Xiao Wanyi
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Silent
lubin-freddy — 10 years ago(November 30, 2015 03:18 AM)
Xiao Wanyi
(1933), which, without music, was a bit slow going, but I'd just re-watched Stanley Kwan's 1991 biopic
Ruan Lingu
(aka:
Center Stage
) (with Maggie Cheung), which fueled my curiosity. Some very tender scenes, and great acting.
A great double feature.
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." -
Maddyclassicfilms — 10 years ago(December 07, 2015 03:24 AM)
Hi lubin-freddy. So glad that you finally got to see
Little Toys
and that you enjoyed it. It's such a beautiful film and Ruan Lingyu is sensational as always.
Center Stage
is an interesting biopic and Maggie Cheung does a very good job in that.
Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly
. -
TrevorAclea — 10 years ago(February 13, 2016 04:57 PM)
No-one's seen any silent in the last two months?
Let me go far away from here, to a country with better men.
After the disappointment of sitting through a public screening of the then-recently restored 1922 Michael Curtiz silent
Sodom and Gomorrah
with an audience of silent film fans whose anticipation turned to exponentially mounting disappointment and boredom as it unreeled, I had dialled down my expectations substantially for the Hungarian Filmlabs new restoration of his recently rediscovered 1915 Hungarian film
The Undesirable
aka
The Exile/A Tolonc
. While its certainly not a lost masterpiece, its not the massive letdown Sodom turned out to be, offering a simple tale simply told albeit with more sophistication than many of its contemporaries that is very much part of the transitional era between the early declamatory style of performance and something more intimately tailored to the camera.
Based on a folk story, its very much a melodrama: Lili Berky learns that her dying father (who overdoes his death scene as much as she underplays her reactions) is in fact her uncle and that her real father was a cruel man who was murdered by her mother, whose fate remains unknown to him. As fate would have it, her mother (Mari Jázsai) is just about to be released from prison after serving 15 years for the crime at exactly the same time as her daughter travels to the big city to find work, becoming a maid to Mariska Simon and her James Finlaysonesque wastrel of a husband, whose son Várkonyi Mihály (before he moved to Hollywood and changed his name to Victor Varconi) falls madly in love with her. Unfortunately not quite as madly in love with her as he is with his own moustache, which he cant keep his hands off for a minute, and not quite madly enough to stand by her when a vagrant steals the family jewels and the suicidal Berky gets the blame and is run out of town back to her village, where her long lost mother has already given up hope of ever finding her
Offering doomed mother love, ill-fated romance across the class divide, poisoned wine and some broad comedy from the local larcenous vagrant who causes all the trouble and Simons battering of her husband, its very much a populist piece of its time. There are no great technical revelations, the camera always static, although there is one surprising close-up of Berky in the stepfathers death scene. Yet the performances are mostly understated enough for it to avoid unintentional comedy, with Berky in particular confidently subtle, and you can definitely see why Mihály Kertész, as Curtiz was still called at the time, was soon wooed away from Hungarian films first by the German film industry and then by Hollywood.
While Olives region A-locked Blu-ray offers no extras, it does offer a splendid transfer of a rare almost pristine print of a silent film with only a few missing frames and one noticeable but very brief section of a single take that looks like it comes from a dupe: for the most part this is immaculate, rock steady and with a lot more detail than silent film lovers have come to expect and certainly wouldnt have expected from a long-lost 101 year old film. It also benefits from an excellent orchestral score by Peter Illenyi that really compliments the film. The apparently vintage intertitles are all English, albeit with the odd spelling mistake but not without occasional wit (Varconi asks his mother for his inheritance before his father spends it all on wine, women and song and later breaks off a tryst with Berky when his warring parents return because I should like to be present at the peace treaty). Its a film thats of more interest to silent film lovers than general audiences, but its a very welcome and impressive restoration.
