An industrialist calls… The Old Dark House (1932), Eureka Masters of Cinema 4K Ultra HD (UHD)

 

You’ll have to stay here; the misfortune is yours not ours…

 

Strange that a very British story described by its author, JB Priestly, as featuring "forms of post-war pessimism pretending to be people…" should find itself as one of the prototypical “old dark house” stories but such was the fate of his 1927 novel Benighted. It was directed by James Whale who had been a British officer in the Great War and discovered his love of drama as a prisoner of war. After the war he became involved in the theatre as an actor, scene designer and later director before heading to Hollywood and success with Frankenstein. He was a determined advocate for this film and I can see why although on first viewing a long time ago, I spotted little of the pointed subtext to but there is so much to be relished in revisiting this bleak night with the benefit of hindsight, excellent commentaries and extra special features!

 

Priestley’s social commentary would use extraordinary and super-natural circumstance in order to show his characters in sharp relief and interacting outside of normal class lines. This also suited the filmmaker looking to send a chill through his audience as was the vogue during pre-code times: it’s one thing to meet a monster outside of your comfort zone and yet another to meet people you’d rather avoid from other walks of life and beyond. It is a dark and stormy night and the people are indeed in a forbidding location but it’s in each other where the horror actually resides. For Whale, having seen the depths of evil in the war to end all wars and observed it all as a sexual outsider – his love was illegal after all – this was rich territory.

 

It begins as so many of the best stories do, in the heart of rain-sodden Wales “somewhere in the mountains…” as a couple, Philip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart) are attempting to drive themselves and their friend Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) to Shrewsbury where “nothing ever happens”. The Wavertons are cold, wet and bickering but Penderel is in annoyingly good humour urging them to drive on with a chorus of “we’re singing in the bathtub…”. He’s exactly the kind of wise-cracking guy you need to make an old dark house thriller!

 

Ernst Thesiger

Said bleak mansion duly arrives and the threesome are “welcomed” at the old house’s old oak door by darkly scarred face of the barely verbal retainer Morgan (Boris Karloff) who eventually lets them in to meet the Femm Family, a febrile mix of the neurotic and the manic who prove conclusively that the family that hates together, stays together. First up is the singular figure of Ernst Thesiger as the fretful Horace a man so full of concerns that you wonder how he’s lasted this long especially once his partially deaf and wholly spiteful sister Rebecca (Eva Moore) arrives.

 

You’re afraid Horace, you’re afraid aren’t you. You don’t believe in God and yet you’re afraid to die! You’ve seen his anger in the sky and you’ve heard him in the night and you’re afraid, afraid, afraid… where’s your mocking now?

 

As Horace panics after the Wavertons explain about the mudslides and the floods, his sister lambasts him for his faint heart, his superior attitude melting away in that face of his fear and yet their house is built on rock and will be safe. Or will it…? Hell is other people and there’s even more to the Femms than appearances suggest.

 

Gloria Stuart and Eva Moore

The Femms agree to the three friends taking shelter even though “no beds, you can’t have beds…” Horace brings them a drink and raises a self-pitying toast to “illusion” with the world wearily witty Penderel saying he’s precisely the right age to drink to that. Horace then pulls as face saying, I assume you are one of the generation slightly, shall we say, “battered by the war”? as if it’s a cliché he’s almost too bored to utter. The exchanges are clipped and precise, the meaning often ambiguous. Hell is other people indeed.

 

Horace confesses that he is worried about Morgan who on a night like this is likely to drink and become a dangerous brute. He directs his comment at Margaret who, ignoring the signal, decides to change into her evening gown an action that is clearly contrary to common sense but civilised society must continue even as Rebecca berates her morality reminded of her “wicked” younger sister Rachel “handsome and wild as a hawk” who died a painful death, “godless to the last”. It’s an uncomfortable watch, the younger woman willowy in a silk dress as the elder, her face distorted in the mirror by her religious mania, turns on her warning of the inevitability of physical and spiritual decline. And Morgan is seen looking on…

 

Nice weather for ducks!

 

If Rebecca has issue with the demure Margaret, she’s about to need a bigger sneer as two more drivers through the storm arrive in the form of wealthy self-made businessman Sir William Porterhouse (the genius Charles Laughton!) and his young friend Gladys DuCane (Lilian Bond) a perky showgirl, real name Perkins!

 

Gloria and Boris

Once you’ve started making money it’s hard to stop… I may not be this and I may not be that but you don’t catch me pretending to be what I’m not!

