Pordenone’s 39 Limited Edition will flourish as an online event

[Professor Echo]

Briefly:

LA TEMPESTA IN UN CRANIO (Storm in the Brain): Yep, that's exactly what it gave me.

CESKÉ HRADY A ZÁMKY Head scratching short about an apparently absent minded performer who rushes all over town to get to the stage on time, breaking laws of one sort or another which brings authorities in pursuit. One of the pursuers plunges from the top of a building to his death according to the intertitle. Um, funny? No dogs or dolls hurt in this one either.

THE APACHES OF ATHENS: Like GUO FENG, a curiosity piece, but nothing more. Effective location work and cinematography, but wasted by a trite operetta story and poor performances evoking types instead of characters. Imposed songs were clumsily literal and distracting.

ABWEGE: Unconditionally, the best film of the festival to date. Once again, the refined sophistication of many silents throughout their darkening days is remarkable. I can't imagine the film working anywhere near as well with sound. I also have to commend the score composer, Mauro Colombis, who made a solo piano sound like a symphony orchestra.

[GishFan]

I enjoyed Abwege, it was a beautiful print, well directed and photographed, good score, and Brigitte Helm gave a marvelous performance as did many of the supporting cast and there was a great weimar atmosphere. Had some issues with the storyline, and the characters were kind of annoying at times. But really glad to have seen this film.

While I agree about the print and Helm, I was not as enamored with the film itself. I could watch Helm do anything, and the cinematography was outstanding, I thought Pabst's direction was all over the place, and Helm's husband gave a very wooden performance. The couple attempts at comic effect by her friends didn't land for me either. Glad to have seen it, but I wouldn't watch again.

[Mike Gebert]

Cecil B. DeMille and Mary Pickford apparently didn't enjoy working together on A Romance of the Redwoods, but we shouldn't let that stop us. If not in the top ranks for either titan, it's an entirely solid and enjoyable western that perhaps works better for us today as a kind of William S. Hart tale of the good bad man—but told very much from the perspective of the woman he aspires to reform his bad ways for.

Elliott Dexter is stagecoach robber "Black" Brown—strikingly dressed less in western gear than a long coat and top hat that, combined with his loping walk, makes him look like a cross between Billy the Kid and Young Mr. Lincoln—who comes across the body of a man who was heading west, trades identities with it, and continues on to the gold camp where the man was heading as John Lawrence. Mary Pickford is a young girl who's been orphaned, and her mother's dying plan was for her to go find her uncle, who's gone west—one John Lawrence. Will Mary reform him, or will he rob one last stage before going straight?

I thought this might be too predictable after a point—Mary daintily bringing feminine niceties to his rough cabin is amusing enough, but it also reminded me a little too much of Kathryn McGuire trying to make house in The Navigator. But DeMille and scenarist Jeanie MacPherson have enough tricks up their sleeve that this winds up with a rousing, slightly winking finish worthy of Destry Rides Again (which I thought of because Tully Marshall basically plays the same part here that he does in it 21 years later). And Mary is, well, Mary—there are many fine actresses in silent film, but few who light the screen up quite like her.

George Eastman Museum supplied the print, which is very nice-looking and serves Alvin Wyckoff's location photography in redwood country very well. Donald Sosin supplied the music very appropriately, along with some old-timey song interludes sung by his wife Joanna Seaton. I usually don't go for that sort of thing, but the songs fit the saloon scenes fine by me.

One more thing: after the show, they announced the Jean Mitry prize for silent film scholarship, and it went to Hungarian film archivist Vera Gyürey—and my pal, NitrateVille member and multiple NitrateVille Radio guest J.B. Kaufman, so I couldn't be happier about that.

[Histogram]

In the video conversation about "Abwege", musician Mauro Colombis discusses the music for the dance performance. The dance is maxixe, which was popular around 10-15 years before this movie. Fun dance to do. There are some emblematic moves in the dance, including the zig-zag heel-and-toe sequence that the couple does for a while toward the camera. Outside of Brazil, its popularity lasted about twelve milliseconds -- clobbered by tango. In Brazil, it was clobbered by samba.

[greta de groat]

...
Elliott Dexter is stagecoach robber "Black" Brown—strikingly dressed less in western gear than a long coat and top hat that, combined with his loping walk, makes him look like a cross between Billy the Kid and Young Mr. Lincoln—who comes across the body of a man who was heading west, trades identities with it, and continues on to the gold camp where the man was heading as John Lawrence. Mary Pickford is a young girl who's been orphaned, and her mother's dying plan was for her to go find her uncle, who's gone west—one John Lawrence. Will Mary reform him, or will he rob one last stage before going straight?....

