Tweet Announcing the 4th Annual "Watch That Movie" Night!

I watched The Greatest Question on a good quality Great Lakes Cinephile Society DVD. This is not only lesser Griffith from 1919, it is annoying lesser Griffith: it is festooned with sappy and unnecessary intertitles and overstoked melodrama.

The greatest question, by the way, is whether the dead communicate with the living, not that it has anything much to do with the plot. Griffith answers it in the affirmative, but supernatural appearances apparently can only occur when invited by god-awful overacting.

Otherwise the film has pretty much the typical Griffith rural Kentucky setting: these are poor white folks struggling to get by on their farms. Robert Harron's parents take in orphaned Lillian Gish and romance blossoms between the youngsters. But economic problems force Gish to hire herself out as help and she moves in with evil homicidal couple George Nichols and Josephine Crowell. Crowell is a sadist with a whip, which allows Gish to do a milder encore of her famous scene in Broken Blossoms. Nichols here is uncomfortably one of Griffith's third-rate lechers (for competent, world-class lechery we watch von Stroheim's Blind Husbands instead). Harron rushes to the rescue during the obligatory rape attempt but gets there too early. So, in deference to the screenwriter, he decides to rest on a fence rail to give Gish time for a flashback and to otherwise play out her scene.

Comedy, such as it is in a Griffith movie, comes from a black(face) servant (Tom Wilson). Wilson portrays the stereotypical "good" black: harmless, good-natured, ineffectual, superstitious, concerned mainly with his next meal. He uses the "N" word in an intertitle, but it is with respect to himself (so don't blame Griffith or the screenwriter who I'm sure were too busy to notice).

In short, this is Griffith at his worst. It is nowhere near his best work and rates below par among surviving 1919 productions.

My choice is John Ford's Hangman's House, on the same DVD with 3 Bad Men (the movie I really wanted when I bought the disc). Although Hangman's House has John Wayne in a crowd scene, I'll be watching it more for June Collyer.

I didn't have high hopes for Hangman's House because of some negative reviews I had read. I figured it was likely to resemble some of Ford's later Irish-themed works (The Quiet Man or The Informer) which I have never cared for. I prefer the tough, gritty Ford of Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, and 3 Bad Men, and can't stomach the syrupy fondness for sentimental hokum that Ireland particularly stirred in him. Suffice it to say I'm a fan of only a handful of Ford movies, but I love those.

Hangman's House was different, not a great movie, but a lower key Ford than many are used to (and actually enjoy). It's a mysterious story of revenge in which a wanted Irish revolutionary known as Citizen Hogan (Victor McLaglen) returns incognito to Ireland to kill a man for reasons unknown. His victim might be Jimmy "The Hangman" O'Brien, haunted by the images he sees of his victims in the flames of the hearth. There are some very nice effects depicting the suffering of these anguished souls.

Jimmy the Hangman has promised his daughter Connaught (the stunningly beautiful June Collyer) to the sinister John D'arcy (Earle Foxe) who, Heaven forbid, would rather live outside Ireland. Although just why O'Brien believes marrying his daughter to someone so disliked by the village folk of Glenmalure will make her the first lady in the land is not clear, especially since D'Arcy seems to need the wealth of the O'Brien estate more than the O'Briens need him. D'Arcy only adds to the people's detestation by killing his wife's beloved horse, "The Bard," when he is ridden by her former lover, Dermot McDermot, to victory in a steeplechase against the horse on which D'Arcy had a large wager.

At the race Citizen Hogan inexplicably reveals himself to D'Arcy, asking if he had recently been in Paris. A frightened D'Arcy has Hogan arrested, but he's later rescued from jail by fellow revolutionaries. D'Arcy seeks out Dermot and pressures him for enough money to get away from Ireland and Connaught, who is his wife in name only and shut the door against him on their wedding night. D'Arcy tells Dermot that he had married Hogan's sister and deserted her in Paris. Dermot gives him the money and seeks out Hogan for the whole story, hoping that Connaught might be free to marry him. However, Hogan reveals that his sister had died, freeing D'Arcy to marry Connaught.

When D'Arcy reappears, planning to loot and burn the Hangman's house, Connaught flees and Hogan and McDermot show up for their revenge. I won't give any more away other than to say the climax is well-done, and the art direction is masterful, the stonework interiors and exteriors of the castle, and the swamp through which Dermot and Connaught row to the Hogan's hideout. John Ford's infamous humor is mercifully brief, as it was in 3 Bad Men, which makes me believe Ford's style was better suited to silent film. The performances are likewise restrained and natural. McLaglen is especially good, which might be a revelation to those only familiar with the burlesque Irishmen he specialized in later for Ford. And even if the film were a disaster, it would still be worth watching to see the lovely June Collyer.

I gave a list of four possibilities and succeded in watching one: MENACE. a 1934 Paramount mystery, running under and hour. Directd by Ralph Murphy, this lively old-house chiller, moves like lightening (of which there is a lot near the beginning of the picture), mostly plays fair with the audience, but doesn't make it easy for viewers to play "spot the killer."

The set-up is unusual. The opening takes place in Africa where Freddie Bastion (Ray Milland) is an engineer at the construction of a huge dam. He is coerced into leaving the site by three friends, Helen Chalmers (Gertrude Michael), Norman Bellamy (Berton Churchill) and Col.Leonard Crecy (Paul Cavanaugh), who need a fourth for bridge! Freddie can get there quickly as he has a plane available.

During the card game, a violent storm breaks out, and Freddie recklessly rushes to his plain to return to the threated dam, an action which costs him his life.

But Freddie has a brother, who is mentaly unstable and holds the three bridge players accountable for his brothers death, threatening to kill them one by one. None of the three potential victims knows what the brother looks like...and he knows where they are, having sent a terse warning, "I'm coming..."

