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Home , Angora Love, Master of the House, Max Davidson, The Salvation Hunters

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Friday, Oct. 21 Movie Notes by Jon Hildreth ...

kept in his head – a burst of creativity that has never since been equaled in the movies. This film is remembered as an early Lillian Gish star part, though the location shooting is equally interesting, and the costumes, hair styles and so forth take us to an alien world.

What’s interesting is that this is a A vitally important piece of action director’s picture. All the comedy takes place in long shot at the very comes from reaction shots, which is edge of the frame – a rare directorial just as well since there wasn’t anything gaffe for Griffith -- but after all, the particularly funny about Davidson. rules were not yet graven in stone, and nobody suspected that a day might “It’s A Gift” is the one and only Snub come when, watching movies on TV, Pollard masterpiece. Pollard was a fine we’d miss important little details like 6pm - $1 Laugh Program second banana, but no genius, and this one. Just keep checking out the never found a mentor to make him a left side of the picture in the bar scene Angora Love (1929) major star, as Harry Langdon briefly and you’ll be fine.

Laurel & Hardy did – but this one time Snub set the world on fire thanks to wonderful Griffith’s reputation has been tarnished material that perfectly embodies the by the revulsion modern audiences In “Angora Love” and spirit of the Roaring Twenties, when feel towards The Birth of a Nation, a get adopted by a goat, everything new was the bee’s knees great but flawed film with more than a which somehow brings on landlord and everything old was merely hint of racism. In future festivals we trouble. I’m grown-up enough to Victorian. hope to show that Griffith was a accept The Boys together in a hotel Dickens-like moralist, not the demonic room with a double bed, but when monster we read of on the Internet, there’s a goat involved, one that badly 7:30pm - Outside the Law and that The Birth in no way typified needs a bath, I’m not sure what to his pictures. In fact, none of his think. There’s no way around it: the Underworld (1927) pictures are typical: the extraordinary film may be a trifle grotesque. Even Preceded by Musketeers of Pig variety of his work is one of the many the title is a head-scratcher. Angoras Alley (1912, D.W. Griffith) qualities that made him a master. are sheep, I think, and that ‘Love’ business is a little odd, too, Underworld marked Josef Von Both of tonight’s films have been considering the film’s last shot, but at Sternberg’s first success in a career called “the first gangster film,” but least homophobes will rejoice to know noted for wild ups and downs. His first since a great many early North for sure that the goat is a lady. film, The Salvation Hunters, was made American films were set in big city for less than $3,500 and caught slums, gangsters have been in Pass the Gravy (1928) Chaplin’s eye, says legend, when the pictures for nearly as long as movies (Max Davidson) film’s lead actor bribed a projectionist have told stories. Who knows what the to show the first reel “by accident” in first gangster picture really was? Charlie’s home. Hunters showed a Max Davidson, a Jewish comedian profit, having cost virtually nothing, born in Berlin, made a number of “The Musketeers of Pig Alley” has the and the famed comic hired Sternberg comedies for , many better claim. It was made by the great to make a feature, A Woman of the directed by the great Leo McCarey. American film pioneer David Wark Sea, starring former partner Edna This item has a fairly elaborate plot Griffith 99 years ago, at which time he Purviance. We don’t know, but there leading inexorably to – a food fight, of was making two pictures a week, may have been a falling out; in any course. usually from scripts he developed and case the film was either never publicly

