Tweet What's The Last Silent Movie You Watched? [2017]

I'd never seen von Sternberg's DOCKS OF NEW YORK, though I recall it being highly spoken of...

A few years back, composer Robert Israel declared "Docks of New York" a "Masterpiece" after he created a new score for the latest release.

I've only seen it with the organ score, but remember thinking it was a worthwhile film. A bit too gritty for me, but I still enjoyed it.

[Danny Burk]

Now, to catch up with THE DRAG NET and UNDERWORLD.

-Craig

I'm afraid you'll have a hard time catching up with THE DRAG NET, since it's one of the lost von Sternbergs.

DOCKS is a masterpiece, however. If only CASE OF LENA SMITH had survived beyond the 3-minute fragment...

I'd never seen von Sternberg's DOCKS OF NEW YORK, though I recall it being highly spoken of as far back as in the estimable TWENTIES installment of the pb "International Film Guide Series." This weekend, I came it across by accident on one of the NYC Digital channels.

The Wife and I both liked it very much. Beautifully shot - but not in a way that undercut the grit of the setting & story. Well acted, especially by Compson and Baclanova (Bancroft teetered on the edge of Popeye...) A moving, memorable tale, well told.

Now, to catch up with THE DRAG NET and UNDERWORLD.

-Craig

In 'Seductive Cinema' James Card describes accompanying the sole surviving copy of DOCKS to Paris. This seems a trifle risky, to say the least, unless there was a negative still at Eastman House. Even so, it still seems a bit unlikely that he would chance it to the hazards of a sea voyage...

I had seen "Champagne" (1928) about 10-15 years back in a rather murky, battered old print and this condition probably influenced my opinion of the picture. I re-visited it yesterday and even though I had a vague recollection here and there of some scenes, there was a sufficient time interval intervening for me to be able to look at it again without total recall. I must say that I witnessed a beautifully restored and pristine print and I quite enjoyed the re-acquaintance.

There's nothing much to the story; it is the embellishment by way of photography and treatment that broadens out what little there is. Alfred Hitchcock was the director and he made use of some interesting camera angles and was also already showing signs of menace in the way he photographed the "Boulevardier", evidenced by those looks of nefarious intention.

The cast is interesting in that only the four main players were given any credits in the titles. Two of them were English - Betty Balfour and Gordon Hawker. The other two were foreign - Jean Bradin, French, and Ferdinand, Baron von Lamezan auf Altenhofen, German, born in Russia.



Betty Balfour was certainly no glamour puss, but she had a grounding in the Music Halls and was more of a comedienne, thus she was able to bring a certain vitality to the film in her portrayal of a rich feminine flapper, a Queen of the Jazz Age, shimmering in a shimmy and able to show off a frock. Jean Bradin was apparently a French matinee idol and Ferdinand von Alten (as he was billed) made a presence in German cinema before pneumonia whisked him off at an early age in 1933. Gordon Hawker seemed to me to pop up in nearly every British picture of the 1930's, so much so, that one became sick of seeing him.

In brief, the story revolves around a spoiled little rich girl, whose father plays a trick on her to bring her to her senses.

We open with one of her extravagances - taking a seaplane out to land on the ocean next to an ocean liner which she is to board as a passenger. With such a flawless copy, one was able to notice some things that perhaps one was not supposed to notice – such as the painted backdrop representing the ocean on scenes at sea. The fact too that the aeroplane landed on the water and the boat meeting it - were obviously a scenes photographed in the studio. One could sense that there was a man just out of frame throwing water out of a bucket now and then for added authenticity. That is not to spoil the enjoyment though.

My friend in America said that when he looked at this picture he could sense that some of the scenes were running too fast and that the movement appeared unnatural and at times blurred. Maybe it's me and my shoddy eyesight, but I didn’t notice anything wrong with the speed. It all looked natural to me – except perhaps for just a few brief scenes when the camera was under-cranked for effect. (I suppose directors did this on some scenes such as people walking across railway concourses or on busy streets in order to emphasis the hurly-burly)?

There is a wonder art-deco night club scene in the picture, lorded over by a Maitre d'Hotel beautifully played by Marcel Vibert (but un-credited). I liked all the scenes depicted here – particularly those showing couples on the dance floor jigging about. There wasn’t much room to maneuver and I found it all quite hilarious.

