Unfinished empathy? Queen Kelly (1929), BFI with Neil Brand and Pamela Hutchinson

 

A work of barbaric splendour…

LA Times

 

Culture doesn’t exist in a vacuum and I don’t just mean Ed Sheeran here. There was a bleak strand of early twentieth century art that contended not just with unprecedented global tragedy but also the loss of faith in Gods and governments: godlessness is next to heartlessness and so it goes. As ever you could escape to fantasy but there were some pointing straight into the heart of darkness even as they did so. This was not so much Victorian gothic as post-war-punk with stories showing that the sun will, in all probability, not come out tomorrow as things brewed in what proved to be merely the long halftime between wars to end all wars.

 

As Pamela Hutchinson suggested in her excellent introduction, Queen Kelly was possibly part of one of these strands, the theatre of the cruelty, certainly in style if not deliberate intent. Erich von Stroheim was developing his cinema whilst, at the same time as in Europe, Antonin Artaud was evolving his Manifeste du théâtre de la cruauté. Here Artaud detailed the aims of evoking a visceral reaction from his audience by means of presenting a wordless humiliation for his characters. Empathy would be our weakness as we engage with the basest levels of humanity through the look of degradation. Or, to put it another way, be repulsed by Tully Marshall’s gurning face as the revolting Jan Vryheid, as he licks his lips in anticipation of marrying Gloria Swanson’s help-less Patricia “Kitty” Kelly with whom we couldn’t sympathise more.

 

After a failed romance with a very handsome prince, Kitty is called to Poto-Poto, an area of a town in Tanzania, to visit her dying aunt. Now, such contact, normally signals an unexpected windfall, but this is not Hollywood as we know it, it’s Von’s version and Kitty’s aunt has summoned her with the strangest notion that she should marry her nightmarish protector and Tully surely never worked so hard to be so thoroughly unlovely. Kitty has not just loved and lost, she has been physically abused and driven to the point of attempted suicide. Now, after hope is offered, it is not just pulled away but replaced with a Tully worse than death. Cruel and absurd.

 

How did Kitty end up so far away from the good grace with which she started the film and her promising love match…? Queen Kelly is a confounding film in every respect and so much so that it is not surprising that it was never properly finished let alone released: it was too much for its star and its producer not to mention the looming approbation of the all to easily offended Will H. Hays. Had he had to pass the film after the introduction of the 1934 code he couldn’t as he surely would have fainted in the first few minutes of screentime for an over-exposed Seena Owen as mad Queen Regina V.

 

 

The full story of this film is well beyond the terms of reference established by the “editorial board” of this blog – partially-informed hot-takes won’t cut it and it is also such a complex and un-historied part of cinema history that you’d need a whole book and a mass of library time to do it justice. Luckily esteemed film writer, historian and programmer Pamela Hutchinson has provided just that and it is a page-turning joy with eye-popping revelations that connect three most interesting characters in ways that haven’t been done before. On the Writers on Film podcast, Pamela says that there’s a Netflix biopic of Joe Kennedy due which start in the early thirties. Well, they really ought to revisit the script as this book would itself make a great film. Hollywood has never been that great about filming itself but maybe it’s been short on real stories? Here’s one!

 

 

Pamela was on hand to introduce the film and to explain how her painstaking research was similar to that informing the team from Milestone, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller: Swanson’s extensive archive including von Stroheim’s original script as well as a surprising amount of materials retained (given their general business practice of the time) by Joe Kennedy. A 4k restoration has been produced and was premiered last year in Venice, some parts are still missing – not everything was filmed for a start – and so there are new intertitles and gaps filled by recycling footage and stills which gives the flavour of the full film which now runs at an hour and three quarters. The Great Footage Fetishist (a marvellous pun from Von Stroheim’s nemesis, Irving Thalberg) would have had it at three times that length but you can’t always get what you want Erich… as you well knew by this point. And yet, still you tried…

Gloria Swanson and Walter Byron at the peak of Kiity and the Prince's romance

 

Reviewing the films of Erich or “Von” as he was abbreviated by close friends and enemies, you encounter the rich irony of a man who claimed to be of Austrian noble/military background (opinions vary) and yet who wanted to capture reality on screen like no other. Watching Greed, you feel the lunatic urge to acquire money tipped over the edge until it dooms the main characters in that classic ending. Blind Husbands (1919) in which he starred showed again the unlimited cruelty of humanity whilst Merry-go-Round, a film he was unable to complete due to Thalberg sacking him, still carries his mark as all manner of cruel horrors are inflicted on poor Mary Philbin’s character.

 

That Swanson chose Von for this project showed she wanted his skills if not his budgetary control. She had just had a hit with the then almost unfilmable Sadie Thompson – a story of prostitution which other studios tried to stop for tactical reason* but which allowed her to play a more mature role. It was a success and it’s hard to believe she was still just 28, somewhere between Sadie Sink and Sydney Sweeney in today’s money but a star in ways that have no contemporary equivalent.

 

Kitty is a nun as the film opens, an innocent but playful novice in the mid-European country of Kronberg which is of no fixed period as per the conventions of the time. It is ruled over by the mad Queen Regina V – is there any other kind? – who seethes with clothes-less rage in her boudoir with only her pet do for coverage. She may be the boss but she cannot quite control her intended consort, Prince Wolfram (handsome Leicester-born Walter Byron) who spends his time acting like a bachelor rather than a fiancé.

