WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[drednm]

It's a tough film, Jeff, since Lulu is supposed to be the epitome of the amoral woman. I guess in that sense she simply does what she does as if she does not know right from wrong. The Jack the Ripper character sort of comes out of nowhere (and back into the fog). It was based on a novel that swept Europe but didn't have much impact in the US.... of course neither did Brooks really. The film wasn't shown here until after Brooks had returned to Hollywood, where she was practically blackballed. Personally I find the film visually interesting and Brooks is quite stunning. It's funny that the hairdo is always associated with Brooks but I think Colleen Moore had it (for FLAMING YOUTH since 1923.

Anyway, when Brooks came back she got a string of very minor parts in talkies, sometimes little more than an extra.

[myrnaloyisdope]

Aside from the stunning The Life Story of David Lloyd George which I wrote about in another post, here's what I managed to watch this week:

Underworld - Thanks to Jeffrey, I finally found copy in English. I'd been wanting to see this one for a while now, as I am very fond of von Sternberg, and the Gangster genre. I will admit to being disappointed by it though. The gangster overtones are pretty subdued, as there really isn't any gangland activity shown on screen. George Bancroft's "Bull" Weed seems to be very much the lone thug, saver for his gal Feathers, and his lawyer Rolls Royce, rather than the crime impresario he's supposed to be. So it's not really a gangster picture in the sense I was expecting, there's no bootlegging, mobsters, or criminal syndicates. It's really two thugs fighting over a girl. It almost felt like a dry run for what the gangster picture would become in the years following. The writer Ben Hecht reworked a lot of touches and scenes from the film much better in 1932's Scarface.

Juliet of Bethulia- Griffith's first attempt to create an epic (1914), or at least that's my guess. I wouldn't say it's great, or even especially good, but is interesting to see Griffith making use of large crowd scenes, historical settings, religion and tapping into the Babylonian decadence and debauchery that he would exploit in Intolerance. You can see that Griffith is experimenting and it's pretty fascinating to watch the results. I would like to see a better print...my copy is very low quality, and the frame rate appears to be off, oh and it had a score that really didn't fit at all.

Squaw Man - DeMille's first film, and one of the first American features. Ugh, it's not very good, it looks amateurish, and I found the plot very confusing, with scenes playing out with seemingly no connection to each other. Worthwhile I guess as a historical footnote, but pretty bad by today's standards, and not nearly up the standards of several other 1914 features...Land of the War Canoes especially which is a far more touching and realistic portrayal of the Native population.

[drednm]

I never liked SQUAW MAN either.....

[Gagman 66]

Justin,

I'm sorry that you were let down by UNDERWORLD. I think it's a great movie. And allot of the Gangland elements you seemed to have glanced over? They are there! Maybe you would have liked THE RACKET better? You could have gotten you bootlegging fix. You didn't say a thing about the strong performances by George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, and Clive Brook either. All three are superb in the film, as is the whole supporting cast. To say nothing of the fact that I compiled and dubbed the entire musical score myself. I'll take UNDERWORLD over PANDORA'S BOX any day.

[myrnaloyisdope]

It wasn't that Underworld didn't have it's strengths, I simply found it more fascinating for it's historical influence than as a film.

Here's what I've been watching the past week:

Different From The Others - Fascinating slice of edutainment, clearly designed as a message/exploitation picture, but mainstreamed by the presence of Conrad Veidt. Reputedly the first film to openly talk about homosexuality, Veidt stars as a gay concert violinist having an affair with one of his male students. The focus of the film is on German law 175, which made homosexuality illegal, and made homosexuals prone to extortion and blackmail. The film is a fascinating document, and remarkably bold, so bold in fact that it was banned in 1920. Veidt gives a good performance, and the use of flashbacks is particularly well done. The film does get bogged down a bit by the sequences in which Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a leading German expert on sexuality, gives long lectures about his findings. The sequences are fascinating too, but they hinder the dramatic elements of the story.

