East Is East (1916)

Photo: Internet Movie Database.

EAST IS EAST (Turner Company, GB 1916)
    Dir/prod/sc: Henry Edwards; cast: Henry Edwards, Florence Turner, Edith Evans; trade show: 9.1916; 35 mm, 4787 ft, 71’ (18 fps), BFI / National Film and Television Archive.
    Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.
    Viewed at Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (Asquith e gli altri),

Bryony Dixon (GCM): "Edith Evans, an arch ham even in 1916, tries to upstage everyone in this rags-to-riches drama of childhood sweethearts, played with exquisite naturalness by Florence Turner (“The Vitagraph Girl”) and Henry Edwards. This film is the only survivor of several films starring the pair. The influence of Hollywood narrative style is clear. The film is well structured, with an elegance that is not so surprising until you look at the date it was made and its country of origin. The subject, though, is fundamentally British, a familiar theme concerning the impossibility of finding love and fulfilment outside one’s social class. Money is a hindrance, and financial comfort or security brings with it stifling social conventions. As always with these stories, happiness is achieved only through escape to the rose-covered cottage of every Englishman’s dreams."

"Well-worn as the story is, the performances lift the film out of the ordinary (although by 1916 not enough features had been made for it to have really become a cliché). Edwards’ performance in particular is notable for its profound understanding of the spatial qualities of cinema, even with a relatively static camera. Edwards was already an experienced stage and screen actor by this time ­ watch how as an actor he makes us believe in the three-dimensional world we see through the frame. This is much helped by his use of location work in the hop-fields of Kent, where traditionally the working classes of London enjoyed a brief working holiday away from the miseries of the city. The beautiful English rural scenery adds greatly to the film’s charms." Bryony Dixon (GCM)

AA: A social comedy, a satire of class society, with a great sense of humour and social observation, nuance and realistic density. The print is ok. *** Actual duration of the screening 1:15'38" = 76 min.