Suspense. 1913. Directed by Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber.

(4/18/00)

Suspense has a simple story: the maid quits, leaving the wife alone. A tramp breaks into the house. She phones her husband who comes to the rescue. The story is simple, but it is the basis for a sophisticated and suspenseful little picture.

The one thing I didn't understand was that when the husband comes out of the building and is engaged in cranking up his car another man gets in and drives off with it. This thread is never resolved and I believe that the man joins with the husband and the police as they apprehend the thief. I didn't understand that part, but other than that I was impressed with this film and would like to see it again.

Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade. 1909. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(4/18/00)

Griffith was never very good at comedy, but this film was fun. It is about a man whose wife's relations (if I remember correctly) come to visit, bringing with them a noisy bird, a trombone which the child plays, etc. The husband goes crazy and is about to take drastic action when he finds burglars in the house. He's resourceful enough to take advantage of the situation and pays them to take the stuff away.

The Irresistible Piano. 1907.

(4/18/00)

This is a really cute early Gaumont film about a pianist who moves into a building and starts playing the piano. Everybody who hears him has to start dancing and as a result the movers drop the dishes, etc. Eventually a whole flock of people are in the pianist's room, dancing madly until they drop from exhaustion, the piano itself falling over on the pianist.

Die Niebelungen. 1923-24. Directed by Fritz Lang. (Part 1: Siegfried; Part 2: Kriemhild's Revenge.)

(4/8/00-4/12/00)

This is a true epic film. It is majestic and stately. The characters are larger-than-life. It is Shakespearean in its feel and it reminds me of Ivan the Terrible as well. And it builds to a grand climax which resounds with a ring of inevitability. The two parts do form a unified whole and seeing the two of them together is remarkable.

It starts off kind of dull. It feels cold. It doesn't involve--or it didn't involve me, and I was left admiring the set design and the pagentry. I didn't find Siegfried very interesting as a character--he seemed vapid and, like the film, dull. But that all changed when Brunhild came on the scene.

The Nibelungen is about a crime and the consequences of that crime and the people who are trapped in the wake of that crime. And the crime is fraud. Gunther wants Brunhild as a bride, but Brunhild will only wed a man who can defeat her in physical combat. Siegfried comes to Gunther's court in hopes of wedding his sister, Kriemhild. Gunther offers Siegfried his sister if Siegfried will help him win Brunhild. And Siegfried does this. He does it by performing the physical feats while wearing a cloak (or some sort of garment or cloth) which makes him invisible.

This is a sleazy thing to do. It is a crime of fraud perpetrated on Brunhild. What I find interesting is that Gunther's court at Worms is shown as so elegant and pure. It has a lightness about it and it appears to be situated ata high altitude. But beneath this rarefied surface there lurks a shabbiness.

It is sad that Siegfried would consent to something like this and it is also sad that he would consent to become a blood-brother to such a shady character. Siegfried and Gunther swear an oath to protect each other. It is an oath that Gunther does not live up to. As I said, Siegfried doesn't seem like the sharpest guy in the world.

So Brunhild comes to Worms. She is not happy about the situation and it is evident to her that her husband is not the hero who could conquer her (and to whom I suspect she would be happy to surrender). And eventually the truth comes out. Gunther has Siegfried impersonate himself and remove from Brunhild the bracelet that gives her strength. Kriemhild finds it and Siegfried confesses the truth to her. And when Brunhild persists in referring to Siegfried as Gunther's vassal she can't help but spill the beans. The scene when the two argue on the steps of the cathedral is probably the best scene in Siegfried. By that time I was totally involved.

Brunhild demands Siegfried's death and Gunther reluctantly goes along with it. He appears to be breaking his "blood-brother" oath, but Brunhild has deceived him by telling him that Siegfried took her virginity while impersonating him. Does this justify having him killed? It might, given their code of honor, but he shouldn't have just taken her word for it. I would think that being someone's blood-brother implies an obligation to trust.

Hagen is appointed to kill Siegfried and Kriemhild is easily tricked into telling him about Siegfried's vulnerable spot. Once again, she isn't smart enough to keep her mouth shut, but then you have to wonder how anybody knows that Siegfried has a vulnerable spot in the first place. They are all clucks. Gunther starts to be sympathetic at this point in that he is very reluctant to let the deed take place. And later Brunhild boasts about how she tricked him. Brunhild has manipulated him into avenging her honor. Now it is Kriemhild's turn to demand justice and demand she does.

But her kinsmen will not take her part in this. They all claim to have a commitment to Hagen and Siegfried ends with Kriemhild stewing for revenge.

Kriemhild doesn't have much presence in the first part, but as her bitterness obsesses her she takes center stage. She seems justified at first, as was Brunhild, but her desire for revenge becomes a madness, willing to destroy anything that gets in her way.

In Kriemhild's Revenge, King Etzel asks to marry Kriemhild. His emissary, Rudiger, mentions that as Etzel's wife no insult to Kriemhild would go unpunished. She asks him to swear to that and later asks Etzel to swear the same. This vow by honorable men entraps them is the key to Kriemhild's revenge.

When Kriemhild leaves to be taken to Etzel she refuses to say goodbye to her brother Gunther. Her mother and a priest ask herto reconsider, but she refuses them both.

Etzel turns out to be the leader of a group of nomads who live in tents. His kingdom is of the earth, about as far away as you can get from the rarefied atmosphere of the court at Worms. Etzel himself is a sort of lovable wild man. Kriemhild bears him a son and when he offers her anything she desires as a reward she asks him to invite her brothers.

Etzel is happy to do so, but he is not happy to be drawn into Kriemhild's plot of revenge. He tells her that as long as Hagen does not disturb his peace he will not disturb Hagen's.

Here I have to wonder why Kriemhild's brothers were so dumb as to bring Hagen with them onto Kriemhild's turf. It is the feast of the solstice and she has her people ambush the soldiers that her brothers brought with them. Hagen then kills her infant son and forgoes the protection of the rules of hospitality.

The Nibelungen then turns into a full-fledged action picture with Kriemhild's brothers and Hagen holed up in a building, fending the assaults of Etzel's troops (if you can call them that). Rudiger arrives and Kriemhild forces him to go and fight the Nibelungen. He doesn't want to because one of Kriemhild's brothers is married to his daughter, but she holds him to his oath. When her brothers plead for mercy Kriemhild replies that if they will just hand over Hagen they are free. But they refuse.

Hagen offers to give himself up, but Gunther will not let him. A code of honor has now turned into a destructive force, pulling down just about everyone. Kriemhild finally has them set the building on fire. They are smoked out and Hagen is killed by Kriemhild herself.

Gunther is wonderful in the second part of the film. So much of this was his fault and he suffers for it. And Hagen does try to do right at the end himself after participating in a heinous act. Kriemhild, I think, violates the spirit of the code that she holds others to. Her plot to destroy Hagen violates the spirit of hospitality and her abuse of Rudiger is totally without honor. She asked him to swear an oath to defend her when she was already planning toinvolve him in a personal vendetta. That was shameful. Her cause was just but not her methods.

I felt sorry for Etzel who loses his troops or his people in great numbers, just to satisfy the agenda of this woman who was merely using him. He even loses his child. Etzel and Rudiger were the true victims in all this.

It is a harrowing tale in which everything fits together. It is a grand drama of powerful people in high places and was made in a style which suited its subject matter. It is stately but not stodgy and when viewed in a print preserved by the Munich Film Museum and shown at the correct speed with the intertitles translated I think I liked it even more than Metropolis. A real surprise.

Yankee Doodle in Berlin. 1919. Directed by F. Richard Jones.

(3/30/00)

It may have been that I was in a depressed mood, and my eyes were really hurting, but I was disappointed in this one. It's about an American officer who infiltrates German headquarters as a female impersonator and has the Kaiser and two of his sons falling all over him.

