WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[drednm]

hey... Gertrude Michael is a splendid b**** in Murder at the Vanities, part of this Paramount set....

[feaito]

Excellent post Drednm, you have summed it up very well.

I think that young people from today, what I'm saying! Even my parents! Wouldn't know that this kind of sexy film was being made up to 1934....

I have just finished watching "Murder at the Vanities" (1934), not only a great Pre-Coder in terms of scantily dressed chorines and beauties, with a superbly risqué song as "Marihuana" (unbelievable!), great production numbers, Toby Wing in a role that predates the Jayne Mansfield persona, and an awesome Duke Ellington number featuring beautiful and scantily dressed ebony beauties, but also a very fine, amusing and absorbing Crime-Detective film with a clever plot. Victor McLaglen and Jack Oakie are very fine as pals, one a policeman and the other the man in charge of the direction of the Show. An eventful backstage musical if I ever saw one! Carl Brisson and Kitty Carlisle are the Show's leading players. Wonderful Jessie Ralph is a woman with a past. Vastly underrated Getrude Michael shines as a vampy, shady, venomous, spiteful dame. Gail Patrick is a private eye. And unknown Dorothy Stickney glows as a maid totally in love with Brisson's character. Pre-Code at its best! This Universal -Paramount- Pre-Code Collection is a joy to behold!

[drednm]

Murder at the Vanities is a hoot. All the performers are good, the music is just fine. I can't get Kitty Carlisle's "Where Do They Come From and Where Do They Go" out of my head. The "South Seas" number is very clever with row after row of showgirls lying down and waving their big feather fans to simulate waves.

To me, Dorothy Stickney steals the film. She's a minor character until the finale but then--wow. Stickney had a minor career in films but landed the mother role of Vinnie in Life with Father in November of 1939. The show closed on Broadway in July of 1947 and may still be the longest running dramatic play in Broadway history. The film version went into immediate production. William Powell had the "father" role all sewn up but the role of Vinnie was hotly contested. Of course Stickney was not in the running, and Irene Dunne finally won out. Even the great (and I mean great) Mary Pickford toyed with taking the role. She would have been marvelous. Of course Powell and Dunne are just about perfection.

As for Toby Wing, she has kind of a throw-away part in Murder at the Vanities, but she's really good in Search for Beauty as Ida Lupino's under-aged cousin.

I also watched The Cheat starring the one-of-a-kind Tallulah Bankhead. A remake of the famous 1915 film starring Fannie Ward and Sessue Hayakawa, this one sort of ambles along along until the sizzling court room finale. Bankhead is fine. I've liked all the early talkies of hers I've seen and don't understand why she was considered a dud in films. Irving Pichel (pronounced PITCH-ell to rhyme with Mitchell) was an odd choice for the Hayakawa role. They sort of waffled on whether he was supposed to be Eurasian or what. Handsome Harvey Stephens as the husband got lost in the shuffle.

A great story Isabel Sanford used to tell about being on stage with Tallulah Bankhead. In the middle of the play, the prop phone suddenly started to ring. All the actors froze until Bankhead turned to Sanford (playing a maid) and ad-libbed, "Well! Aren't you going to answer it?" Poor Sanford, not knowing what else to do, answered the malfunctioning phone, turned back toward the imperious Bankhead, and said, "It's for you." That brought the scene to a total stop.

[feaito]

Today I watched the interesting 1931 version of "The Cheat" -no, I haven't seen the De Mille original version- and the climatic courtroom scene is the high point of the picture for sure! Tallulah's effective as the spoiled wife of Harvey Stephens; Pichel lusts for her. Beautiful Astoria sets and B&W cinematography.

The mini-documentary -Forbidden Film the Production Code Era- included in the Universal Pre-Code set is really disappointing; it lasts less than 10 minutes -I think- and it's a shame because among other people, Mark Vieira speaks all too briefly about the Pre-Code years.

[drednm]

Finally got to see this early MGM talkie.

After a ponderous start and despite the stable camera (we get long and medium shots and close-ups) and directed by the unknown Bayard Veiller (who also wrote the Broadway play), the story really takes off after about 15-20 minutes.

Norma Shearer in her starring talkie debut is good in the talkie parts but overacts badly in the reaction shots. But a fascinating pre-Code look at the trial of a "bad" girl. Once the trial gets going and the story gets more complicated it's quite fascinating. Lewis Stone, H.B. Warner, Raymond Hackett, Lilyan Tashman co-star. Olive Tell, Myra Hampton, and Adrienne D'Ambricourt (as the maid) are also quite good.

Although stagy by modern standards and a little hammy, for a 1929 talkie it's quite engrossing. I notice that the actors have to place themselves in odd positions to fit into the camera shots. For example, during interrogation scenes, the opposing lawyer comes and stands behind the questioning lawyer. And as with most early talkies the editing is bad, with many shots held long after the dialog has stopped.

Another stagy tactic is that when the witnesses talk, they turn toward "the jury" which is the camera (and us).

A very impressive talkie debut for Shearer.

