Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli

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Erika Gläßner, Siegfried Arno in Familientag im Hause Prellstein, Hans Steinho� , 1927. (Österreichisches Theatermuseum) audiences alike, as it is new in respect to its genre and form”. But he was to be gravely disappointed. While he was working on Prellstein the Ufa board of directors that had commissioned it was replaced by new management under the control of the company’s new owner, the right-wing politician and media tsar Alfred Hugenberg. Towards the end of April, following a review of Ufa’s relationship with Rex-Film, the new board’s chairman informed Lupu Pick that the film did not meet “the standards one 148 would expect of marketable goods [brauchbare Ware]”. As it would hardly attract any audiences, he insisted that Rex-Film reduce their price. After threatening each other with legal action both sides eventually agreed on a settlement. But Ufa’s “new men” seem to have been unhappy with the outcome, for their marketing of the film indicates a determination to turn it into a flop. Prellstein was not released for another 8 months, and when it opened it was not in one of their prestigious theatres in Berlin’s elegant West End, but in a cinema in the then-working-class area of Prenzlauer Berg, which had been incorporated into the city only a few years previously. It was “launched” with no advance publicity whatsoever (not even a mention in the trade papers), nor did it receive any financial support for its first-run promotion. The date chosen was 16 December – the weekend before Christmas, notorious for generating the lowest boxoffice returns of the entire year. As it was also one of the coldest days of the winter, only a few critics bothered to attend the opening night of an inexpensive picture in a remote second-run cinema. Ufa’s managers were not the first who had problems with the “Prellstein” material. Throughout the 1910s it had fuelled controversies surrounding the Herrnfelds’ comically exaggerated representations of Jewish life. Jewish organizations had accused the brothers of ridiculing and reinforcing prejudices against Jewish customs and communities, while anti-Semites claimed their performances were revealing the “true” Jewish character. Similar debates raged at the time Steinhoff directed the film version. The German trade paper Kinematograph even published an anonymous piece questioning the wisdom of making the film. In a threatening tone it warned Rex-Film’s Jewish managers that German audiences would be offended by and opposed to films in this tradition, using the language of the Herrnfeld plays. Steinhoff and Rex-Film may have anticipated this, for (with one exception) they avoided any use of Jewish jargon. Though the rhythm of the intertitles is in line with the film’s Jewish environment, the story is not one about Jews but about human behaviour in general, brought to life through splendid performances by some of the best German comedy actors of Jewish descent of the time. There can hardly be a family reunion anywhere that does not contain elements of the story of Sami Bambus, who fakes his own death in order to take revenge on his nagging wife and her scrounging cousin Prellstein by leaving them (and the entire Prellstein clan) not a fortune, but the debts he accumulated gambling at cards. – HORST CLAUS �� THE GOOSE WOMAN (L’uomo dal mantello bianco) (Universal- Jewel, US 1925) Regia/dir: Clarence Brown; pres: Carl Laemmle; scen: Melville Brown, ad: Ray Schrock, Charles Furthman, dal racconto di/based on the short story by Rex Beach (1925); didascalie/titles: Dwinelle Benthall; f./ph: Milton Moore; scg./des: E. E. Sheeley, Willam R. Schmitt; mont./ed: Ray Curtiss; aiuto regia/asst. dir: Charles Dorian; 2nd asst: Robert Wyler; cast: Louise Dresser (Mary Holmes [Marie de Nardi]), Jack Pickford (Gerald Holmes), Constance Bennett (Hazel Woods), Spottiswoode Aitken (Jacob Riggs), George Cooper (“Scoop” Scofield), Gustav von Seyffertitz (Mr. Vogel), George Nichols (Detective Kelly), Marc MacDermott (Amos Ethridge), Kate Price (infermiera della polizia/ police nurse), Herbert Moulton (reporter), William Orlamond (macchinista/stagehand), Andy MacLennan (astante/bystander), Clarence Brown (uomo armato/man with gun); 35mm, 7500 ft., 91' 149 (22 fps), col. (imbibito/tinted); fonte copia/print source: UCLA Film & Television Archive, Los Angeles. Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles. Copia restaurata nel 2011 da Robert Gitt, UCLA, a partire da due pellicole 16mm diacetato della Universal destinate all’uso domestico e provenienti dalle collezioni di Kevin Brownlow e The Packard Humanities Institute. / Restored 2011 by Robert Gitt, UCLA, using two 16mm diacetate Universal Library Show-At-Home prints, from the collections of Kevin Brownlow and The Packard Humanities Institute. Servizi di laboratorio forniti da / Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory. Preservazione finanziata da / Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute. Ritrovai questo film nel 1958 in un magazzino di pellicole di provincia. Rimasi tanto colpito dalla qualità della sua fattura, da inviare una lettera al regista presso lo Screen Directors Guild di Hollywood. Come prevedevo, non ricevetti risposta. Qualche settimana dopo una telefonata mi annunciò che Clarence Brown, che in quel momento si trovava a Parigi per il Salone dell’Auto, desiderava incontrarmi. Potevo prendere il primo aereo? Vi potete solo immaginare il mio imbarazzo quando il mio proiettore si rifiutò di funzionare, una volta collegato all’impianto elettrico francese. Disperato, chiamai Henri Langlois, che mise generosamente a disposizione la sala della Cinémathèque. Brown arrivò con la moglie Marion – sua ex segretaria alla MGM. Ci accomodammo in quell’enorme cinema e guardammo The Goose Woman. Il regista ci spiegò che il racconto di Rex Beach era ispirato al caso dell’omicidio Hall-Mills, al centro di uno dei più sensazionali processi celebrati in New Jersey. La donna implicata nella vicenda era un’allevatrice di maiali, che cambiava continuamente la propria versione dei fatti: principalmente per questo, il caso non è mai stato risolto. Quando sullo schermo apparve Constance Bennett in tutta la sua sfolgorante bellezza, Brown mormorò: “Mio Dio, allora era proprio una scemetta”; poi, commentò la scena in cui Marc MacDermott offre alla ragazza una collana, dicendo con accento newyorkese: “Non mi comprerai con le tue perle schifose!” “Dovemmo setacciare l’intera California e il Nuovo Messico per trovare abbastanza oche per il film. Lanciai persino un appello alla radio. Acquistammo la casetta della Donna delle oche da qualche parte in campagna; era stata veramente abitata ed era magnifica. La trasferimmo in toto nel backlot della Universal per utilizzarla come nostro set. “Louise Dresser era fantastica come Donna delle oche. Le davo 350 dollari alla settimana. Poi le feci fare la parte della regina Caterina in The Eagle per Schenck, a mille dollari alla settimana!” Le fotografie della Dresser in costume da valchiria risalgono ai tempi in cui lavorava nel vaudeville. Nel film, Louise recita quasi sempre senza trucco: è probabile sia questo il motivo per cui vengono messi R & R
deliberatamente a fuoco certi suoi primi piani. E nell’inserto in cui si toglie la sporcizia dalle unghie, la leggera sfocatura aiuta a renderlo meno impressionante: di solito i film di Hollywood non si occupavano di igiene personale! Scrive Gwenda Young nella sua biografia di Clarence Brown di prossima pubblicazione: “La Dresser dimostra un’encomiabile mancanza di vanità: accetta con entusiasmo di apparire con un costume di scena sudicio e stracciato e un’acconciatura scarmigliata; la sua interpretazione riflette tutte le sfaccettature del personaggio, dalla sete di vendetta alla vulnerabilità, all’orgoglio ferito. Louise non esita a presentarci Mary Holmes come un personaggio estremamente sgradevole o persino ripugnante. Rifiutando il ruolo di madre, e provando apparente piacere per l’angoscia che tale atteggiamento provoca nel figlio, ella sfida apertamente tutto ciò che un’America profondamente legata all’idea del naturale amore materno stimava sacro”. La strada che Louise Dresser percorre con la propria oca è oggi la via principale di Westwood Village, sede centrale dell’UCLA (il cui archivio ha restaurato il film). Per ottenere la maggior quantità possibile di luce dalle lampade ad arco, gli operatori usavano togliere gli schermi di vetro, che però servivano da barriera contro i raggi ultravioletti. In mancanza di schermi, attori e tecnici correvano il rischio di contrarre una dolorosissima forma di congiuntivite (Klieg eyes) che obbligava a sospendere il lavoro e a rinchiudersi in una stanza buia. Jack Pickford ne soffrì in forma tanto grave che si temette dovesse perdere la vista. Brown si mise a girare le scene senza di lui e poiché l’attore non guariva, la lavorazione fu sospesa per cinque settimane. Gwenda Young ipotizza che