Forde every stream… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 42, Day Four

Tonight’s special was Pêcheur d'Islande (1924) with accompaniment from Gabriel Thibaudeau and Frank Bockius (again) and I wonder if it is possible that in future years we will look back on this GCM as The Bockius Edition, so involved has the percussionist been in the screenings I have enjoyed the most as well as this accompaniment; excellent interplaying, spirited lines and improvisation.

As for the codfish, I suppose someone had to make a film about the fragile mortality and crashing uncertainty of the Bretton fishermen in the Icelandic sea, the anguished weeks and months for those at home waiting for loved ones to return as other members of the family were despatched in colonial wars or just dropped dead off camera; the sheer uncertainty of life on the edge, extrapolated in visceral ways on screen, making the point with the bluntest instruments of cinematic convention being used to generate expectation - hopes raised not once, not twice but three times - before finally jabbing the audience right on the nose. Pêcheur d'Islande is that film. As the advertising had it at the time, it’s an “…affirmation of crushing fatalism which brings to the scale of the elements our humble and proud humanity.”

 

The film looks a dream and there are fabulous performances from Charles Vanel, Sandra Milovanoff (see above), Roger San Juana and Madame Boyer, yet the fatalism crushes the film relentlessly. The tragedy was not earned, it was imposed.

  

Mabel resists Ford's crushing fatalism

And yet, only a few hours ago I was so happy… The morning saw a top-quality slapstick session and you just get the warm giggles the second you see a line up of Mabel Normand, Mack Sennet and yes, even Ford Sterling. The gang are At Coney Island (1912) and are probably making things up on the spot with Mabel shining brightest. The same can be said for Harold Lloyd and his practically perfect From Hand to Mouth (1919) two-reels that pack as much in as Gance of von Stroheim did over ten – well, certainly more gags. Harold’s going hungry and gets caught up in  trying to save a young girl (his first film with future wife, Mildred Davies) and her inheritance. There’s bent lawyers out to cheat her and Snub Pollard out to kidnap her with only one hungry Harry and his instant wit to help her; they don’t stand a chance!

 

What can I say about the man who went on to direct Arthur Askey, a Liverpool-born funster of World-historic proportions, in The Ghost Train (1941)?

 

Walter Forde’s last silent film is packed with inventive routines: a baby and a doll mix up in the toy store, serving up toy soldiers just like chips on newspaper with oil for gravy and trying to wrap balloons in brown paper for a bespectacled Rees-Mogg-model junior toff. Forde’s an inventor, he’s not sure what of, but it seems to work until it blows his landlord’s house up. He gets a job in a toy shop and meets an attractive young woman Pauline (Pauline Johnson) who just happens to work for the War Office, he invites her for dinner cooked by his uppity roommate, Cuthbert (Arthur Stratton) who, in a constant battle of wills, refuses to act the role of his butler.

 

Walter making a right pig's ear of things

Walter’s invention of a remote-control tank could be a game-changer but a group of spies finds out and set’s off to stop him demonstrating the kit to the Minister for War. Their leader is modelled on a similar mastermind in Fritz Land’s Spies and sits at a huge desk, pushing buttons for everything he needs, drinks, photographs, cigarette and lighters… There’s a very funny bit of business on the Underground as the baddies chase Walter up lifts and down emergency spiral staircases in scenes reminiscent of Keaton in The Cameraman and elsewhere. The gags are mostly good and Forde lets things flow without over-extending his ideas, no wonder he worked so well with Big-Hearted Arthur.

 

He gets his chance to demo for the Minister but the enemy agents kidnap him and Pauline, and, as Walter pushes his pal Cuthbert too far, the real-life tank runs amok to comic effect. The filmmakers were clearly delighted to get the loan of kit and crew and have the crushed cars, walls and buildings to show for it.

Hurry up Harry!

Harry Piel’s taken some stick at the Festival for his repetitions and improbably plotting – but things mostly came together for the epically daft Rivalen (1923) in which we finally got to see his acting as well as his directing and writing. Piel is dynamic and eye-catching with Fairbanks wit and physicality  allied to Houdini-esque escapology with one section in which he is lowered into a lake in a glass pyramid and then seen in a studio tank struggling to escape.