The threatened three are awaiting their fates in a remote estate, a number of other people show up to muddy the water and redden the herring - this sort of film almost always works if the viewer cooperates, and it did for me. If it has a fault, it would be that it's almost TOO short. I think they could have squeezed another reel of suspense out of this without much effort. Acting is just fine, and dialogue is mostly on target. If you get a chance to see it, it's worth an hour of your time.

Well I watched The Scar of Shame and it's a solid film, though it probably wouldn't be known today if it wasn't a so-called "Race Film." The performances by all the leads are solid and it's more cohesively constructed and directed than the Oscar Micheaux films I've seen, though Frank Peregini's direction never quite reaches some of the brilliant heights of Micheaux's work. It shows that he was certainly a competent filmmaker at the very least."

I watched STELLA MARIS and I was blown away. I can now say that I officially "get" Mary Pickford. She was amazing in the dual roles of Stella/Unity. Her Unity was wonderful. I loved all the little differences she made between the two characters, How Unity was obviously shorter than Stella, how still found places to work in some comic bits,etc. I also thought Marcia Manon was great as the alcoholic wife. Her face really looked like it had been through the wringer.

The Marshall Neilan direction was excellent, I loved the final pull back of the camera.
Question, was that Teddy on loan from Keystone? If it wasn't it was his twin and if it was, what kind of deal to did they have to make with Sennet?

Great film, glad I finally watched it.

superb performance and great film.

I had a slight change of plans when i discovered to my surprise that People on Sunday had been checked out at the library. It's nice to know it's circulating, even if it was at an inconvenient time. I'll catch up with it later.

We were already almost at the end of my Christmas gift serial of The Crimson Ghost, so we went ahead and watched the rest. With an average of two fist fights and a car crash in every episode, there was plenty of action, and its setting among supposed academics at a college campus kept me quietly amused. I guess nobody ever noticed this guy driving from hideout to hideout dressed in a cape and a large Halloween mask, but then nobody ever noticed the invisible mad driving the car in The Phantom Creeps that we just finished. I particularly admired Linda Stirling's snappy slacks, but her blouses rivaled Joan Crawford in breadth of shoulder pads.

Well, Jeanne Eagels is my vote for 1929's best actress Oscar. What a performance, i thought she was going to burn the emulsion off the film. I re-watched the Wyler/Davis version recently, and it is of course a wonderful, stylish film with great performances, but also somewhat sanitized and softened. For me this one had a lot of surprises. I was surprised at the tracking shot near the beginning that introduces us to Eagels character, which reminded me of the famous shot at the beginning of the other version. I'd heard that Eagels seemed to be saving all her acting for the final scene, but it didn't seem that way to me. Her conception of the role was quite different than Bette Davis, a more fragile, less intelligent woman, less repressed or conflicted. I thought her simple delivery of her phony courtroom testimony was most convincing--she had me believing her, too, even though in this version you know she's lying since the conversation leading up to the shooting is intact. The racial angle was much more prominent in this version and the confrontation with the Chinese woman over the letter was entirely different. And she really pulled out the stops for the final scene. It was brilliant. And that famous final line was different in this version, and she repeated it for good measure.

Aside from Eagels (and the fine play that it is), it was a fairly pedestrian piece of filmmaking. It's very dialogue heavy but seemed to race along at a fast clip for its 60 minutes. Even with the inclusion of the first act, the rest of the film feels like it's got at least a third more dialogue than the 1940 version, though music makes up for a lot in that one. Reginald Owen and Herbert Marshall (playing the lover instead of the husband as in the other version) were both good, though Owen is much less sympathetic in the part than Marshall was in 1940. O.P. Heggie didn't make much impression, but didn't have nearly as much to do. The woman playing Marshall's Chinese mistress was terrible. She's billed as Lady Tsen Mei. I don't see much biographical information on her (IMDB says she was born in China and has 2 other roles for her, both Chinese, in 1918 and 1921). But she sure looked to me like a white person in yellow face, and her dialogue delivery verged on the grotesque. It's been noted that this is some sort of work print, lacking music and some overdubbed sound. It looked to me, too, as though the editing wasn't finished. There were unusually long takes, unbroken by close ups, and in two shots one or the other would drift to the edge of the frame in a way that made me suspect that a closup or reverse angle was missing. On the other hand, that added to the spontaneity, as though it was all done in one take, uninterrupted by niceties of filmmaking technique.

I love the 1940 version, but i loved this one too, and i'll happily treasure both.

In lieu of People on Sunday, i checked out The Dragon Painter, which i'd seen, so that i could see Wrath of the Gods (1914). Kudos for not being Madame Butterfly! It began like some of the other early Ince features with an introduction of the actors, but the introduction of the lead actors was missing. A Japanese girl (Tsuru Aoki) and her father (Sessue Hayakawa, in a grey wig and beard) live alone near the beach. An annoying old guy known as The Prophet tells her that she's cursed, and she goes to her father for an explanation. He obliges and she's so horrified that the innocent could be curse for the actions of their ancestors that she gives up her religion. A foreign ship is wrecked and apparently the only survivor is Frank Borzage. Hayakawa takes him in and he falls in love with Tsuru. She tells him about the curse but he pulls out his rosary and says his god will make it ok, and they convert Hayakawa too. The couple go off to the mission to get hitched, but it doesn't sit well with the neighbors. The gods get in on the action too with a volcanic eruption. Decent special effects, interesting setting, good performances. The film was worn and scratched, but sharp, and it was nicely tinted. The score was japanese-styled but it would have been nice if it had followed the action somewhat--the only concession to dramatic events was to add a drum to what was mostly a flute solo. Anyway, a worthwhile effort.

