NFR Project: Fox Movietone News --Jenkins Orphanage Band (1928)

 

Fox Movietone News: Jenkins Orphanage Band

Premiere: 1928

3 min.

I could not possibly do a better job of explaining this early sound short than Julie Hubbert does on the Library of Congress website. I urge you to read her essay here.

She explains the origin of the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, SC, and how its founder, the Reverend Daniel Jenkins, thought of starting a band to perform and raise money for the institution. (The Fisk Jubilee Singers led the way with this practice, beginning their performances in 1866.) She outlines the band’s development, brings up a few of the noted jazz musicians who got their start with Jenkins, and reveals how prestigious participation in the ensemble became. The band is even said to have been the original inspiration for the famous dance of the 1920s, the Charleston.

Here we have a simple, straight-on take of the entire band, standing on a sidewalk and blaring out “Shoutin’ Eliza.” The band seems composed primarily of brass and drums, and they swing through their rendition with a lively swagger.

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

NFR Project: 'The Last Command' (1928)

The Last Command

Dir: Josef von Sternberg

Scr: Lajos Biro, John F. Goodrich, Herman J. Mankiewicz

Pho: Bert Glennon

Ed: William Shea

Premiere: January 22, 1928

85 min.

“Based on a true story” is usually a lame trick to try and get the audience to buy into an absurd story premise. However, this is absolutely the case with one of the most accomplished of silent films.

The story goes: before the Russian Revolution, director Ernst Lubitsch met in Russia a general named Theodore A. Lodijensky. The general escaped Russia during the Communist takeover, migated to New York, and opened a restaurant, where Lubitsch met him again. Still later, in Hollywood he met the general (now named Thedore Lodi), he was dressed in his old uniform, working as a movie extra for $7.50 a day.

Screenwriter Biro heard the story from Lubitsch, and it set his wheels turning. A success has many fathers: Biro got the original story credit, John S. Goodrich is listed as the scenarist, and Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the titles. Sternberg himself, an egotist if there ever was one, credits himself with the excellence of the film. Perhaps all these things are true.

In contemporary Hollywood (and a sad, rundown kind of place it is), a pathetic old man (Emil Jannings, in an Oscar-winning performance) ekes out a living as a lowly extra. In the fine studio offices, the studio head, Leo Andreyev (William Powell) OKs a production that will require many Russian Army extras. Amid the crush of the crowd milling into the studio, he is assigned a general’s role, and he is mocked by those around him. As he looks into the makeup mirror . . .

The film goes back to the eve of the Russian Revolution. The old man we saw is, in former times, the Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, the czar’s top military man. In his prime, the energetic and charismatic Sergius snaps out orders and runs the war (Russia was engaged in WWI at the time). Two revolutionary suspects (Powell! and Evelyn Brent) are brought before him. He lashes out at Powell, but keeps Brent near him. Despite her revolutionary fervor, he falls for the dashing general.

When the Revolution breaks out, the general and his lady are on a troop train to the front. Stripped of his rank and his dignity, he is forced to shovel coal for the locomotive. Brent hands him a necklace he gave her, to pawn and make his escape. He leaps from the train, landing in the snow beside the tracks. He and we follow the progress of the train as it chuffs on, only to fall victim to a bridge that collapses, sending everyone into the dark, cold water.

Back to reality. The general, and the rest of the soldiers, are ready for their scene. Producer Powell tells the general to rally the troops. His pride, his love of his country, his essential nobility, pours out of him. It kills him.

Obviously, this is a great role for an actor, and Jannings was a great actor. (Unfortunately, he wound up being a Nazi as well.) His enormous range allows him to play the general in all his modes: confident, then pathetic, then passionate. He and Sternberg got along well, which led to their work together next in The Blue Angel (1930). This was meant to be a vehicle for Jannings, but it wound up making Marlene Dietrich a star.

Sternberg’s beautiful compositions elevate the story at all times, and his pacing is perfect. The story is affecting without being maudlin. Surprisingly, this was another critical favorite that failed at the box office.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Fox Movietone News: Jenkins Orphanage Band.

