That was the year that was… 2018's most silent nights

Once again the early 1900’s absolutely wiped the floor with the early 21st Century which is turning out less of a Fox than a Dog. Reality in the UK took something of a beating in 2018 but at least I had Berlin, Bologna and Pordenone with this being the year when I took to flying after a break of more than a decade to seek out more silent experiences in Europe. So, apologies if my list is more jet-set than train-set but most of these films will make it to the UK (provided we can sort out the customs arrangements…).

This blog was once described as picaresque and whilst I’ve learned so much from my “travel” I continue to find new surprises from the first 35 years of cinema and to build on impressions already made. I’ve only been a watcher of “live” silent film since April 2011 when Neil Brand and the Dodge Brothers played rip-roaring accompaniment for Brooksie in Beggars of Life, and it remains a joy to watch the archives emptied of their secrets and to see films projected and played for that have been hidden for decades.

And so, in no particular order and with apologies for all those I’ve missed off, here’s a snapshot of my favourite moments this year.

1. Sunrise (1927), Elizabeth Jane Baldry, Early Music Centre, York

I’ve waited years to see Sunrise with live accompaniment and Jonathan Best’s fantastic Yorkshire Silent Film Festival provided the perfect opportunity as I nipped over to York after a wonderful day at Sheffield’s Abbeydale Picture House. The Early Music Centre is a converted church and provided great atmosphere as well as acoustics for Ms Baldy’s gorgeous accompaniment. Murnau’s classic is the great fairy tale of the silent era and this was a special combination of sight and sound

2. Nelson (1918), Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne, Cinema No. 6, Portsmouth

Talking of the importance of place… South West Silents had the quite brilliant idea of screening Maurice Elvey’s ground-breaking biopic of Horatio Nelson in Portsmouth and all within a cannonball shot of HMS Victory herself.

Elvey filmed on Victory and this remains the only time this happened as Dr Lucie Dutton explained in her erudite introduction – a celebration of this remarkable British film and its director.  Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne illustrated the narrative with all due diligence and the old port resonated with joy on our greatest admiral’s birthday: perfect timing all round.

3. 7th Heaven (1927), with Timothy Brock, Teatro Comunale di Bologna Orchestra, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival 2018

My first trip to Bologna and a feast of film and culture in one of Italy’s finest cities. We saw the restored Rosita with a full orchestra under the stars in the Piazza Maggiore but, after rain stopped play, 7th Heaven was screened at the Opera House instead and were left as high as Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell by the combination of screen, eighteenth century architecture and Timothy Brock’s sumptuous score. Wow.

4. The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show, John Sweeney and his Biograph Band, London Film Festival 2018

No other event carried more shock of the old than this year’s LFF gala in which dozens of late Victorian films – many from ultra-high grade 60-70mm negatives – were screened on the BFI’s IMAX. There was no peripheral escape from these huge memorials to our great grandparents’ age and John Sweeney’s perfectly judged score brought out the full flavour as the appropriately costumed Bryony Dixon talked us through this stunning archive.

5.  The Golden Butterfly (1926), Cyrus Gabrysch Kennington Bioscope

The Bioscope programmers leave no stone unturned in their efforts to brings us not only the rare and obscure but also the wonderful and the two Michael Curtiz (nee Manó Kertész Kaminer) films featuring the dazzling Lili Damita were amongst the highlights. This one was my favourite and I loved the combination of high-energy Lil with Cyrus Gabrysch’s quicksilver accompaniment.

6.  Christian Wahnschaffe (1919-21), with Stephen Horne, Berlinale 68

My first trip to Berlin and a chunk of the Festival’s Weimar Retrospective of which this sprawling two-parter starring the außergewöhnlich Conrad Veidt was the highlight. The second film is the best and Stephen Horne whipped up mighty storm for the intense conclusion. Herr Veidt’s fashion sense was also extraordinary; monocles, leather vest and jodhpurs are on my Christmas list.

7. Exit Smiling (1926), Meg Morley, Kennington Bioscope 2nd Silent Laughter Weekend

Thoroughly modern Beatrice Lillie gives one of the most delicious silent performances in this, her only silent film and, on this evidence alone was quite possibly “the funniest woman in the World”. Sadly, she had better things to do with her time than make too many movies but what remains dazzles especially this one when accompanied with jazz-age cool by mighty Meg Morley.