"Security - release the badgers." -
TrevorAclea — 10 years ago(March 01, 2016 01:55 AM)
Despite the expectations Lon Chaney and Tod Brownings names above the title may automatically summon up among horror fans, 1929s
Where East is East
is one of the stars many melodramas (and the final entry in the star and directors jungle trilogy after the all-but-33-minutes lost
The Road to Mandalay
and the dementedly lurid
West of Zanzibar
), albeit one with a grisly, though mostly offscreen denouement. Set in what was then French IndoChina - a colourful spot of French rule and Chinese custom - Chaney, using his own face with just a few strategically added scars in his penultimate silent film, makes his living trapping tigers for circuses, raising his hyperactive half-caste daughter Lupe Velez himself and at first less than pleased to discover that shes fallen in love with Lloyd Hughes, the son of the circus owner who is his biggest customer. No sooner is he won over by his courage than the boy falls under the spell of Estelle Taylors (metaphorically) man-eating vamp on a trip downriver: well, the nights of the East, so the title card tells us, are strange and wayward things and theres not much else in the way of shipboard entertainment. Her maid (Mademoiselle Kithnou) warns Chaney, She is bad. White boy like sheep with tiger, but Chaney already knows it only too well, because not only is he one of the many men broken by her heathen tricks, but shes Velezs mother and that only makes her want to steal her prospective son-in-law from her own daughter all the more. Chaney would sooner see the tigers get Hughes than her, but Taylor isnt going to give up without a fight.
Its typical of the kind of colourful romantic melodrama set in exotic locales that was one of the mainstays of silent cinema, with MGM and production designer Cedric Gibbons ensuring it has lavish production values and quite a lot of location footage even if its obvious the stars never left California long before the bad back projection sticks out like a sore thumb on the boat trip up the Mekong Rover. Velezs jealousy of women are no threat to her romance is played quite effectively for laughs in the first third of the film before things take a darker turn as Chaney tries to keep her long-lost mothers true nature from her and Hughes from his prospective mother-in-laws arms, which is no easy task when at one point the lads so tormented with desire he sees her face on every woman in a bar. As the critics complained at the time, everything pretty much plays out exactly as you expect as soon as you see Old Ranghu you know exactly how this one will end but it does so in a satisfying and entertaining fashion. Surprisingly despite the Kiplingesque associations of the title the film never makes an issue of its interracial pairings, but Taylors seduction technique and faux-Asian makeup dont exactly make her a credible rival for Velez, and at times shes as much a parody of sophistication as Velezs overenthusiastic childishness is of her innocence. Small matter: Chaneys commanding yet never overplayed presence carries the film, showing that he didnt need tortuous makeup transformations to suffer compellingly. Its hokum, but its high quality hokum.
Warner Archives US NTSC manufactured on demand DVD-R is not one of their best efforts, hailing from the early days of the program before they improved their mastering but it does include the original Movietone soundtrack that has a synchronised full orchestral score and some sound effects but has suffered a fair bit of wear over the intervening decades no breaks but a lot of scratches, with detail better in the medium shots and close-ups than some of the early long shots of the waterfront village. No extras.
"Security - release the badgers." -
Holypunq — 10 years ago(March 02, 2016 01:02 PM)
To give this thread an extra boost, here's the selection of mostly obscure silents I watched in February.
The Green Goddess (1923, Sidney Olcott)
In my review of the sound version of
The Green Goddess (1930)
I called it "a bunch of mumbo jumbo" and might be my least favorite George Arliss film. Now I had the pleasure of seeing the original 1923 silent production of
The Green Goddess (1923)
, where Arliss, Alice Joyce & Ivan F. Simpson did their roles like they did in the 1930 version, and it works better as a silent! The story is still a piece of exotic mumbo jumbo, but it feels less corny in this atmosphere. Not among Arliss' best work, but with that ugly mug he makes for a very alluring villain. So much that you end up rooting for him instead of those snotty Brits crashing in his kingdom!
5/10
Kärlek och journalistik [Love and Journalism] (1916, Mauritz Stiller)
Mauritz Stiller making a romcom of the lightest kind. And it works rather well within it's silent 1916 format. Easy to follow and likable characters, though I wouldn't call the plot all that creative.
4/10
Khlib [Bread] (1929, Nikolai Shpikovsky)
Khlib [Bread] (1929) is a Ukrainian film that didn't get past the Soviet censors. The third and last film Nikolai Shpikovsky got to direct! All his output is worth a look. Most famous is Shakhmatnaya goryachka [Chess Fever] (1925), but also Shkurnyk (1929) is a very fascinating comedy. As for Khlib, it takes a interesting look at the communist ideals on farming. One I guess the communist leaders wasn't so keen on. Shpikovsky has a good eye on how to compose this story, sometimes using far-shots and rapid editing to get the sense of feel for the moment. Quite impressive and a shame he wasn't on the good side of those governing the movie business so he could continue what he was good at.
