequence features a stuntman diving against foreground scenery with the camera at a right angle; the result turned vertical into horizontal and adds further momentum to the film’s relentless pace.

Every day's a Marceline Day

The young noblewoman soon learns that this surprise invader is the Francoise Villon, a man whose words have touched her like no other but, again not pausing for breath, they are rudely interrupted by Thibault and his troops, there follows an altercation involving bears in barrels, recently deceased poultry and a heavyweight chandelier. Francoise escapes and takes Charlotte with him over the rooftops he knows so well to the safety of his mother’s house. Queue emotional reunion and the sadness of a mother deceived by her own hope: will her son ever amount to the man she wants him to be?

The route forward accelerates as the King finds it expedient to order Francoise death but the poet saves his skin by convincing Louis that their lives and death are inter-dependent: with this swift turn of phrase, he guarantees his life as courtier. Now able to influence events in the way his mother always wished, he is still a commoner which means he can never marry Charlotte, but all are soon overtaken by events as Burgundy kidnaps her and is intent on completing her marriage to his cause.

Villon and his friends, plus an army from the goodly poor of the Cour des miracles, the slum districts of Paris, as also featured in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, borrowed here in strictly un-historical manner natch. But there must be swash and there will be buckle and it’s a rip-roaring finale with the cast of thousands are moved so well among the towering sets.

The film was believed lost until Mary Pickford revealed she had one in her archive and I wonder again how would we feel about The Beloved Rogue if it were still a lost film? As ever we need to count our blessings and thank the collectors, the restorers and the historians for preserving film in all its forms.

The rug stays cut when Josephine cuts it

Talking of which, the first half of the show combined a series of contemporary trailers for silent films including Ben Hur (1925) – which I’ve still to see on the big screen – a Marie Prevost film (it does exist but only on celluloid and with Serbo-Croat intertitles, one day maybe…) and others including King Cowboy (1928) starring Tom Mix and a-lot of Josephine Baker in Siren of the Tropics (1927)… oh my, there was steam coming off the screen! The art of the trailer is a valuable sub-genre all its own, cinematic striptease perhaps, revealing just enough, not too much and it provided quite the challenge for the accompanying Colin Sell who, of course, dealt with the flurry of action, emotion and revelation, with customary flair and sang froid! Grace under pressure these pianists!

It's been a great first half year for the Bioscope and my thanks and admiration goes as usual to all those involved in making these celluloid adventures possible. See you in September for more quiche, conversations and classic, rare, film!

  

The Cinema Museum where resides the Kennington Bioscope

A 35mm film projector, yesterday at the Museum.

Nitrate Sunday… BFI Film on Film Festival, Part Two

 

Nitrate Sunday, began with a slight anxiety on the technical front and ended with leg-biting fury, the cinema of risk and reward… Typically, just as the BFI fixed the safety issues with the nitrate projectors, the temperature outside nudged 30 degrees and rising. As if it was already not hot enough, we then had Rita bloomin’ Hayworth and Tyrone Power lifting the gauge to near boiling point as our drinks evaporated before our gaping mouths could consume them and the audience in NFT1 was simmered relentlessly into sunny submission.

 

As Jo Botting, BFI curator in the fiction team, said in her introduction, there’s no quota quickly quite like an Alexander Korda quota quickie and whilst the production schedule might have been rushed his Service for Ladies (1932) was a masterclass in direction, witty pacing and performance management. This truly is the cinema of delight, from Leslie Howard’s pitch perfect timing, Benita Hume’s sass and Elizabeth Allan’s pep. There was also a wealth of dazzling technique such as the crosscut from a spinning 78 to a train wheel, followed on by the sound of the train’s chugging echoed by the verbalised dreams of three main characters, Howard’s and Allan’s thoughts of each other and her father’s subconscious fretting about his pills, pills, pills…

Of course, the main excitement was the material being projected, a 91-year-old nitrate 35mm which, who knows, may have been that seen by my grandparents; I know our Bill was keen on Madelaine Carroll but I should imagine he’d be equally impressed with Benita and Elizabeth. As Robin Baker said in his introduction, this is time travel, not just in the content but also the light and patterns being formed by the exact same chemicals used to illuminate the screen in 1932. The difference between celluloid and nitrate may be partly psychological but this print glistened and had a rich texture and a depth of field that genuinely felt like we were faced with a portal to the past.

Mr Howard and Miss Allan look across the divide...

 

For my generation it’s a bit like the US series Time Tunnel and, for me, as a teen sci-fi geek, it’s reminiscent of Bob Shaw’s concept of Slow Glass, a window through which light travels at irregular speed enabling a view of past events played out in real time. Of course, Korda has to get his reality in shape and this he does with alacrity, as Howard’s head waiter Max, pursues the socially impossible dream of Allan’s Sylvia Robertson, the daughter of a self-made rich man (Morton Selten).

