What's The Last Silent Movie You Watched? [2020]

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Watched "Miss Lulu Bett" (1921) with Lois Wilson, Theodore Roberts, Milton Sills, Helen Ferguson, Clarence Burton, Mabel van Buren, Ethel Wales, and others. Takes only a moment to get into this one. Then the plot and the acting of both Lois Wilson and Theodore Roberts take you on quite a spin of women's mistreatment at the hand of society in 1921. Though this is 100 years old, the secondary treatment of women versus men has only in the last quarter century really taken a trending towards turning the tables. Here Wilson plays the sister-in-law to Roberts, a man who's given her and her grandmother the right to stay with his family in their home. What she's become, though, is basically a slavey, in the kitchen first and foremost, but the main clean-up person, too, in a sloppy household - and she does a perfect job. She's also not found any suitors, so remains a spinster. Though Roberts berates her (in a nasty teasing way) for remaining unmarried, he's also glad she remains to be the keeper of the household - though, as mentioned, basically as a slavey. Enter Milton Sills, the local school teacher. A possible heat develops between he and Wilson, though she's extremely cautious about showing any reciprocal 'heat'. Meanwhile, also enter Roberts' brother, Clarence Burton, who's not been around for over 20 years. Now the story becomes very knotted. I'll not give away any more plot.

The film is flawlessly directed by Cecil B. DeMille's older brother, William de Mille. The acting is first rate all around. Even the usual firebrand style of Roberts is excellent here as he portrays a man you'd love to just sock once in a blue moon just for the fun of it. He deserves it. A good example is at the beginning of the film when he stubbornly, stubbornly - I SAID STUBBORNLY - won't allow a clock on the wall to be correct in its time, and instead corrects it to the time showing on HIS watch. Of course then he rants at everybody else for being late to supper because they're all a tad over 10 minutes late according to HIS watch.

Considered one of the best of its type - coming at a stage just barely past the Women's Suffrage movement, which, legitimately, was still going on in many ways - this still plays wonderfully today. Not strident; rather, this one patiently and still forcefully gets its message across, while at the same time coming to a satisfying enough conclusion. I still wonder what's to become of granny at the house...

This is a secondary feature on the Image Entertainment DVD released some years ago with "Why Change Your Wife?".

Found this one very well worth watching and would like to find a few more of William's films if possible.

[Saturnome]

Last week I've seen Mikhail Romm's Boule de suif (1934, USSR) and I thought I'd strongly recommend it to everyone. There are two prints circulating : one from the 1950s with a soundtrack and an annoying voice-over, and a print of the original silent release, which is sadly a bit cropped (as with many soviet films, I notice).

This is very much unlike the soviet silent films shown in schools. Boule de suif is a film with commercial appeal, no rapid cutting but well-thought visuals, with a lot of flair, that will remind you more of late 1920s europeans films than the usual propaganda piece from this country. It made me think of Dreyer's Joan of Arc, sometimes, although a bit more approachable. The adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's story is well done, maybe a bit caricatural as soviets like to do, but that made me only enjoy it more. The framing inside the stagecoach is very impressive, and the film is able to get a lot out of eight people sitting in a small space. Really this is quite a unique item of silent cinema and is well worth your time. Almost like a window into a world where sound took a few more years to arrive, and let the art of the silent evolve a bite more.

[sepiatone]

Re-watchThe Red Lantern(1919) with a little more appreciation as most of Nazimova's silents are lost. I wasn't too enthusiastic the first time around, but I got into it, alas I predicted I would. Without writing a review, Nazimova plays what they used to call a half-caste in this case a woman born of a European father and Chinese mother. She is caught somewhere between idealizing two religions, Buddhism and Christianity. This particular restoration has the print bathed in a green tint/or hue and the Chinese motif sets certainly puts one in the atmosphere of being in China. Noah Beery plays the films villain but he's not half as bad here as he's in other films where he's dastardly ie The Mark of Zorro. Noah's villain could have been played by fellow film villain Warner Oland. Sometimes the two actors are so interchangeable.

Several films old and more recent come to mind watching this movie ie Broken Blossoms(1919), Victory(Tourneur, 1919), The Witness for the Defense(Warner Oland, 1919), 55 Days at Peking(1963), Khartoum(1966), Crazy Rich Asians(2018).

As for the soundtrack, wild score, I watched with something from Edvard Grieg off of a radio station website and it was marvelous, though of course it wasn't scored music but it woke up the experience of watching the film a little better. Sometimes music from classicartsshowcase.org will work but it's not as continuous as music from a classical music radio station website. Classicartsshowcase will go from ballet, to Laurence Melchoir singing 'Some Enchanted Evening', to clips from old tv shows but when they play a classical piece it's pretty good.

So, it was a better experience watching "The Red Lantern" the second time around.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

An entry from 1914, THE WOMAN IN BLACK, has a nice premise in it deals with a businessman deeply in the hole owing to speculating with public funds. He appeals to, and is bailed out by his 'friend', played by Lionel Barrymore. Barrymore's character is shown shortly when he deflowers the daughter of a gypsy fortune-teller and offers the poor girl money.

A little while later he hears from the unfortunate speculator, who has been foolish again. However, he has a pretty young daughter...

Although the plotting of this film is a little familiar, Barrymore is suitably beastly as a wealthy middle-aged man with a taste for young women, and I was surprised to find a very young Alan Hale as the daughter's suitor. A lively and enjoyable yarn, despite some overacting from the lady who plays the gypsy girl's rival in love...

Watching MOANA WITH SOUND (1926/1980) was rather a disappointing experience for me. The first time I had seen MOANA, was in the 1970s, in a mute print and missing some reels. Watching it under better circumstances, I found it rather boring and long-winded at times, and wondered also how much of the film was actuality, and how much cooked up in order to make a narrative.

