Our friends in the North… Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, Abbeydale Cinema All-Dayer, Sheffield

What a day, ladies and gents, what a day! The Yorkshire Silent Film Festival is going from strength to strength and the Sheffield “all-dayer” at the 100-year old Abbeydale saw everything from drama to documentary with thrills spills and heartaches and a feast of musical accompaniment including percussion, strings and piano not to forget gravel, concrete slabs, banana and old suitcases…

From Hardy and Laurel to Harry Lloyd we laughed a lot and we also saw genuine history with the documentary bravery of Frank Hurley who was in the Endurance with Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated expedition to cross the South Pole. There was evocative continental experimentalism alongside a very British detective and, for those who stayed late, Lon Chaney throwing daggers at Joan Crawford using just his feet.

A varied and enriching programme with a lot more to come as the month unfolds in Silent Yorkshire… there’s something in the air.

The Finishing Touch (1928)

 Another Fine Mess – Laurel and Hardy Triple Bill with Neil Brand

Few have the silent back-story of Neil Brand and hardly anyone can convey wit and wisdom from the silent age with such avuncular ease and all before he even sits down to start playing.  Neil is also a great champion of the next generation and encourages new players as well as new audiences alike.

Laurel and Hardy are amongst the most effective gateway experiences for silent film and here we had three of the best, my personal favourite being Angora Love (1929) in which the boys are adopted by a four-legged friend who really gets their landlord Edgar Kennedy’s goat! That said, is there any more perfect comedy violence that that visited on Jimmy Finlayson’s house by the boys in Big Business (1929) – the worse they get the more he demolishes their unseasonal Christmas Trees and their poor car.

Here and in their “housebuilding” escapade, The Finishing Touch (1928) the boy’s relationship is already clearly established and that’s what adds an edge to their slapstick. We know them so well and ask Neil says, you can almost hear them talking in these films… that was all to come.

Eille Norwood and his Watson, Hubert Willis

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1921) with Jonny Best (piano), Trevor Bartlett (percussion) and Liz Hanks (cello).

The advantage Eille Norwood has over subsequent Sherlocks is that he had the personal seal of approval from the great detective’s creator with Sir Conan Doyle so impressed with his obsessive attempts to bring every detail of Holmes to light that he enthused about his “brooding eye” and his “rare quality, which can only be described as glamour, which compels you to watch an actor eagerly even when he is doing nothing.”

It’s hard to disagree and Norwood had lots of practice in 45 shorts and two features made by the  Stoll Company from 1921 to 1923. Many were directed by Maurice Elvey and on reasonable-to-fair budgets much in evidence in The Hound which is largely studio-based although it does feature some atmospheric location shots too.

In the huge darkness of the Abbeydale – opened in 1920 just in time for the start of the series – the film generated a convincingly-spooky atmosphere, much aided by the players with Liz Hanks’ cello adding sinuous and sinister lines to Jonny Best’s piano and Trevor Bartlett’s percussion. The film is not just a procedural “who chewed it?” and there’s mystery among the people and place and these three worked so well with Elvey’s atmospherics.

The Endurance breaking the ice

South (1919), Neil Brand (piano), Liz Hanks (cello)

Sometimes we watch film as history and sometimes history as film and it never ceases to amaze me that Ernest Shackleton, Captain Scott and Mallory/Irvine took cameras with them on their adventures. The fate of the last two adds extra poignancy to the films of Herbert Pointing (The Great White Silence) and Captain John Noel's (The Epic of Everest) but here Frank Hurley was part of the adventure in ways he couldn’t have anticipated as he survives to tell the tale of near disaster and recovery.

Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance becomes trapped in the ice as he attempted to work his way closer to the pole and Hurley records the attempts to free the ship and its ultimate fate as, overwhelmed by ice and cold it is crushed to splinters by the weight surrounding it. The men, and dogs, abandon ship and make camp before starting a push North… it seems hopeless, but the unlikely escape is achieved through “pluck” as the intertitles have it and indomitable will.

Neil Brand and Liz Hanks helped us share in the jaw-dropping endurance as well as the spirit of wonder – this was like a trip to another planet in 1914-16 and the recording of penguins and seals fascinating to those back in the real world…

Nadia Sibirskaïa in Ménilmontant

French Cinema Double Bill

L’invitation au voyage (1927) with Jonny Best (piano) and Irine Røsnes (violin)

A complete change of pace now and a trip across the channel for two experiments in narrative as alien to the British sensibilities above as a King Penguin waddling down The Strand.

Germaine Dulac’s films use elements of Avant Garde technique but around a defined narrative and so it is with this film in which a married woman (Emma Gynt) visits a nightclub and enjoys a moment with a young sailor (Raymond Dubreuil). So much is said through look and gesture with no title cards.

Jonny Best’s duet with violinist Irine Røsnes passed poignant comments of love’s possibilities and the ever-present sadness of opportunities missed.

