Shearer vs Shearer… The Divorcee (1930) and Their Own Desire (1929)

In 1930 Norma Shearer was nominated for two Oscars for her performances in each of these films winning on Divorce but losing on Desire. Sometimes too easily associated with her mighty husband Irving Thalberg, Ms Shearer deserves a lot of credit for evolving screen acting from silent to sound along with Greta, Joan and co.

I like her relaxed focus, her uncluttered expressiveness and the unconscious way she’ll pay attention to the granular details in order to reinforce the naturalistic surface. She has energy – literally – standing up against the men as well as a wit and native intelligence which transcends her characters.

Norma Shearer

Then there was her look… falling somewhere between Clara/Jean’s inherent sexiness and Garbo’s ethereality, Norma had a naturally-fascinating face, one you could see on many streets but one that came to life on screen animated by a gentle expressiveness that presents convincingly as real.
In these early sound  films her voice can come across as slightly shrill and high pitched but that’s technology as much as technique and is more noticeable in Desire than Divorce. She may not have had Greta’s range or Joan’s ferocity but she was a force to be reckoned with even for her husband.

Norma gives Robert Montgomery a piece of her mind

Famously, Joan Crawford was up for the part in Their Own Desire with even Thalberg doubting his wife’s ability to sex-up. Norma’s response was to commission a photo shoot that so emphatically proved her point that she got the part. That’s acting… and the assurance of the moral high ground at home for months.

The nominees include… Their Own Desire (1929)

Belle Bennett, Norma and Lewis Stone

Their Own Desire was directed by E. Mason Hopper, written by the ubiquitous Frances Marion based on the novel by Sarita Fuller. It was released just after Christmas in 1929 and is a slick early talkie with evident “pre-code” leanings…

Cue Norma in tight top and jodhpurs (the swim suit comes later…) taking part in a polo game, playing daughter Lucy - aka “Lally” - to her lovingly-competitive dad, Henry Marlett (Lewis Stone). She falls and there are anxious minutes as she recovers yet she won’t let a little winding slow her down.

A bit like my weekends...

Back home to see mother, Harriet (Belle Bennett) who seems old before her time, especially in comparison to the widow Beth Cheever (Helene Millard) a woman who hasn’t forgotten where the peroxide bottle is. She’s clearly on the lookout and, whilst Lally makes fun of this she doesn’t suspect that there’ be any danger…

Cut forward some months and the worst has come to the worst and Lally still knows nothing even after her parents have agreed to divorce which they are hoping to disguise by her and mother going off to Europe for a few months…

The other woman...

But Lally blunders across the truth when she walks into her father’s workshop to find him and Mrs Cheever in a compromising cuddle. She can’t take it all in and refuses to balance her father’s wish to spend time with “The one” against her mother’s misery.

Meeting Mr Wrong?

Team Mom heads off on their break and Lally meets a sparky young man called John (Robert Montgomery) whilst demonstrating a sleek swimsuit at the local Lido. He sneaks a sub-aquatic kiss and a romance begins. All is swimmingly-swell until a fateful moment when he reveals himself to be Mrs Cheever’s son.

Oh delicious pain… Can Lally be involved with the son of the woman who ruined her parent’s marriage? No spoilers… 

And the winner is… The Divorcee (1930)

This film was released just under four months later and, allowing for the Thalberg’s Christmas break and January skiing holiday, must have taken less than three months to produce.

Directed by Robert Z. Leonard from a novel by Ursula Parrott, The Divorcee is a “tighter” film and less obviously melodramatic than Desire. The drama comes out of the central couple’s relationship and the eternal questions of fidelity and communication between men and women.

The guests are all shocked in different ways...

It starts off with a gathered of NYC high-flyers at a large log cabin – large enough to include the wise-cracking housekeeper Dorothy (Judith Wood) and separate rooms all round.

As the jollity proceeds, everyone wonders where Ted (Chester Morris) and Jerry (Norma Shearer) are? Jerry’s former/nearly-love (?) Paul (Conrad Nagel) stands watch at the door; still hoping, still pining whilst a young woman Dorothy (Judith Wood) looks longingly at him: a daisy chain of the disappointed.