 

It's possible that the film was a sequel to Das schwarze Kuvert as well as being followed by Der letzte Kampf according to Hemma Marlene Prainsack and Andreas Thein in the programme notes. That would make sense of the bad blood between Piel’s character Peel (see what they did there?) and the evil Dr Ravello (Charly Berger) – he’s got a robot! – and the fact they’re both pursuing the same woman, rich industrialist John Evans’ daughter Evelyn (Inge Helgard). The pace has the relentlessness of a serial and the outlandish sci-fi plot barely makes sense nor does it need to.

 

I loved the “Heaven and Hell” masked ball with the theme, held in Evans’ castle with lots of Teutonic debauchery and outrageous set designs from Hermann Warm who worked on Caligari and Albert Korell. It provided and interesting contrast with the even more spectacular work of the French Sonia Delaunay who is also being highlighted during the festival.

 

Accompaniment was from Günter A. Buchwald and Frank Bockius – The Man Who Never Sleeps – and they lifted the film and the fun with their swinging affinity.

 

Fishing about on the river

No greater contrast could be found than in the long-lost documentary, Amazonas, Maior Rio Do Mundo (1918) which was only rediscovered this year and even made the news in The Guardian. It’s a fascinating document of the life and importance of the huge waterway which revealed hitherto unknown details about Brazil Nuts – they’re encased in fruit!? – as well as rubber and mahogany. Vegetarians and omnivore’s alike looked away for the scenes of manatee hunting but at least they killed what they ate. It reminded me of the basking shark hunt filmed by Flaherty for Man of Aran only real. A window into the past that was seemingly shattered exists again.

 

Accompaniment was from José María Serralde Ruiz and it was definitely Amazon prime!

 

Mack and Mabel provided my third trip to Coney Island in a few weeks after Eleanor and James in The Crowd (BFI) and Clara and Antonio in It (Kennington Bioscope). They used to say it was The Playground of the World, a bit like Blackpool… and that’s exactly where we’re headed tomorrow on Wakes Wednesday! I can not wait!

I want you to crush him, fatalistically!

House of cards… La maison du mystère (1923)

I must admit to some trepidation in taking on Flicker Alley’s three-disc collection of this serial – who has the time for the best part of seven hours of serial especially when the British summer is actually happening outside, as we speak!?

But, after a couple of episodes still peaking at the garden, nipping out to clear some weeds and eat salad, I was hooked and it turns out that you can very easily make the time to find out what happens in this tense thriller. Unlike many earlier serials, La maison du mystère (The House of Mystery), isn’t really episodic and plays like the chapters in the book, by Jules Mary, it was based on. It’s effectively one long narrative often picking up directly after the events of the previous episode.

Ivan

As such it holds your attention and you never feel there’s any padding or artificial rounding off to make the stories fit within the format: the film-makers respected their audience and only now can we see their full intent by watching each element back-to-back – there was no box-set gorging in 1923; you had to wait a week at a time!

For a French production this is, of course very Russian with Alexandre Volkoff directing and Ivan Mozzhukhin (as Ivan Mosjoukine) acting and co-scripting with Volkoff. The two maintain a superb continuity throughout and keep a tight rein on the narrative which could so easily sprawl.

Caught

The tone is playful and inventive with each episode featuring a flick of the director’s wrist: a wedding shown entirely in silhouette, an overhead shot of a group of police officers suddenly emerging and circling around a wanted man and a breathless chase across a broken wooden bridge with four men holding hands to hold it together – a sequence that lasts for half an episode and could easily have come from a much later era.

The Human Bridge

Volkoff and Mozzhukhin never tire of their story and across the years it was made – 1921-23 – and the decades covered by the story, they maintain integrity and tension: they never repeat themselves and fit in stories within each episode which add extra weight and flavour. It’s a rich experience and you feel exactly like you’ve just read a good book.

Jules Mary was known for writing around miscarriages of justice and this story is no different and, whilst I usually hate stories about innocents proved guilty, you have to see this one through to make sure that justice, if at all possible, is done. To this extent it does feel very “modern” HBO or Netflix with victory not easily won and with a magnetic star every bit as capable as John Hamm or Kevin Spacey with a “European” sensibility quite unlike Hollywood at the time – Mozzhukhin looks at the camera with worrying intensity and is matched by the malevolent complexity of   the remarkable Charles Vanel who would enjoy a 77 year career including Clouzot’s Wages of Fear and Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief.

Charles Vanel

Ivan Mozzhukhin (as Ivan Mosjoukine) plays Julien Villandrit the inheritor of a large mill who lives in a large country mansion in neighbouring grounds. When first encountered he is an excited youth, sprinting in shirt-sleeves to propose to the daughter of his neighbours, Régine de Bettigny (Hélène Darly). He’s so nervous he could burst and behaves with gauche uncertainty as he tries to build up the courage to pop the question to Régine’s parents.

The Mill and the House

Permission duly granted he bounds off home unable to contain himself and literally bumps into his best friend, Henri Corradin (Charles Vanel) who has also, secretly held hopes for Régine. As Julien hangs upside down from a tree, Corradin is speechless, full of loathing for this undeserving loon…

Hélène Darly and Ivan Mozzhukhin

And so it begins, as Hell has no fury like an industrialist scorned, and hatred brews that will shape the lives of this unequal triangle for ever.

A retired banker, Marjory (played by Bartkevitch) is a gentle giant who seems exceptionally fond of Régine but also her mother (Nina Raievska) gently embracing her hand as her ailing husband sleeps outside their opulent “cottage”. Then there’s the woodcutter Rudeberg (Nicolas Koline) a man of no fixed moustache and a keen amateur photographer…he is a camera and the camera rarely lies… although sometimes it withholds what it knows…

Nicolas Koline

We move forward to Julien and Régine’s happy marriage which is shown in a stunning sequence of silhouetted tableaux – it’s the type of device that sets silent hearts all a flutter and had me calling the rest of the family in to re-watch it. It’s a remarkable play – like shadow puppets but with each actor clearly discernible and in character: Julien and Régine tender and Corradin, thwarted, sneaking down stairs; making plans.

Corradin schemes

The pieces are in place but it will take a full seven years before the drama will really begin… this is a “long firm” of  a story: payback will take all but every one of the serial’s 400 minutes. Moving on… the young couple now have a precocious daughter, Christiane (Simone Genevois) – their family complete. Already turning slightly grey with the agony of disappointment, Corradin smirks when Julien struggles with the Mill’s financial difficulties and is determined that he must not only succeed, his friend must fail… totally.

Julien confronts Marjory

He focuses attention on the kindly Marjory who, in addition to secretly bailing out the mill –  repeatedly paying their outstanding bills – is also inordinately fond of Régine: really, really fond. Julien’s not made of stone and he soon begins to doubt the old man at first banning him from their house after one generosity to many and then violently confronting him. But, as Julien storms homeward, the old banker follows and, collapsing from the effort, reveals the truth: he is Régine’s father but this must never be revealed.

Julien runs for help but whilst he’s away, another assailant appears and is caught on camera by the shocked Rudeberg who snaps the old man’s final moments; its grim struggle mirrored in his lens.

Rudeberg's lens sees all

By the time Julien returns with help the picture he has described is far from what is found: it’s murder and he is very much in the frame…

Thus begins Julien’s epic struggle to prove his innocence and, after he is incarcerated, to get free to rescue his family and to bring the murderer and his traitorous friend to justice. Over the course of the series he adopts many disguises: itinerant, clown, foreign legionnaire – they all serve in the war – and disabled veteran who works for the Mill unrecognised.

It's an epic

Christiane grows up (to become Francine Mussey – whose open, pretty face impressed my son no end…) and never forgets her father – meeting him once when she is seven and then again after the war when she begins to help him. She form a life-long attachment for Pascal (Vladimir Strizhevsky), Rudeberg’s son which is bitter-sweet as his father has used his photographs of the murder to not only blackmail Corradin into supporting the boy but has, as a result, condemned her father to his half-life in prison and then on the run…

Francine Mussey

It’s a complex tale that unfolds at novel pace… and watching it almost all at once is not the way to fully appreciate it – filming took two years for various reasons, and audiences would have agonising waits between each episode: a huge dramatic tension guaranteeing their interest. More like old analogue TV and not digital-on-demand.