 

Seena Owen: nothing says "mad Queen" so much as a cat in the bath...

He does at least take his military duties seriously and out leading his troop across the country roads he encounters Kitty who catches his eye when her bloomers fall down. I’m no expert but I wasn’t sure that nuns ever wore bloomers but in Kronberg apparently they do and the results lead to Wolfram putting them in his saddle bag – the sure way to any girl’s heart. It’s a funny sequence and shows how Von was adept at the sweet as well as the sour: military progress halted by the stirrings of the heart. We know he’s setting us up for a fall but the higher fly the hearts of the Prince and his increasingly lapsing nun, the harder they will fall.

 

So, it proves as, after finally finding her clothes, Regina V starts making arrangements, moving the date of her marriage forwards and otherwise closing down Wolfram’s room to manoeuvre. Everything comes to a head with the most sadistic twist as she chases Kitty away with her whip, spittle flying from her face of fury as she shows no mercy. The movements of the film are slow but symphonically structured so that when such twists occur the audience is dragged down with them.

 

Most of the existing film is set in Kronberg and there is proportionately less in Africa partly because Swanson, having realised that her character’s taking over management of her aunt’s “hotel” actually meant brothel and this was so well presented as such by Von that she called him a madman and asked Joe Kennedy to fire him. On budget alone this was justified as with only less than half the film completed – it was supposed to run to five hours – Von was already overbudget for the whole thing.

Here's Tully!!

The new Milestone Film’s “reimagining” improves on their previous efforts with the inclusion of some new materials and new title cards based on Von’s scripts. We see enough of Poto-Poto to really feel Kitty’s fall to the ultimate depths in no small part due to Tully Marshall’s exuberant evil. It is at this point that we’re almost without hope, we are in the Cruelty sweet spot exactly as Von intended and that is the biggest compliment you can pay to the work of Milestones’ Doros and Heller. They also bring out the full flavour of what is an extraordinary and powerful performance from Swanson and the role she fought so hard to see preserved in some way. It’s here Gloria.

 

Neil Brand, so steeped in the musical language of Hollywood composition, was the perfect accompaniment to the grand statement in its need for an emotional anchor as well as expression. How do you add flavour to the intensity on show, how do you not over-play when the going gets Tully and when The Faces are so loud and expressive? Neil knows and this was a masterclass of composed improvisation and quicksilver composition supporting and glorying in Swanson!

 

I want to watch it all over again.

 

*The Curse of Queen Kelly, Pamela Hutchinson Sticking Place Books (2026)

 

You can order the book direct from the publishers here where you’ll also find more information and wonderful reviews, it is sincerely one of the best books on film of recent years.

 

Von directed some very relaxed performances too!

NB These screen grabs are from the new trailer for the restoration which give some idea of how good the results now look! 

Friends of Lulu… Focus on Louise Brooks, Flicker Fusion Blu-ray

The moving finger writes: and, having writ, moves on updating the spreadsheet of what could be, what is and what has now been seen…

With apologies to Omar Khayyam

 

Patience is a virtue even if so often it is throttled by hope but, no ifs or maybes, this release is all the Christmas we need for 2026 and is nailed-on as my home media of the year with mind-boggling restorations and contributions from some of my favourite silent people. This blog began with the purchase of a Pandora’s Box DVD in an old shop in Park Street, Bristol – an acquisition which, literally opened a Brook’s Box of fascination about an actress and a medium that led to what is now 16 years of reading, watching and writing.

 

There are well over a million words on here, this being the 1050^th post, covering well over a thousand films but it all began with Lulu and my subsequent search for all things Brooks including a spreadsheet of the films she made, which ones were available on home media, what else survived and what was lost. A lot of this was based on Barry Parris’ biography of Brooks and then the fabulous Louise Brooks Society website run by Thomas Gladysz – a living archive now in its fourth decade. Then there was the Silent London blog run by Pamela Hutchinson which listed screenings of Brooks’ films and opened up the world of silent film screenings and live accompaniment which is where I found Stephen Horne (also one of my wife’s oldest friends, coincidence or just Silent Magic at work?).

 

I never expected to see any of the four films featured in this set over the ensuing years but gradually the list of the lost has been reduced, at least to varying degrees. This brilliant new release fills in what there is of four films including Brooks’ first two and features music from Mr Horne, a visual essay from Ms Hutchinson and commentary, plus commentary from Mr Gladysz and others. These people who have been with me on this Lulu of a journey, all contributing to this celebration of what we now have and it is very much a glass overflowing at half full nowhere near half empty.

 

So, I really do thank you three as well as Flicker Alley and San Francisco Film Preserve for this set, which really does show how Brooks’ career got started, how remarkably composed she was even from the off and how she could steel scenes from the best of ‘em.

LB with John Harrington

The Street of Forgotten Men (1925) with Stephen Horne accompaniment

 

Herbert Brenon's off-beat melodrama has been fully restored with the odd gap being covered by new intertitles. It’s a very watchable and quirky film that centres around an unlikely community of professional beggars in New York City’s Bowery, some with hearts of gold, others less so. Our hero among these men and women is Easy Money Charlie (Percy Marmont who I’ll always root for after Manhunt with Torrence and Bow…) who uses his natural charm to make a lot of money from a phoney missing arm. In a sure-fire signifier of his good character, he has a dog, (played by Lassie, who had played a similar role in Tol'able David (1921) and more) who is killed by the jealous and less skilled Bridgeport White-Eye (John Harrington) who can fake blindness but fails to see the need for compassion.