It was interesting to see Ben Turpin, though there really wasn't too much of him, but I was disappointed in Ford Sterling as the Kaiser. Knowing about Sterling as the chief of the Keystone Kops, I was very interested in seeing him, but he just wasn't funny.

The film did have its moments, though. There is a cute scene towards the beginning with an Irish POW who doesn't have a bit offear of his German captives. When he blows his nose he thinks nothing of wiping it on the German flag and he cuts the Kaiser's face out of a portrait. He drapes the picture with the flag and when the flag is removed there is a monkey peering through the empty space. "Who made a monkey outof the Kaiser?" ask the astonished officers. "The Allies," quips the prisoner as he exits.

My favorite thing in the whole movie was the Empress who did not take kindly to her husband's interest in the "woman." She is huge and powerful. She threatens to "knock his [the Kaiser's] block off." When we first see her I think she has a great stein of beer, but I'm not sure. The rivalry of the two princes over the female impersonator is fun, but I've seen better.

I liked itwhen Mrs. Kaiser pushes her husband into the bathtub just as a bomb drops into that same bathtub. And I liked it when the Kaiser runs from the Allied bombing with a missle or bomb following him, aimed right at his posterior. But overall the picture was a letdown.

I do wish that the film had built. I think it would have worked so much better if the tempo had accelerated to a mad, grand finale of action. I thought that that was what happened in Mack Sennett comedies, but it seems that my expectations were too high.

Intolerance. 1916. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(3/28/00-3/30/00))

The world is full of nasty people. That's really the message of Griffith's Intolerance. And he brings together an avalanche of evidence to prove that this has basically been the way of the world from the beginning of time.

Griffith refers, in his opening remarks, to people who require a moral even with their entertainment. This is funny because Griffith takes a pretty preachy tone and those opening remarks go on for a considerable length, giving Intolerance the feel of a sermon or lecture rather than entertainment.

Griffith intercuts between four stories showing intolerance and bigotry in different time periods; three, actually, because one of the four "stories" is really a series of tableaus from the life of Christ which are sort of used as punctuation. It is not a connected story. I think that Griffith felt that his audience was familiar enough with the life of Christ that he could simply refer to it from time to time.

I felt that the presentation of Christ was pompous, but that could be my own prejudice. I didn't like the actorwho played Him and while the film didn't seem to undertake to develop the character of Christ, It wasn't even fleshed out.

There is a story built around the St. Barthlomew's Day massacre of the Hugenots in France. There is so little of this story that it is difficult to get involved with it. However, the reconstruction's use of still images suggests that there was a lot more to this story originally and that it suffered most heavily when the film was re-edited. I suspect that if we could see Intolerance in its original form this story would take its place as a major thread of the film, possibly equal or nearly so to the Babylonian story and the modern story.

I think it is the Babylonian story that first comes to mind when one thinks of Intolerance. It's the still of the set of Babylon that one tends to associate with the title--or at least I do. The Babylonian story is the great spectacle and that is why it is there. But I don't think it really probes that deeply into the nature of intolerance. The priest doesn't like the ruler Belshazzar whose worship of the goddess Ishtar is undermining his power. So he sells out to Cyrus the Persian. It's a story of political intrigue and it doesn't even have anything as pointed as the moment in the Hugenot story where two figures of power each comment that the other would be a great man if only "he thought as we do." That's the whole problem.

What the Babylonian story does have is the wonderful mountain girl, played by Constance Talmadge, who becomes forever loyal to her ruler Belshazzar after he gives her her freedom when she is up for sale in the marriage market. Loyalty returned--it's the other side of the double-dealing and ugliness of spirit which pervade so much of this film.

Talmadge is so full of life. I kept wishing that her admirer, "the Rhapsode," would actually win her heart. But he doesn't--her heart is given to Balshazzar who has a love of his own. But she loves him to the very end--unto death.

And then there is the modern story which to my mind is easily the best part of the film. And I think that it is the only part of the film that can live up to the intellectual claims that Griffith made for it. It is a whole analysis of the effects of intolerance. We see some very frustrated women ("biddies," we might call them) who get their jollies by pushing people around and a frustrated rich woman who bankrolls them. In order to fund the enterprise her brother cuts the pay of his employees, there is a strike, people are killed, some have to leave and go to the city where the boy, unable to find work, drifts into a life of crime, and so on. It is a very elaborate linking of cause and effect.

And it is mixed with savage commentary. "When women fail to attract men, they often turn to Reform as a second choice," reads a title or words very close to it. When Bobby Harron's father is killed in the strike, the film cuts to an image of Jenkins sitting alone in his gigantic office, one of the causes of all the trouble. Griffith has a lot to say in this story and he speaks in a clear, direct voice.

The modern story is particularly effective because it tells a damn good story with a thrilling last-minute rescue of Bobby Harron from being executed for a murder he did not commit. It is the most exciting part of the picture. And it is the modern story which features Mae Marsh whose portrayal of "The Dear One" is the most gripping performance in the whole film. Miss Marsh is totally lovable and vivacious from the beginning, though I find her less attractive as the story unfolds, but that is only because her character matures. The final moment when she throws her arms about Bobby Harron and starts madly kissing him is one of the most powerful and beautiful moments I have ever seen in a Griffith film. All the spectacle of the Babylonian story can't even come close to it.

I found myself thinking that the character of "The Friendless One" in the modern story--the woman who actually does commit the murder and is tormented by her conscience--would have been a great part for Asta Nielsen. I probably thought of that because Nielsen played a very similar part to great effect in Pabst's The Joyless Street.

I did think that all the shots of Lillian Gish as the woman rocking the cradle as the film drove to its climaxes was a little too much. Griffith just didn't know when to stop. The final scenes of angels hanging in the sky and people throwing down their weapons (or something like that) to embrace a world free of intolerance were also "too much"--but of course that's looking at it from a perspective of 84 years later.

It is sad to watch those final shots and realize that the world really hasn't freed itself from the bonds of intolerance. At least, it didn't happen in the twentieth century. We can still hope, I suppose, but it is sad to walk away from a film with such high hopes, made so long ago.

Don Juan. 1926. Directed by Alan Crosland.

(3/26/00)

This film is a very handsome production, set in Spain and Rome of the renaissance. It is an exciting show, full of intrigue and swordplay, climaxed with a great rescue on horseback and capped by a bravura performance by John Barrymore. It is larger-than-lifce, the stuff of grand opera.

It begins with a prologue. Don Juan's father is alerted to his wife's adultery by a mean-spirited dwarf. He bricks the lover up in a wall, casts out his wife and admonishes his small son to never give his love to a woman. He then revels in debauchery until a jealous woman stabs him. He takes a very long time to die. Don Juan's father, by the way, is also played by the great Barrymore.

Growing up, Don Juan comes to Rome where the Borgias hold sway. We enjoy watching him get away with it when several of his lovers appear at his house at the same time and when he goies right after a maid at the Borgia palace. Then he saves the Duke Della Varnese from being poisoned--a feat which is admirable in addition to being clever. Adrianna, Donati's daughter, expresses her indebtedness which Juan takes as a sexual offer.

He comes to her bedroom to collect her anticipated reward, which shocks her. He first thinks she is just being coy, but later believes her and leaves. She restores his faith in woman primarily because she isn't interested in having sex. Not a very good reason as far as I am concerned, but it's a standard convention in this kind of film.

That I can accept, but there is something else that I couldn't. Later on, one of Juan's mistresses shows up at his house, worried that her husband suspects their affair. She hides, he comes and we discover that she has meanwhile killed herself. (I did say that it was all larger-than-life.) The husband is overcome with grief and curses Don Juan (effectively, if not actually--I forget the details). The two later meet in the prison of San Angelo where the husband has been imprisoned for murdering his wife. His anguish is repeated as well as a demand for justice. When Juan escapes he calls for him to go to a living hell.

