Ballroom blitz… Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

 

Joan Crawford is doubtless the best example of the flapper, the girl you see in smart night clubs, gowned to the apex of sophistication, toying iced glasses with a remote, faintly bitter expression, dancing deliciously, laughing a great deal, with wide, hurt eyes. Young things with a talent for living.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

It’s been a long time since I last watched this film and, as ever when viewing Joan Crawford through the lens of her later power roles, it’s fascinating to see her strengths absolutely in place with this, her major break out role. Whilst Crawford had worked her way in successful but slight comedies like Spring Fever with William Haines, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp with Harry Langdon and most memorably in Tod Browning's gonzo The Unknown with Lon Chaney, Our Dancing Daughters was the film that turned her into a major star. And it’s easy to see why.

In his introduction, Chris Bird quoted her co-star Anita Page in highlighting how hard she worked and there’s not an ounce of effort left off-screen as Joan wrenches every last drop of drama from what could have been a routine exercise. Of course, we know now, but who knew at the time, who really knew what magic she could create on screen with her energies and almost subconscious emoting pulling the viewer in to those huge, bright blue eyes and a face that could switch from triumph to disaster in the flicker of her eyelids… and it’s heart-breaking to watch. Difficult to credit that she was just 20 when this film was made or possibly 24… she updated the year although not the date, 23^rd March, of her birth.

Joan Crawford and Dorothy Sebastien

With so many silent films under her belt before the advent of sound, she is one of the major examples, along with Garbo and her nemesis Norma Shearer, of silent stars who transitioned to sound but she enjoyed a longer career than those two and her renaissance post war was reflected by three Oscar nominations and a win for Mildred Pierce (1946). She wasn’t done yet either, continuing to refine the talent she had and breaking down barriers of age and preconceptions.

Here she plays Diana Medford an energetic jazz baby who is running wild in a very Clara Bow fashion, in a hurry to have a good time whatever her parents expect. The film starts with the camera focused on a pair of feet dancing ferociously in front of three full-length mirrors, the feet carry on their complex movement as, cheekily, a pair of pantyhose are pulled up over them. The camera pulls back to show a full-clothed and party-ready Joan dancing like the Charleston champion she had been on route to the movies.

“Dangerous” Di is a party animal but when asked to raise a toast, toasts herself as she wants to be able to be able to like herself all of her life and this is the key to a film that stresses the importance of being true to yourself. Di’s best friend is Beatrice (Dorothy Sebastien) who is less vivacious but steadfastly so and then there is Anni (Anita Page) a girl who is anything but as innocent as she looks – she wants to marry well and more importantly, so does her mother.

Anita Page and John Mack Brown

They have variable relationships with the men in their social group, the mischievous Freddie (Edward Nugent), the serious Norman (Nils Asther) and the seriously loaded Ben (John Mack Brown). Di and Anni have a competition for the millionaire’s affection which Ann wins through guile and pretending to be the innocent girl that Di is not. Yet Di won’t compromise her way into Ben’s affections and she suffers for it even though – red flag! – Ben is clearly lacking instinct!

Meanwhile Beatrice marries the controlling Norman and they struggle to balance their relationship. Even though Ben realises his mistake it seems that only the amoral schemer has got what she wanted and things are set for an almighty showdown and a dramatic climax.

There's a lovely moment when a drunken Anni looks down on three washer women scrubbing the floor of the night club: "Women, women... working!" – she finds them ridiculous and unreal but is this the future calling? Written by Ruth Cummings, with titles by Marian Ainslee from a story by Josephine Lovett, it’s a “woman’s film” in many respects and it was her ability to connect with her sisters in the audience that would make Joan Crawford an immortal star.

 

The Red Devils Jazz Band

Crawford won competitions not just for the Charleston but also the Black Bottom – so called after the Black Bottom area of Detroit where it was invented in the early 1920s. During the first half of the show Chris Bird treated us to some rare and probably unique films on 95mm including one which he says was recorded in Paris featuring The Red Devils Jazz Band and a couple dancing the BB. This featured a slow-motion section so jazz babies could work out the moves ourselves although it’s beyond me even with the annual Bioscope Silent Film Weekender in a few days. I can reveal that it’s a more suggestive dance than the Charleston and what it lacks in the latter’s delightful angularity it makes up for in more frenetic limb throwing and the frequent grasping of the sides between your torso and your legs. This is an important document and one we need to study further.

