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Fragmented Pieces: Writing the History of the Lost Hollywood Films 105 Lagerlöf in Hollywood: The Tower of Lies The Tower of Lies is probably the film by Sjöström of which the complete loss has been the most regretted by film historians, as it was based on a novel by Selma Lagerlöf: The Emperor of Portugallia. Had the film been preserved, it would have offered unique possibilities to compare Sjöström’s work within the two different modes of production, as it is the only American screen version of a Lagerlöf novel, the Swedish Nobel Prize winner whose literary sources brought Sjöström his greatest fame as a director during the Swedish period. Still, the surviving cutting continuity script provides some clues, as well as other preserved source materials, such as production stills, reviews and comments. The film was scripted by Agnes Christine Johnston, the same scriptwriter on Confessions of a Queen, together with Max Marcin, who later made an unsuccessful attempt to write a script for The Scarlet Letter. The film starred, as in the successful He Who Gets Slapped, Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer. The farmer Jan has one daughter, Glory (in Lagerlöf’s novel, she is called Klara-Gulla), whom he adores and idealizes, and who brings joy to his hard life. When their landlord dies, his ruthless son withdraws credit from his tenants. Glory goes to the city to get the money, but the son follows and seduces her. She gets the money and returns, but Jan goes mad when realizing that his daughter has sold her body. Glory is about to leave again on a boat, as the landlord’s son falls into the paddle wheels and dies. Jan, trying to follow, falls off the pier and drowns. Glory then returns and marries her childhood sweetheart, August (William Haines). The film was shot during one month, starting on 6 May 1925, and premiered on 11 October. (FIG. 18) The film was ambiguously received by the critics. Mordaunt Hall, as usual, commented it in The New York Times, this time quite sceptically: “As this Swedish narrative is told, it is more of a short story or a sketch than a photodrama.” 23 However, he concludes that: “in certain stretches, the hand of Victor Seastrom, the artist, is revealed.” 24 In Photoplay, the critic states that: “If the director had been as concerned with telling the story as he was with thinking up symbolic scenes, this would have been a great picture. As it is, Victor Seastrom was so busy being artistic that he forgot to be human.” 25 This is the first time that a new theme appears in the reviews, where Sjöström is accused of being a formalist at the cost of precisely those human, dramatic or psychological qualities that formerly had been celebrated, not least in his Swedish productions. However, the film was also praised in particular for its narrative techniques, this time more elaborated. Forslund has also quoted an American critic in this connection:
106 Transition and Transformation Fig. 18: Production still from The Tower of Lies; Norma Shearer in front. [It is] an excellent reason for going to see The Tower of Lies. Provided, of course, that you are sincerely interested in the progress of picture making and experimentation. For this picture is different. It is an attempt to tell a story largely through the powers of suggestion and calls upon the audience to use its imagination instead of anticipating the obvious. 26 It may thus seem even more strange that the film apparently didn’t leave any real imprint in film history. Forslund quotes an essay from 1928 on The Tower of Lies, in a volume on American silents: “One of the finest of the past decade... seems doomed to fade silently into motion picture oblivion, unheralded and unsung.” 27 However, before the premiere Sjöström had been granted a trip to Sweden by Mayer, to “study European production methods, gathering ideas for pictures a s o [and so on]”. 28 This should also be considered in relation to having received an offer from SF and the German company Universum Film AG (UFA) to take part in a new consortium formed to provide a counterbalance to Hollywood. 29 The offer from Mayer in its turn is interesting as a contrast to the general view of American cinema as the norm; obviously, Hollywood still
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Film Culture in Transition General
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Marijke de Valck and Malte Hagener
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