The Affairs of Anatol – and Dissecting What It Means to Love

As Cecil B. DeMille was able to prove with his 1920 effort, Why Change Your Wife?, he knows and understands the struggles of marriage and the unfortunate temptations that might lead us astray. He also never forgets what led these individuals to marry one another in the first place, and I think that is what made his films so especially important at a time when divorce was seen as ungodly as murder. Perhaps it is this notion that made his films so popular in the day, yet exceedingly dated in modern times, but it’s this general understanding that still makes his films as emotionally palpable as they were back in the 1920s.

His 1921 endeavor, The Affairs of Anatol, attempts to cover the same matrimonial drama that made Why Change Your Wife so emotionally resonant, but the emotions just aren’t as strong here. On some level, the film captures the same sort of idea that men – such as myself – who strive to fix others are gullibly drawn down paths of temptation by “damaged” women who appear helpless. In that way, I can relate to Anatol in the sense that he tries desperately to put others’ needs before his own. In doing so, Anatol (played by Wallace Reid) ignores the needs of his wife (played by Gloria Swanson), and it begins to take a toll on his marriage as well as his life.

The synopses for the film all read the same, and they state that the film deals with literal affairs on Anatol’s behalf after his new marriage to his wife. Perhaps back in the 1920s, simply speaking with another woman could be considered an affair, but watching the film in today’s society it felt less like an affair and more like a friendship gone south.

That being said, DeMille’s voice still speaks to the power of marriage. The ending, though rushed in comparison to the rest of the film, gives the film the hope and satisfaction that many may find after a distressful time in a married couple’s life. Who knows if things will work out, but at least they can remember why they fell in love in the first place and I believe that’s still an important aspect into today’s marriages that is tragically missing. With divorce rates spiking at alarming rates, it feels as though a majority of marriages forget why they were ever together in the first place. Perhaps it’s for the best, but in my personal opinion, I feel like it’s often either a rushed and poor decision or neither parties are actually willing to work on their issues the way couples could back in the olden days. Not every day is rosy or sunny, but it doesn’t have to be either – that’s the beauty of love and it's easy to forget what that means.

In the case of this film, both parties involved in a case of jealousy or adultery could watch it and understand what each other is going through quite well – even nearly a full century later. That’s the timelessness of marriage, love, and all the problems that go along with it.

Despite of the breadth of the film’s narrative, however, the film does not feel as fully or emotionally engaging as DeMille’s previous Why Change Your Wife. I believe what made that film so superior was that we were able to see both sides of the husband and wife without feeling swayed in either direction – both sides were clear as day and both were just as understandable. With this film, you only truly see Anatol’s side of the situation with minor glimpses into his wife’s goings-on. You’re supposed to feel bad for this poor sucker simply because of his adoration of women and his desire to help them, but all along the wife simply plays along and stands by jealously. Perhaps that’s why the narrative feels less compelling and the protagonist feels like more of a nitwit compared to Meighan’s character in DeMille’s other film.

The saving graces, though, are the film’s performances which elevate the film back to a certain level of relatability. Each of the female supporting stars are effective both in understanding why Anatol feels the desire to keep them in his life and help them, but also why his wife, Vivian, might be equally reluctant. Bebe Daniels shines as one of the women, once again proving herself as she did in Why Change Your Wife – her sensuality is just as evident while maintaining the strong emotional core of her character. Gloria Swanson (pictured left) shines as well, in a glorified supporting turn as Vivian, but is not given nearly as much material to work with as in her previous effort which seriously effects the film and her performance. The true MVP for me was Wanda Hawley (pictured above with Reid) as the first girl Anatol strives to help. She perfectly encapsulates that dreamy, nostalgic, one-who-got-away girl Anatol and many of us have fallen for in high school, yet her dark side truly captures why she got away in the first place.

Despite the flaws in the narrative and the lack of true emotional resonance, mostly in part because of the lack of Vivian’s perspective, the film still strives to exemplify matrimony both in its purest and rawest forms – even for being a film for the past. An excellent cast is reason enough to check the film out, especially if one is a fan of Gloria Swanson or looking for some excellent female performances from the early generation of film. For those like Anatol, and myself, perhaps the film is also an important one in understanding and empathizing with the characters in the film, each of whom probably have played a large role in your life as well. For what it’s worth, though, DeMille may not have been an exceedingly great director with these two films, but he still showed a strong understanding of love in (what used to be) the modern world and a strong passion for sharing these stories for the world to relate.


7.5/10

A Max Linder Double Feature: Seven Years Bad Luck & Be My Wife

As mentioned in my review for The Kid, while Charlie Chaplin may have been the premier slapstick comedy filmmaker of the 1920s, it was Germany’s Max Linder who truly fathered the art form. Though a lot of his work is now lost, as is unfortunately the case with many films of the decade, there still remain three prominent feature films intact – each released within a two-year span. These films are the incredibly influential and oft-hilarious Seven Years Bad Luck and the sweet and goofy Be My Wife.