DJ Bird also made a welcome return pre-show with a variety of 78 rpm nuggets including - I'm guesssing - Jack Hylton and His Orchestra playing Do the Black Bottom with Me (1927). He certainly played the madly infectious Jollity Farm, later made famous by the Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band. Now, if you’ve ever wondered where Mr Vivian Stanshall got the name from, we were about to find out with an episode of Bonzo the Dog an anarchic canine created in 1922 by British comic strip artist George Studdy and the subject of some 35 short cartoon films. Here he teams up with a fox to evade the hunt a sure sign of the growing influence of the labour movement in Great Britain at the time…

 

Our King of Jazz projected by Chris Bird

Back to jazz and a world premiere of a nitrate short featuring Jack Hylton, Britain’s King of Jazz, playing as part of the Playtime at the Piccadilly cabaret at the Piccadilly Hotel that Chris had exchanged for some cartoons with a collector in America. He asked big band expert Mark Beresford about the dating and he estimated 1926-7 but it may be even earlier given the songs featured. These included Vamp Me from 1922 and My Cretonne Girl written by Earl Carroll for his Vanities of 1923 as a love song for a young woman wearing the fabric in questions which, according to the online Britannica, is a printed fabric usually made from cotton which was used to make smocks for women.

This might be the only surviving record of this band line-up, which had played in Jack Hylton’s Cabaret Follies at the Queen’s Hall, Langham Place, from autumn 1922 to mid-1924, although Hylton gave up control at the end of 1923 (according to fabulous The Jazz Age Club website). So, this film could well be his next review at the Piccadilly Hotel.

Also on the bill were a dancing troupe of eight simply called The Girls – probably the Dolly Girls, dressed by Dolly Tree and previously featuring in Dolly’s Revels at the Piccadilly with Jack’s band. They are four dressed as Cretonne clothed country girls and four in male drag, illustrating the music in the manner of a prototypical Pan’s People. Dolly was a busy woman and the Jazz Age Club website has her in London for ’24-’25 working on this review, further evidence of its date.

We're all Pan's People really... (image from Chris Bird's film)

They are followed by “Leo Bill”, a ventriloquist who has the exact same M.O. as the Spanish vent, Senor Wences who had an extraordinary career after joining the circus aged 15 and then starring on stage and screen, eventually featuring on the Ed Sullivan Show and then The Muppets, living to 101 years of age. The trick was to paint a face on his hand and use this as the head on top of a dummy’s body – here Toto but later Johnny and variations of the same. The dates fit and there’s a facial resemblance so I’m calling it, especially as there couldn’t be two vents with this bizarre technique.

Next we have two gents from New York, Brooks and Ross who sing Wild, Weak Warm and Willing which was a shortening of  the full title: I Want 'Em Wild, Weak, Warm and Willing published in1923. And written by Sam Coslow and Eddie Cantor, yes, he of the wide-eyes and Clara’s Kid Boots (1926), for the Ziegfield Follies.

You can download the sheet music here... 

The Girls return in one-legged costumes to dance to I’m Just Wild Over Dancing, which they clearly are… in the manner of “jazz agents” whilst Jack, facing away from his band, holds the rhythm in his hands. Two “Bolsheviks” join the dance, throwing some vaguely Cossack steps but this ain’t no history lesson… It’s murder on the dancefloor but next there are two dancers in Hawaiian costumes and you wonder where the music is leading us? And all the while, Jack is smiling and I’m sure the audience is too!

Zelia Raye takes to the floor with the band and The Girls watching (image courtesy of Chris Bird)

Now for some culture with ballerina Zelia Raye who was a pioneer of modern dance in the UK, eventually establishing the Modern Theatre Faculty at the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. “Straight from Paris”, Josephine Head and Albert Zapp follow and perform to Vamp Me! with the odd hint of the Apache dancing to be found in many depictions of the City of Light at this time. Finally, The Girls return to dance Hooting de Hoot which is as poignant appraisal of the contemporary political situation as you’ll find…

John Sweeney put on his dancing shoes and accompanied the variety with verve, stamina and distinction – it was a foot-tapping evening and we were only lacking a rug to cut! This was probably for the best.

