WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[MichiganJ]

I watched DeMille's 1918 The Whispering Chorus, one of his best films, an intricate plot about a man who starts out imbezzling a small amount of money and paying the price for listening to his inner voices. Raymond Hatton was splendid as the man, Kathlyn Williams as the wife, Elliott Dexter as the boss, Gustav von Seyffertitz as the evil voice, Edythe Chapman as the mother, Noah Beery as a worker, and Tully Marshall as Clumley.

I find the morality espoused in The Whispering Chorus troubling. It's a story told well, with dramatic parallel editing and interesting uses of double exposure, and while the ethical dilemmas faced by the main characters is compelling, what the film ultimately says is actually pretty disturbing.

[moira finnie]

I watched DeMille's 1918 The Whispering Chorus, one of his best films, an intricate plot about a man who starts out imbezzling a small amount of money and paying the price for listening to his inner voices. Raymond Hatton was splendid as the man, Kathlyn Williams as the wife, Elliott Dexter as the boss, Gustav von Seyffertitz as the evil voice, Edythe Chapman as the mother, Noah Beery as a worker, and Tully Marshall as Clumley.

I find the morality espoused in The Whispering Chorus troubling. It's a story told well, with dramatic parallel editing and interesting uses of double exposure, and while the ethical dilemmas faced by the main characters is compelling, what the film ultimately says is actually pretty disturbing.

I have always wondered how much this film may have influenced the screenwriters of Nora Prentiss (1947) which has a very similar, doom-laden plot but, at least to me, better performances by Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith and Rosemary DeCamp, each of whom is trapped by their own limitations and society's expectations. From what I've seen of them, however, I do like DeMIlle's work from the 1910s much more than his later, larger crowd-pleasers.

[drednm]

Disturbing yes. Ultimately an innocent man is executed. He's guilty of many things but not murder. The pregnancy of Jane is also well handled, implied several times but downplayed. I guess we're supposed to see Tremble's execution as his redemption because it's (apparently) the first time in his life he's had the guts to "do the right thing." It's almost a Flannery O'Connor kind of redemption but within the context of this film it works.

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched The Devil and The Deep a fascinating precode starring Talullah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton with a supporting role by Cary Grant. It's obvious that Grant would go on to bigger and better films, here he has a small but important role. Charles Laughton is great as the deranged submarine commander, seemingly perfect on the outside whilst his wife, Bankhead is reviled by all and sundry. Only behind closed doors do we see the truth, he beats her and suspects her of infidelity, with Cary Grant's character. It's not true but Grant gets demoted and Bankhead gets beaten, she wanders into the night and meets Cooper and seeks santuary with him, leaving him early the next morning she tells him to forget her. Some hope it turns out he's Grant's replacement and Laughton realises straight away what is going on. A fast paced precode. This must have been what Talullah referred to about going to Hollywood and Gary Cooper, it's not repeatable but if anyone has read her quote they'll know what I'm talking about.

I also watched Captain Fracasse, I was pleased to see that the Chateau used as the location was Azay Le Rideau, perhaps the nicest of the French chateaus we visited this summer. The film stars Pierre Blanchar as a nobleman disgused as a travelling player and Charles Boyer as the wicked Duke who will stop at nothing to abduct and deflower the leading lady who Blanchar loves. A fast moving, Dumas style adventure, the fencing at the end wasn't up to the Flynn and Rathbone clashes of the thirties. A big black wig and pencil moustache do nothing for Boyer, Pierre Blanchar is better served in his costume.

This afternoon I watched Jeanne Eagels, not itself a precode but the actress herself a star of early film. How much of her life did it miss out and how much did it rewrite. I must find out.

[drednm]

The 1927 Student Prince directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer just blew me away. Totally charming film with terrific performances by the stars, breezy and funny and then that turn toward rather bitter irony by the end. Great compositions with those massive rooms with lonely Novarro dwarfed by them. Also an incredibly phony hillside with masses of flowers blowing in the wind (yet very effective visually) that is used later in the film minus the flowers. Just wonderful. I've had this film forever and thought it would be tedious. Wrong!

