Queenie Marie… The Sideshow (1928), with Cyrus Gabrysch, Kennington Bioscope

There was magic in the air tonight in Kennington, together with passion and the Christmas joy of sharing a present, unwrapped in front of the entire room – a film no-one had seen before, a surprise to everyone, not a sideshow but very much the main event. The Bioscope’s MC, Michelle Facey, has been in pursuit of this film for over two years as part of her ongoing mission to restore Marie Prevost to cinematic consciousness and to help rehabilitate an actor so wronged by the puerile taletelling of Mr K Anger as well as a studio system that discarded her in such a callous way in the thirties.

 

Anyone whose seen Prevost in Lubitsch’s Marriage Circle or even her brief but vital role in Three Women, knows what a powerful performer she was and how she holds the eye like few others from the period with relaxed expressiveness, flashes of wit across her huge eyes and a smile that knows far more than it seems to be letting on. She’s got range and moved from being one of Mack Sennett’s bathing beauties to sophisticated comedies as well as dramas like this one, adding charm and depth to her already compelling screen magnetism.

 

Michelle had been searching out more of Marie’s films and tonight’s 35mm print was from a 2003 restoration held in the vaults of UCLA which took much dogged negotiation including providing proof of the Bioscope and Cinema Museum’s capabilities as well as a reference from the BFI. Nothing phases Facey when it comes to film history and tonight was yet another special evening with this screening of a film that has only been shown three times this century and not in the UK since – probably – its year of release.

 

The Sideshow is not a major film but it is a very unusual film and one with much to recommend in terms of entertainment and historical context. It’s a Prevost vehicle which represents her at near the height of her popularity and noteworthy for that reason alone in showing us her star power but it’s also a film that features a little person as a major character and not just a circus amusement. 'Little Billy' Rhodes plays P.W. Melrose, a cigar-chomping owner of his own circus, having risen through the ranks after starting out as a side show performer himself.

 

He's an astute and determined businessman who looks after his people and, mostly, has good grace and sound judgement. A couple of drunken men show him disrespect as his right-hand man Gentleman Ted Rogers (Ralph Graves) hails the acts in the circus side show – even after Ted tells them he owns the circus – but Melrose has heard it all before a thousand times and walks off chewing on his ever-present cigar.

 

It's a really good performance from Rhodes who was abandoned by his father once his condition was identified and, after experiencing what he described as dreadful poverty, was taken in by a showman who acted as his manager as he progressed from Vaudeville to Broadway and then onto films. He later appeared in The Wizard of Oz but here is not only the smartest man in the room, he’s also romantically interested in a new arrival at the circus.

 

Cue Marie Prevost as acrobat Queenie who has come in search of work after her family trapeze act disbands. She has an instant rapport with Ted but Melrose fall for her too. Meanwhile strange accidents keep on happening at the circus, an explosion in the payroll caravan and the death of a trapeze artist which looks like his equipment was sabotaged. Queenie comforts his daughter and Melrose tells her mother that he’ll keep on paying her late husband’s wages as long as he’s running the circus. Queenie tells him he’s a good man but his gruff exterior hides his broken heart.

 

It's pretty clear that someone is working on behalf of a competitor who has already tried to buy Melrose’s circus and now wants to lower the price… well, they should definitely pick on someone their own size.

 

Billy, Marie and Ralph Graves on a very collectable lobby card!

The film shows a lot of circus life both in the big tent with genuine acrobats, magicians and clowns along with the sideshow staples, the Tall Man (R.E. 'Tex' Madsen), “Fat Lady” (Martha McGruger), Thin Man (Chester Morton), Fire Eater (Jacques Ray), knife-thrower (Steve Clemente) and his long-suffering assistant (Janet Ford), Tattooed Man (Bert Price) and, putting Lon Chaney to shame, an Armless Man (Paul Desmuke) who can open his own bottles and light his own cigarettes! As with Little Billy in real life, the options for these outsiders were limited in the America of the time and “show” business in a human zoo was better than most.

 

Erle C. Kenton directs this tale very effectively and there’s some excellent scenes aboard a train as double crossers try to dispose of Ted by getting him to stick his neck out and look for the next signal, an old trick which involves pushing the distracted passenger off to their doom. Elsewhere, the sheer number of sharp objects dangerous practices on site easily enables the creation of a sense of jeopardy as Melrose’s crew finally realise that there’s a traitor in their midst leading to a breathless finale.

