RED ALERT! As you may know, the Cinema Museum needs your assistance in
raising money to help purchase its historic building and permanently secure the
home of cinema history. Not only is this the UK’s only museum dedicated to the
experience of cinema going, but it is also completely volunteer-run and not
publicly funded. The Museum survives thanks to the energy and support of
thousands of cinephiles and we are ALL the Museum every time we attend or
donate to its most worthy cause.
The crew at the Kennington Bioscope recently ran a special
gala evening to raise funds for their home venue and they have now uploaded it online
so you can view the fascinating collection of films on film they presented AND
you can donate to the worthy cause. Buying the buildings would preserve the
Museums mission and there’s little time to spare as they need to do that by
December so, before, during or after reading this post, please point your
phone at the QR at the top or visit their Crowdfunding Site direct RIGHT HERE.
But there’s even more to the substance of the Museum, it
inhabits the former hospital and former workhouse where Charlie Chaplin family
lived when his mother, separated from his father, fell on hard times in the 1890s.
Aged seven, Charlie was sent to the Lambeth Workhouse on Renfrew Road, and his
spirit is found there still every time you step into the warmth of this now
welcoming environment. The Cinema Museum is not just part of film history but
also our social history and that must be preserved in all our names.
I was hardly aware of a crisis because we lived in a
continual crisis; and, being a boy, I dismissed our troubles with gracious
forgetfulness.
Charlie Chaplin
Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), accompaniment by
John Sweeney
It’s hard to believe that a kid from the poorest of London backgrounds
could end up the most famous man in the world but within a few years Charlie
was on stage and then on the boat to America with Fred Karno’s troupe. He was
well-reviewed in the vaudeville tour and when they returned in 1912 he decided
to stick around ending up as we all know, at Keystone Studios, signing a
$150-per-week contract in September 1913.
This short, his second released film, was shot in less than an
hour which says something for the production finesse of Mack Sennett as
well as his commercial imperative: keep ‘em coming! It’s no classic but, it
announced the arrival of a major talent and, in Chaplin’s case it was also the
first film to be released featuring his “Little Tramp” character in just his
second film.
As you’d expect it’s primitive Charlie in the drunken
version of the tramp – staggering between shots and determined to stay in front
of the camera supposedly filming the kid’s auto race. There’s more than a vestige of the "Inebriate
Swell" he played that had so impressed American audiences on the Karno
tours. Directed by Henry Lehrman, who also plays the Director, it features
repeated shots of Charlie being kicked and thrown out of the way but he always
returns.
This Charlie looks almost deranged but with a very modern
determination to stay in frame and to let the new social media deliver him a
slice of fame.
Isleworth Studios (1922), accompaniment by John
Sweeney
Chris Bird was compere for this night and started by introducing
a variety of film cameras on stage one of which is exactly the same model as
featured being bothered by Charlie. It’s always intriguing to see the mechanics
of the industry and luckily the KB was able to screen one of the very few
showing work in progress behind the scenes at Isleworth Studios in 1922.
It’s only three minutes but we get to see the exterior of Isleworth
Studios and the sets on stage as well as Geoffrey Malins (who made The Somme)
directing Madge Stuart, Joseph R. Tozer and William Stack in a film called The
Scourge (1922) which looks like an interesting period drama. The studios were in operation until the 1950s
and The African Queen was shot there as were some of Powell and
Pressburger’s films.
The film was from the Christopher Bird Collection at the USC School for Cinematic Arts
Paris-Cinéma (1929) (Excerpt), accompaniment John Sweeney
This was Pierre Chenal’s first film as director with the
great Jean Mitri as assistant on this extract from a film on film which also includes
other directors, Alberto Cavalcanti and Augusto Genina. A fascinating look
behind the camera at one of the world’s leading film industries.
We see the sets being made ready for the filming of Cavalcanti’s
Captain Fracasse (1929) – which starred a young Charles Boyer alongside Pierre
Blanchar and Lien Deyers. There’s a fabulous overhead shot of the director at
work with his cast in an inn scene. The lights are bright as scripts are
consulted and costumes are checked. Isabelle (Deyers) is filmed in her room
with Mitri’s camera capturing the modern-looking camera array as Deyers gives
her all on stage.
There’s a section showing how a tracking shot is made as we
see a camera being moved towards an actor on a three-wheeled platform and then
the results then the same for a ground shot of a character creeping along the
floor with a knife in his mouth. There’s a hand-held camera showing a knife
fight and then the lights are up for a scene in a theatre.
Changing centuries, we see Genina filming the closing shots
of his film Latin Quarter (1929) and there are superb overhead and then
dolly shots as his cameramen follows Carmen Boni as Louisette Mercier (Mimi),
looking desperately through the station… it all culminates in the excitement of
steam train action with a mixture of hand-held, low angled and tracking shots. I
haven’t seen either of these films but I want to now!
 |
| Bang to rights Mr Cat... |
Felix in Hollywood (1923), accompaniment Colin Sell
Felix the Cat is probably amongst my early silent memories
thanks to Bob Monkhouse’s TV trawl through his dusty vault of 35mms. Forget
Itchy and Scratchy, Felix was always The Man – sorry Cat – and here he strides
coolly over to Hollywood and meets Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, William
S. Hart, Ben Turpin and others in the first animated cartoon to feature
caricatures of Hollywood celebrities (and before the celebrities became
caricatures etc…).
