For the second year in a row, Italy's Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Le Giornate del Cinema Muto) - arguably the world's most prestigious showcase for this unique art form - has provided international viewers with an online sampling of the films on offer to those attending in person. As always, there are a number of themes running through the festival's offerings. This year, they include the works of Norma Talmadge and the notion of 'Ruritania' and other romantically quasi-European nation states, as personified by The Prisoner of Zenda. I was delighted to be able to watch along in my home theatre.
On The Steps Of The Throne (1912)
This is a pleasant Ruritainian romance of Italian origin, about a nefarious regent who disagrees with the Prince’s choice of bride and goes to enormous lengths to change it. The story progresses fairly predictably until the action moves to Paris, where an exact double of the prince is found in the person of a Paris cabaret dancer. The real prince is concealed via a fiendish plot while the fake prince almost makes it to the altar with the bride of the Regent’s choice. I suppose there is something inherently implausible in most Ruritainian romances - that’s why they’re set somewhere quasi-mythical - but this one just managed to pull it off. A handsomely-mounted production from a tinted print from the Netherlands’ EYE Filmmuseum.
Norma Talmadge as 'Minnie', the weary tenement wife in 'Yes or No' (1920).
Yes Or No (1920)
When a dissatisfied woman is tempted to leave her marriage, the course of her life rests on her answer to the tempter: yes, or no. We follow two such women in parallel tales - society matron Margaret (Norma Talmadge) whose wealthy, distant husband is working himself into the grave to give her the life he thinks she wants, and doughty tenement dweller Minnie (Norma Talmadge), worn down by the demands of housework, a layabout brother, and the unwanted advances of a lodger.
Norma is entirely sympathetic as the salt-of-the-earth tenement girl and eminently plausible as the society lady, but perhaps the real revelation is her sister Natalie Talmadge. Those who have only seen her as the passive love interest in Our Hospitality (1923) - which is to say, practically everybody - wouldn’t have known she had it in her to play the delightfully sassy maid who links the parallel stories.
If there is a weakness, it’s that the tenement story holds our attention over the more conventional society drama, especially given that the latter could have been resolved with a modicum of communication between the estranged couple. There is also the nagging fact that the stories are not exactly parallel - though perhaps the intention is to contrast Minnie's pragmatism with Margaret's capriciousness in accepting her lover's glib assertion that he will give her a better life. This is a well-made, well-acted and effective drama with some genuine tugs at the heartstrings. An especially good accompaniment by José Maria Serralde Ruiz contributed greatly to its success.
We received a glimpse of an earlier Norma in one of her early Biograph pictures Mrs ‘Enry ‘Awkins (1912). She’s considerably less glamorised than later in her career, but you can see why she rose above the pack, with a style noticeably more naturalistic than those around her.
Intertitle from 'Just Around The Corner' (1921).
Just Around The Corner (1921)
‘Just around the corner’ from respectable folk live those who dwell on society’s edges, such as the ailing widow Ma Birdsong (Margaret Seddon) and her two children, Jimmie (Lewis Sargent) and Essie (Sigrid Holmquist), both stuck in menial jobs. With her health failing, Ma is anxious to see Essie’s future settled and conscious of the perils facing a young single woman. The rather feckless Essie seems to flee as fast as she can in the opposite direction from safety until it’s almost too late.
Director Frances Marion was reportedly unhappy with the film, and you can see why. The concept is strong, if a little sentimental, but it’s obvious that Essie’s love interest is a chump so early on that it makes Essie herself look not too bright, which in turn has the effect of making the whole enterprise seem more condescending than was surely intended. The redeeming figure who eventually sets matters right (a deeply charismatic performance by Marion’s husband, Fred Thomson) consequently arrives too late to maintain credibility. It is an interesting film, but it cannot be said to be a wholly successful one. Stephen Horne’s accompaniment was nonetheless effective.
Putting this on the same ‘bill’ as Yes Or No was a curious programming decision, given that it was so similar to the tenement sections of the earlier film and ended up suffering in comparison. I suspect it may have played better counter-programmed with something entirely different.
Because this double feature made for an especially long night, I didn't watch all of the German short The Great Love of the Little Dancer (1924), a rather surreal and intriguing-looking marionette production. Those on the ground say that oddities have been particularly in abundance at this year's Pordenone, and this was certainly one of them!
Profanation (Profanazione) (1924-26)
In this Italian production, Giulia (Leda Gys) is left in charge of a large sum of money by her politically well-connected husband. When the money must be retrieved to defuse a possible scandal, she discovers it has been gambled away by her spendthrift brother. All attempts to raise more money fail, and she turns to her husband’s best friend, who seeks to consummate his secret passion for her in recompense. A baby results, and the husband, wife and best friend are set on a collision course that sees the husband almost reject the child he thinks is his rival’s, but is actually his own.