 

There’s an immediate rise in the film’s energy as Sir Bill’s outspoken outbursts unsettle the upper middle-class audience and the urbane Penderel has to speak out in Gladys’ defence as her sugar uncle’s mix of self-importance and self-pity are revealed. The dialogue is smart and well-delivered as the evening draws on and issues of class begin to be over-shadowed not just by concerns about Morgan’s sobriety but also by whatever or whoever lurks above in the dark landing…

 

It's such a string cast with so many intriguing interactions that the fact things mostly take place in the one big room and wouldn’t be out of place on the stage, is secondary to the suspense between the characters and the situation. It’s all about atmosphere and having viewed it a number of times now, there’s not a wasted word. Whale directs with crispness and builds that air of unsettling mystery so well aided by the exceptional cinematography of Arthur Edeson.

Rightfully a classic and well served in this UHD edition: it’s never looked sharper or darker!

 

Melvyn, Gloria and Raymond

Spooky extra features:

 

• Audio commentary by critic and author Kim Newman and Stephen Jones
• Audio commentary by Gloria Stuart*
• Audio commentary by James Whale biographer James Curtis
• Meet the Femms – video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns
• Daughter of Frankenstein – an interview with Sara Karloff
• Rescuing a Classic – archival interview with director Curtis Harrington focused on his efforts to save The Old Dark House, then considered a lost film
• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation from a 4K digital restoration, presented in a new and exclusive Dolby Vision HDR (HDR 10 compatible) grade, with uncompressed LPCM audio!
• 2018 re-release trailer
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Stills gallery

 

Limited edition of 2000 copies:

• O-card slipcase, featuring artwork by Sara Deck strictly exclusive to this edition only
• A limited-edition collector’s booklet featuring a new essay on The Old Dark House by Craig Ian Mann, an essay by Philip Kemp and select archival material

 

You can and must order direct from Eureka come hell or high water, before the rains come and the distribution depot is destroyed by a mud slide!

 

*Fun fact: apparently James Cameron was so impressed with Gloria’s commentary on the original laserdisc that he cast her as the elder version of Rose in Titanic, amazing to think she spanned both pre-code and the modern era like this. Her commentary is indeed rather special!

 

Teardrop... The Flame of Love (1930)/ Dangerous to Know (1938), BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

And as another tear falls with definitive purpose as Anna May Wong shows herself at 33 years of age as a master of her emotional craft. Dangerous to Know is a surprisingly powerful film with mature sound technique and a very strong line-up including the indomitable Akim Tamiroff, Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan and young Anthony Quinn. Anna not only holds her own but raises her game to provide the film’s heart, soul and surprising ending. As with so much of her work, she acts between the lines to hand over more thought and expression than her script might define. Season curator Xin Peng said that she had not seen the film before planning out the programme and it was not only one of her favourites now but perhaps her subject’s best film. This season has been a revelation for this and much more.

 

I have questions about the AMW brand in 1930...

 

Hai-Tang aka The Flame of Love (1930), 35mm BFI print

 

She: How long I wonder Boris, will we two be together, just as we are now…?

He: Always Hai-Tang, surely it will always be so.

She: No Boris, the day will come when you and I will go another way, it must be so…

He: Hai-Tang my dear… I’m not going to listen to you. [Plays Beautiful Songs of Russia on the piano]

She [impressed]: You are right Boris, why think of tomorrow?

 

First up was a continuation of Anna May’s European adventure with her first major talkie, Hai-Tang aka the above title – the third film she had made with Richard Eichberg after Song (1928) and Pavement Butterfly (1929). It was co-directed with Walter Summers, who co-wrote the English-language script, and filmed at Elstree Studios by British International Pictures - another “euro-pudding” with continental ingredients all complicated by the need to accommodate spoken languages, in this case three, German and French as well as English as it ought to be spoken courtesy of Miss Wong’s extraordinary facility with language and dialect.

 

After the critical bashing she got for her American twang performing Circle of Chalk on the London stage, AMW invested two hundred guineas in a voice coach according to Xin Peng and her hard work paid off in this English version when, if anything she comes across as more fluent than her co-star John Longden who is a bit too sonorous and microphone aware at times (I know, in spite of the silent/talkie Blackmail…). The actress was equally diligent learning German six hours a day initially for Song (1928) – working harder than she ever did on childhood Chinese lessons in Los Angeles noted Professor Peng who quoted a German review noting that many of their countrymen could do with applying themselves as she had.

 

Anna plays Hai-Tang the star of a Chinese troupe of acrobats, and of a show including singers and dancers many of whom we get to see perform at a theatre mocked up on the giant Elstree sound stage. The setting is pre-revolutionary Russia with Longden playing Lieutenant Boris Borissoff, Adjutant to the Grand Duke whose troops are based in St Petersburg.

 

Variety dismissed the film as “just a programmer”, noting the “poor direction” and dialogue although it appears they were reviewing the French version which has Marcel Vibert as the Grand Duke whereas the English one has German actor Georg H. Schnell who is suitably imposing and brutal when he needs to be. The film is reasonably unconcerned with the issues of race except for “the Grand-Duke’s lady”, dance hall hostess Yvette (played in English and French by the Mexican Mona Goya who makes a good show of a French accent) who warns Boris to think of his career when it comes to his choice of romantic partner.

