Film Notes

THE WIND 1928

Director Victor Sjostrom (credited as Seastrom) (1879-1960) first expressed interest in the theatre at a young age where his unsuccessful attempts at acting led to an established career as a director, while he still dabbled in the acting profession. By 1911, the enterprising youth brought the novel idea of mixing live speciality acts with movies to a company called Svenska Pictures. There, he met Mauritz Stiller, who was another film director just starting out, and together, they would become two of the pre-eminent filmmakers in Sweden. After a large decline in Sweden’s movie industry in the early 1920s, Sjostrom travelled to America and joined the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in 1924, where he directed that company’s first production, HE WHO GETS SLAPPED with Lon Chaney, John Gilbert and Norma Shearer. Hot on the heels of that success, Sjostrom was given another Chaney vehicle entitled THE TOWER OF LIES (1925) followed by THE DIVINE WOMAN (1928) starring Greta Garbo. With the arrival of talking pictures, he was lured back to Sweden, where he applied his vast knowledge toward training novice filmmakers in the new medium of talking pictures. By 1931, Victor Sjostrom retired from directing, returning only once more in 1937 for UNDER THR RED ROBE, which was made in Britain.

Two of Sjostrom's most memorable films from the silent era were a pair that he did during his tenure at MGM entitled THE SCARLET LETTER (1926) and THE WIND, both starring Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson, another Swedish import, who was born in Goteborg, Sweden in 1886. After gaining international fame in THE STORY OF GOSTA BERLING opposite Greta Garbo, Hanson and Garbo were both invited to MGM to make screen tests, where their careers skyrocketed. With the coming of talkies, Hanson returned to Sweden, fearing that his limited knowledge of the English language would be a major hindrance to his American screen career. While in his native land, he remained a major star right up to his death in 1965.

By the time Lillian Gish came to MGM, she was one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, having starred in numerous classic silents, among which were THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915), INTOLERANCE (1916), WAY DOWN EAST (1920) and ORPHANS OF THE STORM (1921). Possessing a complete knowledge and business acumen for filmmaking procedures, Miss Gish would impose her expertise upon directors and producers, resulting in quality work, but earning her the ire of Hollywood producers. Hired by the studio for a whopping $800,000 a year, Miss Gish didn’t realize that MGM had plans to totally sabotage her illustrious career by putting her in properties that would ultimately destroy her!

(Spoiler Alert)

THE WIND was based on a 1925 story that ends with the heroine, now insane, after killing the fiend who raped her, wandering off into the desert where she will meet her inevitable doom. Typical of MGM executives, they nixed this rather downbeat ending and rewrote a typical happy Hollywood finale, where she is reunited with her husband, only to realise that he was the one man she truly loved. Unfortunately, THE WIND had little appeal for audiences of 1928 and failed miserably at the box-office. Conversely, film critics lauded its expert skill at displaying such intense emotion, hailing the three principles and the director. Seen today, the film remains a bona fide classic of the silent era along with others like SUNRISE (1927) and THE CROWD (1928).

Two years later, Miss Gish’s contract with MGM would come to a grinding halt and after leaving the studio, she made her first talkie, ONE ROMANTIC NIGHT (1930), which was a critical as well as box-office failure. Soon, she turned to the Broadway stage, garnering favourable reviews in UNCLE VANYA, CAMILLE and HAMLET, only occasionally returning to Hollywood in character roles in films like DUEL IN THE SUN (1947) and THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955). Notes by Lou Sabini

TSFF is thankful to the many film collectors over the years who have graciously loaned their precious prints for screening. The work of private collectors in saving numerous rarities has often been overlooked. The Wind, despite its status as a masterpiece has never gotten a BluRay or DVD release (it was released on VHS and LaserDisc) so this is a rare opportunity to watch it in a theatrical setting with live music.