6/10
La proie du vent [The Prey of the Wind] (1927, René Clair)
A lesser known René Clair and the only one of his silents I'd yet to see. Shows signs of his masterful direction, but narratively it gets too dull to engage. Becomes my least favorite of his silent features, but it's not a bad film.
4/10
Red Lily (1924, Fred Niblo)
This was a tragic love story. Not sure I believe the ending after all that, but for those that want to believe in the Red Lily (1924) that was the upswing one was waiting for. Ramon Novarro was good, but this is the movie one will remember Enid Bennett by! I must also praise the soundtrack on the restored print. Really helped create the mood during all the slummy moments.
7/10
The Young Rajah (1922, Phil Rosen)
Saw the restored version which uses a lot of still photos and inter-titles to explain what happens in the missing footage. Quite a lot is lost of the early portion of the film, but thankfully it feels more like a proper movie as the story takes form in the later stages. I've never been much of a fan for Rudolph Valentino's exotic pictures, and this one felt about average. Got some decent moments, but the focus is mainly on Valentino's handsome and muscular looks. A 1922 chick flick.
3/10
Les nouveaux messieurs [The New Gentlemen] (1929, Jacques Feyder)
Les nouveaux messieurs [The New Gentlemen] (1929) is clearly a work of love from the remarkable French director Jacques Feyder. Unfortunately in all it's playfulness in this tug-of-war romance it fumbles too much. Some scenes are brilliant, but most of the time it struggles to really express it's wit clear enough, much to do with it's excessive running-time dragging the flirting out too long. Didn't feel they had enough personality to get away with that.
5/10
Six et demi onze [6 1/2 x 11] (1927, Jean Epstein)
I always preferred Jean Epstein more narrative features to his avant guard mood pieces. Simple because he composes his imagery so powerful and his pure image driven films kind of overdoses on his creativity. Nice to have a straight story guiding us through. A tragic one, well suited to his style of shooting. Six et demi onze (1927)'s reputation had escaped me, but it's one that deserves broader exposure.
6/10
The Little Minister (1921, Penrhyn Stanlaws)
I still prefer Katharine Hepburn's The Little Minister (1934) and the way they handled this story there, but Betty Compson bubbly performance in The Little Minister (1921) was a joy to behold.
4/10
Nattens barn (1916, Georg af Klercker)
Swedish drama from 1916 about the experiences of a unlucky maid. Not a story which generated much interest. Looks alright, especially for a throwaway production for this period, but little about it stands out.
3/10
La casa sotto la neve [Under the Snow] (1922, Gennaro Righelli)
A Italian jealousy drama in the snow. Little on the long side for that sort of film, but Maria Jacobini magnetism warms cold parts and they do a solid job of building the suspense in several stages of the film. Quite a pleasant view.
5/10 -
Peterlh — 10 years ago(March 06, 2016 01:39 PM)
Gloria Swanson has a great screen presence, some of my favorite films with her are actually talkies.
You should take a look at The Trespasser (1929) which was the first talkie she did and Tonight or Never (1931) in which she sings - quite well actually. -
gundabad_the_pirate — 10 years ago(March 06, 2016 03:42 PM)
Thanks for the suggestions, I will definitely give them a look.
Just watched Clara Bow in 'It' (1927) for the first time last night.
She was just sensational and it was a really funny movie from beginning to end.
Perfect Rom-com. What a breathe of fresh air from the current pathetic deluge of comedies that Hollywood is now churning out- I will be turning more and more to the silents for something amusing and original. I have an Early Charlie Chaplin short 'Easy Street' (1916) left to watch on my Slapstick masters DVD.
Never the biggest Chaplin fan but I am sure with his huge 82 film offerings there should be something that should be to my likings.
Gee- a Ghostbusters remake!!!!
Just what everybody is asking for-LOL. -
TrevorAclea — 10 years ago(March 04, 2016 02:37 PM)
With a screenplay by Alfred Hitchcocks wife and underappreciated behind the scenes heroine of his films Alma Reville, its doubtful that
A Romance of Seville
made any more impression on audiences in 1929 than it does today. A professionally made but uninspired romantic drama that was originally sold more on its Spanish locations and now lost Pathécolor sequences (and on its reissue the following year on its synchronised score featuring a medley of colourful Spanish music) than on its story or bland cast, the locations look great and are fully exploited by Claude Friese-Greenes cinematography but the story is a routine melodrama. Alexandre DArcy meets the bride he was betrothed to since childhood (Eugenie Amami) for the very first time, and the sparks fail to fly, so hes delighted to find out that shes actually in love with poor officer Hugh Eden, which is perfect timing because hes just about to meet Marguerite Allan and save her and her father from bandits who are after her valuable necklace. Shes also got a fiancé waiting in the wings (Cecil Barry), but unbeknownst to her hes in debt to the bandits and is behind the attempted robbery. Cue a few romantic misunderstandings that are quickly resolved, a kidnapping and a race to the rescue, all carried out with some professionalism but little attempt to make them seem new (though DArcy leaving a bandit tied to a tree with his arm pointing to the bandits hideout is a neat bit of business).
Its the kind of film that needs a charismatic star to pull off, and while the producers may have thought the Egyptian-born DArcys male model looks gave him a bit of Valentino-style exoticism hes a rather bland fellow who doesnt exactly exude strength or confidence (the kind of handsome but unexciting type some women would describe as having Pointless Good Looks). The script doesnt give him too much help either, throwing away his chance to be a swashbuckling hero when, mid-rescue, he takes two swords from the wall, throws one to Randle Ayrtons bandit chief in a classic prelude to a duel only to promptly run away with the girl and shut the door behind him, leaving most of the heavy lifting in the final battle to Edens soldiers. But for the most part its the kind of film where nobody shines but nobody disgraces themselves either, and the BFIs restoration of the 1930 black and white reissue version certainly looks very impressive even if the only extra on Networks UK DVD is a brief stills gallery.
"Security - release the badgers." -
gundabad_the_pirate — 10 years ago(March 11, 2016 08:06 PM)
Well a few personal thoughts on Charlie Chaplin.
I have seen a couple of Chaplin silent films on and off over the years mostly on TCM and will be the first to admit my lack of enthusiasm for his style of comedy.
Having just read the (Awesomely good
George Burn's 'All my Best Friends' in which he described a round table lunch vote in the early thirties that included most of the top comedians at the time including Groucho Marks and Jack Benny- everyone voted unanimously for Chaplin as being the Greatest screen comedian of their time. With all that comedy heft- there must be something that I was missing?
It was during the watching of 'Easy Street' (1916) that an understanding of Chaplin's greatness started to dawn upon me- like having stared at a painting upset down for years and trying to figure out what it was all about.
Chaplin's comedy is not how one has grown up to expect comedies to be acted out, of course there is slapstick and sight gags but to my understanding Chaplin should be viewed as watching a straight drama in which all the drama is speed up to it's highest pitch until it starts to lose it serious aspects and starts to become almost surrealistic.
Take 'Easy Street' for example, the film has a highly dramatic subplot of a down and out tramp who is so poor that he wanders into the church sermon just to steal the donation box and upon seeing the angelic countenance of the woman playing the organ suddenly decides to bolt out the door in anxiety but then the woman next to him asks him to hold her baby and then hands him the baby bottle upside down which starts to dribble on his pants and he does not know how to react to the possibility of the baby.well, that is an example of the surrealistic drama that bursts into comedy because it has gone beyond tragedy into something unexpected and crazy without losing the punch of the Social observations on poverty, despair and the violence it breeds which is a very serious underlying theme of this comedy.
The best I can conclude is that:
Chaplin = Social commentary as comedy.
And somewhere down the line modern audience expected their comedies- to contain social commentary. The picture turned around the other way.
Just one viewpoint on discovering some modern meaning in Chaplin. -
TrevorAclea — 10 years ago(March 12, 2016 05:14 AM)
I say serious things and people laugh.
