THE MAGICIAN. MGM, 1926. Alice Terry, Paul Wegener, Iván Petrovich, Firmin Gémier, Gladys Hamer, Henry Wilson, Hubert I. Stowitts. Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, adapted by Rex Ingram. Director: Rex Ingram. Shown at Cinecon 27, Hollywood CA, September 1993.

   When I told a close friend how excited I was that Cinecon had scheduled one of my long outstanding “must see” films, Ingram’s The Magician, he replied that Ingram was not one of his favorite directors and this film was “one of his weakest.”

   Talk about a wet blanket!

   He added that the print he had seen was not “a very good one.” Well, I can now report that Cinecon came up with a beautiful print that displayed to marvelous advantage Ingram’s notable pictorial qualities.

   The narrative concerns an Aleister Crowleyish black magician (Paul Wegener, the unforgettable creature of The Golem) who elopes with a beautiful sculptress (played by Alice Terry) whom he needs in a hellish experiment to create life according to a formula he has discovered in an ancient book of sorcery.

   The climactic sequences take place in his stone castle, sitting on a hill overlooking an ancient city with cobbled streets and Tenggren-like houses (see the opening sequence of Pinocchio for an artistic equivalent).

   He is aided by a malicious, misshapen dwarf, and at the end, the top of the castle blows up. This is the quintessential setting and some of the narrative and character staples of the 1930s Universal Frankenstein cycle, and, if it is hokum (as indeed it is), it is hokum in a style that I can’t resist.

   The opening scene is a sculptor’s studio that looks like a plate out of a 19th-century art history book. Wegener’s flamboyant style is perfect for the mesmerizing role of the magician and I am only sorry that there wasn’t a Bride of the Magician, and a Son of the Magician to constitute a cycle.

   Now, if somebody will just schedule screenings of Ingram’s Scaramouche and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But I won’t ask my friend for a recommendation.

Editorial Comment:   Dan Stumpf reviewed the book by Maugham this movie is based earlier this year. Check it out on this blog here.

THE NIGHT HORSEMEN. Fox Film Corporation, 1921. Tom Mix, Mae Hopkins, Joseph Bennett, Sid Jordan, Bert Sprotte, Cap Anderson. Based on the novel The Night Horseman, by Max Brand (Putnam, 1920). Director: Lynn Reynolds. Shown at Cinecon 27, Hollywood CA, September 1993.

   Tom Mix plays Whistlin’ Dan Barry in this filming of a Max Brand novel, a somewhat bizarre tale of a cowpoke who follows the flight of the geese and whose eyes turn yellow when he’s angry.

   His code would keep him away from the dying rancher who raised him and drive him to kill the rancher’s son whom he seems to love like a brother. Dan crosses the meanest man in the county by killing his brother, and their battle, along with Dan’s reconciliation with the rancher’s son and the gal who loves him, made for an exciting, satisfying wind-up.

WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS. MGM, 1928. Lon Chaney, Anita Page, Carroll Nye, Wheeler Oakman, Mae Busch, Polly Moran. Director: Jack Conway. Shown at Cinecon 27, Hollywood CA, September 1993.

   Even with a missing reel, this Lon Chaney film was a stunning thriller. Chaney plays a tough New York detective on the trail of “Mile Away” Skeeter (who’s always a mile away from the crime when it happens).

   Chaney’s hard as nails, but he’s got a soft spot for Myrtle (played by Anita Page, a Cinecon guest) and for a lad who’s got in with mob and just needs the right influence to go straight. But then the lad falls for Myrtle, who’s mighty taken with him and…

   Chaney’s rough-hewn face is a perfect mask for the hard-nosed cop, but bruised the way his heart will be. Nobody could ring the changes on pathos like Chaney, probably the greatest of silent screen dramatic actors. A smashing performance and superb photography and direction.

WHY WORRY? Hal Roach Studios, 1923. Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Johan Aasen, Wallace Howe, James Mason, Leo White. Directors: Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor. Shown at Cinecon 27, Hollywood CA, September 1993.

   Harold Lloyd plays a “young millionaire with an absolute patent on hypochondria.” (And I thought I had that sewed up tight.)

   He travels to a “sleepy” Latin American village on the eve of a revolution where — with an apparently inexhaustible supply of energy and ingenious tricks — this most engaging of silent film comedians sets about foiling the dastardly designs of villain James Mason, with the help of a gentle giant played by John Aasen.