It made me wonder more about Thomas Ince's films. I know about the Indian films with real Indians, and here he was working with real Japanese actors. Since most everyone else doing any kind of ethnic film was working with white actors, i wondered whether Ince had any other ethnic units or if he was more likely to make films with an ethnic setting than other producers. I don't really know much about his films other than the ones with Hart or Charles Ray. I know there's a new book out on him but i don't know whether it's more about him or his films.

greta

Just finished The Jazz Singer, which I've had since the Deluxe Edition box set came out in 2007. A classic film that I had never seen.

I have just watched my VHS of the Kino release of the 1924 Peter Pan. Amazing Production. Beautifully filmed and I even forgot I was watching a video after awhile. Loved the score also. Also, very impressed by the cast, and got a kick out of seeing Nana the dog (and I found out later, the crocodile!) so well played by a human actor. The little boy who played Michael Darling was adorable.

I haven't seen or read any version of this story, I'm reasonably sure, since grade school but it seemed very faithful in all to the original (even keeping the "gay and innocent and heartless" final line) though I got a kick out of the attempts to Americanize the Darlings and the lost boys. I also thought that I personally preferred this as a silent because I could just imagine the many sound effects in my head. Fun experience and nice to see Ernest Torrence in a different role. For some reason he looked older than in Steamboat Bill, but maybe that was the VHS effect.

Really enjoyed Story of a Cheat by and with Sacha Guitry. Starts out with one of the best credit sequences I've ever seen. Fun throughout and an obvious influence on Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait. Looking forward to seeing more Guitry in the Criterian set.

[Christopher Jacobs]

My double feature for this year's "Watch That Movie" night turned out to be connected in more ways than I originally expected. Both were DVDs rather than Blu-rays, both with nice transfers and sharp pictures but a bit softer than what I've been getting accustomed to after all the Blu-rays I've been watching. A CinemaScope picture on DVD especially suffers from being blown up to eight feet wide, compared against a good Blu-ray. But on to the movies. ANNA KARENINA (1948) and A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1957) are both heavy romantic tragedies with strong female protagonists, and both are remakes usually overlooked in favor of the 1930s film incarnations of their stories. Both also have strong connections to GONE WITH THE WIND that are more apparent viewing them back to back. Vivien Leigh's effective portrayal of Anna, far more intense and less dreamily romantic than Garbo's iconic performance, still can't help but recall elements of her unforgettable Scarlett O'Hara. And not only did GONE WITH THE WIND producer David O. Selznick produce the fifties version of A FAREWELL TO ARMS, but it's obvious he's trying to make it look as much like his most memorable hit as possible. From the opening titles sweeping across the screen to the printed title prologue to the lavishly detailed crowd sequences of the horrors of war, evacuation of a town, this is largely GONE WITH THE WIND reset during World War I.

ANNA KARENINA (1948) ***
It's been a few decades since I've seen the 1935 version of ANNA KARENINA, but I remember it being bascially a Garbo-centered romance with all the glossy polish and Hollywood studio glamor MGM could put behind it. The 1948 version produced by Alexander Korda for London Films (released by 20th Century Fox) is a harder-edged drama of a woman's struggle for love against a society of hypocritical double standards. It's beautifully shot with impressive production values. Julien Duvivier's direction and Jean Anuilh's script seem to focus more on the society and its various characters than Clarence Brown's lush studio romance that subordinates everything to its vision of Garbo as screen goddess. The MGM version had a wonderful all-star cast, but this British production is easily as impressive in the acting department. Ralph Richardson gives a superb nuanced and sometimes unexpectedly sympathetic performance as Anna's image-conscious husband, and Sally Ann Howes makes a lovely Kitty. Martita Hunt, better-known as Miss Havisham in GREAT EXPECTATIONS from two years earlier, is excellent as the seasoned Princess Betty, who understands more than Anna and Vronsky how to play by "the rules of the game." Michael Gough also appears as Nicholai, with a strong supporting cast of character actors. Kieron Moore's Vronsky is a bit shallow and weak, but that focuses the attention all the more upon Anna's relationship with her husband, son, and family. Overall, it's a very good film, though not a great film, certainly worth seeing at least once and deserves revisiting on occasion for those who like the actors and the story. The Fox DVD of ANNA KARENINA (the American cut, I expect) runs about 112 minutes, whereas the film has been listed at 123 and 139 minutes. The disc includes a couple of interesting short bonus documentaries about Tolstoy.

A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1957) ** 1/2
Widely derided as an artistic and boxoffice disaster, this overblown remake of the 1932 classic is not nearly as bad as its reputation. It even has some very powerful scenes that would have been far more memorable if the film had been cut by about a half-hour to an hour from its 152-minute running time (the original was only 90 minutes -- yet another reason I'd put off watching this remake for so long). It's difficult to discuss the directing, which was begun by John Huston and finished by Charles Vidor, but is more identifiably David O. Selznick than either one of them. The film's biggest problem is Selznick's constant and usually awkward attempts to refashion the simple romance with its terse anti-war commentary into a vast epic spectacle that might overshadow GONE WITH THE WIND, not only in color but CinemaScope and stereophonic sound. Rock Hudson, sometimes criticized for a wooden portrayal of protagonist Frederick Henry, actually delivers a decent performance that's often reminiscent of Gary Cooper's interpretation. He's certainly not the Rock Hudson soon to become known and loved for his Doris Day rom-coms. Jennifer Jones may have been a bit on the mature side for the young Nurse Barkley, but was actually only about six years older than Helen Hayes was when she played the character. Her performance is sincere enough, as well, though starts to wear thin as many of her scenes drag on far too long for their own good. Another major problem with the editing is how much the camera lingers on her closeups during the romantic scenes without cutaways to Hudson or more two-shots and long shots (no doubt due to Selznick's insistence on the film being a vehicle for his still attractive but now middle-aged wife). Vittorio De Sica is very good as Major Rinaldi (and got an Oscar nomination for the role). He's more bitter than Adolphe Menjou's usually jocular Rinaldi, and this version of the film expands his plot thread into darker and far more disturbing directions. It's been so long since I read the novel, that I can't recall if they restore elements that had been sanitized by the Borzage film or whether they were invented to give this version a grittier anti-war statement the same year as PATHS OF GLORY (which, ironically, featured Menjou as a coolly ruthless general). The 1957 version of A FAREWELL TO ARMS is another film worth seeing, but is less likely to stand up under repeated viewings than the 1948 ANNA KARENINA remake. If it somehow managed to come out on Blu-ray, however, I'd probably want to see it again for its beautiful widescreen color cinematography, which would be all the lovelier in high definition. The DVD includes a trailer and a few Movietone newsreels related to the film's premiere and personalities. Adding a good, thorough retrospective documentary honestly exploring the film's history, production, and problems, as well as its good points might also make a Blu-ray release worth investing in.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!

