Mother courage… Stella Dallas (1925)/Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925), Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII, 2023 (Part 3)

Mssrs Horne and Brock take the applause in the Piazza Maggiore

Il Cinema Ritrovato is an experience that leaves you emotionally disrupted, it’s not just all that time spent in darkened cinemas, the relentless watching, pattern recognition, interpretation but also the human connections on screen and off… it leaves you open, and delightfully vulnerable to the enhanced flavours on screen and, in the case of silent film, the invention of the accompanists. Here we had two outstanding new scores that, coupled with the sense of occasion, location and performance produced moments of engagement modern studios would barely comprehend.

The best silent scores don’t pummel you into submission with dozens of drums, decibels and Dolby, they embrace the visuals in sympathy with the narrative and the actors, they duet with the directors and audience to connect our sympathy and imagination, interpret our response and subtly guide it too; a multi-verse of meaning, one that opens up a portal removing you from reality… irresistible forces, for un-resisting volunteers for a kind of magic.

This is no job for anything less than the most experienced of compositional pilots though and in the Piazza Maggiore and then the Teatro Auditorium Manzoni, first Stephen Horne and then Timothy Brock, who conducted the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, provided scores that enhanced two of the very finest Hollywood performances and silent films. Consider them as restorers, replicating the high impact of these films’ first screenings, Time Lords able to whisk us back to the feelings our grandparents felt. We are all companions now.

Helen Morgan in Applause

There was also an emerging theme across the programme this year – Rouben Mamoulian’s early talkie Applause (1929) featuring another selfless matriarch with Helen Morgan’s Kitty Darling - and one that was at the heart-breaking centre of both these films; the sacrifice of mothers willing to lose everything so that their daughters might succeed. If you think that sounds corny, take a break from the 21^st Century and think back to the women who made a difference in your own family; Jenny, Jessie, Lil, Mabel… they all changed the course and there were entire generations watching just these films.

Stella Dallas (1925)

Directed by Henry King and adapted by Frances Marion from Olive Higgins Prouty's novel, Stella Dallas of course walks that fine line between melodrama and drama. It features characters bound by the constraints of their time and it perhaps a backwards view of social mores even for 1925 but, the story was driven by grief as much as anything else. Prouty wrote the novel soon after the death of her three-year old daughter in 1923 and I’m sure for Prouty this was a case of if only; a tribute to the one lost and the lengths she would have gone to if only she could have.

Any decent into pulpy drama is completely offset by the fiercest performance from Belle Bennett who’s own 16-year-old son had also died either just before she got the part or soon after: whatever the motivations her Stella rings very true and every time I see watch it becomes greater with Stephen’s score so sympathetic and emotionally intelligent.

Belle Bennett

Stella herself, is something of a misfit, a woman of ambition to escape her small-town working-class routes who becomes involved with a rich businessman’s son, Stephen Dallas (Ronald Colman) who has fled from his father’s suicide and disgrace only to start rising again after they marry. New York calls Stephen to business success but Stella doesn’t want to leave the town she knows so well and nor does she want to disrupt the upbringing of their daughter Laurel (Lois Moran, 16-years old and playing both girl and woman in one of the odder practices of the time).

The gap between mother and father grows and Stella spends time with an earthy good-time fella name of Ed Munn (Jean Hersholt who is so very good at playing bad) and needless to say this doesn’t sit well with Stephen who misses the companionship of more refined women such as his former sweetheart Helen Morrison (Alice Joyce) who is now widowed with three boys of her own.

You can see the direction of travel but the humiliations have only just begun as Laurel’s teacher spies Stella having fun with Ed and expels her from school leaving her devastated when the rest of the class fail to turn up for her 10th birthday party. The story moves on a few years and as Laurel comes of age, she forms an attachment with a young rich boy called Richard Grosvenor (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr 15 at the time!) but is ashamed of her mother with her crude ways, working class manners and dress sense.