It seems that quite a lot of the film was quite inauthentic, some scenes (Moana's tattooing as a manhood ritual) being anachronistic in the way that the shark hunt in MAN OF ARAN was not truthful. Costuming also, was inaccurate, as apparently native Samoans were by then wearing Western dress (influenced by missionaries) rather than the hand-made variety seen here. Not forgetting the topless element.

This made me wonder whether the boar and turtle hunts were authentic also, as staging such activities for the camera alone seems unnecessary and cruel. It would be interesting to find out whether the 'added dialogue was taken from lip-readings or just added on.

This may seem heresy to some folk, but I prefer the two films Flaherty made with Van Dyke and Murnau to the purer ones, as the 'purity' seems to be in question a number of times in his documentary work.

[R Michael Pyle]

"Why Change Your Wife?" (1920) is one in a long series of films made by Cecil B. DeMille dealing with the slings and arrows and roses and thorns of marriage in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Based on the intertitles in this film alone one could say that DeMille satirized the institution rather than was entirely exploiting the nastier aspects of it for filming. With other feature titles like "Old Wives for New" (1918), "We Can't Have Everything" (1918), "Don't Change Your Husband" (1919), "Why Change Your Wife?" (1920), "The Affairs of Anatol" (1921), and others, DeMille catered to the Jazz Age mentality of escape from supposed Victorian prudishness and repressed and hidden sexuality and men's overweening power over women in all things societal and domestic. What we're left with, though, is still the masculine point of view in all things in the end, even when a woman seems to gain an upper hand. It's DeMille being the rather egotistical showman.

"Why Change Your Wife?" stars Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, Bebe Daniels, Theodore Kosloff, Sylvia Ashton, and others in a tongue in cheek comedy/drama that somewhat sneers at the institution of marriage from the outset. Rather cynically DeMille shows us the happy widdle woman who began as a lover but has become the person where a title can say that "her vice was her virtues", meaning that she's totally, utterly virtuous, meaning that she's totally, utterly sexless, loveless in any carnal way, and all kinds of implied male dominated thought that excludes any rationality from the yin side. It's totally yang. Swanson, the wife, becomes Swanson versus Daniels, a mannequin in a dress and lingerie shop. Eventually, after Swanson's divorce, Daniels becomes Meighan's wife. Through the devices of DeMille we watch the question of the title become the plot.

Fun show, but like "Old Wives for New", which I just recently watched, the end result was a glop of cynicism left on my plate. It has its moments, of course, and the intertitles, for the most part, are very witty and passably funny, but the show left me warm, with shades of cool. I don't like the attitude. Sure, I've experienced the same things that Thomas Meighan experienced and felt during his time with Swanson at one moment or another - but I've been married nearly 50 years. I'm sure my wife - bless her!! - has put up with enough of me to last twenty lifetimes. As I said: "Bless her!!"

There's an awful lot of talking going on in this one. Not on intertitles, but in the movie. An intertitle comes up periodically to let us in on what's going on, but here DeMille doesn't let the action BE the titles as much as titles catching up on the action. The director here was having fun, but he needed sound to get his picture to be what he wanted in the long run. The film plays fine, but it is rather anticipatory of 1929-31 than stuck in 1916-22. The silent feature from 1920-3 through its finish in 1929 is far more captive of a fluidity that fits that specific medium, and it was those latter years when silent film reached a zenith. Even the new medium of sound, though it had a few exceptions nearly from the beginning, didn't quite get to its potential for quite a number of years, and it's still improving upon itself. Here in this film DeMille was stuck in 1916, but trying to get to 1929. He missed the middle somewhere. Interesting in itself.

One last thing about this film. Costuming is over-the-top! From lingerie to bathing suits (you've got to see Theodore Kosloff's to believe it!!). The men aren't poor, either. Indeed, when they're not wearing perfectly tailored suits they're in evening wear that cost a pretty penny - even then. But it's the women's wear...even a man pinches himself thinking they'd put all that on just to jazz a hormone.

Film was restored by Pierce and Shepard. Mont Alto orchestra (thank you, Rodney!) accompany this DVD.

[greta de groat]

"Why Change Your Wife?" (1920)
... [snip]
One last thing about this film. Costuming is over-the-top! From lingerie to bathing suits (you've got to see Theodore Kosloff's to believe it!!). The men aren't poor, either. Indeed, when they're not wearing perfectly tailored suits they're in evening wear that cost a pretty penny - even then. But it's the women's wear...even a man pinches himself thinking they'd put all that on just to jazz a hormone.

Film was restored by Pierce and Shepard. Mont Alto orchestra (thank you, Rodney!) accompany this DVD.

Natacha Rambova is supposed to have done some uncredited costume work on this film. I like to think, given her past history with Kosloff, that his superhero bathing suit must be Natacha's revenge.

greta

[R Michael Pyle]

It's been fifteen or twenty years since I watched "The Whispering Chorus" (1918). Because I've been watching a series of Cecil B. DeMille and William Demille films, I decided to re-visit this one last night. Starring Raymond Hatton, Kathlyn Williams, Edythe Chapman, Elliott Dexter, Noah Beery, Sr., and several others, I'd forgotten how really superlative this film is. My print is the Image Entertainment, David Shepard restored version with Rodney Sauer's Alto Orchestra's 1997 accompaniment. Really outstanding print! I'd also forgotten what a great performance Raymond Hatton gives! Kudos to Noah Beery, Sr., too. Kathlyn Williams, one of silent film's earliest female icons, singularly popular, gives a steady, if old-fashioned performance; nevertheless, not over-the-top stage-bound as were several of her contemporaries' on-film performances. Elliott Dexter became a member of the DeMille troupe for several years, and here he gives a fine outing as one who becomes Governor of the state in which the story takes place. Edythe Chapman gives a measured performance as mother to reprobate Hatton.

