The Brit! Girl... Carnival (1931), Projecting the Archive, BFI

 

There are some screenings you just have to turn up for, this was the first public projection of a 35mm restoration print completed using two nitrate elements in 1997, a genuine photochemical restoration long before the new digital techniques, and the craft in evidence added to the feeling of being really treated. The BFI National Archive’s Curator, Jo Botting, was on hand to provide us with details of the work undertaken as well as the film’s star, Britain’s Clara Bow, the sensational Dorothy ‘Chili’ Bouchier who certainly had ‘It!’ – so much so she was named after the popular song, I Love My Chili Bom Bom whilst working as a sales girl at Harrods. I had only previously seen her as a bit part player in Shooting Stars (1927) in which she was cast after being spotted by director Anthony Asquith modelling at Harrods, and then in Maurice Elvey’s silent Palais de danse (1928).

 

It’s the age-old story of an older man, Silvio Steno (Canadian Matheson Lang, 42 and about a foot taller than our Chili) and his attractive (much) younger wife Simonetta (Chili B) whose attractiveness to every scoundrel in Venice and beyond will inevitably give him pause for jealous thoughts. To add that extra spice, the two are actors and in one of those parallels that seems initially too convenient, are playing Othello – Shakespeare’s Patron Saint of Green Eyes – and his poor wife Desdemona. They are introduced as he is rather convincingly throttling her only for a fellow cast member, Nella (Kay Hammond) to burst the bubble as she casually lights a cigarette immediately defusing our expectations whilst also storing them up for later on.

 

Carnival was originally filmed in 1921 as a silent directed by Harley Knoles and also starring Matheson Lang – it was based on his play after all - as Silvio/Othello along with Hilda Bayley as Simonetta and Ivor Norvello as her paramour Count Andrea Scipione of which more later. According to the BFI notes this film featured more of the play and its allusions to the unfolding action as well as more location shooting. It’s still extant so I’d love to see how it compares. Chili had been very impressed with the film and she had dreamed of playing the role and so, as Jo Botting pointed out in her excellently informed introduction, she wrote to Wilcox when the film production was announced to her him to cast her for the part.

Chili Bouchier and Matheson Lang

I can see that Novello would make for a better Scipione and Chili was disappointed in the one provided her by German actor Joseph Schildkraut, bought over from Hollywood. According to Jo Botting, quoting Chili, he would arrive at the studio every day, “short, sallow and balding and would re-appear on set two hours later, resplendent in his military uniform, heightened by shoe lifts, corseted and sporting a hair piece.”

 

Here Chili is every inch a star even at the age of just 21 during filming, especially in the stunning costumes of Scottish designer Doris Zinkeisen who also provided the stage designs too in this very effective recreation of Venice which mixes stock footage with stunning interiors, shadowy on set canals and watery alleys as our characters move about in hopeful secrecy. What happens on the rio di San Salvador stays on the rio di San Salvador unless you forget to draw the curtains on your gondola windows…

 

Doris had, according to one press piece quoted by Jo “… the knack of making actors and actresses look perfect in both face and form… the elixir of a film star’s life.” She and her sister Anna were both talented artists and whilst the latter became a sculptor, Doris pursued a career as a theatrical costume and set designer and also worked in film, providing Dorothy Gish, with her risqué gowns for Nell Gwyn (1926) directed, of course, by Mr Herbert Wilcox. There’s an interesting piece here about the two sisters and their extraordinary lives.

Every word demonostrably true... 

Here she had the perfect model in Bouchier and she slicked back her Bow-esque unruly curls and dressed her in tight-fitting silver culottes topped off with silver elaborate head gear, with feathers on top. The bodice gave the impression that the actress was wearing nothing underneath and, if the Brits had ever had a code, this would definitely be “pre…”. Schildkraut was also similarly well-adorned in a dark bodysuit accentuating his feline grace… perhaps that was the issue for Chili, she’d spent too much time with male dancers at ballet school, all with their own hair and height! We certainly see plenty of her dance skills at the carnival as Alfred Rode and His Royal Tzigane Band play but will those feet become guilty in ways later described by George Michael?

