The return of KB’s Shorts… Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney and Cyrus Gabrytsch

"It's easier to go straight with you..." says Billy. Don't count on it Leila honey...

My week of abbreviated wonders... It’s interesting that, after seeing a 132 minute cut of an approximately 600 minute film (Greed – see previous post), I find myself watching three Pathe 9.5 mm films that contain proportionately more of their source material. All came from the collection of Kevin Brownlow and from an age when this was almost all there was... no streaming in HD, Blu-ray of Betamaz.

Pathé invented this smaller stock for home consumption and as the Bioscope’s master of the magic lantern, Chief Projectionist Dave Locke, pointed out, the projection area is almost the same as 16mm and, with the right illumination it was perfectly possible to project them unaided onto the Cinema Museum’s screen. Mr Locke can make almost anything appear on that screen and these three examples included sumptuous close-ups, massed battle scenes and Billy Haines and his cheeky grin!

Billy and Leila in a publicity shot for Jimmy Valentine

The films were not always authorised hence Pathé’s issuing of a number of MGM titles, re-edited and cut to look like different films. Here was Jimmy le Mysteries (1928) that just happened to look a lot like Alias Jimmy Valentine directed by Jack Conway and staring the puck-ish Haines. Haines was one of the true silent greats, a natural on screen who could fool around whilst all the time being a flick-switch away from the drama.

He plays the eponymous Jimmy, an audacious safe cracker who, accompanied by his cartoonish side-kicks Karl Dane and Tully Marshall, sets about reducing the current accounts of banks across New York. He’s a dandy cracksman and it’s all a bit of fun until he meets Leila Hyams trying to stop her younger brother getting into a scrap.

Lional Berrymore tests Billy's alibi...

Jimmy likes this one so much that it doesn’t even matter that her dad runs the biggest bank in town, for this girl he’s willing to go straight, heck, for this gal, he’s willing to actually get a job and in her old man’s bank! Has Jimmy really turned over a new leaf and, even if he has, will the dogged Inspector (Lionel Barrymore) let him get away with it.

As with all three of tonight’s Pathé precis, this demi-Jimmy made perfect sense and was edited well enough to retain a sense of its original narrative and drama. John Sweeney accompanied in dynamic fashion, vamping along in cine-character as each of the four reels were replaced.

Next up, a tale the French company called, Money Does Not Bring Happiness (another link to Greed!) known better as The Younger Generation (1929) and directed by none other than Frank Capra. As with the first film this was intended to include sound but as Variety noted, this was not entirely successful: “… as bad as it can be!”

Luckily Pathé produced a silent and we had Cyrus Gabrysch’s excellent accompaniment instead adding effortless classical lines and under-pinning the emotions of this light-touch drama about a family rift.

Family miss-fortunes

The Goldfish family – a possible reference to big Sam Goldwyn’s original name – live in a tight-knit Jewish neighbourhood in a tenement block. Their eldest son Morris is a bit full of himself and beats up little sister Suzanne for giving his cake to her pal Eddie. A fight breaks out and Morris knocks an oil lamp over and, whilst his sis escapes across to Eddie's, he collects all of the valuables first. His mother (Rosa Rosanova) is impressed, he will be a big businessman one day, whilst his father (Jean Hersholt… yet another Greed connection…) is less sure, knowing that, basically, money can’t buy you love…

The years pass and Morris has become rich (and Ricardo Cortez), sis has turned into lovely Lina Basquette and she’s still seeing Eddie (Rex Lease) a piano player who big brother still considers far from suitable. The whole family live together on Morris’ immense pad with Capra frequently having his butler pulling down blinds that create the shadowy impressions of prison bars…

Ricardo Cortez faces off against Lina Basquette (TCM colorized...)

Talking of which, Eddie makes a mistake by agreeing a gig distracting the crowds singing on a float whilst some mobsters rob a jewellers. It doesn’t go well but Suzanne persuades her lover to do the time even though he was scarcely aware of the scheme. He gets sent down but the harshest punishment comes from Morris who exiles Suzanne as well saying that even her parents disown her.

