The Return of the Nasty Women 2: Discipline and Anarchy (curated by Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak)

Kri Kri e Lea militari (IT 1913). Photo: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

European Slapstick – Prog. 8: The Return of the “Nasty Women” 2: Discipline and Anarchy.
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM), Pordenone.
Grand piano: Maud Nelissen.
Teatro Verdi, e-subtitles in English and Italian, 8 Oct 2019.

L'Amant surpris / A Woman Surprised. FR 1898. Georges Méliès. Foto di: Valerio Greco. Teatro Verdi, 8 Oct 2019. Source: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019 / Flickr.

Antipasto: 
Early Cinema – Flipbooks.
L'Amant surpris (FR 189?), (90 fotogrammi/frames, 8 fps): attribuito a/attributed to Méliès. Ex-cat. 57’’
    L'Amant surpris / A Woman Surprised. FR 1898. Georges Méliès. A curvaceous lady is surprised at stripping down to her lingerie. One of Méliès's series of piquant scenes. [I scribbled down names like Léo, Béatrix, tbc]. 90 flipbook pages survive from a hors catalogue Méliès film believed lost.

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Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak (GCM): "The Nasty Women are at it again in this program! “Discipline and Anarchy” explores the tensions between control and freedom that haunt every cultural representation of radical social change. We start high in the sky in Léontine s’envole (1911), in which Léontine’s gotten her hands on fifty air balloons that send her flying over the village skyline (like our favorite Nasty Women exploding out of the chimney in The Finish of Bridget McKeen and Mary Jane’s Mishap)."

"Eventually, she’s grounded by a steeple and further disciplined by her parents’ justifiable anger. Like fish out of water, the women in Bain forcé (1906) just want to go for a dip without being harassed. A diminutive soldier with a sword (who’s a dead ringer for Napoleon Bonaparte) chastises them for public indecency. They respond by pushing him into the water and then biking away in their swimsuits, provoking a memorable chase scene. Mauritz Stiller’s Mannekängen (1913) features another rebellious protagonist, Lili (Lili Ziedner), who makes a ruckus on a tram and in a movie theater (even inserting herself into a pretend André Deed film!). Lili’s character riffs on the jolly anarchism of Deed’s Cretinetti. We are screening the only surviving fragments from this Swedish comedy, which may never have been completed or released."

"Young women are let loose on the workforce in the next three films: Léontine en apprentissage 1910), Lea salva la posizione (1911), and La Femme collante (1906). Léontine fails miserably to apprentice for a milliner, a baker, and a shoemaker. First, she allows an expensive hat to be crushed by a steamroller when she shirks her delivery route to play a game of leapfrog, then starts a food fight in the bakery, and further offends an important customer in the shoe store. When she gets her hands on a bucket of paint, she’s finally disciplined via a blackface minstrelsy sight gag. In contrast, Lea resorts to inventive means to salvage her livelihood, proving that Nasty Women can also adapt and work within the constraints of the system. Meanwhile, Alice Guy’s “sticky woman” mixes postage glue with saliva in this comedy about sexual assault."

"Things don’t turn out so well for Cunégonde (they really never do), who tries to pose as a “femme du monde” in her mistress’s clothes but ends up in jail. Milling the Militants (1913) raises the stakes of the dialectic between discipline and anarchy. A henpecked husband, whose wife is a militant suffragette, fantasizes that he’s been elected Prime Minister. He assumes autocratic powers, wielding them to humiliate and punish any woman who dares to defy her subordinate social role as wife and mother – yet, all dreams must come to an end."

"Kri Kri e Lea militari (1913) takes the struggle from Parliament to the battlefield. Lea and Kri Kri are happily engaged, but their courtship is interrupted by Kri Kri’s mandatory military service. Lea cross-dresses as a soldier to try to help her awkward husband survive boot camp, where she doesn’t fare much better herself. Both are disciplined, but together at last! No army in the world, however, could survive the ravages of Léontine, who’s on the march with her new electric battery in La Pile électrique de Léontine (1910). She sadistically electrocutes everyone in her path, inciting them to dance a crazy, hyper-frenetic jitterbug. Her victims include two nice old ladies, some drunken revelers at a café, laborers on a construction site, a horse buggy driver, and finally everyone inside the police station where she is arrested. Sometimes discipline is brutal and repressive, other times it’s self-fulfilling and ideological. Le Charme de Maud (1913) no doubt falls into the latter category, featuring a lead character who explores cross-class disguises and at one point slaps an older male assaulter in the face – the highlight of this nasty comedy of manners." Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak (GCM)

Léontine s'envole (FR 1911). Photo: Collection Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé © 1911 – Pathé Frères.

Léontine s'envole (FR 1911). Foto di: Valerio Greco. Teatro Verdi, 8 Oct 2019. Source: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019 / Flickr.

