Cinesation 2010
Posted: October 3rd, 2010, 4:41 pm
Last weekend's Cinesation, which took place at the Lincoln Theater (opened its doors in 1915 and renovated in 1982) in Massillon, Ohio, was the first film festival I've been able to attend and the fine folks of The Great Lakes Cinephile Society set an extremely high bar for other festivals to reach. Four days of movies provided me the opportunity to see my first silent films on the big screen, with live accompaniment, as well as some unusual talkies. I suppose saying that Cinesation was Sensational is too obvious, but there isn't a better word!
Thursday (evening)
THE BLACK CAT--I was expecting the Karloff/Lugosi masterpiece (I purposely didn't read the extensive notes on each film until after viewing) but instead was mildly disappointed that this was the 1941 old dark house mystery/comedy (ala CAT AND THE CANARY) which starred Broderick Crawford and Hugh Herbert. Bela Lugosi appears--for a total of about five minutes--and it was great seeing him on the big screen, but the film, while okay, is nothing special (It's also one of two and half films in the festival that I'd already seen. This version is part of the The Bela Lugosi Collection on DVD--which, since Lugosi's role is so minuscule, is why the film feels disappointing.)
THE CRADLE OF COURAGE--Yes! A William S. Hart silent on the big screen. While I think I prefer Hart in westerns, this is a fine film with Hart playing a member of a family of criminals who wants to leave the life of crime and go straight. Actual San Francisco locations add to the drama very effectively.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933)--Okay, this a dreadfully bad film and shows how difficult it is to do a screen version of the Alice books. Episodic and with no forward momentum, it's really the cameos of the all-star cast that makes this worth watching. Except most of the stars are hidden in costumes that prevent actually seeing them (my bet is most weren't even in them and just did voice-overs). W.C. Fields' Humpty steals the show (although Edward Everett Horton's Mad Hatter was pretty fun, too.)
Friday (bright and early)
MIDNIGHT AT THE OLD MILL (1916) My first Ham and Bud short. Nothing special, but certainly not as dreadful as many silent film comedy fans have reported. Maybe I need to see more of Ham & Bud to understand the animus.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1915) Far, far more successful adaptation, with costumes that clearly influenced the '33 version. The outdoor locations added enormously to the film (there's nothing like seeing two human-sized lobsters emerging from the ocean!) and Carroll's dialog worked much better in titles. Oddly though, there was no Tea Party (perhaps the footage is missing--either that or back in 1915 everyone felt represented.)
A FOOL AND HIS MONEY (1912) A very interesting short by Alice Guy-Blache, which featured an all African-American cast. The story is basic, and not completely without stereotypes, but it was well told and was delightfully unexpected.
THE DEVIL (1921) This is a GREAT film and is also the debut for star George Arliss. Arliss is a pretend friend who negatively manipulates relationships for fun and loves to watch the results. Arliss is pure ham in the best possible way.
FRIDAY (afternoon)
THE SOLDIER AND THE LADY (1937) Wow did I ever enjoy this film. Apparently the third of five filmed versions of Jules Verne's Michael Stragoff, a story of which I was completely unfamiliar with and enjoyed immensely. About a Russian courier (Anton Walbrook) who has some important papers to deliver to the Russian army (and as the hero, it means we are rooting for the Tsar, which in itself was interesting), this version seamlessly used footage from a previous version making the film look like it had a cast of thousands. Action packed!
WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT (1935) A pretty good mystery/comedy which teamed detective Guy Kibbee and nurse Aline MacMahon (who was great at delivering her one-liner barbs). Harmless fun, with some pretty good laughs and the two unconventional leads had great chemistry.
BETTER DAYS (1927) Moving at a snail's pace, this melodrama about a mother who is literally willing to go to the poor house by funding her ne'er-do-well son's gambling habit has one great thing going for it: Dorothy Devore. Devore is the mother's ward, and she is full of spunk, particularly during a scene where she kicks the son's and his girlfriend's butt. That fight alone (both authentic and funny) makes the film well worth watching.
Friday (evening)
SNOOKY'S LABOR LOST (1921) Pretty amusing, especially if you are into the chimpanzee-dressed-as-a-human kinda thing. Generally I'm not, but ol' Snook really could do some amazing things.
WHEN THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1919) The other film I'd already seen, but how GREAT was it seeing Doug Fairbanks on the big screen? THIS GREAT! This is the film where a nefarious "scientist" is trying to drive Doug to suicide, and without question, the nightmare scene Doug has--where his personified dinner is chasing him--is laugh-out-loud funny. Doug leaps and bounds all over the place and the big screen simply heightens his magnetism. The film does suffer a bit, from that tacked on (but elaborate) ending, but so what? Who can complain about a little more Doug?
SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD (1944) I missed this one because I was in the lobby talking with someone who had been friends with Louise Brooks for the last thirty years of her life. Not only that, but he'd worked with Carl Dreyer on ORDET and had plenty of stories about JOAN (we'd met when he'd asked me what I thought was the greatest film, which of course is PASSION OF JOAN Of ARC. Good thing he didn't ask me what the best film is…) Sorry to have missed Jane Powell on the big screen, but I learned an awful lot!
SATURDAY (still bright and early)
THE WEST-BOUND LIMITED (1923) A real corker of a train film that mixes melodrama with plenty of no-holds barred action. All of the expected sequences are here (someone trapped on the tracks and two trains on the same track speeding towards each other) but they are marvelously handled and incorporated well into the plot, and there is just a lot of authentic driving the train shots that make this a really fine film.
LET'S GO NATIVE (1930) A wacky pre-code that makes little sense but is nevertheless great fun. Kay Francis has a small but important role, but the film belongs to Jeanette MacDonald--how could it not? She's in lingerie much of the time (and again, this is the big screen!). Yowza! (For the ladies the opening sequences include Eugene Pallette.)
Saturday (afternoon)
JUST PALS (1920) I actually have this in the Ford at Fox set, but it's still unopened. Jack Ford tackles a fairly predictable plot, but by focusing on the characters he makes the story human and quite riveting. Buck Jones is an adult Huck Finn who learns responsibility when he teams up with a young sidekick (wonderfully payed by George Stone). Pretty great film. (Gotta open that set.)
LIBERTY BELLES (1914) One of my favorites at the festival, but I was clearly the only one who thought it was any good. A 3-reel feature starring Dorothy Gish (!!!!) and featuring Jack Pickford. The story has Gish and her girlfriend trying to sneak out of their college (or boarding school, I was a bit unclear), to meet with their boyfriends. There are some nonsensical subplots involving the girls' fathers, and, like many two-reel comedies of the day, when the plot starts to fizzle another is introduced that bears little relation to the preceding shenanigans, but so what? Dorothy is gorgeous, and she is absolutely natural in her performance! The paper print looked pretty terrific, too. For 1914, I remain impressed.
STAGESTRUCK (1917) If one has any doubts about the folks at Cinesation how about the fact that they show a film that is missing the first two reels! Again starring Dorothy Gish, the plot is easy to follow (after a brief recap of the missing two reels) and here we get to see Dorothy showing off her dramatic acting chops. The story is fairly basic, about an aspiring actress, the boy she loves and a marriage that may or may not have actually taken place, and I hope that the opening reels are found to make the film complete (I suspect that the opening showcased Gish's comedic talents, some.)
THE MISSING MILLIONAIRE (1917) This is the 1/2 film I've seen and again major kudos to the Cinesation gang for showing this, a film of little value except to show how sneaky some of the studios were (are?) It's basically two reels of Doug Fairbanks' feature THE MATRIMANIAC, but re-edited and with new titles to make it a "new" film. How 'bout them apples! Understandably it makes very little sense, but it was really insightful to see. That and the chance to see Doug again on the big screen (and, all too briefly, Constance Talmadge, too.)
The afternoon ended with a series of short films presented by Eric Greyson including a Tribute to John Barrymore (which included some color tests from his HAMLET and a terrific Puppetoon, TOOLBOX BALLET.)
SATURDAY (evening)
Throughout the series, special guest Dr. Harriet Fields, granddaughter of W. C. would talk about and answer questions about her grandfather and his films. The only Fields' features I'd seen were his surviving silents, and it was great seeing him in some of his cameo roles the previous nights. This night, though, Fields was the star.
THE GOLF SPECIALIST is a Fields short that showcases one of his famous stage bits. Funny as all get out, and I don't even play golf.
YOU'RE TELLING ME (1934) A terrific film that is not only very funny, but it is plotted well and has some terrific dramatic moments that Fields delivers almost too well. It also features the same Golf Specialist routine, and it was very interesting at how he altered some things, but kept much of the bit exactly the same. By the way , equally as funny the second time. (I'm seriously going to have to check out other Fields features.)