 

This film captures the dances in particular in clear detail and it is so rare for this vintage. More than that it shows the spirit of the jazz age in this country and is a significant discovery reflecting the entertainments and the style of our great grandparents!

 

Pictures from the Projectionist Chris Bird

The film itself - you can see the different tinted sections (Chris Bird)

Chris's projector: a Specto with enhanced lighting

Betty Balfour Lost and Found, Kennington Bioscope

 

In the darkened hush of the former workhouse home of Charlie Chaplin we were watching Betty Balfour on film that so far as is known, does not exist anywhere else in the world. Think about that, in a digital landscape in which seemingly everything is available to stream (or not stream) at the whims of faceless copyright owners who seek to monetise and control IP. Things were not much different back in the Twenties but things got lost, events overtook the physical media and even the films of Britain’s Queen of Happiness were misplaced.

 

Chris Bird screened a fragment of an unidentified Betty Balfour film, 20 seconds or so, with a couple of other players who might have been familiar.  A tantalising glimpse and, maybe, there’s more out there somewhere. Then he introduced us to a film from his collection, a 9.5mm copy of her 1926 British film, Cinders which is no relation to Ella Cinders staring her American counter-part Colleen Moore. Originally in 20 reels and designed for, patient, home viewing, Chris had transferred the spools onto three larger reels – as much as he could without fear of too much stress on the celluloid from the projection process.

 

Betty's Cinders is along way from the Ball. (All images courtesy of Christopher Bird)

This 95-year-old film was projected from Chris’ 70-year-old projector* and, unsurprisingly there were one or two unexpected additional stops on the way as the past was revealed in vivid action accompanied by the fleet fingers of Colin Sell on the piano. Colin had not seen the film, few others have, but he was able to anticipate the rhythms of Balfour’s perfectly timed comedy whether she was getting trapped in revolving doors, falling down or simply turning her sparkling peepers towards the camera. She has perfect timing, a mix of Stan Laurel, the aforementioned Miss Moore and even Mary Pickford with whom she was often compared. The jewel in the crown of British silent stars and voted in the top two by readers of the Daily Mirror along with Ivor Novello.

 

As Chris pointed out, 9.5mm was only ever intended for home projection but, on the big screen here it looked fabulous – the use of a single central sprocket allows the gauge to pack more punch than it’s diameter might suggest and it was Film Club as only the Kennington Bioscope can provide with every break in the film filled by improvisational flourishes from Mr Sell and the story continuing in the determined hands of Camera-Chris! Just to add more jeopardy, Chris also provided a live translation of the French intertitles on this precious celluloid survivor.

 

The Ball is in full swing and Betty is having it...

The story centred on Betty from the get-go as the down-trodden – but unbowed! – chamber maid in a guest house who gets to assist a reasonably mad Professor Pottiefax (Fred Wright) as he looks after his beetles at the expense of all other cares. He rewards her fortitude after winning a fortune and a hotel in the south of France (always a favourite hang-out of the British film set. The professor has too a time on the dance floor and is photographed in compromising positions with some of the dancers who, for reasons best know to themselves, are wearing kilts.

 

Evil French hoteliers try to blackmail him out of his good fortune but they’ve reckoned without our Betty and also her ability to make handsome friends who will pitch in when the going gets industrial, in this case Richard Dalrey (André Roanne). It’s a slight film in some ways but this is primary evidence of the extraordinary appeal of Balfour and further explains the good humour she was so effortlessly capable of supplying on the screen!

  

The view from the projectionsist (Christopher Bird)

Daughter of the Regiment (1929) was an altogether bigger budgeted affair being a British/German co-production released in Germany as Die Regimentstochter and directed by Hans Behrendt: a Euro pudding as they used to be called. This was a 16mm print courtesy of Bob Geoghegan/Archive Film Agency and, once again, the only copy of the film left anywhere. Chris and Bob projected and Ashley Valentine accompanied this slightly more robust stock and again we were drawn in by the uniqueness of the experience and the privilege of seeing a film not in circulation, not digitised, and only in a private collection.

 

The plot was based on Gaetano Donizetti’s 1840 opera which explains some of the grand gestures and the joyful mood of a nimble if predictable story arc. Betty is Marie, a foundling who has become the “daughter” of a French Regiment stationed in the Pyrenees on the French Spanish border. They guard against incursions from Spanish smugglers and gangs, with Quippo the sergeant, acting as Marie’s adopted father.

