Son of the Sheik (1926)

Directed by George Fitzmaurice
Starring Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Banky and George Fawcett
Produced by Feature Productions

A troupe of entertainers who prefer to be thieves sit in their camp outside of town, alternately cheating and accusing each other of cheating. Inside one of the tents, Yasmin, the daughter of the group's leader, sits dreaming of the handsome man she met earlier.

The man Ahmed is the son of a sheik (the title character of 1921's The Sheik). He has fallen for the dancer and is on his way to meet her in the ruins next to the criminals' camp.

Unfortunately, the entertainers learn of the lovers' secret rendezvous. They capture and torture the man, while planning to ransom him. Ahmed's right hand man Ramadan rescues him, but our hero believes that his love set him up.

When the troupe comes through the town where Ahmed is recovering, he kidnaps Yasmin to take his revenge. In the meantime, his father is growing impatient with his son's disobedience in recklessness.

Will Ahmed learn the truth about his love?  Can he earn the respect of his father and... wait, did our "hero" really just rape his captive?

I've seen movies overshadowed by a scene, both for good or ill. This may be the first I have seen where an implied scene almost subsumes the entire film.

Ahmed has captured Yasmin and is toying with her. He kisses her and shows her the helplessness of her situation. Then, she begins backing away from him and towards a bed. Fade out

The next time we see her, she is awakening in that same bed and her previous hatred is now boiling over. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what happened to her while the camera cut away.

It's a big and important moment. The movie wants us to root for our young lovers to figure out the earlier misunderstanding and get back together. But there are certain acts you can't take back.

The movie tries to keep us in the couple's corner. Yasmin has been promised to one of the other thieves. And he is a thug and a brute. Truly someone worth reviling. It gives Ahmed a foil to save his girl from. It gives Yasmin someone to run from and into the waiting arms of our hero.

But there are certain genies that just won't be bottled up. The movie comes close to making it work, but redeeming a rapist in the last twenty minutes is a hell of a hill to climb.

It's a shame too, because in most other respects, this is the Rudolph Valentino sweeping epic I have been waiting for. It's got action and romance and plenty of opportunities for Valentino to smolder.

Our lead actor is great in his dual roles as both Ahmed and his father (reprising an older version of his character from The Sheik). As the son, he shows a carefree side, a romantic side, and an angry, dangerous side. As the older sheik, Valentino flexes acting muscles I didn't know he had. He's regal and stoic, but softens when he sees a glimmer of his old self in his son.

Vilma Banky is that exotic beauty that you can see a ruler throwing away his throne for.  She's fiery and smart. And then, she's broken and filled with hate.

The supporting cast is equally good. Karl Dane managed to make Ramadan a memorable character with little screen time.  I get an Adam Baldwin vibe off of his performance.  Agnes Ayres is appropriately doting yet supportive reprising her role from The Sheik.

The use of Valentino's two roles is a technical marvel.  I've seen split screen in earlier films, but here it really seems seamless.  He finds ways to make the characters interact that are ingenious.

Son of the Sheik is a great film overwhelmed by a narrative misstep.  Ahmed could have been cruel.  He could have just slapped Yasmin.  But rape?  Ugh.  The movie wants Yasmin to choose between the hero and the villain.  But how does she know which one is which?

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The Wasp Woman (1959)

100 Years of Movies takes a break from our regularly scheduled programming to participate in the Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear 50's Monster Mash. 

The 1950s and 1960s saw the evolution of a very particular type of monster movie.  Filmmakers created stories that provided cautionary tales against the dangers of man's hubris, greed and vanity.  These were movies with a morale and they got their point across...


...with terrible acting, awful special effects and groan-inducing production values.

Their may not be a better example of the genre than 1959's The Wasp Woman.  Two characters are set up for a fall.  Our scientist who ignores the warnings of other scientists that his ideas are crazy.  And our beautiful cosmetic company CEO whose fading beauty and profits make her desperate.

Our mad scientist Zinthrop works for a honey farm, but he has this notion that introducing wasps to the bee colony may allow him to produce a miracle compound.  His boss tries to talk him down before firing him.  Just to solidify the crazy, Zinthrop starts talking to his wasps.