Before the Marx brothers would eventually borrow the mirror gag, Linder did it first with Seven Years Bad Luck. As with both of 1921 features, he played a dumbed-down and exaggerated version of himself that would serve as inspiration for Charlie Chaplin and especially Buster Keaton. With his signature pencil-thin moustache, his silly top hat and cane, and a general dumbfounded and down-on-his-luck attitude, Linder brought slapstick to life by crafting such ridiculous (and worst-case) scenarios for his protagonist and then allow him to struggle his way back to a happy ending. In the case of Seven Years Bad Luck, the story follows Linder who wakes after a heavy night of drinking (something many can still relate to today!) as he accidentally breaks a mirror before his eventual marriage to Betty (played wonderfully by Alta Allen) and begins to sense that bad luck is headed his way, potentially dooming his marriage. Chaos ensues, as it often does in slapstick, and Linder masterfully weaves his way through each scenario with both physical finesse and charisma that must have certainly been an inspiration for many aspiring slapstick filmmakers of the day (maybe even now).

The film is not as sweet or heartfelt as the likes of Chaplin nor is it as visually stunning or provocative the way Buster Keaton’s films often are, but it still offers plenty of laughs and the infamous mirror gag (which you can find on YouTube) is some of the best stuff I’ve seen in a slapstick comedy to this day. However, after the first fifteen minutes go by, there is not much of a plot as the film simply moves from gag to gag. What would have worked better as a short film simply drags out the story until it’s over – which could potentially be why Linder never found success with his three features. For what it is, though – and if you’re a fan of slapstick – the film is still quite funny and offers a shred of genius that you could see why he was so inspirational to other artists of the time.

Be My Wife, his second 1921 feature, does not have the same spark of creative hilarity that Seven Years Bad Luck (save a pretty hilarious scarecrow scene), but it does attempt to tap into the heart and relatability of his characters. It could just be me, as has been the case since I would watch Tom and Jerry as a kid, I always hated watching protagonists get treated or accused unfairly even if just played for laughs. I always found myself rooting for Tom to beat that little brat Jerry, but it never happened and it made my heart hurt watching that show as a little kid. The same goes for a lot of slapstick comedy where I find the humor funny, but it irritates me to no end seeing a good character be accused of something he didn’t do. Sure, in the end, everyone gets their just desserts and the protagonist gets the girl, yah-dah yah-dah yah-dah… But when the entirety of the film is about a character being unfairly accused, it makes it difficult to watch. It’s a personal thing, I’m aware, but it’s a big reason why I found the humor less funny this time around and the film itself less pleasant. For what it is, though, it still has a lot of heart and shows a softer side to Linder – even if the ending feels super rushed.

All in all, though he was successful for a brief period in the 1910s, the 1920s brought him little in the way of success. His victorious reigns were then handed to the likes of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd who would all find greater success in Hollywood borrowing inspiration from his films and better utilizing the framework he set.

As with an unfortunate number of great comedians in the world, his life was marred by anxiety, depression, and ultimately tragedy. In 1925, four years after these two films were released, he and his wife were found dead of an apparent murder-suicide at a hotel in Paris. Though it’s difficult to imagine the same man who made such lively films full of hilarity and love could ever end his life in such a way, at least his work will live on and (just as he most likely would have wanted) will be remembered through his art instead. So for what it’s worth, I’m thankful for Max Linder. Even though these two films were not as great as other slapstick I’ve seen, they were still a delight and his influence on many others in the art form is admirable. As Linder stated after the premiere of his final film, “I don’t feel funny anymore;” if it’s any consolation, I think the world and many other artists may disagree.

For both films: 7/10

The Kid : The Tramp's Sweet Feature Debut

Despite Max Linder (whose films will be reviewed shortly) being the true father of the slapstick silent comedy, Charlie Chaplin is the one to truly take advantage of all of its incredible possibilities on the big screen. He may not have had, at least in his 1921 feature film debut The Kid, the most elaborate gags, but he almost certainly had a gigantic heart that made his films incredibly charming, lovable, and most of all relatable. Using his ever-popular Tramp character that he had developed over the past decade through a variety of short films, Charlie Chaplin decides to take his goofball character with a heart of gold to the big screen. While it may be a small story – a man finds an infant on the street and decides to care for it – the emotions are played up in a big way and the comedy is pure slapstick gold.

Having heard many, many, many things about Chaplin’s films for many years and having never gotten around to them, it was nice to finally make my way into his filmography with such a pleasant start. However, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that the film almost certainly would’ve worked better as a short film. Okay, I get it; a fifty-minute film is already pretty much a short film – especially by today’s standards (where anything under 60 is pretty much declared a short film). That being said, I feel like the first two-thirds of the film are full of wonderful little cutesy moments that draw you in, but the last third (after such a beautifully moving climax involving a rooftop chase scene and what has to be Chaplin at his emotional best) merely lingers until a predictable resolution.

