Home movies? Sirk in Germany 1934-35, Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-rays

 

Douglas Sirk is best known for his lavish Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s such as Magnificent Obsession (1954) and All That Heaven Allows (1955) – both featuring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman – up to Imitation of Life (1959) with Lana Turner and John Gavin. In 1955 he went to Ireland to film Captain Lightfoot with Hudson and it is here that he directed my Uncle Mike Nolan who played Willie the Goat! It’s an under-rated film but perhaps one for another day… Rock did give Mike a bracelet which he then gave to our Thelma though.

 

Born Hans Detlef Sierck in 1897 Sirk made a number of films in his native Germany before leaving in 1937 unable to risk the persecution of his Jewish wife. This set highlights three features all of which foreshadow the above later work with romantic tales that deal with clashes of cultures, the differing worlds of the rich and poor, the morally superior and “inferior”, royalty and new money. In these films people move in different circles and there’s plenty of social commentary as individuals connect in transgressive ways. The Power of Love but so much more.

 

I had to start with The Girl from Marsh Croft (Das Mädchen vom Moorhof) (1935) as it is based on Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf’s novella from 1908 which was first adapted for film by Victor Sjöström in 1917 starring Lars Hanson and Greta Almroth. The author was pleased with the outcome – she was by no means easily convinced – but I don’t know how she viewed this version. For me, it’s an equally good reading of the story with the focus on the moral strength of the titular character and the Christian faith and boggy myths that inform her thinking.

 

Helga Christmann is a wonderful creation here played by Hansi Knoteck who gives a performance of remarkable stillness and expressive tone, she had trained in ballet and her physicality is an important part of her impression here. She plays a lowly farm girl from the marshy edges of the community who has a child following an affair with the married farmer who employed her, Marten (Carl Jönsson). Driven by circumstance as well as morality she takes him to court for income support only to withdraw her claim to prevent him perjuring himself by swearing on the bible.

 

The judge shakes her hand, recognising her moral courage and she also impresses Karsten Dittmar (Kurt Fischer-Fehling) who subsequently gets her employment at his family farm after following her to the Marsh Croft as she contemplates her mortality. Sirk is in no doubt as to where our sympathies should be and he also presents the film with the lyrical beauty often found in Lagerlöf’s work. Soon Karsten is engaged to Gertrud Gerhart (Ellen Frank) from the richest farm in the area and she sees Helga as a threat but the rarest of Helga’s qualities is that she always does the right thing and what she feels she must do for everyone else, even at a cost to herself.

 

She is the most morally consistent character and whilst other’s learn from their mistakes as they go they eventually learn from her too. In his commentary Sirk expert David Melville Wingrove points out that in Sweden even working women such as Helga would have been educated enough to stand firm at this point but less so in the Germany Sirk relocated the story too but that only makes Helga more remarkable and I’m sure Selma would have agreed.

 

Some have described the film as a prototypical Heimatfilm which would place it firmly among the rural tales of nuclear family favoured by the Nazis and other extremists but whilst Wingrove brushes this aside I would agree given the still challenging nature if Helga’s situations; she’s a single mother with agency who follows her God and conscience first and foremost. To date the story has been made into seven films so the resonance is way beyond German nationalism and Selma’s proto-feminism drives the appeal.

 

Far from portraying a rural idyll, Sirk depicts an almost noirish view of the countryside, inhabited by proud, superstitious and reserved folk living in medieval dwellings and according to unforgiving social norms.

Tim Bergfelder, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Southampton – booklet essay.

  

Sirk’s first feature April! April! (1934) the German announcement for April Fool!  is an altogether different being a comedy of manners, deference, pasta manufacture and royalty with a surprisingly common touch… It too deals with behaviours of sectors of society and, in this case the hubris of the nouveau rich. Julius Lampe (Erhard Siedel) is a self-made pasta magnet whose product has bought him wealth and an arrogant assurance. Along with his wife, Mathilde (Lina Carstens) he hosts extravagant social occasions in which the gathered people of means must endure their ceaseless boasting.

 

One friend, Finke (Paul Westermeier) decides to teach them a lesson and sends them a letter supposedly from the Prince von Holsten-Böhlau, placing a large order for Lampe's noodles to take on an African expedition. The Lampes cannot contain their glee and read the good news out to the gathered throng forcing Finke to double down and pretending to be the Prince’s PA, phone up to arrange a visit to their factory.

 

Now things get complicated as Lampes discovers the deception but cannot lose face so arranges for a man named Müller (Hubert von Meyerinck) to play at being the Prince only for the real Prince (a splendid turn from Albrecht Schoenhals) to see the story in the newspaper and decide to visit for himself. Confusion reigns as the fresh Prince gets mistaken for the real one and vice versa with Lampes treating his royal highness as if he’s the phoney. Meanwhile the journey’s not a fruitless one for the actual Prince as he takes a shine to Lampes’ secretary Friedel (Carola Höhn) who is as down-to-earth as her employers are on another planet.

It's a hoot and showcases the German sense of humour as well as Sirk’s already impressive skills of performance management and narrative control.

 

The final feature, Pillars of Society (Stützen der Gesellschaft, 1935) was the director’s third and took it’s inspiration again from Scandinavia, this time Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen’s 1878 play. It’s a tale impossible to separate from the circumstances of its making with enough anti-capitalist/corrupting greed to satisfy both left and right as well as being what Bergfelder calls “an advance in Sirk’s staging and editing”. It’s very much a Play for Today featuring a corrupt and lying man who sacrifices the truth for profit and also has more children than he knows how to betray…

 

Oddly enough it also starts off in the United States where émigré Johann Tonnessen (Albrecht Schoenhals) has made a success as a farmer and after twenty years away decides to accompany his friend’s circus on their tour of his home country. This is inevitably going to be bad news for his former friend and business partner, Consul Karsten Bernick (Heinrich George) who is the titular pillar of society with wife Betty (Maria Krahn), ward Dina (Suse Graf) and his beloved son Olaf (Horst Teetzmann) who is strangely obsessed with America, cowboys and Native Americans.