8. Arcadia (2018), Paul Wright with music from Adrian Utley and Will Gregory

Not strictly a silent film this dazzling deep-dive into the BFI archives threw up a compelling narrative about the relationship between of our connection to the land and collective purpose. It was one of the most though provoking films of the year with an excellent score from Utley and Gregory who also featured three songs from the almost mystically-talented Anne Briggs: our identity is not defined by where we are but by how we are. More natural is what we need now not the enclosure of mind, body and soul…

9. The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916), with John Sweeney, Cambridge Film Festival

Lois Weber is Director of the Year starring in Kino Lorber’s massive six-disc compilation: Pioneers – Women Film Makers (box-set must-have of the year!) and with her reputation now elevated back to where it belongs. This film was her first blockbuster and featured legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova in the title role… the film is slightly uneven and Anna’s acting isn’t near the quality of her dancing but, I loved it all especially with maestro Sweeney’s accompaniment. He’s also on the Milestone DVD too with an orchestral score: essential!

10. Captain Salvation (1927) with Philip Carli, Orchestra San Marco, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

This year’s festival got off to a flier with this powerful tale of redemption and human love on the ocean waves. Philip Carli conducted the Orchestra San Marco playing his own score and they whipped up a storm as did Lars Hanson as the preacher with doubt and the underrated Pauline Starke as the fallen woman who refuses to fall any further. I’d watched the DVD before but nothing prepares you for the combination of light and life when the music is played live.

Plus…

Woman of the Year: Jenny Hasselqvist

This may surprise a lot of people… oh, alright, maybe not. Jenny’s appearance in the restoration of her first film, Mauritz Stiller’s Balettprimadonnan (1916) was properly emotional, especially when she performs on stage at Stockholm’s Royal Opera House. She was Sweden’s leading prima ballerina over the period; a miracle of connected physical and emotional expression. John Sweeney was on hand to accompany the dance.

Man of the Year: Lars Hanson

Also in the above film, Lars, Lars, Lars… was probably my most watched silent star of the year and he never disappoints; handsome and able to fight, lose and regain faith, love, drink, climb and even sail. He’s always grounded and, like so many Swedes, effortlessly convincing.

Jenny, Jenny, Jenny and Lars, Lars, Lars...

Venue of the Year: Cinema Museum

Has to be. The Cinema Museum lives on thanks to unstinting support and the Kennington Bioscope is one of its shining lights. Here’s hoping I’m saying the same thing next December as the fight to save the Museum is not quite over.

Thank you to everyone who programmed, projected, promoted and performed – see you all again in 2019!

The funniest woman in the World… Exit Smiling (1926), Meg Morley, Kennington Bioscope 2nd Silent Laughter Weekend

The Cinema Museum’s redoubtable tour guide, Morris Hardcastle, was offering his hand at £50 per shake given he had once shook Charlie Chaplin’s hand, for David Robinson and Kevin Brownlow he was suggesting a bargain £100 given the number of silent performers these two have met over the years. But before Exit Smiling, our final film of the packed, inspirational Saturday programme, Mr Robinson told us of meeting its inimitable star, Beatrice Lillie at a screening of the film at the BFI in the late 1960’s and raised the stakes once more. 

David said she was often described as the funniest woman in the World and on that night in her seventies she still dazzled in unpredictable ways slaying the audience and laughing throughout the screening: “she’s very good, she does things the way I do them!” she remarked at her younger self… a one-off performer with unique timing and sense of the ridiculous and yet who could also reduce you to tears (with or without an onion…).

In her excellent, in-depth introduction, Michelle Facey related the opinions of Chaplin and Keaton on this Anglo-Canadian marvel including the latter sleeping outside her hotel room door – a slapstick guard of honour for this toweringly-talented Torontian. Sadly (for us) Hollywood couldn’t easily cast this quirky and stunningly individual talent and, for this and no doubt several other reasons (maybe she just didn’t want to?) this was Bea’s only silent film and she made few after, much preferring the more interactive and improvisational freedoms of the stage.

Tonight, we watched not only Kevin Brownlow’s 16mm copy of Exit Smiling but, as it turned out, Miss Lillie’s own, so I’d make that another £50 for shaking the hand of projectionist Dave Locke.

