WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[feaito]

I have seen very few films lately.

I saw the documentary "Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood". I liked it and thought it was ver enlightening, although I would have expected more varied visual material (just my opinion). I wonder why the other Pre-Code documentary "Complicated Women" hasn't been released on DVD. It should be.

I also watched "Female" (1933). Although Chatterton is terrific and George Brent is livelier than usual, I did not enjoyed it as much as when I watched it for the first time. The first part is magnificent, but when she begins falling for Brent, the film loses its punch a little bit. Anyway a wonderful Pre-Code.

[Synnove]

Thank you for reviewing that set, Fernando!

It's something I might look for when I visit the US this summer. It's a great opportunity to not have to pay for shipping.

I re-watched a film yesterday, which I should perhaps not be classed as a precode since it isn't American. But if it had been, it certainly would have been a great example of what could be done before the code. The Threepenny Opera, directed by G. W. Pabst, is a seedy film about gangsters, prostitutes and organized beggars. It's a great commentary on social issues, and has some very fluid camera work and plenty of humour, but as a musical this movie version is a disappointment. A lot of numbers have been cut, and those that remain aren't very well incorporated into the story. I can appreciate what's there, especially since it has the young Lotte Lenya singing Pirate Jenny in the original German. I've heard the later version she made in English, and that one doesn't hold a candle to this. The whole movie might very well be worth seeing for her performance.

As Mack the Knife, Rudolph Forster is also fun to watch. Carola Neher is pretty memorable as Polly Peachum. Her singing voice is very strange. Carola Neher met a very tragic fate in real life. Since she was a Communist, she fled to Russia when the Nazis took over. There she was incarcerated during Stalin's purge, and was sent to Gulag, where she eventually died. Her husband was also murdered.

The Threepenny Opera has a great look. The costuming is well done, and the actors, except perhaps Carola Neher, actually resemble people in photographs from the turn of the century. In spite of a certain feeling of artificiality brought by the sets, the movie gives a good sense of that time, if not, perhaps, the place - it's set in London, and everyone speaks German. That's as it should be. People speak English in a lot of Hollywood movies set in Europe, after all. I wonder if the actors in The Threepenny Opera are speaking German with an English accent?

This movie is recommended, but don't buy the UK dvd. I think the recently released US dvd must have much better picture quality. The first half of my UK dvd is pretty hard to watch, because the picture jumps so much, and sometimes it's scewed so that the actors' heads are cut off.

[jdb1]

I'm hestitant to purchase this movie, because of the very poor film quality I've seen in art houses and on TV. Our local City University cable channel occasionally shows this one, and the print is so awful that most of the time I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be seeing -- the sound is very tinny and distorted as well. It's really too bad.

Does anyone have a DVD of this? Is it worth buying?

[Synnove]

The Threepenny Opera was released by Criterion last year. On amazon, they talk favourably of the gorgeous black and white cinematography, so I guess that means they have restored it.

Your experience sounds more like the one I have from the UK dvd version.

[jdb1]

Now I'm curious to see what I've been missing!
Thanks.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've been feeling poorly sick and to take my mind off it I've been watching some silents. A good way of relaxing.

The first was a double disc New Wives For Old and The Whispering Chorus both directed by Cecil B DeMille. I guess what I like best about his films are the attention he pays to detail, such as the fashions of the time and household decor. He gives me the feeling of wanting to enter the screen just to have a good look around and to try on the fashions.

New Wives For Old is the story of a successful businessman played by Elliot Dexter who's wife has become decidedly matronly and slovenly after bearing him two children. He tells his wife he wants a divorce before going on a hunting holiday with his son and meeting the woman who is right for him played by Florence Vidor. The story has some twists and turns before Elliot and Florence achieve happiness.

The Whispering Chorus concerns a bookeeper (Raymond Hatton) who isn't satisfied with his lot in life despite having a lovely wife (Kathlyn Williams) and devoted mother. One day he steals from his employer and runs away, he chances on a dead man in a swamp and swaps identity. When the dead man is discovered he is unrecoginsable apart from his clothes. The husband turns to the life of a tramp and sometimes worker and assumes the identity of the other man but is on the run as his new identity is accussed of killing himself. Confusing, I know. His wife remarries choosing as her husband the state governor (Elliot Dexter). After bring happily married for two years her husband is found and stands trial for his own murder. His mother asks him to protect his wife whatever the cost. The cost is his execution for the murder of himself. The final scenes of execution aren't gruesome but are very sad. The bookkeeper has learned his lesson and redeemed himself.

Then I watched The Salvation Hunters I noticed the only reviewer on the imdb gave it 2 out of 10. It deserves more than that. Von Sternberg still had a way to go to achieve the perfection of The Docks Of New York he does manage to instill the sheer futility of the lives of The Boy, The Girl and The Child. The cinematography as always with Von Sternberg draws you in.

The Girl in this film is Georgia Hale who was seen in this film and immediately cast by Chaplin to replace his pregnant leading lady in The Gold Rush.

[Synnove]

Old Wives for New does display eye-popping fashions. It's a very strange story, with a lot of illogical twists and turns, but I like to watch it just for the decor. The story about the kept women intrigued me the most in that movie. I thought it was interesting how the more experienced woman kept giving advice to the new one, like that she shouldn't demand too much of him, and that the men never introduced them to their daughters. It was a world with a different set of rules. I also liked the shooting scene, with the record playing. Using the actual record was a great touch.

[bdp]

I didn't know The Salvation Hunters was available to be seen - it's been one of my 'most wanted' silents for a very long time.

