Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023

The 42nd Silent Film Festival will take place in Pordenone from Saturday October 7^th till Saturday October 14^th. For some of us this is a welcome return after missing several Festivals following the pandemic and lockdowns. The detailed programme is now available on the Festival Web Pages. Just under a third of the screenings will be from 35mm prints; the rest will be digital facsimiles. Happily some of the key titles will be on 35mm.

On the opening Saturday there is the start of a programme dedicated to the films of the great Western star, Harry Carey. Carey is a fascinating figure: often a road agent, i.e. bandit: but also a man who believes in righting wrongs. And for much of his career an important character alongside Carey was his horse. On the Saturday afternoon we have three titles in the programme, including The Heart of a Bandit (195) and Man to Man (1922). There are two more Carey titles on Sunday.

Sunday opens with the first part of a French serial, Le P’tit Parigot (1926), running to six episodes which open the daily programme up until and including Friday., all in 35mm prints This is a little known cine-novel, run in conjunction with a newspaper series at the time, on the French Rugby Union team. This is the first sporting serial I have come across; an intriguing prospect. The opening episode runs over an hour; subsequent episodes are around 30 minutes.

Sunday evening sees a screening of Hell’s Heroes (1929) on a 35mm print. This is a classic western directed by William Wyler, with a tale that featured in other versions, including one by John Ford; this is the definitive version. It was screened at an earlier Giornate in the original Verdi cinema. This was the most memorable film event that I have enjoyed at the Festival. It will be interesting to see and hear how it is presented this year; with John Sweeney providing the music.

.On the Wednesday evening there is a screening of Hindle Wakes (1927) on a 35mm print. Directed by Maurice Elvey this is one of the finest silent productions in Britain in the 1920s: it is also the best film version of a classic play of which two other film versions survive. The score to accompany the film has been composed by Maud Nelissen who also conducts a small orchestra. It seems that Maud researched the ambience of the film in Britain, including visiting Blackpool which features in a very fine sequence in the film. This is the approach that characterises much of the music composed and arranged to accompany the films.

On Saturday afternoon there is one of the titles in a programme dedicated to the German film-maker and actor, Harry Piel. This is Sein Grösster Bluff / His Greatest Bluff (1927), screening from a 35mm print. The film, which Piel directed together with Henrik Galeen, presents Piel playing opposite Marlene Dietrich. Four other Piel features are screening during the week.

The Festival also includes programmes of silent short films, mostly using a combination of 35mm prints and digital facsimiles. There is more of the film work of Harold Carey: silent slapstick: and more sporting films. There are a number of key films also transferred for digital screenings.

The opening night presents restoration by Lobster Films of La Divine Croisière (1929), a late silent directed by Julien Duvivier and now back in its original form. This screening has a specially composed score by Antonio Coppola and performed by the Octuor de France. The closing night features comedy with Charlie Chaplin’s The Pilgrim (1923) and Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. The Chaplin will have his original score arranged by Timothy Brock and performed by Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone, conducted by Ben Palmer: whilst the Keaton will have a new score composed by Daan van den Hurk and performed by the same orchestra.

 

This is a week of classic silent films and all accompanied by live music. Nelissen and Hurk are just two of the talented team of musicians who add an extra dimension to the film works’ all the screenings feature live music.

There is another strand of Ruritanian romances: extra events with discussion and music classes: and the Fair in the which there are books, videos and memorabilia. The bulk of the programme is presented in the new Verdi Theatre; whilst on the Saturday morning screenings are in the nearby Cinema Zero as the orchestra rehearse for the evening performance. It will be great to be back in Pordenone, enjoying the programme and meeting the other film enthusiasts who turn up every year for this treat.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023

One of the premier Festivals for fans of early cinema in its original format, 35mm. This year the Festival runs from Saturday June 24th until Sunday July 2nd. And there are a several programmes featuring films from the first decades of cinema – The Time Machine. The majority of these will be screened in the Sala Mastroianni at the Cineteca.

For several years Il Cinema Ritrovato has featured a selection of titles from one hundred years ago, here 1923. Every day there will be at least one episode from a serial in ten parts, La Maison du mystère. The film features two Russian émigrés, Alexandre Volkoff and Ivan Mozzhukhin. The drama runs eighteen years and the mystery involves murder, blackmail but also romance. There is a Jean Epstein drama,  L’Auberge rouge / The Red Inn. The film is adapted from a Honoré de Balzac short story. And there is Schatten, eine nächtliche Halluzination / Warning Shadows, directed by Arthur Robinson, which is one of the outstanding dramas of the Expressionist movement.

Another programme, 1903, features a Mêlées film, Le Royaume des fées. There is a selection of early films from Britain, including Alice in Wonderland from Cecil Hepworth, There are early historical dramas from Pathé frères and some restored hand-coloured prints.

The most intriguing programme is Russian Divas in Italy; and early film is Vittoria o Morte, (1913), a spy drama starring Berta Nelson.

The star event for Silents will be the screenings in the Piazzetta Pasolini, the courtyard at the Cineteca; late in the evening and with the prints projected by a 1930s carbon arc projector. There will be La souriante Madame Beudet, directed by Germaine Dulac.

And in the centenary year of 16mm, presented in 1923 by Kodak, there are a number of events with the this alternative ‘reel’ film to 35mm.

A virtual Giornate

As with a number of other film festivals Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2020 could not meet in the new Verdi theatre in Pordenone and relied on streaming a series of programmes.

The week opened with ‘The Urge to Travel’ / ‘Voglia di Viaggiare’’ this was a programme of nine short films made between 1911 and 1939.

They were all interesting but I most enjoyed Over Bessegen på Motorcykkel, Norway 1932; here two unskilled cyclist created chaos for a series of road users, pedestrians and workmen. The music was by José María Serralde Ruiz.

The opening feature was Penrod and Sam, directed by William Beaudine, USA 1923, This was adapted from a novel by Booth Tarkington; the second in a series of three chronicling a young middle class boy and his friends. Tarkington was known as a ‘midwest regionalist’ so this is set in what is called ‘small town USA’. Apart from Sam, Penrod’s closest companion is Duke, a white Staffordshire or Staff cross. I should warn those of a sensitive soul that Duke comes a cropper in the film. I do not know about the books but the film has pretty sympathetic portraits of black member of Penrod’s gang for the period. The accompaniment was by Stephen Horne.

‘The Brilliant Biograph: earliest Moving Images of Europe (1897 – 1902’) was a compilation by Frank Roumen, Netherlands 2020

“Amid the welter of projectors with extravagant names that competed for the public’s attention in the very first years of cinema, the Biograph had established itself as a product above the others, with a sharper, steadier, and far larger screen image than any of its competitors, a true source of wonder in all who saw it. The key to this success was the unperforated film of approximately 70mm width that the Biograph projector used, coupled with its choice of international subjects, and a policy of select and classy presentation, with the company controlling all exhibitions that used this unique system.” Luke McKernan in the Giornate 2000 Catalogue.

Now fifty titles from the collections of the Eye Museum and the National Film Archive have been digitised. The accompaniment was by Daan van den Hurk.

The second feature was Guofeng / National Customs; China 1935. This title was made at a studio under the dominance of the Kuomintang. The ‘National Customs’ was a campaign against foreign cultural influences and here it is structured into a romantic melodrama. In a rural town two sisters both love the same man. The working out of this conflict lead to personal tragedy but also to disruption in the school in which the sisters and their mother work. This provides the setting and situation for the values embodied in the Kuomintang campaign. The film was screened at an earlier Giornate in 1997 from a 35mm print. This was a digitised version recently completed by the Chinese Archive and then offered to this year’s Giornate. The film presents the problem of foreign influences as a cultural epidemic. This makes one wonder if the title was chosen as a riposte to the USA/Donald Trump’s constant accusations against China over the current epidemic.

The next programme opened with the Thanhouser one-reeler Toodles, Tom and Trouble, (US 1915). Despite that titular names the real star was a border collie, Lady. I have to complain about Jay’s introduction where he assured us that Lady remained OK. He apparently meant after the production whereas it seemed that he was talking about the plot. So the climax was a shock! Hopefully we will get a chance to see this skilled performer in another of her films.