We begin in the household of Hatton, his wife Williams, and his mother Chapman. It's Christmas Eve. Hatton, evidently a confirmed griper about his life - you name it, bills, his lowly job, the fact that life isn't throwing itself at Hatton as though he's God's gift to humanity - and Williams, a loving, patient, pragmatic, giving person; and, too, Chapman, Hatton's mother, happy to be in the same household with a roof over her head. That's the opening setting. But Hatton hears his whispering chorus of voices in his head - and the viewer knows something's going to happen... It does... Hatton goes off the wall... And, like Humpty-Dumpty, he breaks...

It would be spoiling it for everyone to give the plot. This is a show that for 1918 really hits the mark! It's a morality show that a person like Lon Chaney, Sr. might have been in just a couple of years later. Not quite the parable that "The Penalty" was, but still, this one is powerful.

Very well made film. Beautifully put together: acting, direction, filmic presence, everything. A fine hour and a half!

[drednm]

A print of So This Is Love (1928) has surfaced with English and French intertitles and a TCM logo in the upper right-hand corner. This early Frank Capra silent stars Shirley Mason as a deli girl who thinks she loves a swaggering boxer (Johnny Walker). He only has eyes for himself. But she is loved by a timid dressmaker (William Collier, Jr.) who works across the street and puts her face on all his dress designs. When he comes across tickets to the "boxers ball" he invites her, lending her dresses from his store so she can swank up. At he dance, the boxer takes a shine to the gussied-up Shirley and takes her away from Collier, who he eventually ejects into the muddy streets. Of course Collier takes boxing lessons and ends up in a big match against Walker after his opponent cops outs. The ending is assured after Shirley stuffs the big dope with salami and pickles and milk and Collier goes to work on his stomach.

The stars try hard but the material is just too weak. Mason (at age 28) was very near the end of her movie career. Nice print with a few glitchy spots.

[boblipton]

Thanks to Harold Aherne for pointing out two recent 1923 movies that the LoC has recently made available online. I have recently looked at The Enemies of Women and commented on it. Here’s my thoughts on Daytime Wives (1923).

Wyndham Standing has a construction firm and a pretty wife, Grace Darmond. He also has a pretty secretary, Derelys Perdue, who’s a fine office manager. Standing is devoted to his business and his wife. Miss Perdue is dedicated to Mr. Standing’s business and Mickey McBan, the child of the janitor of the building she lives in. Miss Darmond is devoted to enjoying all the money she thinks Mr. Standing has; in reality his current project has him stretched very thin, and he needs to bring in his current project under budget and schedule or declare bankruptcy.

It is, in short, one of those wife-versus-secretary movies, in which the wife comes off poorly. In the hands of a great director with a good budget and top performers, this can be a very entertaining movie that has something to say about the decay of marriage. Alas, Emile Chautard is no Demille, the screenwriters are more interested in stacking the deck in Miss Perdue’s favor, the budget is a step above Gower Gulch, and the performers, while always competent, have no noticeable star power. There is no Demille extravaganza, no real humor, and no subtlety. It’s the sort of movie that was never intended to play the movie palaces, but would be expected to make its money in the small towns.

That may well be a little harsh, but the final, reel, in which the situations are resolved, is missing in its entirety. That lack of an ending may lower my opinion of what survives, but it looks like it can go one of two ways, both of them utterly conventional I’d rather look at a Demille extravaganza for a third or fourth time.

Bob

[boblipton]

I usually limit my blatherings in this and its sister thread in the 'Talking About Talkies' section to feature films, but I'm going to pretend that MoMA's GERTRUDE MCCOY SHOW PART ONE is a feature. Donald Sosin accompanied, and did his usual impeccable job.

All three films are from 1914.

The President's Special: Charles Ogle is the railroad's telegrapher at a small station. He's married to beautiful Gertrude McCoy, but he's too tired after a long day and the walk to and from the station to even eat dinner. So Gertrude buys a car with her own money, and chauffeurs her husband to and from the station.

One day, however, the floor switch an is too ill to come to work, so Ogle works a double shift, and falls asleep after eating the meal Gertrude has brought him. The line's president has ordered the tracks cleared so he can make an emergency meeting. Ogle has neglected to sideline a church's picnic special, with mother's and infants and dozens of children gaily waving flags. There will be a terrible crash and dozens killed, unless Gertrude can save the day.

Miss McCoy was a dark, slim beauty whom the movie camera loved. She played the Modern Woman roles at Edison. At Biograph, women were still afflicted with Victorian notions, and at Kalem they were action stars, but Miss McCoy might be a stenographer in one movie, or a lady whose father went broke and died, leaving her to make her ultimately capable way in the world.

The Stenographer: Gertrude McCoy supports her invalid sister and herself on her wages as a stenographer for Charles Sutton. When Richard Tucker gets the inside track on a deal and loses his stenographer, Sutton figures she'll engage in some industrial espionage for him.... or be blacklisted.

Miss McCoy's acting is a bit over the top here, but she's still a woman whom the camera loves.

Miss McCoy's movie career ended in the middle of the 1920s. She died in 1957, aged 77.

What Could She Do?: Gertrude McCoy's Kentucky Colonel father has died broke, so she needs a job. Unfortunately, the Colonel raised her to be a lady, so,when she fails as a governess, she heads to New York City to find work. she meets Marjorie Ellison at her rooming house, who offers to get her a job at the department store she works at, saves her from Harry Beaumont, who has gotten her drunk and is about to have his way with Gertrude... and then gets Miss McCoy almost jailed through Miss Ellison's own thievery. police officer Frank McGlynn is impressed by her ability to keep her mouth shut and offers her a department job.

Unfortunately, this is a three-reel drama, and the copy I looked at this evening at New York's Museum of Modern Art is missing the third reel. I enjoyed looking at what survives.Not only was Miss McCoy one of those people whom the movie camera loved, but she gives a finely modulated performance here. Given the two other movies she appeared in during tonight's program, I believe this was because the director was John H. Collins. Collins was born in 1889, and had been working at Edison for a couple years. He began writing for them in 1913, and had directed four other shorts before this three-reeler. He would later go on to direct and marry Viola Dana, and make some marvelous, advanced movies with her for Metro; together they were 1910s Hollywood Power Couple. Alas, Mr. Collins died in 1918, a victim of the Influenza Epidemic.

