King Lear (1916)

King Lear, pre-madness

Directed by Ernest C. Warde
Starring Frederick Warde, Lorraine Huling, Wayne Arey, J.H. Gilmour
Produced by Thanhouser Film Corporation

My final film of 1916 is an adaptation of the classic William Shakespeare tale.  King Lear (Frederick Warde) is divvying up his kingdom amongst his three daughters, but in his vanity, cannot differentiate the empty flattery of his eldest daughters from the actual, but less flowery professions of love from his youngest daughter, Cordelia.  She is banished and marries the French king, while her sisters, Goneril and Regan, take pleasure in ignoring their now powerless and crazed father. The ensuing struggle for control amongst the sisters threatens their property, title and family.  Will any of them survive?

I had high hopes for King Lear.  Ran, Akira Kurosawa's samurai adaptation of the tale, is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I love how Shakespeare's tragedies place the flaws of his characters and their respective worlds on a collision course with an inevitable result.  King Lear as a written work is amongst my favorites.

This, sadly, is not a very good movie.

It's a mediocre retelling with all of the requisite characters and situations present, but without any passion or even coherence through much of the film.  In its own way, it suffers from the same problems that impacted 1911's L'Inferno.  Because the film is silent, but so much of the power of the story is in Shakespeare's prose, you spend much of the movie watching a character's lips move, followed by ten seconds of reading dialogue. This does not make for captivating film making.

It's a shame too because I like Warde in the title role.  Visually, he does a great job of showing the viewer Lear's arc from pompous king to mad wanderer.  At points, it's over the top, but he is touched by madness, so some scenery chewing seems in order.

The rest of the cast is okay.  Honestly, many characters looked similar to one another, so it became hard to track who was who from one scene to the next.

As far as production values, King Lear provides a mixed bag. The actual camera set ups and editing are well done.  The sets themselves are very good.  You never get the sense of scale that you see in Griffith's Intolerance, but it's not necessary here.  However, for some reason all of the characters are dressed like extras in a Nativity play.  And the sword fights are awful.  When characters start dueling, there's no sense of any danger.  It's more like a couple of kids in a high school production on the first day of rehearsal.

One final note relates to Televista's DVD copy of this movie.  The structure of the film (interchangeable actors' lips moving for ten seconds, title card displaying what was just said for ten seconds, repeat) is boring enough. Can we not have the most monotonous, repetitive soundtrack ever playing in the background?  I mean, would inserting a bridge somewhere in one of these songs kill you?  All the music did was highlight the mundane nature of the entire production.

I guess the lesson here is this: making a silent Shakespearean film is a near impossible task. If you show characters reciting dialogue no can hear except through title cards, it's really boring.  You almost have to focus on the plot and jettison the dialogue, but that's the very thing that makes it Shakespeare. At 64 minutes, I'm not recommending this one to anyone.  Go out and rent Ran instead.

Watched on DVD through NetFlix
Photo from Thanhouser Company

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Police (1916)

The Tramp get the better of a policeman

Directed by Charles Chaplin
Starring Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Wesley Ruggles, James T. Kelly
Produced by Essanay Film Manufacturing Company

Police follows the misadventures of our lovable tramp (Chaplin) after he is released from prison.  A preacher offers to help the tramp go straight, but the fraudulent minister really just wants to pickpocket our hero.  The tramp is refused access to a flophouse because he cannot pay, finds and quickly loses a job in a kitchen and runs into an old cellmate asking him to help with a burglary.  Does the tramp return to a life of crime?  Or can he stay on the straight and narrow?

Okay, it's yet another short from Chaplin.  What can I say?  I am really enjoying his early work.  I was not previously familiar with him except for some random clips, so I am really coming to appreciate Chaplin as a storyteller.  Police actually was filmed and released prior to The Floorwalker

This is darker than any of his previous work as Chaplin's tramp is clearly a victim of both circumstance and several characters in the film, but he is also a criminal (just released from prison and pulled back into a life of crime).  The short is most assuredly a comedy, but also provides a social commentary on the conditions and treatment of the poor.  When the tramp finally agrees to participate in the robbery, the viewer does feel like he is out of options.