Beatrice Lillie and Jack Pickford

We are truly blessed by these associations with the silent past and also by expert accompaniment from the Bioscope Players. Meg Morley, a jazz musician by night and, a silent film accompanist by er, other nights, played along with a thoroughly modern mix of jazz-age themes and improvised scoring that sound for all the world like it’s been months in the preparation. I always imagine the music as a duet and Bea is such a graceful performer with a dancer’s arm extensions and amazing timing, that the music followed suit; to this extent Meg riffed with Bea and took some bold decisions along the way (a flash of Carmen for the vamping!) enjoying the tones as much as the audience.

I’ve previously raved about the actress and the film here if you want a fuller synopsis. I'd watched the Warner Archives DVD but, as ever, it's still a treat to see this film on screen especially in what Ms P. Hutchinson once described as a silent speakeasy: this crowd are fascinating as well as fascinated and all respect the subject.

Raymond Griffith and Vera Reynolds not in a night club...

With Miss Lillie tonight and Mabel Normand last week, it’s easy to forget that men can also be funny too… The day opened with Raymond Griffith in The Night Club (1925) a film that didn’t actually feature a club but as Kevin Brownlow’s introduction made clear, had been logged down as a title before script or even story. Block-booking in advance meant that there had to be a film of this title and so it was squeezed into the first title card as a gentlemen’s club dedicated to avoiding marriage.

Griffith’s character get’s jilted at the alter as his fiancé’s ex returned at the last minute from a presumed death on a desert island and so keen was he to marry that he tries to ban all women from his life. His fortune turns when an uncle dies and leaves him a million, but the condition is that he must marry his second cousin (Vera Reynolds).

He heads off for foreign climes only to find not only bump into but fall in love with Vera’s character, but things get awkward when they both realised, and she miss-hears his intentions. There’s a nice cameo from Wallace Beery (a bad-tempered Mexican) and an even better one from Louise Fazenda who plays his “Carmen” for whom he would kill whether you pay him or not.

Griffith is so watchable, he takes everything in his stride – even this daft script – with a wide-eyed smile and a look straight to the audience. Costas Fotopolous joined in the fun on piano, twinkling the ivories in sympathy with Raymond's knowing gaze. 

Henrietta Watson, Pauline Johnson and the impossibly youthful Leslie Howard

Then we had Tony Fletcher’s traditional sweep through rare and early British film and a revelation to me with a silent and very young Leslie Howard in Bookworms (1920). Based on a scenario from AA Milne (yes, him) it told the story of a young chap, Richard (Howard) and his attempts to woo his neighbour Miranda Pottlebury (Pauline Johnson) away from her over-protective Aunt and Uncle. The Pottlebury’s all use the local library and Richard starts to leave notes in books they order in the hope of communicating with the girl of his fancy… The results are gently amusing, and it is a very charming film with glimpses of post-War English gardens and sitting rooms.

A Fugitive Futurist (1924) was your standard time-travelling con which did feature some interesting special affects showing London as it will be in the future… a derelict Strand and water-filled Trafalgar Square are, of course, only just around the corner now thanks to Brexit…

Lillian Hall-Davis, Sybil Rhoda, Humberston Wright and Phyllis Neilson-Terry in Boadicea (1927)

Starlings of the Screen (1925) featured a host of young gals looking for fame with the Stoll Picture Company, including Sybil Rhoda who was to feature in Hitchcock’s Downhill as well as Boadicea (1927) – her favourite performance – with Lillian Hall-Davis.  Various screen tests are featured including professionals such as Moore Marriott playing alongside the hopefuls who include Molly Weeks, Phyllis Garton, Nancy Baird and Shailagh Allen but Sybil wins and gets the part of Melody Rourke in Sahara Love (1926).

“Look at all that sand, dozens of it…”

Crossing the Great Sagrda (1924) is almost indescribable; a mock ethno-graphical film with title cards that could have been written by a Goon had they yet been invented. It featured sand courtesy of Blackpool Borough Council and free-form intertitles each one attributed to a different film company. Whatever it was about, I liked it and I laughed.

Almost as barmy was Beauty and the Beast (1922) featuring Guy Newall as The Beast and Ivy Duke as… you can guess. Meg Morley brought musical method to all the madness.

