The face that launched a thousand takes… Helen and the Fall of Troy (1924), Edition Filmmuseum DVD

“As a spectacle carrying the imprint of truth and realism it would make DW Griffith sit up and consider his laurels, while the acting has never been bettered from the … leads to the tiniest small part.” Variety, 1925

Turns out a poem paints some 219 minutes on celluloid. Director Manfred Noa’s epic was released a few months before Fritz Lang’s 288-minute Die Nibelungen and yet is little remembered a century on. This is no doubt due to its being largely absent from archives until the discovery of an almost complete copy in Lausanne, Switzerland enabled this 1999 restoration including materials from archives in Rome, Madrid and Moscow. The film was a box office hit but nearly bankrupted Noa’s studio, Bavaria Film based in Munich a financial world away from UFA which was founded two years before in 1917. The company still makes films – unlike UFA – but many of its earliest efforts are lost, including Hitchcock’s The Mountain Eagle – and this film, along with Noa’s equally epic, Nathan der Wiese (1922), are two of the few survivors.

There are many beautiful shots, a cast of thousands, stunning battles scenes and a dirty great big wooden horse and yet the film kept on reminding me of the Italian epic style from ten years earlier; lots of almost static tableaux, albeit on an epic scale and with some fine montages and in-camera trickery, yet without the fluidity of Lang or other contemporaries. That said, this is an engaging film and one that pays due diligence to Homer’s source poem as adapted by Hans Kyser. The acting is perfectly attuned too as Variety noted, and is stylised to a consistent degree with the contemporary view of this ancient myth with its prefiguring of Teutonic gothic – these are people driven by ancient laws and codes of honour… and look where that gets you?

A gift from the Greeks

The film is split into to two parts Der Raub Der Helena (The Abduction/Rape of Helen) and Der Untergang Trojas (The Ruin of Troy) and scrupulously follows the twists and turns of Homer’s poem.

The holy dove of Aphrodite brings you the crown of myrtle… Oh Queen, you are the chosen one for the Festival of Adonis.

It starts off, as so many things do, on the island of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, as Adonis, god of spring, releases a dove to find the most beautiful woman in all of Greece. With all good intention, the clever bird flies to Sparta and the Island of Menelaus, the King of the Greeks, to gift the crown to Helen, his wife here played by the Italian actress, Edy Darclea, strong featured with roman nose and statuesque form. Helen is faithful to her husband and King (Friedrich Ulmer) but he’s too proud of her and wants the World to acclaim her beauty at the Festival of Aphrodite. The tale of Mr and Mrs Menelaus is the story’s beginning and end and I once saw a really visceral performance of Euripides’ play Helen at the Globe Theatre with Penny Downie as Helen and Liverpool’s Paul McGann as a battle-weary Menelaus trying to understand and reconcile with his wife after all that is still to come in Noa’s film… which, clearly, I should have watched first.

Edy Darclea and Friedrich Ulmer

Meanwhile, over on Troy, King Priam (Albert Steinrück) also seeks favours of the gods, nervously asking for guidance from the Oracle before allowing his city to celebrate the spring. High up in the hills sits a lonely goatherd  shepherd playing two flutes at the same time as he simultaneously invents prog-jazz and glam rock with a look best described as Marc Bolan meets Jethro Tull via Siouxsie Sioux’s hairdresser. It is Paris (Russian actor/exile, Vladimir Gajdarov later to feature in Michel Strogoff in 1926), who is no mere farm boy but the youngest son of Priam brought up in ignorance of his royal blood.

Things get seriously psychedelic as Paris is visited in a dream by the god Hermes who gives him a golden apple to award to the most beautiful of the three goddesses he is about to see in visions; Here “goddess of goddesses”, Athena “goddess of wisdom” and Aphrodite, “goddess of love” who offers him the love of the most beautiful woman on Earth… naturally, he gives the apple to contestant number three and our course is set: love over wisdom and glory. He resolves to journey to the festival in Troy where he will sacrifice his finest bull in tribute to Aphrodite, as, indeed, you would.

