Silent Comedy Watch Party

This is a New York based streaming programme that uploads weekly examples of the comedy of the silent era.  It is found on the major Web Site of Ben Model a composer and film historian dedicated mainly to the Silent Era. He is also involved in distributing titles on Blu-Ray and DVDs.

To date there are 33 episodes which include introductions and usually two or three one or two reel titles.

There are introductions on the titles, background and source material. Ben is accompanied by Steve Massa.

A list of the episodes can be found on the ‘vault page’ of the website:

One of the regular fans of this series has written profiling the programmes.

The Silent Comedy Watch Party- free streaming on Facebook live on Sunday at 3:00PM Eastern Standard Time, or YouTube for all episodes from March 22nd forward. …
You can watch The Silent Comedy Watch Party on YouTube. They are dedicated to providing free streaming and watching so more people can enjoy and learn. The streaming has evolved electronically over the m months.
They always get permission from the owners of the shorts prior to screening and always thank them. Ben Model has been providing musical accompaniment to silent films since he was a NYY Film School student and provided scores for DVDs and screenings including MoMA and The Library Of Congress in Culpepper, Virginia as well as other venues around the world. His music is all improvised so each performance is different. Steve Massa also a film historian and author. His last East book is ‘Rediscovering Roscoe Arbuckle’. Ben’s wife, Mona Allen, does the camera work and lighting, while Steve’s wife, Susan, watches from her device, to watch for any glitches. She will text Mona, who can make the necessary changes.

They provide this all free so everyone can enjoy and learn about silent comedy and learn about the actors and actresses as well as the directors, writers production companies and the releasing companies.

The programs are good family fun too!

 

The Parson’s Widow / Prästänkan, Sweden 1920

This title was part of the programme, Swedish Challenge: the quality of Scandinavian cinemas in this period meant there was never a challenge in enjoying the films. This is one of the earliest films of Carl Theodore Dreyer that I have seen. Here he is working for AB Svensk Filmindustri. Of his titles that I have seen it has the most light-hearted story. The film is set in C17th Norway and adapted by the director from a short story by Kristofer Janson. The basic plot follows the efforts of theologically trained Söfren (Einar Rød) to obtain a parish incumbency. He needs a stable income so that he can marry his sweetheart Mari (Greta Almroth). However, obtaining a benefice rendered vacant by the death of the incumbent he finds that the rules require him to marry his predecessor’s widow.

The film is divided into five acts. It opens with Söfren and Mari in a verdant setting, the young lovers. We then follow an extended sequence where Söfren must compete with two rivals for the vacancy. Söfren comes from a poor family and so the living is essential if he is to merry Mari. His rivals, Olev and Kurt, are both from more affluent families. We watch as in delightful comic modes the film shows us the travails and successes of the contest. Söfren is not above sabotaging his rivals. But they lack the dynamism that Söfren brings to the exemplar sermon which is judged by the congregation. All three have to preach to a congregation that fills the small church. In delightful scenes, that reminded me of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Life’s Little Ironies’, Olev and Kurt lull the audience to sleep. Söfren, with a brand of bravado, keeps them wide awakes. These scenes in the church are intercut with shots of Mari as she wait in trepidation for the outcome. All through the film Dreyer has nicely judged counterpoints between the dramatic and the comic. Once Söfren is successful and wins the vacancy he discovers the catch; having to marry the widow of the deceased parson. Uncertain, Söfren goes to the parsonage and succumbs to the pleasures of the food and wine that are his new lot. As Mari remarks later, he has ben ‘bewitched’ [through physical pleasures] by the widow. The rest of the film follows as Söfren adapts different stratagems to inveigle Mari into the household [as his sister] and in a more sardonic tone, to remove the widow he has married.

There are a couple of ‘accidents’ but, this being a comedy, no fatalities. And towards the end of the film we are shown a more sympathetic side of the widow. Her memories of her own romantic youth and the impediments that she encountered point the way to a solution of the predicament. This sets up a satisfying and happy resolution.

The film is beautifully handled with many of the stylistic characteristics of Dreyer on show.

”Dreyer emphasises ethnographic realism throughout his film. He shot the whole film in real 17th-century houses at Maihagen, an open-air museum near Lillehammer, not just the exteriors but the interiors too, despite the considerable logistic al difficulties this entailed.” (Notes in Festival Catalogue).

Extras were played local people in the area.

Geroge Schnéevoigt

Visually the film is a real pleasure. The interiors are convincing and the exteriors have that sense of authentic nature that graced Scandinavian cinema in this period. The cinematography, by Geroge Schnéevoigt, is very fine. Dreyer himself both scripted and edited the film. The cast are equally good. Einar Rød’s Söfren offers a rather passive lover which assists in much of comic business: a man clearly out of his depth away from the pulpit. Greta Almroth is the somewhat long-suffering fiancée facing the travails with patience. I had previously seen her in Victor Sjöström’s The Girl from Marsh Cottage / Tösen frân Stormyrtorpet (1917) where, as Helga, moral issues stood between her and happiness. She has a delightful screen presence. The widow is played by Hildur Carlberg who give the change in character of the woman real conviction .

