Jeanne Eagels sighting!

[Jezebel38]

WHOO-WHOO!! Just caught this listing from another site - Man Woman & Sin is playing this Saturday night at the Niles Essanay Museum in Fremont! I've only attended this "quaint" venue once before, as this group generaly shows pre-1920's films which I find a little tough going, but I am willing to sit on the folding chairs and take my chance with the drafty hall for a chance to see this Jeanne Eagels, John Gilbert rarity.
http://www.nilesfilmmuseum.org/march_08.htm

[moira finnie]

Hi Jez,
If you go please post about it! Those of us who don't live anywhere near Fremont would love to hear all about it from the Jezebel perspective.

[Gagman 66]

Jezebel38,

I have what amounts to a poor bootleg of this movie. It is apparently about a 5th generation VHS copy, transferred to DVD-R. The original recording might have looked pretty good, but there is no way of knowing? It has been copied far to many times, and not very well either!

However, I have seen clips on YouTube of this film that seemed to be pretty darn good quality! I would love to know where those originated from? I don't like going tom YouTube at all, the people are extremely Ill-Mannered, and it is full of Spy-ware!

To the best of my knowledge, MAN, WOMAN. & SIN (1927), has never been shown on TCM. But the clips on YouTube has the film with a very good orchestral score? Is Warner's providing the print for this screening? Do you know?

[Jezebel38]

Jezebel38,


However, I have seen clips on YouTube of this film that seemed to be pretty darn good quality! I would love to know where those originated from? I don't like going tom YouTube at all, the people are extremely Ill-Mannered, and it is full of Spy-ware!

To the best of my knowledge, MAN, WOMAN. & SIN (1927), has never been shown on TCM. But the clips on YouTube has the film with a very good orchestral score? Is Warner's providing the print for this screening? Do you know?

Gagman - yeah, I saw the clip on Youtube, I think we may have chatted about this on the TCM board when I found it. It has since been pulled off that site. AFAIK, the Niles group is a bunch of local devotees who get together to show their own collections, but I am not absolutely sure about that. I do plan on attending this, so maybe they will mention the source before they show the film, or I can ask around afterwards. I am not going to get my hopes up though, expecting a sharp print.


OOPPS! I was wrong - the clip is still there - here it is:

[youtube][/youtube]

[Gagman 66]

Jezebel38,

Thanks for posting this again. To be honest, this clip is not really all that great a quality. But part of the reason for this may have been the method used to post the clip? About 85% of my Silent's are better quality than this is! That being said, it is better, than the oft-copied version of the film that I got last year.

I am still hoping that Warner's will do something with both MAN, WOMAN, & SIN, and THE COSSACKS (1928), with Gilbert, Adoree, and Nils Asther. They probably have prints of this film that look just as good as Tod Browning's THE SHOW did in the recent restoration. I have a clip from THE COSSACKS, but I dare not post it here! anyway, I don't know for sure how?

Most of these Silent films are rarely "Digitally Restored". Instead Warner's just makes Fresh transfers from the best surviving print material using the latest processing methods. Frequently, the results have been very impressive, as in the case of pictures like Norma Shearer's LADY OF THE NIGHT, and Marion Davies THE RED MILL.

[Jezebel38]

The basic story here is just good & pure mama’s boy meets calculating wanton female. So what seems to be the criticism of this film is that filmgoers of that time (or this) have a hard time picturing Jack Gilbert as a virgin. But the more films I see of his, the higher my esteem for his acting skills; I went to see this to witness a Jeanne Eagels performance, and she delivered as I expected, but I though Jack held his own opposite her playing a role against his type. On the TCM board, we had recently discussed films that were painful to watch because the characters were so awkward – I’d place his role here in that category. One particularly “awkward” scene shows Jack, after committing a murder during a fight, hiding out in an abandoned house, cowering in a corner, and totally freaking out when his mother comers upon him and reaches out to touch his shoulder. Jeanne Eagels best scene in this film, IMO, comes when Jack’s mother comes to intervene to plead with her on behalf of her son. Jeanne is nervously pacing about in a jerky manner, with cigarette in hand, ( hmmm, so was Bette Davis channeling JE?) then breaks down to admit she really loves the son. So, though the story is rather heavy & old fashioned melodrama, I would recommend this for the performances of its two stars.

FYI – the quality of the print shown was pretty soft, but had good contrast. Somewhat better than the clip posted here from Youtube – not so much of the dark halo effect around the edges. The close- ups seemed better than the medium shots, there were no scratches, but some jumping around of the picture. I was told that the print was provided by a private collector.

