The big finish… The Chess Player (1927), Mark Fitz-Gerald with San Marco Orchestra, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto! Pordenone, Day Eight

That was the way to bow out, thousands of soldiers on horseback running at and around the camera as they charge, quick cuts of faces in battle, sword slashes, men falling… all as Edith Jehanne’s character plays the Polish anthem on her piano, envisaging a triumph as the San Marco Orchestra played Henri Rabaud’s original score at full volume.

It’s been a grand – exhausting - week and this last push lifted our tired spirits high up to the huge screen of the Teatro Verdi, fully engaging in Raymond Bernard's images and thoughts brimming over with so many highlights and wonderful conversations with a community passionately interested in communication, history and preservation. A week of shared values which showed, as the man said, how culture transcends boundaries. With attendees from across the globe, Le Giornate proves this every year as, whether from the Lower East Side, the North West, the Far East or the East End, we all want to learn more and to enquire without. Cinema Muto: it’s film for the curious…

The Chess Player is a masterclass in late-silent cinema technique that was made at the same time as Gance’s Napoleon and shares some of the scope and invention with the mobile camera and epic scale as well as innovative cutting, framing and that focus on filming thought… as Charles Dullin’s character, the clockwork inventor, faces his demise he sees the clogs of life turning and his death comes not wearing a shroud or on horseback but as an automaton… with a scythe the shape of a clock’s ticker.

Edith Jehanne et Pierre Batcheff

It’s a film of two halves, literally as well as figuratively: set in Eighteenth Century Poland after the Russian invasion of 1776, the first part covers the delicate balance between the locals and the occupying army of Tsarina Catherine II (so different from Pola Negri’s Tsarina…).

Debonair Pierre Blanchar is the pig-tailed Polish noble, Boleslas Vorowski, a master chess player and military leader who’s adopted sister Sophie Novinska (Edith Jehanne) seen as a symbol of Polish independence with her face even painted on the army’s standards. Her ward is the mysterious inventor Baron von Kempelen (Charles Dullin) a man whose genius has earned him royal favour and yet who seems to harbour deep agendas.

Sophie loves Boleslas like a brother, and loves his unlikely best friend, a Russian officer Serge Oblomoff (Pierre Batcheff) in a quite different way. But love of country will soon intervene and tear them apart. A friendly game of chess between Boleslas and the Russian Major Nicolaieff (Camille Bert) as the officer’s relax in the mess, degenerates after a Polish dancer, Wanda (Jackie Monnier), is pursued by an aggressive group of Russian offices. Boleslas goes to her rescue and starts a fight that sparks a war.

Pierre Blanchar et Edith Jehanne 

The Poles succeed in driving the Russians from Vilnius but they are eventually defeated by the latter’s superior numbers. There follows the battle mentioned at the top as the real battle is imagined by Sophie at her piano… Jehanne is just superb in this moment, emotion playing across her face as fluidly as the piano combinations as she watched and hopes in tortured isolation.

The uprising is brutally suppressed and whilst Boleslas survives the battle he is badly wounded, as the Russians search him out the Baron has an idea… it’s crazy, but it just might work. And so, it is that we take a left turn down the alley marked Georgian Steam Punk or at least the 1920’s equivalent of science fantasy.

Catherine is the Great Big Cheat!

Von Kempelen has invented many disturbing automatons, including one of himself and a platoon of sword-wielding full-size toy-soldier and he has an idea how to hide Poland’s great hope as he recuperates… inside a chess-playing automaton called the Turk. The film now shows the tour of The Turk, accompanied by von Kempelen, Sophie and Wanda, as the mechanical wonder beats all comers and travels ever closer to Germany and freedom.

But, Major Nicolaieff recognises the playing style in losing to the machine and realises that the clock-work grand master hides a secret. He persuades their host, King Stanislas, to send the Turk to the Empress in St Petersburg… out of the frying pan… and into a no-win scenario for, not only does Nicolaieff now the secret, Catherine has an even bigger secret about Sophie which could completely undermine the fight for Poland… the pace changes but the strange atmospheric and claustrophobia of the last hour, make for thrilling denouement.

Blanchar and Dullin

There was indeed a mechanical chess player known as The Turk who defeated almost all opponents from 1770 to 1854 and baffled the best minds of Europe including Napoleon Bonaparte (not to mention Benjamin Franklin). Remarkably it was only “exposed” in the 1820s... some trick but it wasn’t in Poland and Russia.