We watched the two Students of Prague (Rye/Wegener - 1913 and Galeen/Veidt - 1926) and between the two of them there might be a great film.

The discs are from a 2-pack from www.oldies.com and were a gift. I don't know if better elements (and home video editions) are out there. I suspect I might have enjoyed either film more under better conditions.

The 1913 version earned snaps for being concise (coming in at only 41 minutes.) It also had some nice establishing shots of what I took to be Prague (again, these were awful prints so there was not much detail to pay attention to.) One of the things I like about early American films is catching glances of rural life that has disappeared in the last century. This film offered, to me, a glimpse of pre-WWI Europe and a sense of innocense that nicely complimented the story. It certainly felt more early 19th century than its weimar counterpart.

The story: impoverished student (Wegener/Veidt) is offered a fortune by the mysterious Mr. Scapinelli in exchange for whatever Scapinelli (John Gottowt /Werner Krauss) can find in the student's room - and the magician takes the students image out of the mirror. WIth doppleganger in tow, Scapinelli destroys the student's life and hopes to wed local aristocrat. All very Faust/Tales of Hoffman-esque.

The 1926 version was certainly better acted. Krauss, in particular, outclassed his 1913 counterpart. But, a few special effects at the end aside, the production looked cheap and stagebound. The few exteriors looked as if they were filmed on the back lot. There were no glimpses of Prague - or any town of any size - and what chiaroscuro there was was far from striking - at least in the print I saw. And at 91 minutes, it took forever to get started.

Both discs claimed to have original scores by one Paul David Bergel. Both seemed awfully "needle-droppy" to me. If I ever take these discs out again, I will play my own music - perhaps Berlioz' damnation of Faust or highlights from Tales of Hoffman.

We also managed to take the wrapping off of HOTEL IMPERIAL - a 1927 Pola Negri effort. This DVD was courtesy of our friends at Grapevine and was a lot of fun. Mauritz Stiller directed Pola as a hotel slavey in rusisan-occupied Austria during WWI who helps stranded Austrian Lt (James Hall) hide from, and later spy/kill/outsmart the russians. Pola gets to suffer in mink as she becomes the plaything of the occupying general (George Siegmann.) We've seen variations of this plot a bazillion times before. But it was fun, which is why the plot elements have been recyled so often.

Pola was fine, but no revelation in the role. Oddly enough, about halfway through, I stopped, pulled up IMDB and realized that - I am shamed to say - this was my first Pola. So the question is - was this a good introduction? Based on this disc, I would not consider her a top-tier talent.

Hall was about as uninteresting a leading man as one could find, but any feature film with a sizable supporting role for Max Davidson is A-OK in my book. The reproduced (spanish?) vintage cover art declared this a Paramount superproduction. It didn't seem very super to me - just a modest, perhaps slightly bigger than usual, programmer.

The DVD actually includes a real needle-drop score - of various russian orchestral favorites. It was marvelously effective and was the right amount of cheese for this dish. But then, I *love* Russian composers.

The DVD also included a 1921 Chester short - "Just in Time" with Snooky the Chimp. Well, let's just say it was less disturbing than a Dogville short.

I don't have a ton of time for a review, but Way Down East on Kino DVD is at once a timeless and completely dated film, depending upon your criteria for analysis. But Griffith is a stylistic genius.

[Mike Gebert]

this was my first Pola. So the question is - was this a good introduction?

Decent, but I think the Pola vehicle is Barbed Wire. She has a better leading man (Clive Brook) and more to do with him than hide him behind doors. I wrote more about it and her here.

As expected, I had a most enjoyable time with Doug Fairbanks in Wild and Woolly.

Films that compare the old times with ”now” get doubly interesting when the ”now” itself becomes old times. Thus in the very opening of this film we get shots of the old West: wagon trains moseying along — juxtaposed with the ”now” of 1917: steam locomotives roaring by!

Doug here plays an Easterner infatuated with romantic notions of the Wild West. One hilarious bit has him going to the movies to watch a Western, and when he comes out, he grabs a lady who happens to be walking by, points to the film’s heroine on a poster and jubilantly exclaims: ”That’s the kind of mate I’m going to wed!”

Doug’s dad is a big-wig financier who sends his son to Arizona to check the possibilities of some deal. He also hopes the encounter with the modern Western city will rid Doug of his notions. On the contrary, the locals decide they will play up to Doug’s fancies, so they dress up the town to look like a stereotypical Wild West burg and dress themselves in appropriate costumes, and even arranging fake shoot-outs and stuff.

(By coincidence, I watched a film just a couple of weeks ago with a very similar premise: Richard Dix in Womanhandled (1925), from the latest Treasures From American Film Archives set.)

The rarin’-to-root-n-toot-n-shoot Doug is easily fooled and falls right into the proceedings. The locals find it safest to put fake bullets into his six-shooter. (No prizes for guessing that Doug will have to deal with genuine villains afore the flicker’s finished.)