The feature Where Lights are Low directed by Colin Campbell, US 1921, was a vehicle for the star Sessue Hayakawa. It was made by his own production company. The Haworth Pictures Corporation, established in 1918, which changed its name to the Hayakawa Feature Play Company at the beginning of 1921. A Chinese prince is sent to the USA to study. But his lowly love at home is sold into bondage and he has to struggle for money to save her from prostitution. Then, at the climax, he has to battle a San Francisco’s Chinatown criminal to save her. The final battle is long and visceral whilst the forces of law and order seem to take an eternity to come to the rescue. The film felt that there were missing sequences though the narrative still made sense. The accompaniment was by Philip Carli, who in the ‘chat’ also thought there were sequences missing.

The fourth feature was preceded by the Czech short film Ceské Hrady a Zámsky (1916). This opened in a ancient castle but the setting was merely the motivation for a mad dash from here to the capital Prague. The protagonist predictably encountered obstacle after obstacle as well as being assisted by a number of cinematographic tricks.

The feature was an Italian ‘anarchic comedy from 1921, La Tempesta in un Cranio, which translates as ‘the tempest in the cranium’ but which in Britain was titled ‘Kill or Cure’. I never really engaged with the premise of the title directed by Carlo Campogalliani who also played the lead characters. A rich and young man of a wealthy family fears that the hereditary madness will sooner or later afflict him. His friends set up a bizarre situation where he starts to think he is mad; revealed reality cures his fears. This approach to madness seemed to me only slightly preferable to that proposed by Freud. The music was provided by Günter A. Buchwald, Frank Bockius

Oi Apachides ton Athinon / The Apaches of Athens was a late silent produced in Greece in 1930. I thought the title was a little misleading. Coined in France the European term, ‘Les Apache’ referred to a violent criminal world culture and had a similar meaning when copied in other countries. However, in this title, the lead male trio:

“the charming but penniless Pierre Lambeth, known as “The Prince,” beloved by the flower-seller Titika, and his two chums, the comic duo Karoumbas (played by librettist Prineas) and Karkaletsos.”

are law abiding itinerant labourers. In the main climax of the story Pierre is even more moral that the guests at a bourgeois party. The film was adapted from an operetta

“celebrated for its revolutionary populist treatment of working-class characters,”

What stood out for me was the location filming in Athens and its celebration of working class life and experience. Directed by Dimitrios Gaziades and with a recorded orchestral accompaniment: Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Abwege (Germany 1928) ([The] Crisis) Directed by G. W. [Georg Wilhelm] Pabst,

This film had been screened at an earlier Giornate, also 1997. But the title was the digital version seen at the 2018 Berlinale. The music was by Mauro Colombis.

A Romance of the Redwoods (US 1917) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. This was a delightful Mary Pickford vehicle. She plays Jenny who travels from the East to the West of the USA. She is faced by all sorts of obstacles and dangers but she is a strong willed young woman who finally achieves a romance and a place in this new territory. The production was extremely well done, as you would expect from the people involved, including Alvin Wyckoff’s fine cinematography and it was a pleasure to watch. The music by Donald Sosin with Joanna Seaton

Ballettens Datter (Denmark 1913) (GB: Unjustly Accused) [Daughter of the Ballet]

Directed by Holger-Madsen

This film drama was described as a ‘modern comedy’, in the sense that it was a tale of irony rather than outright humour. The ballet dancer of the title marries a wealthy admirer with his condition that she leave the stage, When, frustrated in marriage and domesticity, she returns secretly to the stage this action sparks a familiar melodramatic conflation; but one that is resolve in a slightly fantastic fashion.

The music was by John Sweeney.

The final programme was a number of one and two reel comedies featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, but before they formed the famous duo. There were moments of fun and humour but overall I thought these were minor examples of silent comedy. They demonstrated how, when they formed a double act, the combination of their individual talents created a whole more substantial than the parts.

Neil Brand accompanied the titles at the piano.

All the features were introduced by Jay who was seen in a variety of places in Pordenone familiar to regular Giornate guests. Streamings were followed by ‘chats’ hosted by Jay and usually including the musician who accompanied the title and one or even two people who were know legible on the film, the film-makers and the national cinema which they represented. These are available on You Tube.

There were also a series of ‘master classes’. The master classes at the regular Festival providing a learning opportunity for musician who want to develop their skills in accompanying silent titles. These virtual versions featured the musicians who accompanied this year’s title discussing their approach to providing such music from a range of viewpoints. These varied in the way they treated the issue; they were interesting but I sensed that the festival had not given them a specific brief. Such a brief would have providing for the different presentations to build into a coherent commentary on music and silent film.

And there were also daily review programmes, recommending new books on silent film and in one case a new box set of DVDs, [The Thanhouser Studio]. There are also available in You Tube.

The festival programme was streamed on MyMovie, which is the same platform as used by Il Cinema Ritrovato earlier in the year. The platforms runs up to 1080 but most of the features that I viewed were at 720. The supporting programmes were streamed at a lower rate and some that I viewed were several rates lower. I gave up one masterclass because the extracts used were so poor; though that may be partly due to the source. Overall the Festival programme was well organised and well presented. There were background notes for each programme on the Web Site. These offered basic production details and comments. I would have liked more information on the source material and the digitisation process. However, Le Giornate are preparing a printed catalogue which should be available in December and I hope will have more information.

The Festival was worth following but it did not increase my liking for streaming. Hopefully 2021 will see us back at Pordenone and in the new Verdi. I do worry that the increase of digital versions over this year both in festival and other screening facilities may lessen the amount of 35mm prints that we enjoy in Le Giornate; last year it was about fifty-fifty. My friend Peter, who checks these matters, says that the proportion of 35mm has gone down year-by-year recently.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019

Catalogue cover – Marion Davies

Once again a international mix of committed cineastes gathered in Pordenone in north-west Italy for the 38^th instance of this annual Festival. There were about a thousand here for a week of film from the first thirty five years of cinema. Within this crowd were a select group of ‘Donors’, who support the Festival by attending and contributing financially. Some have been returning year after year since its earliest days in the 1980s.

All guests receive a pass and a Catalogue; the Catalogue, with details of the titles, their provenance and some indication of the content. These came in the Festival bag graced by Marion Davies in Beverley of Graustark (1916), a Ruritanian story screened at the Festival; fans of William S. Hart were able to buy a festival T-shirt featuring this western hero. Donors also received a selection of new writings on the ‘silent era’. This year there were two books from Paulo Cherchi Usai, one of the founder of the Festival. He has also recently finished his work as Senior Curator of the Moving Image Department at the George Eastman Museum. His work and research there has fed in to the two books.

‘Silent Cinema A Guide to Study, Research and Curatorship’, BFI 2019.

This is a revised and much expanded version of his book and which has one of the most thorough accounts of the cinematic process in the founding and development of cinema and which also addresses the issues around the transition from photo-chemical film to digital.

‘The Art of Film Projection A Beginner’s Guide’. George Eastman Museum, 2019.

This promises to be a detailed study of projection of ‘reel’ film in all its aspects; a volume that should be extensively read in Britain.

‘Silver Screen to Digital A Brief History of Film Technology’ by Carlo Montanaro, Translated by Liam Mac Gabhann. John Libbey Publishing, 2019.

The book covers from the silent era up until the new computer based systems.

Paulo Cherchi Usai giving an interview

The volumes are pertinent. Peter Rist, who every year does his calculations, noted that there were 27 features on DCP at this year’s Festivals but only 17 on 35mm, i.e. titles running 50 minutes or longer. The short film programmes were better, about 50/50; 76 titles on 35mm and 78 on digital. The latter were interesting as digital versions and film versions were side by side and the characteristics of each could be both compared and contrasted. So far this has confirmed my preference for the traditional technology.

The opening and closing events of the Festival were digital projections. The opening night offered Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid with Chaplin’s own musical accompaniment performed by the Orchestra San Marco conducted by Timothy Brock; an expert in music for Chaplin’s films who arranged the score. The digital version was fine but this was the version re-edited by Chaplin and some of us would have preferred the original version from 1921.

The closing night offered Alfred Hitchcock The Lodger, A Story of London Fog (1927). On this occasion the Orchestra San Marco was conducted by Ben Palmer with a score composed for the title by Neil Brand. This was a digital rendering of a tinted copy and [as is frequently the case with the format] the tinting was over-saturated, reducing the definition within the image.

The audience included the citizens of Pordenone, who also enjoy the Festival. One of their favoured events is ‘Striking a New Note’, titles accompanied by the Orchestra dell’Instituto Comprensivo Rorai Cappuccini e della Scuola Secondaria di Primo Grado di P. P. Pasolini. [a school celebrating the great film maker; I somehow doubt we have a school in Britain cerebrating Derek Jarman]. The students play recorders with a piano alongside. This year they accompanied ‘Our Gang’ in Dogs of War (1923) and ‘Baby Peggy’ in Carmen, Jr. (1923).