 

Consul Bernick has lied his way to the top though, falsely accusing Johann of embezzlement to cover his mismanagement of the shipping firm they used to run together and so the latter gets the coolest of welcomes on his return even though both Dina and Olaf are immediately interested in Uncle Johanne’s adventures in the land of the free. Bernick has also spread the word that Dina is Johanne’s illegitimate daughter when in fact she is the result of his indiscretion.

Be sure, however, that your sins will find you out and sure enough everything unravels for the Consul as it is revealed that Johann committed no crime and his daughter is actually Bernick’s. As Bernick tries to buy himself time he forces one of his ships to set sail before being fully refitted and it steams off into trouble during a storm with Olaf stowed away in search of America…

 

There’s some splendid work as the ship battles the storm and Johann joins the locals in trying to rescue the boy… Will Bernick’s tragic lies create even more sorrow?  Once again, Sirk deals with different worlds and the natural justice for those who are true to themselves and others; it’s an affecting film even knowing that Heinrich George went on to make propaganda films for the new regime.

 

 

Also included in the set are Sirk’s shorts Two Greyhounds (Zwei Windhunde) (1934), Three Times Before (3 x Ehe) (1934) and The Imaginary Invalid (Der eingebildete Kranke) (1935). These were Sirk’s first three projects at UFA and gave him a chance to show what he could do away from the stage and with the help of experienced hands at the studio. All the films are on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK from brand-new restorations by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation.

 

It’s quite the package and provides an invaluable introduction to the formative work of this major director as well as a snapshot of German filmmaking during the early years of the Nazi government. By 1937 he had escaped with his wife to first France and then onto the USA and new stories which would eventually see him placed in the highest regard. This is where it all began.

 

There’s a must-have limited edition of just 2,000 copies including and O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow along with the following features:

 

·         New audio commentaries on all three features by Sirk expert David Melville Wingrove

·         Magnificent Obsessions – a new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall who gives an excellent overview of Sirk’s career from Germany to Hollywood

·         Optional English subtitles on all features and shorts

·         Alternate “sound” presentation of Three Times Before (made at the same time as the “silent version,” the original sound reel no longer exists – this version is presented with subtitles)

·         A limited collector’s booklet featuring a new extended essay on Sirk’s early works by German cinema expert Professor Tim Bergfelder

 

The set is released on Monday 24^th February so do not hesitate in placing your pre-order NOW via the Eureka website!

 

A thank you… Gösta Berlings saga (1924), BFI with John Sweeney

“ONCE there was a story that wanted to be told and sent out in the world.... As yet it was only a confused jumble of stories – a big, formless cloud of adventures rushing hither and thither like a swarm of stray bees on a summer's day, not knowing where they will find someone who can gather them into a hive.”

Selma Lagerlöf, The Story of a Story 

Gerda Lundequist’s family were there, my family were there and the silent film community turned out in numbers too for the screening of the Swedish Film Institute’s exhaustive restoration of one of the most important films from the golden age of Swedish silent film. It’s a long film and I tried to keep my introduction as broad and brief as possible before we launched ourselves back to the 1820s and Mauritz Stiller’s interpretation of Selma Lagerlöf’s classic novel featuring some of the finest actors of the period all accompanied by John Sweeney’s tirelessly epic improvisations on piano.

Gerda Lundequist plays Margaretha Samzelius, the matriarch of Ekeby, a grand estate in rural Värmland, and it was a genuine privilege to be joined by her granddaughter, singer and actress Sonja Kristina as her children and their children watched this rare example of their forebear on screen. Sonja knew Gerda as a child, meeting her in Sweden and England and the reconnecting with her grandmother in this sparkling restoration must have been special indeed.  Seeing Sonja’s young grandchildren cheer and wave in their animal masks as their Great, Great Granny was announced was also reminder of the familial joy of belonging.

Gerda Lundequist

For the rest of us there were other connections to be made not least the warmth of being a part of an audience of like-minded people who share the same love of cinema and specifically silent film, gathered again in this secular temple of committed, collaborative – endlessly generous – cineastes. People who programme who preserve and promote this era of film, “classic” but also timelessly true regardless of age or form. The emotions displayed by Gerda Lundequist and her peers are still part of human language and we connect with them in old familiar ways: yes this is true even after so long the family that stays together plays together.

Stiller did not have Victor Sjöström’s way with picking out the deeper humanity and magical reality from Selma Lagerlöf’s works and she was initially dismissive of this film only to have changed her mind by the mid-1930s when she met with Greta Garbo and thanked her and Stiller for the film. Garbo was just 18 when she started filming and still Gustafson before Stiller renamed this hottest of properties “Garbo” and she too was grateful to the man she later deemed her favourite director (sorry Clarence Brown!). He may have told her to lose weight and to stop moving like a farmer’s gatepost but he brought out her star power enough for Louis B Mayer to snap her up as soon as he could after seeing Gösta Berling in Berlin. Stiller came to America with her but he was never able to find the freedom and control he needed.

This was Stiller’s last Swedish film and with his departure was gone one of the fathers of the Golden Age. Soon his lead actor, Lars Hanson, was also to follow to play another cleric, The Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter (1926) alongside Lillian Gish who had insisted that Louis B Mayer make the film. Gish and LB were impressed with the cut of Hanson’s cassock and whilst The Internet has her requesting him post Gösta, this film came first. His performance is as assured and dynamic as Gerda’s and the scene in which she confronts him over his failings by sharing her own is one of the most moving in the entire film.

Jenny Hasselqvist posing for Henry Goodwin (1921)

You have to admire Stiller’s choices for the film, the stakes were high in terms of the pressure to succeed and off the largest budget assigned to that point by AB Svensk Filmindustri, and, whilst he took a big chance on his youngest lead, he was able to persuade not only the country’s leading stage actress and film actor but also its leading prima ballerina. Jenny Hasselqvist had worked with the director before on the little seen but very worthwhile Johan (1921), Guarded Lips (1921) as well as her first film, The Prima Ballerina (1916) just after she had started in that role at the Royal Swedish Ballet. As Marianne Sinclaire she represents a more forceful and knowing partner for our de-0frocked priest after the two are caught kissing during a play. Her control and physicality is brought to good use by Stiller as she is left in the cold, literally, by her cruel father and later gets caught in the burning inferno of Ekeby.