What one can say in summing up this picture is that in the hands of someone other than a director of the calibre of Hitchcock, the film would have ended up as a forgettable bit of tripe on a par with a lot of those drawing room romance type things that flounder about. Hitchcock has managed to get good performances out of everybody, present us with some novel photographic effects and to also sweep the camera through some interesting panoramas.

If I only have one complaint it would be that the titles were not afforded the same restoration as the rest of the film, which I must say is in absolute pristine condition and a pleasure to look at.

The accompaniment was by way of a solo piano - and I don;t know who the pianist was - but he /she has done a sterling job.

I'm afraid you'll have a hard time catching up with THE DRAG NET, since it's one of the lost von Sternbergs.

Alas, yes.

I wondered who'd be the first to cite that - and MAYBE, to announce that some material on it had recently turned up!

(We live in hope. And having lived to see Edison's FRANKENSTEIN and Gillette's HOLMES, I still have some...)

-Craig

When a crowdfunding campaign opened for Frank Borzage's The Pride of Palomar (1922) under the aegis of Truefilm, I was very happy to kick my money in for a dvd. Borzage's work can be described as Magical Realism, a special world in which nothing is impossible, especially in the face of love.

The dvd just arrived. I wasted no time in watching it. There is nothing in it, alas, that smacked of Borzage's great works, but it proved to be a fine A Western with a lovely score compiled, orchestrated and conducted by David L. Gill.

Forrest Stanley returns to his family's ranch at El Palomar. His father has died and there is a huge mortgage on the land, held by Eastern banker Alfred Allen, who intends to improve the land and sell it to Warner Oland -- playing a Japanese agent -- who will sell it to Japanese farmers. Because Stanley is a returning veteran, he has a year to pay off the mortgage. Allen and Oland fight him: Allen fairly, Oland vilely. Stanley has the support of all the locals and Allen's daughter, Marjorie Daw.

The movie is full of exciting scenes, great photography and much good humor. It is blighted to the modern viewer because of its racism. Four years earlier, Japan was an ally during the First World War and many a spy thriller had a Japanese agent fighting the good fight, but times had changed, and this movie reflects that the Yellow Peril was again something to be feared.

Even if this is not a perfect film, it is a very good one and an important revival in the works of an important director. It is worth the time of anyone who wishes to see as much of Borzage's work as possible.

Let's hope that the next time the folks at Truefilm run a campaign to restore a film, they remember to let us know at Nitrateville. They certainly have expressed their thanks, both here and in the credits section at the end of the movie.

Bob

Betty Balfour was certainly no glamour puss, but she had a grounding in the Music Halls and was more of a comedienne, thus she was able to bring a certain vitality to the film in her portrayal of a rich feminine flapper, a Queen of the Jazz Age, shimmering in a shimmy and able to show off a frock.

Hitchcock's Champagne.
What made Betty Balfour a perfect choice was her eyes. I think it's the vitality she brought to the part.
Somehow, she could make them look larger than life (think 'Betty Boop' eyes"), yet other times, they seemed normal size.

You cannot help noticing since her face appears throughout the entire film.

When a crowdfunding campaign opened for Frank Borzage's The Pride of Palomar (1922) under the aegis of Truefilm, I was very happy to kick my money in for a dvd. Borzage's work can be described as Magical Realism, a special world in which nothing is impossible, especially in the face of love.

The dvd just arrived. I wasted no time in watching it. There is nothing in it, alas, that smacked of Borzage's great works, but it proved to be a fine A Western with a lovely score compiled, orchestrated and conducted by David L. Gill.

My copy arrived as well. The wife and I went out tonight to Bible Study but I'm hoping this weekend I'll get a chance to watch it. I did spot check it and it looks and sounds great!

ALL DOLLED UP (1921)

Restored, trying to reconstruct lost scenes, by myself.

https://mega.nz/#!BYoWCZRY!0euYUV0Lb4_y ... yb8fqmDhmA

Recovering from a 10 hour drive yesterday I knew it was going to be heavy on the couch time today so I decided it was finally the moment to have a go at the new Napoleon BFI restoration. I hadn't seen it since the original Coppola screening at the LA Shrine and I realize now that all I remember was the overall experience and not a frame of the movie. Needless to say, it's magnificent. My only confusion was about the Violine subplot that seemed undeveloped - I suspect the issue is my lack of familiarity with the underlying story or maybe those are parts that are still missing. Hardly a quibble though.

