1920s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists project Vol. 3)

[myrnaloyisdope]

Hallelujah is a personal favorite. I recently read Vidor's autobiography and his description of the making of the film is pretty fascinating. He describes his fascination with the raw and visceral spirituality and sexuality of the negro people. Certainly Hallelujah has that in spades. It's a very visceral film, and though Vidor's notions of race, and some of his generalizations are woefully inapt today, I think his intentions are upright, and it's clear he has an affection for the subject matter.

I always found it fascinating that he would choose such a project pretty much at the height of his career. It seems like a career suicide kind of move, but by Vidor's own account the film was very successful wherever it played.

It's also interesting to note that Hallelujah was always slated to be a talkie, but was filmed silent due to the technical difficulty of outdoor sound filming, particularly in southern swampland, but the film doesn't suffer from it. I think the use of post-production sound is really helpful actually, particularly in the swamp sequence at the end.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

He describes his fascination with the raw and visceral spirituality and sexuality of the negro people. Certainly Hallelujah has that in spades.

I am at a total loss as to what smilie to append to this.

[Steven H]

He describes his fascination with the raw and visceral spirituality and sexuality of the negro people. Certainly Hallelujah has that in spades.

I am at a total loss as to what smilie to append to this.

My first thought was "there's got to be a better way of saying that"

[myrnaloyisdope]

Wow, can't believe I wrote that...eesh.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Wow, can't believe I wrote that...eesh.

You know, that Freudian thing sir.

[knives]

The basically impossible to find He Who Gets Slapped and (von Stroheim's) The Merry Widow will be on TCM Tuesday at 7 and 8:30 est in the morning. These are essentials.

[lubitsch]

He Who Gets Slapped will be on TCM Tuesday at 7 and 8:30 est in the morning. These are essentials.

Don't know if it really is one. There are few things of the 20s I could care about less than Lon Chaney. This seems mostly to be a love story between US viewers and horror fans who think this is a great actor and his films milestones for fantastic and horror cinema, but I think they are an uniformly drab affair. It's always the same plot (Chaney is somehow unnatural/ugly/deformed and doesn't get the girl), the direction is unimaginative and Chaney is a cheap ham. Sjöström had far more success with The Scarlet Letter and The Wind while his Chaney film is an impersonal star vehicle which betrays none of the director's strengths. And what exactly is supposed to be funny about his clown routine is a mystery for the ages.

[Tommaso]

I don't care much for Chaney either, but He who gets slapped is certainly an exception. And of course this isn't a horror film, but a melodrama with a biting commentary on human relations as an undertone. The clown routine indeed is not funny, but only an expression of sadism, and that is the point of it, with Sjöström creating empathy in the viewer. The direction may be less daring than in "The Wind", but it's incredibly effective, especially in the circus scenes. Add to this Norma Shearer in her first major role and a fine performance by John Gilbert. I found the film constantly engaging and captivating, and must agree with knives: this is an essential film, at least when you look at American silents, and a very fine entry in Sjöström's filmography. Definitely on my list.

[swo17]

I'll third He Who Gets Slapped. Watch it!

[myrnaloyisdope]

Fourthed on He Who Gets Slapped. I think it's a brilliant meditation on self-hatred, and how we often choose to relive our past humiliations and hurts. In this case Chaney's ex-professor turned circus clown chooses to be slapped again and again thereby reliving his most humiliating moment every night. The love story is pretty silly, as it is in most Chaney films, and in this case quite superfluous, but the film is brisk enough that it doesn't get bogged down.