 

The review in Variety February 1929 damned with faint praise, “It’s not badly done and the old circus stuff somehow holds together for a story…” before being so grossly offensive it made Kenton’s point for him by saying that it was “impossible” to make a hero out of a “freak”. You wonder at the mentality which cruelly pervaded this America that some want to make great again as if all compassion and understanding was holding it back somehow.

 

Against this is the marvel of Marie who is exactly the kind of advanced caring soul the planet always needs and who’s acting always contains such humanity and heart as much in comedy as drama. This may have been a mid-budget Columbia “quickie” but she gives it her all as she always does, grounds the story and raises the emotional stakes in the manner of a true star.

 

Cyrus Gabrysch, the Bioscope’s founder, accompanied in dramatic fashion losing the audience in this rarity as yet again Kennington hosted the rare and almost impossible to see and appreciate. Had Michelle not fought so hard to bring Marie to Charlie’s house we would have had to rely on secondary sources such as Variety which we can all now attest was wrong-headed on this film and which utterly underestimated the persuasive Prevost!

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Marie in a basket... what could possibly go wrong?

On tonight’s undercard we also saw some delightful shorts:

 

Bill and the Greasy Pole (1911) in which “Bill” must carry a twenty-foot pole through Paris to a fir and… it’s very difficult to hold onto.

 

Rope Making by Hand in Kent (1912) was truly fascinating showing the entire process from raw materials to groups twisting long sections together using wooden tools and elbow grease. I could watch this film for hours.

 

A Christmas Carol (1910) was the Edison version and summed up Dickens’ classic in around a dozen minutes. Directed by J. Searle Dawley it featured both Viola Dana and her sister Shirley Mason (their family name was Flugrath) as Bob Cratchit’s children. Scrooge’s nephew was played by Harold M. Shaw who later married their elder sister Edna Marie Flugrath who was also an actor.

 

A marvellous Christmas treat especially with maestro John Sweeney accompanying!

So, the Bioscope goes from strength to strength and thank you to all the collectors, programmers, projectionists, and helpers who make everything work so well. A particular cheer for the dynamic Michelle Facey for her Prevost perseverance and excellent introduction which showed such diligence and commitment to her subject. We sometimes forget that the KB runs on passion alone and what a spectacular engine that is!

 

Here's to 2025!

Spot the Flugraths!

The dark night… The Bat (1926), with John Sweeney, Kennington Bioscope

It was the KB Halloween Edition and MC Michelle Facey was accompanied by a raven and genuinely spooky tales not just about our main feature but also the fate of Roland West’s yacht, Joyita, which, to cut a unsettling mystery short, became known as the Marie Celeste of the Southern Seas after all passengers and crew disappeared leaving only and empty vessel listing and carrying mute evidence of a desperate conflagration. None where ever seen again and the ship’s former owner, director of this film, also vanished from the industry after the mysterious death of his lover Thelma Todd in 1935.

 

Whoever the fool was who directed Babylon (2022), there’s more things in Heaven and Hollywood than dreamt of in your ridiculous screenplay. Anyway, as usual Madame Mystery, sorry, Facey, was on song – unlike her raven – illuminating the stories of cast and crew and West’s seminal film about a costumed anti-hero who dresses like a bat, swoops around like a bat and genuinely terrifies in the manner of a large flying rodent. This is as she says one of the great Old Dark House films along with The Cat and the Canary, The Final Warning and Seven Footprints to Satan. Trilling, comedic and genuinely intriguing, we don’t know who The Bat is until the end and, having been told not to reveal the secret by an intertitle at the start, we must keep our silence as with The Mousetrap.

 

We were watching Ben Model’s recent restoration of The Bat which included a 2k scan from the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s original 35mm materials and it looked splendid on the big screen and with John Sweeney accompanying. I have the Blu-ray to watch having been on of the project funders and this will also be available from Ben’s Undercrank Productions site – link at the bottom. I’ve never seen the film before and whilst it’s not quite as tightly presented as The Cat…, it’s certainly an entertaining romp with plenty a twisted dark turn. Possibly too many but what the heck, it’s Halloween!

 

Directed by Roland West who also adapted from the play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood which was first produced in 1920 to much success. Events kick off with a daring robbery by the seemingly superhuman Bat, who is so confident he has written to millionaire jewel-fancier, Gideon Bell announcing his intention of stealing his Favre Emeralds at midnight. Despite the presence of the police, The Bat succeeds by climbing up the outside of the elegant skyscraper and pulling Bell out the window taking his prize.

 

The Bat is audacious and even leaves a note on a kind of Bat-Post-It note announcing his intention to visit the country for his next crime… Bob Kane was influenced by the film in creating The Batman but the template is more like one of the Caped Crusader’s rogues’ gallery, Cat Woman, The Riddler or even The Joker who himself was influenced by The Man Who Laughs (1928). Talking of which, what a great Harley Quinn Olga Baclanova would have made… a proto Gaga!