Tragically this is not true… Time passes, more money is made and Father never smiles… is there any chance of love finding a way?

Simone Genevois takes to horse in la Merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d'Arc (1929)

Lastly an epic two reeler and believe me when I say you would scarce credit how many thousands of men and horses can be transposed onto 9.5mm! This was La merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d’Arc (1929) directed by Marco de Gastyne more in the style of Gance than his Joan competitor Carl Dreyer (whose film he declared extraordinary).

Kevin Brownlow said that the studio had wanted the Dreyer film to have been an epic and it was... just not in the way they expected. The French film on the other hand was huge in scope taking seven months to film all across France with its director in search of authentic locations from Rouen to Orleans, Rheims Cathedral to the cellars of Mont St Michel. There was also a cast of thousands including at one point military extras who, having achieved their director’s objective, pushed on for greater glory only to be met with the fists of their opposition!

Simone Genevois

Simone Genevois makes for an heroic Jeanne and was exactly the right age to play the Saint being 16-17 during the shoot (she played Ivan Muzzhukhin’s young daughter in House of Mystery (1924) too!). We see her naming of the Dauphin in the cathedral and pivotal role in the defeats of the English.

Once caught, the comparisons with Dreyers trial are interesting, especially the faces of her accused. She found the filming exhausting, not just because she had to wear actual 22 kilo armour but also the emotional impact of the ending which she found hard to watch after completion.

Mr Brownlow said this 9.5 copy had helped spark the restoration of this film, and it would be one I’l like to see all the way through. Cyrus again accompanied and followed every sword thrust and parry, every heroic charge and the sadness of this remarkable young person’s final days.

Another evening of the unexpected for a packed, end of season, Bioscope. The next begins in September and it may well begin with The Goose Woman featuring one of the very best performances of the era from Louise Dresser.

And yet another good season for the Kennington Bioscope! Thanks to all those who organise, project and otherwise enable this precious cinematic resource. The Cinema Museum is also to be congratulated and deserves whatever support every genuine cinephile can give it. One of the best venues in London and surely one of the very best silent film clubs anywhere!

Louise Brooks: a storm in any port… A Girl in Every Port (1928)

An oddly intense buddy movie that famously revealed his Lulu to GW Pabst, Howard Hawks’ A Girl in Every Port is amongst Louise Brooks’ better American film roles and was made just before the superb hobo symphony of Beggars of Life.

The film was intended as a vehicle for the rough-hewn Victor McLaglen who plays Spike Madden, a sailor with female friends seemingly everywhere he goes. This seems unlikely but that’s probably the idea and, even if all the nice girls love a sailor, not all of the girls in this film are nice as it turns out...

Robert Armstrong and Louise Brooks

Spike’s impressive run of conquests is under threat when he realises that he has competition on the seven seas: a man called Bill – Salami in some versions - (Robert Armstrong) who leaves his trademark calling card of an anchor in a heart either in the form of a bracelet or a tattoo. Too many times Spike meets an old girl-friend only to find that she’s already being ticked off by his fellow collector. He sets out to find this interloper and to protect his reputation as a grand master of lovin’ ‘em and, very much, leaving ‘em…

On goes the competition as Spike trails in his rival’s wake from Amsterdam where his friendly girl is now married with children, to Rio where he finds his trophy already branded and then again further south.

Victor McLaglan

It’s interesting that his passion is so competitively driven and, indeed, when Spike finally confronts his competitor, the two quickly start getting physical as Bill decks Spike only for them to join forces in fighting off the local police: it seems that there’s honour amongst thieves of the female heart. Yet, it’s an odd movie in which women are the game that the men are playing amongst themselves… you hope they get taught a lesson by someone!