With each of Doug’s ”pre-swashbucklers” I watch, I get more impressed by how, in many ways, he’s in the same family as Keaton, Chaplin and Lloyd. The exuberance, the thrills, the light-hearted satire. The closing shot especially would have fit perfectly for Buster or Harold.

At the risk of sounding like a humorless, ”politically correct” bore, the film’s satire is slightly undercut by one marked discrepancy. While the film mocks most of the Wild West stereotypes as ridiculous and outdated, with satiric use of phrases like ”pard” and ”Howdy”, it also features honest-to-goodness drunken, violent injuns. The audience is expected to accept that the modern, real Native Americans use language like ”heap big pow-wow” and ”makum fine squaw for Big Chief.”

Next on the program, I guess: A Modern Musketeer, then only four more to go from Flicker Alley’s great Fairbanks set.

PS. For no special reason except the similarity in title, I treated myself to a classic cartoon first: Tex Avery’s Wild and Wolfy, featuring Droopy, the Wolf and the sexy ”Red”, putting me in a good mood afore the main feature begun.

this was my first Pola. So the question is - was this a good introduction?

Decent, but I think the Pola vehicle is Barbed Wire. She has a better leading man (Clive Brook) and more to do with him than hide him behind doors. I wrote more about it and her here.

In the right part she can be great, and she's pretty versatile. For one actually available on video, try The Woman He Scorned/The Way of Lost Souls (1929). The plot is thin and unimaginative, the whole thing is really Pola's performance. She's a great Carmen, too. For a talkie, try Mazurka.

greta

We watched the two Students of Prague (Rye/Wegener - 1913 and Galeen/Veidt - 1926) and between the two of them there might be a great film.

And if you, or other members would like to compare to the 1935 version, it can be found here on Youtube:
(CC for English)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGXRfiLGhDc

Today I watched The Volga Boatman starring William Boyd, Elinor Fair, Victor Varconi and Julia Faye. It is a love story set against the Russian Revolution. The lovers are from opposite sides of the revolution. The good and bad of each "side" are shown, in an attempt to not take a side, politically.

Unfortunately, this takes a lot of intellectual tension out of the story. We are only interested in the two lovers, to see if, and how, they will emerge from various dangers. The "red" and "white" forces each have their ascendancy over the lovers' lives, so it is back-and-forth through the film. Obviously, we are supposed to care about them, but after that, there is no important cause that their survival serves.

The film is directed by Cecil B. DeMille, so it is well-done, but not one of his great films.

The music by Philip Carli is excellent and adds a lot to the movie. It says on the package that the score is from the original cue sheets. William Boyd (later famous as Hopalong Cassidy) and Elinor Fair were later married in real life.

The VHS tape that I have is from Kino, produced for them by David Shepard, 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Volga_Boatman_(film" target="_blank)

http://www.amazon.com/Volga-Boatman-VHS ... 796&sr=1-1" target="_blank

Rick Lanham

GIRLS IN PRISON (1956, dir. Edward L. Cahn)

The film's a teensy bit closer to an "A" movie than AIP usually gets, what with a fairly good cast and 87 min. running time (it played with Hot Rod Girl in the summer of '56). It actually is more of a noir/drama than the exploitation film promised, and would be at home in one of VCI's "Forgotten Noir" sets. (I have the British DVD release, one of a total of 25 AIP DVDs I worked on several years ago, and the only one I never got a chance to watch.)

After a rockin' nightclub opening (with the song "Tom's Beat") that has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the film (and in best AIP cheapie tradition, the "night club" set has curtains over the back walls, a few tables, and a few balloons for swank decorations), Joan Taylor is sent to prison. Seems she helped her boyfriend and one of his buddies steal $62,000. The boyfriend was shot dead, the buddy has vanished, and Joan - protesting her innocence all the way - was left to take the rap, ya git me? She's in the big house with just the best lookin' cellmates EVER, including Adele Jergens (the tough chick who can get ya whatever ya want from the outside, see); Phyllis Coates (what th' hell is Lois Lane doin' here?!?), who lost her husband, her baby and her mind; Laurie Mitchell, the young cutie from Attack of the Puppet People, and... uhhhh... Mae Marsh? What, now? The little sister from Birth of a Friggin' NATION?!??! Yep, it's her, alrighty. She plays the oldest lady in prison (no kidding) and it's actually a good part. Good for her. Raymond Hatton plays Joan's old, sick papa who is not very sick, just lazy, and it's a good part for him, too. So bring your grandparents to this one, it'll be a nostalgia trip for them.

In any case, Richard Denning is the young prison minister who believes Joan when she professes her innocence, and tries to protect her from the ravenous she-wolves who want to force her to reveal where she's hid the loot. Now, there's something unusual that happens... But I don't want to spoil it for you. So don't highlight the following empty space, okay?

To everyone's shock, Joan actually DID steal the damn money! She's lying to the preacher, her cellmates, her dad, the audience, EVERYBODY. The shnook. That's our heroine, folks! No kidding!

Okay, so, where were we? Oh, right. There's a dance one night with just the girls, so we get to hear "Tom's Beat" over the radio. And Lance Fuller shows up, he's the crummy buddy who torture's Raymond Hatton to get him to force his daughter to spill her guts about the loot she says she hasn't got. As I mentioned earlier elsewhere on this fine Message Board, a drama's no good unless it has an appearance by particular actor or actors on the In The Balcony approved character actor list, so you'll be happy to know that Ed Cobb is a cop in this one.

Million dollar dialogue

Adele to the newbie in the cell: "This doesn't have to be as bad as it looks!" (Yeah, actually, it sort of does.)

Preacher to Miss Taylor, trying to talk her into giving herself back up after a jail break: "Your life, your dad, your SOUL is in the greatest jeopardy!"