Before his trip though The Bat drops in on Oakdale Bank to enhance his short-term liquidity only to find that another has got there first to steal $200,000 from the safe. He notes the number plate of the felon and, no honour amongst thieves, sets off in pursuit in his car, a mobile vehicle for the Bat. The subject of his pursuit arrives at a large darkened house and, climbing in through the basement proceeds to climb up the laundry shaft and then a hidden stairway to a secret lair of his own. There's a cat and mouse as well as a bat in this tale.

 

Sojin Kamiyama, Louise Fazenda and Emily Fitzroy

As it happens, this is the mansion of the recently deceased Courtleigh Fleming, the president of the very same Oakdale Bank, where a whole bevvy of suspicious suspects are in place. Chief suspect for this unauthorised withdrawal is Brooks Bailey played by Jack Pickford who frankly always looks guilty of something. Apparently West shot during the night hours which gave his players that extra edge and it certainly has a sleep-deprived mania generated by the cast drowned in the shadows of these huge sets designed by the great  William Cameron Menzies with help from Harvey Meyers.

Brooks is accompanied by Miss Dale Ogden (Jewel Carmen aka Florence Lavina Quick aka Mrs Roland West) who is the niece of Cornelia Van Gorder (the ace Emily Fitzroy) who is renting the property and Dale not only convinced that her Brooks is innocent, she wants to marry him too. She presents him as a new gardener even though he knows less than I do about horticulture as quickly exposed by Cornelia who is generally the smartest person in every room of the house. No competition in this respect is her nervy maid, Lizzie Allen (played by the excellent Louise Fazenda) who provides enough comic relief for two films if I’m honest but she’s such a reliable pivot for the crime and the grime.

 

After breaking contract with Fox in 1921, this was Jewel Carmen's last film

This is an ambitious story, and I’d love to see it on stage for there are still another six characters to introduce, all of whom have their suspicious edges – almost everyone is a suspect apart from Lizzy – especially the men, Dr. H. E. Wells (Robert McKim) and his black bag, the moody Detective Moletti (Tullio Carminati), Billy the Butler (Sojin Kamiyama) and “prevalent at the time” racist tropes… There’s Detective Anderson (Eddie Gribbon) with his two guns, is he as clueless as he seems? And what’s more suspicious than Fleming’s nephew, Richard (Arthur Housman) who wants to frighten Cornelia away so he can lease the mansion?

You’ll just have to watch and find out and ideally with a live audience and as skilled an accompanist as John Sweeney who treated us to some full-blooded flourishes and mystical melodies for this gently fretful but funny silent spooky treat!

 

Some new blood – creatively speaking – was unveiled for the first part of the programme which was accompanied by Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Masterclass alumnus Andra Bacila who is studying at the Royal Academy of Music and who we will hear a lot more from in future. She accompanied The Red Dance (1928) in Pordenone and here sprinkled musical illumination for three wonderful shorts starting with La course aux potirons (1908) concerning runaway pumpkins in Paris, an hilarious film I'd also seen in Italy.

Pete the Pup is petrified!

After this was some wonderful invention from Walter Lantz with the mixed live and animation featuring the director and his cartoon dog, Pete the Pup, in Pete's Haunted House (1926) followed by a stunning The Devilish Tenant (1909) from Georges Méliès which was a trick film honed to perfection. It was hand coloured which as Chris Bird reminded us, meant that every frame on every copy was coloured individually - remarkable and beautiful film to see.

The last film was courtesy of a lucky find on eBay and was a rare surviving copy of a Cecil Hepworth film from 1922, One Too Exciting Night, a spoof on Griffith's One Exciting Night, itself an Old Dark House Mystery. What we saw may well be the only surviving copy anywhere but that's how they roll at the Bioscope - the rare, the extraordinary and the exceptional. We are privileged and all for just a few quid!

Frighteningly good!

Louise Fazenda gives her all!

To buy the Blu-ray of Ben Model's restored The Bat, please follow this link to the Undercrank Productions website - it is a very worthy release including some delightful extras. Blessed are the Kickstarters!

There's more about the mystery of the good ship Joyita here, a fascinating tale from the Bow Creek to Anatahan maritime history site.

This "near-mint" copy of the first appearance of The Batman in March 1939 last sold for $1.7 million in auction, and is now valued at $2.2 million. So, it's not just classic film enthusiasts who should check their lofts for lost treasure... I know where one copy is but I'm not telling. 