Stella overhears some of the rich set mocking her and begins to think she can only be holding her daughter back. By this stage she and Stephen have run aground and knowing of his attachment to Helen, Stella asks her competitor directly for help… what follows shows her strength of character and amidst the tragedy she shows her class in sacrifice something only another mother truly understands during the film’s iconic closing sequence.

Faced with such intense emotional extremes, Stephen Horne’s score is perfectly composed and he knows just how to under-score Belle’s expressive restraint and combines with the actress to leave the audience smiling through tears of recognition. Ben Palmer helped to orchestrate and Timothy Brock superbly martialled the sixty-piece orchestra under the stars. There’ll be a Blu-ray release at some point and hopefully further performances of one of the great modern scores of this silent renaissance.

 

Lady Windermere’s Fan (1928)

Irene Rich and May Mcavoy

As the cricketing Ashes started back in the UK, rain unexpectedly stopped play in Bologna and the screening of Ernst Lubitsch’s take on Oscar Wilde’s play was shifted to the splendid Teatro Auditorium Manzoni; a purpose-built modern auditorium with splendid acoustics, all the better to experience the power of Timothy Brock’s new score as conducted by him and played by the mighty Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

Given the sophisticated wordplay of Oscar Wilde, he seems an unlikely candidate for silent film but here Ernst Lubitsch takes on Oscar using the wit and sophistication of his direction. Sure, there are some excellent performances but Ernst’s inch-perfect positioning, cross-cutting and way with purely visual messaging ensures that this take on a wordy, comedy of manners works bursts into sensational silence on screen.

The director hardly needs to use title cards as the mood is established, explained and maintained throughout in what is one of the neatest of film: so balanced and perfectly timed, shot and performed… That “touch” is fully in evidence now – the delicate use of key signifiers to lift the tale above predictability and to convey small explosions of meaning in unexpected ways. Take that fan, for example, it’s everywhere: a symbol of marital love, a potential assault weapon, distraction under duress and incriminating evidence. It’s just a fan but Lubitsch uses it to pivot the whole story. That fan is also the undeniably fine hands of Irene Rich and you have another symbol of motherly sacrifice, unbreakable choices that have to be made and confirmation that true love does indeed conquer all.

All begins with Lady Windermere (May McAvoy) facing the troublesome decisions of where to seat her dinner guests at her impending birthday party: where to put the dashing and entertaining Lord Darlington (Ronald Colman on the wrong side again…), right next to her ladyship… at the head of the table perhaps? The Lord arrives to bring handsome substance to her reverie and, whilst she presumes he’s come to see her husband he has her more in mind which, frankly, is caddish behaviour. Meanwhile Lord Windermere (Bert Lytell) is discovering something just as disturbing as a Mrs. Edith Erlynne (Irene Rich) has written to him claiming to be his wife’s mother who was lost to disgrace a long time ago with her daughter having grown up believing her dead and a great moral example. Hold onto your hats, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…

Mrs. Erlynne’s elegant blackmail is expressed through sight of a cheque and the Lord having to add a one to the five hundred he’s started writing following one smiling glance… His wife must never know of her mother’s disgrace and so she begins to lead an “extravagant” life with Windermere’s support, “…not accepted by society but the subject of its gossip…”

There’s a terrific scene at the races when “society” spies in fascination at the intriguing interloper: spy glasses from both men and women including The Duchess of Berwick (Carrie Daumery) leader of the pack. We see multiple points of view until Mrs E. sits down just in front of a group including Lady Windermere her husband, admirer and the gossips. Examining the back of her head with her binoculars the Duchess is delighted to see that Mrs E is going slightly grey and then, seeing her jewels, ponders where her money comes from. All wonderfully bitchy in Oscar Wilde’s immortal way.

Lord Lorton in pursuit

Sat with them is one of London’s most eligible Lord Augustus Lorton (Edward Martindel) who spies this fine filly and is intrigued. As the lady leaves he follows with the director showing their pursuit in longshot, small figures against a backdrop of advertisement-plastered walls: the view on screen narrowing as Lord closes in on Lady… Lorton goes to visit and Lubitsch uses the manner of his entrances to illustrate the developing relationship: at first formal, waiting to be shown through by the maid and then advancing from front door to drawing room with barely a pause: his familiarity only halted by Edith’s last minute swerve: he’s keen.

