Forbidden colours… The Red Lantern (1919), Costas Fotopoulos, Kennington Bioscope

“East is East, and West is West… and never the twain shall meet.”

Anna May Wong makes a brief and almost impossible to spot, film debut in a film in which a Russian and an American play the two Asian leads. The Red Lantern is “of its time” and yet it is not unsympathetic to these characters whose lives are limited by Caucasian prejudice. The eye make-up is jarring and makes for awkward viewing but whilst attitudes have shifted there were those even at the time who found this unacceptable… in a time when Sessue Hayakawa was a bona fide star. But this is about love and prejudice and whether the lines quoted from Kipling should still be true some twenty years after the Boxer Rebellion led to the deaths of over 30,000 in Peking.

The film features Alla Nazimova in dual roles as Mahlee the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of Sir Philip Sackville (Frank Currier) and half-sister to his pure English rose Blanche. Nazimova proves again her ability as the most stylised protean performer of the time and you’d scarcely recognise her as her own sister – blonde wig and a lighter touch – vs the taught angularity of Mahlee.

Alla Nazimova, also known as Naz (natch).

The Boxer Rebellion was not old news at this point as the Great War ground out its last days, and issues of self-determination drove the post-war agenda. China had been the subject of many international hands and the “allies” opposing the uprising had been a mix of British, American, German and Japanese who by the time of this film had assumed the lead role.

June Mathis’ screen play was based on Edith Wherry’s novel, written in 1911 and described in The Spectator review on release as an extra-ordinarily “vivid” account of missionary life and as “… a statement of existing conditions it is of the very highest interest.”

In this context it’s fascinating that Noah Beery’s Doctor Sam Wang is not an out and out baddie; firstly, he’s a Doctor, committed to heling and secondly, he too is “Eurasian” – mixed race – and has been humiliated by his attempts to integrate in the West. He gets involved in the uprising as he wants to earn his place in the East… he’s also a bit too fresh with Mahlee, just to push him into “bad guy” territory, behaviourally. As the book reviewer noted, the two best realised characters are Mahlee and Wang.

Another Beery baddie? Also the father of Noah Beery Junior of the Rockford Files!

Mahlee herself is got at for not having had her feet bound – the express wishes of Sackville as he abandoned her as a baby, little realising it would mark her as an outcast. So much so that when her grandmother is dying she asks her to cut her feet so that she may be accepted into heaven by the gods (tough gods!). But, nor can she truly find a place with the Christian Europeans, even as she works as a nurse in the Mission.

 

“Hush, child! You are like a cat treading on my heart. You have the foreign devils’ fear of death… my time is near and I am not afraid.”

She falls for Andrew Templeton (Darrell Foss), the son of the mission leader Reverend Alex Templeton (Winter Hall), but the son's admiration is tempered by her mixed race as indeed is that of his father and mother; as much as they like and admire Mahlee, she is not for their son.

Naz and Darrell Foss

Things become even more pronounced when the Stackville’s arrive and Andrew is automatically drawn to the Caucasian version of the woman he has felt such an uncomfortably strong attraction for. This is not good news and naturally Wang plays the rejection as another reason for Mahlee to help the Boxer rebellion by pretending to be the Queen of the Red Lantern.

Again, it’s of interest that the story doesn’t leave it there and there is still a chance for the Westerners to redeem themselves by accepting Mahlee for who she is and not how she was made but no… they can’t even manage that and so it is that Mahlee joins the revolt. What else has she got left and, despite her efforts to save them and repeated offers of friendship they just can’t get over her skin colour… even her love and even her father.

The imperliasts aren't budging!

So, by now we’re rooting for the Boxers… and so – probably - were many of the audience in 1919 which is an extraordinary thing.

