We’re back at Pordenone for the report on day six of the Giornate del Cinema Muto, as recounted by our eagle-eyed correspondent, the Mysterious X (known as X to his friends, Mysterious to his mum). It’s Friday 9 October, and it’s another early morning start.

9.00am and the latest from a multi-year project to restore and re-evaluate the silent work of director Hans Steinhof; at Pordenone and other festivals I have all of these, and I have to say, with the possible exception of Alleycat, this newly (and not quite completely) restored film, The Three Kings/Ein Madel und Drei Clowns (GB/Germany 1928) is the most successful and satisfying work. This was one of Steinhof’s Anglo-German co-productions, and was released in three distinct versions, British, German and French; this restoration, as each surviving element was missing footage, is a compilation of all three most resembling the German edition, although each version is being restored. This is a tale of three brothers, whose clown act is a star attraction in The Tower Circus in Blackpool. The film (this German version at least, apparently not the British cut) starts with a stunning aerial shot of Blackpool and never lets up; slickly paced, well cast, with Henry Edwards, Warren William, John Hamilton as the three very different brothers and Clifford MacLaglen and Evelyn Holt as the lion-tamer and his ex, who will impact on the brothers; and with wonderful location footage of Blackpool at play – though the studio work was filmed in Germany. The climax of the film is a circus fire – in a sequence as yet incompletely tinted – and possibly incorrectly in places – in which the film’s writer, Henry Edwards, is visibly doing his own stunts; his sleeved arm heavily ablaze at one point. Altogether an engaging film, and very entertaining; hopefully this long-forgotten ensemble-cast film will become better known through repeated screenings. A double-bill with the 1990’s Blackpool-set Funny Bones would be very interesting …

Le Chasseur de Chez Maxim’s, from the Pordenone catalogue

Next, another comedy from Albatros starring Nicolas Rimsky; Le Chasseur de Chez Maxim’s (France 1927), a story filmed many times over the years, is a true French farce; the owner of a French stately pile works nights as the doorman-cum-fixer at Maxim’s, a gambling and dancing club for the Parisian elite – until the inevitable happens and his two worlds collide. In many ways this could have been a classic; many fine situations worked to great effect, in particular a hunt sequence worthy of Jacques Tati; but too many, too much, making the film way too long at 2h 10m. Had the makers removed a couple of extraneous sequences we would have finished with a greater film. But Rimsky was superb … we just needed a smaller dose.

After lunch, more from the Sherlock strand, starting with one of the Bonzo cartoon series, Detective Bonzo and The Black Hand Gang (GB 1925) in which Our Hero foils an anarchist gang plotting to kidnap a top jockey before Derby Day. One of the best of the 26 Bonzos, it perhaps needed a bit more than the 20fps for full impact … but always nice to see a Bonzo on the big screen. Next was an episode of a series new to me, Inscrutable Drew, Investigator; The Moon Diamond (GB 1926) from Fu Manchu director A.E. Coleby. A fairly standard plot regarding the seemingly impossible theft of a jewel, it was not one of the action-packed items we had been treated to here … it was somewhat stodgily paced, and the direction wasn’t sparkling either. There followed one of his Fu Manchu episodes, The Knocking on the Door (GB 1923) which did indeed rattle with pace and thrills, if you overlook the casual racism that inhabits all of the Fu Manchu tales. The catalogue notes, by the thread’s curator Jay Weissberg, put forward the idea that Coleby was at his best when free to indulge in the sensational elements of serial film-making; on the evidence of these two episodes, I wouldn’t disagree. There followed La Mano Accusatrice (Italy 1913) a thriller that wasn’t doing it for me; but you have to bear in mind that at the tail-end of the week the cumulative effect of lack of sleep is increasing – it might be great with a fresh pair of eyes.

