Review #1,403: 'Man with a Movie Camera' (1929)

David Abelvich Kaufman was born on January 2nd, 1896 in Bialystok, Ukraine, and came of age during the Russian Revolution, joining the movement headed by Lenin and Trotsky that would eventually overthrow the Russian Republic. At some point during this time, Kaufman changed his name to Denis Arkadievich to avoid the persecution of Ukranian Jews. He studied music and medicine until he found his true calling in the arts, writing essays on Futurism and French avant-garde and developing a keen interest in cinema, something he viewed with both curiosity and frustration, calling out traditional, sentimental cinema as "leprous". Learning his trade developing newsreels for Cinema Week and changing his name once again to Dziga Vertov, the filmmaker set out to develop something nobody had ever seen before: a film without narrative, characters or dialogue.

Man with a Movie Camera, released in 1929, did away with traditional storytelling techniques to the point that no story would be told at all, at least not in the way that audiences were - and still are - accustomed to. Vertov would spend over 3 years on the film, shooting in Soviet cities Moscow, Kharkiv, Kiev and Odessa to capture the hustle-and-bustle of everyday life, from faces on the street to the labourers keeping the cities in motion. But this is no ordinary documentary, and to call it a documentary at all is somewhat misleading. Vertov and his group, the kinoks, were rooted firmly in modernism and Marxist ideologies, and Man with a Movie Camera aimed to push the limits of what could be achieved with a camera and clever editing. What may sound like a dour experiment for the academics is actually incredibly entertaining, with Vertov having plenty of fun playing with his toys. After a short burst of intertitles, we see an audience arrive for a screening, their seats magically lowering themselves down before the film begins. Later, we see a woman editing a scene we've just watched.

It's a film being made before our very eyes, and Vertov even manages to make you feel part of the process. Not only do we have the pleasure of some dazzling, innovative camerawork, but we also get to see how such a shot was achieved. The only 'character' of the film is the man with a movie camera, played by Vertov's brother and cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman. We see him scaling great heights and perched on the side of a moving car, or lounging in the shallow sea as he shoots a crowd gathered at the beach. The film would pioneer techniques still used to this day, including the likes of double exposure, slow-motion, extreme close-ups, jump cuts, and in one of the most delightful segments, stop-motion animation. With an average shot length of 2 seconds - the same as many blockbusters today - it thunders along like a well-oiled machine, backed by The Alloy Orchestra's rousing score. Everything is constantly in motion, from the trains, trams and factories, to the people going about their business. Vertov juxtaposes life and death, marriage and divorce, happiness and hardship, almost like it's happening simultaneously. It's a head-spinning experience that remains one of the most significant moments in cinema history, and to think it was done over 50 years before Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi attempted the same.


Directed by: Dziga Vertov
Starring: Mikhail Kaufman
Country: Soviet Union

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,389: 'Street Angel' (1928)

By the late 20s, director Frank Borzage was really starting to find his rhythm. He was always prolific and his films were largely successful, but his unique brand of romanticism was starting to take inspiration from German Expression and, in particular, the work of F.W. Murnau. The late 20s saw him direct 7th Heaven, Street Angel and Lucky Star - all huge successes, and all starring the glamorous pair of actors Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. These movies helped establish Borzage as a champion of the lower classes, where he would find "human souls made great by love and adversity." Street Angel was of his finest and most unjustly forgotten pictures, and while it boasts a Naples setting described as "laughter-loving, careless, sordid," Borzage is keen to highlight how a decent and honest person can be left humiliated and shunned by society for a moment of sheer desperation born out of poverty.

The film introduces our heroine Angela (Ganyor) as she is receiving some devastating news from the local doctor: her desperately sick mother will die without urgent medical treatment, only Angela is so poor that she can't afford the medicine required to make her mother better. With seemingly no other option, Angela takes to the streets to solicit men, and when that doesn't work, she looks to thievery. She is caught red-handed, and is charged not only for attempted theft, but also for prostitution, becoming the 'street angel' of the title. The court sentences her to a year of hard labour, but knowing her mother is alone and dying, Angel manages to escape custody. On her return home, she finds her mother already dead, draping her lifeless arms around her in a desperate plea for affection. With the police now hunting her, Angela joins up with a travelling circus, who welcome the beautiful lady with open arms, despite her recent run-ins with the law.

Time with the circus folk toughens Angela up. She vows to go on fighting, and turns her back on the idea of love. If you've ever seen a romantic movie then you'll know where the story is going, and soon enough a young artist named Gino (Farrell) has his head turned by the charming tightrope walker. They fall in love, but an accident means the couple must return to Naples, a city which threatens to expose Angela's past and send her back to jail. The story is predictable enough, but Borzage finds real poetry in this tale of two lovers brought together by fate. Murnau's Sunrise had been released just a year before, and Borzage had clearly taken notice. From a purely visual standpoint, Street Angel is one of the most innovative movies of its time. The camera feels constantly in motion as it navigates Angel's treacherous path with a looming sense of unease, and settles down to savour the small beautiful moments of Angela and Gino's romance. It all leads to a breathtaking final scene that takes place in a world of deceptive shadows and fog, a moment which may bring our lead characters together again for the final time. It's the work of cinematographers Paul Ivano and Ernest Palmer, and it's one of the most splendid sights in silent cinema.


