The women… Pavement Butterfly (1929), with Stephen Horne, Kennington Bioscope

We take it for granted, these films we watch, yes we recognise that screening rare and near impossible to find 90-year old treasures takes a huge amount of effort, but we don’t always consider the actual commitment in personal time and energy made by the managers of these passion projects.

Tonight, was an epic programme and one that not only featured a very rare film but also three shorter features that were thematically linked. You see a fascinating array of British variety acts in the first, followed by a visit to Berlin - the main feature was an Anglo-German co-production – and lastly the British comedy, Blue Bottles (1928) featuring Elsa Lanchester as herself: a woman of gumption and quick wit even under fire.

The Bioscope’s Michelle Facey programmed the evening and chose the Lanchester film partly because it has such a strong female lead and the same can absolutely be said of Anna May Wong in Pavement Butterfly (1929). That’s three remarkable women all on the one evening!

Michelle not only devised the programme she also researched the background for the films in depth and provided notes as well as her informative introductions. No wonder the Cinema Museum was packed to the rafters with not a single seat unsold: the best programmes attract the public and the sell-out spoke for itself on that one!

Mah and Coco, clown, croupier, club owner... cad!

Part of the fascination in watching Pavement Butterfly is seeing how Anna May Wong’s character gets treated. This is not a lazy modern liberal search for outrage but a fair comparison between European cinema culture and US in 1929. In her home country, Anna May Wong had struggled since her first film in 1921 to gain substantial roles and also characters that weren’t stereotypes. Yet in Europe for this film and Song (1928), her first film with director Richard Eichberg, she is not only a desirable and acceptable romantic lead, she is the star.

Eichberg simply took her natural talents and ran with them and you even read this film as a subtle critique of Western culture’s willingness to believe the worst of people of Asian origin: first the crowd at the circus where Wong’s character Mah works, turn on her very quickly assuming she has killed her magician partner and then later, when she is blackmailed by the man who committed that murder, her artist and romantic interest, all too readily thinks she has stolen the money.

For anyone who gets frustrated by such “misunderstandings” the film’s ending is richly satisfying and, in the context of so many films of this era – Hindle Wakes and a few others excepted – a blow for self-determination for women in general.

Anna May Wong, picture c. Getty Images

But the real triumph for this remarkable actor is that she gets the most screen time and the chance to behave with decency and intelligence: she is not just a cipher but the whole point of the film: she may be a butterfly of the street, but she knows how to make her own way. Wong is allowed the opportunity to fully reveal her character and there are times when Eichberg just lets his camera roll in vast close-ups, catching every moment as the poignant tears spark, flicker and then flow down the amazing face.

There are also some blokes in the film Fred Louis Lerch plays the handsome but hopeless Fedja Kusmin an artist who lacks the purity of trusting the thing he loves and the wickedly convincing Alexander Granach as Coco the Coincidental Clown who pops up throughout the film to throw mischief in our heroine’s way. Elwood Fleet Bostwick is Mr. Working a rich business man who encourages the young artist and Tilla Garden has a fine turn as his daughter Ellis who is also interestingly enough a woman who knows her mind.

Pavement Butterfly is a very fine film and Ellis and Mah are its most fully realized characters played by the two most interesting performers. That said, I shouldn't omit Gaston Jacquet as the Baron de Neuve, who helps Mah seemingly as he's keen to to the decent thing: this was good Gaston as opposed to the rogues he was also adept at playing... either way, always a twinkle in his eye though!

It’s always a special evening when Stephen Horne plays the Bioscope and this was no exception. I am constantly amazed by his improvisational range and, having watched him play just a few days ago, could sense no repetition only a performer’s joy in giving this rare screening the full bells and whistles. He started off at a canter with some meaty chords matching the carnival atmosphere and the troupe of party animals sharing Kusmin’s apartment block and began to inject subtleties of tone through flute, accordion, percussion and vibes. One day we’ll discover that they’re all pre-programmed alien artefacts from a civilisation so far in advance of our own that their musical science seems like magic.

