Lazybones (1925), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

 

Dave Glass’ introduction included a visual essay starting with William Fox (of whom more later at the KB) which then focused on an overview of the director of tonight’s main feature, Frank Borzage with a reminder of his chief elements of style, his longevity and quality. He made four features in 1925 starting with perhaps Norma Talmadge’s finest performance and finest film, The Lady and ending up with Lazybones (1922) – an outstanding year commercially as well as artistically.

 

The title may indicate a romantic comedy with some predictable turns of fate to enable the titular character, Steve Tuttle (Buck Jones) redemption as a hard-working, hero and yet the film is so much more than that and is an a-typical romance in which the main character’s laziness is a more existential challenge to his self-awareness. When the need arises, he is decisive and quick to action, but he is faulted by an unwillingness to challenge his heart even as he often does the right thing and has moral courage. Borzage – and Frances Marion’s script – enable our full sympathy but there’s something unsaid, un-done and unfulfilled which at the last is revealed as a very smart piece of filmmaking.

 

Mr Glass covered the arrival of Herr Murnau at Fox where he was sent to encourage and review other director’s to add more Germanic nuance to their work but seemingly he spent as much time watching Borzage at work as advising him, the results of this cross-continental pollination are there for all to see in the combinations of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor with a bit of George O’Brien and a bit more of the splendid Mary Duncan (City Girl and The River being two of the greatest films about love made by each director or any human).

 

Buster Jones... how's he gonna to get the day's work done?

Buster Jones is a handsome chap albeit no Charles Farrell I hear my wife – and a number of others –cry, but he’s got his charms and here is conveys “Lazy” in ways that belie his casting in so many westerns. He’s a careful ploy by Borzage, playing against type and in ways which the audience really can’t pin down. Bones is indeed lazy and he gets caught napping even by the local fish quick enough to leap off the line after waking the somnambulant fisherman, insists that his ragged roof doesn’t need fixing as it’s not raining and asks his Mom (Edythe Chapman) to remind him to fix their wonky gate: “that darn gate!” says everyone who passes through it today, tomorrow and for years to come.

 

Jones looks like one of life’s easy winners and yet here he presents as a man preparing himself for disappointment by prevarication: why look life square in the eye when you can just sleep it off. Borzage makes sure his audience isn’t lulled into the dream by wrong-footing us and heaping humiliations on Steve, and us, as time and again he’s caught napping. It’s enough to drive Erich von Stroheim out of the theatre in floods of tears.

 

We are waiting for something to happen, something to reveal the hero within as good defeats evil in a world in which bad men do not profit for being rotten bullies by being promoted. Turns out that it’s that American Dream we used to hear about.

 

Zasu Pitts and Jane Novak

It begins with Frank’s gentle routines being disturbed by the arrival of his sweetheart Agnes Fanning (Jane Novak) and her fearsome mother (Emily Fitzroy). The two ride in by tandem and Mrs Fanning’s stiff-backed posture lets you know to expect the worst… She cannot disguise her disgust at Steve and certainly doesn’t want his relationship with Agnes to develop. Steve manages to get his jalopy running and momentarily impresses before it blows up, he tells Agnes he has plans and whilst in a more typical film there would be a hidden secret to rescue his fortune here you cannot be so sure.

 

Mrs Fanning much prefers the local “Beau Brummel”, Elmer Ballister (William Bailey) who she has lined up for her elder daughter Ruth (Zasu Pitts); he’s a real go-getter and full of it. She writes to Ruth telling her to return from her teaching post and prepare herself for wedlock. But Ruth has been rather busy away from home having married a sailor and born his child only to be rapidly widowed following his death at sea. She returns home with her child convinced that no one will believe that she has ever been married and in a moment of desperation, throws herself into the fast-running waters on the edge of town. Now we see how fast Lazybones can move if he wants to as, hearing her cries he wakes from his slumber-fishing to dive in and save her.

 

Safely on the riverbank, Ruth tells all and Steve agrees an unlikely plan to save her reputation by looking after her baby daughter until she has the strength to confess all to her mother. He returns home with the baby spinning the tale of finding her abandoned and spurred on by Elmer’s callous disdain, announces that he will adopt. Ruth is safe for the moment but when she finally tells her mother the old harridan refuses to listen or believe taking a stick to her terrified daughter in a genuinely shocking moment. Mrs Fanning may well be the wicked witch of the mid-West but a shadow of shame hangs momentarily across Emily Fitzroy’s brow before she grits her teeth in cruel resolve.

 

Steve finds a baby

Ruth cannot take her baby back and Steve realises that he’s in for the long haul. Agnes cannot face this with the inevitable implications concerning the child’s true father, and she tells poor Steve that she will never speak to him again… her final card played to her lasting regret. Events move forward to 1915 with Kit now a young girl (played by Virginia Marshall) who is still regarded with suspicion by the locals. Agnes sees her trying to befriend a local child only for the mother to pull her away whilst Steve tells his adopted daughter that it’s all his fault for being lazy.

 

War comes and Steve listlessly enlists only to find himself an accidental hero after he sleeps through the order to advance and ends up capturing a German squadron from the rear. He returns to a hero’s welcome and to find Kit all grown up and looking mighty pretty (Madge Bellamy). Kit is in love with one Dick Ritchie (Leslie Fenton) who has even fixed that darn gate. Richie proposes but Steve also realises that he has feelings for his young ward…OK, that’s a bit from left field but it’s not the only surprise as events play out in a very European way…

Lazybones packs an accumulation of little punches that leave your thoughts provoked long after the film has stopped playing. It is an intelligent film from Mr Borzage and one that stands the test of time with a message that nothing should be taken for granted in a world of false formalities. Zasu Pitts is a vital counter to the easy-going, she’s a remarkable performer with a uniquely-unsettling way here wilting in front of our very eyes as the woman with her life ruined by the need to keep up her mother’s appearances. Emily Fitzroy is also good as her sister Ruth whose heartbreak is slower burning but none the less real.

 

Madge Bellamy and Buck Jones

Don’t be lazy, make real choices and don’t sleep on the job of life. Borzage’s woke agenda still speaks powerfully.

 

All of this was added extra force by the immaculate improvisations of John Sweeney on the piano as he matched the subtle turmoil on scream meeting every triumph and disaster with carefully conceived flourishes melding with the action in that uncanny way he does, holding us rapt in the space between the thoughts and expressions.

 

The plan unravells in The House of Flickers

A seemingly more straightforward task was provided in his accompaniment of the evening’s first film, The House of Flickers (1925) a short directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starring James Parrott who, as I’m sure you all know, was the brother of the even more famous Charles Joseph Parrott also known as Charlie Chase. It’s a fast-moving comedy about a man trying to sell his picture house only for a cheeky chimp to mess up the nitrate in the projection booth. It features lots of guest players and none more famous that the primate, name of Josephine, who would later steal the limelight from Buster Keaton in The Cameraman. Also featured is The Wonder Dog Pal as Pete the Pup who gives a performance of nuanced dexterity as you would expect.

 

The Kennington Bioscope has never shied away from working with animals or, indeed, children should the need arise.