Garbo’s Elizabeth Dohna has deep eyes and longing looks and needed a good deal of coaching, lighting and editing from Stiller to hold her place among these consummate professionals.

 

All this we could see on the restoration and I am convinced that this screening led many to re-evaluate the film. The previous restoration is black and white, not so well paced and looks murky in parts whilst here the SFI have been able to sharpen the story as well as the image. The re-editing of some parts and introduction of tints and new sequences gives a richer story, as close as possible to the one first seen a century ago over two parts in March 1924.

 

I’d previously seen the restored film in Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023 in Bologna with a small ensemble accompanying but John Sweeney was a one-man orchestra, exploring his way expertly across the new running time and evoking the deeper humanity and grandeur of the film, connecting with the deeper meanings smuggled in from the original book which in many ways is so different from the film. It’s 400 pages long in the recent translation from Paul Norlen and whilst Sjöström would have turned that into three or four films, Stiller’s edit is remarkable for capturing the essence of these characters even if some of them changed…

Selma Lagerlöf calls the tune

At the end of the screening, I was thanked by complete strangers in the aisles as well as those I know but in truth I am the one who is grateful for the SFI, especially Jörgen Viman, Film Archivist, for restoring the film, the BFI for screening it, Bryony Dixon in particular and who kindly invited me to introduce it. I also must thank John Sweeney for playing so wonderfully and Sonja Kristina and her amazing family old and new, and all of you who attended and communed in the dark with these century-old ghosts. Thank you for reading too!

 

Thank you too to Selma Lagerlöf, who at the end of her Gösta Berlings saga leaves us with the cryptic clue to life:

 

Dear Reader… Here the giant bees of imagination have swarmed around us during years and days, but to get into the beehive of reality, they will truly have to keep their eyes open.

 

 

* The Saga of Gösta Berling (Penguin Classics), by Selma Lagerlöf, translated by Paul Norlen (2009) is available from all good bookshops and Amazon.

 

Cover of my 1924 Danish programme 

 

Look sharp! My year in silents, 2024.

As Millicent Martin – Daphne’s mum in Frasier – almost sang, That Was the Year, That Was and I realise that’s a cultural reference to a satirical TV show popular in the UK 60 years ago but the films I’m about to list are from half a century earlier so… keep up! We’re increasingly in a world in which everything is happening at the same time, an all-at-once cultural smorgasbord from which every generation picks what they want and new controversies rise from old in cinemas, Talking Pictures TV, $treaming sites and our beloved retailers. This is the best I can do in the post festive drop down especially as I don’t really do New Year. It’s always best to look beyond and push straight on through to the other side, even if that’s 2025 and all that goes with it but we can take it, we’ve not only been there and seen it all before, we’ve experienced it ever-present in films, books and what used to be called “social” media. So, I remember the passing year and rage into the next, thinking of the very best in my opinion and in no particular order!

 

1.       Get Your Man (1927) with Meg Morley, BFI

She will make a fine wife, son. Imagine an innocent young girl… in an age when there aren’t any!

The BFI kicked off the year with a couple of fine seasons, one focused on the iconoclastic programming of the old Scala cinema and another on the almost unique filmography of director Dorothy Arzner who was able to smash the Hollywood glass ceiling with a mixture of brilliance and independence. She worked with Bow on her first talkie, The Wild Party (1929), also screened, and this rarely-screened gem which was shown on a precious 35mm recovery/restoration and even though it’s still missing a couple of reels, still impressed as Clara’s supernatural energies were allowed full expression

It was indeed, as the BFI blurb put it, “a triumphant celebration of female sexuality…” a modern day fairy-tale set in France and where Bow’s character wins over the heart of rich boy Charles “Buddy” Rogers in a lovely sequence set in a wax museum choreographed by Arzner’s partner Marion Morgan. Clara’s pluck blows away every obstacle and dusty preconception as l’ancien régime has to surrender to classless, young love.

 

2.       The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric (1933), with Inge Thomson, Catriona Macdonald, HippFest at Home

This film sits amongst better-known works of the thirties showing island life on the extremes but actually predates Robert J. Flaherty’s docudrama Man of Aran (1934) – the Irish island, not Arran. Director Jenny Gilbertson (née Brown) had made a number of short documentaries and was encouraged to make this film by the great Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson, director of Drifters (1929) and the man who coined the term "documentary" in a review of Flaherty's Moana (1926).

The result is every inch as powerfully evocative as these other films with Jenny’s previous experience of the island, the documentary A Crofter’s Life in Shetland (1931), showing a year in the life of the rugged folk of Hjaltland… more Norse than Gallic and only 30 miles closer to Scotland than Norway. She was self-trained and this is even more remarkable when you consider that she not only wrote but filmed and edited her work. The Rugged Island is a drama and yet it still feels like a genuine intrusion on the lives being portrayed, the irony here being that Gilbertson’s was sometimes described as an “amateur” and yet clearly she was consummate in terms of technique and direction with only one professional actor - Enga Stout – with the rest being her friends and others she’d cast locally.

This is exactly why I shall be returning in person for the next Hippfest in March ’25!

3.       East Lynne (1913) Restoration Premiere with Colin Sell, Kennington Bioscope

Oh, Willie, my child dead, dead, dead! and he never knew me, never called me mother!

As Christopher Bird said in his introduction, East Lynne is not a lost film as such but when quality is, as Kevin Brownlow says, the main thing archive cinema has to sell itself to modern audiences, this film has certainly been missing in terms of the vibrancy, contrast and tasty tints we glimpsed today. Chris obtained an almost complete nitrate copy from a private collector which, compared with the black and white copy held by the BFI is missing the first reel but comes with an extra three minutes and those higher quality tints. Together with fellow Bioscoper Bob Geoghegan and the BFI the restoration work is ongoing and the hope is to present the finished item at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone.