 Veteran Albert Capellani directs… and there are some excellent crowd scenes and luscious mise-en-scene: it’s an epic and I’m not surprised it was one of the biggest films of the year and established Nazimova as: ”The star of a thousand moods… in a drama of a thousand delights.” I wasn’t counting and that may well have been hyperbole but there were many delights…

Costas Fotopoulos accompanied and, sight unseen, did a marvellous job matching the dramatic and emotional pace of a film that does lead its audience along a twisted path to the denouement.

Now THAT. Is a hat.

Illegal drug frenzy at South London Silent Film Speakeasy!!

Before all this we were treated to Coke Enneyday (Douglas Fairbanks) and his opioid adventures trying to break up a gang of evil-doers using inflatable fish to smuggle. Lovely Billie Love is caught up in all of this and I especially liked the moment when one of the – Chinese – henchmen trapped her and said he could now do what he wanted with her… she beats him up and ties him up in his arms.

Anita Loos probably added the Girl Power and Todd Browning (you know, him!) summoned all the rest coming down from one bad trip on Venice Beach. Maaaann!

John Sweeney played along, as sober as a Judge m’lud! He had to be: Doug takes no prisoners and in amidst the fun drugs, he clearly forgot to take his worming tablets.

The men in a boat. 1910.

There was also some beautiful colour footage of the Italian Lake Garda taken in 1910 using the innovative British Kinemacolor process which, as the Bioscope’s expert projectionist, Dave Locke, explained, used a spinning disc, with red, green and clear plastic to synchronise with film shot using tinted stock. The result was simply stunning and “colour fringing” aside, when someone moved a little too fast for the camera to follow, it was something to behold.

If you travel down to Brighton and Hove, you can still see the Kinemacolor sign on the side of the building where it was developed.

One of the most remarkable shorts ever shown at the Bioscope or, indeed, anywhere else.

The Red Lantern was the recent Belgian restoration and was screened on 35mm. It is avialable from the Belgian Cinematek as an extraordinary extras-laden DVD with a 200 page book which tells you all you could possible imagine about Naz, the Boxer background and the making of this film. Highly recommended!

Under the Moon… Salomé (1923) with Haley Fohr Ensemble, Barbican

Haley Fohr’s experimental score for Alla Nazimova’s radical passion project was commissioned by Opera North for the Leeds International Festival. It’s a mix of avant rock, post-rock, electronica and trace elements of folk/country although Tammy Wynette never sounded like this.

Vocalising and operating a console of synthesiser and samples, Fohr was accompanied by Tyler Damon on percussion, Andrew Young on double bass and Whitney Johnson on viola. The music was interesting in of itself but tended to take straight lines while the narrative followed a more elaborate path. The players followed a score and well though they performed the end result wasn’t balanced in the way that silent accompaniment often aims to be... but, this was intentional.

Fohr had taken the bold decision to remove the intertitles from the film arguing that by “…muting the text, I find new stories quickly sprout in its place from the action itself. The score to the film was composed as much to those stories as to the film itself.”  This is indeed bold given that the film was based on a poem by Oscar Wilde and featured extensive references to his original writing; removing this means you create a new narrative not only visually – we don’t have the specificity to define events – but also musically. That is Fohr’s intention and you have to respect that.

Alla Nazimova

One major issue I struggled with was the decision to leave gaps where the intertitles once where so that we had a blank screen between the action throughout. This interrupted the flow and unbalanced the mix – just when you were absorbed in the story it would stop and you’d be left looking at the band, well outside of the “moment” in terms of the film Nazimova created.

If you came to watch Oscar Wilde’s poem set to film with a score serving both then you were going to be disappointed but that was not the aim of a work that was in search of new meanings. To some that’s maybe like colourising Laurel and Hardy or adding CGI to old Star Wars films: just because we can doesn’t mean that we should... Still, you don't have to watch, unless, that is, you really wanted to see this film on the big screen, but maybe it wouldn't even have been there without the new music.

A few days earlier I had seen two electronica acts at the Barbican, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton), both had back projections to accompany their very different beats and the latter had a dancer interpreting her music. You could argue that Fohr was following a similar line only with a pre-existing and defined artwork. Not everyone was comfortable with the recycle.