It’s probably unfair to criticize such an early film for predictability, as predictability is something mostly a by-product of living in the 21st century after millions of films have rehashed the same stories for audiences for many decades. Certainly, that’s not what I dislike about the film – which isn’t much I dislike by the way, I still quite love the film – but it’s how it plays out. After such an engaging climax, there’s a lengthy dream sequence that – while funny and light-hearted – does not do much to serve the actual story and feels completely out of place. Once that ends, the film pretty much ends without any heartfelt emotional resolution. It just kind of ends.

At the same time, though, one has to remember this was early cinema and Chaplin’s film was pretty much a breakthrough in terms of blending slapstick comedy and drama together. Perhaps he was still working out the kinks of crafting a feature film and while its last third has flaws, it’s still quite moving and funny – something almost entirely unheard of back in the early 1920s and before (as far as feature films were concerned).

Chaplin perfectly communicates this incredibly heavy and melodramatic story with a fitting light-hearted touch. The two complement each other so well that it’s no wonder the film was such a large hit with audiences back in 1921 (being the second highest grossing film of the year and with a budget less than half of the typical money-makers of the decade). Chaplin, in complete creative control of the product (director, writer, actor, and even composer), uses each of these aspects to deliver on the promise of its opening title card: ”A picture with a smile—and perhaps, a tear.”

Of course, it’s not just Chaplin alone that makes this film work. In what has to be one of the superior child performances, Jackie Coogan does outstanding work as the titular kid. He’s equal parts cute, affecting, and well-coordinated on par with Chaplin’s Tramp. Both he and Chaplin have incredible chemistry that you believe the credibility of their five-year relationship and it only makes the poignant scenes more effective. Edna Purviance also works wonders here as the “woman,” who had given the kid up but soon became a renowned celebrity and charity giver.

While there are undoubtedly many other Chaplin films to explore, this is certainly a film that shows a lot of potential for Chaplin both as a filmmaker, actor, and composer. His biggest strong suit is obviously his care for his audiences, how he wants to offer a story that both makes them smile and cry in equal doses, but he doesn’t play them for fools. He lets plenty of the action in his films speak louder than words, using very minimal dialogue in his films, and the stories hold quite a bit of weight to them. If Keaton was the thrills, then Chaplin was certainly the heart and this film has no shortage of that here.


8/10

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and What Lurks Within

I will start this review by saying that this review contains spoilers. I realize it’s almost a century-old film, but as I had just seen it for the first time, there are obviously those who will be seeing it for the first time, too and saying “well, it’s been around forever!” is no excuse to spoil the fun for anyone. Anyway, that being said…

Robert Wiene’s 1920 hit film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is not only a film that must have been ripe inspiration for Tim Burton in terms of its design, but is also a fantastic exploration into the mind of mental illness. As many films have tried since, this must have been one shocking film of its time by offering the audience an unreliable protagonist that forces the viewer to think much more deeply about the conflict in the film – as well as the conflict outside their front door. The film follows a man named Francis as he tells the story of the mysterious Dr. Caligari and the sleepwalker living in his cabinet.

Seeing as this was my first foray into the world of German Expressionist filmmaking, I was not expecting such elaborate set designs and gothic style make-up or costuming that would make any Hot Topic regular feel at home.

However, long before the idea of Gothicism became a sweeping teenage trend, the use of intricate, topsy-turvy sets serve to show the world as seen through the eyes of someone with mental illness with ingenious creativity. While the story is perhaps a bit too poorly paced for my liking, this expressionist art on display in this film certainly proves itself to be about the most creative use of imagery since George Méliés’ A Trip to the Moon eighteen years prior.

Putting aside my unabashed love for the design of the film, there are still quite a few flaws for me in terms of the story itself. Despite it only being a little over an hour long, its pacing is all over the place. Perhaps this was the intention of the filmmaker, but for me it felt too much like a rollercoaster. At first the film moves too abruptly to setting up location and characters, then slows down for a large chunk of the film where it hardly explores the wonderful avenues it sets itself up for in terms of conflict or mystery, before it finally reaches its conclusion before any mystery is developed. As a film that is about attempting to uncover who is murdering the townsfolk, it offers very little time in the whole detecting department, and almost right away answers the questions the viewer has.

But if the ending is any indication, maybe there is more here than meets the eye. I’ve read many others discuss the film as almost an early indication of what was to come during the time of World War II many years later. For instance, Dr. Caligari represents the possessive and brainwashing attributes of the German government and Cesare, his somnambulist science experiment, represents the mindless killing machines of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. We always wonder, ”how did a man convince an entire nation that one race was superior to all others and then force them to murder millions for no reason whatsoever?” Perhaps that’s the same question we ask in Dr. Caligari, albeit to a much smaller level. Is it the fascist ideal that’s mentally ill or are we, as bystanders, the ones locked in the madhouse? Maybe it’s reading too much into a film when it was long before Nazism was even a thought in the world, but it’s still a very intriguing thought.