 

 A dying woman entrusts her daughter Mary to Charlie’s care and he takes this responsibility seriously, begging a small fortune to make sure she never sees his day job as he buys them a nice house in the country and pays her way through private school. You wonder what else he could do if he really put his mind to it because, Buddy, he can easily share a dime. In time Mary grows up to be played by Mary Brian who, in turn develops a relationship with a well-to-do young attorney called Philip Peyton (Neil Hamilton, still four decades away from answering the Batphone as Commissioner Gordon in Gotham City… one of my favourite silents-to-talkies facts).

 

You’d think that after twenty years of highly-successful grifting, someone would have noticed the source of Charlie’s wealth and indeed someone has and it is, of course, our fake blind man who is seen in the beggars bar with a young moll at his table – it’s Louise and she radiates instant impact in her few moments on screen, instantly assured even at the age of 18 by which time she’d burned through the modern dance aesthetic of the Denishawn Company and vaudeville, dancing in the 1925 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies at the Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street. She’s recognisably the woman who would be Lulu but at this point she’s all potential with a curious hint of rebellious diffidence that you can’t quite pin down.

 

Easy Money fights White Eye for trying to blackmail Mary’s beau and she roots for her man with ferocity before it transpires that he does indeed have an eye condition; one too many blows and he may lose his sight for real. It’s a scrappy ending to a film that infuses its beggars with enough real life to make you care. 

Stephen Hornes' accompaniment carries a hint of contemporary poverty songs but is his own creation as usual. He has such an affinity for Brooks - and, well, all silent film to be fair - but he illuminates her brief appearance with a lyrical statement that connects us to the broader Louise-verse; complex and mysterious, always stylish and self-assured!

 

Brooksie in colour and not much else.

The American Venus (1926) with Wayne Barker accompaniment

 

Brooks’ second film appearance was partially in colour and it’s both a shame and a relief that just a fragment survives of our hero in all her tonal glory. This half-minute segment exists in a BFI 35mm celluloid and is stunning; the only glimpse we ever get of Brooks in her Hollywood pomp but she was more than enough in black and white.

 

Directed by Frank Tuttle, the film stars Esther Ralston, former Keystone Cop Ford Sterling (who would also feature with Brooks in The Show Off (1926) which is extant and on DVD) there’s also Lawrence Gray, Miss America Fay Lanphier, and young Douglas Fairbanks Jr as Triton to Ernest Torrence’s King Neptune (now that I’d like to see!). Ralston plays Mary Gray, the daughter of a beauty cream manufacturer (William B. Mack) who enters a national beauty contest to save her father’s business from falling into the power of a rival manufacturer, Hugo Niles (Sterling). Just to add extra complication Mary is engaged to his son Niles (Kenneth MacKenna).

 

Louise Brooks is very believably Miss Bayport and there’s enough on show to again see her screen presence even amongst the competition. What survives are three trailers with differing content and two short extracts both involving Sterling trying to hide a swimming costume-clad Brooksie from his wife and the colour clip which may well have made it to the final film. Maybe one day more will be found but until then these spectacular snippets will leave much to the imagination…

 

Brooks, William Collier Jr. and Dorothy Macaill

Just Another Blonde (1926) with Wayne Barker accompaniment

 

As the commentary from Kathy Rose O’Regan explains, 35mm nitrate elements of this film were found in the Czech Film Archive but, with the best will in the World, damage seeps in over the decades, especially to the end of each reel, which is more exposed. This means that what was a film well over an hour is left at some 32 minutes with the damage between the changes in reels and gaps in the narrative such as a spectacular plane crash near the end.

 

That said this is perfectly watchable and makes narrative sense as two pals, Jimmy O'Connor (Jack Mulhall) and Kid Scotty (William Collier Jr.) try to romance Jeanne “Blondie” Cavanaugh (Dorothy Mackaill, from Kingston upon Hull!) and Diana “Blackie” O'Sullivan (Brooksie) in and around Coney Island – the film was originally called The Girl from Coney Island in fact. There are some lovely scenes in Luna Park which appear to have been shot in the middle of the night with extras*. Of course, Coney Island is quite familiar from its appearance in many silent films including The Crowd, Lonesome, It and others and, much like in Maurice Elvey’s Hindle Wakes (filmed in Blackpool) it pays tribute to the working-class playground. Director Alfred Santell even attached a camera to one of the roller coasters much as Elvey did on The Big Dipper in 1928, that’s still in place although I don’t think Coney Island has retained much of its old fun fair?

 

The story is boys meet girls and Brooksie shows she is able to play against type as the bookish Blackie who, in between being a shooting gallery attendant, is seen reading Blondes Have More Fun. Well, as Jean Harlow asked in Red-Headed Woman… “do they?” Unlikely in LB’s case… The critics were critical and the audiences forgetful – in terms of remembering to see the film**, but it’s fun and I’m sure brought many memories for New Yorkers and the weekend denizens of “The Playground of the World”

 

Wayne Barker accompanies on these two and whips up a cohesive flurry of lines that place us solidly within not only the time but the films as they would have been, his imagination running along as is the whole existed and not just these precious parts. 

 

Hatton, Brooks and Beery - no one else is looking up.