Directed by: Frank Borzage
Starring: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Natalie Kingston, Henry Armetta
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,361: 'Sherlock Jr.' (1924)

Whenever conversation happens to turn to the topic of silent comedy, it isn't long until Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton are mentioned. The likes of Fatty Arbuckle and Laurel and Hardy get honourable mentions, but Chaplin, Lloyd and Keaton form a Holy Trinity, completely untouchable when it comes to their bodies of work. Debate rages on about who was the best: Chaplin had the heart, Lloyd delivered the thrills, and Keaton was a pure innovator, and not only for the comedy genre, but for cinema as a whole. The Kid and Safety Last! are two of the finest examples, but has there ever been a more jaw-dropping silent comedy than Keaton's Sherlock Jr., both in terms of laughs and sheer invention? I think not, and even at just 45 minutes, Sherlock Jr. is still one of the funniest movies ever made, and manages to squeeze more jokes, stunts and ground-breaking cinematic trickery than most feature-length movies could ever dream of.

A hapless theatre projectionist and janitor (played by Keaton) dreams about being a great detective, studying the topic in between sweeping floors and finding customer's lost dollars. He also has a sweetheart (Kathryn McGuire), who he buys a $1 box of chocolates on his way to visit her, changing the price tag to $4 in a bid to impress her. But he has a rival in his quest for the girl's affections, a dodgy and dapper character known as 'the local sheik', played by Ward Crane. We meet the sheik as he is pawning a pocket watch for $4, which he stole from the girl's father, and purchases a $3 box of chocolates in a bid to win the girl's love and steal her from the poor projectionist. When the father (Buster's dad Joe Keaton) notices the watch is missing, the sheik slips the pawn ticket into the projectionist's pocket, framing him for the crime. After his detective skills backfire and he is banished from the girl's home, the dismayed projectionist returns to his work and falls asleep as the movie Hearts and Pearls plays.

The rest of the movie takes place within the projectionist's dream, where he fantasises about being the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Jr. At first it seems like a strange direction to take the story, but moving the action into the realm of fantasy allows Keaton to test the limits of what could be done with a camera back in 1924. He leaps into the screen as the audience watches on, using expert framing and cutting techniques to place the character into a number of perilous situations. One moment he is on a cliff's edge, the next he is surrounded by a pack of hungry lions. From then on, Sherlock Jr. simply doesn't let up, delivering a carousel of genuinely dangerous stunt work and hilarious sight gags. A personal favourite of mine is the game of billiards, during which Keaton pulls of a number of extraordinary tricks shots with the added excitement of knowing that one of the balls is actually a cleverly-disguised bomb. Unbelievably, critics panned it upon its release, labelling it as unfunny and strange. Nearly 100 years later, it is recognised as one of the most innovative films of its day, and rightly so.


Directed by: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Ward Crane, Joe Keaton
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,359: 'Moulin Rouge' (1928)

Paris's iconic Moulin Rouge has proved an inspiration to many filmmakers down the years, including the likes of Jean Renoir, Baz Luhrmann and Woody Allen, who were all clearly fascinated by the venue's vibrant cabaret act and reputation as the home of the modern can-can. You would have to go all the way back to 1928 to witness one of cinema's earliest (if not the earliest) brush with the Moulin Rouge, although the scenes of the dancing girls bare little resemblance to the famous hangout. German-born director Ewald Andre Dupont made films in both Hollywood and London, and is perhaps best known for Variete and Piccadilly, but he also made this little-seen melodrama, filmed at Elstreet Studios, in 1928.

The star attraction at the city's most popular hangout is undoubtedly Parysia (Olga Tschechowa), a striking lady who performs to an adoring crowd on a nightly basis, dazzling the audience with songs, dances and shakes of her feathers. She is over the moon when she receives a letter from her daughter Margaret (Eve Gray) announcing her pending arrival. Parysia hasn't seen her child for a few years since she left for boarding school, and she's all grown up with a new man at her side. That man is Andre (Jean Bradin), who believes that he's met the perfect partner until he witnesses his future mother-in-law's stage performance for the first time. Andre falls in love, and declares his feelings to the shocked Parysia, who is determined to see her daughter happy by setting off to persuade Andre's stern, rich father than Margaret is worthy, despite his distaste for the goings-on at the Moulin Rouge.

Dupont's forgotten silent is a strange beast. It is essentially a rather relentless melodrama with little insight into human behaviour, which climaxes with a breathtaking high-speed car chase that would put many modern-day blockbusters to shame. At the film's centre is the odd love triangle between mother, daughter and a handsome charmer, but Dupont ignores the fact that Parysia would realistically want her offspring as far away from this letch as soon as possible once he declares his undying love for the mother of his fiancee. For a movie entitled Moulin Rouge, there's very little of what the venue is best known for, aside from a bit of uncomfortable black-face. From a technical standpoint, it is absolutely wonderful, with the director making full use of his leading star with close-ups and effective camera movements. Tschechowa is a legend of silent cinema, and it isn't difficult to understand why she was courted by the likes of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. For the most part, this is pretty dull stuff, but the climax will leave you breathless and hugely impressed.


Directed by: Ewald André Dupont
Starring: Olga Tschechowa, Eve Gray, Jean Bradin, Georges Tréville
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,257: 'After Death' (1915)

Many of cinema's earliest innovations tend to be rewarded to D.W. Griffith, the controversial director who, despite his obvious talents behind the camera, did himself no favours by releasing the incredibly ambitious but undeniably racist The Birth of a Nation. The annals of film history seem to have forgotten the Russian filmmaker Yevgani Bauer, who made around 70 films during the silent era, many of which are now lost. He was experimenting with cinematic techniques such as tracking shots, silhouettes and close-ups long before they became common practice in the industry, and was incredibly gifted at blurring the lines between reality, fantasy and dream. After Death, a spooky melodrama about the dead's grasp on the living, is a solid place to start for anyone seeking out his work.