Now, in an operatic, larger-than-life drama curses are taken seriously. And in a popular film we expect a basic moral law to operate in which one pays for the harm one has done to others. Don Juan ruined this man's life through his irresponsibility. (It could be argued that it was really his wife's action which was her own choice which was the problem, but the film doesn't argue that.) So, even though he reforms and turns into a "good guy," he should pay for that--not ride off scot-free with the heroine into the promise of a new dawn. I was shocked at how the film ended with no punishment at all befalling Don Juan.

Moreover, the poor, grieving husband is left rotting away in San Angelo for a murder he didn't commit. That was horrible, all the more so because his grief convinced me that he really loved his wife and most likely would have forgiven her. She was just a vulnerable human being who had fallen into the hands of a master seducer.

It's a popular film that shouldn't be scrutinized too closely, but the ending seemed so wrong to me--or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the business with the wronged husband undermined the ending for me--really soured it.

The duel between John Barrymore and Montagu Love is a real standout, one of the best duels I've seen on film. I think it is marred by the sound effects which seem phoney in what is basically a silent film. The musical score grated on me early in the picture, but I found myself enjoying it very much during the final chase. Neither a true silent film nor a talkie, Don Juan unfortunately seems somewhat unnatural as far as the soundtrack is concerned.

As far is Barrymore is concerned, I was most struck by his grace. His movements were so elegant. And he certainly had presence. And he is wonderful when he impersonates Neri, the torturer. But I do think that his famous profile was over-used; it became a cliche.

Warners' Don Juan was a lavish and popular entertainment. It was a good show and well-played by all. But I was bothered by the ending which I don't think was resolved well.

Ella Cinders. 1926. Directed by Alfred E. Green.

(3/19/00)

What a delight this movie is! It is witty, entertaining and has heart to spare. It is a modern riff on the Cinderella story with Colleen Moore as a put-upon stepdaughter who wins a contest and gets to go to Hollywood.

I don't find Miss Moore particularly attractive, but she is thoroughly likable. You reallywant her to succeed. And she is a damn good comedienne to boot. She reminds me of Charlie Chaplin, but that could be because she's doing similar material. When she babysits she does a routine that is kind of remisiscent of Chaplin's "Dance of the Rolls" from The Gold Rush (released only the year before). And the scene where she sits for a photographer while a fly crawls on her nose is pretty Chaplin-like, too. But she does it so well.

Moore's Ella Cinders is plucky and resourceful. She never quits trying and her success is deserved. Even when she learns that the contest she won was a fraud and the perpetrators arrested she doesn't give up and go home. She persists in trying to get into the movies--and dammit, she does!

One great comic scene that I can't pass over is when Moore sleeps on the train in a deserted car--deserted, that is, until a tribe of Indians come on board. She wakes up and looks at them in disbelief. They are all smoking cigars and one is rather aggressively pressed upon her. She is afraid to turn it down even though it is making her obviously sick. It's a cruel scene, really--but funny!

Like Chaplin's films, this one has its share of pathos. Itisn't pathetic at first when Ella is being treated like a slave. That is played too broadly to be taken seriously. But when Ella is sitting alone at the curb, not being allowed to go to the ball; when the stepmother says "But I have no other daughter" when the judges come to give Ella the prize; when she goes to say goodbye to her stepmother and stepsisters before leaving for Hollywood and they just ignore her; and especially when she finds out that the contest she won wasn't genuine there is real pain.
If there is one thing I didn't like about this picture, it was that the ending seemed too abrupt. Her boyfriend arrives on a train and scoops her away from her work, not even really asking her to choose between him and a career. It just came out of nowhere and didn't work for me. But that's about the only thing I didn't like in this otherwise splendid movie. It's a gem.

(3/26/00)

I'd like to make note of a few more things about Ella Cinders that I found interesting. When she decides to enter the local contest in hopes of going to Hollywood, Ella surreptitiously borrows a book to learn the craft of acting for the pictures. In order to get the money to have her photos taken she babysits for three nights. These are just examples of the effort she puts out. She's really trying.

As she studies the book she tries to learn hopw to use her eyes and there is a hilarious and technically amazing scene of her making her eyes go in different directions. It is quite an advanced use of special effects.

And when determined Ella tries to crash into a movie studio, one of the things she tries is holding a mannequin's head above her own and draping herself in some very tall clothing and just casually walking through the studio gates. And it might have worked except for an overly aggressive dog that pulls that elongated dress right off.

Variety (Variete). 1925. Directed by E. A. Dupont.

(3/19/00)

This is a very powerful film which held my attention thoroughly throughout a first viewing. It is a dramatic story of infidelity and jealousy with superb camerawork by Karl Freund and a great performance by Emil Jannings.

Jannings is a trapeze artist who loves his wife very much. They are recruited into the act of another artist who has lost his partner, an affair oocurs, Jannings kills his rival and is sent to prison.

There are fascinating moments, such as when Jannings, playing cards, boasts that he is lucky at both cards and love and the film cuts to a shot of his wife kissing his rival. The rival, hoping to intercept the wife in the hallway, plants his shoes outside the door. As she approaches there is a closeup of his ear. I was also impressed by shots of the aerialists reflected in multiple mirrors and other images inspired by the avant-garde.

Jannings is lovable as the doting husband. When he comes in and his wife is not in her bed and he later wakes and sees her sleeping we see a savagery come into his face. Later, when he sees the drawing on the tablecloth which proclaims him to be a cuckold he changes again into a truly frightening figure. When he later murders his rival he appears like a somnambulist.

The murder scene is another fascinating moment. Jannings tells his rival that he is going to meet an old friend and to make sure his wife gets home. Of course, the lovers seize this chance to go out together. Artello, the rival, comes into his room drunk to face a solemn, unmoving Jannings (who sort of resembles the Golem in this scene). He tries at rfirst to be nonchalant and eventually becomes terrified at his rival's demeanor. He either attacks Jannings or falls (I forget) and his death occurs out of frame. All we see is a hand clutching a knife, which falls. Later as Jannings washes the blood off of his hands he seems to be waking, as if from a trance.

The film is told in flashback from prison. In the opening scene we only see Jannings frm the back, but at the end we see his weet, vulnerable face after ten years in prison. It is genuinely affecting.

Not quite convincing is what happens in that prison. At first the warden asks Jannings to tell his story, noting that he has refused for ten years to make a statement. Jannings refuses. He then shows Jannings a letter or telegram saying that parole has been recommended for Jannings, but the authorities want to hear the warden's recommendation. Then Jannings talks. Why this turnabout? I don't find it convincing.

Then, at the end, Jannings is presumably given his freedom. Just what accounts for this eary release, this show of mercy? He has, after all, killed a man. I found this unconvincing as well. I also didn't like the suggestion that Jannings was in a trance and didn't know what he was doing when he killed. That seems to trivialize the story for me although I would be happy to accept that he couldn't help himself.

These are, however, minor quibbles with what otherwise holds up as a thoroughly absorbing film.

Tokyo Chorus (Tokyo no gassho). 1931. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

(3/19/00)

I still can't really appreciate Ozu, bu that's mostly because my eyes hurt and I just don't feel so good in general. It's hard for me to settle down and relax enough to take in Ozu. (And this was shown in a pretty bad 16mm print.) But I certainly can recognize the film's quality.

It is about a man who loses his job. (This is a subject with which I can identify at present.) This is a pretty serious subject, but it is lightened with touches of genial humor. A man goes to work on the day the employees are given a bonus. They are all anxious to see what is in their envelopes, but don't want to open them when others are around. The mens' room becomes suddenly popular. One man's bonus falls into the urinal and he has to pick the bills out (eeeeew!) and dry them at his desk.