More gorgeous screen shots from the Blu-ray!

Gotham, before the Bat Signal

Ralph Ince evening… The Argyle Case (USA 1917) with Ashley Valentine, Kennington Bioscope

Thank you Tony Fletcher!

As Michelle Facey observed in her introduction, according to Wikipedia The Argyle Case is a lost film, and, indeed whilst there are no holdings in the Library of Congress, the AFI site also says that The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021. Yet here it was on the BFI’s 35mm print projecting almost perfectly onto the Bioscope’s screen with a few missing frames here and there and a little deterioration on the blue/night scenes especially but, overall, a very impressive survivor. The KB’s super sleuth Tony Fletcher had located the print during the longs hours of eyeballing the catalogue and playing lucky dip, viewing the elements on Steenbeck machines in the BFI’s archive.

 

We are so lucky to have the KB and its team of researchers, collectors, projectionists and accompanists for where else do you get to see films like this that probably haven’t been projected in decades and which, so far as their country of origin is concerned, no longer survives. Preserving film is a global effort and I’m privileged to have seen this film and to try and retell the experience with possibly it’s first review in decades… even the audience plays its role!

 

The Argyle Case was directed by Ralph Ince, younger brother of Thomas, and filmed in 1916 for release the following year. It stars Robert Warwick as private detective Asche Kayton a man who uses all of the latest forensic techniques to assist his Holmesian deductions and an actor who has something of the bearing and look of Ivan Mosjoukine. He gets called into the murder of the wealthy John Argyle (Frank McGlynn), a man who lives in a Gotham palace somewhere up in the 900s on 5^th Avenue.

 

Clearly Ralph Ince had been watching the French serials of Louis Feuillade but his detective is far more grounded in authentic police procedural technique and the narrative maintains a good balance between the need to show each major step without either giving the game away or dragging its feet. The film is propelled along by a mixture of uncertainty – does even this great detective suspect the Police’s obvious perp – as well as the mechanics of fingerprinting, “detectaphones” placed in the suspects rooms, and the quick response and actions provided by telegram and telephone; this is the modern criminal investigation unit who do rather show up the local police force.

 

Winding back, the story opens with old man Argyle (Frank McGlynn) fretting over the decision of his son Bruce (Arthur Albertson) to marry Nan Thornton (Gazelle Marche) when he had planned on his marrying his ward, Mary (Elaine Hammerstein) who he had adopted after promising her father on his deathbed. Bruce and Mary are like siblings though and neither feels that Nan is anything other than a love match. In a fury, Argyle throws out the newlyweds and calls his solicitor Mr. Hurley (Frank Evans) re-writes his will so that only Mary will be the beneficiary, despite her protests that Bruce is his own flesh and blood.

 

The following night is disturbed, and in the morning, house full of dread, Argyle is discovered murdered in the living room, with a poker the likely implement but no sign of Professor Plum. The police duly arrive and start making assumptions with Mary the one with the clearest motive given the change in the will. The police, under the leadership of Inspector Dougherty (John Fleming) start to follow Mary, clear that they’ve got their woman, but her brother Bruce has other ideas, calling in the master investigator Kayton to make sure of a thorough investigation.

 

Kayton quickly starts to join the dots, uncovering a woman’s fingerprints on the bureau next to the murdered man’s chair and eliminating the women in the house through taking their prints. He’s through and his logic stands up in terms of supporting the unfolding narrative. Soon other potential parties are uncovered such as Mary’s mother Nellie Marsh (Mary Alden) who is working with a counterfeiter called Frederick Kreisler (H. Cooper Cliffe) one of whose $100 Dollar forgeries is found at the scene of the murder.

 

Elaine Hammerstein

I won’t give anything further away just to say that this script, adapted by Chapin and Ince from Harriet Ford and Harvey J. O'Higgins’ novel of the same name, has plenty of twists and turns. It’s a fine, entertaining film with many interesting shots from cinematographer André Barlatier, evidence of the growing technical sophistication of the age; an overhead of Bruce as he sees his murdered father dead on the floor, numerous characters silhouetted as they enter buildings backed by bright external light, a shoot out in almost total darkness with flashes of light and gunfire the only illumination… The title cards are also interesting with a drawing of a torch illuminating the introduction of each new character and the actor’s name: playful Pulp!