 

The script is punchy and very knowing from disgraced Liberal MP, Eliot Crawshay-Williams and Lajos Bíró – who brought his own pen – and adapted from a story by Ernest Vajda, one of Korda’s countrymen. The art of waiting, the finer points of the class system, snobbery and love are all dealt with in ways that balance the quota of comedy with social commentary, still leaving more than enough room for us to lose our hearts to the central couple. I’m not surprised this was voted the second-best British film of 1932 and, unusually for a QQ, it was not only screened in the US but gained a place in the New York Times’ top ten films of the year. The multiple of box office to budget is not known but it set Korda off on an unstoppable trajectory…

 

Rita and Tyrone, yes, it is hot in here.

Talking of which, the irresistible charms of Rita Hayworth were about to meet the movable loyalties of Tyrone Power in the sweltering heat of the Southbank, sorry Seville in Blood and Sand (1941). Power plays Juan, a matador with bull’s blood in his veins and all over his cloak who works his way up from humble beginnings alongside his rival Manolo de Palma (a high-energy Anthony Quinn), to become the hero of Spain. He marries his childhood sweetheart, Carmen (no, not that one) who just happens to be Linda Darnell yet, he still falls for the allure of Hayworth’s Doña Sol (who dazzles like the, erm, Sun).

 

There’s a terrific turn from Nazimova as Juan’s mother, and it’s great to see the silent star and co-star of Rudolph Valentino, although not in his 1922 version of Blood and Sand, acting so well… ad to the extensive and huge list of “stars who survived the talkies”.

 

Shot in Technicolor, this print showed how deeply the colours are retained by nitrate process with director Rouben Mamoulian apparently painting some props and scenery to accentuate the colours and shadows. This work was not wasted as the heat and the detail were extraordinary in part… I became fascinated with a light blue shawl worn by Carmen… you could almost grasp the fabric but that would have distracted from the moment.

 

It was time to cool down and what better way than a visit to the Thames, London dockside and the Essex coast in two comedies based on the writing of W.W. Jacobs; away with the heat and the glamour, lets see some familiar domestic dramas of the kind that our Bill probably read, he being from seafaring and canal boating stock… Bill’s uncle died in an explosion on a ship on the Thames in the 1890s, they had been returning from America.

Messing about on the river

Jacob’s stories take on a lighter vein and yet carry the authenticity of their author’s experience in the Thames and coastal trading routes. There’s a camaraderie among the men, no doubt engendered by the risks of their profession, life could be a lot shorter than now and harsher too for the poor. Young Billy Jones (the exceptionally able Bobbie Rudd) has been orphaned by his father’s untimely death and he tries to follow his pet dog’s example in attaching himself to a sailor Sam Brown, claiming him as his “farver” much to the amusement of Brown’s fellow crew members.

 

Sam’s signed the pledge, wearing his blue ribbon with pride, and reads the Salvation Army’s War & Cry whilst leading a pious life. The idea that he has a secret love child is a recognisably British bawdiness, just as his fear of exposing his wife to this unsaintly scandal. There’s much amusement but also a fabulous view of the vessels and, especially the docksides high up the Thames and the pastoral beauty of the Essex coastline. This was a 35mm print made direct from the BFI’s contemporary materials and it looked stunning… sometimes, film just endures, but only with a lot of help.

 

The film was directed by Manning Haynes and scripted by Lydia Hayward and the performed the same duties on The Boatswain’s Mate (1924) which featured the excellent American Florence Turner as landlady Mrs. Walters. Johnny Butt is again featured as a man who wants to woo her by hiring an unemployed soldier, Ned, played with roughhouse charm by perhaps the toughest of the McLaglen Boys, Victor. Needless to say, things don’t quite go to plan.

 

A fab introduction from Bryony Dixon and excellent accompaniment from Neil Brand completed the wonder with playing that not only respects the material but also thoroughly understands the essence of the age… music is also part of the time-travel, contextualising whilst also bringing narrative immediacy along with the occasional diegetic song of the times.

 

Finally, I crossed over with my own timeline, something the Doctor from Gallifrey always warns against but which, in the safety of the BFI is recommended. In 1975, a group of 14-year-old boys from Deyes High School Maghull, lied about their age in order to see the cinematic hit of the time, Jaws (1975) from a young director called Steven Spielberg. We also hid behind the seats so we could watch it twice and this was the only time I had seen the film on 35mm… 48 years later I had no problem qualifying as over-age in order to reconnect on a 35mm print that was an original dye-transfer from 1975, originally in the possession of the BBC, which is far closer to the original look and feel of the film I saw. It was also in mono… and I love mono, it took me back but it also took me in new directions.

