On Mon. Jan. 31, G.W. Pabst films are scheduled to be shown on TCM. Why should we care about a movie maker who sometimes seems overshadowed by Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau as one of the three great directors working in Germany during the silent film era? Here's a great piece by film historian Thomas Gladysz on why we might want to care enough to record these movies if we haven't seen them. (all times shown are Eastern Standard)
12:00 AM Pandora's Box (1929)
A young innocent's sexuality destroys all who come near her. Cast: Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer. Dir: G.W. Pabst. BW-134 mins, TV-PG
2:30 AM The Three Penny Opera (1931)
A notorious thief fights for the right to marry the beggar king's daughter. Cast: Rudolf Foster, Carola Neher, Lotte Lenya. Dir: G.W. Pabst. BW-111 mins, TV-G
4:30 AM A Modern Hero (1934)
A circus rider makes a hit in the automotive industry but can't find happiness. Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Veree Teasdale, Jean Muir, Marjorie Rambeau. Dir: G.W. Pabst, Arthur Greville Collins. BW-71 mins, TV-G
Moira - I will be recording A MODERN HERO, and the following Barthelmess feature MIDNIGHT ALIBI - both new titles for me. However, an accompanying raspberry PHLFFT!!!! to TCM for pulling a second Conrad Veidt film from this months schedule at the last minute. My Now Playing guide shows SPY IN BLACK was scheduled for the slot now filled by MIDNIGHT ALIBI, and they pulled MEN IN HER LIFE off at the beginning on this month! I believe both of those films would have been TCM premieres.
I've been waiting for A Modern Hero for, like, forever! It's one of my requests to TCM. I'll finally get to plug this hole in my Barthelmess collection. :)
Maybe they're planning a Conrad Veidt day so that's why they pulled those two other titles?
Jezebel38 wrote:Moira - I will be recording A MODERN HERO, and the following Barthelmess feature MIDNIGHT ALIBI - both new titles for me. However, an accompanying raspberry PHLFFT!!!! to TCM for pulling a second Conrad Veidt film from this months schedule at the last minute. My Now Playing guide shows SPY IN BLACK was scheduled for the slot now filled by MIDNIGHT ALIBI, and they pulled MEN IN HER LIFE off at the beginning on this month! I believe both of those films would have been TCM premieres.
Jez,
I was pretty shocked when The Spy In Black (1939) was pulled and received emails from a bunch of people who were upset about it. I'm sure that it was something beyond the control of TCM. At least there is still a good print transfer to a Region 2 DVD. The Men in Her Life (1941) is a movie that I would love to see. I have a weakness for Loretta Young, (please don't shoot me!) but also because I suspect that Veidt's reportedly sympathetic role as a ballet master may have influenced Powell and Pressburger's development of the role of Boris Lermontov (played so icily well by Anton Walbrook) in The Red Shoes (1948). I believe that P & P would have loved to work with Veidt again after their previously joyous creative collaborations.
pvitari wrote:Maybe they're planning a Conrad Veidt day so that's why they pulled those two other titles?
Heck Paula,
Only a day? Why not a month. I'd love to see it divided between his silents, the talkies and Hollywood and--in my dreams at least--with a Kevin Brownlow documentary about his life and career. And I'd like John Soister and David Shepard to do an on-camera discussion of Veidt as well.
Which Veidt movies would others most like to see broadcast on TCM?
moirafinnie wrote:
Heck Paula,
Only a day? Why not a month. I'd love to see it divided between his silents, the talkies and Hollywood and--in my dreams at least--with a Kevin Brownlow documentary about his life and career. And I'd like John Soister and David Shepard to do an on-camera discussion of Veidt as well.
Which Veidt movies would others most like to see broadcast on TCM?
I also think they should do Connie as SOTM - I'd like them to run his silent THE LAST PERFORMANCE, and the early British films, FP1 DOESN'T ANSWER, I WAS A SPY, ROME EXPRESS and POWER (JEW SUSS 1934), all of which, with the exception of FP1 I have seen bootleg copies of.
Thought I would just tack this on to an existing thread. I combed through the titles at Oldies.com--releases sold as Alpha Video--to get some bargain prices on some potentially interesting titles. There are a lot of films for which the studios don't seem to be particularly jealous of the copyrights, and the condition of the recordings are not always that great. Still, if you're filling in some gaps in a collection, there are some that might be of interest...with a price-point of four or five bucks.
