Three’s a charm… Early Universal Vol 1, Eureka Blu-ray

More seasonal lolling about watching my presents, this time a box set of three Universal films, fully restored and issued on Blu-ray at a very reasonable price and with essays and commentary on what could be regarded as lesser works in the silent film "cannon". All three are, however, very well made and feature noteworthy participants, they represent popular films from Hollywood's golden age and act as fine examples of the type of film that made up most of Universals output and which were enjoyed by large portions of the film-going audience.  In historical terms, there’s no such thing as “standard fare” and these films may well have had a wider audience than many an arthouse classic. So play on...

The Shakedown (1929), 4K Restoration

 

Directed by some fella name of William Wyler, this fast-paced morality tale features The Crowd’s remarkable James Murray in only the second film I’ve seen him in and he’s good, very good, making his life-struggle with addiction all the more tragic, as if anything could. He was so bright and not only soul full of light and shade but also physically brave, seen here rising high onto an oil rig and in the ring going toe to toe with boxer and professional wrestler George Kotsonaros. The latter appeared in Beggars of Life (1928) and others, but his life ended tragically too in a 1933 car accident.

James Murray

By contrast, Barbara Kent made it to 2011 and 103 years of age although her career petered out in the mid thirties while she was only in her twenties. So it goes and the other star of this film Jack Hanlon, would have further grounds for complaint, with a film career that ended he was just 16… a smashing child actor who became simply too old for the job.

 

Everyone acts well in this film with Wyler moving things at a pace and incorporating comedy, love, criminality and some excellent late silent period dolly shots following the cast along streets and in the boxing ring. In the excellent booklet with this set, Richards Comb talks of Wyler’s later acknowledged “deep-focus look” and “the ability to hold many actors, in different planes of action, across the screen…”. Combs startling evidence of this in The Shakedown starting with the early set up of the scam at the heart of the story.

 

James Murray and Barbara Kent at the fun fair

It’s the way the director and his cinematographers Charles Stumar and Jerome Ash, show the action in the bar where Murray’s character Dave is showing his boxing skills. He’s challenged by a rough-looking type, boxer Battling Roff (Kotsonaros) and as the bruiser tries to hit Dave, the action is seen from behind him at the bar and the street outside is fully visible. Then the camera view shifts to the reverse as Dave talks to a young woman at the doorway, back inside as Roff spots her, then outside tracking her walking away and being followed by Roff, back to Dave who moves to intervene and rush to the damsel’s distress.

 

Dave knocks down Roff and the latter’s manager (Wheeler Oakman) steps in saying the two should settle things in the ring where Dave could win $1,000 if he lasts three rounds. The contest agreed, the manager starts taking bets from the gathered crowd… we’re sucked in, and the next shot shows a hotel room with Dave, Roff, the girl and even the two guys arguing about who would win, all in on the scam. It’s quality filmmaking and I’m not surprised that Wyler spent months planning the project.

The excitement is in tents.

The rest of the film shows Dave setting up another scam in a new town only this time he gets too involved helping a young boy called Clem – tough and lonely as he once was – and falling for the girl he works with at the oil company, Marjorie (Barbara Kent). Will the outcome be different this time? Wyler packs a lot into a relatively short film and the climax is intense; you really care about Murray’s characters! A very proficient Hollywood film and a delight for rainy seasonal afternoons and any time really.

 

The film comes with a new score by Michael Gatt and commentary by film writer Nick Pinkerton.

 

The Shield of Honor (1927), 2K Restoration

 

Directed by Emory Johnson a one-time actor whose career faltered after the silent era and who directed the superb news-based action thriller The Last Edition (1925), this is another exciting feature even though it starts off like a promotional film for the LAPD.