One man is not very happy. It is his last day at work. Even though he has worked there a long time he has been let go, supposedly because he has sold some insurance policies to clients who died shortly thereafter. He is a very sad-looking figure.

The father, as I shall call him, and protagonist who has promised to buy his son a bicycle out of his bonus confronts the boss about this. This scene is so universally human; it is one with which so many of us can identify, either because we have done it or wish we could do it. The problem is that he does not know how to handle such a situation (and how many of us do?), it becomes a confrontation--and he is fired himself.

This outcome rings so true, even while I think it didn't have to end that way. He could have asked to talk to the boss (who doesn't seem to be a bastard or anything) and talked to him in a respectful way, and then accepted the outcome. This did not have to happen.

The other thing that I kept thinking throughout this film is that he should have gone back to the boss, apologized, and asked for his job back. A very simple alternative which was at least worth a try. But he never even thinks of it.

He goes home and only has a skateboard for the son who throws a tantrum and calls his father a liar. Of course, the son has no way of knowing what has just happened and it is difficult for the father to just sit him down and explain the situation. It is a very painful scene--but boy, does it ring true.

Another really vividly true scene occurs when the daughter gets sick and has to be taken to the hospital. There is not enough money to pay for it and we learn that the father raises it by selling some of his wife's clothes. The way we learn about it is when she opens the drawers of her bureau and they are empty. The father says something like, "Because we sold your kimono, MacKiyo is alive."

This takes place at the dinner table and the mother's reaction as she struggles with the pain of losing her good clothes and the awareness that it was the right thing to do is perfect.

I was less impressed with the second half of the film. The father meets his former instructor from school who asks him to help with his restaurant, promising to help him get a good job later on. (The former instructor looks kind of silly; he has a large, ungainly moustache that doesn't seem to go well around food.) The father agrees and is made to wear the equivalent of a sandwhich sign and give out handbills. His wife sees him and is angry about this, but comes to accept it and offers to join him in helping at the restaurant.

There is a scene where there is a reunion of the former classmates at the restaurant. And then the resolution: the father is offered a position teaching English at a girls' school in a provincial town. It is obvious that the mother is not overjoyed at the move, but she asks if they'll eventually be able to come back. Tokyo Chorus ends on a reasonably realistic note with the problem being resolved, even if not as happily as one would have liked.

Zvenigora. 1928. Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko.

(3/16/00)

This film was shown with Russian intertitles and I was unable to follow it. Moreover, it was re-photographed to accomodate a soundtrack and looked strange. I found the added musical score distracting.

When the film started there were images of men on horses. They appeared to be in slow motion, but it may have been the rephotography necessary for the soundtrack. It is a pity that I was unable to follow this film because it looked quite interesting.

Men open a trap door in the ground and an elderly man emerges. He later disappears into thin air. There is a scene with what look like ghosts of warriors. At the end an old man seems to be trying to blow up a train which seems to collide with him. He shakes hands with some of the men on the train, suggesting to me that he has decided to join their cause.

Sitting through this film without English intertitles was an acutely frustrating experience.

Earth (Zemlya). 1930. Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko.

(3/12/00)

This film was shown with Russian intertitles and no translation.

It was quite frustrating to watch this film without translation because I am sure I would have enjoyed it far more if I could have understood what was going on.

The opening section is truly beautiful with its shots of the land, of sunflowers, of faces. Dovzhenko could just put faces up there on the screen and let us scrutinize them without needing to have them do anything. We see people of different ages and we see death. An old man eats a piece of fruit and then quietly dies. It is so natural, so peaceful.

The scene changes to one of agitation and arguing. From then on the film is hard to follow. The faces become less interesting.

The film seems a celebration of the earth and ancient ways, but there are influences of modernism, of the avant-garde. There is a rapid montage of scenes of a plow ortractor and then there is a segment which has crosscutting amongst four or five different threads.

There is one scene of the sky where the horizon line is not visible. A man runs around in a circle and then disappears, leaving a totally blank frame. Towards the end we return to something like the opening with scenes of the land, of earth, of fruit, only this time there is a beautiful rainstorm.

Dancing Silhouettes. 1983.

(3/12/00)

This is a documentary on the work of Lotte Reininger. I didn't find it very interesting, but that could be because Reininger's silhouette films themselves don't interest me that much. The information could have been conveyed just as easily in a few paragraphs of print; I would have preferred spending the time watching some of Reininger's films.

Reininger herself appears on camera. She speaks with a thick accent which makes it difficult to hear everything she says. The film would have benefited from color. (I believe that enough of Reininger's work was in color to justify it.)

One touch I did like: after the credits there is a very nice shot of Lotte Reininger, smiling.

D. G. Phalke, the First Indian Film Director. 1970. Produced by the National Film Archive of India.

(3/12/00)

This is a documentary/compilation film about an early Indian filmmaker. It is silent and has commentary which is presented via written titles which have a very amateurish look to them. We see footage of Phalke at work which gives it a home-movielike quality.

The best part of the film is a section of clips of highlights from Phalke's films. It is a rare glimpse into a body of work which I doubt I will ever get to see. Phalke's films are full of imaginative special effects. My favorite is an image of a man whose head comes off and is lifted by a column of smoke. It eventually returns. Phalke's films were based on Indian mythology and present a fantastic world full of gods and demons.

Far too much of this film is devoted to an excerpt from Phalke's first feature. I probably would have found it more interesting if I were familiar with the story, but I wasn't and I didn't.

The Scar of Shame. 1926. Directed by Frank Perugini.

(3/12/00)

I like Scar of Shame a lot. It is a vivid depiction of negro life in the 1920s. I really feel that--the melodrama aside--I am seeing black life the way it really was. So the film is definitely convincing.

I really liked the outdoor scenes in this film which convey a nice sense of place. They unfortunately don't have the same texture as the interior scenes and that is a little jarring, but that is a very minor complaint. (It's really a little much to expect in a low-budget film.)

I really like the acting as well. They are all good performers and they work harmoniously together. And my appreciation for them has grown over several viewings. Harry Henderson is good as are Lucia Lynn Moses and Lawrence Chenault.

It's a melodramatic story about a girl who is abused by her father. A musician intervenes and later marries her, but doesn't tell her mother who is concerned about "caste." There is another fight and she is shot by the villain, but blames her husband who goes to jail. He escapes and starts a new life, but his wife finds out and wants him back. Failing, she poisons herself after writing a letter in which she admits the truth.

The ending is trite, but Lucia Lynn Moses goes a long way towards bringing it off. We really don't get to know her too well during most of the film: at first she is just a victim and then she is angry at her husband because he won't tell his mother of his marriage. She seems like a bitch who would senjd her husband to prison for a crime he didn't commit, but then we see that she really loved this man. It is really quite touching.

The real problem I see with the ending is that she leaves her associate Eddie a note asking him to clear the husband's name. It says something like, "If you want to make peace with your maker..." Eddie tears up the note and I don't see any reason to believe that hye is going to do anything. The woman's letter to Henderson's future father-in-law could be taken as something which will clear him, but it is so vague that I wouldn't depend on that.

There are some nice touches in this picture. Early on, Moses imagines herself living a life of luxury. Later, when she is mistress of the Club Lido things resemble her fantasy pretty clearly. She has a cute little doll and when she and Henderson are arguing about whether she should go with him to see his mother he accidentally steps on the doll. Maybe it isn't subtle, but it somehow works in this film.

One thing I particularly like is when Henderson proposes marriage. There are a few closeups of his hand on her shoulder--skin against skin--which clearly communicates (to me, at least) that he wants her. He doesn't marry her out of pity or to protect her from her step-father, as she thinks, but for sex. That's one touch that actually is subtle.

I also like the scene in which Eddie tempts the girl's step-father with whiskey, holding the flask under his nose. That is a cruel moment and it is played well.