CRAZY HOUSE (1943) An Olsen and Johnson (Who? I'd never heard of them.) comedy that is as frantic and hysterical as it gets. At least during the opening ten minutes, where the two are in a parade heading towards Universal Studious. Everyone on the lot, when they hear Olsen and Johnson are coming, flee for their lives (lots of cameos in this one). Unfortunately this one started too late and I had a pre-arranged 11pm phone call that I had to make, so I missed most of what looked to be a pretty wacky film.
Sunday (bright and ever-so-slightly less early)
FORBIDDEN WOMAN (1920) Clara Kimball Young is a French actress who has been having an affair with an admirer until she learns that he is married. Something drastic happens and she flees to the States and begins a romance with an author, who happens to have a sister who is currently in France… This is an okay film, with a terrific opening but which depends on one of those eye-rolling coincidences that isn't even really exploited.
BROKEN CHAINS (1922) This film will remind you of lots of other films, most notably TOL'ABLE DAVID (it even sports a knock down, drag 'em out fight with DAVID's Ernest Torrence), but who cares. It's still wildly entertaining! Malcolm McGregor is a coward who goes to his father's lumber camp to become a man. There he finds a pre-flapper Colleen Moore (who looks ravishing in her long hair), who is married to brute Torrence. Nothing unexpected happens, but the ride is still fun!
Sunday (afternoon)
IN OLD MISSOURI (1940) Alas, the previous night's phone call dictated that I had to leave Ohio and head east to New Jersey, thus missing this, the last film of the festival.
What a time I had. From the very outset, the two women who worked in the lobby--the unsung heroines of the festival--took my registration and upon learning about my interest in Dorothy Gish gave me directions to the Gish house (where Lillian and Dorothy stayed when they wanted a break from the road), as well as told me every nearby restaurant and their menus, it was a welcoming and warm "family", of which I now feel a part of.
Finally, it was incredible being able to listen to the musical accompaniments by Ben Model and Dr. Philip Carli. On the rare occasion where a film wasn't holding my complete attention, I would look over and watch them as they performed. It was fascinating seeing how they would watch the film and anticipate the action and dramatics and alter their music accordingly. During Devore's fight scene in BETTER DAYS, for instance, the music first reflected the action, but quickly, when realizing it was also humorous, a comedic element was snuck into the music. Pretty great.
Can't wait 'til next year!
Thursday (evening)
THE BLACK CAT--I was expecting the Karloff/Lugosi masterpiece (I purposely didn't read the extensive notes on each film until after viewing) but instead was mildly disappointed that this was the 1941 old dark house mystery/comedy (ala CAT AND THE CANARY) which starred Broderick Crawford and Hugh Herbert. Bela Lugosi appears--for a total of about five minutes--and it was great seeing him on the big screen, but the film, while okay, is nothing special (It's also one of two and half films in the festival that I'd already seen. This version is part of the The Bela Lugosi Collection on DVD--which, since Lugosi's role is so minuscule, is why the film feels disappointing.)
THE CRADLE OF COURAGE--Yes! A William S. Hart silent on the big screen. While I think I prefer Hart in westerns, this is a fine film with Hart playing a member of a family of criminals who wants to leave the life of crime and go straight. Actual San Francisco locations add to the drama very effectively.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933)--Okay, this a dreadfully bad film and shows how difficult it is to do a screen version of the Alice books. Episodic and with no forward momentum, it's really the cameos of the all-star cast that makes this worth watching. Except most of the stars are hidden in costumes that prevent actually seeing them (my bet is most weren't even in them and just did voice-overs). W.C. Fields' Humpty steals the show (although Edward Everett Horton's Mad Hatter was pretty fun, too.)
Friday (bright and early)
MIDNIGHT AT THE OLD MILL (1916) My first Ham and Bud short. Nothing special, but certainly not as dreadful as many silent film comedy fans have reported. Maybe I need to see more of Ham & Bud to understand the animus.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1915) Far, far more successful adaptation, with costumes that clearly influenced the '33 version. The outdoor locations added enormously to the film (there's nothing like seeing two human-sized lobsters emerging from the ocean!) and Carroll's dialog worked much better in titles. Oddly though, there was no Tea Party (perhaps the footage is missing--either that or back in 1915 everyone felt represented.)
