The truth is not always at 24 fps!

The famous dictum by Jean-Luc Godard was voiced in the era of sound cinema; like much else in the cinematic discourse its applicability to the Silent Era needs to be questioned. Specifically, as well as using nitrate film stock, aspects ratios of around 1.33:1, and only additive colour, the ‘silent’ film screenings differed in the running speeds or frames per second from the sound film. The latter when it is actually film normally runs at 24 fps: a rate that as Kevin Brownlow points out was chosen by the technicians on the basis of the projection speeds at Warner first-run theatres. The films of the silent era ran at anything between 16 fps and 24 fps. Many 35mm projector have an adjustment mechanism, which enables the operator to change the projection speed: Photoplay Productions actually do this during the screenings for some films. One of the may oversights with the introduction of the Digital cinema Package [DCP] was that the running speed, which is ‘baked’ into the digital folder as is the aspect ratio, only offered 24 fps and then in addition 48 fps. Now the La Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film [FIAF] have produced a series of specifications in The Advanced Projection Handbook for frame rates from 16 up until 24 [though only increasing by twos, i.e. 16, 18, and so on]. How soon projectors will be adapted or the producers of the folders will actually use different frame rates remains to be seen.

In what the UK Parliamentarians call ‘being economical with the truth’ digital publicity usually provides little information regarding the difference. It seems in most instances the producers add extra frames so that the film can run at the faster frame rate without producing the jerky, speeded up movement, which occurs if the film is projected at a faster speed. [There is also an associated technique ‘interlacing]. This is a technique known as ‘step-printing’: it has been used for decades, so that films originally shot at silent speeds were copied on to sound stock with the addition of extra frames. Quite often the assumption was that the original frame rate was 18 fps so there was an extra frame added for every three existing frames.

Computers have made the process more sophisticated: though the technique is basically the same, adding extra frames. However, one additional problem is that computers can add ‘composite frames’, frames that combine elements from the preceding and following frames into the new frame. Clearly this adds a new element in the film which was not put there by the original filmmakers.

The extent to which this alters the film or the viewing experience varies considerably. In my experience the effects are most noticeable when the transferred film uses fast editing and/or special effects. One example of the former is Sergei Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potemkin, USSR 1925). The most recent and complete restoration by the Deutsche Kinemathek dates from 2005. The British Film Institute released it for UK distribution in 2010 on a DCP. I had been fortunate enough to see the film at the 2010 Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in a 35mm print. It was 1338 metres and ran for 70 minutes at 18 fps. The DCP from the BFI apparently was step printed by adding a frame to three to achieve 24 fps. And I noticed the effect, specifically when we arrived at the famous three lions following the Odessa Steps massacre. According to David Mayer’s ‘shot-by-shot presentation’ in Eisenstein’s Potemkin (1972, using the MOMA print), the sequence of these lions contains 162 individual frames in eleven shots. That would be nine seconds at 18 fps, and this would appear to be one sequence where the MOMA and Kinemathek prints would be identical. It is not clear how the extra frames are distributed across the separate shots. But in the DCP they seemed to ‘race past’ and the sequence as a whole seemed too fast.  

I wondered what Eisenstein himself would have thought of this. The likely answer is to be found in Ivor Montagu’s With Eisenstein in Hollywood (1967). He records that after the screening of Potemkin at the London Film Society ‘He [Eisenstein] complained that, with the Meisel music, we had turned his picture into an opera”. The problem appears to have been that Meisel’s score was composed to accompany the German version, which had been censored. The Film Society used a print from the Soviet Union and Meisel told the projectionist to alter the film speed at some point so that the music synchronised. This may account for the laughter from some of the audience when the lions’ sequence was seen.

Another film, which suffered from step printing for digital release, was The Great White Silence (UK 1924). This is Herbert Ponting’s record of the ill-fated 1912 Antarctic expedition led by Captain Scott. Ponting filmed the early stages of the expedition and then used models to illustrate the later stages of the expedition from which Scot and his colleagues did not return. I saw the film at the 2011 Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in a 35mm print. This was 2189 metres and ran 106 minutes at 18 fps. The DCP was presumably step-printed to accommodate 24 fps. And whilst the model shots on the 35 mm print were relatively convincing on the changed digital version they were somewhat anachronistic.

Hopefully these sorts of problems will be resolved when the FIAF recommendations are implemented. However, how long this will take and how effectively this will happen is unknown. The major projector manufacturers have provided appropriate software and hardware for conversions. But is would seem likely that teams transferring celluloid prints to digital will only use the frame rates when enough venues have converted. Rather worryingly there is not much sign of this happening yet.

Of even more concern is the increasing use of Blu-Ray and DVD’s for theatrical screenings, including when live accompaniment is provided. Presumably some of this is just down to cost cutting. DCP’s don’t have the delivery costs of 35mm prints. Blu-Ray and DVD are even cheaper to obtain and transport. Partly it also seems to be at the behest of musicians. I have been told on several occasions that the musicians accompany a screening preferred to use a videodisc because they had rehearsed to this. There was even a case at the Leeds International Film Festival there the orchestra wanted a 35mm print screened at 25 fps because they had rehearsed to that video copy. Having seen hundreds of live screenings graced by excellent musical accompaniment, ranging from solo pianos, through ensemble including singers, to large orchestras and choirs I have scant sympathy for this approach.

Blu-Ray and even more DVD do not offer the visual quality of DCP and certainly not of 35mm: though they may look OK when compared with old and worn prints. Frequently the aspect ratios are incorrect, and this cannot be corrected as in the case of 35mm projection. But most notably they are as fast or faster than 35mm sound projection: Blu-Ray running at 24 fps and DVD in the UK runs at 25 fps [elsewhere it can be up to 30 fps]. This means that almost invariably they use step printing to achieve the faster projection speed. Unfortunately distributors almost never seem to actually explain this. There is a dominant tendency to ‘being economical with the truth’ disguises an important technical feature/

An example of this slightly mystificatory approach can be found on the BFI DVD of A Cottage on Dartmoor (UK 1929).

“A Cottage on Dartmoor is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and at is historically accurate frame rate of 22 frames per second, using the restoration negative elements from the BFI National Archive. The film was transferred at 24 PsF (progressive scan} and restored using HD-DVNR and MTI digital restoration systems. This master was then slowed down to its correct frame rate of 2 fps. Because of the processing involved at this stage, some slight combing and image stutter may be detected when viewing.” The technical abbreviations apply to restoration and transfer technologies – described in detailed on the Web]. What is not stated in plain English is that for every 22 frames a further three would seem to have been added.

A particular example from the last year or so is Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (La Passion De Jeanne D’Arc, France 1928). The film was screened at the 2012 Le Giornate del Cinema Muto. The film was screened in the local Cathedral with an orchestral accompaniment. This was presumably the reason why DigiBeta rather than 35mm was used. The Catalogue noted that this was ‘transferred at 20 fps’. However it appears prior to the screening the orchestra pointed out that they had prepared using the DVD. So the digital version was run through a computer to add extra frames and run at 25 fps. Fortunately I had decided to watch the alternative 35mm screening. It seems to me that Dreyer’s film is rigorously constructed both in terms of shots, shot length and shot alteration: just the sort of film where step-printing will have a negative impact.

In the UK Dreyer’s film suffered even more. There have been two screenings over the last year or two in this region where a screening with ‘live music’ has used the version of the film issued by Masters of Cinema on DVD and Blu-Ray. I checked with Masters of Cinema and they advised that they had added extra frames to this version to raise the frame rate from 20 per second to 24 or 25 per second.

And readers of Sight & Sound are likely to be misinformed or at least confused regarding this. In the December 2012 issue there was an article by Michael Brooke The Maid remade. The article discusses the film restoration and the Eureka Masters of Cinema version. Brooke does not actually give the frame rate directly but he includes an observation “they were [keen] to preserve Dreyer’s original intertitles and present the film at their preferred projection speed of 20 frames per second”. The article certainly implies that these video versions re-present the film at the original 20 fps. A similar comment was made on the BBC Film Programme when the DVD / Blu-Ray was reviewed there.

I wrote to the Letter Page of Sight & Sound as follows:

“Michael Brooke is quite right to praise Dreyer’s Jeanne d’Arc lidelse og dǿd (Joan of Arc’s Suffering and Death, 1928) however he is wrong to suggest that the DVD and Blu-Ray recreate the 20 fps running speed. DVD runs at 25 fps and Blu-Ray at 24 fps. What seems to be the actual case is that these disc version recreate the running time at that speed, presumably by adding an extra four frames for every 20 to the original. This is all right for domestic users if they choose this version. However, the Blu-Ray has also been used for theatrical presentations with live musical accompaniment. Michael Brooke notes that an earlier version ‘controversially replaced intertitles with subtitles (thus interfering with the editing rhythms)’. I would reckon that adding additional frames to a film that is so rigorously shot and edited would have a similar effect. I would suggest that as well as following Dreyer’s preference ‘that the film be shown in silence’ that theatrical presentations should use a 35mm print. These do exist. “

For the first time in my experience I received an emailed response from the Letter Page Editor at Sight & Sound:

“ Dear Keith, Thank you for your letter on Michael Brooke’s piece. However I’ve no doubt that Michael is well aware of the technicalities of presenting a 20 fps film within a 24 fps format – just that it seemed irrelevantly technical in the context of his Joan of Arc piece. You may want to read a piece he recently wrote for the BFI Website: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/how-do-you-solve-problem-potemkin Best, James Bell.”

I checked out Michael Brooke’s Blog and, indeed, he does discuss the step printing in the film.

“Masters of Cinema’s new Blu-ray of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) does something similar [to the Battleship Potemkin video]. Respecting the Danish Film Institute’s estimate that the optimum projection speed is 20 fps, four additional frames were created every second using identical methods – this time, five individual frames are followed by a duplicate. Again, the result is perfectly smooth, although in this case they’ve also included the more familiar 24 fps version.”

The result may be smooth, but whether it is accurate is a mater of debate. Brooke’s makes great play in his article regarding the 20 fps rate and also comments how the substitution of sub-titles for intertitles ‘interferes with the editing rhythms’ – touché extra frames! I did reply to James Bell suggesting that whilst Michael Brooke’s might know about this but not all the readers might, and requesting that the letter appear. It did not.

In the March 2013 issue of Sight & Sound there was a letter from Caroline Yeager at the George Eastman House film archive. She chided the organisers of an UK tour who used a DVD version of Beggars of Life (USA) despite also having live musical accompaniment. So I took the opportunity to raise the issue again on the S & S Letter Page, but with no greater success.

Despite claims by some exhibitors and critics about the quality of DVD and Blu-Ray video versions, neither is a theatrical format. Apart from the inferior quality of the screenings presented to audiences this practice is likely to militate against a quick conversion of digital projectors to accommodate the FIAF specifications. And even when this happens the rather inaccurate use of language means that audiences will never be sure whether .. fps means the original frame rate, or the step-printed frame rate. This offers serious irony. When sound arrived a large part of the silent heritage was junked and commonly the films were projected at the wrong speed: a practice that lasted into the 1970s. Archivists and historians like Kevin Brownlow were pioneers for a sea-change leading to ‘‘presenting the films as they were originally screened’’ Now an equivalent change to that of the arrival of sound is taking place in the industry. It is likely that digital copies will have a much shorter archive live than celluloid, we may actually lose painfully restored masterworks in their original form. It is certainly more difficult to see them in their original form than a few years ago. Thus history repeats itself as tragedy; perhaps the blurb on many digital copies is the element of farce!

Underground

This was the second film directed by Anthony Asquith, his third appears to be lost and his fourth Cottage on Dartmoor (1929) was screened at the National Media Museum in 2012. Underground is a melodrama set around a story of love and passion between the quartet of leading characters. Bill (Brian Aherne) works on the Underground, Bert Cyril McLaglen) at the Power Station. Nell (Elissa Landi) works in a large Department Store whilst Kate (Norah Baring) is a seamstress/dressmaker who works at her bedsit. There is early romance but then rivalry and jealousy create a dramatic intensity, which leads to a visually exciting climax.

Brian Aherne was a fairly new leading man [he starred in Asquith’s first film Shooting Stars, 1928) and he later migrated to Hollywood where he had a number of starring parts. One of his memorable roles there was in Beloved Enemy (1936), set in the period of the Irish Rebellion against colonial rule, with Aherne playing a character clearly based on Michael Collins. Elissa Landi was educated in England and in the British Theatre before taking up films. She later moved to Broadway and then on to Hollywood. Cyril Mclaglen was one of the three brothers of the more famous Victor Mclaglen. All four had careers both on stage and in film. Norah Baring had already played the female lead in Asquith’s Cottage on Dartmoor. In both films she gives dramatically and emotionally convincing performances.

Stanley Rodwell and Karl Fischer were in charge of cinematography and lighting respectively, and both had worked on Asquith’s first film. Shooting Stars is also an exceptionally fine film, though unfortunately there is not a current print good enough to screen. Karl Fischer came from the German film industry and bought with him their expertise in chiaroscuro lighting. Ian Campbell-Gray, the Art Director, had also worked on Shooting Stars and the film blends locations and studio set-ups. Some of the sets are rather obvious, symptomatic of the often inadequate production values of the British Industry in this period.

Rachel Low [in her magisterial The History of British Film, 1971] describes the film’s production and some of the critics’ comments.

“It is ironical that this, which with Shooting Stars was one of the first British films to employ a lighting expert, the German Karl Fischer, should have angered some audiences not only by its `distorted’ angle shots but also by its `murky’ lighting. While the public was made uneasy by the traces of Russian and German influence, the highbrows were able to find other faults. Asquith was attacked by Harry Alan Potamkin, for example, for failing to portray the lives of the working classes properly: … [Paul] Rotha perhaps was nearer the truth in suggesting that Asquith had not as yet acquired maturity and still retained some of the brilliance for its own sake which had been so noticeable in Shooting Stars.”

In retrospect these criticisms appear to seriously miss the mark. Asquith, with his production team, makes effective use of techniques that had impressed audiences and critics when they were seen in the Soviet and German masterpieces of the early 1920s. Asquith most likely saw most of these at the London Film Society, one of the few places where they were screened. There was a serious lack of an ‘art cinema’ approach in the UK. And critical attitudes appear to have been an important contributory factor. What stands out in the silent films directed by Asquith is both a careful study of the new techniques developed in Europe, in art and avant-garde films, but also an intelligent use of these techniques in popular narrative cinema.

The presentation of the working class characters is one weakness in the film. Brian Aherne and Elissa Landi are not convincing as ordinary working people. Moreover, whilst they have some well-performed scenes together Elissa Landi tends to be over-emphatic at moments of high drama. Cyril McLaglen and Norah Baring are more convincing in their proletarian roles, though Mclaglen is also somewhat over-emphatic at times. [This was a tendency noted by critics in the period in contrast to the increasing naturalism of Hollywood acting]. It is Norah Baring who stands out in the cast; she is both fully convincing and achieves great effect with a minimum of affectation. Her best scenes are where she conveys an emotion with some look or gesture; this can be seen in several sequences where she uses a neck-scarf to enhance her looks. Asquith’s subsequent Cottage on Dartmoor has a much greater consistency of performance, and at its centre is also a fine characterisation by Baring. The film’s extras are also generally convincing, with one brief but loveable performance as a laconic Landlady of the local pub.

Whilst Underground does not achieve the narrative and cinematic complexity of Cottage on Dartmoor, the chiaroscuro effects [as in film noir] comment both on the characters and their emotions and actions. There are two particular scenes that stand out, both set on a staff stairwell on the underground. In the first, with Bill and Nell, the shadows on the wall presage the development of their relationship. In the second, with Bill and Kate, the looming shadow accentuates the drama that follows.

The location work is also commendable. The shots of busy commuters on escalators and on platforms give a real feel of the great metropolitan transport network. And Asquith is willing to show us extraneous action which is not essential to the plot but which fills out the story and the context. There is also a fine sequence set in a country park. One shot seems a trial for the later opening sequence of Cottage on Dartmoor. The whole sequence has an idyllic feel. Viewing a series of British silent films has made me aware of how frequently they make excellent use of the British landscape. There is general praise for the rural drams of French cinema in the 1920s. But there are recurring sequences in British films that have an equally effective naturalistic feel.

The final Power Station sequences are both full of dramatic action and also have a definite science fiction flavour, [possibly another German influence]. Here the film moves into thriller mode. Alongside some excellent exterior camerawork Asquith utilises the fast cutting associated with Soviet films. This creates a palpable tension and excitement. The editing throughout the film is carefully considered and executed. There are a number of memorable transitions. At the end of one interior sequence there is a close-up of a flower on a dresser and then there is a cut to a glove on a similar dresser in a new scene. At the end of that scene there is a cut from a close-up of a hand holding a glove to a close-up of a different hand holding the matching glove.

The flowers in particular are one of the symbols that Asquith uses in the film. All the main characters are seen at some point holding flowers. In three cases these are from the counter at which Nell works in the Department Store. As the opening title informs us, ‘light and shade’ are part of the lives of the people who use the underground, and chiaroscuro is a central theme in the film. There are a number of effective mirrors shots and several subjective sequences using superimposition’s and fast cutting.

The other point to make is that Asquith and his team are able to use a minimal amount of Intertitles. This may also be an influence from the German industry, and F. W. Murnau in particular. There are whole sequences where the developments rely on the actor’s movements, gestures and expressions. This is real mastery of the silent format.

The talents of Asquith reached their full success with Cottage on Dartmoor, but the qualities that make that one of the outstanding British films of the 1920s can all be seen here. In the later film these very qualities have developed in confidence and complexity. They had already been visible in the earlier Shooting Stars, though that film has weaker production values.  

The British Film Institute restored the film in 2009. Now to coincide with the 150^th anniversary of the London Underground they have re-issued the film in a Digital Cinema Package [with a recorded music accompaniment on the soundtrack]. The original 35mm print was usually screened at 22 fps, so this digital version has probably had some frames added to achieve the 24 fps currently used in digital projection. The film generally looks excellent though the digital format is noticeable at some points.  The BFI’s restoration work does full justice to the visual qualities of the film which is now about 9 minutes longer. It is a shame the film is not currently available on 35mm

The screening at the National Media Museum had an accompaniment on the piano from our regular contributor Darius Battiwalla. Less is more with Darius. His playing brings out the emotional and psychological aspects of the film without overpowering the images and titles. At this screening he frequently used recurring rifts and high pitch chords, moving to lower darker tones as the film moved to its climax.

UK, British Instructional Films, 1928.

Black and white, in a Digital Cinema Package, running time 93 minutes.

 Producer: H. Bruce Woolfe, for British Instructional Films.

Filmed at the Elstree and Cricklewood Studios and on location on the London Underground and at Lots Road Power Station in Chelsea. Distributed by Pro Patria Films.

 

Prapancha Pash / A Throw of Dice

This was the third collaboration between German film director Franz Osten and Indian film Producer Himanasu Rai. Rai was both an actor and producer and later set up the famous Bombay Talkies. Their three films Prem Sanyas / Light of Asia (1925), Shiraz  (1928) and A Throw of Dice (1929) all offer fairly free adaptation of Indian mythical stories. They are by the standards of the time fairly opulent with substantial funding. A Throw of Dice was the most opulent and expensive, with a reputed 10,000 extras involved in the production. They were officially international productions, with Rai pre-selling the rights, hence the involvement of UFA and the British entrepreneur H B Woolfe. But the films also enjoyed support and resources from various Indian princes and Rajahs [Jaipur, Udaipur and Mysore], hence the impressive locations in the films.

The film opens with a title card: “All Quiet in the Jungle.” We see a hunting party and startled animals, including snakes, monkeys and birds. In the jungle is a hut occupied by a healer and his daughter Sunita. The healer was once at the court of King Ranjit but left because of its vices. We now meet Ranjit with his hunting partner King Sohat. We soon see that they are obsessive gamblers, preferring to throw dice to hunting the abundant game. Ranjit is plotting to kill Sohat, but this plan misfires when the efforts of the healer and Sunita save Sohat. Both kings now become smitten with Sunita.

To Ranjit’s chagrin Sunita favours Sohat. Sohat now returns to his palace with Sunita and makes preparations for their marriage. Still obsessed with Sunita Ranjit plots to wreck their love. First he plants evidence that suggests that Sohat has murdered Sunita’s father. She leaves the palace but returns when Sohat’s innocence is revealed. So Ranjit attends the wedding and inveigles Sohat into another game of dice. He uses loaded dice and finally in a desperate gamble Sohat becomes his slave. However, one of the palace children unwittingly reveals the secret of the dice. Exposed Ranjit flees from Sohat and falls to his death. Sohat and Sunita are together on the skyline as the sun sinks below the horizon.

The plot is simple but the film is far more complex. It is also impressive. Much of this effect is due to the actual locations, with grandiose palaces, teeming streets and riversides and the rich fauna and animal life of the jungle. There are numerous elephants, tigers and later in the film camels. And the set pieces have massive crowds and beautifully rendered costumes, sets and props.

Equally impressive is the cinematography. The lighting cameraman on the film was Osten’s fellow German Emil Schunneman. The cinematography is sharp and clear, well served by a BFI restoration from 2006. The film uses techniques recognisable from the German industry, including impressive deep focus. There are frequent soft focus shots and effective backlighting setting off the star players. There is one striking tracking shot during the climatic sequence, which must have been technically very difficult. The final shot of Sohat and Sunita uses striking contrast as they stand on the skyline and the sun sinks away. This last technique seems to have become a regular of Indian films: Mother India (1957), screened in the same series, has a number of similar and equally effective shots.

The film’s qualities stem from a successful partnership between Osten, Rai and their regular storywriter Niranjan Pal. The production values are way ahead of surviving Indian films of the period. In fact, they rival some of the best work from the great Ufa studio. And they are certainly superior to the British films in which Woolfe invested funds.

The screening at Bradford International Film Festival was on a DCP. It included a recorded score composed by Nitin Sawhney. This uses the London Symphony Orchestra augmented by flutes and tabla percussion. It also uses the human voice, developing as the story progresses. In the early stages it is simple humming, this develops at one point into scat singing and finally fully realised vocals. The score is extremely effective. I thought it was probably too strong at moments of melodrama but one accustoms to it as the film progresses.

The screening ran for 78 minutes. When the film was screened at the 13^th Giornate del Cinema Muto in 1994 it ran 85 minutes, 6695 feet at 21 fps. The digital version seemed to run fine and seemed complete. However, the Giornate print was from the Indian Archive. It may well be that the various versions [domestic and exported to Germany and the UK] were different. But it also seems that this international distribution is one reason why the three Osten/Rai films survive. Most other Indian productions of the period have been lost.

Raja Harishchandra

The screening of this film on May 3^rd 1913 at Bombay’s Coronation Cinematograph is the centenary celebrated by Happy Birthday, Indian Cinema. This four-reel film is generally credited with being the first Indian feature. Actually there had been several non-fiction short films and several stage versions of theatrical plays: all now lost. But it was D. G. Phalke’s dramatising of a traditional Indian mythical tale in the new medium of cinema that provided a starting point for an Indian film Industry. In this sense Phalke is, like the Lumière Brothers, not the first but the key innovator.

As with so much of India’s early film heritage the film survives only in a truncated form. It was originally 3700 feet in length, now only 1475 feet survive. These consist of the opening reel and most of the final reel. What remains provides the basic outline of the plot. The film opens with King Harishchandra and his children shooting arrows. He deals with a petition from his subjects. He then goes on a hunt in the forest. He hears the cries of women. These are the furies. His investigation leads him to the hut of a sage living in the forest. Having intruded in the space of the sage the king has to undertake a penance. This is to surrender his kingdom to the sage. Returning to his palace the king breaks the news to his wife and children. Later he is sent from the palace, to the consternation of his subjects. The king and his family now have to reside in the hut in the forest.

In the final reel the wife is falsely accused of murder. A court finds her guilty and the king is forced to carry out the sentence of beheading. At this point the god Shiva appears, prevents the execution and also cures the king’s sick son. Having proved his virtue the king is restored to his kingdom and returns to his place to the rejoicing of the people. The surviving print runs out just before the end.

The film’s story is taken from the great epic Mahabharata and was an established tale in theatrical adaptations. Phalke was consciously taking a popular cultural story of India and translating it to the new and increasingly popular medium. As elsewhere the new entertainment medium [Cinematograph, Vitagraph, Bioscope,...] spread quickly. A Lumière operator had presented India’s first screening in Bombay on July 7th 1896. Exhibitors and distributors developed and soon urban centres had their own picture houses and rural areas ‘travelling picture show men’. Nearly all the screened material was imported, mainly from Europe still the centre of the new industry, but also from the rapidly developing US industry. Apparently two early successes were Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage de la Lune, (1902) and Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903).

Phalke himself had some experience of engraving and photography. In 1910 or 1911 he saw an imported film The Life of Christ. This was an event that sparked his interest in bringing Indian stories and myths to the screen. In fact he made a short trick film, Growth of a Pea Plant. Then he journeyed to England to master the techniques of the new medium. He visited and learnt from one of England’s most important filmmaker, Cecil Hepworth. He also purchased a Williamson camera and Kodak film. With these he returned to India to make his mark.

The film shows the influence of the early western film style. Phalke uses standard black and white film.  Many of the shots are set like a tableaux. The performances and action are set within a proscenium just as in a theatre. Off-screen space appears equivalent to off-stage space in a theatre. Even the melodrama seems familiar: in the final reel the Queen finds a corpse and picks up the knife that committed the murder just as guards enter and arrest her for the crime. However, this is one distinctive feature as all the female characters are played by men. At this early stage, as in theatre, it was not considered a respectable activity for women. Indeed the first Lumière screening had provided separate seating for the two sexes.

But the characters, plot, and importantly the moral lessons of the drama are essentially Indian. The English speaking elite took little notice but the film immediately won over the popular urban and rural audiences. Phalke organised his own travelling film shows. And in 1917 he made a new version of the film. He continued making popular feature films, mainly with traditional Indian subjects, right through the Silent era. He is considered the ‘Father of Indian Film’ and still today in ‘Bollywood’ and other regional cinemas the sort of stories he adapted remain immensely popular.

Unfortunately the Indian National Film Archive has very limited resources. So the screening in the Bradford International Film Festival used a copy on Blu-Ray. This was a straight copy, which on film runs at 16 fps. On Blu-Ray at 24 fps it was running too fast, but the difference was not too bad: [a running time of 16 minutes instead of 22 minutes]. Rather more unfortunate the copy was cropped on one side, which was especially noticeable in the English language titles, [the film has English and Hindi titles]. The surviving film was screened at the 13^th Giornate del Cinema Muto in 1994. In fact just about the whole surviving corpus of Indian Silent films was presented then: a real privilege.

Light of Asia Indian Silent Cinema 1912 – 1934, edited by Suresh Chabria for the Festival has a listing of all the films produced in this period: nearly all now lost.

 

The Black Pirate

Elton Corp. / United Artists 1926.

Directed Albert Parker. Scenario Lotta Wood, adapted by Jack Cunningham, story by Elton Thomas (Douglas Fairbanks). Cinematography Henry Sharp, Technicolor cameras Arthur Ball and George Cave. Art direction Carl Oscar Borg. Editor William Nolan.

Starring Douglas Fairbanks – The Black Pirate. Billie Dove – The Princess. Anders Randolf – pirate leader, Donald Crisp – - McTavish. Tempe Pigott – duenna. Sam De Grasse – lieutenant. .

Filmed in Two-strip Technicolor, with Intertitles.

This was a vehicle for Douglas Fairbanks, probably the most popular dramatic Hollywood star of the silent era. He had made a name on Broadway and was then lured to Hollywood in 1915. He quickly became a popular leading man. In 1920 he married Mary Pickford, herself the leading popular female star in Hollywood. Both were also extremely shrewd filmmakers and excised a high level of control over their films. Fairbanks had formed his own production company early in his career whilst Pickford exercised a veto over the scripts, directors and co-stars of her films. The couple became a sort of royalty in the movie colony. Together with Charlie Chaplin and the director D. W. Griffith they founded United Artists in order to control and distribute their productions.

Fairbanks persona is described as ‘cheerful exuberance, moral courage, a devil-may-care attitude, and physical agility, a prototype of the idealised image of the American male.’ On-screen Fairbanks is extremely graceful even balletic. He was especially effective in swashbuckling action-adventure films. In the 1920s he had already enjoyed great success in a series of such films – The Mask of Zorro (1920): The Three Musketeers (1921): and Robin Hood (1922).

The other star of this film is the new two-strip Technicolor process [also known as two-toned Technicolor). There were a range of colour film processes for silent film, most of these were additive processes, where the colour was added in some way. The National Media Museum Insight collection has an example of the Kinemacolor process, where a rotating filter was used before both camera and projector. The Technicolor and Motion Picture Corporation, founded in 1915, developed a subtractive process. This technique used a beam splitter to record separately the red and green content of the spectrum, which was then incorporated on to film bases, which were processed and cemented together. Because of the two-tone process the finished film did not pick up the whole spectrum, in particular the yellow. In 1928 Technicolor further developed their process and in the 1930s three-strip Technicolor became available.

The Black Pirate was the third feature to be filmed in the new colour process, though the 1925 Ben-Hur only used it for certain sequences. As was usual on his productions Fairbanks exercised very careful control and preparation. Sets, locations and even the leading lady were carefully tested for their suitability for the colour range of the new process.

The plot of the film is also typical of Fairbanks movies and is set out in an opening title.

“Being an account of BUCCANEERS & the SPANISH MAIN, the Jolly Roger, GOLDEN GALLEONS, bleached skulls, BURIEDTREASURE, the Plank,dirks & cutlasses, SCUTTLED SHIPS, Marooning, DESPERATE DEEDS, DESPERATE MEN, and – even on this dark soil – ROMANCE” 

The film was recently screened at the National Media Museum. The print was a more recent copy, which had been printed on modern colour film stock, [probably Eastmancolor]. This affected the reproduction of the original Technicolor two-tones: unfortunately, given Eastmancolor’s tendency to fade there was a pinkish tone throughput the film. The Museum projectionists countered this to a degree by using a Cyan filter on the projector. . However, the relatively primitive process of early Technicolor was itself rather problematic when first used. The film stock, due to the two strips, was thicker than normal, which required greater light intensity and could create problems in projection. This produced a slightly washed out effect and the colour could sometimes appear patchy. There is a version on DVD, which uses a restoration, and produces better reproduction of the two-tone colour: however, even here the colour is patchy. The 35mm print screened at the Museum had sections which had scratches and wear and tear, but [apart from the colour] it was in fairly good condition and provided a clearly defined image.

The projection team also faced questions about projection speeds. There did not seem to be a recorded length for the print or an accepted projection speed. Colleagues in the USA thought that the film had actually been shot at between 20 and 22 fps. A helpful projectionist in Falkirk who had already screened the film proposed 21 fps. After trailing a reel the Bradford projectionist settled on 20 fps. The screening took 103 minutes, so the print was just on 8,000 foot. This is about 400 foot shorter than the original release.

The underwater sequence

Early Technicolor has its own distinctive palette and the production team on the film were extremely capable craftspeople. There is an impressive underwater sequence. And Fairbanks, at the height of his popularity, is as graceful and loveable as ever. Moreover, a cast of Hollywood stalwarts and character actors surrounds him.

On its initial release the film had an especially composed score for accompanying musicians. Fairbanks also produced a sound version with a commentary replacing the original title cards: not a very successful venture. The Museum screening enjoyed a piano accompaniment by Darius Battiwalla, much appreciated by the audience.

Falkirk’s Hippodrome Cinema has an annual Silent Film Festival from March 13^th to 17^th.

Pordenone 2012

This was the 31st silent film festival and my 20th – lucky me. I thought this years programme was particularly strong and fortunately there were few parallel screenings so it was possible to see almost everything.

The centrepiece of the week was Charles Dickens: Father of the Screenplay, which offered a wide and varied range of films adapted from the works of one of England’s greatest novelist. Graham Petrie, in his article on Silent Dickens counted up 99 film versions. However, some of these are early translations and are extremely short. There was the Dotheboys Hall chapter from Nicholas Nickleby, filmed in 1903 and lasting 2 minutes. Thanhouser’s 1911 The Old Curiosity Shop lasted 12 minutes. One that especially impressed me was the Williamson Kinematograph Company The Boy and the Convict from 1909. This was an unaccredited version of Great Expectation running 12 minutes and with some very nice tinting in some scenes. As you might expect there were several Pickwick Papers, Christmas Carols and Oliver Twists.

