More Candy Chains For The Slave Dancers!: Cinesation 2007 Report pt. 1
mikeg...@gmail.com
where every film is available in a host of alternate and expanded
editions and pressed in identical copies of a million at a time, but
sometimes movies are as unique as paintings or sculptures--rare to
see, ravaged by time, and sometimes rescued from the brink of
disappearing entirely.
Examples of all of these were on display at the most recent Cinesation
in Massillon, Ohio. A very routine film of the 1950s was elevated by
being shown in an almost three-dimensionally rich and detailed 35mm
Technicolor IB print made half a century ago. Another weak 1940s film
was shown primarily because the vintage 16mm Technicolor print has
vinegar syndrome and will likely soon cease being projectable.
There were silents in which a beautifully clear image suddenly
disappeared in a blizzard of nitrate decomposition, and others in
which the story took a sudden leap forward because a reel was missing,
and still others which were pieced together from half a dozen prints
of different provenances, coherence and image quality, with no small
quantity of guesswork involved in the final product. And one film was
canceled because, well, somehow the first reel was left behind when it
was shipped. No popping down to the video store to get a replacement
copy in 16mm (though, ironically enough, it WAS the one film of the
weekend which has had a major label video release; it might have been
instructive to begin The Black Camel in DVD video projection and
continue it in 16mm).
This wasn't a fest any of us walked away from thinking we'd discovered
a host of unheralded masterpieces, but with 13 silent features over
3-1/2 days, the bulk of them fairly conventional films from the first
half of the 1920s, it deepened my understanding of the overall state
of the art in those days in a way a diet consisting only of Caligaris
and Crowds wouldn't, and helped me see why certain filmmakers--notably
William S. Hart and Cecil DeMille in this case--stood out among their
contemporaries, then and now.
It's also always enjoyable to be among "your tribe," in the kind of
crowd where someone can bring up, say, the obscure 1933 RKO film
Deluge and everyone in the conversation knows that it survives only in
an Italian-dubbed version. It was great to talk to so many
interesting folks and grab meals between screenings with other AMSers
(thanks to Danny Burk for spearheading that).
As before, my four-point scale is somewhat relative, and translates as
****=highlight of the fest, ***=well worth seeing, **=some points of
interest, *=next time leave the rest of the reels at home, too.
THURSDAY
THE MATRIMANIAC (***) 1916 Douglas Fairbanks comedy, in which he's
trying to elope with Constance Talmadge by train (though he spends
most of it chasing the train she's on with an increasingly bedraggled
preacher, who's not used to the Doug approach to life's little
difficulties). Fun, with a small handful of really first-rate action
gags, though like a lot of Doug's early films it's almost home movie-
casual and it was hard not to think of ways to get more mileage out of
some of the setups (as Fairbanks himself likely would have done a year
or two later).
DAUGHTERS WHO PAY (**) The opening title announces that the film will
tackle the societal issue of young women who have to support whole
families--and so we meet Marguerite de la Motte as a girl leading the
typical double life of a bespectacled homebody by day and Sonia, the
Rooshian dancer toast of Manhattan by night. Throw in a mustachioed
brother (who, like all mustachioed brothers in silent movies, has
embezzled to play the market), the Red Scare and Bela Lugosi (no less)
as the Red they're scared of, and this was a plainly preposterous
melodrama, interesting only for Lugosi and for showing de la Motte
with her husband John Bowers, who would eventually inspire the
drowning of the March/Mason character in A Star is Born.
Preceded by RARIN' ROMEOS (**), an Educational comedy short starring
familiar supporting face Walter Hiers, which was just fair but did
manage a couple of nice variations on hoary gags (gasoline spills into
the punch, yawn, but it pays off in an understatedly surreal way when
Hiers finds everyone in the room inexplicably puckering at him).
THE CITY BENEATH THE SEA (***) Robert Ryan and Anthony Quinn as a pair
of deep-sea-diving lovable lunkheads who are hired to look for Karel
Stepanek's sunken ship full of gold, unaware that he has a German
accent and faked everything; assorted romances, double-crossings, and
a cool special effects undersea earthquake follow. Directed by Budd
Boetticher, this has some of the same macho high spirits as The
Bullfighter and the Lady, with none of that classic's brains; under
any other circumstances this piffle might struggle to rate two stars,
but the Technicolor IB print shone like a 50s Caddy in cherry
condition.
FRIDAY
BOOBLY'S BABY (****) For the second year in a row, one of the top
delights of the weekend came from the series of witty, naturalistic
comic shorts made by Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew in the early teens--
great fun despite the nitrate decomposition that overtakes this one
for a couple of minutes in the middle. Drew is annoyed that he always
has to give up his streetcar seat to women with babies, so he buys a
realistic baby doll, which he treats with startlingly black comic
irreverence.
FIFTY CANDLES (***) Impressively somber and sober melodrama about a
Chinese man in Hawaii who escapes deportation and certain death by
becoming the virtual slave of a rich rotter; assorted people with a
reason to wish the rotter dead turn up, and one of them succeeds.
This was the first Irvin Willat film I've seen, and for 1921 it builds
a foreboding atmosphere a 40s gothic melodrama would be proud of, and
is very handsomely shot (and shown in a beautiful print), with
extraordinarily detailed depth of field in many scenes.
THE GREEKS HAD A WORD FOR THEM (***) Zoe Akins' famous play about
golddiggers trying to find a fortune to sleep with, a quintessential
pre-Code title. (This was a reissue print-- as Three Broadway Girls--
but otherwise seemed intact.) The more daring and naughty-wink
aspects of the drama are dated, but plenty of the sharp lines still
sparkle, the Goldwyn production values are close to Paramount levels
of Art Deco stylishness, and Ina Claire steals it with a very funny
performance as the one true cynic among the otherwise good-hearted
gals.
RUBBER TIRES (**) Bessie Love (a Daughter Who Pays) and family drive
west to save their California home from being sold for taxes;
meanwhile it turns out the jalopy they bought is worth big bucks,
putting the seller and others on their trail in a sort of minor league
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Pleasant enough sitcommy comedy from
1927, directed by Alan Hale Sr., is most enjoyable for the picture it
offers of auto camps and other features of early 20th century road
travel.
A NIGHT IN PARADISE (*) Another Technicolor print of a less than
classic, the tail end of Universal's wartime Arabian Nights fantasies,
and I must admit at the sight of Thomas Gomez and Ray Collins padding
around in ancient Greek bathrobes, I decided to get some sunlight and
fresh air and build up my strength for silents ahead.
THE WHISTLE (****) Could William S. Hart's best movie be a non-
western? This 1921 venture outside his customary genre provides him
with a meaty story with contemporary relevance and the chance to break
out of his iconic image and show a wider range, and he makes the most
of it. He plays a millworker whose son is killed in an industrial
accident (which as realistically depicted on screen, brought gasps
from the audience). Not long after he rescues the mill owner's baby
from drowning-- and decides to keep him as payback for his own lost
son.
It's a tribute to the intensity of Hart's persona that he can make a
genuine moral dilemma (does the mill owner deserve his child back?)
out of something obviously indefensible, and plausibly cast himself as
a sort of instrument of God's wrath. Gripping throughout, a
beautifully clear restoration, and accompanied to the hilt by Phil
Carli, who's at his best taking this kind of full-blooded melodrama up
to but not over the top, this deserves to be better known-- and to
change how people think of Hart as an actor as well as an icon.
IF I WERE KING (***) Original 1920 film version of the (fictitious)
stage hit about the lower-class poet Francois Villon and King Louis
XI, later filmed as the operetta The Vagabond King and with Ronald
Colman in 1938, and obviously influential on John Barrymore's The
Beloved Rogue as well. William Farnum looks like a beefier Barrymore
and has some of the same brio and humor in the part, while Fritz
Leiber, who just about steals it, is oddly reminscent of Dr. Evil as
the reptilian Louis XI (and he's obviously why they thought of Conrad
Veidt for that role in the Barrymore). J. Gordon Edwards (grandfather
of Blake) does nothing to break it out of the stage mold, but the
lavish sets on which the action plays out just like it did on stage
are grand to look at.