Collector Highlight Lou Sabini, Stamford Connecticut USA

Lou has been an avid film enthusiast ever since he could first read a book. Having grown up in the midst of the "television age" of the 1950s, he was first introduced to the great comedians of the silent and sound eras. Today, he has become an expert on film comedy and teaches various film history courses throughout the northeast USA. His love of Laurel and Hardy has a practical outlet as head of the Stamford, Connecticut chapter of the International Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, Sons of the Desert since 1999. Lou has been adding to his personal 16mm film archive for over six decades and has amassed over 1,000 titles, as well as accumulating a rather sizable DVD and Blu-Ray collection. While attending college at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in the early seventies, he quickly became friends with Professor William K. Everson, whose film classes became a source for viewing some of the most obscure films from the past. For years, Lou and Bill Everson kept in close touch and would visit each other’s homes on a monthly basis, screening many ‘unseen gems’ that have been out of circulation for decades. Lou has been teaching film courses since 1993 and like Bill Everson, writes classroom notes for each and every session. Lou has also conducted various film series at Vassar College and has participated in film festivals such as Cinefest, in Syracuse, NY, Capitolfest in Rome, NY and Cinecon, in Los Angeles, CA. He has also lectured at the Library of Congress. In the past, he has taught numerous courses on such topics as Alfred Hitchcock’s British Period, Great Directors of the Past, Social Dramas, Screwball Comedies, the ‘Pre-code’ Era and many more. He has written columns about classic cinema for Bottom Line Personal and was a film critic for The Stamford Patch. More recently, Lou has participated in several documentaries, including one about the Hal Roach Studios which received the Gold Medal Award. He authored the critically acclaimed book “Behind the Scenes of They Were Expendable” as well as a book focusing on pre-code movies, “Sex in the Cinema: The Pre-Code Years (1929-1934).

MANTRAP 1926

Director: Victor Fleming

Cinematographer: James Wong Howe

Written by: Adelaide Heilbron, Ethel Doherty adapted from Mantrap by Sinclair Lewis

Clara Bow, Ernest Torrence, Percy Marmont, Eugene Pallette

Famous Players Lasky (Paramount distribution)

Clara Bow (TSFF2022) is so well known to modern fans as the flapper with the most “IT” as she dances around swank parties that it’ll come as a surprise to know that the silent film she regarded as her best was a western. And a romantic comedy with the unlikeliness of men set in the Canadian wilderness.

But that wit and sexual energy hasn’t been diminished or dulled by either time or location…if anything, she’s able to shine more.

The wit is fully enforced by the rewriting by scenarists Adelaide Heilbron and Ethel Doherty of the original Sinclair Lewis novel into a sophisticated play on expectations. One would expect that the classic comic tradition would ensue when urbanites are dumped into the backwoods far from their type of civilization. While there’s plenty of humour from the awkwardness of displacement, it’s from the misogynistic base of the original novel that the fountain of comedy and the spirit of emancipated womanhood gushes forth. The result was a huge leap for rising star Clara. Clara was still just 20 years old when she made Mantrap and was a veteran of the industry with over 30 films in a bit over 4 years. While IT made her into a superstar, it was Mantrap that she finally gave her the breakthrough she deserved.

Variety opened its review this way: “Clara Bow! And how! What a ‘mantrap’ she is! And how the picture is going to make her!... Miss Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she steps into camera range.” The Chicago Tribune’s variation was “That young sparkler, Clara Bow, almost puts your eyes out this trip! Scintillates all over the piece. She’s positively electric.”

In a nutshell: Divorce lawyer Ralph Prescott is fed up with all the whining women that come to him—he needs help! In walks his pal, hosiery manager E Wesson Woodbury (played to perfection by future 30s icon Eugene Pallette) who suggests a manly recharging vacation in the boondocks around Mantrap, Canada—away from all those women!

Meanwhile in Mantrap Manitoba (sorry everybody, it’s a mythical place that only exists in this film and in a further reverse of the usual, USA locations around Lake Arrowhead stand in for Canada), Joe Easter (Ernst Torrence) is lamenting to the local Mountie (there’s always a Mountie in Canada it seems) about the lack of local feminine charms. The Mountie, always at ready with a usual idea, suggests a trip to the big city of Minneapolis (really?) to get an eyeful of the charms of silk stockinged legs and the ladies attached to them.

So big manly galoot Joe arrives in the big city and goes for a manicure, as one does in civilized society, and in walks manicurist Alverna (Clara Bow) to do the deed. He falls (how could he not) and she’s charmed by his honesty and forthrightness. So, the unlikely becomes likely and she travels back to Mantrap as his wife.

Let the fun begin!