L’invitation au voyage (1927)

 Ménilmontant (1926) with Jonny Best (piano) with Sue Harding (foley) and Rebecca Glover (foley)

I’ve seen Dmitri Kirsanoff’s classic a number of time but never like this. Normally with silent film accompaniment the tone has to be right and sound effects are reserved for the clang of a bell or the bang of a gun but imagine if you had to keep pace – literally – for almost 40 minutes.

To add extra spice, imagine rehearsing your accompaniment to the nearest milli-second only to find out that the print – in this case the BFI’s 35mm copy – is significantly different from the one you practiced to… We were told this afterwards, but it did not show in the slightest as piano, concrete, gravel, banana, water bowl, cabbage and two old packing cases kept in total sync with the action.

The banana and other instruments... Sue and Reecca's portable studio

Sue Harding and Rebecca Glover performed live Foley, without a safety net and their eyes glued on the action on screen as they followed the ethereal Nadia Sibirskaïa’s journey from the violent death of her parents to the depths of the Parisian sub-culture. Anchored by Jonny Best’s piano it was a fascinating act of composition and perfectly in keeping with the style of a story that demands the audience improvise their own response.

The banana was there to provide the sound of sausage skin being pulled off by the kindly old man who shares his picnic with Nadia’s character, in the end it wasn’t needed as other events had taken sonic precedence. The audience declared the experiment a success and I think we’d like to see more live Foley please!

The subway today... Ann Christy and Harry Lloyd makee their way.

Speedy (1928)/Liberty (1929) with Neil Brand (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion)

I have the Criterion DVD and would rate this as one of the best comedies (ever) and indeed films of the twenties. Nothing prepares you for seeing it on the Abbeydale’s huge screen and accompanied by Neil Brand on blistering form accompanied by his partner in sophisticated syncopation, Trevor Bartlett.

Manhattan is the co-star in Lloyd’s film and Neil threw in so many sumptuous New York moments – Gershwin and all the trimmings – in what is an amazingly-clear view of the city as it was with Lloyd’s horse drawn tram rocketing around long-demolished streets. Neil revealed that the two mighty horses pulling the tram also worked on Ben Hur and there’s also a third, if you look carefully, used as ballast inside the speeding tram.

Speedy has immense good humour and a strong story based on the last-horse drawn tram as electrification and big business took over in the name of progress and profit. In the end the community is too strong for commerce and everyone rallies round to beat off the bullies.

My sister Diane, who lives in Sheffield, thought this the best film of the day (alongside South) not just because of the stunts and scenery but because Lloyd, his co-star Ann Christy and others looked like they’d walked straight off the Abbeydale Road: they and the film felt modern and naturalistic.

We were also treated to the Laurel and Hardy short Liberty which clearly owes a lot to Lloyd’s thrill-comedy only, as Diane said though, it’s not quite as funny when it’s juts a situation; Lloyd’s predicaments always have a reason behind them.

That said, this was one of those combinations that lifted the entire room not least because of the musicians who both played a blinder!

The Unknown (1927) with Jonny Best (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion). will be introduced by Vanessa Toulmin, University of Sheffield.

You can’t see them all, and I had to miss Joan and Lon in a farewell to arms…

I like this bonkers little film not least because it shows Chaney’s commitment to his roles: binding his arms back as his character does, would have been very painful and yet he took the knocks for his films. He was also more than generous as Joan Crawford later attested referring to the advice he gave her during the making of this, her first feature as lead.

Lon and Joan: look, no hands!

Another great choice for an unforgettable day. ANother was to come as I headed out for Sunrise in York... more to come.

The Yorkshire Silent Film Festival continues across the county through May and I am so tempted to nip back up for some more… There are two of Louise Brooks' best films for a start. Further details on the website.

Thanks to all the players and those who make it happen and to Mr Jonny Best whose baby this is!

New York Minutes… Speedy (1928), Criterion Edition

For some time now we looked over the Atlantic with jealous hearts and relieved wallets at the range of classic films released on NSTC and Blu-Ray by Criterion: blue ribbon editions with essays and extras marking them out as the definitive editions (in most cases). Now, after years of multi-regional Russian roulette – most play some don’t – we have our own versions of these discs being released to rival or surpass Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series.

Typically avoiding the obvious, Criterion have picked Harold not Charlie or Buster to lead the American invasion and what a sound choice that is: The Twenties highest-grossing comedian given the prominence he deserves in a film that highlights his timing, unrivalled gag-construction and the endurance of a persona that is perhaps the most malleable and enduring of all…

Directed by Ted Wilde and produced by Lloyd, Speedy is his last silent film and it feels like a farewell to every trick and fluid expression soon to be curtailed by the tyranny of the fixed microphone.

