The Silver Screen Oasis

Yesterday I watched What Price Hollywood, I've been wanting to see this for the longest time, thank you Nancy. It shows some similarities to A Star is Born made 5 years later, both of them produced by Selznick. This is grittier than A Star is Born, the drunk is a director played by Lowell Sherman and the star a waitress played by Constance Bennett. There's a great feeling of really being behind the scenes in Hollywood, at premieres, where Mary makes her first public appearance to her casting in a bit part which she screws up first time then makes good. Her love interest isn't the director but a rich playboy who woos her, marries her and finally leaves her because he can't take the screwiness of Hollywood. Mary's public turn against her when she rescues the director, now a drunken hasbeen who then commits suicide in her home where her child sleeps. One of the best precodes I've seen and certainly one of the best films about Hollywood, finaly too I got to see Constance Bennett in one of her starring roles.

Then I got to see The Big Parade complete with the Carl Davis score, which brings it even more to life for me. I'm sure it's all been said before but it's a great silent, a great thought provoking war movie and a touching romance. John Gilbert was never greater. The scenes with his mother reasonated for me, beinging home his youth and idealism before he went to war and his sufferings afterwards. Thanks again Nancy.

Fernando,

A couple clips from ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? (1925)


http://fan.tcm.com/_Betty-Bronson-Are-P ... 66470.html


http://fan.tcm.com/_Betty-Bronson-Lita- ... 66470.html

Thanks Jeffrey, I'll check them when I get home.

I saw the 1932 movie "Smilin Through" with Jeanette MacDonald and Brian Aherne and was amazed to see that it was in color. It was an early technical feat but quite nice.

OK. It took all evening, but I have successfully revised the John Gilbert Slide-show. Adding about an additional 10 or 12 new photos, and I was able to adjust the cadence and duration at last.. Trouble is I struggled to match the music up now to the stills in the way I had wanted. I'm not completely satisfied. And I still need more from THE MERRY WIDOW. I just left it uploading over night and went to bed. Sometimes it takes hours to get a video approved. Ah, finally it's ready. So here we go.

http://fan.tcm.com/_John-Gilbert-Slide- ... 66470.html

Uncle Stevie wrote:I saw the 1932 movie "Smilin Through" with Jeanette MacDonald and Brian Aherne and was amazed to see that it was in color. It was an early technical feat but quite nice.

The 1932 version is with Norma Shearer & Fredric March. Jeanette played in the 1941 Technicolor version.

OH MY God!!! Ann Harding I apologize profusely. I was misled when purchased and I bought the title not the version. I never looked it up until now. I went back into my personal 283 movie collection index on Excel and made the change. I am embarrassed that my efforts as a historian were dashed by this error. Please forgive me and thanks for the correction.

Also I must go to those I told about this marvel and take it back. Oh the red face will appear again. They always believe me and now I have a crack in my armor.

The version I want to see of Smilin' Through is the 1922 version starring Norma Talmadge and Harrison Ford. It was shown at last year's silent film festival in Kansas. But the Shearer and MacDonald versions are also quite good.

The Shearer-March version had me bawling into the blankie I usually wrap around myself while watching TV/DVDs.

The McDonald-Aherne version fell sadly flat for me, which was weird, since it was directed by Frank Borzage and you'd think that story in particular would be right up his alley. OK, I admit I did get a little teary-eyed at the end. And I love listening to Jeannette sing "Smilin' Through."

I haven't seen the 1922 version though I sure would love to. In my dreams: a box set with all three versions.

I'm sorry. Apparently the link to the Revised John Gilbert Slide-Show did not work before. It does now though.


http://fan.tcm.com/_John-Gilbert-Slide- ... 66470.html

Wow! what a presentation, Jeffrey. You've outdone yourself on this one!

I watched The Call of the Flesh and enjoyed it despite the dueling accents. Ramon Novarro plays a saucy singer who teams with Renee Adoree to appear at local cantinas and is pushed by his friend (Ernest Torrence) to get serious about opera. But then he meets a "runaway" from a convent (Dorothy Jordan) who knows nothing of the world. He falls in love and dumps Adoree. But Adoree gets even by finding Jordan's military brother who tracks them down and sends her back to the convent. Meanwhile Novarro is turned down by a local opera house because he's never had his heart broken and his singing has no soul. Torrence buys a night for Novarro to sing at the opera and he grudgingly does to, bringing down the house. But his heart is so broken he's actually dying until Adoree takes action.

Novarro is quite good here, especially when singing. A few of the dramatic scenes are badly done, but the rest of the film is lively. Novarro co-wrote the song "Lonely" with Herbert Stothart. I have no idea what Novarro sings in the finale but he's good despite having rather thin high notes. It's quite a shock to see Torrence break out in song, but the burly Scottish actor, a dependable heavy in silent films, was a trained opera singer. Jordan and Adoree handle the music well.

There's a great scene where Torrence at the piano joins Novarro in a burst of song only to be joined by the landlady (Mathilde Comont). It all seems so spontaneous.

Sadly this was Adoree's final film. Her other talkie was Redemption with John Gilbert.

I also enjoyed very much this film and I was surprised to read on André Soares Bio of Novarro, his praise of "In Gay Madrid" (1930) (which is not half as good as this one) and his dismissal of "Call of the Flesh", of which there were filmed alternate versions in Spanish and French (which were directed by Novarro).

The last aria Novarro sings before collapsing is "Ah! fuyez, douce image" (Ah! Depart, Sweet Vision), from Jules Massenet's Manon.

Fernando thanks for that bit of info... I also have In Gay Madrid which I'll watch at some point...

I watched The Animal Kingdom last night. Great performance from Myrna Loy in this one, I'm not sure what either lady wanted with Leslie Howard's character, they both seemed too passionate for him, perhaps it was in 1932 though. Throughly entertaining film about a love triangle settled in a precode manner.