Even Rachel Lowe admired this British film and it’s a visual feast as it is with good use of depth-of-field, form and texture by director Bert Haldane and his photographer Oscar Bovill. That said, there are some impressive performances from a very modern-looking cast led by Blanche Forsythe as Lady Isobel, handsome Fred Paul and the steadfast Archibald Carlyle and who-ever it was playing Barbara Hare, the sister of the man falsely accused of a murder committed by Isobel’s would be paramour, Captain Levison, as played with pantomime menace by Fred Morgan.

This screening was part of the Bioscope’s 7^th Silent Film Weekender and it’s hard to compete with the range and passion of this gathering of like minds in Charlie’s old workhouse.

 

4.       The Phantom Carriage (1921), with Stephen Horne, Kennington Bioscope

 

After a few years of this silent film business, you have seen most of the cannon and have your own list of The Greats but all such classifications are blown out of the window when you see a screening like tonight’s with the right venue, the right audience and a supernatural accompaniment from Mr Stephen Horne that not only sent chills but brought out the full flavour of Victor Sjöström’s film and, indeed his own performance.

Not only was Sjöström probably Sweden’s finest silent film maker, he ranks as one of the finest of any era. Here with his fourth adaptation of one of Selma Lagerlöf’s works, he shows again why he is such a good interpreter of her work. Selma’s work is passionate and poetic and deceptively complex in expression and narrative form but I think Sjöström got her depth of meaning more than his contemporaries Stiller and Molander. As his thoroughly-disturbing performance shows, he may well have had a personal connection with this story as Chris Bird suggested in his introduction, for the Swede’s father was abusive and alcoholic just as his character David Holm. A film that never ceases to smash through the door and grab you.

Gerda Lundquist

5.       Gösta Berling’s Saga (1924), with Matti Bye, Eduardo Raon and Silvia Mandolini, Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII

"Finally, the vicar was in the pulpit..."

It’s fair to say that my Christmas came early with this presentation of this latest version from the Swedish Film Institute which is not just a restoration of the Saga but a remix and extended cut being not only some 20 minutes longer than the 1975 restoration which most of us have only seen up till now via the Kino release. It’s also in a slightly different narrative order with the party sequences and their two dramatic exiles re-sequenced as well as variations elsewhere, with a more dynamic mix for the burning of Ekeby and Gösta’s rescue of Marianne, a longer intro and new intertitles that carry more of the original author’s poetic wonder.

Now, I’m not saying that Mauritz Stiller’s magnificent adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s epic novel is perfect in fact there’s a reason he was no higher than her second favourite film director of the Nobel Prize winning author*, but the ambition wins you over along with incredible lead performances. Lars Hanson oozes confusion guilt and self-loathing, Gerda Lundequist – Sweden’s Sarah Bernhardt, a legendary stage actor – brings her power and poise to the screen whilst Jenny Hasselqvist, who had a parallel career as prima ballerina with the Royal Swedish Ballet, is magnetic, micro-managing physicality with emotional expression. There’s also young Greta Gustafson who radiates an unknowing allure that would see her soon off to Hollywood with a name change, some dental work and flattering lighting.

The restoration is crisp and revelatory, never has the camera work of the great Julius Jaenzon here looked so fine from the gorgeous sweeps of the lakes and forests to the shots on set and the performer’s expressions. It’s an epic restored in an epic way and I can’t wait to see it again at the BFI on Sunday 19^th January where I promise to keep my introduction short and to the point!

Ticket details here!

 

6.       Judex (1915-16), accompanied by many hands, Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII

 

I can’t deny that there was a sense of triumph having watched the whole series and thoroughly enjoyed Louis Feuillade’s sense of drama, his eye for dynamic framing, his direction and team building and his ability to keep the narrative ball rolling even when you think he’s backed himself into a dramatic dead end. That’s 12 episodes and one big Prologue with not a second missed for lack of sleep, breakfast or headache… probably!

 

It's not quite up there with Les Vampires but it does have the essentiality of Musidora playing Diana Monti aka Marie Verdier, a scheming opportunist who becomes more and more dominant the longer the story unwinds. Judex himself as played by René Cresté, is a goodie version of Fantômas, part Sherlock Holmes, maybe part Eugène-François Vidocq – an actual French criminal turned criminalist. Feuillade had been criticised for glorifying his evil masterminds and so here was one of good intent even if he does kidnap and fake the death of the businessman responsible for his father’s death and many others, Favraux (Louis Leubas) before imprisoning him for life in a remote castle. And that’s just the start…

7.       Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em (1926), BFI with Meg Morley

 

This blog has been driven by obsession and a subjective emotional “canon” from its earliest days (no, please don’t look!) and Louise Brooks has, of course been the main one, with a copy of Pandora’s Box on DVD bought from a second-hand shop in Park Street, Bristol in 2005 starting off the whole interest – yes, Bristol, it’s really your fault! This film is one of the few remaining unseen on-screen and viewing the BFI’s worn, warm and wonderful 16mm flickering on the NFT2 screen, with Meg Morley’s wonderful syncopations and sparkling improvisations following an introduction from Bryony Dixon has, to paraphrase the poet, helped make not only my day, my week, my month and even my year.

They may have been chalk and cheese but Evelyn Brent and Louise Brooks make for a good team in this light-hearted drama in which the former plays the sensible big sister who has to rescue her less sensible sibling from all kinds of trouble. It’s a gas and we do get to see Brooksie dance which is always a bonus!

 

Conchita Montenegro

8.       The Woman and the Puppet (1929), with Günter A. Buchwald, Bonn Silent Film Festival 2024 streaming

Every so often a silent film not only surprises you but pulls you to the edge of your armchair and has you blinking at the screen in delight. So, it is with the story and the actress in La femme et le pantin (1929) in which Conchita Montenegro’s dancer not only beguiles and bewilders her puppet, Don Mateo, she completely un-mans him in the most feminist of ways reaching right out from 1929 with dazzling power and beauty. If anyone has a thousand ships that need launching… here’s your woman!