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Friday, Oct. 21 Movie Notes Continued ... shown or only shown once, depending remake of Underworld, making one moments as the one when Feathers on who you believe, and Chaplin is wonder if he’d seen either film.) first arrives at the club where the said to have destroyed it deliberately seedy Clive Brook works as a janitor. in the presence of an I.R.S. agent to Underworld is usually called a She’s at the top of a spiral staircase substantiate a tax write-off. No fool, he gangster picture, and often cited as and he’s at the bottom. A single retained a print or two, but after his the first of the gangster cycle, but it’s feather from her wrap floats down to wife died, rumor says his wife, Oona, really a love triangle set in Von him, and the viewer knows that fate destroyed all prints. In any case, the Sternberg’s land of glittering surfaces intends to tie the two together despite picture seems to be gone. and shadows where beautiful people her shimmering glamor and his general meet and drift apart. His characters grubbiness. I couldn’t begin to say Between Hunters and A Woman, always have A Past, a disillusioning how this scene works, but it does, Sternberg directed The Exquisite one at that; they rarely fit silent film brilliantly, and of such small details is Sinner for Metro. The studio disliked stereotypes. the Art of Film composed. the movie, called journeyman director Phil Rosen in for retakes, the film Sternberg lasted only seven more failed, but at least one copy exists. years at Paramount, with one After two debacles in a row Sternberg excursion to Germany to make the landed a job as an assistant director at smash hit Die Blaue Engel (The Blue Paramount. As a reward for re- Angel) for UFA, with Emil Jannings and shooting half of Frank Lloyd’s Children . Of his talkie output, of Divorce in three days, he was only Morocco and Shanghai Express, tapped to make Underworld, which both starring Dietrich, were successful Paramount then shelved. “You poor at the time. On loan-out to Columbia ham, take my name off the film,” wired he made Crime and Punishment with a its writer, Ben Hecht. perfectly-cast Peter Lorre as Raskolnikov, but the film did about as But in New York it appears that the much business as you might think. spirit of Preston Sturges had taken up Paramount let him go shortly residence, and lo and behold, a Times thereafter, when The Devil Is a Woman Square theater needed something to played to slow business, and his last show. On opening there, Underworld According to at least one writer, six films were either flops or never created such a sensation, solely by Sternberg apprenticed with a New completed. I, Claudius, his last shot at word of mouth, that the theater had to York portrait photographer and later a great picture, was to be produced by stay open all night, George Bancroft claimed he brought the art of still Alexander Korda in England, but the became a star, and Hecht changed his photography to the moving pictures. production collapsed for complex mind, which was just as well because Another story has the young Sternberg reasons, as told in a fascinating BBC the film won him the first Best haunting New York’s famed Armory documentary, The Epic That Never Screenplay Oscar there ever was. Show, which gave the young man and Was. One other, The Shanghai indeed the U.S., a first taste of modern Gesture, often seen on early TV, has Incidentally, Howard Hawks claimed art. In any case, he somehow become a serious contender for the he had a hand in writing the picture, developed a stunning visual sense, all-time #1 camp classic, and there but he was a man who never let the and few films are more beautifully was also a fine Army documentary truth get in the way of a good story, so photographed than his. He was, in called The Town, but the rest are we don’t know if he really did – but fact, the first director admitted to the mercifully forgotten. Hawks used a character’s name American Society of (“Feathers”) and the spittoon scene Cinematographers. The victim of a childhood made from Underworld in his classic John miserable by a brutal father, Sternberg Wayne western, Rio Bravo. (At least For me, Underworld is pure delight. believed that to be respected, he had one critic claimed that Rio Bravo is a What stays in mind are such privileged to be feared, and his own lack of

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Friday, Oct. 21 Movie Notes Continued ...

anything like common politeness may have been the chief cause of his difficulties in life. In any case, he made too many enemies and his career came to a standstill. Interest in his films returned to life when , about Catherine the Great, was released by the prestigious Criterion Collection and became recognized for its bizarre sets, extraordinary photography, and Marlene Dietrich’s radiant presence. Since then, there have been revivals and retrospectives, and the man has regained some of his former prestige, at least among film buffs.

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Saturday, Oct. 22 Movie Notes by Jon Hildreth ...