 

Robert Warwick provides a perfect private detective with intelligence and intensity, he was to go on to a long career in film and television but here is a suave presence who, of course, attracts the interest of his client Mary. Elaine Hammerstein is eye-catching with an open face that seems anachronistic, transported from a more recent time, showing good expression and presence. She was one of The Hammersteins, a theatrical dynasty and her cousin Oscar, was indeed the lyricist of The Sound of Music and many more, A talented family and she was as much on stage as in film.

 

Forensic accompaniment was provided by Ashley Valentine complementing and completing the entertainment as he connected with this rare piece with assured tone and dynamic lines: when was the last time this 117-year-old entertainment was heard in the same way?

 

Michelle summed it all up by pointing out that, once again, we were watching films that you would not see anywhere else and this was not just the “lost” main feature but two earlier shorts from Ince that were from private collections.

 

A Regiment of Two (1913) with Timothy Rumsey

 

We kicked off with a lively comedy co-directed by Ralph Ince, who also features in the film as the bumptious Lord Dudley the preferred choice of suitor for the daughter of Mrs Wilton (Rose Tapley), Laura (Edith Storey, star of Vitograph’s gender-swapping A Florida Enchantment (1915)). Of course, Laura loves another, the handsome Jack Brent (E.K. Lincoln) who is also a member of the 13^th Regiment, Army reserves.

 

This gives Laura’s father Ira (Sidney Drew) and his son-in-law Harry Bennett (Harry T. Morey), an idea as they pretend to enlist with the 13^th so they can attend the Tiger Club on Fridays to cavort with a French dancer, smoke cigars and drink. It’s a wizard wheeze until a war erupts in Panama and the “boys” have to pretend to go along with the regiment to battle leaving their wives and daughters distraught. Ira and Harry are in no danger though as they head off for a fishing trip – what’s an innocent deception between couples? Trouble’s a comin’ though as newspaper reports of the 13^th suffering a wipe-out cause them to work out their excuses…

 

It's fast-paced, inventive and pure daft and also features Anita Stewart – just 18 at the time - as Mrs. Harry Bennett. We watched a very impressive digital transfer from a 35mm copy in a private collection, once again, only at the Bioscope!

 

His Phantom Sweetheart (1915) with Timothy Rumsey

Anita Stewart also features in this short as the titular sweetheart who attracts the attention of Earle Williams - voted America’s number one star in 1915 – with the two often playing romantic partners. Williams’ character spies her at a performance at the Garrick Theatre – some fab on-stage action here too – and we follow their growing intimacy before things start to turn very dark indeed…

We saw a 4k transfer of a restored 16mm print from a private collection that had fresh title cards and some lush tints; again I feel the urge of the collector and the satisfaction that must be felt with every chance to share. 

This was Timothy Rumsey’s Bioscope debut and he accompanied both these films with assurance and some style; he’s already imbued with the spirit of these precious films and the phantom forces that guide the players’ hands on the KB’s grand piano!

 

Another special evening in Kennington and once again, as Michelle thanked the team, we can only re-iterate our gratitude for this museum, this unique club and those passionate cineastes who make the magic happen!

 

 

 

When Connie met Johnnie… The Beloved Rogue (1927), John Sweeney, Kennington Bioscope

Michelle Facey’s well-researched introductions are a major feature of this temple of film ephemera, and she also turns a good phrase which is why I just have to steal her quip about the two main stars of tonight’s main feature. It truly was the meeting of two different cinematic cultures and Michelle showed a shot of Mr Barrymore, in costume, greeting Herr Veidt with a collection of some of Hollywood’s finest including script writer of this film, Paul Bern (the future, tragically short-lived, Mr Jean Harlow), Ernst Lubitsch and others.

 

I’d watched the Kino DVD of The Beloved Rogue some time ago but tonight we were treated to a 16mm copy that, as all the talk of the BFI’s Film on Film Festival reinforced, was a completely different experience, especially with this venue, this crowd and the wonderful improvisations of John Sweeney’s accompaniment. The source for the 16mm was different to that of the Kino version, no tints and missing the final chapter – a DVD transfer or the same generation print was used to close out the film – and, it looked and felt different, with the Bioscope’s projector whirring away at the back of the auditorium, there were new or newly-imagined details. The only true photographic memory is, of course, celluloid, a physical interaction with what has happened, light’s traces changing chemical compounds in ways digital is deluded if it imagines its impersonations are anything other than a facsimile.

 

John Barrymore’s attempt to out-Fairbanks Douglas has met with mixed reviews over the years, not least from himself (he described himself as a “ham” after the premier) and whilst his fan Orson Welles who liked the film but felt his idol was “not at his best”. But, whilst Barrymore felt he missed the mark by over-playing the colourful lead, François Villon: poet, womaniser and drinker who somehow also embodies the spirit of France, it’s not the easiest of briefs.