He'll toot his flute for you Helen... Vladimir Gajdarov

Meanwhile Other Gods deliver a spoiler/warning to King Menelaus, saying that if he loses the love of his Queen, all of Greece will spend years fighting to get her back. I can snark away but these tales were a way of people understanding why things happened and what caused misfortune and, whilst the gods may well have offered choices it is always Man’s folly of interpretation and judgement that leads to tragedy. In this respect, absolutely nothing has changed in terms of our need to ascribe the twists and turns of life to external forces… there almost certainly was a war involving Greece and a city like Troy – sometime between 1260 to 1180 BC, and by the time of Homer – himself a bit of a legend, either a single author or many hands - around the late eighth or early seventh century BC, these events had passed into myth and fable.

High quality visions from Manfred Noa

Back in 1924, Noa injects huge spectacle into his narrative with thousands of extras taking part of the Festival of Spring on a huge set, lavish enough to rival those of Griffith and DeMille. Paris arrives pulling his sacrificial bull only for Hera to send a cyclone to Troy outraged at having been passed over for Aphrodite… Troy’s protector, Athena, demands that Priam sends his son Hector (Carl de Vogt) to sail beyond the sea to Hera’s sanctuary yet they decide on Paris instead, angering Athena and forcing the put-upon Oracle, Aisakos (Albert Bassermann) to forecast the very worst for the King and his dynasty. More spoilers…

Meanwhile Helen, after having been afforded a glimpse of Paris from her own Oracle, heads to the Feast of Adonis on the island of Cythera where there’s even greater spectacle with a chariot race of similar scale to the following year’s Ben Hur. Here we find Achilles in the muscular form of Carlo Aldini, eventually contesting for the chance to be awarded the winners wreath by the beauteous Helen. It’s a superb set piece with camera’s mounted on chariots in a purpose-built arena around which stunt men and many horses pull round the tightest of bends. Achilles wins but the men fight over Helen but eventually agree to stand together to defend her and the honour of Greece.

Achilles pushing Menelaus hard on the outside lane...

Now that promise is going to be important as Helen, after a gratuitous bath scene, is escorted from a distraught Menelaus by Achille’s and sets off to the Island of Adonis, where she will meet the god of desire and gym clubs, who’s statue looks exactly the same as Helen’s dream man. Following shortly afterwards is Paris, who, under Aphrodite’s protection, has survived the worst that Poseidon can throw at his ship, arriving at the island just in time to meet his promised love. The two share a night of highly consensual shame, but what else can they do with the gods conspiring along with two Kings whose pride is coming well before a fall.

The island of Adonis

Anyway, Paris smuggles Helen back to Troy and he finally learns the truth of his royal heritage as he meets his brother Hector. The two witness Helen calming two lions – take that Gloria “One Lion” Swanson - clearly the Aphrodite is keen on this gal.

Kneel and kiss her robes, this woman has been granted wondrous powers!

Troy rejoices at the new arrival and King Priam believes that she has released him from the curse of the gods… and he throws Aisakos into the deepest dungeon when he begs to differ, the oracle suggesting that she will bring only death and destruction. Helen decides to stay with her new love and people after King Menelaus arrives with Agamemnon, King of the Greeks, and their troops. This leads to battle and finally Paris leads Troy to victory, the former shepherd showing a perhaps surprising level of strategic prowess and combat technique. He has won a battle but the war is only just beginning…

Paris inspired!

Part Two tells the story of the ensuing long siege of Troy as the Greeks throw everything they have at Helen’s new protectors. Within the walls, Prince Hector finds himself drawn to Helen who in her turn, reciprocates as things turn slightly sour with an increasingly disaffected and unheroic Paris. Without, Achilles and his extraordinary temper, prevent him from getting involved until his dear friend Patroclus is killed by Hector which drives him into a super heroic fury. It’s interesting how the film portrays the two men’s relationship – a very deep friendship which can easily be interpreted as a sexual one.

But even Achilles cannot swing the war on his own and some cunning is going to be required to break the deadlock. Cue the Horse!