Either way, out I went for 30 minutes of caffeine and sun to clear my head for the second Shaw film of the week, a newly-struck print of the previously (until the British Silent Film Festival in June) neglected adaptation of an equally neglected H.G. Wells novel, The Wheels of Chance (GB 1922). Filmed, as is seemingly usual with Shaw, largely on location with strong emphasis on pictorialism. Wheels of Chance is a comedy with a plot borrowed from a melodrama, with George K. Arthur, back from Shaw’s Kipps, as a draper’s assistant on a cycling tour foiling the machinations of a foreign-named cad – Bechamel – trying to elope, also by bicycle, with a naive suburban girl thereby trapping her into compromising situations in Home Counties pub/hotels, while her mother and her entourage set off in pursuit. Charming but never cloying, the happy ending here is not the unlikely riding off into the sunset – socially impossible in those times – but a recognition by all parties of the lessons learned; she is less naive, and she and her elders have learned respect for their ‘social inferior’; he gains self-respect, and has had his horizons broadened just a little bit. The print seemed just a bit on the dark side, but not so dark as to spoil the effect of the photography; it’s a well-made film, with its heart in the right place, and those evocative shots of 1920s Surrey and Hampshire, with the perfect soundtrack provided by Shaw enthusiast and expert Phil Carli. I feel the need for a location tour … a day by car, perhaps a long weekend by bicycle …

Final film of the day for me was L’Ile Enchantée (France 1926), a somewhat strange film combining two seemingly unrelated film cliches; a Corsican bandit engaged in a family vendetta, while defending his family castle from destruction for a hydro-electric project for the local steelworks. The image of the Valentinoesquely-garbed bandit – educated and with full medical training, incidentally – waving his ancient percussion-cap shotgun around 1920s Bessemer ovens was distinctly odd – if beautifully lit and shot. Just to complicate matters, our bandit hero falls for the (female) steelworks manager, around the time he saves the life of the pursuing local police chief’s daughter, through a medical intervention. All heightened stuff, then, stunningly shot in the Corsican hills and the aforementioned steelworks – in Normandy. Tosh, but quality tosh, and helped immensely by the feature film debut of Pordenone masterclass aspirant pianist Cyrus Gabrysch. The word, from them that know these things, is that he could be a bit special. He certainly impressed at this film.

J’Accuse

Then came the anti-war leviathan that is Abel Gance’s J’Accuse (France 1919) freshly restored to approaching its full original length – 3 1/4 hours at the 16fps requested by the festival. I made my excuses, as I will be seeing Stephen Horne, who performed here, playing to it at one of the UK outings in November – The Watershed, Bristol, or The Barbican or BFI Southbank in London, when I will hopefully be in a better state to fully appreciate it – though it will be screened at 18fps there. The speed as ever the source of great debate here; at the J’Accuse Collegium session it was revealed that the Nederlands Filmmuseum recommended 18fps to all the venues, but Pordenone felt differently; the consensus of those who saw it this night was that the speed looked about right, and that it was felt that the projection speed may have been increased towards the end – an overall speed of 17fps, some felt; I’ll reserve my own judgement until I’ve seen it in the UK at 18fps.

Ah, run ’em all at 24fps and you’ll be able to pack in another house. Anyway, our next diary post will be our last report from this year’s Pordenone silent film festival, with early films, Sherlockiana, Dreyer, ukeleles and some final thoughts.

Report on day one
Report on day two
Report on day three
Report on day four
Report on day five
Report on day six
Report on day eight

It’s time once more to leaf backwards through the calendar to Tuesday 6 October and day four of the Giornate del Cinema Muto, best known as the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. And once again we are in the hands of our tantalisingly anonymous guest reporter, who does at least let slip his or her national identity in this latest report. Read on…

Five hours of sleep later, and back into the fray again; firstly a couple of Rediscoveries and Restorations; an abbreviated print, but a rare sighting of silent Japanese popular cinema, Kurotegumi Sukeroku (Japan 1929) recovered from a 16mm ‘Digest’ print by the Tokyo Film Preservation Society, a small group of enthusiasts gleaning films from private collections in Japan and rescuing them from total oblivion. At roughly one third its original length, plot and characterisation has rather gone by the board, but you do get the feel of more authentic, yet still idealised, Samurai behaviour than we generally see, before the suberbly choreographed sword battle at the climax. As someone who grew up with pre-wire-work Samurai-based TV shows like The Water Margin, this was a real pleasure.

