The Silver Screen Oasis

Back from Maine (20 below with wind chill factor).... I watched The Mating Call with Thomas Meighan, Evelyn Brent, and Renee Adoree. Nice lurid story but I don't get the title. Brent is a spectacular b**** in this one. Back from the war, Meighan rushes to meet Brent who has annulled her marriage to him and remarried without ever telling him. Coolly sitting there while he asks for answers, she takes a drag on her cigarette and in the best manner of Bette Davis or Marlene Dietrich, exhales a cloud of smoke in his face and says, "You look like hell." This is apparently a love story with very little love in it. There's murder, suicide, betrayal, and a KKK-type bunch called "the Order." Yikes!

Also watched Redskin with Richard Dix. This is listed as Paramount's final silent film and that studio's first 2-strip Technicolor production. Interesting tale of the white man's attempt to assimilate an Indian boy (Dix) who goes on to become a college athlete. But he finds out he'll never really be accepted into white society so he goes back to his people who have also rejected him. Great color and location shooting in AZ and NM.

I plan to watch John Barrymore's Sherlock Holmes today and also have Lillian Gish's Sold for Marriage on my short list.

I love The Mating Call. It's one of the sexiest silents I've ever seen. And who needs jaded Evelyn Brent when you can have Renee Adoree. Truly runs a bit like a soap opera, but with some very fine acting.

I rewatched Pandora's Box, I remember this as being one of the first silents I ever rented, it gave me a taste for them, resulting in my first purchase of a silent movie. I was lucky enough to get Lulu in Hollywood for Christmas with a forward by Kenneth Tynan who had a thing about that movie. After a blow by blow critique of Pandora's Box I decided to watch it again. It's very engaging, Louise Brooks very nearly missed making the deal to do the film and the role was nearly given to Marlene Dietrich, that would have made it a completely different experience. Pabst's Lulu is a flame to which many moths flock, she's attractive and lives for the moment, she's guileless and almost innocent wanting only good for those she loves but often being the unknowing catalyst for disaster. It's beautifully shot, it does lag a little in the middle when they flee from Germany aboard the boat and end up in a gambling casino but soon picks up again when they reach London.

I must revisit Diary of a Lost Girl soon.

I've always liked "diary of a Lost Girl" more than "Pandora's Box," but I've seen "Pandora's Box" more often and "Diary" only once.

The message of Pandora's Box is a harsher one. I've only seen Diary of a Lost Girl once and have never seen the two films together.

One thing I must comment on Louise's her hairstyle, it makes her look so iconic. Pabst, to my memory tampered with it twice, in the gambling den when it was curled or perhaps marcelled is a better description, it made her look totally different and not as attractive and in Diary he slicked her hair back but that look suited her.

I liked Pandora's Box, after finally seeing it this year for the first time. I think waiting to see it for so long kind of blew it for me - it wasn't as great as I was expecting. However, Louise Brooks and Francis (is it hot in here or is it me?) Lederer were marvelous.

Yes, they are really hot on the screen. I think if I had seen Pandora's Box later on in my silent viewing I would have been more critical, I was very impressed the first time I saw it but more critical the second time around. I still hold it high in my list of best silents.

Maybe if I wait awhile, then watch it again, Pandora will make a better impression.

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night with tonsillitis (or adenoiditis or whatever), so after taking some Ibuprofen, I started watching Silent Sunday night - John Barrymore's Sherlock Holmes. I just loved it! It was very deliberately paced, slow but not dull. It had a really super performance by Barrymore - nothing like his later ones, very, very solitary, quiet and gentle. No showboating AT ALL. In fact, he underplayed the whole thing which was just right. Rather romantic in an Edwardian kind of way, but not dark. A perfect Holmes in my book. He was surrounded by a cast that included Roland Young as Dr. Watson (Young had almost nothing to do which was a shame), Louis Wolheim who I completely missed somehow; and most surprising, William Powell in one of his first roles as a young man who was taken in by Moriarty! Maybe I missed some good stuff with Young and Wolheim, as I was a bit drifty in and out of sleep... I certainly hope so, because I like them both tremendously.

Did anyone else catch it? I thought I remembered someone saying they had just seen it, but I can't find the review now....

I have a copy of Sherlock Holmes and watched it before the TCM airing. It was ok but nothing special IMO. I thought it was too slowly paced, lacked humor, and looked very very cheap.

I did like John Barrymore in the role but the storly seems dull. The biggest surprise was seeing Carol Dempster as the leading lady. It was fun to see William Powell, Roland Young, Reginald Denny, Louis Wolheim, Hedda Hopper all with good roles.

I also got around to watching the 1916 Sold for Marriage with Lillian Gish as a Russian peasant sold be her relatives to make some quick cash. At 50 minutes, the film seemed padded since there was basically nothing to the story but moving to the USA and selling Gish.

With both films, the please was in seeing great actors like Gish and Barrymore even if the overall films were'nt great.

I would agree with your summation, dred. No humor was the story's main fault. And I kept expecting Roland Young to do something witty or humorous, but he never did. Maybe this is why I missed Wolheim - all the characters were sort of dulled down to the most basic of characterizations, so they all started to meld in my mind. Denny, as the hapless Prince, showed little emotion, but did stand out from the crowd.

Still, I thought Barrymore quite grand.

Wolheim appaeared very late the show....

what a shame Barrymore never did a talkie version of Holmes... he would have been splendid.

what a shame Barrymore never did a talkie version of Holmes... he would have been splendid.

Wouldn't he though? I have always felt that Barrymore was a sort of a bridge from one time period to another and one acting style to another.There is something old world about him, even when he was a young man.

I think Barrymore would have been splendid too. I've never seen the silent Sherlock Holmes, of the Barrymore films I've seen I find them hit and miss, The Tempest being my favorite one. John Barrymore is always watchable though, I prefer his talkies, they're all hits with me.

I have several more Barrymore silents I haven't watched yet, but I liked him and Dolores Costello in The Sea Beast although she had a small part and although it had little to do with Melville's novel.