[Tommaso]

And now, courtesy of Edition Filmmuseum who have just released it, to one of the great German silents almost no-one has ever seen:

Von morgens bis mitternachts (Karlheinz Martin, 1920): This is easily the most extreme manifestation of expressionist filmmaking you're likely to encounter. Based on a play by Georg Kaiser, it was directed by one of the leading theatre directors of the time, and although it was Martin's first foray into filmmaking, the use of the apparatus is astonishing. The story of a cashier who steals money from the bank where he works in order to try out the life of the rich and famous, only to find out about its emptiness and being finally betrayed (for money) by a girl from the Salvation Army may not be all too unusual on paper, but the way it is transposed into the cinematic medium quite certainly is. "Caligari" (while is ultimately the more engaging film) almost seems like a 'realist' picture compared to the abstract designs, the flatness of space, the sheer over-the-topness of the sets and costumes, and Martin's almost constant attempts to dazzle the viewer. A 73-minute fever dream of unrelenting intensity which nevertheless feels very 'cold' due to its extreme artificiality and the characters moving around as if they were marionettes. Far closer to the abstract works on Kino's Avantgarde discs than to any normal feature film. All this was too much for the industry at the time, and the film never got any distribution in Germany. Instead it was shown in Japan, and apparently was quite a critical success there. It's also thanks to the Japanese that the sole print - restored for the dvd - survived. I'm not fully sure about what to think of the film yet, but I can guarantee some pretty unforgettable imagery.

I'll post some screencaps in the Filmmuseum thread in a few minutes.

[HerrSchreck]

He Who Gets Slapped will be on TCM Tuesday at 7 and 8:30 est in the morning. These are essentials.

Don't know if it really is one. There are few things of the 20s I could care about less than Lon Chaney. This seems mostly to be a love story between US viewers and horror fans who think this is a great actor and his films milestones for fantastic and horror cinema, but I think they are an uniformly drab affair. It's always the same plot (Chaney is somehow unnatural/ugly/deformed and doesn't get the girl), the direction is unimaginative and Chaney is a cheap ham. Sjöström had far more success with The Scarlet Letter and The Wind while his Chaney film is an impersonal star vehicle which betrays none of the director's strengths. And what exactly is supposed to be funny about his clown routine is a mystery for the ages.

Watch The Penalty kiddo-- your hair will blow back. If there is a more ferocious performance on film, or a more blackhearted narrative, you name it.

[zedz]

I run hot and cold on Chaney according to the film and director, but at his best he can get an intensity and extremity few other performers of any era could match. The Penalty is indeed exhibit A, and it's hard to imagine anybody else getting away with the all-round perversity of The Unknown. But I would have thought that He Who Gets Slapped would be the Chaney performance even the doubters would like, since it's rawer and more psychologically grounded than many of his more show-stopping turns. As for the film being "unimaginative" and "not showing the director's strengths", I couldn't disagree more: Sjostrom's fingerprints are all over the film, though the signature shots don't overwhelm the movie the way I feel they do to a certain extent in The Phantom Carriage. I even prefer it to The Wind.

[Yojimbo]

I run hot and cold on Chaney according to the film and director, but at his best he can get an intensity and extremity few other performers of any era could match. The Penalty is indeed exhibit A, and it's hard to imagine anybody else getting away with the all-round perversity of The Unknown. But I would have thought that He Who Gets Slapped would be the Chaney performance even the doubters would like, since it's rawer and more psychologically grounded than many of his more show-stopping turns. As for the film being "unimaginative" and "not showing the director's strengths", I couldn't disagree more: Sjostrom's fingerprints are all over the film, though the signature shots don't overwhelm the movie the way I feel they do to a certain extent in The Phantom Carriage. I even prefer it to The Wind.

'The Penalty' is my favourite Chaney film, and that includes The Unknown; he was one of my early fave film stars as silent classics were a staple of Irish television's early years, in the early 1960's, but, until I bought this DVD, a few years back, the dramatically unsatisfactory 'Phantom of the Opera' was the only Chaney my adult self had seen.
And apart from the quality of the film, he showed here not only what a talented dramatic actor he was, but also a hugely magnetic screen presence

[HerrSchreck]

...and to clarify, Penalty is not a Tod Browning film.. it was directed by Wallace Worsely.. the guy who later did ACE OF HEARTS and HUNCHBACK.