Meanwhile Darlington can’t help himself and casts aspersions about Lord Windermere’s relationship with Edith. Lady W can scare believe it but sure enough she discovers chequebook evidence of multiple payments to this strange woman… Rumbled, Windermere refuses to reveal all and asks his wife to take his word. Things come to a head though as Windermere asks to re-introduce Edith to society at his wife’s birthday party but she threatens to use the lovely fan he has bought her to assault the interloper… Having invited Edith, Windermere’s un-invitation isn’t seen in time before she arrives to potential humiliation. Cue Lord Lorton who arrives to sweep her into the room – her daughter, the two men chasing her affections and so many idle tongues gathered all in one room…

Lady Windemere hedging her bets

The film is Lubitsch in the raw; it’s very pared down with the focus on character and movement. The sets are elegant and but, as with the racecourse, recede far behind the foregrounded players all of whom are sophisticated and in the cases of the main leads, sensitive. Wilde and Lubitsch is a marriage made in Hollywood though: two men of subtle wit and piercing insights into polite society constrained by manners and rules almost designed to prevent happiness. Any triumph of love is almost accidental and always against the odds: perhaps these folk aren’t much different from those who watch them in the dark?

Timothy Brock’s score, powerful in the auditorium, every section clear and characterful, matched the wit of director and source material and breezes along delightfully in tune with Irene Rich’s powerhouse performance. We overdosed on sheer style and verve, the applause long and repeated almost congratulating ourselves for being there as much as the dozens of players on stage. What a night and what a week!! Brava Bologna, Bellissima!!

Up in the gods waiting for the show to begin... and what a show!

 

 

Midsummer night’s dream… Rosita (1923) with Mitteleuropa Orchestra, Piazza Maggiore, il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna

First time in Bologna since I was a boy and a heck of a lot more films to watch. The combination of city and Cinema Ritrovato is disorienting and agitating, but not in a New York way… it’s a pull between cultures, eras and styles of films and one of the most beautiful cities in Italy. No disrespect to Pordenone but have you seen the Piazza Maggiore and a cathedral planned to be so grand they had to tone it down so as not to upset St Peter’s and the Vatican?

Tonight was a dream as the film played out next to that cathedral with the ancient walls of the Piazza adding mystic resonance to the reconstructed score as played by the Mitteleuropa Orchestra, conducted by Gillian Anderson. Rosita is not perfect but, huge but, it was Mary Pickford on the biggest of screens, floating through a film directed by Ernst Lubitsch… we forgive our best friends anything and sometimes we love them more when they don’t quite click.

Erik supervises the bombing of Paris...

To be honest, Eric Satie had already loosened my grip on reality with his mesmeric invention for the score of the freshly minted restoration of René Clair’s Entr’acte (1924). The film is a dadaist gag-reel and a hoot for schoolkids of all ages. Daniele Furlati played pianoforte to perfection and proved that Eric’s musical spirit connects more deeply than Rene’s images; still never take a camel to a funeral!

Onto Mary then and a budget younger Ernst could only dream of back in Germany. As has been noted this film has an almost identical plot to The Spanish Dancer made at almost the same time in Hollywood with Lubitsch’s perfect partner Pola. Put the two together and you might have a masterpiece, and, having recently watched that film I couldn't help wondering that you can’t go into battle against Negri’s dance armed with only a guitar. Likewise there are elements of this odd tale that work far better under Lubitsch’s direction and there’s no leery King Beery… which may or may not be a good thing.

Mary picks her chords

But in the moment, under the stars, it was time to simply enjoy the Mary we have and she does her best to convince as the street singer from Seville who captures the heart of both the sleazy King (Holbrook Blinn) and the dashing Don Diego (George Walsh). I always enjoy watching the Queen of Hollywood playing her age and here you can almost feel the creative tension between her indomitable fixed jaw and Lubitsch’s vision; there are some superb moments.

