John Grant

The great thing about the “Process 2” technical process is that it produces a dreamy quality to films.  The Process 2 Technicolor method uses 2 filters, one red and one green.  The filtered exposures are developed and then cemented together to fill out each frame.  The projection of such films gives the effect of saturated color without overworking the details.  Red and green stand out to our eyes, but our brains fill in the other color details.

The poster for “Legong: Dance of the Virgins.”

I was astounded at how well this color scheme worked on the big screen for the 2013 San Francisco Silent Film (SFSFF) showing of “Legong:  Dance of the Virgins.”   The 1935 film made history as one of the last silent films from the silent era and also one of the last films made using Process 2 Technicolor.  The film is unique in another way as it works as a meaningful historical document of the beautiful island of Bali, Indonesia.  We see the glorious festivals, the funeral traditions, the traditional clothing, and the beautiful and sacred dance routines. Since the film contains quite a bit of female nudity, it screened only in art houses during its initial run.  But with the help of Gamelan Sekar Jaya (supplying Balinese music) and the Club Foot Orchestra playing live at the SFSFF, it felt like a first-run event.
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The camera follows the beautiful young Poutou (Poetoe) in her role as the beloved first daughter in a happy Balinese family. The film feels like a part travelogue as we see her performing her various chores, including preparing goods for sale at the village market.  During a musical performance, Poutou notices her young drummer, Nyong (Nyong Nyong Njoman), and they instantly bond.  Things happen quickly on the island when it comes to marriage, so in short order Nyong is invited to Poutou’s home to meet her father Gousti Bagus (Bagus Mara Goesti).  Nyong agrees, but in his wanderings, he discovers Poutou’s beautiful sister Saplak (Saplak Njoman) bathing in a stream.  Nyong instantly falls in love with her, and abandons his previous attraction to Poutou.

We discover that a suitor cannot discard the first daughter in a Balinese family for a younger one.  How Poutou works it out becomes the focus of the story and leads to its stunning climax.  Before that happens, the movie treats us to the spectacle of Poutou and Saplak performing the title dance.  As someone who’s witnessed Balinese dancing in Ubud, Bali, I felt a renewed thrill watching their subtle and beautiful movements.

The 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) went all the way back to 1916 to unveil Douglas Fairbanks playing an American Indian/white character named Lo Dorman, who lives as an outcast in the forests around Calaveras County, California.  The SFSFF presentation of “The Half-Breed” screened on Saturday, July 20 at San Francisco’s Castro Theater, and featured accompaniment by Günter Buchwald on Wurlitzer organ.

Douglas Fairbanks, as Lo Dorman, lives in the forest in “The Half-Breed.”

Lo doesn’t doesn’t challenge the establishment as much as later Fairbank’s heroes, but he certainly doesn’t back down from a fight.  He lives in a hollowed-out tree in the forest and only comes to town occasionally for supplies.  When he arrives in town, the denizens there seem willing to let him go about his business as long as he “knows his place.”  But when the town preacher decides to civilize Lo by inviting him to a church service, Lo catches the attention of the preacher’s lovely daughter Nellie (Jewell Carmen).  Lo causes tongues to wag as he walks Nellie back to her house from church.  The town folk have reason to suspect the couple of romantic intentions, since Nellie falls immediately for the proud and noble Lo.
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Except for the preacher, none of the other men in the movie show any sympathy for Lo.  After Nellie’s romantic feelings for Lo become obvious to everyone in the town, Lo attends a raucous party where drunken Indians in feathered hats dance to sneering cowboys.  Lo takes offence and throws the Indians out, telling them that they should guard their self respect. The dancing Indians travel with a cabaret troupe that features the sultry Teresa (Alma Rubens), who stabs her boyfriend in a fit of jealously.  On the run, she makes her way out to Lo’s hollowed-out tree home, where Lo protects her from the sheriff and his posse.

The filming of The Half-Breed in the Carquinez Woods adds a lot to the story, and the action in and around the town seems realistic for its time.  Fairbanks, even in this toned-down noble savage role, remains a timeless action hero. Director Alan Dwan takes a simple but captivating story of a good man deprived of his basic rights and adds adequate romantic chemistry from both Jewell Carmen as Nellie and Alma Rubens as Teresa.  The story, from the pen of Bret Harte with a scenario by Anita Loos, also adds touches of humor which lighten the heavy theme about discrimination.  We also get a fantastic forest fire scene that features Fairbanks attempting a daring rescue.  All-time greats D. W. Griffith produced the film and Victor Fleming serves as cinematographer.