I was looking forward to seeing Anita Berber on film, but sadly all her scenes are lost, and replaced by stills. For those who don't know the name, she was one of the most fascinating and notorious figures of Weimar Berlin, a dancer as famous for her avant-garde routines, as for her decadent lifestyle. She could often be seen in Berlin's hotel lobbies, nightclubs and casinos, naked apart from an elegant sable wrap, with a pet monkey and a silver brooch packed with cocaine.

Fantomas - Well, I've been in awe of Louis Feuillade since I saw Les Vampires a couple years ago, and even managed to track down an unsubbed, incomplete version of his very rare serial Tih Minh, so I was very excited to check out Fantomas. I was impressed, it's not as good as Les Vampires, but very few things are, but this film is what Dr. Mabuse really should have been. Fantomas is an arch-criminal with a penchant for disguise, who ably manipulates everyone he comes in contact with. His only rivals are the inspector Juve and his reporter colleague Fandor, who seem to be the only ones able match Fantomas. The serial is exciting, filled with twists and turns, and although it lags somewhat in middle, it really picks up in the final episode.

Cabiria - If there's a more ambitious film relative to the time it was made, I would like to see it. Simply an incredible, audacious, innovative, and remarkable experience. My goodness the scope of the film is remarkable for 1914, and still is impressive today. The sets and costumes are brilliant, the Moloch temple is seriously impressive, it's hard to believe how massive it is. The action sequences are wonderfully staged...I was amazed by the sequence where the soldiers make a human pyramid so to speak in order to scale the castle walls. Oh, and the Archimedes sequence was wonderful too. The film is sheer spectacle, and I will admit to being much more impressed by this than Intolerance (though I'm gonna give that one another go soon). Absolutely dazzling stuff. I forgot to mention the camera movements...wowza not quite Ophuls, but what a revelation for the time.

Edit: A bit of googling reveals that there's a 190 minute version of Cabiria??? My mouth is watering. Perhaps some one round these parts has a copy?

[MichiganJ]

Myrnaloyisdope,

The restored version of Cabiria was screened at Cannes in 2006. Word is Criterion is preparing a DVD of the restoration. Here's hoping. The film obviously was a very important influence on Griffith (Intolerance in particular) and I agree with all of your superlatives, Cabiria is a great film. (As is Intolerance, which took me 2-3 viewings to really appreciate.)

I also liked Different From the Others; what there was of it. Too bad that entire performances are lost (I, too, am interested in seeing the notorious Anita Berber). It's amazing a film like DFO was actually produced, and I was curious enough to dig a bit into the film's history. Apparently after the war, all forms of censorship were lifted in German media, which allowed for all kinds of films exploring sexual themes (many lurid and exploitative, which means successful). It was during this time that Dr. Hirschfeld collaborated with director Oswald to make a film showing the unjust nature of Paragraph 175 in the penal code. Unfortunately, though the film was initially a success, DFO was also the center of controversies surrounding the lack of censorship, the outcome leading to the reintroduction of the censors, and thus the banning of the film altogether. When the Nazis came to power, they destroyed all of the remaining prints of the film. It's the surviving fragments that pretty much make up what we have today. Like so many other films, hopefully a more complete version will turn up at some point.

Have you seen Sex in Chains? It's another of Kino's Gay-Themed films of the German Silent Era and is really an extraordinary film campaigning for, of all things, conjugal prison visits. (It never ceases to amaze me the themes Silent films conquered. "Age of innocence" my patootie....)

[feaito]

I watched Pabst's "Pandora's Box" (1929) and I enjoyed it very much. The version I saw was the 133 minutes German restored version. I love Louise Brooks, she totally bewitches me. She has such a strong presence and is so attractive, appealing, sexy in a kittenish way, so playful, pretty, with a contemporary, even more, a-temporal, timeless quality. The film is very sordid and quite bold, but nevertheless fascinating. There are many characters that are utterly despicable (Lulu's father for instance -Carlo Goetz does a fantastic job). I did not know that Francis Lederer was in it. It was big surprise to see him. Fritz Kortner as Lulu's lover and later husband, is also impressive. The scene with Louise Brooks and Gustav Diessl -playing Jack the Ripper- is so sweet, in spite of the tragedy that's going to happen...two lost souls meet and they can't help tob what they are... The movie is very allegorical and has many images that keep lingering in your mind. A great film. Louise Brooks deserves to be an icon just for her presence in this photoplay.