Funny and so post-modern: every sassy cat that followed was
always part-Felix.
 |
| The Cyclorama... |
Hello Hollywood (1927), accompaniment Colin Sell
This was projected from a lovely tinted 35mm copy and was
the of the shorts. It’s a fascinating look behind the camera at the sprawling
estates and backlots of the major studios. I especially liked to cotton wool “snow”
being added to actual trees and the secrets behind rain and wind in the studios…
in a backlot where everything is possible from the weather to locations, from
China to the Arabian desert it’s all faked here.
The mammoth Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio where Lon Chaney wears
a thousand faces and Norma Shearer breaks a thousand hearts…
There were stunning overhead shots including MGM and we also
saw the set of Paris used by the Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
There was also the cunning running machine, The Cyclorama, which had a merry-go-round
backdrop in front of which the actors ran like mice, was also impressive and
you wonder how often those backgrounds have sped past unnoticed as fakery?
“… and all because the whole World wants to see!”
 |
| Just another day in the office for Mack... |
The Hollywood Kid (1924), accompaniment Colin Sell
No, that’s not Valentino, that’s Ben Turpin…
Next up a Dave Glass reconstruction of a Mack Sennett film –
a real labour of love that saw him merging multiple sources over three years to
complete a film that doesn’t exist complete in any of the major film archives. All
different formats were used from 8mm, 16mm even to VHS to make the film as
complete as possible and it was worth it with Charlie Murray on top form along
with a host of other stars, credited and uncredited (Marie Prevost, Phyllis
Haver, Madeline Hurlock and Ben Turpin et al). There’s a great establishing
shot of the Mack Sennet Studios – where comedy is a serious business – before we
find the man himself having to deal with a whole range of daft ideas before
being joined by a lion in his office – “the zoo has escaped again…” and “keep
that cat out of my office!”
It's a riot from start to finish and another one to recommend
this excellent broadcast! Especially appreciated are the shots of Marie Prevost
in her bathing costume without which the whole film wouldn’t carry the comedic
heft it does… and Ben Turpin as well of course. Seriously diligent and fine work
Mr Glass!
 |
| Fort Lee, New Jersey |
A Girl's Folly (1917), accompanied by Ashley
Valentine
The inside workings of a moving picture studio are thrown
open to the public gaze… this is the novel feature of the picture and its chief
merit. The plot is rather slight, but the director, Maurice Tourneur has gone
to considerable trouble and expense in addition to adding humorous incidents of
studio life…
Edward Weitzel, Moving Picture World
The main feature is a charming affair written by Frances
Marion and directed by Maurice Tourneur at Fort Lee, New Jersey, with Kevin
Brownlow’s old sparring partner, Clarence Brown as assistant. Over the years we’ve
all appreciated the KB’s founding KB’s introductions to Brown’s films and his
impersonation of this plain-talking and yet hugely imaginative man. Only at the
Bioscope and only at the Cinema Museum my friends!
It’s the kind of film you don’t see screened very often, and
I’d only previously seen a truncated version at the BFI in support of a main
feature. This copy (form the BFI national archive?) came in around an hour long
and featured Doris Kenyon as the wholesome Mary Baker, a country girl from the
Kittatinny Mountains in in north-western New Jersey, with her head and dreams
stuck in romantic fiction as she imagines a handsome Troubadour with a lute and
tall tales only for her daydream to burst as her boyfriend, Johnny Applebloom (Chester
Barnett) comes to sit alongside on her bench.
Not far away “Where the movies flourish…”, we find Fort Lee,
New Jersey which, to be honest, looks a lot like Hounslow only sunnier. The
camera drifts across the frantic activity as actors act, sets are made and
people wait their turn. An intertitle exclaims “Kenneth Driscoll, a motion
picture idol Robert Warwick” with three women worshiping an illustration of him
atop a plinth… It’s 1917 and already the “authority” of “stars” is being
questioned. There’s a clever shot of Kenneth applying his make-up before a
director, an uncredited Tourneur, calls for a set to be made up and the crew
work swiftly and effectively before a rotating stage brings the new set around
to the cameras.
And just remember this, every heartache you cause a
woman, will boomerang.
Kenneth discusses florid fan mail with another popular
star, Hank (Johnny Hines) and warns him of the need to treat fans with respect.
I know it’s only a film but you do get a feel for how the human aspect of
cinema fitted with the technology and business with some fine naturalistic
performances from cast and crew, crew playing cast too. In there too is Leatrice
Joy as an Ingenue actor (never seen her hair so long) and some guy called Josef
von Sternberg as a cameraman (thus us where he got all those ideas).
Anyway… you all know that Mary will become entangled with
Kenneth after he goes filming near where she lives and that she will take her
chance in making it in the movies… there may also be something deeper between
her and the star with his failing relationship with Vivian Carleton (June
Elvidge) to add to the mix. These stories are so familiar to us now but they go
back to the very beginning of feature films and stories about the dangers or
otherwise of screen success.
To find out more you’ll simply have to watch the film and
indeed the whole show on YouTube where you’ll also be able to make a pledge to help
the Cinema Museum.
You can make a donation to the Cinema Museum here.
There is simply no other place like it… ask not what the Cinema Museum can do for you but what YOU can do for the Cinema Museum! Thank you.
+colour.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment