Review - Dr. Mabuse The Gambler (1922)

January 11, 2025
 
Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler – Germany, 1922
 

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that Fritz Lang’s 1922 film Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler started out as a one of those twelve-part serials that were shown before the main attraction in years gone by. However, knowing Lang’s habit of making episodic films that often stretched to the 180-minute mark and given that the film is presented in two parts, The Great Gambler: A Picture of the Time and Inferno: A Game for the People of Our Age, I’m inclined to believe that the film as it currently stands is the way Lang always intended it to be, which is both a blessing and a curse. More on that later. Also evident is the influence of Louis Feuilade, many of whose own works, such as Le Vampires and Fantomas, dealt with criminal masterminds and the law’s attempts to apprehend them.
 
Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler takes place in Berlin in the aftermath of World War I. Perhaps there is no other place or time for the film to take place, for 1920s Berlin was the ideal setting for a man like Dr. Mabuse to ascend. It was a time when great poverty coincided with great wealth, when, in the ruins and despair of the post-war period, powerful men could manipulate conditions to their great benefit and many people could be lulled into following a charlatan. In Dr. Mabuse, we have an amalgamation of all the great gothic German, cinematic villains of the time: the man of many disguises, the head of the criminal enterprise, the mysterious Rasputin-like hypnotist, and the madman becoming less sane by the minute. That Dr. Mabuse inspires cult-like worship from his followers only adds to his mystic.
 
Early on in the film, Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) arranges for the murder of an ambassador to Sweden and the theft of some important trade documents he is carrying. In doing so, Mabuse helps spark a rumor of imminent retaliation, which leads to panic selling on the stock market. In a brilliant moment, we watch as Mabuse surveys his destruction while standing expressionless over the frantic sellers, their mouths agape as their once valued stock tumbles off a cliff. And then just as coolly, Mabuse proclaims himself a buyer, swooping up all of the stock before word of the documents’ recovery can reach the floor of the stock market. The stock ascends as rapidly as it fell, at which point Mabuse declares himself a seller.
 
With such a set-up, one would expect for Mabuse’s ultimate aim to be wealth, yet this does not seem to be the case, for Mabuse, in addition to all of his other pursuits, is in the business of printing counterfeit money. In fact, he has a secret room where five aging blind men sit for hours flipping through stacks of freshly-printed bills. (Just what they eat and how they relieve themselves in anyone’s guess, but I digress.) No, Mabuse, like Bane 90 years later, seems intent on watching the forest burn, on treating the wealthy as if they were his personal pawns to be shifted or removed at will. He’s a man who wants to be the kingmaker and perhaps to even wear the crown himself.
 
Of course, all super-villains need a protagonist, and Mabuse’s comes in the form of a prosecutor named Norbert von Wenk (Bernhard Goetzke), who is tasked with discovering just who is behind a series of mysterious gambling incidents. Assisting him is a well-to-do young man named Edgar Hull (Paul Richter) who is also one of the victims of Mabuse’s schemes and dating Cara Carozza (Aud Egede-Nissen), one of Mabuse’s henchman. We also meet a wealthy countess with the odd last name Told. The countess is unusual, for as much as she seems fascinated by gambling, she never partakes in it. She and the prosecutor strike up a platonic relationship which may have become more if Lang had ever made a direct sequel.
 
Much of the fun of the film comes in observing their game of cat-and-mouse, with Mabuse always a few steps ahead. Of course, we know who the mysterious gambler is, but that knowledge does not diminish the intrigue. Part of this is due to the fact that we know so little about Mabuse and each scene seems to draw us closer to achieving a complete picture of him. And if getting that knowledge means accepting Wenk’s ludicrous jack-of-all-trades persona, then so be it. After all, who’s to say that a prosecutor wouldn’t have the power to call in the military at a moment’s notice? I also found myself playing a variation of Where’s Waldo every time new characters were introduced, for he could easily be the bad doctor in disguise.
 
Like all of Lang’s films, Dr. Mabuse is a visual masterpiece, from its varying interiors to its grungy, shadowy exteriors. At one point, Lang shows one character playing cards with multiple transparent versions of himself; in another, a caravan of nomads walks off a screen and into the real world only to disappear with the snap of Mabuse’s fingers. Toward the end of the film, we watch as the objects hanging on the walls of an almost barren room suddenly become living, breathing creatures intent on toying with Mabuse’s already fragile mind. It’s impressive stuff. Lang also gets an amazing performance out of Kleine-Rogge, who adopts altogether different personas for each of his many incarnations.
 
My problem with the film – and it is not a minor one - is its interminable length, for its 270 minutes are hard to justify. Lang, who wrote the screen play with his writing partner, Thea von Harbou, includes multiple instances of Mabuse’s hypnotic skills at the card table when only two of them could really be deemed vital to the plot. Perhaps an even bigger problem is that the film does not use its length effectively. The movie seems so set on convincing viewers of Mabuse’s skills that it neglects to flesh out many of the other characters. There are no scenes in which we see what would make Cara so devoted to Mabuse, and so little time is devoted to building Wenk’s relationship with Countess Told that their sudden closeness never feels justified. Also, in giving Mabuse so many masks, the character begins to test even the most accepting viewer’s credulity. It’s one thing to accept him as a corrupt doctor and a thief, but then viewers are asked to accept that he’s a master at hypnotism and that his secret weapon, at times at least, is an unusual pair of glasses. We’re then asked to believe that a man who could hypnotize a massive audience simply by looking in their direction has no other way to ward off the police than guns blazing.
 
Much of this criticism applies to the first half of the film, for Lang indeed picks up the pace in the second. However, it does make you wonder how much more compact the story would be if the first half ran sixty minutes instead of one-hundred and fifty or if there had been any follow up to Mabuse powerful line, “Now the world will know who I am!” In truth, they never really do, for just as it seems he’s about to wreak even more havoc on the world, he announces that he’s grown tired of Berlin and intends to pack his things and leave, providing of course that the woman he’s kidnapped and proclaims as his goes with him. Once guess how that turns out. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Classics)
 
3 stars
 
*Dr. Mabuse The Gambler is a silent film.

Review - Wild and Woolly

December 3, 2023
 
Wild and Woolly – U.S., 1917
 

It seems strange to admit this, but for most of my time spent watching movies, the career of Douglas Fairbanks had been a blind spot. Sure, I had seen The Thief of Bagdad, but that had been as an avid fan of Anna May Wong, not as one eager to discover one of film’s first superstars, and subsequently, I did not pursue Fairbanks’ other films. My curiosity was eventually piqued by a plot summary of his film The Half-Breed and by Bosley Crowther’s inclusion of Fairbanks’ Robin Hood in his 1967 book The Great Films: Fifty Golden Years of Motion Pictures. While neither of those films earned rave reviews from me, his performances in them were enough to rope me in.
 
John Emerson's Wild and Woolly was Fairbanks’ seventeenth film, and while already a star, he had yet to make the swashbuckling, heroic films that would ultimately make him a legend. However, he was well on his way to establishing himself as a romantic superhero. Just a year earlier, in The Matrimaniac, he (and a reluctant priest) had gone through a series of physical challenges just to be able to marry the love of his life over the objection of her traditional father (a common theme in early silents), and his role in Flirting with Fate had audiences awe-struck upon seeing his physically challenging attempts to elude a hit man he’d regrettably hired to whack him. It may not always have made sense that his characters were suddenly able to do such acrobatic moves, but there’s no denying their impressiveness.
 
