Marion Davies keeps moving... The Restless Sex (1920), Grapevine Blu-ray

This was Marion Davies’ ninth film and she was still only 23, with an established stage career begun in 1914 leading into films starting with the lost Runaway Romany in 1917 and a further 19 silent films until her move into the talkies. It’s the earliest I’ve seen her and already she’s a steady presence with dramatic certainties as well as on screen energies that hold your attention more than any of those around her. Believably, she is a “restless” woman who wants to experience everything in life and on her own terms.

 

The source material, Robert W. Chambers’ 1918 novel of the same name, was considered “feminist” in the way it addressed the life of Stephanie Quest whose drug-addicted parents set her on a life of precarious fortunes until she adopted by a wealthy widower, John Cleland. There’s no mention of her parents’ habits at the start of the film – not in Hollywood, not in 1920 – just that she is an orphan with a winning personality who is adopted by Cleland (Charles Lane) who is – perhaps – trying to rebuild his family. Frances Marion scripts and gives Stephanie, known to all as Steve, plenty of agency even though she will become trapped by circumstance and formality.

 

Steve is played by Etna Ross as Steve as a child and is delighted to meet her new brother Jim who is played by Stephen Carr a teenager with plenty of pep who not only featured in Davies’ Little Old New York (1923) but who went on to have a long career including the original Superman serial and Congo Bill. Jim is slightly awkward with his newly acquired sibling but she is nothing if not forthright and we sense a future romance, and, as the years pass, this looks more likely as Steve has grown into Marion Davies and Jim is now Ralph Kellard. Everyone is gathered for the end of term production of Jim's play - his crowning achievement - and Steve is even more excited when she spots his pal Oswald Grismer (Carlyle Blackwell) in the cast.

Marion Davies

The adopted siblings are deeply bonded though and talk excitedly of what they will do with their lives, Jim aiming to write and she with a broader scope involving the arts and adventure – “the restless sex” (it’s unclear as to whether this is an attribute of her sex of just nature?). All dreaming comes to a shuddering halt when they find their father dead in his office having quietly passed away. Cleland has planned for the eventuality and has left instructions for both: Jim to study in Paris and Steve to take nursing training (I’ve known quite a few “restless nurses” of both sexes though, and am married to one…). Cleland has also placed Steve’s financial affairs in the acre of his trusted friend Chilsmer Grismer (Robert Vivian) who is also father of Oswald.

  

This removes the two from each other’s immediate company and as the years pass they keep in touch only via letters as Steve, having qualified as a health professional, takes up painting in Greenwich Village bohemian society with Oswald chipping away at sculptures in the same block and Steve sharing an airy studio with Helen Davis (Corinne Barker). Steve spends a lot of time with Oswald and whilst they are out driving upstate, they narrowly avoid colliding with a steam train. Oswald’s car is a wreck though and 90 miles from NYC, they take refuge in a hotel – in separate rooms. This out of the way refuge proves unexpectedly problematic when the police raid to stop partying youth and find the two wrapped only in quilts in the same room…

Carlyle Blackwell and Marion

Soon after Steve and Oswald marry and we soon learn that this is not entirely to the couple’s satisfaction. Jim hightails it from Paris to investigate and meets Steve’s room-mate as well as a young model Marie (Vivienne Osborne) posing on a horse with very little on. Helen explains the strangeness around the newly-weds and that Oswald has fallen on harder times and had to move to run-down ol’ Bleeker Street to find a studio.

 

Things come to a head with the film’s startling set piece, a huge ball celebrating Greek culture with Steve as Pallas Athena ushered into the hall by a host of choreographed dancers. Joseph Urban designed a two-storey set for this sequence with costumes from Erté and all would not have looked out of place in a Cecil B DeMille epic. Among the extras are Norma Shearer but no one’s spotted her yet. Steve and Jim renew their relationship whilst Oswald looks on askance before order is restored and he whisks his wife off leaving Jim to dance the light fantastic with Marie.

 

But… what is the secret of the marriage and will what we all expect to happen, happen? You’ll just have to seek this film out and find the answers for yourself.

The wild party

Directed very effectively by Leon D'Usseau and Robert Z. Leonard, this shows the burgeoning status of Marion Davies and in a film which is dramatic with some light-heartedness. Edward Lorusso quotes a positive review from Motion Picture World, which says “In the charm of life’s romantic comedy Marion Davies seems to have been born for the part she plays…” and also praised her naturalism “… instead of strutting, eye-rolling and attempting to tear passion to tatters.”

 

That we can see the film on home media is entirely down to the efforts of Mr Lorusso who Kickstarted this in 2015 getting a decent digital copy from elements housed by the Library of Congress. This is now available from Grapevine Videos complete with a smashing score from Donald Sosin who uses piano and keyboard improvisations to greatly enliven proceedings including that grand set-piece ball.

 

Throughout Marion is every inch a star in waiting, Allen G. Siegler camera loves her and so do the audience as she draws the eye from the rather one-paced Kellard and even the more effective Mr Blackwell who would head to Europe after this film and never make another Hollywood film. That’s a story for another day.

Ralph Kellard

You can buy the Blu-ray from the Grapevine website and check Ed Lorusso’s Kickstarter page for his ongoing project to make as many of Marion’s films available as possible. Latest project involves The Cardboard Lover (1928) which I and over 630 others backed: can not wait to see it.

 

*Also recommended is Ed’s book, The Silent Films of Marion Davies – no silent home should be without one!