Ernst touch is evident in a flowing narrative that cuts out the side-steps and blind alleys of the Dancer’s version and includes some choice cuts like the hungry Rosita’s tango with the royal fruit bowl – walks left to right, camera on the cherries, walks back again, picks one, picks two… a hand-full - and the ragged feet of the children when climbing on board the royal coach to take Rosita to the royal love nest.

The King and Queen have an up and down relationship.

Irene Rich is very good as the King’s long-suffering Queen, and her relationship with her philandering monarch saves the story from being too brutal: it’s not the way to a girl’s heart to shoot her lover and expect her to then allow you a good time - although we could believe that Mr Beery's King may have thought so.

Mary is sprightly, sassy and quite sensational in Spanish costumery as she punches out energetically throughout. Truly she was first amongst equals and she dominates the screen time so much it does leave you wondering how she and the Don became so attached so quickly. But people weren’t paying to see George they wanted Mary and that’s what they got and they took her love at first sight on trust.

Don and Rosita share an intimate meal

The film did well on release, with good reviews and audience and box office that generated profits and yet Pickford was not happy and didn’t even want it preserved… but there was an original nitrate copy in Russia and the restoration is history... it looks glorious!

The music used a cue sheet based on the now lost score from Louise F. Gottschalk, the 45 separate pieces held traces of Verdi, Bizet (natch) and many more, all matched the moods very well - although I’m not sure I’d agree that they were as well fitted as an original score – the music and the sound were none-the-less very powerful: an 80-piece orchestra blasting out Nineteenth Century themes in a Twelth Century square as the Moon and Venus watched down through a cloudless sky... bellissimo!

Can I have some more?

As always with silent film it’s context, venue, audience, accompaniment as well as the source material itself: you don’t need 100% to get a distinction.

I absolutely loved the night and it’s exactly what I wanted when I decided to come to Bologna… 7th Heaven follows in the Piazza on Wednesday… just enough time to come down from Cloud 9.

The crafty Queen uses her mirror to spy her husband's philandering...

Mary and Ernst discuss her character's motiovation, probably...

Lubitsch goes Wilde - Lady Windermere's Fan (1925)

Almost from the get-go silent films tackled their theatrical cousins, retelling plays as if words really didn’t matter. Risky at the best of times such missions were surely impossible when it came to the sophisticated wordplay of Oscar Wilde.

Nazimova did it with interpretive dance and audacious mise en scène for Salomy but here Enrst Lubitsch takes on Oscar using the wit and sophistication of his direction. Sure there are some excellent performances but Ernst’s inch-perfect positioning, cross-cutting and way with purely visual messaging ensures that this take on a wordy, comedy of manners works.

He hardly needs to use title cards as the mood is established, explained and maintained throughout in what is one of the neatest films of the Twenties: so balanced and perfectly timed, shot and performed… I’m finally getting to feel that “touch” the grown-ups talk about – the delicate use of key signifiers to lift the tale above predictability and to convey small explosions of meaning in unexpected ways.

Take, for example, that fan… it’s everywhere: a symbol of marital love, a potential assault weapon, distraction under duress and incriminating evidence. It’s just a fan but Lubitsch uses it so very well.

Put that fan in the hands of an actress as undeniably fine as Irene Rich and you have a symbol of motherly sacrifice, unbreakable choices that have to be made and confirmation that true love does indeed conquer all.

Irene Rich

I was expecting a witty disappointment but what I got was a riveting 86 minutes that might just be one of the greatest cinematic adaptations o f a play: Lubitsch using massive, high and wide sets through which his characters drift in their torments in one sequence a wife and her would be lover changing places over a room that must be 80 feet long – there is no way they can meet in the middle: they are doomed by circumstance to orbit and never embrace in cosmic collision. Unless, that is, a new stellar object appears to play havoc with the order of this mannered and moneyed universe…

May McAvoy

All begins with Lady Windermere (May McAvoy) facing the troublesome decisions of where to seat her dinner guests at her impending birthday party: where to put the dashing and entertaining Lord Darlington (Ronald Colman), right next to her ladyship… at the head of the table perhaps? Talk of the Devil… the Lord arrives to bring handsome substance to her reverie… She presumes he’s come to see her husband… but not this time.