Judging the film solely based on what it must have meant back in 1920, it’s a fine piece of creepy entertainment. A bit lacking in the mystery department, and could’ve easily explored so many avenues that seemed infinitely exciting and would’ve made for a much more worthwhile film for me, but for what it is, it’s certainly one of the best of 1920s so far. In particular, the artistry present in the technical aspects is especially admirable and really draws you in as a viewer into this fantastical world that has served as an inspiration for many filmmakers since.


8/10

The Penalty : An Unusual Revenge Tale with Legs to Stand On

Nearly scraping the bottom of the barrel for 1920, I uncovered a Lon Chaney film that is rarely – if ever – discussed. And it should be because it harbors one of Chaney’s finest performances without any need for extensive (possibly racist) makeup or one-note characters. In Wallace Worsley’s The Penalty, Chaney stars as a man who – at a young age – had his legs wrongfully amputated by an amateur doctor and has lived his whole life with a Napoleonic rage, thriving in the seedy underbelly of San Francisco, while hoping to exact revenge on the doctor – who has now become a widely renowned surgeon – some twenty odd years later.

I can say with certainty that this film must have been one hell of a sales pitch back in the early 1920s:
”So there’s this guy, he has his legs cut off as a kid, but it was a mistake because the doctor can’t read charts, and so this kid grows up and he’s pissed, but he’s also a kingpin of the San Francisco crime syndicate. Oh, also he houses women like sweatshop workers, but we’ll get to that later. Anyway, so he wants revenge on this doctor, but he’s famous now, and his daughter’s a sculptor and she wants to draw Satan, and to drive home the point that he is an evil man, he decides to be her muse for this sculpture. Oh, but he’s only doing it as a ruse to get to her father. Oh, and the cops are onto him with some covert mission. Because he’s evil and stuff. But who could play a guy who looks like Satan and is either has no legs or is willing to tie his legs to his ass to give off the effect that he has no legs? He’s gotta look like Satan though.”
“Well, Lon Chaney’s pretty ugly. And available!”
“Perfect!”

It’s certainly a weird and twisted idea for 1920 – probably not so much nowadays as convoluted plots about troubled weirdos as psychotic masterminds is kind of a niche category all of its own these days. But for 1920, this film was probably ahead of its time. Not in terms of style or technique or even acting, but due to its content. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a weak film because it’s not right for its time, in fact it only makes the film stronger that it can stand apart from the rest of its era so well. My one problem is that the film offers an ending that seems to come completely out of nowhere, almost as if a studio had dipped their grimy fingers into the cesspool of script fuck-uppery and drizzled it over the last ten-fifteen pages of the script. That’s probably a bit harsh, and the ending really isn’t bad as much as it could potentially be divisive, but it still doesn’t feel like it was the way the director or writer really wanted it to go. Maybe you – whoever reads these – can be the judge of that, but for now, it was a big factor in the drastic change in personal feeling I had toward this film.

That being said, the one aspect that was relentlessly commendable, even throughout the wishy-washy ending, is Lon Chaney’s commanding performance. Never mind the fact that the man literally bound his legs at the knees as tightly as he could to give off the effect that he had no legs (ahh, the days of no computer-generated imagery… You can hear Lt. Dan laughing from here), he still managed to offer an incredibly nuanced performance of a troubled, yet misunderstood individual even through the bouts of pain. From what I’ve seen of Chaney so far, he’s been a very over-the-top and generally typecast actor. Either he’s playing a makeup-heavy freak in a horror picture, or a cunning and vile thug/ evil-doer, and while he plays both the freak and evil-doer here, he hardly plays them to the same effect he has in other films. Here, the film rests solely on his shoulders and he can both frighten and cause you to empathize with in the same scene, perfectly capturing the psyche of this eccentric madman without overplaying him to a level of ridiculous he’s often known to do.

Thankfully, director Wallace Worsley helps to capture the persona of the character as well by lingering on scenes and building up tension in scenes just long enough to let the emotions play out naturally. There aren’t any loud, melodramatic scenes that aren’t thrown in just because it’s the 1920s; they’re given credibility and are respectfully tied into the characters’ personalities. The script, for about three-quarters of the film, offers a unique and fully-developed perspective on these types of characters as well – something that films of today could learn a lesson or two from. Even despite how it ends, it’s still a film well worth checking out – if, at the very least, because of Lon Chaney. I doubt there are many performances of his better than this, and it’s certainly the best male performance I’ve seen from the decade (but I also haven’t seen many yet). Sometimes you just have to look in the hidden areas to find small gems like this. I know that I wouldn’t have even thought twice about watching this film if it hadn’t been for my favorite film of the year, Monastery of Sendomir, changing my opinion about how even the small films of nearly a century ago can still hold weight with the big dogs of its time and even today. Hopefully Chaney’s performance does the same.


