Rudy can't fail... The Eagle (1925), with Neil Brand, 10th Hippodrome Silent Film Festival

 

Back when Arthur was young, I went to watch Kevin Brownlow introduce this film at East Finchley’s ultimate picture palace, the Phoenix Cinema, and he shared his coversations with one of the silent era’s most calmly professional directors along with clips from films I just had to see. Since then, I’ve watched them on the big screen; Flesh and the Devil (1926), The Signal Tower (1924) and The Goose Woman (1925). Brown never disappoints and brings out the best in his actors; a real warmth of performance amongst the smoothly worked narratives.

 

Watching first time my focus was on Rudolph Valentino as this was the first of his films I’d seen (and I still haven’t seen either The Sheik or The Son of the Sheik…) but now I was watching as much for Louise Dresser, who was so heart-breaking in The Goose Woman and is grand again here playing Csarina Catherine the Great as passionate and impetuous with a penchant for young officers and for executing those who don’t please her.

 

Her scenes with Valentino as the dashing Lt. Vladimir Dubrovsky, are wry – if conflicting - with sexual role-reversal as the predatory monarch tries to get her man tipsy, offers him a career path based on favour and generally behaves like a man. Dubrovsky has enlisted to be a fighter and not a lover and absents himself even though he knows this will seriously affect his prospects both in military life and, well, just life.

Louise Dresser and Rudolph Valentino

 

This isn’t any man Catherine is sexually harassing though, it’s one played by Rudolph Valentino. No other silent actor comes with quite so much baggage as the Latin lover, the man who broke so many hearts that people seemingly took their own lives rather than face up to life without him… Surely, he had to take himself that seriously too? But no, what we find is a very handsome man who can act and who has a deliciously inclusive sense of humour to prick the bubble of heroic pomposity: think Antonio Banderas in an Aldomorvar film: a little camp but in that masculine way only the most “secure” can carry off.

 

Valentino’s Dubrovsky is one of the bravest officers in the imperial elite and arrives at a parade for the Csarina at the film’s start full of promise. He’s a man of action and spotting a runaway carriage he leaps onto the Csarina’s favourite horse, and she did like her horses… (“not true…” says History) and sets off in pursuit – Brown’s cameraman fast behind – pulling level, jumping on and pulling the horses to a halt in classic cowboy style.

 

The party he rescues includes a beautiful young noblewoman, Mascha Troekouroff, played by the delectable Vilma Bánky, who has great chemistry with Valentino and pretty much every single thing around her. She would star with him again in Son of the Sheik, her beauty and intelligence matching his own with a challenge that his persona needs; she’s not being swept off her feet by anyone.

Rudolph and Vilma

 

Pleasantries are exchanged and there’s an instant connection but Mascha ‘s head is not easily turned and her Aunt Aurelia (Carrie Clark Ward) is the one waving enthusiastically after Dubrovsky as their carriage pulls away. He laughs but his quick thinking has earned him that awkward appointment with his Czarina who is more than happy to see her horse returned unharmed…

 

It’s not a good day on balance for Dubrovsky as he receives the news that his father is seriously ill because of his estate and fortune being stolen by the by the villainous Kyrilla Troekouroff (James A. Marcus on fine form). Dubrovsky won’t take this lying down and soon turns himself into a Robin Hood figure – The Black Eagle – who leads his father’s remaining loyal staff into an escalating set of countermeasures aimed at over-throwing the usurper.

 

Encountering a man who has been employed to teach French (incidentally, the language of the Tsarist court even up to the pre-revolutionary period…) to Kyrilla’s daughter, Dubrovsky takes his place as a means of breaking in and causing chaos. Yet, when he arrives, he sees that his student is to be the beautiful girl he rescued in the runaway carriage.

James A. Marcus as the Fearless Kyrilla!

 

Thus, things go as rom-coms go with enough will-they/won’t-they to keep you guessing as Bánky and Valentino work their humorous rapport as far as they can without popping the dramatic bubble. Kyrilla is revealed as more bullying buffoon than despot as the threats of imminent retribution from the Black Eagle un-nerve him more and more: you do wonder how he ever managed to take control of the Dubrovsky estate… still, he does have a bear chained in his wine cellar for playing “jokes” on guests.

 

Brown directs with deceptive efficiency and with more than the odd flourish. Not for nothing was he “blind-tasted” as Lubitsch by one Hollywood insider according to Kevin Brownlow, with some innovative shots including an amazing dolly shot along the full length of Kyrilla’s banquet table. It’s a very well-made film with sumptious sets from the legendary William Cameron Menzies, and the restored print is in superb condition; watching it is indeed, as Mr Brownlow said at the Phoenix, “…seeing silent film as it really was”.

 

Accompaniment was provided by Mr Neil Brand who had dressed for the occasion and entered his music room in colour before sitting down to accompany in back and white. His themes went well beyond those chromatic limitations though and he gave us the rich romance and visceral daring the film deserved. As festival director Alison Strauss put it in her introduction, we were watching “together, alone” and the improvised music gives the immediacy that binds us as viewers, sat in front of screens from Worthing to the Winter Palace.

  

Who is The Black Eagle?! 

The Eagle is now available on spruced up Blu-Ray from Kino and is well worth filing between Camile and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse if you like your Latin Lover in alpha order or, Monsieur Beaucaire and Cobra if you’re going by date.

 

The Hipp-fun carries on and you can still catch up on most of films, intros and Q&As via the festival website and the Falkirk Community Trust YouTube channel.