The other film was Eine Versunkene Welt (Austria 1922), a very early film from future saviour of the British film industry, Alexander Korda, starring the actress who would become Maria Corda, from an adaptation from Lajos Biro, another refugee-to-be from their native Hungary. Another tale of an aristocrat marrying a dancer and being disinherited, although apparently based on a factual cause celebre, it was a bit staid and dull, although Maria did show flashes of why she would get a Hollywood career, however brief. In its favour, it did have some wit, and some good use of the shipboard location. Not the greatest work these names would be linked to, but it’s instructive to see the apprentice pieces by such important figures.

Pola Negri in Wenn Das Herz in Hass Ergluht, from the Pordenone catalogue

More Divas; Wenn Das Herz in Hass Ergluht (Denmark 1918) was a welcome and rare chance to see a Pola Negri film; we see the iconic stills, Marion Davies or others impersonating her, but not often do we see the original in action. And she is impressive. Wenn Das Herz is a Pola Negri vehicle, designed to show off her dancing talent in her role as a circus snake dancer destined for the big time, despite the efforts of the circus owner, and her ex-boyfriend, a villainous turn from Hans Schlettow, that nice Devonian farmer from A Cottage on Dartmoor. The former needs her act to prop up his failing business, the decond wants her back from the aristocrat backing her ascent in the showbiz ranks. This film had the lot; lust, deception, gambling, framed aristocrats, matters of honour and interspecies wrestling. I won’t disclose the ending as it should remain as big a surprise as it was to us … the sound of jaws hitting the Verdi floor was quite audible.

Amore Senza Stima (Italy 1912) is a tale of marital deception starring the fetching Francesca Bertini; she seemed a bit underutilised as ‘The Betrayed Woman’ and I’ve seen the theme handled better; however the camerawork and the use of light and shade were outstanding for the year.

After a lunchbreak catching up on notes, one from the Rediscoveries / Restorations strand; a spanking print of an Ossi Oswalda comedy, Die Kleine Vom Variete (Denmark 1926) another variation of the ‘marry that actress and I’ll disown you’ theme so popular this week; Ossi obviously has great fun as a cross-dressing (as a cowboy) cabaret knife thrower secretly married to the heir of an uncle’s fortune; Uncle has other ideas … like the ward of an extremely respectable business acquaintance. There is a superb sequence introducing said ward; remember the group exercise sequence in Diary of a Lost Girl?? Louise Brooks and the others to the rhythm of a gong??? Well, here the ward is at some kind of progressive finishing school; we have a group full of Louise Brooks’ exercising to a sax-heavy jazz band … you would swear someone was satirizing Pabst, but this was three years earlier … Ossi is a lively, sparky charismatic presence on screen, known as ‘Germany’s Mary Pickford’ but actually more like Betty Balfour in appearance and verve; the film is a farce comedy with good supporting players, and a real delight in a festival a bit lightweight in comedy thus far.

The one annoyance was emerging from it to find that it had clashed with the one show I had wanted to see in the Ridotto, and which I had overlooked in my rush for a seat in the Verdi; Jean Darling in conversation with a rejuvenated David Wyatt; with clips and so forth. I had seen them do similar shows before, but they are always a delight, and every time some new angle, some new information, comes from the mind of one of the very last people bearing witness to the business end of silent Hollywood; and such, apparently, was the case here. Aaargh.