In Wild and Woolly, he plays Jeff Hillington, the son of Collis J. Hillington, who, in this film at least, was responsible for taming the Wild West with the railroad. In fact, the film begins with a series of comparisons between the West as it was in the olden days – replete with cowboys, shoot-ups, and wagons - and as it is today – “ruined” by technology. Jeff, we soon learn, has a massive obsession with the Wild West and his room is practically a shrine to the days he idolizes. It is here where he practices the “cowboy” skills he has so often seen romanticized in Hollywood movies (using real bullets!). At one point, he lassos the family butler and later offers some modern businessmen some of his tobacco block. He even looks at an actress on a poster for the latest Hollywood western and proclaims her the kind of woman he wants to marry. All of this gets him the reputation of being a nut.
 
Early scenes are fun, even though they make Jeff more akin to the kind of man-child that Harry Langdon played so often in his career than a full-fledged character who just happens to have an unusual interest. The film further stretches believability when it shows Jeff playing in his room alone atop a life-size toy horse with the same amount of energy as a genuine cowboy likely showed during an actual competition or stampede. As for how he acquired the impressive horseback-riding skills he later displays, we can only surmise that it has something to do with the fact that his father is extremely wealthy and that he appears to have a lot of free time on his hands.
 
The film kicks into high gear upon the introduction of two plot threads. The first involves a mine in a small Arizonan town that comes to the attention of Jeff’s father (Walter Bytell) and his decision to send Jeff to investigate it. The second has to do with the greedy schemes of a Caucasian Indian Agent named Steve Shelby (Sam De Grasse), whose nefarious activities have made him rich but wary about hanging around dodge too much longer. When word of Jeff’s impending arrival and his fascination with the West reaches the mining town, the residents decide to recreate those special times in an attempt to win his support for the mine (which, curiously, he never actually visits), while Shelby decides to use Jeff’s visit to pull off a final heist and then skedaddle out of town with a young lady named Nell (well played by Eileen Percy) who couldn’t care less about him, thus setting the stage for an actual western adventure. This part of the film is highly entertaining, as Jeff is an unsuspecting participant in a series of staged events right out of a movie screenplay, including a train robbery and the rescuing of a damsel in distress.
 
The film is of course a product of its time, and some contemporary viewers will likely object to what could be interpreted as stereotypical portrayals of nameless antagonistic Native Americans. However, I chose to see their role as the result of the unique circumstances of this particular tribe. It isn’t a stretch to conceive of their alcoholism and eagerness to attack the town as being the results of Shelby’s efforts to enrich himself at all costs, for what better way to bend people to one’s will than to deprive them of basic necessities and make them dependent on an addictive substance? Seen in this light, the only real villains are Shelby and his partner in crime, Pedro (Charles Stevens). Much less explainable is the exaggerated fractured English in the intertitles, again an unfortunate and distracting product of their time.
 
Still, as with many silent films, Wild and Woolly remains charming and entertaining, despite such elements. Fairbanks plays naiveté and innocence rather well, and his stunt work remains impressive. The cast seems to be having a ball in the scene in which the town stages events from the past, and Fairbanks and Percy are convincing as a pair of young people falling in love steadily. It is said that many silent films had musicians near the set playing music designed to help actors express emotions more clearly. For this film, I’ll bet it was Elger’s “Salut d’Amour.”  (on DVD as part of Flicker Alley’s box set Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer)
 
3 and a half stars
 
*Wild and Woolly is a silent film.
*Eileen Percy appeared in 72 films from 1917 – 1943. I look forward to seeing more of her performances.

Review - Robin Hood (1922)

 October 9, 2023
 
Robin Hood – U.S., 1922
 

It is said that the script for Douglas Fairbanks’s 1922 film Robin Hood consisted of just a few sentences scribbled on a piece of scratch paper. While I imagine scenes were more carefully planned out later on, the lack of foreplaning may account for the jarring sudden shift in tone midway through the film. After all, this is a film that for more than an hour seems much more like a drama than a comedy. It’s as if halfway through production someone ran what they had filmed so far and insisted on the insertion of humor and tights. So jarring is the switch that it makes you wonder if the man formerly known as the Earl of Huntingdon had suddenly developed amnesia regarding the degree of suffering being experienced by the residents of Nottingham.
 
Robin Hood begins with a feast celebrating King Richard’s soon-to-be-embarked upon mission into the Holy Land, more commonly known as the beginning of the Crusades. This is presented as a cause for pomp and celebration and as the fulfillment a personal mission. Current students of history may watch this and roll their eyes, especially at the rather positive view of a historical figure who ordered the massacre of 500 unarmed prisoners, yet it’s also easy to believe that at the time many people considered not only the Crusades to be worth fighting but also the men going off to fight it to be heroes. King Richard (played by screen legend Wallace Beery) places Prince John (Sam De Grasse) in charge during his absence, andit is a mistake of astronomical proportions, as the prince quickly raises taxes, seizes household possessions when people cannot pay, reinstates execution, and tortures women who spurn his advances. It’s truly brutal stuff.
 
The first half of the film also contains the first meeting of Huntingdon (Douglas Fairbanks) and Lady Marian (Enid Bennett), and this is portrayed much less romantically as later versions. Instead of linking eyes and feeling the early pitter-patters of love, Huntingdon spies Prince John stalking Marian as she flees upstairs to escape his unwanted and potentially violent advances. After saving her from a potential assault, he is surprised by her humble and soft-spoken manner, and soon the two are gazing into each other’s eyes, theirs faces adorned with the kind of expression that enthusiastically whispers, “Can you believe this is happening to us?” It’s hokey, but it works.
 
Director Allan Dwan does an excellent job of building up the tension, cutting between scenes of Prince John’s increasingly belligerent nature and the men’s blissful ignorance of what is going on in their absence. Dwan plays up Marian’s innocence in a series of close-ups that reflect both the hopefulness of a someone in love for the first time and the naïve practicality of someone who believes that a few sound words of advice are all a tyrant needs to be able to change his ways. Dwan also knows how to film Fairbanks, and his camera is frequently placed at the ideal angle to capture Marian’s and Huntingdon’s torn expressions and looks of concern. I would also be remiss in my duties if I did not mention the impressive sets.
 
By the end of the first half of the film, one character is thought dead, while another is heartbroken and hell-bent of revenge. Perhaps this is why what follows felt so jarring. We suddenly see that Huntingdon has taken on the name of Robin Hood and become known for his habit of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Now there are a number of ways one could convey the commitment Robin feels both to help the people survive and to get revenge on Prince John. Unfortunately, Fairbanks and Dwan opt to make Robin Hood a character that leaps practically every other moment, stops and laughs mid-escapade, and grins while engaging in pretty deadly swordplay. In other words, he’s now a comic character in a swashbuckling adventure, the kind whose duels inspire both wonder and fun and fill you with amazement at the skills involved in his physical deeds, such as climbing up a long castle drape and fighting off gangs of Prince John’s men the way martial arts heroes do their legions of enemies. It can be argued that, seeing as how this is a Robin Hood film, the shift was necessary. However, the change in tone is too jarring, and it hurts the rest of the film.
 