Or maybe not?

Personally, I’m not so sure the removal of text in exchange for a visual vacuum was the way to go, had the score played over the intertitles we would still have drawn new meaning based on the music alone and not the absence of text. As it was it was just too distracting from both the film and the hard-working musicians in front of us. I also say this as someone who is familiar with this film and therefore followed the narrative lines dictated by the text whether or not it was there…

"How strange the Moon seems! One might fancy she was looking for dead things..."

Salomé is a stunning silent film that features some of the most cohesive creative vision in film, with Natacha Rambova’s designs drawing on Aubrey Beardsley’s iconic interpretations of Wilde’s words. The whole enterprise drips in decadence – Wilde wrote the original in French whilst under the influence of new passions; in Salomé the act of merely looking can lead the soul on a fateful dive into the heart of desire.

Bad boy Beardsley and the "invisible dance".

Yet, even he was concerned his work might be overshadowed by the power of the drawing even though he had initially viewed Beardsley as "...the only artist who, beside myself, knows what the dance of the seven veils is, and can see that invisible dance."

Directed by Charles Bryant, Salomé is the quintessential platform for producer and star, Alla Nazimova - a woman aiming to combine both Wilde and Beardley's visions. This mix allowed her to put together one of the first genuine Hollywood “art” films – an enterprise laced with her European artistic sensibilities from the choice of story, writer, designer and even sexuality… Maybe the rumours of an all-gay cast were just hype, but this story of transgressive - deathly - passion may have additional spice being performed by homosexual actors given Wilde’s proclivities and the tragic response of Victorian authority.

Natasha Rambova's stunning designs took from Beardley's style...

Such freedom of expression clearly appealed to Nazimova who was forging a brave career through her alien sophistication and an angular, conflicted, expression so at odds with the warmth of mainstream American cinema. Yes, she strikes a pose, but it rings true and there's an undoubted sense of humour behind the balletic pantomime. Salomé needed to be well choreographed to translate the author’s rhythms and whilst the expressions occasionally grate some of these characters are meant to simply be grotesque…

Not Salomé though, she’s just a bored teenager…with an endless wardrobe to fit every flounce and flurry.  Nazimova was pushing it, being just 44 at the time and yet with expert lighting and deep inches of foundation she carries it off, like Mary Pickford on crystal meth. 

She sits bored stiff at the table as the regal bacchanal rages all around. Her stepfather, Herod, Tetrach of Judea (Mitchell Lewis) has obtained power by murdering his brother and acquiring his wife, Herodias, and her altogether more alluring daughter, Salomé. They party with a collection of bizarre guests, a group of Pharisees who argue over the existence of angels, men in strange hats and with strange hairdos and nervous servants so concerned over the risks of their master’s opprobrium that they would rather throw themselves off the battlements rather than be granted an audience with an unhappy King. 

Salomé imagining "a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory..."

Tiring of her step-father’s inappropriate attentions, Salomé leaves the banquet hall and steps outside for some fresh amusement. She finds her  loyal servants Narraboth, Herod’s Captain of the Guard (Earl Schenck) who harbours unrequited love for his mistress, and Herodias’ Page (Arthur Jasmine). Salomé ignores them and distractedly stares at the stars in a provocative pose before sounds from a deep well break her reverie… These are the prayers and pronouncements of John the Baptist,  or Jokanaan in the film and play (Nigel De Brulier), a seer and prophet  who just won’t be silenced on the subject of the impending Messiah.

Salomé catches one look at his fine chiseled features and slender strength and is hooked, demanding that he be released so that she may learn more. Jokanaan emerges and refuses to be distracted from his cause by the “young” seductress in spite of her best efforts: he knows that even if he glances at her too deeply he could fall. Soon good feeling turns to bad and, in the face of Salomé’s infatuation, faithful Narraboth kills himself in front of his love but she simply steps over his corpse in her attempt to speak closer to Jokanaan. Horrified at this callous disregard and so much else besides, Jokanaan returns to his cell…

Mother and step-father in shock. Kids yesterday...