Meg Morley was also pitch perfect accompanying the first three films. There is so much musical diversity at the Bioscope and I love the players, Meg is an accomplished jazz musician by trade and it’s fascinating to hear how this essentially emotional and improvised discipline informs her accompaniment. She is a very polished performer now and comes from the same planet as Mr Horne… they can see the future just as they duet with the past!

Elsa Lanchester

Tonight, Meg was with the stunning Elsa Lanchester in Blue Bottles (1928) as she gets mixed up in a crook’s convention and brings the full might of the Metropolitan Police Force down on them after blowing on a discarded police whistle. She toots the flute and in come mobs of plod, men on horseback, tanks, planes and even the navy – a sequence similar to the Marx Brother’s mad escalations in defence of Freedonia in Duck Soup.

It’s a riot of well-constructed slapstick as Elsa gets caught up in the rush as the cops charge into the house. There’s a running battle in which stripped-topped criminals try to avoid the police including one played by Elsa’s hubby-to-be Charles Laughton in his first film appearance. There’s mayhem as Elsa hides wherever she can only to capture the crooks single-handedly, dazed and in charge of a weapon she barely knows is in her hand.

Frank Wells falls in for Charles Laughton

There’s so much energy and invention from director Ivor Montagu on the script from Frank Wells based on a story from his father, Herbert George. They also discovered that Frank was rather good at falling down stairs and so he gets his moment playing a battered baddie.

Before this were two documentaries of which the British one, Hello Piccadilly (1925) was especially precious, the Jack Hylton band playing in the background as variety performers – a chorus line, contortionists and amazing trick dancers (you would scarce believe The Cat and The Dog dance: Strictly Come Dangerous!) – showed us what our great grand parents used to enjoy. They'd look over their pints of mild and smile at us all, sat in the dark watching proper entertainment. Cheers!

Thanks again to the Bioscope in general and to all those who volunteer and make these evenings possible.

PS I must also thank Dr Sylvia Hardy who has just shown my Elsa Lanchester's actual copy of the script for Blue Bottles and also let me scan her original photographic stills from the film. A prominent member of the HG Wells Society she is indeed another remarkable woman!

Elsa's script for Blue Bottles

Anna May Wong on... Song (1928) with Stephen Horne, Regents Street Cinema

“…a hapless piece of work that is years behind the times.”

Mordaunt Hall turned the scathe-ometer up to eleven in his New York Times review when Song was released 1928 but you can’t always believe what you read (as ITY-Arthur followers will know all too well). Maybe I’m too kind to these old dears but what was just the latest in that week’s endless set of new silent films for Mordaunt to assess has now become a rarity that is important just for having survived.

This is also the film Anna May Wong made not long before Piccadilly and even Hall notes that she is “a competent little actress” but one respected perhaps more now than then given the changed context but also our deeper understanding of what “little actresses” of her background had to face.

Song on it's first release

Silent films are also uniquely malleable because they are always part of a new context created by their musical accompaniment. Today Song had the multi-instrumental support of Stephen Horne as it was projected in the Regents Street Cinema, itself a living museum haunted by the flickering ghosts of the Lumiers… And… it came through rather well!

Anna May Wong excelled in a rare part that allowed her to just be – a good-hearted soul and not just an exotic token or worse still, something sinister. She responds to the camera’s frequently intense gaze with naturalistic gestures and a positive focus on her character and rides out some of the more extraordinary plot elements and costumery with ease and good humour. She’s equally at home fighting off attackers, coming to the rescue during a train robbery and selflessly supporting a selfish man who can’t see further than his own infatuation.

Mr Hall... step outside.

Song or Schmutziges Geld (Dirty Money) was an Anglo-German co-production directed by Richard Eichberg who then direct Wong in Pavement Butterfly (1929) before her famous West End turn in 1929.