As the Earl of Huntingdon, Fairbanks is simple amazing; as Robin Hood, while he certainly gives it the old college try, he’s less so. Sure, he does some remarkable stunts and impresses with his physical prowess, yet all of this comes at the expense of the film’s emotional pull. It is hard to remain concerned about the lives of a population living under a brutal regime, while simultaneously being asked to marvel at a character’s acrobatic wonders. Again, this is fault of the script, not the performers. This is not to say that the second act does not contain a certain level of charm, but it makes the film escapist rather than dramatic, something easily forgotten, rather than pondered on and analyzed. In the end, Robin Hood is two films – one cinematic and the other pure Hollywood, and I simply preferred the former. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Cohen Film Collection)
 
3 stars
 
*Robin Hood is a silent film.
*Playing Little John is none other than Alan Hale, better known as the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island.

Review - The Strong Man

 April 18, 2022
 
The Strong Man – U.S., 1924
 

Legend has it that Charlie Chaplin shut down production of his 1931 film, City Lights, for a year due to a terrible case of creator’s block; see, he just couldn’t explain why a blind woman would mistake the Tramp for a wealthy patron. While that length of time might seem excessive, I can understand Chaplin’s desire to get it right, and perhaps part of his obsession with finding the right rationale was due to a film released just five years earlier that must have driven coherency-focused writers like Chaplin absolutely nuts. That film was Frank Capra’s The Strong Man, starring former circus, medicine show, and Vaudeville performer, Harry Langdon.
 
In The Strong Man, Langdon plays Paul Bergot, a Belgian World War I soldier stationed in No Man’s Land. When Bergot isn’t firing at unseen German soldiers, he’s gazing longingly at the picture of Mary Brown, a young woman who has confessed her love for him in a letter he must have read a million times. When he lets his guard down and resumes gazing at her picture, he is captured by a rather large strong German soldier who whisks him away presumably to a POW camp. I say presumably because the very next time we see him, he’s the assistant of this very same German soldier and traveling around the U.S. as the marquee member of a strong man act. I imagine the story of their pairing would have made for quite an interesting film.
 
Slapstick is sometimes described as a collection of humorous scenes loosely connected to a romantic subplot that hardly seems to have been given the time needed for it to blossom and engage, and The Strong Man fits this description for the most part. In addition to the scene in No Man’s Land, in which German bullets actually do Bergot a favor by exterminating the cooties crawling over him, there’s a humorous bit involving Bergot, the strong man, and some rather large luggage, a clever bit in which Bergot unsuccessfully tries to get away from a woman who hid a wad of stolen money in his coat pocket (she initially claims to be “Little Mary”), Bergot’s attempts at putting on a strong man act solo, and finally a long scene in which he defends Mary’s honor against a scoundrel intent on making Mary one of his “attractions” as punishment for her preacher father’s campaign against sin and vice. In other words, the film has enough creative elements to work wonders. There’s even an extremely clever bit in which Bergot is tossed from a wagon only to tumble down a hill and crash into the very same wagon as it continues its way down a hill.
 
My favorite of these bits is the one involving the femme fatale (Gertrude Astor) because of its extraordinary choreography. In one clever bit, the woman keeps trying to reach into Bergot’s pocket only for him to turn at the most inopportune moment. There’s also a clever moment in which Bergot has realized the woman is not Mary (for rather old-fashioned reasons) and begun to walk away after she feigns passing out (really, that happens). The only problem is that a good Samaritan just happens to be nearby and calls out that he can’t just leave her like that, which in reality, he can’t and doesn’t. The scene culminates in Bergot carrying the woman up the stairs leading to her apartment and mistaking a number of things for steps. This part of the film is comic perfection.
 
And yet the rest of film does not work nearly as well as it should, primarily because the romantic angle is a headscratcher. So, here are two characters established in early scenes as being in love, and yet apparently they’ve never met. Perhaps there was a pen pal program during the First World War that I’m unware of, but it is hard to imagine how true love could flourish under such circumstances, especially 80 years before the idea of social media existed (and I’m still not entirely sold on the idea that it can flourish there). In fact, much of what passes as narrative in the film involves Bergot searching for Mary and knowing her so poorly that he runs in the direction of anyone whose names just happens to resemble hers.
 
And then we meet her, and the romantic pairing makes even less sense. See, Mary Brown (Priscilla Bonner), like the little flower girl in City Lights is blind, which begs more than a few questions, not the least of which is Who wrote the letters? I’ll add a few more. How did they start corresponding? Who took the picture? And finally, What was her plan for their eventual meeting? Again, the film has no answers. It seems more content to make Bergot her knight in shining armor, which is fine, yet its disinterest in justifying its characters’ deep feelings, reminiscent of the way it avoids explaining how two soldiers on the opposite side of a war could end up a Vaudeville team, hurts the film, for why should viewers invest in a couple or partnership if the makers of the film had no interest in rewarding that investment?
 
Sure, the two characters share a sweetness after they actually meet, and the film’s closing moments evoke the kind of warmth and contentment that accompanies most happy endings. However, here those feelings feel unearned, a bi-product of our natural disposition to smile whenever a princess gets her Prince Charming, even as we sense how ludicrous their pairing actually is.
 
Still, The Strong Man remains a decent film. Perhaps my misgivings have more to do with the curse of looking back, for seeing things in reverse order can make progress look like reversion, stripping a film of its rightful role as a necessary step in the development of cinema. One would hope story rises above aesthetics, but sometimes it does not, and having seen an idea done better can make another rendition of it less impressive regardless of whether one can mentally put the two films in chronological order. City Lights spoiled us, and its greatness makes similar movies – whether predecessors or successors – pale in comparison. It’s unfair, but…really, who wrote the darn letter? (on DVD as part of Kino’s Harry Langdon… the Forgotten Clown)
 
3 stars

Review - Blind Husbands

 July 31, 2021
 
Blind Husbands – US, 1919
 

It is said that upon its release, Erich von Stroheim’s Blind Husbands was an instant success and that the film announced to the world the arrival of a new and innovative director, one who was not afraid to tackle tough issues. Fast forward 102 years, and the question becomes how we should best evaluate the film. Should we, for example, try to look at it through the eyes of an audience member from 1919 and reflect upon what were then bold themes and creative camera techniques? Or do we look at the film through contemporary eyes and assess it based simply on its content? If, as Roger Ebert wrote, a film should feel brand new each time we see it, how should we assess a movie that we know was important historically, but which feels more than a little too dated in its understanding of the human psyche and is much less audacious than the films that proceeded it?
 
Blind Husbands is the story of Dr. Robert Armstrong (Sam De Grasse) and his wife, Margaret (Francelia Billington). They have been married long enough for the spark that initially brought them together to need a lot of effort to remain burning, and in the film’s prelude, we are asked whether an inattentive husband deserves as much of the blame when his wife strays as the outside who came between them. This notion is further enforced in the film’s opening scene. Set in a carriage, the scene presents us two contrasting couples. The doctor and his wife are one; the other is a younger couple whose hands and eyes are constantly locked and whose lips curl into joyous smiles at just the sight of the other. The doctor and his wife have long passed that stage. Well, one of them has anyway. The doctor’s eyes are buried in a book, while his young wife appears lost and lonely. Sure, her arm is in his, but that seems more indicative of her continued efforts rather than his. A question she asks him is answered by someone else. Sitting on in the opposite side of the coach is Lieutenant Eric Von Steuben (von Stroheim), whose keen eyes notice the distance that exists between the doctor and his wife. Perhaps more tellingly, they also notice the wife’s legs.
 