Meanwhile Janice Starlin has assembled the best minds at her cosmetic company to find a solution for the falling profits.  One of her underlings speaks up.  Starlin has always been the face of the company.  As the wrinkles have set in, the revenues have dropped.  The room is shocked at the suggestion, but Starlin agrees.  People trusted her products to make them look youthful because of her looks.  And those looks are fading.

Enter Zinthrop. He offers to use his wasp jelly to produce a serum that will reverse the aging process.  Starlin is dubious, but when she sees the process demonstrated on a couple of cats, she agrees to fund his work.

Zinthrop begins working in secret and the rest of Starlin's firm becomes suspicious.  When Zithrop readies the first batch of the serum, Starlin insists that she be the first test subject.

And it works.  The lines begin to disappear.  Colleagues comment that she looks ten years younger.  All is well in the cosmetic giant world.

Well, not quite.  One of Starlin's colleagues disappears.  Then, the night watchmen is gone.

Could there be side effects to the serum?  And could they include turning the subject into a half wasp creature that feeds on human blood?

We are in Corman world so of course you know the answer.  Considering we are dealing with the schlock master, the acting and directing here are pretty good.  Susan Cabot in particular is great as Starlin.  She's not the one note megalomaniac a lot of people playing these roles go for.  You see conflict.  Before she meets Zinthrop, she seems to have accepted her aging.  Greed and vanity only come into play once she sees the possibilities.

Still it's Corman.  We know the smart guy is smart because he smokes a pipe.  We know the two young lovers will be critical to solving the mystery.  And we know the baddie will ultimately be a woman running around in a wasp mask.

They take the Jaws approach to that reveal.  We only see Starlin as the wasp woman at the end and it helps ramp up the tension.  Of course the reveal is disappointing, but it's also campy as hell.

The Wasp Woman is a great entry into the world of schlocky monster b-movies.  It has a message it beats you over the head with, some unintentionally funny acting and a plot that touches on universal themes.  Oh, and it has a guy with a pipe.

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The General (1926)

Directed by Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
Starring Buster Keaton, Marion Mack and Glen Cavender

Johnny Gray is a man with two loves: his girl Annabelle and his train named The General. When shots are fired at Fort Sumter, Johnny tries to enlist in the Confederacy, but the recruitment office decides he is more valuable as a conductor.   Annabelle assumes he is a coward and refuses to see him until he is wearing a uniform.

A year later, Johnny is still working on his beloved train and still loves Annabelle from a distance.  Union soldiers steal The General to use as a Trojan Horse in a campaign against the confederates.  Johnny is soon in pursuit in another train.  To raise the stakes, Annabelle has been captured on The General by the Union army.
Can Johnny recover both of his loves?  Can he warn the Confederate Army of the coming danger?  And will it all be enough to win back the hand of his girl?

Okay, confession time: I really struggled with this review.

I turned on The General with pretty high expectations. It's generally acknowledged as a classic. I knew of the movie from a slew of "Best Movie Ever" type lists, but I didn't know anything about it.

It took some warming up for me to like this movie. I don't love it, but I like it.

Maybe it's the burden of expectation. Not that it would be the greatest film ever, but that it would be funny. I mean that's what a Buster Keaton film is all about, right?  My expectation was a stitch-busting comedy in the vein of his previous work.

It's not funny, or at least that's not principally the focus. Call it an action film or a chase film, but it's really not a comedy.

Once I accepted the movie on its own terms, I started to really enjoy it.

The General has two big things going for it: an interesting premise creatively executed and the complete fearlessness of its star.

At its core, this is a chase movie between a couple of trains. Think about that for a moment. A chase. Between two trains. On the same track. How interesting could that possibly be?

In the right hands, it turns out it can be enthralling. The film constantly wrings drama and tension out of the situation and it's endlessly inventive in creating new obstacles for the trains.

We see debris thrown onto the track. Rail switches used to dramatic effect. Rail cars set on fire and released. Wood dropped from an overhead rail onto the train passing below. Keaton and his crew understand the world of the train and squeeze out all of the dramatic possibilities.

Of course, to realize the drama and humor of the script, you need a star who is game for anything. And Keaton is audacious.

The danger to the star throughout the film only really hit me during a quieter moment. Keaton is standing on one of the cars chopping a piece of wood. My brain says: " man, he is awfully close to the edge... [pause] ... Oh my God, he is doing all of these stunts himself on a moving train!"