The story is set in Istanbul and there are some lovely establishing shots of what would become the scene of Liverpool FC’s Champions League triumph almost 80 years later. Anna May plays Song an urchin eking out a living by catching lobsters on the beach. She is spotted by two men who proceed to assault her only to be fought off by a passer-by, Jack Houben (Heinrich George). It’s a pretty grim fight that’s only won when Song gets stuck into help her rescuer.

Jack shows off his day job

Jack takes Song back for temporary shelter at his humble home and frightens her to death as he demonstrates his profession – a knife thrower. In spite of Song’s nervous response to having sharpened steel utensils flung at her, Jack decides she could be an asset to his act and before long she’s dancing in front of the regulars at the homely music hall where he works.

Eichberg clearly relishes depicting this venue and the leering audience is shown in delicious close up as the weird and wonderful “turns” take to the stage.

Song and Jack’s life seems to have settled but the arrival of a famous ballet dancer is about to upset the precarious balance of their apple cart. There are posters for Gloria Lee (Mary Kid) all over town and Song decides to use one to make an improvised table in Jack’s house, fighting off the local boys hired to deliver this promotion.

Richard Eichberg directs Anna on stage

Jack takes one look at the smiling face on the table and flashes back to a time when he and Gloria were a couple… everything ended badly as he fought a young man pursuing her. The man fell overboard whilst they were on a cruise and diving in after him both men were lost, presumed drowned.

Jack still carries a very large torch and it’s only a matter of time before its subject turns up at the club accompanied by her theatrical manager/paramour Dimitri Alexi  (Hans Adalbert Schlettow, who’s close shave in A Cottage on Dartmoor still gives me the shivers). Thankfully mutual recognition does not occur during Jack’s act and Song emerges unscathed before Jack and Gloria see each other.

After establishing that Jack is clearly not dead Gloria invites him to her show but she’s more interested in her “manager” than this blast from the past. But Jack’s a fool for love… If only he was rich enough to compete on the present-buying stakes? Jack follows a get rich scheme dreamt up by his accordionist (Julius E. Herrmann) – a can’t-fail train robbery. Someone tips the coppers a wink and Jack only escapes by hiding under the loco… he is nearly blinded as the machine lets off steam and Song comes to his rescue.

Drama on stage as Jack faints...

Only an operation can save Jack’s sight and he is convinced that Gloria will help… but Gloria is really very busy and realising this Song steps in to help convince Jack otherwise, using Gloria’s cast-of clothes to convince him that she is his the ballerina come to assist (we can only assume that Jack’s hearing has also been affected for him to succumb to this kindly deception).

Jack needs an operation and a massive £20 is required to fund it, surely Gloria will help and, even if she doesn’t her manager is on hand to give Song all the assistance she needs. She goes to work as the star attraction in the club – and she can dance unlike the “ballerina” as the lavish set-pieces demonstrate. But everything she does is for the curmudgeonly knife thrower… what will happen when he has eyes to see the face of his guardian angel?

Song is a melodrama with some mad plot turns but Eichberg tells it well enough helped by some excellent cinematography from Heinrich Gärtner and the designs of Willi Herrmann. Whilst Mary Kid makes for an unconvincing ballerina, Heinrich George makes for a believable thrower of knives and, of course, Anna May Wong's smile and ready tears steal the show.

Stephen Horne said that, as a young accompanist, he had played along to Song sight unseen (the days before preview discs) and the film’s frequent narrative lurches had made for an engaging challenge. Today he knew what was coming and flute, accordion and piano were deployed to compelling effect.

Song may not be a great film but, in this cinema and with this musician playing it was a very entertaining one and if all else failed, it still showcases one the era’s best actors in a role of some depth... and, had he been here today, I'm certain Mordaunt Hall would have agreed!

Song is very rarely screened but is in very good condition… surely it’s worth a DVD release? If you liked Piccadilly you’ll probably like this too and if you’re a fan of Mr Horne’s unique lyricism you’ll want him playing on the release as well.

So come on Herr Copyright-Owner…