Meanwhile Lord Windermere (Bert Lytell) is discovering something even more disturbing… A Mrs. Edith Erlynne has written to him claiming to be his wife’s mother who was lost to disgrace a long time ago with her daughter having grown up believing her dead and a great moral example…

Bert Lytell

Mrs. Erlynne (superbly played by Miss Rich) duly arrives and uses this unfortunate connection to extract some financial support from Windermere – her elegant blackmail expressed through sight of a cheque and the Lord having to add a one to the five hundred he’s started writing following one smiling glance… His wife must never know of her mother’s disgrace. Rich was just 34 at the time and whilst that initially seems too young… when you do the maths it’s close enough.

Mrs. Erlynne begins to lead an “extravagant” life with Windermere’s support, “…not accepted by society but the subject of its gossip…” There’s a terrific scene at the races when “society” spies in fascination at the intriguing interloper: spy glasses from both men and women including The Duchess of Berwick (Carrie Daumery) leader of the pack. We see multiple points of view until Mrs E. sits down just in front of a group including Lady Windermere her husband, admirer and the gossips.

A day at the races

Examining the back of her head with her binoculars the Duchess is delighted to see that Mrs E is going slightly grey and then, seeing her jewels, ponders where her money comes from. All wonderfully bitchy in Oscar Wilde’s immortal way.

Sat with them is one of London’s most eligible Lord Augustus Lorton (Edward Martindel) who spies this fine filly and is intrigued. As the lady leaves he follows with the director showing their pursuit in longshot, small figures against a backdrop of advertisement-plastered walls: the camera gradually masqued to narrow the screen as Lord closes in on Lady…

The Lord in pursuit

Lorton goes to visit and Lubitsch uses the manner of his entrances to illustrate the developing relationship: at first formal, waiting to be shown through by the maid and then advancing from front door to drawing room with barely a pause: his familiarity only halted by Edith’s last minute swerve: he’s keen.

Meanwhile Darlington can’t help himself and casts aspersions about Lord Windermere’s relationship with Edith. Lady W can scare believe it but sure enough she discovers chequebook evidence of multiple payments to this strange woman… Rumbled, Windermere refuses to reveal all and asks his wife to take his word.

Things are coming to a head though as Windermere asks to re-introduce Edith to society at his wife’s birthday party but she threatens to use the lovely fan he has bought her to assault the interloper… Having invited Edith, Windermere’s un-invitation isn’t seen in time before she arrives to potential humiliation. Cue Lord Lorton who arrives to sweep her into the room – her daughter, the two men chasing her affections and so many idle tongues gathered all in one room…

I won’t give any more away save to say that the fan becomes a significant character almost in its own right.

Garden liaison

The film presents almost as Lubitsch in the raw; it’s very pared down with the focus on character and movement. The sets are elegant and but, as with the racecourse, recede far behind the foregrounded players all of whom are sophisticated and in the cases of the main leads, sensitive.

The cinematography of Charles Van Enger matches his director’s vision and allows for a story so reliant on words to transition so well to the silent screen.

Ronald Coleman and May McAvoy

Wilde and Lubitsch is a marriage made in Hollywood though: two men of subtle wit and piercing insights into polite society constrained by manners and rules almost designed to prevent happiness. Any triumph of love is almost accidental and always against the odds: perhaps these folk aren’t much different from those who watch them in the dark?

I watched the version on the More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894-1931 box set which comes with a sparkly new piano score – it’s available direct or from Amazon but is now collectable – time for a re-release!

Blood, Brutes and Black Bess – Kevin Brownlow’s Vitagraph home movies, Kennington Bioscope

It’s some kind of summer now: the start of the festival season and the Bioscope responded in its unique way with eight films in three hours. Our host Kevin Brownlow wanted to fit in another but most of us had homes to go to.

