Marie jewel recovered and Lon finds his charm… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026, Day Four

There’s an incredible story behind the finding of Seven Sinners (1925), which was long considered a lost film until May 2015 when film hunter Joel Archer located it in Queensland, Australia in the hands of a film projectionist Ron West who had been given it by a cinema-owning family based in Melbourne and kept it along with other treasures – on nitrate 35mm – in his farm shed. The seven reels were 80% salvageable and after restoration by the Academy Film Archive gaps have been filled and whilst there are some compromised areas it is a wonder, in parts looking as fresh as the carnation in Clive Brook’s buttonhole.

 

As Michelle Facey writes in the catalogue entry, this was from a period when the film’s star, Marie Prevost was Warners’ “Queen of the Screen”, described in their ad for this film as “a feminine character of alluring charm… an actress whose spontaneous art mirrors every human emotion…” And Marie does not disappoint in this smart crime caper with a heart of gold and delightful performances all round. It has a script as precise as a safe-breakers touch and a cast who never miss: it’s a real Spritz of a film!

Marie Prevost and Clive Brook

 

Marie is Molly Brian who breaks into a rich house with her partner in crime, “Handsome Joe” Hagney (John Patrick), they’re surprised by what appears to be a resident in a dressing gown and firing a pistol. Joe escapes but the man, who turns out to be Jerry Winters (Cool Clive Brook), also turns out to be a crook intent on robbing the jewels from the same safe, one that Molly opens with alacrity much to his delight. They’ll go halves only they won’t go anywhere because in walks an elder couple, Pious Joe McDowell (Claude Gillingwater) and wife Aimie (Mathilde Brundage) who say that they’re minding the house for the owners only they’re not, they’re in the same profession as the other three.

 

Those of you good with figures will have worked out we have five sinners although though not all of that number knows the truth and, with two more sinners to add plus an actual policeman, I’ll leave the narrative summary there.

 

Accompaniment was provided by John Sweeney in full flight. Delighting in every twist and turn from a cast who like many from this period, you can almost hear talking. This is a must watch when you get the chance.

 

Joel is at Le Giornate and got a round of applause when his part in the recovery came up on screen. Imagine if we all still thought that this film didn’t exist? “Go, you good thing!” is, I believe, the saying in Brisbane!

 

Sheffield 1902, then, as now, a city divided by football...

Tram Ride of the Day: The award has to go to the elegantly entitled Tram Ride Through the City of Sheffield as recorded by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon in 1902 when, as I’m sure you all know, Sheffield United FC finished tenth in the First Division just behind their rivals Sheffield Wednesday. So, any extra glum fizzogs on view must have been Blades fans.

 

Sheffield still has the trams but they’re not as much fun and neither are Wednesday or t’ Blades… but they’ll be back. In 1902 Steel City was very much a hub of industrial activity and trams revolutionised peoples access to work.

 

BREAKING: The TRotD Award has now been shared with the extraordinary A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire (US 1906), directed by Miles Brothers just before the San Francisco Earthquake on 18^th April which destroyed many of the buildings we see with the exception of the ferry terminal according to Dr Lawrence Napper of Kings College London. There’s more detail to be found on these events and the activities of the film makers in the programme and online.

 

Tom Santschi and Edward Hearn

Saddle up and ride! Also, “don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys… Part 675”

 

No trams out west only trains but all we saw were horses in the two short westerns in the Rediscoveries strand.

 

Robert N. Bradbury’s Beyond the Trail (US 1921) was a punchy tale of two brothers one good Clem (Tom Santschi) and the other, Bud, wayward (Edward Hearn). It’s amazing how much of the generic tropes of westerns are not only already in place but expressed in this half hour film but it’s no doubt all true up to a point. Clem takes the rap for his brother killing a man during a robbery and in exile comes across a lone woman (Patricia Palmer) and her baby who had been deserted by the father… Bud! Cue a return to the hometown and final showdown.

  

Marshall Neilan’s The Country That God Forgot (US 1916) had some excellent cinematography and the look of classic westerns to follow with one especially impactful shot of Mary Charleson silhouetted against the endless prairie beyond the doorframe of their homestead. We once again have Tom Santchi as the hero, this time a miner called Steve who finally strikes it rich only for his wife to desert him for another man called Craig (which is not very Rough and Rowdy as a name is it?). Steve’s a determined man though and sets off to put things right…

  

Asta und Connie genießen nach Feierabend ein Getränk im Posta...

Oh, show me the way to the next whiskey bar award:

 

Weimar Uncensored should have been entitled TOTALLY uncensored as it’s hard to know whether Conrad Veidt was just carrying on from the long nights before when filming Der Reigen (1920) or just very much in character. There are so many lounges lacking their lizards with this man at this stage but perhaps even he felt the pressure or keeping pace with Die Asta so much his senior at this point.

