Friday, August 16, 2013

SILENT MOVIE AND A NOT SO SILENT - SILENT ACTOR





Young Buster - pre alcohol addiction



The latest films that I watched are “kinda” connected but...not really.  One is a silent film and the other(s) are sound films starring a silent actor.  The actor is Buster Keaton and the collection is, well, “The Buster Keaton Collection.”


Older - "making ends meet" Buster


In the 1940’s, after sound films had taken over, Keaton’s career had hit the skids and he had hit the bottle.  Divorced, broke, struggling with alcohol Columbia took him in to make movies.  Well, not feature films but “Columbia’s Selected Shorts!”  So what you got were 10 movies averaging about 20 minutes each starring about the same group of actors.  Filmed over 3 or 4 days these films were quickie little movies probably shown between the “Bugs Bunny Cartoon” and the “Newsreel” at the local double feature.


Notice "Columbia Short Subject Presentation" - still Buster is over the title...


When Keaton was in his hey-day he directed himself in some wonderful feature films.  To be relegated to these ensemble pieces with little or no control – it must have been heartbreaking.  But...if you’ve got debts to pay and kids to feed – you got to do what you got to do.

Are the films any good?  Well, in a word...no.  Slapped together, most of the films don’t have the poignancy or the artistry of what Keaton created in the 1920’s.  Typically the films would end up with just slapstick gag after slapstick gag:  “You fall down here.  You go there and fall down.  Then everyone falls down.”

But...in a few...the genius still surfaced.  There were moments – nods to his film “Cops” and one film used the same “high angle” as Harold Lloyd’s film “Safety Last.”  But, sadly – as beautiful as some of the set-ups and gags were, on a whole they weren’t very funny.


Older, sadder Buster...


After the 10 shorts there’s a short documentary about the films and even these Keaton experts say that they’re not very good and they, too, point out some moments where you can see the genius but then, as quickly, it goes back into the mediocre hole when someone falls down.  I feel sorry for anyone who purchased the set of films only to watch the documentary first to hear the people talk down these Columbia shorts that they just bought.


Diggin' that font...


The second film I watched was the movie “Foolish Wives.”  Directed by, and starring, Erich Von Stroheim – the title cards talk about how this film was, originally, 23 reels or something and that it has been painstakingly restored.  I thought:  “How long IS this?”  2 hours and 23 minutes.  Sigh.  Do I really want to watch a 2.5 hour long silent film?  You see – with most of my films I watch at work, I watch while I play on my phone so I never devote 100% of my time watching the movie – just listening to it.  Piano music is great for 2.5 hours but I DO have to see the title cards and the dialogue cards.

The story?  Well Erich plays a Russian Prince (or something) hanging out with his “cousins” in Monte Carlo.  They’re actually thieves who are living the highlife by passing off counterfeit bills.  By day their the most proper dignitaries one could imagine.  By night they’re trying their best to score some cold hard cash.  There isn’t a redeeming quality amongst them.


"Cousin"


Erich soon sets his sights on a young (23?) year-old American woman who is visiting Monte Carlo with her much older husband.  They’re rich Americans and Erich sees an easy score.

Before you can say “rapscallion” – Erich has infiltrated this couple and has offered to be their tour guide.  She, and others, fall under is monocled trap has he takes her to events, shows her that he can shoot doves and sweeps her off her feet.  Meanwhile his “Cousins” are flirting with other men.


Flirtin' with the Rich American woman...


Late in the film we find out a couple things...  Thing 1.  the counterfeiter they’ve been using lives in the slums and has a sickly daughter.  Thing 2.  There’s a maid in the house who has worked there twenty years who, at some point, was proposed to by Erich.  Erich has promised to marry her and she keeps waiting for him to do good on his promise.  He promises her again, saying that his “Russian paperwork is being held up.”


Would you trust this guy?  Oh, and monocles are badass.


On a fateful night at the Casino Erich encourages Ms. American to bet her cash at the roulette wheel and she wins.  Knowing that she has a bunch of cash, he entices the woman back to his place.  When she arrives the spurned maid, as best as I can say it, goes a little nutso.


"Hell hath no fury like...(you know the rest)"


To tell you how it ends would ruin what is actually a pretty great film.  Sadly, there are some gaps from the missing reels so things do get kind of “herky jerky” in terms of plots and plotting.  Where the film really shined, though, is in its cinematography.  There are some set-ups that are amazing in terms of lights, lighting, dust, angles and so-on.  Stroheim was really on his game as a film-maker, even though you really REALLY hated his character.  One scene late in the film when the American woman realizes she has wronged a gentleman is heartbreaking.


Foolish wife?  More like foolish American husband to let her wife be seduced by such a evil monocle wearing man...


The title “Foolish Wives” comes from a book the American woman is reading entitled “Foolish Wives” written by Erich Von Stroheim.

So in one corner you have Keaton at the end of his career doing slap-dash unfunny “comedy shorts” and on the other hand you have a great film-maker like Stroheim at the beginning of his career and showing some amazing skills as both an actor AND film-maker.


TOTALLY badass...


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