A happy crowd… Buster’s Shorts, Talkies Community Cinema, Christ Church, Southgate with David Hinitt and Adam Dickson

“Not long ago a friend asked me what was the greatest pleasure I got from spending my whole life as an actor. There have been so many that I had to think about that for a moment. Then I said, ‘like everyone else, I like to be with a happy crowd’.” – Buster Keaton

This was an irresistible first for me: the chance to watch silent comedy in a church with live improvised organ accompaniment.

Talkies organised the event superbly and silent activist Michelle Facey programmed perfectly. There were packed pews for this premier of Keaton comedies at Christ Church in leafy North London; just a dash down the A10 and a few dozen minutes of male hit-and-hope navigation (it’s really quite easy to find if you have the humility to pre-plan Paul…) from home.

Sybil never loses faith...well almost

The venue is lovely with the warmest of welcomes: this is a community cinema in all senses and there were eager helpers ready to serve the kind of refreshments required after your husband has just given you a de-tour of Enfield. This was not entirely the usual audience for a silent screening - there were a fair number of “civilians” here for the opportunity to share something different and to laugh at a man repeatedly falling over in a church.

Sometimes people can treat silent film with too much reverence (sorry) but the aisles were truly alight almost the second Roscoe and Buster started their larks in the first film: this audience were here for an unqualified good laugh. They were here to share. 

Molly Malone watches as the wall falls on Roscoe Arbuckle

Back Stage (1919)

First up was one of the 15 two-reelers Buster made with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle a huge star at the time soon to be on a $1 million a year contract. Back Stage deals with a subject very close to Buster’s heart: small-town vaudeville. Keaton had been on stage almost his entire life with his presence in the family act enabled a combination of childcare and commercial opportunity.

Buster and Roscoe play a couple of stage hands trying and failing to keep the motley performers happy. There’s a crazy-legged dancer (Jack Coogan Sr. in the days before his son made him more famous) and a giant strongman (Charles A. Post) whose strength is matched only by that of his petite assistant (Molly Malone).

Charles A. Post

Buster and Roscoe electrocute the brute but he just won’t stay down. In the end their cast go on strike and they have to complete the show on their own. Things go so badly they go really well and amongst the hilarity a stage scene house falls onto Roscoe who survives by the good fortune of an open window… the first, if not even the last time tonight, Buster deployed that device.

It was a treat to see these two in their early adventures. Now, wouldn’t it be god to see some more of Mabel Normand with Roscoe?

Roscoe Arbuckle

The Goat (1921)

The Goat was another astute choice from Michelle featuring another iconic Buster Keaton moment…

Buster thinks he's seen a ghost not a goat!

Buster gets confused with Dead Shot Dan (played by co-director Malcolm St. Clair) and all heck breaks lose as he goes on the run. Dan simply ducks as Buster watches on through the bars looking for all the world as if he’s the con.

Much confusion reigns in what could be considered a demo for Cops only with a handful not hundreds of LA’s finest in pursuit. Eventually Buster annoys the Police Chief himself – BIG Joe Roberts – and ends up romancing his daughter (Virginia Fox) or at least trying… the chase is almost all...

Buster and some Cops!

One Week (1920)

All under control

Directed by Eddie Cline and Keaton this was the first film to be released with Buster on his own. Not for long though as he is quickly wed to Sybil Seely and then off to build a new house on a plot provided by his uncle. All looks swell for the newly-weds until a jilted ex swaps the numbers round andthe pieces fall neatly out of place.

Big Joe Roberts features again as a piano mover who drops his cargo onto its relatively tiny recipient: more jokes about size not being everything: Buster always finds a way even if it leads to further complications.

I’ve previously raved about One Week and it hasn’t lost its charm or impact: the audience gasped at the ending as Keaton provides the classic gotcha moment of jeopardy-relief and then… smash!!

Looking good

The Boat (1921)

This was another Keaton revelation: I knew he had a boat called the Damfino, I just never knew what it really meant or, indeed, how it was pronounced or rather, mouthed. It was a punch-mime well worth waiting for and I’ve never heard so many people laugh whilst lip-reading.

Sybil launches the Damfino!

Buster has built his boat in his house and, best laid plans and all that, it just won’t squeeze out of the front door. He makes a few adjustments and pulls the Damfino through only for his house to collapse just behind. Undeterred the Keaton family, two boys in pork pie hats and the long-suffering Sybil Seely head sea-ward.

It’s interesting to see the character Keaton had devised across these four films. He was a go-getter, trying to sort things out for himself and in spite of every reversal he just keeps coming. A constructive clown and a man after our own hearts. Your boat’s sinking? Climb into the bathtub! Lessons we should all heed…

Buster and Sybil take a bath

In a world in which mistakes happen and you have to improvise your way ahead: and in Buster we trust!

The organists David Hinitt and Adam Dickson performed admirably on what was only their second or third silent accompaniment. It’s no mean feat especially trying to capture the mood of quicksilver comedy: take your eyes of Buster and you risk missing the punchline!

All in all a splendid time was had by all in Southgate and lets’ hope Talkies shows more silents in future.