Monkey business... Kennington Bioscope Silent Laughter Weekend, Day Two

I’d missed the first day of KB’s annual Comedy Weekender having to be dragged around the South Cambridgeshire countryside by a small but determined dog who knew I’d seen Pat and Patachon as well as Syd Chaplin’s legs last year in Pordenone. But nothing was going to keep me away from today’s programme with its mix of the rare, the classic and the impossible-to-see-anywhere-else! Only at the Bioscope my friends, only at the Cinema Museum…

 

Only on 9.5mm with Colin Sell

And, indeed, only on 9.5mm… the day began with live projection as, before our very eyes, films that are listed in many places as “lost” were projected for our delectation on the Bioscope screen. Chris Bird introduced and projected these treasures most of which were on celluloid some 80 to 100 years ago, using a 1950s Spectro projector upgraded to HID lighting – it says here in the notes! The format was intended for home use and, because the sprocket hole are between individual cells, the projected area is not dissimilar from 16mm which had whole at the side. The results look fabulous especially given their rarity and… where else can we see supposedly lost Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon and Oliver Hardy.

It's sobering as Chris noted that of the 123 American films released on 9.5mm almost half, 56 titles, only survive on 9.5… film preservation comes down to such fine margins, in this case just about 2/5ths of an inch.

 

As Chris went off to the projector, Dave Glass introduced each film starting with Our Gang – one of the most successful film series that went from 1922 well into the late 40s with an ever-changing cast of young tykes. This was the first film to be shot, the third to be released, as Fickle Flora (1922) which came with Big Business under the title Our Gang from Pathescope. Flora features a young girl torn between various suitors – the boy next door and a rich boy with long blonde curls and a bowl full of sweets.

Harold in a barrell

Harry Langdon, the fourth silent comedy giant, who changed the style of comedy by slowing down the action and whose first film doesn’t exist except it does on 9.5… made with Sol Lesser’s Principal Pictures Corporation, called The Capture of Cactus Cal (1925) on 9.5 but has now been identified as part of Horace Greely Jnr. The film was re-released by Mack Sennett in 1925 - but shot two years earlier by Alfred J Goulding for Lesser.

 

Next up an episode from the Hall Room Boys series featuring Neely Edwards and Bert Roach called High Flyers (1922). This was another series based on a comic strip which became a long running film series some 45 made which, again, has few survivors mostly on 9.5. The boys end up climbing up buildings high above San Francisco in pursuit of a baby flying high attached to balloons… and are helped by a monkey. No children were harmed in the making of this film but almost certainly Harold Lloyd was watching and planning his own high-rise act for two years later…

 

Talking of Harold Lloyd, he was next up in Rainbow Island (1917) described by Dave as “of its time” in terms of its attitudes and lo it came to pass after a message in a bottle lead Harry and his pal, Snub Pollard, to a treasure island inhabited by a tribe called the Bozos who soon capture the men and start fattening them for some comedy stewing…

 

The late David Wyatt identified a lot of the films in the 9.5 Catalogue and The Honourable Mr Buggs issued on a French 9.5mm was one of his favourites dedicated to him today by Mr Glass. It’s a Hal Roach featuring Oliver Hardy in black face as the nervy butler of Matt Moore’s Mr Buggs. This also featured Anna May Wong as lady crook, Baroness Stoloff as well as Sojin Kamiyama (recently seen as Billy the Butler in the Bioscope’s screening of The Bat!) as her criminal competitor.

 

Next was Paul (aka James) Parrott, brother of Charley Chase (born Charles Joseph Parrott), who, before he directed 22 of Laurel and Hardy’s best sound shorts, made a number of comedy shorts as the star for Mr Hal Roach. These included Winner Takes All (1923) featuring Jobyna Ralston who was to later team with Harold Lloyd to much success. Paul must compete in the multi-event Clear Valley Country Club tournament for the prize cup and the hand of the president’s daughter (Jobyna). Hilarity ensues… true love wins out!

 

Brother Charlie Chase directed the final film, which stared Snub Pollard in 365 Days (1922) which was a delightfully surreal tale of an extended family offered a large inheritance if only they can live together for a year without falling out. They build a collection of houses piled high on each other and proceed to try and control their tempers… fat chance!

 

Accompaniment was from the fluid fingers of Colin Sell and he contributed trademark good-humoured backing for this typically Kennington Sunday morning treat. Yes we had some big features to follow but this was the essence of the KB and someone needs to spend some time revising IMDB and other online sources.

 

Marion Davies and Lawrence Gray

The Patsy (1928) with Cyrus Gabrysch

 

An episode of Screen Snapshots (1924) was screened showing Marion Davies relaxing with friends including Sessue Hayakawa and his wife, Tsuru Aoki, Pauline Frederick and a number of others I was too slow to catch!

 

1928 was quite the year for King Vidor with The Crowd, generally regarded as one of the very best films of the silent era along with Show People – one of the finest comedies – proceeded by this film his first collaboration with the protean Marion Davies. Vidor had seen Davies’ comic turn at parties and noted her natural instincts as a crowd-pleasing comic, even if the laughs were at her own expense and also as a mimic. Not quite what her beau William Randolph Hearst had in mind for her at all… but The Patsy became her biggest hit to date following on from the more conventional comedy-dramatics such as When Knighthood Was in Flower, The Bride’s Play et al. Not that this was her first time in comedy-led features as Beverley of Graustark and others show, this was always her winning way and I’d be surprised if Hearst wasn’t really aware of this, especially as it was reinforced by her ability as a dramatic actor.

