Summer has been slammed chez Siren, my friends, and apologies for the radio silence. First came Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, then the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Both were wonderful, and there will be more to say. But the long absence found the Siren returning to a metric ton(ne) of work, including (but by no means limited to) a big essay for the Criterion box set of Tod Browning films, which is set to come out in October. And things are not slowing down much, either.
Did you feel a twinge of sadness at not making it to Bologna? A Week of Silents is coming up this very week at the Museum of Modern Art (complete schedule). MoMA has you covered with a full program of silent films that are being presented in East Coast premieres—and in some cases, this is the first time they have been screened at all in the U.S.
The Siren hasn’t seen most of these, which is thrilling, so let’s go through them all, starting with one she has seen. Fingers crossed that these will make it to streaming or blu-ray in their gloriously restored states. But for that to happen, it would be great to demonstrate their appeal at the box office. So all you New Yorkers and those who can make it to MoMA, you know what to do.
Stella Dallas (1925, Henry King) Wed., Aug 2, 8:00 p.m. (in MoMA’s Sculpture Garden, and the weather is perfect)
Note! Second chance at: Stella Dallas (1925, Henry King) Sat, Aug 5, 1:30 p.m.
Stella Dallas is one of the great American stories of mother love and sacrifice, the tale of a lowbrow, hopelessly gauche woman who marries an upper-crust man and loses him. But Stella keeps her daughter Laurel, a naturally intelligent and refined girl—until the day Stella realizes she must give up her child if Laurel is to have the life she deserves. Man, this is a killer premise; the Siren is getting misty just typing it up. But nothing can beat the impact of watching Stella Dallas.
In 1925, director Henry King had been putting together Stella Dallas with editor Stuart Heisler (later the director of such films as The Glass Key and Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman). King and Heisler worked until two a.m. to get a cut ready for producer Samuel Goldwyn to view the next morning. King told Goldwyn, “I’ve seen it fifty times. I would rather you look at it and I’ll be there when it’s over.”
King kept his word and went to the studio around noon when the screening was over. What happened next was described by King himself in an interview in the Directors Guild book Henry King, Director:
I saw the projection room door open and Sam came out. I went over to Sam but he didn’t say a word. He was just staring into space. He looked at me and sort of quivered. ‘Henry,’ he said, ‘you’ve ruined me.’ Honestly, my heart sank. ‘What do you mean I’ve ruined you?’
‘I can’t stand it,’ Sam said. ‘Nobody can stand it. Look at Miss Eddy [his secretary]. She can’t speak. I can’t speak. It’s great, it’s marvelous. It just ruined me!’
Well, the Siren knows exactly how Sam felt. When she saw this with a vast crowd at an outdoor screening in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore, the Siren was sitting next to the sophisticated Ms. Imogen Sara Smith. After the film was done, a friend came over to talk to us and broke off in mid-sentence. “Your eyes!” she said. “This movie really hit you both!”
Indeed it did. You could say it ruined us. The audience too. You know how some folks get the giggles at old movies for reasons the Siren doesn’t understand and doesn’t want explained to her because really, those people just need to pipe down? None of that at Stella Dallas. The audience was with every beat.
You may know the story from the more famous 1937 King Vidor version with the great Barbara Stanwyck, and that’s a good movie. But many people had told the Siren the silent version is better, and those people were right. There are a number of reasons for that, but chief among them is Belle Bennett. Frances Marion adapted Olive Higgins Prouty’s novel and told King and Goldwyn that they needed to cast Bennett. “This woman has just what it takes,” said wise France Marion. “She is a mother, she has two children, and she has had everything on earth happen to her. Both on stage and off she is Stella Dallas.” Marion was also the one who suggested Jean Hersholt, fresh off of Greed, for the part of Ed Munn—Stella’s sad, drunken nemesis in the film. Lois Moran, barely 16 during filming, was working as a dancer in Paris when Goldwyn spotted her and convinced King to cast her.
When you see Stella Dallas, you’re going to wonder what happened to Belle Bennett, and that’s why the Siren attached the fan-magazine article above. Maybe don’t read it until you’ve seen the movie. But Stella Dallas is way above and beyond petty considerations like spoilers. It’s a movie where the journey you take with it is everything.
The other films in this fabulous series:
The Lady (1925, Frank Borzage) Piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura.
Thu., Aug. 3, 7:00 p.m.
Directed by the mighty Frank Borzage from another scenario by the great Frances Marion, and starring Norma Talmadge in the kind of dramatic role her audience loved to see. This is a rarity and should be pounced on. Here is Dave Kehr (who curated this entire series) in the New York Times on Norma Talmadge as an actress:
Far from the hideous grimaces of Norma Desmond [who Billy Wilder is said to have modeled on Talmadge], Talmadge’s mime is subtle, flowing and natural, her emotions exact, her transitions graceful. And yet it is a kind of acting that modern audiences inevitably underestimate. In the decades before the Method taught us to appreciate the (apparently) spontaneous expression of an inner reality, screen acting, particularly in the silent era, was more concerned with the clean, clear delineation of significant surfaces, a repertory of gestures and facial expressions with agreed-upon meanings. On that level Talmadge is a virtuoso, precise in her attack, flawless in her smooth succession of different moods.
