WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[Robert Regan]

Good points, as usual, Wendy. All five of those men had long and fruitful careers. The problem that we often face with a director with a large body of work is that sometime circumstances put them in a position where they make different kinds of movies from those that made them famous in the first place. Other times, they become interested in a different sort of film, like Vidor who made a number of intensely melodramatic movies in the forties, besides Duel in the Sun. I always think of this as his Operatic period. This still happens today, as I am reminded every time I hear someone moan that Martin Scorsese hasn't done anything good since Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. It's pretty clear, I think, that he has different interests than he had when in his thirties.

[intothenitrate]

Listening to interviews with Buster Keaton conducted later in his life, I think he had impeccable instincts during the transition to sound -- communicate visual story elements visually and use dialogue where it's needed. I know there were a lot of other factors impinging on his work during that period, but I wish he had had more opportunity to exercise his judgement.

[Robert Regan]

So do I, Nitrate. Right now I am in the midst of two intertwined retrospectives of Keaton and Ophuls, two artists who remind us, each in his own way, why they are called Motion pictures! I'll keep this in mind as I get to Buster's sound work. Thanks for the tip.

[charliechaplinfan]

Buster's earlie talkies are really quite good, The Cameraman is one of my favourite comedies and Spite Marriage has some very funny moments, the further Buster got from the creative process the more his films suffered, for a myriad of reasons.

I think Hitchcock would have still been a major name even if talkies hadn't happened, The Lodger is quite a powerful movie, it needs no dialogue. And you can't have him, he's English, like Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin etc, he's our

I think most of the directors that transistioned have been named. Of all of them I think Lubitsch stayed closest to what he was. Vidor along with DeMille who's silents I prefer as a body of work.

Then there's Chaplin, he might have been stubborn but those late silents, it's almost like they'd perfected a way of telling a story and then changed all the rules. I feel that City Lights and Modern Times were the final goodbye, he toiled so long being the perfectionist but it's fitting in some ways. When he converted to sound with The Great Dictator it was with success.

Some early talkies almost had too much dialogue and it was a matter of getting the balance right sometimes. I'm not a fan of the very early talkies but it amazes me how quickly the business learned and how quickly the movies got more fluidity.

[CineMaven]

Some early talkies almost had too much dialogue and it was a matter of getting the balance right sometimes. I'm not a fan of the very early talkies but it amazes me how quickly the business learned and how quickly the movies got more fluidity.

It's like a baby learning to talk or to walk. They're either jabbering up a storm...and running around the house like a whirling dervish.

[charliechaplinfan]

Or standing really still not wanting to move from the microphone like Jean Hagen in Singin in the Rain.

[intothenitrate]

This conversation reminds me of some of those brilliant silents made towards the end of the era. [Like Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl (but there are many others)]. It's stunning how much story can get told in between title cards.

[intothenitrate]

So do I, Nitrate. Right now I am in the midst of two intertwined retrospectives of Keaton and Ophuls, two artists who remind us, each in his own way, why they are called Motion pictures! I'll keep this in mind as I get to Buster's sound work. Thanks for the tip.

Unfortunately, in the same interviews, he relates how he would argue a point only so far and then acquiesce. When I get the money, I'd like to get the boxed set of his work for "Educational Pictures" -- or whatever that company was called. Maybe we can see, albiet in lower quality films, what he had in mind when he was at MGM.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'd like to watch those too, his MGM films are better than I'd been led to believe, I'm hoping it's the same with these.

[intothenitrate]

And if I remember correctly from the documentary "So Funny It Hurt," those MGM talkies made good money. They might seem painful to us in retrospect, but the Depression Era audiences (I suppose) thought they were just fine.

[charliechaplinfan]

Yes, they made far more money the his independent productions did, it's only when we can compare one to the other that we see that his own efforts were vastly superior. In part I can understand MGM being reluctant to let their leading man perform dangerous stunts, especially as sobriety wasn't a strong point.