Bob

[bgp]

Been on a Lon Chaney kick here recently. In the past week I've watched "The Black Bird", "The Penalty" and "The Wicked Darling." First time views for all of them and enjoyed all three.

[Dave Pitts]

Just bought Criterion's Von Sternberg box (Underworld/Last Command/Docks of New York), all of which I've seen before. Watched all three on three different nights this week. What an experience!! With Underworld and Docks, if you simply summarize the story lines for someone, they don't sound like much. But with Von Sternberg and his production team, they are mesmerizing. Last Command is a more original story, and may be the best of the three. All three are indispensable -- makes me wonder what we've lost by not having The Dragnet to watch.
Sharing the glory are the wonderful actors: Evelyn Brent, George Bancroft, Clive Brook, Emil Jannings, William Powell, Betty Compson, Olga Baclanova….
(Name a contemporary director who has produced three classic films in a two-year span.)

[R Michael Pyle]

I've watched two more Cecil B. DeMille directed silents in the last week: first was "Don't Change Your Husband" (1919) with Elliott Dexter, Gloria Swanson, Lew Cody, Sylvia Ashton, Theodore Roberts, Julia Faye, and others. This comes just after "Old Wives for New" (1918) and just before "Why Change Your Wife?" (1920), both of which I've watched in the last couple of weeks. So, right in the middle. All three are smart-alecky, rather cynical, satirical looks at "modern" marriage, circa 1920 - the Jazz Age. "Don't Change Your Husband" has Gloria Swanson getting fed up with the slovenliness that has befallen her hubby over the years and his disregard for even remembering their wedding anniversary. Sounds pretty mild, but I must admit she has a right in this one to be more than disgruntled. Lew Cody arrives on the scene and pursues and pursues and pursues and pursues - and wins her hand... Now the truth of what the grass on the other side really looks like. Is it greener? Not according to C. B. DeMille. Lordy, could Lew Cody play smarmy guys... He wasn't much better in real life according to many, many reports. I'll leave it at that. Fun little show. And, compared to the others that surround it - the other two I watched earlier - this one is only average. Very good, but not quite three stars out of four. Two and half, we'll say.

Next, I watched "The Golden Chance" (1915). This one stars Cleo Ridgely and Wallace Reid, with Horace B. Carpenter, Ernest Joy, Edythe Chapman, and Raymond Hatton major participants. Ridgely's married Carpenter. She's a judge's daughter who obviously didn't wish to listen to any parental guidance, ran off and married a jerk early on. He's an alcoholic and abusive wife beater, a no-job loser who, along with his partner in crime, Hatton, steal and fence goods for money to gamble and drink. Ridgely has a chance to become a seamstress to earn some much needed money at the home of a very rich investor and his wife. The investor is trying desperately to have Reid invest in a scheme. Reid is invited to a dinner where several people will be attending at the house. The woman lined up to be his dinner partner becomes ill. Ridgely is coerced into becoming the dinner partner. You can see where all this is leading. Yes, Reid becomes infatuated. Yes, Ridgely becomes infatuated back - but...she's married. Eventually the circumstances lead to a climax because of her husband's coincidental involvement in the rich couple's home. With a crime and other things involved, all leads to a terrific ending. However, the end itself...WOW! This was different. Great ending! Really liked this one. Ridgely is quite good in this, too. Wallace Reid is nice and serviceable. Good, but not necessarily great performance - until the very end. As I said - great ending! Highly recommended. And for 1915 quite a good show.

[Brooksie]

I think I recall Bob Birchard saying that The Golden Chance is a much better movie than DeMille's better-known The Cheat from the same year, and it's hard to disagree.

[R Michael Pyle]

I think I recall Bob Birchard saying that The Golden Chance is a much better movie than DeMille's better-known The Cheat from the same year, and it's hard to disagree.

You know, it was the little things in this movie that struck me most. First, the mise-en-scene of the homes of Ridgely and her husband compared with the rich couple. Beautifully differentiated. Great art direction. But, then, Ridgely comparing a pair of shoes she's been lent by the rich wife to wear at the dinner. She has to return them after the dinner, and, as she's taking them off, she compares them with her own, a pair of very, very torn and worn, falling-apart shoes. The scene could easily have been some kind of inspiration for Lois Weber's "Shoes" the next year! Same kind of feeling... Ridgely was superb in almost all respects in the film. It was a learning curve for me in learning about her.

[R Michael Pyle]

Watched three short films of Harold Lloyd, "Ask Father" (1919), "Haunted Spooks" (1920), and "Get Out and Get Under" (1920). All three display the remarkable athleticism of Lloyd. My favorite of the three was easily "Get Out and Get Under", a twenty-five minute wonder of Lloyd trying to reach an acting engagement taking place somewhere where his girl friend is (Mildred Davis). He needs to get there quickly because he's late. So...he goes in his flivver. Only...it's a flivver that he keeps up, or appears to keep up anyway. His pride and joy evidently... It's under lock and key and lock and lock and lock and key...and key...and lock... When he finally gets it on the road...may I insert that it takes him some time...then things begin to happen... Very funny, incredibly timed...things... He finally gets to his engagement...late, of course. What a car...what a group of inventive stunts!

"Haunted Spooks" is rather well known Lloyd. It's very good, pretty funny, not necessarily PC at all anymore...in fact, no, it's really not PC at all. Still, it has its moments. Pretty typical slapstick of the era, only better done. Not really "spooky" in a scary sense. But that wasn't the intent of the word, either...altogether...

Let's move on. "Ask Father" was the film I watched first. It gets you in the mood for Lloyd's fast moving kind of comedy. Pulleys and bullies and things that make one go bump at all hours, including humans... This one wore itself out on me after five to seven minutes, but I wanted to keep on going to see how Bebe Daniels fitted into the picture. It worked. Still, I've seen this one enough times with other comedians and comediennes. Maybe not the same machinations, but the same routine. It's a tad too routine for my tastes. I prefer the hardline roughstuff of Keaton and the subtlety of Chaplin being unsubtle to this particular vein of Lloyd.

