WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[Gagman 66]

moviemagz, Everyone,

No, No, No! Not THE LITTLE PRINCESS. POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL! I'm sorry I typed the wrong title absent mindedly. Milestone is releasing POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL. THE HOODLUM, and the revised SPARROWS in 2009. I have first hand information on this. I hope there will be additional titles, but those are they only ones mentioned that I am aware of.

I have DOROTHY VERNON, it is OK, but not great, much to long. I would prefer a restored LITTLE ANNIE ROONEY. And where is POLLYANNA. and THE LITTLE AMERICAN? I have only seen PRIDE OF THE CLAN in shabby dark prints so far.

Ed,

Sure Sam Taylor had a big reputation in the 20's all based on what on the success of Harold Lloyd's features. He had never directed a movie before Lloyd hiered him as one of his "Directors".

[Ann Harding]

Hi Gagman! That sounds like good news: another silent Tourneur with Poor Little Rich Girl!

Yesterday I went to a screening of an absolutely gorgeous 35 mm print of Tourneur's The Last of the Mohicans (1920) at the cinémathèque. On such a big screen, it was really awe inspiring!
This adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's novel is wonderfully done. We are in the early XVIIIth century, near the frontier with Canada. The French army is fighting the British. Little Cora and her sister are escorted by an Indian (a menacing Wallace Beery) to the fort held by their father, General Munro...
The image composition and the cinematography were just breathtaking. The film was shot in Yosemite National Park posing for the East Coast. Each shot offered amazing landscapes. But the film wasn't in want in terms of characterization either. All the actors delivered some totally natural and understated performances. Wallace Beery was incredibly evil; Alan Roscoe was superb in the title role and little Barbara Bedford was a very good Cora. The action scenes were equally awe inspiring: the massacre of the English by the Hurons was as ferocious as you can imagine. That Tourneur film is really a must see!!!

[MichiganJ]

Wow, Ann Harding, I truly envy you being able to see The Last of the Mohicans on the big screen. It’s a great film! (Out of curiosity, were the titles in English or French?). Boy, with Redskin, The Vanishing American and Mohicans, you’ve been dipping into some interesting films “featuring” Native Americans!
(By the way, I also recently watched The Vikings [thanks Jeffrey], and agree with you about the score, particularly the Wagner, and the overall Wagnerian performances. [I also liked Starke’s plunging necklines! ] I was impressed with the film’s color; it seemed to create an almost 3D effect, I guess because of the depth-of-field. By no means a great movie, but fun none-the-less.)

I finally got to catch up with the Criterion Eclipse Series of the Lubitsch musicals (I’m with you, Feiato, in your earlier comment about the Eclipse series, they are fantastic). I have to say, while all of the films are wonderful, they are best served up one at a time, and not sampled too closely together, because they are far too similar. My estimation of Jeanette MacDonald certainly rises with each pre-code of hers I see (she’s far better here, than in San Francisco!), and I pretty much knew Chevalier from the dreaded Gigi, so it’s fun seeing him at his prime. While all of the films are fun, they are also fascinating in the way they treat women. I know it’s through “PC” glasses, but in many of the films the woman had to give up something to win their man (most notably in The Love Parade, where Queen MacDonald literally gives her kingdom to Chevalier). While I liked The Smiling Lieutenant best (I think. They are all pretty great), it’s odd that Chevalier simply gives up Colbert because Hopkins lets down her hair and gets “interesting” underwear (what a relief, though, when Hopkins finally let down her hair,which had been tied up in a severe “Princess Leia” doo for the entire film). Again, I know that’s how these films go, it’s just fascinating seeing some of the not-so-discreet messages imbedded in them

By the way, while all these Lubitsch films are great, I’d still recommend Rouben Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight. It’s Chevalier and MacDonald at their “naughtiest” best, and far better music, too!

[Ann Harding]

Hi Michiganj! The print had French titles. It was a French print made from an original negative. The title cards were handsomely decorated.
This is the first time I have seen such a razor sharp print from a silent at the Cinémathèque. In general, they show dupes...

[feaito]

Hi Michigan!

"Love me Tonight" (1932) is also my favorite Chevalier-MacDonald! And I think that it's the finest musical ever made. Simply superb!!

As for the Lubistch Boxed Set, my favorites are the very naughty "The Smiling Lieutenant" (1931) and "One Hour With You" (1932), with "The Love Parade" (1929) following very close. I feel that the weakest of the lot is "Monte Carlo" (1930).

[drednm]

just watched VARIETY (1925) directed by E.A. Dupont, photographed by Karl Freund, piano score by Charles Oderman.