LÉONTINE S’ENVOLE (FR 1911)
regia/dir: ?. cast: ? (Léontine). prod: Pathé-Comica. copia/copy: DCP, [orig. 115 m], ??’; did./titles: FRA. fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.
    2019 restoration Gaumont Pathé Archives.
    AA: Léontine Flies Away. Léontine the enfant terrible, the enfant gâtée, in permanent ADHD mode, keeps throwing tantrums if she does not get what she wants at once. She gets a balloon, she wants another, she wants more and more until with fifty balloons she flies away to the sky. We see magnificent views in splendid tracking shots. There is a frenetic chase. She grabs a tower which is demolished. Finally, rifle shots start to burst her balloons until she lands back to the earth crying bitterly, showing us the tongue. An inspired piano interpretation by Maud Nelissen. A supernaturally sharp and clean digital presentation.

BAIN FORCÉ (Een gedwongen bad) (FR 1906)
regia/dir: ?. cast: ?. prod: Pathé. copia/copy: 35 mm, 51 m [orig. 55 m], 3′ (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam.
    AA: A Forced Bath. Four ladies on bicycles arrive at a pond and take a swim in their striped one-piece coverall period swimsuits. When an officious gendarme, alarmed at this breach of public decency, interferes, our ladies push him into the pond and elope on their bicycles, still wearing their swimwear. A chase ensues.

Mannekängen [The Mannequin] (SE 1913) by Mauritz Stiller. Mary Johnson, Stina Berg, Lili Ziedner, Dagmar Ebbesen, Karl Gerhard, ?. Photo: Svenska Filminstitutet, Stockholm

MANNEKÄNGEN [The Mannequin] (SE 1913) [fragments]
regia/dir, scen: Mauritz Stiller. photog: Julius Jaenzon. cast: Lili Ziedner (Lili), Viktor Arfvidson (tranviere/tram conductor), Stina Berg, Dagmar Ebbesen, Karl Gerhard, Mary Johnson, Sven Peterson (tram passengers). prod: AB Svenska Biografteatern. copia/copy: 35 mm, 65 m, 3’09” (18 fps); did./titles: SWE. fonte/source: Svenska Filminstitutet, Stockholm.
    [Film probably never completed or released. Fragments excerpted from two Swedish documentaries.]
    AA: Revisited: fragments from Mauritz Stiller's apprentice years as a film director. This farce, perhaps left unfinished, was his eighth film (he directed 14 films in 1912–1913). Lili Ziedner forces herself into a tram, into a cinema and even into the film itself projected on the screen with Lehman as boxer. Lili beats the boxer. An early case of meta-cinema. Fine visual quality.

LÉONTINE EN APPRENTISSAGE (FR 1910)
regia/dir: ?. cast: ? (Léontine). prod: Pathé. fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.
    AA: Léontine as Apprentice. She tries working as "milliner, a baker, and a shoemaker", to copy the Hennefeld-Horak program note, wreaking havoc in each profession. A comedy of destruction, a comedy of hyperbole, a comedy of anarchy. Digitized at overspeed in 4K in supernaturally sharp digital.

LEA SALVA LA POSIZIONE (IT 1911)
regia/dir: ?. cast: Lea Giunchi (Lea), Ferdinand Guillaume (Tontolini), Lorenzo Soderini, Giuseppe Gambardella (le guardie/the guards). prod: Cines. fonte/source: Fondazione CSC – Cineteca Nazionale, Roma.
    AA: Lea Finds a Way Out. [Lea Secures the Position]. Lea Giunchi in one of her early films which is also one of the earliest films of her comedy partner Tontolini. A tender embrace, a clever staging, a threatening with a gun, an arrest by the police. The credits are in French on this copy. Visual quality: soft, duped, watchable.

LA FEMME COLLANTE [A Sticky Woman] (FR 1906)
regia/dir: Alice Guy. cast: ?. prod: Gaumont. copia/copy: 35 mm, 52 m, 2’26” (18 fps); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, Bois d’Arcy.
    AA: Revisited an Alice Guy comedy which I last saw in Bologna's 2011 Alice Guy retrospective; probably the same print was screened. At the post office a lady is helped by her maid to lick the glue of her postage stamps. A gentleman is amazed to observe this and wants to have a taste of the maid's tongue also, but gets stuck in the glue. An assistant helps separate them with scissors, and half of the gentleman's moustache remains on the maid's face. A comedy of sexual harassment. Early cinema mode: one take, long shot, plan-séquence. Visual quality: duped, watchable.

Cunégonde femme du monde (FR 1912). Little Chrysia. Photo: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

CUNÉGONDE FEMME DU MONDE (Cunegonde als Modedame) (FR 1912)
regia/dir: ?. cast: Little Chrysia (Cunégonde). prod: Lux. copia/copy: 35 mm, 136 m [orig. 140 m], 7′ (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (Desmet Collection).
    AA: Cunégonde, Woman of the World. The plot of this comedy is the same as in James Whale's By Candlelight (1933) in which a butler posing as a prince seduces a maid posing as a princess, based on Siegfried Geyer's comedy Kleine Komödie (1927). Probably all stem from older sources, perhaps even ancient ones. An energetic farce in which Cunégonde wastes no time in dressing in her mistress's clothes as soon as she is gone. Screened at overspeed.

Milling the Militants (GB 1913). Foto di: Valerio Greco. Teatro Verdi, 8 Oct 2019. Source: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019 / Flickr.