 

One of the gangs breaks into their compound whilst the troop are away and Marie bravely – or as she thinks – frightens them away by firing a single shot that Quippo hears and brings his men back to then suffer his charge’s boasting about her soldierly prowess. She goes out riding in the hills and falls trying to collect wildflowers. She is rescued by a handsome young man Tonio (Alexander D’Arcy) who is reluctant to give her his name even though she clearly wants to know all about him… Maria and Tonio… this is a Southwest Side of France Story?

Directed by Hans Behrendt the film shifts in scale from these locations shots of the parched Mediterranean hinterland to the crowded traffic of Paris as the visiting Countess Brascani (Olga Limburg) notices her lost brother’s family crest on the swaddling Maria had been found in and which is now frames on her wall. There can be no doubt that she is a Brascani and has to leave her regimental family for a noble lifestyle in the north. Naturally she must marry another noble and her response when the countess shows her “the man she is going to marry” is hilarious “what, that?!”.

 

But, what about Tonio I hear you ask? Well, after reacquainting themselves as Maria rides her pony through Paris and spots him in his car, she starts to suspect that he might be a smuggler. She loves him but how can she marry such a man and, is the unattractive wealthy man the least worst option?

 

We’ve all been there, to varying degrees, and I hope you get your chance to see this film sometime. Any Betty is good Betty and despite the mixed reviews Chris read out from the British press, the Germans seem to have been far keener. We have more in common that that which divides us in Europe, especially our sense of humour!

 

Ashley Valentine competed the picture with elegant flourishes and good anticipation for this unseen film and is fast becoming a vital part of the Bioscope operation. London’s Silent Film Speakeasy** is flourishing and we’ve never needed it more!

 

At the start of the evening Chris also showed an unidentified fragment of another Betty Balfour film which one keen-eyed Bioscoper identified as Raise the Roof a 1930 UK musical directed by Walter Summers and starring Betty, Maurice Evans, and Jack Raine. But even that’s still a mystery, as Chris’ fragment doesn’t have a soundtrack: is this an unknown silent version?

 

And, this being the Biosxcope, there was even more with another collector handing Mr Bird a reel containing all that survives (not much) of George Pearson’s Satan’s Sister (1925), featuring Betty, Guy Phillips and Philip Stevens. Hopefully, this will be screened at a later show.

 

Discovery and entertainment all delivered in real time in Kennington: it’s what they do and the way that they do it!

 

And not forgetting this glorious audience! Pic from Christopher Bird

Screen shots from Cinders... courtesy of Mr Bird - unseen in a long time!

*Designed by a Czech refugee, J Danek, in the 1930s - Chris' was made in the 1950s at their factory in Windsor.

**As PH from SL famously put it!

The Time Machine... The Toll of the Sea (1922) and Early Colour Live!, Birkbeck University with John Sweeney and Christopher Bird

 

First some maths: film historian and cinematic technologist, Christopher Bird revealed that he would be cranking his 1919 Ernemann projector some 2,100 times during the course of this event – this live cinema is the interface between man and machine we keep on hearing about especially as from 1895 to 1922, the period spanning the films we were to watch, were similarly powered by elbow grease. Added to this were the almost chromesthesiatic improvisations of John Sweeney’s ten digits on piano and the combined perceptions of an audience that could hear the projector whirring, always aware of both men’s efforts as we experienced the past in vibrant colour.

Watching these daring adventures in film technique was fascinating but also strangely humbling especially when, to quote another of Chris’s figures, we watched a hand-coloured film that would have required sixteen images hand colouring for every foot of film equating to one second. So, for Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon (1902) which is 853 ft long, some 13,600 frames would have had to be hand worked for every copy of the film, this was clearly incredibly labour intensive but worth it for the popularity and spectacular response from the viewing public.

In the first section we saw the results of such labour with four films shot in black and white and then painted directly onto each frame of film. The first was from the very beginning with a black and white extract of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) which was, like most films here, a modern 35mm copied from original materials

The Kingdom of The Fairies

This was followed by part of Louis Lumière’s Roundabout in Paris (1896) then Georges Hatot’s The Death of Jean-Paul Marat (1897) both of which were hand coloured in this style. A lengthy extract from George Méliès's The Kingdom of The Fairies (1903) followed, the full film is some 1,050 feet long, so around 16,800 hand-coloured frames and, at two cranks per second, Chris would have moved the projector’s handle… quite a lot!