Ted and Jerry encouraged by a local youth...

We cut to Jerry and Ted enjoying some affectionate larks by a stream as he kind of pops the questions and she, kind of, accepts – it’s carefree as emphasised by a young boy urging her to say yes “for the love of Mike” as he waits to resume his fishing… They return to the party to congratulation and celebration led by Ted’s best mate Don (Robert Montgomery – again!) as Paul turns quickly to the bar with disastrous results. As everyone leaves he crashes his car disfiguring Dorothy for life and eventually marrying her out of the obligation of pity.

Shifting forward three years we re-join the crowd at a party to mark Ted and Jerry’s anniversary. All looks to have been blissful until an uninvited guest arrives: Janice (Mary Doran), a woman who seems on familiar terms with Ted.

Oops!

Now comes the test as Ted reveals to Jerry that he had a one-night stand with Janice…. Protesting that “it “doesn’t mean a thing…” Ted clearly isn’t able to admit or comprehend the huge misstep he’s taken and, with a business trip looming, he’s about to be away from two whole weeks before he and Jerry can really process the betrayal… and, by the time he gets back things have developed momentum.

Ted departs that night and one thing leads to another as Jerry  gets tipsy with kind, loyal Don and, as the curtains are drawn in his apartment Jerry decides to “balance the account”.

Jerry about to balance the account...

Jerry’s not really that kind of girl and on Ted’s return, as he tries to go back to normal she reveals the truth (careful to keep Don’s name out of it). Oddly enough Ted takes this badly and seems to have lost touch with the whole “meaning nothing” vibe... He loses it and Jerry, realising by now that she’s married to a narrow-minded hypocrite, decides to become the kind of lady that he imagines men to be: she will enjoy herself.

Ted turns to drink and runs off to Europe whilst Jerry enjoys a string of relationships smartly represented by various tableaux involving Jerry’s and a variety of suitors’ hands as they hit the towns… Are they punishing themselves or trying to run away? The escape is going well until Jerry finally runs into Paul again…

The Divorcee is a better film than Desires both technically and in terms of content but I think Norma Shearer’s performances are equally good in both and she is the main reason to view. For all the sexy pre-code accoutrements – infidelity, wine and skimpy – both films are ultimately morality tales that promote the values of loyalty, forgiveness and the importance of love over pride.

The Divorcee is available as part of the Forbidden Hollywood box set volume two whilst Their Own Desire is on Warner Archives DVD.

Breaking bad… The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916)

It’s all so easy to laugh at this one and to shake your head in condescension – what were they thinking; making a comedy based on a drug-addled “scientific detective” who solves his crimes through frequent use of narcotics? Didn’t they know that stuff was dangerous; had they no idea that these ultra-addictive drugs would soon be out-lawed, Hollywood would stand to be accused of institutionalized decadence and that one of the film’s cast, Alma Rubens, would later die of addiction?

Sadly, unlike pretty much every one of the drugs involved, hindsight just wasn’t readily available over the counter and the involvement not just of Douglas Fairbanks but also Anita Loos (the titles), Tod Browning (the script) and even DW Griffith ( a little), showed just how “accepted” recreational drug use was as a source of humour... I don’t think the team was advocating drug use nor even the opposite – in the manner of The Devil’s Needle (1915) – just taking the idea of a self-medicating Sherlock to its extreme.

Everything the modern "scientific detective" needs...

In fact they didn’t really mean anything: it’s a joke albeit an odd one. Not to judge then but to understand…

Fairbanks later disowned the film after a lot of water passed very quickly under this particular bridge: after drugs had clearly become a killing joke. But even on release the film was banned in Boston and elsewhere: cocaine was available on prescription or over the counter from pharmacies but it had been otherwise made illegal by the the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914.

The Ennyday-Mobile in "street disguise" mode...