   The organ accompaniment was played by octogenarian Gaylord Carter who worked with Lloyd in the thirties, preparing musical scores for the re-release of the silent masterpieces.

Editorial Comment:   I went to IMDB to be sure, but the James Mason in this movie is not THE James Mason, just in case you might be wondering about him. Usually billed as Jim Mason, the one in this film became a cowboy actor, playing mostly small parts until his career ended in the early 1950s.

   The movie itself is available on DVD, in the box set The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection, Volume 1, on sale everywhere.

EXIT SMILING. MGM, 1926. Beatrice Lillie, Jack Pickford, Doris Lloyd, DeWitt Jennings, Harry Myers, Franklin Pangborn. Story: Marc Connelly; scenario: Sam Taylor & Tim Whelan. Director: Sam Taylor. Shown at Cinecon 27, Hollywood CA, September 1993.

   After the discovery of Jessie Matthews [in First a Girl, reviewed here ], Beatrice Lillie was the rediscovery of the convention for me.

   Lillie is the maid for a touring theatrical company, and also plays small roles like “Nothing” in “Much Ado About Nothing” (as the intertitles put it), while pining to show the company that she can play leading roles.

   The film is filled with inspired bits of tomfoolery that make you wonder why Lillie was not one of the great comic stars of the silent screen. In any event, a marvelous showcase for her talents, and for those of actors like Franklin Pangborn and Doris Lloyd.

   There’s a tug at the heartstrings at the end, and I exited smiling and treading on air.

Editorial Comment:   This movie is available on DVD from the Warner Archives website.

THE GIRL WITHOUT A SOUL. Metro Pictures, 1917. Viola Dana, Robert Walker, Fred C. Jones, Henry Hallam, Margaret Seddon. Director: John Collins. Shown at Cinesation 1993, Saginaw MI.

   Another Viola Dana rural melodrama, directed by her husband, John Collins. She plays sisters, one a talented musician in love with a bounder, the other a rambunctious, untamed young girl loved (discreetly) by a carpenter, who resembles a young Abe Lincoln.

   Dana plays the two roles superbly, and the film climaxes with a taut trial (presided over by future Lord of Mongo, Charles Middleton). This plot probably played well on the stage in the 19th century, and the skill of the treatment of the material makes it possible to understand the appeal of East Lynne for a supposedly unsophisticated audience.

   At any rate, a charming film that doesn’t deserve to be buried as a footnote in film history. (The print was a bit rough, but it has been maintained, if not restored. Some of the longer intertitles flash by too quickly for reading, and there is one major continuity lapse, where a portion of the film could not be saved.)

Editorial Comment:   It’s not relevant to Walter’s review, I grant you, except that an article by Dave Kehr in today’s New York Times is about silent films, and if you are a fan of silent films, it is Big News indeed.

   The piece begins thusly:

    “A late silent feature directed by John Ford, a short comedy directed by Mabel Normand, a period drama starring Clara Bow and a group of early one-reel westerns are among a trove of long-lost American films recently found in the New Zealand Film Archive.

    “Some 75 of these movies, chosen for their historical and cultural importance, are in the process of being returned to the United States under the auspices of the National Film Preservation Foundation…”

 TELL IT TO THE MARINES. MGM, 1926. Lon Chaney, William Haines, Eleanor Boardman, Eddie Gribbon, Carmel Myers, Warner Oland. Director: George Hill. Shown at Cinesation 1993, Saginaw MI.

   This was a big hit for Chaney, and as in While the City Sleeps (MGM, 1928) it showcases Chaney in a non-horror role. Chaney is a tough sergeant, charged with the unenviable task of whipping unwilling recruit William Haines into shape before the unit ships out.

   In both the 1926 and 1928 films, Chaney’s girl is won away by the younger man (criminal he’s trying to reform, recruit he’s trying to save), which allows Chaney to reveal the heart under the crusty exterior.

   Superb entertainment, and, according to the notes, was just behind the studio’s Flesh and the Devil! at the box-office. Warner Oland has a small non-speaking role as a Chinese warlord, a role he was playing as early as 1920.