Which brings me back to Albert Camus… you can never truly recreate the exact feeling of the cultural moments that first moved you but can create something all together new based on the same materials. Media may stay and some may go but the experience of consumption and connection always changes built on the multiple variables of today.

 

Today’s Jaws I take less for granted as a statement on authority whilst the instinctive connection to Brody, Quint and Hooper’s bonding as they fight to survive feels even more heroic. As we did in 1975, there was cheering when the perfect killing machine was finally despatched… yet more in relief than certitude. I also had to pretend that the sequels never happened, but I’ve been doing that for decades.

 

It has truly been a remarkable few days, the warmest of endeavours with great company and commitment in clear demonstration of the human qualities most needed to ensure the continued successful presentation and preservation of film in all its forms, every gerne every gauge… all held together by a thread of joy, fascination and pure grit! Thankyou BFI, you’ve never been more important and I look forward to doing this all again in 2024… and as often as possible in between!

I saw the light… BFI Film on Film Festival, Part One

I collect vinyl old and new, I have enough CDs to have established a secret breakaway archive in the garage and I stream and download via Bandcamp who give the creators their due. As with film - nitrate and celluloid, "a tough flammable thermoplastic composed essentially of cellulose nitrate and camphor*" available in 70mm, 8mm, 35, 16... - each musical medium has its strengths and weaknesses and each fits in with different moods or situations. The character of your listening experience is based on the qualities of the media as much as the content; clicking on a link and listening on your laptop speakers doesn't compete with the act of selecting carefully preserved vinyl, pulling it out of the cover and placing the needle on the groove. There's more consideration and physical involvement, it's a tactile, emotive connection... or maybe I'm just reconnecting with an old feeling, just ask Albert Camus**.

Sadly we don’t have the same sort of choices with film as we do with music with the majority of cinemas now showing only digital and only one, the BFI, able to screen nitrate. This new festival celebrates celluloid as only the Institute can, unleashing prints new and old from their archive in a vibrant celebration not just of the film but the projectionists, archivists and cineastes who gathered from all points to be in the moment, together in the dark, on the sunniest of days on the Southbank. Just like Bologna, inside and out… all imbued with the warmth of shared appreciation and a collective love of cinema and all of its ways.

 

Talking of nitrate… In A Fire, I’d save my hard drive and as many first pressings as possible; then maybe I could make a mix-tape for Samantha Morton if Lynne Ramsay and she ever make a follow-up to Morvern Callar. Whilst the BFI had hoped to have their new 35mm print ready we ended up watching one made on release in 2002 and never previously projected. It looked perfect or as nearly perfect as celluloid needs to be, the odd flicker and a slight wobble all counterbalanced by the warmth of the image the vibrancy and depth of colours not approximated but created by light interacting with chemicals during the original shoot and only found in the form we saw after development and washing… a process described in detail in Mark Jenkin’s wondrous new short, commissioned for the festival, A Dog Called Discord, a quite brilliant narrative on the appeal of film and it’s unique qualities in reflecting and preserving light and life.

In their introduction to the film, Morton, director Ramsay and producer Robyn Slovo talked like the closest of friends, still excited by what they achieved. Samantha observed that there are so many monitors now, film makers do not focus on the live environment, directing performance, but instead on how it looks on their digital viewer. Lynne on the other hand was down near her star’s face, unconsciously mouthing her lines as she knew them so well and just letting her run with a character that was all consuming and feeing off their trust and skill.

Samantha Morton

The result, having now seen it all the way through for the first time, is a film that feels as fresh today as anything from 21 years ago has any right to do. Morton’s Morvern exploring the possibilities of life after her boyfriend kills himself and gifts her with a novel and a chance to break free. It’s like one of Paul Auster’s moments of chance, and the film revels in the excitement of risks and new purpose in the face of nothing to lose. Morton is almost matched in fantasticness by Kathleen McDermott as her pal Lanna, not quite the Louise to her Thelma, but someone who is more reckless but still held back by caution.

A half century before, on Thursday’s opening night, we witnessed another force of nature in the form of Joan Crawford’s mighty Mildred Pierce (1945). This is why films were invented, this was the classiest of classic Hollywood and another first-time view for me – I know, I know… you can’t take me anywhere. I’m far more familiar now with Joan’s silent work but she appears to have adapted exceptionally well to the new talking pictures on this evidence.

We watched the BFI’s new 35mm print and it looks gorgeous, full of lightning soul and monochromatic drama with Joan’s huge eyes never glistening more; an albedo so intense there are probably alien scientists studying it 78 light years away. Crawford’s core is so fierce that it could overwhelm her co-stars but she is also controlled and a team player (sorry Bette…) who brings out the best in Zachary Scott as her disreputable second husband Monte Beragon, Jack Carson as her, consistently disappointed, male best friend and young Ann Blyth as her almost irredeemable elder daughter Veda: how could someone like her come from Mildred and her dependable but dull first husband Bert (Bruce Bennett)?