When today's Hollywood actor performs a dangerous stunt, the studio makes damn sure you know it in a "Wow, that really is Tom Cruise climbing the mountain" kind of way. The General never does that. It never underlines the peril the hero is constantly in.

Whether he is absent-mindedly moving up and down on a tender or sitting on the cowcatcher of a moving train, you never feel like it's a stunt. He races across train cars, jumps on and off moving engines and sits next to steel wheels that could crush him, but it's all second nature to Johnny Gray  It simply what the character has to do to clear the next hurdle.

That highlights one of the slight issues I had with the film. That constant danger never feels... well, dangerous. Keaton is so at ease in racing around that train that it undercuts a bit of the tension of his situation. If he had almost fallen or if we'd seen something crushed by the train, it may have amped things up. 




The movie features an ending action sequence that makes you scramble for Google.  Yes, Keaton really crashed a train surrounded by all those extras.  What today would be a moment of CGI trickery involved tons of steel and iron providing real human peril.  Remarkable.

I liked The General. A lot, but I didn't love it. That said, I am anxious to revisit it so I can experience the film without my prior preconceptions. It's a remarkable achievement to create a chase film between two trains, let alone one that has both tension and humor.

**** out of *****

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Simple Question, NOT So Difficult Answer: Keaton

So our first poll closes with a landslide victory for Buster Keaton over Charlie Chaplin. 73% to 26%. That's a spanking.

A year ago, before I started watching the films, this would have been shocking. My perception as an outsider to the silent film world was that there was Chaplin first, then everyone else. Having watched a lot of films by both men, I can totally understand this poll result.And agree with it.

My only trepidation is that I still have the bulk of Chaplin's classics (Modern Times, City Lights, The Great Dictator) yet to come. I was hopeful that things might improve a lot but... recalibrating expectations, recalibrating expectations... okay, I'm good.

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Simple Question, Difficult Answer: Chaplin or Keaton?

Keaton and Chaplin together

Time for our first 100 Years of Movies poll.  And it's a doozy.  An obvious doozy, but still a doozy.

Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton?

The Tramp or The Great Stone Face?

The Kid or The General?

Obviously, I still have a way to go before I can reach my own conclusion, but I have a preference today. 

So what do you think?  Poll is in the right sidebar.  Feel free to show your work below.

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Alice Comedies of 1926

Disney and KKK-like killers

Produced by Walt Disney Productions

I recently watched Alice's Mysterious Mystery, Alice's Little Parade, and Alice's Orphan. The experience allows me to say without hesitation:

Walt Disney was a messed up guy.

Of course, I say that as a modern viewer revisiting these. I am sure they are "of their time," but I just do not get it.

Let's start with Alice's Mysterious Mystery. I figured a fun detective comedy would be a way to forget my issues with the 1925 shorts. Man, was I wrong.

The "mystery" is solved pretty quickly as Alice and her cat follow footprints to a bird with shoes. But that leads them to a mouse and what-I-am-assuming-is-a-bear are operating a dog catching racket where they capture canines and ship them to a sausage factor.

How do they do this?  By donning KKK outfits, sorting the dogs (grade A or B) and sending them to the death chamber. Especially disturbing was a scene where a dog is pacing on death row and a priest arrives to give the last rites. The dog begs for his life, gets dragged into a death chamber and moments later, is dragged back out as links of sausage.  For a viewer in 2011, it's hard not to view this short through the eyes of World War II Germany.

In a similar vein, Alice's Big Parade has a misleading title. It's actually about preparing and executing a war.  Alice is the general, but her cat is the recruiter/field commander. As in previous shorts, the feline can remove his tail to use as a weapon. As they battle the mice, the cat stations himself at one end of the enemy's trench and leaves a slice of cheese.  As the mice are drawn to the smell, the cat clubs them over the head with his tail.

Alice's Orphan is about an orphan cat that Alice and her pet take care of. There were again some cringe-worthy moments. Early on, the cat is watching a female cat ice skate when she falls into the lake. He makes the save and she instantly falls in love with him.  But there's a problem: she's ugly. So the cat throws her back into the hole and seals it up (presumably drowning her). Later, when he unsuccessfully tries to get the orphan to sleep, our cat hero resorts to using a mallet on the child. Not funny. Not even smile-inducing.

The shorts continue the trend of completely sidelining the title character. She's slightly active in Alice's Mysterious Mystery, but in the other two, she's a non-entity. In Alice's Orphan she is barely in it and does nothing. I thought part of the appeal of these was the interaction between live action and cartoon characters?