Directed – eventually - by John Emerson (after Christy Cabanne was fired…), The Mystery of the Leaping Fish was made during a period of consolidation in Fairbank’s burgeoning career but clearly before his action adventure persona was solidified. He plays Coke Ennyday a man whose clock tells only four times: "EATS, DRINKS, SLEEPS, and DOPE" and generally goofs around as the tripping detective. He’s pretty good but sometimes quite annoying but when he takes on the baddies near the end, bouncing around in perpetual motion he’s “our Doug” alright.

Allan Sears is rolling in it!

Coke is roused from his reveries by the arrival of the local police chief I.M. Keene (Tom Wilson), there’s a gentleman on the loose who is rolling in wealth – literally – and with no visible means of having earned it (Allan Sears) time to get the needle in and set off in pursuit of this mystery millionaire.

The Bad Men and their fish

Coke dons his ‘tec-togs, a fancy check suit that is matched by his car – a superbly-stenciled vehicle with the driver’s footman (Joe Murphy) – without whom Coke might not make it through any day -  positioned at the back in matching suit.

They arrive at the beach where the man was last seen and here the mystery of the leaping fish is revealed as the “fish” in question are inflatables loaned out to bathers…

Bessie on the blower

A Little Fish Blower (Bessie Love) is employed to blow the fish up – very slowly from the looks and size of her – and she is also having pressure applied to marry the boss of the blow-ups (William Lowery) a mean character – she could do better.

Eagle-eyed Coke spots his target frolicking in the waves and sets off in pursuit of him and his accomplice (Alma Rubens) enabling what is perhaps the first sea-based inflatables chase in cinema history… Coke’s flying fish springs a leak after he tries to inject it with cocaine and he spins off out of control enabling the dodgy duo to make good their escape.

Doug's mustache is detached and they just keep on filming... Bessie can't stop laughing!

Coke befriends the pretty little fish blower and maintains his watch on the beach… it’s surely only a matter of time before inspiration is chemically-induced and the flying fish get fried.

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish is well made, energetic, wacky and slightly shameful… It’s probably not responsible film-making but it also fails to be funny for long stretches abandoning Doug’s natural charm for bad moustache twirling and repetition of the same injection jokes… Granted the hero’s recourse to drugs eventually saves the day in unexpected ways but that’s more by accident than design.

"You are at my mercy woman..." Nope, not a bit of it!

In a cop-out twist at the end we see the real Fairbanks having his “idea” turned down by the studio head who suggest he sticks to acting and not scripting. They knew… they knew very well.

The film is available on Kino’s excellent Modern Musketeer DVD set, either direct or from Amazon. 

That'll be a no then...

Play your cards right… The Queen of Spades (1916)

A film about the perils of gambling and on the advisability of relying on the advice of magical old women who may or may not owe you a favour, The Queen of Spades has something of the grim desperation of The Student of Prague and feels very much like Edgar Allen Poe. It also has a top notch performance from a young Ivan Mozzhukhin, years before he fled to achieve great things in France and at the height of his fame in Tsarist Russia mere months before the first revolution of 1917…

There’s some advanced technique from director Yakov Protazanov not just with his Bauer-esque dolly shot as Mozzhukhin’s character enters a casino but also in his threading of the narrative between the here and then. This is cleverly done as it brings with it the shock of when both or shockingly brought together as one.

The camera tracks Hermann's steps

Based on the 1834 Alexander Pushkin short story which had already been turned into an opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, the film is a sustained exercise in unsettling the viewer: from Mozzhukhin’s constant state of agitation to repeated and well-timed encounters with creatures of the night…

It starts off with Russian officers playing cards at Captain Narumov’s house amongst the revelry one man looks on but never plays - Hermann (Mozzhukhin) who is “…not in a position to waste the essential in the hope of acquiring the superfluous…” his interest betrays him somewhat…

Hermann listens intently to Narumov's tale

Narumov toasts their Countess – his  Grandmother -  and admits he cannot understand why she doesn’t play like she used to…. He begins to talk of 60 years’ before when she had Paris at her feet and the scene shifts to the young woman (Tamara Duvan) as she wows all around her.  

