The Irish questions… The Informer (1929) on Blu-ray/DVD

Last year’s London Film Festival archive gala restoration is now available on sparkling BFI Blu-ray, all the better to show the dark heart of this republican mood piece filmed almost entirely on-set in Elstree. The Informer is set in the context of the fight for Irish independence but it’s mostly about loyalty, love and betrayal: country, friends and lovers, all can be let down in the heat of the moment.

It’s remarkable that an English film of this time – based on Liam O'Flaherty’s 1925 novel - would tell a sympathetic story of republicans so soon after the fact of the uprising and the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the politics may be side-lined but there’s no doubt who these people are and why loyalty matters so much. In her introduction, the BFI’s Bryony Dixon quotes O'Flaherty later writing that he based his story on the style of the cinema and that he wanted to treat his readers “…as a mob orator treats his audience and toy with their emotions…” – there’s a proto-noir feel to a film that is infused with uncertainty and a sense of dread.

Lars Hanson

It’s easy enough to identify with selfless comradeship and the loyalty of lovers but it’s harder to recognise the spiteful urges that drive us all towards betrayal. After that, all that is left is understanding and forgiveness and that is so rare.

As with a number of the best British silent films, The Informer featured European talent, including its German director (Arthur Robison, of Warning Shadows fame) and his cinematographers Werner Brandes and Theodor Sparkuhl, who combine to create such a superbly oppressive world of on-set shadows – as if the darkness was pushing down on the fragile hearts of the cast. There’s plenty of image mobility, especially impressive when the camera moves from where Francis hides as Gypo turns from his mate’s house and walks down an alley across a perfectly-synchronized crowded street to the police station to do the dreaded dirty on his pal…

Lya De Putti and Carl Harbord

Hungarian Lya De Putti (last seen swinging with Emil Jannings in Varieté) is Katie, the woman stirring such strong emotions between best pals Gypo Nolan, played by Sweden’s finest, Lars Hanson and Francis McPhilip played by Carl Harbord of Salcombe, Devon.

The cast is a very strong one bulked out by some great character actors like Warwick Ward as Dan Gallagher commander of the group, Dennis Wyndham as his right-hand man and the mobile mug of Craighall Sherry as his left, Mulholland. Ward was interesting casting, looking so much like the British heroic ideal – hawk-like features and resolute moustache: a man of decision.

Dan Gallagher, Warwick Ward, Craighall Sherry, Lya De Putti, Carl Harbord and Lars Hanson

Daisy Campbell is also very fine as Mrs McPhillip, the woman who loses a son and yet has the faith and heart to bring redemption whilst Johnny Butt is nasty enough as the pimping Publican aiming to make Janice Adair lost-lass Bessie earn her keep no matter what. There’s even a sharpshooter played by young Ray Milland who looks like he might be one to watch in the future.

But it’s all about the magnificent leads… Katie loving Francis then Gypo, Gypo loving Francis but mainly Katie and Gallagher loving his cause above all also.

The film begins with a fire fight as two groups of unknown allegiance battle each other in the streets of Dublin before the Police move in… One of the group, Francis, accidentally shoots the chief of police and must go on the run. He can’t stick it though and returns in secret to the house of Katie Fox his ex-sweetheart only to find that she has moved onto the slightly more dashing Gypo and yet still tries to hide Francis’ presence. It doesn’t work though as Gypo sees more than he ought to and jumps to all the wrong conclusions…

Lars and Lya

It doesn’t take much to tip Gypo over the edge – remember what Lya did to Herr Jannings in Varieté?! – but here she makes double sure forcing him to make the rash decision to gain his revenge by telling the police where his former friend is hiding.  The scene is well constructed as the camera follows Hanson as he marches through Dublin streets towards a cinema just disgorging its audience, to the police station where he is rewarded with twenty pound notes (not pieces of silver…).

No good can come of this but it will not be the last telling betrayal in the film…

Garth Knox - compositional coffee

I’d enjoyed Garth Knox’s new score live and there’s an extra on the disc in which he details the creation of his score aimed at “shaping the silence”. It’s interesting that he tries to put back some of the rougher edges of the characters taken out for the film but very much present in O’Flaherty’s book. He used uilleann pipes and accordion to re-patriate the story in Irish tones and purposely used a small ensemble to recreate the close-quarters dramatics on screen. He goes on to say in the notes that “the idea was to rub the organic grain of the folk sound into the more polished perfection of the… more classical instruments (flute, viola) …” this also contrasts Gypo’s hot blood with Gallagher’s coldness.

Knox takes a strong lead from the actors and I liked his attention to detail when, for instance, Gypo loses sense of his surroundings under stress and the score follows him into detached reverie. It is an emotionally-intelligent and stirring score which largely works in tune albeit occasionally foreshadowing the tumult of the performances and the narrative flow.

Warwick Ward and Lya De Putti before and after restoration

The BFI team having done a superb job on a mix of source materials for this restoration and amongst the extras there’s a comparison showing before and after… well, there is no comparison really. The sound version is also included and was restored ten years ago but just seems lumpen when compared to the fleeting, shadowy nuance of the silent. Again the extras show a comparison; silents were just so much more dramatic at this stage.

There are also a number of Topical Budget newsreels from the period which show the events outside the picture houses... they are terse reminders of tensions that persist to this day.

The Informer is released on DVD/Blu-ray on 24^th April and you can order it direct from the BFI shop online. 

De Valera - I Want Peace (1921)

De Valera's message - I Want Peace (1921)

Protesters outside the Unionist Conference in Liverpool 1921

Trust and honour... The Informer (1929), BFI, London Film Festival Archive Gala with Garth Knox Ensemble

This was a World premiere of a stunning new restoration that once again proved the power of late British silent film… The Informer was directed by a German and starred a Swede, was made in Elstree and was all about Ireland. We have always been so European and long may that continue!