 

Seeing Nielsen acting on a screen this size is always a treat because you can see her face working the emotions with expression that is beyond thought. It’s a rare gift to be able to convey so much with so little deliberate effort – think Isabelle Huppert of Stephan Audran (I’ve overdosed on Claude Chabrol this autumn – thanks BFI!) – but here we see it in one of the very first screen actors and the first European star.

 

Directed by Richard Oswald and adapted from the 1897 play, La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler, the film shows Nielsen’s character Elena and her various relationships with men who either lack moral courage or morals in the case of Veidt’s vampiric Peter Karvan. She marries Albert Peters (Eduard von Winterstein) for status and security, preferring his brother Fritz (Theodor Loos), but happy enough to look after her step-daughter until Karvan re-emerges to blackmail her.

 

It's episodic and overwrought but whilst it might try your patience in some parts you’re rewarded by Asta in particular as well as the faint smell of absinth every time Connie walks onto screen and smooths his reptilian gaze across the screen.

 

Gabriel Thibaudeau accompanied the cabaret in style proving that there’s no good in sitting alone in your room, and we saw Willi Schaeffers dance too in the nightclub scenes!

 

Female Madness Programme Two was a more coherent session than the first consisting of dramas not documentaries all of which included portrayals of female hysteria and the ways it was perceived by the industry and audience in these early stages. Mario Caserini’s Amleto (IT 1908) drew on Shakespeare’s conception of Ophelia (and Hamlet’s) madness and it did make you wonder how far the view of women’s hysterics had advanced over three hundred years?

 

There was also Albert Capellani’s Pauvre Mere! (FR 1906) and Léonce Perret’s L'Angélus de la Victoire (FR 1916) which centred on a young couple from different classes being prevented from marriage by their fathers. The war begins and in the end they wonder what all the fuss was about… apart from Fabienne Fabrèges who gives a disturbing depiction of the young Jacqueline driven mad by news of her love’s demise on the front. And still we fight.

 

Fabienne Fabrèges 

Riccardo Tolentino’s Le memorie di una istitutrice (IT 1917) has Valentina Frascaroli as Jane Eyre in what must now be considered the definitive version even though it’s only 33'47 long… It’s like a speed read and a lot of fun!

 

Meg Morley and Elisabeth-Jane Baldry accompanied with a wonderful mix of piano, harp and vocals with E-J’s song for the forlorn Jacqueline after she learns of her lovers fate in the war. Haunting.

 

 

And for desert: Tell It to the Marines (1926) accompanied by Neil Brand and Frank Boclkius

 

This has long been one of my favourites not just for Lon Chaney being given the chance to act against type and using just his own face but also because it includes those two Goldwyn “New Faces” selectees of 1922 and lifelong buddies in spite of everything: Eleanor Boardman and William Haines. Three of the very best Hollywood people.

 

Directed by George W Hill, Tell it to the Marines is very well drilled with, quick changes in pace and excellent cinematography: silent Hollywood at its peak. There is some superb hand-held camerawork during the fight on the island not to mention stirring shots of the navy at sea – huge battleships rolling with the waves. Indomitable and not far away from being used in earnest.

Lon Chaney and Eleanor Bordman

 

It’s a meaty role for William Haines as he gets to play the shallow raw recruit who’s only in it for himself. He falls for Eleanor Boardman’s nurse mainly as she’s the prettiest thing in sight and it’s only later that he learns how much he really means it. An excellent performer, it’s no surprise he was so popular: he has an easy way and always seems to throw in the odd realistic gesture like…picking his nose! Boardman does her usual top-notch job with not a lot to play with. It’s good to see her as always on the big screen and on such a fantastic print - she is as ethereal as ever and it’s noteworthy that her best scenes are with Chaney – she rises to his level.

 

Without doubt it is Chaney’s film with his Postlethwaite complexion, iron jaw and smiling eyes. I’ve heard that he gained such expressiveness as the son of deaf and mute parents. This may have been the case but he’s also emotionally intelligent and able to submerge himself completely in character. So much so that his actions and gradual shift in concerns continue to surprise you throughout the film… he only reveals the decent heart when he wants us to see it.

 

Married to the navy, loyal to all his charges, selfless to a flaw… Chaney’s portrayal struck so true with the marines themselves that he became the first actor to be awarded an honorary membership in the Corps.

 

Neil Brand and Frank Bockius’s accompaniment was disciplined, powerful and playful all at the same time, as if they had absorbed the characters of Chaney and Haines and the spirit of a film which, when you've stripped all the flags away, is about love, sacrifice and togetherness. Neil had the music Frank had the rhythm, who could ask for anything more?