Loved "Get Out and Get Under". Liked "Haunted Spooks". "Ask Father"? Good way to get into Lloyd...because he only gets better. If that's the worst of Lloyd, just remember, it's the best of many of its time... So watch and wonder and laugh.

One last note: the best actor in both "Haunted Spooks" and "Get Out and Get Under" is easily little Ernie Morrison (Sunshine Sammy)!! He's absolutely a joy to watch.

[R Michael Pyle]

Watched another Harold Lloyd short comedy, "Number, Please?" (1920) with Mildred Davis, Roy Brooks, and others. Good little 25 minute show with Lloyd once again showing wonderful inventiveness and imagination. Plenty of physical stuff, but there are more inventive ideas going on in this one. Davis' uncle has a hot air balloon and she wants a ticket to go up in it. Two suitors - Lloyd and Brooks - have to ask her mother for permission. Only one of them can go up with her. Who will win this contest?

[Ken Mitchell]

La Glu (1927)

Cinema Museum, Kennington. An evening of Kevin Brownlow’s and Pat Moules 9.5mm films.

Kevin commented on what an odd title ‘La Glu’ is with a literal translation being ‘Bird Lime’! But the author’s (Jean Richepan) intention of the title is to describe the ‘hard to get rid of’ girl central to the story.

This is the second time the novel was filmed, the first being in the 1913 Albert Capellani directed film also known as ‘The Siren’.

This 1927 version is a rare film and Kevin described how hard it was to even find references to it. No reference in director Henri Fescourt’s memoir and the sole French study of his work from 1967 could only reference it by a still.

Kevin obtained his 9.5mm copy through the generosity of French collector, Didier Grisland (spelling?) who tracked down a copy and simply gave it to him.

Filming took 3 months in Brittany (plus another 8 weeks in the studio) and several other French locations including Nantes, Gerant, Saint Nazaire and somewhere else I could not catch. Kevin likened Brittany to the coast of Ireland of old, rocky coast, tiny thatched cottages and poverty-stricken peasantry. The actor, Germaine Rouer, reported to Kevin that making this film was like making a film with your friends, an amazing atmosphere, very friendly and very charming and that when things went badly, they went for a walk and to get something to eat.

<<<<<<< Spoilers Follow >>>>>>>>>












A tale of a Parisian vamp and a particularly nasty one. Planning to ensnare a Count the vamp, La Glu, makes her way to the rugged coast of Brittany. There she encounters a young lad who's the last surviving child of an old lady who has lost her husband and 9 children to the sea. The vamp poses in front of the lad on the sea front and he calls her ugly. Infuriated she is back on the beach the next morning and spying the lad, runs in to the sea and waves at him. He shouts and warns her that the tide is coming in but ends up wading in and saving her. He carries her back to his stone cottage and warms her by the fire. She responds by slowly seducing him. A few days later his distraught mother is looking for him, but he is ensconced in the vamps trap.

Tiring of her ‘young savage’ La Glu goes to Nantes for a few days to meet her target, the Count. The lad is not best pleased. However, when La Glu returns she wiles him and he falls straight back in with her. The mother and an old fisherman friend try to lure the lad out of her snare but she responds with insults. The old lady throws a stone and hits La Glu in the head, in a rage the son throws a flowerpot and hits his mother, he is aghast at what he has done but La Glu just laughs and says the old pair are drunk.

La Glu's background plan to snare the Count comes to fruition but the lad finds about it and filled with rage, he confronts them in the Count’s home. The Count points a rifle at the lad and La Glu gleefully encourages him to shoot. The lad is horrified at her hateful bloodlust and sees the real La Glu for the first time. Distraught, he throws himself off the cliff but hits sand and survives, he is taken in to the care of his mother. When he comes round, the lad is amazed at the love he is shown after the way he has behaved.

The Count visits the mother at her cottage but La Glu also shows up hot on his heels. The Count tells her to leave but she tells him she is here for the lad and that as soon as he wakes, he will once again fall under her spell and do her bidding. The mother blocks the staircase to her son’s bedroom, axe in hand, and invites La Glu to ascend.

La Glu takes up the challenge and the mother kills her with a single blow to the head. The count takes the axe from her hand and goes in to the street proclaiming he is the murderer of this evil woman. The lad wakes up and says he feels devoid of his soul.

A melancholy melodrama but a thoroughly entertaining one.

[Ken Mitchell]

The Overland Limited (aka The Mad Train) (1925)

Cinema Museum, Kennington. A showing of Kevin Brownlow’s and Pat Moules 9.5mm collections.

Kevin called this one 'old fashioned Hokum' from poverty row producer Gotham and you would be hard pressed to argue with him. Production head, Sam Sax, targeted the audience abandoned when Vitagraph was sold to WB in February 1925 and he made more money available for production values.

This film was probably manic at full length, at a 1 reel 9.5mm cut down, it's positively ferocious and it's hard to present a coherent summary of it but here goes....


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A young man has team led the building of a massive iron bridge across a chasm and the first train across it is due. A jealous rival (no backstory presented) is determined to sabotage it. Our engineer’s beau (Olive Borden) is due to be on the train and unbeknownst to the saboteur, so is his own mother. The saboteur hires some men who, under cover of night, cut some of the supporting struts of the bridge with torches.

The next day we see the train getting ready to depart. One of the passengers is a big burly guy who clearly has the mental age of a toddler. Inexplicably he is packed off on this train trip on his own. He quickly becomes over excited by the train and its speed and clambers along the roof of the train to the drivers compartment where he becomes violent and over powers them. The elder of the two drivers manages to crawl away.