Based on a short story by Russian playwright Ivan Turgenev, After Death tells the story of Andrei (Vitold Polonsky), a scholar living a reclusive lifestyle following the death of his mother. He spends his days in his study pouring over a portrait of the deceased, while his aunt (Olga Rakhmanova) tends to his needs. A friend comes to visit Andrei and begs him to break his cycle of sorrow. inviting him to an upper class social gathering. After much persuasion, Andrei eventually agrees. At the party, Bauer cleverly captures the atmosphere with a three-minute tracking shot, as all the party girls gossip behind fans at the sight of the recluse and the men chuckle as he walks by. It's a claustrophobic surrounding and Andrei is visibly uncomfortable, until he catches the eye of Zoya (Vera Karalli), a beautiful and fashionable actress who seems to develop an instant attraction to the awkward young man.

Zoya writes him a very forward letter declaring her love and arranging a meeting. Again, Andrei reluctantly agrees, but Zoya flees after disliking his stuttering reaction. Three months later, and Zoya has killed herself by taking poison before a big show, and Andrei's obsession with the dead reemerges. Bauer captures Andrei's descent into depression and despair with a collection of haunting, blue-tinted dream sequences, often switching back into reality in the same scene through clever use of editing. Andrei cannot be with his lost love in the real world world, so he spends his time in the world of the dead, laying with the soul he can only visit through pictures and memories in reality. It's incredibly sad, as most Russian silents are, but After Death is also incredibly poignant, succeeding in exploring how death plays such an important factor in many of our lives, and doing so within a 45 minute running-time.


Directed by: Yevgeni Bauer
Starring: Vitold Polonsky, Olga Rakhmanova, Vera Karalli, Mariya Khalatova
Country: Russia

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,200: 'The Unholy Three' (1925)

Before he gifted the world of horror with two stone-cold classics (1931's Dracula and 1932's Freaks), director Tod Browning was an incredibly prolific film-maker, churning out melodramas, thrillers and horror pictures by the dozen. One of his best during the silent period was The Unholy Three, a rather twisted crime drama set around a group of ex-circus freaks who come up with a plan to steal their fortune. It's a premise that would have any cinephile salivating, especially with genre legend and 'Man of a Thousand Faces' Lon Chaney playing the lead and the film's relative obscurity. While it's no masterpiece like Freaks, it explores a different side to the circus performer: one that is dissatisfied, restless, and capable of going to extreme lengths to earn their riches.

After getting kicked out of the side-show following a mass brawl, three disgruntled performers hatch a cunning plan to rob some rick folk blind. Ventriloquist Echo (Chaney) will assume the disguise of Granny O'Grady, a nice old lady who runs a pet store specialising in parrots. The animals do not talk, but Echo uses his ventriloquist skills to convince the moustache-twirling customers otherwise. When the unhappy purchaser later calls the store to complain, Granny O'Grady will snoop out the place, paving the way for horseshoe-bending strongman Hercules (Victor McLaglen) and short-tempered midget Tweedledee (Harry Earles) to sneak in and steal any spied valuables. There's also an escape plan in mild-mannered store manager Hector (Matt Moore), who the three will lay the blame on should the heat turn up. But when Echo's girlfriend Rosie (Mae Busch) falls for Hector, the plan quickly starts to fall apart.

There are a lot of things about The Unholy Three that are utterly ridiculous, such as Echo's needlessly convoluted plan, and the idea that anyone would buy the cigar-chomping Earles as a baby in a cart. Yet the flaws are really the reason to love the film that much more. There is a morbid fascination to be had with watching these idiots repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot and quickly resort to cold-blood murder. Chaney really was the man of a thousand faces; effortlessly convincing as both a harmless old lady and a sympathetic anti-hero, and Earles - who would later appear in Freaks - is great fun, delivering what is undoubtedly the film's greatest line ("If you tip that boob off to who we are, I'll lay some lilies under your chin!"). The strange premise and macabre characters proved a hit with the audience, and catapulted Browning into the big leagues. It may lack the edge of his later movies, but The Unholy Three retains a ghoulish quality a whole 92 years after its release.


Directed by: Tod Browning
Starring: Lon Chaney, Mae Busch, Matt Moore, Victor McLaglen, Harry Earles
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,186: 'Pandora's Box' (1929)

The journey taken by Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Pandora's Box to reach its status as a classic of Weimar German cinema is an interesting one. It received mild praise upon its release, but was shrouded in controversy due to its frank depiction of sexuality, even featuring one of cinema's first portrayals of a gay woman. The film was soon forgotten about, until it was re-discovered by a group of socialites and film enthusiasts in the 1950s - some close friends with star Louise Brooks - who heralded the film a masterpiece and set out to spread the word. Soon enough, Pabst's work was undergoing a revival, but this was overshadowed by the attention Brooks received. She was being talked about as an even more striking screen presence than the likes of Garbo and Dietrich, much to her amusement.

The truth is, Pandora's Box would perhaps only be an okay movie without Brooks in the title role. A known party girl, she started as a flapper dancer and bit-part actress before she was signed to Paramount by producer Walter Wanger, catching the eye of Charlie Chaplin in the process. As the film roles came in, she developed a hatred for the Hollywood scene, and fled to Europe after being denied a pay rise. She was unofficially blacklisted in her homeland, but it would be in Germany that she would make the two movies that would cement her as a goddess of the silent era, Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, both directed by the Austrian pioneer of the psycho-sexual melodrama, Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Both told a story of a care-free, and careless, woman brought down by a society that had different plans for her, and Brooks was the perfect face to channel such a dangerous force of nature.

Here she plays Lulu, a young dancer and aspiring performer engaging in an affair with the soon-to-be-married newspaper publisher Dr. Ludwig Schon (Fritz Kortner). On the night of her performance as a trapeze artist, Lulu refuses to go on stage while Schon's fiancee is in the crowd, and kicks up such a fuss that he ends up marrying her instead. Events eventually force her to go on the run with Schon's son (Francis Lederer), and she finds herself in the hands of increasingly unscrupulous men as her naivety and promiscuity invite trouble. At over 2 hours, it's too long, but the film always holds your interest because of Brooks. Her performance is incredibly modern and playful, and there's something almost dangerous about her. Like a beautiful woman who is obviously nothing but trouble, you cannot help but be drawn in by Brooks' seduction. Pabst tastefully weaves a story of drama, tragedy and sexuality with an intense eroticism, but it is the star, with her perfectly symmetrical face and iconic bob hairstyle, who leaves the great impression.


Directed by: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Starring: Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Francis Lederer, Carl Goetz
Country: Germany

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,180: 'The Kid' (1921)

Back in 1921, the idea of a feature-length comedy was practically unheard of, with the general consensus amongst the big studios was that it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for a comedy to hold an audience's interest for a long period of time. English writer, director, star and all-round comic revolutionary Charlie Chaplin had other ideas. After being warned against making a war comedy by First National Pictures, Chaplin's Shoulder Arms (1918) was a huge success, and the former vaudeville performer requested more money for his next picture. They refused, and frustrated at the studio's preference for quantity over quality, Chaplin left to form United Artists with Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks, putting the artists in control in what was a game-changing move for the industry.

With free reign to develop his craft in his own time and without the pressures of studio heads looking over his shoulder, Chaplin created his most personal work to date, and one of the finest silent movies ever made. Masterfully combining social observation, slapstick comedy and gut-wrenching drama, The Kid opens with a single mother (Chaplin regular Edna Purviance), whose "only sin is motherhood," leaving hospital with a newborn baby in her arms. Fearing societal attitudes towards being a single parent, she leaves her baby in an expensive car, hoping that the rich owners can offer the child a better life. However, the car is stolen by a couple of mobsters, who dump the babe in an alley to be discovered by the Tramp (Chaplin). The lovable scamp tries to give the newborn away at first, before deciding to raise him on his own. Naming him John, the kid grows up to become the Tramp's partner-in-crime, as his mother, now a famous movie star, fills the void in her life by giving away charity to orphans in need.

It's obvious that Chaplin knew he was onto a winner with The Kid. The preface labels it as "a picture with a smile -- and perhaps, a tear," and audiences have been laughing and crying with it ever since. The early scenes depicting the Tramp and the Kid partnering up to fuel their window-fitting business (the youngster smashes the windows while his adopted father just happens to be walking past with a backpack full of glass panels) cements their unique bond. This builds to the movie's most celebrated moment, in which Chaplin runs across rooftops to search for the child taken away from him by child services. The image of Jackie Coogan, Hollywood's first child star, screaming for his father is now one of the most iconic moments in cinema history, and if it doesn't bring a lump to your throat, you may wish to check yourself for a pulse. While it does go slightly overboard with the sentiment, it only goes to show that Chaplin knew exactly how to pull a reaction out of his audience. The Kid was recently entered into the National Film Registry, and deservedly so. At only 50 minutes, it managed to change the face of cinema forever.


Directed by: Charles Chaplin
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Edna Purviance, Carl Miller
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,020: 'Diary of a Lost Girl' (1929)

It isn't difficult to see why Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl caused a bit of a headache for the censors back in 1929. Even for a movie made during the Weimar Republic era, a revolutionary time for cinema when directors were consistently pushing the boundaries with controversial tales of debauchery and Germany's seedy underbelly, the themes and social insight feel unnervingly modern. Teaming up once again with his muse Louise Brooks, the Kansas-born starlet plays Thymian, the naive daughter of a wealthy pharmacist who, in the opening scene, watches their maid leave the family home in shame when Thymian's father (Josef Rovensky) gets her pregnant.

Although it's clear to the audience, Thymian is puzzled as to why the girl has left. Her father's assistant, the creepy and much older Meinert (Fritz Rasp), invites her to the pharmacy that night on the promise to tell her everything, but instead takes advantage of the young girl and gets her pregnant. When the baby arrives, Thymian refuses to reveal who the father is but her family learn the truth from her diary, and insist that the two marry to avoid damage to the family's reputation. When she refuses, Thymian's baby is taken from her and she is packed off to a reformatory watched over by the intimidating director (Andrews Engelmann) and his tyrannical wife (Valeska Gert). After rebelling against the school, Thymian and a friend escape and join a brothel,

Like many films made during the Weimar era, Diary of a Lost Girl depicts the decay in almost every aspect of German society at the time. The lives of the rich are stripped bare, and their motivations are heavily questioned when the family send Thymian away not with her 'rehabilitation' in mind, but simply to save face. The reformatory itself is a cold and bleak place, where the director's wife bangs a rhythm for the inhabitants to rigidly eat their soup too. They are less concerned with helping the girls fit back into the society that has failed them, and more about satisfying their own sadistic desires. In one particularly effective close-up, the wife seems to be achieving some sort of sexual gratification from her monstrous behaviour.