7.5/10

Way Down East : Gushing Over Gish and Learning to Forgive Griffith

D.W. Griffith – you've finally redeemed yourself. Mostly anyway. It’s too bad we can’t just simply wipe away the fact that Birth of a Nation exists as it certainly wouldn’t have served to be the inspiration necessary for film to thrive, but damn if this film doesn’t deserve the type of praise I’ve long heard people give Griffith’s films. Having now perfected a craft that he once boldly shaped in 1915 – finally softening all those rugged edges of editing, pacing, shot-framing, and narrative in general – Way Down East demonstrates at last what Griffith has essentially been working hard toward for the past five years or so. Yes, I’m aware Intolerance and Broken Blossoms exist, but I’ve yet to get there, so maybe he figured it out even sooner. Regardless, it still shows how far he had come in those five years to finally perfect a style that many would come to borrow throughout the generations of filmmaking.

In one of the greatest performances I’ve seen from early cinema, Lillian Gish (pictured below) stars as a naïve young woman who is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer and then has to start her life from scratch, attempting to leave her past behind. To talk purely about Griffith’s expertise with the filmmaking is to dismiss the piece of emotional glue that holds the film together and makes it as incredible an experience as it is – and that is quite easily Gish’s performance.

From the beginning of the film, she plays the naivety of a penniless country girl who has never known real love with conviction and delight, but as the film progresses, her performance naturally does as well. Many criticize the film’s melodrama, but that was kind of the type of acting prevalent throughout the 1920s (and probably late into the 1930s as well). However, Gish still commands the screen with all the subtle sadness in her eyes – doing much more with so much less than people give her credit. How she isn’t talked about in the same breath as some of the best actresses of the 1920s, let alone all-time, is beyond comprehension for me as she was one of the greatest aspects of Birth of a Nation in 1915 as well, but here she excels more than I could’ve expected and I know there are many praised performances of hers I’ve yet to see as well.

Gish is not the only performer in the film making an effort, though. Her male counterpart – Lowell Sherman (pictured left with Gish) – who plays the slimy womanizer, plays him to a tee. From his initial appearance on screen, I could almost feel his sleaze seep out of the film reels. He’s very much charming, but quite easily disgusting in his actions and he holds no punches through his performance as well. The rest of the cast all makes an effort, even if some are quite over-the-top (like Vivia Ogden who plays the town gossiper, Martha) that can shift the tone of the film out of place.

The biggest downfall of the film has to be its unnecessary and atmospherically inappropriate subplots that focus on the townsfolk and their daily lives which involve far more slapstick and goofball behavior than really fits the tone of Gish’s heavy dramatic work. For a film that already feels quite long (clocking in nearly two-and-a-half hours) in a decade filled with a ton of very short films compared to films of today, over half an hour could’ve easily been cut out because of these subplots and the entire story would’ve still been as impactful. In fact, maybe even more so, that way we as an audience could feel the depth of Gish’s pain and emotional turmoil rather than be interrupted every fifteen minutes by some peculiar, Patton Oswalt-looking screwballs and their slapstick humor.

Altogether, this is certainly quite an admirable accomplishment from a director who once filled me with such rage due to his completely ignorant ideals on display in his influential “masterpiece.” In fact, he actually goes the extra mile and uses this film as a method of battling the ignorance and intolerance of many of his day (and yes, I’m aware he already combatted the public’s backlash with 1916’s Intolerance, but as I haven’t seen that yet and the fact that this is still quite relevant to the unfortunate inferior roles of women back in the day, I’m not exactly counting that). As one user on IMDB mentioned to me, while DeMille was one to focus on gender roles or issues facing women in a forward-thinking way, Griffith was always focused on the past and looking to perfectly reflect life through his art rather than send a message about the way things could be. Regardless of which director better raises the issues, it’s still interesting at least that Griffith ever bothered to address such issues faced by women considering how intolerant I once believed him to be. Here’s hoping that his Birth of a Nation days were left back in 1915 and each film of his I’ll see from here on out will show the same type of humanism displayed in Way Down East. Maybe using Gish in nearly all of his films will certainly help; I know it would get me to watch them again, that’s for sure.


8.5/10

Outside the Law – and Just Outside the Realm of Strong Filmmaking

Attempting to put aside my serious judgment and hatred of using “blackface, yellowface” or any type of racist makeup to allow white movie stars to play these roles that could just as easily be played by the actual people of the race they are attempting to portray… Tod Browning’s Outside the Law still has a lot of faults outside of this that makes it difficult to fully enjoy the film beyond that. It’s not a bad film by any means, but it’s a weak one for sure and if not for the strong performances and intensity of some key scenes, it would be nowhere near the rating for which I give it.