 

Based on Pierre Louÿs’ 1898 novel of the same name, the story was adapted as an opera in 1911 by composer Riccardo Zandonai, and it was also filmed as That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) by Luis Buñuel. The first film version was an American film made in 1920 and directed by Reginald Barker, starring Geraldine Farrar, which is a little surprising given Louÿs’ background of erotic prose and poetry. Indeed, he was the man to whom Oscar Wilde dedicated the original French publication of Salome. Director de Baroncelli’s film is presumably far bolder than any Hollywood film could have been as, indeed, is his star performer and, it’s difficult to see anything like a literal adaptation being made anywhere else but France at this time. It is an eye-popping and an expectation-confounding work!

 

9.       The Blue Bird (1918) with Neil Brand and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

Maurice Tourneur's film featured regular collaborators such as art director Ben Carré, cinematographer John van den Broke and editor Clarence Brown. This was silent psychedelia in full bloom at a time when the World needed to believe in eternal truths and the truth of eternity. When in the heart of their fantastic journey to find the Blue Bird, the two youngsters meet not only their dead grandparents but their dead brothers and sisters, there are at least ten of them... this was a time when infant mortality was high and life came with the flimsiest of "guarantees".

The film is a sumptuous collection of such moments and visual set pieces, a hyper-creative comfort blanket that smuggles through the simple message that there's not only no place like home but that kindness must spread out from there into the heart-broken World beyond. Tourneur draws pure and naturalistic performances from his cast of children, 12-year old Tula Belle as Mytyl and Robin Macdougall as Tyltyl who react and act with genuine thrill to every new wonder. It's a child's film with many adult concerns.

The accompaniment from Neil Brand on piano and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry on harp brought the magic out across the auditorium and melted our stubborn hearts.

 

10.   Saxaphon-Susi (1928) with Neil Brand, Frank Bockius and Francesco Bearzatti, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

 

Miss Saxophone was the most legal of highs, a mood-altering event with fabulous cast and sincerely joyous accompaniment from a powerhouse ensemble that left the Teatro Verdi at severe risk of an outbreak of dancing! Up on screen we had Anny Ondra showing us how fine she could look and how well she could dance and also make comedy – not for nothing should she have been called the Czech Republic’s Queen of Happiness or maybe most of Europe’s. She plays Anni von Aspen, a poor little rich girl daughter of the lecherous Baron von Aspen (the marvellous Gaston Jacquet) who wants to trade places with her working gal pal Susi Hille (Mary Parker), a cabaret dancer who gets the chance to become a Tiller Girl in London. They swap assignments with Susi heading off to posh school and Anni having to learn her dancing ropes fast.

On the boat over they meet some fine English gentlemen including Lord Herbert Southcliffe (Malcolm Tod) who takes a bet that he can get in to meet the Tiller Girls backstage and then another bet that he will marry this special one called Susi (Anni)… It’s not much of a plot but it’s enough to make this amongst the most enjoyable and warmest of comedies with this fabulously charming cast.

Any programmers reading… I think I’d like to see this one again please! 

 

Ra Messerer

11.   The Second Wife (1927) with Gunter Buchwald and Frank Bockius, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

 

To Uzbekistan and this extraordinary film from Mikhail Devonov based on a story by Lolakhon Saifullina, a polish woman who married an Uzbek man and converted to Islam. It’s a reflection of the enormity of the old USSR and the challenges Moscow faced in co-ordinating so many diverse cultures into one modernising state. Saifullina worked for the Sharq Yulduzi studio writing scripts sensitive to the issues of Uzbeki women her along with former legal consultant Valentina Sobberey. The result is a tale in which women and children are exploited by old male custom and dominance even as the modern day watcher is aware of the wider context of Stalin’s impending first Five Year Plan and the eventual costs of converting an agrarian economy into an industrialised one.

Director Devonov does not lapse into bucolic orientalism and focuses on the story and the depiction of prevalent practices of early marriage and polygamy. Here a merchant’s first wife Khadycha cannot have children and so he has a second wife, Adoliat (Ra Messerer) who can.  A child duly arrives and Khadycha tries to destroy her competitor. She is far from alone in malevolence as his brother Sadiqbai (Mikhail Doronin), steals money whilst his older brother is away and also preys on young boys, as things escalate elsewhere. It’s propagandist but still shows the harshness of unresolved “tradition” and male power.

 

Eille looks down at Alexandra Palace, photo credit Yves Salmon 

12.   Silent Sherlock, London Film Festival, Alexandra Palace Theatre with Neil Brand, Joseph Havlat and Joanna MacGregor with Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble

 

This was the grandest of archival screenings at the London Film Festival for some time and featured the first fruits of the BFI’s restoration of Stoll Films Sherlock Holmes films. The Stoll corporation made three series of 15 episodes and two feature films, all featuring Eille Norwood as the great detective a performer that Conan Doyle approved of in the role, both on stage and on screen. The three films featured new scores from Neil Brand, Joseph Havlat and Joanna MacGregor who conducted the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble, leading from the piano.

 

The programme is ongoing and I can’t wait for the further adventures of both the BFI Restoration Team as well as The Great Detective in 2025.

 

My 1924 Danish promotional booklet... Book Now for 19th!!

 

*Lagerlöf berated Mauritz Stiller for his adaptation of The Gösta Berling Saga calling it “cheap and sensational”.

Day by Day in Bologna… Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVIII

Catherine Deneuve is the cover girl from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

 

OK, after catching up on work and sleep, what was my pick from eight days of relentless cinema, meeting some of the finest cinephiles in the world and an unquantifiable amount of coffee, brioche, ragu and, dear reader I must be honest, Aperol Spritz. In no particular order, these are my personal highlights, from a festival you start off with the best of intentions, 6-7 sessions a day for eight days, what could go wrong? Answer: nothing, the Ritrovato experience you get is the one that you deserve and the one that suits you best!

 10.   Kohlhiesel’s Töchter/Kohlhiesel’s Daughters (1920), with John Sweeney, Il Cinema Modernissimo

 

The funniest thing of the week and a major Lubitsch I had yet to see featuring Emil Jannings acting his age and being charming as part of a couple of chaps trying to woo sisters played by Henny Porter who proves what a superb talent she was, not only with her highly persuasive physicality but also timing. She plays the kind-natured Gretel who wants to marry but, following her father’s instructions, can’t until her elder sister, Liesel (also Henny), weds first. The problem is that Liesel is as bitter as her sibling is sweet and more of a match for either Jannings’ Peter or Gustav von Wangenheim’s Paul by any measure.