A film of firsts the first film solely developed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer (though still credited to Metro-Goldwyn), Lon Chaney and Irving Thalbergs first film at the studio, and the first appearance of Leo the Lion declaring Ars Gratia Artis in their corporate logo - time hasnt been as kind to
HE Who Gets Slapped
as to many of Chaneys other films. As with several of his films at the studio a melodrama with a grisly finish, its a curious mixture of sometimes heavy-handed symbolism (various acts being intercut with a clown spinning a ball that becomes a globe the most overused), sentiment, pathos, love story and finally suspense.
Chaney starts the film as a scientist pursuing his theories on the origins of man thanks to the patronage of Mark McDermotts Baron, whos not merely content with stealing Chaneys wife (Ruth King) but steals all the credit for his work too, leaving him humiliated and alone. Years later hes turned the slaps and derisive laughter he received that day into the basis of a circus act thats turning him or HE Who Gets Slapped, as he now calls himself into the hottest star in Paris. He may be billed as The quaintest clown in the world, but HEs act is pretty much the Twenties version of torture porn: not content with 60 clowns slapping him each night (well, it is just a small circus), hes bound and gagged and his heart torn out, stamped on and buried, all to the raucous roars of laughter from the crowd (well, it is a French circus, and some of their comedies have higher body counts than The Wild Bunch). Its not so much pathos as unrelenting sadism, but then audiences came to see Chaney suffer or make others suffer, so theres a knowing element to his twice-nightly humiliation.
Things get complicated when Tully Marshalls down-on-his-luck Count introduces his daughter Norma Shearer to the circus and she becomes part of John Gilberts trick riding act and naturally falls in love with him while HE stands on the sidelines silently falling in love with her. But her father has plans to sell her off to a rich aristocrat no prizes for guessing who giving HE the chance for a terrible revenge
Although its not helped by the 60s score thats been included on Warner Archives DVD-R release, which sounds like it was written for a family comedy-adventure with a few Twilight Zone cues creeping in, despite its huge critical reputation its not one of director Victor Sjöströms best (his name is Americanised to Victor Seastrom in the credits), never matching the kind of extraordinary emotional power he was able to bring to
The Phantom Carriage
. There are a few good visual moments, he plays the melodrama straight enough for it not to be saccharine or pathetic in the worst way and builds up some real suspense in the finale, but occasional attempts to try to make it seem more philosophical than the story actually is, like a title card asking What is life -? What is death -? What is love -?, feel a bit too much like trying to shoehorn a sense of universal importance into a shamelessly populist story. Gilbert and Shearers careers both got a huge boost from the film, though neither are really at their best in what are very much juvenile leads, which doesnt help when the film forgets about Chaney for far too long while they discover the delights of Spring. Ruth King makes much more out of considerably less as the unfaithful and ultimately discarded wife: her frozen shock as she is paid off while McDermott slopes off after younger prey is one of the films most memorable images.
Chaney, as ever, is adept at balancing moments of stillness and subtlety with the broader elements but even though it was one of his favourite parts it never really stretches him much beyond the crying on the inside tragic clown stereotype, something he revisited with rather better results four years later in Laugh, Clown, Laugh. In many ways its very much a template for some of his later MGM films, with the decent man wronged transforming himself into a human monster who takes a terrible revenge, and its certainly worth watching for Chaneys admirers, but newcomers might want to start elsewhere to see him in a story that makes better use of his remarkable talents.
He gets kisses while you get lashes.
Mockery
is one of Lon Chaneys least remember films today and its sadly not hard to see why. Despite grossing four times its budget, the film was regarded at the time as a major disappointment, the contemporary mixed reviews only adding to its eventual obscurity. At first its hard to understand why because the film starts out so strongly and Chaney is good enough to set up expectations that this could be among his best performances. His slow but fundamentally decent peasant, first seen scavenging dead bodies, is persuaded to guide Barbara Bedfords Countess through Bolshevik territory to safety. Unaware of her true identity himself, he suffers a vicious beating to protect her, motivated more by her promise of friend -
TrevorAclea — 10 years ago(March 13, 2016 09:11 AM)
Anybody here want to drive the generals car?