Here Davies is screwball and inventive, staring longingly at her sister’s boyfriend for comic effect and feigning madness in a series of unlikely hats she is funny throughout this film. She plays Pat, the youngest member of the Harrington clan, who is forever being picked on by her Ma (Marie Dressler in a career-rescuing and, as legend has it, life-saving performance) who favours her more elegant sister Grace (Jane Winton). Pa Harrington (Dell Henderson) tries to stand up for Pat but is usually slapped down…outnumbered by Ma and Grace.

Marie Dressler and Jane Winton

The family dynamics are well handled from the opening Sunday lunch in which Pat tries to work out the correct way of eating soup to her getting the scrag end of the chicken and having to fend for her own new clothes that are borrowed by big sis. Pat would like to do some borrowing of her own with Grace’s boyfriend, Tony (Orville Caldwell) who is completely oblivious only having eyes for Grace even after Pat tells him of her secret and unrequited love for a certain fellow (it’s YOU ya big dummy!).

But there’s nothing Pat won’t do for her sister even if it means sacrificing her own love. Davies shows good range with the pathos and comedy especially when attempting to win over wealthy gad-about Billy Caldwell (Lawrence Gray) – who has set his sights on Grace as well – Davies’ Pat impersonates not one but three of Hollywood’s finest. In three absorbing minutes Mae Murray, Lillian Gish and Pola Negri… all come to life in convincing fashion

Marie Dressler is absolutely fabulous; her every action pops out of the screen and she is brilliantly over-bearing. Henderson is good at hen-pecked and his revolt at the end is all the sweeter for it – real craftsmen at work here. And it was good to hear Bioscope founder Cyrus Gabrysch back on the keyboards playing for this comedic wonder with his instinctive and playful accompaniment.

 

Florence Lawrence 

Focus on Vitagraph with Glenn Mitchell and Dave Glass plus Timothy Rumsey

It was time for a live double act and, whilst Mitchell and Glass haven’t the vaudeville experience of say John Bunny and Charlie Murray they know an awful lot about them and the transition to filmic comedy via the Vitagraph company. Based in New York, Vitagraph was formed in 1897 by Albert E Smith, J Stuart Blackman and William “Pop” Rock, three Brits with backgrounds in entertainment from running billiard halls to prestidigitation. It grew into one of the leading comedy studios of the 1910s.

The two showed a bizarre trick film from 1907, The Disintegrated Convict followed by A Tintype Romance (1910) featuring Florence Turner not to mention Jean the Vitagraph Dog who is absolutely central to the plot! There were also films featuring perhaps the biggest comedy star pre-Chaplin, John Bunny, The Golf Game and the Bonnet (1913), Ralph Ince’s The Right Girl? (1915), Sidney Drew and wife in Boobley’s Baby (1915) and the great Larry Semon in Bullies and Bullets (1917).

In between the films Glenn and Dave provided the kind of witty background you’d expect at the epicentre of Silent London and we were royally entertained by the rich accompaniment from Timothy Rumsey!

  

Trade promotion for The Gorilla

The Gorilla (1927) with Costas Fotopolous and filmed introduction from Steve Massa

 

There are two ways of writing a murder mystery, speaking as the son of a crime writer (Cyril Joyce, former policeman turned novelist, who had 23 books published in hardback and paperback, many based on his experiences and forensically plotted) and this film follows what’s known as the Midsomer Murders Formula – the killer can be picked out of a hat and the rationale is invented to unravel in the final five minutes. Most murder mysteries follow this approach… motive, opportunity and means all established post facto.

The Gorilla is strong on animalistic atmosphere and comedy but it doesn’t quite match The Bat and certainly The Cat and the Canary for plotting, character and whodunnit mystery. This film has been missing for some time and was only rediscovered and restored relatively recently by the San Francisco Film Festival. It looks gorgeous, dark spooky mansion well-lit in tinted blue as the shadow of a huge primate is cast on its walls and an interior of yellowy-brown, immaculately highlighting the performers expression and their fear among the murder and mystery.

Based on the play by Ralph Spence, written in 1925, after both Cat (1922) and Bat (1920) it features our man of the day, Charlie Murray, as Garrity a comic detective who could make even Bob Hope seem calm and collected in the gloom of an old dark house. His partner in crime-stopping is Fred Kelsey, and between them, they must establish who the killer was in a house full of suspects all behaving like, well, suspects. Yes, even Alice Townsend, played by Marceline Day’s sweet-faced elder sister Alice, looks like she might have something to hide whilst her paramour Arthur Marsden (Gaston Glass) is immediately selected as the main suspect for her father Cyrus’ killer, being his secretary and all.

Charlie, Fred and friend...

As they gather in the library with their friend Stevens (and impossibly youthful Walter Pidgeon) a note from The Gorilla advises them all to leave as more will be killed if still in the house at midnight… well you know what that means. It’s a game of cat and mouse or, to be more zoologically precise, primate and primate as Garrity and his partner Mulligan (Fred Kelsey, described by Steve Massa in his filmed introduction as the perennial flat foot) stumble around for clues. Tully Marshall is superb as per usual as William Townsend the deceased slightly deranged brother and Syd Crossley adds comic value as the Butler who regardless of whether he did it or not just wants to go home.

Superb atmospherics were provided by Mr Fotopolous on piano as he illustrated the dark corners of the comedy and sprinkled light-hearted flourishes over the comic relief. These comedy horrors must be great fun to play as audience, music and sights on screen combine.