I knew what to expect when the 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) ended Friday night with “The Golden Clown,” a 1926 Danish film directed by A. W. Sandberg.  The SFSFF often presents horror, science fiction and futuristic fantasies as its last film on one or more nights.  In the past, the late hour at SFSFF has been reserved for such films as Fritz Lang’s futuristic “Metropolis (1928),” and Tod Browning’s horrific “West of Zanzibar (1928).”

Gösta Ekman plays Joe HIggins, a white-faced clown, in “The Golden Clown.”

The Golden Clown drifts towards the horrific and bizarre, but not until it frames itself as a nice and easy romantic drama.  Gösta Ekman stars as the title character, Joe Higgins, whose melancholy clown act captures a wide audience in Paris.  Joe becomes so popular that his bored wife Daisy (Karina Bell) — also a circus performer, but one who has quit the ring — carries on an affair with a businessman. Joe, so full of the buzz of his popularity, raises the level of his performance to become an icon, but he doesn’t suspect his wife until very late in the film.

Moti Bhasma enhances strength women viagra online of muscles. When people review Kamagra, levitra 40 mg continue reading for source a lot of people these days. Precautions and benefits- Kamagra is a set of information viagra in usa which guides the user about the errors within the computer system. Anxiety, excessive drinking and smoking, unhealthy eating habits, etc. finally leads to consistent failed viagra buy erections. The film begins in the provinces of France, as the itinerant Bunding circus travels to a new town.  The circus troupe, run by a kindly man and wife played by Maurice de Féraudy and Kate Fabian, make meager profits but treat their performers very well.  Joe adores the Bunding daughter Daisy, an acrobat who stands upright during her act on a moving horse.  Nearby, a group of upper-class Parisians have a picnic. The picnickers soon depart, driving past the circus wagons, but their car breaks down and the Bundings must tow it town.

The high-class people, who include an impresario named Marcel Philippe (Robert Schmidt), stay in town to watch the Bunding act.  Marcel is impressed by Joe’s performance as a white-faced clown, and invites him for an engagement to Paris.  Joe eventually agrees, but marries Daisy first and only goes to Paris when he can bring the Bundings along with him.  Soon, Joe, Daisy and her parents live in art-deco opulence as Joe Higgin’s clown act rises to great popularity and riches.

Joe and everyone else in the film remains nice and friendly for most of the running time. Since we see Joe’s passion so clearly at the beginning of the film, his reaction to Daisy’s infidelity comes as no surprise.  The horrific and strange aspect comes into it when Joe acts out his revenge using his clown persona.  A simple confrontation between Joe and his rival would have played out less interestingly.  But the viewer wants to find out if the story involves the downfall of a popular clown.

“Tokyo Chorus,” another film that played at the 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, tells the story of what happens when a family man loses his job. The 1931 film, directed by Yasuhirõ Ozu, begins at a school, where a teacher puts his teenage students through some military drills.  In a foreshadowing of his later difficulties with authority figures, Shinji Okajima (Tokihiko Okada) misbehaves and talks back to his teacher Omura Sensei (Tatsuo Saitõ).  The significance of this early scene shows itself much later in the film, when Shinji must walk the pavements of Tokyo to get a job.

Tokihiko Okada ponders a life decision in “Tokyo Chorus.”

Ozu’s Tokyo Chorus comes from a genre of early Japanese films featuring the middle class, a group that apparently went through a series of upheavals owing to the economic depression and rapid urbanization in Japanese society.  Ozu stayed close to this genre later in his career with films such as “Late Spring (1949),” “Early Summer (1951)” and “Tokyo Story (1953).”  He seems to bury the camera at a very low level to catch the Japanese custom of sitting and sleeping close to the floor. However, the office scenes in Tokyou Chorus — with managerial hierarchies, bonus-scrounging workers and repetitive work — seem about the same as ones pictured in films like King Vidor’s “The Crowd (1928).”  The Crowd’s office scenes also influenced Billy Wilder in “The Apartment (1960).”
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Shinji’s run-in with his boss begins on the bonus day, when employees at his insurance company line up in front of the director’s office waiting for their bonus envelopes.  During the process, Shinji learns that a fellow employee has been sacked.  In a funny sequence, an argument ensues when Shinji demands that the director rehire the employee.  The adversaries deftly flip their hand fans as the discussion heats up.  Shinji loses, of course, and this begins his journey to make a living and preserve his family harmony.  Unfortunately, he immediately receives his first test when he returns home without a promised bicycle for his son Sono (Hideo Sugawara).  Children are frequently very naughty in Ozu films, and Sono is no exception; Sono’s disdain turns into a tantrum.  Shinji must deal with family’s heightened expectations at a time when he’s significantly lowered his income.