There were also screenings specifically dedicated to the citizens. On the final Sunday the Verdi screened Chaplin’s The Kid this time with the orchestra under the baton of Maestro Gunter Buchwald. There was also an event for the citizens of Sacile where the Festival spent many years whilst the new Verdi was constructed. The Zancanaro Theatre hosted one of the films from the Reginald Denny programme of the Festival; What Happened to Jones (1926). This is an excellent combination of slapstick and farce and enjoyed a score written and composed by Juri Dai Dan with the Zerorchestra Partitura.

Both sets of audiences are fairly well behaved, but, even here at a specifically cinema event we have some ne’er-do-wells. The occasional mobile phone goes off: people actually text in the auditorium: actually light up tablets: and, whilst, one can understand using a phone as a torch in the darkness, some wave it about like a searchlight. The Festival would benefit from m ore frequent and more emphatic warnings; seen only occasionally before events.

A quiet moment for Reception staff

The staff and volunteers of the Festival are very good. One worker in the reception admitted to being worn out after registering all the guests and handling their queries. And, unfortunately, this year the staff at the Verdi had to assist when one unfortunate guest collapsed and had to be wheeled by out by medics: he has recovered. Most of the guests are in a good condition despite the demands of a fairly heavy programme of screenings. The staff receive a special thank you on the last night. Jay Weissberg [Festival Director] admitted it was not possible to list all the staff and volunteers who care for the festival-goers. I suggested perhaps we could have a ‘photo-montage’ of staff. There is already one for the recipients of the Jean Mitry Award, a prestigious honour given en annually. This photo-montage also means that every year we hear Aaron Copland’s beautiful ‘Fanfare for the Common Man. So perhaps readers could consider an equally appropriate piece of music for a ‘Fanfare’ for the hard-working staff.

The Jean Mitry Award is one of the special event s in the Festival. Past years have seen the honour awarded to some of the major luminaries of Silent Film study, preservation and presentation. This year the two recipients were Margaret Parsons who has for a long period organised the film programmes at the National Gallery in Washington DC; and Donald Crafton who wrote and taught key works on early animation.

Also this year one of the students from the David Selznick Film School presented the work for the Haghefilm Selznick Fellowship. This was a 1912 Russian Pathé film, the second part of 1812 (The Retreat From Moscow). This was a fine 18 minute 35mm print with excellent tinting. We watched Napoleon as he suffered the travails of the Russian winter and Russian resistance. Though the real suffering was reserved for the French soldiers, cut down by Cossacks, hacked down by serfs and savaged by wolves.

In between and alongside these events were a series of programmes which I shall return to discuss in greater detail. They included the early films of William S. Hart; the finest exponent of the western in early Hollywood. There was Hollywood star Reginald Denny, not that well-known these days but very popular in the 1920s. We had early stars of French cinema and a rang e of short films from Weimar Cinema. And we had a series of ‘flip-books’ painstakingly transferred to photographs and animated  for projections. All of these enjoyed musical accompaniments both from the orchestras and from a talented team of musicians, mainly on the piano, but supplemented by the violin, accordion, percussion and the human voice.

We also met and chatted to old friends and colleagues: wrapped up well for the start and enjoyed warmer sunshine for the end of the week; and, as space and time allowed, indulged in the excellent Italian cuisine. The whole week offered enough pleasure to return in 2020 when we are promised more Westerns.

The Mask and the Face / La maschera e il volto, Italy 1919

Savina, Paolo, Marta, Luciano

This film was part of the programme ‘A Hundred Years Ago: 1919’ at Il Cinema Ritrovato. The programmers, Mariann Lewinsky and Karl Wratchko, commented in the Festival Catalogue:

“1919 is the first year of the A Hundred Years Ago strand for which a certain canon exists … [ Stroheim, Gance, Dreyer ..] we decided, as in every year since 2004, to go on a pilgrimage to the archives and view as many films from 1919 as possible.”

So this title from Italy is not a masterpiece though it is a very interesting film. The director, Augusto Genina’ is an important film-maker from the period. The story is adapted by Luciano Doria from a play by Luigi Chiarelli.

“… a three-act play … first staged in 1916 – a resounding success that gave birth to a new national theatrical movement: ‘grotesque theatre’, which staged the exasperation of bourgeois comedy.” (Andrea Meneghelli in the Festival Catalogue).

Apparently the film, the first of several adaptations, plays down the ‘grotesque’ elements.

Savina Grazia (Italia Almirante Manzini) is married to jealous husband Paolo (Vittorio Rossi Pianelli). His possessive actions drive her into an affair with Paulo’s close friend Luciano (Ettore Piergiovanni). Luciano is a lawyer and himself engaged to Marta. Paolo, at a social, boasts that if his wife is unfaithful he will kill her lover, unaware that this is actually Luciano. An important sub-plot, only partially explained, presents a couple of a boat on the nearby Lake Como. The couple never leave the boat and Paolo’s friends believe that

“Her husband is a terrible Othello.”

Paolo’s violence leads to Savina fleeing the house. To maintain face Paulo falsely claims to have killed her as a matter of honour. Luciano, who believes this, defends Paulo against a murder charge and achieves an acquittal. Now the body of a woman is found floating in the lake, decayed beyond recognition; possibly that of the woman on the boat. But everybody assumes that it is the body of Savina. This sets up the story for a complicated but upbeat ending. Here Genina’s ending is more in line with traditional social comedy than the ‘grotesque theatre’.

The film is entertaining and well performed by the cast. The style is fairly conventional for the period but there are some excellent location sequences. This balances some of the interiors which are somewhat theatrical in their staging. The print was in good condition though it was slightly shorter than a recorded length for the original: there were a couple of scene changes that were a little abrupt. But the image quality was fine. There was a nicely appropriate accompaniment by Daniele Furlati.

The Fifth Nitrate Picture Show

The weekend this year ran from Friday May 3^rd to Sunday May 5^th. We missed out on a Thursday night treat as the George Eastman Museum was celebrating Julia Roberts and [I am pretty sure] she was never filmed on nitrate. Prior to the weekend, in a first, a cryptic pitch from the Museum hinted at some of the delights:

“There will be at least one Academy Award Winner for Best Picture

A film directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Jon Barrymore will be present on our silver screen

And, we’ll have every genre from mysteries and romance to westerns and film noir to comedy and cartoons! “

On our journey down we produced a list of potential titles. The only success was the Hitchcock title which Peter Rist had seen before and which he knew was a print at the Museum

The programme was announced Friday morning at 8.45 a.m. We were still enjoying a fine breakfast before walking up to collect a programme. Initially I wondered whether this would be a good year but it turned out to be excellent, with both interesting and entertaining films and generally good quality prints. We had enough time to walk in to town and visit the Greenwood Bookshop, a recommended stop for anyone visiting Rochester. We fortunately also had time to visit the Memorial Museum of Fine Art. This featured an installation by Isaac Julien celebrating Frederick Douglas. Douglas is buried in the city. This was a splendid feature. Ten screens, of varying sizes, displayed video films dramatising important events in the life of Douglas. It was very well set out; one could follow key screens and still be aware of the other screens and how the representations moved around these. I only had time for one viewing, [it runs half-an-hour], so I hope it will be seen in Britain at some point.

Friday afternoon started with two talks in the series ‘Keepers of the Frame’. David Russell from the Imperial War Museum delved into the history of that Institution and his own archival experiences to offer insights in to working with nitrate, especially the most important issue of preservation. He downplayed the hazards of the format though he stressed the problems of finding and keeping good copies. Elaine Burroughs followed presenting the James Card Memorial Lecture. She talked about her experiences at the British Film Institute and also with FIAF [International Federation of Film Archives]. She had some startling clips illustrating nitrate’s inflammability. So we enjoyed ‘Mr Ice’ and M/s Fire’; rather like the bout in The Black Dahlia (20026).

The programme of films followed the patterns set in earlier years. So the first session was devoted to shorts.

Battle of Midway (USA 1942), an 18 minute colour print from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Shot on 16mm Kodachrome it was released in a 35mm Technicolor print. Commander [John] Ford supervised the filming. And well known actors, Ray Milland, Donald Crisp and Jane Darwell read the commentary. This is very much from the US side though it shows the casualties and wreckage of the US forces. There is some fine aerial cinematography. But the tone, as is the wont in US war movies, is stentorian.