 

Mr Murray and Miss Bow

The Pill Pounder (1923), with Costas Fotopolous

Steve Massa also introduced this other recently discovered film and it is, of course, all the more precious for having a young Clara Bow in it – just 17 - as well as Mr Charlie Murray. The story of its rediscovery in an Omaha parking lot (!?!) has been all over the cineaste socials not to mention mainstream news and it is a big deal especially for Clara. It’s Murray’s film though as he plays a pharmacist/druggist aka the titular pounder of pills whose few pleasures in a stifled home life include a few hands of cards in the back of his store.

The customer is always wrong is his motto as he's cheated out of his winning hand by his pals who swap cards with every ring of the shop bell… His distraction leads to his being convinced that a bottle of “Fomo Seltzer”, labelled toxic by a pesky child, has poisoned Clara’s boyfriend (James Turfler) and the comedy goes into overdrive until the truth is revealed. Clara shows great energy and she was described in the Exhibitors Trade Review as “perhaps the most promising of the youngest actresses…” Got that right!

According to Steve, Murray appeared in over 300 films from 1912 to 1940 and was “the professional Irishman for hire…” with this one of a series he starred in for All-Star films after leaving Keystone. He went on to feature in the 1925 Wizard of Oz, as well as The Gorilla in a busy Twenties before making a series of seven films about The Cohens and the Kellys… guess which one he played?

Clara Bow and James Turfler

 

After seven hours in the dark, I had to move north just as the evening was hotting up. Here’s what I missed…

 

Charley Chase with Cyrus Gabrysch

Some very rare, and newly restored, comedies from one of the Five Greats (for me!) including Us (1927), All Wet (1924), What Women Did for Me (1927) and Derby Day (1923) Presented by author, film historian and Chase expert Richard M Roberts.

 

Then… an evening’s worth of short comedies from other masters:

Harold Lloyd’s Never Weaken (1921)

Buster Keaton’s The Paleface (1922)

Charlie Chaplin’s Behind the Screen (1916)

Charley Chase Assistant Wives (1927)

Laurel & Hardy Leave ‘Em Laughing (1928)

Piano accompaniment was from the tireless Costas Fotopolous!

 

Another silently spectacular Sunday at the Bioscope and thanks to all those who projected, preserved, presented and produced this wonderful weekend. It’s something to celebrate and the opportunities to see so much “presumed lost” is one to treasure.

 

 

Girls will be boys… I Don’t Want to be a Man (1919)/Beverly of Graustark (1926), Kennington Bioscope and Vito Project

 

This was a glorious collaboration between the Kennington Bioscope and the Vito Project, a film club aimed at exploring cinema through a queer perspective, both meeting in elegant harmony with two silent films featuring two of the finest comedians of the period doing what they did best; challenging norms and making people laugh. This had to be one of the most celebratory atmospheres ever at the Cinema Museum with a meeting of minds from the two passion projects finding new aspects of appreciation, fresh angles to adore. There is always respect here for the context of century old cinema but there were new laughs to be had as the audience spotted patterns in the humour that some of us may have previously missed.

That said, some of us are clearly not that observant as I had completely forgotten the spectacular two-strip colour finale for Beverly despite having seen this restoration in Pordenone in 2019 with Mr Sweeney also accompanying. At the time I wrote about the importance of watching comedy with an audience and tonight this was proven once again with delicious new connections within the nuanced daftness that hold us all together in front of the world.

Marion’s a tonic and, as I put it in 2019, clearly hungover and heavily caffeinated, “…there’s no better sight than Marion’s look straight to camera eyes twinkling with the latest daftness. Mabel started it and Stan followed but Marion took it to another jazz-age level; her face bubbling and alive, as knowing as anyone, with perfectly timed beauty, an irresistible smile.”

Marion in colour!!

Vito supremo, Matheus Carvalho introduced and gave us an overview of Marion’s once misunderstood career…. Davis never made a seriously revered film (although Show People comes close: it is loved) but it doesn’t matter as she was the queen of romantic comedy drama for much of the Twenties producing a string of major hits that allowed audiences to laugh themselves out of the day-to-day and onto the screen in sympathy from When Knighthood was in Flower (1922), to Little  Old New York (1923) and onto this film. In all three, Marion dresses as a man to save the day and she does so in a manner, as Matheus quoting from Jeanine Bassinger in Silent Stars, aims at “comic androgyny”: she creates the physical sense of the male in her movements and attitude, with a grow-up, very meta sense, that anyone as feminine as she could every get away with really fooling anyone…

To this extent, Marion in drag is just an extension of her look to the camera and the audience, its’ a look of comic collaboration, we know and she knows but, strangely the rest of the cast don’t. We’re in on the joke and we can’t help but love her for it!

The story is brief on set-up and long on the situation. She plays a New York socialite, Beverly, called upon to impersonate her cousin, Prince Oscar of Graustark (Creighton Hale) after he injures himself in a skiing accident. If the Prince doesn’t make it to the Graustark coronation on time the deals off and the nasty General Marlanax (Roy D’Arcy once again fits the role of moustache twirling baddie to an evil T).

Marion just about a boy (screenshot from Movies Silently)

So, we literally have a Prince formerly known as Beverly having to dress as a man and convince the cabinet and court to save the throne and she does such a splendid job that even politically active and military-trained goatherd Danton (Antonio Moreno) can’t see that, with that skin, those eyes and all the rest, that she’s less of a man than he’ll ever be.

 

It’s exquisitely daft and the timing is absolutely perfect throughout and, this was reinforced by another masterclass in sympathetic accompaniment from John Sweeney on piano; the accompanist is the fourth element of the perfect silent mix: after film, location and crowd. Tonight, we were blessed with all round excellence from John and from Colin Sell on the first feature, an all-together more riotous affair.