But gambles can be lost as well as won and one night she loses heavily to the Duc d’Orleans. Returning home she orders her husband (Pavel Pavlov) to pay her debt but he angrily refuses. The Countess turns to the altogether taller, more dashing and far more shifty - Count St. Germain (Nikolai Panov) who then “…revealed to her a secret for which each of us would pay dearly…”

The Countess at play

So it is that at Versailles, the Countess chooses three cards which all came up trumps and she cleared her debts… with endless gratitude to her mystical advisor.

Protazanov parallel runs his narrative - rather than the more conventional “dip in and return”, so we see the original story unfold and how it impacts Hermann in particular.

The Duke divulges...

The story then shifts to reveal Hermann’s subsequent encounter with the Countess in St Petersburg. He feels drawn to her house (by her three card trick?) and there he meets and falls in love with her ward Lizaveta (Vera Orlova) who was soon the happy recipient of his daily correspondence (ah, the days before Snap Chat…) awaiting by her window for his daily appearance. Is this genuine or just a way in?

Lizaveta waiting for the man...

The Countess thinks back to her Paris days locked alone in her insomnia… and now we have a flashback from one character which suddenly links to a story told by a second: this is clever narrative and a genuinely surprise… St Germain and Hermann clearly have something in common.

St Germain travels through secret passages to rendezvous with the young Countess only for the director to switch directly to Hermann opening the same door to meet her elder self… But Hermann is there for a different reason and wants the old woman to “ensure that my entire life is happy”, he wants her to tell him the secret of the three cards.

Same door, same woman, 60 years apart...

At first he pleads then he threatens unfortunately the shock is too much and he returns to Lizaveta saying he has killed her mistress… Yet, as he variously mourns his lost opportunity, his callous disregard for human life and possibly the loss of his love, the ghost of the old lady returns – against her will… to reveal her secret…

The ghost of a chance...

Protazanov uses a restricted narrative in which almost nothing happens or is retold without Hermann being present. The story is clearly a subjective one from the young officer’s point of view and even the flashbacks are arguably his interpretation of events. This is the most personal type of horror story.

And the real shocks are still to come as Hermann sets out to guarantee his fortune by using the secret he gained in exchange for the Countesses’ death… He heads off to the gambling clubs of Moscow convinced that nothing can stop him playing his cards right.

Hermann makes his play

This is a richly textured film and one which rewards a re-watch (possibly as some bits are missing!). There’s an unusual focus on the psychological as much as the supernatural and Ivan Mozzhukhin is the man for this occasion. As Bryony Dixon recounts in her 100 Silent Movies, the Russian even resembled Pushkin’s description of his character whilst his expressiveness – which would stand out amongst the rest even without the eye-liner – means that the watcher is drawn into what is ultimately his character’s own, lonely story.

The shadow of a doubt

The cinematography from Yevgeni Slavinsky is also worthy of mention, with some striking well-lit shots that pre-figure expressionism: there is one sequence in which Hermann is literally overwhelmed by the shadow of a doubt…

The Queen of Spades is available on DVD as part of Milestone Films Early Russian Cinema Volume 8 - you can get it direct from their shop (I'm collecting the set). Surely this is overdue a screening in the UK?

Roots manoeuvre… Alraune (1928)

After some years of silent exploration you’ve probably seen a fair chunk of the “cannon” and the key cult films and it gets a little harder to gain the same “hit” as when you first watched a Caligari or a Warning Shadows. That’s not to say that I’m getting jaded, just more travelled… but, whatever I watch, there’s always something remarkable.

Here we have a slightly plodding tale of mystery but one that has another extraordinary performance from Brigitte Helm whose expressive control and sheer “slinkiness” create what C. Hooper Trask in his New York Times review described as “a most engaging evening's display of erotics." They say the lights are always bright on Broadway… they say there’s always magic in the air...

The root grows below the gallows...

Now then, the nature of this particular magic is quite specific and pretty unusual dating as it does to a story from the German Middle Ages about a root – the Mandrake (the Alraune of the title) – which if left to absorb a hanged man’s “essence” in the ground under his execution, was capable of giving life either by enabling pregnancies or helping witches produce children without the aid of a living sperm donor. Such progeny were said to have no soul and sound far more trouble than they’re worth but, you know, there’s always someone ready to give it a go: to mess with Nature.