Achilles and Menelaus allied

The film is one to relax into and retains many of the over-elaborations of the source mythology p- those gods just move in mysterious and contradictory ways. The characters are also full of conflicting emotion and this is interesting in itself, Paris doesn’t really have the heroic story arc we expect and Helen does not find him to be her one true love, returning at the end to Menelaus. The King of Sparta learns humility perhaps for letting his Queen enter the beauty pageant on Cythera whilst King Priam learns that you can’t beat fate; naturally the eventual defeat of Troy had to have a ret-conned celestial explanation.

The hyper emotionalised tale of various loves and passions would have been a natural fit for a Germany in need of understanding its own fall and also in need of vicarious shows of sexuality, love and glory. Helen’s a winner in any age in that respect.

Paris and Helen share a moment not of love but of shame?

Manfred Noa’s direction is highly competent if not original and his sense of scale is still amazing aided by his two cameramen, Ewald Daub and Gustave Preiss. It looks grand and at the end you almost feel like you’ve lived that long war with these eternal characters and you really hope that Helen and her Menelaus will head into a quieter life… for that seek out Euripides’ play.

I watched the Edition Filmmuseum double DVD set which is available direct from their site.

 Bonus eye candy!

Hey kids, let’s put the show on right here! KB TV, Kennington Bioscope Online

When the going gets tough the tough go online… now into the fourth month of lockdown and it’s a strange world of small-scale pleasures and home-based working where time seems to slip more quickly away. However did we find time to commute, to go to theatres, pubs and football grounds? Where is our cinema time?

It was Dame Pamela of Walthamstow who once described the Kennington Bioscope as London’s Silent Speakeasy, an exclusive yet inclusive, almost mythical club of the committed and persistently  passionate silent cinephiles who gather under shadowy circumstances once every three weeks or so… no questions asked, just slip Amran or Tony a fiver on the door of the Cinema Museum and you’re in for a treat! Something old, often borrowed and occasionally blue… When the door of the Museum had to temporarily close, these intrepid individuals just stayed calm and carried on, shifting to digital and, with casual ease, bloomin’ well going global!

KB TV has been running throughout the lockdown on YouTube and tonight was the fourth episode with four films shown with the live or pre-recorded accompaniment that makes for the full silent experience. We also had a comments feed indicating the attendance of silent film friends from Brazil (hiya Paula!), the USA (the legendary Donna!), the EU and far beyond the usual collection from the Capital.

The KB’s own Blonde Bombshell or should that be Bomb-chelle?

Cyrus Gabrysch’s film of the Cinema Museum set the feel of place and then Michelle Facey, who’s lockdown presence has been felt online through one glorious floral display after another, provided the introductions and context that held the show together. MC Facey, as she should now be called, welcomed us with all the sass and assurance of Marlene on the stage at Der blaue Engel, as she talked us through the evening’s exploration. The films were supplied by the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam including some from their Jean Desmet Collection.

Oh, You Ragtime! (1912) with Costas Fotopoulos

Muriel Ostriche joins in the dance

This high-energy short was from the French Éclair studio who had set up production in the USA and set about re-working French vaudeville for the new market. Directed by Étienne Arnaud the film features a classical pianist (Guy Oliver) who, on moving to his new apartment, tests out his piano by playing Alexander's Ragtime Band. This has the effect of forcing everyone who hears to start dancing and before long his removal men and most of the building are dancing.

Muriel Ostriche plays a typist caught up in the moves and she’s someone I’ve read about but never seen. She was only 15 at the time of this film but became a big star for a while in the 1910s, coming second to Alice Joyce in a Motion Picture Story Magazine poll to find the favourite movie stars in 1913. Michelle quoted from Q. David Bowers fascinating biography on the Princess of Silent Films -who he met in 1986 – and it’s good to see her star quality on screen.

The film ends with Muriel and the rest exhausted and slumped all over the pianist’s room which works well enough but Michelle read out the dénouement in which the pianist revives them with a gallop. Music to move you.

All of this was an absolute gift for Costas who had me tapping my feet along throughout.

The Lie (1915) with John Sweeney

Ship mates?