NFR Project: 'The Fall of the House of Usher' (1928)

The Fall of the House of Usher

Dir: James Sibley Watson, Melville Webber

Scr: Melville Webber

Pho: James Sibley Watson, Melville Webber

Ed: N/A

Premiere: 1928

13 min.

Avant-garde filmmaking was sparse in America, at least to begin with. A lot of experimental cinema was created in Europe, almost from the birth of the movies. The United States, however, stuck on the idea of providing entertainment for profit, largely colored inside the lines.

Still there were Americans who knew what was going on in Europe and wanted to replicate those efforts. Watson and Webber were two of these. Together, they created a unique visual poem on the theme of Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

A traveler comes to an isolated mansion in the middle of a lake. He meets the brother and sister who live there together. The sister dies and is entombed; she rises again and confronts her brother, killing him with shock. The house disintegrates and falls into the black waters around it.

This is by no means a faithful explication of the plot of the original story. Rather it is a visual meditation on the story’s themes; much of it would be incomprehensible to those not familiar with its source. Using an Expressionistic set, makeup, and acting style, indulging in double exposures, work with prisms, skewed camera angles, and shadow play, the filmmakers ape the efforts of their European colleagues. The result is a moody, surreal journey through layers of darkness and light.

(Please note: this film is not to be confused with a French feature film on exactly the same topic, made in the same year, by Jean Epstein.)

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

NFR Project: 'The Docks of New York' (1928)

The Docks of New York

Dir: Josef von Sternberg

Scr: Jules Furthman

Pho: Harold Rosson

Ed: Helen Lewis

Premiere: September 16, 1928

76 min.

A chronicle of the lower depths of society, The Docks of New York was created entirely on a movie set in Hollywood. Despite this limitation, director Josef von Sternberg, cinematographer Harold Rosson, and screenwriter Jules Furthman created an authentic, gritty mise en scene that grounds this tale of love and redemption.

The director was on a roll, already lauded for films such as Underworld (1927), considered the first gangster film, and The Last Command (1928), which won lead actor Emil Jannings an Oscar. Here he stages the abrupt romance between Bill Roberts (George Bancroft), a coal-stoker on a ship, and suicidal prostitute Mae (Betty Compson). Bill saves Mae from drowning after she throws herself into the sea. He takes care of her, falls for her, and proposes marriage to her, all in one night.

The wedding is conducted in the raucous atmosphere of The Sandbar, a waterfront dive. Mae gets her wedding ring from the hand of the cynical Lou (Olga Baclanova), another tart who’s sick of her long-absent husband Andy. Bill leaves to rejoin his ship in the morning, but reconsiders, dives off the ship, and swims to shore. He finds his wife in Night Court, charged with stealing the clothes he stole for her from a locked-up shop. Bill steps up and takes the blame, earning him 60 days in jail. Mae promises to wait for him.

Furthman was a master of the screen scenario – he would later be noted for scripts such as those for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), and The Big Sleep (1946). He contrasts the budding affection of Bill and Mae with the dead-end disgust of the relationship between Mae and Andy. Everyone treats Bill and Mae’s wedding as a joke; everyone, that is, except Bill and Mae. Even the two of them can only express their feelings roughly, without sentiment. They are linked together by fate, but they are not star-crossed lovers.

Harold Rosson’s cinematography makes the film. He and Sternberg went on an expedition to New York to pick up design ideas, and the result is marvelously conceived and shot settings, from a grimy, hellish stoke-hold to the foggy alleys of the port. Every visual is carefully composed for maximum effect. There are no preachments or messages in the film; the characters simply are what they are – they live out their choices without editorial comment.

In the end, The Docks of New York is a proletarian drama that focuses on fundamental needs and desires in a compelling manner.

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

NFR Project: 'The Crowd' (1928)

The Crowd

Dir: King Vidor

Scr: King Vidor, John V.A. Weaver, Harry Behn, Joseph Farnham

Pho: Henry Sharp

Ed: Hugh Wynn

Premiere: February 28, 1928

98 min.

