Marie jewel recovered and Lon finds his charm… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026, Day Four

There’s an incredible story behind the finding of Seven Sinners (1925), which was long considered a lost film until May 2015 when film hunter Joel Archer located it in Queensland, Australia in the hands of a film projectionist Ron West who had been given it by a cinema-owning family based in Melbourne and kept it along with other treasures – on nitrate 35mm – in his farm shed. The seven reels were 80% salvageable and after restoration by the Academy Film Archive gaps have been filled and whilst there are some compromised areas it is a wonder, in parts looking as fresh as the carnation in Clive Brook’s buttonhole.

 

As Michelle Facey writes in the catalogue entry, this was from a period when the film’s star, Marie Prevost was Warners’ “Queen of the Screen”, described in their ad for this film as “a feminine character of alluring charm… an actress whose spontaneous art mirrors every human emotion…” And Marie does not disappoint in this smart crime caper with a heart of gold and delightful performances all round. It has a script as precise as a safe-breakers touch and a cast who never miss: it’s a real Spritz of a film!

Marie Prevost and Clive Brook

 

Marie is Molly Brian who breaks into a rich house with her partner in crime, “Handsome Joe” Hagney (John Patrick), they’re surprised by what appears to be a resident in a dressing gown and firing a pistol. Joe escapes but the man, who turns out to be Jerry Winters (Cool Clive Brook), also turns out to be a crook intent on robbing the jewels from the same safe, one that Molly opens with alacrity much to his delight. They’ll go halves only they won’t go anywhere because in walks an elder couple, Pious Joe McDowell (Claude Gillingwater) and wife Aimie (Mathilde Brundage) who say that they’re minding the house for the owners only they’re not, they’re in the same profession as the other three.

 

Those of you good with figures will have worked out we have five sinners although though not all of that number knows the truth and, with two more sinners to add plus an actual policeman, I’ll leave the narrative summary there.

 

Accompaniment was provided by John Sweeney in full flight. Delighting in every twist and turn from a cast who like many from this period, you can almost hear talking. This is a must watch when you get the chance.

 

Joel is at Le Giornate and got a round of applause when his part in the recovery came up on screen. Imagine if we all still thought that this film didn’t exist? “Go, you good thing!” is, I believe, the saying in Brisbane!

 

Sheffield 1902, then, as now, a city divided by football...

Tram Ride of the Day: The award has to go to the elegantly entitled Tram Ride Through the City of Sheffield as recorded by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon in 1902 when, as I’m sure you all know, Sheffield United FC finished tenth in the First Division just behind their rivals Sheffield Wednesday. So, any extra glum fizzogs on view must have been Blades fans.

 

Sheffield still has the trams but they’re not as much fun and neither are Wednesday or t’ Blades… but they’ll be back. In 1902 Steel City was very much a hub of industrial activity and trams revolutionised peoples access to work.

 

BREAKING: The TRotD Award has now been shared with the extraordinary A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire (US 1906), directed by Miles Brothers just before the San Francisco Earthquake on 18^th April which destroyed many of the buildings we see with the exception of the ferry terminal according to Dr Lawrence Napper of Kings College London. There’s more detail to be found on these events and the activities of the film makers in the programme and online.

 

Tom Santschi and Edward Hearn

Saddle up and ride! Also, “don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys… Part 675”

 

No trams out west only trains but all we saw were horses in the two short westerns in the Rediscoveries strand.

 

Robert N. Bradbury’s Beyond the Trail (US 1921) was a punchy tale of two brothers one good Clem (Tom Santschi) and the other, Bud, wayward (Edward Hearn). It’s amazing how much of the generic tropes of westerns are not only already in place but expressed in this half hour film but it’s no doubt all true up to a point. Clem takes the rap for his brother killing a man during a robbery and in exile comes across a lone woman (Patricia Palmer) and her baby who had been deserted by the father… Bud! Cue a return to the hometown and final showdown.

  

Marshall Neilan’s The Country That God Forgot (US 1916) had some excellent cinematography and the look of classic westerns to follow with one especially impactful shot of Mary Charleson silhouetted against the endless prairie beyond the doorframe of their homestead. We once again have Tom Santchi as the hero, this time a miner called Steve who finally strikes it rich only for his wife to desert him for another man called Craig (which is not very Rough and Rowdy as a name is it?). Steve’s a determined man though and sets off to put things right…

  

Asta und Connie genießen nach Feierabend ein Getränk im Posta...

Oh, show me the way to the next whiskey bar award:

 

Weimar Uncensored should have been entitled TOTALLY uncensored as it’s hard to know whether Conrad Veidt was just carrying on from the long nights before when filming Der Reigen (1920) or just very much in character. There are so many lounges lacking their lizards with this man at this stage but perhaps even he felt the pressure or keeping pace with Die Asta so much his senior at this point.

 

Seeing Nielsen acting on a screen this size is always a treat because you can see her face working the emotions with expression that is beyond thought. It’s a rare gift to be able to convey so much with so little deliberate effort – think Isabelle Huppert of Stephan Audran (I’ve overdosed on Claude Chabrol this autumn – thanks BFI!) – but here we see it in one of the very first screen actors and the first European star.

 

Directed by Richard Oswald and adapted from the 1897 play, La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler, the film shows Nielsen’s character Elena and her various relationships with men who either lack moral courage or morals in the case of Veidt’s vampiric Peter Karvan. She marries Albert Peters (Eduard von Winterstein) for status and security, preferring his brother Fritz (Theodor Loos), but happy enough to look after her step-daughter until Karvan re-emerges to blackmail her.