Just prior to this, we have witnessed something that until the introduction of the lieutenant has not made a lot of sense. A rugged mountain guide referred to as “Silent” Sepp (Gibson Gowland) has received a letter, the contents of which have produced a look of indignation. For the rest of the first half of the film, Sepp acts as a kind of restrained chaperone, always around to observe the movements of the lieutenant and inferring that what looks genuinely innocent – such as bringing Margaret a blanket - is, in actuality, anything but. The character is interesting, and moments in which he throws mental darts in the direction of the lieutenant let us know exactly how we should interpret his acts of “kindness.” The problem is that we’ve known not to trust him since he ogled Margaret in the coach.
 
Blind Husbands was revolutionary in its time. Here was a movie that acknowledged that a woman could be dissatisfied with her marriage and, even more shocking, that that displeasure could lead her to consider infidelity. But does Margaret every really contemplate that? Von Stroheim shows us Margaret reflecting on the changes that have taken place since she got married, but we never actually see mental images in which her husband has been replaced by the lieutenant. In fact, all we’ve seen from Margaret is a desire to get away from the lieutenant, and the sentiments she expresses when the lieutenant is in her room can hardly be said to have been expressed under the most romantic of circumstances.
 
So, in other words, I never thought Margaret was truly interested in the other man, and without that buy-in, you don’t really have any suspense. Perhaps as a result, the film’s final act is to add jealousy and homicidal impulses into the mix because apparently a lecherous flirt always has to be capable of murder and a man drawn into the service of others must always end up being a slave to his own foolish emotions. It would have been more realistic to present the lieutenant as a coward and the doctor as a man whose passion has been eclipsed by overconfidence. Alas. Exactly where, I can hear studio executives saying, is the drama is that?  And they’re right. Audience in 1919 flocked to the film, and if box office results are any indication of satisfaction, they liked what they saw.
 
Nonetheless, there’s no getting over the tameness of the film. This is a film what wants you to imply interest on the part of the wife when there are no real signs to infer it from. It wants to you to assume the worst of the lieutenant, but refuses to show him doing anything that would help explain why he is suddenly overrun by murderous impulses at the end, and it wants you to believe that a man as decent as the doctor could be completely undone, both emotionally and mentally, by the words of someone he only met a few days earlier. I just didn’t buy it, but then again, I’m looking at the film from contemporary eyes. (on DVD from Kino)
 
2 and a half stars

Review - Drifting

December 20, 2020

Drifting – US, 1923

I believe there is a tendency to give films a pass if they happen to be made by or star someone whose work we generally admire. If the director – say Hitchcock or Chaplin - is the object of approbation, the work might be labeled “lesser” or undergo a “reevaluation” by a generation much more willing to declare any of that person’s creations a masterpiece. If it’s the actor or actress who is esteemed, potential viewers are usually urged to ignore any disappointment that the direction or script may inspire and focus on a performance, the impression being that it is worth any eye-rolling or long sighs that the film inspires as a whole. I mention this because the 1923 film Drifting is likely to be praised for the wrong reasons: It was directed by Tod Browning, whose later film Freaks is often referred to as a masterpiece, and it features a young woman who went on to achieve legendary status, Anna May Wong. So, yes, the film will have its defenders from the get-go.

And yet, let’s imagine a dinner party thrown by the film’s lead characters, Cassie Cook (Priscilla Dean) and Captain Arthur Jarvis (Matt Moore), years after the events depicted in the film. Undoubtedly, one or more of the guests would be unfamiliar with the story of their pairing, and soon, attention would focus on the couple as they set the way-back machine to colonial China during the years opium had a grip on its population. I suspect the retelling would go something like this:

Cassie:           See, I was in Shanghai working… 

Guest:            (cutting her off excitedly) Oh, that’s marvelous! I have so wanted to go there. What did you do, if you don’t mind my asking?

Cassie:           Uh… (awkward pause) I was in sales. Anyway, I…

Guest:            You were a businesswoman? How intriguing! Whatever did you sell?

Cassie:           (clears her throat and lowers her voice considerably) Opium. (At regular volume) Anyway, after blowing all of my money at the tracks, I decided to go to Hang Chow.

Guest:           (still startled by the admission that Cassie used to be a drug dealer; looks at the Captain, who pours himself a drink and quickly gulps it down) Excuse me for interrupting, but how did you get there if you didn’t have any money?

Cassie:           (visibly flustered) Um… I’m not sure exactly. (Turning and breaking the fourth wall) That wasn’t really explained in the film, was it? (turns back to the guest) Anyway, after my arrival in Hang Chow, I was putting away my things when I heard this god-awful noise…pardon my French… outside my room. I opened the door, and there was…

Guest:           Pardon the interruption, but what made you go there? I mean, from what I hear, it is hardly a place for tourists.

Cassie:          (after another uncomfortable pause) Well, that was where my husband had been sent to try to crush the opium trade.

                        (Guest looks stunned and confused)

Cassie:           (with an understandably dry throat) See (clears her throat) I went there to put a stop to his foolish campaign. He was threatening my business and costing me money, after all. I was also asked to cozy up to him and eventually betray him. I even stole a report he wrote and made him think that a sweet young woman who ratted me out was lying.

(Guest, mouth agape, looks at the Captain, who is already on his fifth drink)

Cassie:           (trying to reassure her guest) Look, I know how it sounds, but we fell in love. Honestly, we did. (breaks the fourth wall again) I know we didn’t know each other all that long and that we never had a single scene together in which we talked to each other with our hearts. I know I put him in mortal danger and was mean to all the kids who looked up to him. I know it didn’t make sense that I was dining with my enemy or that he would also lose all the money he had in the world on the same horse. I know the final battle between the villagers, the mountain people, and the colonial army was incomprehensible and that my husband’s friend was way too old to be pursuing fifteen-year-old Rose Li, and I acknowledge that her fate fit a pattern of Asian characters conveniently stepping out of the picture so that the Caucasian leads live happily ever after. But darn it, the picture needed a happy ending and… (breaks down and sobs)

Jarvis:            (walks behind his wife and gently massages her shoulders; looks straight ahead) Don’t worry, dear. It was directed by Tod Browning and features Anna May Wong just before her star-making turn in The Thief of Bagdad.  Critics will surely give it a pass. (Drifting is on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 and a half stars (and yes, I’m being a bit generous with the extra half star, but what can I say – I like Anna May Wong)

Review - Madame Butterfly (1915)

November 7, 2020

Madame Butterfly – US, 1915

There’s a scene about a quarter of the way into Sydney Olcott’s Madame Butterfly in which a young woman named Choo-Choo San is woken up by her maid, Sazuki (Olive West). Nothing irregular there, I suppose, but observant souls will notice something rather peculiar: Choo-Choo’s hair is already neatly done, her face is powdered, and her lips appear to have red lipstick on them. Now before you say that movies have always shown the morning to be especially kind to the faces of attractive female characters, that was probably not the motivation of Olcott or anyone else involved in the filming of the scene. They simply had no choice. Imagine the scene shot differently. A maid, upon walking gently into a teenager’s room, softly tells her that the time has come to start the day. The teenager opens her eyes, stretches, and, thinking of the kind foreigner she saw the day before, smiles. And what would we, the audience, be saying? Hey, that’s Mary Pickford!