I have never watched anything by Disney and felt like I needed to shower afterward. Until these Alice shorts. They are an historical curiosity but nothing more.

Alice's Mysterious Mystery: * out of *****
Alice's Little Parade: ** out of *****
Alice's Orphan: *1/2 out of *****

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The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)

Directed by Lotte Reiniger
Produced by Comenius-Film GmbH

The caliph is holding a celebration and people from all over have come with wonders never seen in order to win the ruler's favor. There is one item the caliph sees that he simply must have: a flying horse presented by an African sorcerer. The caliph offers gold and the sorcerer refuses. The magician says he wants something else and the king quickly decrees he can have anything as trade for the horse.

What the magician wants is the caliph's daughter Dinarsade. Her brother Prince Achmed comes to her defense and the sorcerer apparently gives up. He offers to show the prince how to fly the horse and off Achmed goes. Unfortunately, he never shows Achmed how to land the horse so up, up and away goes our title character.

Achmed eventually figures out there is a lever by the tail to descend and lands on Wak Wak island, the home of the beautiful Princess Peri Banu. Our hero is smitten and takes her away with the Wak Wak spirits in pursuit.

The prince must save the princess and defeat the sorcerer. His quest will take him to China. He'll battle snakes and bats and demons.  He'll meet Aladdin and the Fire Mountain Witch along the way. But will he find love and vengeance?  Or death?

Here we have The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the oldest surviving, feature length, color animated film. Usually, in my film review, this is where I talk about characters and plot and scenes. We'll forgo that for the most part and focus on one aspect: the experience.

First, let me explain the animation. This is not hand-drawn cel animation or CGI (obviously). It's cut out animation. The creator took thousands of cardboard cut out figures and filmed them, moving them one frame at a time. The aesthetic is akin to watching South Park if the characters were composed entirely of black cardboard.

Except in Prince Achmed it's incredibly more detailed. Your watching a movie narrative, but your mind keeps marveling at the effort and skill that must have been required to make water shimmer or creatures transform.

Your assumption going in is that these flat silhouettes without the benefit of detailed faces would fail to captivate. But the mind is a funny thing. It fills in the gaps that are not on the screen. The shadowy versions of the figures become blank slates for your brain to draw on. And your imagination provides smiles and scowls that aren't really there. 

There is also a hypnotic effect to the animation style. It flows over you in a way that animation can but rarely does. It's gorgeous to look at.

That's not to say it's perfect. The animation often has a fluidity that is breathtaking, but there are also moments where the frame-to-frame transitions become jittery. Not unexpected for its time but the transitions between smooth and staccato animation are noticeable because they so often are juxtaposed against each other.

I could critique the story and characterization, but that never seems to be the point of The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Simply put it on and let it wash over you.

**** out of *****

NOTE: I think most people assume Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) was the first feature length animated film. Obviously, that is not the case. Beyond that though, Prince Achmed itself was pre-dated by The Apostle (1917) and Without a Trace (1918). Both of those are lost films so The Adventures of Prince Achmed gets the slightly awkward to say "oldest surviving animated feature-length" crown.

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The Temptress (1926)

"You should see the other guy..."

Directed by Fred Niblo
Starring Greta Garbo, Antonio Moreno and Marc McDermott
Produced by Cosmopolitan Productions

During an exotic masquerade ball, the beautiful Elena runs from the dance floor to escape her would-be suitor Fontenoy.  Her flight takes her right into the arms of Manuel Robledo and as often happens in Hollywood the two fall in love.  She refuses to share her name, but Robeldo soon discovers she is the wife of his friend, the Marquis de Torre Bianca. 

Yes, Elena is a married woman, but her husband enjoys living beyond their family's means. So, he rents out his wife to the wealthy Fontenoy. Sadly, Fontenoy is a bit over-indulgent and bankrupts himself by showering gifts upon Elena.

To forget his love, Robeldo heads to the Argentine to work as lead engineer on a dam project. The escape doesn't go to plan as the Marquis and Elena soon join him.  And as if Robeldo's trouble with love wasn't enough, a local gang leader wants to take out Robeldo and his dam.

Will Robeldo escape the evil Manos Duras and find love?  Will anyone with an XY chromosome not immediately start acting like an idiot after meeting Elena?