[feaito]

Last night I re-watched "Island of Lost Souls" (1933), but this time in my building's projection room and I invited my wife, who likes this kind of film. Well, it wasn't a 35 mm copy projected on a screen, but the DVD was fine, although not as sharp as I'd liked.

Along with "Freaks", "The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Old Dark House", this must be one of the most atmospheric, eerie, Horror Pre-Codes I have seen. Charles Laughton is simply superb as the perverted, megalomaniac Dr. Moureau. The famous gleam in his eye is ever-present here. The sets, the lighting, the use of shadows and the cinematography are first rate. Kathleen Burke as the Panther Woman is perfect. She has a feline, kittenish, savage quality. Dick Arlen and Leila Hyams (who also starred in Freaks) are the perfect leading couple. Bela Lugosi is great as the leader of the half-humans. Supposedly Randolph Scott was featured as one of the half-humans, but I could not find him. A true masterpiece. Frightening, riveting, perfect! I could watch it a thousand times!

Well, since the aforementioned picture was an odd choice for Easter, today I watched the 1925-26 version of "Ben-Hur", one of the Silent's Era major mega-blockbusters, which is equally stunning today. Grand-scale spectacle with unforgettable scenes, such as the Chariot race, the Naval battle, the Bi-Color Technicolor sequences and more. Incredible bold -for the day- scenes of a naked slave exposed backwards in the Galleys and of nude girls throwing flowers when Judah is greeted as Quintus Arrius adopted son. Novarro is good, but not as perfect for the role as Charlton Heston -IMO- and Claire McDowell and Kathleen Key are very touching as the Princess of Hur and Tirzah. The most moving scene is in both versions: when they are cured of leper by Jesus. Carmel Myers make the most ravishing temptress and Francis X. Bushman, the ideal villain. The face of Betty Bronson as the Virgin Mary is like an image out of XIXth Century Romantic painting.

[MichiganJ]

I really love Island of Lost Souls, too. Great performances by everyone, particularly Laughton and Lugosi.

Some silly musical trivia regarding the film: The rock band Devo took Lugosi's line "Are we not men?" and used it for the title of their first album Are We Not Men? We Are Devo. And not to be outdone, the band Oingo Boingo (fronted by future film scorer extraordinaire Danny Elfman) have a song entitled No Spill Blood ("What is the law? No spill blood" is the chorus.)

While I admire Ben-Hur, I think it is very flawed.The two set-pieces are spectacular (particularly the chariot race, one of silent cinema's high points), but the film's structure has the climax occur two-thirds of the way in. The first two-thirds of the film are basically about revenge. Once that conclusion is met, it is like we enter an entirely new movie. Hur's new-found adoption of Christ's teachings seems rather arbitrary; we see no motive, no revelations that form Hur's new beliefs. It's only because of the motif of Hur's and Christ's paths crossing that we can marginally accept Hur's conversion.

For me , the high point in the last third of the film is the sequence where Hur's sister and mother, both lepers, can't touch the sleeping Hur, and instead caress and kiss the stone under which he lay. Very moving scene.

[feaito]

Michigan, thanks for the musical trivia. I did not know that! BTW, I like Devo & Oingo Boingo, especially That's Good and Weird Science, respectively.

I agree with most of your assessments Re. Ben-Hur and yes, I had forgotten the scene in which Tirzah and Judah's mother find Judah sleeping in front of their house and can't touch him and have to refrain from doing so, caressing and kissing the sone in which he lays. A very moving scene indeed. Thanks for bringing it up!

[myrnaloyisdope]

Not sure why but neither Ben-Hur does much for me. I find the chariot sequences in each to be endlessly fascinating, but I find the rest of each film to be pretty underwhelming.