[Tommaso]

Phew..... I'm quite blown away right now by a 50-minute German silent which, although Schreck called it one of his 'favourite silents of all time' ( link), I hadn't managed to see until now: Leopold Jessner's Hintertreppe aka Backstairs (1921). While Schreck has already very impressively described the fascination and character of this film, I would like to add that I was especially captivated by the minimalism and the slight variations in it: the postman ascending the stairs, the maid waiting for him with a myriad of subtle shades of expression everytime this 'ritual' re-occurs, the very slow development of the love between them... and then there is the staircase itself, almost a character of its own, the most major remnant of expressionism in this film. And finally an absolutely glorious scene/shot near the end: the backyard of the house, lit from various places, light and shade, with the dwellers gathering to witness the tragic outcome of this story. This and Henny Porten's final ascent of the staircase struck me as positively transcendent, just from the way it LOOKS. And don't get me started on Henny here or in general...

Well, I guess I'll have to let this sink in a bit and probably have to watch it again before December, but right now I'm pretty sure this will figure rather high on my list. Don't hesitate to get this from Grapevine: an absolutely fine disc, I was surprised how good it looked. Fine music, too, and I guess the composer was well aware of In The Nursery's soundtracks. This film would be ideal stuff for the Humberstones in any case. And for Filmmuseum.

One of the greatest silent discoveries for me in the last months, I must say.

[nsps]

The basically impossible to find He Who Gets Slapped and (von Stroheim's) The Merry Widow will be on TCM Tuesday at 7 and 8:30 est in the morning. These are essentials.

Also, THE BIG PARAGE screens at 8PM est. Bardley's the Magnificent and Flesh and the Devil follow, but of course those can be had on DVD.

Quite a day for TCM and this list. A couple '20s films I haven't seen, The Show and Desert Nights, also air that day.

[tojoed]

Don't hesitate to get this from Grapevine: an absolutely fine disc, I was surprised how good it looked.

Tommaso, where can one buy this disc? I couldn't find it on Grapevine's website.

[Tommaso]

Here you go: Sappho and Backstairs.

[tojoed]

Thanks very much. I ordered it.

[Tommaso]

Continuing with the German 'Kammerspiel', I finally watched Lupu Pick's Sylvester (1924). The film has been gorgeously described and all its amazing qualities thoroughly analyzed by Schreck some time ago in his thread on screenwriter Carl Mayer, so I simply have nothing to add and only want to name the film here again to make sure that those who might be able to see it don't forget to do so. It's pretty stunning in its simplicity (in the most positive and powerful sense of the word) and intensity, and together with Scherben I briefly thought of Pick being some sort of Ingmar Bergman of the 20s when watching this.

That the version which is floating around is really close to unwatchable (it looks as if the whole film had been sent through some special fx filter in Photoshop) should not stop anyone from seeing this. While we can just imagine how it might actually have looked like in 1924, there is so much pure visual poetry in the film that you soon forget the deficiencies of the source. Just do yourself a favour and switch off that awful cobbled-together soundtrack; it simply doesn't do any justice to the film. As usual in such cases, I put on a CD by Wim Mertens ("After Virtue" this time), and it worked really well. But Sylvester should be another ideal project for ITN, I think. Definitely on the list.

[swo17]

So of course I just finished watching my sketchy bootleg copy of Greed only to discover that TCM will actually be airing the 4-hour restoration next week, Sep 22nd at 8:30am Eastern. Set your gold watches!

[thirtyframesasecond]

Although Napoleon is mentioned more frequently as Gancé's masterpiece, it's his slightly earlier film, The Wheel that has jumped close to the top of my list in progress. Wonderful.

