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| The Fairbanks project; more reviews by the evil one | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 22 2009, 10:06 PM (814 Views) | |
| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 22 2009, 10:06 PM Post #1 |
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Mouth Breather
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Dave Shepard was good enough to release a spiffy box of Fairbanks pictures a couple years ago, and even though I'll always owe him for hundreds of things I didn't have the decency to review it at the time. Cancel that one debt as of now. It's one of the greatest DVD releases ever. Fairbanks defined his era in a way nobody else did, or ever has since, and these are the movies that did the job. More important, if you spend any time with him, you can't help liking the guy. 1.) His Picture In the Papers. A mostly great print of one of Doug's first starring vehicles, a picture that's still cute and even funny ninety years later. Doug is the son of a health food kingpin, but he's a steak and taters guy in love with a lady with a similar vegetarian upbringing and equally carnivorous results. His Dad disinherits him because he's a total dumbheck, but says he can re-inherit himself if he gets his picture in the papers to promote the health food. At the same time the girl's father has run afoul of a gang called the Weazels, and they're trying to kill him. You can probably figure what happens, but the picture is, as I said, kinda cute. You know the thing about the Bible stopping a bullet? In this movie it's a box of lentils. Four stars out of five. I'm going to enjoy this a lot more than the Griffith project. Fairbanks is so American in the best sense: his movies still speak to us. 2.) The Mystery of the Leaping Fish. Fairbanks is on record wishing he could destroy all copies of this comedy about a druggy detective named Coke Ennyday (could I make that up?). It's a screenplay by jolly old Tod Browning and Doug shoots up twice in the first five minutes. Lots of "hophead" jokes and Fairbanks hops a lot in case we miss the point. John Emerson directed, and wherever he is, I bet he's still embarrassed he had his name on this icky thing. In defense of all concerned, the drugs weren't illegal when the film was made, and Doug's behavior makes it obvious he had no idea what drugs do. I would hate to think of Doug Fairbanks snorting coke any day, but comfort myself that he probably didn't. Still, ick. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| CliffClaven | Jul 23 2009, 11:34 AM Post #2 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I got that box when it first came out and enjoyed it immensely. The comedy quotient is surprisingly high, both in the stories and in Fairbanks' performances. At moments you feel as though Harold Lloyd simply claimed a genre that Fairbanks abandoned when he moved on to swashbucklers. At the same time, the silliest of these early Fairbanks could still take dark and violent turns, usually to show that a villain was actually dangerous. There are a few moments I wouldn't want to explain to a child in the room. The booklet is packed with good stuff. Among other things, I learned that Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) was behind many of the screenplays. The set includes Mask of Zorro, which pretty much signaled the end of this phase of Fairbanks' career. A good excuse to dig out Black Pirate and Thief of Bagdad. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 23 2009, 01:24 PM Post #3 |
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Mouth Breather
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Your point about Lloyd is on target and I'd take it further. There has been so much jibber jabber about the flappers that we've lost sight of the peppy, athletic go-getters who dated them -- all strongly patterned on Doug. Of the Big Three silent stars (Pickford, Fairbanks and Chaplin) Fairbanks surely had the most influence on American culture. The girls wanted him and the guys wanted to be him. He defined the twenties, far more so than Scott Fitzgerald did. Fitzgerald was above all a loser, and America doesn't have much use for losers. And as for dark and violent plot turns: what American life doesn't have them? I'm always looking for windows on the past, and the Fairbanks pictures are unsurpassed in providing them. I'm surprised he's as neglected as he is, but critics always seem to underestimate light comedy, which is dense of them. Of Philip Barry and Eugene O'Neill, I wouldn't hesitate to say Barry's the better playwright. In the first place, he wrote more good plays, and in the second place his themes are more serious. O'Neill knew all there is about drunkenness and dysfunctionality, but how much is there to know? Not a lot, and four hours is a long time to squirm in a theater seat while you hear it over and over again. Look at it this way: is Anna Christie a better movie than Holiday? Even with Garbo it ain't even close. The Hairy Ape and The Philadelphia Story came out at about the same time; which is the better movie? Oh, you've never seen The Hairy Ape? Gee, I wonder why not? I read every word of O'Neill in my early teens, trying to make some sense out of my crazy Irish family, and it was a waste of time: he didn't understand his family any more than I understood mine. I still read Barry though, with pleasure. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Frank Hale | Jul 23 2009, 02:06 PM Post #4 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Congratulations on a major league segue, Mr. P! But speaking of David Shepard, I just saw the new DVD of “Bardelys the Magnificent” (MGM 1926), which is very much in the Fairbanks style. Lots of fun. John Gilbert is not as athletic, but he is probably a better lover. (The third reel is lost and is reconstructed from stills, trailer footage, and the script.) |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 23 2009, 05:52 PM Post #5 |
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Mouth Breather
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Thanks very much, Frank. It was a stretch. You know, it's harder to shock people. I thought I was being outrageous, but everybody seems to expect it. Pooh. Dave was talking about Bardelys 40 years ago. I'm glad he finally found a print he likes. He's got to be one of the most patient people who ever walked the earth. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| CliffClaven | Jul 23 2009, 07:50 PM Post #6 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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In one of the Fairbanks films an evil Renegade Indian sets his sights on the heroine. Two of his flunkies recall his last "white squaw": Fade to a dismal room where the Renegade is nonchalantly tidying himself up while a disheveled woman broods in the background. She kills herself with a knife. He's not upset. Even now, it's disturbing and leaves an aftertaste. Maybe it would be more acceptable in a straight drama, but it's jarring in a film that's thoroughly lighthearted before and after. I'm not condemning Fairbanks or his writers here -- Individual artists and whole mediums tend to stumble around a bit in their early work. In early Chaplin and Lloyd "glasses" shorts, you can see the costumes are in place but their characters are still generic -- and often mean-spirited -- slapstick comics. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 25 2009, 04:16 PM Post #7 |
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Mouth Breather
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Welcome to the wonderful world of Victorian insensitivity. Ever read any Dickens? |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Frank Hale | Jul 25 2009, 05:05 PM Post #8 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Or Alexandre Dumas. In the Count of Monte Cristo, M. de Villefort tried to bury a newborn child alive. To my amazement this was carried over into the film “Monte Cristo” (Fox 1922) which was the second half of the Bardelys double bill. Good family entertainment! Paul, Bardelys was taken from the ONLY copy in existence. It was discovered in a private French collection in 2006. |
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| CliffClaven | Jul 26 2009, 01:45 PM Post #9 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Dumas wasn't all swashbuckling fun or simple melodrama, even though adaptations tend to run in those directions. Remember that the musketeers rather ungallantly arranged the unauthorized beheading of Lady De Winter. Originally the Three Musketeers was the first in a series of books, where we watched D'Artagnan evolve from a dashing young hothead to a cool and calculating career soldier. In contrast to nearly every movie version of Man in the Iron Mask, D'Artagnan keeps the vile "rightful" king on the throne and the innocent twin is last seen being locked into his iron mask. By the closing pages of the last book, where a politically successful D'Artagnan is picked off by a random bullet in battle, pretty much all the sympathetic characters have met tragic deaths or pathetic fates. As for Dickens, he made no bones about rubbing readers' noses in real-life misery and injustice, even if he did people his stories with bigger-than-life characters. The point is, if your intention is light entertainment, you have to part company with most of that, or pull its teeth. Keaton joked about battlefield fatalities in The General, but he carefully kept it detached and almost abstract -- nearly faceless guys would just drop like outlaws in a Roy Rogers western. He knew that realistic trains and uniforms are one thing, but realistic combat is something else entirely. Fairbanks had to learn that -- and did. |