SUPERB film with another great performance by Emil Jannings, possibly the greatest actor of the silent era, and solid work by Lya de Putti.... everyone was just terrific.

[myrnaloyisdope]

drednm, I'm very impressed by Variete as well. Jannings was an incredible actor, it's remarkable that he could play obese doorman in Der letze Mann and then just a year later play a virile, strong trapeze artist in Variete, and he's utterly convincing in both roles. I believe I first saw him in Der letze Mann, and was completely shocked to find he didn't look like that at all. I'm curious to check out some of his German propaganda films from the 1930's.

I checked out a couple of pre-coders, in the past few days. First up was Roland West's Alibi (1929), which I'd heard good things about. The most striking thing about the film is its use of sound, which is quite advanced for 1929, most notably the use of incidental noises, like footsteps, whistling, the sound of billy clubs banging on sidewalks, etc. The film's opening montage feels like a demonstration of how to use sound on film, it's utterly self-conscious, but still compelling. I'm reminded a bit of Rouben Mamoulian's Applause which uses the same technique of emphasizing incidental noise in order to showcase the new technology.

The film's greatest significance and strength is Chester Morris' gangster anti-hero prototype, which really along with Lew Ayres' character in 1930's Doorway To Hell, set the stage for the Robinsons, Cagneys, and Munis of the coming years. Morris just oozes toughness, charisma, and charm, and despite the cowardly nature of his character just seems a lot more likable than any of the cops. In fact the cops seem to be in the wrong for most of the film, there's even one instance where they threaten to shoot a suspect during an interrogation, in order to get the answer they want. To put it bluntly the cops are dicks in the film. Morris' character is shown to be a total sniveling coward in the end, which somehow justifies the viciousness of the cops. It's interesting to see that the glorification of the gangster on film was an issue from the beginning of talkies. I'm a fool who still hasn't seen Underworld, so I can't comment on that film.

Oh and one question, why did Roland West only direct 2 more films? He didn't die till the 50's, and Alibi was quite successful, getting an Oscar nod, so why was his career over by 1931?

I also checked out William Dieterle's The Devil's in Love, with Victor Jory and Loretta Young. It's a foreign legion movie, with Jory as a doctor on the run in Africa, after wrongly being accused of murder. Young is the love interest, with David Manners also starring as an officer engaged to Young, but loyal to Jory. I was pretty underwhelmed by the film, there really isn't much to it. It's a Warners programmer, and one of 6 films Dieterle directed in 1932, so I don't know what I could've expected. Let's just say it ain't exactly Morocco, though it's still pretty watchable (though forgettable)

[rogerskarsten]

Hi, everyone. Just thought I'd mention that I had the chance to see two superb silent films by Mauritz Stiller at Kino Arsenal here in Berlin over the past few days. The prints they showed were from the Swedish Film Institute, so I assume these are the restored versions that are also available on DVD. I really enjoyed the Swedish intertitles (German translations were projected simultaneously at the bottom of the screen), even though my reading knowledge of Swedish is shaky at best!

HERR ARNES PENGAR. I had no idea what to expect from this film, but certainly would have thought the character of "Sir Arne" would have been the focus! Well, I was wrong! I loved the way this story was told; loved the absolutely breathtaking photography; and what a performance from Mary Johnson as Elsalill. To actually tell the story of a traumatized young woman -- the psychological consequences of violence -- is in itself remarkable. *How* Stiller does it is art. A great film.

GÖSTA BERLINGS SAGA. I'll admit, I hesitated at first because of the three hour running time, but my oh my, was it worth it! Interesting how it seems this was originally shown in two parts (with a "re-cap" at the beginning of the second part). I can imagine audiences would have been very anxious to see the second part, whether or not they had already read Lagerlöf's book.
The attention to period detail is so scrumptuous, you just want to *live* inside this film. Once again, winter in Sweden is made to look really appealing! Of course, one comes to this film expecting Lars Hanson and Greta Garbo. They're there, all right, but all the other characters are equally memorable. I think my favorite was Gerda Lundequist as Margaretha Samzelius (the Majorskan). What a character, and what a powerful performance!
Favorite scenes: the reconciliation between Margaretha and her mother; the burning of Eckby (truly amazing); the "kidnapping" of Elisabeth which turns into a life-or-death race with the wolves.

[rogerskarsten]

I came across this website the other day -- has anyone had any success here? Maybe I'm just unable to link up with the links on my computer...

http://www.mundosilente.com.ar/

[Synnove]

Rogerskarsten,

The winter looks appealing? How?