The Temptress is a romantic drama, but it's one of those romantic dramas.  You know, a film where every guy falls all over themselves to please the woman.  And Greta Garbo's Elena is the woman.

We've seen this act before, most notably with Theda Bara in A Fool There Was.  Unlike Bara's vamp character though, Garbo just seems to be a beautiful woman whose men suffer from bad luck once they are under her power.

That's not to say she's not culpable.  She indulges the men and clearly loves the attention.  When she moves to the Argentine, she dons an elegant dress for their frontier dinner and gets called out for it.  But she's not changing her dress or her ways.  When the fish are biting, why mess with the bait?

As for the bad luck of her men, Elena qualifies as her own natural disaster.  Through her involvement, Fontenoy is bankrupted and commits suicide, her husband is shot and killed, one of Robeldo's friends is killed by another of his friends and the dam gets blown to smithereens.  There are hurricanes without that kind of resume.

It's also one of those films in its dialogue.  A sampling:

"I must have you alone - I have so much to say to you. I've waited so long - just for you - "


"All my life, I've been wishing to meet such a woman as you - on such a night as this!"

"Let us keep for an hour the glamour of romance.  I tell you this - I belong to no one else."

"Remember this of me- there were tears in my eyes when I said - - 'I love you!'"

All of these are from the first ten minutes of a 105 minute movie.  If you are like me, you'll need a doctor's visit to remove your finger from your throat.  And those hyphens are important.  They are the dramatic, One Life to Live pauses that are present in every line of dialogue.  Every -- line.

I have not said much about Garbo and frankly that's because there is not much to say.  Elena doesn't do much.  What we know about her comes more from everyone's reaction to her and not from anything she does.  Elena is a blank slate of eyes looking meaningfully at some off-camera horizon as men swoon.  That said, Garbo does inhabit the character in a way that you get the attraction.  The camera loves her and so does the audience.

I wish there was another character I liked.  Robledo is close to a hero, but he's a little too wimpy for most of the film.  Then at the end, as he is motivating his crew to try to save the dam, he threatens to shoot the first man to desert.  Then, he randomly shoots someone.  Your hero, ladies and gentlemen!

Niblo shoots the film well enough.  There are some truly beautiful shots throughout.  His images of Paris and the masquerade party are warm and beautiful.  His gauzy lens makes Garbo glow and there is nothing wrong with that.

There was one sequence that surprised me with its violence.  Robledo challenges Duras to a fight and after debating swords versus pistols, they settle on an Argentine fight.  The crowd drew a circle in the sand, handed the two men whips and let them go at it.  First one to leave the circle loses.  When Robledo finally wins, both men are a bloody mess.  The moment underlined just how dangerous this world was and heightened the stakes for the rest of the film.

The Temptress is predictable and features annoying dialogue.  Still, it's not without its charms, principally Garbo and the way the men who surround her are dispatched.  All of that gets us to:

** out of *****

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The Black Pirate (1926)

Directed by Albert Parker
Starring Douglas Fairbanks, Billie Dove and Anders Randolf
Produced by Elton Corporation

It's a time when cannons and cutlasses reign supreme, when pirates ruled the seas and sailors shivered at the sight of the Jolly Roger.

In the midst of this, a nobleman marooned on a remote island vows revenge upon the buccaneers who murdered his father. Opportunity rears its head when pirates arrive to bury their treasure.

Our nobleman decides to pretend to be a pirate, join the crew and destroy it from the inside. He wins a duel against the crew's best fighter, then singlehandedly captures a merchant ship. The impressed pirates take on the mysterious Black Pirate as their leader.

The cutthroats aboard the pirate ship want to scuttle the captured vessel, kill its crew and make off with the loot. The Black Pirate convinces them to ransom the ship and it's crew instead. This is of course a ruse and he sends a note to the governor with one of the captives asking to send troops, not ransom money.

Complicating the Black Pirate's schemes are a damsel in distress who has been promised to one of the lead pirates. That pirate wants not only the girl, but the Black Pirate's job as boss. Can our hero navigate through the murky waters of piracy?  Or will he be found out and forced to walk the plank?

Here we have The Black Pirate, the great grandfather of every pirate movie since. You can see the DNA of Jack Sparrow in Douglas Fairbanks' performance. Everything you know and love is here: peg legs, the skull and crossbones, buried treasure, walking the plank, sword fights, all of it here.