A FOOL AND HIS MONEY (1912) A very interesting short by Alice Guy-Blache, which featured an all African-American cast. The story is basic, and not completely without stereotypes, but it was well told and was delightfully unexpected.
THE DEVIL (1921) This is a GREAT film and is also the debut for star George Arliss. Arliss is a pretend friend who negatively manipulates relationships for fun and loves to watch the results. Arliss is pure ham in the best possible way.
FRIDAY (afternoon)
THE SOLDIER AND THE LADY (1937) Wow did I ever enjoy this film. Apparently the third of five filmed versions of Jules Verne's Michael Stragoff, a story of which I was completely unfamiliar with and enjoyed immensely. About a Russian courier (Anton Walbrook) who has some important papers to deliver to the Russian army (and as the hero, it means we are rooting for the Tsar, which in itself was interesting), this version seamlessly used footage from a previous version making the film look like it had a cast of thousands. Action packed!
WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT (1935) A pretty good mystery/comedy which teamed detective Guy Kibbee and nurse Aline MacMahon (who was great at delivering her one-liner barbs). Harmless fun, with some pretty good laughs and the two unconventional leads had great chemistry.
BETTER DAYS (1927) Moving at a snail's pace, this melodrama about a mother who is literally willing to go to the poor house by funding her ne'er-do-well son's gambling habit has one great thing going for it: Dorothy Devore. Devore is the mother's ward, and she is full of spunk, particularly during a scene where she kicks the son's and his girlfriend's butt. That fight alone (both authentic and funny) makes the film well worth watching.
Friday (evening)
SNOOKY'S LABOR LOST (1921) Pretty amusing, especially if you are into the chimpanzee-dressed-as-a-human kinda thing. Generally I'm not, but ol' Snook really could do some amazing things.
WHEN THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1919) The other film I'd already seen, but how GREAT was it seeing Doug Fairbanks on the big screen? THIS GREAT! This is the film where a nefarious "scientist" is trying to drive Doug to suicide, and without question, the nightmare scene Doug has--where his personified dinner is chasing him--is laugh-out-loud funny. Doug leaps and bounds all over the place and the big screen simply heightens his magnetism. The film does suffer a bit, from that tacked on (but elaborate) ending, but so what? Who can complain about a little more Doug?
SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD (1944) I missed this one because I was in the lobby talking with someone who had been friends with Louise Brooks for the last thirty years of her life. Not only that, but he'd worked with Carl Dreyer on ORDET and had plenty of stories about JOAN (we'd met when he'd asked me what I thought was the greatest film, which of course is PASSION OF JOAN Of ARC. Good thing he didn't ask me what the best film is…) Sorry to have missed Jane Powell on the big screen, but I learned an awful lot!
SATURDAY (still bright and early)
THE WEST-BOUND LIMITED (1923) A real corker of a train film that mixes melodrama with plenty of no-holds barred action. All of the expected sequences are here (someone trapped on the tracks and two trains on the same track speeding towards each other) but they are marvelously handled and incorporated well into the plot, and there is just a lot of authentic driving the train shots that make this a really fine film.
LET'S GO NATIVE (1930) A wacky pre-code that makes little sense but is nevertheless great fun. Kay Francis has a small but important role, but the film belongs to Jeanette MacDonald--how could it not? She's in lingerie much of the time (and again, this is the big screen!). Yowza! (For the ladies the opening sequences include Eugene Pallette.)
Saturday (afternoon)
JUST PALS (1920) I actually have this in the Ford at Fox set, but it's still unopened. Jack Ford tackles a fairly predictable plot, but by focusing on the characters he makes the story human and quite riveting. Buck Jones is an adult Huck Finn who learns responsibility when he teams up with a young sidekick (wonderfully payed by George Stone). Pretty great film. (Gotta open that set.)
LIBERTY BELLES (1914) One of my favorites at the festival, but I was clearly the only one who thought it was any good. A 3-reel feature starring Dorothy Gish (!!!!) and featuring Jack Pickford. The story has Gish and her girlfriend trying to sneak out of their college (or boarding school, I was a bit unclear), to meet with their boyfriends. There are some nonsensical subplots involving the girls' fathers, and, like many two-reel comedies of the day, when the plot starts to fizzle another is introduced that bears little relation to the preceding shenanigans, but so what? Dorothy is gorgeous, and she is absolutely natural in her performance! The paper print looked pretty terrific, too. For 1914, I remain impressed.