After lunch it was time to cut to the Chase, Charlie Chase… as Matthew Ross took us through some more highlights from the second coolest silent comic who was so much his own man any comparison belittles his suave majesty.

Charlie helps a pal pull his car out from a muddy patch and ends up losing his own car to Hal Roache’s ACME mud pool and then goes in a brilliantly desperate search of trousers in The Way of all Pants (1927). The session ended with plastic-surgery farce Mighty Like a Moose (1927) which is a work of World-cultural significance.

Mr Sweeney stayed cool at the keys and kept pace with the Chase.

Monty Banks bronze medalist in the Freestyle Moustache 

Then in a surprise entry for moustache of the day (he came third…), Monty Banks twitched his winning ways through A Perfect Gentleman (1927). You can’t fail to like Monty in this well-balanced comedy, as he chases around a ship trying to prove his innocence after having crashed his own wedding inadvertently drunk and then doubled his disgrace by being accused of robbing his former fiancé’s father’s bank. Not the day’s first wedding nor the last bank robbery. 

Costas was really on the beat for this lightweight charmer and he was clearly enjoying himself as his punchy lines accompanied Banks' every pratfall.

The KB weekenders are great for bringing attention to performers such as Banks and Griffiths, but we were about to be reminded of the sheer excellence of one of those who is deservedly still widely remembered. Four commentators were given the essentially impossible task of choosing a favourite moment from a Buster Keaton film.

Even married to the star, Natalie Talmadge wonders why sisters Constance and Norma always had easier gigs...

David Robinson chose the breath-taking closing scenes from Our Hospitality (1923) when our hero rescues Natalie Talmadge from the rapids, a waterfall and over-bearing relatives. Then Kevin Brownlow’s choice was the Tong war from The Cameraman including a mini-tribute to the camerawork in Intolerance I hadn’t previously spotted.

Poly Rose (known to many on The Twitter, as The Flying Editor) is a film editor (natch) who revealed some secrets about Keaton’s own editing for Sherlock Junior. It takes one to know one and it was fascinating to see how this mind-boggling segment was constructed through double exposure. Publicity stills, and contemporary reviews also suggest that there were other versions of Buster’s somnambulant transition from what we see, Keaton test screened his work and fine-tuned the brilliance.

Last up was David Macleod, broadcaster and president of the Blinking Buzzards, the UK Keaton Society, who has written extensively on the comedian’s sound films which extend far beyond his relatively-short silent period. He chose the pulsating climax to Steamboat Bill Jr (1928) as our hero literally risked life and limb in a town torn apart by hurricanes and another extraordinary river rescue.

Buster to the rescue as Marion Byron clings on in Steemboat Bill Jnr

John Sweeney accompanied and once again demonstrated extraordinary fluidity for those river-chase sequences but most of all he really Keatoned those keyboards!

A day of pure concentrated silent bliss – where else would we see these films and hear these musicians?! Thankyou Bioscope and the Cinema Museum.

The Way of all Pants!

Thoroughly modern Lillie … Exit Smiling (1926)

"Lillie's great talents were the arched eyebrow, the curled lip, the fluttering eyelid, the tilted chin, the ability to suggest, even in apparently innocent material, the possible double entendre". Sheridan Morley in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

From the first moments of her appearance in this film, you know you are watching one of those rare performers whose style and skill simply connects perfectly with the modern viewer: reader, let me tell you of the actress out-of-time that is Beatrice Lillie.

Born in Toronto to a concert singer mother and a British army officer who later became a Canadian government official, Bea didn’t lose touch with the old country and made her West End stage debut in 1914 earning sufficient fame to end up marrying Sir Robert Peel (the fifth Baronet and great grandson of the Tory PM of the same name).

Beatrice Lillie

She was a highly successful stage performer on both sides of the Atlantic and needed to be as Bobby didn’t have wealth, nor the ability to generate a new fortune – spending the first night of their honeymoon on a losing streak in the Monte Carlo casino. Then, during one trip to Broadway, Bea was engaged to play in Exit Smiling, her first and only silent film.

Sometimes experienced stage actors struggled to transpose their skills to the big screen where every exaggerated inflection required to be seen in the stalls can be magnified a thousand fold.  But Lady Peel was a natural with her expressive understatement, timing and droll understatement perfect for the medium.