Now we’re in the Air (1927), with Stephen Horne accompaniment

 

“History isn't always about quality and Now We're in the Air proves that all too well. We are grateful for this sunshine glimpse of Brooks' extraordinary presence and yes, that probably is "code" but, you know what I and Henri Langlois mean...”

Me, after the restoration screening in Pordenone in 2017.

 

If these segments of Now We're in the Air didn't exist we'd still fantasise about the rediscovery of a beautiful moment of Louise Brooks that was lost. We have just over twenty minutes (a third of the full running time?) to make sense of a comedy featuring Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton – one of a number of successful movies they made as Wally and Ray in the same vein such as Behind the Front and We're in the Navy Now from 1926. Brooks plays twin sisters, Grisette beloved of Wally and French, the other Griselle, Ray’s choice and a German.

 

As Thomas says in the commentary it was probably Brooks’ most commercially successful film and she shines brightly out in those glimpses we have, a twenty-year-old novice taking another care-less but convincing step to stardom. Now we’re in the Air showed that Brooks had genuine watchability and radiance especially alongside Mr Beery who she would later appear with in Beggars of Life.

 

As Pamela says, these early films are the foundation of Brooks’ career and her subsequent status. It’s not the quantity but the uncanny quality of their star makes them very special indeed: the biggest comeback kid in movie history, not in terms of box office but in her enduring influence and actual star power.

 

Stephen's assured Brooksiment reminds me of one special night at the Kennington Bioscope when he played for LB in the silent version of The Price of Beauty: there was something in the air that night - I think we all saw Brooksie through his playing. We recognise her too in the writings aand commentary of both Pamela Hutchinson and Thomas Gladysz - she is reanimated not just by these restorations but by their skill and our imagination.

That limited-edition spot gloss slipcover... 

There are a number of additional features to bear in mind if you are still considering whether to buy… although I can’t think of why you anyone would need further persuasion. 

Restoration Demo – This includes a detailed description of the restorations along with an explanation of the restorers’ art and terms of reference: the aim being to preserve the original elements as they should be.

Audio Commentaries – Hand on heart these are some of the most Informative audio commentaries including Brooks-ologist par excellence Pamela Hutchinson on The Street of Forgotten Men, then with author and film historian Thomas Gladysz and Kathy Rose O’Regan on Just Another Blonde, and with Gladysz and Robert Byrne on The American Venus and Now We’re in the Air. It’s interesting to hear both Gladysz vast subject knowledge mixed with the expertise of the restorers.

 

Looking at Lulu - this extended featurette from film historian Pamela Hutchinson is one of the best visual essays I’ve watched and reveals so much about the context of these films and their importance in Brooks’ career trajectory. Content enriching expertise!

 

Image Galleries - Featuring production stills and promotional material

 

Booklet Insert - With an essay by Thomas Gladysz and restoration notes by Robert Byrne

 

English closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as subtitle tracks in English, Spanish, French, and German

 

Blu-ray Authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity in Motion

 

It has All Region Encoding (A, B, C) so you can play it anywhere in the World!

 

There’s also a limited-edition spot gloss slipcover which is only available at the Flicker Alley website and select indie retailers SO, for the full set head over to their website now to order: I guarantee you will be enthralled and more in love with silent film than ever before – I shall personally underwrite this promise!

 

To recap, this is a collection of the extremely unlikely, made exceptionally watchable with the most expert and caring of restorations. It is not everything that might have been but… in this World, it is enough and we should be very grateful!

 

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t want a volume two Blu-ray set covering say restored versions of Love ‘em and Leave ‘em, A Girl in Every Port and Beggars of Life but… one step at a time!

 

Additional reading… collect them ALL!

 

Thomas Gladwysz on Brooksie and two of the above films.

 

Two of PH's works on two of my top ten films... more to come!

*More details of locations on Thomas Gladysz’ LouisBrooks Society website!

 

** Also quoted on the LBS site: Eileen Creelman reviewing for the New York American. She referred to the “fifth-rate story” but did admit there were “a couple of amusing characterisations”.

 

Pamela Hutchinson's new book, The Curse of Queen Kelly will be available on 27 March – Gloria Swanson’s birthday! It's published by from Sticking Place Books - details here - or click on the cover below.

Wild oats... Way Down East (1920), with Stephen Horne, BFI, Too Much: Melodrama on Film

A simple story of plain people.

… within the heart of man, the truth must bloom that his greatest happiness lies in his purity and constancy.

In her introduction Pamela Hutchinson found just the right phrase as she always does, DW Griffith had paid some $165,000 for the rights to this piece of old Victorian melodrama and presented its points in new ways, not just cinematically but with an evolved narrative and the performative power of his star. More than anyone, perhaps, the director is seen as a Victorian moralist increasingly out of step with the changes in sentiment that were rapidly taking place amongst his audience and catalysed by external events as well as the messaging and style of the new media of which he was in some ways a master.

Griffith has taken a battering in recent decades for work that, even some contemporaries derided as racist and now, as we see new elements of those old feelings rise again, his role in popularising them, the sheet-wearing Klan and a-historical rumour mongering feels even more out of place. He’s not the first nor last US director to play fast and loose with history and, whilst he didn’t make the first feature film in history (that’d be Australia’s Ned Kelly (1906)) or innovate as much as claimed he made very good, very popular and very influential films of which Way Down East is possibly the best example.

I was an ignorant girl betrayed through a mock marriage…

Lillian Gish in full flow...