Jane Winton looks admiringly at John Barrymore

Based on an actual 13th century poet, The Beloved Rogue includes many florid moments invented (or over-invented) to add zest to this camp fantasy. It’s an all-too-easy target and yet… there’s an extraordinary energy around the crowd scenes in particular and Alan Crosland directs with style and free-running energy. The superb Conrad Veidt all but steals the show as a greasily ambiguous Louis XI and Marceline Day uses her clear, open expression to swoon-inducing effect as his beautiful ward Charlotte de Vauxcelles.

If there’s something about Johnnie and definitely Connie, it has to be repeated that there’s something about Marceline too, she has a very modern face and physique, and her wide eyes express something familiar and grounded. One of the great silent straight women, for Buster, for Harry Langdon, for Clara (Dorothy Arzner’s The Wild Party) and here for the good, the bad and the downright ugly. But that’s no way to talk about Conrad Veidt but here this most protean of silent performers seems to be inhabited by Richard III, doubled over in unctuous concern, turning his 6 feet 2 ½ inches frame into something frail and uncertain, deliberately allowing the 5 feet 10-inch Barrymore the higher ground. Veidt is morally ambiguous in effortlessly European ways and maybe John felt the pressure, just a bit…

Barrymore certainly shows a different side to his style as he throws the kitchen sink at creating a character big enough to fill William Cameron Menzies’ immense sets, rightly highlighted by Michelle as a stunning contribution to the film’s enjoyment. John certainly prepared well for the role and for a 45-year-old he’s rather ripped in the slightly odd torture scenes after he is captured by the film’s real baddie, the Duke of Burgundy. John’s in his shorts and gets beaten, flogged, dipped into flames and then winched high, before being selected as brutal entertainment for the wedding of the day…

Conrad Veidt

Set after Joan of Arc’s execution in 1431 (she came back strong after that didn’t she?) the film starts in a most un-funny way with the burning of Villon’s father at the stake… He was a patriot and fought in the name of a united France against the English and their Burgundian allies. His wife (Lucy Beaumont) prays that their son will inherit his spirit but, fully grown sadly he seems more concerned with spirits… Is this a redemptive story of fool to hero or does Villon play the fool to bide time?

Francoise’s roguish tendencies are fully developed as he gleefully steals wine to get drunk with his friends and leads the All Fools Day street celebration as the King of Fools. This section is very well realised by Crosland who generates a visceral charge by moving his camera through the celebrating hordes as snow swirls across the city. Snow in April: Paris in the Snow-time? Just what we need after a week of high temperatures.

Amongst the revellers is the striking Jane Winton as The Abbess, Mack Swain, striking in a different way, and Slim Summerville as Villon’s buddies Nicholas and Jehan as well as Angelo Rossitto (later to star in Tod Browning’s Freaks) as Beppo the Dwarf. As the party gets started Francoise is in pursuit of one of his favourite things as he evades the constabulary and comes down the rooftops to cheat an innkeeper of some wine. He heads of linking arms and skipping with Nicholas and Jehan – there’s a lot of skipping. Jigging and general dancing for joy: how else to convey energetic adventurism to scale?

William Cameron Menzies' sets are stunning

Having been crowned King of Fools, Francoise regales his rapt audience with a poem and them mounts a statue of the King just as the Duke of Burgundy arrives for an audience with his cousin. Francoise makes merry at Burgundy’s expense, knowing him as a man of ambition who wants the crown for himself. But King Louis, a “slave to the stars” has his judgement clouded by the advice of his astrologer and is loath to confront his rival. He comes out of the palace and has no option to support Burgundy against the crowd and ends up banishing Villon from Paris – “his life”.

Riding with him is his ward Charlotte who is appalled to finally see the reality of the poet she idolises: is the most inspiring wordsmith in France really an uncouth drunken fool? But things are about to get worse as she is promised in marriage to Burgundy’s lieutenant, Thibault d'Aussigny (Henry Victor), part of Burgundy’s plot to gain quick access to Paris.

In exile, Villon turns into a gallic Robin Hood as he hijacks the King’s gifts to Burgundy and climbs the walls to use the King’s catapult to fire the food and drink at the city in order to feed the poor. He ends up catapulting himself to avoid capture and crash lands, of course, into the rooms of Charlotte de Vauxcelles, what are the odds eh? This sequence features a stuntman diving against foreground scenery with the camera at a right angle; the result turned vertical into horizontal and adds further momentum to the film’s relentless pace.