To the sea for the next film, a tense tail of two seafaring men competing for the love of one woman. William Hinckley plays our hero David and his wife Joan is Adoni Fovieri who is greatly admired by his friend Caleb (Joseph Singleton). Joan has not told her husband that she is expecting their child and then tragedy strikes as the men are seemingly lost at sea in a vicious storm. Caleb is rescued though and returns to tell Joan that David and the rest of the crew all drowned… as the years pass, Joan still keeps on hoping and Caleb still keeps on trying to force her hand in marriage…

You can probably guess how this one’s gong to end but it’s well done and Mr Sweeney was in robust form, an all-weather player he always plays the rolling sea with such thunderous glee and gave this emotional play that extra lift it needed.

Cutey Plays Detective (1913) with Costas Fotopoulos

Wally Van's Cutey keeps and eye on the competition

Now for some cross-dressed wooing as our hero Cutey (Wally Van) takes on the role of house maid in order to get close to his love, Alys (Zena Keefe). Mother (Louise Beaudet) does not approve of Cutey/Wally and prefers the attentions of dastardly Lord Goodbluff (Courtenay Foote) for her daughter. Luckily, she is very impressed by her new maid’s skills and, well, she gets a lot more than she bargained for…

Directed by Laurence Trimble, this was a hoot with engaging leads and a very bad Goodbluff! Costa’s added classy flavouring to another mad dance!

 The Mystery of the Tea Dansant (1915) with Cyrus Gabrysch

Ruth takes charge... as the Piano-Cam shows Cyrus' keys

This three-reeler was the fourth episode of seven in The Girl Detective series from Kalem and starring the rousingly resourceful Ruth Roland as the titular ‘tec, a woman of agency as Michelle described her and definitely the Sherlock to her assistant, Harry’s Dr Watson. Michelle quoted from Kalton C. Lahue who in Continued Next Week, A History of the Moving Picture Serial, points out that in these films, the woman rescued the man as much as he rescued her if not more often… so, reflecting life as it is more accurately than the myths of melodrama might suggest.

Not that this film lacks a damsel in distress but there are plenty of men in need of help and the impressive Ruth is there to put things right. Thomas G. Lingham is Marmaduke, the meanspirited manager of the Tea Dansant which is a cover for his criminal operation and also an excuse to show us lots of rug being cut. It’s strictly come kidnapping though as Marmaduke abducts heiress Marguerite Wheeler (Cleo Ridgely) and starts demanding payments from her distraught mother (Anna Lingham – mother of Thomas?).

Thomas G. Lingham worried whiskers

Ruth finds the weak spot in the operation by arresting Darby (Knute Rahm) who the cunning club runner is blackmailing into assisting him and with the aid of trusty sidekick Harry (R. Henry Grey) and the cops, she sets about solving the case. I love the way Ruth is in command and more than a match for the master criminal.

Cyrus accompanied live with dramatic dash and flourish and it felt very much like being back in the comforts of curious Kennington. I’ve missed these folk and their endless fascination with film – something that burns as brightly in lockdown as ever before. So, keep it coming KB and thank you for continuing to unite us all around cinema.

You can catch up on all the episodes on the KB's youTube channel right here.

Wednesday Night at the Lockdown Palladium?

Lust in the dust? The Song of Love (1924), Directed by Frances Marion, produced by Norma Talmadge

Outside of Miss Talmadge there isn't an awful lot to "The Song of Love." It is another of those desert stories, the same type more or less that went out of fashion a little over a year ago…

The Variety reviewer (1) wasn’t pulling any punches about this film or even it’s undoubtedly very popular star – the highest paid female actor at the time – although he was considerably impressed with her revealing costume. The New York Times - Mordaunt Hall? -concurred on both film and the newly discovered Talmadge torso, a step away from her usual “demure” roles…

Imagine passing into the Rivoli with a vague impression of Miss Talmadge in poke bonnet and voluminous hoop skirts that jealously guard even her ankles from view, and suddenly beholding a startling vision of undeniable beauty, clad expensively, but not extensively.

Film Daily felt Norma looked ill at ease in the revealing costume – she certainly didn’t wear anything so skimpy again – but perhaps all of this shows that even though a highly competent and versatile star, the public had an expectation of what a Norma Talmadge film should be.