The three Buster solos are available on the Kino Blu-ray Short Films Collection: 1920-1923 set and also with the Arbuckle collaborations on Complete Buster Keaton Short Films (1917-1923).

Christ Church's Lady Chapel complete with William Morris stained glass and decoration

Magnetic Pola… A Woman of the World (1925), BFI London Film Festival with John Sweeney

Apolonia Chalupec - Pola to you

And now the end is near… last day of #LFF2016 and I’m torn between renewing connections with my family and the enduring allure of Pola Negri… Maybe just one more moment of silence with this uncanny woman of the World (I’ll do the chores later)?

I haven’t seen any of Pola’s American adventures and only know her from her Polish and brilliant German films so, Zukor and Lasky you better hadn’t screw this up!

I needn’t have worried… in the hands of under-rated sophisticate, Mal St. Clair, Pola shines: an uninhibited, burst of teutonic energy that radiates true even after nine decades. Bryony Dixon said that this was one of those films included in the Treasures strand simply because it’s fun and whilst this is undeniably true, there’s no denying that Negri is a world-class cultural treasure.

Smokin'

There’s no cheap tricks in Pola’s armoury only a free-spirited expression that almost seems to be non-acting and yet she can act and how. For every haughty puff on her cigarette – what can that all mean..? – there’s a moment of purely-human doubt and weakness. She may dominate the men around her but she is also painfully vulnerable in a way that Mae or Marlene never were. When Pola loses she gets hit hard and those huge dark eyes fill to the lids with bitter-sweet tears of despair.

The film’s great success is in throwing this European class into the culture of the mid-west. It’s a timeless contrapuntal device but one that is perfectly deployed by director St Clair. I loved his “touches” – two sherry glasses filled and partly drained for an illicit rendezvous, the balls of wool slowly unravelling alongside the gossipy rocking chairs on the porches of Maple Valley… it’s playful and subtle allowing the audience in on the joke rather than hitting them over the heads.

A picture paints a thousand title cards and in Miss Negri Mal had an actress who ramped that up to a million… She was a one-woman new media revolution – under-employed title writers must have been lining the streets in protest.

Holmes Herbert as the repressed attorney

Based on Carl Van Vechten novel The Tattooed Countess – the clue is in the title… - A Woman of the World begins with a broken heart amongst the cocktail classes of The Côte d'Azur. A young aristo is busily sweeping a young deb off her feet when his mistress, Countess Elenora (Pola) returns… He protests that it meant nothing but is despatched with a ripping of his lady’s portrait and a black-eyed stare.

To escape her humiliation, Elenora decides to visit her cousin on the other side of the World… but wherever she goes, she won’t be able to eradicate the tattoo on her forearm inked in her lover’s honour.

The scene shifts to that “Other side” and the mid-western town of Maple Valley where the big news is a new water works and a district attorney Richard Granger (Holmes Herbert) bent on cleaning the town up. Well, he’d already done that with the water, why stop there?

Cousins?! Pola and Chester

Improbably, Elenora’s cousin turns out to be Chester Conklin - Sam Poore one of the town’s upstanding citizens with a moustache to die for and a wife, Lou (Lucille Ward) fond of knitting on her porch and making sure that no local news fails to get passed on.

The town’s a buzz with the news that a European Countess is due to visit but the news has almost escaped Attorney Granger as he tries to shoe her out of town for the offence of cigarette smoking… I had no idea that cigarette holders were so closely associated with degenerate behaviour but Granger has a policy of sub-zero-tolerance. He changes his tune when he discovers who Elenora is and is humbled by her confusing mix of direct and in-direct sexual signalling. Who wouldn’t? No woman looked at a man quite like Pola Negri in 1925.

The cultural cringes grow more intense as Elenora meets her relations and is introduced to local society. St Clair handles this action and reaction with economy and the play on Pola’s free expression versus prohibition-era emotional control is hilarious.

There’s a running joke about her tattoo which begins with cousin Sam whispering to a neighbour, “can you keep a secret?” – she can’t and neither can anyone else: they all relish the scandal. One of the sweetest moments comes when Sam later tries to cheer up his dejected relation by showing her his tattoo: a steam train inked from one forearm back over his chest and finishing on the other… Now that’s a tattoo!

We now enter full rom-com as the Granger falls hard for the woman whose morals he can’t comprehend and therefore tries to exile. His young assistant, Gareth (Charles Emmett Mack) is despatched with flowers for Elenora but can’t resist her himself. His youthful play is blocked by the Countess only for Granger to see and get even more confused…

There’s a wonderful line from the conflicted Attorney along the lines of denying love through prohibition – he knows his moral stance is based on his self-denial. So it goes…

You want attitude?

You just hope that someone or something will shock him into just waking up! Cue Pola… with a whip.

Bryony was right (as usual): A Woman of the World is fun and is one of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen all year. The restoration is superb too and that, coupled with witty piano accompaniment from maestro John Sweeney meant my London Film Festival concluded on a real high.

Catch this film if you haven’t already seen it and hopefully a digital release will allow for more to be reminded of Pola’s grace and star power.

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