 

It's episodic and overwrought but whilst it might try your patience in some parts you’re rewarded by Asta in particular as well as the faint smell of absinth every time Connie walks onto screen and smooths his reptilian gaze across the screen.

 

Gabriel Thibaudeau accompanied the cabaret in style proving that there’s no good in sitting alone in your room, and we saw Willi Schaeffers dance too in the nightclub scenes!

 

Female Madness Programme Two was a more coherent session than the first consisting of dramas not documentaries all of which included portrayals of female hysteria and the ways it was perceived by the industry and audience in these early stages. Mario Caserini’s Amleto (IT 1908) drew on Shakespeare’s conception of Ophelia (and Hamlet’s) madness and it did make you wonder how far the view of women’s hysterics had advanced over three hundred years?

 

There was also Albert Capellani’s Pauvre Mere! (FR 1906) and Léonce Perret’s L'Angélus de la Victoire (FR 1916) which centred on a young couple from different classes being prevented from marriage by their fathers. The war begins and in the end they wonder what all the fuss was about… apart from Fabienne Fabrèges who gives a disturbing depiction of the young Jacqueline driven mad by news of her love’s demise on the front. And still we fight.

 

Fabienne Fabrèges 

Riccardo Tolentino’s Le memorie di una istitutrice (IT 1917) has Valentina Frascaroli as Jane Eyre in what must now be considered the definitive version even though it’s only 33'47 long… It’s like a speed read and a lot of fun!

 

Meg Morley and Elisabeth-Jane Baldry accompanied with a wonderful mix of piano, harp and vocals with E-J’s song for the forlorn Jacqueline after she learns of her lovers fate in the war. Haunting.

 

 

And for desert: Tell It to the Marines (1926) accompanied by Neil Brand and Frank Boclkius

 

This has long been one of my favourites not just for Lon Chaney being given the chance to act against type and using just his own face but also because it includes those two Goldwyn “New Faces” selectees of 1922 and lifelong buddies in spite of everything: Eleanor Boardman and William Haines. Three of the very best Hollywood people.

 

Directed by George W Hill, Tell it to the Marines is very well drilled with, quick changes in pace and excellent cinematography: silent Hollywood at its peak. There is some superb hand-held camerawork during the fight on the island not to mention stirring shots of the navy at sea – huge battleships rolling with the waves. Indomitable and not far away from being used in earnest.

Lon Chaney and Eleanor Bordman

 

It’s a meaty role for William Haines as he gets to play the shallow raw recruit who’s only in it for himself. He falls for Eleanor Boardman’s nurse mainly as she’s the prettiest thing in sight and it’s only later that he learns how much he really means it. An excellent performer, it’s no surprise he was so popular: he has an easy way and always seems to throw in the odd realistic gesture like…picking his nose! Boardman does her usual top-notch job with not a lot to play with. It’s good to see her as always on the big screen and on such a fantastic print - she is as ethereal as ever and it’s noteworthy that her best scenes are with Chaney – she rises to his level.

 

Without doubt it is Chaney’s film with his Postlethwaite complexion, iron jaw and smiling eyes. I’ve heard that he gained such expressiveness as the son of deaf and mute parents. This may have been the case but he’s also emotionally intelligent and able to submerge himself completely in character. So much so that his actions and gradual shift in concerns continue to surprise you throughout the film… he only reveals the decent heart when he wants us to see it.

 

Married to the navy, loyal to all his charges, selfless to a flaw… Chaney’s portrayal struck so true with the marines themselves that he became the first actor to be awarded an honorary membership in the Corps.

 

Neil Brand and Frank Bockius’s accompaniment was disciplined, powerful and playful all at the same time, as if they had absorbed the characters of Chaney and Haines and the spirit of a film which, when you've stripped all the flags away, is about love, sacrifice and togetherness. Neil had the music Frank had the rhythm, who could ask for anything more?

 

The best in silents… Il Cinema Ritrovato 40, Bologna

 

It’s just struck me that not only was this edition number 40 of the Ritrovato but that was the number in centigrade the temperature hit from time to time. Four dozen or so films to see out of 500 on offer in just eight days, crossing the city, finding the shadows in long medieval streets and I’m an old white guy from Merseyside wearing socks and old band t-shirts? No problem. After locking my flight bags in my room on the day of my departure – all perfectly normal, no sign of heat exhaustion or “sauteed Brit-brain” there – I’m now sat on the tarmac dredging the cranial swamp for the best silent treats of the week.

Matinee Idols Death Match

OK, this wasn’t what they called the strand, that was Women’s Male Stars who were developed to meet the largely female audiences of the growing matinee by the increasingly commercialised studios. In practice this was a competition to decide which of the following was going to be crowned the Male Matinee Idol of the Festival or, to be fair, who was going to come second as Rodolfo “Rudy” Valentino was nailed on in the rather interesting playboy to cabin boy coming of age film Moran of the Lady Letty (1922).

Rudy can't fail. Just ask Dorothy, his friend.

In a lesson to Capital from the Proletariat, Rudy’s character learns purpose in hard work and also finds love with Comrade Moran (Dorothy Dalton) who turns out, to be the very womanly Letty Sternerson. All this after he’s fellow sailors called him Lilly of the Fields… projection methinks! Love and Merchant Seamen is a big topic but mark this one for future reference. It’s a rollicking good adventure!

The ill-fated Wallace Reid has drawn the short straw in terms of his surviving work and his career was also tragically cut short after a studio accident left him addicted to Morphine. But he’s a charming performer and you can see enough in this restoration of Sick Abed (1921) although his is in the rather unheroic position of having to feign sickness in order to avoid a financially troublesome trip into work. He’s a charmer but there are better examples of his full appeal although his chemistry with Bebe Daniels is spot on.

