WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[Rita Hayworth]

I like Night After Night ... Starring Mae West and Company ... and I would love to see it again. Thanks CCFan for jarring my memory bank!

[charliechaplinfan]

Oooh that one sounds good! I wonder if I've seen it before, back when movies like this showed up on TV.... I don't remember, but I did try to catch all the Mae West movies at some point early on.

Alison, was it you who I was talking with about the George Raft section of If I Had a Million? He's just flat out great in that vignette.

I don't think so, jog my memory, which is his segment? Lordy, my memory is getting terrible these days, I have to watch things twice to have recall of what I've seen or write a good full review of everything I've seen.

[JackFavell]

Raft is an ex con, I think, down on his luck when he inherits the check for a million bucks from the millionaire. He can't cash the check.

[charliechaplinfan]

Of course, that's the best segment, I'm going to have to dust it off and watch it again, it's such a treat of a movie, so many stars and all good.

[feaito]

I watched the KINO Blu Ray release of "Bird of Paradise" (1932) which includes the copy that belongs to the Selznick Estate. While not perfect it's an improvement over the best version of the many available -since it's a film on the PD-, which was released in 1999 by the Roan Group (with a sepia tone).

The KINO BR is in B&W (not sepia) and is an improvement especially regarding the audio of the film. It also gives a sharper image in certain segments, although some damage is apparent in other sequences. The film is one of the main examples of exotic eroticism during the Pre-Code Era, with Dolores Del Río at the peak of her beauty and allure. She and Joel McCrea make an attractive and sexy couple. The Mexican actress who plays Dolores friend (Sofía Ortega) is a hoot!

[intothenitrate]

So does the blu-ray print let you see any more than the previous version...when Dolores' hair is falling strategically over her front? [That was meant to be funny].

[feaito]

So does the blu-ray print let you see any more than the previous version...when Dolores' hair is falling strategically over her front? [That was meant to be funny].

Not to that extent but it was good to see a sharper print if not as pristine as I thought it would be.

[CineMaven]

So does the blu-ray print let you see any more than the previous version...when Dolores' hair is falling strategically over her front? [That was meant to be funny].

Are you mixing up blu-ray with the man with the x-ray eyes?

[intothenitrate]

Just celebrating a little risque pre-codery. BTW, those x-ray specs you get out of the back pages of comic books just give you a headache!

[CineMaven]

Nitrate!

[Ann Harding]

Arte broadcast last week -for the first time- a brilliant Feyder comedy.

(Gaby Morlay and Albert Préjean near a famous tower)

Les Nouveaux Messieurs (1928, Jacques Feyder) with Gaby Morlay, Albert Préjean and Henry Roussell