After her reformed kingpin father, “Silent” Madden is wrongfully sentenced to prison after a scheme by master criminal Black Mike Sylva (played with rugged authority by Lon Chaney in a dual-role where he also plays an Asian servant named Ah Wing for some reason I can’t comprehend whatsoever…), Molly Madden (Priscilla Dean) works together with Black Mike’s right-hand man (played by Wheeler Oakman) to take him down. While the plot works for about two-thirds of the film, there is this unfortunately large chunk of the mid-section that is dedicated to both Dean and Oakman sitting in a room hiding out from police where the schmaltz and "convenience" is played up to a tee which takes away from a good amount of the intensity that had been built up to that point.

It’s not until Chaney’s Black Mike (pictured left) makes an appearance toward the last twenty minutes that the film finds new life once more and it leads to a shoot-out that, if not for the damaged quality of the film that made most of it almost incomprehensible, would have been very intense.

While I understand both that it’s unfair to rate a film based solely off of the standards of its time (the racist non-casting of Asian actors) and that I can’t poorly rate a film due to its film reels’ unsuccessful transition to modern times, I can still say the film would have easily not been worth the time if not for the strong performances of everyone. While Chaney and E. Alyn Warren (who plays the Confucius-like Chang Lo) both unnecessarily play Asian characters, Warren still plays Chang Lo quite well and with respect to the character and his race, while Chaney is quite pointless and over-the-top as Ah Wing, but gives a remarkably fierce turn as the thuggish Black Mike.

Beyond those two, the two leads (pictured right) – Dean and Oakman – manage to make the consistent banter that fills up a large portion of the film work as they show off their acting range from sweet to intense to devious – just like any good thief.

Without any of these performances, however, I would say Tod Browning (popularly known for his 1931-32 one-two punch of Dracula and Freaks) would have had a humungous flop on his hands and not have had the career he wound up having. This is not to undermine his strengths as a director as when characters were not sitting in rooms talking, he still crafted some suspenseful action sequences (primarily shoot-outs) and he really excelled when all of his characters were in play together. While it feels like 1920 had little to offer outside of the generic, each one of the films reviewed so far – including this one – showed potential for directors or stars who would go on to quite a bit of fame over the decade and even over onto the 1930s. Maybe without the racist makeup/ casting, perhaps their films improve (after all, he did remake this film with the powerful Edward G. Robinson in Chaney’s role without requiring him to play an Asian character too!). So perhaps they do learn after all. At least it’s not as bad as Birth of a Nation…


5.5/10

Pollyanna : A Schmaltzy, Naïve Introduction to Mary Pickford

As my first foray into the work of the ever-renown Mary Pickford (labeled as “the most popular star in screen history” by film historian Ethan Katz), and considering it was in tune with my 1920 streak, I decided to check out Paul Powell’s Pollyanna. While it’s probably better known by its 1960 remake by Walt Disney Studios, the one aspect I’m sure that film was missing was the glee and charm of Mary Pickford. While she’s not as well-known to me as she is to most, she certainly kept my attention throughout the entire film thanks to her vibrantly sweet performance.

Even though she was in her late twenties during the making of this film, Pickford plays the young recently-orphaned titular Pollyanna who goes to live with her cheerless Aunt Polly after her father passes away and she has no other relatives.

As expected, their personalities clash to create much conflict though Pollyanna becomes a shining symbol for all those in the town to live up to as she makes many friends during her stay. As the title cards state far too many times over during the film, Pollyanna likes to play the “Glad Game” and is “glad” about this, “glad” about that, and it brightens everyone’s day.

I would say it’s the cynic in me that finds that level of consistent optimism to be incredibly aggravating – probably akin to her miserable Aunt Polly – but it really just isn’t realistic to me for someone to audibly talk about the optimism they could find in each and every situation. That being said, Mary Pickford certainly helps to sell such a cheesy, corny performance that actually manages to work to make even the mean, ol’ Grinch grow a heart three sizes bigger. From the opening scene alone, as Pollyanna talks with her father on his deathbed, she perfectly blends the optimism of her character with the real emotion associated with losing a loved one.

Seeing as how I’m a pretty sentimental individual, I certainly hoped the rest of the film would offer the same amount of tear-jerker scenes. Instead, what I received was far too many unrealistic scenarios of this Christ-like child spreading love far and wide and affecting all the grumpy people of the town, turning them into lively, loving beings. Most of the time, I wouldn’t mind, but maybe it was just a film made for the audience of its time (as is common knowledge, the Great Depression was fast approaching during the decade of the 1920s) that attempted to make people smile even during the roughest of times. Watching today in 2016, however, offers very little impact but a feeling that the film was unrealistic and overly corny (not to mention convenient, with her next-door neighbor knowing her mother quite intimately).