[Ann Harding]

Yesterday I had a whale of a time watching William Wyler's Counsellor-at-law (1933) with John Barrymore and Bebe Daniels. This film based on a play takes place in a single set (a lawyer's office) and in the space of one day. Though it doesn't feel stagey at all, it's fast paced, has quick fire dialogue and some great characterizations. Barrymore is a top NY lawyer handling multiple cases (criminal, divorces, etc...). He came from a fairly poor background while his wife (Doris Kenyon) is very snobbish upper-class lady and unfaithful. His whole world is about to collapse when he realised that he might be disbarred because of a forged alibi...
This is really a very good early Wyler. It's extremely well directed with a Barrymore on top form. All the supporting cast is top notch: Melvyn Douglas, Isabell Jewell and even the notorious Mayo Methot (Mrs Bogart the second). Very nice!

[Ollie]

I've got the Abel Gance documentary and his 2 Silents on my recording schedule this weekend: J'ACCUSE and LA ROUE.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've been watching Greed, the 4 hour version reconstructed using plenty of stills is thought by many to be his masterpiece. It originally ran for 9 hours, imagine that, how many toilet breaks would you need!!!
It seems that Von Stroheim has filmed it page for page from te original novel, taking in every detail. Greed is as compelling as the other films Von Stroheim made but it wallows in the seedier side of life only briefly seeming to lift itself out to settle right back down again. It is a film on how gold destroys all around it, from the wife who wins the lottery, hordes it and covorts with it on her bed, denying her husband bus fare letting him walk across town in a storm. The hisband McTeague who finds a profession for himself as a dentist and does quite well until his wife's cousin shops him to the dental board for not having taking exams. As McTeague's encounters trouble in finding employment his wifes penny pinching gets worse, at one point buying him rotten meat so she can save more money. When he steals the money she has saved she disavows him and never lets him return. Completing the triangle is the cousin who pursues McTeague into Death Valley just to get revenge and the gold that McTeague carries.

In this film is non of the opulence of the other Von Stroheim films. Although some of it is coloured gold to show the constant theme running through the picture. The only real lasting happiness in the picture comes from an old couple who are neighbours in the same boarding house as the McTeagues after years of sharing a partition wall they tentatively make friends and then marry.

The end scenes in the desert are the famous ones. Truly hard work for the actors and crew working in incredible heat.

I need a Gagman or Kyle to answer this for me. They shoot the donkey at the end of the film. Von Stroheim wouldn't really have killed a donkey would he? I wouldn't put anything past him.

[bdp]

I really don't know about the donkey; I know many horses were routinely killed in stampede scenes, or in the chariot pile-up in Ben-Hur. Animal life was cheap in early Hollywood, but on the other hand some horses can be taught go down on command to make it look like they were killed so it could be that's what was done in Greed too.

[Synnove]

One thing I've always wondered is how they filmed the scene with the horse running into the ice in Sir Arne's Treasure. How could it survive that?

[silentscreen]

Yesterday I had a whale of a time watching William Wyler's Counsellor-at-law (1933) with John Barrymore and Bebe Daniels. This film based on a play takes place in a single set (a lawyer's office) and in the space of one day. Though it doesn't feel stagey at all, it's fast paced, has quick fire dialogue and some great characterizations. Barrymore is a top NY lawyer handling multiple cases (criminal, divorces, etc...). He came from a fairly poor background while his wife (Doris Kenyon) is very snobbish upper-class lady and unfaithful. His whole world is about to collapse when he realised that he might be disbarred because of a forged alibi...
This is really a very good early Wyler. It's extremely well directed with a Barrymore on top form. All the supporting cast is top notch: Melvyn Douglas, Isabell Jewell and even the notorious Mayo Methot (Mrs Bogart the second). Very nice!

Glad you enjoyed it Christine! It's fun watching John! When he's on a roll, there's no one better!

[charliechaplinfan]

Animal life was cheap in Hollywood that's true. I can understand (but don't like the fact) that horses are lost in stampede scenes and such but it's almost too much to bear that they might be shot just to make the scene more real I'm not going to think about it anymore, I shall put it out of my mind.

Wasn't Mayo Methot Bogie's third wife, my memory is telling me he was married 4 times the last being Lauren Bacall and I'm sure the wife that preceded Lauren was Mayo. Sorry I know it's nit picking perhaps someone else knows

Last night I added another Lubitsch film to my repertoire. Trouble In Paradise . It's truly a lesson in precode perfection.

Did anyone match Lubitsch for dialogue and suggestion?

Miriam Hopkins reminded me in part of a young Carole Lombard and played the part the part of Lily making her worldly and vulnerable in her love for Gaston at the same time. She might say she prefers the money but when one of their conquests comes close to breaking her relationship with Gaston it isn't really the money she is bothered about.

Kay Francis's Mariette leads a blameless life, yet the audience aren't in sympathy with her because she wantonly spends her money when others are truly in need. It's not that she's cruel but that she's from the privileged world and therefore doesn't she deserve to be done over?

Herbert Marshall plays the French crook as only an English man can with a uppercrust English accent he's exceedingly dashing and charming and I can well understand both ladies for falling for him.

I truly adore Edward Everett Horton and he's at his best in this film. I used to think he was just a stalwart of the Fred And Ginger films. Not at all he appears in all sorts of films.

All in all I think the film had the right ending. It wasn't a film about everyone getting their just desserts but a film about set in the richest surroundings about people who have money and people clever enough to part them from it. The crooks don't have the redeeming qualities of a Robin Hood but because of their utter charm they can't allowed to be punished. After all it's only a story.