Meanwhile the saboteur confronts and taunts the engineer with what he has done, a fight ensues and leads to the engineer tearing away to the rails and mounting a handcar/kalamazoo. The saboteur learns his mother is on the train heading for the bridge and pursues in a motor car.

As the man child plays with valves and makes the train go faster the elder driver decouples the rest of the train. The engine hits the sabotaged bridge and falls through (a respectable bit of model work here) presumably taking the man child and the younger driver to their deaths. The elder driver sees this and frantically operates the break lever just in time as the carriages pull up feet from the broken edge of the bridge. The police, the engineer and the saboteur all pull up in their cars. The saboteur sees his elderly mother on the ground in shock and is arrested by the police as his partners in crime have conveniently ratted on him. The film ends with the engineer wistfully looking at his ruined bridge but his sweetheart tells him he can build it again. Just like that! Bonkers!

[Ken Mitchell]

Galloping Gallagher (1924)

Cinema Museum, Kennington. An evening of 9.5mm films, this one courtesy of Patrick Moules. Edited down to 9.5mm, this film only survives in this 9.5mm format. Photoplay described it as amateurish.

Kevin told us the story of its popular star, Western actor, Fred Thompson. Thompson was born in 1890 in Pasadena and was the son of a Presbytarian minister and after periods at Occidental College and Princeton, where he excelled at sport, he was himself ordained a minister in 1913, serving in Washington, Los Angeles and Nevada. In 1916 Fred lost his wife. When WW1 broke out, Fred became Chaplin of the 143rd Field Artillery and went overseas. After the armistice Fred met screen writer Frances Marion and they were married in Paris in 1919. With his wife’s help, Fred broke in to pictures and starred opposite Mary Pickford in ‘The Love Light’ which Frances wrote and directed. His athletic skill made him ideal for Westerns and he was an instant hit in his first ‘The Mask of Lopez (1924)’. He was signed by FBO who insisted in top quality in their westerns which made Thompson’s films a cut above. One hit followed another between 1924 and 1927. Then came Kennedy who put Thompson under personal contract. When Paramount wanted Thompson, Kennedy agreed at $100K per picture. Jesse James (1927) was the first and again Frances wrote the script. Fred’s popularity soared until he was rivalling Tom Mix. Thompson believed films were a pulpit on which he hoped to teach young people compassion whilst still entertaining them.

When sound came in, Paramount declined to use Thompson again and unbeknownst to him Kennedy had signed Tom Mix. Thompson went back to Paramount but they could not use him until he freed himself from Kennedy’s contract, which Kennedy declined to do. The rumour was Mix wanted no competition from Fred. Kennedy became ‘unavailable’. Unable to get through the legal quagmire and unable to work, Fred slipped in to depression and died on Christmas Day 1928 aged just 38. Officially his death was ascribed to pneumonia or tetanus, however Frances Marion told friends that Fred had lost the will to live.

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Fred arrives in town and sees off some rowdy cowboys, the townsfolk instantly vote him as their new sheriff. The daughter of a pastor arrives in town and looks to do good work. She does amusingly well in the Sunday church collection as the sheriff surreptitiously draws his gun under the collection tray!

Villain of the piece is some rich looking businessman who thinks he owns the town but we're not giving much on his back story in this cut down edit. The businessman wants the sheriff gone and arranges for a warning to be sent, this is done via a note pinned to a thrown knife that just misses Fred, the note says the sheriff has 7-days to leave or he is dead. The sheriff is having none of it of course, and as the deadline approaches the villain and his henchmen use a wagon to kidnap the pastor’s daughter with the aim of luring the sheriff out. Hearing what has happened the sheriff gallops away on his magnificent horse ‘Silver King’ and catching the kidnappers, fights them off the wagon. Now alone in the out of control wagon, the pastor’s daughter is heading for a cliff edge. It takes all of the sheriff’s and Silver King's abilities to catch it and rescue the daughter before the carriage topples over the abyss.

Frustrated the town villain rounds up his henchmen and overwhelms the sheriff and his friends placing them in jail. They aren't in the slammer for long though the sheriff simply calls Silver King over and instructs him to go get the keys from the jailer. The remarkable horse knocks the jailer to the ground and then picks up the keys and trots over to his master who takes the keys from the horse’s mouth and lets everybody out.

We are then into the finale and a small-scale gunfight. There is an impressive roof leaping scene followed by a rather horrendous fall between roofs where the stuntman plunges to the ground and hits a stumpy brick wall! Ouch! That looked like a rib breaker! The sheriff breaks into the room where the pastor’s daughter is held and the bad guys are rounded up.

It's nice to get a flavour of what the original movie was like from this cut down 9.5mm. A Basic Western, still entertaining and highlights for me were the stunt work on the roofs and that rather splendid nag - Silver King.

[Ken Mitchell]

Le Mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans (1927)

Cinema Museum, Kennington. A night of Kevin Brownlow’s and Pat Moules 9.5mm collections.

Kevin Brownlow introduced this extremely rare 9.5mm, courtesy of Pat Moules. When Kevin says he hasn’t seen a frame of it, you know it really is rare.

Kevin described how acclaimed early talkie director, Julien Divivier, did not reflect much on his silent work. In the last 18 years, 19 of his Silent Films have resurfaced, plus a short and a documentary.

This film was adapted from a Belgian play. The critics were worried that the film would lose the plays Belgian atmosphere but were delighted with how very ‘Brussels’ the finished product was.

A gentle affair compared to the 9.5mm films that preceded it, I found this a great change of pace and a perfect end to this excellent evening.

Kevin heroically read out the French intertitle translations in real-time. No mean feat as once again the very old 9.5mm stock didn't always halt on the intertitles as it should leaving Kevin trailing, but he coped with aplomb. The pianists tonight also deserve big applause for coping with the many film sticks without batting an eyelid.

For a grade A beer geek like me, it was a delight to find out that this was a story related to brewers and I had several beer geek outs at seeing the old wooden barrels of Belgian beers and the bar fronts and interiors of the bars. Many of them bearing the names of brewers still going today.