However, more than that, The Black Pirate has some jaw-dropping set pieces. The standout moment is Fairbanks' singlehanded, bloodless assault on the merchant ship. The guile and skill of the character is on full display and you actually believe he could have pulled the feat off.

There is also a visually beautiful climax that includes an intentionally sunk longboat and a platoon of troops swimming underwater.   It's a legitimate "how'd they do that?" moment.

Less successful is an opening sword fight between Fairbanks and one of the pirates. It's good, but overlong and not much really happens during it. The finale of the duel is clever and allows are hero to win and not dirty his hands too much.

Another notable thing about the film?  Color!  Yes, the film was actually made in color. The technique adds a depth and character through it's muted tones. As someone who has been feasting on a parade of black and white, the change was both shocking and effective.

As with most Fairbanks' films though, the film has some significant problems. The actor is wonderful in the physical sequences, but awful at acting. He emotes in a way that makes him seem like he is screaming every line. And his gestures made me wonder if he was making a point or having a seizure.

There are plot elements that make no sense. The villains meet the hero on the beach and almost immediately offer, not just to bring him onto the crew, but to anoint him leader. I would not think pirates to be such a trusting lot.

There is also a pirate who helps Fairbanks throughout. Even when it becomes apparent the hero is not on the up-and-up. Why?  Who knows?

But really the plot is a series of contrivances to shuttle our lead from set piece to set piece. And on that level it succeeds. The Black Pirate is not a great movie, but it's fun enough for a watch and critical to an understanding of the pirate movie family tree.

*** out of *****

Note: Fairbanks' wife Mary Pickford prohibited her husband from kissing other actresses, even in character. So, we get an awkward moment in the middle of the film where Fairbanks just hugs his damsel for a while. When they finally kiss the girl's back is to the camera with her face hidden. Why?  Because Pickford stepped into the role to perform the smooch.

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1926: Death of a Heartthrob

Crowds line Valentino's funeral procession route.

We've reached 1926.  NBC is established as a radio network, ultimately leading to The Cosby Show and Caroline in the City (they can't all be winners).  Route 66 is established and a legend begins. Dance legend Martha Graham gives her first New York performance.

In the film world, it's a year of notable premieres.  Alfred Hitchcock releases his first feature in the U.S. (The Pleasure Garden). John Wayne shows up uncredited in his first role as a football player in Brown of Harvard. Don Juan marked the debut of the Vitaphone, a technique that synchronized sound and effects with the movie (though there was no dialogue). 

This is also the year that sadly one of the icons of the silent era passed on.  Rudolph Valentino was 31 when he collapsed at a New York City hotel suffering from appendicitis.  Despite surgery and an initial optimistic prognosis, Valentino died on August 23.  His death sparked a mass outpouring of grief with almost 100,000 people lining up to pay their respects.  Valentino's death began a sad Hollywood ritual of celebrating the life of an artist struck down in his prime and wondering what might have been, a ritual we continue to practice right up to actors like James Dean and Heath Ledger.

As to the movie-watching, I guess I should make a note about 1925 and moving forward. The project started out watching three to five films from each year. For 1925, I watched 16 films. Crazy, but it does reflect a slight recalibration of philosophy. I decided that I am only walking this path once, so anything that strikes my fancy will get a watch. No more hard or even soft ceiling on what I'll watch.

What will the films of 1926 look like here? Well, I have become a huge Buster Keaton fan so The General is a natural. I am intrigued by Prince Achmed, the first animated feature length movie.  I am also planning on catching Douglas Fairbanks' The Black Pirate and F.W. Murnau's awesomeness in Faust.  I'm also planning my farewell to Valentino by watching Son of Sheik.

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Greed (1924)

Mac is ready to attack

Directed by Erich von Stroheim

Starring Zasu Pitts, Gibson Gowland and Jean Hersholt

Produced by Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corporation

Before moving onto 1926, we take one last backward look to 1924 and Erich von Stroheim's Greed. Widely considered the director's masterpiece, Greed is as much known for its tortured history as its critical praise. The film was originally ten hours long. The studio naturally cut it back to two hours and the eight hours lost is considered one of the great tragedies of the silent era. 

I can't speak to the value of the ten hour version or even the two hour version. I cannot imagine sitting down to watch a half day long movie. I also cannot fathom trying to get through a two hour film that was butchered from a film five times longer. 