And it had a big part for our old friend from alt.movies.silent, Charles Ogle!

greta

[drednm]

Romance of the Redwoods .... NOT a fan of the singing but otherwise a good film and a very nice print.

[Mike Gebert]

Ballettens Datter (Daughter of the Ballet) is a 1913 film from Denmark's Nordisk Film, directed by one of their top directors of the teens, Holger-Madsen. The dancer Rita Sacchetto plays a celebrated dancer wooed by a wealthy admirer; they marry, but he insists that she give up her career. Soon as bored as Brigitte Helm (another husband leaving his wife home while he goes to his club!), she gives in when the ballet company director asks her to fill in, secretly, one night, telling her husband she's visiting a sick aunt. Free for the evening, her husband decides to go to the ballet...

This has potential as a drama about a women forced to give up her art, but it takes a rather silly turn at this point. Still, I can see why they chose it to represent the sophistication of Danish cinema in the early teens—especially given the exceptional print quality, you see that acting, set design, and cinematography are all of an extremely high caliber and subtlety, truly suited to cinema (as opposed to being pantomime from the 26th row with arms flailing about). Notes: The director of the ballet company is played by Torben Meyer, at 29 looking almost the same as he would 48 years later as one of the judges on trial in Judgement at Nuremberg. And of the various documentaries on the different archives around the world that precede the films, I found this one especially interesting for getting into some of the nitty gritty of restoration (a favorite subject at NitrateVille Radio!)

[Mike Gebert]

And so this virtual Pordenone ends with Laurel or Hardy, five shorts showing the duo singly, before they met up, all with sprightly accompaniment by Neil Brand. The Serenade (1915) features Hardy with the Pete Best of Laurel and Hardy, Billy Ruge, with whom he was partnered for the Vim company; here they play members of a small band (that's Ruge on clarinet), to bands what Keystone is to Kops as frantic slapstick takes place. It's high spirited, but there's almost no attempt at rapport between the duo, billed as Plump and Runt. The Rent Collector is an overlong Larry Semon comedy ("Two reels of laughs, in a three reeler") from 1921, with Semon trying to dun tough guy Hardy; it does have some well-orchestrated meta-gags in the Semon style.

Moving to Laurel, we get 1924's Detained, a zany prison comedy with some gruesome gags around an electric chair and a gallows, along with a title that you can just hear in Hardy's voice: "Edison didn't invent the chair for your comfort!" Stan only directed Moonlight and Noses is a 1925 Clyde Cook comedy with Jimmy Finlayson in the cast, up to late night doings in a mansion. Too bad only one reel survives of 1923's When Knights Were Cold, because this pantomime-like sendup of a medieval tale is full of goofy gags and good humor.

[mwalls]

Many thanks to those who brought us this year's festival on-line. I had never seen any of the films before, and possibly would not have were it not for the festival. The condition of the restored films was beautiful, and the scores quite nice. The highlights for me from a pure entertainment sense were Romance of the Redwoods and Where the Lights are Low, followed closely by Abwege.

I do hope that at least portions of future Pordenone festivals will be online.

Matthew

[GishFan]

Romance of the Redwoods .... NOT a fan of the singing but otherwise a good film and a very nice print.

Agreed. I've never seen that in a silent film screening, and I hope I don't again.

[Salty Dog]

Romance of the Redwoods .... NOT a fan of the singing but otherwise a good film and a very nice print.

Agreed. I've never seen that in a silent film screening, and I hope I don't again.

Yes, they also did the same thing in the Apache of Athens film. I found it even worse there, as there was more of it. I have never been to Pordenone, a little out of my budget, but is it a common thing for them to have accompaniments of that type?

[Mike Gebert]

I think it is typical of upscale live presentations to try new things in the way of musical accompaniment; it's part of keeping the art form alive and relevant (or so they see it) and more like attending a concert. I've seen a few like this over the years.

I would note that the Greek film came with a recorded score from its own premiere in Greece in January (link in my post on it), and the film itself was a silent-sound hybrid (whatever that means precisely) from which the soundtrack is now lost, so to some extent this was an attempt at reconstructing how it was in 1930. So in short, it is not typical of how Pordenone does things in that they were sharing, online, someone else's version of the film with music.

[Brooksie]

I've attended a screening of Seventh Heaven (1927) which incorporated a live vocal version of the famous Diane very effectively and tastefully into the action - but therein lies the rub. If the vocals take you out of the film, the accompaniment's not doing its job. Interesting to note that I've come across at least one vocal accompaniment during the silent era, during the Sydney season of The Sheik (1921). It was clearly not common, but it did happen.