What we saw was a collection of 9.5mm prints intended for home viewing and which featured condensed versions of their source material ranging from one to three reels from the Vitagraph Company of America. Even stripped of their establishing narrative these films still made sense and were still impactful not least because of some spectacular action including horses racing a steam engine, cowboys, a steam engine ploughing through a forest fire and what looked like a full-scale sea battle.

But we also had Colleen Moore’s unique energy, Victor McLaglen’s physicality and a host of stars with successful careers and who should be better recalled: Irene Rich, J. Warren Kerrigan, Warren Baxter…

The latest in home projection technology!

In order to present these frail wonders on a large screen they had to be projected onto a small screen and fed through the digital projector at the Cinema Museum. The projectionist worked wonders, stopping the frames so the audience could read the intertitles and making running repairs when the celluloid snapped: hats off to Dave Locke who performed his usual wonders.

Black Bess/Black Beauty (1921) accompaniment by Costas Fotopulas

Jean Paige, Dobbin and James Morrison

Starring Jean Paige – later wife of this film’s director, David Smith – as Jessie and James Morrison as hero Harry, this film featured a stunning horse race at the climax as Harry rides the much-travelled black steed across country to outwit the baddie Jack (George Webb) and his inferior horse(-manship).

It’s exciting stuff and even with the under-cranking, showed immense courage from the riders as the race each other over field and fence in order to catch a steam engine.

The Ninety and Nine (1922) accompaniment by Meg Morley

This was Colleen pre-bob and Flaming Youth but she still presents with her trademark endeavour and pure focus even in a film described as “old school” by one contemporary review.

Colleen plays Ruth, whose parents have her lined up for a clearly unsuitable cheater when she, naturally enough, prefers the young and virile Tom (Warner Baxter). The bad suitor tries to fit the more deserving with a cheap charge of theft – employing the local “poor half-wit” to place Father’s wallet in an incriminating suitcase. But Warner’s too quick and stops the con chasing the boy off – not that this stops him being accused by parents who decide that it’s best for Ruth to go away to Forest Hill.

There’s a forest fire on that Hill though and only one man can save the day by driving a train into the heart of the heat…

On the Banks of the Wabash (1924) accompaniment by Cyrus Gabrysch

This was seven reels chopped down to two and there was just enough to capture some good interplay between a young inventor, David (James Morrison) and Dolly (a young Madge Evans who was later to feature in the excellent Dinner at Eight). David has invented a revolutionary device to radio control boats and this almost leads him astray before steadfast Dolly shows him the value of real love.

There is an impressive sequence involving a flood and a rescue from a Mississippi river boat as David’s threatens to cost him everything…

The Man from Brodneys (1923) accompaniment by John Sweeney

Kevin quoted a scathing review from Picture Play which described the audience on this film’s Broadway presentation as being “exceptionally impolite” but we’re a lot more forgiving with a film we’re almost certain never to see in its full form.

What’s left showed a British colonial outpost under attack from scheming “Hindoos” and whilst the mind inevitably conjured up the closing scenes from Carry on up the Khyber, there was some impressive action as the plucky Brits enlisted the help of the exceptionally convenient and well-armed US Navy to win the day!

J. Warren Kerrigan stars as Hollingsworth Chase – we’ll see more of him in a while – along with Wanda Hawley as Lady Agnes Deppingham (not the Deptford Deppingham’s the other lot… the ones in the country) and Alice Calhoun as Princess Genevra.

No doubt Boris would have just loved it!

Behold This Woman (1924) accompaniment from Costas Fotopoulos

This featured Irene Rich as film star Louise Maurel who falls for John Strangeway (Charles A. Post) a lunk of a backwoods boy after her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere – there are no hotels and she has to stay with him and his backwards misogynist father. John follows her to California and glimpses another world in which his now-hipster beard must be trimmed to help fit him in.

There were some fascinating glimpses of period Hollywood as the two attempted to make the bridge between Tinsel Town and Country.  Marguerite De La Motte is also in it and we’ll see her again in a moment.