Swooner Crooner, (USA 1944), was one of several colour animations, this by Frank Tashlin. This was also from the Museum of Modern Art. Running seven minutes it shows a battery of hens being encouraged to increase egg production. The hens are clearly stand-ins for the female work force in World War II, demonstrating the changes in representations between then and now.

Tulips Shall Grow was another war-time colour animation, (USA 1942), this time from the hand of George Pals. The print and the Technicolor were in fine condition , in a Library of Congress print. The plot involves a young Dutch couple who suffer when the ‘army of Screwballs’ invade. But ‘Mother Nature’ provides a catalyst for resistance and victory over the invaders. These were cartoon variations on thinly disguised allies and Nazis.

‘When Tulips Bloom’

Looking at London (USA 1946). This was a Fitzpatrick Travel Talk, running 10 minutes and in Technicolor, also from the Library of Congress. The film presents London post-war including the effects of the German bombing campaigns. Somewhat scratched the film seems rather bland compared with the documentaries and newsreel from the war years.

Gardens of the Sea (USA 1947) and Landscape of the Norse (USA 1947) , both from the Academy Film Archive, were both documentaries studying places overseas; not one of the strongest suits of US cinema. The Australian coral reefs look good in the title’s Cinecolor and are a pleasure. The exploration of Norway picks up when the film travels to the northern reaches of the country. Both prints were from the Academy Film Archive,.

The Cobweb Hotel (USA 1936) was a delightful animation in colour from David Fleischer provided by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The sardonic tone as flies battle to escape the malevolent designs of a spider are very entertaining.

Finally The Temperamental Lion (USA 1939) was a colour animation which offered rather conventional plotting. It has been preserved by the Chicago Film Society. Unfortunately it seemed to be a warped print which meant that the focus came and went. This last screening demonstrated the ageing faults that the projection team had to tackle in presenting the titles. All had some level of shrinkage and several had suffered damage to the edges and sprocket holes.

The evening meal break offered both the excellent Museum bar and [an innovation from 2018] food wagons by the entrance. If you were energetic you could also walk to a nearby restaurant, though these are at least ten minutes or more away.

The early evening programme was Luis Buñuel’s L’Age d’Or (1930). The screening was from a George Eastman print which they acquired from the legendary Henri Langlois and it was in reasonable condition. This is an undoubted classic and a fine example of surrealist film. It is longer and more complex than Un Chien Andalu (1929), partly because it has both title cards and recorded dialogue, plus recorded music and effects. Sex, violence, satire, subversion and sardonic humour engage one for just over an hour. I especially like the giraffe flying out a window, the cow on the bed, and a familiar figure with hitherto suppressed biography. The Catalogue recorded the disruptions to the original screening and also a fine example of right wing anger and bile:

“All those who have safeguarded the grandeur that is France, all those, even if they are atheists, who respect religion, all those who honour family life and hold childhood sacred, all those who have faith in a race which has enlightened the world , all those sons of France whom you have chosen to defend you against the moral poison of unworthy spectacles appeal to you now to uphold the rights of the censor.” (In ‘Le Figaro’, December 13, 1930).

If I did not already know the film I would have rush to see it.

The evening ended with The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949). This was the last major title directed by Preston Sturges in Hollywood. The print from the Museum of Modern Art was in good shape and the Technicolor format offered bold and vivid colours. The ‘Blonde’ (Betty Grable) is a western ‘sure shot’ whose main problem is her unfaithful boyfriend Blackie (Caesar Romero). The action tends to slapstick but is done with real panache. The climatic sequence is a lengthy gun battle full of witty visuals. The audience went to bed full of humour.

Saturday morning opened with the 1947 Nightmare Alley. This was a print from the UCLA Film and Television Archive. It was a pleasure to watch:

“The blacks are saturated to give the eerie feeling of night shadows and life on the dark side.”

Generally seen as a film noir the film lacks the flashbacks and confessional mode of the genre. And the femme fatale in this story is an overweening ambition embodied in fake spiritualist Stanton ‘Stan’ (Tyrone Power). In 2018 we had a fine Tyrone Power film, The Razor’s Edge (1946) adapted from the novel by Somerset Maugham. Both these films were directed by Edmund Goulding, a Hollywood talent that deserves greater recognition. This film also has fine black and white cinematography by Lee Garmes. The ‘Variety’ review (October 15, 1947)commented

“Despite the grim realism of its treatment, it has all the shuddery effect of a horror yarn”

The afternoon started with a short film by Arne Sucksdorff from the Swedish Film Institute / Svenska Film Institute, Strandhugg (‘Forays’, 1950). The print was in excellent shape and Sucksdorff’s films offer fine black and white cinematography. Two earlier Picture Show were graced by his work and this 15 minute film offers poetic sequences of the seaside.

 

The feature in this session came from the National Audiovisual Institute of Finland / Kansallinen audiovisualinen institutti: People of the Summer Night / Ihmiset suviyössä (1948) was directed by Valentin Vaala. Vaala made 44 films in a long career but this is reckoned to be his finest. It is adapted from a novel by Frans Eemil Sillanpää’s (1934). Set over one night in a small rural community we watch various relationships and actions among local people; these include birth, death, and conflicts fuelled by alcohol. There also seems to be a implicit gay character. The cinematography by Eino Heino is excellent. The film offers a ‘warm-hearted and sensitive’ evocation of the ordinary but compressed for dramatic purposes.

Late afternoon offered a Cinecolor western, The Nevadan (1950). Cinecolor was a two colour subtraction system, cheaper and quicker to process than Technicolor. Not that many features were filmed in the process which offered especially vibrant orange, red, blue and green.

“Ruggedness and realism, plus the employment of Cinecolor photography, have established several cuts above average westerns the sagebrush sagas produced by Harry Joe Brown and starring Randolph Scott.” (‘Boxoffice’, January 14 1950).

This is typical Scott hero. Upright and stalwart, as he outmanoeuvres and outguns the villains led by George Macready. And there is the young Dorothy Malone, not just a romantic interest, but involved in the action. The print from the Austrian Film Museum had quite a lot of scratches and noticeable splices but the colour was excellent.

Rebecca (1940) ticked an Academy Award winner, a Hitchcock film and a mystery movie. This was a George Eastman print in pretty good condition. There is some fine cinematography by George Barnes and a great score by Franz Waxman. I find that the first part of the film is really good as we encounter [through the eyes and ears of the unnamed heroine) the titular dead character. But once the past is revealed I think the film becomes less interesting and dynamic. The screening included a set of screen tests. Those with Joan Fontaine wearing possible costumes were poor; she had a high temperature and the costumes were clearly inappropriate. But the following two, with Nova Pilbeam and Anne Baxter, demonstrated how apt was the casting of John Fontaine.

The Sunday opened with a classic film noir, Dead Reckoning (1947). This was a Library of Congress print with signs of wear, both on the emulsion and on the sound track. However, it still showed off the qualities of this black and white film. The movie has all the characteristics of a noir thriller; the confessional mode, flashbacks, the world of chaos into which the hero falls, night and chiaroscuro and a femme fatale. But I did not find it had a strong noir feel. This is mainly because the fatale, ‘Dusty’ (Lizabeth Scott] seems more like the scheming female of private eye films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941). And Humphrey Bogart’s ‘Rip’ is in the mould of the same private eye.

The afternoon offered a John Barrymore film, Counsellor at Law (1933), finely directed in an adaptation from Elmer Rice’s play by William Wyler. The print was from the UCLA Film and Television Archives in very good condition. The early sound track apparently needed adjustment from time to time by the projectionists. Rice was Jewish, a socialist and had legal training; all of which fed into the play and the film. Rice also wrote the screenplay and apparently Wyler referred frequently to the original play during production. Barrymore is excellent as a shyster Lawyer George Simon, originally from the Jewish Lower East Side of Manhattan. The film [and play] follow his Machiavellian manoeuvres when a past case returns to haunt him. The pace and the dialogue are crisp and sharp; Isabel Jewell as telephonist Bessie is a delight. And there is one memorable scene when Simon agrees to defend the son of an old Jewish neighbour, Harry Becker (Vincent Sherman). Harry is a communist and in a terrific sequence turns on Simon who he denounces as a class traitor. Even though this is pre-code Harry later dies from injuries sustained from the New York police. Sherman was a target of HUAC in the 1950s, suspected of real-life communism.