Co-stars include Jean Hersholt (wonderful as the tutor), George K. Arthur as a student, Edythe Chapman as the nanny, Philippe DeLacy as the young prince, Bobby Mack as the waiter, Edgar Norton as the butler, and good old Gustav von Seyffertitz as the king.

This version is the Thames version by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill with wonderful music by Carl Davis.

[Birdy]

This afternoon I watched Jeanne Eagels, not itself a precode but the actress herself a star of early film. How much of her life did it miss out and how much did it rewrite. I must find out.

ccf- I believe this movie story is mostly fictionalized. (For example, she started in a touring stage co., not the circus.) It does give a general impression of Ms. Eagel's genius, drive, and downfall. I hope you get a chance to read about her real life.

[charliechaplinfan]

There's a good biography on her on the imdb which I read last night. Complete fiction about the carnival and her end was a bit skewed. She must have had incredible presence, the films she left behind don't do her the full justice.

[drednm]

The Coming of Amos (1925) is a weird little film that starts out as a comedy and turns into melodrama with a castle, dungeon, and a damsel to be rescued. Rod La Rocque stars as an Australian sheepherder to goes to Monte Carlo to meet an uncle at his dead mother's final request. Once there the film is a charming "fish out of water" comedy as Amos learns about high society, meets a Russian princess (Jetta Goudal) and gets involved in everyone's life. But at the Golden Galleon, a local night club (and actually a masted galleon at dock) the villainous Ramon (Noah Beery) enters and we learn a secret about the princess and her dead consorts. Co-stars include Richard Carle, Trixie Friganza, and Arthur Hoyt. The music track was a hideous string of songs that had nothing to do with the action.

[Ann Harding]

I had a great evening yesterday!


Feu Mathias Pascal (The Late Mathias Pascal, 1924) by Marcel L'Herbier with Ivan Mosjoukine, Lois Moran, Marcelle Pradot, Michel Simon and Pauline Carton

In Italy, Mathias Pascal (I. Mosjoukine) a shy young man from an impoverished family marries Romilde (M. Pradot). Alas, his life becomes a nightmare thanks to a cantankerous mother-in-law. Following the death of both his child and his mother, he leaves his hometown for a new life...

With Feu Mathias Pascal, the Albatros company produced one of their very best pictures. It also offers Mosjoukine one of his best parts and, what I think, is one of his top performances. The novel by Pirandello offers a rich canvas to Marcel L'Herbier. The film was shot on locations in San Gimignano and Rome in Italy. This new digitized print presented yesterday was the most complete clocking 171 min. It contains elements of various quality, but overall, it's quite good. The tinted sequences were the best in terms of contrast and sharpness.
Mosjoukine gives a devastating performance as Mathias. He is first a shy young man henpecked by a nasty mother-in-law, a loving father who craddles his child and later a man looking for a new destiny faraway from the imprisonment of family life. The scene where he loses simultaneously his child and his mother is truly harrowing. Mosjoukine is losing his mind in front of the camera. We can witness a flash of madness crossing this mind. I can hardly think of another scene with this kind of intensity, not unlike that of The Crowd (1928) when James Murray loses his daughter. But, Mosjoukine is also a first-rate comedian. Just watch him following Lois Moran on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna. He runs down the steps in a Keatonian fashion trying to look inconspicuous. Some other scenes are real comedy pieces like the rat catching in the derelict library. Mathias comes with two cats to rid the place of its infestation of rats.
The cast is strong with a young Michel Simon, with bushy hair, creating a very amusing Pomino. The character actress Pauline Carton is also hilarious when she plasters the evil mother-in-law's face with some dough. It's very moving to recognise Lois Moran who played Stella Dallas' daughter in Henry King's masterpiece. Here, she is the innocent Adrienne Paléari promised to a nasty crook by her father. Her scenes with Mosjoukine have a great freshness and emotion.
Yesterday, I discovered the fabulous score written by Timothy Brock in 2009 for the Bologna Film Festival. It was recorded live and synchronised with the digitized print. I felt he captured brilliantly all the film atmospheres from comedy to darkest drama. I had nearly tears in my eyes when Mosjoukine witnesses his child's death. Brock colored his score with strings not unlike the best music by Bernard Herrmann. The rest was lighter recalling baroque Italian composers.
I really hope the Cinémathèque will release the film on DVD as it's already digitized and with music!