The one place Thymian feels accepted on any sort of level is the brothel, a place where she can be herself without any kind of judgement or fear of social exile. While Thymian can at times be frustratingly naive and swoonish whenever she finds herself in the arms of a man, Louise Brooks delivers a tour de force performance that helps the audience maintain sympathy for her put-upon character, even when the film is at its most melodramatic. Even though the film is now 87 years old, Brooks's acting feels completely modern. Where most silent actors switch between rigid and operatic in their performances, Brooks is naturalistic and subtle, making it clear just why Pabst was so eager to work with her again after Pandora's Box, made the same year.


Directed by: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Starring: Louise Brooks, André Roanne, Josef Rovenský, Fritz Rasp, Franziska Kinz
Country: Germany

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #862: 'Traffic in Souls' (1913)

A huge controversy in its day due to its salacious subject matter, Traffic in Souls is a creaky yet fascinating forefather of movie exploitation. One of the earliest feature-length Hollywood films ever made, director George Loane Tucker filmed his project away from the prying eyes of the producers with the knowledge that he would be shut down immediately in they caught a whiff of what he was actually up to. Tackling the unspeakable subject of white slavery, the film is of course incredibly tame by today's standards, but it's no surprise that it went on to become a box-office smash thanks to the inevitable media outcry.

The story follows a variety of characters who are introduced individually with title cards akin to reading a programme at the theatre. The main players include police officer Burke (Matt Moore), the archetypal humble hero engaged to the beautiful Mary Barton (Jane Gail); high society-type and head of the Citizen's League Willaim Trubus (William Welsh); and Mary's sister Lorna (Ethel Grandin), who is hustled by pimp Bill Bradshaw (William Cavanaugh) into joining his brothel. Trubus is at the head of the prostitute ring, and along with his go-between (Howard Crampton), a small gang of heavies and thugs, and a nifty, stolen invention that works like an early wire-tap, makes a fortune in kidnapping and selling women for sex.

Although the subject matter is controversial, the action depicted on screen is certainly not. The film spends a long time showing us the inner workings of the prostitute ring, from the bottom to the very top, which gives the film a clinical, procedural feel, although it keeps its characters at a distance. There are no scenes that even suggest what these women are exposed to, so we get to witness them crying in an empty room a lot. But this is captivating stuff at times, not only tapping into its audience's desire to see something forbidden, but helping define cinematic narrative as a whole. Some flashy techniques, such as stop-motion and camera glides, prove that people were developing these styles long before D.W. Griffith. It's certainly primitive, but demonstrates a remarkable maturity for its age, with even the actors dumping the wide-eyed overacting so popular in silent cinema for something all the more subtle.


Directed by: George Loane Tucker
Starring: Jane Gail, Ethel Grandin, William H. Turner, Matt Moore, William Welsh
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #777: 'Tabu: A Story of the South Seas' (1931)

The brainchild of German genius F.W. Murnau and documentary innovator Robert J. Flaherty (of Nanook of the North (1922) fame), Tabu uses the beautiful, untouched landscape of the South Pacific and employs non-professional natives to tell the beautiful story of love found and lost, and ultimately the death of paradise. Murnau died in an automobile accident shortly before the film's premiere and, thus, was his last gift to the movie-going world. Though it doesn't come close to the iconic expressionist horror of Nosferatu (1922) or the dark, satirical humour of The Last Laugh (1924), Murnau's epitaph is a simple, yet heart-wrenching cinematic poem.

The best spear-fisherman on Bora Bora is a handsome young man billed simply as The Boy (Matahi). His legendary status and unparalleled skill makes him popular amongst the islanders, and soon he has caught the eye of The Girl (Reri - who went on to star on Broadway as Anne Chevalier). They romance each other, but their affair is soon halted by the arrival of emissary The Old Warrior (Hitu), who proclaims Reri as the sacred maiden. She is 'tabu', and cannot be looked upon by any man unless he wishes the punishment of death. The couple brave storm and sea to escape, an arrive in a French-colonised island, where Matahi start work as a pearl diver. But their happiness is fleeting, and Reri is soon haunted by the image of Hitu, terrified she may have angered the gods.

The plot is hardly anything new, but Floyd Crosby's Oscar-winning cinematography makes Tabu more socially aware that the film may have you believe. The subtle yet crucial involvement of the French colonists, finding amusement at Matahi's lack of understanding regarding money and material wealth, is a clear swipe at the creeping of Western civilisation. Bora Bora won't stay pure for much longer. And that adds a gravitas to Matahi and Reri's plight - not only is their romance doomed, but so are their traditions and society. It is one of the last great silent films, a reminder that sound can be an unnecessary distraction, and that picture's can sometimes genuinely speak louder than words.