She thought this film rather cheesy and, whilst it’s true that her performance gives it more interest than the story may otherwise have demanded, Exit Smiling is an amusing film, well observed and paced and with a wonderful supporting cast.

Directed by Sam Taylor based on Marc Connelly’s play of the same name, Exit Smiling tells the tale of a fourth division traveling repertory company inflicting a drama called Flaming Women on the mid-West.

Beatrice plays Violet the company’s maid who doubles up as bit-part player by night and all-round dogsbody by day: cleaner, cook and seamstress all in one. She’s desperate for her big break to join the others in a proper part and almost gets her chance when the show’s leading lady – Olga (Doris Lloyd from Walton, Liverpool – wonder if she knew my Great Grandmother?) – is delayed after an incident involving the consumption of more than several beer bottles.

The play begins and quickly we can see the quality of thespian endeavour the company provides: Violet almost forgets her maid’s hat, and her lady, Dolores Du Barry, arrives closely followed by an evil moustache twirling scoundrel who means her ill. The lady’s beau arrives in the form of Cecil Lovelace (Franklin Pangborn) whose camped-up cowboy quickly engages in an unconvincing struggle with the assailant as they panto-fight over a gun

Some long acts later, the show heads towards its dénouement as Dolores vamps it up in order to distract the villain just long enough to save her true love, some elements of the audience watch with rapt attention. A little drama can go a long way…

Scouser Doris Lloyd vamps it up to confound the cad!

They head off to their next engagement in their own railway carriage which includes a saloon car, sleeping bays and storage space for props and scenery. Is this just the kind of long-haul company that Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish would have started out with in their teens?

At one of the stops they are joined by a sad young man, Jimmy Marsh (Jack Pickford) who leaving East Farnham for some unknown but obviously bothersome reason.

Jimmy admires Violet's style

He instantly catches Violet’s attention as she rehearses her vamp moves between carriages and she tells him that she’s an actress, impressed he confesses that he's always wanted to meet an actress, seeing only the surface self-confidence of her display.

Violet manages to persuade him to audition for the company and with her help (and that of a discretely held onion) manages to convince the hard-hearts of the seasoned pros. He’s in and very soon he’s playing the leading bad guy.

Beatrice Lillie and Jack Pickford

This is great for Violet who falls hook, line and sinker for this fresh-faced young man but she never shows him and he can never see anyone other than the up-beat, helpful individual who does her best for him.

The show goes on and on as they schlep from small town to small town and the friendship between the youngsters grows as the supporting characters are revealed: the old pro who once played with Elmer Booth (he of Griffith’s The Musketeers of Pig Alley), greedy show-runner Orlando Wainwright (DeWitt Jennings) and the camp Cecil.

Show people: DeWitt Jennings and Franklin Pangborn

Meanwhile we cut back to Jimmy’s home town as we learn the reason for his leaving as his girlfriend (oh no!) Phyllis (Louise Lorraine) tries to convince her bank manager father of his former teller’s innocence whilst he offers her Jesse Watson (Harry Myers) as, in his view… a perfectly acceptable alternative.

But Jesse isn’t quite the man he seems as we are shown local crook Tod Powell (Tenen Holtz) asking him for a “loan” knowing who the money was really removed by and who put Jimmy in the frame.

Tod puts the squeeze on sneaky Jesse

The innocent man is miles away on a train… or is he? Jimmy steps out of the actor’s carriage to greet another day only to find that they’re arriving at East Farnham: he can’t be seen here and he certainly can’t play on stage!

Violet, as she always does, has a plan and it’s an imperfect but funny one. Events descend into chaos as the strands come together and all matters come to a head in a breathless – poignant – finale which it would be cruel to reveal: you really have to see it for yourself.

Exit Smiling is available from Warner Archives complete with a new, orchestrated score from Linda Martinez which matches the story’s energy even if occasionally out of step with Lillie’s nuanced expression. But, she's just so quick...

Sadly that was it for Beatrice Lillie’s silent films although she returned occasionally to cinema work from early talkies up to Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1967. She much preferred stage work – feeding off the audience reaction and enjoyed a long varied career on the boards, no doubt with her own changing room and a maid of her own.

It’s available direct from Warner Archives or from the usual Amazons.