Bow’s character isn’t just a flirty silk-stockinged flapper, Alverna embodies all the worthy qualities assigned to Western heroes: willpower, bravery, adaptability and tireless optimism in the face of everything. She uses all those qualities tied up with a saucy flip of her hair and a gleam in her eye. The old social status is about to fall to modern conventions.

A great example of how those older customs were falling is the scene where a party for the lawyer Prescott is heavily constrained by the presence of a minister and conservative members of the area. As soon as they’re gone, the drinks come out, the phonograph records start to spin and Alverna dances with all the men.

But this film doesn’t just live on Clara’s performance. She’s more than ably helped by one of the most underrated scene-stealers in film history-the gangling Ernest Torrence (yes, he did steal scenes even from Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill Jr.), beautifully directed by Victor Fleming (yes, they did get into a rather big relationship during the filming) and with knockout cinematography by James Wong Howe.

THE LAST COMMAND 1928

Director: Josef von Sternberg Cinematographer: Bert Glennon

Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent, William Powell

“The film machinery has not escaped sharp criticism, even by its own makers. I doubt if anything as savage has ever been said about it as in a film of mine.” Josef Von Sternberg referring to The Last Command from his memoir, Fun in the Chinese Laundry

The plot of The Last Command may seem somewhat implausible: a powerful Russian General falls for a Bolshevik woman who is also the paramour of the leader of the revolutionary communists. Both the General and the Revolutionary, although on ideological opposite sides, would each die for the country they love.

After the fall of the Russian aristocracy to the revolution, the General is forced to flee into exile, his future uncertain. Ultimately, like so many of his fellow exiles, he finds himself in dire circumstances working as one of the countless anonymous Hollywood extras, his mental state as shattered as the old, crumbled world he left behind. Hired onto a Russian Revolution epic, he is confronted by the same Bolshevik leader he originally sent into exile. This time, his old rival’s the director and bent on personal revenge, and so his already fragile emotional state slides inexorably off the cliff.

As improbable as this seems today, it was based on the true story of Theodore Lodijensky. No doubt there were dozens of similar stories of ex White Russians or fled aristocracy eking out a frugal living far from their native land. Fellow director Ernst Lubitsch had met Lodijensky and thought enough of the story to suggest it to von Sternberg. Paramount originally assigned the film to Victor Fleming, who had directed Jannings in the now lost Way of All Flesh, but von Sternberg eventually wrestled it back. It also stars Evelyn Brent as Natalie Dabrova. Brent is one of those timeless, striking actors whose best known works are from the 1920s. Future star William Powell, whose stock was rising mostly as the “bad guy” in the ‘20s, was cast as the director/ex-revolutionary. However, the key to the film was the incomparable Emil Jannings-one of the most popular and critically acclaimed “imports” from Europe.
While his early work is nothing short of astounding, Jannings (TSFF 2012 & 2014) has wound up as an exceptionally controversial figure as the 20^th Century continued. His heavy accent drove him out of Hollywood and back to Germany as it transitioned to sound, and his ideological leanings drove him to work for the propaganda arm of the Nazi Party. He would end up alone, alcoholic, dying at the relatively youngish age of 65 and in the ensuing years, at least partially erased from film history despite winning the first best actor award for his work here in Last Command & the lost Way of All Flesh (Oscars were awarded for the body of work that year not just an individual film). While his silent German films show the range and depth of his talent, only the Last Command is left extant today from his time at Paramount.

It’s a coin toss as to who was more difficult to work with-the self-indulgent temperamental Jannings or von Sternberg, whose attitudes toward actors was disdainful at best-as both were generally disliked or even loathed by actors. Von Sternberg’s contemptuous attitude for the Hollywood machine-a machine he both needed and needed him, is evident in The Last Command. But here also, you see his strengths as director-the striking visual compositions, dense décor, chiaroscuro lighting and beautiful camera movement that endowed each scene with emotional intensity. Every scene has been carefully thought out and it all leads to an ending that continues to astonish audiences. One must think that he came too late and that his vision and type of directing would have been better served in the earlier free wheeling days of Hollywood rather than the much tighter strictures of the studio system.

While 1939 is often cited as "the greatest year", one can make the same argument for 1928 with the inclusion of so many masterpieces like The Wind, Last Command, The Circus, Street Angel, The Crowd...the list goes on.