Directed by: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Matahi, Anne Chevalier, Bill Bambridge, Hitu
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #579: 'City Lights' (1931)

By 1930, the silent era was coming to a rapid end. All doubters thinking that the 'talkie' craze would not last were having a wake-up call, and silent geniuses such as Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin, were potentially seeing their highly successful careers melting away. Chaplin began work on City Lights back in 1928, yet a troubled and stressful shoot caused production to run until 1931, when Hollywood had all but given itself over to the new talkie era. Refusing to let go of his most famous creation, The Tramp, Chaplin endured with his vision and kept City Lights silent, seeing no hope for his beloved character in sound pictures. Chaplin shot sporadically, seemingly around one central, and very simple, idea, and managed to create his greatest work, and undoubtedly one of the greatest films of all time.

After a chance encounter with a poor, blind and humble flower girl (Virginia Cherrill), The Tramp falls in love. Smitten, he sits down by the sea where a drunk and eccentric millionaire (Harry Myers) is trying to commit suicide. The Tramp opens the millionaire's eyes to life's simple wonders, so the millionaire treats him to life's luxuries, getting him extremely drunk in the process. After a memorable night, the millionaire sobers up and throws the Tramp out, where he spies the flower girl being visited by a doctor. Desperate to make money for her, he takes a job a street sweeper and gets involved in a winner-takes-all boxing match. Yet everywhere he goes, the drunk millionaire is there ready to whisk him off on another wild night.

The juxtaposition of the two central stories in City Nights is relatively strange in terms of relevance to the narrative. The film is clearly a romantic one, which makes it peculiar when it repeatedly cuts to the Tramp's escapades with the millionaire. But Chaplin seems to have incorporated this for two reasons, and two aspects that Chaplin is remembered and adored for - comedy and social commentary. This is Chaplin's most laugh-out-loud film, with the standout being the scene in which the Tramp and millionaire, both highly intoxicated, arrive at a formal party. The Tramp walks across the dance floor, slipping in unfamiliar shoes, trying desperately to stay on his feet. It's a five-second gag, but for me it incorporated all of Chaplin's breathtaking physical ability and subtle energy. Every moment seems like an endless maze of possibilities for Chaplin, squeezing instants of virtuoso out of simple things like lighting a cigar or eating spaghetti.

The Great Depression had recently struck the country, and Chaplin uses City Lights as a gloomy insight to the lives of the people hit by poverty. The blind flower girl seems to have nothing, yet is rich in soul and spirit that the Tramp is uncontrollably drawn to. The millionaire is emotionally vacated - miserable, angry and intolerable when sober, yet boisterous and care-free when drunk. By contrasting the poor girl with the empty millionaire in his lonely mansion, Chaplin is championing the human spirit over material wealth, a beautiful sentiment brought to life by some fine scenes of comedy, and a profound statement given the harsh, demoralising times. This no doubt was one of the key factors that led to the film's surprising commercial success, with a hungry and unemployed audience given a sense of hope through Chaplin's magic.

It is the most satisfying cinematic experience I've ever had - frequently hilarious, awe-inspiring and exquisitely moving. Although Chaplin would carry on making movies and make another masterpiece in  Modern Times (1936), this is the last great 'true' Chaplin, his farewell to the era that served him so well. The final scene is the work of a true craftsman, a moment of sheer beauty. Without ruining anything for those who haven't seen it, the close-up of the Tramp's face overcome with emotion is one of the finest displays of acting I've ever come across, and it is easy to see why this scene is now so widely celebrated. A simply magical experience.


Directed by: Charles Chaplin
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Harry Myers, Florence Lee
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #553: 'The Thief of Bagdad' (1924)

Having made his name primarily in the comedy genre, silent superstar Douglas Fairbanks continued his transformation into swashbuckler with this lavish fantasy epic. Made on grand sets that rivalled the likes of Cabiria (1914), thanks to some spectacular set design by William Cameron Menzies, and featuring some ground-breaking visual effects, the real attraction of The Thief of Bagdad is Fairbanks himself, who compensates for some quite outlandish over-acting with an irresistibly athletic performance. The 1940 remake (for which Menzies was once of a few uncredited directors) cast Sabu as the titular thief, but relegated him to the sidekick of John Justin's Prince Ahmad. Perhaps the makers felt that making a petty thief the hero was a little more than the audience could accept, and so this works as a testament to the effortless likeability of Fairbanks.

The Thief (Fairbanks) roams Bagdad, taking what he pleases and going wherever his legs will take him. Unmoved by religion, he seeks any opportunity to steal, telling a holy man "What I want, I take!". Seeking the ultimate treasure, he and his associate (Snitz Edwards) break into the palace of the Caliph (Brandon Hurst), where he discovers the Caliph's beautiful daughter (Julanne Johnston) laying asleep. Yet when the guards are alerted, the Thief flees. With the Princess' birthday the next day, Bagdad awaits the mighty rulers and Prince's of other kingdom who will pay tribute to the Princess in the hope of winning her heart. The Thief plans on stealing her, yet when a twist of fate causes the Princess to love him back, he must embark on a mighty quest to bring her the rarest gift he can find, in the hope of winning the favour of her father.

With a hefty running time of 150 minutes, The Thief of Bagdad naturally suffers from some lengthy un-eventful periods, occasionally shifting its focus to the plans of the Mongol Prince (Sojin) to win the Princess by force and take over the city of Bagdad. But this is fantasy in its purest form, with magic ropes and carpets, various giant monsters, and a winged horse, all giving the opportunity for some dazzling and charming special effects that prove to be quite spectacular retrospectively. The film is an absolute visual delight, with the grand sets simply blowing my mind in an age of lazy CGI work. But like I said before, the true star is Fairbanks, failing to convince as an Arab but giving a performance of wonderful athleticism that pose no question as to why he was an absolute superstar in his day. The 1940 remake is certainly better remembered, especially for its glorious Technicolour cinematography, but Raoul Walsh's 1924 effort is simply beautiful, with some genuinely thrilling moments during it's climatic final third.


Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Julanne Johnston, Brandon Hurst, Sôjin Kamiyama
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #521: 'Waxworks' (1924)

When a young writer (William Dieterle) sees an advert in the paper requesting somebody with a big imagination, he takes the job and finds himself in a wax museum, where the owner asks him to write stories about his three finest works. His models are of Harun al-Rashid, Ivan the Terrible, and Spring-Heeled Jack, and when Harun's arm accidentally drops off, the writer's imagination starts to wander, and he sets about telling his fantastical tales.

Although in essence a horror film, Waxworks is more of an anthology film, juggling genres and tones to fit the mood of the individual piece. While this can be an inventive and successful approach (Creepshow (1982), for example), it can also damage a film's flow if not carefully constructed, risking leaving one story in another's shadow if they also vary in quality. Waxworks suffers for this unfortunately, mainly due to the unevenness in the stories' running times, and the sudden shifts in tone. The stories increase in quality as the film goes on, which is a good thing, but in the case of Waxworks, it leaves a disappointing taste in the mouth given the running time of the final piece is within the blink of an eye.

The first story has German silent screen legend Emil Jannings playing Harun al-Rashid, who is informed by his advisor that the most beautiful woman he has ever seen (played by Olga Belajeff) is married to a baker in the city. Rashid goes to win the love of the beauty, but she has set her husband (Dieterle) off to prove himself as a man by stealing the wishing ring from Rashid. Taking a fantasy approach, this story also has a sprinkling of comedy. Jannings if a colossal beast, as you would expect, and brings his dramatic chops to a rarely-seen comedic role. Yet this section drags, and the beautiful expressionist sets don't manage to save it from becoming a silly pantomime.

Another German silent icon, Conrad Veidt, plays Ivan the Terrible in the second section, which focuses on Ivan's insane obsession with his potion maker, who can seemingly strike death upon anyone he chooses. It has all the wide-eye operatic tones of Sergei Eisenstein's own Ivan adaptations, with Veidt proving the perfect candidate for Ivan's descent into complete madness. And the final story sees the writer fall asleep at his desk and begin a creepy dream about being stalked by a killer (Werner Krauss) in the streets. It is the final story that remains the most impressive, but sadly only lasts about four minutes.

Weimar Germany brought some of the greatest screen icons and most innovative directors in cinema history to the fore during the free-spirited expressionist movement, and although by 1924 the movement was fading away, Waxworks has some fine examples. The winding, claustrophobic staircases of the city streets in the first story evoke the most popular film of the movement, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and in a way, Waxworks almost feels like a homage to Robert Wiene's masterpiece, employing Krauss (who played the titular character) and Veidt who both starred. There is certainly a lot to admire here from a visual standpoint, but even three silent screen giants can't save it from being a slight disappointment, given the promise shown in the final story.


Directed by: Leo Birinsky, Paul Leni
Starring: Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss, William Dieterle, Olga Belajeff
Country: Germany

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #499: 'White Tiger' (1923)

The movie starts with the death of Mike Donovan (Alfred Allen), who is watching over his two children Roy and Sylvia, whilst unbeknownst to him, the present Hawkes (Wallace Beery) is plotting against him. Roy runs outside, believing his father and sister dead, while Hawkes flees with Sylvia, who believes the same of Roy. Fifteen years later, Roy (Raymond Griffith), going by the name of The Kid, is scamming people with his mechanical chess player. Hawkes returns to England with Sylvia (Priscilla Dean) and witnesses the automaton at a wax display, and hatches a plan with Roy to take the chess player to America, where they can pull a giant scam on the upper classes. After pulling of a robbery, the trio flee to a remote cabin, where paranoia and greed start to take hold of them.

Though he is now best remembered for his work in horror, most notable Dracula (1931) - arguably the greatest adaptation of the story ever made - and the excellent Freaks (1932), a macabre and twisted horror that would see itself banned for decades and tarnish the director's reputation, Tod Browning enjoyed a hugely successful and busy silent period directing, amongst others, caper films, focusing on small-time crooks and their schemes. White Tiger is one of these such films, and one of many collaborations he had with star Priscilla Dean, who was a huge star in her day, now sadly all but forgotten. The title White Tiger refers to the animal that lies inside of criminals, eating a way at them with guilt, uncertainty and paranoia, and we see this unfold in the second half on the movie as the lead trio hide out. I suspect the movie thinks itself as a window into this fascinating world, but after an entertaining first half, becomes a tedious and rather ridiculous melodrama.

The print I watched of this was so old and grainy that the film would often jump, making certain scenes difficult to follow and title cards often unreadable. But should the film ever be given a re-mastering, I doubt it would do anything to improve the dullness of the film. After spending forty or so minutes setting up an intriguing story, we spend the next forty minutes in one location, where unconvincing suspicions arise about the true identity of Hawkes, and they needlessly bicker amongst themselves. It is something Browning would go on to develop further in the commercially successful The Unholy Three (1925), but White Tiger was so incoherent that it was shelved for over a year before the studio released a new edit to an underwhelming box-office.