Things getting out of hand...

The evening was also special one at the Bioscope as it was Michelle Facey’s birthday and, inundated with flowers, cards and gifts she celebrated her gift from Ernst Lubitsch and Ossi Oswalda in her introduction for the film. Ich möchte kein Mann sein (I Don't Want to be a Man) (1918) was one of the director’s last long-shorts made just before his first feature with Pola Negri, Die Augen der Mumie Ma (1918).  Oswalda is every inch as energetic as Negri and far more anarchic than Davies, or almost any American actor.

This was Weimar Germany and an initial post-war period that saw a flourishing of frank expression and, with no censorship for a year or two, some of the most forward-thinking sexual statements including, of course, Different from the Others (1919). Watching this film again there’s no doubt that the film does more than tease us with the implications of the cross-dressing; Ossi’s erstwhile counsellor Herr Brockmüller (Ferry Sikla) who she meets in a cabaret, dressed as a man, is in no doubt that he is kissing a he even if it’s a she. As he says later on about his new pal’s sister, “she’s a looker too…” Of course, what’s so great, what’s so free, is that Lubitsch makes very little of this… he leaves that to the audience in a tragically short lived permissive society.

Ossi is a rebellious tomboy, gambling, drinking and doing all manner of grown-up male things from which her uncle (Kurt Götz) and governess (Margarete Kupfer) forbid her if only to allow themselves to indulge. Lubitsch highlights the comic hypocrisy of both as she carries on smoking Ossi’s cigarette and he grabs a bigger glass to increase the rate of alcoholic intake.

Ossi’s like Iggy with a Lust for Life… or at least for eating cherries and gobbling candies in her window whilst a crowd of young men pleads to be fed like hungry penguins. She obliges only for Uncle to chase them away... what the girl surely needs is some discipline or maybe an adventure! Uncle is called away for the comically un-specific fact that “the institute he has set up is ready for him” but before he goes, he recruits a stern governor to make sure his ward is properly looked after: Herr Counsellor Brockmüller.

Brockmüller almost immediately brings Ossi to heel with his startling natural authority – he’s also a bit of a looker boys and girls! But Ossi is not so easily curtailed and she vows to resist whilst he promises to cut her down to size. The game is afoot! Ossi decides to play men at their own game and goes off to the gentlemen’s outfitters to order a dinner suit. The assistants fight over measuring her up and decide on splitting the work limb by limb. Men lust after Ossi in groups and make horrible obvious play of their intentions: but she’s in charge.

Kitted up in starched collar, bow tie, top hat and tails, Ossi sets off to have fun at the dance hall, catching the eye of a number of young women as she takes her pretty-boy swagger to the dance. She chances across someone familiar: Herr Brockmüller and tries to attract away his favoured escort and once she’s distracted by another man, the two get to know each other in the time-honoured rituals of male bonding: they get smashed.

 

Governess Margarete Kupfer enjoying forbidden fruit...

It’s a long night and by the time the two fall out onto the pavement it’s the morning and they’re struggling to think or walk straight, putting on each other's overcoats which happen to include their address cards. Confused by the cards, their driver takes them to each other’s houses but not before the above-mentioned drunken smooching. Cheekily subversive. the kissing has the audience running through the permutations: Ossi knows what she’s doing but Brockmüller is clearly a man of broad tastes…

Colin Sell accompanied with wit and the practices ease of a man who has worked with Graeme Garden and played up the storm Ossi’s anarchy deserved. In Germany as elsewhere, the War left an opportunity for gender equality and Ossi was here to grab that chance with both hands either in a suit or in a dress… for the continuation of the film’s title is clearly: I want to be a woman!

Back to Marion, Matheus quoted Cordelia D. "Delight" Evans writing in Screenland in July 1926 “…ninety years from now, when all the war pictures and propaganda films and arty productions have been forgotten, some old white beard is sure to mumble, ‘There was a girl named Marion who looked awfully cute in boy’s clothes.’”

Well, there were two awfully cute girls in boy's clothes here tonight, Miss Evans, it’s 2023 and my beard is indeed, mostly, white.

Antonio and Marion, he has no clue the sap!

 

Here's to more collaboration between the KB and Vito, a splendid time was had by all.

 

For further details of the Vito Film Club visit their Facebook page.

Bioscope details are to be found on the Cinema Museum website.

 

 

 

Blessed are the Kickstarters… Zander the Great (1925), Edward Lorusso with Ben Model

Even with the vast majority of silent films lost, there continue to be new discoveries or at least new re-emergences and re-evaluations. Edward Lorusso wrote in his excellent book, The Silent Films of Marion Davies published in 2017 that this film was “largely forgotten” and was only extant outside of the archives on a grainy grey-market VHS copy from Videolibrary. Mr Lorusso was clearly not going to let that lie and proceeded to set up a funding campaign via Kickstarter, his 17^th and 8^th for Marion which duly brought in double the backing after being funded in just four hours.

 

He was thus able to create a new scan of the 35mm print from the Marion Davies Collection in the Library of Congress which is not only in very good condition but also contains the original tints making this one of the loveliest looking digital offerings. Ben Model provides an expertly improvised organ score and the plan is to release the film more widely through his company, Undercrank Productions. So, even if you missed this project, you’ll be able to see what is yet another truly entertaining Davies’ film at some point.