Every day's a Marceline Day

The young noblewoman soon learns that this surprise invader is the Francoise Villon, a man whose words have touched her like no other but, again not pausing for breath, they are rudely interrupted by Thibault and his troops, there follows an altercation involving bears in barrels, recently deceased poultry and a heavyweight chandelier. Francoise escapes and takes Charlotte with him over the rooftops he knows so well to the safety of his mother’s house. Queue emotional reunion and the sadness of a mother deceived by her own hope: will her son ever amount to the man she wants him to be?

The route forward accelerates as the King finds it expedient to order Francoise death but the poet saves his skin by convincing Louis that their lives and death are inter-dependent: with this swift turn of phrase, he guarantees his life as courtier. Now able to influence events in the way his mother always wished, he is still a commoner which means he can never marry Charlotte, but all are soon overtaken by events as Burgundy kidnaps her and is intent on completing her marriage to his cause.

Villon and his friends, plus an army from the goodly poor of the Cour des miracles, the slum districts of Paris, as also featured in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, borrowed here in strictly un-historical manner natch. But there must be swash and there will be buckle and it’s a rip-roaring finale with the cast of thousands are moved so well among the towering sets.

The film was believed lost until Mary Pickford revealed she had one in her archive and I wonder again how would we feel about The Beloved Rogue if it were still a lost film? As ever we need to count our blessings and thank the collectors, the restorers and the historians for preserving film in all its forms.

The rug stays cut when Josephine cuts it

Talking of which, the first half of the show combined a series of contemporary trailers for silent films including Ben Hur (1925) – which I’ve still to see on the big screen – a Marie Prevost film (it does exist but only on celluloid and with Serbo-Croat intertitles, one day maybe…) and others including King Cowboy (1928) starring Tom Mix and a-lot of Josephine Baker in Siren of the Tropics (1927)… oh my, there was steam coming off the screen! The art of the trailer is a valuable sub-genre all its own, cinematic striptease perhaps, revealing just enough, not too much and it provided quite the challenge for the accompanying Colin Sell who, of course, dealt with the flurry of action, emotion and revelation, with customary flair and sang froid! Grace under pressure these pianists!

It's been a great first half year for the Bioscope and my thanks and admiration goes as usual to all those involved in making these celluloid adventures possible. See you in September for more quiche, conversations and classic, rare, film!

  

The Cinema Museum where resides the Kennington Bioscope

A 35mm film projector, yesterday at the Museum.

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.

 

 

 

Appointment TV… Kidnapped (1917), MS and KBTV with John Sweeney

Back in the days when you couldn’t stream on demand and when even recording on VHS just wasn’t enough, the pull of certain television shows was such that you just had to watch them live. Who shot JR?, Ross and Rachel’s wedding, the fight between Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin over Diedre in Coronation Street, certain things you were desperate to watch and to share in the knowledge that everyone else was as well.

Throughout lockdown the Kennington Bioscope have been broadcasting shorter films on their YouTube channel but tonight was something else as, in addition to a programme of shorts, there was a full feature film with live accompaniment from John Sweeney and an introduction from Fritzi Kramer, America’s premier silent-blogger with Movies Silently and the woman who crowdfunded the restoration and DVD release of the film in question. 

The face of KBTV

As usual KB MC, Michelle Facey, held the whole programme together, the Kennington Bomb-chelle, surrounded by a magnificent floral display and briefed to the hilt on the treasures we were about to watch. There were times when it was clearly live – the odd glitch that merely added to the collective buzz - yet it’s amazing how quickly the KB has evolved its offering over the five episodes – or webisodes if you will, although I know most of you won’t  - under Cyrus Gabrysch’s technical direction, Michelle’s presentation as well as Tod Higginson’s facilitation of the live chat – he also does the translations. The chatter was enlivened by Fritzi feeding us good-humoured background as the film progressed; if Swanson had access to a keyboard (and was alive), this is exactly her tone of voice.

The audience was again international, from the Wild West to Walthamstow (the Untamed East) via the Highlands of “Scotch” and the lowlands of Holland with a number spreading the word via social media snaps of Michelle on the big screen. In our world this was an event and we were re-connecting with a shared experience unlike almost any other since the middle of March. Marshall McLuhan may have declared TV, cool as opposed to “hot media” radio, but he reckoned without the “lean-forward” engagement of social media immediacy and, indeed, the Piano Cam showing us Cyrus, John and Costa’s accompaniment.

So, to the films…

All white mate?