The comedy is amusing, but not laugh-out-loud funny.  The funniest moments for me were smaller moments: Chaplin using the preacher's beard to dab the tears away, the brief attempt to steal a piano by carrying it under one arm.  Much of Chaplin's stay in the flophouse and the robbery attempt also made me smile, but was not hysterical.

Police continues to establish Chaplin's tramp as a loveable loser. He's Bugs Bunny in a world of Elmer Fudds.  He gets challenged and tempted, but always ends up on the right side of events.  And he makes you smile along the way.

Watched on YouTube: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 (mislabeled).  NOTE: Part 1 is a documentary that I did not watch.
Photo from The British Film Institute

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The Floorwalker (1916)

The Little Tramp is temporarily caught

Directed by Charles Chaplin
Starring Charles Chaplin, Eric Campbell, Lloyd Bacon, Edna Purviance
Produced by Lone Star Studio

Time to return to Charlie Chaplin again for another short.  The Floorwalker follows two storylines until they converge in the middle of the film.  First, we meet the floorwalker (a sort of security guard without the badge) at a department store who conspires with the manager to steal from their employer.  Then, we follow Chaplin's "Little Tramp" character as he creates havoc on the sales floor.  When the floorwalker and the the tramp get in trouble, both notice they bear a passing resemblance to each other.  Maybe if they switch places...

The Floorwalker is Chaplin's first film under his new contract (discussed here).  There's more confidence in the execution here then in his previous shorts as the camera doesn't focus on Chaplin for long stretches of the film.  There's more plot here than in his previous work.  The execution of some of the comic set pieces made me smile, but I can't say I laughed much in this one. 

The funniest moments involve Chaplin and an escalator. He is repeatedly getting knocked onto the moving stairway with impeccable timing to great comic effect.  I particularly like a sequence later in the film where the tramp is chased by Eric Campbell's manager in the wrong direction down the stairs.  Both actors pull off what could have been a meh moment with a great sense of fun.

Less successful is a mirror scene between Chaplin and his doppelganger.  They attempt to imitate each others movements, but never quite pull off the timing.  The fact that the actors are noticeably different sizes doesn't help.

All in all, I enjoyed this one. I know I have not gotten to the Chaplin classics yet, so I'm looking forward to how he grows in the medium.  Definitely worth a watch (and is less than 20 minutes).

Watched on YouTube as Part 1 and Part 2
Photo from Seattle International Film Festival

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Intolerance (1916)

This was a set.  Seriously.

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, F.A. Turner
Produced by Triangle Film Corporation

Intolerance is Griffith's follow-up to his hugely successful (but incredibly racist) epic Birth of a Nation.  Intolerance weaves a narrative from four different stories throughout history: modern day America, ancient Babylon, 18th century France and the time of Christ. The connecting thread of the tales is the impact intolerant people can have on the good and the just, literally upending entire civilizations.

Let's start with the great.  Babylon is one of the most impressive sets I have seen.  Ever.  The scale and scope of the city, populated by hundreds of extras, is massive and Griffith brings the camera back to show you the scale.  The story is engaging with enough plot and characters to fill an entire film.  An unladylike young girl is saved from a forced marriage by the prince of the city.  She returns the favor by fighting for him when the armies of Cyrus attempt to breach the city walls. The battle is gorgeous and includes massive siege towers and a flame-throwing cart that had to have resulted in many injuries amongst the extras.

The marvel of these scenes is their scale.  Griffith appreciated the massive canvas film could provide and built sets that were 100 feet tall.  He was among the first to mount his camera on a crane and, during a feast scene, slowly brings the camera from atop the city down to the steps where revelers are dancing.  During every moment in Babylon you get this tremendous sense of the scope of the place which makes the ending more unfathomable.

However, the most enthralling tale in the movie is the modern day story.  A mill owner, in order to finance his sister's charity, cuts the wages of his workers who then strike.  There is a street fight between the mill owner's men and the workers that ends with the death of the boy's father and the displacement of the workers to find a new life in the city. 

The boy falls into a life of crime, but changes his ways when he meets and marries "the dear one."  However, the boy cannot so easily leave his past behind and is framed for murder.  The story ultimately leads to a thrilling chase as the dear one races a train to convince the Governor to spare her husband.

Griffith again proves his mastery of the medium during this final action sequence.  He gets his camera into places no one else is even thinking about at the time.  The way he tracks the car as it chases down the locomotive while cutting back to the husband's walk to the gallows creates a palpable tension.

