WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[feaito]

Sorry to hear about your disappointment Christine.

[Ann Harding]

Oh well! You can't always see masterpieces. But, I feel it's important to see -sometimes- a bad silent picture. It makes you appreciate more the good ones.

[moira finnie]

Conway Tearle in blackface! Now I've heard everything, AH. That's all you had to say to make me understand what a gobbler this movie seems to be. All the same, it would be a pleasure to see Pola Negri in some of her better movies.

[Gagman 66]

On Saturday evening, I popped into the player the brand new Flicker Alley DVD release of Renee' Clair's THE ITALIAN STRAW HAT (1927), which arrived in the Mail that afternoon. Just ordered this mid-week, I was pleasantly surprised how quickly it got here. It was outrageous!The movie set in the year 1895 based on a popular stage production is basically one big series of mix-up's after another. Sparked by a wife's brief infidelity with a French Soldier, and a partially devoured rare Italian hat a horse has gobbled a chunk out of, that had belonged to her. Evidence of her indiscretion??? Oh, my!

The lead character the much tormented groom on his wedding day looks something like Max Linder or Raymond Griffith, and acts like them to some degree. Maybe with a dash of Charley Chase mixed in for good measure. I thought of all these comics when seeing this. Yeah, that's saying allot I know.One of Rondney Sauer and Mont Alto Orchestra's finest scores I think. just can't stop humming one of the melodies. Not as familiar a sounding batch of Photoplay Mood tunes either. I wanted to watch this again right away, because there is so much going on you may miss allot the first time around. Haven't watched it a second time yet though.

I haven't completed a full review yet. This is lumped together from what I have wrote so far, both here and on a couple other boards. This is an extremely funny and riotous film. You gotta love that poor old Uncle with the Ear Horn. Bless his heart. In-spite of the ongoing kayos that ensues as a result of the affair, in the end the unrepentant wife seemingly get's away with her little tryst. I had not see this movie at all before. So this painstaking restoration by David Shepard's group and Lobster with Mont Alto Orchestra score was a real treat.

For many years only degraded and fragmentary prints were circulating. The film looks great now. Although it is all Monochrome, No tints. Taken mostly from a 1930 foreign negative. Mont Alto's score is among their best. This is the most complete version since it's original release in 1927. So if you are familiar with this picture, there is probably allot of re-instated footage that you have not seen before. There should be no concerns or complaints about two slow of a projection speed. This movie at least looks and plays perfect processed at 19 frames per second. Couldn't be any better. Print is sharp and crisp with very few jump-cuts.

I wasn't really even planning on ordering this at all. At least not right away. I was much more interested in CHICAGO (1927) coming this Summer. I'm so glad that I did order the movie though because it is mighty fun viewing. I'll review the film more extensively a little later on.

The DVD is still on sale on the Flicker Alley website at substantial savings, for another week or so. This is an outstanding release and I highly recommend it.

[Ann Harding]

Harakiri (1919, F. Lang) with Lil Dagover



This version of Mme Butterfly was shot in Germany by Fritz Lang at the very beginning of his career. I found it really disappointing in terms of story telling, editing and direction of actors. O-Take-San's fate (played by Lil Dagover) left me completely cold. I think the film lacks visual poetry combined with a real feel for the narrative. I can imagine that Maurice Tourneur or Léonce Perret, at that time, could have done a lot better. That said the costumes and sets are very nicely done. But, none of the actors behaved or looked remotely Japanese. On top, the narrative progressed through lengthy titles. Most scenes were medium or long shots. So technically, I can think of at least half-a-dozen 1919 pictures which are more advanced. This restoration by the Bologna Cineteca and Nederland Film Museum is nicely done as you can see from the captures above. Alas, it's not a top Lang picture.

[JackFavell]

Jeff,

to me you really captured Rene Clair's style in your review and made me want to see The Italian Straw Hat even more. I was very surprised at one person's review that said it was basically a terrible film, because I had always seen it listed as one of the greats. You renewed my faith. I guess Clair is not to everyone's taste.