It's fast-paced and utterly charming and very much cut from the same cloth as the Ossi Oswalda comedies and those with Pola Negri which the director made before and after. Shot against an alpine background by Theodor Sparkuhl, it was the feel-good hit of the week which I thought I’d missed only to find it re-played on the last day.

John Sweeney’s playing was on another level, i.e., the same at the film’s, and his emphatic flourishes continued to fill the gorgeously restored Modernissimo right till the end of the credits. I trust it won’t be long before we see Lubitsch’s 34^th film (including shorts) screening in London with John playing as a pre-requisite!

Emil Jannings und Henny Porten

9. It’s a family affair… Judex (1915-16), accompanied by many hands, Cinema Mastroianni

On the final Saturday as all the mystery and loose ends were tied up I emerged triumphant from the Mastroianni having watched the whole series and thoroughly enjoyed Louis Feuillade’s sense of drama, his eye for dynamic framing, his direction and team building and his ability to keep the narrative ball rolling even when you think he’s backed himself into a dramatic dead end. That’s 12 episodes and one big Prologue with not a second missed for lack of sleep, breakfast or headache… probably!

It's not quite up there with Les Vampires but it does have the essentiality of Musidora playing Diana Monti aka Marie Verdier, a scheming opportunist who becomes more and more dominant the longer the story unwinds. Judex himself as played by René Cresté, is a goodie version of Fantômas, part Sherlock Holmes, maybe part Eugène-François Vidocq – an actual French criminal turned criminalist - certainly an outlier for The Shadow, Doc Savage and even The Batman. Feuillade had been criticised for glorifying his evil masterminds and so here was one of good intent even if he does kidnap and fake the death of the businessman responsible for his father’s death and many others, Favraux (Louis Leubas) before imprisoning him for life in a remote castle.

Judex has worked a long game, disguised as Favraux’s secretary, to infiltrate his business dealings. His plan is soon complicated when he falls in love with the banker’s daughter, Jacqueline (Yvette Andréyor) who is soon targeted by the evil Monti! There’s great support from Vampires’ alumni Édouard Mathé as brother Roger and Marcel Lévesque as the comedic Cocantin whose swimming-costume clad fiancée Miss Daisy Torp (Lily Deligny) helps save the day. The kids are alright too and Le petit Jean (Olinda Mano) and The Liquorice Kid (Rene Poyen) deserved their own series!

 

Musidora, aka Jeanne Roques

8. Quo Vadis? (1924) with Neil Brand, Eduardo Raon and Frank Bockius, Cinema Mastroianni

This was an attempt to repeat the pre-war success of the Italian epic’s including Enrico Guazzoni’s massive 1912 adaptation of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s 1895 novel, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero. It was an Italian German co-production followed on with a cast of thousands, gigantic sets (real and constructed) and the combined star power of Lillian Hall-Davis’ nuanced emoting and Emil Jannings’ protean excess. Larger than life and twice as tiring, his Nero offers Lillian’s frail Licia the world and we cower behind her in the darkness as her faith rises up as the only defence against the monstrous ego of the man who is Empire.

It's saucy in a Cecil B DeMille way with snatches of nudity and a-typical sexuality along with elaborate displays of Roman cruelty which peaks in the Colosseum and in a genuinely gripping chariot race that hasn’t been seen in the length or detail for many years until this superb restoration. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable effort that was surprisingly not a success at the time, perhaps too opulent for German audiences and too close to the bone for the newly fascist Italians… I’d love to know more about how it was received in those early days of Il Duce…

 

Neil  Brand accompanied across the two parts on piano assisted by Eduardo Raon on harp for part one and Frank Bockius on drums for the epic finale on drums… the players were perfectly aligned with the momentum of the film with Rome’s dangerous beauty giving way to death and destruction and ultimate martial revenge by the end of a story that had already been told many times.

 

Emil harasses our Lil'!

7. He Who Gets Slapped (1924), with Laura Agnusdei, Simone Cavina, Stefano Pilia and Antonio Raia, Il Cinema Modernissimo

Of films I had already seen multiple times, this, The Wind, The Last Laugh et al, I was most interested in seeing this one having missed it recently at the Kennington Bioscope. In the plush Modernissimo it was accompanied by an ensemble featuring Laura Agnusdei (tenor sax and electronica), Simone Cavina (percussion and electronica), Stefano Pilia (guitar and electronica), Antonio Raia (sax, chalumeau/clarinet and “oggetti” … objects?), whose modern stylings overlayed and enhanced the action on screen in new ways.

That said, this is one of the hardest-hitting Hollywood films of the twenties as you’d expect from the mighty Victor Sjöström, certainly the most successful Swedish director in the US who was able to maintain his approach across this and work with Garbo and Gish. Here he brings out the full flavour of Lon Chaney in a film that breaks your heart which as Ehsan Khoshbakht describes in the catalogue as about the act of “de-clowning… only the vile and ignorant laugh at the clown”. As my friend, the poet Ged Griffith, used to say after a few Jamesons, “Life’s a walking shadow, nah-nah, na-nah-nah…”

Lon Chaney: if you don't have a fear of clowns, perhaps you should re-consider?

 

6. The Searchers (1956), Piazza Maggiore

I only managed two screenings at the big Piazza this year as a result of rain and other distractions but Coppola’s Conversation was not as engaging on the grand screen as John Ford’s masterwork. Rarely has John Wayne been this monumentally frightening, dark eyes staring out across the vastness of the west in search of revenge and the restoration of his culture. There’s some jokey sequences but nothing really dents the full force of this film which continues to evolve in its meaning as the West in general seeks answers to the same issues of invasion, cohabitation and peaceful evolution. This is a film made at a time closer to the tail-end of the Wild West in the 1880s than to now, struggles still just about in living memory for a United States still ill at ease with its diversity.