Whilst it is a major work, the only real genius on display was at least a foot shorter than DW and with strawberry blonde ringlets. This would be Lillian Gish who threw herself into this roles in ways that genuinely makes you shudder and worry, as King Vidor did when she went full waif in La Boheme, that it might not just be her character that was doomed. She is spellbinding and creates so much more out of her character than even Antony Paul Kelly’s script intended. She is the American Asta Neilsen with acting that is completely unconscious of the camera as it radiates thought even sometimes with the casual aid of an inanimate object held for a pensive second and signifying so much.

As Pamela mentioned Gish was not the only one who doubted Griffith’s investment but it wasn’t just Parker and Grismer’s original play that was largely jettisoned but Kelly’s script too as the Director worked up his narrative with his performers* albeit with his usual final say as when Gish wanted to present her half-frozen face and arms after plunging them in the ice floe towards the end. We get a glimpse of the Lilly-Ice (sorry) but sure enough she’s soon got her hair back in order. A stunt person was used but still both Gish and co-star Richard Barthelmess spent time on cardboard ice blocks and in a freezing river. At one point the actress fainted and not surprisingly considering her preparation involved walking about the frozen location without a coat and preparing herself for the actual blizzard in which they filmed.

All of these moments make for one highly emotional conclusion to a film that at almost two and a half hours, is not for the faint-hearted. That this time flew by is down to the skill of the performers on and off screen, with Stephen Horne providing yet another one-man orchestral score off the hoof and covering this vast space and time with constantly evolving mood and melody all played on three or was it four instruments (plucking the piano strings definitely counts as extra).

Lowell Sherman plays such a scoundrel!

Sanderson belongs to a class which, if it cannot get what it wants in one way, it will go to any length to get it in another.

 

The story begins in rural, humble, in New England, where a young woman, Anna Moore (Gish) is asked by her mother to go to appeal to their rich relatives, the Tremonts, in Boston for money. She arrives all naïve just as her aunt Emma Tremont (Josephine Bernard) is hosting a party. Condescended to by her cousins she has some support from her stylish blue stocking sister (Florence Short) aka The Eccentric Aunt, who gets her up to speed with fashion with one Madame Lisette providing Miss Gish’s stunning array of gowns – was she ever this well dressed in any other film?

 

Trouble comes in the form of the dashing Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman), who not only sponges off his rich daddy, but spends his time in pursuit of his speciality: “ladies”. He becomes fascinated by Anna and after gaining her trust arranges a phony marriage ceremony so he can have his evil way with her. If this seems a bit convoluted it’s worth remembering the source material and the need for the most elaborate humiliation possible for our lead character. Telling her that they need to keep their marriage a secret for fear of his father disinheriting him, he puts Anna up in an apartment and then, once she gets pregnant, abandons her to a boarding house

 

As all this progresses we have been gradually introduced to the family of Squire Bartlett (Burr McIntosh) the richest farmer around but a man by the kind of unyielding Christian principles you’d expect to find in a DW Griffith film, just not in this context. He comes complete with a kindly wife (Kate Bruce) and a handsome son David (Richard Barthelmess)… I’m sure you think you know where this is headed… There’s also a gaggle of comedy characters which serve to pad out the plot but also to create an uneven tone from time to time. There’s the gurning Constable Rube Whipple (George Neville), bumkins "Hi" Holler (Edgar Nelson) and Seth Holcomb (Porter Strong) who is kind of being romanced by the scene-stealing entity known as Martha Perkins (the most excellent Vivia Ogden!).

 

Richard Barthelmess

Incoming key sub-plot reveal… the Squire’s niece, Kate (Mary Hay) is a live wire who has attracted the attention of, erm, local academic The Professor (played by Creighton Hale in that Creighton Hale sort of way, actually very funny on this occasion!). But more on these two in a few lines…

 

Back in the boarding house, Anna’s baby gets ill and Gish goes into overdrive nursing the poor scrap and is genuinely heart-rending when her efforts come to nought. Pamela was correct, this is not a film you can watch without shedding a tear – hence it’s screening as part of the BFI’s Too Much: Melodrama on Film season – and the sadness here is almost unbearable. As the beat goes on, Anna’s landlady Mrs Poole (Emily Fitzroy) without a scintilla of pity condemns her guest for having a baby – albeit now a dead one – and for not being married, telling her to pack her bags.

 

Cue poverty and Anna’s forlorn trudge to find some place to work and stay before she, just about, gets work with the Bartletts, Mother and David calling on the Squire to give her a chance after she almost walks away. Things are looking up as she proves herself a hard-working asset until, inevitably, Lennox turns up… a neighbour of the Bartletts and someone with bigger fish to fry socially than an old conquest, not to mention his lecherous plans for young Kate. It’s all set up for a doozy of a second half…

Lil lost in the details not unlike Asta...

Without a doubt it’s one of Griffith’s best and indeed Gish’s and whilst she may well have been watching the acting of Asta, other influences may also have impacted the narrative and style here, not least perhaps the more advanced moralising of Griffiths’ contemporary Lois Weber. It’s quite a shock to see Gish’s character turn the tables on her accuser and ask: This man – an honoured guest at your table – why don’t you find out what HIS life has been? For Griffith the moral is about civilised mankind becoming monogamous and faithful under their god but this is a more basic call to a kind of neo-feminist equality of responsibility. When first confronting Lennox he asks her what would happen if her new friends found out about her past life and she immediately shoots back with “Suppose the find out about YOUR past life!”. He takes it in his stride, smiles and smarms “Oh, it’s different with a MAN! He’s supposed to sow his wild oats.”

