This was always going to be Gloria Swanson’s day with a
stunning presentation of one of her landmark and most-influential films but
that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of action of this fine festive Friday.
The day started with more evidence, as it were needed,
that Italia Almirante Manzini is the most under-rated diva in Italian silent
film with a story as operatic as they come and daft in the stylish way only
Italy can get away with. La Statua di Carne (1921). Giornate cover girl
Manzini plays two roles a chaste florist Maria and a worldly, outgoing singer
called Neomi Keller which is nearly weird as, they are doppelgangers and
I’ve just started reading a book on this very subject by Naomi Klein*, who has
so often been confused with the lunatic conspiracy theorist and bad historian,
Naomi Woolf.
Traditionally doppelgangers spell trouble and in this story,
they are in the mind of Maria’s grieving lover, Count Paul Santarosa (Lido
Manetti) much as the Kim Novaks are on Jimmy Stewart’s in Vertigo: are we
seeing what Paul sees or is there more to this than it might appear? Based on
Teobaldo Ciconi’s 1862 play, inspired by his passion for actress Celestina De
Martini Peracchi, it had been adapted before and some critics found it dated in
1921 although there seems to have been general praise for the production and
Manzini’s dual performance. Vate La Pesca in La Rivista Cinematografica (Dec ’21)
thought she acted “… too proudly for the characters to appear at their fullest…”
and yet his colleague in the same publication, Aurelia Spada raved about her “carnal
sexuality” and rich, “masterful metamorphoses”.
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| India Almirante Manzini |
There’s good support from Alfonso Cassini as Paul’s
good-hearted best pal Marquis Chatonnet as well as Bianca Renieri as Martha who
is Maria’s BFF and marries the Marquis. They all meet when Maria and her
friends find the two nobles the worst for wear and assume that their down and
outs in need of some hot food. The lads like being liked for just who they are
and play along although their secret is eventually out much to Martha’s delight
as she immediately asks Chatonnet to marry her and he agrees!
The wit of the first half drops away as Maria’s
congenital frailty leads to her death and Paul’s falling into the deepest well
of mourning. Until he is dragged along to the theatre to meet Neomi and is
struck by her remarkable similarity to the woman he mourns. For a while he worships
this living statue memorialising his love but observed and observer are bound
to have feelings outside of the moribund…
The costumes are outstanding, and the drama is rich with Daan
van den Hurk providing mesmerising accompaniment.
Phantom Tram Ride of the Day: Bird’s Eye View of
George Street, Sydney, NSW (AU 1906) just wins out over Oscar Lahousen de
Vevremont’s elegant Eine Fahrt Mit Der Straßenbahn Durch Klagenfurt (AT
1926). There’s more risk involved in providing a bird’s eye view especially in
the middle of Sydney in a country known for its dangerous fauna.
Weimar Uncensored: Genuine (DE 1920)
I’ve had a 43-minute incomplete copy of this as an extra
on Eureka’s Caligari Blu-ray but this was an 83 minute reconstruction based on
the French version which had some significant changes from the original German
one – the Third French Republic still censored films. Directed by Robert Wiene it
has the look of his other film, and both meet Lotte Eisner’s strict criteria
for Expressionist films:
·
Focus on Inner Emotions rather than external
reality
·
Visual Distortions: exaggerated sets and
lighting create a surreal atmosphere
·
Hyper-Expressive Performances – oh my yes!
Genuine was to be another “Stilfilm” aimed at
making the same success as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari with the same creative
team and with some new, perhaps too many, ideas. Fern Andra is the titular
character in her first staring role and whilst she creates an intriguing and
disturbing possible witch, temptress/trapped object of desire, she’s not as
well formed a character as Cesare in Caligari.
She is bought at a slave market and dressed in outlandish
clothing in a locked room where she toys with the men brought to see her by the
mysterious Lord Melo (Ernst Gronau). Is it an experiment or a ritual or is it
even real? The French censors found the original version too much and insisted
on a framing sequence in which Percy Melo (Harald Paulsen) who has painted the
image of a high priestess named Genuine, then falls asleep and dreams the whole
thing.
Be that as it may, once released Genuine continued to
manipulate men’s baser feelings and the poor confused things seem to have had
trouble assimilating the narrative… A film ripe for re-evaluation.
“Every evening at the Marmor-Haus, tempers clash rather vigorously – some boo, others even applaud, all in dispute over the merit or demerit of a work that in my eyes is nothing more than an interesting poisonous plant.”
Fritz Olimsky, Berliner Börsenzeitung (05.08.1920)
Mauro Colombis on piano and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry on harp
brought the magic and the mystery, genuinely atmospheric. Not a dream.
Sitcom: Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew. Programme 2
Anyone who doesn’t just love this comedy couple by now
needs to see their doctor as there is so much warmth in their relationship as
Sid improvises making second wife Lucille laugh out of character but she’s not
the only one as the entire cast seems to be having a ball. By Might of His
Right (1915) has Sid see off his annoying Harvard educated brother-in-law by faking
boxing skills whilst His Wife Knew All About it (1916) sees him dating their
new cook to help enliven her social life: his friends see and jump to all the
wrong conclusions egged on by Lucille!
It's the comedy of relationships – not just the central
one – and Sid’s gags are top notch. Sadly, there are very few of these films in
existence partly because he died in 1919 aged only 55. He had the gift alright,
and I hope more people now get to see it!