[feaito]

"The Trial of Mary Dugan" (1929) is a film I have wanted to see for many years. I seem to recall that it hasn't been aired or released in any format, due to the ABEND decision in connection with the copyright of the underlying work -play or book- upon which it is based -the 1940s remake with Laraine Day neither- just like "Night Flight", "Letty Lynton", "The Constant Nymph", among others.

I found this on the net regarding the ABEND decision: When a movie with a lapsed copyright is based upon an earlier published work which still has a valid copyright, the copyright on the earlier work can be used to control rights on the later work. There have been several companies in several lawsuits that lost in court because the copying of the later uncopyrighted work infringed on the valid rights in the earlier work. (The earlier work is called the "underlying work" when it forms the basis of the later work.)

On Sunday I watched the Pre-Code Paramount film “Merrily We Go to Hell” (1932), starring Fredric March & Sylvia Sidney and directed by Dorothy Arzner. It’s an interesting drama about a recently married couple; he’s a newspaperman and playwright (March) and she’s the daughter of a rich businessman (Sidney).

Sylvia Sidney is very pretty, sweet and appealing as the girl in love with ne’er-do-well March. This must have been one of the few opportunities in which Miss Sidney played a rich girl. March is very effective as the perennially drunken husband. March is unable to realize that his addiction to booze has to do with the wound left by old flame impersonated by the attractive actress Adrianne Allen –who was Mrs. Raymond Massey. She’s very alluring and elegant as the self-centered and selfish actress, who laters stars in the Play written by March –in which Cary Grant appears as the leading man.

Skeets Gallgher and Esther Howard play March’s pals –I especially liked Esther Howard, who experienced a similar situation than Sidney with her ex husband and who advises her to call it off and walk away in time. I must admit though, that the drunken binges and non-stop partying became rather annoying and tiring after a while.

I also watched the interesting documentary about “Quo Vadis?" (1951) which is included in the double-disc DVD edition of the film.

[drednm]

I haven't watched Merrily We Go to Hell yet....

The copy of Trial of Mary Dugan I have has a TCM imprint on it but I sure don't remember ever seeing this on TCM. I got the copy from England so may it's a copyright issue and can play in Europe but not in the US?

Wanna trade something?

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched The Conquering Power, the film Rex Ingram, Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry made after The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I still like Rex Ingrams films with Rudy better than his other films that I've seen. From all accounts Rudy had started getting a bit big for his boots on this film, Rex Ingram was naturally tryingto make his own wife's parts bigger and Rudy resented it. Despite the ranglings behind the scenes, it's a good movie.

[silentscreen]

That is an excellent film Alison, and I agree that the films Rudy made with Ingram were his best. Ingram was a great director! There may have been some jealousy between the two of them. I may have this wrong, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Ingram was asked to be a pallbearer at Rudy's funeral, but he declined saying that Rudy wouldn't have wanted him. He started using Ramon Novarro instead of Rudy as the dashing Latin lover after their falling out. There was another young actor for whom Ingram paved the way to stardom, and Novarro always idolized Ingram.

[charliechaplinfan]

How was the Andre Soares book on Ramon Navarro? I remember you said you were reading it, I tend to shy away from sad stories but perhaps I'm denying the chance to read about his career.

[silentscreen]

It was a sad book, but it gave you a good overview of his career, including his assosciation with Ingram. Were it not for him, it's doubtful that Novarro would have had a career, because he wasn't going any where. It's a good biograhy, very detailed and well researched, but sad because of Novarro's personal problems. He had a lot of guilt about his homosexuality, and drank to medicate his insecurities. It was hard for me to get through it though because it was so depressing, especially in his later years when his career died down. When he was working, he usually stayed sober. It doesn't pull any punches on his murder either, but it does dispel all the outrageous rumors about him. The author did respect his subject.

[charliechaplinfan]

I might give it a go. Something's in life aren't pleasant butto find a good biography by a biographer who wants to deal in facts is a good thing.

[silentscreen]

It was miraculous that he managed to keep his homosexuality secret- he went to great lengths to hide it, though his family had to know.Members of the film community knew about it, but not the public. They only found out because of the nature of his death But his drinking was a matter of public record-he was involved in several accidents, one of them serious, and he had to go to court. I think he eventually had to quit driving and have someone else do it for him.

[charliechaplinfan]

Bless him, he sounds like a dear man, I'll have to scout around for a reasonably priced copy.

[MichiganJ]

I watched Japanese Girls at the Harbor, a silent film by director Hiroshi Shimuzu. The film is a stark depiction of the fates of two schoolgirls, whose youthful optimism quickly dissolves into harsh realities. Melodramatic, but presented plainly and honestly, the film is quite depressing (although there is an unearned "happy ending").

The performances are natural and very "modern", adding to the realism (as does the Yokohama location shooting), and Shimuzu moves his camera quite a bit, pausing for some beautifully framed shots (as the one that introduces the motorcycle-riding "bad boy" Henry, who is introduced in a long shot astride his bike, framed by towering trees).

Between this and the four Mizoguchi films I recently watched, I think I'm going to lighten things up a bit...and watch some Bergman.