The four hour restored version is a good compromise. It includes the two hour version cut together with production stills and intertitles that fill in the story gaps. The editors use the camera to zoom into and out of photos to focus our attention, an approach that works well. 

So how is the movie I saw?

In a word: brilliant. 

When the word "epic" is applied to movies, it usually means world-altering events, massive landscapes and larger-than-life characters. Greed is an epic, but it's an epic writ small. The movie alters the world of these characters in massive and tragic ways. 

At its heart, Greed is about three characters. McTeague is a simple man in both thought and desire. Marcus is his best friend, always looking for the next angle. And Trina is Marcus' cousin and the object of both men's desire. 

Marcus reluctantly steps aside for his friend "Mac" and Trina agrees to marry him, though it's clear she's not entirely in love with him. Then, a fourth character introduced: money. And the idea of cash wreaks havoc on their relationships. 

Trina wins $5000 in a lottery. She invests the money, but becomes a miser stealing from her husband at every opportunity. McTeague wants to spend a little more freely, which of course puts him at odds with his wife who is squirreling away every penny. And Marcus damns his own luck. If he had just ended up with Trina, he'd be the rich man. 

A creepy example of the gold tint used at key moments

Greed does not do the obvious Hollywood thing and let its characters become rich and addicted to an unrealistic, lavish lifestyle. The film is far more interested in the concept of money. Before the lottery win, none of the characters really knew what they didn't have. Once one of them gets a check, their entire existence becomes preoccupied with earning, stealing, or hustling the next dime. 

It's not accurate to say though that the money creates the characters' failings.  The money simply magnifies the flaws that were already there. Marcus was always looking for the latest fashion or coolest turn of phrase.  He used artificial means to make himself superior. When the lottery win shows him how little he really has, he has to lash out. McTeague has a gentleness to him, but an anger as well.  Our introduction to him is him throwing a man from a bridge during an argument over a bird.

McTeague rises above it for a while. But then he loses his dentistry practice (turns out you need to be licensed). And he can't hold down any other job. By the time Trina is refusing to give her husband a nickel for carfare to get to a job interview in the rain, we all know this is not going to end well. 

The stakes could not be higher. I'd say love is at stake, but true love was never in the cards for any of these people. We see where the high road leads in a couple of elderly neighbors who discover they're soulmates. And we see the path to hell in a craven junk dealer and his wife. And while the former is held out as an ideal, it is never a real option.

I love the tale spun here.  The movie is populated with some great dialogue and quirky characters supporting a tale of mankind's depravity. If this were being remade today, Joel and Ethan Coen would be behind the characters

The acting here is great. None of the players are inhabiting real characters. Rather, they are the personification of greed and goldlust, but that's exactly what the movie needs. As her desire for more cash takes over, Zasu Pitts plays Trina as completely unhinged. I particularly liked Gibson Gowland as McTeague. Even in his kindest moments, you can feel the rage bubbling below the surface. The secondary characters all perfectly execute what the script requires.

The real star is the director himself. The framing and editing are first rate. More than that, the film uses perspective to make McTeague feel larger than life. It's the type of camerawork Orson Welles turned into an art form in Citizen Kane. 

Greed is a tale of envy, stealing, murder and, well, greed. It tracks the way men and women can allow jealousy and sin to fester like a cancer until it consumes them totally. By the time McTeague is escaping into Death Valley, we know that's not just a place, but the inevitable conclusion to this epic morality play. 

***** out of *****

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Shameless Self-Promotion: LAMB Photoshop Contest

The Large Association of Movie Blogs (LAMB) is running a new feature where members can submit themed photoshops.  The first one was centered around Michael Bay directing a classic film. 

Of course I had to enter.

I went with a Gone with the Wind theme.  If you have a moment, please go here now and vote.  Of course, I would love for you to vote for mine, but the important thing is to go here and vote!

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RMOCJ: President's Speech from Independence Day

Movies and movie criticism can be terrible, cynical and soul-crushing. So why do we go to the movies? Random Moment of Cinematic Joy highlights a moment, scene, character or film that is awesome in a way that can refill your reservoir of faith in films.

 Today we are going with the painfully obvious.

Roland Emmerich's Independence Day is a big old hunk of cheese.  The dog leaping to safety, winning via computer virus, Randy Quaid: all Limburger.  But, for me, it's cheese in the best possible way.