Ordinary people. A radical idea.

Movies were vehicles of escape and fantasy, in the 1920s just as much as today. The concept of documenting the everyday existence of nobody special was a non-starter in Hollywood. Fortunately, for director King Vidor, he had directed enough successful films (most notably The Big Parade [1925]) for the studio (MGM) to allow him to be given the benefit of the doubt. The result was a successful film that has endured as a critical favorite.

The movie is a oblisque indictment of capitalism in the guise of a domestic drama. The focus is on John, born on the Fourth of July in 1900. As a child, he dreams of making it big. As a young adult, his innocent belief that his “ship will come in,” giving him wealth and status, persists. He starts work as a lowly functionary in a large insurance company.

The athletic camera travels up the outside of a skyscraper, zooms in on a window and enters, revealing acres of desks occupied with men working at figures, with John one of the crowd. He goes on a double date and falls for fellow worker Mary (Eleanor Boardman, Vidor's wife). They wed and travel to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon, settling afterwards into a cramped two-room apartment next to the subway lines.

John keeps plugging away at his job, dreaming of catching his big break. Meanwhile, they have two children, and barely keep ahead of the bills. A family tragedy derails John’s sensibilities, leading him to quit his job. Months of unsuccessful applications for work follow. Mary considers leaving him. In the end, he finds a job, the two are reconciled, and the last we see of them they are laughing at a vaudeville show with their son, as the camera pulls back, leaving them subsumed into the crowd.

Although John is the protagonist, he is a weak and conflicted character. He is uncharitable to his wife until he finds out she is pregnant. Again and again, he claims he is on the brink of success, only to find his opportunities dried up and those around him unsympathetic. Mary is the strong one – sustaining her husband and putting up with his persistent delusions. It’s she whose common sense brings him back down to earth.

The rejection of the cliché that a good attitude and hard work will lead to wealth and fame underpins the film. John will not acknowledge his limitations, and does not reduce his expectations until he has been humiliated and humbled by financial realities. In the end, it is enough that Mary believes in him, and that this family will make the most of the simple pleasures to be had in this world.

Although production head Irving Thalberg OK’d the picture, studio boss Louis B. Mayer hated its bleak outlook and lack of a “happy ending.” The release of the picture was delayed a year. Seven different endings were filmed, all scaled to different degrees of happiness. In the end, the film was released with two different endings – Vidor’s original and a Christmas-themed joyful one. Exhibitors were given a choice as to what to show.

The film has unfortunate parallels with real life. James Murray, the actor who was plucked out of obscurity to play John, never had a productive career, slipping into alcoholism and poverty. Vidor ran into him on the street and offered him a role in his film, Our Daily Bread (1934). Murray rejected him angrily; his body was found in the Hudson River two years later.

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

NFR Project: 'The Cameraman' (1928)

The Cameraman

Dir: Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton

Scr: Clyde Bruckman, Lew Lipton, Joseph W. Farnham

Pho: Reggie Lanning, Elgin Lessley

Ed: Hugh Wynn

Premiere: September 22, 1928

76 min.

Sad to say, this is the first film in this series that I have run across that I do not feel merits inclusion. While it is an accomplished comedy, in comparison to Buster Keaton's previous features, it is unimaginative and rote.

In 1928, Keaton joined MGM. Unfortunately, he was hired as a performer, not as a writer or director. MGM’s assembly-line approach to making a film was in direct conflict with his previous method of creation, in which he had the ability to alter the movie or improvise as he went along, as he saw fit. He was locked into the studio’s way of doing things.

Fortunately, his director, Sedgwick, could not get the results that he was after onscreen, and he finally ceded some responsibility to Keaton, who quickly got the project back on track. It would be the last film project he had even nominal control over.

In this film, Keaton plays a street photographer, who falls for a pretty girl. He follows her to her workplace, the MGM newsreel department. Seeking to impress her, he becomes an aspiring newsreel cameraman. There are the usual jokes concerning double exposures and the like – Buster’s work is worthless.