The longer adaptations from the late teens and 1920s were the most impressive. One was Ideal’s Dombey and Son (1917), scripted by Eliot Stannard and directed by Maurice Elvey. Set as a contemporary rather than a period drama this had an excellent structure and presentation. The print was from the George Eastman House in the USA so the chances of seeing it in the UK seem slim. On its release it was strongly criticised by Dickens’ purists (e.g. The Dickensian) so when Elvey directed a version of Bleak House for Ideal in 1920 the film was presented as a period piece. The screenplay was probably not as assured as Stannard’s but the film gives a strong and well-filmed visualisation of the novel, though the plot and charaxcters are heavily slimmed down. The other really effective dramatisations were several films directed by A. W. Sandberg for Nordisk. These included Little Dorrit, Great Expectations, and an incomplete Our Mutual Friend. The most disappointing were, surprisingly, two version of A Tale of Two Cities, including one produced and directed by Herbert Wilcox under the title of The Only Way. This film, rather like D W Griffith’s superior Orphans of the Storm, was a fairly vicious character assassination of the Sans-Culottes and the Revolution.

The Only Way

We also had a programme of film starring Anna Sten from her time in the Soviet cinema. She followed this with film work in Germany and was then ‘discovered ‘ by Sam Goldwyn and taken to Hollywood. As with other fine imports she was wasted in the studio system and appeared in little of note. But her Soviet films reveal an actress of real dramatic power and with a nice touch in comic characterisations. The films included Boris Barnet’s very fine comedy Devushka s Korobkoi / When Moscow Laughs (1927), better known by it alternative tile of The Girl with the Hatbox. This is a delightful satire on some of the petit bourgeois practices not yet eradicated by Socialist construction. Sten is luminous and extremely witty, as indeed are the majority of the cast.

Joyless Street

A real discovery was a series of 1920s films adapted from the writings of The Storyteller: W. W. Jacobs.  These were produced by Artistic Pictures. The films used predominantly real locations and presented idiosyncratic English characters in gentle comedies. They are mainly three or four reel films, the longest The Head of the Family (1922) runs for 73 minutes. All the prints, which were of good quality, come from the BFI National Archive, so here is an opportunity to offer British audiences something fresh and different.

This years Canon Revisited included Pabst’s major 1925 film Die Freudlose Gasse / Joyless Street. Amazingly we see Asta Nielsen, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich all in the same film. This silent classic has been enjoyed several restorations in recent years and this tinted version from the Filmmuseum Műnchen ran for 150 minutes. There was a screening of the 1927 German film Die Weber / The Weavers, which was also screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato this year. Being able to see this powerful drama twice was a treat: it is taken from a very class-conscious play which treats of the resistance of Silesian cotton weavers to the introduction of machines and their consequent impoverishment. Like the Soviet films, which clearly influenced it, the film makes few concessions to bourgeois values.

There were a number of Special Events which enjoyed distinctive musical support. The Garbo film A Woman of Affairs (19280 presenting an excellent Photoplay print with Carl Davis conducting an orchestra with his own score. Photo-Cinéma-Théâtre was a recreation of a programme presented at the Paris Exposition of 1900. John Sweeney researched and played an impressive accompaniment to this varied programme. The musical performances by both solo pianists and orchestral groups were highly praised this year. However, one friend did comment that she felt that some of the music tended to overpower the films they accompanied. I agreed with this about some performances, though I thought the majority excellent in terms of accompaniment. This does seem to reflect an increasing emphasis on the music in silent film presentations. There have been quite a few examples of celebrity musicians taking up accompaniments, often displaying little understanding of the film or how music should enhance it. And recently in the UK we have had examples of musicians accompanying sound films, turning off the soundtrack! I am not sure the last is even cinema?

This tendency is assisted by the advent of digital formats, including the use of digital video in cinematic settings. So I was very pleased to have the opportunity of attending a seminar by Torkell Sætervadet, the author of FIAF’s new Digital Projection for Archival Cinemas. My heart warmed to his opening remark, that digital projection should aim to create as closely as possible the original projection of a film. He then gave a very detailed and relatively accessible talk about the Digital Cinema Package Format, colour, contrast, frame rates and pixels. One piece of good news is that the FIAF publication contains specifications for frame rates below 24 fps for digital cinema. We will now have to wait to see how long it takes to come in to actual usage.

However, there was a strong irony in all this as this year’s Giornate included increased use of digital formats, including DVD! Die Weber was projected from a DCP, presumably 2K. It looked pretty good, but the tone and contrast did not seem to be up the quality of a 35mm print. Of more concern was the screening of Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne D’Arc from a digi-beta copy. This was presumably because the screening took place in the local cathedral with an orchestral accompaniment. However, it seems that this involved step printing in the transfer twice: the second time because the orchestra had rehearsed a projection at 25 fps! It seems to me that Dreyer’s masterwork is one of the films where adding extra frames will have an especially marked impact. However, my real ire was occasioned by the use of DVD in the programme. One of these was presented in the Anna Sten programme: a ‘lost film’, Moi Syn / My Son (USSR 1928). I only saw the first few frames which were clearly stretched from their original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. I heard various explanations about this, some blaming the DVD, some the projection. Whatever, I think seeing a film distorted in this way does not really count as ‘having seen it.’ One hopes that FIAF’s new guide may provide a counter-tendency to these problems.

Overall thought it was an excellent programme and a rewarding week. Other treats included a rediscovered Melies Les Aventures de Robinson Crusoé (1902): a number of very early features from the Selig Polyscope Company: and restorations including Clarence Brown’s fine 1925 melodrama The Goose Woman and the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation’s The Viking (1928) which used the relatively new dye-transfer process – it looked great but was extremely hammy.

As usual there was praise for the programming and organising abilities of the Giornate staff. But also one sad note, the early death of a one of the Festival staff, Sara Moranduzzo (1964 – 1912).

 

Menschen am Sonntag / People on Sunday

This film is a late entry into the silent period of German cinema. However, it is not one of the impressive dramas filmed at the giant UFA studios, for example Joe May’s Asphalt (1929). This is a small, independent film made by a group of young filmmakers making their way in the industry. Using four ordinary working Berliners they offer a portrait of life and leisure in Germany and its capital at the end of the 1920s. The film was shot almost entirely on location and on a shoestring budget. It offers a foretaste of the film realism that graced French cinema in the 1930s and Italian Neo-realism in the 1940s.

The production consists of a team of talented filmmakers, the majority of whom moved to Hollywood when the Third Reich replaced the Weimar Republic. The director was Robert Siodmak, assisted by Edgar G. Ulmer and one of the two very experienced filmmakers in the team, Rochus Gliese. Gliese had worked at UFA right through the 1920s under Erich Pommer as a writer, designer and director: he had collaborated with famous director F. W. Murnau. The other very experienced hand was the lighting cameraman Eugen Schüfftan. Schüfftan was an extremely talented cinematographer and an expert in special effects; he had worked on the famous 1926 Metropolis. His camera assistant was Fred Zinnemann, also bound for Hollywood: as were the storywriter Curt Siodmak [brother of Robert] and the scriptwriter, Billy Wilder.

Wilder described some of the production work in a newspaper article in 1930 [reprinted in film notes 1997]:

“Finally we hit on the right idea: it has to be a film as simple as a report: a film about Berlin, about its people, about everyday things that we all know. First we consider using young actors. No: the people have to be authentic. So we start searching: In front of a bar, on Kurfürstendamm, Seeler discovers a chauffeur, Taxe lA 10 088, Erwin Splettstößer. In a flash, he agrees to take part. Ms. Borchert thinks that we have something else in mind. She sells records. It’s hard work talking her into it. Her family thinks that we’re white slave traders. Just the same, she turns up at the rehearsal on Thielplatz. Christl Ehlers turns up too. Ehlers has had some experience: she worked as a film extra for Dupont, and she swears that she’s on a first-name basis with the production manager of Lupu Pick. Someone for the role of the Walterhausen falls right into our laps and turns out to be exactly what we need.

Meanwhile the screenplay is sketched out. Seven typewriter-pages. We come up with the perfect trick: condense all of Berlin to a single Sunday.”

There are in fact five main characters, Erwin, Brigitte from the record shop], Christl, Wolfgang [a salesman] and Annie, who spends Sunday at home. The film introduces the main characters to us at their work on the Saturday, follows their day of leisure and then ends as they start a new working week. The major part of the film is their joint excursion to Lake Wansee, on the outskirts of Berlin. This was a popular day resort in the 1920s: it acquired darker significance in the 1940s from the infamous Wansee Conference. During this Sunday the four your people swim, picnic, flirt, fall out and make up: though finally there is an ambiguity about their relationships.