More Sherlock and co.’s … a perennial favourite in Britain is The Peril Of The Fleet (UK 1909), a precursor of nearly every other spy thriller ever made; the plot, the hunt, the tracking, the ‘saved in the nick of time’, the world safe for the time being (or the fleet at anchor, in this case, gorgeously depicted in a sea-borne tracking shot past the sterns of Agammemnon, and her sister ships). That all said, it does creak a tad, and there were one or two giggles at some points; we’re so much more educated in the genre, I suppose. But this is its beginning, and the actuality-style footage is superb … followed by the Maurice Elvey/Eille Norwood The Sign Of Four (UK 1923), with its wonderful climactic chase by road and river from Twickenham to Barking via every landmark a capital tourist guide could think of … it’s a decent thriller, well handled as usual by the prolific Elvey, and I actually prefer this version to the more-familiar-to-most Jeremy Brett take from the eighties; much of the detection is explained in a lengthy flashback, but then that is the structure many of Conan Doyle’s tales take – and which make them apparently so difficult to successfully adapt, despite their fame.

Rediscoveries; Monkeys’ Moon (1929), a pleasant, well-executed but slight film about two Capuchins enjoying an evening in their owner’s moonlit garden, from the avant garde crowd (Kenneth Macpherson et al) who gave us journal Close Up. Nice enough, and with technically very good close-up photography, but not about to bring Hollywood down around its ears … this was followed by another personal revelation. I confess to having blindspots in certain areas, and one such is Soviet cinema. The Russian avant garde I can admire to a point, but … it leaves me cold. This, though, was a very different Soviet film.

Dom Na Trubnoi (USSR 1928) (The House on Trubnaya Square) is a quite wonderful film; starting as if it was going to be a straight city symphony film: nice photography, dawn sun glinting off the tram tracks in freshly-washed cobbles, and so on; but it gradually fragments into a visual anarchy until the film is paused; and the narrating intertitle remembers he’s forgotten to tell us why the peasant girl who has rescued the goose and is apparently at the mercy of the speeding tram is there in the first place … so we go back to her beginning out in the sticks, until her story can catch up to the point where we last saw her … by the time of the film’s end, we have had a mild dig at the workers (social co-operation not apparently extending to cleaning arrangements in the tenement), their living conditions, the petit-bourgeouis, agitprop theatre – before delivering a message that union membership may be quite desirable and delivering the happy ending Russian cinema is not known for. In amongst all that, it delivered real laughter and huge applause in the Verdi. Lovely print too … film of the festival at this point, and it has overtaken Chess Fever as my favourite Soviet comedy of all time. But then I have only seen the two; I hope you don’t mind me displaying my ignorance here. Rumour has it that it may be available on DVD in France?? I must check when I get home … (It’s available from Bach Films. Ed.)

After dinner, a compilation show of gems from the Yugoslavian archive, celebrating their sixty years. Many of local origin, as you would expect; but including their imports from over the decades. Some early travelogues of Serbia were followed by a 1909 short L’Ostaggio, an Italian film of loyalty and bravery rewarded, in a classical setting but adapted from a Schiller poem; a 1903 art-nude film from Germany, featuring statuesque nudes posing on a giant turntable, rotating as we view … a 1909 Edison Hansel and Gretel starring Mary Fuller; but the most effective, and most affecting was a late silent, Sa Verom U Boga (Serbia 1932) (In God We Trust), a rural Serbian take on The Big Parade … low key, acted seemingly authentically acted (you suspect a large percentage of the cast are cleverly-cast amateurs) and very moving. The programme finished with two as-yet unidentified animations featuring Chaplin’s Tramp as the main character. Obviously both from the same hand, seemingly from the late 10’s early 20’s, nothing is apparently known of their provenance, and feature no identification apart from locally produced (and crude) title cards, and a flourishing hand signing ‘ZIP’ at the end of one. Very nicely animated, with Chaplin captured brilliantly, using the cut-out animation technique against chalk-board style background art. The consensus, in our little group at least, was that they could well be British; the English-language shopfronts don’t prove much, but twice Charlie is confronted by a very well detailed British police sergeant – unlike his films, then all US-set, – the technique is right for Britain, as we seemed to favour cut-out over Winsor McCay style drawn animation; and it did seem in places vaguely reminiscent of Dudley Buxton … so who is/was Zip ??? The Yugoslavian Film Archive would like to know …

Last up, a couple more films featuring Francesca Bertini, from the Divas thread … but I was fading fast, so forewent the pleasure … and talked animation and Chaplin around the bar instead.