Now for the Irish contender and Male and Female (1919) with Thomas “Tommy” Meighan as the Admirable Crighton who steps up to save the aristocratic by useless family who employs him after a shipwreck. He wins the heart of Gloria Swanson even though their hearts are approximately a foot apart, but class tells after they are rescued and the butler heads off for a new life in the country of opportunity south of Canada…

Torrence takes the competition far too seriously.

Contender No. 4 please… Tol-able David (1921) and its young Richard Barthelmess fighting to defend his family against a bunch of murderous men who are occupying his neighbour’s house. This is quite the best of the four films and as directed by Henry King is a deserved part of the canon. Barthelmess has to act young but this is a right of violent passage with all too believable and nasty stakes. When I say nasty, I mean the extraordinary Ernest Torrence who shows his dark side which such glee: one of the definitive bad men of this era who could also flirt with Clara Bow in Mantrap or do comedy till the cows came home….

 

Enrico Guazzoni’s World

No Ritrovato is complete without two things:

    Divas

    Films of antiquity and the ancient world

On the latter point we were spoiled with a new restoration of Enrico Guazzoni’s Quo Vadis? (1913) which take the tableau style as far as it could go with multiple depth of field slowly revealing the full effect of a well designed and choreographed set piece whether in a palatial room or at the Circus Maximus. There are crowds of thousands and the effect is to offer a deep and stylised window into the Italy of emperors and Christian revolt. I’m sure it will all work out… but this is a major film in the history of long-form cinema. What’s that Mr Griffith? Oh, your thing… that’s not due for a couple of years yet. The Hell it is.

Over ten years later an attempt was made to revive the Italian Golden Age with The Last Days of Pompei (1926) – an adaptation of the English novel by Lord Bulwer-Lytton, as had been the two competing versions of 1913. As UCL’s Maria Wyke points out this attempt to recreate the recent cinematic as well as antiquarian past  “… tries to reject the detached tourist gaze on the city of 19^th century imaginings for an impassioned, participatory vision of ancestral suffering.” Cecil B deMille could only watch and admire.

Pina Menichelli beguiles in Alla Deriva

We also had three films featuring one of the three main Diva of the cinematic golden age with Pina Menichelli in three of the seven she was directed by Guazzoni, including La Casa di Nessuno (1915), Una Tragedia al Cinematorafo (1915) and Alla Deriva (1913) which, as Giovanni Lasi writes in the programme, revolves around the presence and intense performance of the actress “… with her ability to hypnotise the viewer with magnetic and unsettling gazes…”. Consider me cross-eyed.

1906 given voice

I missed a couple of Japanese films with Benshi accompaniment but was treated to the Italian version for the 1906 compilation strands which was a delight, especially late night in the Piazzetta Pier Paolo Pasolini. Here Gabriel Gabriel Thibaudeau played piano with Alice Zecchinelli on drums and Julie Linquette providing what could be described as  vocalise combining sound effects, dialogue and narration. This was especially funny for Aux bains de mer (1906) as she provided commentary from a middle-aged couple watching events on the beach and then in the hand-coloured tour de force that is Aladin ou la lampe marveilleuse (1906) from the genius Albert Capellani.

It was one of the most joyous sections of the week and peak Ritrovato under those stars as our laughs drowned out the incessant cicadas.

Aladin and there's also a lamp...

The Child of Paris/ L'enfant de Paris (1913) with Gabriel Thibaudeau & Fabiana Sommariva

Proving that it was not just the Italians but also the French who were leading the cinematic World Cup in the early 1910s, Léonce Perret’s film positively barrels along even though it is based on an unpromising premise of a young girl seemingly orphaned by the death of both parents in quick succession and then kidnapped by a criminal gang for reasons that they only make up on the fly… It is tense and content rich with a high level of cinematic technic from the director and his cameraman, Georges Specht. It’s two hours long and whilst there are some padded sequences overall you are gripped by the search and the chase from Paris to Nice.

There is so much pleasing technique in the film from backlighting, low-angled shots, close-ups and surprising camera movements which allied to the location shooting and a plot involving chases across France, trails gone cold then warmed again, persistence and steadfast heroism sees good win out. After all the shibboleths drummed into audiences about film development, you keep on finding innovations “out of time”… we see more every year with these restorations.

 

Depth of field, lighting, framing... such a complex shot.

Finish Films and Cleaning Women…

If it was Wednesday it had to be Finnish film day with two excellent titles from Finnish actor and filmmaker Teuvo Puro; the first Meren kasvojen edessä (Before the Face of the Sea) (1926), accompanied by the mighty Stephen Horne and the second Noidan kirot (Curses of the Witch) (1927) projected in the Piazza Maggiore and accompanied by Helsinki’s finest Cleaning Women.

Silent film is as much about travelling in space as well as time and I shall be saying more about both films in the coming days but just to say that the three cleaning robots (CW01, CW03 and CW04) that form the band know how to support the narrative of the film screening above them and how, despite their unusual dress senses, to focus musical energy in dramatic sympathy.

Suomi tuntee elokuvan!

