Brave hearts and chieftains… Annie Laurie (1927), Barbican with Shona Mooney Trio

Hollywood has long specialised in the cod-Celtic but Shona Mooney’s authentic, soulful folk reclaimed this one for Scotland!

Her score had been commissioned for the Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema to accompany this film’s re-emergence after a crisp restoration by U.S. Library of Congress and the show came thundering down to England to strike a blow for the Highlands just a few hundred yards from where William Wallace was executed in 1305 (Smithfield, just outside Barts…).

Tha wee bonnie lassie, Lillian

The film was directed for MGM by John S. Robertson and represented an attempt to broaden Lillian Gish’s appeal. Sandwiched between her two films with the great Victor Sjöström – The Scarlet Letter (1926) and The Wind (1928) - Annie Laurie feels lightweight but it’s good to see Gish in more flirtatious mode and I don’t think I’ve seen her smile so much... That’s not to say that she doesn’t get a chance to stress-test her character and there is one extraordinary moment when her face is in open-eyed shock when, through she is able to summon forth tears - supernatural control but, in this film, from someone who is less intense than usual*.

The film is loosely based on the legendary rivalry between the Scottish clans of MacDonald and Campbell which resulted in the Massacre of Glencoe of 12th February 1692.

Some men in kilts

The feud between the clans is presented in a half-comic way here even though events kick off with the killing of one of the MacDonald’s men by the Campbells who attach a note to the body to make sure their neighbours get the message (sometimes it’s just good to talk boys…).

The MacDonald Chieftain (Hobart Bosworth) calls on his son Ian (Norman Kerry with an odd moustache and a strange shirt with plunging neckline… they did realise how cold it is in Scotland didn’t they?!) to extract revenge and heads off with his men to steal the Campbell cattle and the life of one of their men – “A Campbell for a MacDonald!” he cries as he dumps the body in the mix of their evening revels.

Norman Kerry and Lillian Gish

 The squad also takes the Campbell Chieftain’s niece, Enid (Patricia Avery) with them after she has caught the eye of Ian’s brother Alastair (Joseph Striker). She had been wandering in the castle grounds with her best friend and cousin, Annie Laurie (Gish) who desperately tries to stop the kidnap.

Negotiation takes weeks and, by the time the clans gather to return Enid, she has fallen for her handsome captor and refuses to return. The Campbell Chieftain (Brandon Hurst) curses her, her lover and their first born: feelings are running high.

Enid and Annie

Annie tries to make Enid stay and her eye is caught by that of the young “Pup” MacDonald – something stirs… which is all very frustrating for Donald Campbell (the normally likeable Creighton Hale who is here, not so much…). As Donald tries to woo Annie her thoughts begin to drift to the far hunkier Ian. As comic relief Sandy (Russell Simpson) says: these barbarians have a way with women.

Donald is not quite the lute playing fop he appears though and opinion on just exactly who is the barbarian must be suspended pending further data.

Lillian Gish and Creighton Hale

Enid invites Annie to visit and sends Ian to escort her. The two bond after he carries her across a babbling brook (see Mr Griffith, Lillian doesn’t always need to half drown in order to make a movie…) and on the return journey she receives the shock of a kiss. She runs away but they both know this is it.

As relations thaw all round, Ian and Annie dance at a coming together of the clans and Donald’s jealousy rises up a notch or three. Walking together Annie and Ian are surrounded by Duncan and his men, Ian calls on her to leave the Campbells but she isn’t ready and after she leaves, Donald’s boys subject Ian to a walk through a tunnel made by their raised swords. As he walks through they strike his back, flaying his skin and leaving deep scars, Annie runs back to intervene and there are some excellent shots of her panicked face through the steel.

Annie really likes the 'tache

Ian keeps too much of his pride and cruelly rejects Annie for not declaring her true love… Job done thinks scheming Donald.

Events now begin to broaden in scope as the Campbells look to find favour with the English King and to outmanoeuvre the MacDonalds. Annie hears of their plot to take the latter’s land with the monarch’s help if the MacDonalds refuse to sign a new agreement and rushes off to warn Ian. But will the man ever sober up enough to drop his grudge against her and in time to prevent the Campbells not only taking their land but their lives as that fateful day in Glencoe approaches…

Annie pleads with unyielding Campbells

It’s a well-made film with some interesting cinematography from Oliver Marsh especially with what looks like hand-held camera-work for the main battle and a chase sequence. The story may be less than historically accurate but it’s an entertaining ride.

The experience was elevated from an interesting to exciting one by the genuinely uplifting, intelligent and precise composition of Shona Mooney. Shona played the fiddle and was accompanied by Alasdair Paul on guitar and flute as well as Amy Thatcher in accordion and piano. This well-drilled group played very tightly along with the action with energy and invention.

Amy Thatcher, Shona Mooney + Alasdair Paul

The music worked so well with the film, matching sound effects and themes to the action to witty and winning effect; from a knock on the door to the emotional cadences of Miss Gish’s acting. I am sure Lillian would have approved whilst the rest of us were on our feet clapping for an encore!

If you get the chance to see the film with Shona’s accompaniment I wouldn’t hesitate and it is to be hoped that the combination gets more opportunities to show how the unique combinations of silent film and fresh music can move an audience.

