Doug has never leaped so high… He's perpetual youth, a
three-ringed circus, the personification of all juvenile heroes, all rolled
into one…
W. Ward Marsh, Cleveland Plain Dealer 19th
October 1925
After a couple of days in Venice I spent my final night in a
secure Air BnB near Venice Mestre Station. I say secure because it had a lock
for the entry gate – a six-feet plus metal fence – then three locks between the
outside and a room with a TV streaming late 70s Charlie’s Angels dubbed in Italian. When
you leave, just drop the keys on the desk, said the guy and so I did, assuming
there was a button on the fearsome metal gate to open it. There wasn’t and so,
taking my life, cabin bag and laptop in hand, I scaled the fence and dropped
myself quite stylishly onto the ground on the other side – it was a little further
than I expected (this is not a Stunt Blog). It’s not easy bouncing around and climbing
to escape a trap. But, as I was reminded several hours later in the Teatro
Verdi, Douglas Fairbanks made it look easier than pretty much anyone ever on
film. He loved it.
Day One and for sure, not Don Juan but, yes, Don Q –
Son of Zorro - and a Fairbanks’ blockbuster I’ve never seen complete with a
huge new score from Slovenska kinoteka given voice by the gathered might of the
RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra as conducted by Andrej Goričar. If these films
are familiar, it’s probably because of the influence Fairbanks had on popular
culture and in particular, comics and the kind of books on sale alongside them.
It’s all of a piece with Batman – still 13 years in the future – Flash Gordon,
Doc Savage – Man of Bronze, along with earlier creations like Tarzan and John
Carter of Mars from the, actually swashbuckling, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Superman
was designed by Siegel and Shuster to look like Fairbanks* whilst the creator
of the Marvelverse, Stan Lee both admired and imitated Fairbanks.
What all these characters have in common – including Stan
- is a super-sense of positivity as well as strength, righteousness and charm
and these were of course, everything that Doug brought to the screen both by
instinct and design. He was the epitome of masculine purpose and verve at a
time when such things were clearly defined and viewed as a good… whereas I am
currently reading Jon Ronson’s The Castle: Adventures in a World of
Unravelling Men and we need a hero.
 |
| Mary Astor and Douglas Fairbanks |
101 years on, Doug was once again our man as Don Cesar de
Vega, the son of Zorro also played by Doug plus a dusty grey wig, and a little
padding round his middle. Doug is really trim in this film and that’s evidenced
by high-waisted trousers that make him look more lithe than stocky or maybe he’d
just worked too hard on the leaping around. There are incessant stunts that
remind you of Robin Hood, Bagdad or Zorro, but that’s the deal with Doug – 42 at
the time. He’s sent from Cali to Spain as his father before him and meets The
Queen (Stella De Lanti) and visiting Archduke (Warner Oland) as he saves a
crowd from an escaped bull. He makes enemies with nasty Don Sebastian (Donald
Crisp) as well as the scheming Don Fabrique Borusta played by Jean Hersholt who
always injects an element of pathos in his villains as if they’re being made
bad by unfortunate nature.
What about the love interest I hear you say, well that’s
Mary Astor (just 19…) as the delightful Dolores de Muro who becomes the source
of conflict between Don Cesar and Sebastian. The film gathers pace, its
relentless and you know why and where it’s going. Long story short, Cesar has
to fake his own death to become the masked vigilante in thigh-high leather
boots and a cape. Using his trusty whip he leaves a “Q” mark on foes just like
his daddy left a “Z”… Yeah, right, whatever we all applauded when the goodies
emerged and it was as the comic writer Alan Moore once said “a revenge fantasy
for the impotent…” only much more in on the joke than that sounds!
The Danish Film Institute have done incredible work in
restoring what has for so long only been available in 16mm and what we saw
tonight was the film and good-hearted masculinity restored to former glories.
The gathered throng in the Verdi were uplifted, inspired and set fair for a
week of vibrant entertainment and reminders from the past of eternal virtues
and the sheer power of good intentions.
 |
| Money madness |
Before all this we kicked off with some David Wark with the
latest restorations from The Biograph Project. These films are all from eight
to twelve minutes long, but Griffith always squeezes a full story in there and
ones that reflect the concerns of his audience in ways that reveal much. Money
Mad (US 1908) features The Root of All Evil as it lures various thieves and
beggars into a fight to the finish whilst The Christmas Burglars (US 1908)
was altogether more wholesome as some pawn broker and his criminal colleagues
take pity in a woman and her young daughter bringing them a seasonal surprise
even if they did use chloroform to make sure they slept through Santa’s visit.