One thought did occur to me - some of the fancier editing sequences reminded me of some scenes in A Clockwork Orange. I wonder if Kubrick, who reportedly had worked on his own Napoleon film for years, had any exposure to Gance's film or if it was more rooted in the underlying Eisenstein?

An astonishing achievement from the original production to the restoration and score.

The first time I saw Flesh and the Devil was a memorable experience. The screening took place thirty years ago at Radio City Music Hall, part of a program of four silent features shown over a period of four days, accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Carl Davis. (The other films were The Wind, The Big Parade, and The Thief of Bagdad, not a half bad lineup!) But although I’ve revisited the other three films occasionally in the years since, somehow I didn’t take another look at the first Gilbert-Garbo collaboration until one evening last week. There was a late winter snowstorm here, and it seemed like just the thing to watch with the Missus. And besides, she’d never seen it.

I’d forgotten how good it is. The basic romantic triangle story-line is simple, and not especially memorable—well, except for the shock ending—but the cinematography of William Daniels is exceptional, and the intense performances of the two leads elevate the material into something special. Clarence Brown’s direction is also more stylized than I’d remembered. There are moments, especially the duel sequence early on, that look like something out of the German Expressionist classics. And there are a number of scenes which use the familiar “glass shot” device, where the actors play a scene in long-shot under a mask across the top of the image, illustrated with an elaborate design; a castle for instance, or a village, or heavy storm clouds. To our eyes the effect is obvious, but charming. (At one point my wife said: “This is almost like watching an animated film!”)

It’s well known that Gilbert and Garbo were in the midst of a heated affair when this movie was made, and their genuine fondness for one another certainly shows. (Sad how it all turned out, of course.) No one else in the cast makes much of an impression. Lars Hansen comes off better elsewhere, and while Barbara Kent is cute, she doesn’t stand much of a chance alongside Garbo at her peak. My only criticism is that, considering the slightness of the story, Flesh and the Devil is quite long. We were never bored, yet towards the end we began to wonder out loud when they were going to wrap it up. But needless to add—and I won’t commit a “spoiler” here for anyone who hasn’t seen it—that bizarre finale is unforgettable.

The first time I saw Flesh and the Devil was a memorable experience.

I’d forgotten how good it is. The basic romantic triangle story-line is simple, and not especially memorable—well, except for the shock ending— Clarence Brown’s direction is also more stylized than I’d remembered.
But needless to add—and I won’t commit a “spoiler” here for anyone who hasn’t seen it—that bizarre finale is unforgettable.

No 'spoiler' here too.
Like you, I thought the shocking ending was pure genius, and imagined to myself what it was like watching in a theatre back when all films were Silent. Yes, it was a long running film and I imagine they were thinking the film will soon end. Everyone surely thought they knew how the film would end. What a surprise it must have been.

An even bigger surprise for me was to read Clarence Brown talking about the ending in Kevin Brownlow's "The Parade's Gone By..."

Not what I expected.

As we're nearing the centennial of the US entry into the Great War, I've been on a sort of kick with learning about it. On YouTube there is a fantastic channel which chronicles the Great War week by week 100 years after it happened. I've actually been following it since the beginning and let me tell you; it's highly polished stuff.

Anyway, a lot of silent films were made about the War so I decided to choose one of the more overlooked ones (at least by modern audiences.) Thomas Ince's Civilization.

The film came out in 1916 so it was when America was still a neutral nation (though that was strained at times.) Ince took the moral high ground and raised it even higher than one could imagine. When you have Jesus Christ Himself as a character in your film to show a thinly veiled caricature of the Kaiser the evils of the way he started (there's that "neutrality" again) you can't get much higher than that. The film supposedly helped WIlson's reelection though those claims don't show up in any military history book I've read; just in Kevin Brownlow's Hollywood documentary.

It was an interesting time capsule and honestly, with all the religious aspects of it, I'm curious what my pastor would think of it. I thought it was worth seeing once; I'm not in a hurry to see it again.