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A young Parisian man is learning the brewing ropes at a Brussels brewery run by Monsieur Beulemans. Beulemans is a bit of an irascible old git and bickers with his wife. Neither is he impressed with our Parisian, his fancy shoes and his flair with words. Indeed, many of the Brusselites mistake our Parisian as a toff due to his flair for words whereas he just young man wanting to learn about brewing. The Beulemans daughter is a warm and charming young woman as who is engaged to a man called Seraphim, the son of another brewer. Seraphim senior is a big bear of a man, stout of build and with crew cut blond hair in contrast to his dark moustache. Seraphim is Jealous of the Parisian as his fiancée is clearly charmed by him but she declares her solidarity with Seraphim with the major caveat the she may not love him. Monsieur Beulemans has ambitions to become the honorary president of the Brewers society. This leads to a domestic with his wife who thinks he is lazy. In the wake of the argument the Parisian chats with the daughter. She wistfully points to a caged bird and how it sings but can't go anywhere. The Parisian likens her to the same bird, so much to give yet trapped in this semi arranged engagement.

In a slightly bizarre section of the film Beulemans holds a promotion of his Honorary President bid by holding a pipe smoking contest! The object of the game being to keep your pipe going the longest - the first prize is a pipe! The contest takes a few hours, the Parisian has a go but falls away early. The winner is not one of the main characters and the whole sequence is a curious sidebar but a quirky and entertaining insight in to a practise of a long gone age.

We cut to a scene where the Parisian sees Seraphim walking with an unknown young lady and he follows him to a bar where Seraphim is entertaining her. Realising he has been made Seraphim introduces the girl as his friend. The Parisian is unimpressed but keeps his council. However, the Beulemans maid is informed by a street market gossip about Seraphim and his mistress and word gets back to Beulemans daughter. She goes to the town house rooftop apartment of the young lady seen with Seraphim and finds a young toddler on the floor bearing a remarkable likeness to her fiancée. She gently introduces herself to the startled mother and then surprises Seraphim when he comes to visit. Far from being angry she tells him he has nothing to be ashamed about, he begs her to not let his father know. Whilst this is going on the Beulemans and Seraphims fathers are dining and awaiting their offspring. The daughter eventually to turns up alone and nonchalantly announces that the engagement is off due to a lack of agreement over honeymoon destination. Seraphim senior turns nasty and says his son must have found something on his daughter which leads to an angry exchange between him and Beulemans.

The Beulemans daughter persuades Seraphim senior to visit his son’s mistress’s apartment. He is introduced to his grandson, he wants none of it and doesn't believe it but a photo of his son holding the baby gives him proof and the little tykes charm wins him over. He is slowly persuaded that his son should be able to marry the laundry maid he loves and the mother of his son.

We cut to the election of the honorary brewing president and Seraphim senior is hot favourite but the Parisian gives a rousing speech, as only he can, in favour of Beulemans who is delighted but amusingly still bickering with his wife as she starts to steal his limelight with the emotion of it all. It's a hands down victory for Beulemans just as the Parisians father turns up for a visit.

The film cuts to horse drawn carriages arriving in the beautiful main square of Brussels. One carries the Parisian with his new bride, the Beulemans daughter. The other carries Seraphim now wed to the laundry maid. The fathers are still bickering but make up when they see the happiness of their offspring.

[silentsaregolden]

I’ve just become a new fan after discovering Gladys Walton. I’ve been able to see four of her films recently:
“The Untameable” (1923)
“Sawdust” (1923)
“All Dolled Up”(1921)
“Pink Tights” (1920)
....and they are simply delightful films to watch. She’s a darling in each. None of these four are gonna be on anyone’s top ten list, but they are still fun entertainment. Also, they are not great print quality, but Wouldnt it be great to see these (as well as other “minor”) films brought out in good quality with appropriate scores. Maybe like a four movie, two disc set .......?

[Jim Roots]

Le Mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans (1927)

Cinema Museum, Kennington. A night of Kevin Brownlow’s and Pat Moules 9.5mm collections. [snip]

Never mind all that, how was the beer?

Jim

[Darren Nemeth]

Woman Hater starring Pearl White.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

I had not heard of BEAUTY'S WORTH (1923) until comparatively recently, and found it a pleasing, if rather overlong movie. In this one, Marion Davies plays the niece of two unmarried Quaker aunts, although they seem to live in a fairly enormous mansion for a family of simple-living people. A childhood friend and his mother turn up, and romance is in the air - after a fashion. The girl has led a sheltered life, to say the least, and is bursting to 'come out', or whatever the expression was.

She is soon whisked away to an expensive resort where her old-fashioned ways are the subject of mockery - apart from the local artist, who decides to do a Pygmalion on her. There's not really a lot of plot to this film, but we are treated to an elaborate 'charades' presentation, which seems rather overdone, though certainly very eye-catching. Some gently humorous title is a bonus, as is the scene where the family maid gets more and more squiffy after being given 'medicine' for her toothache. An attractive and rather engaging romantic comedy which deserves to be better-known.

[drednm]

I had not heard of BEAUTY'S WORTH (1923) until comparatively recently, and found it a pleasing, if rather overlong movie. In this one, Marion Davies plays the niece of two unmarried Quaker aunts, although they seem to live in a fairly enormous mansion for a family of simple-living people. A childhood friend and his mother turn up, and romance is in the air - after a fashion. The girl has led a sheltered life, to say the least, and is bursting to 'come out', or whatever the expression was.

She is soon whisked away to an expensive resort where her old-fashioned ways are the subject of mockery - apart from the local artist, who decides to do a Pygmalion on her. There's not really a lot of plot to this film, but we are treated to an elaborate 'charades' presentation, which seems rather overdone, though certainly very eye-catching. Some gently humorous title is a bonus, as is the scene where the family maid gets more and more squiffy after being given 'medicine' for her toothache. An attractive and rather engaging romantic comedy which deserves to be better-known.