Mr Jones at the Ball (US 1908) showed the perils of lying to yourself and your
tailor about your waist measurement as the titular gent rips his kecks** at a
fancy ball.
There was a sweet moral balance to One Touch of Nature (US 1909) and its portrayal of childhood mortality that should remind everyone that those Good Old Days weren't actually that good. It's Griffith on the soppy side but it worked then and it works now. Far more unsettling, from a modern perspective was the black face and the racial joke of The Valet's Wife (US 1908) but that's what was and there was context.
Philip Carli accompanied in comfortable slacks.
 |
| Italy Admiral Manzini and this film in one screen grab... |
The Mask and the Face (IT 1919) was very much a film
of two halves featuring this year’s Diva, Italy Admiral Manzini in a story
directed by Augusto Genina. Now, I’m very much a believer in the three great
diva: Bertini, Menichelli and Borelli but I have to say that Manzini runs them
close without quite having the grit of the first, the impact of the second or
the ethereality of the third. But we shall see this week, and she was off to a
very strong start.
The story was adapted by Luciano Doria from a 1916 play by
Luigi Chiarelli which had been part of the “grotesque theatre” style of the
time according to Andrea Meneghelli in the 2019 Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival
Catalogue. There’s little of this left in the film which spends the first half
establishing various couples among the rich elite around Lake Como. Manzini
plays Savina who is married to the possessive and aggressive Paolo (Vittorio
Rossi Pianelli). For some reason she decides that their friend Luciano (Ettore
Piergiovanni) is the kind of man she needs to have an affair with even though
he is engaged to Marta. (Note to self: pitch for a reality TV series, The
Real Housewives of Como aka Como Shore…)
Maybe buried under this is a critique of the listless bourgeoisie
but it doesn’t carry much force until Paolo, discovering that his wife is
having an affair decides that she is dead to him and exiles her from his life
and property. He doesn’t want to know who her lover is but, in his rush, to
punish his wife, pretends he has murdered her. Now before you point out the
obvious flaws in this plan, don’t worry because Luciano is going to represent
him in court and, he does it so well that gets his client off if only at the
expense of trashing his former lover’s reputation.
 |
| Como Shore... |
Savina finds out and is, to put it mildly, pretty
disappointed but then an actual body is found in the lake – a woman so badly
disfigured that they “recognise her immediately…” Savine is definitely dead but
she’s not really and you can really tell where this is going except you can’t
and that’s exactly what makes the last part of this film so much fun!
Mauro Colombis seemed to take it all in his stride, but this
was the sleeper hit of the day!
We also saw the first part of a mostly lost film Ironies
of Life (IT 1917), directed by Mario Roncoroni and featuring Manzini
falling in love with Gian Paolo Rosmino. What we saw looked very good and was
of the standard you’d expect of Italian cinema of this period.
I missed the series of short films in the Lazio programme but
heard good things about Rails into the Olympus of Elegance (IT 1920?). Another
time…
Sorry mate the Plaça Reial's the other way...
Before Doug, we took a ride on a tram through Barcelona in 1909, and it was the most visceral thing I’d seen all day. This is part of the Giornate’s Origins/Early Cinema – Phantom Tram Rides and Barcelona en Tranvía (ES 1909) took us from the Atarazanas/Drassanes area - then the city’s waterfront fortifications - to Bonanova, in the upper part of Barcelona. As the tram travels through the Passeig de Gràcia, it heads higher into the suburbs, streets that look familiar, but I wonder how many were changed by the Civil War and modernisation.
The filmmakers, Ramón de Baños Martínez, Ricardo de Baños
Martínez had announced the filming, and this brought the locals out in their
thousands and the real joy of this film is in seeing people walking, running,
cycling and generally larking about in front of the moving image. It was as
Giornate Director, Jay Weissberg said, a pure example of cinema and one that
was poignant and very human on the big screen.
Stephen Horne accompanied and, as you would expect, he
caught the mood, he savoured the joy.
 |
| A lot of cigarettes were smoked in today's films... |
*From the brilliant Silentology website.
**Look it up in The Oxford English-Scouse Dictionary.
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