Still, I get what you mean. We've had snow here for a couple of days at the end of November, but it's all gone now and it's autumn weather outside. I stopped hoping for a snowy Christmas years ago. So it's nice to watch Gösta Berlings Saga.

Herr Arnes Pengar gives me the chills though, I would not have liked to live during "the little ice age" of the 1500s.

I was watching No Country For Old Men recently. I did not enjoy it so much, I thought it was only so-so. But I was reminded of Herr Arnes Pengar all the time, because there is a similar theme of a cursed treasure. The treasure has consists of blood money, and everyone who gets hold of it dies. I guess that's a classic story.

I agree about Gerda Lundquist. Everyone talks about Gösta Berling as Garbo's debut, but for me, Gerda is the best.

[Ann Harding]

Hi Roger! I too absolutely love Sir Arne's Treasure. Mary Johnson is just amazing so is the cinematography. Next week, the French Cinémathèque is showing Dieterle's Geschlecht in Fesseln (1928) with Mary. I am not going to miss that!

Yesterday I saw the very rare Hello Sister (1933). The film was shot by Erich von Stroheim. But the producers hated the film so they hired a few directors (R. Walsh, A. Crosland, A.L. Werker) to reshoot it. The result is a 60 min pre-code with some very interesting scenes. How much of the finished product is Stroheim's work is hard to say, but, the two girls walking down Broadway looking for a pick up is true pre-code sauciness. Zasu Pitts who was so mesmerizing in Greed, is again very good as the girlfriend desperate for romance. There is an incredibly violent fight down some staircases between tough Minna Gombell and the sleazy Terrance Ray. Interesting curio.

After such a short feature, I embarked on W. Beaudine's Sparrows (1926) with Mary Pickford and Gustav von Seyffertitz. Some people have compared this film to The Night of the Hunter and this is a very apt comparison in terms of atmosphere. Seyffertitz is as frightening and evil as any werewolf in a fairy tale. Again Mary was extremely effective as Molly trying to protect this bunch of children from the Grimes couple. The atmosphere is pure Dickens with some shades of film noir. The comic relief in some scenes was extremely effective. Really fun to watch!!!

[MichiganJ]

rogerskarsten:

I can’t even imagine seeing Sir Arne on the big screen. It’s one of my all-time favorite films, I think (the list keeps changing). The final image is certainly one of the greatest in film.

I also like Gösta, but I think it may work better over two nights. It feels very much like a filmed novel, though. Many of the character motivations are unexplained, and it may be that reading the novel and then seeing the film would be the better way to go. (I haven’t read the book). Garbo is pretty great, though. (Stiller does a great job with the fire sequence, and again, on the big screen that must have been something!)

The other Stiller film released by Kino was Erotikon. It’s a wonderful “sex’ comedy, horribly marred by the accompanying music, which is lethargic and dirge-like.

Synnove:
Interesting thoughts about No Country and Sir Arne. When I saw No Country it reminded me of A Simple Plan (1998 film by Sam Raimi), but I think you are right, that the basic story about blood money bringing doom to all who touch it, is a classic.

(Hope your exams are going well!)

rogerskarsten:
I could get to the link you provided, but many of the “internal” links didn’t work on my mac. Looks like a great site, though.

Unsure of the protocol here, but this is a link to my newly launched silent film site (a work in progress)

http://digitalsilents.com/

[moviemagz]

Last night I watched again the wildly underrated True Confession starring Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, John Barrymore, and Una Merkel. I think it's in the "five best" films for each of them!!

Tonight I probably will watch Dangerous Curves with Clara Bow for the first time.

[coopsgirl]

I just got the Murnau/Borzage at Fox set and so far I have watched After Tomorrow and Bad Girl.

After Tomorrow was released in 1932 and stars Charles Farrell as Peter Piper (but nowhere in the film does he pick a peck of pickled peppers ), Marian Nixon as his fiancée Sidney Taylor, Minna Gombell as her mother, William Collier, Sr. as her father, and Josephine Hull as Peter’s mother.

Peter and Sidney both work in the Empire State building and the opening shot is really neat as it pans down from the top of the building to the street. Peter and Sidney have been engaged for three years and they are saving all the money they can so they can get married. I think some of the other women there spend more time throwing themselves at Peter than they do working but I can’t really blame them for that. When Sidney sees one of the girls flirting with him he just blows it off and jokes with Sidney that he can’t help it if he’s hot stuff. They live in the same apartment building with Peter living with his mother and Sidney living with her mother and father. Peter’s mother is incredibly clingy and overprotective and very, very jealous of the time he spends with Sidney. Sidney’s mother is very distant and quite rude to her daughter and husband. Sidney’s father seems to be the only “normal” parent in the bunch and she is very close with him and their relationship is portrayed very lovingly.