I don’t mean to suggest that when the film was released, moviegoers didn’t know beforehand who the star of the film they were about to see was. However, for Madame Butterfly to work, we have to accept what is unfolding on the screen as authentic, that the dusty rural streets that the rickshaws are going down are really in Nagasaki (It’s really Plainfield, New Jersey.), that a tea ceremony in which the bride and groom take three rapid sips of tea, is truly representative of Japanese culture, and that Choo-Choo San is really a teenager girl suddenly experiencing her first crush. Seeing the face of America’s sweetheart would ruin all of that, and so, Choo-Choo San can never be seen without make-up, not even when there’s little reason for her to be wearing it. (I suppose they could have simply hired a Japanese-American actress, but that rarely happened in early Hollywood – or in today’s Hollywood, for that matter, but that’s a topic for another day.)

Pickford made Madame Butterfly during her Paramount years, which lasted from 1914 – 1916. She was already a star by then and only made five more films with the company before expanding her resume to include producer. Clearly, she wanted more control and trusted her instincts. With Madame Butterfly, though, they failed her slightly. The story goes that Olcott had originally wanted Pickford to be reserved in her portrayal of Choo-Choo San. When Pickford refused, it is said that Olcott stormed off the set, leading Pickford to proclaim that she would direct the film herself. Olcott eventually returned and cooler heads prevailed, but it is obvious who won the clash. Pickford’s portrayal, much like Paul Muni’s in D.W. Griffith’s 1919 drama Broken Blossom, is rather Western in style – Choo-Choo is fully expressive, independent, and romantically idealistic. In the other words, Pickford plays her as if she were a twentieth-century woman instead of the late nineteenth-century teenager she is in John Luther Long’s 1898 short story.

As for the film itself, it is a bit of a mess. Its pacing is so scattered and off-putting that I’m tempted to say that Olcott was in such a hurry to be done with it that he took a pair of scissors to any scene that was either longer than two minutes or designed to develop the characters. San’s love interest, Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton (Marshall Neilan), is such a non-entity that it’s hard to believe that San would fall so hard for him. He shows up, smiles a bit, gets annoyed at the guests who attend his wedding, looks serious as he reads a letter from his girlfriend in the U.S., and then leaves, hardly to be seen again. In between, there are one or two tender moments, but these are only loving because Pickford works overtime to make them so. There is little evidence – not in this film at least - that Neilan has a romantic bone in his body. (By the way, Neilan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, so he was clearly talented.)

Characters come and go in awkward fashion. We meet San’s parents briefly, just long enough for them to collect a handsome dowry and then disown San after her wedding party ends disastrously. There’s also a Japanese suitor (David Burton) who arrives to present himself as Pinkerton’s replacement. In Long’s version of the story, San does not refuse his offer right away, choosing instead to use it to try to make Pinkerton jealous. Here, San spikes his drink, and he leaves in a huff. Later, San comes face to face with Pickerton’s American wife. Instead of being angry at her husband for marrying, impregnating, and abandoning San, wife number two offers to adopt their child. It takes San less than thirty seconds to agree.

Obviously, Long’s version of this conversation and the events that follow it are quite different. But what seems to matter here is getting to the finale, so with the child gone, we watch San wander deliriously to the banks of a river, while intertitles proclaim what follows as a sacrifice for her child. And before you have time to wonder why she has to sacrifice for a child she has already given away, she submerges herself in the water, and the end title appears, concluding the film at the sixty-minute mark.   

The film improves in the second half, and much of this has to do with Pickford’s energetic and emotional performance. Praise should also be doled out to William T. Carleton. Carlton plays the American Consul, and he is the only Western character who seems disgusted by Pinkerton cavalier attitude toward marriage and parenthood. I got the feeling that Pinkerton is not the first American he has come across who lacked a sense of honor or responsibility. Unfortunately, the latter half of the film suffers from scene after scene of San trying to locate a robin. See, Pinkerton had told her he would be back when robins returned, and instead of interpreting the remark as referring to a time of year, San…oh never mind.  

The film is said to have been a box office success, and given its leading lady, I don’t doubt it. I also have no doubt that 1915 moviegoers reacted positively to Pickford’s performance. After all, they could relate to it. Pickford’s depiction of “Japanese” is purely American, requiring no understanding of Japanese culture or social mannerisms to comprehend, and it reinforces the Western notion that American men, even those who use women and then desert them, are so unique that it is better to die than move on from one. Did audiences view the film in this light in 1915? Probably not. Contemporary audiences likely will, though, and Madame Butterfly suffers as a result. (on DVD) 

2 and a half stars

Review - Stella Maris

October 25, 2020 

Stella Maris – US, 1918

At the height of her fame, Mary Pickford chose to make Stella Maris, a film about two women, Stella Maris, bedridden since childhood, and Unity Blake, an orphan. Both young ladies are rather sweet: Stella is greatly delighted by the picturesque views of her aunt and uncle’s vast property, while Unity displays an optimism that many in her situation would have long ago abandoned. The two of them could easily have been the best of friends. Could is the key word there, for other than a few brief conversations, the two rarely interact, and the reason for that is something neither of them had a direct hand in. Destiny saw to it that Stella would not want for anything, while fate put Unity on a collision course with hardship and cruelty. 

Both characters are played by America’s Sweetheart during the Silent Era, Mary Pickford, and Pickford pulls off the trick superbly. Stella is closer to Pickford’s normal role, and the fact that she played it is said to have put the film’s financial backers at ease, for, who, they reasoned, would want to see Pickford look homely and ordinary. Stella is the picture of youthful innocence and cheerfulness, and she is so loved that in one scene neighborhood children dance for her and then line up to give her flowers. She is also visited by John Risca (Conway Tearle), and each time he visits, Stella adopts the persona of a queen being called upon by one of her loyal subjects. John, unreservedly smitten with Stella, plays along, even kissing her hand the way one visiting a princess might. As Unity, Pickford adroitly adopts a distinct personality and alters both her appearance and mannerisms. Unity is timid and vulnerable, yet retains an optimistic streak. A few decades later, she could have been the main character in one of those romantic comedies in which an ugly duckling character blossoms into the beautiful swan after altering her hair style and choice of clothing.

Thankfully, Stella Maris is not that kind of film, yet it is about two characters awakening to the reality that the world can be a cold place. We learn that Stella’s aunt and uncle have successfully kept the real world a secret from her. Her world is one in which food is plentiful, nature is lush and green, and men are princes from enormous castles – in other words, it is a fairy tale. Early on in the film, an operation enables Stella to regain the use of her legs, and soon reality rudely inserts itself. While walking around the garden, she comes across a rather poorly dressed family that hasn’t eaten in three days. It is her first encounter with poverty, and it won’t be her last shock. Pickford plays these moments of awakening perfectly.

Unity, on the other hand, is hardly surprised that life can be cruel; she is, however, shocked by just how malicious it can be. Early on in the film, she thinks she is being adopted, only to learn later that her role is to that of a servant other than a daughter. Things go downhill from there. Her tormentor is Louise Risca (Marcia Manon), John’s abusive, alcoholic wife, and his wife’s actions stir John to give Unity a better home. You would think this would indicate that things are looking up for her, but it should be noted that what she does as John’s adopted daughter is not that different from what she did for Louisa.