Ralph Lewis and Neil Hamilton

The LAPD has a new weapon in the fight against crime, an airplane that is going to be piloted by one Jack MacDowell (Neil Hamilton, later Adam West’s Commissioner Gordon, a fact I love). Jack is the son of long-termer Dan played by Ralph Lewis who was so good in The Last Edition who although only 55 is tasked with playing a man ten years older and on the point of forced retirement. Dan is a natural cop and is still fit and raring to carry on. Naturally events conspire to give both father and son the chance to prove themselves and in the most heart-warming fashion.

 

A jewellers run by police supporter, Matthew O'Day (Fred Esmelton) has been infiltrated by a bad sort, Robert Chandler (Nigel Barrie) who is working with gangster A.E. Blair (Harry Northrup) on an elaborate plan to defraud the company by making it pay to get by diamonds already stolen from its vaults. Chandler is assisted by a woman working as a secretary for O’Day, Flora (a young and feisty Thelma Todd), and even an odd-job man; this caper is well organised.

The gang with Thelma Todd on typewriter

But even the best laid plans can go awry and when they do O’Day’s daughter Gwen (Dorothy Gulliver) – Jack’s sweetheart – gets caught up as does Dan who is retired but working as a guard at O’Day’s. Chandler plans to fly his ill-gotten gains away but his is not the only plane in town… the finale is dynamic and multi-channelled – planes crash and burn, a woman gets locked in a safe in a burning building, the tough very much get going, men fight and a dog barks! It’s breathless and the likeable cast make it work very well.

 

The film comes with a new score by Alex Kovacs and audio commentary by professor and film scholar Jason A. Ney.

Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926) 4K Restoration

 

I once saw Kevin Brownlow introduced this film at the Kennington Bioscope and he described how he’d met its star, Reginald Denny, in 1964, many years after the British actor’s silent heyday and after decades of playing stock English characters in the talkies. Brownlow projected the film for Denny and his family and, despite the actor’s fears that the film might “creak” he was rewarded with an emphatically amused response.

 

Skinner's Dress Suit is that rare thing, a genuinely charming comedy featuring two vibrant leads – Denny and the lovely Laura La Plante who cut a rug almost as sharp as her platinum bob. In thrilling style, the two dance the Savannah Shuffle, a variation on the Charleston, before leading a host of society types in trying to learn the steps.

 

Laura and Reg fret

Directed by William A. Seiter a keen golfer and close buddy of Denny’s, the film never strains and the relaxed humour is testament to the compatible temperaments of both men: “we never had an argument, never a cross word, “he told Brownlow, “…and we always brought the picture in within budget...” Seiter was clearly a very able manager of time and people.

 

Skinner (Denny) is an over-reaching and under-achieving office worker whose wife, Honey (Laura La P), keeps egging him on to get a raise. But Skinner not only doesn’t have the nerve he doesn’t really have the edge being walked all over by both his juniors and his superiors. Unable to tell Honey he’s been passed over yet again, he pretends that he’s had a $10 a week raise and the two start extending their credit starting with a party dress for her and a dress suit for him.

Reginald Denny in said suit

Both prove very useful after Skinner is taught the new dance craze, the Savannah, by fellow wage slave Miss Smith (a peppy Betty Morrissey) and simply everyone at the party they attend wants to learn it. Social mobility awaits but in keeping up appearances their credit gets stretched to the limit. But gradually they are accepted by their snooty neighbours, The McLaughlin’s and are invited into higher society.

 

All comes crashing down when a major contract is lost, and Skinner is the man to be let go… he hasn’t the heart to tell Honey as she entertains but has to fight off the repo men gathering for their furniture and the tailor who wants his fine dinner suit back. There’s just one last chance… an invitation to the party of the season held by the Colby’s (Hedda Hopper and Henry Barrows) if they can make an impression Skinner could still save his social standing. Cue Mr Jackson (Lionel Braham) the man who withdrew his contract with Skinners firm and his wife (Lucille Ward) both eager themselves to get introduced to society… You can work out the rest, but the story is so well pitched the resolution works as smoothly and reassuringly as you’d hope.

 

Denny and La Plante

It's a thoroughly enjoyable slice of mainstream silent Hollywood and just edges The Shakedown as the most entertaining of these three. 