This feels more Gish than Griffith but either way it’s a direct hit on the Patriarchy where you least expect it. Anna’s driven by a rage of frustrated indignity at the unfairness of her situation and the fact that through no fault of her own she is denied happiness in the arms of the decent David, who is even better without the yellowface of the previous year’s Broken Blossoms…) and one can only imagine how Gish directed her sister Dorothy in Remodeling Her Husband (1920) – a lost film that represents her only feature as director made just before Way Down East. Lillian Gish was at the peak of her powers, a master of cinema.

Intricate shot from Billy Bitzer...

Another potential influence on this film was from northern Europe with the style of Victor Sjostrom in films like the unforgiving The Outlaw and His Wife (1918) as well as the cinematography of everyone’s go-too Swedish cameraman, Julius Jaenzon. Sjostrom used locations to reflect externalised emotions and Way Down East’s extraordinary climax partially filmed in an actual blizzard and with Lil on those ice floes, is a still forceful depiction of humanity pushed to the edge of endurance by the torment of others and societal cruelty: a cry for forgiveness and understanding lest we crush love and natural justice.

Boston born Johann Gottfried Wilhelm “Billy” Bitzer excels throughout the film capturing Gish’s emoting in frequent close up as well as the glorious countryside and the frozen expanse of Vermont. There are lovely scenes of Gish and Barthelmess against a background of a lake and forests whilst White River Junction and the ice floes of the Connecticut and White rivers, were used for the big finish. The film was more expensive than either of Griffith’s best known films and returned a huge profit being one of the four highest grossing silent films.   

This was my first viewing and I saw it in the right way - on 35mm, projected on the big screen with an informed and entertaining introdcution and with one of the finest accompanists in the silent show business! I thank you all!

  

*Martin Williams, DW Griffith: First Artist of the Movies (OUP, 1980)

Filming in the frozen water: ice and hardboard!

Miss Gish's costumes designed by Madame Lisette

Coming soon... Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention, BFI September & October

 

Just a quick note to make sure you’re all aware of what promises to be one of the finest silent seasons at the BFI in years this autumn! Anna May Wong was a unique presence in early Hollywood and the season includes some of her earliest appearances when her screen presence was as undeniable as the studio’s inability to turn her into a fully-fledged star. Her best films were – mostly – made in Europe and those are here too along with her talkies most of which I haven’t seen so, if you’re looking for me in September and October I shall mostly be gazing at the screen on the Southbank as Anna’s legend glows brighter! 

Quoting the press release:

“This season celebrates Anna May Wong’s transnational life and career, as well as her collaborations with and inspiration for Asian diasporic communities. From silent cinema to multiple-language talkies, vaudeville to television, Hollywood to Europe and beyond, Wong constantly reinvented herself, even when being routinely typecast in roles and narratives confined by racist and sexist stereotypes and taboos.

The illustrated discussion INTRODUCTION TO ANNA MAY WONG’S REINVENTIONS on 8 September, led by season curator Xin Peng and featuring Wong’s niece Anna Wong, author Katie Gee Salisbury and film historian Pamela Hutchinson, will consider Wong’s key roles and films, discuss her life and career, and reflect on her legacy. The event will be followed by a book signing of Salisbury’s Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong.”

 

Films screening will include:

Drifting (Tod Browning, 1923), restored by the George Eastman Museum

Peter Pan (Herbert Brenon, 1924), restored by the George Eastman Museum

The Toll of the Sea (Chester M. Franklin, 1922)

The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924)

Song (Richard Eichberg, 1928), restored by Filmmuseum Düsseldorf

Pavement Butterfly (Richard Eichberg, 1929), restored in 4K by Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum

Piccadilly (Ewald André Dupont, 1929), restored by the BFI National Archive with support from Simon and Harley Hessel

Hai Tang (Richard Eichberg, Walter Summers, Jean Kemm, 1930)

Daughter of the Dragon (Lloyd Corrigan, 1931) on a restored 35mm print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive

Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932)

Java Head (J. Walter Ruben, 1934)

Dangerous to Know (Robert Florey, 1938)

Daughter of Shanghai (Robert Florey, 1937)

Lady from Chunking (William Nigh, 1942)

Portrait in Black (Michael Gordon, 1960) 

Flower Drum Song (Henry Koster, 1961)

“A key scholar lecture ‘A YELLOW SPOT ON THE SILVER SCREEN’ - ANNA MAY WONG’S PERFORMATIVE PLEASURE on 2 October will see Professor Yiman Wang reanimate Wong’s legacy and delve into her performative pleasure to advance a method of enjoying the actor’s paradoxical agency as a tragedienne and a comedienne.

Presented in partnership with the Department of Film Studies, King's College London, and Cambridge Film & Screen, the event will be followed by a signing of Wang’s book To be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong’s Cross-Media World.”

 

Watch out for further details on the BFI’s website!

 

One for the Clive Brook fans...