There’s much to like about Stella Mars, from Pickford’s stellar performances, the excellent work of Tearle and Manon, and Marshall Neilan’s effective directing to the story’s effective display of the economic divide and the subtle classism of some of the film’s upper class characters. For example, John is reminded that his wife was “a commoner” when he married her and Stella’s aunt is not nearly as empathetic toward the poor as Stella is. It is also interesting that the topic of divorce is never broached, not even after Louise is sent to jail for three years. I suspect the topic - and the public’s possible reaction to it - made studio heads anxious. Maybe it shouldn’t have. Just two years after the film’s release, Pickford and Hollywood A-lister Douglas Fairbanks divorced their spouses and got married; the public’s reaction was a collective shrug.

Unfortunately, photoplayer Frances Marion (or perhaps Pickford herself), working from a novel by William J. Locke, felt the need to devote time to the jealousy that Stella’s dog Teddy develops after a smaller, cuter dog enters the picture. Seeing how dutiful Stella is to the new pup, Teddy conspires to get rid of it. There is even a close up of Teddy as he is apparently hatching the plan. It is a distraction, and it undercuts the tension created by Louisa’s sudden reappearance, as well as Unity’s growing fondness for John. It should be noted, however, that early audience’s generally looked upon such plot lines fondly.

The ending owes a little to Charles Dickens and it is both logical and discomforting. I found myself reflecting on Louise and Unity and wondering what it meant that commoners were depicted as either vicious or undesirable. Sure, Unity is a likeable character and ultimately the hero of the picture, but the film makes it clear that John will never see her the way he sees Stella. And it was jarring to see how quickly John forgets her and how Stella, in spite of her earlier awakening to the brutality of the real world, has no reaction to her actions. Instead, the film ends with her in John’s arms, without even a mention of Unity’s sacrifice. It is as if commoners exist merely to facilitate the dreams of the advantaged.     

Is this an unreasonable quibble? Perhaps. After all, few Hollywood films have really tackled the plights of normal people. It is just easier that way. Characters can fly to Paris at a moment’s notice without having to worry about the higher costs associated with purchasing tickets last minute, can treat their friends to dinner at the fanciest restaurants without fretting about next month’s credit card bill, and can quit a job without having an immediate replacement. However, one of Stella Maris’s key themes is discovery, in particular, Stella’s, and since part of her discovery is the world’s inequality, it is disconcerting that she has no reaction to the fact that her happiness is the direct result of that disparity. A more realistic ending would have had both her and John acknowledge this. Instead, we get the standard Hollywood ending, bliss gained through selective amnesia. How convenient. A pretty good film, but Unity deserved much better. (on DVD)

3 and a half stars

*Stella Maris is a silent movie.

Review - Tartuffe

March 20, 2020

Tartuffe – Germany, 1925

Seldom do I question a director’s decision to make a movie. During the studio system, directors had very little choice in the matter, and I prefer to give directors who made films after its collapse the benefit of the doubt since what we see on the screen does not always match what a director envisioned or intended. However, while I was watching F.W. Murnau’s 1925 film Tartuffe, that question kept resurfacing.

The film is based on the play Tartuffe, first performed in 1664, 65 years after the first staging of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and written by 17^th century playwright, actor and poet Moliere. I mention Hamlet because even if you’ve never heard of Tartuffe, you’re likely familiar with Shakespeare’s drama, and therefore, very little that happens throughout the film’s 63-minute running time is likely to come as a surprise. True, the same can be said of other films adapted from novels, but the plots of these films are not so well known that even people who haven’t read them know their beginning, middle, and end.

To test this notion, let me explain the set-up of Murnau’s Tartuffe: A manipulative housekeeper (well-played by Rosa Valetti) has convinced her elderly employer (Hermann Picha) that his grandson (Andre Mattoni), an actor and supposed playboy, leads such a sinful life that he should be punished for his wickedness. Soon, we watch him write a legal note making her the sole heir to his fortune. The grandson gets wise to the plot, dons a clever disguise, and shows a film to both the schemer and the schemed. Any guess what the point of the film will be?

I should mention here that what I have just described is not in Moliere’s Tartuffe. His play focuses on the impact that a supposedly pious man named Tartuffe has on the family of a man named Orgon, and it has a number of fascinating twists and turns. Unfortunately, most of them have been removed in an attempt to produce a concise and uncomplicated cautionary tale. Gone is Orgon’s mother, who also falls under Tartuffe’s spell; also removed are Orgon’s children, an odd choice given that his daughter’s forced engagement to Tartuffe provides Orgon’s wife with a powerful motivation for wanting to expose him for the fraud he is. In Murnau’s version, there’s just Tartuffe, Orgon, his wife, Elmire, and Dorin, one of their housekeepers.

The result of this is that Tartuffe becomes a brief, overly simplified cautionary tale told not to detail the tragedy that can befall people who trust far too easily, but to send the message I know what you’re up to, a message that Murnau apparently doesn’t think has adequately been delivered, given how quickly the grandson reveals himself and announces his suspicions to his grandfather. This robs Moliere’s tale of much of its power, and while I’m not a fan of making changes to films when the director is no longer around to approve them, I could understand if someone decided to remove the film’s bookends and re-release it as a short.

The film was released a year after Murnau’s groundbreaking The Last Laugh. That was the film in which Murnau freed the camera from its stationary tripod, enabling him to use it in new, innovative ways, one of which was to put in on an elevator and film while it moved. As a result, the camera came alive. Murnau’s work here is equally impressive. Watch the way the camera follows Tartuffe as he leaves his room and descends the stairs, his eyes fixed on the Bible in front of them. It is hypnotic. In another scene, he focuses his lens on a picture of Orgon, as his wife struggles to accept the passive, dutiful subject that her husband has become. Suddenly, a tear falls on it, then another. We soon see the woman press her lips against the picture and weep. It is an incredible moment, and Murnau’s camera makes it immensely personal.

I’m not sure Emil Jannings ever gets Tartuffe, playing him more like a depraved Igor-figure rather than someone who could believably attract followers with his religious messages. Only when he reveals his true nature does Jannings begin to play him as a flesh-and-blood character. Werner Krauss fairs better as Orgon, as does Lil Dagover as Elmire, and I admire the way Murnau’s camera enables us to see the world through Tartuffe’s lecherous eyes. We see exactly what he is lusting for, and it made me a bit worried about Elmire’s safety.    

Still, I could never shake the awareness that none of what I was watching really mattered. It was a play performed by an actor, a story told to shake a character of her sense of invulnerability. Eventually Tartuffe would again become something that Tartuffe the play was never intended to be, and I dreaded that. Now I can’t help lamenting what could have been. Murnau was a master storyteller; he fashioned images so powerful that they have become a permanent part of our cinematic memories. Tartuffe has its fair share of such scenes, yet they are diminished by the narrative they are used to support. Tartuffe could easily have been a masterpiece. In its present form, however, it is just a minor beauty - watchable, yet entirely forgettable, an example of what happens when a director and screenwriter don’t trust their source material. It’s a pity, really. Just read Tartuffe. It didn’t need any changes. (on DVD; on Blu-ray in April 28, 2020)

2 and a half stars

*Tartuffe is a silent film.

Review - The Last Laugh

March 12, 2020

The Last Laugh – Germany, 1924

I am roughly halfway through Stephen Michael Shearer’s fascinating biography Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star, and one thing that keeps coming up is the legendary actress’s wardrobe. Swanson apparently believed that moviegoers expected their stars to look the part, and therefore, she spent lavishly on clothing, for both her films and private use. She was a star at a time when the general public, according to Mr. Shearer, was obsessed with wealth and how the wealthy lived. Reviews of Swanson’s films usually included descriptive, laudatory comments on her attire, which could change fourteen times in one film, and she was seen – by herself above all - as a fashion trendsetter. I have reviewed five of her films, and I have yet to comment on what she wears in any of my reviews; it just doesn’t register.