Screening Materials provided by Janus Films

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD 1926

Director: Irving Cummings

George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, Florence Gilbert, Max Davidson

Disaster films have a long and fruitful place in film history. Early sound films like Deluge 1933, In Old Chicago 1938, San Francisco 1936 and later blockbusters like Earthquake and Twister have long been favourites of audiences. With the restoration of The Johnstown Flood, it too can rightfully take its place amongst that group. It’s a fine film that clearly pulls no punches outlining the moral and ethical oversights of company owners at the expense of everyone else. The closing quarter of the film is still a spectacle to behold to our CGI jaded eyes.

Like other disaster films over the decades, the importance of the 1926 one cannot be overlooked. Often disaster sequences in film drove innovation to achieve the special effects needed. Nowadays, much is produced in post but “in the good old days”, in camera effects were king. The multi-special visual effects included combinations of miniatures, full size sets, matte painting and patented processes to depict the actual historical event, which was still within living memory in America.

The film starred popular actor and ex-Navy boxer George O’Brien as the engineer trying to warn of the dangers and future Academy Award winner, 20-year-old Janet Gaynor in her first major role as the woman who loves him from afar. Gaynor’s work on the film did much to push her toward stardom-in fact the next year, she would star with O’Brien in the classic Sunrise. At least one future star can be picked out as well-a young Carole Lombard as the bridesmaid is relatively easy to spot but the supposed sightings of extra Clark Gable (in the bar) have not been confirmed.

As in any Hollywood film depicting actual events, “scenarios have changed to make them more exciting”. How much more exciting can a major flood smashing into a city can be is up for debate, but the back story placed on the shoulders of fictional characters is lovely and thoughtfully rendered without diverting from the general causes of the flood-mainly greed and negligence. Anna (Gaynor) is in love with Tom (O’Brien) the engineer at the lumber mill. He’s oblivious to that fact and becomes engaged to Gloria (Gilbert) who is the daughter of his boss, the lumber manager. The manager knows about the defects in the dam but in search for more profit, does nothing to rectify it. Tom tries his best to bring it to advise him but is thwarted at every turn. When the dam collapses, it’s up to Anna, in a mad race on horseback, to try to warn the townspeople of their impending doom. Her performance stood out and the critics and audiences took note. Her career took a major upswing due to this film.

The Johnstown Flood was one of the lucky silent films that managed to survive against all odds-especially since it was a Fox title-and the vast majority of those were lost in the horrific nitrate storage fire of 1937. Fortunately, this time, it did not become a footnote in history and has been returned to full glory. THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD was recently restored in 4K by The Film Preserve, Ltd. and The Maltese Film Works, from 35mm elements preserved at George Eastman Museum. Noted preservationists Robert Harris (restoration work on The Godfather, My Fair Lady and Lawrence of Arabia) and James Mockoski (archivist for Francis Ford Coppola) worked on the restoration. "The importance of ‘The Johnstown Flood’ to film history is difficult to overstate. The special effects of the film combine miniatures and sets to depict the actual historic event of flood and its aftermath, pioneering complex techniques,” Harris explains. “It was the ‘Star Wars’ of its day.”

The Historical Facts: A group of wealthy industrialists, led by Henry Clay Frick, of Carnegie Steel, purchased the South Fork dam/reservoir (one of the largest man-made lakes in the US at the time), and converted it into a private resort lake. Thus, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club became the exclusive bucolic retreat for the limited membership of the crème de la crème of the Gilded Age wealthy steel, coal and railroad industrialists.

Part of the development included some questionable engineering to satisfy their wants of a wider top for a road and putting a fish screen in the spillway. They lowered the dam, which had been 22 m (72 ft) high, by close to a meter (about 3 feet). This increased the pressure on the dam and thus its vulnerability to stress. In addition, the old system of relief pipes and valves, which had been removed and sold for scrap, were not replaced. The managers of the club had also discovered that previous floods had damaged parts of the structure and the stone culverts at its base, which regulated the reservoir’s outflow. As a cost-saving measure, they patched it up with mud, hemlock pilings, and straw. The culverts were removed and the outlets filled in leaving only a spillway to release pressure when the reservoir became full. The system was thus primed for failure as there was now no method of lowering the lake’s water level in case of an emergency. That combined with the degraded environment around the river by years of logging made for it ripe for a calamity unlike any other.