Next, Eric Grayson presented a pair of oddities along with a reward
for sitting through them. The first was YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD, a
1951 TV pilot with assorted Hollywood rightwingers of the day (Jack
Benny, Bing Crosby, Irene Dunne, etc.) listening to a talk by Father
James Keller, founder of the Christophers movement, about how we can
all help counter Communist influence. Next was DEPUTY SERAPH, which
was a portion of the rushes from an abortive 1959 British TV show
which, as Eric put it, would have been sort of Touched By An Angel
with the Marx Brothers. The script was only mildly amusing but it was
nice to see them still game this late in their lives (Chico's illness
ended the project). The reward was a complete print of Charley
Chase's LIMOUSINE LOVE (****), a beautifully worked out, uproarious
1928 two-reeler in which Charley, on the way to his wedding,
innocently winds up with a naked female in the back seat of his car--
and, soon enough, her husband (Edgar Kennedy) in the front seat, too.
THE MAGIC SKIN (**) 1915 Edison feature, based on a Balzac story but
seemingly stitched out of equal parts A Christmas Carol, The Picture
of Dorian Gray, and The Monkey's Paw. An artiste (he looked quite a
bit like Wes Anderson) is offered a skin which has the power to
gratify any desire-- but shrinks, along with the remaining term of
your life, every time you get what you want. The most primitive of
the features we saw, with cramped sets and unsympathetically
aristocratic characters, although the players were clearly
accomplished stage performers, and their capabilities plus the very
European, downbeat tone reminded me a little of the Yevgeni Bauer
films made in Russia around the same time.
to be continued...
mikeg...@gmail.com
SATURDAY
CARRY ON SERGEANT! (***) Not a Carry On film-- though at times the
comic relief starts to head in that direction-- but rather a 1928
Canadian attempt to produce a Big Parade-level WWI epic, which was
lavishly produced but foundered on the inexperience of its celebrity
writer-director, cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather, author of The Better
'Ole. Star Hugh Buckler (who was nearly 60, but doesn't look it) has
a McLaglenesque quality that could have carried the film, but
Bairnsfather's episodic sensibility isn't capable of shaping the
material for an emotional effect comparable to contemporaries like
Barbed Wire or Lilac Time, and too much running time is frittered away
on things like a spy subplot that wandered in from another movie.
However, the film clearly had a first-rate art director, and an
equally good director of photography-- one Bert Cann, whose credits
end with this film-- and pictorially, if in few other ways, it can
stand with the best WWI films of the period.
DESTINATION UNKNOWN (**) Early in the talkie era Tay Garnett made two
of the most romantic and beguiling pieces of South Seas escapism-- One
Way Passage and China Seas-- but this 1933 third try isn't the charm.
The movie starts with a standoff on a becalmed boat between rumrunners
(led by Pat O'Brien) and the sailors (led by Alan Hale, who actually
is the de facto lead and quite good at it); as water runs low the
situation gets bleaker and grimmer. Then suddenly it turns into
Strange Cargo with the appearance of a strapping Ralph Bellamy as,
basically, Jesus Christ, All-American. The contemporary reviews were
scathing that a tough realistic drama took such a bizarre way out; I
can see their point but also kind of feel that an unpleasant film
actually got more interesting with that Hail Mary pass. The only
question is, why was Charles Middleton, who has more lines than most
of the folks in the picture, left off the cast list at the end?
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (***) Brisk, entertaining anti-death penalty
melodrama despite the fact that it's basically an Idiot Plot--
criminologist Elliot Dexter pays cocky young Irish lad George
Hackathorne to go to Death Row for a faked crime, and Hackathorne
confidently expects to be out in two weeks when the truth is
revealed. You know where this is headed if you've seen Beyond a
Reasonable Doubt, Shock Corridor, the Night Gallery episode with this
plot, etc., though it's still jawdropping that how it gets there is
that Dexter winds up in a fistfight on the beach with the supposed
victim and ends up killing him for real! Like the recent The Life of
David Gale, it's a message picture so incompetent it ends up making
death penalty opponents look fit for hanging, but at least it crackles
right along to the race-to-the-prison finale, and the main interest
here is the presence of Clara Bow as Hackathorne's gal and tireless
champion on the outside, who leaves audiences in no doubt that she's
headed for starring roles.
Preceded by ALL LIT UP (**), a fitfully amusing 1920 Snub Pollard; and
followed by a Fleischer sing-along of IN MY MERRY OLDSMOBILE (***)
made for the Oldsmobile company, and so full of sexual harassment
scenes and outright innuendo (there's a lollipop-licking scene that
leaves little to the imagination) that it's hard to imagine why the GM
executives let it out.