The story was picked up by Ian Christie who reminded us of the Lumiere’s first screening in London in February 1896 at what is now the Regent Street Cinema I believe. British pioneer Robert Paul also projected on the same day in the evening with the Electrical Journal sure that the technical hitches bedevilling both screenings would soon be ironed out. Méliès bought his first camera from Robert Paul who was working in colour right from the start as advertised in his first catalogues. There are sadly so few colour examples extant as the first archivists copied colour films, some of which only projected as colour via tinted lenses, in black and white.

Ian screened Paul’s Come Along, Do (1898) the world’s first two-shot film and tinted it to look as it might have done at the time. The Dancer’s Dream (1905) was also shown and is the only known Paul film in its original colour, found by BFI and available on the iPlayer. It’s a very Méliès type film with stop motion and camera trickery of a fairly advanced nature – it’s easy to forget how on trend the British were at this time.

Modern Sculptors

Back to celluloid and Pathé pioneering new system called stencil colour which gave much sharper results than hand colouring with a separate stencil for every colour ensuring that there was no colour bleeding over the edge of images. Even though cutting the stencils was laborious, the result automated the colouring process and continued until late twenties in spectacular films such as Casanova (1927) and Michael Strogoff (1926) both staring that most colourful of performers, Ivan Mozzhukhin! Segundo de Chomon was a master of both trick films and stencil colour and his Modern Sculptors (1908) was screened next – a fine example of both from George’s more darkly-comic Spanish “cousin”.

The next step was for filmmakers to attempt to add the colour at point of source and this is where Edward Turner and Marshall Lee come in with a system that enabled the capture of red, green and blue images on adjacent frames in different tones.  This required a projector running at triple speed - 48 frames a second vs 16 – and on the 1902 fragment we saw, this still gives the impression of three colours albeit with slight fringing as subjects moved too quickly to be captured by all three filters. We did, however, see a spectacular yellow sunflower.

Now to Bristol and William Friese Greene’s Biocolour which, as its name suggested, filmed in two colours with alternate green and red frames shot through a filter for each colour and double speed at 32 frames a second producing a jumpy shot of an omnibus not quite caught in both tinted cells. It looked like one of the least successful efforts but would impact the story in a major way…

George Albert Smith in  between hypnotising and inventing

So, now for Kinemacolor! Developed in 1908 it was commercially very successful at a time when there were hardly any cinemas and with films, much like magic lanterns, mostly being an attraction on the travelling fairgrounds. Hypnotist, psychic and magic lantern projectionist George Albert Smith…  invented the system, which was a two-colour additive process that photographed film behind red and green filters rotating at the front of the lens.

John Adderley, historian and cinematographer explained how the machine worked the difference between the Kinemacolor had a Butterfly Gate compared with a Williamson Gate – in the front there was a wheel with different filters. John demonstrated the process and we saw the alternating red and green … it’s a fascinating machine and if you want to find out more there is an exhibition of this and similar machines at The Race to Cinema Collection at the Bournemouth Film School

The film in the camera is black and white and being projected too but there are red and green filters picking up the colours from the original capture. Chris explained that there are only five surviving Kinemacolor projectors left and this 1919 Ernemann projector has been adapted by projectionist and engineer Nigel Lister to support the continued projection of these materials.

Lake Garda, looking slightly greener on YouTube...

There was a lovely short, Pageant of New Romney, Hythe and Sandwich (1910) directed by George Albert Smith and showing the people of these Kent towns re-enacting their past, an event itself now in the past but colourfully so. This was followed by a longer film, Lake Garda (1910) a print courtesy of collector Dave Cleveland and “… the single best surviving example of Kinemacolor…” according to Chris and it fully supported that assertion. During the travelogue, there is an optical illusion as the water looks blue which is technically impossible given that the source is red and green tints… but the camera never lies and we saw it with our own eyes proving that there’s an element of suggestion in the way we perceive true colour. This is a magical film and really captures the Italian lake in dreamy colours, reds, greens, those “blues” and more beyond. 