Rob, did you watch the nearly 2-hour-long version? That version has been around forever and was apparently copied at the wrong speed. The version Ben and I put out runs at a snappy 75 minutes.

[R Michael Pyle]

I’ve just become a new fan after discovering Gladys Walton. I’ve been able to see four of her films recently:
“The Untameable” (1923)
“Sawdust” (1923)
“All Dolled Up”(1921)
“Pink Tights” (1920)
....and they are simply delightful films to watch. She’s a darling in each. None of these four are gonna be on anyone’s top ten list, but they are still fun entertainment. Also, they are not great print quality, but Wouldnt it be great to see these (as well as other “minor”) films brought out in good quality with appropriate scores. Maybe like a four movie, two disc set .......?

Just to let you know...if you're a fan of Gladys Walton, you should be aware that Grapevine Video has a print of "A Little Girl in a Big City" (1925). Standard fare even for its time, but worth the look.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Had put off watching the Brazilian LIMITE (1931) on account of the lack of English subtitles, not realising that there were very few intertitles in the first place. A very striking, moody film, one can understand why it had very few showings at the time, and almost became a lost film when the original print began to deteriorate.

The film begins with a rowing boat adrift in the ocean, its occupants two young women, and a man, all three listless, and in rags. We then go into a series of flashbacks, presumably telling us how the three got in that situation, but the film (made by a poet, with only one uncompleted film in his bag) is rather hard to follow in places - or perhaps one should say there is some confusion with characters and occurrences.

Some striking imagery and a good atmosphere of the desperate poverty the characters are living in is well presented, but I would think even the most passionate of the films defenders would agree that it is not an easy film, nor does it seem intended to be. Another film from that period, MULHER. (WOMAN, 1931) looks rather more straightforward in its approach.

LIMITE has been said to have been influenced by other films from the 1920s (some of which I spotted), but the structure reminded me very much of BORDERLINE (1930), and indeed one of the meanings of 'limite' is 'border'. That, too, was rather disorientating at times, and had aroused some irritation amongst viewers. It is fairly unlikely that the director of LIMITE saw the film. Or did he? A decidedly odd film, definitely poetic in its tone and very hypnotic in places.

[R Michael Pyle]

Because of a prompting from this forum I re-watched "Victory" (1919) with Jack Holt, Seena Owen, Wallace Beery, Lon Chaney, Sr., Bull Montana, Ben Deeley, and others. Really good programmer from 1919! Based on the 1915 novel by Joseph Conrad, this one concerns a loner and societal drop-out who lives by himself on a small volcanic island. He's ridiculed and wondered about by those on the nearby mainland. Wallace Beery constantly puts malevolent thoughts into everybody's mind concerning Holt who's the islander. On the mainland there's a band that has Seena Owen, a violinist. She meets Holt when he comes there to get supplies enough to not have to go back. (Just how that's going to happen, by the way, I still can't figure out!) She's a misfit where she is, and she's mistreated by nearly everyone. She's also sexually harassed by several men, from Beery to the orchestra leader. She eventually leaves with Holt to go back to the island and live - or at least stay for a while. Now, enter what can only be termed pirates...modern pirates...Deeley, Chaney, and Montana. Here the show ramps up into high gear.

Chaney simply steals the show out from everybody in it! He's fantastic as the Hispanic knife-wielding psycho baddie. Deeley, whom I'd never heard of before this film, is also very good. Somebody on another forum has said he reminded them of someone out of a Fritz Lang German film from the 30's, but he could be from a modern gangster film as well. With his shades on constantly and an attitude of refined arrogance and coldness that kills just from nearness, he's something else. Holt really hasn't much of a part, so, even though he's the main character, he's relegated to secondary importance as to who we're really watching in this film. Seena Owen is quite good, but like Holt, she's only secondary to the baddies, and Chaney, though he's not the head of the baddies, he's the one we watch. He's just magnificent.

This is the DVD that also has "The Wicked Darling" on it. The print for "Victory" is fabulous. Glorious direction by Maurice Tourneur, and the camera work by René Guissart is superlative. Art direction is spare but extremely well done. Writing is a tad too spare at times, but overall for such a show this is good work from 1919. Very highly recommended. Especially for fans of Chaney, Sr.

[2 Reel]

This past weekend, we watched two films we had never seen before that are extreme polar opposites: Home Sweet Home (1914) and College (1927).

Home Sweet Home is one of the strangest D. W. Griffith films. Unfolding four turgid stories that hinge on songs by John Howard Payne, it's great seeing Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Henry B. Walthall, Jack Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, and a host of other actors fresh from several years of working with Griffith at Biograph. They're polished and at the top of their game. Unfortunately, the stories are uninteresting. The four films look like unfinished Biograph shorts strung together as a way of shoving out the door a "feature length" film. Worse, the actors do not act like any living person you've ever seen. Lillian spends most of her segment either staring off to the side of the camera or gazing upward as if the angel Michael is floating outside a skylight. In her segment, Mae Marshe flits and figits in her patented style to the point that she even appears to have been shot "undercranked." No girl in real life ever acted like her. That Griffith reaches into his back of tricks perfected at Biograph provides little help. Those elements came marvelously into play in the masterworks that followed, but here they just add pizzazz to a form that has little substance to begin with. The movie fails to satisfy on any level. It looks primitive and unwieldy. At the end, Lillian Gish and other lithe ladies seem to float in the air, hovering uncomfortably on piano wires over clouds in a kind of Epilogue that makes little sense. The whole thing smacks of a ramp-up to The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, which it may very well have been. I would not like to watch it ever again.

College is Buster Keaton at top form. It's got a contemporary look, moves at a fast clip, shows off his astounding athleticism and dexterity with pratfalls, and it's genuinely funny, gag after gag. Thank God we watched it after the morose and baffling Home Sweet Home. Made at the end of the silent era, College demonstrates a masterful use of film technique, and it's a delight to see the great clown at his best. I would like to watch it again one day.