THREE WISE GIRLS (**) Columbia comedy-drama (co-written by a pre-Capra
Robert Riskin) that served as a sort of midwestern-values rebuttal to
The Greeks Had a Word For Them (it's a year earlier than the film but
not, of course, the famous play it was based on). Jean Harlow goes to
New York because old pal Mae Clarke seems to be doing well there; like
Clarke she attracts the interest of a married swell, but soon learns
that sin will get you nowhere. Harlow, quickly improving after her
wooden Hell's Angels debut, is likable and down to earth, and there
are plenty of lingerie scenes along with the moralizing, but the film
is stolen by the third gal, a by-now-chubby Marie Prevost in the comic
relief role, who eventually takes a shine to a chauffeur played by a
surprisingly skinny Andy Devine!
WHERE THE NORTH BEGINS (***) Cinesation plans its most broad-appeal
title for Saturday night in hopes of attracting a few Massillon
natives, and the cancellation of the Charlie Chan film meant that Rin-
Tin-Tin moved up to replace him. This 1923 great white north-western
was his first starring role, which maybe explains why humans get so
much of the running time, but Rinty comes through in the thrilling
climax to expose a bad trader who's been killing dogsled-drivers and
stealing furs as well as lusting after the human hero's gal. A star--
and a formula-- is born....
DAUGHTER OF THE POOR (***) A few years ago Cinevent showed a Max
Davidson feature in which he was comic support for a tale of a poor
but plucky angel of the slums-- and as the title suggests, Sunshine of
Paradise Alley was about as treacly and phony as silents get. From
almost a decade earlier (1917), here's basically the same movie,
infinitely better thanks to a more naturalistic treatment of the story
and characters, and the use of believably real settings. A lovely
young Bessie Love is the gal, and a merely middle-aged Davidson
(without a full beard!) is her immigrant father who likes to debate
labor issues with an intellectual boy next door, who winds up turning
radical when Bessie starts to be romanced by the mill owner's son. A
couple of chunks of this are missing, but nothing the audience
couldn't fill in, and what's left not only resists cheap melodrama but
gives a credible and far from black-and-white picture of industrial
rich and poor life at the time which is fascinating in its own
right.
The evening ended with a collection of comedy shorts and cartoons
ranging from classics such as Betty Boop and Cab Calloway in THE OLD
MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN (****) and the Three Stooges' DISORDER IN THE
COURT (****) to a '37 Columbia Iwerks called FOXY PUP (***) with weak
character animation but very unusual Technicolor backgrounds, and a
young and skinny Ethel Merman in a Fleischer singalong called YOU TRY
SOMEBODY ELSE (**), which must repeat its lyrics eight times. No, YOU
try somebody else, I'm going to get some sleep...
SUNDAY
THE GOLDEN BED (****) You see silents by various directors who have
this or that strength-- Irvin Willat creating a noirish mood, Eddie
Dillon capturing Bessie Love's innocence-- as well as weaknesses, and
then you see one by somebody like Cecil B. DeMille who bats it out of
the park on every level, and you know why he was the king of Hollywood
for half a century. This was one of the best DeMille films I've seen,
in part because for all that it revolves around a golden bed (which
the censors probably didn't let him use as a connecting device as much
as he would have liked), at bottom the moral issues in the film aren't
primarily sexual.
Kind of like a DeMille take on The Magnificent Ambersons, the story
involves two sisters of a prominent but declining family as industry
displaces old money. Flora, the blonde pretty one (Lillian Rich), has
basically been raised as a courtesan to marry wealth, while Margaret,
the plainer (only by movie standards) dark-haired one (Vera Reynolds),
goes to work for a working class playmate (Rod LaRocque) who, with her
help behind the scenes, becomes Candy Holtz, boss of a big candy
factory. When a widowed Flora returns from Europe (where her first
husband killed himself over her infidelity), Candy Holtz falls for her
again, ignores the devoted Margaret and ruins himself throwing his new
bride a candy-themed society ball staged with the kind of extravagant
excess only DeMille would dream up-- girls studded with marshmallows,
candy slave chains, men eating the spun-sugar costumes off women.