DE LUXE ANNIE. Select Pictures, 1915. Norma Talmadge, Eugene O’Brien, Frank Mills, Edna Hunter, Fred R. Stanton, Joseph Burke, David Burns. Scenario by Paul West, from a play by Edward Clark. Camera: Edward Wynard and Albert Moses. Director: Roland West. Shown at Cinecon 45, Hollywood CA, September 2009.

   Roland West’s films (among them The Bat, The Bat Whispers, Alibi and The Monster) were often distinguished by fluid, striking camera work, and with only a handful of early silent films to his credit, I was looking forward to this early example of his work. The fact that it starred the beautiful and talented Norma Talmadge was an added incentive to my anticipation.

   When Julie Kendal, worried that her husband may be in danger, goes to the apartment where he is lying in wait to to capture De Luxe Annie and her partner, professional con artists, she is surprised by Annie and knocked unconscious. When she wakes up, she has lost her memory and staggers out of the building into a fog, which pretty much describes her state until the end of the film.

   The plot is based on what may have been a popular (or just a pulpish) theory of the time: that traumatic events can trigger amnesia. This is not one of Talmadge’s better performances (she seems to have only two expressions, desperation and confusion), but O’Brien, as her partner in her alter ego role as De Luxe Annie 2, proves to be a sympathetic performer, bringing a sense of authentic feeling (he falls for Julie) that is otherwise generally absent from the film.

   When Julie is captured, still unrepentant, she undergoes an operation that restores her memory (the audience greeted this with some hilarity) and there’s a fade-out scene in which Jimmy is brought in to meet her, and it’s clear she doesn’t remember him. A disappointing film but still fun to watch as it meanders towards its inevitable conclusion.

TURN TO THE RIGHT. Metro, 1922. Alice Terry, Jack Mulhall, Harry Meyers, George Cooper, Edward Connelly, Lydia Knott, Betty Allen, Margaret Loomis, Billy Bletcher, Eric Mayne, Ray Ripley. Scenario by June Mathis and Mary O’Hara, based on a play by Winchell Smith and Jack E. Hazzard; photography: John Seitz. Director: Rex Ingram, director. Shown at Cinecon 45, Hollywood CA, September 2009.

   I saw this in 2005 at Cinefest, and I’m going to repeat the review, which, after a second viewing, still reflects my feelings.

   The program notes characterize this film as a comedy, but it’s actually a rural comedy/drama with characters familiar to audiences for generations: the hard-hearted landlord, the penniless widow he’s trying to evict, the country bumpkin who turns out to be something of a financial wizard, and the Alger-like country lad who fights against adversity and eventually achieves vindication and success.

   What is surprising is that the film is directed by Rex Ingram, better known for such films as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Prisoner of Zenda, and not normally associated with traditional melodrama.

   This rural fairy tale has an ingratiating playfulness that allows the villain to save his face and the comic foils (memorably played by Harry Myers and George Cooper) to find redemption as well as win the hearts of two village maidens.

BROADWAY LOVE. Bluebird Photoplays, 1918. Dorothy Phillips, Juanita Hansen, William Stowell, Harry von Meter, Lon Chaney, Eve Southern, Gladys Tennyson. director and author of the screenplay: Ida May Park. Shown at Cinecon 45, Hollywood CA, September 2009.

   This was an unusual screening, a silent film directed by a woman. Ida May Parks, according to Wikipedia, directed some 14 films, and wrote at least 50 screenplays, in a career that lasted from 1914 to 1930.

   The star was the then popular Dorothy Phillips, who plays Midge O’Hara, a small-town girl who goes to New York where she gets a job as a chorus girl. She is befriended by Cherry Blow (Juanita Hansen) who attempts to introduce the virtuous Midge to the incidental pleasures of her new life at a riotous party in the apartment of Cherry’s sugar daddy.

   Midge is rescued by an Arizona millionaire, only to find that his intentions are dishonorable. She flees New York, pursued by the persistent Henry, as well as by Elmer Watkins (Lon Chaney), her loutish suitor from back home.

   Parks sets up her shots for the actresses with great care, and is particularly successful with the party sequence. Relatively few Universal silent films (Bluebird Photoplays was Universal’s prestige feature unit) survived the studio’s purge, and the survivors are often in poor condition.

   However, the print shown was in excellent condition, and the film was more than competently directed, making one hope that other films directed by Parks may have survived.