Thursday, March 14, 2024

The NFR Project: "It" (1927)


‘It’

Dir: Clarence Badger, Josef von Sternberg

Scr: Hope Loring, Louis D. Lighton

Pho: H. Kinley Martin

Ed: E. Lloyd Sheldon

Premiere: Feb 19, 1927

72 min.

This is a story about early cross-promotion, or, as you might call it, a racket.

Elinor Glyn was an English writer who specialized in popular literature – that is, lightly erotic and racy material, stuff to amuse the casual reader of romances. She went to Hollywood, and crafted 28 screenplays there in the course of a decade during the silent period. She was phenomenally successful, and she began to be regarded as an arbiter of taste.

She coined the idea of “It” in 1914. A simple euphemism for sex appeal, she wrote on “It” in Cosmopolitan, a popular magazine. She dubbed up-and-coming actress Clara Bow as the “’It’ Girl.” Glyn supplied the source material for the film “It”, adapted it, and appeared in the film starring Bow to boot, to define her concept of “It.” The film was a smash hit, and everyone involved profited. Bow was now a star, and Glyn’s name and ideas were cast broadly across the culture.

“It” is an inoffensive, Cinderella story about a lowly shopgirl (Bow) who finds love and contentment with her boss, the young and sociable Cyrus (Antonio Moreno) despite a few minor setbacks and misunderstandings. Bow plays Betty Lou as an energetic, charismatic do-gooder with a heart of gold, a spunky lass whose big eyes and healthy grin make her an ambassador of the “It” concept.

Badger, who also directed two of Raymond Griffith’s best silent comedies, would see his career slow to an end at the beginning of the sound era. Von Sternberg would of course move on to sweeping epics with Marlene Dietrich at their centers. Bow would continue to make films for a decade, finally retiring young at the age of 28. Glyn returned to England and went back to writing novels.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Jazz Singer.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

The NFR Project: 'The General' (1927)

 


The General

Dir: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton

Scr: Al Boasberg, Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, Charles Henry Smith, Paul Gerard Smith

Pho: Bert Haines, Devereaux Jennings

Ed: Buster Keaton, Sherman Kell

Premiere: Dec. 31, 1926

75 min.

Buster Keaton’s masterpiece The General is meticulous and precise, beautiful like a set of mathematical propositions, or a Bach cantata. There’s not an extraneous frame – everything leads to a stunning climax that is still the most spectacular gag ever staged. Most importantly, it’s still funny, all the way through.

Keaton’s comic persona here is the one he perfected over the previous decade – the stone-faced, stoic endurer of nature and fate’s insults. He is clever, but guileless, level-headed but awkward. He also happens to be a superbly trained, athletic physical comedian. He is the unsmiling, inventive clown of silent film.

The General is his eighth self-directed feature film, and he and his team of writers and of technical experts were at a peak of efficiency. He had gone into period filmmaking with his Our Hospitality (1923), and here, with the help of 500 extras from the Oregon National Guard, he convincingly recreates the sense and scale and sheer mass of the battles of the Civil War era.

Keaton is Johnnie Gray, a train engineer and solid son of the South. (Keaton wisely puts his protagonist on the side of the underdog.) When war is declared, he attempts to join the Confederate Army, but is rejected because, unbeknownst to him, he is more valuable to the Cause as an engineer. His sweetheart and her family reject him, and his disconsolately returns to the cab of his engine.

However, the Union has a plan. It seeks to steal Buster’s train and ride it back to Northern lines, burning bridges and wrecking track on its way. Buster makes chase on foot, and is soon the only person still going after the train. Still he doggedly pursues the Union men, hurtling via handcar, bicycle, and finally in another engine towards his goal.

Keaton is fascinated with how things work. He loves using stage machinery and camera tricks. In this film, set primarily out of doors, he is still indulging with problems negotiating space in time, but he is doing so in an epic way. He gets to play with real-life, full-sized trains. The trains speed up, slow down, reverse, change tracks, couple and uncouple, do everything but pirouette. Keaton makes these large, clumsy machines lead a kind of elephantine dance.

Buster chases the Yankees, who fortuitously have kidnapped his girlfriend to boot. Discovered to be alone, he must dash away and hide from those he pursued. He comes upon a house in a rainstorm, enters, and finds himself hiding beneath a tableful of plotting Union generals. He discovers their plans, and escapes, having found his girl there as well and rescuing her.

Now the chase is reversed. Buster steals back the General and flees south, with the Union in hot pursuit. Now it’s he and his girlfriend’s task to deter the Yankees. This is does with dimwitted assistance from her, which leads to her being throttled, briefly, before Buster kisses her. Ah, romance.