The Clean Heart (1924) accompaniment from Meg Morley

This was a strange tale involving Philip (Manhunt’s Percy Marmont) working himself into a nervous breakdown and finding solace in the arms of the aforementioned Marguerite as Essie Bickers. As with all these “small” versions you wonder not only how much concrete meaning has been lost in the picture play precis but also how the story itself has been changed.

This seem to be going fine for Philip and Essie until they enter a scenic thatched cottage and suddenly their relationship seems to advance from dreamy to divorce in seconds, as if the building was haunted by past traumas… Then we have drama!

Captain Blood (1924) accompaniment from Cyrus Gabrysch

The film was based on the novel, Captain Blood, His Odyssey, by Rafael Sabatini and was Vitagraph’s biggest success costing a fortune with what look very much like actual, near-full-size galleons sinking, engaging in battle and being blown up in spectacular fashion.

It also featured some rare Brownlow Benshi as KB translated French intertitles using a discrete light pen – all adding to the feeling that we really were being treated to some rare views.

Of the 110 minute original only these 30 minutes survive and we’re lucky to have those.

David Smith directs again and Jean Paige stars again as Arabella Bishop who is surely too good for the bold neo-pirate that is Peter Blood who is secretly a qualified physician! The studio held a ballot for their audience to nominate who should play Blood and Smith was distraught when our old pal J. Warren Kerrigan – remember him from paragraph three? – got the gig: he wasn’t a fan. But JWK does well as the dandy sea-way man…

There’s a huge amount of dramatic doings as you’d expect but whoever edited this all down left in sufficient humiliation of pompous British imperialists and magnificent sailing ships to keep me happy: a grand, albeit mini, adventure!

Big film, massive crew!

As The Screen review said: “Youngsters who revel in the ruddy activities of seventeenth century pirates, will find plenty to think and dream about in this picture.” Count me young then! They went on to find various faults including that “Miss Paige… is a very quiet little lady, intent on showing her profile… She has little real opportunity to act, and is only pretty.”

Best of all: “Charlotte Merriam's eyebrows are of an up-to-date variety, which we might hazard did not exist in those turbulent times.” People: always make sure your eyebrows are up-to-date!

Charlotte's are up-to-date but I'm not sure about Warren's!

The Beloved Brute (1924) accompanied by John Sweeney

A brother from the same mother...

Time was running out but it was decided to end with the bang and crash of Victor McLaglen’s Hollywood debut!

As Mr Mordaunt Hall wrote in his New York Times review: “Although Mr. McLaglen facially is no Ramon Novarro, Ronald Colman or a Rudolph Valentino, he has a sympathetic personality and a wonderful facility for appearing at ease before the inquiring eye of the camera.”

And it’s true, Victor shines on screen with a tremendous charisma which completely overshadows his boxer’s nose - in 1909 at Vancouver fought six rounds with Jack Johnson – he is a heck of a performer who appears to have hit the ground running in this “western with a soul”.

Marguerite De La Motte

Directed by Vitagraph mainstay, J. Stuart Blackton, the sequences we have showed an intense story of brothers lost and found but only after bare-chested wrestling – Charles (Victor) – who does know - letting David (William Russell) - who doesn’t – win.

The two then contest a battle over dancer in search of a better life, Jacinta (Marguerite De La Motte yet again, not that anyone was complaining) - who proved more than capable of looking after herself. Dynamic fun and you just wished there was more: but if this is all we have... that is so much better than nothing!

Yeah, you heard, six rounds with Johnson!

In the end we ran out of time and Kevin promised we’d all meet again for further films. Yes, let’s do this again!

A huge tip of a Ten-Gallon Hat to the Bioscope’s superb musicians too without whom we’d only have half a show – you can find out more about them on the Bioscope site: a remarkable ensemble who play all of the right notes always in the right order, even when faced with unknown films, celluloid snaps and cruel cuts in the action.

This was another special cinema club evening at the Cinema Museum and you know the first rule of Cinema Club is that no one should talk about Cinema Club: but you simply have to!