fosse una scusa per nascondere l’alcolismo di Jack Pickford (che sarebbe morto nel 1933, a 36 anni). Quando la proiezione di The Goose Woman terminò e le luci si riaccesero, Brown si girò verso di me con uno smagliante sorriso e disse: “Non sapevo di essere così bravo!” Andammo in taxi al suo albergo – il George V – dove tirai fuori il registratore, ma solo per sentirmi dire che Brown non gradiva essere registrato. Deciso comunque a catturare ogni sua parola, nascosi il microfono sotto la tovaglia mangiando con una mano sola. A quanto pare, nessuno se ne accorse. Brown era diffidente, sospettoso e alquanto freddo: multimilionario, sembrava più un uomo d’affari che un artista. Non mi sorprende che Greta Garbo lo prediligesse; la sua opera autorizza a definirlo uno dei registi più sensibili di Hollywood. Mi raccontò della profonda ammirazione che nutriva per Maurice Tourneur, che lo aveva avviato alla carriera cinematografica – “Era il mio dio” – e rimasi colpito dai toni commossi con cui rievocava la sua vita a Fort Lee, cinquant’anni prima. Aveva lavorato come meccanico presso la Brownell Motor Car Company di Birmingham, in Alabama, ditta di cui Jack Pickford esibisce un volantino pubblicitario entrando nella baracca della madre. Per una curiosa coincidenza, anche lo story editor della Universal si chiamava 150 Brownell. La sua fidanzata era la sceneggiatrice Frederica Sagor, che aveva acquistato i diritti dell’opera di Rex Beach specificamente per Brown quando aveva avuto sentore che la Universal si apprestava a licenziarlo. Fu proprio The Goose Woman a propiziare il mio incontro con Mary Pickford. Ella desiderava rivedere il fratello e quindi le proiettai il film durante una delle sue visite a Londra. Ne fu conquistata. Se l’avesse visto all’epoca, mi disse, avrebbe ingaggiato Clarence Brown per dirigere il suo film successivo. Ma è possibile che le sia sfuggito un film in cui suo fratello recitava in una parte così importante? Dopo tutto aveva scelto Gustav von Seyffertitz per Sparrows, pellicola diretta da William Beaudine e chiaramente influenzata da The Goose Woman. D’altra parte, questo film era debitore della versione del 1922 di Tess of the Storm Country con l’attrice nel ruolo principale e la regia firmata da John S. Robertson. Buster Keaton mi confidò di aver ingaggiato Donald Crisp per dirigere The Navigator nella convinzione che fosse lui il regista di The Goose Woman. Un altro film basato sull’omicidio Hall-Mills, o piuttosto sul modo in cui se ne occupò la stampa, è Five Star Final di Mervyn LeRoy (1931). Anche The Bellamy Trial di Monta Bell (1929) è ispirato a questo caso. The Goose Woman è stato rifatto con il titolo di The Past of Mary Holmes (1933), prodotto da David Selznick, diretto da Harlan Thompson, illuminato da Charles Rosher e interpretato da Helen MacKellar. “Nel tentativo di migliorare il finale originale”, scrive William K. Everson, “in questo film la Donna delle oche si improvvisa detective e dà personalmente la caccia all’assassino”. Negli anni Quaranta, la Universal Pictures ordinò di distruggere i negativi dei film muti conservati nei propri depositi del New Jersey, a eccezione di The Hunchback of Notre Dame con Lon Chaney e appunto di The Goose Woman. Quest’ultimo risultava però già decomposto. Ancor oggi mi chiedo come mai una copia di un film così prestigioso sia finita nella provincia inglese. Ma sono contentissimo che le cose siano andate così. Cinquantaquattro anni fa, mi ricordo di aver pensato che se esistevano altri film muti americani belli come questo, avrei volentieri passato la vita a cercarli: è più o meno quello che è successo. – KEVIN BROWNLOW I found this film in a provincial film library in 1958. I was so impressed by the way it was made, I sent a letter to its director c/o the Screen Directors Guild in Hollywood. As expected, I got no answer. A few weeks later I had a phone call saying that Clarence Brown, currently visiting Paris for the Motor Show, was willing to see me. Could I fly over at once? Imagine my embarrassment when my projector refused to work on the French system. In desperation, I called Henri Langlois of the Cinémathèque, and he generously offered his theatre. Brown arrived with his wife, Marion – his former secretary from M-G-M – and we sat in the huge Cinémathèque theatre and watched The Goose Woman. Brown told us that the Rex Beach short story had been inspired by the Hall-Mills murder case, one of the most famous trials in New Jersey. The woman implicated in that had been a pig