Then to Blind Date. I find the mystery rather coy but this year the title was worth a wait, Gone to Earth (1950). The clue was a shot of the wedding cake after Hazel’s (Jennifer Jones) marriage to the Reverend Edward Marston (Cyril Cusack). In the adaptation of a novel by Mary Webb Hazel,

“as she races barefoot across the Shropshire fields, her hair streaming behind her, like some mystic being from a quaint old folk tale …..” (‘Picture goer’ October 21, 1950)

is caught between the religious but liberal Edward and the sexy but brutal Squire ‘Jack’ (David Farrar). Rather than a triangle this is a square, including Foxy, a young vixen [unfortunate not credited]. Jennifer Jones is miscast as this wild country spirit but she gives her performance real panache. Cusack is grave and convincing and Farrar probably had the female audience swooning with desire. Hugh Griffith watches balefully in an oddly bizarre performance as Andrew Vessons, manservant.

‘Whose cake?’

The print was from the George Eastman Museum, a donation by the Selznick family. Fortunately it was the British print not the shorter US version titled The Wild Heart. Watching it fitted the comment in ‘The Spectator’ (September 29, 1950);

“Beautifully coloured, it is as lively a film to look at as I have ever seen, and when the direction deigns to be mobile it is infinitely rewarding.”

The directors were those idiosyncratic romantics, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

So this was a rewarding weekend filled full of cinematic pleasures. The organisers and volunteers got a deserved ovation at one point. And, in a habit that is distinctive to George Eastman, the audience were also invited to applaud the projectionists who work overtime to presents these old and often delicate prints. One of the problems they encounter is the shrinkage of prints, a standard difficulty with nitrate. It is reckoned that once pass 1% screening becomes really difficult. However, two of the best looking titles of the Weekend, Strandhugg and Gone to Earth, both had 1.05%. I have noted the origins of the prints and many of these were introduced by members of the particular archive. We also had introduction from George Eastman staff. In previous years speakers have focussed on the history of the print in question. This year they tended to talk about the ‘values of ‘reel’ screenings’; I do prefer the print detail.

 

Punters who would like to see a whole programme of the original cinema format should note that next year the Picture Show Weekend is later, June 4^th to 7^th 2020. We were advised that Yuri Tsivian is on a mission for the Museum scouring European Archives for Nitrate Prints. Perhaps Sergei Eisenstein, Max Ophuls or Jean Renoir?

Pordenone’ ‘Verdi’.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto has offered an entrée into silent film since 1982. I was happy to go along for the first time in 1993 and[ fortunately] I have been able to attend every year since. In the early years we watched almost the entire programme in the old Cinema Verdi.

“From 1985 to 1998, the festival’s venue was the Cinema Verdi in Pordenone, a picture palace from the great post-war era of Italian cinema-going.”

The auditorium seated just over a 1,000 in a ground floor and a balcony. There was a proper projection booth with twin projectors and an ample and large screen. The downstairs seating was fine with good views of the screen from just about all the seats. The same was true of the balcony but the wooden seats could feel rather hard after several titles; cushions were advisable. On either side of the proscenium were two small balconies. It was from these that one of the great accompaniments was heard at the Festival. In the closing scene of Hell’s Heroes (1929) Charles Bickford staggers down the high street of a small western town. He is dying and clutching a small baby that he has saved and carried across the desert. The whole town is in the local church and as Bickford and the baby stagger through the porch, a choir, sited either side of the proscenium, burst into ‘Silent Night’ in the darkened auditorium. Was there a dry eye in the house.

“Following the local authorities’ decision to demolish the Verdi, in 1999 the Giornate moved to the Teatro Zancanaro in Sacile (15 km from Pordenone), a well-equipped modern auditorium behind the older facade of a theatre which has been presenting films since 1911.”

The Zancanaro was a fine venue but seated under 900. And in these years the Festival was expanding; as it had done continuously since its inception. There were additional screening of titles in the nearby Ridotto.; a hall rather than a cinema. The chairs were hard but the screenings were fine. It was there that I witnessed an impressive translation. We had a print on Stiller’s Gösta Berlings saga, 1924) but without English sub-titles. A member of the Festival audience [whose name alas I do not have] sat by the pianist and for over two hours translated the Swedish title cards.

“The Teatro Comunale “Giuseppe Verdi” of Pordenone rises on the ashes of the Cinema Teatro Verdi, closed on June 30, 1999 and subsequently demolished. In October 2007 the festival moved back to Pordenone and to the new Verdi theatre.”

The Festival has continued to have a screening at the Zancanaro on the Friday evening preceding the main programme. In Pordenone most of the screenings are in the new Verdi, with a few screening s[including Saturday morning when the orchestra rehearse for the final gala] in the Cinema Zero.

There were problems with the design of the new Verdi building, an opera and event venue rather than specifically for cinema. Apparently the sight lines were not good for all seats and the projection booth was inadequate. The move, planned for 2006, was delayed for a year. And the Festival has continued in this venue since 2007. The interior of the auditorium has steps by the side doors and there has been a few stumbles and an accident. So a dedicated band of ushers who assist people with torches to their seats. They are fine. Unfortunate some of the actual audience members also use their mobile phones as torches and quite a few of them do not realise that it is better to hold this at knee level rather than wave it about. There are three balconies. The first has some seats cordoned off because they are in front of the projection booth. The upper two are steep. There are quite a few seats on the ground floor and in the upper balconies where the sight lines are not good. I really did prefer the old Cinema Verdi.

ground floor and screen from balcony

The new Verdi seats just under 1,000 and that is the average number of registered guests in the last three years. And there are the local citizens who attend many of the screenings. So the last couple of years has seen queues forming, often 30 minutes or more before the next session stars. Fortunately rain is not frequent in Pordenone and even in October the temperature in the evening is mild. For many the queue if because they wish to sit in particular area. But for major titles it is just to ensure you can sit and watch the film.

There is a small Ridotto or rehearsal hall which is mainly used for the Master classes for aspiring silent film accompanists. But the hall was the venue for a striking commemoration. Celebrating the trail blazing FIAF event of 1981 which offered an in-depth study of early cinema. In this event we watched selection of some of the important material from that occasion, happily still on 35mm.

The Cinema Zero is fine but much smaller. It used to have a ground floor and balcony, the latter with the better sat. It was redesigned a year or so ago. And now there is one rake, with a separation aisle and standard comfortable seats throughout. However, it was just point this that the cinema went ‘all digital’. I remember passing a forlorn and abandoned 35mm projector outside the rear of the building.

Because of its design the Verdi has three floors of lobbies. One with a small coffee bar. It is here that the Festival places small exhibitions coinciding with a particular programme of films. And there are also a set of book and merchandise stalls. A good place for uncommon books and a wide variety of videos.

There is a large screen in the proscenium, 12 metres wide and 6 metres high. For screening sin the silent ratio of 1.33:1 this reduces to 8 by 5 metres. The projection booth in the Verdi is at the rear of the lower balcony and slightly off-centre. I had the chance to visit this and chat briefly to some of the projection team. The booth is fairly cramped. It should be noted that these days about half of the Festival programme is on 35mm prints, the rest on digital formats. So every day the team have a stack of 35mm reels to bring up, store, project and then move for the next batch.

There are two 35mm projectors, Cinemeccanica ZX8000H. Designed for a large screen the have a complete range of frame rates below 24 fps and the team also have a complete set of plates for the different aspect ratios. One year we had a film in academy ratio fired up in standard widescreen when the plates were confused. But this was a rare aberration. The team have a high standard of projection including getting the focal length right nearly always.

The digital projector is a 2k Christie DCP machines. These are fairly widely used projectors. However, 2K DCPs are not really equivalent to 35mm. There is a debate about just where the equivalence between digital and film falls. But all the sites I have visited reckon that 2K is not equivalent. Unfortunately despite the fact that 4K DCP is an available format; and that digital cameras are now available at 6K, most institutions including many archives still mainly use 2K. In addition the Christie only has standard frame rates, 24fps, 25fps and 48 fps. There are agreed specifications for lower frame rates but [like 4K]these have very little availability.

Fortunately the ratio of film to digital has settled over the last couple of years around 50/50, I hope this will continue, However, the omens are not propitious. At a conference in 2018 an archivist from the Austrian Film Archive explained that the master of a new restoration was on tape and the funds were not available for a film master. I wonder, just as we have lost the old Verdi, whether the current far too rapid changeover of formats may not lead to lost films. Thus repeating the sad loss when sound replaced silent.