The Siren wrote a long piece about why Norma didn’t make the transition to talkies, and she also highly recommends that you tour this website maintained by Greta de Groat; it’s one of the best fan sites you’ll ever see.
The Adventurer (1917, Charles Chaplin)
What Happened to Jones (1926, William A. Seiter) Organ accompaniment by Ben Model. Fri, Aug 4, 7:00 p.m.
Real talk — if the Siren has to sell you on Chaplin, what are we even doing here? These are new restorations that should absolutely sparkle, and Ben Model will be at the organ. What Happened to Jones stars Reginald Denny at the height of his delightful comic appeal, and surely the phrase “he escapes into a Turkish bath on ladies night” (from the Letterboxd entry) is a big enticement. It is to the Siren, anyway.
La Dixième Symphonie (The Tenth Symphony) (1918, Abel Gance) Piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin. Sat, Aug 5, 4:00 p.m.
The Siren loves a good murder/blackmail/artistic torment story. From the Pordenone website:
Talk about high drama: Under threat, Eve Dinant has just murdered Vara, sister of the evil Fred Ryce. A year later, Eve marries the famous composer Enric Damor, but her dark past resurfaces when her stepdaughter Claire Damor introduces her to her suitor. Enric thinks he can thus discover a new, murky facet of the woman with whom he is madly in love, and the torment inspires him to write a sublime piece of music. Eve must yield one last time to the grip of her blackmailer.
Three Weeks (1924, Alan Crosland) Piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura. Sun, Aug 6, 4:00 p.m.
The Siren feels like this movie pretty much sells itself, even without Pike. The restoration, according to Dave Kehr, is spectacular, and should do justice to Cedric Gibbons’ sets—they were so gorgeous that a Los Angeles gallery put his drawings on exhibit. It stars Aileen Pringle and Conrad Nagel, said to loathe each other, and legend has it that you can pick up evidence of that if you’re a good enough lip-reader. (The Siren previewed Three Weeks, and alas, she doesn’t think so, but maybe it slipped past her.)
Emma Goldman endorsed the Elinor Glyn novel. The Ku Klux Klan picketed it (for generalized immorality) in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. All this, and Pike too. What more can one say, except the Siren will be there for this one!
The Street of Forgotten Men (1925, Herbert Brenon) Piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin. Mon, Aug 7, 7:00 p.m.
Having just researched the phenomenon of “gaffed,” or faked, sideshow attractions in the course of writing about Tod Browning and Freaks, the Siren is very intrigued by this story of a gang of gaffed beggars in New York.
She’s also very fond of the lovely Brenon film The Spanish Dancer and eager to see more of his work on the big screen. Plus, there is “Poor Percy” Marmont, “the most persecuted person in pictures,” according to a 1926 Photoplay above.
And finally:
Padlocked. (1926, Allan Dwan) Piano accompaniment by Ben Model. Tue, Aug 8, 7:00 p.m.
From the great Allan Dwan’s silent-film period comes Padlocked, lensed by the great James Wong Howe. intriguingly described for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival by the Siren’s pal Imogen Sara Smith:
Noah Beery plays Henry Gilbert, a wealthy do-gooder and domestic tyrant whose puritanism destroys the lives of his wife [Florence Turner] and daughter [Lois Moran]. His myopia about human character proves his undoing: he sees evil in innocent amusements, but is easily taken in by a gold-digging con artist…
In Padlocked, Mrs. Gilbert throws a seventeenth- birthday party for her daughter with a “kiddie” theme—a Jazz Age fad (Marion Davies hosted a famous one) that gave grown-ups license to dress in rompers and frilly pinafores, play nursery-school games, and generally cut up like toddlers. To be honest, there is something a touch grotesque about the spectacle, though Gilbert wildly overreacts to the sinfulness of girls sliding down a banister with bare knees. His brutality drives his daughter Edith (Lois Moran) to flee the house and become a feather-bedecked cabaret dancer [as one does –the Siren].
Wow, I would love to see this 1925 version of Stella Dallas. What a cast! Dying to see Belle Bennett. Hoping it will be available somehow. The others look interesting too. I had to laugh at the “Pad-locked” ad. Looks like some weird, repressed orgy?! I am looking forward to the esteemed Siren’s further commentary and glad she’s back! 😉💖
First, I am completely with you re: STELLA DALLAS. One of the most memorable moviegoing experiences of my life was seeing (what I suppose was the unrestored version of) that film on a random weekday afternoon at MoMA. (And confession to my ex-employer, I snuck out of work mid-day for it. Sorry not sorry.) I wept like I've never done before or since at a film. It is a special, special film.
Very excited to catch the Gance film and THREE WEEKS this weekend. On Sunday, Metrograph has two Jean Gremillon 30s films that (at least to me) seem relatively rare, so planning to catch those and then haul a** to MoMA in time to sin with Glyn.