I
can see why this film was nominated, but that doesn’t make it interesting. It’s
another sample from the overlooked Thanhouser Company, the New York/New Jersey
film studio that turned out an estimated 1,000 pictures between 1909 and 1918
(see my previous post on ‘The Cry of the Children,’ 1912).
This
is another melodrama, with a self-conscious gimmick. An unscrupulous financier
attempts to steal $20,000 worth of bonds by deftly switching packages on an
innocent messenger boy. Fortunately, a film crew captures the deception; the
film is seen by the boy’s sister – serendipitously, she’s a film editor – and
she enters it in court to exonerate her brother and give the villain his
comeuppance.
As
Ned Thanhouser (grandson of the studio founders) points out in his essay for
the National Film Registry, you can see the incremental improvements in film
technique developing here. Analytical editing begins, using shots to compare
and contrast instead of simply pushing the action forward in time. Close-up,
medium, and traveling shots are entering the film vocabulary, along with the
utilization of multiple planes of action, cross-cutting for rhythm and
suspense, and most important of all, regard for continuity – both in the scene
itself and the internal logic of position and direction. Narrative cinema is
starting to dictate its ground rules.
The
conceit of the plot device is weak, and much as I might like to make its
example speak to our current video-everything, eyewitness culture, it’s a damp
squib.
The NFR Project is an attempt to review all the
films listed in the National Film Registry, in chronological order. Next time: ‘Matrimony’s Speed Limit.’
Bert Williams and Odessa Warren Grey in 'Lime Kiln Club Field Day.'
Bert Williams Lime Kiln Club Field Day
Dir: T. Hayes Hunter/Edwin Middleton
Prod: A.L. Erlanger & Marc Klaw
Scr: Charles Bertrand Lewis
Phot: Unknown
Premiere: 11/8/2014
Approx. 1 hr., 5 min.
Again,
we have film that is not available to the general public online, which makes it
difficult to discuss. However, it does give me a chance to bring up the subject
of the most neglected American comedian, Bert Williams.
This
is an uncompleted film, halted in post-production by producers Klaw and Erlanger,
prominent vaudeville producers of the day, in the year it was filmed, 1913. Sixty-five minute of unedited
footage was first printed in 1976; it was assembled, analyzed, and presented at
the Museum of Modern Art in late 2014.
The
movie is another in a long line of “Negro” entertainments; the characters
engage in stereotypical behavior in a scattershot plot that features Williams
as its protagonist. The National Film Registry cites outtakes that show black
performers and white crew getting along, “enjoying themselves in unguarded
moments.” Even these small snippets of recorded interracial harmony are extraordinary
for the time.
The
other emphasis is the talent of Bert Williams (1874-1922). From the Bahamas by
way of California, Williams was a brilliant physical and verbal comedian,
comedy writer, and songwriter. First in partnership with George Walker in a
popular “coon” act that brought them to vaudeville in 1896 (where they
popularized the cakewalk dance), and Broadway in 1903. Williams also made a
number of hit recordings of comedy songs such as his signature “Nobody” and “When
the Moon Shines on the Moonshine.” (In a time when 10,000 records sold
classified a hit he sold 250,000. He, Jolson, and Nora Bayes were the top
recording artists of their time.
After
Walker sickened, Williams went solo and continued his success. He teamed with
white comic actor Leon Errol for the Ziegfeld Follies. Despite institutional
racism, despite still having to “black up” for shows, Williams stated that
considered himself fortunate. Still, he was described as incredibly sad by
those who knew him offstage. Isolated from black culture, tolerated by white
culture as a profit-maker, Williams was uniquely alone, the pain of which may
have contributed to his early death.
Hopefully,
we will get to see this footage and learn more about Williams’ performing style.
Here’s some film of his famous poker-game pantomime, which shows just how great
he was.
The NFR Project is an attempt to review all the
films listed in the National Film Registry, in chronological order. Next time: ‘The Evidence of the Film.’
Here’s
a social-problem film, much like the same year’s “Cry of the Children.” Like it,
“The Land Beyond the Sunset” also deals with the rights of children. However, “Land”
progresses to an ineffable, baffling, and disheartening “artistic” conclusion.
This
film was produced to benefit the Fresh Air Fund, a worthy cause inaugurated in
1877 and still in existence in New York. Its simple aim is to get low-children
children out of the city and into the natural world at no charge. At the time
this film was made, a huge push was on to end child labor, enforce child
welfare statutes, and increase educational opportunities. Society was beginning
to see past thinking of children as adults in training, economic assets, or the
precocious votive figures at the center of the Victorian cult of childhood. Children
were newly human, with needs, feelings, and rights.
The
film leans on the pathos-laden stereotype of the deprived child. The
impoverished Dickensian child-martyr is a familiar trope. This one features Joe,
the plucky, winsome, tragic newsboy, well-known from illustrations of the
period, Horatio Alger’s interchangeable newsboy characters such as Tom, Luke,
Ben, and “Rough and Ready,” as well as bluegrass songs such as “Jimmy Brown the
Newsboy.”
Joe lives
in a trash-strewn hovel with his alcoholic, abusive grandmother. (Oddly, the set
looks almost exactly like the Kramden apartment in “The Honeymooners.”) After
peddling his papers somewhere else, he returns with a mere pittance each
evening. Grandma cuffs him roundly, steals his meager earnings, and spends the
dough on gin.