The film has been restored and transferred to a DCP with a frame rate of 18 fps. Not a fan of digital transfers this look really good, one could imagine one was watching a 35mm print, including the tin tin g and toning. The Scandinavian archive do seem to set the quality standard for working with digital. John Sweeney added to the pleasures with a fine accompaniment.

Min Svigerinde Fra Amerika / My Sister-in-law from America, Denmark 1917.

This was one of the 1917 films at the 2016 Le Giornate del Cinema Muto from ‘The Danish Film Institute at 75’. It was a comedy short written Waldemar Hansen with cinematography by Hugo Fischer. The Catalogue notes by Thomas Christensen  gave more detail about the director:

“Lau Lauritzen Sr. was among the most productive film directors in Danish Cinema. While he is best known by many as the director and creator of “Pat & Patachon” comedy films, he started his career with Nordisk film, where he began directing in 1914 and throughout the 1910s made almost one short subject every week.”

Unfortunately this film is incomplete, missing up to a reel. Even so the surviving nine mines [172 metres at 16 fps] was a delight.

A husband is entertaining his mistress and is discovered by his returning wife. Taking advantage of a telegram announcing the visit of his brother from America he introduces her as ‘my sister-in-law from America’. Meanwhile we watch the travails of the brother and his wife as they land in Denmark and become separated. When the brother arrives he plays along with charade. But, predictably, the wife then also turns up. The film has a brilliant final one-liner.

The cast are excellent though I could not find a cast list to identify who played whom. Whatever, the characters deliver with real panache. Christensen has a droll comment, which refers to the final sequence:

“The double cover-up at the end, …, might interest viewers studying the representation of religious and cultural differences as humorous'”

Definitely a title to track down.

One Week, Metro 1920.

Buster Keaton is normally ranked with Chaplin as the great silent film comedian. He came through a similar background in the US vaudeville. He entered films later, 1917, appearing in a supporting role alongside Fatty Arbuckle. When Arbuckle moved to feature production with Paramount Joseph Schenk, who ran the Communique Film Corp., elevated Keaton to star. Keaton acquired an old Chaplin studio and control over eight two reel comedies released by Metro [later M-G-M). Importantly whilst Keaton exercised the creative control he did not have the independence that Chaplin achieved: this was to blight his career in the late 1920s.

One Week was the first two-reeler released by Metro. It is constructed around a simple plot-line. Buster is the newly married ‘Groom’ and with his ‘Bride’ (Sybil Seeley) needs a home. He receives a DIY house kit as a wedding present. However, a thwarted rival in love sabotages the kit and most of the 20 minutes of the film finds Buster repeatedly attempting and failing to successfully construct his new home. He does manage a brief chase sequence early in the film. The finale involved Groom and Bride is one of the masterful examples of timing that make the gags so  effective.

Keaton was responsibility for the script [such as it was] and the direction: assisted by Eddie Cline. The film is sparse on credits but it seems that Keaton regulars filled out the crew; Elgin Lessley

on cinematography and Fred Gabourie in charge of technical effects. The latter are important in Keaton’s films.

Whilst One Week features a rival the film does not offer an opposing character in quite the way that Eric Campbell does for Chaplin. Keaton battles the elements, situations and especially technology. In this case the DIY house was apparently inspired by a Ford advertising film. Keaton is able to ring countless variations on the practices and pitfalls of DIY. Added elements, including a storm, increase the complexities. Such sequences, done with technical mastery, are a distinctive feature of Keaton’s comedies.

Keaton came to cinema slightly later than Chaplin and the style and technical aspects of the cinema had developed in this period. So we view the familiar long shots at mid-height, but we also get an array of iris shots, which act as equivalents for close-ups, both on characters and titles. And there are also a number of iris wipes which replace ellipses. Keaton and his team use editing to greater effect. Chaplin frequently uses a cut to make a gag: but Keaton uses successions of cuts to develop a gag line.

This is a perennial favourite, full of fine gags and reaching a fittingly dramatic climax.

The Adventurer, Mutual 1917

Chaplin learnt his trade in the British Music Hall. Then on tour of the USA he was recruited by the Keystone Film Company. The studio was run by Max Sennett and based at Edendale, close to the developing Hollywood. Chaplin signed with them in August 2013 and his first films appeared in 1914. Gradually his screen persona of ‘the tramp’ emerged and by 1915 he was already a star. The Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, which opened in 1914, records some film details in the surviving log books. By the middle 1915 Charlie Chaplin is a ‘name above the title’ and attracting some of the biggest attendances of the year. Chaplin appeared in 35 films for Keystone: mainly one-reelers. By now he was so successful he was able to sign with the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company for an increased salary and with greater control over the films in which he appeared. Chaplin made 14 films for Essanay, both one and two reelers. By now he was an international star and he moved again, this time Lone Star Mutual. Not only did he now exercise complete control over the titles but he was able to work at his own pace and in his own way: slower than most film-makers and with a perfectionist attention to detail and the comedy.

This film was the fourteenth and last title he made there. The shooting took at least two months, an exceptionally long period for the time. He shot about 700 takes, this for a film that was 1800 feet long and which ran for just over 20 minutes, presumably at 16 fps. There was not a script as such. Chaplin planned two settings, an opening sequence shot on the coast and then a set of interiors at a large mansion. When these were completed he added a third section which acted as a bridge between the start and end setting of the film.

The opening of the film finds Charlie as an escaped convict being pursued by a group of police along the seaside. This is fine slapstick with excellent timing. The sequence is almost entirely a chase up and down the cliffs and along the beach and water. Charlie displays the balletic grace which is one of his star attractions.

The central section has a series of rescues from the water and Charlie’s encounter with an attractive and affluent young woman (Edna Purviance). He also encounters her beau, played by his regular nemesis Eric Campbell.

The final section finds Charlie a guest at the mansion woman’s father, [he is a judge]. Charlie masquerades as a society man and is involved in a s series of mishaps and gags involving the well-heeled guests and the servants. Mayhem returns when the police re-appear towards the end of the film.

Charlie’s persona is typified in this film in the manner that David Robinson presents in a quotation:

“… all my films are built round the idea of getting me into trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious  in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.” (David Robinson Chaplin His Life and Art, Collins and Son 1985).

Chaplin, whilst a tramp, has a petit-bourgeois style and his penury is constantly contrasted with his expensive tastes. This is especially true of the sequence in the rich mansion which sees Chaplin attempting to impress the young woman whilst his rival intervenes and the niceties of social norms are repeatedly sabotaged.

This approach was clearly an important factor in Charlie early success and popularity:

“One of the things most quickly learned in theatrical work is that people as a whole get satisfaction from seeing the rich get the worst of things. The reason for this, of course, lies in the fact that nine tenths of the people in the world are poor, and secretly resent the wealth of the other tenth.”

And Music Hall, and the US Vaudeville audiences had an even higher percentage of the poor. This was also a decade in which such divisions were powerfully present in political and economic life. The film also benefits from Chaplin’s inspired use of props: an instance here uses ice cream.

Stylistically this film, like its companions, is straightforward. The camerawork tends to rely on the long shot, with an occasional mid-shot. Camera potions are closest to the plan americain, head-on and mid-figure. The structure of the film relies mainly on the editing, and the cutting is an important element in the humour and jokes in the film. The cinematography, by Chaplin’s regular Roland Toleroth, is simple and effective. There is some under-cranking to achieve speed-up in the early sequences. And the characters tend to position themselves mid-frame.

At this early stage there films offer little in the way of credits. There would have been a raft of craft personnel working on this film. However, by now Chaplin was an autocrat, sometimes even a control freak, and it is mainly his mark we see on the film.

But an important element is the supporting cast. Edna Purviance was a regular in Chaplin’s films at this period: she also had a close personal relationship with Chaplin. The other key character is played by Eric Campbell. He is a superb foil to the ‘tramp’ and one wonders how effective the films would have been in his absence. Indeed this was his last film with Chaplin: he died not long after in an automobile accident.

After Mutual Chaplin’s films became longer and he developed the feature length comedies of the 1920s. But of course the groundwork for his later success was laid in the one and two reelers of the teens. Critics tend to rate the Mutual comedies as the best of his short films. The Adventurer is certainly a fine comedy. Some of the sequences are hilarious and one is aware all the time of a masterful hand coming up with witty and even outrageous effects.

Released October 1917. Two reels. Black and white. 1845 feet.

 

Shkurnyk / The Self-Seeker / The Story of a Philistine Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic/USSR 1929

The film was part of a programme at the 32nd Il Giornate del Cinema Muto, ‘Ukraine: The Great Experiment’. Under the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Directorate  the Ukraine enjoyed a productive film industry in the 1920s. Moreover, because the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic enjoyed a degree of autonomy from  the central authorities in Moscow it had a distinctive features. In the last years of the decade there was a burst of experimental film making, often avant-garde. It also continued the radical political approach that was gradually losing ground in the Soviet Union as ‘socialist realism’ became a norm. Among the key films from this period are Dovzhenko’s Arsenal (1928) and Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom 1929). After 1929 central control was asserted and the experimentation died away.

It is worth noting that whilst there was a distinctive Ukrainian approach to film and film content, it was still part of the Soviet Socialist Construction. The presentation at Il Giornate tended to stress Ukrainian differences and downplay the political. The best example of this is a comment in the Catalogue describing Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera as ‘apolitical’!

This is important in discussing The Self-Seeker. The film is a satire set during the Civil War (1918 – 1921]. It satirises both the opponents attempting to restore the old regime [aided by the USA, UK and France] but also the Reds, i.e. the forces of the new Soviet Union. This led to the film being banned by the central authorities:

“The Civil War is presented in the film only in terms of its dark ugly side. It shows only robbery, dirt, the stupidity of the Red Army and the local Soviet Authorities, etc. As result, a nasty lampoon on the reality of that time was produced.”

This seems to be a singular misreading of the film. Clearly it did not fit the heroic representation of the Reds in the Civil War which increasingly became the norm. But the film ends with victory by the Reds and with collectivised peasants reaping the harvest.

The film certainly makes fun of aspects of Soviet practices in the period, one of chaos, famine and dislocation. But it equally makes fun of those of the Whites, and it is the latter that actually commit atrocities in the film. Part of the film’s complexity is a critique of NEP-men, petty bourgeois entrepreneur’s (labelled philistines) who took advantage of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s. This introduced limited market activity, a contradiction to socialist construction and a political line that was hotly debated in the Soviet Union.

The title character is one Apollon, a ‘philistine’. Because he is always looking for a quick profit he is caught up in the conflict of the Civil War. At various times he is captured by the Reds and by the Whites. On each occasion he finds a way of making money even as he is dragooned into socialist or bourgeois activities. But on every occasion some Civil War action interrupts his profiteering. And at the end of the film he only survives through the good grace of a companion.

The companion is the brilliant stroke in the film, a two-humped [Bactrian) camel.

[Bactrian Camels are much less common than dromedary (one-hump). Bactrian camels are native to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.]

 

 

The camel is commandeered at the same time as Apollon by retreating Reds: both are tied to a cart containing sugar, a rare commodity. Like Apollon the camel is tossed to and fro between the opposing forces. But, whilst Apollon is constantly having to dream up excuses or flee to safety, the camel adapts and survives. At one point he spits at a White NCO. On another occasion he surreptitiously drinks the forbidden hooch confiscated by a Soviet Committee. He several times saves Apollon at a crucial moment. And at the film’s end he is hailed by the celebrating peasants, liberated by the Reds and now returning to their harvest. They also involve him in this socialist work:

‘Although you are a hero, help us work.’

And this hero, at this point, once again saves Apollon from his just deserts. Many of the funniest sequences involve the Camel, who develops a persona equal to that of Apollon.

The satire on the Reds and on Soviet Commissars and Committees involves what can be seen as rather heavy-handed and ineffective restrictions. So at one point profiteers are bargaining for the sugar that is carried in the cart pulled by the camel. Meanwhile, a Soviet Committee debates halting ‘speculators and profiteers’, but the sugar is appropriated. Later we have a ‘struggle against hooch [illegal liquor]’. There is a more serious treatment of such campaigns in Vertov’s Enthusiasm (1930). But the Committee efforts are misdirected and vain.

The Whites are equally satirised. They veer from shooting Apollon as a Red to involving him in work in a military office. At one point the Whites HQ is sited in a monastery where the monks are salting away valuables. Apollon manages to acquire some of these but very soon loses them, with assistance from the camel.

There is one particular shot at the Whites HQ which probably did not meet with central Soviet approval. On the wall we see an anti-Red poster, dominated by a caricature which is obviously Leon Trotsky. His significant role in the Civil War was later erased when the opposition groups, including Trotsky, were subverted by Stalin and his supporters.

 

The film also makes extensive use of the avant-garde techniques found in Soviet montage of the period. So, at times, we see fast and discontinuous editing. Much of the humour is achieved by unexpected cuts. The film uses iris shots, superimpositions and at one point a split screen. Moments of humour are also achieved by under-cranking and speeding up the film’s motion. So the film is inventively entertaining. The co-writer and director, Mykola Shpykovskyi, had worked in Moscow, including on the brilliant comedy Chess Fever (Shakhmatnaya goryachka 1925). At least two of his other films are also satirical comedies.

Il Giornate screened the film from a 2K DCP transferred from the 35mm original. The film had Ukrainian titles [with English translations]. As it was not released at the time no other titles were made. It seems it was only discovered in the archives of Gosfilmofond in the 1990s. The screening had a live accompaniment by Marcin Pukaluk. The fact that it is on DCP means that it is more likely to travel and be seen again.

My feeling is that it is a film supporting Socialist Construction. It would seem that the enmities and conflicts of the period meant the censors failed to grasp its full implications. However, there is now a risk that it will be seen as an anti-Soviet film, not I believe the case. It is certainly a brilliant satire and very, very funny. It is also an outstanding camel movie, an animal whose screen presence I always enjoy.

Stills courtesy of Il Giornate del Cinema Muto and Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, Kiev

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Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema 2016

This annual event runs this year from March 14th until March 20th. Among the programmed presentations are two films screening from 35 mm prints with live musical accompaniment.

On the Friday evening we have Exit Smiling Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1926.

The film has seven reels and runs for 71 minutes. It is a comedy drama starting off in a bank with an innocent teller discharged through the machinations of his rival in romance. The film then becomes a backstage comedy with a second-rate theatrical company touring small towns, The two aspects of the plot come together in the finale. The star is Beatrice Lillie, who was already a success on London’s West End and Broadway. Lillie was successful in revues, on radio and on record. However, this was her only mainstream leading film performance. She was reckoned to have an ‘eccentric persona’. So whilst Lillie is the star she is not the romantic lead in the film. But she is its comic heart.

The film was written directed by Sam Taylor. One of his more famous films was Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last (1923). The film also enjoyed the talents of Cedric Gibbons on the set designs: a craft person whose work graced M-G-M right through the studio period. The film will also enjoy an accompaniment by Neil Brand, one of the most talented of the regular silent film musicians.

On the final Saturday there will be Stella Dallas Samuel Goldwyn, Inc. 1925.

This is an eleven reel film running 110 minutes. The source is one of the great woman melodramas, originally a 1923 popular novel by Olive Higgins Prouty. It was also successful in several stage versions and later as a popular radio series. And there is a sound film version from 1937 with Barbara Stanwyck in the title role. This film features Belle Bennett as Stella. Bennett worked right through the teens and twenties including starring in  another great literary melodrama East Lynne (1925). Both films dramatised the mother who sacrifices herself for her child. Lois Moran plays the daughter, whilst the absent father is played by Ronald Coleman. He was one of the very popular romantic leads of the period.

The production team is also a stellar affair. The director was Henry King whose fine list of titles includes Tol’able David (1921). The script is by Frances Marion, whose writing included the scenario for one of the greatest woman pictures of the decade The Wind (1928). And the cinematography was by Arthur Edeson, whose most famous film was Casablanca (1942).

The film has one of the most emotional finale’s. So the accompaniment will need to match this. Fortunately this is another fine regular silent film musician Stephen Horne.

Two very fine and worthwhile screenings.

Would You Believe It! (UK 1929)

Walter Forde in What Next?

This film was the main feature in a silent film presentation during the Leeds International Film Festival. There was this feature and two earlier shorts, introduced and accompanied at the piano by Jonathan Best.

Would You Believe It! was a comedy feature co-scripted, directed and starring Walter Forde. Forde, born in Bradford, started out in the Northern Music Halls. He moved into film in 1919, first as a writer then as a comedy lead. He made several two reel comedies, produced in a converted hangar in Hertfordshire and then a converted drill-hall in Devon and all marketed under Zodiac Comedies. He, as was the  case in the silent era, played a stock character Walter, well meaning but innocent. He then made six two-reelers at the Windsor Studios. This was followed by two years in Hollywood at the Unviersal Studio. When he returned to the UK he joined the Nettlefold Company who had taken over Cecil Hepworth’s old Studio at Walton. There he made four comedy features, all using the Walter character and playing opposite Pauline Johnson as a romantic lead. The films were co-written by James B. Sloan with Walter also directing. Sloan is also credited as director on a number of comedy shorts that Forde made on his return to the UK.

Would You Believe It! was the final comedy feature silent made by Forde, as this was the point that the introduction of sound film occurred in the British film industry. Rachel Low comments on the film:

“His last silent comedy, Would You believe It! (Trade Show May 1929) was directed and written by him, and this time reviewers, slow to recognise comic ability unless already established either in America or on the stage, at last began to take notice. But by this time sound film had become the fashion and even a Vocalion music recording could not save a comedy so essentially silent in technique. The [four] films were slight comedies with timidly darting style, dabbling politely in romantic farce, slapstick and a playful use of the medium. Forde himself appeared as a burly amiable and innocent young man engaged in suburban misadventures, somewhat puzzled but hopefully dogged.

He was too late for a career as a silent film comedian, but the direction and editing of the film show a considerable talent, which was fortunately to find expression in the thirties.”

Low is likely accurate on the context and Forde’s general approach, but she probably underestimates the quality and popularity of the film. The BFI Screen Online is quoted in the Festival Catalogue:

“He resumed the ‘Walter’ series, this time in collaboration with James B. Sloan and by the late 1920s, had become recognised as one of Britain cinema’s major comic talents, the director and star of a number of very popular comedies for Nettlefold …”

In the film Forde plays Walter, a would-be inventor. After trials and failures he comes up with a remote-control system with military potential. At this point the invention and Walter become the target of foreign spies. Whilst this conflict continues Walter is also developing a relationship with Pauline (Pauline Johnson), who coincidentally works for the Ministry of War.

The film  opens when Walter’s experiments force him to leave home. He obtains a job as an assistant in a toy shop. There are several very funny sequences involving, first as baby, then balloons and finally mechanical toys. The balloons at one point form a phallic shape which I assumed was intentional and rather risqué for the period. The mechanical toys go berserk in a marvellous sequence, scattering customers round the shop.

It is at the shop that Walter meets Pauline. As their relationship develops she also arranges for him to demonstrate his invention to the Ministry of War. At this point the foreign spies enter the picture. The chief seems to be modelled on a caricature of Lenin: an unidentified reference to a Soviet threat?

There are a number of sequences where the less than competent spies attempt to steal the invention or kidnap Walter. There is a fine long sequence on the London Underground involving a spiral staircase and a lift. This is really fine comedy and the humour increases as there are repetitions both on the stairs and in the lift.

“All are seen from a simple, single camera angle, but by rapid cutting of repeat shows of this section with the hero, the villains, and then the case itself sliding down on its own, the illusion of a chase up and down the staircase is created … The comedy effect of this simple sequence is successfully created by using the juxtaposition of shot …” (Rachel Low).

The film develops to a final climax when Walter’s invention is tried out on an actual tank. Once again the spies are plotting to steal the invention. This is a fairly long sequence but it develops both the drama and humour with real skill. It is also a fairly destructive sequence, demolishing cars and  whole houses in a chase sequence. You might guess that there is a positive outcome for Walter and Pauline.

Low’s comments on the filmmaker and the film sequence are apt. This was an extremely well made silent feature. The cinematography is excellent: by Geoffrey Faithful. And equally well done was the Art Design by W.G. Saunders and the editing by Culley Forde. Both the underground and the toy shop sequences were really effective. And the finale, though drawn out, is full of extremely well presented action. Forde himself obviously has an eye for the distinctive comedy sequence: there is another ingenious scene when he goes to the wrong venue for his War Office interview.

The film was accompanied at the piano by Jonathan Best. This was a enjoyable and appropriate score, adding to but not overpowering the film’s drama and comedy. Jonathan also offered a short introduction to the film and to the accompanying  two short films. He explained that the three films represented three early decades  in the British silent cinema and among other aspects offered a comparison of the development in comedy in that period.

Motor Pirates or The Modern Pirates, a black and white film  produced by the Alpha Trading Company. They operated from 1903 until about 1910. The film was approximately 500 feet in length and ran for about nine minutes at 16 fps. An armoured car terrorises the countryside but is finally bought to book. The film is rather violent but the action is presented in long shot: there is little sign of motivation. There are a couple of ingenious set-ups with the police before an extended chase ends in a river.

Blood and Bosh (1913) is from the Hepworth Company. It is just on 650 feet in length, running for about running for about 11 minutes at 16fps. The plot synopsis gives little idea of the actual film.

“A baby, the beneficiary of a will, is kidnapped, thrown through a window, trample don, and finally rushed to hospital to be re-inflated.” [LIFF Catalogue].

The characters, including a hero, heroine, villains, mother and child, surgeon and sawman, are performed in stark melodramatic fashion. The cuts are frequently abrupt as the audience is taken on a erratic narrative. And the action  is violent, bizarre but often very funny. The films seems to be the product of a premature British member of the Dada.

The 35mm prints, in pretty condition, were provided by the British Film Institute. They do not seem to have a practice of recording frame rates? The projectionist, at the Hyde Park Picture House, had to experiment, eventually they settled on 18 fps for the programme. This was slightly fast for the early films. It seemed OK for the Forde feature, though there was a slight flicker from that frame rate.

Still a very entertaining programme. More please, soon.

Rachel low’s The History of British Film 1918 – 1929 is part of the seminal five-volume study: Geoffrey Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1971.

 

The 34th Giornate del Cinema Muto

 

This year’s festival ran from October 4th until the 11th. The weather was rather below par: cloudy most days, though we did get more sunshine towards the end of the week. But the content was well up to standard, though it was not one of the really great years: given the commitment to new or restored screenings, this is inevitable. But there were an awful lot of pleasures.

One of the stand-out events of the week was the screening of Chuji Tabinikki / A Diary of Chuji’s Travels (Japan, 1928). This was a cross between a Samurai and Yakusa films and originally ran for six hours; but only a 111 minutes survive, mainly from the second and third parts of the film. It was screened at an earlier Giornate, but this time we watched a restoration with tinting. We also enjoyed a Benshi, Ichiro Kataoka [the Japanese narrator of early cinema] with live accompanying music from the Otowaza ensemble. It helps to have seen the film before because the fragments from Part 2 need some explanation. However later sequences have beautifully set and filmed scenes in a Sake Brewery, with the protagonists surround by vast barrels  between which they and the camera work. Then there is the finale of the film. This is a long bravura sequence, with Chuji’s band fighting off the police and his mistress guarding the ageing warrior.

We had another restored film from an earlier programme Les Misérables (France 1925-26). This was directed by Henri Fescourt and is the longest screen version that I have seen of the novel. It is fairly faithful to the book and has an excellent cast. The film offers finely presented exteriors, though the interiors are not  quite as good. The weakest part is the Paris insurrection and barricades, where the later version  by Raymond Bernard is superior. It is an epic production running over six hours. The accompaniment for the whole screening was performed by Neil Brand, a performance a impressive as the film.

For me the best programme of films was Other City Symphonies. Generally shorter films, there were a number of fine examples which fell between documentary, poetic and essay films. De Steeg / The Alley (Netherlands 1932) was a study of a poor neighbourhood in Rotterdam. Another film from the Netherlands was Pierement / Barrel Organ (1931) which followed this instrument around a working class area. There was the well produced A Day in Liverpool UK 1929) sponsored by the Council and extolling the ‘virtues’ of the great city. And there was the first film  by the long-lived but now deceased Manoel de Oliveira Douro, Faina Fluvial / Labour on the Douro River |(Portugal 1931) this was possibly the most poetic of the films. There was one substantial documentary Weltstadt in Flegeljahren. Ein Bericht Űber Chicago / Chicago / A World City in its Teens. A Report on Chicago (Germany6 1931), running 74 minutes. This made fine use of the cinematography, both in conjuring up the urban architecture but also in placing the people in evocative positions. Generally these films were observational, though there were few sequences that appeared staged.

