WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[Ann Harding]

Synnove, thanks for that nice review of this Stiller movie! I recently saw Johan, another great Stiller silent. I was absolutely enchanted by the film's beauty and intelligence. It's amazing how ahead of their time the Swedes were in the 10s in terms of cinema.

[drednm]

Along with THE LIGHTS OF OLD BROADWAY I watched THE BELOVED ROGUE from 1927. John Barrymore is excellent as the French poet Villon in this romantic adventure film with just enough humor to keep it from getting ponderous. The sets are superb.

Barrymore is matched here by Conrad Veidt (as Louis) as the warped French king who is fighting off the revolution (it's the 1430s) from the rabble of Paris for whom Villon is "king" and the ambitious Duke of Burgundy who through marriage to Charlotte (the beautiful Marceline Day) is trying to usurp Paris and all of France.

The catapult episode was featured in Kevin Brownlow's HOLLYWOOD series and it is indeed an amazing stunt. I thought this was going to be a drippy romance movie (as the operetta versions of this story are) but I was mesmerized by the mammoth sets, Barrymore and Veidt. Good comic support here also from Mack Swain and Slim Summerville.

[bdp]

The shot where Villon has been told he must leave Paris and is removing his clown makeup is riveting - Barrymore was a superlative actor.

[drednm]

Yes... that scene with Barrymore reminded me of the superb scene in LIMELIGHT where an exhausted Chaplin is removing his makeup. I think this is Barrymore's best silent film.....

[coopsgirl]

I recently watched Escort Girl (1941) and while it wasn’t released in the precode era, this is a precode film if I’ve ever seen one.

Betty Compson plays a woman who with her boyfriend played by Wheeler Oakman runs an “escort bureau” of young ladies and men. While on the surface they simply provides dates it is of course a prostitution service. Betty was an escort girl herself in her younger days to make ends meet and support her daughter played by Margaret Marquis. Betty has now made good as a pimp basically and keeps her daughter away in New York (Betty is in California) at fancy schools so she won’t find out the truth. Margaret and her fiancée played by Robert Kellard surprise her mother by coming out to California and Robert is working for the D.A. to try and bust the escort services and wipe them out.

We see the girls who work for the service talking about their “dates” as they change clothes and some of them have bruises where the men have gotten a little too rough. There’s also a funny scene of a young male escort with an older woman and she’s all over him and he’s disgusted by her until she mentions how much money her husband left her and then that sweetens his disposition. We also see one woman strip down to her pasties and very small, fringe underwear dancing around for a few minutes.

The quality of the film was pretty poor and it skips a lot during the first half as frames are missing. It was pretty cheesy but it’s only a little over an hour long and I did get a kick out of it (especially one of the naïve girls who didn’t seem to realize she was hired as a hooker!) so it wasn’t entirely time wasted.

[Synnove]

Synnove, thanks for that nice review of this Stiller movie! I recently saw Johan, another great Stiller silent. I was absolutely enchanted by the film's beauty and intelligence. It's amazing how ahead of their time the Swedes were in the 10s in terms of cinema.

Where did you get to see Johan?

It seems like one of those films that really should have classic status. Then maybe it would get shown more often. Or why not get a DVD release? I keep hoping.

[Gagman 66]

Ed,

I haven't watched THE BELOVED ROUGUE in a long time, but this is one of Barrymore's better Silent's. To me Marceline Day is about as beautiful as any Woman who ever appeared before the camera in this film! Wow! Was this Kyle's Laser-disc transfer? The quality was much better than the official Kino DVD, which looks pretty washed out. Did it have the Bill Perry Piano score?

I probably still like DON JUAN a little better overall, and while some people did not care for WHEN A MAN LOVES, I thought it was very good. Still have yet to see a nice print of THE SEA BEAST, but it is much more exciting than BEAU BRUMMEL which is about as dull as they come, even though Warner's had the film beautifully restored.

Must confess that I have never finished THE TEMPEST. Camilla Horn is incredibly gorgeous in ETERNAL LOVE, but it is the most downbeat and disappointing Ernst Lubitsh feature I have ever seen.

[Ann Harding]

I must admit I was rather underwhelmed by The Beloved Rogue. True, I saw the bad Kino DVD. But, even so, I find Ronald Colman's Villon in If I Were King far superior to Barrymore's. So far, I have always prefered John Barrymore in talkies. He is fabulous in Counsellor-at-law, Midnight, etc. In silents, I feel we have access only to a small percentage of what he could do. I think it has to do with the directors he worked with in silents: they were mediocre directors. Now, you can send the virtual brickbats!!!

[drednm]

Jeff I agree about Marceline Day.... The only other film I can think of seeing her in is Keaton's THE CAMERMAN and she was pretty, but in THE BELOVED ROGUE she was gorgeous.

Christine, as for Barrymore's silents, I guess I haven't seen that many but he apparently made around 25 silents. I have several of his silents like BEAU BRUMMEL, THE SEA BEAST, WHEN A MAN LOVES, ETERNAL LOVE, and DON JUAN, but have either not watched them yet or saw them eons ago.

As I said, part of what I liked about THE BELOVED ROGUE was the massive sets. The whole production almost had a Fairbanks feel to it. Also, I always prefer a dash of humor in a serious film and Barrymore as a "great lover" character leaves me rather cold.