The actors are all superb, Varnel treading an expert line between friend and foe and Hélène Darly enduring years of faint hope and almost certain degradation. Nicolas Koline epitomises their shared skill of character consistency and the film’s efforts to show the moral frailty in extremes as he does the right thing by his son but is largely to blame for the whole long mess.

Hélène Darly

And Ivan… Ivan is simply magnificent; one of the very best performers of the era here allowed to go the full Alec Guiness/Lon Chaney in a succession of disguises whilst all the time his charcter gets older, worn down by war and defeat… yet still with hope and the unqualified, unwavering love of his wife and daughter.

The set is available direct from Flicker Alley or Amazon and comes with an energetic new score from Neil Brand: a musical marathon which retains common themes and under-pins events in perfect sympathy – it’s full of winning lines and carries a steadfast charm that is very much the story of Julien and Régine’s love and hope.

Ivan of many faces

Also included is a slideshow of rare production stills and a 12-page booklet featuring extensive notes about the serial’s cast and crew compiled by Lenny Borger and David Robinson.

It’s essential for all fans of Monsieur Mosjoukine and inventive European silent cinema.

A mighty wind… La Proie du vent (1927)

Lillian Hall-Davis

I watched René Clair’s And Then There Were None over Easter, it’s the kind of film that works with a multi-generational audience and a gentle, detached take on one of Christie’s more… nihilistic works. François Truffaut may have dismissed later Clair as only making films for old ladies but André Bazin, founder of Cahiers, was more constructive in saying that Clair “…has remained in a way a film-maker of the silent cinema.” Which is very much the case for ATTWN… everything bad happens in shadowy silence with wordy Christie expressed succinctly with atmospherics.

Two decades before Clair produced his third feature film, La Proie du vent (The Prey of the Wind) which feels a bit like one of Agatha’s – a group of well-off people trapped in a large country pile with passions aflame, mystery and murder in the air – but which also presents as more modern that his later film. There’s more visual narrative content and the story is told through shots reflecting the players’ thoughts and mood with sparing use of inter-titles.

Timeless silent technique

Maybe Clair never quite got over the restrictions of having dialogue or maybe I watch too many silent films…? Either way La Proie du vent marks Clair’s growing confidence as a film-maker en route to his late silent/early-talkie purple patch.

Oh, and we get to see Lillian Hall-Davis’ shoulders… and more than that, one of the finest British actors of the period shows us a stillness and emotional flexibility that still sets her apart. She is timeless.

Charles Vanel and plane

Events begin in the sky as fearless aviator Pierre Vignal (Charles Vanel) soars through clouded skies before coming in to land. He’s due to fly East to establish a new route for commercial flights to Russia but has to postpone when a newspaper reveals trouble in the Balkans.

We switch to the prisons of Libanie where a daughter, Hélène (Sandra Milowanoff),

fights for her mother’s life whilst her husband (Jean Murat) is released by the military junta. As her fellow prisoners round on her suspecting he may have sold their secrets to save his own skin, Hélène’s mother dies; Clair simply showing her crucifix slipped from her hand. Hélène puts the cross around her own neck, future very uncertain.

From mother to daughter

A year passes and Vignal finally sets out to prepare the company’s new commercial line but before he can reach the Russian border he hits a bank of huge clouds and a merciless storm that forces him to land anywhere he can. He sees only trees until a magnificent castle is revealed below, he comes into land but at the last his plane hits a statue and he crashes.

Hours later he wakes up bandaged in bed and looks across to see a beautiful woman sitting patiently by him, the Countess Catchiez (Lillian Hall-Davis) a vision of peace and hope. They are joined by her brother-in –law, the husband from the Libanie prison. 

Blown off course by the wind and crash-landing at the Castle

He discovers that he is in Styannik Castle in Slovakia. His wounds will take some time to heal but as they are so secluded he must stay until he is healed. Vignal lets his company know he will return as soon as he is able and then relaxes into his daily routine which includes daily visits from the Countess.