I got the early Keaton talkie, Speak Easily, an early Swanson talkie, Indiscreet (1931), and the film The Mistress of Atlantis (1932), directed by G.W. Pabst. While the recording quality of the latter may qualify it for the "bargain bin," it is a stunning film, attesting to Pabst's brilliance as a filmmaker.
I came across the title of the film at IMDB while learning about the career of Brigitte Helm after watching Metropolis. She plays the "Queen of Atlantis," which somehow has come to rest beneath the sands of the Sahara Desert. Seeing that was certainly worth five bucks! While I was waiting for the film to arrive, I was expecting to be treated to a production similar to what I got from She (1935)--big sets, wild costumes, special effects, etc. What I ended up getting was quite different, but infinitely more memorable.
The story is told in flashback by a French Legionnaire who was captured with his comrade in what was thought to be an uninhabited area of the desert. The two are separated by their captors, and we begin to learn--in dribs and drabs--what this mysterious place is all about through the experience of the male lead. Leading up to the inevitable reveal of the Queen, all of the inhabitants of this weird place are heavily veiled and cloaked, with one surprising exception, a very animated European with a very wide moustache who seems to be always drunk and always wearing evening clothes. He's the key of the mystery and quite an eager source of the film's exposition.
[I need to get ready for work now, but I'll finish this when I get back]
"Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day."
Goodnight Basington
I haven't seen the silent She yet, but plan to get it from Sunrise Silents one of these days. It is likely to have been a point of reference for this 1932 production. However, with the exception of the "sexy queen of a mythical realm" theme--this film and the 1935 She couldn't be more different.
...When we last saw our captive Legionnaire, he was getting cleaned up in some underground quarters and being handed a cocktail by the eccentric European. Like a foppish impresario, the European explains how, twenty years earlier, he had come across these ruins and had fixed them up so that they would be inhabitable. He is interrupted when another European, wearing dungarees and strung out on "keef" comes in muttering about "Antinea." "Maybe she'll summon me today," he says, seemingly uninterested in anything else. The Legionnaire wants to find his comrade and get back to his unit. That's the setup.
Without giving too much away, the story essentially develops into a love triangle between the queen (Helm), the Legionnaire, and his misplaced buddy. It's interesting that even in the midst of all these exotic trappings, the central conflict is one that could happen in the most mundane of settings: The one who is indifferent (in this case, the misplaced comrade) is doted upon ever-more-strenuously (by Antinea); and the one who is thoroughly besotted (as the Legionnaire becomes) is rejected. Spurned, the queen tells the Legionnaire to kill his comrade, which he does without batting an eye.
But that's just the framework. There's something about the way it's all handled that gets this film under your skin and keeps it there. Even though it's a fantasy-type story, it's put together as if it could really happen. For example, the trip through the desert is gritty and real. Pabst lingers on the sand and wind and camels (I think Pabst must have been fascinated by the movement of camels), impressing upon you what an arduous trek it is. The desert natives appear in authentic dress, not some Hollywood producer's idea of what natives should look like. It has the feel of an anthropological documentary...very respectful and very authentic.
The environs of what are presumably the vestiges of Atlantis are also distinctly un-Hollywood. Some of it may have been shot on location. The dwellings and passageways look older than dirt. If the interiors were shot in the studio, great care was taken to make them look as old and worn as the exteriors. There are no master shots of great halls. In fact, the mood is slightly claustrophobic--again, like you would expect if you actually came across such a place.
Without giving too much away, we find out in an abrupt flashback that Antinea is actually the twenty-year-old daughter of the foppish impresario and a (presumably deceased) can-can dancer. This is a relief for the fellas watching. [With She, the idea of hitting on a 500 year old woman can be a little disturbing]. Pabst photographs Helm with the same love with which he photographs Brooks. It's positively melting. I didn't notice so much in Metropolis, but she has a profile like a classical Greek statue, an observation not lost on Pabst. Her hair is done in such a way that it resembles cut marble. And if you didn't get that, there's a twenty-foot-tall bronze head of her squeezed into a small room outside of her chamber. It could have come right off of the collosus (sp?) of a temple. And Helm is a pretty good actress. She's imperious and mysterious when it serves the story, but shows a good emotional range once the love triangle gets underway. You believe her as a queen, and you believe her as a mixed-up kid who's been thrust into a bizarre life. Again, it makes the film more of a fantasy that could actually happen.