While part of the point is showing Flora coming to the same
golddigger's end as Mae Clarke in Three Wise Girls, DeMille's moral
disapproval is directed not so much at her sexual promiscuity-- she
was clearly raised for that-- as at her lack of love, and at LaRocque
for losing his own soul feeding her greed. Full of deliciously sharp
detail-- note the widow's weeds on Flora's pet monkey, or the ways
DeMille signals that the Peake mansion has become a brothel after
denying it in a title card-- and with strong performances (LaRocque
movingly portrays youthful naivete turning to disillusion, and Robert
Edeson makes a lot more than you'd expect out of the stock role of the
banker who's got LaRocque by the short hairs), this is a prime exhibit
for DeMille's place among the important directors and a genuine social
commentator.
THE BASHFUL SUITOR (**) Modestly enjoyable 1921 pastoral, directed by
Herbert Blache in the same series of movies supposedly inspired by
famous paintings as last year's Hope; this one is about a Dutch boy
trying to win a Dutch girl, while being painted into semi-immortality
by Jozef Israels.
THE WILLOW TREE (***) I haven't said that much about print quality,
because it was so high throughout the weekend-- film after film was
crystal clear and glowed with nitrate delicacy and detail. If one
film won the prize for sheer beauty, however, it was this 1920 vehicle
in the Madame Butterfly vein for Viola Dana, who plays a Japanese girl
who convinces an Englishman that she's a sculpture come to life, just
as in the legend the sculpture portrays. It didn't make a lot of
sense logically, and dramatically was just a few pulsebeats above a
snooze, but the self-consciously artistic Japanese compositions were
gorgeous-- I was totally charmed by the device of introducing each
chapter by opening the screens on a kind of cabinet, which made it
look like we were watching TV-- and the print fully conveyed the
beauty of the original. I don't know if I could sit through it
again-- but then, what are the odds I'll get the chance? Film is
fragile, after all, and chances to see such things are often unique.
Thanks to everyone who makes these fests happen, the archives who
bring their work here, the collectors who allow their treasures out to
share with strangers, and last but far from least, Phil Carli and Ben
Model for hours of skillful and delightful accompaniment.
shaynes
goodies, and for providing us with a final film frenzy before the
loooong winter sets in.
Also thanks to Mike for the extensive and largely right on target
overview of the films screened. I pretty much agree with your
assessments of their relative merits (except perhaps for your
unaccountable affection for the Three Stooges ;-) I also thought THE
WHISTLE and THE GOLDEN BED were highlights of the weekend - if I had
to pick my TWO favorite Hart films, THE WHISTLE and HELL'S HINGES
would be the ones, and narrowing it down to one would not be easy.
My sensitivity on the subject is showing again, but I thought that
your post would get more in the way of responses and discussion - it
seems like festivals not in the states of California or New York,
regardless of rare 35mm prints in a theater or large attendances with
big dealers rooms (two describe two examples) do not get much love
from this group...
Steve
mikeg...@gmail.com
> I pretty much agree with your
> assessments of their relative merits (except perhaps for your
> unaccountable affection for the Three Stooges ;-)
I'm actually not much of a Stooges fan, and I don't let my kids watch
them yet (they don't need more encouragement to beat on each other)
but when they're on, they're on, rapid-fire funny, and there was no
doubting the laughter in the theater.
shaynes
wrote:
Yeah, I know - it's a blind spot for me. I don't get football either
(unless Lloyd or Keaton are in the game...)
Steve
christoph...@und.nodak.edu
>
> My sensitivity on the subject is showing again, but I thought that
> your post would get more in the way of responses and discussion - it
> seems like festivals not in the states of California or New York,
> regardless of rare 35mm prints in a theater or large attendances with
> big dealers rooms (two describe two examples) do not get much love
> from this group...
>
> Steve
===========================================
I didn't get home until nearly midnight Monday, and have problems on
my regular computer posting to Google, but I also generally agree with
most of Mike's evaluations. Below is a somewhat expanded version of
the festival summary I wrote for this week's High Plains Reader. Later
I'll try to sit down and put a star rating on each film, as Mike did
(I enjoyed A NIGHT IN PARADISE for what it was, pretty much on a par
with CITY BENEATH THE SEA in its fitful but reasonably agreeable
overall entertainment value). Favorites were THE WHISTLE, A DAUGHTER
OF THE POOR, and THE GOLDEN BED, and of course THE OLD MAN OF THE
MOUNTAIN and LIMOUSINE LOVE, both of which I have my own 16mm prints
of. WHERE THE NORTH BEGINS may well be the best Rin-Tin-Tin feature
I've seen.