For a man of so many names, it is surprising that Marcel Peréz is the most successful silent comedian most people have not heard of. Marcel, also known as Robinet, Tweedy, Tweedledum, and Twede-Dan was a very talented filmmaker who devised and directed as well as performed. I especially like his deranged serial The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola (1913) but his shorts are near always great value. Robinet’s White Suit (1911) is typical of his high-energy style, man wears impossibly clean suit which gradually gets filthy with the passing of unfortunate events until, ta-dah!, he bumps into a group of painters and their cans of matt white!

Not rocket but comedy “science” with every element mixed to perfection. Cyrus Gabrysch added to the alchemy hitting all the notes in exactly the right order.

Then off to the Turin for a gorgeous travelogue, The River Pescara (1912), watching boats head through the soothing waters to the coast. Costas Fotopoulos accompanied helping us keep a cool head on this hottest of June days.

As with other KB episodes, both shorts came courtesy of the EYE Filmmuseum and the Jean Desmet Collection.

When the river Pescara meets the sea...

"A film for all the family"… Kidnapped (1917), with John Sweeney

Fritzi’s aim in putting this film out on DVD was to recreate the typical programme of a night at the picture house in 1917 and along with the feature there are various short films including some of the same players all from the Edison Film Company and their series of Conquest programmes. Conquest was designed, as Fritzi quoted, to create “… the open road to entertainment and knowledge…” and to provide “… the first definitive contribution in the propaganda to popularise clean and wholesome films for all right-thinking Americans.”

Directed by Alan Crosland – who would make The Jazz Singer a decade later – this is the first feature-length adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped and as per the positive reviews of the time, is a very decent and highly watchable effort. I have my own special relationship to this story after having been given an illustrated copy of the book for Christmas aged two and, being told I couldn’t read it, them opening it up to discover that no, I couldn’t read. Things have changed on that front but I poured over the pictures as a toddler and was delighted to see how many of the scenes are replicated in this film.

David asks a friendly crone if she's seen a big castle...

Raymond McKee stars as a slightly too old David Balfour (17), who is robbed of his inheritance by his evil Uncle Ebenezer (Joseph Burke) who first tries to arrange his accidental death on a rickety staircase in the tower of his castle and then arranges for him to be abducted by the nefarious crew of the brig, Covenant. Captain Hoseason (Franklyn Hanna) who has plans to sell him into slavery in the Carolinas.

Kidnapped was set against the backdrop of the Jacobite Rebellion and some actual events, in particular the "Appin murder", which occurred in the aftermath and for which the chief suspect was one Alan Breck Stewart. In the film, the Covenant accidentally rams a boat carrying Breck (Robert Cain in fine swashbuckling form), killing all but him. The crew soon realise who their new companion is and attempt to kill him and take his money, together with young david, Breck proves more than a match for them and even outnumbered succeeds in fighting them off.

Robert Cain about to swash...

Beck and David escape to the Highlands trying to dodge the Sassenachs as they resolve their own political differences through honest dialogue (seriously, take a flipping note Trump and Johnson). They witness the killing of the King’s loathed agent, Colin Campbell (Horace Haine) at Appin and are assumed to be the assassins by the English soldiers. They escape to safety with rebel Cluny McPherson (Samuel N. Niblack) before planning how to recover David’s fortune from his Scrooge of an Uncle.

The famous dénouement is a classic case of entrapment and whilst I am fairly sure a smart modern lawyer could get the old man off, here at least, justice is done!

John Sweeney accompanied live with the piano cam allowing us to wonder even more about how he flexes the musical narrative and tone with such apparent ease; the sounds and the sights are bound together instantly in his hands.

David has troubled dreams

You can order copies of Fritzi’s Kidnapped DVD which comes with the main feature and the four shorts that accompanied the Conquest programme: Friends, Romans and Leo, Little Red Riding Hood (also based on a true story?), Quaint Provincetown and Microscopic Pond Life. Ben Model provides excellent accompaniment of his own and there’s a twelve-page booklet from Ms Kramer providing more details. It is an education and a joy! Links to retailers can be found on the Movies Silently site right here. 

Another superb live experience to lighten the locked-down load but if you missed it and or simply want to relive the show, it’s on the Bioscope’s YouTube channel.

Superb! Until the next time… PJ

Supplementary: The full title of the book is essentially a plot summary and a little like a pre-internet collection of key tags:  Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson.

It’s well worth seeking out by boys and girls of all ages and there’s even a sequel, Catriona, published in 1893 and featuring, women, unlike the film which has just one “Old Crone” and, as Fritzi pointed out, was sold on the basis of the “all-male” cast. How times were to change…

All Kidnapped screenshots lifted from the Kidnapped DVD. Buy it, buy it now!