Philip Carli was absolutely the man for this job and
accompanied as if he was sat in the same room as the Drews! He was, of course,
dressed for the occasion!
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| Countess Marguerita de Cippico on the left and right... |
Make war no more: I’d seen Peace on the Western
Front (GB 1930) at this year’s British Silent Film Symposium and was
delighted to see it again. It’s a mix of recreated live dialogue from the IWM’s
Toby Haggith and Clare Watson along with Stephen Horne’s beautiful
accompaniment, and two sound discs (out of four) one of which was recently
uncovered by dogged silent film researcher and writer Brent Reid. It’s a
haunting film that has Moore Marriot’s old soldier explaining what the Great
War was like to his grandson as the youngster has been playing with his toy
soldiers.
It features footage from the front as it was in 1930,
still very dangerous even if oddly quiet, as well as scenes of the
reconstructed towns and cities of the various battles. As a slice of post-war life,
it is incredibly poignant and as a lesson in history it is deadly serious as
some modern politicians seem to view war in ways that would have been very
familiar to Edwardian monarch states… the gap between politicians and humanity
is growing.
A lighter look at the war was provided by Léonce Perret’s
Lest We Forget (US 1918) which was released in January 1918 with the aim
of reminding the US just how close they are to France – two great democracies who
became republics at around the same time. The film starred and was produced by
British actor Rita Jolivet also known as the Countess Marguerita de Cippico.
She is great in the film as an all-action heroine would dances repeatedly with
death, has luck and most importantly agency easily besting her male foes and,
in the end, dramatically despatching the main baddy. Compared with her, the
male lead playing her sweetheart Harry, Hamilton Revelle was made more for
comedy.
This may have been about US /French goodwill, but Rita
smuggled in a feminist main character!
Neil Brand did his patriotic duty with music of steadfast
composition and firm resolve even as the Lusitania sank with Rita onboard…
A Tale of the Filial Devotion of Goro Masamune (1915)
The Art of the Benshi:
Time for silent film to get a bit shouty and we were back
with the benshi for a cartoon about a snake that had broken in half Chongire
Hebi (1930) and mysterious sea gods in Umi No Kyuden (1930). The
main feature was A Tale of the Filial Devotion of Goro Masamune (1915)
which is astonishingly old for a Japanese silent and this is evident in the
limited technique involved in a very wordy story about weddings and quests
featuring an all-male cast. For completists only as the record reviewers
sometimes say about early releases from famous groups but this was history on
screen and on stage too.
Benshi: Kataoka Ichirō, Ōmori Kumiko, Yamauchi Nanako
Accompaniment: Katada Kisayo (percussion), Kiyomoto Nobuakira
(shamisen)
Some more German Pola: Das Martyrium
(1920), is the precious last 20-odd minutes of Paul Ludwig Stein’s film
featuring a lot of Negri action after she discovers that her late husband had
left her inheritance only if she lives and sleeps in the room where he died,
all painted grey and with bare lighting illuminating his portraits on each wall…
a gothic nightmare and she plays it well.
Gloria Swanson and Raoul Walsh
The Future is Now: Sadie Thompson (US 1928)
This cracking upgraded restoration* seems to sit outside
of time and space and I kept on thinking that this just couldn’t have been a
1928 film: it felt like a pre-code as it eventually became with Joan Crawford and
Rain. The battle between Lionel Barrymore’s born-again Christian Alfred
Davidson and Sadie (Swanson) the former sex worker looking for redemption and a
new start, is an epic one that brings in questions about criminality, religion
and the nature of faith. Davidson – hard as he tries is only offering a get-out
and it’s loaded with caveats that are ultimately self-serving. He bullies Sadie
into “converting” even though it’s against her best interests to return to San
Francisco to pay her penance in jail. He’s physically and intellectually
dominating her no matter how strong she thinks she is.
The standard line of the time would have meant Sadie
taking her medicine and ignoring her chances with Sergeant Timothy O'Hara (Raoul
Walsh – who also directs) in the promised land of Australia but the film doesn’t
take the easy way out. What our instincts are screaming out about Davidson the
longer this Christian cat and satanic mouse game is played, turn out to be true
and it’s to the film’s credit that it takes its audience right to the wire and
knows we’ll work out the subtext.
As Pamela Hutchinson writes in her recent book on The
Curse of Queen Kelly, Swanson had to fight to make this film with some studios
traying to prevent her, but she was right, and it was one of her biggest
successes. At just 28 she’d made a film that pointed to the future and it’s
just a shame that Queen Kelly didn’t allow her to move even further… but you
can find out all about that in the book and watch the reconstructed film.
Gloria Swanson has great hair in this film and sets the
style in all ways for the coming decade – and all because she wanted to!
The accompaniment from Meg Morley was also as fierce and
nuanced as Swanson with so much texture and depth. There are long sections of the
performers engaged in intense but wordless debate and to be able to ride
alongside with the same force of invention is quite something for a 98-minute
film! Go, you good thing!
Simply one of the best things we’ve heard and seen all
week!
.
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| Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore |
*The current copy of Sadie Thompson is a 4K upgrade of
the restoration originally produced by Dennis Doros for Kino Lorber in 1987,
and it is from this film that the image for the Giornate 2026 poster is taken.
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