 

Early film screenings in 2018

Brüder, Deutschland 1929, Regie: Werner Hochbaum

The Sight & Sound new double issue has a lot of space devoted to the ‘top films of 2018’. Alongside this are lists of commendations of titles from particular territories or genres and one devoted to ‘five silent films to see’. This followed an article on the silent films that were accessible in 2018. There were some I saw and some I missed. But the article, like to list of titles, did not inform the reader of how and where the writer saw the titles. There were some comments on the non-silent Peter Jackson’s ‘rip-off’ from the Imperial War Museum materials. These were rather muted and those in the Silent Cinema London Blog were much more to the point.

In both cases there must be question regarding the format and the screening. In Britain most of the titles from the silent era come round on digital, and 2K DCP at that. No-one in Britain seems to have yet taken the trouble to follow the specifications for frame rates below 24 fps, most common in the silent era. So these titles must be step-printed to some degree.

And 35mm prints are not necessarily better. We had The End of St Petersburg / Konets Sankt-Peterburga (1927) in Leeds from a 35mm print and with a very good musical accompaniment. But the print was a sound version and the image was noticeably cropped because of the change in ratio. Some of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival screenings were on 35mm but I only caught those in Leeds. Apparently part of the funding for this Festival comes for musical accompaniment. I assume this was the reason for experimentation. In this case the French film Ménilmontant 1926) on film but accompanied by Foley sound effects. This was not only bizarre but ruined the screening of the film. However, I am still able to travel and I was able to enjoy some fine quality films in good 35mm prints and screened and accompanied with due regard as the how films were presented in the earlier era.

The Berlinale had this very fine retrospective of Weimar Cinema. The whole programme was magnificent and even the digital transfers were well done. But the high point for me was:

Brüder / Brothers, Germany 1929 with a passionate accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

The Nitrate Weekend at the George Eastman Museum offered only sound features but included some pretty early prints. The Festival came to a fine climax with

Man of Aran, Britain 1934 with a well preserved print held by the Museum

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto offered what I thought was the strongest programme for several years. One of the real pleasures was series of film adaptation from the novels of Honoré de Balzac. One of the fine titles was;

Liebe, Germany, 1927. This was a well done adaptation of a fine novel with an impressive characterisation of the heroine by Elisabeth Bergner.

Le Giornate offers both 35mm and digital transfers, the latter of varying quality. But we had several of the latter that were very well done. Pride of place must go to;

Lasse Månsson fra skanne / Struggling Hearts, Denmark 1923. Set in the 17th war between Denmark and Sweden this transfer from 35mm looked excellent. The DCP was from the Danske Filminstitut. In other years there have been equivalent transfers from the Svenska Filminstitutet. The Scandinavian seem to have mastered this process.

The great beacon in Britain must be the Kennington Bioscope at the Cinema Museum. If I was richer I would move closer. Late in the year we had their fourth Silent Film Weekend. There was a rich variety of titles and music. My standout was;

Turksib, USSR 1929. The film alternates scenes of idyll with driving montage, well set up by the accompaniment by Costas Fotopoulis.

There were many other fine prints, screenings and accompaniments. So this remains a good time to enjoy early films. However, Britain is not the best place to do this.

‘The Parade’s Gone by …’

This year’s Giornate del Cinema Muto had the strongest programme for several years. Among the pleasures was this selection of six films:

“To honour the 50th anniversary of The Parade Gone By… we gave Kevin Brownlow carte blanche to select six films he wanted to see at the Giornate.” [Festival Catalogue).

The Programme notes included tributes to the book and to Kevin by a range of l8 luminaries from the silent archival and study areas. The major introduction was by David Robinson who remembered being asked by the Editor at Secker and Warburg to read and offer an opinion on the book. He added the other achievements by Kevin,

“There was much more to come. Winstanley, Hollywood, Thames Silents, Unknown Chaplin, and all the documentaries, Photoplay and all its restorations and productions and new books to go with them. In 1980, with the collaboration of David Gill and Carl Davis, Napoleon … gave back to audiences the long-forgotten thrill of a theatrical and orchestral performance of a “silent” film.

An Academy Award was the least tribute that Hollywood could offer to its great chronicler” (Festival Catalogue).

A more notable honour was the first Jean Mitry Award [1986] along with his collaborator David Gill. And as noteworthy have been the BBC radio dramas chronicling his work on Napoleon and his film Winstanley.

I remember reading the book in the early 1980s and then through the Hollywood series and the Thames Silents discovering the real and proper experience of watching [and listening] to silent film. I later enjoyed the further series The Other Hollywood, though unfortunately it was not given the space and resources accorded Channel 4’s Hollywood. I have on many occasions enjoyed the meticulous restorations of early film, and enjoyed the prints that Kevin has saved for posterity, including at the London Bioscope screenings.

So I waited with anticipation to see the selection that Kevin chose. Happily five of the six were on 35mm. Given the subject of the celebrated book these were all titles from Hollywood Studios. But they offered a varied selection of genres, stars and craft people and of styles and techniques.

The Covered Wagon, 1923 from Famous Players-Lasky, is a seminal example of the early western. The director was James Cruze, whose parents had been part of the Mormon trek into Utah. And the craft team included Karl Brown on cinematography and Dorothy Arzner as editor. The cast included major players and actual cowboys and Indians. This was an epic film though the surviving version is two reels shorter than the original. Kevin notes that

“it was the first western to be taken seriously by historians,”

I was disappointed though to read that

“almost never in the history of western migration did an Indian war party descend upon a circle of covered wagons.” [Quoted by Kevin).

Shot mainly in Nevada and Utah what stood out in the film was the visual presentation and the impressive settings and landscapes.

The Covered Wagon (1923)
Directed by James Cruze
Shown from top: J. Warren Kerrigan, Lois Wilson

 

Captain Blood, from the Vitagraph Corporation of America in 1924, was also shorter than the original by about 2,000 feet. Even so it ran just on two hours with a plot line not dissimilar to the later Warner Bros. Version; both were adapted from the novel by Rafael Sabatini. The studio planned

“a rip-snorting, rapid-fire melodrama that will please any red-blooded audience.”

In fact I thought the film more stately that dramatic. There are some well-staged action sequence. The film used actual square-riggers and miniatures and some of the editing between these made the effects somewhat obvious. And the titles use of ‘Irish colloquialism’ for Peter Blood [originally a Irish physician] seemed quaint. But it worked well overall as it did on release, becoming the highest grossing picture produced by Vitagraph.

 

Smouldering Fires was the one film on a DCP. It was taken from a 16m print in the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The film was produced by Universal-Jewel [the company’s prestige productions] in 1925 and directed by Clarence Brown. Kevin in his notes noted the influence of Maurice Tourneur and Ernst Lubitsch,

“The title suggests a Drury Lane melodrama, but the film turned out to be if not quite a feminist film, at least an intelligent, poignant and beautifully filmed story about a 40-year old woman who inherits a factory from her father.”

The early scenes where Jane Vail (Pauline Frederick, excellent in the part) dominates her factory managers were a delight. Then Jane is taken with a young foreman, Robert (Malcom McGregor) who attracts her attention and then her emotions. Rather predictably Robert then falls for the younger sister Dorothy (Laura La Plante). This part of the drama seemed rather conventional but the three leads are good and we actually get to see an outdoor expedition in Yosemite. O also thought that Tully Marshall as Scotty and Wanda Hawley as Lucy were excellent in their supporting roles. The film also has a nice turn in irony.

Smouldering Fires (1925)
Directed by Clarence Brown
Shown at right: Pauline Frederick

 

The Home Maker was also Universal-Jewel from 1925. The director was a name new to me:

“The director of this picture, King Baggot, was responsible for two of the worst silent pictures I’ve ever seen – Raffles (1925) and Down the Stretch (1927). How can the same man possibly have made one of the best?”

Part of the reason may be the original novel by Dorothy Canfield and the adaptation by Mary O’Hara which follows the book closely. Kevin also notes that Baggot had an alcohol problem which may have affected some of his work. Seemingly not on this picture. Alice Joyce, a fine actress, plays Eva Knapp imprisoned at home with growing children whilst her husband Lester (Clive Brooks in a rather untypical role] is less than successful at his office job. His situation leads to depression and an unsuccessful suicide. But his subsequent incapacity finds Eva going out to work and becoming a higher earner in a department store whilst Lester finds hitherto hidden paternal virtues. Thus the whole family find an improved way of life: one that rests, as we learn, on a dubious moral decision. I agreed with Kevin, as did many of the Giornate audience about the quality and interest of this film. I was, though, less convinced by the situation but the sterling cast certainly make their characters convincing.