The film comes with a new score by Leo Birenberg and audio commentary by film historian and writer David Kalat.  There’s also an excellent collector’s booklet featuring insightful new writing by critic Richard Combs and film writer Andrew Graves.

 

This is great set, and I can’t wait for more as the Universal restoration project proceeds. We’re lucky to be at a point where such a broad range of material is being considered for release and we need to support this as much as we can. The second volume is already available, and you can find further details and order both, from the Eureka website.

 

The Avenger: Endgame… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone Day Eight

Watching Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger, a Story of the London Fog (1927) for the third time on the big screen, I can’t help wondering about the director’s political thinking. It’s probably been said before, but in the context of the late twenties, a film about hysteria roused by frenzied media coverage and leading to vigilantism and mob justice is not just about a serial killer… then again, it has been a long week; your mind is prone to wonder in Pordenone.

The real issue is how the public respond to the feeling of a murderer in their midst, an “other” set to destroy their way of life and someone who could be any one of them… This is the self-imposed terrorism of the newspapers we buy and the gossip we make and it is of course as old as the hills and always current. As Neil Brand said in his introduction to the 2017 premier at the Abbeydale in Sheffield, Hitchcock has made voyeurs of us all: we’re as obsessed with the vicious fantasy as the folk on screen and we lap it up all the same.

The story is not really about the murderous Avenger but how someone is perceived based on prejudice and human weakness. Ivor Novello’s lodger, Jonathan Drew is a jazz-age Man Who Fell to Earth, an alien in style and manners who is both “queer” and “doesn’t like girls” according to the title cards and this is more about his strangeness than any sexual statement. Who else to have cast in this role but a man with the same androgyny as David Bowie, whose Thomas Jerome Newton fifty years later, was scarcely more alien in the context of the earthy East End.

Ivor the Alien

Then there is June Tripp’s character who is positively seeking otherness, bored with her plodding boyfriend, over-eager copper Joe Chandler (Malcolm Keen) … she’s a feisty character and not given to hysteria and you know she’d be the practical one in any future relationship for her lover is deep in grief and needs her support – in every sense she saves Jonathan.

There’s an intimacy established with The Lodger’s characters so quickly, from the girls backstage at the Golden Curls show – reference in the opening montage and at the close – as the gobble up the news, to the Bunting household with father (Arthur Chesney) and especially mother, the peerless Marie Ault who’s Irish accent you can almost see on screen!

The Lodger is a bold creative enterprise from the title cards right through to the shot-making, story and performances. It needs a score to match… and Neil Brand has delivered something Alf would thoroughly approve of.

This is the second time I have seen the film with Neil Brand’s orchestral score and I have to say it is even better than the first: this is a soundtrack “in love” with this film’s characters and narrative and which works through the core of the film via a joyful osmosis; a duet between old and modern in totale simpatia. As with all of Mr Brand’s scoring, there’s a wealth of knowledge at work about the practice and those who have perfected it and one can hear echoes of Hitchcock’s future and past in the music.

This is one of the most re-watchable of silent films and the music recognises that and works with it; it’s composition that pays due diligence to audience expectations and is simply fearless in respecting the source and our ability to interpret the musical signals. The music is without pretence and is an honest, daring tribute to the watched and the watchers; it completes Hitchcock’s project goals by working on our voyeuristic involvement in the sensational story, June’s bath and the chess match by the fire that makes ‎Steve and ‎Faye’s Thomas Crown affair look like a bored game.

As the last act of Le Giornate it’s pretty much the perfect choice; beyond meta as a cinematic experience and, whilst it works on an immediate level, it’s a connoisseur’s delight: good vintage, delivered at the perfect temperature in the best silent restaurant in town.