The girlfriend role is largely ornamental, propelling some of the plot and giving our hero a goal to achieve, that is, union with her. Marion Mack does just fine as the fair Annabelle Lee, taking a few tumbles and generally acting as straight woman. Buster’s real love affair is with the locomotive. He clambers all over it, plumbs its comic possibilities, clearing happy transforming

The crowning moment of absurdity arrives finally when a Union general orders the pursuit train to cross a bridge damaged by fire. Orders are followed, and the general and his army watch as the train teeters and crashes down into the river beneath. Cut back to the straight-faced pain in the general’s face, as he gestures listlessly for his men to go forward.

As Tim Dirks reports, this stunt cost $42,000 – the most expensive shot in silent film history. After the debacle at the bridge, the Southern forces charge against the Union soldiers and drive them back. Buster is now, finally, a hero.

The whole production was massively expensive, and the film did not recoup its cost in its initial run, in addition to being critically panned. It took decades for its dark sense of humor and its kinetic grace to be appreciated.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Clara Bow in It.

 

 

Thursday, February 8, 2024

The NFR Project: 'Flesh and the Devil'

 


Flesh and the Devil

Dir: Clarence Brown

Scr: Benjamin Glazer, Marian Ainslee

Pho: William H. Daniels

Ed: Lloyd Nosler

Premiere: Dec. 25, 1926

109 min.

This is a story of two people intersecting, gloriously, before one rose to stardom and the other faded away into oblivion. It’s the real-life version of (and perhaps the template for) films such as A Star Is Born. It’s the story of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo.

John Gilbert was an established screen star. He began in the movies in 1915, enduring years of apprenticeship and supporting roles in Hollywood before attaining leading-man fame in 1924, in King Vidor’s His Hour (1924). He was quickly labeled as suitable primarily for romantic leads, and termed “The Great Lover.” He had a contentious relationship with fame.

Greta Garbo was a shy young Swedish actress of 19 when she was chosen to star in The Story of Gosta Berling (1924). She was immediately noted for her beauty and for her subtle acting technique. She quickly gained a prominent role in her next film, G.W. Pabst’s Joyless Street (1925). Meanwhile, Hollywood mogul L.B. Mayer saw her in Berling and vowed to make her a star. With her appearance in The Temptress (1926), only her second Hollywood film, she too was seen as a bankable star, honored as an aloof beauty.

Fate brought the two together in Flesh and the Devil. Their immediate attraction to each other is palpable in this film. At the same time their characters intertwined in a story of tragic love, so did they become a highly publicized couple, moving in together and talking of marriage.

But first, the film. It’s a misogynistic, homophilic tale of two wealthy childhood friends in Germany who swear eternal devotion in their youth. Unfortunately, one of them (Gilbert) falls for a mysterious and amoral woman who neglects to tell him she is married. When her husband finds the two of them, he demands satisfaction. At dawn, the men meet for a duel, and Gilbert slays his rival.

Sent away in disgrace, he asks his friend to take care of Garbo’s character. Three years later, he returns to find that she has married his friend. Once again, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to her. This leads, naturlich, to yet another duel. Fortunately, our friends stop their feuding and reconcile, as Garbo, en route to stop them, falls through the frozen surface of a lake and drowns. Curtain.

It's all fairly standard romantic-drama fare (the rich production design helps elevate the drama), but it is extraordinary to see two people falling in love on camera. Their scene kissing in the garden is iconic. Their chemistry is palpable, and Garbo’s face is astonishingly expressive. Garbo was so pleased that she used director Clarence Brown, and especially cinematographer William H. Daniels, who she felt made her look as good as possible on screen, in many of her future films. Gilbert and Garbo were to make three more silent features together, all of them successful.

Then came the sound era. Garbo, despite her accent, kept making hits. Gilbert, however, did not make the transition effectively. Though it has long been a legend that his voice was not suited for sound film, the reality is that industry politics meant that he was sabotaged. And, quite simply, his star was sinking. Despite a number of attempted comebacks, he never regained his silent-era popularity. He began to drink heavily. Garbo tried to help him by insisting he be cast opposite her in Queen Christina (1933), but despite his skill in that role, it was no use. He received worse and worse roles. Finally, he died of a heart attack in 1936, at the age of 38.

Garbo went on to become a legend. Choosy about her roles, she maintained her screen persona of aloof beauty, for another decade, one of the highest-paid and highest-regarded stars of her time. She retired in 1941, at the age of 36.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Keaton’s The General.