Like Blackmail, A Cottage on Dartmoor and others, The Informer was made as both a silent and a talkie and was shot separately for both formats. Bryony Dixon, introducing, showed a clip from both that illustrated perfectly the backwards step talking pictures were – like some sort of cinematic Brexit. A change in one aspect led to a long list of negative consequences as those who brought the noise, focused on the one thing at the expense of all the others: camera fluidity, performance, shot-making and overall cinematic elegance.

In the talking sequence a group of Irish republicans interrogate a young woman, there’s shouting, flat lighting and clod-hoping pace whilst in the other the atmospherics come first and the narrative actually moves ahead more effectively through quickness of expression and thought - clearly it was early days and the silent way was the skills-preference of a crew including noted German cinematographers Werner Brandes and Theodor Sparkuhl but… how many decades did it take to truly get all of the magic back?

Lya De Putti and Carl Harbord

This is a powerful film that pulls no punches, taking the hard road with a cast able to carry its opening lightness of tone forward into the dramatic depths of betrayal: of love and of country. It proves, if proof were needed, that Lars Hanson was one of the supreme actors of his age as he provides as perfect an example of naturalistic pantomime as you’ll see in the film’s emotionally exhausting closing sequence.

The archive gala is usually the silent film highlight of the Festival and this was no exception with the BFI team having done a superb job on a mix of source materials. The sound version was restored ten years ago but, after seeing this I can’t think of a single reason to watch it.

As is usual, the restoration was accompanied by a new score this time from Garth Knox with a crack six-piece ensemble featuring Garth on viola/viola d'amore, Eliza Marshall flute/alto flute/whistles, Frode Haltli on accordion, Joby Burgess percussion, Robert White uilleann pipes and Mary Scully on double bass. Top players from across the spectrum of classical, folk and the West End.

The result was emotionally-intellgent and stirring, working in perfect tune with the tumult of the performances and the narrative flow. Amongst many highlights there is one especially clever scene where Katie Fox (Lya De Putti) puts on a 78 to cover the sound of smuggling the fugitive Francis McPhilip (Carl Harbord) out of her flat and the group created a perfect simulation of a poorly-wound record player – violin bow scratches and skips and a slowing down of tempo as the tension mounts and the record slows down to reveal the sounds of getaway.

Lars Hanson and Lya De Putti

This attention to detail was matched by some thrilling Celtic lines, the insertion of Danny Boy (natch!) and a punchy performance that flavoured but didn’t overwhelm the moving images above.

Based on Liam O’Flaherty’s 1925 novel, the story focuses on a group of revolutionary working class Irish republicans. The Informer is overwhelmingly more about the group's human frailties than their politics which, given the film’s Elstree routes, you might expect but still, these are principled people and not monsters: imagine a contemporary film about terrorists…

One of the group, Francis, accidentally shoots the chief of police and has to go on the run. He can’t stick it though and returns in secret to the house of Katie Fox his ex-sweetheart. Katie has moved onto the slightly more dashing Gypo (Lars, returned to Europe and fresh from Lillian Gish in The Wind and Greta Garbo in The Divine Woman) and yet still tries to hide Francis’ presence. It doesn’t work though as Gypo sees more than he ought to and jumps to all of the wrong conclusions… He confronts Katie who out of spite tells him everything he doesn’t really want to hear.

Lars Hanson outside the studio Cinema (production still from the Townley Cook Collection)

It doesn’t take much to tip Gypo over the edge – remember what Lya did to Emil Jannings in Varieté?! – but here she makes double sure forcing him to make the rash decision to gain his revenge by telling the police where his former friend is hiding.  The scene is well constructed as the camera follows Hanson as he marches through Dublin streets towards a cinema just disgorging its audience, to the police station where he is rewarded with twenty pound notes (not pieces of silver…).

No good can come of this but it will not be the last telling betrayal in the film…

On the run. Photo from BFI

The police surround Francis’ mother’s house and he falls to his from the roof after a desperate struggle. Too late, Katie tells Gypo that she made it all up to hurt him… but the die is cast. The finger of suspicion is pointing firmly at Gypo now and it’s his own side he needs to worry about as the moral course of events becomes the focus of the film’s intense conclusion.

The Informer’s intimacies serve its broader narrative well and you are left trying to grasp the complexities of wider conflict when these fragile, passionate lives are lived so much based on truth and trust. Irish nationalism was more than just the context for this story and for understandable - 1929 English - reasons the film strips out the more overt references to the Free State and republicanism from Liam O'Flaherty’s novel.

In Britain then as now you need to smuggle out the meanings any way you can.

Arthur Robison was an American brought up in Germany and who directed the expressive (if not strictly expressionistic according to Lotte Eisner’s definition) Warning Shadows. Here he brings dark Germanic moods to the set-streets of Dublin aided by his camera men.

Lya De Putti and Carl Harbord (BFI)

The multi-national cast excel and there are noteworthy turns from the Brits too - chiefly Warwick Ward as Dan Gallagher as the rebels’ leader, Janice Adair as Bessie – a small but crucial part – as well as Johnny Butt as a disreputable publican. Daisy Campbell is also heart-breaking as Mrs McPhillip mourning a son killed by misunderstanding and jealous betrayal.

We all need to listen to each other and now as then to truly comprehend ourselves. Don’t just believe what you feel…

The Informer will be released on DVD/Blu-ray in February 2017. Details are on the BFIwebsite along with notes on the restoration of what Bryony Dixon has described as “one of the finest films produced in a British studio in the 1920s”. It is.

The band pre-performance