10am - Women’s Rights (Early “The Adventurer,” last of the Version) First we see what is wrong with things extraordinarily fruitful Mutual series of as they are: the husband imagines comedies, was Charles Spencer Master of the House (1925) himself lord and master even though Chaplin’s most popular film up to then, he knows nothing of what it takes to perhaps because Chaplin had four (Theodore Dreyer) run a household. His downtrodden whole months to prepare it, an wife has little hope he will come to his unheard-of luxury at the time, or senses, but his former nanny has other perhaps because it returned to basic, ideas. Her plan to make him rethink his fast slapstick after the broadening of role is the film, and I won’t spoil things themes and storylines that mark the with more comment. series as a whole. Chaplin’s timing was so exact by then that a genre that Dreyer spent most of his life and made had once been crude knockabout what money he made not from his own farce had become as precise and as films but by managing Denmark’s graceful as ballet. greatest movie theater, a post he gained thanks to the Danish The film begins and ends with a chase. Danish director is government’s pride in an Chases in Chaplin pictures give him best remembered for one towering internationally-illustrious citizen, but ample opportunity to display his silent masterpiece, The Passion of time and the availability of much of his invention and skill, and these are no Joan of Arc, and for four fine but dour work has operated in his favor, and exception. His flawless impersonation talkies which came out decades apart: few directors are more respected now. of a lamp and some by-play with , , , and sliding double doors are highlights of Gertrud, all of them involving strong 12pm - The World’s Wealthiest the final chase. women (in the case of Vampyr, a bit Tramp too strong), and all available on home The Kid was Chaplin’s first feature, and the first of his films to emphasize video. In the Twenties, though, Dreyer The Kid (1921) was a reasonably prolific director of all poignancy, the “Chaplinesque” quality, (Charles Chaplin), sorts of films, always well-done. He over pure laughter. This being the was skilled at comedy, though his are preceded by The Adventurer case, some downgrade the film as comedies in the Scandinavian manner, “not funny enough,” but I think they not overburdened with belly laughs. miss the point: it’s an actor’s picture, and a child actor’s picture at that. Master of the House is a beautifully What Chaplin did with little Jackie constructed little picture, taking place Coogan was nothing short of in just two rooms. The first part simply astonishing, and reveals the studied shows the many things that go into nature of Chaplin’s own performances. running a home, depicted in rather Every move, every flicker of an eye is long shots. Only after the story gets calculated, yet the illusion of moving does the camera get close to spontaneity is wholly convincing. the action. The net effect is that the spectator gradually gets more involved Chaplin taught the kid the part as he as the story progresses: a neat trick, would have taught a dog a part, but considering that what the film has to then, of course, there is That Scene, say wouldn’t have been readily the one no dog could learn. The whole accepted by all viewers in 1925 film leads up to it. When the powers Europe. Feminism was just a rumor, that be try to wrest the Kid away from but respect for the female principle is the Tramp, the outpouring of emotion what this film has to offer. on Coogan’s face is without parallel in

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Saturday, Oct. 22 Movie Notes Continued ...

Fleming is now remembered for two seem brand new. It did not hurt that Ribbon which goes on (and on and on) spectacularly successful Ford’s Uncle Mike had actually been a for most of a reel. collaborations: The Wizard of Oz member of that railroad-building crew, (partly directed by ) and and the young Ford grew up listening Incidentally, Fox was grooming David O. Selznik’s Gone With the Wind to his songs and stories. Bellamy for stardom and inserted a (partly directed by George Cukor). But number of close-ups of her over Ford’s as our film shows, Fleming began as We will see the film’s rarely-presented objections. He complained about it for an inventive, almost an experimental American Version this evening. What the rest of his life. director, obviously in love with the exactly does that mean? In the silent medium’s limitless creative era, the best takes were reserved for Diffuse by nature, an epic needs a opportunities. One highlight is the the American version of a film, and the strong hero to hold it together. George therapy-induced dream sequence, a second-best takes were edited into a O’Brian’s performance is powerful and triumph of early special effects, still European version, which frequently charming. It’s fair to say he carries the effective today. means that the American versions picture. If Miss Bellamy hadn’t had feature better acting, particularly from him, she would have been sunk for less-experienced performers like our certain. When the silent era ended, heroine, Madge Bellamy. Certain O’Brian’s star waned, but, like such sequences were deemed more other silent stars as Mae Marsh, he interesting to Americans than to remained in the John Ford stock Europeans, and such sequences were company as long as he was able to longer, as here with the Indian attacks work. which make our American version more exciting.

There are two different stories to this film, and which one you follow depends on your point of view: there is 7:30pm - Nation-Building With the story of the white settlers, and John Ford there is the story of the Native Americans’ vain attempt to stop the white settlers. Apparently someone The Iron Horse (1922) decided Europeans wouldn’t care for (John Ford) the Indian story, and unfortunately the European version is most widely The Iron Horse (1922), an epic on shown today. You may think you’ve building the first transcontinental seen The Iron Horse when you actually railway, was the first major hit by one haven’t – not all of it at any rate, and of the great American directors, John not, perhaps, the best of it. Ford. It was Ford’s first treatment of a major event in American history, Abraham Lincoln has a way of showing up unexpectedly in American prefiguring his later masterpieces. With a documentary-like flavor, George epics, and here he not only appears, Schneiderman’s photography seems but telegraphs the end of the picture to transplant us into a real time and with a Presidential spoiler. place. The physical details of railroad building, the westward movement of Ford’s weakness for stage Irishmen is pioneering communities, the clashes present as well, with the usual with Indians, a cattle drive, a buffalo numbing influence, but these so-called herd, a saloon gun battle, and other comic sequences are mercifully short essential elements of Western myth all compared to, say, Victor McLaglen’s drunk scene in She Wore a Yellow

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