 

Directed by George W. Hill from a script by Lillie Hayward with Editorial Direction from Frances Marion, Zander represented something like a return to “normalcy” as Lorusso wrote, with epic costume drama left behind for a western with a strong moral core. This was the actresses first “Hollywood” film for MGM and allows her to show off her impressive and under-rated range, from comedic Pickford style kidding around as an orphan at the start, to the more dramatic episodes out West, romance and comedy hair cuts that have to be seen to be believed… especially relevant in this age of “Lockdown Haircuts”, if only more of us thought to use a bowl to guide the scissors!

Marion in motion

Marion kicks off in full Mary-mode as Mamie Smith a spirited orphan who has far too much energy to follow the rules of her orphanage in Weeweedin, New Jersey, nor the terrifying Matron (Emily Fitzroy keeping a glacial, straight face almost throughout). Exhibitors Trade Review noted that Marion’s appearance and interpretation were “strongly reminiscent” of Pickford and whilst that’s true, boy does she carry it off well. The same paper was also complimentary about Hill who was apparently the replacement for one Clarence Badger who producer and Davies’ partner and career counsellor, William Randolph Hearst, who also burned his footage before bringing in the replacement. Quite what Hearst wanted for Marion is open to interpretation… there’s no way this was going to be a great drama but perhaps he was simply trying to get the best for his friend?

 

Another reviewer, “A.S.” in Photoplay, described this opening section as a “turning point” in Davies’ career and a performance that will “place her in the rank of the Gishes, the Pickfords and Colleen Moore.” She’s certainly a whirlwind with her ponytails, freckles and sheer “bounce”. The perpetual motion Marion is also supported by some smart stunt work with a man in a dress carrying her huge laundry basket and riding her motorbike in dangerous fashion but not quick enough to defeat the modern freeze-frame; a tribute to the quality of the transfer.

 

Rescued by Hedda Hopper

Mamie goes too far and is badly beaten by the sadistic Matron before being rescued by the kindly Mr. Pepper (Richard Carle) before being shipped out from the orphanage to stay with a single mother Mrs. Caldwell (Hedda Hopper), and her small child Alexander whom Mamie calls Zander (who grows up to be played by Master Jack Huff). The house and surrounds look like something out of a fairy tale, especially in the gorgeous lilac tints and there’s some smart business involving a proposal from a local lad which is rejected in silhouette by a fully grown Mamie who wants to marry only for love.

 

Talking of which, Mrs Caldwell has been waiting years for her husband who has gone off to Mexico in search of his fortune and as the years pass she grows frailer as her hopes fade. She gets ill and when he finally writes to callously brush her off, Mamie pretends he’s arranging to meet her after establishing himself in Singletree, Arizona (there’s only one tree, do you see?). As she dies, Mamie promises to take her son to find his father there.

 

Now the film hits its stride as Mamie and Zander evade the attempts of the old orphanage to take in the boy and make their way out West in a battered Ford with both of Zander’s pet rabbits… this is a good film if you like Lagomorpha as, by the time they arrive, the two have become rather more, proving that old jokes really are pretty, pretty old.

 

Harrison Ford is also really good in this film

Mamie seeks refuge in a huge house – a very expressive set design – where she encounters two old hands, “Good News” (Harry Watson) and “Texas” (Harry Myers) who are going to be good for some slapstick whilst also being apart of a gang liquor smugglers. The gang’s leader, of Dan Murchison (Harrison Ford no, not that one… how many times Paul!?) takes an instant disinterest in Mamie until she takes her hat off and is revealed as a woman as beautiful as Marion Davies! A fourth horseman is revealed as Juan Fernández (Holbrook Blinn).

 

Dan’s all for kicking Mamie out until there’s a lightning raid by the local Sheriff, played by Hobart Bosworth who, as all those who’ve seen Behind the Door know, can give bad guys one hell of a beating! Mamie’s the domestic cover they need and there’s more as Dan reveals his real name… yes, he’s Zander’s long lost father and he means to change course.

 

Or. Does he? The bad guys are all relative and there’s a gang leader in the desert called Black Bart (George Siegmann) who’s just as keen as the law enforcement officers to end Dan’s trade in hootch. There’s a lot of moral issues piling up and you can be sure they’ll all be resolved one way or another in a breath taking finish featuring some smashing locations and Marion choking on gusts of sand whipped up under Randolph Heart’s specific instruction: he wanted her to be seen to suffer just as much as Lillian Gish on the ice in Way Down East… and it looks like she did. Amongst her impressive array of competencies seems to be physical resilience; no one can doubt that as troopers go, Marion was real!

 

That's acting, Rudolph!

So it came to pass that Zander the Great is no longer forgotten or grainy and grey, it’s part of our growing appreciation of Marion Davies the star and even if it’s not exactly a classic it is very much a film made by a genuinely classic star… For that Mr Larusso is owed a debt of gratitude by all of us who find the actress charming and highly skilled. Marion is being rehabilitated and I’ve no doubt that Mr Hurst would be pleased to know how much she is still truly loved.

 

The commercial release will be out in early 2022 and you'll be able to order direct from the Undercrank Productions site as this film joins Beauty’s Worth, The Bride’s Play, Little Old New York and the excellent When Knighthood Was in Flower, which was a Ben Model Kickstarter, on the roster. When the going gets tough the tough get Kickstartng and we can only be grateful for the enthusiasm, expertise and passion of both gentlemen!

 

There’s also a fascinating post on Ed’s website, Silent Room discussing the relationship between Chaplin and Davies as well as the former’s stunt work in this film. There’s no evidence of the lion taming scene apart from references in Davies and other biographies and the cue card proves it had gone by the final cut… all signs of wanting to avoid the opprobrium of Citizen Hearst or just a casualty of the widespread changes made by the magnet? Who knows… there are plenty of mysteries left in silent film as PH has so eloquently stated in her recent post about Le Giornate in Pordenone.