The backgrounds of the intertitles are quite handsome. Speaking of the intertitles, there are two which amount to a kind of sermonizing. Henderson makes a speech about the indignities that women of his race ares subjected to and Chenault makes a speech later on about environment and how people should be subjected to higher aims, etc. These speeches sound a little bit cloying to me, but I imagine that they weren't to the original (and intended) audience.

Metropolis. 1926. Directed by Fritz Lang.

(3/10/00)

Metropolis is always enjoyable. It grabs the attention by its visual conception of a futuristic city and holds it by good storytelling. There are so many fascinating moments: the mysterious plans found on the bodies of the workers, Rotwang's abduction of Maria in which he trains his flashlight's (or some kind of light's) beam on her, the creation of the robot, the flooding of the city, the fight with Rotwang on the roof of the cathedral. It's continually inventive, continually interesting.

There is a really beautiful sense of design in the early parts of the film. I'm thinking of the masses of workers going towards the elevators, the giant machines. And it is exhilarating. But then we come to Rotwang's home and we're in a totally different world. Rotwang's house is like something out of The Golem. It is old, hinting of ancient knowledge and ancient secrets--which is puzzling because Rotwang is an inventor working on modern technological marvels.

I have a problem with Metropolis. There is something spatially wrong with it. By that I mean that I find it difficult to relate things to each other. There are these vast views of the great city, but then we see Rotwang's house and it is hard to locate it, in my mind, in relation to such things as Fredersen's office. The same thing with the cathesral--is it in the worker's city or above the ground? We only see workers in at at first and Maria tells Fredersen's son to meet her there, so it could be in the former, but at the end when the crowds approach it seems clear that it is above ground. Rotwang has a tunnel down to the catacombs which are below the workers' city which is below the machine rooms which are below ground. It is difficult to think of the tunnel going down that far. There is one scene in which we see cars on the ground and it just looks out of place. And the workers' city looks as if it has regular buildings which would be out of place under ground. The film is confusing in a spatial sense.

Metropolis is a film about men and machines. The workers are de-humanized, turned into machines. Fredersen plans to replace them with robots. The robot is made to imitate a human--Maria. One fascinating touch is that Rotwang has one mechanical hand; he is the perfect image of man and machine merging.

Brigitte Helm has a tour de force, playing both the real Maria and the false Maria. The look alike, yet they are about as opposite as they can be. One is totally good and the other is evil incarnate. Helm plays what seems like a female version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
John Fredersen, master of Metropolis, seems to me to be the most interesting character in the film. He is dynamic and has presence. His son, supposedly the hero, seems something of a simp. Maybe it's because we first see him at play in a garden of the idle rich, but even though he obviously means well he doesn't seem very forceful. He even passes out when he sees the false Maria with his father.

It's interesting that at the meetings in the catacombs all the workers that we see are male. The only female is Maria who wields a hell of a lot of influence over all these men. It appears that the workers' city is completely populated by men, although later on when they tear up the place we see women too. But the image I remember is Maria acting as priestess to a crowd of men and nothing but men.

When they revolt the workers become a great natural force, something like a tidal wave. The film certainly doesn't speak well for the proletariat in that they are so easily influenced. When Maria urges peace they are patient; when the false Maria tells them to riot, they riot. The masses are presented here as so irrational as to destroy their own city, completely forgetting about their children.

The end when Fredersen and the foreman shake hands is well-acted. They actually give some poignancy to the scene. After the cdrisis has passed both men want to make up, but they are tentative about it. The son manages to help them surmount their hesitancy.

A Page of Madness (Kurutta Ippeiji). 1926. Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa.

(2/26/00-2/28/00)

This was a very difficult film to concentrate on. I can admire the sheer exuberance of the editing and the camerawork, but that still didn't involve me in it. However, I was better able to follow it than I was 20 years ago.

Masao Inoue actually began to bother me as the odd-job man. He just seems to be morose, but there were scenes when his mood changed and he seemed more interesting.

The film was interesting to watch at the time, but very little of it stayed with me. It had an added soundtrack which I liked at the beginning, but less so as the film progressed. The music at the scene of a parade was too much and such sound effects as that of a dog barking really began to grate on me.

Backstairs (Hintertreppe). 1921. Directed by Leopold Jessner.

(2/22/00)

This is a German expressionist film which was interesting to watch. It was notable for the sets, designed by Paul Leni, and the stylized acting. But I found it hard to follow.

A young woman, played by Henny Porten, is a maid. She has a lover that she goes to meet in the evening. He stops appearing. She is very depressed and keeps hoping for a word from him. The postman acts strange each day, which suggests that he might have sone something to the lover, but this is not made clear. We have seen this postman watching the woman, so we know he has an interest in her.

One day he brings her a letter which appears to be from her lover. But he has written it himself. She comes to his room to offer him a drink and discover this. He then leaves a letter for her, ringing the bell and then leaving. She then comes to see him again in his room and they become lovers.

They are very happy for a time, but then another man appears. It would seem that he is the woman's original lover, but he doesn't seem like him to me. He goes to see the postman. The woman brings some neighbors to break open the door and the postman has killed him. The woman is then dismissed by her employers and goes to the top of an expressionist building and jumps with the whole neighborhood watching.

There is a lot of footage of Fritz Korner just looking intense. The drama is played out through gestures. It was interesting for periods, but I found it hard to really sustain my concentration through the whole film. I wonder what to make of the three strange-looking characters who are Henny Porten's employers, but whom we only see at the end. As I said, the settings are interesting. There is a rough, cave-like quality to some of the rooms and the staircase and a bizarre-looking hallway. Even so, it still was not as interesting as The Golem and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The Freshman. 1925. Directed by Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer.

(2/22/00)

This is an innocent and thoroughly delightful comedy. Harold Lloyd is a starry-eyed young fellow who goes off to college, dreaming of popularity. He suffers humiliation but prevails in the end. It is interesting that we never see or hear anything about classes, papers, tests, anything to do with education or studying. College is for playing football and making friends and living it up.

Lloyd has such innocence and enthusiasm that it is impossible not to like him. He gets some of his ideas from movies and practices a little dance that precedes a handshake and borrows a line about being a regular fellow and to call him Speedy.

He gets to college and is not accepted. In fact, he is taken advantage of and humiliated. But he rebounds and turns into a football hero and actually earns the respect and popularity that he wanted. And at the end everybody else is practicing the little dance that goes before the handshake.

It's interesting how pathos is handled in this film. The practical jokers put Lloyd upon a stage where the dean (or president) is expected to appear. After being embarrassed they tell him that he is expected to make a speech or nobody will like him. I did not feel any sadness watching this scene--it was just funny. But later when, after rescuing his girl from another guy who is getting aggressive with her, he is shown what everybody thinks of him. He falls on his knees and sobs. That scene made me feel pain. And it was all carefully controlled.

Lloyd grows up and takes charge of his destiny during the football game. He had been made the water-boy and led to believe that he was a substute because coach who admired his spirit didn't want to hurt his feelings. When he keeps trying to get into the game the coach finally has to tell him that they were just kidding about him being on the team. Lloyd really comes to life here. He tells the coach that he (Lloyd) wasn't kidding--he had worked and practiced for the chance to play and he wanted it. He demands the right to be in the game and it is a really wonderful moment.

But the coach only lets him in the game when he has no other alternative. Lloyd's fighting spirit comes into play and he really wins the game--not through some silly fluke but through sheer force of will. And that's really what should happen.

One could question whether winning the approval of these classmates is really worth it, but that isn't what this film is about. It is about growing up and not accepting defeat. And on those levels it works.