Sisterly solidarity in Noidan kirot 

Vögel sind seltsam, aber die Liebe ist blind: Asta and Connie Restored

 

Cheating here but two German films for one with Conrad Veidt first up in a comedy, Liebe Macht Blind (1925) accompanied by Herr Neil Brand with the usual informed wit and wealth of reference. Connie is a psychiatrist Dr Lamare in love with his patient, the very married Diane (Lil Dagover). Her husband Viktor is having an affair with a woman played by one of Britain’s finest silent actors, the sublime Lillian Hall-Davis who is as eye-catching as always. It’s Veidt’s mad professor who takes the comedy biscuits though even after Emil Jannings pops up to spoof his role in The Last Laugh.

The film was considered lost until a pristine nitrate copy was discovered in Chile and another piece of Connie’s range was preserved in all its quirkiness.

Asta messes about on the river.

Less manic but equally important was the restored version of Urban Gad’s Der Fremde Vogel/The Strange Bird (1911) accompanied by James Shelby. The film was one of the first pictures he made with fellow Dane Asta Nielsen in their initial German contract. It’s a tale of an outing on the waterways of the Spree Forest, near Berlin during which Asta’s character forms a romantic attachment with a boatsman (Carl Clewing). The restoration has added some four minutes to the screen time and has added the tints missing for so long from. Shot almost entirely on location – to great acclaim – it’s presents Nielsen’s naturalistic emoting and physicality in ways that we revolutionary for the time. Europe’s first silent superstar was beginning to shine…

 

What Price Glory? (1926) with Gabriel Thibaudeau

The Ritrovato Road is long with many a wind and turn and, sometimes Pilgrims, we’re a bit less than match fit depending on a mix of self-care and the demon drink that my wide’s forebears signed the pledge against (no such thing in Liverpool I have to say…). So it was that my first attempt as watching this quite fabulous restoration failed after a missed the first skirmish with the Hunn lost to Morpheus sweet charms… I dreamt a parallel film that soon took off on its own narrative…

Back for a second try with a strict agreement between myself and Mr M Fuller of Bristol, to wake each other should an old war wound cause us to lose consciousness, we both saw the entirely of Raoul Walsh’s spectacular and, whilst there is perhaps too much larking about and attempts at mutually assured destruction from leading men “Big” Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe as they fight over who’s best and, mostly, who gets the hand of Delores del Rio, it’s undoubtedly a major film.

The combat scenes are extraordinary especially with the colourisation of the explosions so well done it’s hard to work out how they were done – double exposure possibly but there’s no overlap of the images. But the war scenes are so well handled and their intensity explains just why the boys’ squabbling are so necessary – they both recognise the reality of the war and their chances of survival… what else is there to do but enjoy yourselves whilst you still can.

 

Josephine Baker

Someone had mentioned that it was only when you see Ms Baker on film that you realise what a complete package she was: acting, looks, timing, range and humour all quite remarkable but it when Josie dances that my ears popped and musicians Meg Morley on piano with Alice Zecchinelli on drums, set the Jazz tempo to “11” as we saw probably the most energetic and distinctive Charleston I’ve ever witnessed (no one’s doing this on Strictly Come Dancing that’s for sure…).

Baker had longer-stronger legs than most mortals and greater strength than most of the stage-trained actor-dancers around her with the result that she was able to move faster and harder to create the most bewildering spectacle that drew from jazz dancing as well as throwing in some moves that I’ve not seen from other dancers of this era.

Josephine Baker

If it was just this and only this she did then she would still be a legend but her charm and ease with story-telling, her quickness of thought and expression also marks her as a fine dancer. In Siren of the Tropics she somehow manages to rise above the racist subtext - the idea that she doesn't belong in the Paris of her rich white love interest (and his rich white girlfriend) and that she should go “home”. She wants none of that and decides to take her chance in the new world of America.

There’s the obvious irony that she had to leave the US to finally be accepted as a leading lady on screen. As in these French films she was also a sensation in the clubs and revolutionised dance.

What I like best is her impish grin and dimples, she is having the time of her life and it is liberating.

Best festival freeby, evah!!

Sunrise (1927) – Piazza Maggiore

What more can I say about Sunrise? Looking back a week after this stunning World Premier moments stay with me and I can’t wait to watch it again… Albert Camus famously suggested that all art was a search for those first few things that really moved us and there’s something in that with silent film but also in the native experience of this film and Timothy Brock’s music.

Edna, Charlie and a friend

A Dog’s Life (1918)/Shoulder Arms (1918) – Piazza Maggiore

The version audiences have watched for decades was reconstructed from back-up camera angles and second-choice takes, assembled from degraded C and D negatives after the original A negative deteriorated beyond use.

Dave Kerr, Moma

Dave Kerr of the Museum of the Moving Image asked how many of us had seen these two films and after a considerable number of hands went up in the throng he said maybe not… Seems like the former workhouse boy from Kennington was not just a creative genius but an organised one who kept copies of all of his films based on what he considered to be the best takes.

Grade A were used to create copies for the American market and Grade B – almost but not quite as good – were mostly used to cut films for the European and wider markets. So, all of these years, we haven’t seen the very best takes in regional releases nor any others. The restoration team went in search of the material featured in the best canister and, using elements from across the world, from C and D as well as B, came up with about 95% of Grade A material within which to re-construct these films in the way that they were first seen 108 years ago.

Whether it was the suggestion, the occasion, the heat or Timothy Brock’s world-class re-construction of Chaplin’s later scores for these films but Mr Kerr’s point was well made and, with every impish thought shadowing across Charlie’s face, every quicksilver improvisational spark or perfectly executed punchline, it felt like we were indeed watching a more beautiful version of what we already loved. And you know, that can’t be bad.

Hi co-conspirators were also at the best with Edna Purviance revealing and equivalent level of imp to her partner and the two firing off each other with knowing smiles on their faces. Maybe this was something quickly learned from Mabel Normand but Charlie and Edna glance to camera both to make sure we not only know what their thinking but also how much fun they’re having.