More details of Shona Mooney’s music are on her site. She has had a very active career since winning the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year in 2006 recording numerous albums and touring the World. She specialised in Eighteenth Century Scottish music and so her affinity with Annie Laurie is not surprising: more authentic, in fact, than the Californian scenery and title card dialect used in the film…

*Off screen her mother had been taken ill and Gish confessed to being less involved in her preparation for this film than in say La Bohème (1926) or The Wind. It’s no bad thing – in terms of the film – as she gives a relaxed, naturalistic performance and is more lighthearted as a result.

Trainspotting… The Wrecker (1929)

My Uncle Duncan was a classical musician who played for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and in his spare time he used to make working replicas of locomotives, reducing down his hand-crafted components from the original blueprints in the best equipped back-garden shed in South Liverpool. On a trip to ride behind one of these contraptions I was amazed at the amount of power generated by the steam engine.

When even a scaled down loco lets off steam the result is highly kinetic…  multiply that by a factor of twenty and I can imagine the impact of a real locomotive and can understand why the producers of The Wrecker wanted to crash an actual engine rather than use a model: they wanted to show the full force and to scare an audience of regular passengers with the vision of a spectacular disaster.

An unnaturally-quiet Waterloo...

Southern Railways collaborated fully with the film-makers and whilst they wanted to show the grace and power of their service they also wanted to show its superiority to their rivals on the road. Ignore the fact that their trains were being bounced off their lines by a lone madman but just appreciate the benefits of the “Flying Welshman”: much faster than a road coach and providing a far smoother  journey… That is, unless it met with a large object deliberately left on the rails.

There was in fact only one staged crash in the film but it was used to represent three attacks. Twenty two cameras were positioned around the crash site and a truck laden down with concrete was set in the train’s path along with sufficient measures to ensure the train headed off the rails and didn’t just carry on – a runaway train with no Denzil Washington to stop it…

The effort was more than worth it, especially in the second viewing of the crash and after the coaches were set on fire and the actors were able to scramble over the safer sections. The scene was shot on a Saturday and, amazingly, the line was re-open for business by Monday (match that Network Rail!).

The film was an Anglo-German production, directed by an experienced Hungarian Géza von Bolváry. It was based on the successful play by Arnold Ridley (yes, writer of The Ghost Train and much later the man who was Private Godfrey) and Bernard Merivale but – from its timing – appears to be a truncated version oftheir story. The narrative would suggest as much as the plot is stripped down to the bare essentials – did they assume the audience knew the story that well?  Surely not in Germany?

Joseph Striker, Benita Hume and Winter Hall

The end result lacks a bit of logical exposition and believability especially in the lengths the Wrecker is prepared to go in order to ensure the supremacy of road transport but it's still a thrilling ride.

The railway shots are splendid, not just of the crash but of the day-to-day routine of track, station and locomotion. There are some superb shots achieved through placing a camera on a platform to the side of one locomotive – brave camera work! – and then again when the camera moves seamlessly from an exterior  shot of moving train carriages to the inside of the carriage – never seen that before!

A stunning shot: the camera pans from outside the train to the party in the carriage...

On the people side, Carlyle Blackwell throws pantomime shapes as the barely disguised villain of the piece, Ambrose Barney – a man who works for the railway but has set up the Kyle Coach Company to take their business… with a little murderous help. Head of the railway Sir Gerald Bartlett (Winter Hall) takes an age to spot the viper in his nest and then is rather swifty bumped off by a sniper’s rifleshot.

Carlyle Blackwell - boo!

Joseph Striker plays “Lucky” Roger Doyle who does indeed appear to be the beneficiary of considerable good fortune especially in so quickly gaining the affection of Sir Gerald’s secretary Mary (Benita Hume – who acts most of the rest off the screen as the plucky amateur sleuth).

There’s also a good turn from Pauline Johnson as triple agent Beryl Matchley without whom the Wrecker might never get caught in spite of massively compelling circumstantial evidence!

Joseph Striker - hurrah!

The tone is slightly conflicted:  35 passengers get killed in one crash and yet the film insists on trying to lighten the mood through the hapless antics of useless private detective Rameses Ratchett (Leonard Thompson) who has a running battle with with Hitchcock favourite, Gordon Harker, as one of the rail company’s men. Whilst this is very British it makes for odd viewing – people are dying and we don’t really care if Rameses’s car won’t start or whether it can manage to travel a key five miles without incident.

Harker and Thompson - ha!

Reservations aside, the drama is multi-tracked as events ramp up to the finish with the race on to prevent the worst outrage of all and then chase down the Wrecker before he kills himself and many more…

Benita Hulme - cor!

I watched the restored version which comes with a new musical score from Neil Brand who combines synthesisers and pianos to great effect: sound-tracking so many classic locos must have been a dream come true – their very movement an invitation to sound. There’s also a re-created spoken section as an incriminating phonograph cylinder is played back. The Wrecker was shot as both sound and silent from that period when picture houses didn’t always have the modern kit.

The DVD is available from Strike Force Entertainment who normally specialise in travel heritage programmes and which explains the main market for this film. But, whether you just like steam trains or cutting-edge late silent cinematography, the film is very rewarding.

You can buy the DVD from Cherry Red Records -SFE's distribution partners - and it comes with a nifty set of extras including an abridged home movie version as well as a fascinating featurette in which Mr Brand discusses the score. Our Duncan would have loved it!

A SECR F1 Class locomotive No. A148 (I think?)