Sadly, Kinemacolor was to lose out in a legal challenge from William Friese Greene in 1915 who argued it was a duplicate of his Biocolour process and, as Luke McKernan pointed out, the inability to show “blue” was one of the sticking points. We saw with our own eyes the superiority of the Kinemacolor process in terms of stability and effect but so it goes, F-G was unable to capitalise on his concept all the same and things moved on swiftly elsewhere with the invention of Technicolor “Process 1” in 1916 and by 1922 the company had developed “Process 2” with a camera which used a two-strip colour process – similar in concept to Kinemacolor but with two filtered images used to create a subtracted coloured print with red and green stock cemented together in a print that could be presented using a normal projector.

 

As Ian Christie said, the proof of concept was to make a feature film and that was The Toll of the Sea (1922) restored in the 1990s by the UCL archive and available on the US National Film Preservation website in high quality. The film is also notable for staring Anna May Wong in her first leading role as Lotus Flower, the object of the affection of the American man, Allen Carver (Kenneth Harlen) she rescues from the sea. Written by Frances Marion it’s a loose re-telling of Madame Butterfly and Carver must choose between Lotus Flower and a woman from his own background… “Elsie”.

Anna May Wong

Whilst Allen, fully recuperated returns to the United States, Lotus Flower gives birth to a son she names Allen and waits for her love’s return. But when he comes back it is with Elsie as his new wife and Lotus Flower has to make the best choice for her son… or at least that so often presented as such. It’s quite the thing that she has a child with Carver as that’s rather specific for Hollywood at the time. Oh, Mister Hays…

The last reel of the film is lost and so the restorers shot new film of the Pacific Ocean in October 1985 using an authentic two-colour Technicolor camera with intertitles recreated from Frances Marion’s original scenario. It works very well especially as we all know how it’s got to end.

Anna May Wong is a star to us now, and her abilities far outstripped her success for reasons that we all understand. Here she shows even at 17-18 how skilled she was and how much of a gift to the cinematographer, J.A. Ball and director Chester M. Franklin who makes the most of his remarkable lead.

John Sweeney illuminated the story with his melodious inventiveness, his experience and tonal flexibility being first rate as it had all evening. He’s very good with any flowing water, but seas especially, and his emotional narrative was equally fluid and accomplished!

Kenneth Harlen and Anna in the garden

A last word on Kinemacolor… we also saw Stephen Herbert’s 1995 test film, shot by Dave Locke – also on duty tonight - which used the process to capture a colourful group on the Southbank. This is something akin to experimental archaeology and enables the historians and cine-technologists to understand more about the making of the media as well as its meaning and message.

Let’s hope for more of this kind of thing! Blessed are the archivists and the projectionists!

 

Christopher Bird making the magic work (photo courtesy of Stefanie Benz)

 

Special relationships… Salt for Svanetia (1930), Kennington Bioscope with Jeff Rapsis

“Our economic plan is stronger than religion and custom…” cheer inappropriately dressed soviet workers – think that first Boyzone TV appearance or In the Navvy… as they sing their way to Svanetia crashing a road through forest, mountain and unproductive agricultural landscapes.

Salt is so scarce in isolated Svanetia that cows gather round urinating farm hands in order to drink the salty outpourings whilst wolves lick the salt from new born babes rather than eating them… This is all to be found in Mikhail Kalatozov’s remarkable docu-drama, which starts off with history and ends up with hysteria as if the makers had suddenly remembered their brief and tried to cram an hour’s worth of propaganda into ten minutes.

Salt for Svanetia is a superbly-crafted film with outstanding cinematography from Shalva Gegelashvili and Mikhail Kalatozov showing the extraordinary lifestyle of the rural communities of the Svan people in remote mountain village of Ushguli in Svanetia – somewhere to the far North-East of Josef Stalin’s home state of Georgia. The Svan live off the land in huge towers that have traditionally been a defence against incursions and now they stand as a monument to their splendid isolation from the rapid industrialisation and social engineering of Stalin’s Republic.

Whilst the state was starving the land to feed growing cities, the Svan are shown making their own clothes, painfully cutting wool from goats, spinning it and making felt hats. They work the land using archaic tools and initially their life seems peaceful and calm. And yet… there is no salt and the men have to risk their lives clambering over mountains to bring salt to the people…

Maybe salt depravation affects the mind… as the Svan suddenly appear in the grip of religious mania as they form a long deranged line burying “a rich man”. They throw their money and themselves into his grave, slaughter cattle and horses in tribute to their archaic gods then callously exile a woman about to break the ban on giving birth during funerals…

The women don’t actually want to give birth and would rather die… if only there was salt. If only there was a road! …and some muscular singing workmen!!