 

Earlier on as the troupe rehearse Othello, and Silvio bemoans the lack of passion thinking his own character flawed in conception as surely a little infidelity should not prevent such a marriage as Othello and Desdemona’s from being pulled apart. It seems to reinforce the foreshadowing of the earlier strangulation scene especially as Simonetta does indeed attract many men and has been flirting with Scipione. Still, she seems fully committed to her Silvio and their young son and promises him a special costume for the impending Carnival.

 

Earlier she had been compromised by Scipione in a clinch on a gondola trip which was unfortunately spotted – before she pushes him away, by her good for nothing brother Lelio (Brian Buchel) who naturally uses this knowledge to blackmail her so that he can take Nella to the ball. This raises Silvio’s suspicions and playing the part of the jealous Othello, perhaps this is only natural. His sister Italia (Lilian Braithwaite) also has no time for Simonetta and has been playing Iago for some time it seems, pouring poison into her brother’s ear at every opportunity.

 

Shine on Dorothy Chili Bouchier!

Silvio is called away to see a dying friend though and Simonetta responds with childish petulance – she cannot bear to miss her Carnival and to wear her costume. Her husband has to travel overnight and so she decides to go to the Carnival anyway, to enjoy the dance and the freedom with Scipione even though she must suspect the younger man will see this as his big chance for conquest.

 

Unfortunately for everyone, Silvio has missed the last train and, as he returns to the apartment he soon stops enjoying the spectacular-coloured fireworks and wonders where his wife has got to… Are our players doomed to re-enact Othello off stage as well as on? Or will there be a deeper lesson to be learned? I hope you all get the chance to see for yourself as this film deserves more exposure.

 

The film has some issues with tone and pacing and being an early British talkie, sometimes moves slowly but all of this is mitigated by the brilliance of Zinkeisen’s design as well as Bouchier’s genuine star quality. Carnival was intended to propel her to home-made stardom but it didn’t work in the end, especially as other, less interesting choices, were forced on her. She spent more time on theatre work as the thirties progressed and was still working into the 1980s before being “rediscovered” as one of the last surviving stars in Britain, especially after the publication of her memoirs Shooting Star: The Last of the Silent Film Stars was published – copies still available on eBay and Abe Books at reasonable prices!

 

She died just shy of her 90^th birthday in 1999 almost exactly 25 years ago as Jo pointed out. None of those present at this screening will forget Chili any time soon, her star still twinkles - indeed, in the BFI's NFT 1 last night, it shone!

Cricklewood Babylon… Shooting Stars (1927) on Blu-ray and DVD

“The success of the production will depend to a great extent upon the excellence of the photography… The most modern form of technique is involved.”

After featuring this superb restoration at last year’s London Film Festival Archive Gala, the BFI have now released Anthony Asquith’s bravura debut – nominally directed by A.V. Bramble - on a generously-priced Blu-ray/DVD dual format set and it’s a worthy package for this gem.

Persuading ourselves that we had little credibility as a film-making culture began almost as soon as the first British hands cranked a camera. Perhaps moving images were seen as too cheap a trick for a nation with such a proud theatrical history yet, all the same, quality films were made in the UK and there’s a growing number restored and projected that show that we could hold our own.

Annette and Brian sitting in a tree...

Here Asquith – already seeped in film culture – takes aim at the darker and dafter side of the business and creates one of the first domestic films about film: a narrative that manages to be both effective as satire and affecting as a story of love gone awry.

This film opens with a stunning overhead tracking sequence that you could have sworn belonged in a German studio rather than one in Cricklewood. The stars of the film are stars in a film – Prairie Love -  and after an amusing opening showing Annette Benson being filmed in a blossom tree cosying up to Brian Aherne on a wooden horse (and wearing the most outrageous cowboy chaps), the camera looks down on the stage then follows the characters as they move around the studio.