 

Orders? What are they to me? I tell you I will not go… we must fly… I would sooner die.

John Longden and Anna

As with all of these films though, AMW is an object of desire even if it is forbidden in some way – and not just by the coy British censors’ consideration of which prevents Mr Longden from connecting his lips with those of Ms Wong at any point no matter how much they declare their love. Forbidden love rarely is allowed to be consummated although, for the purposes of the plot, it’s fine to let the Grand Duke lust after Hai-Tang and he forces her to come to the Orpheum café a down-market venue hosting coarser entertainments and notorious venue in which the Grand Duke’s men do as they wilt.

 

So it is that the Grand Duke tries to take advantage of Hai-Tang with Boris hidebound by his rank and duty, exactly as she knew would happen but she agrees to go for the sake of his career. Who will stand up for her when the time comes?

 

The story is slight but AMW acts well and there is excellent support from Fred Schwartz (credited as Schwarz) as Birnbaum, the long-suffering and wise-cracking Jewish piano player: a relative outsider just like Hai-Tang and someone who is brave enough to try and set things straight once events get out of hand. It is also fascinating to see the dancers, jugglers and acrobats, no doubt fresh from the music halls of the west end. Variety, the spice of life!

 

Gail Patrick and Akim Tamiroff

Dangerous to Know (1938), 35mm

 

According to Xin Peng, directly after wrapping the above film, Anna May Wong was offered the role in the New York production of Edgar Wallace's hit 1930 play, On the Spot, with the writer ambushing her on her arrival in New York docks after she had sailed over from Southampton – she signed before she left the Port Authority recognising the opportunity to play a leading role with agency. The producers had finally decided on the novel idea of casting an actor of Chinese descent in the role of a character of Chinese descent and the resulting successful run would allow her to fully develop the character and thereby establish her stage credentials. When casting this film version eight years later, there was only one choice.

 

Wallace's play had been inspired by the career of Al Capone and featured Akim Tamiroff as Stephen Recka a gangster well on the way to establishing himself in straight society and who is always steps ahead of the police, press and politicians. Tamiroff has Edgar G Robinson energy and barely blinks in this film as a man driven by a ferocious need to prove himself, he’s the smartest man in the room and can also play Mozart better than a professional musician on his pipe organ. Yet there are still people who underestimate him and these include his own men, one of whom plots to replace him as the man behind City Hall with his own puppet mayor. Recka finds out and there’s a cold-blooded price exacted.

 

Steve Recka? That kind never gets into our house…

That’s why you must ask him. He’s very anxious to meet nice people and I’m very anxious to get re-elected…

Akim Tamiroff 

The only person to understand this man is his “hostess” Madame Lan Ying (AMW) a woman who provides the greatness underpinning Recka’s legitimate empire someone, no matter how incredibly intelligent he is, the “businessman” is taking for granted as he chases a position in polite society that might just be beyond him. We see this at his birthday party where establishment money gives him only begrudging respect he frightens them; he owns them and they do not like him for it. Yet, he charms them and they laugh at his jokes.

All the charm of a diplomat.

Yes and ten times the general ship.

 

Into this walks Margaret van Case (Gail Patrick) a woman from old money who is curious to meet Steve Recka whose reputation makes him a bit of a thrill for the socialite. Steve is instantly smitten and a flirtation begins much to Lan Ying’s distress, she sees a rival but deeper than that, an over-reach that can only result in trouble. So it proves as Steve tries and fails to woo Margaret and then, realising she loves a young bond salesman Phillip Easton (Harvey Stephens), frames him for robbery in an attempt to force her into marriage.

 

Mexican Anthony Quinn was a long-term friend of Anna's and in many of her films

It's fast-paced and there’s quick-witted support from Lloyd Nolan as Inspector Brandon and Anthony Quinn is good too as Recka’s lieutenant Nicky Kusnoff who along with Lan Ying, see’s Steve making mistakes as he searches for the ultimate negation of his criminal past.

 

The closing section is full of surprises and everything rests on Anna May Wong’s ability to break hearts and to bring her exquisite empathy out from the screen and into the audience. This is a superlative performance and certainly one of her very best. Even battle-hardened old marketing professionals were left shaken and stirred as those tears flowed and fragile courage also came forth. A very important stage in her acting journey!

 

There’s still two weeks to go of this season, details on the BFI website.