I remember the first time I heard Buster speak, I don't know what I'd expected him to sound like but not like he did, I am hopeless on accents, to everyone else he probably sounds right for where he comes from but I didn't expect a voice that deep. Chaplin on the other hand did sound right although thinking in retrospect it's not the voice you'd expect on a tramp, no wonder he didn't want to give him a voice, non sounded right but Charlie's own voice was further off the mark than many may have imagined it to be.

[intothenitrate]

Yes. When the element of the voice is added, the character (or on-screen avatar) goes from something universal to something extremely specific...to your point.

Chaplin doesn't give himself a proper speaking part until The Great DIctator. -- more than twelve years after the advent of sound. By that time, the novelty of a silent star speaking was fully passed. I think of Limelight when I hear Chaplin's voice in my head, those soft-edged, dulcet tones rolling out a lifetime's hard-won wisdom.

As for Keaton, I liked Buster's voice the first time I heard it. It's an intelligent voice that gets picked up richly by the primitive recording technology. Had he been handled more intelligently, I think his voice could have been an even more distinctive trademark than the porkpie hat.

[JackFavell]

I agree with intothenitrate, I felt Buster's voice was just right for him when I first heard it. His silent image is more ascetic, but for me the voice still works. Chaplin's voice to me is a little refined for his tramp character, but it doesn't bother me.

[feaito]

I completely agree with your assessment of Brenon, fer, he's a great favorite of mine, although I've only seen a very few of his films. My biggest upset in classic film is that The Great Gatsby is lost. I would love to see his version.


There was a film of his I just recorded, with Loretta Young, on TCM called Beau Ideal, from 1931. I haven't watched it yet, it's a sequel to Beau Geste I believe. I may have read it. I seem to recall reading a sequel to the book.

I watched this film on the WE. The print I saw was just agreeable. It's a sequel to "Beau Geste" (1926) and Ralph Forbes plays the same role in it (John Geste). Brenon's skill at handling the very well done action sequences is very apparent, and there are plenty of them, but the heavy dramatics displayed by Forbes and Lester Vail, especially at the begining of the movie, are quite artificial. Lester Vail's acting IMO is the worst of the film. Loretta Young plays Lady Isobel Brandon and her role is strictly decorative. Fair.

[Robert Regan]

Dear Buster-loving friends, the recent comments here about Keaton come at a time when I am giving myself the great pleasure of two intertwined retrospectives of his work and that of Max Ophuls. I certainly have many thoughts about the latter, but I'll save them for another thread. I'll just say here that, though on the surface their movies couldn't be more different, both of these unique artists are a constant reminder to me of why movies are also called Motion pictures.

I just caught up with The Saphead, Keaton's only silent feature that I had not seen before and, though I think it is his weakest full-length film of the twenties, it revealed some interesting things about Buster the actor and the filmmaker. It's a rather conventional adaptation of a popular Broadway comedy which had starred Douglas Fairbanks, as also did the earlier film version, The Lamb. It is said that when Metro announced their plans for a remake, Fairbanks insisted that Keaton was the right person to star, though he had not yet appeared in any feature films. Directed by Herbert Blache, husband and partner of the great pioneer director Alice Guy, it is the only silent feature that cannot be called a real Buster Keaton film. It has very few opportunities for the physical comedy for which he was already well-known and admired, and it lacks the cinematic imaginativeness which marks all the films of which he was truly the auteur. Just compare it to Seven Chances, also based on a play, and you'll see what I mean. In The Saphead, it is difficult to forget the theatrical origins of the story.

However, it does allow us to focus on aspects of Buster's acting besides the most beautiful and graceful body in movie comedy. Most notably, we get to see more clearly than in the great films to follow that the Great Stone Face was still amazingly expressive and shows a mastery of nuance. This makes me want to revisit all of my later favorites, hardly an unpleasant chore, and concentrate on that face.