Milling the Militants (GB 1913). Foto di: Valerio Greco. Teatro Verdi, 8 Oct 2019. Source: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019 / Flickr.

MILLING THE MILITANTS (GB 1913)
regia/dir: Percy Stow. cast: ? (Mrs. Brown), ? (Mr. Brown). prod: Clarendon Film Co. copia/copy: 35 mm, 495 ft [orig. 500 ft], 7′ (18 fps); did./titles: ENG. fonte/source: BFI National Archive, London.
    AA: To quotre Hennefeld & Horak: "A henpecked husband, whose wife is a militant suffragette, fantasizes that he’s been elected Prime Minister. He assumes autocratic powers, wielding them to humiliate and punish any woman who dares to defy her subordinate social role as wife and mother – yet, all dreams must come to an end." A crude and tiresome anti-suffragette farce. Punishments for suffragettes include: hard labour, pillory, stocks, six weeks in trousers, and drowning.

KRI KRI E LEA MILITARI (Patachon als soldaat) (IT 1913)
regia/dir: ?. cast: Raymond Frau (Kri Kri), Lea Giunchi (Lea). prod: Cines. v.c./censor date: 1.12.1913 (n. 316).  copia/copy: 35 mm, 87 m [orig. 144 m], 4′ (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (Desmet Collection).
    AA: Kri Kri and Lea in the Military. Hennefeld & Horak: "Lea and Kri Kri are happily engaged, but their courtship is interrupted by Kri Kri’s mandatory military service. Lea cross-dresses as a soldier to try to help her awkward husband survive boot camp, where she doesn’t fare much better herself. Both are disciplined, but together at last!". Lea Giunchi returns, this time with Kri Kri, who is drafted but is so hopeless in military drill that he needs wife's help. Together they keep blundering in every possible way. Lea's cross-dressing is blatantly unbelievable but nobody notices the difference. An anti-military farce made a year before the Great War.

La Pile électrique de Léontine (FR 1910). Photo: Collection Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé © 1910 – Pathé Frères.

La Pile électrique de Léontine (FR 1910). Foto di: Valerio Greco. Teatro Verdi, 8 Oct 2019. Source: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019 / Flickr.

LA PILE ÉLECTRIQUE DE LÉONTINE (FR 1910)
regia/dir: ?. cast: ? (Léontine). prod: Pathé. copia/copy: did./titles: FRA. fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.
    AA: Léontine's Electric Battery. Hennefeld & Horak: "She [Léontine] sadistically electrocutes everyone in her path, inciting them to dance a crazy, hyper-frenetic jitterbug. Her victims include two nice old ladies, some drunken revelers at a café, laborers on a construction site, a horse buggy driver, and finally everyone inside the police station where she is arrested." A comedy of cruelty, a comedy of hyperbole, a comedy of destruction. The girl monster Léontine provides electric shocks in every situation. Valse lente turns into a galop. Slow policemen build speed. Construction workers become efficient. It ends in an all-out water war at the police station. An ultra-sharp 4K digital presentation from Gaumont Pathé Archives.

Le Charme de Maud (FR 1913) by René Hervil. Maud on a Sunday cruise meets Gabriel and is finally free to meet the man as herself, on her own terms. Credits: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

LE CHARME DE MAUD (De bekoring van Maud) (FR 1913)
regia/dir: René Hervil. cast: Miss Campton [Aimée Campton/Emily Straham Cager] (Maud), Gabriel de Gravone. prod: Éclipse. uscita/rel: 28.11.1913. copia/copy: 35 mm, 302 m [orig. 320 m], 16′ (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (Desmet Collection).
    AA: Saving the best for the last, also in hommage to the pianist Maud Nelissen.
    This film is a straight drama about sexual harassment, still eloquent, still topical, still to the point.
    In the finale it turns into romantic comedy.
    When Maud gets a job as a typist, men start to buzz around her like bees around a hive, and when one old boss gets too close, he receives a slap on the face, and Maud is immediately dismissed.
    Elsewhere it is no better, harassment is constant, and Maud is profoundly disappointed.
    The solution: from her already sober and conservative attive Maud dresses down so drastically as to become unrecognizable. "The way I look now, nobody will court me". The change is so total that nobody wants to talk with her anymore. Maud is dismayed to notice an interesting gentleman who does not notice her because of her "camouflage". Everything changes on a Sunday cruise.
    The film is topical in our age of the Me Too revolution, but more than that, its value is timeless.
    A beautiful photochemical print with lovely sepia toning, exuding Belle Époque charm.

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AA Facebook capsule:

"Goodness had nothing to do with it" could be the motto for many of the selections in this Nasty Women show which proves that women are equal to men in evil. I am intrigued by the popularity of comedies of destruction on the eve of the Great War. The best was saved for the last, the exceptional serious drama Le Charme de Maud in which the heroine's charm is for her merely a cause of harassment until she decides to dress down so drastically that nobody notices her. Only on Sunday she can be herself, and that gives her the single window of opportunity for romance on equal terms. The show was given a charming musical interpretation by Maud Nelissen. A cura di Maggie Hennefeld and Laura Horak.