Combining the two stories together makes for a unique blend and it worked so well with the full-blooded sound of the orchestra in the Teatro’s precision crafted acoustic space. Mark Fitz-Gerald conducted and deserved every bow in this most heated finale!

In Old Kentucky (1927) with Philip Carli

Our last John M. Stahl movie provided far gentler fare and was the rare opportunity of seeing James Murray not in The Crowd, although he was in several crowds and called on to do his trademark man-at-the-edge-of-his-tether routine. This film presumable happened after The Crowd – if the stories of Vidor’s discovery of the actor are true and probably Stahl’s use of Murray would confirm the chronology given his character arc.

Murray plays Jimmy Brierly the son of a long line of proud and successful Brierly’s (Edward Martindel) whom have made themselves rich through horse breeding and racing. Murray’s girl is Nancy (Helene Costello) and both seem well-adjusted kids… But when Jimmy gets called off to the Great War, things are about to change.

He returns a shell of the man he was before, drinking and unable to function let alone live up to father’s expectations. His relationship with both sweetheart and family breaks down and he walks away just as his father’s financial difficulties threaten the family’s future. But – you’ve seen this coming haven’t you… there’s always a chance at redemption if you happen to find your old thoroughbred in a army horse sale and the horse, who performed so valiantly with Jimmy in the tranches, is a “mudder”… the day of the big, make or break race approaches and it’s a dry sunny day… if only it would rain, the old nag would have a chance?!

The film features a number of actual black actors which is always a good thing to see although there’s a lead character in black face… still, this must have been progress. The film ends with Highpockets (Stepin Fetchit… real name Lincoln Perry) agreeing to marry Lily May (Carolynne Snowden) and as the two embrace, he picks her pocket… what a rogue! Snowdon especially performs well and does the right thing for her “employers” … she deserves more than being the comic relief and Stahl does allow her character through to the drama.

The Vengeance du Sergent de Ville (1913)

 Desmet Collection Discoveries, with Nick Sosin

The next generation got the chance to shine with Donald’s son Nick Sosin performing experimental and humorous accompaniment to a series of shorts.

I especially liked The Two Little Boys Next Door (1911) was a British short with the titular lads being very naughty indeed in battling their neighbours to Nick’s quirky accompaniment of hi-register scatt and ukulele.

Also good was Mes Voisins Font Danser (1908) featured the attempts of Max Linder to get some rest avec une malle du tete! There’s a choir rehearsing upstairs and they respond to his request to “turn that noise down” by starting to dance, so much so that, naturally the roof caves in. It’s comedy chaos but it’s also The Master, as Charlie called him, being masterly.

Louis Feuillade’s The Vengeance du Sergent de Ville (1913) was also a hoot as the policeman in question is a noisy neighbour, playing his horn far too load and forcing the other tenants to try stop him and resorting to slapping a paper mache model of the copper. My advice leave it out, he ain’t worth it!

The concentrated joy of these early shorts was a timely reminder of the prevalence and popularity of the short form comedy. And it was good to see at least a few this week!

So, that’s it, I’m leaving on a jet plane… DO know when I’ll be back again though! June for Bolgna and October for Pordenone and Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 38!! An excellent week and as Stephen Horne and Luigi Vitale collected the new David Gill Award for best musical collaboration – deservedly so for me  – Stephen dedicated it to all of the Giornate’s musicians, who even he is in awe of: me too and I’m not alone!

So, thank you for the music Giornate players, you have ALL brought us so much joy this week and we are loving your work.

Arrividerchi and see you all in 2019!

The prestige… Cagliostro (1929)

Hans Stüwe

So many silent films have been completely lost and others are shadows of their former selves - are we to be any less stricken at a film that is only partially intact: half empty of half full?  Richard Oswald’s tantalisingly incomplete Cagliostro - Liebe und Leben eines großen Abenteurers survives in just enough quantity to show us what it probably was....

This edition has been painstakingly reconstructed by the French Cinematheque in collaboration with Potemkin films. It is based on a 9.5mm Baby Pathé abridgement (intended for family viewing) and one surviving reel of 35mm including some censored scenes featuring startling nudity - their removal from view ironically ensuring their eventual survival and public display 80 years on.

In the court of the Capetian King...

Based on Johannes von Guenther's novel about the life of Joseph Balsamo, alias the Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, an Italian occultist, adventurer and freemason-adventurer (make what you will of that and pretty much the whole of his life story)… Oswald’s film is grand in scope and still has impact even in truncated form.