This simple treatment of everyday life was not an isolated example in this period.  The famous critic Siegfried Kracauer discusses the film together with Markt am Witenbergplatz (Street Markets in Berlin, 1929) as ‘cross-section’ films  “through an assemblage of documentary shots” And in 1931 Bertolt Brecht collaborated on a sound film with Slatan Dudow about a camp for the unemployed Kuhle Wampe [the title of the camp]. Kracauer is critical of the 1929 film for its lack of political content. Certainly the 1931 film is more consciously political. However, Menschen am Sonntag does contain fairly subtle political comments. The central relationships are presented with a strong taste of irony [presumably down to Billy Wilder]. The two male characters in particular present the fecklessness of their sex. These workers are not proletarians, they are caught between the manual working class and the petty bourgeoisie; their lives clearly contain a strong element of alienation. And when the film broadens out to encompass the larger Berlin population of four million there are sequences that express the significant disparities of urban life. There is also the rising militarism of the late 1920s suggested with the placing of parades among the desultory activities of a Sunday afternoon and traditional municipal statutory admired by groups including uniformed men.

Menschen am Sonntag does not just deal with a small group of ordinary working Berliners. As Kracauer noted, the film is also full of shots of Berlin and of working Berliners. Here the film overlaps with a cycle of mainly documentary films of the late 1920s, ‘city symphonies’. The most famous German example if Berlin – Die Symfonie der Grosstadt (Berlin- Symphony of a City 1927) directed by Walter Ruttmann.  However, this is a fairly abstract film, presenting the city as a complex of buildings, spaces, transport, movement: all reduced to shapes and patterns, even the people. Menschen is closer to the city films of directors like Alberto Cavalcanti whose Rien Que Le Heures, (Only the Hours, 1927) presents dawn-to-dusk in Paris. Both share an interest in the change from work to leisure and back again, which is found in the Soviet masterwork of Dziga Vertov Chelovek s Kinoapparatom (The Man With a Movie Camera, 1929).

 Stylistically the film shares qualities with all these contemporary works. The activities of the central quartet are shot with frequent mid-shots and close-ups and even large close-ups. But much of the larger Berlin is filmed with travelling shots interspersed with superimposition’s and even the occasion fast montage. The connections and parallels across these populations are bought out visually in a number of sequences that frame recurring actions and responses: people looking out of windows: people laughing and smiling; people being photographed at the resort;

There is also one intriguing sequence, cutting between a fierce looking zealot, traditional statues of national heroes and leaders, and a stone lion – this is clearly a pastiche of Eisenstein’s famous lions, screened in the capital a couple of years earlier.

The film premiered in Berlin in February 1930. It was well received by the critics and had a successful run of six months. Over the years the films suffered intentional and unintentional cuts: For example the Dutch censors cut over 24 metres from the film, including parts of a scene of a couple together in the woods: and a nude mannequin dummy in a show window! But the censor apparently left alone the very suggestive domestic circumstances of Erwin and Annie. By the time that the revival of interest in the Silent period in the 1980s occurred the original film running 2,014 metres had been reduced to about 1600 metres. In 1997 the Nederlands Filmmuseum, collaborating with other film archives, produced a restoration 1839 metres. Whilst not full-length, the restored version has excellent visual quality and preservers both the adventures of the young quartet and the images of Berlin and Berliners. It also displays at times the distinctive style of Eugene Schüfftan, with the occasional shot recalling his work at UFA.

The film was screened at the National Media Museum in Bradford witha good quality 35 mm print from the British Film Institute with the original German titles and English subtitles. The film ran at 22 frames per second and lasted just on 73 minutes. And there was an excellent piano accompaniment by Darius Battiwalla.

 

Asphalt

 “Asphalt begins with a montage sequence, shot at night, in which workers stomp down flaming-hot semi-liquid asphalt to pave a street. …The smooth and shiny asphalt serves in this film as a metaphor for a metropolitan “surface culture” that stressed exteriorly and sparkling facades, but also implied pretence and deception. ‘Asphalt’ in late Weimar was shorthand for an all-encompassing cosmopolitan modernity: unsurprisingly, Joseph Goebbels used the term ‘asphalt’ as an anti-Semitic slur.” [Anton Kaes, Catalogue of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto].

One of the conflicts in the film is between this smart, contemporary urban world of consumerism and nightlife and the more traditional home values of the German petty-bourgeoisie. The latter are represented by the hero Albert Holk and his parents. He has followed his father into a career with the police. Whilst his mother is an almost stereotypical and doting hausfrau. His mundane duties directing city traffic are disrupted when he chances to come into contact with the glamorous but morally dubious Else. Even more complications arise when her criminal ‘friend’ returns to the city. This is a fairly typical silent era melodrama involving romance, crime and possible redemption. The combination of worlds enable the film to offer a ‘moral ending’, whilst “in a knowing, ironic way, it revels in images of consumption, luxury and fashion, finding ever-new ways to highlight moments of voyeurism and exhibitionism. It is this visual self-awareness that makes Asphalt a real jewel of silent cinema.” [Anton Kaes].

As with the opening montage the film uses visual metaphors to comment on both characters and actions. In the opening scene in the Holk family home we se a cranny in a cage. This is a comment not just on the fate of the criminal characters in the film but to some degree on all the characters. Else’s apartment offers a storing contrast, proffering an aid of decadence. The uniforms of the police father and son are also important. At the point that Holk senior recognises his duty he dons the uniform coat followed by his metalled hat. Albert has cap, as befits a junior rank, but this falls from his head at a charged moment in Else’s apartment. And the shots that follow draw a striking contrast between her elegantly clad legs and his shiny leather boots. There also seems to be some phallic play with two objects: the cigars smoked by Holk senior and offered to Albert by him and by Else: and an umbrella that Albert plays with, especially when he visits Else’s apartment.

A similar sense of irony can be found in the printed dialogue. Early in the film we se the impressive shopping streets of Berlin and the activities of a small team of pickpockets. As a fellow criminal is arrested by Albert one remarks to the other about the difference between ‘an old pro and amateur’. As the film progresses that this distinction also applies between Holk senior and Holk junior. However, Mutter Holk is a more serious and emotional presentation. At one point we se her holding her prayer book before leaving for Sunday Service. Whilst the father is impelled by a sense eof duty, the mother is taken with her love for her son. These feminine virtues [as they are portrayed] become key when the films moves to resolve the criminal acts and the romance between Albert and Else.

The performances and the mise en scene provide a fairly visual presentation. The title cards are relatively sparse and the audience is expected to follow much of the action by the character interaction and their use of objects and props. There is an especially fine sequence when Albert makes a confession to his parents. There are only two Intertitles in a fairly lengthy sequence, one as the scene begins and one as the scene closes.

The mise en scene contributed to the story in other ways. There is a visual trope of tunnels and corridors. These are accentuated by light and shadow, and filmed in fairly deep focus. There are two particularly powerful sequences where first a distraught Albert, and later a sacrificial Else, make their way down and away from the viewers. The different facets of life in the great metropolis are illustrated with beautifully detailed scenes: at the Holk family home, along the crowded and fashionable streets of shops and stores, and in the luxury of the demimonde’s apartment.

The film is a lavish studio production. There are a few exterior locations and travelling shots, but most of the impressive sequences of city life were filmed at the giant Neubabelsberg studio. This was the largest and most advanced film production facility in Europe: Fritz Lang’s epic Metropolis was filmed in the same studio.

The film was produced as the world of silent cinema was being replaced by the new technology of sound: Hollywood’s The Jazz Singer [1927) had its Berlin premiere only three months later.

The director, Joe May, started in film in 1912, and for a period ran his own production company, May Films. The producer was Erich Pommer, one of the key players in the success of Ufa in the 1920s. Both men ended moving to Hollywood with the advent of the Nazis. They directed and supervised some of the finest craft people in German film: then in the vanguard of European cinema. These included the Cinematographer Günter Rittau and the Production Designer Erich Kettelhut. They, along with some of the cast, had worked on earlier German masterpieces like Dr Mabuse der Spieler (Dr Mabuse the Gambler, 1922), Der Letze Mann (The Last Laugh, 1924), and Metropolis 1926).