[feaito]

Thanks for thet glowing, wonderfully written review Christine.

[JackFavell]

Will you keep us posted if the Cinematheque does release the film on dvd, please? It sounds like a wonderful movie.

[Ann Harding]

Will you keep us posted if the Cinematheque does release the film on dvd, please? It sounds like a wonderful movie.

Don't worry, I will! But, beware. The CF has been talking about a DVD release of Albatros pictures for the past 3 years...and nothing has happened yet, alas.

[drednm]

I watched The Last Laugh, a silent with almost no intertitles. Murnau gives us a visual feast, Emil Jannings gives us another great performance. Great film.

[Ann Harding]

Yesterday I went to see another rare silent at the Cinémathèque.

Gustav Molander

Förseglade Läppar (Sealed Lips, 1927) by Gustaf Molander with Mona Mårtenson, Louis Lerch and Sandra Milowanoff

This Swedish film was produced in part by the Albatros company which explains its inclusion in the Albatros season. The story is very simple: a young Italian girl -just out of her convent- falls in love with a British painter. She ignores he is married as he didn't tell her. He doesn't want to divorce his wife as she is disabled. This very simple plot is far removed from the brilliant scripts written by Gustaf Molander when he worked for Stiller and Sjöström (Herr Arnes Pengar and Terje Vigen among others). In terms of film-making, Molander is just following the motions. It's a sad reminder of how decimated the Swedish film indistry was after the departure to Hollywood of both Stiller and Sjöström. In 1927, this is the golden age of silent cinema. But, this Molander picture is just very average, far away from the stupendous masterpieces of his fellow countymen in the teens. The heroine played by Mona Mårtenson has a certain charm but she is never allowed to evolve. The same for Louis Lerch (who was Don José in Feyder's Carmen in 1926). Lovely Sandra Milowanoff has only one scene where she commits suicide realizing her husband's infatuation with the Italian girl. Another surprising aspect of this Swedish film is the fact that it was shot in Italy (with a few scenes made in Swedish studios). The Northern Italian landscape of lakes and mountains makes it interesting to watch, but beyond that, it's a really very average picture. The piano playing by Karol Beffa felt more like some background music than a real accompaniment of the film. Overall, disappointing.

But, some good news: Feu Mathias Pascal will be broadcast on Arte TV on December 27th.

[drednm]

I watched Arizona, a 1931 film that starred Laura La Plante as a mean-spirited woman who tries to sabotage her ex-boyfriend's military career after he dumps her. She also marries his commanding officer and then tries to poison her sister's infatuation for the old boyfriend.

John Wayne, of all people, plays the boyfriend. This is an early starring role and certainly negates the stories about his struggling career in films and sudden stardom in Stagecoach in 1939. Anyway, he's pretty good here as the man of honor who tries to do right by everyone. June Clyde is the sister Forrest Stanley (a co-star of several Marion Davies silents) is also good as the older officer La Plante deceives.

This is a near-perfect print. La Plante looks marvelous, very sleek and svelte. I can't remember seeing her play a role like this before. Had she worked for a major studio she would likely have had a major career. Instead, as leading lady at Universal she had an ok career that petered out long before it should have. I think this film was for Columbia.