Here's what I've watched in the last little bit:

The Cheat (1915) - This film really blew me out of the water. Sessue Hayakawa was a revelation, so restrained, and oh so magnetic. It's a shame he didn't get a chance to be a regular leading man (as opposed to the villain or the doomed lover) due to stupid miscegenation laws. The plot involves Hayakawa as wealthy trader who essentially buys the astonishingly foolish Fannie Brice after she loses 10 grand of her hubby's money. I thought De Mille made wonderful use of the simple sets, and through use of close-ups and tight framing really creates a moody and atmospheric, and often claustrophobic tone. The branding scene was particularly brutal, with Hayakawa displaying a sadistic quality that very few could have mustered. Oh and the closing courtroom sequence was astonishing. Fannie Brice finally reveals what Hayakawa did to her, and the entire courtroom packed to the brim with white faces absolutely goes ballistic. I seriously thought a lynching was gonna take place. Marvellously intense, this might be De Mille's best film, certainly his most restrained, and light years ahead of The Squaw Man.

[Synnove]

Myrnaloyisdope, I just have to say I really like your reviews. I find that I generally agree with what you say, so I will have to watch The Cheat soon. I can also recommend to you The Dragon Painter, a great film with Sessue Hayakawa. Another of his films is available on the films of WWI DVD, although I haven't seen it.

I saw Regeneration yesterday on the big screen in Stockholm, with live and, I think, improvised music which was really good.

The theme at the Stockholm Cinematek was Anna Q. Nilsson, a heavenly beautiful woman who I think could also act, although you don't get to see much evidence of that in this film. Unlike Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo, Anna Q. was big at the beginning of the silent era. She didn't make as many good films as Ingrid, or have the exotic appeal of Garbo, and most of her films are also lost: plus anyone belonging to that era in film history runs a chance of being forgotten simply because those films are seldom shown unless they're Chaplin's creations. Regeneration is one of the few Anna Q. films that have been made generally available, and even so, she's hardly the reason why the film is known.

What makes Regeneration special is partly its modern editing and camera movements, which make it a delight for the senses even if the story is melodramatic, and also the fact that it was filmed in a real slum area. Parts of it are simply incredible to watch. All that dirt visible on the screen, and all the scarred bodies. The extras were real inhabitants of the slums. There's no Hollywood beauty to be seen here. Even Anna Q. is allowed to have shadows under her eyes and lines on her cheeks, like many stars of the day had before soft-focus and studio lighting. She looks older here than she did in the other film I saw her in from 1927. And the main character resembles a more un-handsome Marlon Brando, a guy with real bulk. You can believe he gets by using his fists. He's really good as a menacing hoodlum, and only when he's meant to be reformed does he resort to some ham acting - although giving allowances for the conventions of the day, he's pretty restrained.

The camera movements are wonderful I think. You get a sense that you're there in the scene with the characters. They also add a great deal of dramatic flair. Compared to other films of that era, this one is truly cinematic. You can tell Raoul Walsh had worked with Griffith recently - but I would hesitate to give Griffith credit for every single innovation every American director used in the 10's. For instance, I don't know whether I've seen the moving camera used so effectively in any Griffith film made before Regeneration.

The story is melodramatic in the extreme. It reminded me of The Phantom Carriage, except that that one was less simple. Rockliffe Fellows and Victor Sjöström both possess an equal degree of menace in the beginning, but Rockliffe has only to look at the heroine in order to start following the path to goodness. In tPC it's not that simple: Victor Sjöström's character transformation is much more drawn out, and he goes through a great deal of forced soul-searching, which is only possible for him in the first place because he has to confront the reality of his own impending death - which is still a fact after the film's end: he may be back in his body again, but it's a tubercular and alcohol-damaged body which isn't going to last much longer. You don't see any symptoms of hard living on Rockliffe, other than his muscles, and in the end he's seen wearing a nice suit although we're never told how he found the means to pay for it. The heroine's death of tuberculosis in tPC is also more likely than Anna Q.'s death of a random gunshot wound - but then again guns are more common in America aren't they? The gunshot wound was actually a good illustration of what gangsters' violence leads to. It's random and melodramatic, but excusable.