Which is why this scene always makes me smile.  Bill Pullman as the President during an alien attack has an earnestness throughout that is pitch perfect.  Here, they give him the big motivational speech before the battle that they all believe to be suicide.  The music, the awkward beginning moment where the microphone doesn't work, the extra crazily saluting at the end: all crazily awesome.

Happy Fourth of July!

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The Last Laugh (1924)

Directed by F.W. Murnau
Starring Emil Jannings, Maly Delschaft and Max Hiller
Produced by Universum Film (UFA)

This is where I normally provide a plot synopsis of the movie, so here it goes:

An elderly porter at a hotel has trouble getting a suitcase from the roof of a car in the rain. Winded, he takes a break and a drink. This is observed by the hotel manager who demotes the porter to the position of washroom attendant. The loss of status turns the man's world completely upside-down.

That's it. An elegantly simple tale. The trick is it is told by two absolute masters: F.W. Murnau and Emil Jannings.

Most films of this era are locked into their scene and their subject. It's a matter of technology of course, but the best directors know how to use that limitation combined with editing to tell their tale.

Murnau frees his camera. It moves around the hotel where the porter works, the apartment where he lives, the streets that he walks. It doesn't just dolly around; it floats and flies. It races down a hall so we can see what awaits or zooms in tight to the ear of a gossiping neighbor. It reveals characters hiding or sleeping or being stalked. The complete freedom of the camera creates a suspense about what is lurking out of the frame or where the camera may go next.

Murnau also brings in the expressionistic elements he's so well associated with. After the porter loses his prized job, the hotel itself becomes a thing of menace, not just towering over our hero, but reaching down as if to attack him. In a dream sequence, we see the man's idealized version of his job, standing guard before a revolving door that reaches up to heaven.

And that dream sequence... Just perfect. We start with him before the doors. Then he sees six men struggling with a trunk. He marches over to the men and lifts the suitcase over his head with one. Then, he marches into the crowded hotel lobby and performs for the assemblage by tossing the immoveable object high into the air. Murnau imbues the scene with gauzy dreamlike movement by using that mobile camera. It's simultaneously sedate and kinetic.

As for Jannings in the lead role, he is masterful. Good actors can play any emotion. With Jannings, his characters can seemingly lock that emotion on their face.   That ability is critical to this film's success.

For the film to work, we have to believe that Jannings character's position, his status, his very life are tied to this job. And Jannings sells that. We see his pride in wearing the ornate doorman's coat. He walks the streets not as a hotel employee, but as a conquering general. He has dignity and pride. He is not just a man; he's THE man.

And when that coat is taken from him, we see him diminished. We see his age and his frailty. He's lost and rudderless. When he steals back his coat, it's not rebellious or defiant. It's pathetic. And when he later returns the coat, it is a depressingly sad moment. The general has been utterly defeated.

SPOILERS. There is a tacked on "happy" ending that I can imagine will divide opinion. Some will like to see our hero get some reward for his pain. Others will hate the out of left field saccharine epilogue. I read it a third way: it's a complete demonstration of just how terrible our porter's life is. The author has to break the fourth wall to save the man as there was no way he could do it himself. That's an exclamation point on his plight.

As with most films, The Last Laugh has problems. The biggest is the way his family and neighborhood react to his demotion. His wife runs screaming from him. His neighbors sit and wait so they can laugh at him. It's absurd in a way that underlines the porter's pathos, but it also drags the viewer out of the movie.If you saw your significant other in a position of a lesser station, would you react like Jason Voorhees just appeared with a shiny, new chainsaw? I think not.

That is picking the smallest of nits compared with the artistic achievement of The Last Laugh. It may be judged too slow by some, but Murnau and Jannings have teamed to deliver a film that seems impossibly brilliant when compared to its contemporaries. It is emotionally raw and technically exemplary. This is one of the best films I have ever seen. Period.

***** out of *****

NOTE: Yes, I know this out of order. The guys on the Battleship Pretension podcast recently did a Murnau retrospective and extolled the virtues of The Last Laugh. The need to watch this has been gnawing on my brain ever since.

This film also seems to introduce a time-honored trope. If you've ever seen a movie show someone is drunk by either showing their head as the room rotates around them or by showing the lush's perspective through unfocused, jittery camerawork, both of those are here.

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