Worry not as the camp constructionists are on their way…

In the Navvy...

None of this detracts from the film’s power and with its Flaherty-styled set pieces it not only showcases a disappearing way of life but entertains with forceful imagery in this stunning setting. No wonder Andrei Tarkovsky thought it amazing.

This was the second year of the first Five Year Plan which, if memory serves, took seven years with more misery to follow with the second Plan – millions died of starvation as Stalin focused on industrialisation and Dekulakization, the process of removing the wealthier peasants from the land with or without salt.

The Bioscope welcomed a guest accompanist Jeff Rapsis who had flown in from Boston in the morning. There was little sign of jet lag as he worked the keys with expert ease throughout helping to underscore the scale and wonders of the visuals whilst tracking the cock-eyed narrative moods. There’s something special about the relationship between live music and film…

David Shepard

Given the recent death of silent film historian David Shepard it was good to have one of his fellow countrymen playing and one who knew him personally. Mr Shepard was passionate about live screenings and, as Amran Vance reminded us in his moving tribute, helped preserve many of the films we have been lucky enough to see at the Bioscope. Another one of those relationships that go way beyond the bounds of the less than exceptional.

If Salt was a bright and shiny Russian doll, there should be no surprise in finding three smaller but equally wondrous ones underneath it.

The Voice of the Nightingale (1923)

The evening began with a remarkable stencil-coloured short, The Voice of the Nightingale (1923) from Wladyslaw Starewicz – a fable of young girl who accidentally traps a nightingale and then is driven by dreams to let him free. Who knows why the nightingale sings? He sings for thee my friend…

Then Chris Bird introduced two films he has helped preserve and propagate with the aid of the increasingly legendary Fritzi Kramer who runs the outrageously excellent blog MoviesSilently. Both films were made by Russian emigres, who had escaped to France on a ship called The Albatross after the revolution.  They named their production company after their ship and from which they made The House of Mystery, Le Brasier Ardent (1923), Kean (1924) and so many excellent features.

Ivan in L’Enfant du carnaval - screen grab from Movies Silently

The first tonight was Child of the Carnival (1921) featured Fritzi’s main man, Ivan Mosjoukine. It only survives as a 9.5mm home cinema version which compressed five reels into one often cutting out key scenes and characters to speed up the story telling. Still, there was enough to see the debonair M. ease his way with trademark charm through forced adoption of a child he presumes to be the result of a wayward dalliance. The baby’s mother is brought in by his scheming manservant – clearly trying to make a man out of him - and, waddaya know, it just might work.

Lillian Henley played along for these films and borrowed some melodies from the nightingale and effortless elegance from Ivan.

The KB poster using artwork from Fritzi Kramer - follow the link for Fritzi's review

Next was Tales of the One Thousand and One Nights (1921) directed by the inestimable V. Tourjansky and starring his partner Nathalie Kovanko and Nicholas Rimsky. Shot extensively in Tunisia the film looked grand despite again being from an incomplete copy – again 9.5mm and tinted. It’s such a joy to hear the projector whirl round 80-year old celluloid: so much warmer than digital, new light casting old shadows… actual magic!

The story is the familiar one of Scheherazade telling tales to prevent herself falling victim to the Sheik’s habit of killing his brides on their wedding night (something tells me he’s missed the whole point…). Her stories feature young lovers, Kovanko and Rimsky and their efforts to remain faithful to each other and Allah… an unbeatable combination or at least they need to be...

Meg Morley accompanied with some lovely Arabian flavours and romantic major chords; there’s something primal about the Arabian Nights both in terms of the form and the appeal, and she caught it perfectly with misirlou minims and sandy semibreves...

Another excellent programme from the Bioscope and films you simply won’t see screened anywhere else anytime soon!

Both of these films are available to view online via YouTube and you can see more of the extraordinary work Bird and Kramer are doing on Chris Bird's channel here as well as Movies Silently for which my blog envy knows no bounds!

You can also find out more about Jeff Rapsis' music on his website here.