Here is a link to a LONG but very concise synopsis:

http://www.jeanneeagels.com/id18.html

[Gagman 66]

Jezebel38,

Thanks for the review! So did you like the movie? Supposedly Gilbert himself did not, and was rather embarrassed by it? I have seen precious little of Jeanne Eagels, I am sorry to say. MAN, WOMAN, & SIN, is among the plethora of titles that I have been hoping TCM would get to for a long time. With the new guy that is in Charge at TCM though, making wholesale changes, I fear that there is a fat chance of this happening???

THE COSSACKS (1928), with Gilbert, Renee Adoree, and Nils Asther, I have heard from people who have seen it, at live screening's, is a tremendous movie. I'm sure TCM has a number of films that have been restored, and scored that have yet to be broadcast? Let's hope that one, or both of these features might be among them!

[moira finnie]

Man Woman and Sin (1927-Monta Bell) starring Jeanne Eagels and John Gilbert is now on youtube. It is not technically perfect, but still...just to be available at all is pretty interesting:
[youtube][/youtube]

[moira finnie]

A few assessments of the place of Man Woman and Sin (1927) from various sources:

From Scott Eyman's The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930:

Although she had made several films before and during World War I, Eagels had not really been counted a success until she made 1927's Man, Woman and Sin, in spite of the fact that her part was secondary to a brilliant performance by John Gilbert. After that, she went back to her first love, the stage, but in April, 1928, the increasingly erratic star was suspended by Actor's Equity for her unprofessional behavior--once, she lowered the curtain during a performance of Rain until a door backstage was shut; on another occasion, she halted a performance of Her Cardboard Lover by demanding that costar Leslie Howard get her a glass of water.

From Eve Golden's Golden Images: 41 Essays on Silent Film Stars--

Jeanne returned to films with the 1927 MGM production Man, Woman, and Sin. It was a pet project of John Gilbert's, who was Jeanne's co-star. The dark story of a reporter's tragic affair with his boss's mistress, it was a hit, though more critically than at the box office. Jeanne--photographed in glorious MGM soft focus--looked like a goddess, and both she and Gilbert gave superb performances, mixing humor and drama.

From IMDb's entry on Jeanne Eagels. I'm not sure how large a grain of salt to take with this info:

After shooting the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Man, Woman and Sin (1927) with John Gilbert, she toured with the play in the large cities.

Eagels' behavior during the filming of Man, Woman and Sin (1927) was atrocious. Gilbert, whom she reportedly had an affair with, said Eagels was the most temperamental actress he had ever worked with. She would appear late at the studio, and once, she disappeared for several days. The Hollywood trade press credited Eagels disappearance to a drink binge, and at one point, she took off on a two-week vacation to Santa Barbara without informing her director, Monta Bell. Bell asked studio management to terminate Eagels' contract, which they did. Fortunately, there was enough footage so Bell could salvage the film without re-shooting.

John Gilbert said of Eagels, "She seemed to hate the movies for a popularity they could not give her....[The] blind, unreasoning adulation of the movie fans was a type of popularity she spurned. Fundamentally, Jeanne was much superior to us. Movie actors are crazy to be worshiped. Jeanne Eagels wanted to be understood and appreciated."

When the film was released, Eagels' performance received mixed reviews, but the picture was a failure primarily due to the poor reviews garnered by Gilbert. Critics rejected the great lover playing a naive mama's boy in this film. Gilbert's career was salvaged shortly thereafter by the release of his second film with Great Garbo, Love (1927/I), which was a smash hit at the box office.

[charliechaplinfan]

It would be interesting to know what Fredric March thought of working with her and whether he'd agree with Gilbert or was his opinion different? I've seen Man Woman and Sin, it's an interesting film but for me at least, more Gilbert's than Eagels.

[moira finnie]

Did we miss this? The Letter is now on DVD through the Warner Archive with details here

Here's a preview clip showing the quality of the print and considerable intensity with Reginald Owen (so youngish) and Eagels:

[youtube][/youtube]

[Jezebel38]

WOW! Thanks for posting the clip Moira - this print quality is about 3 times better than my old bootleg - guess I'll get a new copy from Warners!

[moira finnie]

Hi Jez!

I really thought that the image in that preview clip was much better than those earlier dim and scratchy prints that had shown up on youtube previously. Below are a few minutes from the earlier fragments found on youtube last year. The vastly improved video of the Warner release, now available in MOD DVD from the Warner Archive version, according to their site, has been "manufactured from the best-quality video master currently available and has not been remastered or restored specifically for this DVD and Digital Download release." It is a huge improvement, nevertheless. I really want to see this now more than ever.

Here's the other version:
[youtube][/youtube]