Unfortunately, the other two stories do not fare as well.  The French tale feels like its walking the same ground as the other stories with less spectacle and action.  And Jesus only appears to punctuate the mood in other stories.  For example, as the boy is facing the executioner, we cut to Jesus carrying his cross.  Griffith is not interested in giving us a telling of the New Testament; he's interested in Jesus as an exclamation point on his other stories.

You see this dozens of times.  Just this.

The worst aspect of the film is a fifth story Griffith sprinkles throughout and that is the image of his most famous actress Lillian Gish as a mother slowly rocking a cradle.  It is a moment of innocence before intolerance infects the human condition.  It is also pretension injected into what could have been one of the greatest movies ever.  And Griffith constantly returns to this image between and in the middle of scenes.  We get it.  Please move on.

For Griffith, Intolerance was a commercial failure.  In his attempt to attack the critics of Birth of a Nation, he produced a film I feel surpassed his earlier work in every way.  It's a shame the public at the time did not reward the artistic achievement the movie represents.

At over three hours, it is hard to recommend people sit through this one.  I would love to watch the Babylon and modern day stories on their own as I think these would hold up very well even today.

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly
Photos from (what is this?) and 1001 movies you must see before you die

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A Natural Born Gambler (1916)

Bert Williams(left) , the first black media star

Our first 1916 film is a short from the great comedian Bert Williams.  Bert is a member of a fraternal organization that meets in the back of a saloon.  Their leader Brother Scott preaches against the vice of gambling, but that doesn't stop Ben and the other members from breaking out the cards and die once Scott's back is turned.  When high stakes gambler Cicero Sampson shows up, Ben starts a poker game to relieve Sampson of his recent winnings.  But can Ben get away with the game before the police are onto him?

First off, this movie is incredibly racist (particularly the first half).  The title cards have the black cast speaking in an awful dialect and the men are portrayed as drunkards, gamblers and thieves.

That said, Williams really does a great job of bringing humanity to the role.  Williams was vaudeville performer who became famous in the late 1890s and early 1900s.  Biograph Company hired Williams to write, direct and star in his own films, the first time an African American had been granted such power in the film industry.

I think what I liked about the film was its subversive approach.  Williams, the lead, plays his part in blackface, exaggerating the fact that this a black starring performance.  The cast is almost universally black except for the police and the judge at the trial, all positions of authority.  However, Brother Scott, and not the judge, is clearly the ultimate authority figure here.

Ultimately, this is Williams' show.  His expressions throughout are amusing, but the ending long take of him in a jail cell pantomiming one more card game is both funny and sad.

It's a shame Williams did not get more work before his death in 1922. There's the spark of something great here.  You can't help but feel he could have been another Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.  Recommend.

Watched on 123video.nl
Photo from Cruel and Unusual Comedy

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1916: Star Power!

20,000 Leagues in 1916? Mind=blown

We are leaving behind 1915 and the historic but personally frustrating Birth of a Nation for 1916 and the birth of star power.  Charlie Chaplin signs an unprecedented $10,000 per week contract with Mutual Film Company.  Mary Pickford signs her own $10,000 per week contract plus half of her film's profits, making her the first million dollar movie actor.  That's the equivalent of $20 million today, putting her in the same league as the biggest stars in modern film.

This year also featured the first true vampire film (the German Night of Horrors), the first full female nude scene (Daughter of the Gods, also the most expensive film at $1 million), and the first original orchestral score (Thomas Ince's Civilization).

As far as my movie watching goes, I feel like I've hit a rut. The last few (except for Chaplin) have been meh, with the exception of Birth, which got my Irish up for all the wrong reasons. It's like I am running a marathon and the initial excitement of leaving the starting gate has worn off.  Hopefully, 1916 get me more excited.

Speaking of which, this year, I'll be catching D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation followup, Intolerance and black comedian Bert Williams' A Natural Born Gambler, but...

20,000 Leagues under the Sea!  There's a 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea!  I love all movies, but I'm a genre guy at heart so seeing Jules Verne on here just made me smile.  I'm excited about Intolerance, but I cannot wait for 20,000 Leagues.  I'm dying to see how they pull this one off!

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