 

Forward into the past it shall be then… as always!

 

Gypsies, tramps and thieves... Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone Day Four

“…ninety years from now, when all the war pictures and propaganda films and arty productions have been forgotten, some old white-beard is sure to mumble, ‘There was a girl named Marion who looked awfully cute in boy’s clothes.’” Delight Evans, Screenland, July 1926

Another epic day out here in the capital city of Friuli-Venezia Giulia with magnificently restored cowboys to start, followed by doctors, divas, death and Duck Soup, before a trio of women against the odds finishing at 1.00AM sharp… and all’s well!

In the Teatro Verdi the tone for the evening was set by the collective joy of seeing Laurel and Hardy in Duck Soup (1927) – a once-lost now found and restored by Lobster Films. There’s a new trend this year of applauding leads on screen but with Stan and Oliver our laughter is the salute and this early partnership is a hoot as the two boys, hoboes on the run who attempt to rent out a mansion to Lord and Lady Tarbotham (Madeline Hurlock classy and serene here and all too keen to take a bath as you’d expect from a former Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty).

There’s no greater comedy hit than one shared and, in this theatre and with this audience we were grinning like loons as a mass forgetting of the everyday took hold and we were sucker punched time and again.

And then came Marion.

This year’s poster girl is already established as one of the major stars of the Twenty First Century silent renaissance and in Beverly of Graustark (1926) she is gorgeously funny. Davis never made a seriously revered film (although Show People comes close: it is loved) but it doesn’t matter as she was the queen of romantic comedy drama for much of the Twenties producing a string of major hits that allowed audiences to laugh themselves out of the day-to-day and onto the screen in sympathy.

There’s no better sight than Marion’s looks straight to camera eyes twinkling with the latest daftness. Mabel started it and Stan followed but Marion took it to another jazz-age level; her face bubbling and alive, as knowing as anyone, with perfectly timed beauty, an irresistible smile.

Here she has many reasons to be comically shocked as she plays an American who has to impersonate her cousin, Prince Oscar of Graustark (Creighton Hale) after he injures himself in a skiing accident. If the Prince doesn’t make it to the Graustark coronation on time the deals off and the nasty General Marlanax (Roy D’Arcy who is always good to watch in this kind of role).

And so the Prince formerly known as Beverly has to dress as a man and convince the cabinet and court to save the throne and she does such a splendid job that even politically-active and military trained goatherd Danton (Antonio Moreno, “Sweet Santa etc…”) can’t see that, with that skin, those eyes and all the rest, that she’s less of a man than he’ll ever be.

It’s exquisitely daft but the timing is absolutely perfect throughout and, this was reinforced by a masterclass in sympathetic accompaniment from maestro John Sweeney on piano and the Gene Krupa of Stummfilm, Frank Bockius. They ripped through the narrative with such clarity of purpose and a collective flexibility that encompassed grandeur and pratfall almost within the same phrasing. The film informs the music and the music informs the response, we laugh and they pay back, performance enhanced by sheer delight.

I have literally got this t-shirt!

Now, getting back to the start of the day, it turns out that yer cain’t watch enough William S Hart westerns; they’re all different, pack a moral punch and he’s just so durned watchable! This is why the efforts that have gone into restoring and recreating one of his best films, The Gun Fighter (1917) are to be applauded and a parade should be run for Mr Kevin Brownlow, Christopher Bird and Fritzi Kramer. Kevin had found some 35mm elements in a French archive and this was mixed with a 9.5mm “home cinema” reduction and completed with new intertitles from Fritzi who, whilst being a famous silent film blogger by night is also a graphic designer by day.

The restored film is indeed very strong, a philosophical western which contained more moral conundrums than the earlier films screened today – both of which were good but not as complex. It showed how Hart’s work was developing rapidly and taking more risks with his character’s moral journeys; the actor/director seemed to know how far he could push his audience’s sympathy and, unlike other prominent directors of the time, he was more concerned with ambiguity. He’s a fantastic actor and clearly relished the greys and that’s why this film is so important.

On Monday we had seen French newsreel showing a studio of colourists working in their dozens with magnified images and a pantograph machine allowing them to precisely colour film stock and today we saw the results of this process with Gerolamo Lo Savio’s Otello (1909). We all love a bit of colour and Othello is one of the plays I’d most like to see at this running time… and, by the Bard, it works! That Iago though; what a get.

Elettra Raggio

We had two Italian films with impressive if lower league divas. The first was Il Fauno di Marmo (1920) directed by Mario Bonnard and starring the loverly Elena Sangro as Princess Maria married to the Duke of Helgoland (Ugo Bazzini). The narrative is convoluted and uncertain but the film looks fantastic from the outrageously opulent dresses to the sumptuous locations in and around Rome.

Elettra Raggio is striking too in her surviving film La morte che assolve (1919) which is a complex tale of redemption between estranged family members which deserves more attention. Luckily, it’s available on DVD and so I feel compelled to go on at more length later about this remarkable writer, director and performer. I always love seeing Diva films in Italy, even more than I like hearing classic era progressive rock still being played on Italian radio…

Quickfire round, your starter for ten: Oh, Doctor! (1925), Oh, Reginald Denny you are a funny one, a very enjoyable romp about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Pauline Frederick having trouble with useless men

The Moment Before (1926), Pauline Frederick looking absolutely stunning as a gypsy woman falling foul of her circumstances in a story told in flashback right at the moment of her death. Eat your heart out David Lynch! One of the strongest actors around in the silent age and another one of those timeless/modern faces. Ace.