The comedy is wonderful. The best sequence is when Lloyd attends the party he hosts with a suit that isn't quite ready to be worn and which falls apart. The tailor is hiding in the wings, ready to fix it. But then he has a dizzy spell and needs a drink and Lloyd has to go and attempt to pick a flask from someone's pocket. What's so remarkable is how long Lloyd is able to sustain this scene.

Harold Lloyd and The Freshman are both a joy from start to finish.

Our Hospitality. 1923. Directed by Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone.

(2/19/00-2/22/00)

I suppose I'm a little disappointed in this film, but that's probably because I have wanted to see it for so long. Also, I really don't feel so good today.

I suppose that I just expected the idea of the feud and of Keaton having to be treated civilly indoors while they are waiting to get him outdoors so they can shoot him to be more developed. I thought that we were in for one really rich satire. But it is unfair to expect so much from a picture.

It is certainly a beautiful film to look at. The views of New York in 1830 are delightful, as is the wonderful train ride to the hills. The train ride was exploited for all it was worth, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for the little dog who follows all the way. That was a beautiful touch.

Also memorable is when they blow up th edam for irrigation purposes and the water begins to fall on Keaton who thinks it is raining and opens his umbrella. And then the water really pours over him, concealing him from the men who are looking for him. That is the kind of thing Keaton does which is really visually clever.

Another visual touch that I liked was this: When Keaton thinks about the property he has inherited we see a picture of a stately mansion, which is what he imagines it to be like. When he actually sees the ramshackle little house that is his we see the picture again--and it explodes as his fantasy is exploded. I really liked that.

The film did seem to drag later on. I suppose I wanted or expected him to do even more to ridicule feuding and a hypocritical code of manners. I expected that the feud would be resolved through Keaton marrying the heroine and wasn't disappointed. But even though the ending was predictable it was thoroughly appropriate.

Sky High. 1922. Directed by Lynn Reynolds.

(2/19/00)

This film has spectacular photography of the Grand Canyon and must have been dazzling in 1922. Unfortunately, I saw it in a crappy 16mm print.

Tom Mix is attractive and personable, but I don't think he had much presence or charisma. I suspect that a lot of his fame was really due to the kind of picture he was associated with. It was a good product--a very good product.

In Sky High the great moment is when Mix descends out of a plane and jumps into the river in the Grand Canyon. That's the memorable image, but it's supported by a tale of laborer-smuggling and a damsel in distress. It's a completely different film from The Covered Wagon (which was to come a year later), D. W. Griffith's westerns and those of William S. Hart. It's a much more modern world, one not filled with the pioneer spirit or the struggle to survive against the elements.

At the end of the film, Mix is willing to conceal the villain's villany from his ward. The two men shake hands and the villain asks Mix to look after her. This scene leaves me with the feeling that crime has been trivialized and treated as sport. It's a gentlemen's game--not to be taken seriously. And I rather think that that is the attitude one should take with Sky High in general.

Street Angel. 1928. Directed by Frank Borzage.

(2/19/00)

I just didn't care for this film. Maybe you just have to be in the right mood for it. I didn't like the opening section, set in Naples, because it all looked like it was on a giant stage set with the camera roving around. I started to like it much better when Janet Gaynor goes away with the circus. Somehow, the first part seemed stifling.

Janet Gaynor really didn't appeal to me very much, although I admit that she was able to act a wide range of moods. She changes throughout the film and carries that off rather well. Charles Farrell seemed likable enough, but his character just seemed such a simp that he got to be irritating. I kept thinking that Gaynor ought to find herself a real adult to hang out with. Of course, his innocence was part of his charm--for her, anyway.

The whole scene in which Gaynor spends an hour with Farrell, not telling him that she was going to go back to prison was annoying. If he couldn't handle the truth she could have told him something. It didn't ring true. However, it was effective when the lovers are enjoying their happiness and the knock at the door comes. That worked. And all the tension when Gaynor was trying to say goodbye while the policeman waited outside worked. But as a whole the sequence didn't come off.

I liked the scene at the wharf (or wharves). That had a nice atmosphere and I was getting interested. But then Farrell chases Gaynor into the church and we see the painting he had made of her altered into an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and placed above the altar. Yes, this had been prepared for, but nonetheless it was just to much for even me to swallow--and I'm willing to swallow just about anything. It jarred me and took me right out of the film. From that moment on I was not involved with it at all.

But as I said, maybe I would feel differently about it if I were in the right mood.

(2/22/00)

I also wanted to mention that I found the soundtrack very distracting. Street Angel is one of those films that are basically silent, but which have a soundtrack with music and sound effects. Here we have whistling and bits of singing. I found that very distracting and didn't like it at all.

The Penalty. 1920. Directed by Wallace Worsley.

(2/17/00)

This was a fascinating film, but an unsatisfying one. The main titles were very nice and the film openedwith a shocking sequence about a boy whose legs were amputated unnecessarily. Another doctor agrees to lie to cover up for the surgeon who made the error. The boy overhears this but nobody believes him. This is pretty strong stuff.

Lon Chaney plays the role of that boy as an adult. It is a fabulous performance not only because of the painful job of concealing his legs, but because of the character he created in which bitternesss and love struggle.

Chaney's character is a master criminal and he is an attractive character because of his energy. He is known as "Blizzard" and he is a sort of titan. He reminds me of the master criminal in some of Fritz Lang's films.

It is fascinating that as part of his plan of revenge he poses for a sculpture of "Satan After the Fall." This is a fascinating motif in the film, as he is a Satanic figure. It is like he wants to be able to study this part of himself in a sculpture.

He models for the daughter of the doctor who had amputated his legs. He says something about wanting to corrupt her, but it is never clear just what he intends to do, what his plan is. So there doesn't seem to be that much of a point to his modeling for her.

At the end he tries to force the girl's father to graft the woman's fiance's legs onto him. But the doctor operates on his head instead, explaining that he was insane and not responsible for his actions. For me, that explanation robs the film of its significance. Chaney's character was far more interesting as a man consumed by bitterness and a desire for revenge than as a man not responsible for his actions and who just needed an operation.

I will say that Chaney did seem insane when he was describing his plan for looting San Francisco. So the ending was prepared for.

I liked the San Francisco locale very much at the beginning of the picture, but there wasn't enough of it to sustain my interest for too long. It was an interesting picture about a master criminal and Chaney was always interesting to watch. He played the piano with a woman doing the pedaling for him. One great moment was when he lost control and told Ferris's daughter that he loved her and she laughed at him. The vulnerability and the menace was incredible. And his relationship with Rose was touching, how he wouldn't do anything to her even after he discovered she was a police agent.

The film was full of passion, an exciting story and Chaney's wonderful acting. But it wasn't as great as it could have been.

The Flute of Krishna: An East Indian Dance Idyl Created by Martha Graham. 1926.

(2/17/00)

This is a very attractive, very enjoyable dance film in an early color process. It was nice to look at, but I was not able to "read" the narrative. I am sure that there was a narrative which someone who knew dance well could follow. The major male character was covered in green makeup. The editing was very simple. Most of the film was shown in a long shot and I felt relief when closer shots were inserted.

Le Palais de Mille et une Nuits. 1905. Directed by Georges Melies.

(2/15/00)

Another example of an early hand-colored film. This has very exotic subject matter, but it seems like a series of static tableaus. It is very interesting to look at and quite charming, but it gets tedious. The images of creatures and monsters are nothing more than quaint.

Serpentine Dance By Annabelle. 1894. Produced by the Edison Company.

(2/15/00)

A quaint little curio from the dawn of cinema. A woman dances in a flowing white robe which is hand-colored. The effects are very attractive.

The Battle of Elderbush Gulch. 1913. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(2/14/00)

Mae Marsh steals the show. The action scenes are what this film is most famous for, but I personally just can't get involved in them. I have a real problem with action sequences which frequently bore me. So I confess that I was unable to appreciate that aspect. But Mae Marsh was adorable and wiped Lillian Gish right off the screen.