I also like Barrymore in his talkies, especially when he plays the world-weary types as in GRAND HOTEL or his sly reprobates as in TRUE CONFESSION or MIDNIGHT.

and Jeff, have you watched THE LIGHTS OF OLD BROADWAY yet? The copy isn't great but it's watchable.....

[feaito]

I think that "Tempest" (1928) is one of the best Silents I've seen, and John Barrymore gave a great performance there, but as much as I liked that one, I was totally disappointed by Lubitsch's "Eternal Love" (1929). I agree in that Barrymore's charm and talent is at full display in his talkies, such as "Midnight", "Twentieth Century" & "Arsene Lupin".

I have the Image DVD Edition of "The Beloved Rogue" and I recall it's so-so; Is it any better than the KINO edition that Jeff and Christine mentioned?

[coopsgirl]

Thanks to Christine I was able to see a beautiful version of City Streets (1931). The copy I had was murky and slightly out of focus (you know, like how a lot of our copies of old movies look) and now it’s like watching it again for the first time . There is one scene where Gary Cooper is playing a carnival game and he wins a stuffed elephant for Sylvia Sidney. She takes it and says “another elephant?” I thought this was just a cute throw away line but later in her bedroom we see she has a bunch of elephants sitting on her dresser. My old copy was too dark to make that out before.

I love the look and style of this movie and hope one day it gets a proper release. I mean it’s an art deco gangster movie, how cool is that?

[drednm]

I have the KINO version of THE BELOVED ROGUE and it's very good with only a few moments of deterioration in the last 5 minutes or so..... The music was also pretty good, by William Perry.....

[feaito]

Thanks for the info Drednm. I'd like to compare both DVD editions.

[Gagman 66]

Ed,

Marceline Day is also in CAPTAIN SALVATION (1927). Have you watched this one yet? Tremendous cast with Lars Hanson, Pauline Starke, Donald Crisp, and Ernest Torrence. This is a great, movie. Directed by the forgotten John Robertson.

I think I have Marceline in a least a couple of more films, but I am drawing a blank as to what they are? She was in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, but that is of course lost.

No, I have not looked at THE LIGHTS OF BROADWAY yet, but I did watch TILLIE THE TOILER. Which I enjoyed allot.

Last night I viewed the Clara Bow talkie CALL HER SAVAGE, and Wow! I was blown away by Clara's voice, and her natural performance not even a remote hint of the mythical "Thick Brooklyn Drawl", that was supposed to have destroyed her career in the talkies??? And it's easy to see that she could have kept making movies for many years to come. The girl was a tremendous actress. What a shame that she retired completely in a year or so. I have had this for a long time, but never got around to watchi9ng it before. A very nice print too for the most part.

Fernando,

I thought there was. or had been an Image version of THE BELOVED ROGUE, but I have not seen it. I have the Kino DVD, and Kyle's Laser-disc transfer looks dramatically better? Even though it's essentially the same version from Killiam Shows?

[coopsgirl]

Hey Jeff,
I’m glad you enjoyed Call Her Savage. Here’s a little background info on it for anyone who may not know. In ’31 Clara’s close friend who was also partly her business manager went on trial for embezzlement. From what I read in David Stenn’s wonderful and very thoroughly researched bio about Clara, it seems that Daisy did not actually commit a crime but it was all one big misunderstanding on the part of Daisy, Clara and Rex Bell who was Clara’s boyfriend at the time and would soon become her husband. The judge in the trial was crooked and was later deposed and tried himself. He actually convicted Daisy on only one count and that was for a check that didn’t even have her signature on it. I won’t fully defend Daisy though as she did drag her best friend through the mud in an attempt to save her own skin.

This led to a mental breakdown on Clara’s part and she was unable to continue working. She genuinely tried to do her best as she wanted to fulfill her contract since she was not one of those diva stars but a hard working actress. She broke down one day on the set of Kick In and soon after Paramount released her. She wrote a letter to Schulberg, production head at Paramount, after they let her go that was so pitiful and touching it made me cry. He got her a start in Hollywood and then used her for everything he could get out of her. She was grossly underpaid b/c they knew they could take advantage of her limited education and b/c her films were practically always hits, she was usually given less than stellar material or costars b/c all they needed to bring in the dough was Clara.

Back in the 20s she said in an interview that once she got married she would leave Hollywood b/c she wanted to have a family and devote all her time to them. She and Rex married in late ’31 and the only reason she continued to make films was b/c Rex was still under a movie contract himself and would have to spend time in Hollywood away from the ranch they called home in Nevada. When they went back to Hollywood in ’32 every studio but Paramount made Clara an offer and she took a two picture deal at Fox. Call Her Savage was first and it was a hit. Enough time had passed that people forgot and forgave the scandal of the previous year. In ’33 she made Hoopla! which would be her last film. She made an easy transition to talkies so it was not her voice that ended her career. She went out on top and it was her decision.

In Call Her Savage we see a very mature actress even though she would only have been 27. She had a decade worth of experience under her belt by then and with better material (though still not as good as I think she deserved) we get a glimpse of what could have been the beginning of a turn to more dramatic roles which I believe she was perfect for. When people say she had “it” they ain’t just whistling Dixie. There is something about her that you just can’t look away from. She’s one of those rare stars that attracts both men, women, and children and captures them in her spell. She is far and away my favorite actress and I hope one day her movies will get the proper treatment they deserve.

I’ll get off my Clara soapbox now .