As mythology goes Alraune, starts with a disadvantage being not quite as splendidly sinister as Der Golem or as creepy as Nosferatu – it’s a root! The version available also seems to have been the victim of cuts at the crucial section dealing with conception and birth so the viewer has to draw their own conclusions about the part played by the vital vegetable… The film is based on Hanns Heinz Ewers’ novel of 1910 from which more specifics can be gleaned.

Paul Wegener

Our mad scientist for today is former Golem of this parish, Paul Wegener who plays Professor Jakob ten Brinken who has become interested in the nature versus nurture debate and this has somehow led him onto the legend of the root. By using the mandrake he hopes to engineer a human being in order to establish “whether the parents’ genetic make-up, has a purely random effect on the offspring.” Can he create something pure and free from hereditary conditioning…? I think you know where this is heading…

The professor grows the Mandrake as required and gets his nephew Franz Braun (Iván Petrovich) to help him find a lady of the lowest order - Ein Mädchen von der Gasse (Valeska Gert) - to act as the incubation chamber for the new being. Just as the woman arrives at the Professor’s apartments, turning in shock to see him emerge in white coat, the film jumps forward almost two decades…

Not your typical girl...

Alraune ten Brinken (Brigitte Helm) is at boarding school and is first scene toying with fly as it attempts to escape from a glass of water, she reaches out, not to rescue but to push it back; not the behaviour of a well-educated young woman. There is more to come as she leads her classmates into acts of rebellion, she dances, wears cologne and plants a stage beetle on the mother superiors robes.

Clearly Alraune has out-grown school and to facilitate her escape has lured a young man, Wölfchen (Wolfgang Zilzer) into loving her: he is to steal money from his family and they are to run away. Once on their train to freedom she orders champagne and starts flirting with a likely lad who spies her from the corridor.

Wölfchen tries to fight him off but there’s to be no respite as a troop of circus performers join the train. Alraune is immediately impressed by the magician’s sleight of hand especially when in one sexually obvious moment he lets a mouse run up her skirt; she leans back and looks him straight in the eye when even Bad Maria might think twice…

Have you got a light, boy?

At the circus things move on and Alraune is seen sharing a cigarette with the lion tamer (Louis Ralph) standing so close that she can light his fire with her own as it were. Chided for her wanton troublesome-ness Alraune walks into the lions’ cage challenging the beasts to come and have a go if they think they’re cat enough. The animals don’t move until the Tamer rushes in with his whip.

Alraune in the roar

So a heart-breaker with nerves of steel and a twisted sado-masochistic streak… is this what the Professor wanted to find out? How would a woman born from the human stew of a prostitute, a murderer and the mysterious root vegetable work out?

The root of all evil (sorry, just had to)

He’ll soon be able to find out as he finally catches up on his “daughter” after years of searching. He whisks her off to polite society where she plays tennis with Der Vicomte (handsome John Loder who I last saw in The First Born) who soon proposes… But, he’s not the only man to have fallen for Alraune and the Professor blackmails her into staying under his “care”.

From this point one it’s a battle between the scientist and his creation and we all know how those usually turn out or do we? The film has more than a few tricks and turns up its sleeve …

She's behind you...

Directed with competence and the odd dash of style by Henrik Galeen, Alraune doesn’t rank with the best of Weimar cinema in my opinion although I’m sure I’d enjoy it more in cinema with live accompaniment. It is, however, worth seeking out purely for Brigitte Helm’s performance alone. I love her physicality and dancer’s contortions: she seems almost too frail to be an evil thing and yet there’s considerable strength behind her movement as the Professor will find out.

Brigitte abides...

Paul Wegener is pretty good too, 15 years after his student days in Prague – one of the finest actors in German silent film and one who has been unjustly accused of collaboration in later years whereas he apparently donated money to the resistance and helped to hide the vulnerable.

I watched a copy of the 2000 reconstruction on your actual video which you can view in poorer quality on YouTube. It deserves better and I’m sure the Editionfilmmuseum folk will one day get around to it... although we are still waiting for the release of The Student of Prague guys!

The Full Maria