--Christopher Jacobs
http://www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/cjacobs
--------------------------------------------------------------
Another classic movie weekend
By Christopher P. Jacobs
Movies Editor, High Plains Reader
(MASSILLON, OH) - The last four days of September I spent in an
historic movie theatre watching rare films from 9 am until midnight
(and all projected from genuine 35mm or 16mm film). The Great Lakes
Cinephile Society presented its 17th annual "Cinesation" classic film
convention in a renovated 1915-era Midwestern movie house, running a
remarkable selection of 18 feature-length movies, approximately 19
shorts, plus several assorted trailers, dating from between 1915 and
1959.
This year had a much-appreciated emphasis on silent features. While
only five of the shorts were silents, only five of the features were
"talkies" (from the 1930s and 40s). Most of this year's titles were
rarely seen films on special loan from archives at the Library of
Congress, George Eastman House, the Library and Archives Archives
Canada, and private collectors. As usual, very few are available on
video or even cable TV. All the silent prints had music scores
improvised live by noted composer-accompanists Philip Carli or Ben
Model on piano or theatre organ (actually a special "MidiTzer"
equipped electronic keyboard).
The most familiar features (to film buffs and collectors, at any rate)
were the fast-paced Douglas Fairbanks comedy "The Matrimaniac" (1916)
and the intense and still-powerful William S. Hart management vs.
labor melodrama "The Whistle" (1921), but it was great to have the
chance to see both in 35mm prints on a big screen with live musical
performances. Written and directed by Lambert Hillyer and strikingly
photographed by Joseph August, "The Whistle" was one of the biggest
hits of the weekend, showcasing Hart's dramatic abilities in an
atypical non-western role and one of the best films of his prolific
career.
Another audience favorite (despite some unfortunate picture
decomposition in the surviving copy) was the delightful short comedy,
"Boobly's Baby" (1915) starring the popular husband and wife team Mr.
and Mrs. Sidney Drew (a distant relative of Drew Barrymore) in a story
of a man whose amusing solution to overcrowded streetcar seats leads
to some unexpected results. The Drews' subdued style of situation
comedy is a marked contrast to the stereotype of broad silent movie
slapstick.
The saucy and racy precode comedy-romance "The Greeks Had a Word for
Them" (1932) under its only slightly sanitized reissue title of "Three
Broadway Girls," and the more dramatic but very similar "Three Wise
Girls" (1931), were also audience-pleasers. The latter featured an
early star performance from Jean Harlow, predictably cynical but
rather unexpectedly demure for this type of plot. The former picture
is the faster-paced and more entertaining: a coyly frank sex comedy
about three girls looking for rich husbands by any means possible and
not afraid to admit it.
The most fascinating film of the weekend was "A Daughter of the
Poor" (1917), which like "The Whistle" deals with attitudes on capital
vs. labor and wealth vs. poverty. Unlike the relentless Hart film,
this Anita Loos script relieves some of its tension with occasional
moments of comedy and romance. In the title role is a very young
Bessie Love (who would later star in the 1925 version of "The Lost
World" and the first sound Best Picture Oscar-winner, "Broadway
Melody," and continue acting into the 1980s).
Here she plays a poor shopkeeper supporting her lazy, complaining
factory-worker uncle (comedian Max Davidson in an unusually
unsympathetic role), and loved by an idealistic but stuffy radical
(George Beranger). Former Grand Forks, ND resident Carl Stockdale
plays the head of the publishing plant that employs her uncle and
whose son she falls for, mistaking him for a working-class man rather
than one of the idle rich (Roy Stewart). Naturally he doesn't reveal
he is engaged to Carmel Meyers. The surviving version of the film
sadly has the second of its five reels and a few other portions
missing, but is still easy to follow. "A Daughter of the Poor" has
impressive performances and makes some strong points on urban social
issues, although ultimately comes to at least a semi-happy and highly
ironic conclusion.