Service comedies were a comparative rarity in the silent era, but two major studios released two of them within a month of each other in 1926 and pretty much established the genres template for decades to come. Raoul Walshs What Price Glory? is probably the best remembered today, but
Tell It To The Marines
was the bigger hit the second biggest of the year, in fact, as well as the most profitable film Lon Chaney ever made at MGM. Both revolved around bickering U.S. Marines who both have their eye on the same girl (and both Fox and MGM would bicker over who had the rights to use the word Marines onscreen, MGM having the edge by being the first film made with the full co-operation), but while Glory was set during the First World War, Marines was set in the present day and followed fresh (in every way) recruit William Haines through his training and misadventures in the Philippines and China under the disapproving eye of Chaneys veteran sergeant. Naturally the Marine Corps makes a man of Haines and its not much of a headscratcher which one of the stars will win over Eleanor Boardmans Navy nurse, nor that the rivalry between them will resolve into friendship when they have to rescue her from Warner Olands Chinese bandit (politically correct its not, one Leather Neck throttling a Chinese extra and telling him Thats for all the punk chop suey I got in Omaha!).
Its certainly formulaic, but the formula was still fresh then, and director George Hill keeps it moving along breezily and enjoyably. Haines conceited wisecracking character isnt as irresistible as he imagines (Im Americas Sweetheart, he boasts in one very in-joke) and even after he shapes up he doesnt develop much in the way of charm, but as ever Chaney, using his own face as the ugliest mut in the service, is the main attraction. He may be playing the archetypal tough as nails D.I. with the heart of gold, but hes absolutely convincing in the part so much so that he was made a honorary Marine and granted a Marine honour guard at his funeral despite never having served managing to add subtle shading and self-awareness to the role without ever descending into bathos. Its a fairly slight, unashamedly crowd pleasing film, but Chaneys performance gives it a strong enough heart and centre to remain engaging after 90 years of variations on the same theme.
"Security - release the badgers." -
TrevorAclea — 10 years ago(March 26, 2016 02:55 PM)
If you wish to see strange things, I have the power to show them to you.
Not to be confused with the actor who played the genie in The Thief of Bagdad, Rex Ingram may have been one of MGMs top directors in the silent era, but watching
The Magician
you cant help wondering what a more inspired and adventurous director like F.W. Murnau or Michael Powell (who has a cameo in the film) could have made of W. Somerset Maughams tale of a young woman in Paris who falls under the spell of a magician who needs her virgin blood to create life (He looks as if he stepped out of a melodrama). There are moments that hint at what could be: a giant statue of a faun briefly appearing to come to life before crumbling and crushing its sculptor or a vision of pagan revels overseen by the same faun come to life. Yet theyre few and far between, Ingram adopting a rather classical style that never hypnotises the audience the way Paul Wegeners magician does the heroine but rather keeps it a film you watch at a remove rather than being drawn into, with even the brief imaginary hedonism never really letting rip.
It doesnt help that theres not a spark of chemistry or sexual magnetism between romantic leads Alice Terry (aka Mrs Ingram) and Iván Petrovich, behaving more like a long-married couple than lovers: theres no life in them to lose, which renders the threat purely academic. Ingram was somewhat notorious for not getting the most out of his wife and occasional co-director onscreen, and thats certainly the case here. Shes never particularly convincing and rarely seems engaged by the material in a part that offers her little to work with. Looking like a cross between Lionel Atwill and Oskar Homolka with the bulk of Emil Jannings, Paul Wegener was probably the first real superstar of the horror genre in the days when Germany led the field, but this never really taps into his talent or utilises his screen presence especially well in a role inspired by Satanist socialite Aleister Crowley (who wrote a scathing review of the novel under the pen-name Oliver Haddo, the character Wegener plays in the film).
Despite being shot in his studio in Nice and on location in Paris and Monte Carlo to avoid studio interference (most notably from Louis B. Mayer), this feels very much life a safe studio-friendly picture rather than a passion project. Its professionally made but rarely comes to life, and when it does its often where you least expect it. Always good with spectacle the casino scene is effective and theres a couple of delightful bits of comic business with his protégé Michael Powell as a balding bespectacled man with a balloon on the sidelines when Wegener demonstrates his powers during a snake charmers act, but despite gifting his mad magician with an atmospherically designed and shot sorcerers tower for his laboratory and a dwarf assistant who presumably spawned all those generations of Igors that populated Universals horror cycle, the finale offers more fisticuffs than frissons.