Never lands... Peter Pan (1924)/The Thief of Bagdad (1924), BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

 

Two blockbusters on a scale that influenced the next century of film right up to the mighty world of extended universes and modern franchises most specifically in the impact the former had on a certain Walter Disney but also in the incredible scale of the latter. Surely impressive appearances in both would help establish Anna May Wong as a rising star in Hollywood but in spite of her extraordinary ability to shine through and energise even the most confined role, it was not to be although she worked as hard as anyone could to maintain her own momentum and if it wasn’t going to be at home it would have to be away or even, far, far away. Still, she was noticed in Europe, especially in Britain and Germany, second star on the right, straight on till morning…

 

In the USA both films were amongst the most successful in 1924 with Thief bringing in $1.5million in 4^th place and the Christmas released Pan, eventually getting more than $600k. They were two of the six films Anna made in 1924 and the following year she made just two with four in 1926 and then a mixed bag of eight in 1927. Her last Hollywood film of 1928 was the Joan Crawford vehicle, Across to Singapore and she was uncredited but, for her first Anglo-German film she got star billing for Song (1928) and of course Piccadilly and Pavement Butterfly in 1929.

 

But these two films were spectacular and high impact proving her abilities in top-level company especially the phenomenon Fairbanks – so kinetic he makes Tom Cruise look like late period Ralph Richardson – and the mighty Betty Bronson who if ever there was a female equivalent to Doug, demonstrates it in Neverland. This was an afternoon of the highest quality with two major silent works that I had been saving up for the big screen with splendid accompaniment and a passionate informed audience. One of those special BFI days.

 

Mary Brian sews on Betty Bronson's shadow: this may hurt!

Peter Pan (1924,) with Costas Fotopoulos

 

Betty Bronson was a pocket rocket and was selected by JM Barrie over 100 others tested for the role¹ and we can absolutely see why. She made quite the impression on Fairbanks’ son Doug Jnr as he had later admitted she was his first crush on watching her in Peter Pan; she was 17 when she made the film and he was 15 when it was released and they were friends afterwards, the actor recalling in his autobiography that It was not fully requited. She only flirted with me…. No worries champ, you’ll be married to Joan Crawford within five years!

 

Betty is certainly full of Fairbanks’ zip in every single scene of this film, radiating health and laddish enthusiasm as the boy who never grows up. JM Barrie’s seminal Edwardian fantasy began as a play in 1904 before being novelised as Peter and Wendy in 1911. The first performance was at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 27 December 1904 with Nina Boucicault in the title role and so Peter was always played by a woman on stage which is noteworthy in itself in terms of the British drag tradition and the “trouser role”.

Anna May Wong brings the noise

 

The story and the film despite their fantastical nature are about parenthood and also loss with Peter possibly being inspired by the death of David the 14-year-old son of Barrie’s friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, a “Lost boy” who would never grow old and yet was happy to stay in Never Never Land. The character first appeared in the 1902 novel The Little White Bird, written for adults. The author ended up adopting Sylvia’s children after she and her husband died and this too is reflected in the story with Mrs Darling taking in the Lost Boys.

 

The film is a pure delight and a celebration of childhood with opening title cards explaining that viewers need to connect with their childish selves – no problem personally – in order to understand the photo play. It was lovely to see a number of children in the audience too, some very responsible parenting in evidence! The film has more of the intentions of the play along with a portion of the dialogue and is quite different to Disney’s 1953 cartoon which smooths out the sense of loss and the overt celebration of motherhood as well as the romantic frisson between Wendy and Peter. Disney, as ever, uncomfortable with reality.

 

Esther Ralston is key to setting the tone as Mrs. Darling, a woman of compassion and unconditional nurturing love. It is she who first encounters Peter in the children’s nursery and accidentally cuts off his shadow closing the window on him. She puts it in a draw and sees Peter again as he tries to retrieve what is perhaps a metaphor for his memory, soul and/or his loving existence on Earth… he recognises her but he can’t remember why, an extension of the same amnesia the younger Darlings experience after time in Never Land. Philippe De Lacy is boorish Dad Michael Darling who pranks his children and won’t keep his end of the bargain in taking his medicine instead feeding it to Nana the Dog, an extraordinary creation played by George Ali a puppeteer and animal impersonator who was incredibly flexible for a 58-year-old. He also plays lion and a crocodile… animal magic!

 

Mother Esther Ralston

Nana may only be a dog but is the children’s nursemaid making sure they get to bed on time and take their bath. Grumpy Dad chains her to the garden kennel meaning she is not on hand to protect the children when Peter and Tinkerbell arrive and, after Wendy (Mary Brian) sews Pan’s shadow back onto his feet, whisk them into the air and off to the island of Never Never Land. Wendy’s brothers John are played by Jack Murphy and Michael by Philippe De Lacy who went onto play the young prince in Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, before becoming a producer and director once he grew up!