I found Ballettens Datter (1913) unexpectedly delightful - even if the story didn't match the quality of the production, to put it mildly - but Abwege (1928) was my Best in Show. Not a perfect film by any means, but Brigitte Helm made it mesmerising. I've occasionally found her too mannered (The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna (1929) didn't quite click for me for that reason), but here her style was perfectly suited to the heightened atmosphere of Weimar Germany (never thought I'd see a character in a 1928 film carrying around a cocaine tooter, either ... )

I would be remiss not to note Mauro Colombis' excellent score. I was lucky enough to hear him play many times in Sydney, where he lives, and he really is world class.

[rudyfan]

Okay, I loved the virtual Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

Here are my recaps: I shared Day 1 earlier up thread, so starting with Day 2 https://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blo ... day-2.html

Day 3 https://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blo ... day-3.html

day 4 https://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blo ... day-4.html

Day 5 https://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blo ... day-5.html

Days 6, 7 & 8 https://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blo ... and-8.html

[Harlett O'Dowd]

I would note that the Greek film came with a recorded score from its own premiere in Greece in January (link in my post on it), and the film itself was a silent-sound hybrid (whatever that means precisely) from which the soundtrack is now lost, so to some extent this was an attempt at reconstructing how it was in 1930. So in short, it is not typical of how Pordenone does things in that they were sharing, online, someone else's version of the film with music.

I didn't get a chance to take in the after-screening discussion of this, or any of the other films this week. How much of the reconstructed vocal score do they know accompanied the film originally? Were some/most/all of the vocal selections from the operetta on which the film is based?

As a one-off, one film I would be interested in syncing up to a vocal score would be the 1923 SALOME, paired with a trimmed-to-fit performance of Strauss' opera.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Moving to Laurel, we get 1924's Detained, a zany prison comedy with some gruesome gags around an electric chair and a gallows, along with a title that you can just hear in Hardy's voice: "Edison didn't invent the chair for your comfort!" Stan only directed Moonlight and Noses is a 1925 Clyde Cook comedy with Jimmy Finlayson in the cast, up to late night doings in a mansion. Too bad only one reel survives of 1923's When Knights Were Cold, because this pantomime-like sendup of a medieval tale is full of goofy gags and good humor.

And Fay Wray was an unexpected bonus!

Loved the "horses" in When Knights Were Cold. Laurel had nothing on Monty Python, 50 years before HOLY GRAIL.

[Mike Gebert]

I didn't get a chance to take in the after-screening discussion of this, or any of the other films this week. How much of the reconstructed vocal score do they know accompanied the film originally?

Not sure, but I noticed that they were able to sync the visuals up with a recording for one section, and the lip movements matched the recording exactly.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Cecil B. DeMille and Mary Pickford apparently didn't enjoy working together on A Romance of the Redwoods, but we shouldn't let that stop us. If not in the top ranks for either titan, it's an entirely solid and enjoyable western that perhaps works better for us today as a kind of William S. Hart tale of the good bad man—but told very much from the perspective of the woman he aspires to reform his bad ways for.

As EB noted, the inspiration/source/theft of plot likely stems from GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST.

I thought this might be too predictable after a point—Mary daintily bringing feminine niceties to his rough cabin is amusing enough, but it also reminded me a little too much of Kathryn McGuire trying to make house in The Navigator. But DeMille and scenarist Jeanie MacPherson have enough tricks up their sleeve that this winds up with a rousing, slightly winking finish worthy of Destry Rides Again (which I thought of because Tully Marshall basically plays the same part here that he does in it 21 years later).

There are bits of CALAMITY JANE and SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS in Mart's feminine niceties and the shotgun wedding finale.

But for me, the most striking thing about this film was the fattest, whitest Indian Chief I have ever seen on film.

[Mike Gebert]

As EB noted, the inspiration/source/theft of plot likely stems from GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST.

Which DeMille filmed in 1915.

[greta de groat]

The pantomime horses instantly endeared that film to me. Can't go wrong with pantomime horses.

Couldn't help noticing in Romance of the Redwoods they had the wrong redwoods, since it was supposed to take place in Calaveras County but apparently shot near Big Basin.

greta

[Professor Echo]

A ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS: I always think De Mille was better with pictures than talk and, as such, I usually prefer his silent films over the sound ones. I also find early westerns to be particularly fascinating as they were made while at least some of the "wild west" was still wild. The extras in the crowd scenes in this film were wonderful, all kinds of faces that you rarely see in movies anymore and they even got the western hats right, i.e. all over the place with regards to type and style. We wouldn't see much of that realism in a western until DEADWOOD many decades later. Mary Pickford is stunningly luminous in this film, often lit with a sparkling glow as if the sun had a crush on her. A wonderfully entertaining film, marred only by a score that force fed songs which had no business being anywhere near it.