There were particular genres favoured in the German cinema and two of these contributed to the overall feel of Asphalt. These were the ‘Street film’ Straßenfilm [‘street film’] and Kammerspielfilm [‘chamber film’]. The characters are mainly ‘little people’ and their experiences emphasise the clash of the public and the private. The film also fits into a cycle of late 1920s films that play with the tawdry world of sexual attraction and exploitation, which includes Varieté (1925) and Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel, 1930)

These films also displayed the technical prowess and development that were an important aspect of the industry. The opening sequence of the film presents a series of superimposition’s and relatively fast editing. And throughout the film there are the stylistic qualities that characterised the best German films. The Neubabelsberg studio enabled the construction of large and impressive sets, and the exteriors in Asphalt are both sizeable and realistic. And the interiors are beautifully designed and emphasise the contrasts between the different lives across the city. There is a constant play with light and shadow, chiaroscuro, a technical expertise that first caught attention in the earlier Expressionist films. And there are there are spectacular shot using the entfesselte camera [‘unchained’ camera’]; displaying the prowess in tracks, dolly movement and crane shots.

A contemporary review by Siegfried Kracauer praised ‘the finesse of his craft … the wide shots are used and sustained with enormous strength of style, and the roaming camera is extremely skilled in the way it reveals human co-existence and spaces.” [Quoted in film notes by R. Dixon Smith].

 

Ufa, 1929, black and white, silent with Intertitles. 2574 metres, running time 93 minutes at 24 fps.  Director: Joe May. Producer: Erich Pommer. Scenario: Fred Majo [Joe May], Hans Székely, Rolf E. Vanloo [also story]. Cinematography: Günter Rittau. Production Design: Erich Kettelhut, [Robert Herith, Walter Röhrig]. Costumes: Renè Hubert.

Cast: Gustav Frölich – Hold / policeman. Betty Amann – Else Kramer. Albert Steinrück – Police Sergeant Holk. Else Heller – Mother Holk. Hans Adalbert Schlettow – Else’s friend.

Filmed at Ufa Neubabelsberg Studio, late 1928. Premiere: Ufa-Palast am Zoo, Berlin March 1929.

The film has been screened at both Il Cinema Ritrovato and Il Giornate del Cinema Muto. More recently it was screened as part of the series of Silent Film with Live Accompaniment at the National Media Museum, Bradford. The accompanist was Darius Battiwalla.

This was a print with English language titles, including extra title cards like the one that explained the connotation of the German title. The print was also shorted that the German version: this seems to have been due, at least in part, to some form of censorship. A scene where Else ‘vamps’ Albert was shorter in the UK version.

Early Chaplin shorts

Charlie Chaplin is probably the most iconic figure in the history of cinema. He achieved rapid stardom as Hollywood was developing its dominance of the worldwide industry. He was massively popular among the ordinary cinema audiences but also praised by critics, artists and intellectuals. His career developed through the early relatively short comedies, devoted to slapstick and clowning, and he then developed his art in a series of great silent feature-length comedies. Almost alone among popular filmmakers he extended his work in silent film into the 1930s and was still able to make impressive and popular features in the new sound film medium. Whilst he concentrated mainly on comedies his films were suffused with a sympathy and empathy for the poor and downtrodden: an empathy, which stemmed from the hardships of his own upbringing in the East End of London. His liberal politics and his freewheeling personal life made him a natural target for the right-wing politicians in the USA. And his later career suffered from the sort of persecution that became notorious under HUAC and the Hollywood blacklist. He never won an Academy Award for one of his film masterworks but late on he did receive an Honorary Oscar from the Hollywood Academy. His style of humour was endlessly mimicked and copied: his influence can be seen in the great 1920s masterpieces of the surrealists and later his comic sequences were re-interpreted by the British film comic Norman Wisdom. 

Chaplin’s early career was in the British Music Hall and he became a star in the famous Fred Karno troupe. The troupe toured the USA in 1912 and again in 1913. It was on the latter tour that Chaplin received an offer from Max Sennett’s Keystone Studio. Among other things Chaplin’s signing with the Hollywood based Keystone signalled the move of the centre of the burgeoning film industry from Europe to the increasingly powerful US economy.

Chaplin started at Keystone as a supporting comic in the short one and two reel films. However, his onscreen persona developed with the arrival of the character of ‘The Tramp’. He made 35 films with Keystone, and for the later comedies Sennett allowed Chaplin to direct as well as star.  

By the end of this series Chaplin had become a popular star, and he was able to consider offers from other film studios. He signed with the Essanay Film Company late in 1914, to produce a series of 14 comedies. This was a Chicago-based film company, with both a studio in New York and in Hollywood. Chaplin started at the New York studio but soon moved back to Hollywood. At the new studio Chaplin developed his craft, extending the production time on the films and paying greater attention to the gags and their filming. He also started to acquire a sort of stock company of regular on-screen collaborators. The most famous was to be Edna Purviance who was to play opposite him in 35 films. 

One example from the Essanay output is The Champion, released in March 1915. It is a two-reel comedy running for just half-an-hour. Apart from Edna Purviance the film featured a number of Chaplin regulars including Lloyd Bacon, Leo White and Bud Jamison. And there is a brief appearance by the famously cross-eyed Ben Turpin. The film is fairly typical of the film comedies of the period, with a rather open narrative and a lot of slapstick sequences. The setting is a boxing booth with Chaplin as the ‘champion’s’ sparring partner. The film ends with a full-scale boxing match, ‘balletic in composition with Charlie devising a series of exquisite choreographic variations.” [David Robinson].          

Film like The Champion increased Chaplin’s popularity and in 1916 he signed a new and larger contract with the Mutual Film Company. The Mutual films are more coherent and sophisticated in their plotting, have a developed sense of melodrama and display Chaplin’s stock character and his performance to great effect. It was in the Mutual period that Chaplin achieved his worldwide popularity making his an idol who was adored across film industries and audiences. 

Chaplin directed and starred in 12 comedies for Mutual and they were the peak of his two-reel output. When he moved to the First-National Company in 1918 he was ready to develop his comedy in mainly feature length films.

Consider two of the Mutual two-reel films. First is The Vagabond, released in 1916, and running for about 28 minutes. Edna Purviance stars opposite Chaplin, Leo White and Lloyd Bacon are here and we also meet an addition to Chaplin stock company, Eric Campbell. As the Vagabond we see the fully developed Chaplin Tramp. Charlie rescues the friendless girl {Purviance). “Gag comedy is skilfully juxtaposed with as subtler comedy of character and with a sentimental theme …” [Robinson]. The film is less comic and more melodramatic than many of the other two-reelers. Much of the drama focuses on the relationship between the Tramp and the Girl. Chaplin introduces a stock theme of the ‘long-lost child’. He also introduces a middle-class artist character and this sets up an emotional conflict. The film actually toys with the common Chaplin ending of the lone tramp setting off once more on his travels but squeezes in a not-too-well motivated happy ending. Melodramatic sentiment becomes central to Chaplin’s work, including in the great 1920 features.

The second is The Adventurer released late in 1917 and running for just over 20 minutes. Chaplin is on the run from the law; we see his pursuit on cliffs and beaches. Then he stumbles on a drowning victim and becomes a hero in the rescue. This leads to his invitation a bourgeois household where his actions create havoc. These include conflict with Eric Campbell who is a suitor for the daughter of the house (Purviance} and the re-appearance eof the law and the police. One of the pleasures of the film is the opposition of Eric Campbell whose size and bulk is a source of constant humour. [This was his final appearance in a Chaplin comedy, he died in 1917]. This is the anarchic Chaplin, which was a prime quality in his appeal to the popular audience. Robinson quotes Chaplin’s own comments on the appeal of some of the comedy, in particular a famous ‘ice cream’ gag: “…  the delight the average person takes in seeing wealth and luxury in trouble. The other … tendency of the human being to experience within himself the emotions he sees on the stage or screen.” Robinson also records the lengthening number of takes Chaplin was using in film production: 300 for a party sequence in the bourgeois household of The Adventurer. An indicator of the increasing perfectionism that becomes really noticeable in Chaplin’s feature silents.  

All three films were recently screened at the National media Museum in Bradford with a live piano accompaniment by Darius Battiwalla. The 35mm prints were from the British Film Institute, but not the same ones as were used for the bfi Chaplin DVDs. These were from the Wardour Film Distribution Company and there were some differences in both editing and in title cards

One pleasing aspect was that the audience included a family, who apparently came along as a treat for dad’s birthday. So I was pleased when the eleven-year-old confided that he had not expected to enjoy the Chaplin films but has indeed found them very funny.

Note: the definitive work on Chaplin [and there are many] is Chaplin His Life and Work by David Robinson, published by William Collins in 1985 and Paladin in 1986

The Rat

Novello as Pierre

Gainsborough 1925, black and white, with Intertitles.