Quite a day, and there’s more to follow in day five, when we shall sing with Hepworth, shiver to the Golem, thrill to Fu Manchu, and cheer the heroics of perhaps the finest name an animal star could ever boast – Spot the Urbanora Dog. Don’t miss it.

Report on day one
Report on day two
Report on day three
Report on day five
Report on day six
Report on day seven
Report on day eight

It’s Monday 5 October 2009, and again the Bioscope’s man of mystery rises early, takes up the notepad and pen and dutifully arrives the moment doors open on the Pordenone silent film festival to catch day three’s varied offerings. Here’s our correspondent’s report:

9.00am already??

Graziella (France 1925) is a Film D’Art adaptation of an epic poem of lost love; set in a fishing town in late 18th C Italy, it boasted stunning photography of the coast and villages around Naples, which seemingly had changed little in the intervening 150 years; it used the local faces realistically, and only the lead actress Nina Vanna seemed a little out of place. The storm sequence is superbly handled, and was vaguely reminiscent of the more famous tank-work featured in Napoleon, and utterly believable. The story, quite slight, is of two aristocratic and somewhat patronising Frenchmen slumming it in Naples until they find work as fishermen – as an experiment – and love. The ending, which I won’t reveal, comes entirely out of nowhere – possibly the source poem by Lamartine gives some earlier clue – but a film well worth watching for many differing reasons, and not necessarily the plot.

At 79 minutes, Graziella was a mere appetiser to the main course; 2 hrs 39 mins of The Ten Commandments (USA 1923); shown as part of the ‘Canon Revisited’ thread, whereby films are screened, and perhaps reappraised, that may be considered warhorses by the older generation of cineastes but have actually been seldom if ever seen by those under 40 … and as a relative (ten years or so) newcomer to all this, people like me. It is a leviathan of a film, but you can only admire the craft, the imagery, and the ambition of Cecil B. De Mille, that calls a fully staged biblical mini-epic ‘The Prologue’ to the contemporary tale of building graft that follows. As all the stills and clips I had ever seen of this film had only ever referred to The Prologue – specifically The Flight From Egypt, that I had always assumed it was a full scale biblical epic, and the modern sequences came as a big surprise. In the bar afterwards, it seemed I was not the only one…..so chalk one point for the idea of The Canon Revisited thread. The film itself – the main part, if you like – features low-key but very decent acting, and written with some wit; the overt moralising tempered and the pill sugared with the use of humour and the more New Testament message coming from the Good Son contrasting with the amorality of the Bad Son, and the Old Testament brandishing by the Mother, and of course the Exodus-based Prologue. It certainly doesn’t drag, but it does feel entirely like two different films …

After lunch; Le Chant De L’Amour Triomphant France 1923) another Tourjansky-directed film from Albatros, this time an adaptation of a Turgenev poem of love, betrayal and cod-oriental mysticism. It started as a standard tale of chivalry and honour around a love rivalry, before turning a deal darker (and vaguely more absurd) with the introduction of a ‘Hindu’ mystic. Not one of Albatros’ finest hour and a bits, not a film I would want to sit through again.

That was followed by the first of the ‘Divas’ thread, this show dedicated to the mighty Asta Nielsen; here represented by three fragments and rarities; unedited footage of Asta modelling the most hideous evening wear; fragments of Steuermann Holk (Germany 1920), a nautical drama co-starring Paul Wegener, and a truncated (by about 1200 ft) export print of Die Geliebte Roswolskys (Germany 1921) a drama of what we would now call celebrity culture, again with Wegener. Asta is a struggling dancer/actress who becomes famous through the (inaccurate) public perception, fuelled by the media, of who she is sleeping with … couldn’t happen now … unfortunately the print, rescued from a South American copy, bore all the hallmarks of being abridged for that market; I couldn’t decide, and nor could others, whether the perceived incoherence was the fault of the film as it stands, or the development of ‘Nodding Syndrome’ which we all seemed to get during this one .. .which has the effect of random editing anyway. Either way, it seemed a shame that we weren’t getting to see Asta at her best advantage. The catalogue did make it clear that this was a round-up of fragments and mis-identified films, and contrasting the Divas in similar roles, but an opportunity was missed, I feel, for one great film each to show us quite why Asta, and her contemporaries featured in the thread, were regarded as Divas in the first place.