Leda Gys is quite a compelling presence, but try as I might, I just couldn’t warm to this twisting, turning melodrama, which starts so abruptly you wonder if there’s missing footage and spend some time working out who is who and how they're related. Especially in the first half, there is much incident but not much action; characters walk on, emote in response to a letter or other communication, and walk off. Matters pick up in the middle of the film, where the wife and the husband’s best friend are involved in a dramatic car accident that leads to the unravelling of their secret, but the ending comes amidst a welter of accusations and coincidences, including a character who could have solved everything had he spoken up earlier.
Nikolo (Enrique Rivero) and admirers in 'His Majesty The Barber' (1928).
His Majesty The Barber (Hans Kungl Höghet Shinglar) (1928)
Sweden had a knack for snappy social comedies, and HisMajesty The Barber (1928, actually a Swedish-German co-production) is no exception.
Young Nikolo (Enrique Rivero), an orphan born in the pseudo-Balkan nation of Tirania, returns from university to assist his elderly Swedish guardian in his barber shop. His good looks bring every local girl to the salon, including Astrid (the distractingly beautiful Brita Appelgren), the spoiled heir to a hair tonic fortune, whose grandmother is ambitious for her to marry into nobility - or preferably, royalty. It so happens that Nikolo’s guardian harbours a secret: his ward's origins may not be as humble as they seem. Or are they? The truth comes out on an action-packed voyage to Tirania.
This royal(ish) romance seems to be on a conventional path before making some deft and unexpected turns in the closing section, an interesting subversion on the typical Ruritanian theme of the true heir to throne acting so valiantly as to ‘prove’ his royal blood over that of an impostor. In doing so, the film asks wider questions about the nature of nobility and monarchy - ones that have no doubt been on many minds since the passing of Elizabeth II. It’s a handsome and very enjoyable production, with effective performances all around.
This was shown with the short Rupert of Hee Haw (1924), an amusing and luxuriously mounted pastiche of Ruritanian themes, featuring Stan Laurel in the dual roles of a drunken king and his Bertie Wooster-ish British doppelganger.
A proud Slovenian bride in 'Over Mountains, Over Valleys (1930).
Over Mountains, Over Valleys (Po Horách, Po Dolách) (1930) It is difficult to review an ethnographic film. Perhaps we focus on its intention: does it wish to glorify, to persuade, to weave a narrative, or simply to document? Most documentarians would assert the last of these as their main intention, but as we know from everything from Nanook of the North (1922, also featuring in this year’s in-person festival in a centennial screening) to The Triumph of the Will (1935), the truth, or ‘truth’, is far less straightforward. Suffice it to say that this is a simple, well-photographed and engaging document of the Slovenian people; to say ‘in a time of change’ is redundant - what time isn’t a time of change - but the filmmaker clearly wished to capture a way of life he did not expect to continue, and from what little I know of the era and the people, it appears to do that very well.
Director Karel Plicka does attempt to glorify his subjects, but he does so in such a way as to make them empathetic. We see elaborate, solemn ceremonies - but we also see, for example, a bride grimace as her hair is pulled into an elaborate traditional hairstyle, small children gambol about on the sidelines of parades, and boys giggle as they play traditional games. To cause us to identify with people of a completely different culture, nearly a century distant in time, is possibly the greatest achievement to which an ethnographic filmmaker can aspire, and Plicka does a great job of achieving it. A running time of nearly two hours may seem daunting, but it passes swiftly and enjoyably. This screened with the 1922 short King Alexsander's Visit to Bled (1922), with original tints and some very picturesque views.
Princess Priscilla (Mady Christians) takes in the sights of London in 'The Runaway Princess' (1929)
The Runaway Princess (1929)
Poor Princess Priscilla (Mady Christians) is due to spend her 21st birthday ‘celebrating’ her betrothal to the unseen Prince of a neighbouring country. She’d rather spend it eating cake with her kindly teacher - or anywhere else, really.
Concocting a plan to flee her gilded cage via a train for the bright lights of London, she not only stumbles over the vagaries of ordinary life (caviar is not a breakfast food!) but gets tangled up with a gang of counterfeiters. At each step, she is shadowed by a handsome man (Paul Kavanagh) whom she just seems to keep bumping into. Is he a detective, does he hope to expose her royal secret … or is it something else?
I was all ready to state that this British-German co-production took a little while to gather a head of steam, had only tenuous connections to the Ruritanian theme and to note a number of loose plot ends - but this is one of those films where a late-breaking twist throws everything on its head in such a way as to make everything that preceded it seem much cleverer in retrospect. The cast is quite delightful, and although I still maintain it could have told its story a little more compactly, I came away more satisfied than I expected to be. It’s not on the same level as Asquith’s tense Underground (1928), but an enjoyable piece of fluff nonetheless.
Ivan Mosjoukine and Brigitte Helm smoulder in 'Manolescu' (1929).
Manolescu (1929)
After getting into financial straits, Paris playboy Manolescu (Ivan Mosjoukine) jumps a train to Monte Carlo, running directly into the beautiful, mysterious Cloe (Brigitte Helm) who is fleeing her bearlike husband (Heinrich George).