The Home Maker (1925)
Directed by King Baggot
Shown from left: Maurice Murphy, Julie Bishop, Clive Brook, Alice Joyce

 

The Enemy from M-G-M in 1927 enjoyed the services of Fred Niblo as director and Lillian Gish as star. The film as it survives is missing the last reel but whilst the end is not necessarily predictable the judicious use of stills and titles is sufficient. Lillian’s Pauli is the daughter of an Professor in Vienna (Frank Currier) ; we are familiar melodrama territory here. Pauli marries her sweetheart Carl (Ralph Forbes) just before he leaves for the front in 1914. Most of the film is set on the home front as shortages increase. Pauli and her father suffer more because he holds pacifist views. The melodrama here is conventional but seeing Lillian Gish actually play a woman reduced to prostitution is definitely a one-off. Technically the film has some splendid sequences with dissolves and superimpositions. The domestic scenes are well handled. But there are probably two many similar scenes of troops marching off to war though, noticeably, the civilians become less and less enthusiastic.

 

Then we had The Mating Call (1928) from Paramount Pictures and also directed by James Cruze. The film was adapted from a novel by Rex Beach. The story offered a rather unusual situation. Leslie Hatton (Thomas Meighan) returns from the Western Front in 1919 to find his sweetheart and wife [as the thought] has had the marriage annulled and re-married. In this complicated situation Leslie gets himself a ‘mail-order wife’; though he actually finds her by going to Ellis Island and selecting a young woman from among the immigrants, Renée Adorée as Catherine. What develops much of the drama is a secret vigilante group who rides round in black hoods terrorising people who are thought to break the conservative moral code of the small town. [They are not the Ku Klux Klan as some reviews suggest]. The direction is good and the two leads are excellent. The vigilantes seem rather cack-handed but they do help develop the drama. Some of the continuity is eccentric, Catherine insists on her parents accompanying her to Leslie’s farm but after one shot of them hoeing a field they disappear.

 

All but two of the titles were new to me. As one expects from Kevin the prints were of good or even outstanding quality. Several of the accomplished team of musicians took turns to provide musical accompaniments. It did seem a worthy tribute to one of the most respected and accomplished ‘keepers of the flame’ of our surviving heritage from early cinema,

The Kennington Bioscope: 4th Silent Film Weekend.

This short festival was held at the Cinema Museum in London on September 8th and 9th. The volunteers at the Bioscope, working with Kevin Brownlow who unfortunately could not come along, had a programme of interesting [and in some cases rare] early films. Most of the screenings were on 35mm or 16mm: the projectionist reckoned he had worked through 31 reels over the two days and he did this very well.

Saturday:

Where the North Begins (1923) was a Rin-Tin-Tin drama from 1923. This was an early film in the career of this famous canine star. The production actually worked up several sets of filming into a complete 55 minutes narrative. The film made good use of a lot of location shooting in Canada. Rin-Tin-Tin appears as a young puppy lost in the wastes and bought up as part of a wolf pack. Then he meets Gabriel (Walter McGrail) a trapper wounded when his furs are stolen. The Dog is at first aggressive but his ‘heritage’ overcomes this as he recognises

‘His master and friend’.

The film then unravels the plot by Shad Galloway (Pat Hartigan) and his henchman ‘The Fox’ (Charles Stevens) to pin the theft of the furs on Gabriel and to steal his sweetheart Felice (Claire Adams). The human plotting is fairly conventional. But The Dog [or wolf-dog] has some exciting and impressive sequences. He races over snowy landscapes, fights off superior numbers of wolves, wrestles down the villains and in one especially impressive stunt leaps up and through a first floor window. Great out door adventure and canine dramatics. There is a slightly risqué sub-plot, Shad has a ‘housekeeper’, Marie (Myrtle Owen). The film was screened from a 16mm tinted print and looked good.

A German double bill opened with the one-reeler As We Forgive / Wie auch wir Vergeban ((1911). This offered an early role for later ‘diva’ Henny Porten. Her officer husband whilst in Japan has a ‘Madame Butterfly’ affair. This leads to tragic death of their child and a reconciliation at the child’s tomb.

When the Dead are Living Again ./ Die Geliebte Tote (1919) is a German or Austrian film adapted from ‘Bruges-la-Morte’ (‘The Dead [City of] Bruges)’, a short French novel by the Belgian author Georges Rodenbach, first published in 1892. The original novel recounts the obsession of a widower with his dead wife. |He sees a dancer who resembles the wife and becomes obsessed with her: this leads to her death. The film was described as an ‘early Weimar Gothic’. What makes it intriguing is that the same novel was adapted by Yevgeni Bauer in 1915 as Daydreams. This German version seems to have followed the complete novel commencing with the meeting and marriage of the protagonist, a sculptor, and an ending after a period in an asylum. The Bauer version concentrates on the death of the wife and the obsessive relationship with the dancer. Moreover Bauer has the protagonist as a photographer which allows some interesting cinematic touches. What stands out dramatically in both versions is the death of the dancer, strangled with the tresses of the dead wife. However Daydreams is much more effective. In one sequence in When the Dead are Living Again we see the protagonists at a café and it is clear that the dance floor beyond them is a rear projection whereas in Bauer a similar scene uses deep staging and deep focus as well as [for the period] a notable tracking shot.

In the afternoon we had a British picture The Garden of Resurrection (1919) written by and starring Guy Newall. He was a popular leading actor in the period regularly starring with Ivy Duke. Newall was partnered in a production company with George Clark and their films were distributed by the Stoll Company. Here Newall adapted a 1911 novel by E. Temple Thurston. Thurston was a writer of novels, plays and film scripts. He was partly bought up in Eire and he would seem to be part of the dominant Anglo-Irish class. ‘The Garden of Resurrection’ is partially set in Eire. Written in 1911 it shows no awareness of the important political strife of the period. Likewise the film in 1919 has no awareness of the War of Independence then raging.

The two central themes in the film are male self-consciousness and [dimly] racism. A. H. Bellairs (Newall) considers himself the ugliest man in England: hence he has no romance, only his faithful terrier Dandy (played by Newall’s own dog Betsy). However, the romantic interest Clarissa is apparently a half-caste from Dominica in the Caribbean. She is the object of a fraudulent relationship by one Fennell (Lawford Davidson). He has hidden her away [because ‘she is black’] with maiden aunts in Ireland. He plans to suborn her fortune through a fake marriage. Overhearing his plan Newall determines to save Clarissa and journeys to Ballysheen on the southern coasts. The plot stretches coincidence to extreme lengths. So in the course of the narrative we also have Newall encountering a jealous husband; a con artist and blackmailer; an unwanted pregnancy; but finally a satisfactory ending.

The issue of ‘blackness’ in the film is problematic. Given its black and white cinematography Clarrissa’s colour is only apparent through the dialogue. Intriguingly the sign of her ‘blackness’ is a flowered dress which Fennell’s aunts insist she does not wear. At another point in the narrative she wears a veil to hide her visage. The implication of the film, [which may have not been consciously intended] is that a black woman can only hope to catch an ugly white man. The film may have thought that even this was liberal in the post-World War I culture.

The film’s use of Dandy is redeeming for dog lovers. He is an amiable and active canine protagonist. We even get title cards indicating his thoughts: thoughts which his master appears to understand from his posture and expression.

The rest of the afternoon included a presentation on the films of Pearl White, [The Perils of Pauline, 1914 and The Exploits of Elaine, 1915 – 1916). Unfortunately very little of White’s films survive. There followed a romantic comedy from 1924 with Constance Talmadge, Her Night of Romance. Unfortunately this was only available from a DVD.

However, we were back to ‘reel’ film in the evening. This featured one of the outstanding personalities of Silent Hollywood, Mary Pickford. First up was A Beast at Bay, a Biograph one-reeler from 1912 and directed by D. W. Griffith. The 16mm print was a re-issue from the 1920s with new title cards: presumably to cash in on Pickford’s immense popularity. This was classic Griffith territory with Mary menaced by an escaped convict and then saved in heroic fashion by her boyfriend, redeeming an earlier lack of bravado.