A highlight of the weekend was the long thought lost original 1920
version of the classic story of 15th-century French poet François
Villon, "If I Were King," starring William Farnum, Fritz Leiber, and
former North Dakotan Betty Ross Clarke. Director J. Gordon Edwards
handles the spectacle of the story's conclusion well, but his overall
filmmaking style is still firmly rooted in theatrical conventions of
staging and makeup. While not as charismatic as John Barrymore or
Ronald Coleman's interpretation of Villon, Farnum's energy makes the
film work, as does Leiber's scenery-chewing as Louis XI (anticipating
Conrad Veidt's performance seven years later), even though acting
styles all seem about five years out of date. (Of course the 1930
Technicolor musical version is even more theatrical.)
A true rarity was another theatrical yet engrossing melodrama, an
obscure feature from the Thomas Edison studio, "The Magic
Skin" (1915), with a cast of long-forgotten Delsarte-trained actors in
an allegorical Faust-like cautionary tale by Honore de Balzac. It used
an unusual number of dissolves as transitions, as well as numerous
superimposed scenes to represent dreams and thoughts. Oddly, the final
shot of the print had obviously been moved there from a previous
sequence (from which it was missing), apparently by some prudish
censor who preferred to show unrestrained vice punished at the end of
the film.
"Destination Unknown" (1933), with Pat O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, and
Alan Hale, was a strange but interesting combination of crime
melodrama, dramatic character study, and religious allegory, dealing
with sailors, bootleggers, and stowaways on a stranded sailing ship.
Also impressive were "The Willow Tree" (1920), starring Viola Dana in
a sometimes odd but beautifully photographed romance between an
Englishman and a Japanese girl, and "Capital Punishment" (1925), with
Clara Bow in a nicely plotted crime melodrama/social commentary,
despite some plot holes. The rare Canadian-made World War I epic,
"Carry On, Sergeant!" (1928) was beautifully photographed and had some
nice directorial touches with good performances but a sometimes
sketchy script. Irvin Willat's "Fifty Candles" (1921) was a strikingly
photographed and slickly directed mystery by the same author as the
Charlie Chan stories.
There were quite a few entertaining formula "program-pictures," both
silent and sound. The action-packed Rin-Tin-Tin adventure, "Where the
North Begins" (1923), is one of the very best of the canine star's
vehicles, shown in a well-worn but razor-sharp tinted Kodascope print.
The lavish DeMille class-conflict sex and sin and redemption
melodrama, "The Golden Bed," (1925), was shown in a stunning tinted
35mm restoration. The pleasant Bessie Love/Harrison Ford road-trip
comedy "Rubber Tires" (1927) was a lovely old 16mm original printed
from the 35mm nitrate negative. The Marguerite De La Motte spy
melodrama, "Daughters Who Pay" (1925), featured Bela Lugosi as villain
and repeated the theme of labor (white collar, this time) vs.
management as well as exploiting the Red Menace. Enjoyable B-movies
from the sound era on the program included the two I.B. Technicolor
films "City Beneath the Sea" (1953) in 35mm, and "Night in
Paradise" (1946) in 16mm, and of course the final five episodes of the
1948 "Superman" serial, all in 35mm.
A couple of interesting and rare shorts screened on 16mm were "You Can
Change the World," an unashamedly didactic 1951 pilot episode for the
inspirational "Christophers" TV series featuring several major
Hollywood stars (like Jack Benny and Rochester, Irene Dunne, Loretta
Young, William Holden, Bing Crosby and more), and the unedited rushes
from "Deputy Seraph," an unfinished 1959 TV project starring Harpo,
Chico, and Groucho Marx. An original Kodascope 16mm print showed off
the beautiful photography in Herbert Blaché's "The Bashful Suitor" and
a new 35mm print was screened of the amusing if forgettable Snub
Pollard comedy, "All Lit Up" (1920).
Other fun shorts included nice 35mm prints of two Max Fleischer screen
songs ("In My Merry Oldsmobile" and Ethel Merman's rendition of "You
Try Somebody Else"), and a rare and funny Columbia cartoon, "Foxy
Pup." Such relatively common shorts as the Three Stooges' "Disorder in
the Court," and cartoons like "You Ought to be in Pictures," "The Old
Man of the Mountain," "What's Opera, Doc," and "The Mouse that Jack
Built" were good to see in 35mm for a change (not to mention
beautifully saturated dye-transfer Technicolor, when applicable) with
a responsive audience.
