Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2005 Sommario / Contents

Identical twin girls, about one year old and fancily dressed, are discovered
playing together in front of a comfortable home, with no parent or nanny
watching over them. One of the two wanders off, ends up sitting on a
railroad track, and is picked up by the man who owns and runs a miniature
train. Next we find Peggy, now perhaps a year or so older, dressed in a
railroad engineer’s work overalls, face be-smudged, busily repairing an
engine. Her substitute father keeps her hard at work as both an engineer
and a conductor. Her life of poverty and hard knocks has turned Peggy into
a roughneck kid.Wishing to take time off from her chores, Peggy dresses
up in a torn knit dress and matching beret. About to set out on the town,
she accidentally drops the coin intended to finance this brief respite from
duty, and a couple of street kids steal it right in front of her. A free-for-all
ensues, and the police move in to retrieve the fighters from the pile-up,
revealing Peggy at the bottom of the heap with a black eye.
She steals a huge T-bone steak from a meat vendor to treat her shiner, and
then spies her missing coin on the ground. But at that moment, a passing
gent in a top hat picks it up and puts it in a wallet he keeps wrapped in
an elastic cord. The wallet slips out of his hip pocket and trails on the
ground several paces behind him, with Peggy hot on his trail.This provides
a chain of sight gags: a workman in a manhole tries to steal the wallet, and
is coolly crowned with a stout piece of wood by Peggy.The top-hatted gent
takes a generous swig from a flask and enters a strange house, Peggy
slipping in unseen behind him. This turns out to be the self-same home
from which the one twin strayed at the start of the story.While the parents
find the tipsy intruder asleep on their sofa and evict him, Peggy hides.
Alone, she begins to explore the house. Catching sight of her sister across
a room, she marvels at the little girl’s amazing resemblance to her.
From this point the film becomes a fast-paced marathon of mistaken
identities – the rich, well-dressed,“uppity” twin versus the tough, poor, feisty
one, with Peggy playing both parts. The twins thoroughly confound the
servants, their parents, and the man from the miniature train, who has
mistaken the rich twin for his own missing worker, and followed her into
the same house.With the main characters now all on stage at once, havoc
reigns.The cameraman has great fun with his unusual double exposures of
the twins, as Peggy winks at her newfound sister, delighted at the
excitement they have caused, and to find out she’s rich and no longer a
slave to her hard-driving master. – BABY PEGGY:DIANA SERRA CARY, 2005
THE FAMILY SECRET (Il mio papà) (Universal Pictures, US 1924)
(Titolo di lavorazione/Production title: The Burglar’s Kid)
Re./dir: William A. Seiter; scen: Lois Zellner; dal romanzo di/from the
novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Editha’s Burgler, a story for children
(1878) e dall’adattamento teatrale di/and the stage adaptation by
Augustus Thomas, Editha’s Burglar, a dramatic sketch in one act (1883);
f./ph: John Stumar; cast: Baby Peggy, Gladys Hulette, Edward Earle,
Frank Currier, Cesare Gravina, Martin Turner, Elizabeth Mackey,
Martha Mattox, Lucy Beaumont; lg. or./orig. l: 5576 ft.; DVD, 70’,
collezione privata / private collection.
Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.
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La storia di The Family Secret si basava su un atto unico di poche
pretese ma di molto successo, in cui la protagonista era stata la
bambina prodigio della scena teatrale negli anni ’80 dell’Ottocento,
Elsie Leslie. I critici lo trovarono troppo zuccheroso: uno sconosciuto,
scassinatore “professionista”, si introduce in una casa dell’alta società
(vittoriana). Imbattendosi nell’uomo, la saggia, innocente cinquenne
Editha passa gran parte dello spettacolo a persuaderlo a lasciare la sua
vita criminosa per entrare nel sacro reame della “vita onesta” di una
famiglia cristiana modello. Il ladro si converte al punto di restituire il
monile preferito di sua madre.
La sceneggiatrice Lois Zellner diede modernità e uno spesore
narrativo alla vicenda. La madre della piccola aveva segretamente
sposato l’uomo che amava, disapprovato però dal padre di lei.
Nonostante la nascita di Editha, il padre era stato in qualche modo
cacciato prima dell’inizio del film. Il nonno riaccoglie a casa figlia e
nipote, ma la giovane, bella madre, separata da un marito che ama,
trascorre un’esistenza pigra, solitaria e malinconica. Ci sono alcune
scene comiche con Peggy e la sua morigerata governante (interpretata
da Martha Mattox, la sinistra “Mammy” Pleasant di The Cat and the
Canary, di Paul Leni), poi la bimba sguscia via ed incontra per strada
altri ragazzi con cui giocare, con nuovi risvolti comici.
Il culmine del film arriva quando il marito e padre (Edward Earle)
entra silenziosamente in casa. C’è un intenso scambio di battute tra
Peggy ed il padre prima che il nonno scenda e, vedendo il ladro, gli
spari. Nella quasi-tragedia che ne segue l’identità dell’intruso viene
smascherata, la sua ferita si rivela meno grave del previsto e la
famigliola separata ritorna finalmente insieme grazie al perdono di un
nonno redento. La scena di chiusura fu filmata a Pasadena in
un’imponente dimora nei famosi Busch Gardens o nei dintorni.
Si tratta di un tipico melodramma della Universal, ed io non ne
ricordo una singola scena, tranne il giorno ai Busch Gardens, quando
la Hulette, Earle ed io appariamo felicemente riuniti in quel lieto fine
piuttosto forzato. Nel mio personaggio non c’era niente di stimolante.
Le recensioni furono buone, se non entusiastiche, e il soggetto era
decisamente migliorato rispetto al testo teatrale. È però interessante
notare quanto io invece sentissi il personaggio e la storia di Captain
January (Capitan Baby) di cui ricordo nitidamente quasi ogni scena.
Penso tuttora che Captain January non fosse solo un film, ma qualcosa
che mi era veramente successo! – BABY PEGGY:DIANA SERRA CARY, 2005
The story of The Family Secret was based on an unpretentious but highly
successful one-act play which had starred the legitimate theatre’s reigning
child star of the 1880s, Elsie Leslie. Critics found it a saccharine piece, in
which a stranger, a “professional” burglar, breaks into an upper-class
(Victorian) home. Stumbling upon the man, the wise and innocent five-yearold
Editha spends most of the play persuading him to leave his life of crime
and enter the hallowed realm of a model Christian family’s “good life”.The
burglar is converted, and even gives back her mother’s favorite jewel.
Writer Lois Zellner modernized the story and gave it a plot. The child’s
mother had secretly married the man she loved but of whom her father