One day he hears the sound of hammers on wood but is assured it’s only minor repairs…

The Countess and the Pilot

Clair explains the growing romantic interest between the pair through Vignal’s interest in his ladyship’s cigarette… as she leaves the room he stares at the ash tray and the unfinished cigarette she has left. He lifts the cigarette to his mouth to smell it, to taste it and then pops it in his mouth to savour the taste – racey stuff – before promptly dropping it. Hearing her return and unable to pick it up, he puts his own cigarette in its place and, as she lifts his light into her mouth she picks up and passes back what she thinks is his… It feels almost perverse but is well observed.

Sensual cigarettes

Vignal’s feelings for the Countess grow stronger and at the same time so do his insecurities concerning the exact nature of her relationship with her sister’s husband. He says that his wife died but we saw too much of her grief and struggle to really believe that.

Getting closer?

Clair concocts another superb sequence to illustrate Vignal’s emotional storm; convinced that the Countess is having an affair with her brother-in-law, the pilot daydreams his way into her boudoir to find her undressing – those Hall-Davis shoulders revealed! She is surprised by his appearance and a scuffle follows before her supposed lover comes into the room. A gun falls to the floor but she hands it to her brother-in-law who points it at Vignal: cuckolded in his own reverie the bitter-sweet taste of seeing his love comprehensively betrayed.

The imagined room...

Clair harks back to his surrealist past in these moments but they are pure cinema that express thought through camera, cut and counter-point and do not simply rely on performance but the choreography of imagined action flowing from desire…See... that’s what a glimpse of Lillian’s shoulders (and ankles) has done to me!

Key moments in the daydream

 Meanwhile, back to the narrative…  Vignal comes to realise that he is not alone as a house guest after a visit from a surprisingly very much alive Hélène who reveals that she is being held captive by her husband, sister and the mysterious Doctor Massaski (Jim Gérald). She says that both she and Vignal are in grave danger and must find a way to escape as soon as they can.

Jean Murat

Snapped out of his dreamy funk, Vignal switches into the man of action he usually is and thus begins a desperate game to make an escape from under the noses of their urbane captors… Everybody is hiding something though, even the Countess with the dreamy eyes and yet who can Vignal really trust? Is he recovered enough to make the right choices, what exactly is the reason for Hélène’s luxuriant captivity and why is she still alive if what she knows is so potentially damaging?

Hélène comes out of hiding...

Clair’s plot is maybe not so clever as his realization but he creates an atmosphere that involves the viewer right through until the shock of the dénouement. But I can say no more…

La Proie du vent might not be amongst the very best of Clair but it is a really enjoyable film all the same with substantial performances from the small ensemble led of course by the divine Lillian. As a lapsing Surrealist, Clair has something to say about the male instinct with his adventurer all too willing to play the lover or the rescuer of women and there’s an element of self-deception in both: which cigarette do you chose Pierre? We’re all prey to our emotional storms from time to time.

On the run

The cinematography is superb and Clair uses and array of cross-cuts, overlays and montage to reveal his characterizations and mood. But it’s his choice of action that can be the most impressive with a shot showing Hélène and her husband trying to embrace through the tiny window of her prison cell among the most moving.

The version I watched was the 2009 restoration which comes complete with a specially-written score from Ibrahim Maalouf who plays it with a quintet of himself on trumpet, Mark Turner on tenor saxophone, Larry Grenadier on double bass, Clarence Penn on drums and Frank Woeste on piano.

These are jazz songs involving the feel of Miles Davis and which run intermittently along with the narrative. It’s mournfully impressive and whilst occasionally running over the action it works well in matching the overall mood. The soundtrack CD, called simply Wind, is available for download from eMusic or as a CD fromAmazon – likeable as a stand-alone experience. I’m playing my copy as I write!

Annoyingly, the film itseld doesn’t seem to be currently available on commercially and I am indebted to my friend Sandy in Paris for showing me her copy recorded off the television. Surely time for a box set along with Un chapeau de paille d'Italie and Les Deux Timides eh Lobster?