The one shining light, though, definitely has to be Mary Pickford’s delightful performance that must have certainly been an inspiration for Amy Adam’s equally charming turn in Disney’s 2007 princess/live-action hybrid film Enchanted. Though Pickford’s height and ageless beauty certainly made her able to play child roles long past her transition into adulthood (almost like Ellen Page in the 2000s), it worked for this film in particular and certainly helped establish her as a profitable and often-revered name in the film industry. Hopefully the rest of her filmography demonstrated a bit more inspired filmmaking than this one. For what it’s worth, though, she nailed the performance here so it wasn’t all that bad.


5.5/10

Fantastical Monsters Alive in Prague: Paul Wegener’s The Golem

I suppose if you only ever dedicate yourself to one role or film for the rest of your career, then make it the best you possibly can. This thought process must have been what director and star Paul Wegener had in mind when he directed his third adaptation of The Golem. After both directing and starring in a 1915 and 1917 version of essentially the same story (or at least involving the same character), Wegener reprises the role once more and sits behind the director chair to bring a Frankenstein-esque story to the big screen a third time.

The first thing I noticed about the film was its incredible use of saturation to color the film strips to bring a lot of vibrancy to the picture. From the film’s opening images, the prophesizing Rabbi Low (played by Albert Steinrück) looks to the stars atop of his humble church and smells a catastrophic disaster fated for his beloved Jewish community. From the bluish tint to the film that gave the “night” feel to the film (in the bottom-left corner of the picture to the left) as well as the sickly green glow of his lair (top-right in the picture), I was instantly drawn into the atmosphere of the film.

In order to battle the impending doom, Rabbi Low builds a creature – The Golem – with the help of dark spiritual forces to protect his people. What happens next is essentially the same story as Dr. Frankenstein and his famous monster.

Though the story is a slightly generic version of Frankenstein, and with much more political allegory and religious sentiment to boot, Wegener still tells the story in an exciting way. Wegener himself (pictured below, who looks a lot like Guardians of the Galaxy’s Dave Bautista) also plays the titular Golem and with more dedication than many of the other performers in the same film.

Despite having no dialogue whatsoever, he acts expertly through his facial expressions and mannerisms – either played to frightening or humorous effects. Outside of him, it was nice to see Ernst Deutsch of The Third Man fame at a very young age as the cowardly Rabbi protégé.

Though the ending carries a few anti-Semitic vibes with it and goes to some really strangely dark places, the film still serves as a film full of wonder and excitement that must have been a thrill to see in the early 1920’s. I can say so far that the European directors of the time certainly showed much more dedication to their craft than the American/ Hollywood directors offering simple, crowd-pleasing stories. While the film itself was not exactly perfect, it was still a great fantasy/ adventure film (some call it one of the early “horror” films as well, but I rarely got those vibes). The visuals gave the film the proper flare to draw the viewer into its atmosphere and the costumes/ production aspects were all put together proficiently to feel as if you were alive in the sixteenth century watching this story unfold. While Wegener never made anything quite as successful as his Golem films, especially this version, it certainly helped usher in (along with Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) a long tradition of successful horror/ fantasy films from European directors. For that alone, it’s worth checking out.

7.5/10

Why Change Your Wife : A Dated, but Brilliant Commentary on Marriage

Long before Gloria Swanson gave the world one of the most iconic performances in all of cinema in Billy Wilder’s (very meta) Sunset Boulevard, she was a thriving silent film star often under Cecil B. DeMille’s masterful eye. As both of their careers were rising at the dawn of the new decade, this film certainly helped to solidify each as some of the best in the business. Why Change Your Wife follows Swanson as the titular wife who is constantly berating and badgering her husband, Robert (played by Thomas Meighan), until he bumps into a model named Sally at a lingerie store while shopping for his wife – hoping a gift might make her happy. Eventually, Robert attempts to fight the “matrimonial resignation to fate” that the opening title cards declare most men are instinctively born with, but not everything goes the way he had hoped – and Gloria Swanson’s Mrs. Gordon sure isn’t giving up on herself either.

It’s a sweet little film made all the better with some solid performances from the main trio – Meighan, Swanson, and Bebe Daniels (who plays Sally). In particular, Gloria Swanson’s transformation from the irksome wife into the one-who-got-away ideal woman of Mr. Gordon’s dream (those eyes...) is a delightful turn and the best female performance I’ve seen so far in the 1920s.

It’s not difficult to see why Swanson was declared one of the pivotal stars of the 1920s and an influence on many actresses over the next century. But that’s not to shortchange Meighan or Daniels who give affective performances that are only one step behind Swanson’s glorious turn. Meighan spends most of the film sighing with defeat or looking worried, but it works to lend the film some comic relief and as a man in a long-term relationship, I can definitely say a lot of his behaviors are not that far off from that of a committed man. Daniels also excels in the first half of the film in a performance that is equally intoxicating as well as sensitive, but the second half of the film changes her character a bit too much that she loses her edge (more the fault of the writer than anything on her part).