Likeable… The Beloved Rogue (1927)

Conrad Veidt and John Barrymore

John Barrymore’s attempt to out-Fairbanks Douglas has met with mixed reviews over the years, not least from himself (he described himself as a “ham” after the premier) and Orson Welles who liked the film but felt his idol was “not at his best”. But, whilst Barrymore felt he missed the mark by over-playing the extravagantly-colourful lead, Francoise Villon: poet, womaniser and drinker who somehow also embodies the spirit of France… how could anyone fail to?

Based on an actual 15^th century poet and patriot The Beloved Rogue includes many florid moments invented (or over-invented) to add zest to this camp fantasy. It’s an all-too-easy target and yet… there’s an extraordinary energy around the crowd scenes in particular and Alan Crosland directs with much style. The superb Conrad Veidt all but steals the show as a greasily-ambiguous Louis XI and Marceline Day uses her clear, open expression to swoon-inducing effect as his beautiful ward Charlotte de Vauxcelles.

Then there is Barrymore doing showing a different side to his style as he throws the kitchen sink at creating a character big enough to fill William Cameron Menzies’ immense sets.

In short, it’s better than I expected: “beloved” maybe not quite but certainly entertaining and very likeable. The film was believed lost until Mary Pickford revealed she had one in her archive: how would we feel about The Beloved Rogue if it were still a lost film? Count your blessings Silent People.

Set after Joan of Arc’s execution in 1431 (she came back strong after that didn’t she?) the film starts in a most un-funny way with the burning of Villon’s father at the stake… He was a patriot and fought in the name of a united France against the English and their Burgundian allies. His wife (Lucy Beaumont) prays that their son will inherit his spirit.

Young Francoise is doted on by his mother and brought up in largely female company. His early tastes are revealed after he is only pacified by drinking a mix of wine and milk… don’t try this at home.

Moving on to the 1860s, Francoise’s roguish tendencies are fully developed as he gleefully steals wine to get drunk with his friends and leads the All Fools Day street celebration as the King of Fools. This section is very well realised by Crosland who generates a visceral charge by moving his camera through the celebrating hordes as snow swirls across the city. Snow in April: Paris in the Snowtime?

Amongst the revellers is Jane Winton as The Abbess, Mack Swain and Slim Summerville as Villion’s buddies Nicholas and Jehan as well as Angelo Rossitto (later to star in Tod Browning’s Freaks) as Beppo the Dwarf.

Jane Winton

As the party gets started Francoise is in pursuit of one of his favourite things as he evades the constabulary, and comes down the rooftops to cheat an inn-keeper of some wine. He heads of linking arms and skipping with Nicholas and Jehan – there’s a lot of skipping. Jigging and general dancing for joy: how else to convey energetic adventurism in scale?

Having being crowned King of Fools, Francoise regales his rapt audience with a poem and them mounts a statue of the King  just as the Duke of Burgundy arrives for an audience with his cousin. Francoise makes merry at Burgundy’s expense, knowing him as a man of ambition who wants the crown for himself.

An audience with the King...

But King Louis, a “slave to the stars” has his judgement clouded by the advice of his astrologer and is loath to confront his rival. He comes out of the palace and has no option to support Burgundy against the crowd and ends up banishing Villon from Paris – “his life”.

Riding with him is his ward Charlotte who is appalled to finally see the reality of the poet she idolises: is the most inspiring wordsmith in France really an uncouth drunken fool? But things are about to get worse as she is promised in marriage to Burgundy’s lieutenant,  Thibault d'Aussigny (Henry Victor)… part of Burgundy’s plot to gain quick access to Paris.

Marceline Day

Meanwhile, Villon sits bored drinking and trying to write poetry from an inn just outside the city walls. He decides to hijack the King’s gifts to Burgundy and climbs the walls to use the King’s catapult to fire the food and drink at the city in order to feed the poor.

He ends up catapulting himself to avoid capture and crash lands, of course, into the rooms of Charlotte de Vauxcelles. Not recognising him without his fool makeup, it takes a while before the young noblewoman learns that he is the Francoise Villon, a man who’s words have touched her like no other.

They are rudely interrupted by Thibault and there follows an altercation involving bears in barrels, recently-deceased poultry and a heavyweight chandelier. Francoise escapes and takes Charlotte with him over the rooftops he knows so well to the safety of his mother’s house. Queue emotional reunion and the sadness of a mother deceived by her own hope: will her son ever amount to the man she wants him to be?

The route forward accelerates as the King finds it expedient to order Francoise death but the poet saves his skin by convincing Louis that their lives and death are inter-dependent: with this swift turn of phrase he guarantees his life as courtier.

Now able to influence events in the way his mother always wished, he is still a commoner which means he can never marry Charlotte, but all are soon overtaken by events as Burgundy kidnaps her and is intent on completing her marriage to his cause.

No spoilers: We both know that’s not the end don’t we dear reader? There’ll be a plan, courage under fire and a victory for true love won’t there? You’ll have to watch the breathless finale to find out. Things pick up a gear as we learn, amongst other things, that John Barrymore looked after himself: quite buff for a 45-year old!

After an attempt watching the monochrome Amazon downloadable copy I ended up ordering the Kino DVD version which is in much better quality and also comes with tints and a fun piano score composed by Alan Webber for the 1971 TV showing introduced by Mr Welles.

Yes, I do work out actually...