The film, as the play, makes constant references to the Moon – it’s tied to fate and the immutability of feminine will. What starts off blue gradually gets darker as a skull appears to fill the centre and then the sky runs red as matters descend into madness. Salomé sulks and as the party finally comes out to join her, is made an offer she cannot refuse by Herod: if she dances he will give her anything she desires. She agrees but doesn't reveal what her prize will be… and, boy, there will be blood.

Salomé exists in an unsettling world all of its own and is surely one of the most subversive films of silent Hollywood. It was a box office dud that prevented Nazimova from being able to make further films with the same control – but we all know now what she really meant. 

Moon madness… Salomé (1923)

"Look at the moon! ...looking for dead things."

I’ve always liked the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley who, along with the more painterly Arthur Rackham, defined late-Victorian story illustration with their often unsettling graphics alongside the strangest works of Edgar Allen Poe and others. Beardsley also illustrated Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play Salomé about the curious incident of the prophet undone by seven veils and the impatient impulse of youth… and was a strong influence on the look and feel of Nazimova's filmed version of 1923.

Wilde wrote the play in Paris (and in French...) where he had been familiarising himself with the decadent and symbolist art movements. He supposedly completed the bulk of the composition in a single sitting after an evening discussing the legend with his fellow artists and writers - an act of passionate writing at a time when his life was shifting into radical directions... In Salomé the act of merely looking can lead the soul on a fateful dive into the heart of desire.

Beardsley illustrated the play's 1894 English edition and added his own twist to the central character who in his hands became a knowing, sexually-advanced woman completely in control of her own allure. Even Wilde was concerned his work might be overshadowed by the power of the drawing even though he had initially viewed Beardsley as "...the only artist who, beside myself, knows what the dance of the seven veils is, and can see that invisible dance."

Detail from Beardsley's illustrations for the 1894 edition

Directed by Charles Bryant, Salomé is the quintessential platform for producer and star, Alla Nazimova - a woman aiming to combine both Wilde and Beardley's visions. This mix allowed her to put together  one of the first genuine Hollywood “art” films – an enterprise laced with her European artistic sensibilities from the choice of story, writer, designer and even sexuality… Maybe the rumours of an all-gay cast were just hype, but this story of transgressive - deathly - passion may have additional spice being performed by homosexual actors given Wilde’s proclivities and their eventual consequences.

Earl Schenck and Arthur Jasmine - I don't *know* to be honest...

Whatever the interpretations modern minds may make… it is undoubtedly a superbly-designed photo-play that achieves a lot with essentially a single studio placement. As with Camille, design was provided by the extraordinary Natacha Rambova who, taking full inspiration from Beardsley, manages to capture his erotically-charged decadence if not quite the exactitude of his draftmanship… But no wonder the author of Dorian Grey thought he had found a kindred spirit in this electrically inventive portrayer of the perverse: “I have one aim – the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing”.

Don't look now...

Such freedom of expression clearly appealed to Nazimova who was forging a brave career through her alien sophistication and an angular, conflicted, expression so at odds with the warmth of mainstream American cinema. Yes she strikes a pose but it rings true and if you look hard enough she’s actually very funny in a “does this bother you…” sort of way.

Salomé is a challenging enough subject in its own right but without Nazimova’s conviction it would collapse in on its own conceit. Salomé needed to be well choreographed to translate the author’s rhythms and, with title cards used only sparingly, the film’s attempts to visualise Wilde’s narrative rest on controlled direction and timing. The pantomime occasionally grates but then some of these characters are plain villains and they are meant to be grotesque…

The look of lust from Herod...