STAGESTRUCK (1917) If one has any doubts about the folks at Cinesation how about the fact that they show a film that is missing the first two reels! Again starring Dorothy Gish, the plot is easy to follow (after a brief recap of the missing two reels) and here we get to see Dorothy showing off her dramatic acting chops. The story is fairly basic, about an aspiring actress, the boy she loves and a marriage that may or may not have actually taken place, and I hope that the opening reels are found to make the film complete (I suspect that the opening showcased Gish's comedic talents, some.)
THE MISSING MILLIONAIRE (1917) This is the 1/2 film I've seen and again major kudos to the Cinesation gang for showing this, a film of little value except to show how sneaky some of the studios were (are?) It's basically two reels of Doug Fairbanks' feature THE MATRIMANIAC, but re-edited and with new titles to make it a "new" film. How 'bout them apples! Understandably it makes very little sense, but it was really insightful to see. That and the chance to see Doug again on the big screen (and, all too briefly, Constance Talmadge, too.)
The afternoon ended with a series of short films presented by Eric Greyson including a Tribute to John Barrymore (which included some color tests from his HAMLET and a terrific Puppetoon, TOOLBOX BALLET.)
SATURDAY (evening)
Throughout the series, special guest Dr. Harriet Fields, granddaughter of W. C. would talk about and answer questions about her grandfather and his films. The only Fields' features I'd seen were his surviving silents, and it was great seeing him in some of his cameo roles the previous nights. This night, though, Fields was the star.
THE GOLF SPECIALIST is a Fields short that showcases one of his famous stage bits. Funny as all get out, and I don't even play golf.
YOU'RE TELLING ME (1934) A terrific film that is not only very funny, but it is plotted well and has some terrific dramatic moments that Fields delivers almost too well. It also features the same Golf Specialist routine, and it was very interesting at how he altered some things, but kept much of the bit exactly the same. By the way , equally as funny the second time. (I'm seriously going to have to check out other Fields features.)
CRAZY HOUSE (1943) An Olsen and Johnson (Who? I'd never heard of them.) comedy that is as frantic and hysterical as it gets. At least during the opening ten minutes, where the two are in a parade heading towards Universal Studious. Everyone on the lot, when they hear Olsen and Johnson are coming, flee for their lives (lots of cameos in this one). Unfortunately this one started too late and I had a pre-arranged 11pm phone call that I had to make, so I missed most of what looked to be a pretty wacky film.
Sunday (bright and ever-so-slightly less early)
FORBIDDEN WOMAN (1920) Clara Kimball Young is a French actress who has been having an affair with an admirer until she learns that he is married. Something drastic happens and she flees to the States and begins a romance with an author, who happens to have a sister who is currently in France… This is an okay film, with a terrific opening but which depends on one of those eye-rolling coincidences that isn't even really exploited.
BROKEN CHAINS (1922) This film will remind you of lots of other films, most notably TOL'ABLE DAVID (it even sports a knock down, drag 'em out fight with DAVID's Ernest Torrence), but who cares. It's still wildly entertaining! Malcolm McGregor is a coward who goes to his father's lumber camp to become a man. There he finds a pre-flapper Colleen Moore (who looks ravishing in her long hair), who is married to brute Torrence. Nothing unexpected happens, but the ride is still fun!
Sunday (afternoon)
IN OLD MISSOURI (1940) Alas, the previous night's phone call dictated that I had to leave Ohio and head east to New Jersey, thus missing this, the last film of the festival.
What a time I had. From the very outset, the two women who worked in the lobby--the unsung heroines of the festival--took my registration and upon learning about my interest in Dorothy Gish gave me directions to the Gish house (where Lillian and Dorothy stayed when they wanted a break from the road), as well as told me every nearby restaurant and their menus, it was a welcoming and warm "family", of which I now feel a part of.
Finally, it was incredible being able to listen to the musical accompaniments by Ben Model and Dr. Philip Carli. On the rare occasion where a film wasn't holding my complete attention, I would look over and watch them as they performed. It was fascinating seeing how they would watch the film and anticipate the action and dramatics and alter their music accordingly. During Devore's fight scene in BETTER DAYS, for instance, the music first reflected the action, but quickly, when realizing it was also humorous, a comedic element was snuck into the music. Pretty great.
Can't wait 'til next year!