 

This is one of the film’s great drivers and Veda, like her mother is always true to herself, perhaps taking the honesty of her endeavour for granted; weakness created from graft. The film has great tone to accompany these rich characters and if there’s anyone born that ever delivered a one-liner better than Eve Arden, as Ida, Mildred’s dependable left-hand woman, I’ve yet to see them!

Fernand Gravey and Heather Angel

Just over a decade before the European co-production Early to Bed (1933) was being produced in Germany during the final months of the Weimar Republic and featuring stars from Britain, France and Germany all working the same script in their own languages and on the same sets at UFA and around Berlin and Potsdamer. This film was new to me and described by Festival Director Robin Baker as a likeable oddity which it certainly was, a classic farce that escalated exponentially to the expected conclusion but not without running unexpected disaster mighty close.

Led by the aptly-named Heather Angel as Grete, a manicurist at a local salon and Fernand Gravey as Carl, a waiter with ambition the film features a very pleasing array of supporting actors including Donald Calthrop as an officious tour guide, Athene Seyler as Grete’s boss, Frau Weiser and the irrepressible Sonnie Hale as Helmut, projectionist at the local Kino and sausage-munching advisor to Carl. We also have Lady Tree – aka Lady Beerbohm Tree, wife of Sir Herbert – as Grete and Carl’s landlady, who is prone to wistful recollection of her many Shakespearian roles, the joke being that she was one of the leading actors of her generation with her rooms full o factual pictures from her many stage productions. She’s a joy hamming it up and playing her part in this comedy of errors.

Grete and Carl share a room but not at the same time, she does the night shift leaving at 9AM, just as Carl arrives for the day shift… it’s an odd arrangement but perhaps more common at the time. The tow never overlap but imagine each other as squinting or bow-legged, engaging in tit-for-tat acts of mischief, he scrunching her dresses, she throwing down his hats. By chance Carl sees her in the street and, not knowing who she is, he begins to romance her, especially when he believes that she is the daughter of the rich Herr Kruger (Edmund Gwenn). One thing leads to dozens of others, it’s fast and furious with that supporting cast working to keep everything aloft and in free flow.

There’s a clever device of constantly referencing the films shown in the Kino, featuring the German cast and replete with songs that feed into the main action. Heather may look like an angel but she doesn’t sing like one, but maybe that’s the point.

Miles and Maddie

Eleven years ago, London was bowled over by the BFI’s restoration of The First Born (1928) shown at the Royal Festival Hall in the LFF and with a magnificent yearning score from Stephen Horne and here it was again on a 35mm print the BFI made at the time. Miles Mander’s film is about love and betrayal and Stephen’s themes still capture that spirit in uncanny ways, perfectly describing Madeleine Carroll’s character, also Madeleine, yearning for her dastardly husband Sir Hugo Boycott (Mander), a strange, selfish politician who preaches one thing and does another… it’ll never catch on.

His wife he is willing to cast adrift as she cannot give him the son he so desires until she finds a way… a betrayal with the best of intentions. While Boycott is away Madeleine becomes close to the rather more handsome Lord David Harbrough (John Loder) who not only outranks her husband but is thoroughly decent as well… a girl could be forgiven for choosing an affair but whilst her heart is lost Madeleine stays loyal at whatever cost. It’s an intense, very well-made film, with a superb technical level placing it up with the very best of late-silent British and indeed, European cinema.

The accompaniment included some delightful extemporisation on Gershwin’s The Man I Love, Madeleine’s favourite song, her choice of 78 and her glance at Harbrough revealing all. It says so much of Stephen’s music that it feels all of a piece with his own melodies, one intoxicating line stuck in my head even as I write! There are so many variables with film and silent film especially; venue, audience, accompaniment and… materials. Film in excelsis.

The ultimate example of a film designed to replicate and control its own experience is Morgan Fisher’s Screening Room (1968/1973) a single-shot short that shows the trip up the steps and round to the old entrance of the BFI that ends up in the NFT 2. The film is only allowed to be screened in NFT 2 and this newly created 16mm print not only replicates our similar steps today but ultimately reminds us of the things that have changed and are different even as we connect with these moments of the seemingly everyday journey to the screen…

I shall follow this route as far as possible for the next screenings in this most considered and vital new festival. It’s all going to end with that shark on Sunday but there’s thousands of feet of film to unreel first!

 

Lynne Ramsay, Samantha Morton and Robyn Slovo still passionate about Morven Callar

*Like Webster's Dictionary, we're Morocco bound...

** "A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."