Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli

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
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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.
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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
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