‘The Alley’

Despite the title Russian Laughter was a programme of Soviet films. KinoKariera Zvonaria / A Bell-Ringer’s Film Career (1927) was a delightful two-reel comedy. As the title suggests the plot involves a film crew and their tale is told with real visual wit. Dva Druga, Model I Prodruga / Two friends, a Model and a Girlfriend (1928) was another engaging comedy. The ‘model’ was in fact a labour-saving machine and the humour revolved both around the machinations of an NEP villain and some less than socialist bureaucrats. Gosudarstvennyi Chinovnik / The State Official (1931) had appeared t the Giornate before but was interesting to revisit. More than most films it dramatised the politics of Socialism in One Country, with its plots by subversives and little attention to social relations. There was Serdtsa I Dollary / Hearts and Dollars (1924). The film was incomplete and appeared to be influenced by  the far superior The Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924). But apart from that I was non-plussed. It was either an avant-garde production  of extreme experimentation or there was something odd with the archival treatment. The plot was clearly out of sequence [decades before Jean-Luc] and event the title cards numbers were out of sequence. Clarifications appreciated.

The featured director was Victor Fleming. I enjoyed the familiar Mantrap 1926). This is Clara Bow’s best role on film, which is presumably why Kevin Brownlow used a film still in the titles for his great Hollywood series. There were two early films featuring Douglas Fairbanks, offering excellent humour. And there were two new titles for me, To the Last Man (1923) and Wolf Song (1929). Both has excellent photography and some beautifully realised scenes out in the wild west. The former had Richard Dix in a typical role: the latter the young Gary Cooper, looking quite beautiful. His co-star, Lupe Velez responded with the most palpitating bosoms I can remember seeing for  a long time.

The canine performance of the week – one of very few this year – was a Border Collie, Jean, in Ramona (USA 1928). The actual film was rather lacking in drama, apart from one great scene with Dolores del Rio in the title role. The talented dog graced innumerable scenes and displayed an uncanny ability to select the key position in the frame at any time. However, the film was less careful: parted from her mistress Jean only re-appeared in the final scene, quieting my worries. However, her journey there was missing from the plot.

‘Ramona ‘, with Jean well placed in the foreground.

A slightly odder programme was Italian Muscle In Germany. These were films made in Germany featuring Italian actors: ‘muscle men’. The most entertaining was Mister Radio (1924). The star was Luciano Albertini. The film was set in an Alpine setting and utilised rock climbing and mountainous locations. The mountaineering was the most bizarre I have ever seen on film, the Everest climbers would have been petrified. And the film cut between actual locations and studio constructions. As long as one did not take it seriously it was very entertaining. The Invincible / Der Unȕberwindliche (1928) was a rather limp sequel. Familiar locations appeared but with little connection to the plot; presumably the crew just loved these sets.

Special events included Ernst Lubitsch’s delightful Romeo und Julia im Schnee / Romeo and Juliet in the Snow (Germany 1920). This feature looked great as well. And to end the week we had a digital version of The Phantom of the Opera (USA 1925) with Lon Chaney. This has a violent but terrific ending, rather unusual for Hollywood at the time. And a real treat – Hal Roach’s The Battle of the Century (1927). This long-lost Laurel and Hardy has a splendid second reel involving [apparently] 3,000 pies. Let your imagination work.

I missed a number of screenings as I was recovering from an operation. And some of the features are best passed over in silence. Also I want to address the tribute to African-American Bert Williams separately. There were some Latin-American short films and features. However the main offering from Mexico, El Automóvil Gris / The Grey Automobile (1919), a crime story in 12 episodes, was restored and presented on digital. I had seen the films before, un-restored, however my memory was that they looked a lot better on 35mm. The DCP lacked definition and the tinting had an odd palette. About half the Festival was delivered on digital formats. Some of these were excellent, but  a number were not. So it is frustrating to watch digital when 35mm prints are available. Moreover, even when 4K is used in the process, many of these films are presented in 2K DCPs. The latter do not appear to have equivalent definition  or contrast to 35mm.

If some of the source material was of lower quality the music was not. We had most of the regular accompanists performing and two new members. Predominately the music was excellent and mainly avoids the pitfall of over-powering the films. This Festival was also the last with David Robinson as director. So he received a well-deserved Tribute and applause from the Giornate audience.

 

The Girl with the Hatbox / Devushka S Korobkoi, USSR 1927.

Grandfather and Natasha.

This film was screened at the 2011 Il Cinema Ritrovato as part of a programme devoted to the work of Boris Barnet: this was an early feature. It re-appeared at the 2012 Le Giornate del Cinema Muto as part of a tribute to the star, Anna Sten. Both Festivals used a print from the Österreichisches Filmmuseum. The screenings ran at 20 fps giving a running time of 80 minutes. However, the available DVD version from KinoAcademia looks like it has been transferred at a faster frame rate [24 fps for a sound print] and only runs for 65 minutes, but it is also about 300 metres shorter.