This happens even in the middle of Shoulder Arms with it’s faithful representations of life on the font line taken to extremes – the boys sleep underwater in their flooded trench - but as a mark of respect to the millions fighting over there. It’s a mark of Chaplin’s ability and status that he managed to make this film – it’s a matter of how important and loved he was by those who were fighting or who had family fighting that they queued in their millions to see the funny side.

Tonight, the aforementioned Mr Brock conducted the all’ Orchestra Senzaspine in a reworking of earlier reorchestrated Chaplain music to fit the new material. It was again another powerful performance in the piazza and one enjoyed by thousands, in the seats, the bars and on the stage. Charlie’s made something that will last forever and he’s made Edna and his other friends immortal.

In an era of fake prizes, THIS is exactly worth having!

 

See you next year Bologna! Keep it cool.

 

Re-building Jerusalem… Ingmarsarvet (1925)/ Till Österland (1926), Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII

These films were screening as part of the Gustaf Molander strand featuring seven of his works from the silent era to the fifties a period of huge change in the Swedish film industry. Indeed, in his introduction, Jon Wengström of the SFI, talked about Molander’s two films adapting the bulk of Selma Lageröf’s Jerusalem as representing perhaps the last echoes of the golden age of Swedish cinema before so many major talents left for Hollywood. Fitting then that these should be about an attempt to find the promised land by a group of swedes not all of whom thrived once they arrived...

 

Till Österland (1926) with Neil Brand

Starting at the ending, Till Österland (To the East) the fourth film adapted from Selma Lagerlöf’s two-part epic Jerusalem which was published in 1901 not long after she had visited the Holy Land. A Swedish-Soviet-German co-production it featured extensive location filming in Jaffa and Jerusalem as well as Borane, Dalarna in Sweden in order to replicate the sweep of the author’s themes of love, land, faith and fortune.

It’s quite astonishing that what remains of Till Österland include some of the film’s major dramatic turns and takes us to the emotional finale. The first reel is entirely missing but all of the title cards survive along with about a quarter of the moving images for which we should be very thankful were spared by the Gods of Silent Cinematic Destruction… As a consequence, the relationship between the leads is very well covered with pleasing amounts of Mårtenson, Hanson and Hasselqvist performance time there to bring something I thought I’d never see to a very satisfying close.

Lars Hanson and Ivan Hedqvist

The film quality is also very fine indeed for this restoration/reconstruction which was completed only a few weeks ago, and matches that of the first film – in fact it’s colourways were used as a guide to re-tinting the almost-complete Ingmarsarvet (1925). You never know what to expect from this kind of recreation and it was a series of surprises as the parts of the film you most hoped still survived, kept on appearing; the main human story felt emotionally intact!

We also get to see some of the excellent cinematography of Julius Jaenzon - as well as Carl-Axel Söderström – given a totally different landscape to capture. For the man who shot so well against the Sun in Victor Sjostrom’s first adaptation of the work, The Sons of Ingmar (1919), it was indeed fascinating to see.

What’s missing would appear to be more coverage of the events in Jerusalem where the colonists struggle to survive in the unfamiliar conditions although it is very pleasing to see Lars Hanson actually in the Holy Land and the recently-added “Whirling Dervish” scene adds so much weight to the realisation of who the man who looks like Jesus really is. That said, Lagerlöf had described an altogether more brutal story:

“This is the Jerusalem of soul-hunting, this is the Jerusalem of evil-speaking, this is the Jerusalem of lies, of slander, of jeers. Here one persecutes untiringly; here one murders without weapons. It is this Jerusalem which kills men.”

 

Lagerlöf had made the same arduous journey to the Holy Land in 1899, inspired by the migration of 37 Swedes from the village of Nås in 1896. According to Swedish writer, Ingrid Carlberg, their photographs can still be found in the American Colony Hotel along with Selma’s. Reviewing the book in The Independent, Carlberg tells of the impact Lagerlöf’s “effortless storytelling” and prose had on her and, of course, being a Brit, I’ve previously had to rely on Velma Swanston Howard’s contemporary translation which has had mixed reviews in terms of its maintenance of authorial respect. That said, the story is still compelling and at times you’re wrong-footed by the shifts in tone, the magical reality and the visions that may or may not be real.

Mona Mårtenson

From this reconstruction we don’t see the broader struggles of the Dalecarlians community who left for Jerusalem at the end of the previous film. The first part of the book is merciless with characters being bought to life only to be extinguished by the heat, the light, shame and starvation. One man dies in disappointment after the golden vision of Jerusalem he saw on first arrival is not matched by the reality of dirty streets, beggars and lepers. Gunhild, one of Hellgum’s early converts, suffers after the group are demonised by other missionaries, who view them as immoral for their refusal to sanction marriage. The shame reaches back home where her mother dies in grief leading to the young woman’s decent into misery, she is soon gone herself, faith ill-rewarded. Hellgum himself is barely mentioned now that they are where he asked them to go and Conrad Veidt was also absent from the film which was made back-to-back with the first.

The leader of the mission is an American woman, Mrs Gordon, who, in the book, was inspired to form the new faith by the sinking of L’Univers, not Hellgum as in the film. She is based on Anna Spafford, the wife of a well-to-do lawyer and Presbyterian church elder, who was travelling to Europe on the SS Ville du Havre with her daughters when it collided with another ship and sank, with Anna being one of the few survivors. The Spafford’s established a Christian utopian movement eventually travelling to establish a commune in Jerusalem where they hoped good works would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. They were treated with suspicion and they did indeed encourage the exodus from Nås. Truth is stranger than fiction, even Selma’s.