The couple are immediately infatuated - indeed, they’ve slept together before they’ve even left the train. Cloe’s lavish tastes make her hard to hold, and thus she and Manolescu embark on a trans-European crime spree, scamming and forging their way to the high life. It's only when Cloe begins to tire of the lifestyle and to consider a return to her husband that a confrontation sends Manolescu on a new path, including the more wholesome nurse Jeanette (Dita Parlo) - and ultimately, comeuppance.
Helm bristled against femme fatale roles such as this, but you can see why UFA kept giving them to her. She and Mosjoukine positively burn up the screen - this is a very sexy film. It might have stood on their smouldering looks alone, but director Victor Tourjansky also gives us all we expect from the best of late Weimar cinema: a restlessly mobile camera, sumptuous sets, clever but subtle use of miniatures and special effects including a heady dream sequence, jaw-dropping fashions by a young Rene Hubert, and a sizzling tango (accompanied onscreen by the legendary Orquestra Tipica Manuel Pizarro, and for us in the audience by a lush score from John Sweeney).
It is an absolute visual treat, but I still couldn’t help think that it was missing just a little je ne sais quoi. Maybe a slight lack of dramatic tension or urgency? But then, perhaps we are meant to be trapped in the same bubble of self-obsession as the couple, impervious to the fact that police must surely be closing in. This is not to undersell the experience. If someone asks 'why watch silent cinema?' this is where you point them.
Norma Shearer and Wallace MacDonald in 'The Lady' (1925).
The Lady (1925)
A fascinating triumvirate - director Frank Borzage, screenwriter Francis Marion and star Norma Talmadge - bring us this unabashed weepie. Norma plays Polly Pearl, who narrates the tale of her sorry attempts to become a ‘lady.’ As a music hall star, she meets and marries handsome aristocrat Leonard (Wallace MacDonald); she is abandoned before the honeymoon is even over because of her fidelity to her lower-class friends. Salvation comes via a seedy bar in Marseilles, but even here she is stalked by tragedy and class prejudice. Forced to give up her son for the greater good, it is her compassion in a tragic incident some two decades later that shows her to be a true ‘lady,’ even if society never recognises her as such.
They call them ‘tearjerkers’, but director Borzage is better than that. He takes your heart in a towel, wrings it, wrings it again, and when you feel you can’t take any more, wrings it again with expert precision. The patented 'Borzage miracle' - that plot development which strains credibility yet propels the film into the realms of the ethereal if you're willing to make the leap (see also Seventh Heaven (1927) ) is achieved in a canter. The film is mostly in good condition; a small amount of severe decomposition is compensated by explanatory titles.
Meanwhile, Norma embodies all the subtlety I was perhaps missing in Manolescu. A single, raised eyebrow elicits the ultimate anguish; a small smile is a major plot point. When we talk of silent film acting, this is exactly what we mean.
I couldn’t detect the ‘sex’ the author of the catalogue introduction identified in complaints about the film’s ‘foreign’ setting; I honestly think that American audiences simply preferred American settings, much as Australian audiences were baffled about talk of sororities, college football teams and other things foreign to their own experience. Speaking of Australians, we were lucky to see two in this film - the always welcome Marc MacDermott, and a rare major onscreen appearance from Alf Goulding, the one-time child stage actor best known for directing the likes of Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon and Fatty Arbuckle.
This is a terrific though emotionally draining film that showed you exactly why audiences of the 1920s numbered Norma Talmadge amongst their personal pantheon.
This screened with a fascinating and extremely rare short, Japan Festivals (circa 1914-1916), discovered in a Norwegian archive along with a number of other travelogues. The most interesting of the Japanese festivals depicted was Kyoto's famous parade of the Oiran, a precursor to the geisha. With its narrator clearly detached from the exotic action, occasionally making wry commentary via the intertitles, it makes for an interesting contrast in approach to Over Mountains, Over Valleys.
Marie Prevost shows us exactly what is to be found 'Up In Mabel's Room' (1926).
Up In Mabels Room (1926)
Travelling about as far away from The Lady as is humanly possible, we find ourself Up In Mabel's Room (1926) and in the midst of a wickedly hilarious sex comedy (I asked for counter-programming, and I got it!)
Mabel (Marie Prevost) has decided that her divorce from handsome architect Garry ('the other' Harrison Ford) was a tad pre-emptive, and resolves to win him back by whatever means necessary. In an effort to rid himself of his troublesome ex-wife, Garry styles himself a bachelor and contracts an engagement to the vampish Phyllis (Phyllis Haver) until a series of wild complications show us exactly what is 'up in Mabel's room': an exceptionally scanty - and incriminating - piece of lingerie inscribed 'To Mabel from Garry' that threatens to blow his secret apart!
There's sex, there's comedy drag, there's intrigue, and there's some truly laugh-out-loud intertitles. That this derives from a stage play is fairly obvious, but not in a bad way - indeed, it's the kind of story that could be staged successfully today, its compounding complications and hilarities expertly building one upon another. Australian Sylvia Breamer plays the nice-but-dumb wife of one of the couples caught up in the chaos. Given that I found Prevost's contemporaneous Almost A Husband (1926) extremely forgettable, this is a naughty delight.