Horror fans might enjoy seeing it as a bridge between the more stylised German expressionist horror films of the early Twenties and the mad scientist movies that would become a screen staple in the wake of Frankensteins huge success, but this is really more of a production line melodrama with most of the supernatural elements and the darker ending of the novel omitted. Its certainly watchable, but its more of historical interest than especially enthralling.
Warner Archives manufactured on demand DVD-R is taken from TCMs 2010 TV presentation with a new orchestral score by Robert Israel that acknowledges the clichéd material in much of its choice of source music, especially Tchaikovskys Romeo and Juliet. The tinted print isnt pristine with some damage and track marks thats most noticeable in the first reel but more than acceptable. No extras.
"Security - release the badgers." -
CanterburyTale — 10 years ago(March 31, 2016 05:39 PM)
I recently watched
Street Angel
(1928) with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, and thought it was sublime.I had previously seen them in another Frank Borzage film
Seventh Heaven
, but, as enjoyable as that was, 'Angel' is my favourite.Janet Gaynor gives an absolutely stunning performance, on a par with her turn in Murnau's
Sunrise
, and it's easy to see why she won the first Oscar for her performances.
"Barney SloaneThat's my new nameMy old one's a little more Italian." -
gundabad_the_pirate — 10 years ago(March 31, 2016 07:37 PM)
Just watched 'Wings'(1927) for the first time and I am a little embarrassed that I have never watched this fantastic first Academy Award winner for best film.
When someone says, "That Silent Movie could be released in Theaters today and people would flock to see it" then that would be 'Wings'. The Aerial actions sequences are that phenomenal and probably the closest we will ever get to seeing actual W.W.I aerial combat. Having been filmed a mere 8 years after the first war and having the experienced pilots, planes and tactics that were probably still in use- gives this film a depth of authenticity that has you gripping your chair as the planes fill the screen in dive-bombing mayhem.
The copy that I watched was sepia toned? personally, I don't really care for this look in silent films, so I just turn the color back down to B&W.
According to the extras, the film maybe the most expensive ever, as the federal government gave approx 15 million dollars worth of support in troops, planes, artillery, equipment etc.. plus the production budget of $2 million.
Really enjoyed this film and the cast overall, good love triangle storyline that ties itself up neatly in the end. It does start a little Sappy at first when it is introducing the characters and their relationships but after they get out of aerial training and go off to war, then the film shifts to another level and the light comedy in-between the action helps to break up the tension between the build up scenes of combat with the Big Push at the end.
In my top ten list of the most exciting Silent Films of all times- period and one of the last. Out with a bang at 2 dollars a ticket in 1927. -
Peterlh — 10 years ago(April 01, 2016 08:27 AM)
It is as if the only good WWI movies were made in the years between WWI and WWII, I guess that people seem to think that WWII is a more interesting subject for a movie than WWI.
Have you seen Hells Angels (1930)? It is a WWI air combat talkie directed by Howard Hughes, it is not as good as Wings but still a pretty solid flick.
One of my all time favorite war movies is The Big Parade (1925) directed by the incredible King Vidor. Apart from a few scenes that are a bit silly it is as close to a masterpiece as you can probably get. A solid 9/10! -
gundabad_the_pirate — 10 years ago(April 01, 2016 06:56 PM)
Watched 'Hell's Angels' when I was on my Jean Harlow kick, not much of the film stuck with me??? I guess it is more of a thrilling-action experience than something that leaves a dramatic impression. I will take a good look at 'The Big Parade' and add it to my growing list- some can be rented and those that have to be bought should be exceptional to justify it.
That is a good point, probably the most effective (anti-war) film that I have viewed- still remains 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (1930) when the main character returns from the front on a furlough and visits his family at home, where the old veterans were singing their nostalgic praises of going off to battle and he now has his own taste of it for real and you can feel the bitterness of his betrayal.