Producer: Michael Balcon. Director: Graham Cutts. Written by Ivor Novello and Constance Collier, adapted from their own play. Cinematography: Hal Young. Art Direction: C. W. Arnold.

Cast: Ivor Novello – Pierre Boucheron/The Rat. Mae Marsh – Odille. Isabel Jeans – Zélie de Chaumet. Robert Scholtz as Herman Stetz.  James Lindsay as Detective Caillard. 

Marie Ault as Mère Colline. Julie Suedo as Mou Mou. Hugh Brook as Paul. Esme Fitzgibbons as Madeleine Sornay. Iris Grey as Rose  

The film is adapted from a successful play written by Novello and Collier. The original idea was Novello’s, who had thought of it in terms of a film. By the early 1920s Novello was a successful composer, film and stage actor and well on the way to becoming a ‘matinee idol’. The play and the film are both clearly written around Novello’s persona.

The drama is set in the Parisian underworld. Pierre is a thief, referred to as an ‘Apache’, a slang term of the period. It derived from a Parisian street gang noted for their violence and savagery, comparing them to the stereotypical image of the North American Indian tribe. Odille is his casual girlfriend and they live in the squalid and somewhat anarchic city quarter.

 Zélie de Chaumet is from the opposite end of the class divide. She goes ‘slumming’ in the quarters of the proletariat and lumpen-proletariat, a common activity among the bourgeoisie and one seen in both European and Hollywood films of the time. She visits the White Coffin Club, where we see the notorious Apache dance. This was another famed representation in which a man and woman, [often a pimp and a prostitute] have a flamboyant and violent dance. The dance turned up frequently in the Teens and 1920s films, including in the famed French series Les Vampires (1915). The meeting at the club set off a chain of events, involving passion, violence and the heavy hand of the law.

As with the play, the film was a popular success. There was quick sequel, also involving Novello and Jeans, The Triumph of the Rat (1926). And a third film followed in 1929, The Return of the Rat, released in both silent and sound versions in 1929. Ivor Novello is the star and prime focus of the film and seems to have been the major popular interest for audiences. This repeated the success of the stage version, both in the West End and in the provinces. One biographer recalls that: “At Leeds a fervent admirer got hold of his hair and pulled out quite a large lump, and with the very best of heart and affectionate feelings…’ (W. McQueen Pope, Ivor 1951).

Mae Marsh had starred with Novello in an earlier drama directed by the prestigious D. W. Griffith, The White Rose (1923). Marsh made several films in the UK, being an early member of the long line of Hollywood stars imported to improve British film’s box office. Marsh was an actress whose style was in the traditional melodramatic associated with early silent film. Isabel Jeans provided a clear contrast, nearly always playing upper class and sophisticated women. She was repeating the role that she had played in the successful West End production.

The two women, both enamoured with the Novello character, offer opposing stereotypes. Marsh as Odille, the innocent and simple slum child following Pierre almost like a lap dog: March as Zélie, is the sophisticated but kept woman of a bourgeois, her relative independence restrained by economic dependence.

The film was shot at the Islington Studio. Michael Balcon and Gainsborough had taken this over from the US Company Famous-Players Lasky. Balcon was possibly the most talented and successful producer in the history of the British Industry. He generally produced quality films with above average production values for British films: the scripts were usually economical with popular subjects: and he had a fine eye for talent. Among his alumni were Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander Mackendrick and Robert Hamer. However, the previous film directed by Cutts, Woman to Woman (1924, now lost) with another US star Betty Compson, had been a rushed production and failed at the box-office. So the fledgling company needed a success.

In the case of The Rat the director Graham Cutts was one of the most successful directors in the industry of the 1920s. Like other British filmmakers Cutts had experience of the technically advanced German film industry, and he was one of the first home filmmakers to introduce noticeable angles and tracking shots with the camera. He was ably assisted by the cameraman Hal Young, [who also filmed the fine rural drama Fox Farm, (1922)] and the art designer C. Wilfred Arnold (responsible for the design on The Lodger (1926). Cutts has since been overshadowed by the dominance of Alfred Hitchcock in Film Studies, but he and the larger British film scene offered frequent and higher quality than is often recognised.

Newspaper cartoon of Cutts

At recent screenings the general comment has been to place the second film in the series, The Triumph of the Rat, as superior to the first in the cycle. However, the surviving prints [certainly at the bfi] are about a 1,503 foot shorter than the original release [as listed by Rachel Low]. That is about 18 minutes of running time at the likely speed of 22 frames per second. A number of scenes appear to be truncated, notably the Apache dance that takes place at the The White Coffin Club: a sequence that would have been central in both the play and film versions. There are possibly one or more missing scenes: including one late in the film between Pierre and Zélie. The surviving prints are clearly compilations; the quality of the image varies, the best being the tinted exteriors. A couple of scenes appear to have the framing cropped: and one scene with Odille seems to have the same shot repeated twice.

Lacking a full-length print it is difficult to provide a fair comparisons between The Rat and his subsequent Triumph. What strikes one about the original is the inventiveness of the techniques on display: the economical development of the plot: and the strong visual quality of many scenes, especially in the mise en scène for the White Coffin Club. Rachel Low in her seminal The History of British Film 1918 – 1929 (1971) commented on The Triumph that it was ‘lacking the talent to create a credible situation for it, they [the scriptwriters] piled absurdity on absurdity, replacing plausibility with exaggeration.’ In the case of The Rat, the plot is not really realistic, but the melodrama is presented with great plausibility.

The surviving version of the film opens by introducing us to Zélie and her ‘patron’ Herman Stetz [Robert Scholtz]. Next we see the Rat, on the run from the police. The latter is a nicely inventive sequence, finely photographed and it quickly establishes the insouciant charm of Pierre. Returning to his flat we meet Odille, the virginal innocent. She is in many ways similar to the virginal heroines of D. W. Griffith melodramas: Novello may well have picked up on these stereotypes from his work with that director. Then we move to The White Coffin Club. This is both the dramatic and visual centre of the film. The bar and dance floor is surrounded by coffin-shaped alcoves, an impressive design feature. The scene also establishes the low-life quality, which is typical of these types of stories. The Rat is clearly a dominant and feared protagonist in this world. He is also the object of female desire on the part of a several women, liberated and aggressive in terms of the representations of the times.

Ivor Novello’s persona in silent film was intriguing. He is handsome, possesses some charisma, but is also often a passive object rather than an active male protagonist. This is certainly a sense of his character in Downhill (1927), and even more noticeably in an earlier film of the period appropriately titled The Man Without Desire (1923). As Pierre Novello is the object of a metaphorical struggle between Odille and Zélie.  The latter is clearly more sensual and sexual than Odille, and is somewhat typical of Novello that in the end he chooses the virginal and domesticated Odille.

This also provides a ‘moral’ ending to the tale. In fact, in the sequel of The Triumph Pierre is seen to leave the criminal underworld in an attempt to move up the social ladder.

Contemporary reviews commented favourably on Cutts’ inventive us of techniques. Apart from the compelling mise en scène of The White Coffin Club there are frequent and well executed tracks and dollies of the camera. The cinematographer, Hal Young, had moved to the UK from the USA in the days when Famous-Players Lasky ran the studio. The camerawork is not just inventive but contributes to the depth of character and story. In one sequence the returning Pierre first sees Odille as a reflection and the camera tracks in on this image before cutting to the actual couple. And there is a sense that parts of the narrative play out the repressed dreams of the characters. In another sequence Odille is menaced by Herman, preparing to embrace a new conquest. At the end of this sequence there is another reflection shot, and the character and his posture take on the look of an expressionist vampire as in Nosferatu (1921). Cutts had worked in the German film studios, and presumably he learnt the craft of chiaroscuro lighting and camera movements there.

The film also makes good use of décor and props. One recurring feature in framing of Pierre and Odille’s flat is a picture of the Virgin Mary and Child, with a prie-dieu bearing flowers placed beneath it. This is another touch reminiscent of D. W. Griffith, and Odille’s frequent prayers to the Virgin speak strongly of her innocence and naiveté. Crucially at a climatic point in the film Pierre himself collapses onto the prie-dieu as he forsakes his usual criminal responses for the religious acts associated with Odille.

Adapted from the notes to accompany a 35-mm screening of the film at the National Media Museum. Darius Battiwalla provided the accompaniment for the film at the piano, and emphasised not only the melodrama of the tale but the sleaziness associated with its underworld.