THE MOUNTAINEER'S ROMANCE (1912) is an attractive and entertaining drama set in the Peak District. In it a mountain guide is furious when his sister (Ivy Martinek) informs him that her chap has been chatting up a pretty and elegant tourist (Dickie Thorpe). Violence and near-tragedy ensues before the lady tells her there is nothing going on between them. Excellent use of locations and nicely played, a film which belies its age and date.

Produced by 'The Socialist Film Council', and with participation from Raymond Postgate and Naomi Mitcheson, THE ROAD TO HELL (1933) is an account of what befalls a family when the father is crippled by a hit-and-run driver. Doctor's fees and the cost of a wheelchair have dug deep into their savings, and the 'Means Test' means that they cannot claim help as their son is working. It's a little confusing later, when he loses his job, as one would think they would then be entitled, although this would perhaps not be the equal of his lost wages.

The Means Test, although sounding sensible in outline (benefits according to income and savings) and theory was a much hated system, as it meant that if one had possessions which could be sold or pawned (except, presumable, basic things such as clothes, furniture, crockery, tools, etc) you could not get any, or much help. It meant that families who had spent their money on things to make the house look decent, or even hobbies (the younger son is an aspiring artist) would lose out. Presumably if you had spent your money on beer and fags, it was less of a problem as one had nothing to show for it.

The family in this film are seen falling deeper and deeper into poverty and discord, with each turn a turn for the worse, as even small things such a s a visit to the cinema (an attempted visit to I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG is forgone for a cheaper show) and a few cigarettes. An interesting and heartfelt film.

Finally, The Bournemouth Amateur Film Society give you SCREEN TESTS (1930) a zany little movie, with various society members making faces for the camera, with even a woman to woman kiss, followed by some daft capers by Boscombe beach and the nearby countryside. A pleasant bit of silliness, and like the first two, courtesy of the BFI.

The section of BFI Player these were on was called 'WTF', which meant 'What's That Film?', not what I thought it meant...

I watched a reconstructed version of All Dolled Up (1921) starring Universal's star Gladys Walton as a shop girl who gets involved in a plot to bilk a rich heiress (Florence Turner). Story is a little confusing because some material is missing, but Walton, who seems to have been a problem star and was dropped by Universal via the "morals clause," is very good indeed as the spunky little shop girl in a great big department store. When she spies a thief known as "the widow" swipe a necklace from around Turner's neck, she doesn't call security, she tackled and fights the big woman and restores the necklace to its owner. Later, during a botched abduction, she hod her own in a brawl with two men and a woman. Whether the stories about her association with Al Capone are true or not, Walton is certainly someone to look up. Few of her films exist, but I saw Sawdust (1923), The Untameable (1923), and A Little Girl in a Big City (1925) on various seller sites.

Sorry, I originally posted a message here that belonged elsewhere. It's been put in the right place.

Bob

I watched a reconstructed version of All Dolled Up (1921) starring Universal's star Gladys Walton as a shop girl who gets involved in a plot to bilk a rich heiress (Florence Turner). Story is a little confusing because some material is missing, but Walton, who seems to have been a problem star and was dropped by Universal via the "morals clause," is very good indeed as the spunky little shop girl in a great big department store. When she spies a thief known as "the widow" swipe a necklace from around Turner's neck, she doesn't call security, she tackled and fights the big woman and restores the necklace to its owner. Later, during a botched abduction, she hod her own in a brawl with two men and a woman. Whether the stories about her association with Al Capone are true or not, Walton is certainly someone to look up. Few of her films exist, but I saw Sawdust (1923), The Untameable (1923), and A Little Girl in a Big City (1925) on various seller sites.

Found ALL DOLLED UP on YT and took your recommend and watched it. Apart from the parts which are in poor condition, an hilarious movie which had me laughing out loud several times. The final scrap was a hoot.

Charlie Chaplin's "The Fireman" (1916) !