Directed by: Tod Browning
Starring: Priscilla Dean, Raymond Griffith, Wallace Beery
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #496: 'Kurutta Ippêji' (1926)

Very few Japanese films exist from the silent period. In fact, statistics show that only 1% of around 7,000 productions are represented in the modern catalogue of the silent cycle. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa's Kurutta Ippeji (also known as A Page of Madness) was thought lost (and perhaps forgotten) until he himself discovered a print in a warehouse in 1971. He diligently produced a new music soundtrack and re-released it. This is the first example of a silent film from Japan that I have seen, and have to say that the world should be thankful that Kinugasa discovered this avant-garde little master work.

The film was produced with an avant garde group of artists, known as Shinkankak-ha (School of New Perceptions), an experimental art movement that rejected naturalism, or realism, and was highly influenced by European art movements such as Expressionism, Dada, and Cubism, and evidently uses the techniques found in Soviet Montage, particularly Sergei Eisenstein - fundamentally, as this project deals with madness, it would be easy to draw parallels with Robert Weine's seminal horror film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920). What the art trope bring to this extreme nightmare are those exaggerated, pointed and alarmist movements like the expressionist acting styles being used in European film and stage work - but happens to find its own stylistic flourishes, and colloquial "voice" (for want of a better word).

Kurutta ippeji's simplistic story focuses on a man (Masuo Inoue) whom has taken a job as a janitor in an asylum, so that he may be close to his wife (Yoshie Nakagawa), who has been condemned. His aim is to aid in her escape from the dogmatic institution. However, when the break-out is orchestrated, her madness has enveloped her, and she is unwilling to leave with her husband. The couples daughter (Ayako Iijima) visits the asylum to advise her mother of her engagement, which leads to a maelstrom of fantastically abstract flashbacks, giving light to the reasons the mother is condemned.

The films style is so incredibly complex and technically brilliant. In the opening sequence, the jarring compositions (both beautiful and haunting), superimposition's, and quick montage editing, creates an assault on the senses that is difficult to break away from - torrential rain falls across the scenery in shots of the asylum; expressionist compositions of wind-battered tree branches clashing with windows, and the sight of a woman riddled in madness. The use of superimposition becomes greater as the film moves into crescendo, and these layers portray climatically the merger of madness and modernity. Do we witness the ghosts that haunt the corridors of the asylum? Or are these the devastating spectre's of modernity, and the destruction of tradition? An ironic speculation perhaps, considering the mechanics of cinema production and exhibition.

To a modern audience, silent cinema is often a difficult watch. This film is of particular note for this argument. Kurutta ippeji has no title cards describing dialogue, or internal action, which makes it difficult to follow at times. But as with all 1920's Japanese cinema, the films were always accompanied by narration - a storyteller known colloquially as a benshi. But this small infraction does not hamper an incredibly dazzling piece of early experimental cinema, and one that should be viewed by any film enthusiast, at least for posterity - if not for a formative education on the stylistic diversity of film as art.


Directed by: Teinosuke Kinugasa
Starring: Masuo Inoue, Yoshie Nakagawa, Ayako Iijima
Country: Japan

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy

Review #491: 'Nanook of the North' (1922)

Explorer Robert J. Flaherty spent the majority of 1914 and 1915 along the Hudson Bay, doing research and exploring for a Canadian railway company. Being a keen photographer and potential film-maker, he took a camera along with him. He shot 30,000 feet of film, of the native Eskimo tribes and their alien, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The test footage was met with universal excitement, only Flaherty dropped a cigarette on the highly-flammable nitrate film-stock whilst editing, and lost it all. He would return, only this time with the sole intent on making a narrative-driven documentary, about one specific family of Eskimos, and their highly-charismatic leader Nanook, a legendary hunter.

Though it is now widely heralded as a masterpiece, and the film that gave birth to the documentary genre, the film is often criticised for its obviously staged dramatic scenes, and truth-manipulation in the search for a coherent narrative and to inject the film with an air of excitement and wonder. Personally, I have no problem with this approach, after all, one of my favourite directors Werner Herzog frequently does this in his documentary films to create a sort of artistic truth, opposed to the point-the-camera approach of cinema verite. In the modern age, we are treated to high-definition, sweeping footage of some of the most exotic and hostile corners of the planet, so it's a marvel to see where it all started, and Flaherty, faced with early, clunky film equipment and relatively little experience of film-making, created a magical documentary for an audience that, back then, knew little about the world outside their own country.

Amongst the many set-pieces we are treated to, the greatest (and much-celebrated) is the building of the igloo. We watch Nanook build it with skilled precision, slab by slab, and even incorporate a window feature, in order to give the igloo some warmth, and a chunk of ice by the side of it to divert the sun's rays. With many Eskimos now adopting Western aspects into their livelihood, the film is definitely a window into the past (the Eskimos had in fact already done this, and even wore Western clothes, but Flaherty persuaded them to revert back in order to give the film more of a sense of wonder). For a film-maker who had only taken a three-week course in cinematography prior to Nanook, the film is rich with beautiful imagery. The scene that watches the family trudge into the distance as the mist blows over the snowy surface like fleeing ghosts, gives the film a gorgeous, eerie quality. If you can forgive the film's manipulations, then this is still one of the greatest documentaries features ever produced, and Nanook (real name Allakariallak) proves to be a charming protagonist.


Directed by: Robert J. Flaherty
Country: USA/France

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie