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Judex; Silent Serial
Topic Started: Mar 1 2013, 10:48 AM (581 Views)
Don Diego
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Strting May 5 TC will be showing chapters of the silent serial Judex (actually 12:30 am Mon. may 6th)
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panzer the great & terrible
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It's really worth recording, though I suspect many people who watch the first episode or two will spring for the whole thing. The story borrows stuff from The Count of Monte Cristo, and is consequently stronger than most serial stories. It's even kinda logical. That's the plus side. On the other side, Feuillade's film technique is a little, well, basic, so if Hitchcock, Robert Altman or Max Ophuls is your idea of a great director you might wonder what all the shouting is about.

I bought it and have watched the whole thing twice, and certain episodes many times. Since I rarely re-watch movies that's a ringing endorsement.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Chandu
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Will someone who can remember that long please remind us around the first of May?
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
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riddlerider
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JUDEX is a fascinating work, and one that might have been tremendously influential. I say "might have been" because it's extremely unlikely the serial was even seen by the writers and artists whose creations seem to borrow a great deal from Feuillade's hero. You can find traces of Judex in The Shadow and maybe a half-dozen lesser-known pulp heroes. Yet Walter Gibson, who wrote most of The Shadow's pulp adventures, made no mention of Judex when he cited the characters who influenced his work. You can find bits and pieces from JUDEX in Batman lore (including the underground lair outfitted with the latest scientific inventions), yet Bill Finger was barely three years old when the serial played in America, and Bob Kane was still in diapers.

European silent serials were not as rigidly formulaic as their American cousins, and I suspect most serial fans of today get restive when JUDEX shifts from crime melodrama to soap opera in the later chapters. But it's a wonderfully imaginative piece of cinema. Panzer is right about Feuillade's primitive technique, but the rich melodrama of the first three or four chapters is a compensatory asset.

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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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Chandu
Mar 1 2013, 12:35 PM
Will someone who can remember that long please remind us around the first of May?
I'll remind you; I've set an appointment on my phone's calender (I need a reminder too you see).
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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Chandu
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Thanks Stony. My phone's still too dumb to have a calendar.
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
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JazzGuyy
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There's a lot of free Internet browser or computer calendar/reminder programs around. You can put one on your computer.
TANSTAAFL!
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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Chandu
Mar 2 2013, 11:51 AM
Thanks Stony. My phone's still too dumb to have a calendar.
No problem. Like JG said, I put it on my Google calendar as well.

You could go old school and write it on a wall calendar. I use one of those too.
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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Don Diego
Mar 1 2013, 10:48 AM
Strting May 5 TC will be showing chapters of the silent serial Judex (actually 12:30 am Mon. may 6th)
Only a couple o' days away. Here be de reminder.
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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CliffClaven
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I'm just now playing it after recording on TCM. If anyone else has it waiting, be aware the scheduling is sloppy -- Chapter two begins well before scheduled; that continues on later chapter. If you play each chapter through to when your recording ends (usually well into the next installment), you should catch everything.

Anyway, I'm up to the old mill. Technically it feels far slicker than Fritz Lang's "The Spiders", but Lang seemed to be a lot more earnest about his material despite the flamboyant plotting. There's a lot of comedy, enough of it intentional that you wonder about things you'd usually write off as clumsy melodrama.

The villainess is just the slightest bit playful in arranging herself around furniture or men. Not like Republic heroines who sit up straight and keep their feet on the floor. But not like Catwoman either. Maybe it's just a French thing. The heroine's beloved little boy kisses everybody, even cigarette-butt-puffing kid he sort of adopts. Another French thing?

I decided they were letting the audience in on the joke with the dog pack episode. When Judex receives the homing pigeons he left for the heroine, he decides the proper course of action is to saddle up and release the hounds. We get some beautiful but absurd shots of Judex on horseback in the midst of his dogs racing through stone ruins as his brother waves goodbye with a handkerchief. Then he arrives at the scene in a car with one dog -- but don't worry, the pack reappears soon enough. I'll just say you need to see this chapter.
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