Norma's saying no to Arthur Carewe

No doubt intended to cash in on the sex and sand success of The Sheik, The Song of Love is entertaining but a bit of a clunker, one of so many well made, mediocre films that have blighted Norma’s reputation in spite of the evidence of her work with Frank Borzage (Secrets (1924) and The Lady (1925)), sentimental neo-classics like Smilin’ Through and the energised comedy of Kiki. As Lea Jacobs (2) has pointed out, Norma was let down by too many weak plots and even weaker dialogue. Jeanine Basinger (3) further suggests that the oldest Talmadge was just too versatile for her own good and “never developed a single persona, a ‘role’ that audiences thought was actually her in real life…” She was considered a fine actor and one who took on all kinds of roles many of which showed her as a transitional figure; “she had one foot in the 1890s and the other in the 1920s…”

All this said, Norma Talmadge is likeable in every film I’ve seen her in and, whilst F Scott Fitzgerald described her as the epitome of glamour in Tender is the Night, he also wrote that she must be a fine noble woman beyond her loveliness. Maybe Norma’s just too nice for modern tastes?

Too nice?

She transcends the limitations of Frances Marion’s adaptation of Margaret Peterson novel’s Dust of Desire and brings out the humour in a script of varying sensibilities that leaves even Norma sometimes staring our through lines she can scarcely believe… and she was the producer! Marion co-directed with Chester M. Franklin, one of only three films she directed, the others being Mary Pickford’s The Love Light (1921) and Margaret Seddon’s Just Around the Corner (1921). It’s a competent film, enjoyable on its own terms but mostly for Norma.

Song of Love is set in the town of Ahamar in Algeria and Norma plays an exotic dancer (in old money) called Noorma-hal (see what they did?) and described as The Rose of All the World by the appreciative locals in her Uncle, Chandra-lal’s (Hector V. Sarno) gambling den. Her biggest fan, Ramlika (Arthur Edmund Carewe) just so happens to be the leader of a Tuareg uprising against the occupying French “Christian dogs” (probably) who are likeable colonialists dressed smartly and unaware of the hatred all around them

New romantic or glam? Joseph Schildkraut

Ramlika’s passion is not reciprocated by Noorma-hal and is only inflamed by her skimpy style and sure-footed gyrations – which are mostly shot at distance either to shield the delicate audience from the full-on raunch or, possibly the fact that a stand in is being used. But Norma carries it all off and Ramlika promises that when this is all over, she’ll be his.

The local colonial notables, Commissionaire Desmond (Earl Schenck), Captain Fregonne (Mario Carillo), Dr. Humbert (James Cooley) and their American friend Dick Jones (Laurence Wheat) from Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA… have gotten wind of the plotting and called in French agent Ramon Valverde (Joseph Schildkraut) but, round these parts, it’s not just walls that have ears but curtains too with Ramlika’s spy, Chamba (Albert Prisco) hearing the whole plan.

Valverde is no mug though and makes his first appearance in disguise looking something like Spandau Ballet’s bass player in 1983 as he listens in to the Tuareg’s plans at the gambling den. He doesn’t go unnoticed by our dancing heroine who ignores his make up sensing the goodness of the man inside. Ramlika isn’t impressed and the two men fight with Valverde making good his escape and deciding to use Noorma-hal’s attraction to him to keep tabs on the uprising.

Maude Wayne as the Other Woman

Whilst all’s fair in love and war, Valverde goes on to show us his moral fibre when he refuses to rekindle an old affair with the Commissioner’s wife Maureen (Maude Wayne). But Noorma-hal catches them in the act of not continuing and assumes, correctly based on his previous thinking, that he only wants the white Christian woman. Passions are, however, on the rise and Noorma-hal is soon stuck between a frog and a hard face as she must decide who to betray and when. The Tuareg forces are massing and only she can stave off disaster but, at what cost to herself?!

               

As the above reviews indicate even at the time this was an old tale and whilst there are twists and turns, they are mostly predictable. What saves it is Norma who is nearly always in the moment and the only really relatable character throughout.