Hans Stüwe is impressively larger than life as Cagliostro, charming the courts of Europe with his prestidigitation and legerdemain. He turns lead into gold in some wonderfully atmospheric shots and sets the scenes with audacious use of a disco-ball…

Studio 1784

Seemingly he believes his own hype and calls for sick people that he can make better. But it may be more trickery and part of his attempt to gain social stature… moving ever closer to kings and queens. These early scenes feature elaborate mis-en-scene and expressionist flourishes that build up Cagliostro’s mystery.

Stüwe is striking enough to carry this off but he’s less convincing as a paramour and his love affair with Lorenza (Renée Héribel) initially lacks conviction, but maybe this was left on the Pathe cutting room floor? He woos Lorenza in a missing section and we quickly learn that it was not the adventurer Cagliostro she fell for but the man Balsamo who, for a time, stopped the circus.

Suzanne Bianchetti and Hans Stüwe

The couple journey to France in 1784 and find the country on the verge of uprising with economic strife compounded by uncaring royalty. In the midst of a political rally they encounter a disenfranchised noblewoman, Jeanne de la Motte (Illa Meery) a descendant of Henry II fallen on hard times: the “Barefoot Countessa”. Cagliostro takes her under his wing and vows to restore her fortune at the same time seeing a way into royal favour.

Charles Dullin

A number of characters have been lost in the cut and others have been reduced: Charles Dullin as Marquis de Espada-Comte de Breteil, is seen all too briefly for most of the film. An admirer of Lorenza the Marquis views Cagliostro as a fraud and is intent on exposing him and grabbing the girl.

In lavish surroundings, Cagliostro presents Jeanne to the court and raises money to help her, she is accepted back into royal patronage and becomes the Queen’s lady in waiting.

Illa Meery, not just bare feet...

But the Italian blows his big chance as his tricks don’t come off and he fails to impress King Louis XVI (Edmond Van Daële) and Marie-Antoinette (Suzanne Bianchetti) – has the Marquis sabotaged his act? In trying to redeem himself Cagliostro shows the Queen her future, Oswald cleverly zooming in on the magician’s eye to show Marie Antoinette’s final moments at la guillotine…

Alfred Abel

Cagliostro is banished from court but he plots revenge and calls in a favour from Jeanne to persuade Prince de Rohan (Alfred Abel) to buy an exceptionally expensive necklace for Marie-Antoinette with whom he is besotted. The con goes off well and we see Jeanne parading around in the Queen’s finery and little else. Cagliostro is strangely unmoved, perhaps his love for Lorenza is starting to affect his moral judgement although he still steals the jewels back.

But the game is soon up and Cagliostro is given over to the Marquis de Espada for questioning in his hi-tech arabesque palace – sliding doors and automated. Tied to a pillar he breaks free as the Marquis’ “questions” Lorenza in front of him… the anti gradually being striped away to reveal just  the hero.

Hans Stüwe and Suzanne Bianchetti

They escape back to Italy were they finally think they have finally found their freedom. only to be arrested by the Inquisition (no one expects the Italian Inquisition do they?) intent on punishing necromancy. Locked in Piranesi-esque dungeons, their doom fast approaches and, as Cagliostro finally seems to have caught up with the steadfast Lorenza’s feelings, they seem to have only hope left for happiness…

Elaborate imprisonment

The DVD comes with two soundtrack options which make for fascinating comparison.

There’s a DJ Cam cut up which could be perfectly suited to what is in effect a cut up of a film. He sounds very much like a Gallic version of the great DJ Shadow (a jazzier Endtroducing…?) but, even though his invention is entertaining, it lacks emotional flexibility and rides rough-shod over some of the narrative.

The piano accompaniment from Mathieu Regnault is more period appropriate and moves with the story. I understood the action more with his playing and had a better connection… there’s some lovely phrasing and it’s just more sympatico.

Both musicians make the very most of what remains and so should we. It’s difficult to make a case for this being up there with The Chess Player and other late silent era period classics, but it’s good looking and well played. The story is intact and there is sufficient drama left to have you on the edge of your seat right till the end.

The DVD is available direct from Potemkin although I got mine from the lovely BFI shop. It features an extensive booklet (tout en Français) including a fascinating essay written for May 1929 editions of Cinémagazine by Marcel Carné who was an assistant on the film. Whilst referencing lost scenes such as an apparently large-scale village fete, Carné elaborates on the set design and underlines the considerable will of his German director who, speaking hardly any French, had this film in the can within 60 days.