By the time the motion has finished Benson has removed her phoney blonde wig and Ahern’s four-wooden-legged friend has been revealed: they’re not “acting” now and are a man and wife about to see their relationship move into very stormy seas.

Benson’s character, Mae Feather has walked up the stairs to another stage on which they are filming a comedy featuring madcap Andy Wilkes (Donald Calthrop… last seen blackmailing Anny Ondra) a man of no fixed moustache.  Bizarrely, she sees him as an alternative to her handsome husband Julian Gordon (Aherne)… maybe she’s short on laughs or just finds handsome boring.

Brian Aherne on his steed

Mae skips seeing her own film to stay in with Andy whilst Julian ends up on his own, watching their film next to a couple of school boys – he’s barely older than them and even starts cheering himself on screen, easily lost in the process. Julian’s clearly very imaginative and easy to play but this miss-aligned love triangle cannot carry on for ever and in a moment of madness Mae loads a gun due to be fired at her husband on stage…

As previously mentioned in my rave after the live presentation, Asquith brings out the best in his performers, especially Annette Benson who manages to bridge the gap between spoilt bractress, bored stage-wife and guilt-ridden devastation whilst still retaining a lightness of touch that makes her likeable. It’s her emotional flexibility that makes the story special as the reality of her violent plan could simply have appeared as ruthless.

Insert "gets the bird" line here

But there’s regret and the realisation that sometimes we get so mired in routine we forget to find the obvious truth but will it be too late? You have to hope for the best – that’s usually the best you can hope for… and all plays out in the film’s superbly anxious closing sequence.

No spoilers – you have to see for yourself.

The film has a surprisingly-high consistency of tone for a first time effort but Asquith’s script notes – quoted at the top - showed how well he had already thought through the photo play before the shooting began: the sequence described above is pretty much as he planned it although credit must also go to his cinematographers Henry Harris and Stanley Rodwell – the “expert cameramen” he sought.

Donald Calthrop and Dorothy "Chili" Bouchier

Live, the score from John Altman and the Live Film Orchestra swung in an emotionally-emphatic way and the studio version on this disc reveals levels of more nuanced feeling  – with a predominant theme of bittersweet endeavour: love’s labour’s inevitable loss amongst misaligned affection and ambition. It’s a hard mix to get right and whilst some may feel the score a little too defined at times, for me it enhances the flavours already present. Hearts will be broken and it’s almost as if the protagonists know this from the start: not that this sentimental premonition will ever stop them trying.

The crew of Prairie Love

Shooting Stars comes with an extensive side order of extras including an illustrated booklet with revelatory essays from Bryony Dixon, John Altman, Henry K Miller and Chris O’Rourke.

There are seven shorts, the longest of which Starlings of the Screen (1925, 15 mins) is of the most interest to me as it features my friend Nikki’s Great Aunt Sybil Rhoda who, in addition to acting in Hitchcock’s Downhill (1927) and Boadicea (1927) also enjoyed a career as a chorus girl and model. She lived to 102 and only passed away in 2005 - by all accounts one of the family’s great characters!

Then there are further glimpses backstage including Secrets of a World Industry  - The Making of Cinematograph Film (1922, 8 mins),  Around the Town: British Film Stars and Studios (1921, 2 mins),  Opening of British Instructional Film Studio (1928, 4 mins) and a chance to Meet Jackie Coogan (1924, 11 mins)

It’s a very handsome package and available on Monday 21^st March direct from the BFI online Shop and other less reputable digital emporia…  Either at home or in cinema I cannot recommend Shooting Stars highly enough not just for fans of silent cinema but for anyone who expects good storytelling from cinema and to simply be touched sat there, almost alone, in the silvery darkness.