The girl gives him a tip and he races to capture a riot on film. He gets the footage, which is then misplaced. Seemingly a failure, he prepares to walk away from the profession until the lost footage is screened and he is lauded for his ability (and he gets the girl as well).

Although it is decently scripted, it does not have the thrill of Keaton’s earlier films. While in them he indulged in epic feats of surrealism, full of camera tricks and outstanding physical stunts, here he is simply a clown, clumsy and impotent. The direction of the film is uninspiring and conventional. The movie is simply too safe.

This was Keaton’s last silent feature. He and Sedgwick would make six more films; slowly Keaton descended into alcoholism and mediocrity. Decades later, Keaton would recover and become a lauded legend, but this film marks the oncoming of his lowest period.

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

NFR Project: 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928)

Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Dir: Charles Reisner

Scr: Carl Harbaugh, Buster Keaton

Pho: Dev Jennings, Bert Haines

Ed: Sherman Kell

Premiere: May 12, 1928

70 min.

Keaton’s last great independent project is one of his best films. The master craftsman’s gags are more challenging and grand than ever, the humor underplayed magnificently. One last time, he was able to work on an epic scale, harnessing physics and geometery to fuel his jokes. In the world of silent comedy, Keaton was the master craftsman.

Plotwise, the story is much the same as other of his feature films such as Our Hospitality (1923) and The General (1926) – Buster is a sad sack, an underachiever who is inspired to great feats through his desire to win the hand of a beautiful girl. Here, he is a mollycoddle from Back East who must make his peace with his macho, exasperated Mississippi riverboat captain father (a great performance Ernest Torrence). He loves the daughter of a rival steamboat owner, and must prove himself to overcome his father’s contempt, his nemesis the girl’s father, and the forces of nature themselves.

Steamboat Bill Canfield runs the paddle steamer Stonewall Jackson, and J.J. King is his rich rival. Bill’s son (Buster) comes home on the train after four years in college in Boston. He sports a beret, a moustache, and a ukulele. Father soon dispenses with all these items. Trying to teach him the business of running a boat leads to disaster upon disaster.

Soon Bill’s boat is condemned as unsafe. He blames King, assaults him and is thrown in jail. Buster’s attempt to spring him goes sadly awry. Then a cyclone hits the town, pushing and pounding at Buster as the town disintegrates around him. It’s an apt metaphor for Keaton’s persona – one buffeted and borne along by the tide of an indifferent if not hostile universe, who learns to ride the wave and triumph at last.

The most memorable moment comes when the façade of a house comes crashing down in the wind, missing Buster by inches by way of a small upper-story window. As Buster stands scratching his head, the front of the building behind him falls around him. Supposedly the wall weighed two tons, to keep it from warping as it fell. A nail marked the spot where Buster would stand. Half the crew walked away rather than film the scene. It is said that Keaton was in a negative frame of mind at the time, facing up to a failing marriage and an increased dependence on alcohol. It may have been a death wish recorded on film.

Once again, Keaton constructs a detailed universe in which he tries to fit, only to tear it all asunder at the end, giving him the space to assume a heroic role.

The movie was a box-office failure. After this film, Keaton’s independent production company was dissolved, and he signed up with MGM. This was to prove disastrous to his resources and freedom to create, dragging him down into mediocrity, which he overcame eventually due to hard work as a live performer and by quitting the booze.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. gives us Keaton at his best.

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

NFR Project: Shaw and Lee - 'The Beau Brummels' (1928)

 

The Beau Brummels

Dir: Unknown

Scr: Shaw and Lee

Pho: Unknown

Ed: Unknown

Premiere: September 22, 1928

8:31

One of the most bizarre selections from the Film Registry is this gem from 1928, which captures the absurd comedy of vaudeville act Shaw and Lee, here referred to as “the Beau Brummels” (a reference to natty dressing, which these two men definitely don’t indulge in).