woman, who kept changing her account. Thanks largely to her, the case remains unsolved. On the screen appeared the incredibly beautiful Constance Bennett. “My God, she was a Dumb Dora in those days,” muttered Brown. And when Marc MacDermott offers her a necklace, Brown lapsed into New Yorkese: “Ya cain’t buy me wit’ your stinkin’ poils!” “We had to search the whole of California and New Mexico to get enough geese for the picture. I even broadcast an appeal on the radio. We bought the Goose Woman’s cottage off in the country somewhere; it had been lived in and it looked great. We moved the whole thing to the Universal backlot for our set. “Louise Dresser was great as the Goose Woman. I paid her 350 dollars a week. I used her again as Queen Catherine in The Eagle, for Schenck, and this time I paid her a thousand a week!” The photographs of Dresser in Valkyrie costume dated from her days in vaudeville. Dresser played most of her part without makeup. This was probably the reason why the focus was deliberately thrown on some of her closeups. And on the insert of dirt being removed from her nails, less than sharp focus helped reduce the shock; Hollywood films never normally dealt with personal hygiene! In her forthcoming biography of Brown, Gwenda Young writes: “Dresser showed a remarkable lack of vanity, enthusiastically donning a costume of filthy, torn clothing and a disheveled hair-style, and turning in a performance that registered both her character’s vindictiveness and her vulnerability and hurt pride. Dresser doesn’t shy away from presenting Mary Holmes as a most unsympathetic, even repellent character. In her rejection of the mothering role, and in her apparent enjoyment of the distress that this provokes in her son, she presents an overt challenge to all that was deemed sacred in an America that was deeply attached to notions of natural mother love.” The lane down which Louise Dresser marches with her goose is now the main street of Westwood Village, headquarters of UCLA (whose archive restored the film). To squeeze as much light as possible out of their arc lights, cameramen would remove the glass shields. This served as a barrier for ultra-violet rays; now cast and crew were in danger of Klieg Eyes, an excruciatingly painful ailment which meant you had to stop work and retreat to a darkened room. Jack Pickford suffered so seriously it was thought he would go blind. Brown switched to scenes which did not require him, and when he still hadn’t recovered, the production had to shut down for five weeks. Gwenda Young suggests that this may have been cover for Jack Pickford’s alcoholism (he would die at 36 in 1933). As The Goose Woman faded out and the lights came up, Brown turned to me with a broad grin and said, “I didn’t know I was that good!” We took a cab to his hotel – the George V – where I produced my recorder, only to be told that Brown didn’t want his memories taped. 151 Determined to capture his every word nonetheless, I concealed the microphone beneath the tablecloth and ate with one hand. He didn’t seem to notice. Brown was wary, suspicious, and rather cold. A multi-millionaire, he seemed more businessman than artist. I’m not surprised he was Garbo’s favourite; his work marked him as one of the most sensitive directors in Hollywood. He told me of his deep admiration for Maurice Tourneur, who had given him his start in pictures – “he was my god” – and I was impressed by the emotion he displayed as he recalled his life at Fort Lee, 50 years earlier. He had been a mechanic for the Brownell Motor Car Company, in Birmingham, Alabama, whose leaflet Jack Pickford flourishes when he enters his mother’s shack. By coincidence, the story editor at Universal was also called Brownell. His girlfriend was screenwriter Frederica Sagor, who had bought the Rex Beach property especially for Brown when she heard the Universal front office was going to drop him. It was The Goose Woman that brought about my encounter with Mary Pickford. She wanted to see her brother again and so I ran the picture during one of her visits to London. She was fascinated. Had she seen it at the time, she said, she would have hired Clarence Brown to direct her next picture. But would she have missed it, with her brother in such a prominent part? She cast Gustav von Seyffertitz in Sparrows, after all, and that picture, directed by William Beaudine, betrays the influence of this one. On the other hand, this film owed something to her 1922 version of Tess of the Storm Country, directed