 

They land in the Forest of Make-Believe and the fun really begins with mermaids, pirates and native Americans – not for nothing did this film come with a warning about the screening containing “racist attitudes, language and images, including red face”, it’s a document of its time. Here we find Anna May Wong as Tiger Lily, one of a group of “red Indians” who inhabit the forest, she’s not in many scenes but obviously brings the required pep to everyone although her band are unable to defeat the evil pirates led by the infamous Captain Hook! Ernest Torrence leaves no parts of the scenery unchewed and is spectacularly nasty as the pirate with the heart of lead… he’s the archetypical villain from Lex Luthor to Dr Doom up against a boy that can fly and knows no fear.

 

Peter and the Pirates... Ernest Torrence is terrfic.

We watched a 35mm copy from George Eastman House which ran at just over two hours with Costas Fotopoulos, seeing the film for the first time as well, filling his accompaniment with playful inventions suitable for an audience Barrie implored to go back to the nursery and once more believe in fairies as the play moved on.

 

Today was the 55^th anniversary of NFT2 and what better celebration than an audience clapping along as Betty Bronson urged us to signal out belief in magic and save poor Tinkerbell. Wonderful!

 

Doug on a magic carpet over a cast of thousands, still not sure how this was done?

The Thief of Bagdad (1924), with Neil Brand

 

Follow that and the BFI did with the shock and awe of Douglas Fairbank’s and Raoul Walsh’s epic adaptation of One Thousand and One Nights which was based on a story written by the actor under the pseudonym of Elton Thomas according to Kevin Brownlow and David Gill whose Photoplay restoration we watched. It is perhaps the ultimate Doug surpassing even Robin Hood (1922) and we had fabulous accompaniment from Neil Brand whose orchestral score for the former film demonstrated such an uncanny connection with the star and screen. Here, Neil was The Orchestra and for 164 minutes, albeit with a very short intermission, bringing his singular style and understanding of motion picture composition to the fore as the picture and the action towered over the rapt audience sat in NFT1.

 

The film’s sets were bigger than Hood’s and even Intolerance and were the work of William Cameron Menzies and they were so spectacular that Fairbanks fitted the action around them: there’s no elaborate staircase Doug can’t ascend with bounding flamboyance, no wall he can’t climb or descend or window he can’t slide down. He is his own special effect and, with his 21^st Century physique on topless display he is the epitome of health and efficiency – no chocolate on top of his cappuccino or cheeky pastry before the screening in the RFH for him… he reminds me of the moving statue in My Grandmother (1929).

 

Doug plays Ahmed, the Thief of Bagdad who starts the film off as self-interested and faithless taking whatever he wants whenever he wants to and laughing in the faith of authority of any kind. All of this changes when he chances to see and fall in love with The Princess of Bagdad (Julanne Johnston) and, after his cheeky ways lead him into more trouble than he can bear, he resolves to win her heart through honest endeavour. It’s interesting to see quotes in the intertitles from the Quran and to see Ahmed making peace with the Imam (Charles Belcher) who tells him, naturally, to follow his heart… try making this film these days and screening it in our flag-infested high streets?

 

Julanne Johnston and Fairbanks Snr

Against this regal and religious Bagdad stands Cham Shang, Prince of the Mongols (Japanese actor Sōjin Kamiyama) who wants to invade and enslave the kingdom and to have the Princess for his own. He has a spy in her handmaidens in the form of Anna May Wong who as you’d expect makes the most of her role especially in the scene in which Ahmed first breaks into the royal quarters and pushes a very phallic knife against her back, at least in the interpretation of filmmaker Michelle Williams Gamaker in her introduction.²

 

Ahmed must compete with the Mongols and also the princes of the Indies and Persia to bring home the greatest wonders from the furthest reaches of the world a grand quest involving flying carpets, flying horses, crystal balls and a box of delights. It is perhaps the most spectacular silent film ever made and certainly one of the most thoroughly enjoyable especially with Mr Brand’s flying accompaniment.

 

Both films are glorious and I am glad I waited to see them first on the big screen in a live setting. Now I can’t wait to watch my Blu-rays and work out exactly how the magic is wrought.

Meanwhile, plenty more Anna May Wong to come over the next three weeks... details on the BFI site.

 

Anna May Wong a spy in the house of love?

1.       According to The New York Times, 16^th August 1924 who reported that Bronson had sent a thank you telegram to the author: "I feel like a new Cinderella, thanks to you. I realize the importance of your trust in me and my tremendous responsibility. I am the luckiest girl in the world. Betty Bronson."

 

2.       Michelle Williams Gamaker featured a clip from her film Thieves (2023) part of her Fictional Activism initiative which is concerned with “… the restoration of marginalised film stars of colour as central figures, who return in her works as brown protagonists to challenge the fictional injustices to which they have been historically consigned.” Details on her website here.

 

Main character energy… Java Head (1934)/Drifting (1923), BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

 

“That she is an exceptionally clever actress one cannot doubt. She may merely wander through a corner of the picture, but she’ll register a hit every time.”