Just a couple more points of appreciation. When the Legionnaire is granted his first audience with the queen, she tells him he must beat her at chess to win his freedom. It's a brisk match, and you get the impression that she has played a lot of chess. Now when Boris and Bela play chess in The Black Cat, there are cutaways up until the final checkmate. In this film, the camera stays on the chessboard and records the last dozen or so moves until the queen wins. The chess game was choreographed to build the drama. I loved it.
Another nice piece of business is when, in the flashback, we are learning about Antinea's parentage. The fop, twenty years younger, is in his mistress's dressing-room backstage. Music is blaring so there is no dialogue. He opens a bottle of champagne and pours her a glass. She refuses it with a wave of her hand and then whispers in his ear. He beams. That's all you need to see to know that she's pregnant with his child. It's so brilliant, so charming, and so efficient! I can't think of an example off hand, but I noticed the same kind of efficiency in Diary of a Lost Girl. So much storytelling with so few intertitles!
I guess Mistress of Atlantis wouldn't suffer too much without spoken dialogue, being so pictorially rich. There is soundtrack music, but it's sparse. At a time when the Warner Brothers were inserting studio orchestra renditions of St. Louis Blues to suggest that something tawdry was afoot, Pabst is using sheer one- and two-note strains to conjure mood. I'm no expert on the history of the soundtrack, but it struck me as "pioneering."
The Alpha video print looks like it was mastered from a well-used 16mm original. On the one hand, I'd like to see it come out as a restored version for more people to enjoy. On the other hand, it's so smart and so well put together, I don't even notice the lines and scratches. A great symphony is still a great symphony, even if you're listening to it on a cheap transistor radio!
Last edited by intothenitrate on March 31st, 2011, 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day."
Goodnight Basington
intothenitrate wrote:I'd like to see it come out as a restored version for more people to enjoy.
The French version of Mistress of Atlantis, L'Atlantide, has been restored and was available on DVD from MK2, paired with the Feyder silent version from 1921. The restoration is quite good. There was also a German language version shot, but I haven't seen that one.
intothenitrate wrote:I haven't seen the silent She yet, but plan to get it from Sunrise Silents one of these days.
"L'Atlantide" (1932) sounds just like my kind of film. I've seen recent/contemporary adaptations of a similar/the same story: the 1988 three-part miniseries "The Secret of the Sahara" (Il Segreto del Sahara") in which Andie McDowell plays "Queen" Anthea, co starring David Soul, Michael York, Ben Kingsley, James Farentino, Miguel Bosè, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Ana Obregón et al and the 1992 film "L'Atlantide", based upon the same Pierre Benoit novel than Helm's film, with Tcheky Karyo and Victoria Mahoney as Antinea, both very good and interesting films.
Jezebel38 wrote:Moira - I will be recording A MODERN HERO, and the following Barthelmess feature MIDNIGHT ALIBI - both new titles for me. However, an accompanying raspberry PHLFFT!!!! to TCM for pulling a second Conrad Veidt film from this months schedule at the last minute. My Now Playing guide shows SPY IN BLACK was scheduled for the slot now filled by MIDNIGHT ALIBI, and they pulled MEN IN HER LIFE off at the beginning on this month! I believe both of those films would have been TCM premieres.
Hi Jezebel, so long! I recently saw "Midnight Alibi" (1934) and it disappointed me, because Dick Barthlemess is not at his best here. In spite of that, the best sequences of the film are those set in the 1880s with Dick (looking much better than in the contemporary 1934 settings) and lovely Helen Chandler. Alan Crosland's direction is uninspired.
When I saw the film I kept thinking that the story was so familiar!! But I could not place it....until I remembered I had seen a WB Short based upon the same Damon Runyon story, filmed in 1941, under Jean Negulesco's tight direction, titled "At the Stroke of Twelve", which is vastly superior at 20 minutes and stars Craig Stevens in the Dick Barthlemess role, Elizabeth Risdon and Howard Da Silva. A taut, fast paced, completely absorbing story. Well directed by Negulesco. You should check it, it's included on the DVD release of Warners "The Great Lie" (1941) with Bette Davis.
My gosh! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Mich J for including the link to the 1911 SHE starring James Cruze! I had no idea there was a Thanhouser site! This is just great. You've made my day. My month, actually.
Thanhouser's SHE has some pretty amazing special effects for the time, and Marguerite Snow is wonderful. It must have been a popular film, it's quite entertaining.