Not Salomé though, she’s just a bored teenager…  just about:  Nazimova was 44 at the time and with expert lighting and deep inches of foundation she carries it off, like Mary Pickford on crystal meth. She sits bored stiff at the table as the regal bacchanal rages all around. Her stepfather, Herod, Tetrach of Judea (Mitchell Lewis) has obtained power by murdering his brother and acquiring his wife, Harridan sorry Herodias, and her altogether more alluring daughter, Salomé.

They party with a collection of bizarre guests, a group of Pharisees who argue over the existence of angels, men in strange hats and with strange hairdos and nervous servants so concerned over the risks of their master’s approbrium that they would rather throw themselves off the battlements rather than be granted an audience with an unhappy King… seriously worse than the corruptions of the American studio system.

Party guests

Tiring of her step-father’s inappropriate attentions, Salomé leaves the banquet hall and steps outside for some fresh amusement. She finds  her  loyal servants Narraboth, Herod’s Captain of the Guard (Earl Schenck) who harbours unrequited love for his mistress and  Herodias’ Page (Arthur Jasmine).

Salomé ignores them and distractedly stares at the stars in a provocative pose before sounds from a deep well break her reverie… These are the prayers and pronouncements of John the Baptist  or Jokanaan in the film and play  (Nigel De Brulier), a seer and prophet  who just won’t be silenced on the subject of the impending Messiah.

Salomé catches one look at his fine chiseled features and slender strength and is hooked, demanding that he be release so that she may learn more. One of her admirers passes on the key not before a confused servant kills himself rather than face Herod’s wrath.

Jokanaan emerges and refuses to be distracted from his cause by the “young” seductress in spite of her best efforts: he knows that even if he glances at her too deeply he could fall. Soon good feeling turns to bad and, in the face of Salomé’s infatuation, faithful Narraboth kills himself in front of his love but she simply steps over his corpse in her attempt to speak closer to Jokanaan. Horrified at this callous disregard and so much else besides, Jokanaan returns to his cell…

“Thy hair, Jokanaan, is like the long black nights when the moon hides her face! The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black as thy hair!”

The film, as the play, makes constant references to the Moon – it’s tied to fate and the immutability of feminine will. What starts off blue gradually gets darker as a skull appears to fill the centre and then the sky runs red as matters descend into madness.

Salomé sulks and as the party finally comes out to join her, is made an offer she cannot refuse by Herod: if she dances he will give her anything she desires. She agrees but doesn't reveal what her prize will be…

There follows the dance of the veil in which Nazimova makes like Lady Gaga and showcases her graceful energy, she’s not quite Pola Negri but she gets the point across. Herod is certainly won over and only stops his inane grinning when she says what it is she wants: nothing less than the head of Jokanaan served on a silver salver.

Initially there’s no one to do the deed as too many have respect for the holy man but finally it is over and Salomé realises exactly what she has lost…. And there’s rather more to come as Herod takes matters into his own hands.

Salomé is wonderfully mannered and exists pretty much in an unsettling world all of its own - surely one of the most subversive films of silent Hollywood and one that undoubtedly confused its intended audience. It was a box office dud that prevented Nazimova from being able to make further films with the same control - still, she's now surely viewed as a prophet not without honour in her adopted country.

Salomé is available on DVD via Amazon and it deserves more than the basic efforts on sale. “We’re all of us lying in the gutter but some of us are staring at the kerb…” as Julian Cope later paraphrased Oscar Wilde’s famous observation…

You can also get the Beardsley illustrated  English version via Amazon... which leads you down a slightly different path.

Karma Camellias… Nazimova and Valentino’s Camille (1921)

Alla Nazimova was one of the most noticeably European influences on mid-period American silent film bringing a sophistication and style that took pretentious then gave it a make-over and a stern talk about expressing itself more.  But her films are uniquely striking, imaginative and memorable. Theda and Pola may have promised you a good time but Nazimova offered something altogether more disturbingly transgressive...

Born Miriam Leventon in Yalta, she first came to the US in 1905 with an attempt to open a Russian language theatre in New York. After this failed she was signed up by Henry Miller and became such a success on Broadway that they named a theatre after her. By 1916 she had made her first movie and soon went on to write and produce her own films.