Fortunately,
the folks at the Fresh Air Fund are out there, pressing day passes to the
country into the hands of needy children. Joe sneaks out while the old dame is
doing a face plant. He runs to the gates, almost too late, but a nice lady bargains
him in and they board a steamboat up the Hudson River. (My grotesque
fascination with tragedies brought to mind immediately the General Slocum disaster of June 15, 1904, in which just such a
steamer, loaded mainly with women and children, burned and sank in the Hudson,
killing 1,021 people – New York’s greatest loss of life until 9/11.)
The
film does capture the contrast between city and country. ‘His first sight of
the world beyond the slums,’ the title card says. Joe gets fresh air, good
food, fun and games, and a bit of prayer. Most significantly, no one seems to
want to hurt him. The committee woman who watches over him encircles him with
her arm. She reads the children fairy tales, and we leap into a dream sequence
in which Joe is a prince, his grandmother a witch, and the committee women
fairies. Summoned via stop-motion, they drive the witch away, and lead the prince
to a magic boat (‘he needed no oars’) that takes him to the Land Beyond the
Sunset.
Now
it gets weird. A more positivist, practical kind of filmmaker might have ended it
there. Fresh Air fund aids needy kids, who get to breathe free and have fun.
Hooray! The End.
But
-- coming out of the story’s spell, Joe sees his grandmother knocking him down,
over his head as a ghostly double exposure. Holding on to the fairy book, Joe
gives the others the slip (all too easily – did they lose a lot of kids this
way?), hangs back, and steps toward the beach.
There
he finds a boat, conveniently with no oars. He climbs in, pushes off and, book
clutched to his chest, he drifts out to – the Land Beyond the Sunset? Certain
death? Both? Was this better than going back to Grandma? Is Joe two papers shy
of a full bundle?
It
seems to be an aesthetic miscue today, but the idea of the dying child focusing one's attention, as in
Andersen’s “Little Match Girl,” was a tried and tested one. Perhaps the
creators thought the ending would burn home the point.
The
compositions are strong in the outdoor sequences, shooting in nicely modeled
perspective to give the frame a feeling of depth. The final sequence, in which Joe
bobs out beneath a setting sun, is held for an exceptionally long time. The achievement
of getting such definition and beauty from a low-light situation such as this at
the time makes me wonder about other work of Harold Shaw. He made 76 films
between 1912 and 1924, before dying at 48 two years later.
The
best print of this is found on the exemplary “Treasures from American Archives:50 Preserved Films” (2000). The soundtrack medley of tunes from the period are
uniquely apt and include “The Poor Orphan Child,” “There is a Happy Land,” and “the
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.”
The NFR Project is an attempt to review all the
films listed in the National Film Registry, in chronological order. Next time: ‘Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Field
Club Day.’
Jesus turning water to wine at the Marriage in Cana -- 'From the Manger to the Cross.'
From the Manger to the Cross
Dir: Sidney Olcott
Prod: Frank Marion
Scr: Gene Gauntier
Phot: George K. Hollister
1912
70:24
Jesus is big box
office. Ask Mel Gibson.
Unlike
religions such as Islam and Judaism, Christianity has no law against representing
God, holy beings, or its prophets visually. There is no ban on instrumental
sacred music, either. As a result, a staggeringly grand amount of religious-themed
art, permeating Western culture, has grown around the faith, promulgating it
with direct appeals to the senses. So, it’s a no-brainer. A film about Christ
is an evangelical act (as long as it adheres to doctrine – see Martin Scorsese,
Monty Python).
“From
the Manger to the Cross” can’t even be termed the first religious epic, as it
has no epic pretensions. It’s in no way innovative technically or aesthetically
– and there was probably little incentive for it to be. (OK, one detail stands
out -- angels are, smartly, depicted as beams of light here.) The stage
pictures that are created for the camera derive from the high-contrast dramatic
religious paintings of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Rubens.
The
heavy use of quotation and title cards adds to the Bible-lesson/”greatest hits”
vibe of this version of the life of the Messiah. The acting is appropriately
wooden and earnest. Mary is covered from head to foot, with even hair wimpled,
an oddly puritanical touch. Jesus is played with the wistful passivity that
seems to be the hallmark of most life-of-Christ film characterizations. Herold is
a moody bastard, and Judas wrings his hands like the stereotype of the greedy
Jew. When Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt, we get a picture-postcard shot of them
admiring the Pyramids. No sense in wasting the trip, for either the characters
or the crew filming them. A staid and conservative interpretation of the
Gospels’ highlights is called for here, and met.
The
one distinction that sets it apart it that is was filmed on location in “the
Holy Land,” a decision that upped its costs considerably but paid off
handsomely on the other end. (Some obvious sets find their way into the
narrative as well.) This results in the odd aesthetic train wreck of “genuine”
locations and native extras tied together with a handful of Caucasian actors,
standing in front of them and enacting a story that none of the natives would
find comprehensible. When this Christ expires, he doesn't give up the ghost so much as he shrugs it off. More effective, gaudier religious-film spectacles were to come.
Just
as travelers flocked to Jerusalem and Mecca, so now they could get a little it
of sanctimony by gazing on the holy city’ walls. The idea of pilgrimage to
sacred sites is universal; cinema made the journey convenient for the cost of a
nickel.
The NFR Project is an attempt to review all the
films listed in the National Film Registry, in chronological order. Next time: ‘The Land Beyond the Sunset.’