I watched a reconstructed version of All Dolled Up (1921) starring Universal's star Gladys Walton as a shop girl who gets involved in a plot to bilk a rich heiress (Florence Turner). Story is a little confusing because some material is missing, but Walton, who seems to have been a problem star and was dropped by Universal via the "morals clause," is very good indeed as the spunky little shop girl in a great big department store. When she spies a thief known as "the widow" swipe a necklace from around Turner's neck, she doesn't call security, she tackled and fights the big woman and restores the necklace to its owner. Later, during a botched abduction, she hod her own in a brawl with two men and a woman. Whether the stories about her association with Al Capone are true or not, Walton is certainly someone to look up. Few of her films exist, but I saw Sawdust (1923), The Untameable (1923), and A Little Girl in a Big City (1925) on various seller sites.

Found ALL DOLLED UP on YT and took your recommend and watched it. Apart from the parts which are in poor condition, an hilarious movie which had me laughing out loud several times. The final scrap was a hoot.

I instantly liked Gladys Walton.

I had a rather bad day today (personal tragedy in my family) so I needed something to keep my mind occupied. I watched Shore Leave on Amazon Prime. It brought me back to the VHS days of a faded but watchable print and a simple but inoffensive score. The film has Richard Barthelmess as a sailor and Dorothy Mackaill as a seamstress/spinster who falls for him, despite only being around him for a short time. It's nothing special (the sets are minuscule and probably left over from something else, the ocean matte painting looks particularly fake and the story's nothing to write home about) but there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes.

Richard Barthelmess and Dorothy Mackaill certainly did have chemistry. You were right, saying Barthelmess's role in "Shore Leave" (1925) was something like a Jimmy Cagney character, but I'd add to that, lots of 'Bronx' attitude.
I found it on YouTube but had to watch it cold (no sound). I was thinking I wouldn't watch until I saw the title cards and the characterization done by Richard Barthelmess. I've never seen him in anything like this and he mastered his part perfectly. Image quality was quite good throughout with the exception of a few titles that were unreadable.

While watching in total silence, it occurred to me that doing a proper score for this might really have been a challenge.

Even without any music, it was an entertaining 90 minutes. Thanks for posting about this.

Richard Barthelmess and Dorothy Mackaill certainly did have chemistry. You were right, saying Barthelmess's role in "Shore Leave" (1925) was something like a Jimmy Cagney character, but I'd add to that, lots of 'Bronx' attitude.
I found it on YouTube but had to watch it cold (no sound). I was thinking I wouldn't watch until I saw the title cards and the characterization done by Richard Barthelmess. I've never seen him in anything like this and he mastered his part perfectly. Image quality was quite good throughout with the exception of a few titles that were unreadable.

While watching in total silence, it occurred to me that doing a proper score for this might really have been a challenge.

Even without any music, it was an entertaining 90 minutes. Thanks for posting about this.

No problem. The score included on Amazon is a solo piano. I'm not sure if it's the same as the Grapevine release but it's on DVD for that. THere were a couple recreated intertitles that had really out of place fonts.

Digging further into Amazon's catalog (they are much better than Netflix for classic films!) I watched "A Fool There Was" starring Theda Bera. It's sad that so little of her films survive because there's almost nothing to suggest what made her so alluring to audiences 100 years ago. Then again, I am watching it in 2017.

Yesterday at the British silent film symposium the 23 minute cut down Pathescope version of A Light Woman 1928 and today The unsleeping eye 1928 made on location in New Guinea.Both of interest.

I recently finished my bi-annual chronological run-through of all 25 Lon Chaney films I have on DVD. Now I'm watching my 9 Greta Garbo films. Today it's the WB Archive edition of "Love". Wonderful movie, based on Anna Karenina, but the score is a recording of a live orchestra AND audience. The crowd laughs loudly at inappropriate times, which is very distracting!

This morning I finally found a decent copy of Tess of the Storm Country (1914) and decided to watch it this afternoon. Then I came to Nitrateville and saw that it was Mary Pickford's 125th birthday. Of such random events are the plot of our days composed.

"Daniel J. Frohman Presents America's Foremost Screen Actress, MARY PICKFORD in the famous tale of a woman's heroism, "TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY" by Grace Miller White, Produced by The Famous Players Film Co., Adolph Zukor Pres., Under the Personal Direction of Edwin S. Porter" read the opening titles. Then Miss Pickford in a beautiful dress emerges from a stage curtain and, speaking to people behind it, plops some flowers into a vase.

