Sensation Seekers - a review

[boblipton]

Just in from the Museum of Modern Art where I saw the carefully restored version of Lois Weber's Sensation Seekers (1927). The first thing I should note about this movie is that I saw it in the largest of the Museum of Modern Art's movie auditoriums, which was full. Vincent Giordano and the Nighthawks were there to play an original score. That makes a big difference in how a movie affects me -- to see it as it was meant to be presented, instead of on my TV screen off a recording from TCM, with perhaps a piano score; it's the difference between being at Woodstock when Joe Cocker is performing "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends" or hearing the tune off a hurdy-gurdy. We may know that as a fact, but it's a good idea to renew the experience occasionally.

In the movie, the luscious Billie Dove is the rich daughter of estranged parents: good-time-Charley father Phillips Smalley (director Weber's ex for two years at this point: I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when she made suggestions on how to play his part) and Church-going, suffering Edith Yorke (I'm sure Smalley had some thoughts on how she should play her part). Billie is wild but not a bad girl -- when the roadhouse she is drinking at is raided, she says she never lies about who she is. When her mother's handsome parson, Raymond Bloomer, does her the favor of bailing her out, there is instant attraction, and he spends the rest of the film trying to save her and she gives him every opportunity.

There are some very nice points about the gossip of small towns and unwillingness to forgive making things harder for a pastor, but the whole thing has a couple of major flaws: why is it always the beautiful girls who can be saved? If Zasu Pitts is at risk of eternal damnation, will hordes of clergy strive for her soul? If the minister looks like Billy Gilbert, will the girls come to him for instruction? Or is physical beauty a spiritual virtue?

In any case, during the moments when these distracting thoughts occurred to me, the Nighthawks were there to draw my attention back, just like a good score is supposed to; and the sequence where the yacht Billie is on sinks and Bloomer rushes to save her is a real wow. I think if you get a chance to see it as I did, you'll enjoy it.

[Lokke Heiss]

This week at MoMA I saw Lois Weber's Sensation Seekers (1927). This is a wonderful film, and has so much going on, it's easier just to talk about one topic at a time-
First, the director - I've been a big fan of Lois Weber ever since I saw The Blot, and Sensation Seekers confirms my earlier opinion of her. To start with, I think Weber is the one person who really took D.W. Griffith's command of filmic language and made it her own. She shared with Griffith a strong sense of moral outrage regarding hypocrisy of cultural standards. And both directors zoom in on the feelings of the people in their stories, which makes them so immediate to the audience. But while Griffith tended to use stock characters, Weber imbues her characters with a coloratura of emotions that really humanizes them and makes you care what happens.
And along with extending a Griffith-like interest in being a social critic, I also see in Weber a director who understood the voyeuristic qualities of cinema. The Pleasure Seekers has numerous scenes that tease at the notion that we are all voyeurs, and gently scolds us at this reveal, much in the way Hitchcock would remind us of this impulse with many of his films such as Rear Window. For example, early in the film, at a party, the revelers take part in a very 'naughty' scene where nude, or almost-nude women strike poses behind a screen where we see their silhouettes. The church folk who live across the street are aghast at what is going on in their neighborhood, so 'aghast' they gather on their porch and watch the party by seeing who is coming or going, and by looking through their windows. Weber is making a not-so-subtle point of the holier-than-thous won't do the activities, but they sure don't mind watching others do it.
So overall, when I see these late silent films by Weber, I see a director who understood and fully utilized a full vocabulary of silent film story-telling wizardry.
Other aspects of this film worth mentioning include costume design, which isn't just good, it's terrific. The party scenes, the dresses and costumes are some of the best I've ever seen in a silent film.
And finally there is the writing - top notch all the way - sort of Anita Loos, only less cynical. So to sum up, this film is another real find for silent film fans everywhere.