I remember [Pickford] telling me that she couldn't bear the way [D. W. Griffith] directed adolescent girls. She said, "Oh, he directed them so they ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. And I would not do that sort of thing..." She already saw that naturalism was terribly important, even more than Griffith did.
Kevin Brownlow
For the first time since the Pandemic, it was time to
play Six Degrees of Kevin Brownlow and, as usual, the answer was two; Kevin had
met and interviewed Mary Pickford on a number of occasions. This direct
relationship with the “source material”, one of the major players, one of the
three of four, who really made the cinema of Hollywood in the 1910s, predating
even Kennington’s own Charlie and her husband Doug, even outshining her director
on so many occasions, David Wark, distancing herself in a way Lillian didn’t as
she set up her own production company in 1918 and took charge of her intellectual
property as well as her career.
Kevin’s introduction focused on fellow film collector Bert
Langdon and his own meetings with Heart o' the Hills’ cinematographer, Londoner
Charles Rosher, who shot all of Pickford’s films from 1918 to 1927, became the
first cameraman to win an Oscar for Sunrise and grabbed a second for The
Yearling (1946). Kevin’s friend was able to screen his original 35m nitrate
original not just of this film but also My Best Girl (1927) neither of
which Rosher had seen in years.
Heart o' the Hills impressed Kevin in terms of its
technique but also Pickford’s range; “characters no sooner look at each
other, than they exchange blows…” The hillbilly dance is “a classic sequence”
featuring the ethnic authenticity director Sidney Franklin was looking for.
Kevin also singled out art director Max Parker for his creation of the
backwoods locations and living spaces; as he says, there was nothing “cutsie” or
sentimental about this endeavour and the producer herself also has to take
great credit for that… Kevin concluded by saying:
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| Pickford's character shows her scars from maternal beatings... |
I suspect Kevin was preaching to the already converted
but this is indeed a wonderfully spirited film and one that treats its audience
with respect, another key element of Pickford’s approach. After all, she was a working-class
women just like most of her audience, her agenda was to deliver the kind of stories
they understood and morality they would agree with in a tough environment they
would recognise. We don’t talk enough about silent film stars and class, except
to note that they “escaped”, but I don’t think Mary, or Charlie and many
others, pulled the ladder up.
Here Mary is Mavis, who’s father was shot in the back
when she was young and whose mother Martha (Claire McDowell) has been worn down
over time, fighting to keep going in their ram shackled homestead. Her best pal
is young Jason Honeycutt (Harold Goodwin) who takes her out on fishing trips –
some worms were sadly harmed in the making of this film – and other larks.
Jason’s father Steve (Sam De Grasse) is the opposite of
fun and, as we quickly learn, many other things including honesty, fairness and
virtue. He’s hard on his boy and Mavis while targeting Martha, her hand and,
her land which, as Mavis shows Jason, is rich in coal, surprising for such an
elevated location but there you go.
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| Hootenanny show-down! John Gilbert on the left. |
Money comes to town in the form of “forrigns” Colonel
Pendleton (W.H. Bainbridge) and his entourage including son Gray (a surprise
appearance by young John Gilbert, just 22 here and on the brink of stardom) and
his intended Marjorie Lee (Betty Bouton). Also with them is the scheming Morton
Sanders (Henry Hebert) who is plotting with Steve Honeycutt to grab Martha’s
land and swindle as much of the community as possible.
There’s a great confrontation between the two at the local hop, where Gray, who has caught the eye of Mavis and vice-versa, joins the dance only for Jason to try and out-manoeuvre him in a kind of strictly-come-country dance-off. In the end Mavis joins in and a proper scrap is narrowly averted.
Soon though she has worse to come as Steve pushes Martha to marry him and orders her to leave home. She takes her issue to the locals, led by her wise Granpap Jason Hawn (Fred Huntley) and they decide that dressing up in white hoods and costumes to confront the land-grabbers is the way to resolve this.
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| Don't mess with Mary... |
Now I’m not sure why it is that certain Americans like wearing their
sheets in this way but I’m also not convinced it’s a Ku Klux Klan moment –
although it might well be. It ends badly though as someone shoots Sanders and,
of course, given motive, opportunity and her outspokenness, Mavis is soon
standing trial accused of his murder.
As Kevin Brownlow points out, this film doesn’t pull its
punches and the stakes are high. Mavis’ character also stays true to herself and
the resolution is worth the wait. It’s an entertaining film with that mix of
humour and grit our great grand parents knew and loved to see on screen.
Pickford is mighty as you’d expect and Rosher packs as many glorious head shots
in as possible as we watch her unconscious naturalism lead the emotional
charge!
We were watching a 35mm print made from an original copy
at the Mary Pickford Foundation and it was full of rich textures and stunning
depth of field. This is one of the real pleasures of the Bioscope, the
connection between the audience, the celluloid and the general ambience of this
unique venue. The atmospherics are also heavily informed by the subtlety of the
accompanist and in this case it was Colin Sell who not only as Kevin predicted,
showed his powers of controlled syncopation for the dancing sequence but also
played along so sympathetically with Pickford and the rest of the players.
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| The British version of the sheet music |
We were also treated to a wonderful performance of the
song released to accompany the film from Colin and the Bioscope’s MC Michelle
Facey. On BBC programmes you sometimes witness “experimental” archaeologists
attempting to recreate certain processes to illustrate and find out more about
the techniques and the “taste” of the period. The Bioscope is a working example
of this experimentalism and Facey and Sell recreated another key element of the
spirit of this film and the emotional reaction this song would have brought.
Glenn Mitchell had a copy of both the US and UK version of the sheet music and
naturally we went with the British copy. Loveliness ensued… and the film was
set up!
Early Mary…
White Roses (1910) directed by Frank Powell was
screened first on a 16mm from Chris Bird’s collection and, whilst its plot was
a little outlandish, it was all good fun with Mary’s character Betty for some
reason in love with a very shy man called Harry (Edward Dillon). Harry hasn’t
the courage to ask her directly so her arranges to send three colours of
flowers to her and a note saying that she should wear red for yes and white for
no… Sounds simple but he gives the task to a young lad (Jack Pickfor, who’s
other sister, Lottie is also involved), who promptly gets robbed of note and
flowers.
A well meaning man steps into help and buys replacements
but there’s no note and so Betty wears white forcing Harry to propose to his
cook in retaliation… That’s not the end of things but you really have to watch
this to believe it! John Sweeney accompanied and suspended all our disbelief in
the process.
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| Mary and Elmer wait for the law... |
The Narrow Road (1912) directed by D. W. Griffith
on rare and possibly singular* 16mm print made from a nitrate original by
legendary collector John Cunningham, now from Chris Bird’s collection, the film
is only otherwise preserved in the Library of Congress paper-print collection
as a paper copy of the celluloid made for copyright purposes. It was another of
the unique Bioscope occasions, watching Mary married to ex-convict played by
the great Elmer Booth, who is torn between going straight at a wood merchants and
his loyalty to fellow con and recidivist forger, Charles Hill Mailes.
Ashley Valentine accompanied with lovely lines and in
tune with this short but powerful tale. As Michelle said in her introduction,
some say DW was at his best for these Biograph shorts and on the evidence of
this and others, I’d have to agree but part of that is down to the contribution
of players like Pickford who would eventually fall out with him and others,
such as Booth who would die tragically early in a car, driven by an inebriated Tod
Browning.
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