by John S. Robertson. Buster Keaton told me he hired Donald Crisp to direct The Navigator because he thought he had directed The Goose Woman. Another picture based on the Hall-Mills murder, or at least the press reaction to it, was Mervyn LeRoy’s Five Star Final (1931). Monta Bell’s The Bellamy Trial of 1929 was also based on the case. The Goose Woman was remade as The Past of Mary Holmes (1933), produced by David Selznick, directed by Harlan Thompson, photographed by Charles Rosher, with Helen MacKellar. “Trying to improve on the ending of the original,” wrote William K. Everson, “it had the Goose Woman playing detective and tracking down the killer herself.” In the 1940s, Universal Pictures ordered the destruction of the silent negatives in their New Jersey vaults, all except the Lon Chaney Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Goose Woman. They were told the latter had already decomposed. I am still puzzled as to how such a lavishly-made print could have ended up in a provincial film library in England. But I am deeply grateful that it did. I remember thinking, 54 years ago, that if there were any more American silents as good as this one, I would happily spend the rest of my life looking for them. And that, more or less, is what has happened. – KEVIN BROWNLOW �� R & R
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ASSOCIAZIONE CULTURALE “LE GIORNA
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Sostenitori / Donors 20 1 Le Giorna
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Our Fair Lady La Sara Moranduzzo 19
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Introduzioni e schede di / Introduc
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Premio Jean Mitry / The Jean Mitry
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Collegium 2012 Giunto alla quattord
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temporale sono una riproduzione fed
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Nel corso della mia ricerca, ho rit
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sconosciuti che li sorprendono ment
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tecniche digitali. Nondimeno, resta
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in an eerie coincidence, was involv
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annunciò con orgoglio che i tre ep
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lui fino al 1923), e Flora Morris:
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strange to find the New York Times
Page 31 and 32: y McDermott, with Scrooge’s frost
Page 33 and 34: Williams (1870-1961) was the predom
Page 35 and 36: di Frank Lloyd la affronta in modo
Page 37 and 38: Nielsen (Orlick), Egill Rostrup (Ja
Page 39 and 40: to his father’s dust-heap fortune
Page 41 and 42: DEVUSHKA S KOROBKOI (When Moscow La
Page 43 and 44: un dramma sul cinismo umano e la de
Page 45 and 46: Paese natale. Per almeno sette dece
Page 47 and 48: Andrei Petrovskii, who was himself
Page 49 and 50: charm, at the same time mastering t
Page 51 and 52: “Men who go down to sea in ships
Page 53 and 54: cuoco come l’erede e legittimo pr
Page 55 and 56: Prog. 1: Francis Boggs and Californ
Page 57 and 58: Thor: Lord of the Jungle, 1913. (Ac
Page 59 and 60: Uno degli effetti più immediati de
Page 61 and 62: parte all’elaborazione creativa d
Page 63 and 64: Fischinger; 35mm, 186 m., 9'02" (18
Page 65 and 66: KÜCHENREBELLEN [Ribelli in cucina
Page 67 and 68: cui corpi servivano come oggetti di
Page 69 and 70: invece che il suo amico era “un b
Page 71 and 72: Renée Falconetti in La Passion de
Page 73 and 74: Die Weber, Friedrich Zelnik, 1927.
Page 75 and 76: ucraina, l’atteggiamento sentimen
Page 77 and 78: una bellezza stellare a intraprende
Page 79 and 80: Royal Show svoltosi nel 1909 a Clar
Page 81: film apparentemente realizzato a so
Page 85 and 86: new Law for Combating Venereal Dise
Page 87 and 88: del 1923. Lo sfarzo spettacolare de
Page 89 and 90: il negativo non esiste più. All’
Page 91 and 92: l’episodio della vendita di Manha
Page 93 and 94: a favourite stock theme of early si
Page 95 and 96: lontani dall’incisività e dalla
Page 97 and 98: I suoceri, Cines, 1912. (EYE Film I
Page 99 and 100: le amiche la sottopongono a un rigo
Page 101 and 102: A Woman of A� airs, Clarence Brow
Page 103: FREUDLOSE GASSE, DIE, 115; 12V GAR
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Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli

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