In many Japanese films, especially if they concern family relationships, we find the idea of acceptability.  Despite the fact that it’s traditionally unusual for a salary man to lose his job, the man is expected to find new work that will not shame the family.  When Shinji meats the man he defended at the insurance company wearing a sandwich-board sign, the man’s good-natured humor convinces him to accept a less-than-satisfying position.  This leads to an issue with his wife, who finds his street hawking for a restaurant unacceptable. Reason, old friends and family love eventually win out, so even if Shinji finds a less than perfect option at the end, we expect family harmony to prevail.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) showed its affection for British silent films with its presentation of “The First Born,” a 1928 film directed by and starring Miles Mander.  After screening 9 Alfred Hitchcock (mostly British) films in June at the Castro, the SFSFF presented The First Born as the first feature of the second day (July 19).

Miles Mander comforts Madeleine Carroll in “The First Born.”

In The First Born, Mander plays Sir Hugo Boycott, a philandering nobleman married to Lady Madeleine Boycott (Madeleine Carroll). Although Madeleine is beautiful and extremely devoted to Hugo, he constantly cheats on her. The film, written by Mander and Alma Reville, begins with an title card announcing the separation of Hugo and Madeleine.  The crestfallen Madeleine mopes around her social circle while Hugo goes to Africa to run around with a mistress. We learn that Hugo wants a child, which Madeleine cannot give him as the film commences.  However, when a manicurist reveals her pregnancy and asks Madeleine to adopt her child, Madeleine sees it as a good play to get Hugo back.  She sets off to the Italian lake district with the manicurist and comes back with baby Stephen.

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Mander, playing Hugo, makes himself thoroughly detestable, but he somehow remains respectable in his noble circle.  I found it odd that so many of Hugo and Madeleine’s high-class neighbors hang out at their house, considering the couple’s obvious problems.  On his return, Hugo flirts with a female house guest while Madeleine awaits him in their bed.  A later scene in which Hugo interrupts Madeleine while she takes a bath not only introduces a major plot point but it expertly shows the wide chasm of emotion between Hugo and Madeleine.  The scenario also leaves room for Hugo’s redemption.

The producers of “Silent Britain (2006),” a documentary about the British silent era, mentioned The First Son as being notable for its daring depiction of sexuality and infidelity.  The documentary laments the fact that British critics during the silent era tended the downplay the artistry of British films.  Actually, British filmmakers provided many innovations and produced lots of quality films, including The First Son.

The lovely Louise Brooks plays a typist at a Paris newspaper who enters a beauty contest in “Prix de Beauté (1930),” the opening film of the 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF).  The festival began Thursday, July 18, and finishes on Sunday, July 21 with “Safety Last” (1923, starring Harold Lloyd).

Louise Brooks plays beauty queen Lucienne Garnier in “Prix de Beauté.”

In Prix de Beauté, Brooks, as Lucienne Garnier, displays her fantastic ability to express emotions as she becomes Miss France and then Miss Europe. Her celebrity catches the attention of rich and successful men and antagonizes her fiance, André (Georges Charlia); he threatens to leave her if she doesn’t disown her beauty crown.  André calls beauty pageants vulgar, but they seem all the rage in this European story.  Eventually, André convinces her to walk away from the adulation and lead a normal life.  She returns with André to a modest apartment and much lowered expectations.

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Genina provides a major contrast to these trappings of wealth in a scene showing Lucienne, André and a friend visiting an amusement park.  Lucienne seems thrilled to watch André slide a weighted toy car on rails to win a distance prize. Several other main fail to move the car sufficiently, but André, with superior strength, outdistances them all and wins the big prize.  The scene shows André’s competitiveness and foreshadows the ending, which I still find a bit unexpected.  Lucienne feels driven to make choices that suit her dreams, but the plot never makes it easy for her.  As Lucienne empathizes with a caged bird in another short scene, I wondered why André couldn’t just see how much things have changed.

The producers of Prix de Beauté, Sofar-Film, also made a sound version of this 1930 film.  The SFSFF presented the silent version, of course, which was recently completed by the Cineteca di Bologna.  The show featured accompaniment by pianist and instrumentalist Steven Horne.