This charming comedy pokes fun at parliamentary life during the French Third Republic. Adapting Flers and De Croisset's play, Feyder creates a little masterpiece of understatement. Suzanne Verrier (G. Morlay) is a ballet dancer at the Paris Opera. She is kept in grand style by the Count of Montoire-Granpré (Henry Roussell), a member of parliament, who offers her a limousine with chauffeur. But, the opera chief electrician, Jacques Gaillac (A. Préjean) is secretly in love with her. By a strange reversal of fortune, the government is toppled and new general elections bring Gaillac to power. From union leader, he becomes minister. Then Suzanne has to make a choice between the two men...
Feyder has at his disposal a magician of a set designer: Lazare Meerson. Meerson creates some superb sets in particular Suzanne Verrier's flat which looks ultra-modern with its pure white lines. The building of the CIT union is also a masterpiece showing Art Deco at its best. For the cast, Feyder hesitated for a long time before casting Albert Préjean. Poor Préjean recalls in his memoirs how his friend René Clair told him about the part and to run for it. His first meeting with Feyder was disastrous: "I need an actor, not an acrobat." In fact, Préjean had started his career as a stuntman. He worked with the wolves of Le miracle des loups (1924, R. Bernard) and he climbs a building with his bare hands in Le fantôme du Moulin-Rouge (1925, R. Clair). But he had already shown his qualities as comedian in the wonderful Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (An Italian Straw Hat, 1927) under René Clair. Feyder asked him to shed 8 pounds and he went on starvation diet for a week. He finally got the part after a disastrous screen test when he had to kiss Gaby Morlay. It's also a pleasure to see the wonderful Henry Roussell playing the aristocrat. He is no caricature an never pompous. He draws an elegant and humorous figure who stops at nothing to keep his mistress, though always with great finesse. Gaby Morlay is just a joy to behold. Her career went on from success to success with the arrival of sound. Here, she is a delightful dancer, exhuberant, charming and totally natural. Some of the most charming scenes in the film shows her going for a swim in the Seine river with Préjean. The film predates the poetic realism from the 30s, better known with the Marcel Carné films. Actually, Marcel Carné was Feyder's assistant on Les nouveaux messieurs and we can guess he drew some inspiration from this film. Funnily enough, the film was banned from the screen for several months. One scene created the fury of the censors: an elderly member of parliament falls asleep in the National Assembly. He dreams that a whole corps de ballet invades parliament with lovely female dancers everywhere. It took an intervention from the actress Mary Marquet (a friend of Françoise Rosay, Mrs Feyder) to lift the ban. This is the first time I had a chance to see the film with some music, so far I had seen it only in silence. The new score created by Antonio Coppola with a small chamber ensemble (Octuor de France) brings charms and dynamism to the proceedings. He follows the plot and the atmosphere perfectly (and it's not always the case!). Overall, my third visit with this lovely film was just as enthusiastic as the previous times. The film remains fresh even after repeated viewing. Just one word about the print. It's supposedly a new print from 2011, but I couldn't see any differences with the previous 1990 print. The image has the same defaults and softness. The film should come out on DVD thanks to Flicker Alley.

[feaito]

Great review Christine. I'll be waiting with anticipation the Flicker Alley release!!

[Gary J.]

Raft is an ex con, I think, down on his luck when he inherits the check for a million bucks from the millionaire. He can't cash the check.

It's worse than that. Raft is a convicted forger so no one believes that the million dollar check is legit. At the end he signs the check over to a proprietor of a flop house so Raft can have a bed for the night. The man uses the check to light his five cent cigar...

Poetic justice back in the dark days of the Depression.

[charliechaplinfan]

Now I remember clearly, it is one of the best sections in the movie, it's a sad sign when I can't quite picture the bits of films that I've enjoyed.

I watched the brilliant Thou Shall Not a documentary devoted to the code, I'm presuming this was broadcast on TCM but as it was sent to me I'm not sure but it's definetly American, it features some of my favourite film authors, Mark Vieira and Jeffrey Vance to name two, the films featured some of my favourite from the era, Baby Face, Red Headed Woman, The Divorcee, Night Nurse, the Berkley musicals, Paid, Possessed. These precodes are amongst my favourite movies, they're so fresh, honest and fun. There are a couple of films featured there that I have never seen, Illicit being one. It was such a good time for actresses, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and Barbara Stanwyck were never allowed to be as naughty again. It put a fresh spin on the end of the code, much as I like the freeness of the precodes and the way they pushed the envelope but films did gain something from having their wings clipped, films did become charged in a different way, one wonders how the scenes between Bogart and Bacall, taking one example, would be played out if the code hadn't been in, would we have enjoyed them so much?

[CineMaven]

"...much as I like the freeness of the precodes and the way they pushed the envelope but films did gain something from having their wings clipped, films did become charged in a different way, one wonders how the scenes between Bogart and Bacall, taking one example, would be played out if the code hadn't been in, would we have enjoyed them so much?" - Charlie Chaplin fan.

Good point. I guess sometimes, I'm a "ton-of-bricks" kinda gal.