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| George Kaplan | Jul 29 2009, 04:12 PM Post #10 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Introducing Bardelys at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival earlier this month, David Shepard explained that MGM had licensed the right to adapt Sabatini's novel for ten years only. As the studio chose not to renew at the end of that term, all known prints of Bardelys had to be destroyed as stipulated by the agreement. MGM's decision horrifies us today; however, Shepard pointed out, "In 1936 there was nothing deader than a silent movie." |
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| Frank Hale | Jul 29 2009, 05:50 PM Post #11 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Right, that’s mentioned in the liner notes, as well as the fact that MGM went ahead anyway and renewed the copyright in the 50’s. Right-hand versus -left, I suppose. How did you like the film, Mr. Kaplan? I found Eleanor Boardman, King Vidor’s intended, a stunning woman, and I can only shake my head in wonder at the Natalie vs. Scarlett thread on this board. |
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| George Kaplan | Jul 29 2009, 09:01 PM Post #12 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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It may be that they renewed it with an eye to filming a Technicolor remake or something. I'm just as glad they didn't. I thought Bardeleys was delightful. The Fairbanks comparison is inescapable, I suppose, but Bardelys seems lighter in tone than most of Fairbanks's swashbucklers (except maybe The Mark of Zorro). Gilbert gets to do some nice stuntwork (was he doubled? I don't know), but the movie devotes as much energy to the play of wit as to derring-do. Verbose or pretentious title writers could make a silent grind to a halt, as we all know, but here the intertitles are succinct and funny and don't get in the way of the story. The film is paced well and is filled with little surprises. For instance, the supporting players Eleanor Boardman and Roy D'Arcy act in diametrically opposed styles from their very first scene together, about ten minutes into the film: she is delicate, underplaying every emotion; he peels his eyeballs, smirks, and grimaces unashamedly. And it works! |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 30 2009, 11:17 PM Post #13 |
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Mouth Breather
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Well heck, it was King Vidor directing his own wife. Sure it worked: you think he would have let her look bad? Of course Gilbert was doubled. He could play a little tennis, and thought he was pretty good in the sack, but an athlete? Maybe not. Sabatini wrote the kind of light swashbucklers that people today think Dumas wrote. I've read almost half of the books with Dumas' name on them. I doubt if I'd have developed my taste for Griffith if I hadn't read Dumas -- he got me used to bizarre plot turns and grotesque horror intrusions. Cutting Milady's head off is nothing compared to what happens in some of the other books about court intrigue. As I've said before, if you want to know what Dumas is up to, read Twenty Years After, one of the best books ever, and I mean best in the way that War And Peace is the very best and Tom Jones is the second best. At my age I can't read Saxe Rohmer, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein, or even Isaac Asimov any more, which is sad in a way but they just aren't good enough. My time is limited now -- I ain't wasting it on Ayn hecking Rand. I tried to read some L. Frank Baum to the grandkids when they visited and found that even he, once my favorite writer, isn't good enough any more. Jeez. But Dumas still is good enough and sometimes better than that. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Frank Hale | Jul 31 2009, 03:41 PM Post #14 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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The Bardelys liner notes indicate that Mr. Gilbert was “clearly” doubled, although I can’t say that it was especially obvious to me. Also didn’t spot John Wayne portraying a guard. Sounds like you have about 150 Dumas books to go, Paul, but what else is making the cut on your reading list? |
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| George Kaplan | Jul 31 2009, 04:41 PM Post #15 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I should mention that the S.F. Silent Film Festival's Friday night opener was The Gaucho. After watching Fairbanks, who at the age of 44 could still run up a tree--no, not climb, RUN UP (if it was leaning a little)--I was initially dismissive of Gilbert's swashing and buckling in Bardelys, which was the first feature screened on Saturday. But there's no denying that Bardelys is a fun movie or that Gilbert is excellent in it, with or without the jaw-dropping feats that were Fairbanks's signature. I have to agree with Panzer that Gilbert was something less than an athlete. Still, the romantic in me wants to believe that he really did have the stones to punch out Louis B. Mayer after the latter made a crude remark at Gilbert's almost-wedding to no-show Greta Garbo. Where's the DVD of Vidor's The Crowd? |
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