Gertrude is nursed back to health by Ingmar’s cousin  Hök Gabriel Mattsson, (Harald Schwenzen), who has held a candle for the schoolmaster’s daughter even since he attended her father’s school. He doesn’t think he has a chance, assuming Gertrude still loves Ingmar, and yet she has moved on from her old passion ever since her vision of Christ and their arrival in the Holy Land. The two form a close bond but Gertrude doesn’t want to be unfaithful to her Lord and Hök doesn’t want to get in his cousin’s way.

Mona Mårtenson, Jenny Hasselqvist and Ivan Hedqvist

Back home and Ingmar has grown to love his wife Barbro (Jenny Hasselqvist who relishes the chance to play this complex character) whilst at the same time being bound to Gertrude by his promise. Barbro has revealed herself to be a forgiving and principled individual who not only is beloved by the peasants of Ingmar’s Farm but also provides financial support for the family of the man who jilted her. She too feels a responsibility to Gertrude and wants to divorce Ingmar so that he can be with her.

That unbearable moral conundrum at the end of the first volume and Ingmar’s Inheritance has twisted itself even further out of joint and there’s a tremendous tension in the final furlongs of the narrative as each character slowly understands the reality of their feelings for each other. Selma is not going to let any of this go though and there’s an excess of human complication which she and now we can see, Molander, makes light work, which in comparison with Sjostrom is really his stock in trade!

 

Neil Brand gave the film full cinematic themes and dynamics, it must be so hard to accompany a reconstruction like this with the moving picture sections suddenly shifting to extended intertitle or stills but Neil held and enhanced the remains and played a significant role in making it feel like a whole film again. He’s had some considerable practice at this sort of work and it showed in emphatically stirring ways!

 

Mona Mårtenson and Conrad Veidt

Ingmarsarvet (1925) with Andre Desponds and Frank Bockius 

 

I’ve written about Ingmar’s Inheritance/ Ingmarsarvet (1925) before but this is much longer than the film I saw at 114 minutes as well as being tinted and looking, post digital restoration, as good as it’s done since the initial release. It really does support Jon Wengström’ s suggestion that this was the last of the “golden age” with a clarity and depth of detail that allows the audience to appreciate the landscapes – so important to the story after all – as well as the players. In terms of the source material, Sjöström followed his author’s text more closely and made two feature films out of less than 105 pages of Jerusalem whereas Molander crafted one from the remaining 240 of Volume One and another from the 400 of Volume Two (see above) including adding some of his own inventions.

Ingmar’s Inheritance (Ingmarsarvet) steps back a few chapters and starts with Strong Ingmar (Ivan Hedqvist) taking young Ingmar (Arne Lundh) to the death bed of his father and telling him of the family’s ranking and importance. Elias (John Ekman) is married to Karin Ingmarsdotter (Märta Halldén) and his decent into an abusive alcoholic wastrel is shown again but, unlike book and Sjostrom film, he causes his own demise by riding his trap too hard, hiding what remains of his wife’s wealth – little Ingmar’s inheritance - in the pillow on his death bed.

The years pass and Ingmar (now Lars Hanson) is fully grown and a teacher at the school run by Schoolmaster Storm (Nils Aréhn), looking longingly across at the old homestead, which is managed by Karin and the man she was always destined to marry, Halvor (Mathias Taube). Ingmar himself has his eyes set on Storm’s daughter Gertrude (Mona Mårtenson) who is almost despairing of his romantic instincts until he agrees to accompany her to the village dance. At the dance, Ingmar impresses not only Gertrude but Strong Ingmar who challenges him to honour the family traditions of farming and hard work. He takes him to the fast-flowing river at Langforsen’s Gap and persuades him to build a sawmill there which he can use to make a fortune and thereby buy back the family farm.

Conrad Veidt, for my daughter the film's standout performer. Yes, ahead of Lars!

Across the village, the faithful have gathered to pray, not dance and Pastor (Albion Örtengren) leads his fragile flock in hymns and routine religious rhymes at the missionary house. A storm is brewing and will bring unexpected fantasy and glamour in the form of Conrad Veidt’s wandering preacher, Hellgum, who takes refuge from the wind and rain and immediately takes command of the pulpit. In the book Hellgum is married to one of the women in the village but here he is more sensationalised with a not entirely trustworthy magnetism and religious passion – I’m not sure that Selma would have approved; her Hellgum is far subtler. Still, this is Conrad Veidt, and he’s absolutely the man for this gig and plays the febrile duality for all it’s worth every second on the screen as the “lone wanderer who brought a message from the Holy City of God…”

Meanwhile, the storm begins to terrify the revellers at the dance as Strong Ingmar talks about the myth of the wild hunt of Odin come to reap the souls of the unwary and Molander indulges in some very folkloric fantasies as ghouls, gods and wild animals sweep unnaturally through the woodlands. Ingmar returns and looking from the window appears to see the ghost of his father looming large in the darkened sky telling him to honour the family traditions.

Conrad Veidt, Märta Halldén and Mathias Taube

It is a very effective change in pace and signals Ingmar’s pursuit of both his family farm and Gertrude’s love as well as the beginning of Hellgum’s religious conversion of many in the village. The storm stops as Hellgum speaks – is he/isn’t he a prophet? - and he tells them of the faith that will bring safety during the storm… a new belief he acquired during the sinking of the liner Universe. This is another well-directed segment and harrowing still as men try desperately to pull women and even children off the lifeboats after the ship goes down, there’s little nobility on show and the fight to survive is grim.