Anyway, the melodramatic elements of Regeneration are all in keeping with the conventions of the day, just before film came to be regarded as an art. And Regeneration is still very watchable now. It has retained its edge, and its cinematic qualities are good. I actually think it's a remarkable achievement. And I'm grateful for the chance to get to see it on a big screen. Two thumbs up!

[drednm]

Laurette Taylor, the legendary stage star, made only three films. I finally saw her 1922 film Peg O' My Heart. Nice straightforward filming of the play; this was remade in 1933 by Marion Davies. The Taylor version seemed a little more political than the Davies version (which benefits from a few songs) regarding the English vs Irish thing.

Taylor is very pretty and at age 40 photographs much younger. Also good are Vera Lewis as Mrs. Chichester and Ethel Grey Terry as Ethel. Mahlon Hamilton is a rather stuffy Gerald. Apparently this version of the film came from French TV (?) and has both French and English intertitles.

[charliechaplinfan]

Synnove, you only need say that the leading actor looked like Brando and I know exactly which film you're talking about without looking at the title.

It looks like everyones been watching great silents whilst I've been away, so many of my favorites, I think I'll have to revisit The Cheat and I too recommend The Dragon Painter, it's a beautiful work.

Gagman, each to their own, I love Pandora's Box and I love Louise Brooks, to me she is perfection in a woman, perhaps it is the female perception of beauty rather than the male. However, I think a few of the men have agreed with me. Different opinions are part of what makes the thread interesting.

[myrnaloyisdope]

Lulu is definitely beautiful.

I'm eager to see The Dragon Painter...ooh and just looking up the Milestone DVD it also has Hayakawa's The Wrath of the Gods as an extra. Might have to pick that one up.

As for me well as usual I've watched more silents:

Assunta Spina - An early (1913) Italian melodrama, that's unapologetically downbeat and a stark contrast to the wonderful excesses of Cabiria. The story concerns a love triangle involving Assunta (the woman) her lover and her jealous ex. What stood out was that the characters were all poor villagers, rather than the glamorous and wealthy. There's also a lot of outdoor filming that gives the film a naturalistic quality. I've heard the film described as a precursor to neo-realism, and it's a somewhat accurate description. Definitely a worthy film.

Carmen - Early De Mille film of the classic operetta focusing on a gypsy girl who seduces an upright officer, and leads him to a life of desire, crime, and despair. This was my first exposure to Wallace Reid, so I'm not sure how his role as the officer fits into his persona, but I thought he gave a solid performance. I'm finding early De Mille to be fascinating (save for Squaw Man), in that it's quite restrained and relatively minimalist. I realize that a lot it is related to lower budgets and more primitive sets and technology, but De Mille really makes it work to the advantage of the films. As much as I love the bombastic qualites of Samson and Delilah and Sign of the Cross, I think De Mille's earlier works might in fact be his best.

I followed up Carmen by watching Chaplin's parody from the same year. It's not entirely successful, but some of the scenes are wonderfully recreated from the original, and the closing sequence was as heart-wrenching as the original, and wonderfully subverted in the closing frames.

The Wind - now I had seen The Wind before, and was genuinely impressed, but I felt I needed to watch it again after seeing some clips from Brownlow's Hollywood (which I've been rewatching too). The film is nearly flawless, Lillian Gish's performance is at time's transcendent, and the set design combined with the harsh location shooting really brings one into the torment her character is going through. The climax is brilliantly conceived, and painfully bleak, I don't think I realized that Gish's character was raped when I first watched it, and contains one of the most haunting images in cinema when the dirt covering the just murdered Montagu Love blows away in the dust to reveal his cold dead hand. Gosh it's terrifying. Sadly the ending does it's best to undermine it, as it's just a little too upbeat, maybe if it was played with more restraint it would have worked. I'd love to see the original ending with an insane Gish wandering off into the dust storm. But c'est la vie.