H.C. “A Chinese Puzzle”, Pictures and Picturegoer, February, 1924¹

 

Two films made over a gap of eleven years which show how our hero did indeed reinvent herself to keep working. Season curator Xin Peng pointed out in her introduction for the second film that whilst featuring as a teen in films staring Colleen Moore, Priscilla Dean and Alla Nazimova, she enjoyed a longer career than any of them, transitioning into the talkies not just in English but German, French, Chinese and “The King’s English” required for her roles in British films especially when American became briefly unpopular. Priscilla’s last film was Klondike in 1932 at the grand old age of 36 and Colleen’s last was The Scarlet Letter (1934) when she was 35 and certainly in a position to do what ever she wanted, be it building a dolls house or investing her money wisely.

 

Wong did not have the luxury of being able to retire early and she was only just picking up steam in the early thirties when she found fame and some fortune outside of the USA, breaking barriers in the UK and Germany, learning stage craft and putting on shows in China and Australia. She was willing to learn, not just languages but also the dancing always expected of her and the diction required to conquer the microphone. And, what guts did it take to step on stage in 1929, alongside Laurence Olivier to perform The Circle of Chalk at the New Theatre in London?

Anna May Wong in Drifting

 

Drifting (1923) with John Sweeney

 

As Yiman Wang points out² Anna (AMW) was only ever a freelancer with no substantial contracts in the manner of these other stars and, of course, even at the time in Hollywood it was remarked upon by the industry observers how she was never given star roles, the most she could hope for was a secondary role she could and often did make her own. So it is with Drifting directed by her “mentor” and sometime partner³, Todd Browning, who was 43 to her 18… He had previously worked with her on Outside the Law (1921) when she was underage and he married yet infatuated by the “exotic” and – for him – “unusual” girl^4.

 

In addition to being “the most murdered actress in Hollywood”, Anna May Wong is arguably the greatest scene-stealer even when given stereotypical roles and predictable narratives. This film followed on from her first substantial role in The Toll of the Sea (1922) and was intended as a vehicle for Universal’s “queen of the lot”, Priscilla Dean who dominates the screen time but to limited effect in comparison with AMW, who, looking even younger than her age, shifts through her dramatic progressions with some force whilst Dean just looks angry most of the time which, given the confusions of the script, is not surprising.

 

Matt Moore and Priscilla Dean

The new white man is very guarded in his language – I don’t know, maybe he is not the mine chief he claims to be…

 

The story? Well… there’s something about a government agent Capt. Arthur Jarvis (Matt Moore) posing as an entrepreneur trying to re-open a mine which is somehow cover for his attempts to shut down the opium trade around Hang Chow, a village near the poppy fields run by the Jhanzi outlaws. In Shanghai, opium dealer Cassie Cook (Priscilla Dean) isn’t making much money out of the profession and as her best pal lies dope sick, she is forced to team up with the rascally Jules Repin (Wallace Beery wearing a devious beard) who persuades her they can get rich on the pickings in Hang Chow.

 

Here they team up with the scheming Dr Li (William V. Mong in horrific yellow face) who whilst being no relation to Dr Fu Manchu, is supposed to be the father of the fragrant Rose Li (Anna May Wong) no matter how unlikely this is based on appearance. Meanwhile Rose has fallen for the noble Captain Jarvis and spends hours watching him standing outside the mine talking to his reliably Irish assistant, Murphy (Yale graduate J. Farrell MacDonald who probably got his Gaelic nose busted playing college football…) about opening the mine and how the two of them will defeat the massed ranks of the Jhanzi.

 

As with Mary Pickford, Anna May Wong could cry on cue...

Cassie and Repin collude with Dr Li and the former goes undercover as a novelist aiming to find out more about Jarvis’ two-man army only to fall in love with him. This complicates things greatly as tensions mount and the Jhanzi attack bringing out the best and worst of everyone: will Cassie choose the money or the man and can Rose put love and life before her duty to her evil father?

 

Her performances appropriate and splinter the stereotypes, upending their objecthood with a critical and sardonic twist…⁵

 

It’s an enjoyably odd film not just because of Browning’s uneven style but also a story that is, as The New York Tribune observed, “incoherent” with a “disagreeable” lead character⁶ that made them root for AMW’s Rose and they’re not the only ones. Anna May and J. Farrell are the most sympathetic watch as well as the token lovable kid, Billy the son of civilising missionaries, played by child actor Bruce Guerin who, when he grew up, became a professional pianist accompanying Bob Hope and many others.

  

John Loder and Anna May Wong clinch...

Java Head (1934)

 

AMW was 28 when she made this film and she first worked with producer Basil Dean on the theatrical version of The Circle of Chalk (1929) after he had been impressed with her performance in Piccadilly. The play had mixed reviews with her appearance praised and her “Hollywood accent” roundly condemned by such as the Bystander: “… it comes as a shock… to listen to the harsh nasal twang emitted from a figure of ancient China…” and the Graphic quipping “With Anna May Wong talking so American that Anna May Twang might be an apter name” ⁷.