I watched the film on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray set, Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers (4) which uses the German print which has a different ending from the US print – which is explained via title card and which is the more surprising conclusion for a number of reasons. The print quality is mostly excellent but there is some deterioration which Greta de Groat says is not present on the other surviving print held at the Library of Congress but you can’t have it all - it's a mostly fine looking 

film and inspite of the gripes, who doesn't like watching Norma T work even if it's mostly so much sand and fury signifying very little.

Norma Talmadge straight to mirror

1. Greta de Groat’s excellent website has a wealth of Norma information and links to the World-Wide-Web of Talmadge – I lifted the Variety and NYT quotes from her!

2. Writing in Idols of Modernity: Movie Stars of the 1920s, Rutgers University Press (2010)

3. Jeanine Basinger – Silent Stars, Wesleyan University Press (2000)

4. The six Blu-ray set Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers is of course essential and available direct from Kino Lorber as well as via Amazon.com – anyone else finding that export restrictions are being tightened recently?

 

The Lady of the Shadows… The Call of the Cumberlands (1916), Julia Crawford Ivers

“Mrs. Ivers has proved time and again that she yields the palm to no mere man megaphone manipulator.” Betty Compson

I don’t know about you but, like a lot of the compulsively inquisitive/acquisitive, I have a considerable archive of the un-read, the un-listened to and the un-watched. Watching Mark Cousin’s excellent new series, Women Make Film – a film school that just happens to be run by women – I reach out to the Kino Lorber *six* disc box set, Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers and select a film by a woman I’ve never heard of… this is a time to broaden our minds.

IMDB has The Call of the Cumberlands being directed by Frank Lloyd but it has now been identified as having been directed by Julia Crawford Ivers who, according to April Miller’s excellent biography on the Women’s Film Pioneer website, is chiefly remembered for scripting some twenty films for William Desmond Taylor (she was even one of those implicated in his murder in 1922).

Julia Crawford Ivers

Ivers was apparently introverted and not one to seek the limelight it seems with the few photographs that survive being testament to her reputation as “The Lady of the Shadows”. Yet, she still made her way in a notoriously male industry and directed at least four films of which Cumberlands was the second, and one of three she made in 1916. By this time, she had been working in Hollywood for three years and she’d clearly learned her trade for, whilst it follows much of the standard western feud formula, there are some unexpected twists and some impressive scenes.

 “If all scenario writers could direct at least one picture… and all directors could write just one scenario, motion pictures would benefit tremendously…”

Ivers clearly understood structure and Cumberlands fits a lot of scenes into a relatively modest running time, she wrote the scenario based on the novel by Charles Neville Buck, a Kentuckian who saw that changes was coming and that the traditional blood rivalries would be swept away. To Ivers credit, the source complexity doesn’t get in the way of the film’s range or flow and she covers the ground well. 

Dark deeds afoot...

It begins in the mountainous woodlands of Kentucky with the latest events of a family feud between the Souths and the Hollmans, no relation to the Hatfield–McCoys or the Hamilton–Burrs. The families have been in a truce for two years but dark deeds are afoot and Ivers shoots in near darkness as a sniper takes aim at Jesse Purvy one of the senior members of the Hollman clan. He’s badly wounded but asks his kin to kill Samson South to avenge him if he dies.

There’s further impressive use of shadow as Ivers’ cameraman, Dal Clawson, catches the dappled shadow and bright light on young Sally Spicer (Winifred Kingston), one of the South clan who is radiant innocence watching the birds in the woodland. She comes across an abandoned oil painting and finds its painter, George Lescott (Michael Hallvard) unconscious in the shadows having slipped whilst engrossed in his view.

Dappled shadows as Sally looks for the missing painter.

We cut to Samson South (Dustin Farnum), “a fighter and a dreamer…” who is perhaps surprisingly sketching his own less sophisticated picture of the glorious scenery. Here’s a tie back to Mark Cousin’s opening episode of Women Make Film on introductions, Ivers deflty establishing the main characters and the main thrust of the story all within three short and technically proficient scenes. Lescott will prove to be an agent for change just as the blood feud is a direct threat to Samson’s ability to progress with his art and with his love… Sally’s not just there for the doves and squirrels after all.