The Joker

Before the end, there was still some interesting business to take care of. Sadly, I missed Colleen Moore’s rags to cinema comedy, Ella Cinders (1925) but I did make myself acquainted with “The King of Clowns”, Swiss-born Adrian Wettach in Son Premier Film (1926). Wettach – stage name Grock - had extraordinary physicality, a dynamic athleticism gained from his circus days and here, even at 45 his athleticism and energy are impressive as is his range of expression; positively Chaney-eque.

This first feature, natch, had him chasing his inheritance to Paris and getting involved with show people after his things are stolen. It’s French Whimsy alright and I have to say I prefer him without the make-up… too many clowns and Jokers this year.

William S Hart wasn’t joking though, certainly not in Blue Blazes Rawden (1918) when the high plains drifter was cast as a fierce woodsman in the “forest frontier” of the Canadian northwest of the 1880s. Jim Rawden is as wild as the wind, and when he comes into town for a good tie m with the boys he immediately comes head-to- head with the crooked English bar owner,  “Ladyfingers” Hilgard (Robert McKim) who tries to cheat him at cards and then gets an accomplice to empty Jim’s gun and sets up a fight he can’t lose…

As the two men face off, and Jim realises he’s firing blanks, his sheer rage puts Ladyfingers off and too frightened to shoot straight he falls. English to the last though, Hilgard asks Jim to lie to his mother and tell her he was a good man.

Thus it is that when she (Gertrude Claire) and her other son arrive, Jim goes out of his way to do the decent thing and tell her what she needs to know. Once again, his character have been “saved” by an honest white woman and this one of his own age too… (I wasn’t joking on that point M!) – Claire was only 12 years older than Hart.

Maude George plays the wilful Babette DuFresne, half French-Canadian, half-native American who loves Jim and wants him away from these people. As the Diane Koszarski notes in her film notes, Maude “…had been cast as morally suspect foreigners and vamps at Universal, Triangle, and Selig…” and was therefore ideal for the role.

It’s been quite a week for Hart and also for Reginald Denny whose final film was perhaps his funniest. Skinner's Dress Suit (1926) is that rare thing, a genuinely charming comedy featuring two vibrant leads – Denny and the lovely Laura La Plante who cuts a rug almost as sharp as her platinum bob. In thrilling style, the two dance the Savannah Shuffle…. a variation on the Charleston – before leading a host of society types in trying to learn the steps.

Denny has such an affable presence and is a precursor of the pre-code talkies to follow with his measured, realistic emoting and perfect sense of timing. And he can also dance, the Savannah Shuffle needs to be brought back; someone needs to tell Strictly/Dancing with the Stars…

As I type, I’m at Venice airport waiting for my delayed flight back to Britain… more time for coffee and reflection on another special week with silent pals on and off screen. Grazie molto Pordenone and let’s do it all again in 2020 however long the passport queue has become by then.

 Let's Dance.

PS Many, many thanks to PH: Britain's Queen of Bloggin'. Her daily updates have been so stylish and informed, you can read then all on her Silent London site.

If blogging is like jogging then this has been a marathon. But a fun run all the same!

Keeping up appearances… Skinner's Dress Suit (1926), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

“He enjoyed making nice medium pictures. Simply, easily, quietly.”   Reginald Denny describing his pal, director “Bill” Seiter.

Kevin Brownlow introduced this film – a print from his own collection - with a description of how he’d met its star Reginald Denny in 1964, many years after the British actor’s silent heyday and after decades of playing stock English characters in the talkies. Brownlow projected the film for Denny and his family and, despite the letters fears that the film might “creak” he was rewarded with an emphatically-amused response.

The same thing happened tonight aided and abetted by John Sweeney’s effortless period piano precision.

Skinner's Dress Suit is that rare thing a genuinely charming comedy featuring two vibrant leads – Denny and the lovely Laura La Plante who cut a rug almost as sharply as her platinum bob. In thrilling style, the two dance the Savannah Shuffle…. a variation on the Charleston – before leading a host of society types in trying to learn the steps.