The film is one of many Vitaphone shorts. Between 1926 and 1931, Vitaphone was a sound-on-disc recording system that played a record synchronized with the film. When optical soundtracks were incorporated into the celluloid of films, the Vitaphone method was abandoned. Many acts of all kinds were recorded with this system, initially in New York but late on the West Coast as well.

Shaw (Albert Schutzman) and Lee (Sam Levy) worked together for decades. This film was made relatively early in their career. In the film, the two stand side by side. Both engage in complete deadpan, facing the camera and not cracking even a smile. They tell their horrible jokes, sometimes reacting to the other’s punch line with a grimace. Periodically, they begin to speak at the same time, and then turn to each other with a “Huh?”. They flip through some songs selections, and even dance a little. All this they do straight-faced.

Perhaps their deadpan was their solution to recording a routine without an audience – later film of them shows them hamming it up much as other comics do. At any rate, their low-key imperturbable style makes watching the two of them an oddly satisfying experience.

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

NFR Project: 'Wings'

 

Wings

Dir: William Wellman, Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast

Scr: John Monk Saunders, Hope Loring, Louis D. Lighton, Julian Johnson, Byron Morgan

Pho: Harry Perry

Ed: E. Lloyd Sheldon, Lucien Hubbard

Premiere: January 15, 1928

144 min.

Wings is an extraordinary achievement. Tasked with bringing the air war of World War I to life on screen, the relatively young and inexperienced director William Wellman overcame massive logistic and technical problems to accurately portray the experience. It led to the film being given the very first Oscar for Best Picture.

War movies were not uncommon at the time, but few attempted the epic scope attained by Wings. Perhaps the closest comparison to it could be King Vidor’s infantry saga, The Big Parade (1925). The story of Wings gives us two young men, at first rivals then bosom buddies, who volunteer to join the air corps together. After rigorous training, the two are off to Europe, where dogfights and bombing raids clutter the skies above the trenches.

Young flyer Jack (Charles “Buddy” Rogers) is in love with Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston), who prefers his friend David (Richard Arlen). Sylvia and David decide not to let Jack down and tell him the truth until after the war. Meanwhile, the plucky girl next door, Mary (Clara Bow) is in love with Jack. She volunteers to join the ambulance corps, and is soon off to France herself.

The machinations of who loves who gives a little impetus to the plot, which otherwise hangs on the armed conflict in the film. Clara Bow, then the reigning queen of Hollywood, was put into the film to broaden its appeal, but the real stars of the movie are the fight sequences.

It helped immensely that Wellman was a World War I flyer, giving him the experience and connections to make Wings happen. He took his film crew to airfields in San Antonio, Texas to serve as a staging ground for his aerial sequences. He gathered more than 300 pilots, and used 3,500 extras on the ground. One of his advisers engineered an automatic camera system, running on a motor, that could be mounted on a plane and allow shots of the pilots in flight.

Special effects artist Roy Pomeroy won an Oscar for Best Engineering Effects. Filming was excruciatingly slow – whereas it normally took a month to shoot a feature film, this one took nine. After hundreds of hours in the air, and thousands of feet of film, the end result was lauded.

The film was essentially released twice – first as a silent, and then with a synchronized score and sound effects. Sound technology was rapidly catching on, making this one of the last silent epics.

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

NFR Project: 'Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans'

 

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Dir: F.W. Murnau

Scr: Carl Mayer

Pho: Charles Rosher, Karl Struss

Ed: Harold Schuster

Premiere: September 23, 1927

95 min.

This would not be the last time that critics acclaimed a film that the public ignored. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is self-consciously arty – it won the only Oscar for Unique and Artistic Picture at the very first Oscars ceremony in 1929. It won Best Cinematography for Charles Rosher and Karl Struss. The lead actress Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress award for this (and for her work in Street Angel [1928]).

However, it did not earn back its rather extravagant budget. It was the first American project of the famed German director F.W. Murnau, who up to this time had created classics such as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), and Faust (1926) in his native country. He was brought to Hollywood with a reputation that gave him great leeway in the production of the film.

