Received
Un chapeau de paille d'Italie yesterday. Another nice package from Flicker Alley. Includes a booklet with an essay on Clair's career, a 1940 essay by Iris Barry on the main feature, and notes on the Mont Alto Orchestra score. Extras on the disc are
Le Tour (~12m), Clair's 1928 short on the world's largest erector set, and a 1907 short by Ferdinand Zecca,
Noce en Goguette (~8 m). There's a 1916 English translation of the 1851 play on which the film is based as a DVD-ROM extra.
The film is presented at 19fps and I though it looked superb overall. Contrast and detail are exceptional for an 82-year-old film. I did notice one incident of combing in freeze frame with VLC's deinterlacing filterss disabled, and that occurred in an early scene where Bobin was helping Nonancourt into his shoes. It was unobtrusive in motion. I switched the Yadif 2x deinterlacing filter and didn't see any other examples. I watched the film accompanied by the Mont Alto Orchestra score, which seemed appropriate and never intrusive. There is a piano score by Philip Carli which I have not as yet heard. Intertitles are in English, as is all text.
The film itself is both a satire on bourgeois behaviors and a farce. It has been moved from the 1850s in the play to
la belle époque. One of the funniest silent comedies I think I've seen precisely because it is a exquisitely executed comedy of manners that relies very little on physical comedy. It walks a fine line between absurd and just silly, but always stays on the right side of the lion. Albert Préjean is spot-on as the hapless bridegroom.
The scene in which he describes his predicament to Beauperthuis only to have it slowly dawn on him that he's given the game away is priceless, not only for the inherent humor but as an example of Norma Desmond's "We had faces then" aesthete.
The main theme is accompanied by several character set-pieces, the longest running of which is the bride's uncle's film-long battle with his ear trumpet. It's a fairly straight line of progression forward from this film to
Sous les toits de Paris (also with Préjean),
Le million, and
À nous la liberté. My only real criticism is that at 1h45m it's a tad long.
There was one oddity, at least to me, and perhaps someone will have some insight. When the wedding party attends the reception, the woman who plays the piano is handed the sheet music and it's the English/Scottish country dance Sir Roger de Coverley. My knowledge of the piece is limited to Frank Bridge's 1922 composition for string orchestra and a Dorothy Sayers' short story. It seemed odd that a French wedding party in 1895 (or 1928) would choose this music. Was there a time when the dance was popular on the continent?
Both of the shorts were in good shape considering. The tour of the Eiffel Tower was fascinating and the Zecca short was what I would term routine Nickolodeon fare - entertaining but hardly exceptional. The recurring thought I had while watching it was that my grandmother was a 15-year-old girl when it was made. Make of that what you will.