The main feature was the 1926 Sparrows, from the Mary Pickford Corporation. This film rather departed from the typical Pickford persona. It was set on a ‘children’s farm’, an scandal issue in the 1920s. Molly (Pickford) has to marshal and protect eight younger children from the miserly and exploitative Grimes (Gustav von Seyffertitz), who is aided and abetted by his slatternly wife (Charlotte Mineau) and son (Spec O’Donnell). The son, given to petty persecutions, is well played as are all the children. The climax of the film involves the children in fleeing across a alligator-invested swamp.

“The similarities to Sunrise are particularly identifiable in the set, a swamp in the Deep South constructed on four acres of studio grounds by Art Director Henry Oliver, utilising 600 real trees, moss, pits filled with burnt cork, sawdust and muddy water, plus a miniature lake.” (Bioscope Notes).

The cinematography by Pickford’s favourite Charles Rosher with Hal Mohr and newly arrived Karl Struss, makes great use of this. And the cast, led by Pickford, though slightly too adult for her part, are excellent. This is exciting stuff. It is also part of Southern Gothic and there are instances where the film looks forward to the later Night of the Hunter (1955).

………………….

Sunday:

The day started with Miss Lulu Betts, a Famous Players-Lasky film from 1921 and directed by William C. de Mille. Little of this film-maker’s work survives, which, on the showing of this title, is a real shame. The film is from a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Zona Gale. Lulu (Lois Wilson) is the put-upon sister in a middle-class household. Despite their church-going and moral attitudes Lulu is a skivvy for the family: only the elder daughter Diana (Helen Ferguson), herself a little rebel, shows any awareness of this. Circumstances conspire to effect a change in Lulu’s situation. Like Clarissa on Saturday she goes through a false marriage but survives this to find a level of independence and a serious and moral romance.

The film was described as naturalist’ drama’ and it represented the small town life and household with a palpable sense of realism. The plot does tend to melodrama but Lulu’s situation and the settings are fully convincing.

The Silent Enemy (1930)was a paramount production,

“A late Silent film telling the story of Red Indians – ‘Native-Americans’ in today’s parlance – before the arrival of European settlers, acted by a a native cast.

An epic reconstruction of life among the Ojibway tribe, shot on location in the Great Barren lands of Canada.” [Bioscope Notes).

So this was a liberal attempt to present an indigenous point-of-view, though it still reflects the dominant representation of the time. It is also clearly influenced by the trail-breaking documentaries of the 1920s, in particular Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1925). However, in keeping with the tropes of Hollywood, the battle for survival, seeking food and journeying to the great Caribou migration, is dramatised in a conflict between two individual Indians and their opposing strategies. The tribe’s rituals and activities are very well done. And the location work brings a real sense of time and place to the film. The finale offers the mammoth caribou herds and the successful survival of the tribe.

After lunch we enjoyed another Paramount film with another put-upon wife and mother. Dancing Mothers (1926) was directed by Herbert Brenon, an adaptation of play by Edgar Selwyn and Edmund Goulding, soon to be a writer and director in Hollywood. The wife and mother of the film is Ethel Westcourt (Alice Joyce). This lead actor was reckoned to be outshone by the actor playing her daughter ‘Kittens’, Clara Bow. It is true that Bow immediately established her star quality in the film but the character is essentially lightweight. I found Joyce’s performance as the wife/mother who transforms her life and escapes from an oppressive situation impressive. The point at which she emerged in the film was excellent both in acting and appearance.

‘Kittens’ is like her father High Westcourt (Norman Trevor), affluent, self-absorbed and indifferent to the emotional situation of the mother. Westcourt was one of a number of male characters over the weekend who are criticised for selfish and exploitative behaviour. So this well-executed film demonstrates a ‘feminist’ strand in 1920s Hollywood.

Mid-afternoon we had a selection of BFI prints and files of ‘Messing About on the River’. Unfortunately a number have only survived in poor quality prints. The title that stood out was Up the River with Molly (1921) from the Hepworth Manufacturing Company. Molly was another terrier on a boat following the major river. A charming addition to a strong roster of canine stars over the weekend.

The feature film was on 35mm in a good print. It was one of the films by Artistic Pictures acquired by the BFI early this century. The film was adapted from a short story by W. W. Jacobs. Sam’s Boy (1922) is set in the Thames estuary and along the Kentish coast, using actual locations though with fictionalised names. Like other titles from Jacob this is a slightly comic realist story of ordinary people and events. Here an orphaned scamp tries manipulating adults in order to secure a home. Sam Brown (Tom Coventry) of the title is the most religious member of a small sailing ship. Having annoyed his crew fellows with his religiosity and music they play along with the scamp when he targets Sam. The characters are delightfully realised and the location work is a real pleasure. There are only four reels but the hour-long viewing offers low-key drama, irony and a authentic sense of the 1920s.

Turksib is a five reel Soviet documentary from 1929 that survives in several versions. The screening offered a 35mm print of the version prepared by John Grierson including English language title cards. The film’s director Victor Turin was in London and had some involvement in the editing. The film was produced by Vostok-kino which made films for the Eastern Soviet Republics. The subject matter was the construction of the Turkestan – Siberia railroad, covering over 1400 kilometres pass great lakes, over deserts and over mountains. Turin had studied in the USA at MIT and had some sort of work at the Vitagraph film studio. He had made three film since returning to the USSR, two fictional and one documentary.

This project was part of the Soviet first Five Year Plan. Several years discussion and preparation went into the plan at Party and Soviet Congresses, in the Central Committee and in the Soviets of the Union Republics. Two state Departments, Vesenkha and Gosplan, oversaw this major industrialisation project which bought planning into an economy still operating under the market.

The film uses familiar tropes from soviet film; montage, metaphoric images, graphics and associational links. The cinematography uses the striking assemblage of shots, angles, positioning and superimpositions. The overall structure of the film is closer to documentary in the western capitalist industries. Turin considered that the film should have a thematic structure, akin to the narrative structure in fictional film. So the overall presentation is somewhat different from the work of the Factory of Facts or a documentary of the same period directed by Mikhail Kalatazov, Salt for Svanetia (1930). The film was influential amongst British documentary film-makers such as Basil Wright. One can see the cross-overs. The opening reels offer landscapes with people and the more dynamic montage occurs during the vast construction. There are sequences that represent both the indigenous mainly nomadic peoples as well as the army of labour involved in the construction. And there are some slyly comic shots offering a sense of their every-day lives and work. However, the main thrust of the film is this eruption into the sparsely populated and wild landscapes and the conflicts are frequently about man and nature rather than the social relations that dominate in Dziga Vertov’s films. The title was a popular success both in the USSR and abroad. It offers a dynamic portrait of the modernising of these regions still mired in traditional ways of life.

The final film of the weekend was The Golden Butterfly / Der Holdene Schmetterling. A European co-production directed Michael Curtiz (then Michael Kertesz) and starring Lili Damita and Nils Asther. Among the supporting actors was Curt Bois {as a dance master and director). Bois has the distinction of the longest career as a film actor [1907 to 1987) and we had, in addition, a short film in which he featured from 1909. This was German title Patent Glue / Klebalin klebt alles in which two boys play a series of tricks with a powerful glue.

The main feature was nicely done but lack dramatic development. Lillian (Damita) and Andy (Asther) are a potential couple but her ambitions for a stage career come between them. The major problem was not the conventional obstacles [parents, the law, rivals etc.] but the priggish attitude of Andy to Lillian’s ambitions. The finale, where his intransigent attitudes are finally broken down, seemed over-extended.

The film was projected at 18fps but this seemed a slow frame rate and produced a longer running time which probably exacerbated the slow tempo. The print had a some missing elements and late in the narrative we found ourselves with the major production number of the film, involving Lillian’s stage act as the ‘butterfly’. Otherwise the print was in good condition and looed fine.

Overall this was a rewarding weekend and the organisers and the Museum are to be congratulated on the full programme. Kevin Brownlow also deserves a substantial thank you for the provision of prints. When it is becoming increasingly difficult to see early film in original prints this was welcome.

The screenings were enhanced by live music. The Bioscope has an impressive roster of musicians providing accompaniments and they are skilled at supporting rather than overpowering the films. The talented performances at the piano were supplied by Neil Brand, Costas Fotopoulis, Cyrus Gabrysch, Lillian Henley, Meg Moorland and John Sweeney. There were also extensive printed film notes and introductions to all the screenings. A great way to spend a weekend.