Amsterdam: Phalba Morgan and Eileen Sedgwick

The version I’ve seen is some 80 minutes long and from the list of cast members, it would appear that we no longer have sight of every girl in every port. There’s Phalba Morgan and Eileen Sedgwick in Amsterdam then Elena Jurado, Dorothy Mathews and Natalie Joyce (no relation) in Panama.

Panama: Dorothy Mathews and Natalie Joyce

But, there’s sadly no sight of Natalie Kingston in the South Sea islands, Sally Rand in Bombay  and, intriguingly, Caryl Lincoln as the Girl from Liverpool – bet she was no push-over! Somewhere there was also a young Myrna Loy…

Maria Alba

There's an energetic contribution from Maria Alba as Maria Casajuana - the girl in Rio - who gets Spike into trouble with her over-possessive boyfriend and his gang. She's just about the only detailed female character in the first half of the film: the girls really are mostly just part of the scenery.

There’s also a cameo from Leila Hyams (later to star in Tod Browning’s Freaks in her short but memorable career) as a sailor’s wife who the boys find struggling to support her son after his sailor father has been lost at sea. They play with the boy and leave money to help is mother… their hearts are in the right place and there is a cost to be paid for so much fooling around.

Armstrong and McLaglan

We have to wait for the film’s second half to find the girl who will bring the boys finally together…  Louise Brooks plays a circus performer in Marseilles called Marie aka “Mam’selle Godiva! Neptune’s bride and sweetheart of the sea!”  She makes a stunning entrance in a one-piece leotard and climbs up a vertiginous ladder before diving into a small pool, soaking Spike who proceeds to falls hook, line and sinker for the acrobatic beauty: he has finally met his match.

Marie takes steps...

Spike has enough money to settle down and tells his new sweetheart of his savings and his plan… Brooks’ acting gives little away and there’s just the smallest glimmer in Marie’s eyes that might suggest unwelcome pragmatism. But we’re not sure until pal Bill recognises her as an old flame from Coney Island (not that that necessarily makes you a bad person...) who has his mark tattooed on her arm and still holds a candle. She’s keen to pick up where they left off and her callous wink whilst held in the arms of Spike is pure Lulu!

Bill doesn’t want to break Spike’s heart and won’t tell Marie’s truth but she pushes him pretty hard, sending Spike off on an errand so she can turn up in his mate’s room and tempt him… Jim almost gives in but it turns out that the “big Ox is worth more… than any woman…” Well… OK then.

Louise Brooks and Robert Armstrong

Brooks played down her role and the film, disparaging it’s homo-social subtext (she may have used other words…) but the film is more narrow-minded than that and all about lauding enduring male friendships. How this pure, brotherly love can be balanced with heterosexual promiscuity is beyond me. Honestly… they come up against a woman who behaves just like them and they’re driven into the chaste comforts of the masculine bond.

I can only conclude that, being unable to understand this, they should just try harder to secure deeper relationships not just with women but with all those around them: traveling the world in their ships they appear to have left their social responsibility at home. Maybe that’s too modern a view but I wonder what contemporary audience thought of the film’s message?

The boys and the "sexy skirt"

All this aside… there are splendid performances from McLaglan and Armstrong, especially the former who’s boyish charm shines through his care-worn, ex-pro boxer’s face: he really was as good with his fists as the film suggests.

Hawks directs with pacey-authenticity and there are some great touches – showing the lads drunken state by focusing on their legs staggering from bar to bar or Spike discovering Jim’s identity by the mark left by his ring on his chin. It’s witty and entertaining even despite misgivings about what it actually means (and Hawks also wrote the outline).

Would I watch it without LB? Maybe... but she improves the end product by providing a striking counterpoint to the over-compensating maleness. Her Marie is intelligent and in control – no doubt she has a boy in every pitch? She breaks Spike’s heart with the aloof, refined sexuality that was soon to play so very well in Berlin.

A Girl in Every Port is fairly hard to track down. It’s available on a 16mm DVD transfer from Grapevine in reasonable condition but really warrants a fully-restored release. Until then, you’ll have to aim to catch one of the occasional screenings in London and other “silent” cities…