WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[moira finnie]

Barrabas (1920, L. Feuillade) in 12 ep. with Gaston Michel, Fernand Hermann, Edouard Mathé, Georges Biscot & Blanche Montel
(Gaston Michel holding a gun)
A criminal mastermind, Joseph Strélitz (G. Michel) controls a vast criminal organisation called Barrabas. Each member wears a tatoo on its left arm and cannot leave the organisation. A lawyer (F. Hermann) and a journalist (E. Mathé) are going to try to unmask him. But the task will prove difficult: Strélitz is powerful, ruthless and immensely rich...
Feuillade is really in his element when creating complex criminal stories. His mastermind here is played brillantly by a veteran actor, Gaston Michel, who looks completely harmless with his white beard and tall figure. Nothing could be further from the truth: Strélitz is the devil incarnate. One title card gives you an idea of what he is capable of: "You may not believe in God. But when you know Strélitz, you have to believe in Satan." Nothing can stop this man and one life can be erased as easily as blinking. The film contains several hair-raising stunts like when a man jumps from a bridge unto a moving train. Blanche Montel has also to perform a very dangerous walk across a narrow plank above a precipice. We gets all the adventures you can ask for: kidnapping, blackmail, chase and murder. The heroes even take an aeroplane and a hydroplane. We actually get some stunning aerial footage of Nice. The print restored by Gaumont is gorgeous: entirely tinted and obviously taken from a negative. let's hope it will be on DVD one day.

How interesting these films sound, Christine. I wonder if Barabbas might have influenced Fritz Lang's use of Norbert Jacques' creation of "Dr. Mabuse" in his films, beginning later in the '20s?

[charliechaplinfan]

I got to watch a TCM recording of Torrent Greta Garbo's first American film. At this stage I'm not sure MGM knew how to style her and I don't think they realised what they'd got in Garbo until the film was released. Ricardo Cortez is her leading man and star of the film but who is looking at him when Garbo is on the screen. Filming wasn't meant to have been very cordial between Garbo and Cortez, she didn't speak much English and wanted Stiller as director, he possibly thought he was being foisted off with a new face. They never acted together again although Ricardo Cortez stayed in films through the thirties and retired about the same time Garbo did.

Thanks Nancy, before this I had a really bad copy from a bootlegger on ebay now I have a good copy with Robert Osbourne introducing the film. I appreciate you recording this movie for me.

[pvitari]

I've been trying to watch Romola for the last three days -- Lillian Gish! Dorothy Gish! Ronald Colman (in a bad wig)! William Powell (in an even worse wig)! director Henry King! -- but each time I've fallen asleep after 10 minutes tops. But, I will keep on struggling through. Wonder how many days it will take to finish it. I loved the L. Gish/Colman/King combo in The White Sister, but here it's all just... leaden. And too busy at the same time. Something went wrong. Oh well, you can't hit it out of the park every single time. Perhaps the transfers (courtesy Grapevine Video) is to blame. It's really dark and the title cards sometimes are barely legible.

[Ann Harding]

Moira: I don't know exactly if Lang was inspired for Dr Mabuse by Feuillade. But I am certain that French cinema in that period had a great influence on many film makers in Europe and in the US. Actually many great French film makers emigrated to the US in the teens: Alice Guy, Léonce Perret, Maurice Tourneur and Albert Cappelani. American cinema needed their expertise. After watching all the Gaumont Cinéma Premier box, I must say that French cinema was really ahead of American cinema before WWI.

[drednm]

I've never been able to watch Romola either. Lousy print and it jumps.....

I did however watch something last last as my Talmadge ets arrived... I started with Her Night of Romance and was not disappointed. While not an all-out comedy, it's a pleasant romantic comedy with top performances by Constance Talmadge and Ronald Colman. The rain sequence is very funny. Albert Gran is good as Daddy, Jean Hersholt's character is a bit troubling, however.

Good print with only a few moments of deterioration, bright score by Bruce Loeb.

[pvitari]

I'm drooling in anticiption of those Talmadges... heaven only knows when they'll get here since I ordered them from Deep Discount DVD. They're notoriously slow although otherwise reliable.

[drednm]

Oh... I bought my 2 DVDs right from Kino and got them Friday the 5th....

[pvitari]

The Romola-a-thon finally ended.