 

Hellgum volunteers to jump off the lifeboat to save the women and children and survives after a vision from God showing that unity, brotherhood and sacrifice will save the world. He is moved to gather brethren and follow a path to a life in Jerusalem in a new Christian community. Undoubtedly, the notion of powerful new faith was something much closer to the contemporary audience, indeed, Lagerlöf partially based the story on an emigration that took place in 1896 from Nås in the Dalarna County.

Mona Mårtenson and Lars Hanson

Ingmar and Gertrude are much more convincing to modern eyes in their love and in his desire to restore his birth-right. But the path to true love must never run smooth and, as Ingmar is off building his water mill, Gertrude attracts the not entirely holy interest of Hellgum…  Once again Strong Ingmar is on hand to set things in motion and after he warns Ingmar, the young man races back home to confront his sweetheart. He duly gains the wrong impression and appears to have assaulted Hellgum only for the preacher to explain that Ingmar fought off two attackers. Ingmar forgives Gertrude’s momentary doubt and their balance is restored but for how long?

The story turns as Karin, so practical and therefore previously resistant, is cured of her unexplained inability to walk during one of Hellgum’s gatherings at Ingmarsfarm… she agrees to sell the farm to fund the Hellgumists’ exodus to the Holy Land thereby leaving an opportunity for Ingmar to buy back the family farm. Sadly, the farm is slightly out of his price bracket and it is here that we find Sweden’s multi-talented superstar Jenny Hasselqvist as Barbro the daughter of rich Berger Sven Person (Knut Lindroth) who was once a farm boy for the Ingmars. Barbro has been disappointed in love and looked on with considerable interest in the direction of Ingmar, so Dad does what all fathers might and offers to loan Ingmar the money as dowry for Barbro’s hand in marriage.

So now we have a classic Lagerlöf moral conundrum and Ingmar is not just driven by familial pride, he feels a responsibility to all those workers on the farm, especially the elderly who look on him with pleading eyes as he wrestles with his conscience. If you don’t want to know the result, please look away now.

Lars Hanson. Ingmar imagines...

Spoilers!!!

Ingmar follows his head and not his heart and, although neither solution would give him peace, he feels he has betrayed Gertrude who is devastated. His ensuing wedding with Barbro is not a happy occasion and he can barely look at his new bride, but his misery is about to be compounded as his former love, flees to the woods in desperation, has visions of putting his eyes out in revenge before seeing a vision of Christ and undergoing a conversion.

 

The real kick in the tale is when, seeking rest at a peasant’s cottage, Gertrude sleeps on a pillow bought at auction from the Ingmar’s Farm… she finds the money hidden by Evil Elias and a note explaining that it’s Ingmar’s inheritance. In a heart-breaking final meeting, Gertrude calls Ingmar away from his wedding to tell him that she has transferred her love to Jesus and that she has found his money. Realising that this find could have enabled him to have his love and his farm, he collapses in a sad rage… but the worst is that Gertrude is in a rapture beyond his earthly love.

Lars Hanson and Jenny Hasselqvist

So, we see various conflicts, Ingmar’s love for Gertrude and for the land, his true inheritance is farming and not necessarily the farm or money. He makes most sense as a many working the land as he will prove in the final part. His inheritance is also steadfast loyalty and a willingness to do the right thing. He faces tough choices but I couldn’t help but think of the more complex world that would arrive in the future. In capturing the way of life in old Varmland Lagerlof and her directors were unaware of the biggest challenges of the new century; you wonder what happened to the Ingmars in the time of mechanisation and the post-industrial world?

 

Taken together these two films come in a 114 plus 42 minutes so just over two and a half hour combination; it would make for an interesting screening with a break in the middle perhaps. Here excellent accompaniment was provided by Andre Desponds on piano and Frank Bockius on  percussion; the two under-pinned the lyricism and romance whilst also driving beats into the more dramatic passages. Frank demonstrated elsewhere his command of tone and tempo and here he was a gift for yet another piano player!

 

Congratulations to the SFI Jon Wengström and to Magnus Rosborn who worked on the Molander as well as Jörgen Viman who did the same for the Stiller!

 

For more information on Selma's trip to Jerusalem there's an interesting post on the National Library of Israel's The Librarians' website from Hadar Ben-Yehuda.

Jenny Hasselqvist

All you need is Lagerlöf… Bologna Preview – Swedish Restorations

Not one but three restored films based on Selma Lagerlöf’s novels to screen at Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival.

Gösta Berling saga (1924)

It was probably in 2018 that I first heard of the restoration of Mauritz Stiller's Gösta Berling saga (1924), and a few years after I’d started my fascination with the story, its original writer and its stars after viewing the Kino DVD… Sure it was Greta Garbo’s breakthrough role, but it also featured vital performances from Lars “Handsome” Hanson, Gerda Lundequist - "The Swedish Sarah Bernhardt" – and Jenny Hasselqvist, Royal Swedish Ballet prima ballerina and an actor in so many European films: has anyone ever managed to combine both careers so well?

The initial restoration was screened in San Francisco pre-pandemic but now, at last, next month’s Il Cinema Ritrovato will screen the film as part of the 1924 selection. This new digitally restored Gosta will be unlike any other I’ve seen and is based on the analogue reconstruction from 2018, but with some changes in the editing work according to the Swedish Film Institute. The film now has a running time of 206 mins (simulating 18 fps) which is a good 22 minutes longer than the Kino version. It was originally measured by the Statens Biografbyrå in March 1924 at 4534 meters, which with a display speed of 18 frames per second would correspond to 221 minutes. The film has subsequently been shortened and re-cut several times over the years, and so this latest reconstruction moves it as close to the original release as it’s been.