Boris Barnet was for long time rather overlooked among the early Soviet film directors. However, he is a director of real talent and had a particular flair for comedy and dramas of the everyday. He used montage rather less than many colleagues in the 1920s, but his mise en scène is often richly expressive. It is worth remembering that Eisenstein included aspects of mise en scène in his conceptions of montage. Barnet worked well with actors and his films usually offer fairly rounded protagonists.

Anna Sten was a popular and talented star in the Soviet cinema of the 1920s. She had a photogenic face and a character that came across from the screen. In the late 1920s he married the director Fyodor Otsep and accompanied him to Germany. She was later recruited to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn. [The Girl with the Hatbox was distributed in the USA as When Moscow Laughs]. He commented:

`This is some star`. She had everything. She had looks and style and sex and class. She had tremendous life and could act like a son of a bitch. [Quoted in the Ritrovato Catalogue].

But the movie capital made much less effective us of her than the Soviet filmmakers with whom she started her career.

Anna plays Natasha, the girl with the hatbox. She lives with her grandfather outside Moscow and they support themselves by hat making. In this small hamlet her admirer is Fogeleth (Vladimir Fogel], who is the telegraph operator and runs the ticket office at the railway station. Every day Natasha travels by train into Moscow to the hat shop of Madame Irene and her husband Nikolai. As well as employing her Madame Irene has Natasha listed as a tenant, but for a room which is actually used by her husband. There were strict rules about accommodation in the 1920s, supervised by local Housing Committees. A comedy around accommodation is also the plot mechanism of the later Bed and Sofa (Tretya Meschanaskaia, 1927). And conflicts and arrangements over rooming in big cities are a common story across cinemas.

One morning, travelling into Moscow, Natasha meets Ilia (Ivan Kobal-Samborskii), coming to Moscow to study. Whilst their initial meeting is hardly propitious, when Natasha meets Ilia again and finds that he is homeless she takes pity on him. She arranges a marriage of convenience so he can take up residence in ‘her room’ at Madame Irene’s. The film then follows the development of the conflict this arrangement produces with Madame Irene and Nikolai and also the developing relationship between Natasha and Ilia.

The plot is complicated further when Nikolai gives Natasha a Golden Premium Bond ticket instead of wages. The Premium Bonds were part of the State loan raising system, not that different from such lotteries in capitalist societies. The prizes could run into thousands of roubles. In fact, the film was a commission to the Mezhrabpom-Rus studio for a film to publicise the State Loan system. Apparently the script by Valentin Turkin and Vadim Shershenevich was a slim affair. And Barnet developed the project considerably in production. This enabled him to develop the central characters, who are both psychologically believable and attractive subjects. This also downplayed the function of the State Loan System to a degree, though the prize draw is important in the resolution of the film.

As in the better known The House on Trubnaya Square (Dom na Trubnoi, 1928) the film features an innocent arriving in the big city, though here it is a man rather than a young girl. So Natasha is the experienced and worldly-wise citizen. Also as in Trubnaya Square the point of conflict resolves round the petty bourgeoisie. As in that film Madame Irene and Nikolai seem to be NEP-people – entrepreneurs who took advantage of the New Economic Policy introduced following the ravages of the Civil War. Madame Irene and her husband indulge themselves in a similar fashion to the NEP-people in Trubnaya Square: both films feature indulgent and extravagant dinner parties. And both sets of employers exploit ordinary working people – the gold standard of Soviet citizenry.

Barnet already shows himself adept at comedy, including visual humour and gags. In Natasha’s village there is a narrow bridge over a frozen stream on the way to the station: several mishaps occur here. There are some delightful scenes revolving round the furniture or lack of it in the disputed room. And the shy courtship of Natasha and Ilia has delightful moments and presents a strong and autonomous heroine. The mise en scène is sued to great effect. One set is the kitchen in the shop cum household, usually filed with drying laundry. There are several scenes where the white sheets are used to great comic effect: these same props also feature in The House in Trubnaya Square.

But Barnet is also adept at montage, in the sense of fast editing. The sequence where we view the announcements of Premium Bond winners has excellent fast cutting and also very effective use of superimpositions. Barnet and his cinematographer, Boris Frantsisson, also have notable shots, long takes and sequence shots. Both Ana and Fogel are seen early on in mirrors or through frozen windows. There is a fine chase through the streets, which recalls the momentum found in the much-admired Hollywood films of the period.

This is a delightful comedy and offers a rather different representation of Soviet urban life from some of the other film classics of the period. It does, however, lack the effective political comment that adds so much to The House on Trubnaya Square. The use of the Premium Bond system seems little different from the function of such systems in bourgeois cinema. Apparently the script had a resolution that at least partially addressed this issue, but it did not make it into the finished film. Even so this is an impressive film from a rich career.