Nazimova admires Natacha Rambova's sets

By the time she made this film, Nazimova had her own coterie of creatives including art director extraordinaire Natacha Rambova (real name, sadly, just Winifred Shaughnessy) and a young actor name of Rudolph Valentino. Both would provide a memorable contribution to this updating of Alexandre Dumas jnr’s La Dame aux Camélias book of 1846 and play of 1852.

Nazimova plays Marguerite Gautier a courtesan (OK, “escort”…) who lives a life of luxury in exchange for favours –  but only if you offer me jewels (there’s no way, if you can’t pay…). She’s living la vida loca but it’s slowly killing her consumptive body.

The film opens on a magnificent art nouveau staircase leading down onto the dance floor of a chic Parisian nightclub. Marguerite is wearing a gown trailing a shimmering satin wrap dotted with images of Camellias, her signature: the most beautiful but fragile bloom - one scratch of the petals and the flower soon dies.

She is surrounded by wealthy older men who compete for her attentions as she wittily bats them away. Across the club a young man stands and stares… he is law student Armand Duval (Valentino) a new arrival in Paris being shown around the highlife by his friend Gaston Rieux (Rex Cherryman). Gaston introduces him to Marguerite who advises that he may be better off studying love not law.

The party moves on to Marguerite’s apartment and all goes well until the hostess has a coughing fit and retires to her room. Armand follows and the two get very close very quickly.  This is much to the annoyance of Count de Varville (Arthur Hoyt) who is on a promise or special promotional offer…

A young woman arrives mid-party, a former co-worker with Marguerite from her life before, called Nichette (Patsy Ruth Miller). She catches Gaston’s eye yet he is told to behave himself as he is not worthy. A sign of Marguerite’s loyalty to those she loves… does she really belong in this shallow world of the good time girl?

Armand and Marguerite fall deeper in love and there’s a wonderful scene in a blossom-covered orchard where they picnic and Armand gives her a copy of Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost (incidentally, turned into an opera by Puccini just as Verdi turned The Lady of the Camellias into La Traviata…). He reads the story as she leans her head against his shoulder and we flash back to the book’s key moment as Manon’s lover abandons his noble life to follow her in exile to America.

In shock, Marguerite realises that she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to her lover. They are joined by Nichette and Gaston who announce their engagement: can there be the same future for Marguerite and Armand? As the blossom billows around them it seems all is possible but that wouldn’t account for the pull of a story that has been told so many times… sure enough Armand’s father soon visits Marguerite with a request that will turn her life inside out.

Ray C. Smallwood directs with smooth assurance whilst Rambova’s sets are genuinely stunning, with Marguerite’s apartment being the stand out with its organic curves, high ceilings and connecting see-through doors all of the same silken prints as Marguerite’s dress. Even her boudoir is separated from the living space by glass with flimsy curtains made from this material: everything is to be seen in her rooms and there is not a dark corner anywhere. There are even automated blinds on the oval windows which pull back at the click of a button to reveal the city outside - has anyone got those at home?

Nazimova is extraordinary to watch with her shock of dense curls corkscrewing up way above her head and an acting style that combines a powerful naturalism with mannered choreography. Her face is almost always in soft focus with her 41-yeard old features carefully lit at all times – she still carries it off.

Valentino, 16 years her junior, is also in soft focus and is a less defined presence all round than he would be with The Sheik and later films such as The Eagle in which his sense of humour was allowed to shine through. He’s still a highly credible romantic lead and no mistake.

I watched the TCM restored version which features a sprightly new score from Peter Vantine.   It comes as part of the Greta Garbo Signature Collection box set for which is serves as an interesting comparator with the Swedish star’s version of the same story. Nazimova’s no Garbo perhaps but she is still one of the silent era’s most distinctive talents. How many others are remembered from their surname only?