Livelier by far were the further adventures in the Holmes strand; a 1910 Danish entry, Sherlock Holmes I Bondefangerklor wherein Holmes solves the case of a tourist drugged and mugged in a dockside cafe; always nice to see an Edwardian car chase, but this was Holmes in name only; a dockside mugging being a long way from the aristocratic intrigues we’re used to. The Old Man In The Corner: The Kensington Mystery (UK 1924) is the first episode of a Stoll series based on tales from the Baroness Orczy; it’s a fairly standard tale of murder for inheritance, but told in flashback by the solver of the crime, the eponymous hero of the seres; an ageing murder hobbyist who lurks in courts studying human nature; and he is telling the tale to an eager lady journalist in the local cafe, for the price of a cup of tea. Finally, The Amazing Partnership (UK 1921), a feature this time from Stoll, about a female private detective, masquerading as the owner of a secretarial agency, taking on a male business partner to help solve a string of jewel robberies. A good cast from the Stoll stable – Gladys Mason is our heroine, Milton Rosmer is the two-fisted action hero; Harry Agar Lyons, of course, runs the suburban safe-house where Teddy Arundell is trying to escape justice. It’s a neat little film, with a nice touch where the kidnap of Gladys is achieved from a theatre stage door in broad daylight, by Harry’s ruse of setting up film cameras, and holding back the gathering crowd as if a serial episode is being shot; when Gladys is bundled into the back seat of the car, the bystanders are applauding …

Settling down in pace again for 2h 44m of Carmen (France 1926) directed by Jacques Feyder for Albatros. Although we had been shown many fine films already, this was, for me, the first masterpiece of the week. Goregeously shot on location in Navarre and Castile, and superbly cast; Raquel Meller was a Spanish actress I had not heard of, but she WAS Carmen; seemingly not acting at all – like Louise Brooks in Germany, say – she was utterly believable as the sexy gypsy that men fall madly in love with, and yet would not want to be up against her in a fight. Louis Lerch as Don Jose transforms from callow youth to half-mad criminal fugitive well; the supporting character actors are equally good and are given time to develop three dimensions. Could not fault the film, though some thought it overlong, I didn’t personally. The music this night was again from the very talented Touve Ratovondrahety – though this time I felt he had all his knobs turned right up to eleven and my ears were ringing at the finish.

In total contrast, there followed an offering from the Jugoslavian Film Archive – three examples of silent underground porn films from – it is believed – 1920’s-1940’s. After a serious warning as to what to expect – and the option to exit the Cinema – from Festival Director David Robinson, we were launched into some quite grainy medium-hard core, accompanied by Günther Buchwald and I believe John Sweeney – my notes are skimpy here (it was Donald Sosin. Ed.) – as if we were having tea at the Savoy, 1910. Porn has never sounded quite so classy. There were some disappointed comments from some audience members as to the picture quality (names available on application to the Bioscope, price five guineas (Oh yeah? Ed.)) but for me it added an authentic flavour, as if we were peering through a smoky haze and an alcoholic fug at a 9.5mm set-up in a backroom somewhere in 1930. The print quality was the only aspect that left anything to the imagination, by the way.

Well, if that was Monday, then what follows next will unquestionably be Tuesday, where we can promise you (courtesy of our stubbornly anonymous reporter) more divas, more Holmes, a Japanese rediscovery, an avant garde diversion and a Pola Negri film with the sound of dropping jaws hitting the cinema floor …

Report on day one
Report on day two
Report on day four
Report on day five
Report on day six
Report on day seven
Report on day eight