The one problem the film is plagued with, however, is that it is a film very much meant for its time. From the misogynist title cards or dialogue that too often discuss the importance of beauty or accessories to define a woman to the many Bechdel tests the film fails many times over, the film would be met with much controversy had it been released today. While I am very much an advocator of equality among all genders, races, lifestyles, etc., I am not going to judge a film poorly based on the standards of its time. Art is only a reflection of the times, and while times have changed, the films stay the same and I will judge them solely off their quality as cinematic works. That being said, the work is still very dated both in its dialogue and in its scenarios.

While all of this may be true, the film still offers a very honest and brilliant commentary on marriage and fated souls that was certainly ahead of its time in that regard (weird; a film both dated and ahead of its time?!). As one title card in the film states: “Matrimony, like a dip in the sea, first stimulates, then chills. But once out of the water the call of the ocean lures the bather to another plunge.” This brilliant line alone is what the film is essentially about. Whether that plunge be with another man or woman, or back into a marriage that has not yet found its ending, it’s always that intimacy which we lost souls search. As someone who has been in many long-term relationships, as well as currently in one, it’s easy to lose the gratitude and fire that once ignited a relationship because we have sat in the water too long. But once out of the water, you’re shaking cold and wishing you could go right back in. The film, while still showing the difficulties of marriage and monogamy, still ends on a note of hopefulness that might open the eyes of some married or committed individuals who may have taken for granted the one thing they should hold most dear. For the commentary alone, however dated it may be, I enjoyed the film and hope to see more of the glorious Gloria down the road as well.


7.5/10

The Monastery of Sendomir : Suspense with Simplicity

A year before his most acclaimed and highly influential film, The Phantom Carriage, and long before he played the lead protagonist in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (uniting professor with protégé), Swedish director Victor Sjöström crafted this brilliant silent feature from 1920, The Monastery of Sendomir (sometimes titled Secret of the Monastery). The premise of the film is an incredibly simple one and almost plays out like an old fable or urban legend throughout its brief running time of 54 minutes: a cantankerous monk offers refuge to a group of weary travelers within his monastery and shares a story of the monastery’s owner and his wife. What begins as, what appears to be at least, a horror film about spirits or haunted castles turns into something far more terrifying – involving the morality of humans.

Though the story is brief and told almost like an extensive anecdote or campfire tale, Sjöström manages to capture a variety of emotions within a short period of time. His film bears a heavy burden of intensity that looms over each frame like a dark cloud, which perhaps could explain why the film feels so much like a horror film of its time. The wonderful lighting and photography of Henrik Jaenzon certainly aids in crafting an eerie and troubling atmosphere, at times (at least for a modern viewer) reminding me of Frankenstein or Dracula of years later.

Even without any music to accompany the film (unfortunately, at least with the video I saw on YouTube), Sjöström still manages to create a truly compelling picture thanks to his genuine care for his remarkably engaging characters as well as his careful dedication to tell the story in the exact amount of time it requires. There is little time wasted on unnecessary subplots or attempting to maneuver back and forth between past and present as the monk tells his tale; instead Sjöström allows the film to breathe naturally as the intensity builds to an exceptionally thrilling climax.

On top of the wonderful atmospherics of Sjostrom’s profound eye, the cast actually lends a hand to create incredibly full-bodied characters. Though I have never seen or heard of any of the actors involved (I happen to be severely uneducated in too many foreign films, hence my odyssey through film), they all happen to provide excellent performances all around and fill me with excitement about seeing any future work from them. In particular, the lead protagonist of the Count played by Tore Svennberg is a fully lived-in performance that I have yet to see such dedication to during this decade (from a dramatic standpoint anyhow). As the intensity of the film builds and builds, he only becomes more inhabited within the character’s fear, anger, and anguish.

The stand-out, however, has to be Tora Teje (pictured left) as his wife, Elga. Though she appears to be the simple, naïve trophy of a rich Count, there is actually something more devious to her than we see, and she provides so many layers to a performance that never required many at all. In doing so, it only makes the character and the story feel more realistic for a time so long ago.

All I can say is that if Victor Sjöström could manage that much suspense and emotion with such little time and no music, I cannot wait to see what wonders await with his popular Phantom Carriage. Yes, yes, I know; I haven’t seen it yet. And crazy considering so many directors – particularly Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick – have been influenced by the film and his work, but maybe that’s the reason going back to your roots is so helpful sometimes. If we are influenced by the greats, then who were they influenced by? Of course, if Victor Sjöström’s Monastery of Sendomir is any example of his influential power, then it would certainly make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

9.5/10