Screened from 70mm on the biggest screen the film was introduced by Wim Wenders who has made the pilgrimage to Monument Valley, Arizona and wondered at the audacity of filming entirely at this location. It was something to view in a fresh light, immersive and impactful making us feel the filmmakers’ anew with even the plastic seats not distracting from the two hours on mental horseback.

 

The big country

 5. Chemi bebia/My Grandmother (1929), with Cleaning Women, Il Cinema Modernissimo

Due to unseasonal rain, this screening of Chemi bebia (My Grandmother) was moved from the Piazza Maggiore to the Cinema Modernissimo which only served to amplify the intensity of Kote Mikaberidze‘s film and the extraordinary accompaniment of Finland’s Cleaning Women. Now then modern scores for silent films can be controversial but this film is so out of time with its Dadaist energy that an avant-alt-post-rock-post-jazz-experimental-industrial set played by a group consisting of three cleaning robots (CW01, CW03 and CW04) ended up being perfect.

Chemi bebia defies easy summation and that’s from one of the only two people in the stalls who had seen it before but, essentially, it’s a film highlighting the damaging impact of bureaucracy on the revolutionary project with so many self-serving idiots only responding to the appearance of the Universal Worker (or similar). It’s one of the oddest and funniest propaganda films ever made and even more so with the “cleaners” quirky propulsion. Mop and Bowl on home-made instruments!

4. Scuola D'Eroi (1914) Daniele Furlati and Silvia Mandolini, Cinema Mastroianni

Meanwhile, back in the Golden Age of Italian Cinema, we watched an early film from one of the three great Dive, without which no CR is complete for some. This was not yet the imperious Pina Menichelli of her most successful period but she draws the eye in one of her first major roles dominates the screen whenever her character, Rina Larive is in shot even alongside Amleto Novelli and certainly the more established Gianna Terribili Gonzales.

Directed by Enrico Guazzoni – who made the 1912 Quo Vadis as well as other classical classics … Scuola d’eroi is an Napoleonic epic and I mean epic, straggling decades, family lost and found and with the fortunes of war and love all tangled together. Pina plays Rina, sister of Carlo, Amleto, who during a Napoleonic campaign, having been separated from their father as children and raised by a kindly farmer, get caught up years later in another with the emperor playing his part in recognising the courage of the family and saving them from the machinations of bad-faith nobility.

Daniele Furlati provided suitably spirited accompaniment on piano with Silvia Mandolini on violin, flavouring and enhancing during battles scenes and the moments of highest tension. Italian silent film of this era carried its heart on its sleeve and this was a very affecting screening of a fresh restoration from a nitrate positive held by the Cineteca Milano. It is the only tinted copy currently in existence and close to the original running time.

 

Pina Menichelli

3. 1904: Un Anno Magnifico, Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius, Piazetta Pier Paolo Pasolini

There are moments in every festival when you settle down and suddenly feel at the heart of the event, watching the perfect film and listening to just the right accompaniment and this happened on this rain-delayed outdoor event on the Thursday with a selection of shorts from 1904, A Magnificent Year indeed! I decided on the Pasolini’s carbon arc projector rather than watching the restoration of The Wind in the Piazza Maggiore – with orchestra! – and was rewarded with such rare delights!

We started with the breakneck gymnastics of Les Cambrioleurs modernes – often wrongly attributed as from a later year – which featured a stunningly synchronised troupe playing cops and robbers by throwing themselves in and out of a set full of trap doors. Clearly a stage act rehearsed tot the finest degree this was still a marvel to observe in real-time with no trickery. There was plenty of time for that with Georges Méliès' Détresse et Charité - The Christmas Angel and Match de prestidigitation but most of these films just used the new media to show actuality, whether it was the British Fleet being inspected at Spithead or A Miner’s Daily Life from RW Paul.

There was plenty of magic though with Gaston Velle’s silhouetted Burglars at Work showing what the camera can do as well as his deliciously hand coloured Métamorphoses du papillon with unknown dancer changing in front of our very eyes. And then, then we had a song as Frank Bockius performed the missing vocals from Henry Bender in a hand-coloured take of over-fed babies he would have performed at Berlin’s Metropol-Theatre. It was a job well done as indeed was the entire accompaniment from both payers with the memory of Stephen’s flute reverberating high into the clear skies as likely to linger as his partner’s percussion and vocalisation!

2. Re-building Jerusalem… Ingmarsarvet (1925), Andre Desponds and Frank Bockius / Till Österland (1926), Neil Brand, Cinema Mastroianni

 

This list isn’t really in order but the top two are such has been my pre-occupation with Selma Lagerlof and the tsars of these three films, notably the extraordinary ballerina Jenny Hasselqvist. I’ve gone on at length elsewhere but it was such a joy to see Gustaf Molander’s two films based on the author’s Jerusalem and I am so grateful to the Swedish Film Institute for the work they have done in restoring and reconstructing them.

More raving here...

1. Ekeby at last! Gösta Berling’s Saga (1924), Matti Bye, Eduardo Raon and Silvia Mandolini, Cinema Mastroianni

Having waited years to see this film on the big screen, I was also more than eager to see the results of the last five years’ worth of restoration and was in no way disappointed by the clarity and the majesty of this re-ordered and extended version of Mauritz Stiller’s work; perhaps not his best but my favourite anyway. Jenny, Greta Garbo, Lars and, especially Gerda Lundequist all shine as never before and the restoration and broader appreciation of filmmakers and the author Selma Lagerlöf will rightfully benefit.

More detailed appreciation here...

I saw much more though easily missing my 50-film target and apart from the silents enjoyed talkies as diverse as Morocco (1930), En Natt (1931) – Gerda again! - The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), Coeur de Lilas (1932) and Tirez sur le pianiste (1960). There was also a beautiful film of Anna Pavlova (USA-GB/1924-1954) which brought me close to tears with John Sweeney’s accompaniment.

 

As with life it’s best to celebrate what you saw rather than mourn what you missed and so, with hope in my heart, I look forward to revisiting many of the above and catching up, if the programmers so will it, with the rest.

Grazie mille Bologna and Il Cineteca Ritrovato! Ci vediamo nel 2025!

My copy of a 1924 Danish Gosta booklet

 

Ekeby at last! Gösta Berling’s Saga (1924), with Matti Bye, Eduardo Raon and Silvia Mandolini, Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII

 

"Finally, the vicar was in the pulpit..."

Sometimes at these festivals your day is done after you’ve just seen something that resonates with such force you don’t want to spoil the mood or otherwise break the spell that was so brilliantly cast by the film and musical accompaniment. So it was that I retired to just stay as long as possible in the moment of having just seen and been seen, by Mauritz Stiller’s magnificent adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s epic novel. Now, I’m not saying the film is perfect in fact there’s a reason he was no higher than her second or third favourite film director of the Nobel Prize winning author, but like Heaven’s Gate, Greed and several works by Monsieur Gance – one of which was frustratingly counter-programmed against this one… - the ambition wins you over along with incredible performances.

Lagerlöf’s name is on the film after, against her better judgement, she signed off on Stiller and Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius original script which changed during production; she called the result “cheap and sensational”. The film takes considerable liberties in its mash-up of the novel’s narrative with some events happening at different parts of the arc and to different characters and, indeed buildings… Characters are changed with Gösta himself much more charming – how can he fail, he’s played by Lars Handsome? - whilst Countess Elisabeth is not quite the strong character she becomes as she leads the fallen priest towards a better, humbler life. She’s played by Greta Garbo of course in her first film, yet to master her craft and here just 19 and about to learn very quickly in Hollywood.

Needless to say, the Majoress and Marianne are women of agency in both, with the latter pushing Gösta away, refusing his offer to stay with the woman who has lost her beauty after smallpox although Jenny Hasselqvist still looks wonderful to my eyes. More than ever though this screening showed the Swedish Sarah Bernhardt, the great Gerda Lundequist, in full force as Margaretha Samzelius, the Major’s wife and mistress of the estate of Ekeby in Varmland. She has the most expressive face and know exactly how to play for the camera with delicate hand movements and shifts in expression that bely the fact she only made four films. One of these, One Night/En Natt (1931) was shown as part of the Gustaf Molander strand and she is fabulous too in a smaller role; along with Bea Lilley in Exit Smiling, her display in Gösta is one of the greatest of those who only made a single silent film.

Gerda Lundequist

Selma’s women are so strong – as you’d expect from her own life story – and this is one of the most fascinating aspects of this epic, so many female characters are creating their own direction, making their own mistakes and standing up for what they believe in… which raises the question, was Selma Lagerlöf “woke”? She was certainly a force to be reckoned with and a pioneer with a big prize to prove it!!

The magic realism of the novel is dropped almost completely in favour of the pure drama and the poetic world created by Lagerlöf is given less room for melding myths and legends with the characters such as Sintram, the cavaliers… dozens of finely wrought episodes punctuate the main story with meanings only emerging from within the text as you search for the link. Lagerlöf was so adept at subtext but also so disciplined in building the “spirit” of the book; the place and the people of Varmland are vibrantly interconnected in ways that are frankly still inspiring. *

Now then, back to the digital wonders on screen, this latest version from the Swedish Film Institute is not just a restoration of Gösta but a remix and extended cut being not only some 20 minutes longer than the 1975 restoration which most of us have only seen up till now via the Kino release, but also in a different narrative order with the party sequences and their two exiles are re-sequenced and there are variations elsewhere, with a more dynamic mix for the burning of Ekeby and Gösta’s rescue of Marianne, a longer intro and new intertitles that carry more of the original author’s poetic wonder.

Lars/Gösta and Jenny/Marianne (after the ravages of smallpox)

Never has the camera work of the great Julius Jaenzon looked so fine from the gorgeous sweeps of the lakes and forests to the shots on set and the performer’s expressions. It’s the quality this film deserves and to be able to focus on individuals’ emoting is a delight with Jenny Hasselqvist and Lars Hanson being, in their own ways, two of the most talented of all silent actors, the former all force and subtlety and the latter bringing her world-class balletic movement and grace to the fore along with a remarkable ability to radiate changing emotions through very controlled raising of the angle of her face, a flash of the eyes or hands raised in grief.

As with the original release, the film was split into two parts with Matti Bye’s specially written score forming the basis for extemporisation with Eduardo Raon on harp for the first part and Silvia Mandolini, on violin, for the second. Eduardo has been a feature of this edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato and his use of effects peddles brings a whole range of tonality and atmospherics which served the statelier pace of the first half. Silvia’s violin could have been played by the demonic Sintram himself for the fiery climax and the iconic chase across the ice as wolves pursue Gösta and Elisabeth was breathless before the piano and strings played out an inspiration and elegiac conclusion.

For a film I’ve waited a decade or more to see online and a restoration I first heard mentioned in 2018 in Pordenone… there was a lot at stake; I set bad personal expectation when I had a Lars and Gerda t-shirt made for the occasion. The SFI delivered though as did Stiller, the film and all his cast with the aid of these three musicians. Selma might not have completely approved but this film is part of her living legacy and I hope it, along with other famous works from Stiller and Sjostrom especially, along with the two Molander films screening later in the festival, will see interest in her work increase.

As the authorial voice at the end of the book ponders… “the giant bees of Fancy have thronged about us… but how they are to enter the beehives of Reality is surely their own affair.”

Make of that what you will dear reader.

Hang on lads, I've got an idea...

 

*Translating in words and film

I am basing this on a reading of the most recent translation, the first in a century, from Paul Norlen – previously awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize in 2004 – who is closer to the spirit and intent of the original work than contemporary translators such as the well-intentioned but over fussy and interventionist, Velma Swanston Howard.

In terms of filmmakers “getting” her work, according to Paolo Cherchi Usai in The Oxford History of World Cinema, it was the author’s admiration for Sjöström’s films that led her to sign over the film rights for all her books to Svenska Bio and he adds that the director “found in her work the ideal expression of the active role played by nature in the destiny of characters torn between good and evil.”

Greta in glorious tints!!

Lars in even more clarity

Even more snow for Jenny

Sadly that inter-title has been changed...