What exactly does Mrs. Swanson’s wardrobe have to do with F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh, a film made in 1924 on the other side of the world? Well, knowing how important it was to dress as if you were a success may help you better empathize with the characters at the heart of Murnau’s tale. In the film, German superstar Emil Jannings, the recipient of the inaugural award for Best Actor in 1927, plays an aging doorman at a high-class hotel called The Atlantic, and he loves his uniform, so much so that he walks to and from work in it. He receives looks of admiration, and his neighbors have a habit of giving him the kind of send-off usually reserved for a military general or Hollywood celebrity. His wife adores him, in the evening, his daughter scans the entrance to their neighborhood for hints of his arrival, and the children in his neighborhood look at him with a mix of pride and envy. They all wish they could wear swanky apparel.

Early in the film, we watch him hold court on a rainy, blustery day at work. At one point, he has to carry a large suitcase into the hotel, and the task takes a physical toll of him. Heavily winded, he sits down in the lobby, has a glass of water, and attempts to get his breathing back under control. Soon however he pops back up and resumes his duties with real vim and vigor. Alas, it is too late for him to escape the judgmental eyes of the hotel manager, who sees the doorman’s temporary respite as a sign that is time to put him out to pasture. The next day he arrives at work to find that he’s been replaced.

It is here that The Last Laugh becomes divisive, veering off in a narrative direction that modern audience may not be able – or willing – to follow, and it all has to do with the doorman’s clothes. If it is true that the clothes make the man, then it can reasonably be said that clothes can emasculate a man, and this is what happens to the unfortunate doorman. However, his reaction is not the problem, for while Jannings overdoes it by making depression look too much like dementia, we get why he would struggle accepting the winds of change and his sudden lower stature – it’s the reactions of his friends and family that confound and infuriate. Suffice to say, they don’t take his demotion very well.

Yes, you read that right - demotion, not termination. You could understand a family’s sudden onset of anxieties as they ponder the reality of unemployment in a section of the world still reeling from the aftermath of World War I. You can understand neighbors seeing the downfall of one of their own as a worrying sign, especially as many of the one’s we see are the same age as the doorman. We can also empathize with a young daughter whose new life with her husband begins just as her ageing parents experience financial insecurity. What I don’t think we can understand is mocking someone who has lost his position in a company or of being so ashamed of a family member in such circumstances that they seek refuge in someone else’s home. In one scene, the doorman’s daughter’s head collapses onto her husband’s shoulder, while his wife looks at him with a look of shame and disdain. Why?

I suspect that audiences in the 1920’s didn’t ask this question. They understood the times and sentiments reflected in the film, and they likely sympathized with the doorman’s family. However, just as current sentiments make Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman hard for modern moviegoers to relate to, they also make the reaction to the doorman’s plight simply indefensible. As a result, the film becomes an unintended indictment on the pettiness of the lower class. They are presented as vile, opportunistic, and absolutely eager to kick a man when he is down. It isn’t enough to have a job and provide for your family; you have to have the position and clothes to match. Nothing else matters.

Yet it does. Millions of people have jobs that do not offer the same level of prestige as being a lawyer or doctor. Their jobs are a means of survival, not the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, and there’s nothing wrong with having them. So, when the doorman looks lost and physically defeated, I wasn’t struck by the tragedy of the moment; instead, it seemed like a bit of an overreaction, of an unexpected jolt that he’d get over in time. And when his family reacted to him as if he’d suddenly come down with the plague or disgraced them irredeemably, my thought was how petty, not how awful for them. In fact, by the end of the film, the only character I truly admired was the hotel’s night watchman, for he’s the only one to show true sympathy to his down-and-out co-worker. And then there’s the film’s disastrous ending, a happy ending that dilutes the film of its power and which the film’s intertitles apologize for in advance. It’s as if Murnau is saying, “Sorry about this. The studio heads made me do it.”

The Last Laugh has a strong set-up, and it is always watchable. Also, like all of Murnau’s films, it is incredibly well directed. I particularly admired how Murnau films scenes from outside windows and how he lingers on the quietness of a neighborhood at the end of a long evening. I was also moved by his depiction of the doorman’s two neighborhoods – the bustling, well-lit, buoyant atmosphere of the hotel and the darker, less chiseled look of the apartment complex where he lives. In one scene, Murnau films the doorman as he notices his wife working hard in the mirror as he is shaving, and in another Murnau fixes the camera on the doorman’s removed jacket as if hangs in a closet, presumably never to be worn by him again. The man was truly a visionary. It isn’t his fault that the film may not resonate like it once did. In fact, it’s probably a good thing. It shows we’ve progressed. Sure, clothes still make the man, but not having the clothes is no longer an indignity. It’s just part of life. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

3 stars

*The Last Laugh is a silent film.

**Since writing this, I've learned of the importance of uniforms in Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War. This makes sense, and what happens in the film certainly bears this out. It doesn't, however, erase my dubiousness concerning the extreme reactions that the family and the neighbors have.

Review - The Docks of New York

February 20, 2020

The Docks of New York – US, 1928

Ahh, the Hollywood hangout - where everyone knows your name, where boisterous crowds of cheerful partygoers dwell and revel at pitches that mere mortals could not, where you and your friends will always find a vacant couch to facilitate your witty banter. It is a place where crowds swell to hear a poet in a business suit dazzle you with a self-righteous hymn, only to be outdone a second later by a flirtatious bartender who speaks of drinks as if they are popular sexual positions. If you’re wondering, that’s Cheers, Friends, and Tom Cruise’s underwhelming 1988 film, Cocktail, but I’m sure you could come up with a number of other examples – Titanic, perhaps. It is an image of sheer absurdity, presenting us with a vision of such excitement that our favorite haunts are made to seem rather pedantic upon comparison.

Much of Josef Von Sternberg’s 1928 film, The Docks of New York, takes place in such a spot, and since Von Sternberg was famous for placing his films in settings he conjured up in his mind – even places like Shanghai and Morocco – I have to assume he didn’t have much experience in the kind of establishment that stokers went to during their brief respites between adventures at sea. Thus, Von The Docks of New York, and it would work fine, were it not for an ending that defaults to that most Hollywood of inventions, the unearned happy ending.

Sternberg creates a place where patrons have boundless energy, where employees have the physiques of bouncers and fist fights break out with uncommon frequency. It is a place of sin and unconcealed infidelity, and it is hardly where one would realistically expect to find a fairy tale involving a tarnished princess and an insincere, promiscuous knight in shining armor. But that is indeed what Von Sternbrg presents us with in

In the film, George Bancroft plays Bill Roberts, a jovial brute whom you’d be forgiven for thinking didn’t have a sincere bone in his body when it comes to the opposite sex. One night, he thwarts a young woman’s suicide attempt, and, for some reason, elects to take her back to his room to recover. The woman’s name is Mae (Betty Compson), and in a telling moment, she describes her predicament with the following revelation: “I’ve had too many good times.” Bill doesn’t inquire any further; he knows exactly what she’s implying. So, he makes the following illogical remark: “Well, you’ve never been out with [me].” Keep this in mind. This is a woman who has just been pulled out of the water and resuscitated. She’s likely deeply depressed and still contemplating suicide. And there’s George suggesting that all she needs is a good romp with him to be as good as new. I didn’t buy it, not even from a guy with the social etiquette of a gnat.