Harry and Ann Christy - four different fun fairs were used as Coney Island

Fittingly it features one man’s fight against the on-rush of progress: a battle that can only be won with ultimate defeat assured and only the manner of surrender to be decided on. Needless to say, Lloyd’s character isn’t going to take anything lying down and you’re never going to bet against him winning the peace.

It also features your actual Babe Ruth doing a fine job of being Babe Ruth. Seems like an OK guy for such a huge sportsman but they put deeds first and wealthy contracts second in the era of silent sport…

The Sultan of Swat hails a cab

My great grandfather drove a tram in Liverpool at around this time although they stopped using horses here in 1903 and 1917 in NYC – Lloyd’s story was already looking back in 1928 – and I suppose that gives me especial sympathy for Pop Dillon (Bert Woodruff) the driver of the last horse and tram in New York. He plods a lone track and is under intense pressure from the automated competitors all too eager to mechanise the entire network.

Pop offers a service as slow as it is reliable and as cheap as it is friendly: his customers rely on him and he’s a pivotal figure in a commercial culture still run by Victorian men – some of whom go back to the Civil War. It's Grenwich Village as it was and even by 1928 the community was changing.

Bert Woodrfuff and Ann Christy

Pop has a delightful grand-daughter, Jane (Ann Christy – another looker for Lloyd) who dotes on him whilst also being incredibly supportive of her endlessly-exasperating boyfriend, Harold 'Speedy' Swift (Lloyd) who is quick but only in terms of losing patience, concentration and consequently jobs.

Speedy was, incidentally, Lloyd’s family nick-name, bestowed by his father… irony may have been involved.

This Speedy is mad on Baseball and tries to work as close as possible to Yankee Stadium or at least near a phone so that he can keep tabs with his beloved New York Yankees. Serving customers in a down town del, Speedy keeps his colleagues informed of the state of play by using don-nuts to indicate the score: it’s an efficient method but only up to a point and as the Yankees score three Speedy gets spotted and it’s off to his next job.

Harry knows the score - one donut to a three pretzel

But first things first and Speedy has a weekend with his gal Jane to arrange and off they go to the many joyful rides of Luna Park at Coney Island.  The Playground of the World is its own star here and actual rides add to the experience whereas other films may have used corny-Coney substitutes.

Back to life, back to reality and after much error and trial Speedy ends up as a cab driver but even this proves a discipline too far as he struggles with contraption and concentration. He’s commandeered by two cops in a chase and ends up with a speeding ticket for his pains then drives off again with what he thinks is the officers on board but which only leads to another ticket. It’s three strikes and out but then he chances upon a school reception for Babe Ruth who he ends up giving a high-speed lift to Yankee Stadium: more police trouble.

Coney Island baby

The film shifts gear for a superb scenic climax as Speedy fights to maintain Pop’s required run of one service every 24 hours. The bad railway company (not Southern Rail of Govia apparently…) has tried to buy the old man out but in the face of his intransigence decide that violence and theft is the only option. At first they try to use gangs of heavies to stop the service by force but Speedy calls upon the legion of super shop-keepers to use their old Yankee spirit to fight them using brooms, bins and sheer weight of numbers. It’s a little reminiscent of the massed brawl in Keaton’s The Cameraman and that’s no bad thing!

Then the baddies steel both horse and tram and as the clock ticks it looks like the game is up but Speedy finds the clue and then the tram and proceeds to rip through the streets of Manhattan (mostly!) followed by the enemy – it’s a break-neck tour of the city as it was and it makes for fascinating viewing: from Union Square to Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Times Square and Broadway down to Wall Street and across to the Queensboro bridge.

The sequence is up there with massed chase in Cops and one that even incorporates a genuine crash – you can see the stuntman tumble out of the tram - followed by an on-the-spot improvisation of a wheel from a man-hole cover. It’s hard to believe that this was the end for silent Harold Lloyd but he goes out with a bang and in a manner that proved his ideas were second to no man in terms of invention and breath-taking verve.

He is ably supported by Ann Christy who replaced the out-of-contract Jobyna Ralston as well as a host of extras and New York City herself: seven million extras! The horses are also good – there were at least three with one being used for ballast in the tram chase.

Can you spot the third horse?

The restored image is very crisp and renders far better than any version of the film I’ve seen before. The disc also comes with an impeccable score from Carl Davis which brings symphonic scale to proceedings and is in great sympathy with the mood and action: like the story it whips along… speedy indeed.

There’s a host of extras as you’d expect from Criterion… including Bumping into Broadway a 1919 Lloyd two-reeler and In the Footsteps of Speedy, a fascinating visit to the locations from Bruce Goldstein which shows that the film was centred on the West Village as it was in 1917 when the last horse-tram ran from Sheridan Square. Goldstein reckons Speedy to be the best silent made of New York and it’s hard to argue.

I’d go on but you probably already have it! If not, it’s available direct or via Amazon. Hurry up!