On May 31^st, 1889, after several days of record rainfall, the dam, 23 km upstream and at an elevation of 140 m higher than Johnstown, catastrophically ruptured, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water with a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equalled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River at its delta. The reservoir, originally containing 3.8 billion gallons (~15 billion litres) or about the same amount of water going over Niagara Falls in 36 minutes, would empty in about an hour.

Just before reaching Johnstown, the flood surge hit the town of Woodvale’s Cambria Iron Works, killing 314 of the 1,100 residents and sweeping up railroad cars and kilometres of barbed wire. That barbed wire, entangled in the wreckage now rushing down toward Johnstown would only add to the horrifying lethal impact of the coming catastrophe.

Just over an hour, the flood, travelling at around 64+ km/h and reaching a height of 18m, slammed into Johnstown and its mainly surprised citizenry. Some were able to make it to higher ground, but most were crushed, drowned or caught in barbed wire, massive trees, buildings and debris. Buildings were obliterated, huge trees were speared through buildings, stone structures reduced to unrecognizable rubble.

The arched Stone Bridge across the Conemaugh River, bore the brunt of the debris wall carried by the flood. The twisted steel rails, boxcars, entire buildings, huge trees, wire and victims turned it into a temporary dam causing the flood waters to then roll upstream along the fork of the Stoney Creek River. Eventually gravity caused the surge to return hitting the stricken city a second time but now from a different direction. But more horrors awaited people. The debris piled up against the bridge caught fire and it’s thought that around 80 people burned to death because of it. The fire burned for three days.

After the floodwaters eventually receded, the pile of devastation covered 12 hectares (30 acres) and reached a height of 21 m. It took a small army of 700 workers over 3 months to finally clear it away although some businesses reopened earlier, and 14 km of railroad was re-laid within a short time.

Survivors of the flood were unable to recover damages in court because of the Club's ample resources. First, the club owners had designed the club's financial structure to keep their personal assets separated from it and, secondly, it was difficult for any suit to prove that any one owner had behaved negligently.

“Wealthy entrepreneurs had turned rural Johnstown into one of the largest producers of steel and iron in the world. The area’s natural resources, including iron, ore, coal, wood, and water, drove industrial and population growth as the working class came to the area in search of opportunity.

“With the valley crowding up the way it was,” wrote David McCullough in his book, The Johnstown Flood, “the need for lumber and land was growing apace. As a result, more and more timber was being stripped off the mountains and near hills, and in Johnstown the river channels were being narrowed to make room for new buildings.… Where the forests were destroyed, spring thaws and summer thunderstorms would send torrents racing down the mountainsides; and each year the torrents grew worse as the water itself tore away at the soil and at what little ground cover there was left.”

“We call the flood a natural disaster, but it was a disaster that occurred from a combination of natural events and human manipulation of the environment,” says Megan O’Malley, chief of interpretation at the Johnstown Flood National Memorial. “We see this happen over and over in human history: We create preconditions for disaster and then disaster occurs.”

“Indeed, if there was any glimmer of hope during the Johnstown disaster, it came in the form of the newly established Red Cross, led by nurse Clara Barton. Five days after the flood, Barton arrived with a staff of 50 doctors and nurses to begin caring for the sick and establishing temporary shelters for those who had lost their homes. “The Red Cross was in its infancy, and this, the largest disaster in U.S. history, put it to the test,” says O’Malley. “The lessons they learned apply to any disaster in the world.”
Hurricane Katrina offers eerie parallels to the Johnstown flood, where environmental manipulation, faulty engineering, and complacency all paralleled Pennsylvania’s disaster. But such historical lessons don’t always take, not even in Johnstown, where major floods struck again in 1936 and 1977. Federal money funded the rebuilding of Johnstown time and time again, but industry moved on, leaving unemployment in its wake.” National Parks Conservation Association

At 2,208 deaths, the disaster is still the 3^rd largest loss of civilian life in the US, surpassed only by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Galveston hurricane of 1900.

Screening Materials provided by Rialto Pictures

LAFFS IN THE AFT

FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE

A Man About Town

Assistant Wives

Plane Crazy

film notes coming soon