Joan to a cellmate who's just taken two slugs point-blank in the back: "You're not hurt bad."

And we'll give the final line to Mr. Hatton, who comments on the action during the climactic gun battle twixt dames and screws: "They just don't make pictures like they used to!"

I watched STELLA MARIS and I was blown away. I can now say that I officially "get" Mary Pickford. She was amazing in the dual roles of Stella/Unity. Her Unity was wonderful. I loved all the little differences she made between the two characters, How Unity was obviously shorter than Stella, how still found places to work in some comic bits,etc. I also thought Marcia Manon was great as the alcoholic wife. Her face really looked like it had been through the wringer.

The Marshall Neilan direction was excellent, I loved the final pull back of the camera.
Question, was that Teddy on loan from Keystone? If it wasn't it was his twin and if it was, what kind of deal to did they have to make with Sennet?

Great film, glad I finally watched it.

Yay! Welcome to the club!

[silentfilm]

I've had The Maltese Falcon BluRay for over a year, but I never watched it because it had seen the film several times before. I watched the film this afternoon, and wow, it looks and sounds incredible on BluRay.

After you've seen a film several times, you can really pay attention to the way the director and editor tell the story, instead of just trying to follow the plot. I'll bet that three fourths of the shots in this film were filmed at hip level or lower. This means that we are looking up at the actors, and it really makes the shady characters seem more menacing. You can see the ceilings in many low-angle shots, and this was the same year that Orson Welles supposedly invented them.

Humphrey Bogart really does a great job in this film. This film has a classic reputation because of the great character actors in it, but Bogart really keeps his emotions in check, but it's still possible to "read" what he's thinking. The scene where he angrily throws his glass on the table in front of Sidney Greenstreet, and then later grins and reveals that his hand was shaking shows us that Sam Spade can con these shady characters with the best of them. I really love his reaction shot when the Falcon is being unwrapped. You can tell he doesn't give a hoot about this priceless treasure, but he does want to see how each of the other shady characters reacts.

The BluRay is stocked full of tons of extras, including a commentary track, two Warner Brothers' cartoons, a newsreel, trailers, and three radio adaptions of the film.

Sydney

Faust was greatness. Will be watching this many times again

[Mike Gebert]

So remember, get your entry in by midnight tonight, and I'll pick the winners tomorrow.

Three winners— your odds have never been better. Write up your movie today!

I wasn't sure I'd be able to participate -- too many busy evenings -- but last night Nancy and I got out a long-neglected copy of Little Old New York (1923), with Marion Davies. It could have been a decent film, but had incoherent direction, and every time Marion had to get serious, things felt insincere. When compared to other films of that era, it felt primitively made. The plot was strangely ordered -- we start by being introduced to maybe a dozen of New York City's early 1-percenters, and wonder whether we have to keep track of all of them. Having them appear when actually needed in the plot would have made it easier to adjust and keep track of who they are. And a major plot point is not explained until a flash-back at the end, even though you've figured it out immediately and wonder if maybe some film was missing.

The "comedy" bits provided by Delmonico were on a level with DW Griffith comic bumpkins (Ooh! He dropped some plates!), though a brother-sister boxer-manager team provide several good laughs. The movie's investment in a full-scale replica of Robert Fulton's Clermont was marred by wanting too much footage of it sailing, leading to disruption in the pace, while closeups on the ship were accompanied by a not-very-convincing moving painted backdrop. One could almost hear Hearst saying "I paid $x,000 for that ship, get it up on the screen!"

Marion was charming, but for most of the film, any actress could have done as well, and many better. Her infatuation with Harrison Ford (the man whose fortune she's enjoying under false pretenses) was never really convincing, and it could have been under different direction. Highlights, of course, were the comic parts -- when another woman is performing the latest London songs to attract her man, she brings her harp to the garden outside and sings Irish folks songs as a kind of competition. Marion does an excellent job of building her performance, making it obviously louder and more brazen, so that even in a silent film you get an idea of the cacophony.

It also had what I call "silent film heroine syndrome," where the script -- in order to give the billed actress important things to do -- calls on her love interest to be a total idiot, creating crises for the heroine to solve, leading jaded viewers to wonder why she does all this work when the prize is a guy who's an idiot. While not as bad as The Clinging Vine in this department (would a very competent business woman fall for a guy who gives $10,000 in cash to an obvious con artist?), it did impact my enjoyment of the film. (Then again, probably the top "silent film heroine syndrome" film is Mike Gebert's pick for this year, Fritz Lang's Destiny, where Dagover tries to save the same idiot three times and somehow I manage to enjoy that film a lot.)

The Grapevine print was a bit murky (16mm, perhaps?) so that details and faces were blurry in medium shots, and much of the detail on Davies' opulent costume at the end was lost. A nice print in a theater would help. The music was a needle-drop score with very jarring transitions between scenes, and the harp playing was represented by a needlessly complex concert harp piece. But otherwise the music was mostly good selections of vintage symphonic silent film cues, with the exception of the opening set of waltzes, a particularly cheesy theater organ rendition with plenty of Merry-Go-Round xylophone and bells that made me consider abandoning sound.

So, it was worth seeing, but I don't think it'll be something I'll watch again for a while, unless I get a chance to see it in a live presentation.

Friday night The Bijoux had a double feature of Headwinds and Little Orphant Annie. As the clientele tends to nod off, The Bijoux shows the main feature first.

Headwinds (1926) was a Universal Jewel starring that epitome of male pulchritude House Peters and Patsy Ruth Miller. The film didn't seem to live up to the jewel standard. I didn't see any extra special production unless all the shots of the sailing ship at sea count. Our man House plays a man of leisure who sails the 7 seas on his ship with his Chinese crew. He's called by family friends to try and prevent the marriage of their sister. In one of those (from our vantage point) only in the 20s plots, the intended groom is kidnapped and House hides his identity with bandages and marries Patsy. I know. I know.