The film still lingers potently when I remember it. It seems that these early war pictures are far less propagandist or political than the succeeding generations take on the wartime experience, so maybe they are more accurate in a way. -
TrevorAclea — 10 years ago(April 01, 2016 02:38 AM)
The best-known of Lon Chaney and Tod Brownings collaborations at MGM albeit perhaps more for the non-Browning directed remake that was the stars only talkie 1925s
The Unholy Three
is far from the best despite its initially deliriously devious set-up. Kicking off with an array of sideshow freaks and chiselers thats like a dry run for Brownings Freaks (itself based on a novel by the same author, Tod Robbins), Chaney is Professor Echo, a ventriloquist who distracts the crowds while girlfriend Sweet Rosie OGrady (a very good Mae Busch) picks their pockets. But he has bigger plans: teaming up with a strongman (Victor McLaglen, at times looking like a very young Anthony Quinn) and midget (Harry Earles, who would go on to star in both the remake and Freaks), he has an unholy scheme that sees him disguising himself as a little old lady and Earles as a baby running a pet shop that sells birds that cant speak to the wealthy. Not that his scam ends at throwing his voice to make it sound as if they can. When the wealthier customers complain that their bird is silent, he and Earles visit to case the joint while appearing to coax it to talk and return after dark with McLaglen to rob the place. Which works rather well until his accomplices decide to go it alone and end up committing murder and setting up the bespectacled sap who helps out in the shop (a surprisingly sympathetic Matt Moore in Harold Lloyd glasses) and has a crush on Busch
This was very much a comeback picture for Browning after a run of flops, and at times it feels like hes playing it safe because he knows hes in the Last Chance Saloon after spending too much time in real saloons. While there are certainly plenty of grotesque elements and anarchic in the film, from the obligatory wild animal that Chaney keeps that wreaks vengeance (in this case a giant ape) and Earles puffing away on a cigar while in his baby clothes or laughing about his victim begging for his life, the first half of the film is played more as a black comedy than a thriller. There are a couple of suspense set pieces and the unholy trinity do fall out with murderous intent, but the film takes its lead from Chaneys character who may run a crooked racket but isnt that bad a guy underneath it all. When Busch offers to go off with him if hell clear Moore theres no real question of how itll end up and the film gives in to sentimentality and melodrama once things reach the courtroom and the Professors plans to use his ventriloquism to save the day fail him. Browning shows some originality in handling the whole notion of ventriloquism playing a key role in a silent movie, at one point even putting cartoon speech bubbles above the parrots cages in the shop, and its a decent enough melodrama, but its ultimately more wholesome than unholy. Its the kind of film whose reputation you have to take with perhaps a pinch of salt to get the most out of it when Chaney says Thats all there is to life, friends a little laughter a little tear, hes pretty much summing up the movie. But remember, never smoke cigarettes and youll be a big strong man like Victor McLaglen!
Lon Chaney TALKS in
The Unholy 3
screamed the posters for MGMs 1930 remake of his 1925 hit, and Chaneys voice is certainly the main attraction in his only talkie before his untimely death. On one level it shows that his career would have had no problems adjusting to the new era but also indicates that it would move away from the more tortured dramas that made him a huge box-office attraction to the kind of street smart rogues on the wrong side of the law who discover they have a heart after all roles that Wallace Beery and James Cagney would thrive in a few years later. Its simultaneously a curious and an obvious choice for his belated entry into the talking picture stakes: the original was one of his lesser melodramas but the plot is dialogue-heavy and the then-new technology does allow you to actually hear his ventriloquist throw his voice. Its actually Harry Earles, also reprising his role from the silent version as the midget, whose voice is the real problem: his German accent is so thick around 95% of his dialogue is completely incomprehensible, and he has a
lot
of dialogue. Thankfully its a problem not shared by Ivan Linow, replacing a then-under contract to Fox Film Corporation Victor McLaglen as Hercules.
The plot is basically the same, and so are some of the sets and costumes), but Elliott Nugent, this versions co-writer along with his father J.C. Nugent, is while Lila Lee is convincing as a shopworn streetwise cookie but less convincing as the good girl underneath it all. Its pretty much a scene for scene remake until the end, which reaches the same point via a slightly different route that curiously makes much less of the ventriloquism than the original, but if it lacks individuality the under-rated Jack Conways direction is very polished, with the film playing up the comedy much more. Chaneys performance is a bit broader than in th