Murnau made the most of his opportunity. Often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, it sweeps the viewer into a penetratingly compelling story that needs no words to make itself understood.

It tells of a farmer (George O’Brien) and his wife (Gaynor). A “city woman” (Margaret Livingston) seduces him. We begin with the principals in mid-misery, one from guilt and the other from sorrow. The city woman urges the farmer to kill his wife, sell his farm, and come to the city with her.

Double exposures reveal the farmer’s thoughts, contrasting with his anguished features. The filmmakers track down complex paths through the studio-created marshes, embodying the meandering, wavering walk of the guilty husband. The two embark on an ominous journey via boat to the city. The farmer stands over his wife, ready to kill, then abruptly relents.

What happens next is the entire play of two personalities, running through the emotions of despair, fear, shame, forgiveness, and reconciliation, all in the context of a visit to a vivid, Expressionistic cityscape. Murnau moves the story on with economy and precision, mirroring camera setups, gestures, postures, using all the resources of the pictorial field and the actors’ skill to convey a true love story.

Murnau slows down the pace and lets the camera linger n the face of his actors. He allows them to move through multiple states of thought; patiently, he records their reactions and realizations. The story is a simple melodrama, but Murnau and his collaborators find the truth and beauty in the tale and bring it to life.

Not only are the visuals beautiful, moody, and expressive, but the film is graced with the addition of sound, of a kind. While not a talking picture, a soundtrack of music and effects was married to the print and played in the early sound-film houses. Hugo Riesenfeld’s score carefully reinforces the images and feelings onscreen.

The picture’s unexpectedly melodramatic ending could easily be seen as far-fetched (the farmer considered drowning his wife, and then loses her in a storm on the water on their way home), but the film is so involving that it allows the suspension of disbelief to continue.

Sunrise is a revelation of feeling couched in a familiar story of universal appeal. It does what silent film did best – it transcends cultural barriers, making itself intelligible to everyone.

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

NFR Project: 'Stark Love'

 

Stark Love

Dir: Karl Brown

Scr: Karl Brown, Walter Woods

Pho: James Murray

Ed: N/A

Premiere: February 28, 1927

70 min.

Independent productions were rare once the mechanics of Hollywood film production were established, by the early 1920s. This interesting film, saved from oblivion almost by chance, shows that quality movies could be mounted by committed people outside the purview of the big studios.

The filmmaker involved was Karl Brown, who had a long history in cinema. He found a job working with D.W. Griffith, serving as assistant to Griffith’s cameraman, Billy Bitzer. He developed into a skilled cinematographer, his best-remembered work being that he did on James Cruze’s epic Western The Covered Wagon (1923).

Brown cast primarily amateur actors in and around Robbinsville, North Carolina, set in the Great Smoky Mountains, to make this picture of hillbilly life. The story is of a young man whose ambitions stretch beyond the narrow confines of the valleys he calls home. He reads and studies, planning to get out of the mountains and into a settlement, joining the mainstream of life.

He is taken with a neighbor girl, who is limited by the lack of opportunity in the remote country where they live. When the young man’s mother dies, his father seeks to marry the neighbor girl to make her a slave to take care of his house and children. Her violent rejection of him leads to the escape of the two young people.

The film takes a semi-documentary approach, and its vision of mountain life is bleak, though not condescending (although the title cards are in dialect). The film stands as a screed against the oppression of women. As one of the opening titles states, there “MAN IS THE ABSOLUTE RULER – WOMAN IS THE WORKING SLAVE.” Its depiction of men as generally reprehensible morons is so grim as to be almost humerous.

In the end, it is the proto-feminist heroine who wields the axe that frees her from her servile situation. She, improbably, flees down the swollen river on a log to safety, taking finally the path that leads to small town they perceive as a wondrous city.

The camerawork is fresh and efficient, equal in skill to that of contemporary industry-made features. It received limited screenings at its premiere, but in 1968 film historian Kevin Brownlow found an original copy in the Czechoslovakian film archives, saving for posterity. It’s worth it to see a strong, simple story told in an authentic regional landscape.

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