No one quite knew how to produce a feature-length movie in 1914. Zukor's idea was to offer "Famous Players in Famous Plays". This often resulted in stodgy reproductions of key scenes, held together by chapter-heading titles and the audience's understanding of the story. TESS is an example of this, and it has its problems, particularly with continuity. In fact, about the 50-minute mark, Mary pops out of a trash can for no reason I could tell and director Porter loses all sense of what is going on and advances the plot by means of letters written by the characters for the next ten minutes. A skilled editor would have been a great deal of help.

In the end, this movie winds up a series of short stories linked solely by the performance of Mary Pickford. She performs most of it in a comic mode, ready to kick offenders and dealing with often awful situations, wearing a ragged dress that is never patched nor trimmed over the nine months or so that the movie covers. She carries this movie solely on her acting abilities, while most of the people around her act like jerks. Only Olive Golden (later Carey) as the unwed mother whose baby Miss Pickford cares for, offers anything in the way of a worthwhile supporting performance.

Miss Pickford would return to the story eight years later, when film technique had caught up to the rigors of features and the self-possession to tell a story without reference to another, superior medium. That is the version to see. Except for Miss Pickford's performance, you can skip this one.

Bob

CROSSED SIGNALS (1926) was mainly interesting as an example of a silent 'programmer' as opposed to a 'classic'. The presentation wasn't helped by a mediocre print and the lack of music. Helen Holmes plays the cashier at a railroad station in a district where forged banknotes are suspected of circulating. Henry Victor plays the government agent who goes undercover to catch the crooks, and is aided by Jewish hobo George Chapman who manages to win the heart of landlady Milla Davenport (Harry's wife) in the process. Naturally the crooks are rounded up with the help of Miss Holmes, who has also been framed, and the whole thing winds up with a locomotive chase. A rather mild piece, which could do with a better presentation.

I can think of several explanations why Poor Little Peppina (1916) does not seem to me a particularly good Mary Pickford. First, the copy I looked at on the Site Whose Name We Do Not Mention (aka Youtube) is 48 minutes, as opposed to its purported 7 reels; this might be why the first half of the movie seems telegraphic. Second, the director is Sidney Olcott, whose static compositions and poor direction of actors and crowds is apparent -- only Miss Pickford and her brother, Jack do particularly well. Third, every time Chaplin cut a new deal, Pickford got a raise and was cast in more and more movies. Last, Pickford was going through a phase in which she was playing non-Americans: Japanese Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly; Dutch Hulda from Holland. They did not suit her.

In any case, a small girl is in Italy with her rich American parents. She is kidnapped by the Mafia and reared by Italian peasants. After she grows up to be Mary Pickford, her parents sell her in marriage, but she runs away, disguises herself as a boy, stows away to America, runs into all the same people. Eventually things turn out all right thanks to the usual Amazing Coincidences that seem possible in a world in which there seems to be only about thirty people in all of Italy and New York State.

Miss Pickford tries hard, but seems uncomfortable with the big gestures that playing Italian required in this era; even the Italian actors in the movie don't seem to understand what their gestures mean. Her brother Jack (playing her thought-to-be brother Beppo) is good in their scenes, and Eugene O'Brien, playing Love Interest for Miss Pickford gets through his scenes without embarrassing himself. However, no one covers himself in cinematic glory.

Bob

From British Instructional, THE IRRESPONSIBLES (1929) a propaganda piece about the dangers of promiscuous behaviour. An attractive, smartly-dressed young girl goes with a fellow she's just met, and within a few days she feels unwell. The doctor suspects syphilis or gonorrhoea, and when the girl seems reluctant to take proper treatment, she is told a series of brief case histories of the consequences of such inaction. Directed by Mary Field, this is an interesting film of its kind, deliberately unsensational, and very frank in its warnings of what may happen, some of which surprised me.

Also an amateur film from 1938, THE DIAMOND, about a respectable businessman who gets caught up in a smuggling racket. A (Hunter) family affair, quite entertaining, but unfortunately presented in the wrong aspect ratio. These films are often more interesting as a document of how middle and upper-middle-class people lived, with location work, real interiors and of course the clothes, cars and hairstyles.

I'm currently working on The Movies Begin set from Kino. There's a lot of neat stuff in here and while I've seen most of it before, it's still fun to watch again. I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to appreciate it because I think kids would get a good kick out of the nickelodeon era of movies.