They finally get enough money saved up but Sidney’s father has a heart attack the day before their wedding (his second in recent years) and they use their savings to get him the best medical care they can. I won’t say anymore b/c I don’t want to give it away but it’s really a wonderful film.

I really liked how these seemed like real, regular people dealing with issues that many people would have been going through during that time (and today as well). It wasn’t overly dramatic or sappy sweet but seemed very natural and real. I especially liked one conversation between Peter and Sidney about the physical part of their relationship. Once their wedding has been postponed and they are now going on nearly four years of being engaged, Sidney fears she may lose him so she tells him they should take a weekend trip somewhere and just keep it secret. He knows she is suggesting they should consummate their relationship and he tells that they are not going to do that b/c he knows she wouldn’t feel right about it. He tells her that sex isn’t everything in a relationship and that he loves her and he’s not going anywhere. He kinda hesitates a minute before he actually says the word ‘sex’ and you can tell they both feel a little uncomfortable talking about it but it doesn’t come off as hokey at all. It seems very genuine and I can imagine many couples back then had similar conversations. I wonder if truly sweet guys like him even exist anymore?

Bad Girl was released in 1931 and stars Sally Eilers as Dot, James Dunn as Eddie, and Minna Gombell (playing a nice girl for a change) as Dot’s best friend Edna. Dot and Edna both work in a department store and in an early scene they are complaining about how all men think about is sex as they are always having unwanted advances forced on them. They are both on a ferry boat when Edna tells Dot she has found a guy who won’t flirt with women. This turns out to be Eddie who works at a radio repair shop and indeed he seems very hardboiled and won’t flirt with either of them. However his resistance crumbles and he walks Dot back home. They begin dating and one night when Dot thinks he has stood her up she goes to his boarding house to see what’s up. He lost track of time working on a radio and our “bad girl” turns out to be very good indeed as she keeps telling Eddie it wouldn’t be right for her to stay any longer with him alone. It’s raining though and he convinces her to stay. Nothing happens other than some innocent cuddling but the time gets away from them and it’s 4 in the morning before he takes Dot home.

Dot’s brother is brutally overprotective and she’s afraid he will beat her which he has done before for coming in too late. Eddie kinda clumsily proposes to her and she accepts. Although they both love each other they are too afraid to really show it and Eddie’s character is especially cute as he tries to hide how much he loves her b/c he doesn’t like mushy stuff. When Dot goes up to her apartment she finds her brother with Edna. He has a crush on her and when Dot didn’t come home he called her thinking she was with Edna so Edna came over to wait with him. When Dot tells him she’s getting married he assumes it’s a shotgun wedding and throws her out of the house. She temporarily moves in with Edna who is a widow with a young son.

The scenes with Edna and her son were very well done. Edna finds him in the kitchen doing an experiment with some milk and black ink and he’s made quite a mess. She gets frustrated with him but later she gives him a big hug and just laughs as he didn’t do that out of meanness but out of curiousity as he’s just a young kid.

Dot and Eddie get married and soon afterwards she gets pregnant. They had no plans to have kids however as Eddie is very against having children if you don’t have the means to take care of them and Dot’s mother died giving birth to her and she is very scared. I don’t want to give too much away but what happens over the rest of the film is very sweet and touching and we see how much these two love each other and will do everything in their power to make the other one happy.

I was very impressed with both of these films and they should definitely be more well known. There are so many films from this era that show how the upper middle and upper class live and that’s fine, I like a lot of those films, but these movies show how the majority of people really lived and it’s not glamorized or degrading but very realistic and touching.

[Synnove]

Thank you for this fantastic review of the films from the box set, coopsgirl!

Synnove:
Interesting thoughts about No Country and Sir Arne. When I saw No Country it reminded me of A Simple Plan (1998 film by Sam Raimi), but I think you are right, that the basic story about blood money bringing doom to all who touch it, is a classic.

(Hope your exams are going well!)

Thank you, MichiganJ! I think it went okay. Now I'm finished with my final exam, for the literature course. At last, my mind is my own again. At least till next term. Now I'm going to watch me some classics.

Parallels between those two films do seem kind of far-fetched. My mind always jumps to silents even when I'm watching modern films nowadays though, so I start seeing things like that. I'm glad you agree with me, that shows I still have some logic left.