 

As she did tie and again, Anna treated this setback as a learning experience and by the time of Dean’s Java Head she had learned the King’s English with the same alacrity as she did German and other languages. The result if her near perfect diction and characterful pronunciation that was usually more associated with the Orient at this time. Directed by J. Walter Ruben, with uncredited assistance from Thorold Dickinson and young Carol Reed, Java Head tells a story that would not have been legally possible in the USA with Anna May not only headlining but seen to kiss her Caucasian co-star John Loder. This ground-breaking moment was acceptable in Great Britain as the characters were married but even this is not especially evidence that, as Cole Porter was to report in the same year, “anything goes…” as the film gives mixed messages on racial tolerance and cultural-romantic compatibility.

The family meet...

 

The film is based in Bristol and the fortunes of two merchant shipping families, the thrusting Ammidons and the failing Dunsacks led by two former friends who had fallen out over twenty years earlier following a tragedy at sea.  Lovable Edmund Gwenn plays Jeremy Ammidon who even nearing the age of retirement is still passionate about his business and sailing ships whilst his land-lubber son, William (the great Ralph Richards), feels they need to innovate with steam and the fast clipper ships as well as the types of cargo they carry. Youngest son, the dashing Captain Gerrit Ammidon (John Loder) is eager for adventure and has the familial sea legs.

Gerrit sparks the old feud by falling for the Nettie Vollar (Elizabeth Allan), the granddaughter of old man Barzil Dunsack (Herbert Lomas) who in addition to hating the Ammidons, loves God a lot and in addition has yet to forgive Nettie for being born out of wedlock, one of a number of sins unmentioned but implied in a story partly based on implied opium trading and addiction. Barzil’s faulty logic drives Gerrit to sea and he leaves to make his fortune trading around the World.

 

A year later he returns and he has brought his new wife with him, Taou Yuen (Anna May Wong) much to the distress of his family, and of course lonely Nettie. She may well be a princess but this cuts no rice with the locals for whom she is “a heathen Chinese! From China!” who causes outrage when she attends church among all but the priest who hopes to discuss the teachings of Confucius with her. She also gets a warm welcome from Barzil’s son and Nettie’s uncle, Edward Dunsack (George Curzon) who is seemingly as addicted to China as he is to opium although again this is implied with Gerrit having brought a mysterious chest from Shanghai for him.

AMW generates MCE at the church

As the family gradually accepts Taou Yuen she forms a bond with Laurel, the youngest Ammidon child (an uncredited but spirited performer) who dresses up in Chinese clothes and make-up entering the room just as Edward is harassing her aunt and in his opium-addled state capable of anything. This narrative is also capable of anything and pulls a 360 or two over the closing sequences as Gerrit falls back in love with Nettie and starts to question his marriage. So too does Taou Yuen in ways that I can’t really explain here… themes very much of their time.

 

In the after-screening Q&A, season curator Xin Peng pointed out that AMW was very keen to make the film and so the mixed outcome is a surprise but perhaps balanced by the more positive aspects of the film and the actor’s skill in presenting more than the script demands in terms of authentic character and feeling. Once again she rises above and subverts the surface narrative in ways we see more clearly now than most would in 1934.

 

The film was made in between AMW’s theatrical tours of Britain which demonstrate her relentless ability to conquer new territories and theatrical routes as she carved out an unique path across countries and cultural boundaries. A truly remarkable woman.

 

There is so much more to see and learn from this season and full details of Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention can be found on theBFI website. Do not miss out!

  

1.       As quoted by Yiman Wang in “To Be an Actress: Labour and Performance in Anna May Wong’s Cross-Media World”, University of California Press 2024

2.       Also, in “To Be an Actress…”

3.       According to David J. Skal and Elias Savada in The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood’s Master of the Macabre, Doubleday, 1995 as quoted in the BFI’s screening notes.

4.       Katie Gee Salisbury in Anna May Wong: Not Your China Doll, Faber 2024. When Browning’s wife discovered the liaison she left him.

5.       In “To Be an Actress…”

6.       David J. Skal and Elias Savada again.

7.       Katie Gee Salisbury in Anna May Wong

 

 

Edge of the World… Finis Terrae (1929), Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-ray

Bannec. On an island where winter storms wipe out all forms of life, four men come in two teams to spend the summer collecting seaweed in total isolation…

 

I was going to headline with Ultima Thule but that’s just daft so I thought I’d link back or rather forward to Michael Powell’s brilliant depiction of life on a remote Scottish island as seen and described a few weeks back. Islands, it seems, you just cannot get enough especially if they face the roaring uncertainty of the Atlantic and concern the relationship between the families and the fisherman, the island and the mainland. I don’t know if Powell saw this film or, indeed, Michael Flaherty before his trip to the Irish Arran, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

 

Presented on Blu-ray for the very first time in the UK and North America, and sourced from an astounding 4K restoration Jean Epstein’s film is one of the silent elite, an almost documentarian approach that still manages to bring plenty of human interest from the mix of locals and professional actors. Does that sound familiar? It may do but we should never take for granted the achievements of shooting in these unforgiving places and in conditions that threatened more than just the shooting schedule.