 

A monster tragedy? Earth Spirit (1923), Stephen Horne and Pamela Hutchinson, BFI Asta Nielsen Season

Frank Wedekind’s play has multiple connections in silent film not least of which is Louise Brooks’ genuinely iconic performance in GW Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929) but before the 22-year old American became synonymous with the character of Lulu a 41-year old Dane acted herself quite differently into the role. The play had initially been written in 1894 as a single piece in five acts and subtitled A Monster Tragedy but Wedekind subsequently divided it into two plays: Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora’s Box first performed in 1904. Before Pabst re-joined the two for his film, Leopold Jessner made his version of the first part with Asta Nielsen and it’s fascinating to see the differences in approach and style.

 

It’s hardly fair but modern silent film viewers cannot start off watching Die Asta’s Lulu without thinking of Brooks but that quickly vanishes as you see how forcefully Nielsen goes about the role. Even before Brooks, for me there was Joanne Whalley in Ian MacDiarmid’s production of the play at the Donmar Warehouse in 1991, no bob, that was left to Belinda Lang as Countess Geschwitz, a sign of trying to escape Brooks’ iconicism in order to get to the root of this complex and controversial character: is Wedekind proto-feminist or does Lulu represent the “sins” of free sexuality? Maybe, yes… but more and it’s also about Lola Montez… about whom the internet virtually teems with rumour and suggestion.

Carl Ebert and Asta

 

It's not only modern audiences… Brooks herself had, of course, an opinion about Earth Spirit according to season programmer Pamela Hutchinson, who quotes the actress from Lulu in Hollywood, complaining about the earlier film’s ducking the lesbian aspects of the play and Nielsen’s lack of dance skill. Brooks also said that there we two types of actors, one’s like her who essentially played themselves and others, like Nielsen, who played their parts. Even looking at the Asta of Afgrunden you wouldn’t see her as a natural “Earth spirit”, a Lulu or untamed passions and yet… there she is. Asta is, literally, different in every film I’ve seen in this season and here is no different.

 

Asta’s Lulu is outrageous, more knowing and yet just as ruinously impetuous as Brooks’ version, she’s faithless and fancy free, carnal and reckless but… no one ever says no do they “Men”? Just as there are so many ways to read the play, there are so many ways to read Asta playing Lulu. As is becoming thrillingly clear from this season, the Dane never seemed to have played the same part twice and here again is another unique creation as she inhabits a character of her own making no matter, I’m sure, of the expert prompting from director Leopold Jessner.

 

As season curator, Pamela Hutchinson said in her introduction, Jessner was a noted theatre director and one of a number of heavy hitters from the stage involved in this production, script writer Carl Meyer, producer Richard Oswald et al, both a reflection of the seriousness with which the play was regarded and also the prestige of the star performer, who’s years of theatrical under-achievement were long behind her now, not only the premier screen star in Europe but also arguably the finest actor despite new challengers from Sweden, Germany and France.

A love-hate relationship? Asta and Albert Bassermann

Lulu has been having a long time dalliance with Dr Schoen (classically trained actor and former chemist, Albert Bassermann) who has married her off to the older Dr Goll (Gustav Rickelt) knowing she’ll run rings around him and be available when required. However, he reckons without Lulu’s endlessly playful nature and Schwarz (Carl Ebert), the handsome painter employed to portray her in sexy Pierrot costume, is soon seduced the minute Schoen takes his friend off to a cabaret.

 

Lulu is wild, tearing down the carefully arranged fabrics designed to filter the light in the huge high-ceilinged studio and wrapping around herself and her lover, who needs dance training when you can destroy the scenery and arouse physical passion at the same time. Sadly, Goll has come back early, perhaps suspecting intrigue and, desperately smashing down the door he finds the couple in flagrante or at least, tangled in fabrics, and after taking a swipe at the painter falls dead to the floor. Lulu’s mild irritation at this distraction speaks volumes and soon she is married to the painter.

 

The painter’s house is an expressionistic extension of his high (ceilinged) art and in time Lulu lolls around bored by his aesthetic intensity and waiting for fun. Cue her father/first benefactor, the sinister Schigolch (Alexander Granach) whom she welcomes by throwing herself prone onto opulent cushions and waving her heels in the air before pouring him two large ones which he drinks and she pours onto the carpet… not so out of control after all?

The novelty of art has worn off... Asta and Carl Ebert

Dr. Schoen remains in close attendance as does his son Alwa (Rudolf Forster) who, naturally, is drawn to Lulu like a moth to a naked candle flame… then we have the friends of Schigolch, a circus strong man Rodrigo (Heinrich George) and a poet Eulenber (Erwin Biswanger) opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum yet equally fascinated beyond their understanding.

 

All of the men see their sexuality reflected in Lulu’s dazzling energy. As with all her roles Nielsen makes you believe and there’s some daring subtext if you only look for it… Pamela told us to pay particular attention to Asta’s moth and there is a long essay on her “lip-ography” in this film right up until the sudden and quite shocking end.

 

Wedekind said that “Lulu is not a real character but the personification of primitive sexuality who inspires evil unaware. She plays a purely passive role…” How interesting then that from two different directions two women made her into something more in both the films of the twenties.

 

Stephen Horne who, as those of us who have his debut album, Silent Sirens know, has a particular rapport with the strong silent actresses and accompanied with some primal tones of his own playing piano, flute and accordion. Of these perhaps the flute caught the essential mysteries best, there’s something knowing and unknowable in Asta’s Lulu a force as well as an accident of nature.

 

So, another winner for the Dane and one that I’m looking forward to watching again. Her reputation and my appreciation grows with every screening.

 

The Nielsen season runs until 15^th March and Earth Spirit is screened again on Wednesday 9^th with accompaniment from Meg Morley, not to be missed!