 

As Jon Wengström, Senior Curator of the SFI’s Filmarkivet / Archival Film Collections explained:“The main sources for the restoration was an existing duplicate positive from our collections, and tinted nitrate print from the collections of Cinemateca Portuguesa (Lisbon). A brief scene was also added from a safety print in the collections of Gosfilmofond (Moscow).”

Gerda Lundequist, whose grand-daughter is rock singer Sonja Kristina... 

Jörgen Viman was the SFI’s Film Archivist on the restoration or “recreation” as he puts it, of the film explains further that tinted nitrate prints were also borrowed from the Cinémathèque française in Paris and the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin, as a reference for the film's continuity. Having just re-read Paul Norlen’s 2009 translation of Selma Lagerlöf’s extraordinary debut from 1891 it will be fascinating to compare Stiller’s focus. Lagerlöf creates such a powerful, magical-reality and seems to write from inside her subjects… I wonder what Powell and Pressburger would have made of her work and the interpretation of Stiller, Sjöström and Molander are all so tonally different.

The film's subtitles have also been recreated based on the wording in text lists submitted to the Statens Biografbyrå. These intertexts have now been based on Alva Lundin’s original designs - only three of the 405 text boxes have survived and another three were found reproduced in a trade journal from the time. Sadly, Lundin’s original painted illustrations of the text have not survived but you can read more about her work on the Women Film Pioneers Project website!

The film’s colour ways have been recreated though using the tinting scheme of the Portuguese nitrate print. The colour shading of the intertexts is also based on a description in another trade magazine article – bless these secondary sources!

 

Jenny Hasselqvist and Lars Hanson in Till Österland 

Till Österland (1926)

 

At the start of the pandemic, I read Selma’s epic Jerusalem Parts I and II (1901-2) as translated by the American Velma Swanston Howard in 1915. The story was set in the traditional rural heartlands of Dalarna and involves a group of villagers who gain a new faith and emigrate to Jerusalem as happened in the parish of Nås in 1896. It gave rise to four cinematic adaptations with Victor Sjöström making the first two films, The Sons of Ingmar (Ingmarssönerna) (1919) followed by Karin Daughter of Ingmar (Karin Ingmarsdotter) (1920) which failed to repeat the success of the first film leading the director to turn his attention elsewhere. Gustaf Molander picked up the project and completed the story with his brace, Ingmar's Inheritance (Ingmarsarvet) (1925) and Till österland (1926).

The two directors had many differences in approach with Sjöström’s narrative much closer to Lagerlöf’s text and more focused on the interior life of her conflicted characters whilst Molander broadened the palate, taking more liberties and setting up more action. Sjöström made two feature films out of less than 105 pages whereas Molander crafted one from the remaining 240 and another from the 350 pages of Volume II, including adding some of his own inventions. The feeling is much the same but the pace has changed and the cinematic vision of the narrative is one aimed at creating a hit film with hot actors, most of whom feature in both films.

Mona Mårtenson and Conrad Veidt

Ingmar's Inheritance has Lars Hanson, Mona Mårtenson and Jenny Hasselqvist as well as a powerful turn from the non-recurring Conrad Veidt. It’s still extant but the follow-up has long been incomplete and unscreened. Not any more as Till Österland has been restored, as far as possible, to create a 42 minutes long mix of the surviving film and other elements; it’s narrative structure now intact.

One additional scene, showing the dance of the dervishes, was found in a compilation film but the main thing is that the existing footage is now properly put in context, with the film’s original intertitles accompanying the surviving footage, and some stills and explanatory titles where footage is missing. All in all, the fragment now has a running time of 42 mins (simulating 20 fps), and the surviving footage is now shown with recreated tinting.

Filming in Jerusalem

Magnus Rosborn was the archivist working on the film and his summary is… “The surviving scenes have mainly been taken from a duplicate negative made from a duplicate positive which in turn was produced in 1977 from the film's then fragmentarily preserved – but now lost – original negative. In addition, another scene has been taken from a duplicate negative for the film Selma Lagerlöf 80 år (1938), which has been preserved in Sveriges Television's archives.”

The intertitles have been taken from the film's preserved original text boxes and the colours of the film have been reconstructed using handwritten tinting and toning notes copied into the duplicate positive. The missing scenes have been reconstructed with the help of those text boxes, production stills and newly made explanatory texts.

Before the premiere in 1926, the film was measured at the censorship review at 2587 meters which corresponds to a playing time of 113 minutes, so whilst approximately three quarters of the film's moving image material is still missing, we are now able to finally see what becomes of the characters in what was Volume II of Jerusalem. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…

Victor yes, Mauritz maybe and Gustaf.. well!?

What did the author think of these films? According to Paolo Cherchi Usai in The Oxford History of World Cinema, it was the Selma’s admiration for Sjöström’s films that led her to sign over the film rights for all her books to Svenska Bio and he adds that the director “found in her work the ideal expression of the active role played by nature in the destiny of characters torn between good and evil.” The author was certainly not low on opinion and was initially unsure about The Phantom Carriage (although pleased with the result) and berated Mauritz Stiller for his adaptation of The Gosta Berling Saga calling it “cheap and sensational”.

Well… we can see more clearly for ourselves in just one month’s time! Bring it on!

Details of Il Cinema Ritrovato can be found on their website.

The Swedish Film Institute website is here.