It was so very late when John H Collins’ A Wife by Proxy (1917) came on and in spite of a clunky beginning it won me over with some smart direction and cracking character development. Mr Collins is for sure the Irish Lubitsch with some excellent touches in this tale of a young Irish lass, Jerry McNairne (Mabel Taliaferro – Viola Dana wasn’t available!) sent over to the America to work with her cousin Norton Burbeck (Robert Walker). Norton will inherit a fortune if he marries by November but his scheming cousin works with a crooked couple to distract him using the womanly allure of brassy Beatrice (Sally Crute).

I loved the performances from all concerned, good detailed direction, and the two women were standouts. You’ll never beat the Irish.

St Patricia… Little Old New York (1923), with Morgan Cooke, The Barbican

As Jeanine Basinger has written, from a historical perspective, no one has it worse than Marion Davies; “…she was a big success in silent movies, and popular with audiences… but nobody believes it.” Whilst this is partly, as Basinger says, the curse of Citizen Kane, William Randolph Hearst was not Charles Foster Kane and nor was he the one doing the acting on screen. Right from the get-go Marion made films for Hearst and he was seen by contemporary reviewers as controlling her career.

Thankfully we get the chance to see for ourselves how good Marion Davies was not just in comedies such as The Patsy and the sublime Show People but increasingly in the kind of historical romantic dramas her wealthy lover liked to see her in and which were box office successes. When Knighthood was in Flower (1922), recently released on BluRay, was an enjoyable romp uplifted by the tonally-varied exuberance of Davies’ performance and was one of the biggest films of that year. Today we watched another smash which ended up the seventh highest grosser of the year.

Marion was big box office and the intimacy she still establishes with paying customers explains why.

Today’s screening featured a fine print from the Irish Film Institute and was supported by Culture Ireland as part of GB18: Promoting Irish Arts in Britain. The fact that it was screened the day after a St Patrick’s Day drubbing of the English rugby union side by the team in green was purely co-incidental.

The accompaniment was provided by Galway musician, Morgan Cooke who also introduced the film discussing the work of the prolific director Sidney Olcott, who was Hollywood’s go-to-fella for features of Irish origin. Marion herself was a first generation American with parents both from Eire but y’all know that surely just from the glint in her emerald eyes…

Little Old New York is a sub-Dickensian tale that has many a twist in just under two hours’ running time with a slightly clumsy plot taken from Rida Johnson Young’s play. For it to work, you have to be able to believe that people could accept Marion Davies as a young man… she might be wearing trousers and a bobbed haircut but, what can I say; “dude looks like a lady…” Probably she finishes last in a silent cross-dressing chart featuring Asta Nielsen (Hamlet), Ossi Oswalda (I Don’t Want to be a Man), Mary Pickford (various) and Louise Brooks (Beggars of Life), but you have to go with it.

Yep, totally a boy

Marion plays Patricia O'Day the sister of Patrick (Stephen Carr) who has inherited millions by way of his estranged Uncle’s dying wish to atone for cutting old man John O'Day (J. M. Kerrigan) out of the business they both started in America. John has returned to Ireland whilst his brother has prospered and has nursed a sizeable grudge over this time as he has struggled to look after his own. At the reading of the will, step-son Larry Delevan (Harrison Ford – no, not that one (again)) obviously has high hopes but he can only inherit of Patrick fails to turn up to claim his prize within a year.

That year is just about up and Larry is celebrating with his pals but there’s a knock on the door and in walks John O’Day and his son Patrick who has turned remarkably feminine since we last saw him. We learn later that Paddy had died on the crossing and John, desperate to get his just deserts, persuades Pat to drag up.

Pretty soon Pat is making large eyes as Larry (what could Lubitsch have made of this?!) who just thinks the lad is a bit soft: “Patrick, what did you do in Ireland?!”  asks one character later but the Americans remain fooled.

There’s a sub-plot involving Larry’s investment in a mad invention – a steam-powered paddle steamer invented by Robert Fulton (Courtenay Foote) who did indeed exist and do this thing. Various know-it-alls think it’s crazy but it’s Larry’s shot at making it given that Pat has inherited his inheritance.

Not That One and Such a Fine Comedienne

It all bobs along nicely and really takes off when Larry bets his house (literally) on an unlikely victory for his pal Bully Boy Brewster (Harry Watson) in a boxing match against the ferocious Hoboken Terror (Louis Wolheim).

There’s a good balance of comedy and drama and it has an amiability due in no small part to the star presence of Marion Davies. She’s an extraordinary pretty boy and once she’s back in feminine clothes there are numerous close ups of her tear-stained face that guarantee an emotionally immersed ending.

Morgan took the bold step of asking a mostly English audience to participate by singing along to the song Marion Davies plays on her harp “Do you hear me callin' when the dews are fallin'...” – the rehearsals went well but we were a little quiet when the moment came! Never-the-less, it’s not often you get to join in. In addition to the harp, Morgan played piano and melodica lingering on the many magnificent close-ups of Marion and pummelling the keys during that boxing match.

For those of us who missed the Quiet Man for St Patricks, this was a good old scrap that descends into a free-for-all… before love saves the day.

For me it was another important part of Davies’ career slotting into place. The film was placed fifth in the – non-Hearst - New York Times top ten and Marion was voted fifth in Quigley’s Box Office Stars list; she came second the following year. None of which fits in with the narrative of her only finding her feet with comedy – she was funny all along and even in these historical dramas there was gurning, fighting and dancing. Whether William Randolph approved or not is another matter…