Marion Davies keeps moving... The Restless Sex (1920), Grapevine Blu-ray

This was Marion Davies’ ninth film and she was still only 23, with an established stage career begun in 1914 leading into films starting with the lost Runaway Romany in 1917 and a further 19 silent films until her move into the talkies. It’s the earliest I’ve seen her and already she’s a steady presence with dramatic certainties as well as on screen energies that hold your attention more than any of those around her. Believably, she is a “restless” woman who wants to experience everything in life and on her own terms.

 

The source material, Robert W. Chambers’ 1918 novel of the same name, was considered “feminist” in the way it addressed the life of Stephanie Quest whose drug-addicted parents set her on a life of precarious fortunes until she adopted by a wealthy widower, John Cleland. There’s no mention of her parents’ habits at the start of the film – not in Hollywood, not in 1920 – just that she is an orphan with a winning personality who is adopted by Cleland (Charles Lane) who is – perhaps – trying to rebuild his family. Frances Marion scripts and gives Stephanie, known to all as Steve, plenty of agency even though she will become trapped by circumstance and formality.

 

Steve is played by Etna Ross as Steve as a child and is delighted to meet her new brother Jim who is played by Stephen Carr a teenager with plenty of pep who not only featured in Davies’ Little Old New York (1923) but who went on to have a long career including the original Superman serial and Congo Bill. Jim is slightly awkward with his newly acquired sibling but she is nothing if not forthright and we sense a future romance, and, as the years pass, this looks more likely as Steve has grown into Marion Davies and Jim is now Ralph Kellard. Everyone is gathered for the end of term production of Jim's play - his crowning achievement - and Steve is even more excited when she spots his pal Oswald Grismer (Carlyle Blackwell) in the cast.

Marion Davies

The adopted siblings are deeply bonded though and talk excitedly of what they will do with their lives, Jim aiming to write and she with a broader scope involving the arts and adventure – “the restless sex” (it’s unclear as to whether this is an attribute of her sex of just nature?). All dreaming comes to a shuddering halt when they find their father dead in his office having quietly passed away. Cleland has planned for the eventuality and has left instructions for both: Jim to study in Paris and Steve to take nursing training (I’ve known quite a few “restless nurses” of both sexes though, and am married to one…). Cleland has also placed Steve’s financial affairs in the acre of his trusted friend Chilsmer Grismer (Robert Vivian) who is also father of Oswald.

  

This removes the two from each other’s immediate company and as the years pass they keep in touch only via letters as Steve, having qualified as a health professional, takes up painting in Greenwich Village bohemian society with Oswald chipping away at sculptures in the same block and Steve sharing an airy studio with Helen Davis (Corinne Barker). Steve spends a lot of time with Oswald and whilst they are out driving upstate, they narrowly avoid colliding with a steam train. Oswald’s car is a wreck though and 90 miles from NYC, they take refuge in a hotel – in separate rooms. This out of the way refuge proves unexpectedly problematic when the police raid to stop partying youth and find the two wrapped only in quilts in the same room…

Carlyle Blackwell and Marion

Soon after Steve and Oswald marry and we soon learn that this is not entirely to the couple’s satisfaction. Jim hightails it from Paris to investigate and meets Steve’s room-mate as well as a young model Marie (Vivienne Osborne) posing on a horse with very little on. Helen explains the strangeness around the newly-weds and that Oswald has fallen on harder times and had to move to run-down ol’ Bleeker Street to find a studio.

 

Things come to a head with the film’s startling set piece, a huge ball celebrating Greek culture with Steve as Pallas Athena ushered into the hall by a host of choreographed dancers. Joseph Urban designed a two-storey set for this sequence with costumes from Erté and all would not have looked out of place in a Cecil B DeMille epic. Among the extras are Norma Shearer but no one’s spotted her yet. Steve and Jim renew their relationship whilst Oswald looks on askance before order is restored and he whisks his wife off leaving Jim to dance the light fantastic with Marie.

 

But… what is the secret of the marriage and will what we all expect to happen, happen? You’ll just have to seek this film out and find the answers for yourself.

The wild party

Directed very effectively by Leon D'Usseau and Robert Z. Leonard, this shows the burgeoning status of Marion Davies and in a film which is dramatic with some light-heartedness. Edward Lorusso quotes a positive review from Motion Picture World, which says “In the charm of life’s romantic comedy Marion Davies seems to have been born for the part she plays…” and also praised her naturalism “… instead of strutting, eye-rolling and attempting to tear passion to tatters.”

 

That we can see the film on home media is entirely down to the efforts of Mr Lorusso who Kickstarted this in 2015 getting a decent digital copy from elements housed by the Library of Congress. This is now available from Grapevine Videos complete with a smashing score from Donald Sosin who uses piano and keyboard improvisations to greatly enliven proceedings including that grand set-piece ball.

 

Throughout Marion is every inch a star in waiting, Allen G. Siegler camera loves her and so do the audience as she draws the eye from the rather one-paced Kellard and even the more effective Mr Blackwell who would head to Europe after this film and never make another Hollywood film. That’s a story for another day.