Romola-a-thon Day Four: watched for five minutes and fell asleep. Woke up several hours later and managed to get through another 20 minutes or so. Woo hoo! Only 25 minutes left.

Romola-a-thon Day Five: watched in the afternoon when I definitely wasn't sleepy, and finished the movie, though I did get a bit drowsy and had to rewind a couple of times.

William Powell definitely makes the biggest impression in this snoozefest -- I can't get over how young he looks. But he's the only one (besides maybe Dorothy Gish) who seems to have any *energy.* Ronald Colman is a huge disappointment -- not Colman himself, but his role is a nothing. He's barely there. There's no relationship, not a scrap of romantic UST between him and Romola. Presumably there is more in Eliot's novel but I haven't read it.

The one scene that really did have some tension was when Powell comes in and Dorothy G. proclaims "Naldo!" and clings to him and wife Lillian G. gives him one of those looks that could kill. You know, LG often played these flower-like girls but frankly, I wouldn't want to get in her way. I have a feeling she'd just roll over me.

[JackFavell]

She wielded a shotgun pretty well.

[Gagman 66]

Alas, there are no known 35 Millimeter prints of ROMOLA. In-fact the film only survives in 9. 5 Millimeter form. However, that print is supposed to be quite good. All the sub-par dupes that are floating around are from that same heavily reduced 9.5 Millimeter copy. I've never watched it because the dupes are so poor.

In much better news, Robert Israel has scored the new version of THE MAGICIAN (1926) for TCM which premiers next week. He recorded the arrangement in Europe last year with his Orchestra. So very big news there! Apparently, the film was due to be scored for the last 5 years or so. TCM finally got around to the project.

People who have seen this movie rave about it. I haven't seen the film yet, so I'm pretty excited about the premier next Sunday. William K. Everson in the 50's liked THE MAGICIAN much better than Chaney's legendary LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT which He was able to see before the picture was lost in the 1965 MGM vault explosion.

In more big news there is this announcement from David Shepard:


"TCM has licensed THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, THE VANISHING AMERICAN and THE SILENT ENEMY from us. THE SILENT ENEMY will be the same lovely version as on the long-out-of-print Milestone DVD, while the other two will be all new. MOHICANS is produced in cooperation with the Cinematheque Francaise. It has all the original English titles, original tints and tones, looks exquisite, and is being scored by Mont Alto. I have never seen lovelier silent era cinematography. THE VANISHING AMERICAN is a new transfer from much nicer material than I used years ago for the Image DVD, and the new score by Eric Beheim is perhaps the best one he has ever done. I hope these will also receive a DVD release but that is still uncertain."

DS

[pvitari]

She wielded a shotgun pretty well.

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Plus all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun, sayeth Jean-Luc Godard.

[MichiganJ]

On the Kino edition of Broken Blossoms, the outro remarks by Ms. Gish include some lengthy excerpts from Romola, which are in pretty good condition. I doubt, however, that even a restoration could rescue the plodding nature of the film.

[Gagman 66]

The heck with ROMOLA Stick with what you have top flight existing print material on. As Lillian Gish features go, I would rather see ANNIE LAURIE (1927) on TCM. The film was stunningly restored from the Original camera negative by the LOC about 9 years ago. Including the Technicolor footage. For Ronald Colman, TCM has the rights to THE SPORTING VENUS (1925) which might be the only Silent He was in at MGM? They may also have the rights to THE NIGHT OF LOVE (1927) and TWO LOVERS (1928). Both with Vilma Banky. These are Goldwyn Silents, and both still exist. But first and far most among Colman Silents I want to see a fully restored edition of Herbert Brenon's BEAU GESTE (1926). That is very long since overdue.




Lillian Gish and Norman Kerry-ANNIE LAURIE (1927)




BEAU GESTE (1926)-"Blood Brothers" John (Ralph Forbes), Micheal (Ronald Colman), and Digby (Neil Hamilton)

[drednm]

Lillian Gish with a gun can't hold a candle to Mary Pickford with a wip in Pride of the Clan or Pickford as a KKK rider in Heart o' the Hills....

And I agree, Jeff.... Annie Laurie is a neglected classic.

[Gagman 66]

Ed,

According to what I have been told, THE MAGICIAN was a project that had been waiting in the wings since 2003! So it took Seven years before this was ready to go. Finally debuting on Silent Sunday Nights this week! Hope it turns out to be a good choice.