Mae is a young girl sent to live with her uncle who will not allow her two dogs in his cabin. She is resourceful enough to cut a little door in the cabin so that she can bring them in to sleep with her and her still younger sister. She is spunky enough to grab the dogs away from Indians who are planning on eating them. Unfortunately, this incident inflames already-existing hostilities when one of Marsh's elders shoots (I think--I'm not sure) one of the Indians.

During the Indian attack Mae takes charge of saving Lillian Gish's baby and securing herself, the younger sister, the baby and the two puppies in a window seat. After the attack is over and the adults are frantic for the welfare of the kids, the window seat pops up--and there they are! It is a glorious moment and for me it is far more memorable than the battle scenes.

The two puppies are quite adorable as well.

The God Within. 1912. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(2/14/00)

This was a really moving little film even though Griffith's religious statements in the intertitles don't hold up so well. The film alos suffers from a coincidence that really stretches the limits of credibility--that Blanche's Sweet's baby would die around the same time that Henry B. Walthall's wife would die giving birth. Nevertheless, the performers give life to this story of an abandoned unwed mother whose baby dies, who is given another baby to take care of, and gets a marriage proposal from the baby's father at the same time that her former lover decides to do right by her. A family is forged from this situation. And I liked the kindly doctor who saw that the motherless baby was just what a woman who had just lost her own baby needed.

The best moment is when they take the baby's corpse out of Blanche Sweet's arms and she doesn't want to let it go until the new baby manages to get her attention. I also liked the image at the end of the two suitors all over the heroine who previously didn't have any.

An Outcast Among Outcasts. 1912. Directed by Wilfred Lucas.

(2/11/00)

I think that some of the intertitles were missing from this film. I found it hard to follow (as I find so many of them). But as it went on I got into itand began to find it exciting.

A tramp is rejected by just about everybody--even other tramps. Blanche Sweet is the only one who is nice to him. She picks up a valuable mail delivery and the other tramps attempt to rob her. She gts cornered in a shack and the rejected tramp is instrumental in saving her. She is so grateful that she kisses his hand which makes a big impression on him. It's an exciting little action film.

The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch. 1912. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(2/11/00)

Blanche Sweet really shines in this one-reel Griffith picture. She becomes romantically involved with a man who decides he prefers her sister or friend. Sweet struggles with very human emotions of jealousy. When she learns of villains having this other woman hostage she at first is willing to let them get away with it, but then changes her mind. She really gets the character's emotions across, though it is hard to understand why the man involved would prefer the other woman to Blanche Sweet.

The ending might seem ridiculous to modern eyes in that Sweet's character finds another boyfriend in pretty short order. But I think it might have been necessary to collapse the action to tell a story like this in a one-reel film.

Some of the photography was especially lovely.

O'Malley of the Mounted. 1921. Directed by Lambert Hillyer.

(2/11/00)

I couldn't get into this film for a long time, probably because my eyes were hurting. I wasn't interested in the rodeo sequence. But it grew on me as it went along. William S. Hart plays a noble man in a moral dilemma. He is sent to find a man and pretends to be an outlaw and join a group of outlaws. If the duplicity weren't bad enough he starts to become emotionally involved with the sister of the man he is pursuing. And then he discovers that the man he is hunting as a murderer pursued and killed the man who burnt his house and took his sister who commited suicide. The moral dilemma brings the film to life.

O'Malley resolves the problem by not bringing back his quarry and resigning from the mounties. It is nice that his supervisor approves his action and tells him he can leave with his head held high. And O'Malley leaves a message for the girl that he loves that he will return for he if he can and if she still wants him.

I might have enjoyed the film considerably more under other circumstances.

Broken Ways. 1913. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(2/11/00)

This was one of the most enjoyable early Griffith films I have seen. Blanche Sweet looked lovely and the story of a woman who leaves a villainous husband who mistreats her had both pathos and excitement. It was a fine moment when Henry B. Walthall and Blanche Sweet confront each other in the telegraph office after she has believed him dead.

The Outlaw Josey Wales. 1976. Directed by Clint Eastwood.

(2/11/00)

The landscape is so beautiful, but the people re so ugly--a lot of them, anyway. That sort of sums up the feel of The Outlaw Josey Wales. It depicts a beautiful world which is paradoxically an ugly, violent, brutal one. And the blame is laid at the feet of government. It is the government which provides the sanction for the violent act at the beginning of the film and the horrendous massacre of men who have surrendered upon a promise of amnesty. It is government which induces people to sell out theirneighbors for big rewards and which creates the profession of "bounty hunter." It is not much of a stretch to imagine that government has caused the economic dislocations which cause people to fall back on the profession of bounty hunting. In this respect it is quite a libertarian film.

Clint Eastwood plays a modern reincarnation of the strong, silent type. (Modern not in terms of story, but that this is a more modern film.) What impressed me is that he is totally relaxed all the way through. If he is really totally in control of his mind, this is the reason for his success. And yet I have to wonder: he suffers a terrible trauma at the beginning of the film, so what happened to all that emotion? Something really doesn't seem quite right to me, doesn't all add up. It is not impossible, however. A superior man could allow himself to fully experience those emotions of grief and then go on and do what needed to be done.

I really liked the interaction between Eastwood and Chief Dan George. They played off of each other so well, both with an impeccably dry delivery. Their exchanges provide a comic relief that actually works. Eastwood's habit of spitting was also interesting--it somewhat made me think of Edgar Kennedy's slow burn which was different in that it wasn't limited to one film. A great moment is when he goes to spit and the old lady just looks at him and he stops and turns and leaves, presumably to spit outside. I did feel story for the dog that kept getting spat on.

He leads a group of characters to theirhome--sort of like Moses and the Israelites. At the end of the film we don't see Josey Wales going to join them. The ending appears to be left open. However, we have seen him living a settled life at the beginning of the film, his nemesis is dead, and an "official" account of his death has been created. He has completed his mission and is at liberty to return. And he has an attractive young lady waiting for him. The only question is whether he really can return to that sort of life or if his experiences have scarred him so badly that settling down is impossible. But if he does have that much control over his mind and emotions he ought to be able to handle it.

The Savage Girl's Devotion. 1911. Direction attributed to Fred J. Balsofer.

(2/11/00)

This is a very picturesque little film of Indian life. There are no white characters. I really found ithard to follow, but it is a story of jealousy with one Indian bound to a rock. Another Indian, possibly a rival, is so moved by the heroine's devotion to him that he releases him. The heroine was an attractive, appealing woman, but I regretted that she had more clothes on than the male characters.

My Darling Clementine. 1946. Directed by John Ford.

(2/8/00-2/11/00)

I wonder if the old west ever looked as good as it does in My Darling Clementine. It is a beautiful-looking film and it absorbed me from beginning to end. It is about a town planted in the middle of nowhere.

I think Doc Holliday is the most interesting character, though Wyatt Earp is certainly an appealing person to watch. Doc is a refined man of culture living in this rough-and-tumble environment. He is obviously not a well man, but his illness isn't specified. His interaction with Wyatt Earp is, dramatically, the most interesting part of the film.

I liked especially how Earp tries to befriend Doc Holliday at the same time having to be very careful to work around his "macho" qualities. It is sad that he can't just sit down and talk frankly with him.

I really enjoyed Henry Fonda's low-keyed performance. It is interesting to watch the attempt to really make a town in the wilderness and create a community. Earp is welcome to be a part of that community, but he remains an outsider. At the end he doesn't choose to stay, but merely expresses an intention to pass through again. And Clementine is obviously interested in him, so he has something to come back for. So even though he is a wanderer, like many western heroes, there is a suggestion that he just might settle down and participate in the building of the new civilization.