Sally takes Lescott back home to recuperate and whilst Samson’s father isn’t keen on allowing strangers to stay, he starts to bond with the painter over their love of art; trying to capture views that make the “eyes sing”. Meanwhile, the Hollmans are trailing the attempted assassin with bloodhounds and there’s some gorgeous night-shots of men with torches heading inexorably to the South’s land.

Richard L'Estrange, Dustin Farnum and Winifred Kingston

Samson’s useless/devious cousin, Tamarack Spicer (Richard L'Estrange) pops up trying to implicate him and to stake his own claim on Sally. The Hollman’s arrive and the hounds find no incriminating odours on Samson… as Sally, as you’d expect of a wild woodland spirit, hides in the trunk of an ancient tree praying for her love’s innocence. The identity of the gunman will remain a secret for later as the story shifts to focus more on Samson’s relationship with Sally and his artistic ambition when, Lescott invites him to New York to develop his art. There's an eye-popping scene involving gracefully draped semi-nude women, interesting that three of the prime examples of female silent nudity come from Ivers, Lois Weber (Hypocrites (1915) and Nell Shipman (Back to God's Country (1919)) who asked, "is the nude rude?" Not so much under the female gaze Nell.

Samson has a good look in the life class...

Here’s the nub of things, in New York, distant from the Cumberlands in time as much as space, Samson develops aesthetically and forms a bond with Lescott’s sister Adrienne (Myrtle Stedman) who decides to teach him the manners of polite society. But is Manhattan society polite? Not so much that they all tolerate Samson and there’s feuds here of a different more political and capitalist nature. Will Samson be drawn into these dirty deeds and will he forget about his Sally who, even as he is playing tennis with Adrienne, is teaching herself to read and write. None of the characters stop moving and that family feud isn’t going to stop either; will Samson go all soft when it comes to defending his family?

Sally confronts Tamarack

"Ye lies, Tam'rack," she said, in a very low and steady voice-a voice that could not be mistaken, a voice relentlessly resolute and purposeful. "Ye lies like ye always lies. Yore heart's black an' dirty. Ye're a murderer an' a coward. Samson's a-comin' back ter me.... I'm a-goin' ter be Samson's wife." From Charles Neville Buck’s original novel.

Ivers makes light work of Neville Buck’s overwrought prose - though many title cards reflect that local dialect - and adapts with a subtle dynamism. The story grabs the attention even now despite being plagued by some chemical deterioration in some of the middle sections – as you can see most of the film looks sharp! It’s a genre film made with confidence and confidence to take a few risks with images and storyline.

I love this shot through the window of Samson greeting Adrienne in a car...

I like Ivers treatment of Sally and she places her in a number of inventive shots that emphasise her connection to nature and commitment to her Samson; she's a key part of his loyalties and the highest of stakes when he's being lured by East Coast aesthetics, society and Adrienne. The painter's sister is herself a free spirit but one operating within the learned behaviours of classical music, etiquette and even the sport of kings. Ivers pre-figures Nell Shipman with Sally's imagined comparison of a similar life versus woodland frolics with friendly bears and she also lifts a shot or two from Lois Webber's Shoes as Sally looks into a mirror realising that she can't change who she is.

Influenced by Lois Webber and influencing Nell Shipman?

As April Miller notes, Ivers was generally well-reviewed and this film was no different with Margaret I MacDonald writing that whilst “the production is not an altogether perfect one… “there were “scenes that could scarcely be excelled”. Cumberlands is an exciting romp that takes in East cost cultural improvement and Western family values; a man can be true to both and still be true in love.

April Miller’s biography on Ivers can be found on the Women’s Film Pioneer website.

There is also a new Kino Lorber disc, The Intrigue: The Films of Julia Crawford Ivers which has four films including A Son of Erin (1916) which she directed after Cumberlands. It’s available from Kino Lorber direct and it's on my birthday list!

Bonus screen shots!!