[Ann Harding]

Un Chapeau de Paille d'Italie is one of the greatest French comedies. It's certainly different from American slapstick as it's based on a French light comedy by Labiche. But nevertheless, this René Clair picture can be appreciated by an American public. I consider it a masterpiece of silent cinema. A must.

[JackFavell]

Ann,

Thanks for the extra info and praise. I have loved every other Rene Clair film that I have seen, so I imagine that this one will immediately go on my favorites list!

[drednm]

You loved "every other Rene Claire film" .... ???? So were those the odd numbered or even numbered ones?

[JackFavell]

Ha! No, I guess I should have said I loved all the Rene Clair films I have seen as opposed to The Italian Straw Hat, which I have not. I just didn't word it very well.

[MichiganJ]

Yesterday my wife flew in from Budapest (via Amsterdam--one of the last flights out of Schiphol before flights were halted due to the volcano) and after the usual warm smile and embrace, she told me she'd picked up a little something for me. Generally this means a t-shirt or coffee mug from Starbucks, but this time…. a delicately wrapped, linen backed, authenticated vintage poster of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times. Well, Modern Idók to be more precise.

I don't want to know the cost and I certainly don't deserve it, but it is gorgeous.

Sorry for bragging on my wife--to make this a legitimate post, I recently watched Backstairs, a very minimalistic German film starring Henny Porten and William Dieterle. While not very much happens and it is very predictable, I really enjoyed Backstairs' slow pacing and atmosphere. Paul Leni did the art direction.

[Birdy]

Awww...that sounds like a wonderful surprise! Where will it hang?
B

[MichiganJ]

It's hanging in my TV room. I have a section devoted to Chaplin items including a ceramic figurine of the Tramp eating his boot and a Chaplin marionette (of which I've nearly mastered getting him to doff his cap and generally use to terrify my cats.)

[Ann Harding]

This WE, I saw Die Weissen Rosen (White Roses, 1914) directed by Urban Gad with Asta Nielsen. It was a criminal story with Nielsen playing an actress with her young lover staying in a posh hotel in Ostende. She is wearing an expensive piece of jewelery that her lover borrowed from his family. A gang of crooks notice the jewel at once and decide to steal it. They manage to make a key to open the jewel box and then remove it while Asta is away. They take it to a jeweler to remove the precious stones and replace them by fakes. Before they can replace it into the box, Asta is back in her room. They use an elaborate plan to put the jewel back... Overall, it was an ejoyable film well directed and edited by Urban Gad. Nielsen has very interesting personality and features. She is very tall, lean and looks quite unlike contemporary actresses of the teens. She has charisma and can fill the screen with her great smile. Interesting.

[MichiganJ]

I watched a fascinating and quite bleak German silent film, Mother Krausen's Journey Into Happiness (Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück) (1929). Despite the titles being in German, the story was easy enough to follow. Mother Krausen lives in a small tenement apartment with her adult daughter, son and three boarders, a prostitute, her daughter and a man (I assume the prostitute's pimp). Krausen's daughter meets a young man, (whom, I believe, is a socialist, which adds some interesting dimensions to the film) while her son steals the money mother Krausen has collected from selling news papers--money she must hand over the next day…

There is a lot more plot and complications and the film's title--well, even that can be left up to interpretation.

Director and cinematographer Piel Jutzi shoots the film as if it's a documentary. I'm sure many of the Berlin and other street locations are real and "stolen", and they just add to the film's overall documentary feel. He moves his camera a lot, too, with many impressive shots, most notably when he singles out Krausen's apartment after a montage of the back streets in the working class district. Plenty of great dissolves and the editing is often reminiscent of Eisenstein.

Need to research this one and watch it again, soon. I'm working my way through some Fassbinder films, and am really curious about his version, too.