Epstein was a writer on film and a film theorist as well as a director and with his third film, Coeur fidèle (1923), he experimented with a deceptively simple story of love and violence "a melodrama so stripped of all the conventions ordinarily attached to the genre, so sober, so simple, that it might approach the nobility and excellence of tragedy".¹ His most famous film, La Chute de la maison Usher (1928) was more typical of the French Impressionist school of film, with Henri Langlois calling it “the cinematic equivalent of Debussy's works…”. By 1929 the director wanted to present reality in its most cinematic form, mixing documentary discipline with impressionist technique to stunning effect.

In her excellent video essay on this disc, film writer Pamela Hutchinson explains Epstein’s use of the concept of “Photogénie” which is essentially the use of cinematic technique to make the everyday extraordinary on screen: the creation of what we’d perhaps call “pure cinema”. There’s a lot of theoretical detail around this term and the director did not coin the term but it certainly featured in his work and in this film especially.

 

Finis Terrae is the first of the director’s Breton trilogy, and was shot entirely on location off the Finistère coast in the part of France we Angles and Celts often forget projects far into the Atlantic Ocean… No channel or Irish or North Sea to ease the traveller into the thrashing ocean… this is the highway to halibut and four men very much alone with their cod. Epstein places his characters very much in their surroundings and they’re dominated by the landscapes, often viewed from behind rocks or from overhead. They are dramatically reduced in human significance against the terrible beauty of the earth and sea.

There goes the wine

Epstein chose to cast local seaweed harvesters rather than professional actors, giving the performances a raw, authentic quality and an ethnographic sense of documentary realism with the aid of sophisticated cutting. Epstein is concerned with time and there are frequent examples of his mixing up real-time action with slow-motion cut-aways sometimes involving symbolic moments. One such instance is when one of the four men on the island of Bannec, Ambroise Rouzic - the characters do not have names - drops their last bottle of wine and we see the anguished reaction of his mate, Jean-Marie Laot, and then cut repeatedly to the broken bottle spilling the precious fluid onto the sand. As it slowly drains into the ground tempers flare as a knife goes missing and the split that drives the rest of the narrative begins.

Ambroise has cut his finger and this very quickly becomes infected which, in a time before anti-biotics is bad enough but they are miles from the nearest doctor. He gradually loses his strength but having fallen out of favour with the others they leave him be as he falls sick and they carry on harvesting the seaweed, pushing into pits and burning it to create kelp which was used for its iodine.

 

Gradually Jean-Marie’s character realises that his pal is in trouble, after seeing him trying to get off the island on his own – an impossibility given there’s no wind and he’d need two hands to paddle his way, He falls unconscious on the sand and, finally they see how sick he is. Meanwhile those on the mainland have noticed the absence of smoke from the island and they make their way to the doctor to get him to go and help.

Jean-Marie Laot and Ambroise Rouzic

With fierce currents around the coast and no wind, can the mainlanders and/or the men find each other in the treacherous middle. It’s a simple story but a powerful one and the outcome is far from certain creating a tense finale in which Epstein also manages to pick up the nuances of his untrained cast on land and sea.

There’s a poignant new score from Roch Havert which, using a small ensemble comprising brass, woodwind and strings, provides a sympathetic score which matches the visuals with understated jazz and modern composition which allows the full flavours of the original material to play out. Havert is an experienced composer and musician who has written a number of scores, this one greatly enhances the film and brings a humble sincerity to the enterprise as befits its ethnographic vitality.

 

A masterful score for a Master of Cinema. Buy it now and if you need any more persuasion, here are the especially salty extra features:

·         Finis Terrae presented in 1080p HD from a 4K restoration by Gaumont Film Company

·         Optional English subtitles

·         Impressions on Jean Epstein – new interview with film historian and critic Pamela Hutchinson on the life and work of the director

·         Stranded – a new video essay on Finis Terrae

·         The Bottom of the Wave – an archival appreciation of Finis Terrae by Joel Daire

·         Limited Edition of 2,000 copies

·         Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by John Dunn

·         Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring a new essay on Finis Terrae by Jean Epstein expert Christophe Wall-Romana and archival writing by the director

 

The Limited Edition is out now so I’d be quick and order as soon as you can from the Eureka website here!

 1.       Jean Epstein. Présentation de "Cœur fidèle", in Écrits sur le cinéma, 1, 124 (jan. 1924)