Ralph Kellard

You can buy the Blu-ray from the Grapevine website and check Ed Lorusso’s Kickstarter page for his ongoing project to make as many of Marion’s films available as possible. Latest project involves The Cardboard Lover (1928) which I and over 630 others backed: can not wait to see it.

 

*Also recommended is Ed’s book, The Silent Films of Marion Davies – no silent home should be without one!

Trainspotting… The Wrecker (1929)

My Uncle Duncan was a classical musician who played for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and in his spare time he used to make working replicas of locomotives, reducing down his hand-crafted components from the original blueprints in the best equipped back-garden shed in South Liverpool. On a trip to ride behind one of these contraptions I was amazed at the amount of power generated by the steam engine.

When even a scaled down loco lets off steam the result is highly kinetic…  multiply that by a factor of twenty and I can imagine the impact of a real locomotive and can understand why the producers of The Wrecker wanted to crash an actual engine rather than use a model: they wanted to show the full force and to scare an audience of regular passengers with the vision of a spectacular disaster.

An unnaturally-quiet Waterloo...

Southern Railways collaborated fully with the film-makers and whilst they wanted to show the grace and power of their service they also wanted to show its superiority to their rivals on the road. Ignore the fact that their trains were being bounced off their lines by a lone madman but just appreciate the benefits of the “Flying Welshman”: much faster than a road coach and providing a far smoother  journey… That is, unless it met with a large object deliberately left on the rails.

There was in fact only one staged crash in the film but it was used to represent three attacks. Twenty two cameras were positioned around the crash site and a truck laden down with concrete was set in the train’s path along with sufficient measures to ensure the train headed off the rails and didn’t just carry on – a runaway train with no Denzil Washington to stop it…

The effort was more than worth it, especially in the second viewing of the crash and after the coaches were set on fire and the actors were able to scramble over the safer sections. The scene was shot on a Saturday and, amazingly, the line was re-open for business by Monday (match that Network Rail!).

The film was an Anglo-German production, directed by an experienced Hungarian Géza von Bolváry. It was based on the successful play by Arnold Ridley (yes, writer of The Ghost Train and much later the man who was Private Godfrey) and Bernard Merivale but – from its timing – appears to be a truncated version oftheir story. The narrative would suggest as much as the plot is stripped down to the bare essentials – did they assume the audience knew the story that well?  Surely not in Germany?

Joseph Striker, Benita Hume and Winter Hall

The end result lacks a bit of logical exposition and believability especially in the lengths the Wrecker is prepared to go in order to ensure the supremacy of road transport but it's still a thrilling ride.

The railway shots are splendid, not just of the crash but of the day-to-day routine of track, station and locomotion. There are some superb shots achieved through placing a camera on a platform to the side of one locomotive – brave camera work! – and then again when the camera moves seamlessly from an exterior  shot of moving train carriages to the inside of the carriage – never seen that before!

A stunning shot: the camera pans from outside the train to the party in the carriage...

On the people side, Carlyle Blackwell throws pantomime shapes as the barely disguised villain of the piece, Ambrose Barney – a man who works for the railway but has set up the Kyle Coach Company to take their business… with a little murderous help. Head of the railway Sir Gerald Bartlett (Winter Hall) takes an age to spot the viper in his nest and then is rather swifty bumped off by a sniper’s rifleshot.

Carlyle Blackwell - boo!

Joseph Striker plays “Lucky” Roger Doyle who does indeed appear to be the beneficiary of considerable good fortune especially in so quickly gaining the affection of Sir Gerald’s secretary Mary (Benita Hume – who acts most of the rest off the screen as the plucky amateur sleuth).

There’s also a good turn from Pauline Johnson as triple agent Beryl Matchley without whom the Wrecker might never get caught in spite of massively compelling circumstantial evidence!

Joseph Striker - hurrah!

The tone is slightly conflicted:  35 passengers get killed in one crash and yet the film insists on trying to lighten the mood through the hapless antics of useless private detective Rameses Ratchett (Leonard Thompson) who has a running battle with with Hitchcock favourite, Gordon Harker, as one of the rail company’s men. Whilst this is very British it makes for odd viewing – people are dying and we don’t really care if Rameses’s car won’t start or whether it can manage to travel a key five miles without incident.

Harker and Thompson - ha!

Reservations aside, the drama is multi-tracked as events ramp up to the finish with the race on to prevent the worst outrage of all and then chase down the Wrecker before he kills himself and many more…

Benita Hulme - cor!

I watched the restored version which comes with a new musical score from Neil Brand who combines synthesisers and pianos to great effect: sound-tracking so many classic locos must have been a dream come true – their very movement an invitation to sound. There’s also a re-created spoken section as an incriminating phonograph cylinder is played back. The Wrecker was shot as both sound and silent from that period when picture houses didn’t always have the modern kit.

The DVD is available from Strike Force Entertainment who normally specialise in travel heritage programmes and which explains the main market for this film. But, whether you just like steam trains or cutting-edge late silent cinematography, the film is very rewarding.

You can buy the DVD from Cherry Red Records -SFE's distribution partners - and it comes with a nifty set of extras including an abridged home movie version as well as a fascinating featurette in which Mr Brand discusses the score. Our Duncan would have loved it!

A SECR F1 Class locomotive No. A148 (I think?)