Screenings overall went amazingly smoothly considering all the
logistics involved, with only a couple of disappointing glitches. The
screen masking was set a bit too tight one of the nights, cropping
some substantial picture information on the right and left edges that
was projecting onto the drapes. A complete version of the hilarious
Charley Chase comedy "Limousine Love" (1928), arguably his funniest
short, was unfortunately the last film to make it through the 16mm
projector while the xenon lamp was fading fast due to a bad seal. The
almost-new bulb blew out halfway through the weekend, requiring the
cancellation of some of the sound shorts (luckily a hasty substitute
suitable for silent 16mm prints was found by the next evening). Also
cancelled was the once-rare earliest Charlie Chan film starring Warner
Oland, "The Black Camel" (1931), as it was discovered at the last
minute that one of the reels was not in the film can. That film,
happily, has just been issued on DVD.
The theatrical screenings at conventions like Cinesation are an ideal
way to watch classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) films. Seeing
movies like this, especially a large number in a short period of time,
provides an invaluable time capsule into attitudes and customs of the
past in a way that no history book can describe, demonstrating both
how much and how little society and human nature have changed. Besides
the films being wonderfully entertaining after many decades, the
extreme variation in their survival conditions graphically illustrates
the need for film preservation.
James Roots
I enjoy reading everyone's reports from every festival, especially
since I never get to said festivals myself. (Cinesation in 1998
was the only one.)
I particularly appreciate Mike Gebert's reviews for their wit,
fine synopses, and forthright evaluations.
So, thanks, Mike.
Next up, Lokke reporting from Pordennone?
Jim
mikeg...@gmail.com
sir michael cat
wrote:
> Thank you for the compliments.
Your reports were EXCELLENT. Incidentally the Max Fleischer IN MY
MERRY OLDSMOBILE can be downloaded at INTERNET ARCHIVE and it is one
of my favourites
mikeg...@gmail.com
By the way, one thing I forgot to mention... you know that shot in
Citizen Kane where the camera starts on the outside, tracks toward a
window, passes magically through the window and ends up inside the
room?
That revolutionary shot that only a genius like Orson Welles could
have come up with, that shows how far he was above the herd of studio
hacks?
There's a shot like that in The Greeks Had a Word For Them, too.
Bruce Calvert
news:1191446310....@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
And Blackhawk used to sell IN MY MERRY OLDSMOBILE in 8mm and 16mm. I guess
I need to find a copy.
--
Bruce Calvert
--
Visit the Silent Film Still Archive
http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com
James Roots
Speaking of silent cartoons, last night I dug out my Unknown Video
(free plug!) copy of Ben Turpin's SHRIEK OF ARABY and was surprised
by a Felix the Cat cartoon to open the tape. (Yes, tape ... I
bought it back in VHS days.)
I didn't catch the title because I was fast-forwarding through
the blank start-up thread with one eye on the Leafs-Senators
regular-season opener. Probably FELIX IN TOYLAND or something
like that.
I was taken aback by the merry violence -- at one point, a
cannonball is fired squarely on Felix and blows him to smithereens.
That sure ain't the Felix from talkie days, although it does
anticipate the wonderful violence of the peak Looney Tunes
of the 50s. I *hated* that simpy Felix of the talkies, just
as I hated and continue to hate Mickey Mouse as a wimpy
wally (and yes, I've got the earliest Mickey films. He was
a wimpy wally from day one.)
My question is not when did Felix change, but WHY? He was
popular enough in his original incarnation, why mess with
success? Did different artists take him over? A different
studio? Or was it a case of imitating the enemy when Mickey
took off big-time? Or did the creators just get religion
and decide Felix should always turn the other cheek?
P.S. Ben Turpin ranks with Snub Pollard as the most
overrated second-rate silent comedian. Discuss. Test
next week.
Jim
Eric Stott
"James Roots" <ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:fe2vh4$5bh$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
> P.S. Ben Turpin ranks with Snub Pollard as the most
> overrated second-rate silent comedian. Discuss. Test
> next week.
Both had genuine talent (if limited) and could be very funny IF given good
material.
Larry Semon (at his best) had more imagination than either.
Eric Stott