[Tommaso]

A few more I watched recently:

First, another and relatively late example for the German 'Kammerspiel' films of the early 20s, Nju by Paul Czinner, and starring Czinner's wife Elisabeth Bergner together with Emil Jannings and Conrad Veidt. Made in 1924, this story of Veidt tempting Bergner away from her husband, only to end the relationship again soon after (which inevitably ends with our heroine's death), is not so unusual, but very intensely acted. It fails a little, however, in reaching the harshness of other examples of the genre, especially if I think of "Hintertreppe" and Pick's "Scherben", and also isn't as adventurous in terms of camera use as "Sylvester". Instead, some more conventional melodrama makes its appearance, especially at the end which is (literally) over the top (I'm not saying more for fear of spoilers). So all in all, a very good film, but not as extraordinary as I had hoped. Difficult to get, Nju is floating around in a version that is pretty disastrous visually, but like "Sylvester", it remains watchable and should make for interesting viewing for anyone who is interested in the work of the three actors (and who isn't?)

Then, there is the other half of the Grapevine disc which also contains the sublime "Hintertreppe", Dimitri Buchowetzki's Sappho starring Pola Negri, who wreaks havoc on two brothers both falling in love with her. For more plot details, please read the as usual spirited blog entry by His Highness, Herr Graf Ferdinand von Galitzien. The film is an interesting combination of psychological drama and pulp, with some strange references to the asylum scenes in "Caligari" and quite magnificent depictions of the early 20s 'society life'. Negri, as always, can't fully stop her over-acting (she even did it in some sound films of the mid 30s), but it doesn't really matter, as this is a piece which shouldn't be taken too seriously perhaps. Great entertainment, nevertheless.

But, totally unrelated to these two, the film that really made my day was Alexander Dovzhenko's Zvenigora (1927), probably the director's first really important work, and arguably one of his very best. Reaching from the middle ages to the 1920s, the story somewhat elusively tells about the search for a mythical treasure hidden at Zvenigora, and that treasure seems to be the 'heart' or the 'essence' of the Ukraine itself. A very curious mix of fairy tale, historical drama and Bolshevik agitation, it tells the story of Ukrainian history and its change to a socialist country by using the mythical character of an apparently eternally living of old man who represents the country itself, and whose two sons stand for the 'progressive' and the 'reactionary' side with regard to the change to socialism. And Dovzhenko contrasts the old and the new via amazing editing (worthy of Vertov, for sure), at the same time giving us breathtaking images of the countryside and always imbuing his film with an archaic feeling that matches his better known "Earth". There is also a fantastic sequence near the end in which a Parisian audience eagerly awaits that a man shoots himself on stage as he had promised; of course this is intended as a critique of the 'decadence' of the Western world, but it's striking and downright frightening to see the audience lusting more and more for this big event to happen. This is certainly a moment worthy of early Bunuel, but the whole storyline of the film has a lot of the disjointedness that one associates with surrealism, and I must confess that I wasn't always able to follow completely what was going on on screen. Nevertheless, it certainly left an impact. I don't hesitate to called this a downright masterpiece, and I would be surprised if this film didn't end up rather high on the final list. Don't miss it by any means!

[lubitsch]

Czinner's wife Elisabeth Bergner (...) and should make for interesting viewing for anyone who is interested in the work of the three actors (and who isn't?)

Me. I remember Nju as a very good film, but I generally think that the chamber dramas are heavily undervalued, the same goes for a film like Miss Lulu Bett when you've seen hundreds of silent melodramas you begin to really appreciate how modern the films are which show a bit more subtlety. Bergner however is an actress which makes me cringe, thankfully we don't have to listen to her pronounciation here, but she is one of the worst examples of early German cinema and especially the acting being in the claws of theatre asthetics.

This is certainly a moment worthy of early Bunuel, but the whole storyline of the film has a lot of the disjointedness that one associates with surrealism, and I must confess that I wasn't always able to follow completely what was going on on screen.

I guess nobody does really understand, I remember being completely lost even if one accepts the old man as being a symbol for Ukraine. However I watched the Grapevine release while there's also an edition of the Ukrainian government around which beyond looking better offers the original cut which hopefully may clarify some story points.