Not bad going for a multi-national blockbuster that interweaves so much of courtesans, kings and conjuring...

Turkish delight… The Chess Player (1927)

A mechanical chess player known as The Turk defeated almost all opponents from 1770 to 1854 and baffled the best minds of Europe including Napoleon Bonaparte (not to mention Benjamin Franklin). Remarkably it was only “exposed” in the 1820s... some trick.

In Raymond Bernard’s 1927 film, The Chess Player, a similar device is used to hide the leader of the Polish forces from the occupying Russian army. It’s an ingenious mix of illusory fact with fiction.

Charles Dullin and friend

Clearly treading a similar path to Abel Gance, Bernard’s film is full of camera mobility, rapid cross-cutting and attempts to show the inner lives of its characters.

Set in Eighteenth Century Poland after the Russian invasion of 1776, the film was adapted from the novel by Henry Dupuis-Mazuel and stars Pierre Blanchar as the pig-tailed Polish noble, Boleslas Vorowski, a master chess player and military leader.

Empress Catherine II’s troops have over-run Poland and the armies from both sides work in uneasy alliance sharing quarters in Boleslas’ home town of Vilnius. On the outskirts lives the inventor Baron von Kempelen (Charles Dullin) a man who’s genius has earned him royal favour and yet who seems to harbour deep agendas.

His ward, Sophie Novinska (Edith Jehanne) is seen as a symbol of Polish independence with her face painted on the army’s standards and yet she may not be entirely all she seems… Even though she loves him like a brother, she does not reciprocate Bolselas’ romantic feelings and instead is drawn to his unlikely best friend, a Russian officer Serge Oblomoff (Pierre Batcheff)… a decent enough chap in spite of the heavy foundation and powdered wig – fashion eh?

Edith Jehanne and Pierre Batcheff

Boleslas plays chess against the Russian Major Nicolaieff (Camille Bert) as the officer’s relax in the mess. A Polish ballerina, Wanda (Jackie Monnier), performs for them but this is not enough for some of the Russians who pursue her into a locked room… Boleslas rushes to her aid and starts a fight that sparks a war.

The Poles succeed in driving the Russians from Vilnius but they are eventually defeated by the latter’s superior numbers. The battle is filmed in style by Bernard with camera’s tracking the cavalry charge and with dynamic inter-cutting showing different facets of the chaos.

Sophie watches on in tortured isolation from her grand house… hoping for the survival of both her friends and appalled at the deaths in her name. Jehanne emotes superbly, playing out her grief on the piano – very 1927 but very effective.

Boleslas survives the battle but is badly wounded, as the Russians search him out the Baron has an idea…

Pierre Blanchar and Charles Dullin

The second half of the film shows the tour of The Turk, a mechanical chess player which conceals the recuperating Boleslas. Accompanied by von Kempelen, Sophie and Wanda, the mechanical wonder beats all comers and travels ever closer to Germany and freedom.

But, Major Nicolaieff recognises the playing style in losing to the machine and realises that the clock-work grand master hides a secret. He persuades their host, King Stanislas, to send the Turk to the Empress in St Petersburg… out of the frying pan…

Catherine's a great big cheat...

At court the Empress is highly amused by this new toy but orders it to be executed after she fails to beat it and tries to cheat… Boleslas sweeps all the pieces from the board (the real Turk would also react similarly to any moves outside the rules).

It is also revealed that the Empress knows Sophie’s real heritage and that she is a Russian princess and she sends Nicolaieff off to the Baron’s castle to find the evidence required to destroy Sophie’s credibility…

Pierre Blanchar and Edith Jehanne

Can Boleslas be rescued from the firing squad, who will Sophie chose between pigtaled and powder-puff princes and will the cause of Polish independence be maintained?

There’s a lot packed into the last part of the film and it feels very much like a novel turned to film with Bernard cramming in as many resolutions as possible.

Camille Bert gets a shock...

But The Chess Player also contains some stunning sequences especially those at the Baron’s castle when Nicolaieff encounters the full extent of his invention in one of the most macabre silent set pieces I’ve seen.

I watched the Milestone DVD which uses the restoration overseen by Kevin Brownlow, Patrick Stanbury and David Gill. It is enhanced by Henri Rabaud’s stirring new score performed by the Orchestre de Radio-Television-Luxembourg ably conducted by Carl Davis.