 

Her infinite variety... Downfall (1923) with John Sweeney, introduced by Pamela Hutchinson, BFI Asta Nielsen Season

It was, with some spoilers, a day of three tragedies for Asta Nielsen at the BFI and whilst I knew what to expect from Hamlet and Lulu in Earth Spirit , I hadn’t expected to be quite so blown away by this film. The first reel is missing from Downfall aka Der Absturz but it’s the last two that really pack the punch and allow for an exceptional, heart-rending denouement with Asta’s character literally beyond her former lover’s comprehension.

 

It bought to mind the scene in Victor Sjöström’s Sons of Ingmar when Ingmar goes to meet the mother – and murderer – of their only child, born out of wedlock and, even after her years in jail, an almost impossible thing to forgive. To illustrate the powerful pain, Victor Sjöström has his great cinematographer, Julius Jaenzen shoot the couple against the Sun, dazzling Ingmar who can barely look at his former lover. In Downfall, Asta’s character has simply aged far more than her younger lover and, cruelly, for so many women over a certain age… she has become invisible, devoid of her make up and finery, the last vestiges of her youth… he literally does not notice her.

 

The way that Nielsen handles her aging is also remarkable, especially given this was made for and produced by her own film company and she was (gasp) 41 at the time the same age as Kim Kardashian (I know!) or, if you’re talking people with talent, Melanie Williams or Bryce Dallas Howard. She appears to be without make up – or much make up – or at least enough to make her look as old and unglamorous as possible and it’s fascinating to watch the amazing instrument that is her face keep on pushing out the meaning and dominating the narrative in or out of close up.

 

It's almost new wave… and old school heart-breaking.

 

Asta's Kaja at the top

On IMDB someone had said that Nielsen is less "well known" because she didn’t make any great films but whilst this is wrong with the likes of Hamlet, Earth Spirit, Joyless Street and Afgrunden around, it also ignores films like this one in which her performance level raises everything. And, having seen over a dozen of her films in this remarkable season, I’d say her other defining quality is of consistency and range; she never plays the same part twice with even broad comedies differentiated by her decision to find new avenues to explore within characters of her own construction… a remarkable ethic especially given the quality of some of the scripts.

 

Directed and written by Ludwig Wolff, Downfall sees Asta playing Kaja Falk, a popular singer of light opera approaching her middle years, who has become involved with the “vampiric” waster, Frank Lorris (Albert Bozenhard) who – based upon a synopsis for the missing opening section, literally sucks her dry of money and good will. She’s saved by the noble Count Lamotte (Ivan Bulatov) who offers her his villa to hide away from Lorris’ unwanted attentions.

 

Near the villa lives a handsome young fisherman, Peter Karsten (Gregori Chmara) and his pretty fiancée, Henrike Thomsen (the striking Charlotte Schultz) and the two are perfectly happy as they go about their simple life. When they glimpse Kaja’s fancy coach on its way to the villa, they laugh at the pretension until a hat box drops off and, urged past his reluctance by Henrike’s imploring, Peter catches up with the coach and, handing the box over, is instantly captivated by the demure singer.

 

Gregori Chmara exuding Daniel Craig vibes?

One thing leads to another and Kaja meets Peter on the sea shore and he takes her for a ride in his boat as Henrike looks on, knowing her heart is in trouble. Soon Peter is creeping up to the villa and seeing far more of Kaja than is healthy for either.

 

Evil Frank also tracks her down and starts to use the situation to his advantage… tragedy strikes when Lamotte confronts Peter on a steep coastal path and, after a short scuffle falls to his death. Peter takes the rap but both he and Katja vow to be true and to meet once he is released in ten years’ time. That decade takes its toll though and when he is released into the sunshine will he recognise his love?

 

There’s no denying that Katya’s fall from grace allows Asta Nielsen to really go through the gears and it’s truly fascinating to see her with hardly any make up during her character’s illness and decline. Though this period she’s drained of everything she has by Lorris, and it’s the combination of his influence and her growing frailty that makes for one of the most gripping sequences in her revelatory oeuvre.

On the slide

Struggling to regain her voice she attempts a comeback only to be faced with not just pity but contempt from her audience – given this was a project commissioned by herself, it’s clear she knew full well the contract between audience and star. As she said in her stunning 1968 documentary, “fame is but a word written in sand…” she knew what was coming, what had already started.

 

Yet watching her out of make-up. looking in horror at her unfamiliar face, being deadened by Lorris’ unyielding humiliations and finally, vanishing from the love of her life’s vision… is oddly rewarding. Certainly one of the most innovative and honest portrayals of tragedy in any of her films and proof, if any were needed, of her ability to transcend melodrama and to give something extra special entirely from within character.

 

John Sweeney accompanied, as he has many a dying swan, and was thoroughly embedded in this arc of decline with powerful classic chords and heart-rending lines, following our eye-line as the great star burns, flickers and crashes down, emptied of all light before her body stops moving.

You have to see this for yourselves...

One of the big surprises of this splendid season and there were two others still to come on this bumper Astaday.

 

There’s more Asta coming at the BFI, and Downfall screens again on 15th March with Cyrus Gabrysch accompanying, book now and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Full details are on the BFI website.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety... quotation from Antony and Cleopatra with a tip of the hat to Mrs P Hutchinson of Worthing-on-Sea who provided a most excellent introduction!