There’s another couple worth mentioning here. Early on, we see a woman partying as if she were having the time of her life. A moment later, she spots a man (Mitchell Lewis) staring at her, and her emotions turn on a dime. The man, referred as The Third Engineer in the opening credits, had previously looked as if he were about to hook up with a woman sitting at a table alone, but we soon learn that they are husband and wife. More importantly, they’ve been separated for three years. She remarks that he’s undoubtedly surprised to find her in a place like that, and indeed, there’s no evidence that he was even interested in reuniting with her while he was in town. In short, we are witnessing a land where broken dreams and unkept promises are commonplace.

Like Von Sternberg’s other films, The Docks of New York is exceptionally well-directed. Von Sternberg was a master with lights, shadows and interiors, and here he created a realistic setting for a film about regular people. We feel the grunginess of the surroundings, as well as the addictive carefree attitude of its inhabitants. In one scene, Von Sternberg bathes Compson in angelic white light, as she sits on Bill’s bed smoking a cigarette, a look of sheer indifference to life on her weary face. Later, he contrasts conversations that hint at budding love and promises of happiness with the room’s dilapidated walls, and we are made to wonder if love has a chance under these conditions. In other scenes, Von Sternberg uses quick pans to give us a glimpse of the various stories underway in the speakeasy that night. It’s rare that we’re reminded that for each character up there on the screen, there is a story in progress.

I can’t say for sure whether the ending of the film is the result of studio interference or not. However, watching it, I couldn’t escape the feeling that it is a cop out. There’s a realistic finale to the story of these two characters, and it is not the one we see on the screen. Characters like these certainly deserve happiness, but nothing in the circumstances Von Sternberg presents us with screams that this is the beginning of theirs, especially since the events in the film take place over twenty-four hours. Just watch the characters’ body language – they both know that their whirlwind romance is a performance, a long tease crafted to make a desired one-night stand a reality.

Alas, this is not the conclusion we get, and it mars what has come before. The Docks of New York is most interesting when it focuses on the envy that Andy feels when he sees someone he views as being below him getting the girl; on the complicated characters of Andy’s wife (played by Olga Baclanova), a woman whose compassion is matched only by her pessimism; and on the face of young Mae, at times resigned to fate, at others appreciative of the distraction that brief glimpses of hope can bring. We empathize with her; we wish her happiness. Von Sternberg gives us that ending, and it is a mistake. A more realistic “Bill” would have been on the ship as the film faded out. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

3 stars

*The Docks of New York is a silent film.

Review - Male and Female

February 13, 2020

Male and Female – US, 1919

There is a stanza of William Ernest Henley’s poem “To: W A” at the center of Cecil B. DeMille’s century-old film Male and Female. It goes like this:  

            “Or ever the knightly years were gone

              With the old world to the grave

              I was a King of Babylon

              And you were a Christian slave”

It is read and reminisced upon by a pampered daughter of privilege named Mary Loam (Gloria Swanson) as well as one of the family servants, Bill Crichton (Thomas Meighan), and - as interpreted by Crichton, at least - it implies that there was a time when their souls found themselves placed into different social roles. The powerful was once powerless; the poor was once rich. It is a rather bleak assessment, for it implies that there is never a time when society is classless, and, therefore, the protagonists in this film will never be allowed the bliss of a happy ending in either this life or the past or future. If that isn’t a spoiler alert, I don’t know what is.

The film has an intriguing opening scene. In lieu of showing us the characters and informing us who is playing them, DeMille introduces us to the members of the Loam family through the eyes of a young servant as he peers through the key holes of each of their rooms. It is mildly amusing, but it serves a greater purpose, one that I’m pretty sure DeMille was intending. Simply put, by looking through the boy’s eyes, we become similar voyeurs. We are looking at the men of the house as they wearily greet the new day, and it is our eyes that fix on the removed clothes of Lady Mary. The boy is soon forcibly removed by Crichton, and he, ever the gentleman, shows incredible restraint. We, on the other hand, follow Mary into her rather enormous washroom, where her servants are preparing her bath. We watch as she approaches her servants, one shoulder exposed. Then the servants hold up a translucent cloth, one that, I might add, then falls, fully exposing Swanson’s shoulders and bare back, and briefly giving them an obscured glance at her backside. The scene doesn’t serve a narrative purpose, but I’m sure it made Swanson a permanent fixture in many young boys’ fantasies.

But I digress. The film also introduces us to Tweeny (Lisa Lee), a servant who is in love with Crichton. How do we know? Well, she has a picture of him in her room, and she places a kiss on it before she begins working. We also meet Lord Brockelhurst (Where do they come up with these names?), played by Robert Cain, another member of the upper class and a suitor for Lady Mary. After getting engaged, Mary and her family embark on a trip to the South Seas. Along the way, their boat crashes into some rocks and the family is forced to take shelter on an island that just happens to have an ample supply of fruit and meat, but no humans. There are even ruins, hinting at previous inhabitants, which, if you think about it, doesn’t make any sense. Humans have rarely abandoned areas that still could still provide them with the means to survive. Pitcairn, this is not.

There’s a naiveté to the rest of the film. For much of its duration, the film places eight individuals – 5 men and three women – on an island, and the consequences of this are remarkably trivial. Sure, there’s the intriguing, if not slightly predictable repositioning of authority – Crichton is the only one who knows how to survive in such a place – yet beyond that the only question the film seems to want to pursue is just who will be successful in their pursuit of the big man – Mary or Tweeny. This part of the film is much more akin to Swiss Family Robinson, a book that is even reference in one scene, than Cast Away. In other words, no one suffers any mental trauma or depression. Instead, they build amazing huts, erect fences for livestock, and even become rather skilled hunters and gatherers. Everyone smiles, the family patriarch does silly things, and the ladies all remain visions of beauty – their hair sparkles, their cheeks remain rosy, and their figures ensure that they’ll return to civilization in the same shape that made the actresses playing them so desirable in the first place. Who knows? Maybe there was a pharmacy on the island.

Into this fantasy world, DeMille inserts one of the most superfluous sequences in film history. In it, we are swept back in time to ancient Babylon, where we see a king that looks remarkably like Crichton and a Christian slave who is the spitting image of Mary. From there, we witness a visual representation of Henley’s poem, one which ends with Swanson’s character choosing death at the hands of lions over a forced life with her Babylonian enslaver. In other words, DeMille did not trust the audience to understand the implications of Henley’s words on their own; we had to see them.

There is a stronger version of Male and Female to be made, one that could not have been made in 1919 or even in 1935, and that version would resemble Lina Wertmuller’s Swept Away far more than Gilligan’s Island. There would be madness, savage competition for companionship, perhaps even pregnancy. There would be more to the switch in power than the realization that only one of them was equipped to made soup, and there would be growing resentment that someone who was once an employee was now be proclaiming himself king. Instead, we get joviality, outdated humor, and one of the chastest pursuits of the only available man on an otherwise uninhabited island that you’ll ever see. It’s a G-rated version of what would likely be an R-rated reality. (on DVD)

2 and a half stars

*Male and Female is a silent film.