Even after House reveals himself as the captain of the ship, Patsy thinks she is married to right (wrong) man who is hidden elsewhere on the ship. House proceeds to tame the shrew all the while worrying that the US Navy is after him for kidnapping. (There is a long dream sequence that climaxes with his lynching.) The taming is cut short by Patsy's illness. However, after the threat of death and a storm, all is well and Patsy and House continue on as man and wife.

I really like House Peters but this was a bit disappointing. He was flat with not much to do other than look terrifically handsome. In contrast, the dream sequence was over the top and his acting was too flamboyant. Perhaps that was intended. I anticipated that it was a dream sequence because of the sudden flowery acting. (I'll blame the director Herbert Blache for this.) Nothing fabulous but it might be a fun quickie at Cinecon (unless it was already shown in 1967.)

Little Orphant Annie (1918) was a puzzler. It started with documentary footage of James Whitcomb Riley at his home. He then proceeds to tell Annie's story to a large group of children. I believe this film was intended for children. If it was, then I bet this film scared the bejeezus out of them. I bet a lot of crying kiddies left the theater during this film. The production was interesting with lots of dissolves where boogies appeared in rooms, or people changing into boogies. While it was fun to see a very very young Colleen Moore stand up to everything required in the film, it was unpleasant. Little Orphan Annie just got too abused to enjoy it. And as in the prior film there was a horrifying dream sequence. File this one under "What were they thinking?" I'm still afraid they might get me
Ef
I
don't watch out!!!

Nancy

I watched The Beloved Rogue with John Barrymore, Marceline Day and Conrad Veidt. How can you not love a movie that starts with a burning at the stake? (Passion of Joan of Arc is an exception to that rule for me, ymmv)

I was prepared to enjoy it because of Barrymore's antics with Slim Summerville and Mack Swain and I did. What a merry band and I think Barrymore was blotto through some of the movie, he was certainly being grad A ham and enjoying himself (until the torture parts). I was also surprised to spy a baby and instantly recognizable Dickie Moore as the young Villon. He was a cutie.

Conrad Veidt was wonderful and should have played Richard III. He was creepy and not likeable and I enjoyed his performance a whole lot. I also enjoyed seeing Nigel de Brulier as the Astrologer.

Marceline Day was effective in her scenes with Barrymore. Frankly, she did not have much to do that was a stretch.

I thought the backlot and sets were quite oppulent for a Warner Brothers picture. Sometimes everyone was dwarfed by the sheer size of the settings. Props to William Cameron Menzies.

Cinematography was beautiful and the direction was standard for Crossland Certainly not Michael Curtiz, but still plenty of fun, dash and mood.

It was worth waiting to see, but I really should have seen this long before. Mike, thanks for the prod of Watch that movie night to get me to pull this off the shelf.

I watched Murnau's Tabu... I found it to be yet another great silent film. For some reason the subject matter had me putting off watching this release for longer than I would have liked. Totally set & filmed on location, this is the perfect film to shot as a silent. Amazing scenery & vistas - I can't imagine how shooting with microphones would have compromised the integrity of this film. The movie gets off to a slow start, but once the story kicks in, it's very engrossing. As far as I can tell the cast is made up of completely unknown actors Murnau found on the islands, whilst scouting for locations. The girl Reri is particularly good, apparently she was only 16? As everyone probably knows, this is the story of forbidden love... set against the backdrop of an island paradise. Broken up into 2 acts - Paradise & Paradise lost. The film has a very tragic ending, with great symbolic cinematography of the final scenes resonating with me well after the film finished. Another thing I noted were the Shark Scenes - Very effective, I wonder if Spielberg ever seen this film? In part I almost felt like I was watching a precursor to Jaws....
All in all an amazing movie, which I can't wait to see again - Murnau is fast becoming one of my favourite silent directors.

What came out of my pile was 'Millie' (1931).

This is a pretty entertaining Pre-Code with Helen Twelvetrees as the title character, a fatherless good girl in imminent danger of going bad, with every boy in town waiting to catch her when she falls. When she makes an ill-thought out marriage to one of them, her mother is delighted - sure, he's a cad, but he's a rich cad.

Two years later, Millie is a poor little rich girl with a young daughter. Through an old friend, Angie (Joan Blondell) and her partner-in-gold-digging, Helen (Lilyan Tashan), she discovers her husband is cheating on her. She departs the marriage without seeking a cent, or custody of her daughter.

Rather than follow Helen and Angie - she recognises that theirs is no true independence - Millie resolves to get a good honest job and remain a bachelor girl for life, dependent on nobody but herself. In practice, her vow leaves her free to play the field without commitment. She can be a bad girl, but on her terms. She might have used her charms to seek financial rewards, as Helen and Angie do, but regarding love as a transaction is foreign to her nature. This is especially evident when she favours a rather boneheaded newspaper reporter, Tommy (Robert Ames), over his suave and wealthy boss, Jimmy (John Halliday).

Alas, history repeats, and just as Millie seems to be considering making a commitment, it appears that Tommy is two-timing her. Angie has given up the game to make a marriage of convenience, and Millie finally surrenders to convenience and becomes Helen's new offsider.

A decade or so passes (indicated by some greying temples and eyeshadow - fashion-wise, we're still in the early 30s). Millie is now a faded and hardened woman, still stuck in the game (there is no sign of Helen - perhaps she, like Angie, has cashed in her chips). Jimmy has long since given up on her and now sets about seducing her daughter (Anita Louise), now a preternaturally innocent and (extremely) young woman, leading us to a quintessential Pre-Code ending. There's wrath, there's a gun, there's a tearful reconciliation, there's a couple of loose ends that never do get tied. In the end, was Millie's pursuit of independence worth it? It's hard to say.