Strictly Come Shuffling

Directed by William A. Seiter a keen golfer and close buddy of Denny’s the film never strains and the relaxed humour is testament to the compatible temperaments of both men: “we never had an argument, never a cross word, “he told Brownlow, “…and we always brought the picture in within budget...” Seiter was clearly a very able manager of time and people.

Denny plays Skinner and over-reaching and under-achieving office worker whose wife, Honey (LLP), keeps egging him on to get a raise. But Skinner not only doesn’t have the nerve he doesn’t really have the edge being walked all over by both his juniors and his superiors. Unable to tell Honey he’s been passed over yet again, he pretends that he’s had a $10 a week raise and the two start extending their credit starting with a party dress for her and a dress suit for him.

Both prove very useful after Skinner is taught the new dance craze, the Savannah, by fellow wage slave Miss Smith (a peppy Betty Morrissey) and simply everyone at the party they attend wants to learn it. Social mobility awaits but in keeping up appearances their credit gets stretched to the limit.

Laura La Plante and Reginald Denny

But gradually they are accepted by their snooty neighbours, The McLaughlin’s and are invited into higher society…

All comes crashing down when a major contract is lost and Skinner is the man to be let go… he hasn’t the heart to tell Honey as she entertains but has to fight off the repro men gathering for their furniture and the tailor who wants his fine dinner suit back.

There’s just one last chance… an invitation to the party of the season held by the Colby’s (Hedda Hopper and Henry Barrows) if they can make an impression Skinner could still save his social standing…Cue Mr Jackson (Lionel Braham) the man who withdrew his contract with Skinners firm and his wife (Lucille Ward) both eager themselves to get introduced to society… You can work out the rest but the story is so well pitched the resolution works as smoothly and reassuringly as you’d hope.

A really enjoyable mainstream slice of silent Hollywood and just the thing after my week of Vampire Counts and murderous priests!

Skinner negotiates with his tailor

On the undercard tonight was a selection of the really rare and fascinating a collection of unique 4k high definition scans of original nitrate prints made by Tony Saffery, taken from his personal collection. You’ll only find this kind of thing at The Bioscope folks… we are spoilt rotten!

Rambles around Mulhausen (c1920) was a genuinely stunning Pathecolour travelogue around Alsace and Sparta showing slices of the everyday in colour including folk dress that has “hardly the Bond Street flavour…” and a boy with a pig.

Adventures of little Nibs (1928) was a cartoon of Itchy and Scratchy style – bullets and brickes flying through the ultra-violent air of a city. Policemen are wanted “good pay, as long as you live” and Nib’s pal Mike gets a job meeting the height required thanks to a bump on his head.

The view from south, Mulhausen, Alsace Lorraine

The Makeshift Bedroom (1906?) was a bizarre Andre Deed short in which Mr Deeds lives in a bed in the street… Policemen tiptoe around so as not to wake him and street lights ae covered before everyone decides to chase him and he floats off into the harbour on his multi-purpose mattress.

LCC Housing campaign film (c1921) was a typically British public information film asking people to do their patriotic duty and buy binds to support house building. A surreal turn is made when two of the most famous people in the World, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, join in the call… or at least their pictures do.

His New Cane (1912) This film is presumed lost in some quarters but here it was larger than life – a man sticking his walking device into others business until, again, there’s a huge chase…

Mr Deed in a spot of bother in a later film

Cinema Lake (1920) was a part live action/part animated oddity with a drawing board character erasing drawings and actuality alike: “Just wait till I take away Prohibition…” even now that’s funny!

London Wonder City (c1921) was indeed a wonder: The Guildhall, Mansion Houise, St Pauls and Fleet Street as well as Piccadilly Circus in colour at night..

Tommy Marries his sister (1910) involved the casual brutality of a small boy helping his sister marry the guy she likes and not the one she’s been given. Well done kid!

A mad-mixed bag and an excellent intiative to share and brought to life with skilled accompaniment from Meg Morley and Mr Sweeney.

Thankyou Kennington! See you in 2017!