BALLETTENS DATTER: Though less than an hour, I had all kinds of trouble keeping my attention from frequently wandering during this one. More often than not my attention was being led to Dreamsville. The print was magnificent, but the movie was deadly dull and slow and had characters that found no home in any of my interest levels. Some points for that weird dance in the beginning of the movie which would not be out of place in a David Lynch nightmare. However, I must add that the profile of the Danish Film Archive which preceded the film was the best of all the introductory shorts about the various archives represented in the festival.

LAUREL OR HARDY: I eagerly anticipated this program and assumed it would be at or near the top of my favorites list when all was said and done for this festival, but sadly very little of it kicked in as much as I thought it would. "DETAINEE" and "WHEN KNIGHTS WERE COLD" were my favorites as I thought they had several inspired gags and a timeless flavor and tone about them. The others seemed more of their time, with the two solo HARDY shorts mining very dated humor and running way too long with nothing to show for it. But humor is subjective and there are no right or wrong comedies, just ones you resonate with and ones you don't. I never need to see Oliver Hardy play another bad guy though. And why were silent comedy shorts so fixated on always having characters being kicked in the ass?

So my wrap up for the festival is that I felt underwhelmed and maybe disappointed. I was really looking forward to it as I'm usually away from my home in the USA at this time of the year and working in Europe, only a train trip or two from Pordenone. This year I had seriously planned to attend until the world fell apart so I was most excited by the virtual version. But sadly I came away from the experience thinking that just because something might be incredibly rare, it doesn't necessarily translate as its being good. Still, my curmudgeonly write ups notwithstanding, I remained enthusiastic about having the opportunity to experience all the rarities, even though some never stood out as being anything more than a rarity. However, ABWEGE, THE BRILLIANT BIOGRAPH, A ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS and WHERE LIGHTS ARE LOW all struck me as grandly illuminating and entertaining and those are the memories I will cherish most from this experience.

Finally, I really thought there would be many more posts about this festival here on NITRATEVILLE and was surprised to see that only a few were contributing their reactions and reviews. I did appreciate reading those who have posted though and I want to extend a special shout out to rudyfan for the wonderful blogs.

[missdupont]

My review of the entire festival.
https://ladailymirror.com/2020/10/12/ma ... audiences/

[Histogram]

It's true, the movie had giant sequoia characters played by coastal redwood actors in unconvincing makeup.

[Salty Dog]

I definitely was not disappointed in the festival. As far as I was concerned, Abwege was worth the price of admission in itself. I really enjoyed the Stan Laurel starring shorts, as well as Penrod and Sam and Romance of the Redwoods. I didn't get to see every film or masterclass or book discussion, but I saw as much as I could, and I see some of that stuff is still up on their YouTube page, something to keep an eye on.

I am not in position to travel to Europe to watch a film a film series, and so a virtual event like this was really my only opportunity to participate. I hope they do more in the future.

[bobfells]

I thoroughly enjoyed the 39th Pordenone festival - and my first. I agree with the reviews stated and to sum them up, what's not to like? I hope Pordenone will stream the 40th next year, even assuming COVID is history by then.

Bob

[Professor Echo]

I've attended a screening of Seventh Heaven (1927) which incorporated a live vocal version of the famous Diane very effectively and tastefully into the action - but therein lies the rub. If the vocals take you out of the film, the accompaniment's not doing its job. Interesting to note that I've come across at least one vocal accompaniment during the silent era, during the Sydney season of The Sheik (1921). It was clearly not common, but it did happen.

I've seen a silent with a song on TCM, it was part of the film's original sync score. The title of the movie escapes me now, but I believe it's set in old Spanish California and contains, if I'm remembering right, a very lovely Spanish ballad sung over a scene.

[Mike Gebert]

I believe it's set in old Spanish California

Close; likely Old San Francisco (1927), with Dolores Costello.

[Professor Echo]

I believe it's set in old Spanish California

Close; likely Old San Francisco (1927), with Dolores Costello.

Was Spanish rule over by the time that movie takes place? I can't remember. How are they defining the word "OLD?" I think I have that movie from the WA, but it's back home in the States while I'm presently overseas. Otherwise I'd watch it and see if the song is in there.

[Mike Gebert]

It's set somewhere in a past where the Spanish are still prominent, possibly fudging history a bit. But the main thing is, it has its original Vitaphone track, so it matches up with what you recall.

[Salty Dog]

I do not have the Blu Ray that came out recently, but I do have the DVD of The Man Who Laughs, which includes an original Fox Movietone soundtrack. It's been quite a while since I watched it and I cannot remember whether there was any singing in it, but I definitely remember that at least at one point in the film there were crowd noises, which I found very distracting, did not like, and do not care whether it was "authentic" to period or not, it really takes you out of the silent film experience.