There are some nice shots of Coney Island in New York (though the budget obviously didn't extend to the leads actually going there) and Art Deco nightclub scenes (I am always a sucker for a good three-part harmony sung through bullhorns).

Helen Twelvetrees makes a bit of an enigma out of Millie. She's neither wholly an innocent nor entirely knowing. What makes her performance interesting is a sense she's only just holding things together - that beneath the thin smile there's something waiting to explode. When it does, how will she go out - with a bang or a whimper? Tashan's humorous hard-boiled gold digger is very similar to her part in 'Girls About Town'. Joan Blondell as the waverer is appealingly guileless and mercantile.

Two last points: are Lilyan Tashan and Joan Blondell 'obviously lesbians' as legend would have it? Meh. No more than Tashan and Kay Francis were in 'Girls About Town'. You can take from that what you will, which I think is exactly what was intended.

Secondly: when are we going to start a thread, Murphy bed style, on the mysterious phenomenon of partygoers indicating their drunkenness by wearing a lampshade on their head? This is the earliest place I've seen it. Any other sightings?

This is a great idea - to encourage us to dust off the forgotten discs and give them a try.
I mentioned that I was trying to decide between two. As it turns out, they were both rather short in length, so I did view both of them. Both boasted such great tallent, that I just couldn't resist. Sadly, both were less than expected.


(1) Eternal Love ...( 1929 - Staring John Barrymore and directed by Ernst Lubitch)

The story was rather basic and tired. Marcus ( Barrymore) and Ciglia ( Camilla Horn) are in love. He is independant and troublesome, but he will do anything for Ciglia. The problem is that Pia loves Marcus and Lorenz loves Ciglia, but Marcus & Ciglia only have eyes for eachother. Marcus gets drunk at a party and is told that he compromised PIa ( which is a lie that Pia made to MAKE him marry her). He is forced into the ceremony. Later a sad Ciglia is married to Lorenz, but none are happy. When Marcus is seemingly lost in the snow, and Lorenz refuses to join in the search, Ciglia runs out into the snow to look for him. He returns and sees her, but Lorenz knows that his wife still loves Marcus. Lorenz tries to kill Marcus. Unsuccessful, he shoots again and Marcus shoots back in self defense. Back in town, only Ciglia believes Marcus. Pia rouses the crowd saying that Ciglia put Marcus up to it.

Marcus & Ciglia escape the angry mob temporally, but as the "angry townfolk with torches (how cliche') back them into a corner, they see no escape. Ciglia kneels and prays that they will never be seperated again. Snow rumbles behind them, they look deeply into eachother's eyes, and turn and walk into the avelanche together.

The story had all the melodrama of some old dull story, with none of the fight. Both main characters were treated as Lambs for the Slaughter.I don't know when I have seen Barrymore play such a helpless victim. AND given that this was the great Ernst Lubitch directing this between "The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg" and "The Love Parade " ( both of which I just love), I expected some hint of the "Lubitch Touch"......but not a whisper.I always feel that with Lubitch I get something totally unexpected. It always makes sense, but there is a suprise twist that is out of the ordinary, but still believable. Not in this one.

So many great talents in this one, but it played like a worn old chestnut. The vitaphone score was OK, but not a big winner for me( though I admidt that I am not a fan of the late 20's vitaphone scores.



(2) Cobra....(1925 staring Rudolph Valentino)

This could have been an amazing film . Actually anythign with Valentino in it has to be somewhat good ......just because Valentino is in it! The story is of and Italian Count(Valentino) who is trying to start over afte his womanizing past. He meets an American antique dealer with whom he becomes friends and by whom is hired. Woman continue to throw themselves at the Count except for Mary , the company secretary, who is pure and sweet ( the one girl the Count could really start a life with). A husband chaser (Nita Naldi) goes after the count, and to get rid of her, he tells her that he has nothing - it all blongs to Jack ( antique dealer). Naldi's character marries Jack, and then flirts with the Count. Naldi si killed in a hotel fir after Valentino spurns her advances, but feel guilty.........as if he could have handled it differently and she would still be alive. He doesn"t even want Jack to know his wife had tried to seduce him. The truth about that comes out, and Jack tells the Count to feel guilty for none of this ( he knows what his wife did and that the Count repelled her advances).

After all this , there is still sweet Mary. She likes Valentino, and he likes her. Valentino finds out that his friend Jack now has eyes for Mary, and he steps aside - hinting that he is still a womanizing giggilo. We last see him on a boat going back to Italy.

The sets are amazing and the costumes are wonderful. Valention's acting is wonderful as always. AND the Mont Alto score was perfect!

The only proble was that this wasn't Valentino. It felt like NATACHA RAMBOVA with rudolph valintino on the screen. This was a subdued, chaste, somewhat castrated Valentino. If he wife was so insecure that she didn't want to see him kissing other women on the screen ............ she should have just never watched the film and left it alone so WE could watch him be the great lover! He didn't need to be a cad - this character was trying to move to a higher moral plane - but he didn't need to go from giggilo to monk/saint in one shot - it just wasn't believable.Love can be clean and beautiful, but in this film is was almost non-existant.

Every woman who looks at a Valentino film rips the face off of the leading lady and puts her own on there. We each imagine being the object of his affection. In some filme he was more romantic, and in some, more of a womanizer, but in all ( save this one) he was romantic. In this one his character was made to pay for his past life as a cad by living as a celibate victim, and that is a waste of a Valentino.

He played it well, and everything in it was sparkeling............it is good that they got Natacha out after this. She was not playing off of his strengths and was taking him in a terribly wrong direction. Like the Barrymore film, I was not used to seeing such a usually strong male lead playing such a victim of circumstance.

Masybe I'll dream of "The Sheik" tonight, and substitute Agnes Ayers with Agnes McFadden......................