His Mother's Scarf. 1911. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(2/8/00)

I think this film was projected too fast and it also looked as if some of the intertitles were missing.

Dorothy West was appealing as the girl who is loved by two brothers. The film starts with a shock when the brothers receive a scarf from their mother and news of her death in the same mail shipment.

I actually forget what happened in the rest of the film, though I remember it being touching.

The Big Trail. 1930. Directed by Raould Walsh.

(2/5/00)

The first thing one notices about The Big Trail is that it is in wide screen which was unusual for 1930. And it is a film which really filled that wide screen with detail. Many of the shots are like panoramic landscape paintings carefully composed with regards to foreground, middleground and background.

I was unfortunately very tired during this film and couldn't really enjoy it. It is also unfortunate that I wasn't able to hear the primitive soundtrack very well and consequently unable to follow a lot of it.

It was a very unusual experience to see such a young John Wayne, as he didn't really resurface until 1939. He is a lot different from the Wayne we know. He still has a fine presence and is surprisingly romantic in his scenes with Marguerite Churchill. I really liked the speech about how you can get used to someone not liking you andthen when they're gone you can miss them not likingyou. Churchill is very endearing as the reluctant love interest who eventually comes round.

The ending ws really poignant. Wayne has gone away to take care of his mission of administering justice to the villains. Churchill fears that he won't come back.. Zeke (don't know the actor's name) hears him call in the woods and tells Churchill about a present Wayne supposedly left for her which is in the hollow of a redwood tree. Sending her off for it is his way of ensuring that she and Wayne can have some privacy when they meet. She sees him on the trail, far off, and stops because she is so surprised. Their meeting takes place without words.

I did feel that The Big Trail went on for too long, but that might have been due to the fact that I was tired and couldn't hear a lot of it.

(2/8/00)

As an epic of westward migration it wasn't quite as inspiring as The Covered Wagon, but the scene in which the pioneers lower the wagon over the cliffs was an amazing thing to see.

I found comedian El Brendel tiresome. His humor is one aspct of this film which doesn't wear well.

Sierra Jim's Reformation. 1914. Directed by Jack O'Brien.

(2/5/00)

This was an entertaining little film about an outlaw who is given shelter by a young woman when pursued. He robs her boyfriend and when he finds her picture among the stolen possessions he returns them and decides to go straight.

Raoul Walsh looked intense as the outlaw, but the picture was kind of predictable. I knew that he was going to find the girl's picture. I liked it when he returns the bag and the boyfriend gives him the picture to keep. That was a very nice touch.

The Covered Wagon. 1923. Directed by James Cruze.

(2/3/00-2/5/00)

It doesn't disappoint. This film is a beautifully-made epic of western migration. It is about the struggle to go westward and it really seems to bring those times to life. It is a positive, life-affirming film of human achievement.

It has a simple story of two men's rivalry. The hero is thought to be a bad man, but he is later exonerated. Alan Hale is a thoroughly despicable villain. It is a simple story and doesn't distract the viewer from the real story of the migration. I certainly felt a part of the migration at the end when the leader asks how far it is to Oregon and is told that they were already in Oregon. I shared the joy and was moved when they all knelt down to pray.

It is also the time of the California gold rush and an issue is made between those who wanted to go and take gold and those who wanted to settle the land. The latter is seen as a more noble endeavor, but the film does address the impact on the Indians. Early on we hear the Indian point of view on this--they feel they must battle the white man for the land because the white man's presence means their destruction. So while the film celebrates the determination of the pioneers, it is also fair-minded enough to acknowledge what this achievement did to the Indians.

The photography of the western landscape was spectacular. Some of the scenes that I particularly liked were when they crossed the river and the cattle had to swim and the scenes of a dance at night with beautiful flickering shadows. One thing I was aware of that has come up in other westerns is the sense of community, of how this enterprise, this struggle has brought people together.

The Massacre. 1912. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(2/3/00)

This is a well-made film for 1912. My problem is that it is mostly a battle between whites and Indians and I personally don'tget interested in such scenes no matter how well done. But I did appreciate the western vistas, photographed from a high angle.
I admire this film in that it first shows Indians being massacred by whites. The attack on the settlers thus seems justified in a way, though no less hostile. So Griffith is kind of fair in his presentation of Indians. However, I would have admired it more if there had been more footage of the first massacre, if the two attacks had been better balanced. We see Indian women cowering with their babies, but not nearly as much as we see of white women in the same predicament. And we are emotionally involved with some ofthe whites in a way that we aren't with the Indians, especially the character played by Blanche Sweet. But the film is fair-minded as far as it goes.
I thought it was touching how the hero loved and lost both mother and daughter.

The Last of the Mohicans. 1920. Directed by Maurice Tourneur.

(2/3/00)

My eyes were really hurting me so it was hard to appreciate this film. I was having trouble figuring out all the characters and what was going on at the beginning, but later I settled into it and enjoyed it very much.

I didn't like Barbara Bedford so much at the beginning. She seemed pretty vapid and lifeless. Later on I thought she was quite wondreful. She really dominated the film from the standpoint of character. The most moving scene for me is when she offers to go with Magus in place of her sister.

The film has a pictorial beauty which would have been enhanced bya really good print. There is, for example, quite a fine use of silhouette. It is also quite a violent film. I particularly remember when the drunken Indians attack the settlers and one grabs a baby away from its mother and just flings it into the distance. It doesn't have closeups of blood in lurid color, but in its own way it is a violent film. I remember, too, the scene in which an Indian forces his way into one of the wagons, presumably to attack a woman and approaches the camera until the screen is filled with a closeup of his menacing eyes.

It is obviously a film about racism, but maybe it's a racist film itself in that the Indians are presented as either saints or savages.

I found that I enjoyed this film more as it went along. It is a well-made, well-acted, exciting tale.

The Gold Rush. 1925. Directed by Charles Chaplin.

(2/2/00)

This time around I found The Gold Rush consistently entertaining from beginning to end. It blended the hurmor and pathos in just theright proportions and seemed to glide from classic moment to classic moment.

It's bad enough battling the elements without having to put up with human cruelty. It really touches the heart in how "the little fellow" becomes the target of these callous people's jokes--from the moment Georgia asks him to dance in order to snub someone else until they go to his cabin on New Year's Eve to have some fun with him and see the elaborate preparations he has made for a dinner that no one took seriously. To the moment when Georgia's beau sends Chaplin the note of apology that was meant for the beau and not Chaplin.

Chaplin really conveys the sense of being an outsider. He looks so out of place in the dance hall. It's painful.

It's delightful when he dances with Georgia and ties the rope around his pants to hold them up, not knowing that it is attached to a dog. He can't understand why the dog is following him around and keeps trying to kick it away. Also wonderful is when he tries to earn money by shovelling snow and shovels it in front of someone else's door, thereby creating more business for himself.
Also worth noting are Chaplin's hiccups as the house is teetering on the edge of the cliff. More than humorous, that scene is a pretty exciting climax.

I really liked Mack Swain this time around. And I liked Georgia better than on previous viewings. I had always been conscious of her callousness and thought that the girl really wasn't worth the getting. But Chaplin took that into account and Georgia seems to redeem herself first when she is affected by seeing the dinner preparations. She feels shame and says, "The joke has gone too far." And then she redeems herself at the end, albeit unbelievably, when she offers to pay the tramp's fare when she believes he is a stowaway.

Chaplin's character is amazingly adaptable. When he comes into money his personality changes and he is completely prepared to take on the new role. He engages himself to Georgia without even asking her! He is in a different situation than earlier and becomes, in effect, a totally differnt person. It is bizarre.

(2/3/00)

P.S. I was also quite moved by the scene in which, after the women leave his cabin after accepting the dinner invitation, Chaplin cavorts in a fit of jubilation, only to be interrupted by Georgia who has returned for something. That was really exquisite.