Film concert Poker Faces (composed and conducted by Juri Dal Dan, performed by Zerorchestra)

Harry A. Pollard: Poker Faces (US 1926) starring Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore) and Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore). From: IMDb. Please do click on the poster to enlarge it.

 

Harry A. Pollard: Poker Faces (US 1926) starring Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore) and Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore). From: IMDb.

Harry A. Pollard: Poker Faces (US 1926) starring Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore), George Siegmann (George Dixon) and Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore). From: IMDb.

Friday Pre-apertura / Pre-Opening selection and Thursday evening show

La moglie di mio marito / Lainattu vaimo (US 1926) regia/dir, adapt: Harry A. Pollard. cont: Melville W. Brown. sogg/story: Edgar Fanklin. did/titles: Walter Anthony. photog: Charles Stumar. mont/ed: Daniel Mandell. mont/ed supv: Maurice Pivar. scg/des: Charles D. Hall, Edgar Ulmer.
    cast: Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore, “Poker Face”), Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore), George Siegmann (George Dixon), Tom Ricketts (Henry Curlew), Tom O’Brien (Packey O’Neill, boxer), Dorothy Revier (Mrs. O’Neill), Leon Holmes (fattorino/office boy), Merta Sterling. prod: Carl Laemmle (“presented by”), Universal Pictures (Universal-Jewel). uscita/rel: 5.9.1926. 

    Finnish premiere: 26 Feb 1928 Arkadia, released by Adams-Filmi Oy.

    copia/copy: DCP (4K), 83'; did./titles: ENG. fonte/source: Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard

Campus, Culpeper, VA.

Partitura composta e diretta da/Score composed and conducted by: Juri Dal Dan; esecuzione dal vivo/performed live by: Zerorchestra.

Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Rediscoveries, 12 Oct 2023

Steve Massa (GCM 2023): " Edward Everett Horton was a master of befuddlement and the double-take, who’s still remembered for his sound film appearances in Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, as well as comedies such as Trouble in Paradise (1932), Holiday (1938), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). What’s overlooked today is Horton’s substantial career in silent films. After touring all over the country as an actor in stock companies, he settled in as the leading man at the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles. His cinema debut came in 1922, as the star of the feature Too Much Business. Since he was already 36 years old and approaching middle age, Horton’s screen persona wasn’t that of a young go-getter on the rise; instead he played henpecked husbands, staid businessmen, or English valets that get mixed up in farcical situations. "

" Through most of the 1920s Universal Pictures had a successful run of light comedy features that starred Reginald Denny. Poker Faces (1926) is in that mold, but with Horton substituting for Denny. Jimmy Whitmore (Horton) is an office “working stiff ” who gets a promotion – provided he helps his boss win the business of a difficult wealthy client. Since his wife has her heart set on him getting a raise, Jimmy accepts the offer against his better judgment, which leads to plenty of comedy complications. Director Harry A. Pollard had started his career as an actor at the American and Imp companies, usually teamed with his wife Margarita Fischer, and by the 1920s was turning out light comedy features for Universal that included the Reginald Denny features Oh, Doctor! and California Straight Ahead (both 1925), as well as dramas like Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927) and the first screen version of Show Boat (1929). "

" Horton is surrounded by a solid supporting cast, made up of Tom Ricketts, George Siegmann, Leon Holmes, Merta Sterling, and most importantly, Reginald Denny’s frequent leading lady Laura La Plante as his wife. La Plante was one of Universal’s biggest attractions in the 1920s. Although a great beauty, her popularity was based on her immense charm and a feeling of familiarity – even though she was a knockout she didn’t know it, and could conceivably be someone you knew living next door. She got started in pictures at age 14, thanks to a cousin who lived around the corner from the Al Christie Studio. Applying at the studio for work she got five dollars a day, and moved from doing bits in shorts like Wild and Western (1919) to being leading lady for Bobby Vernon and Neal Burns. "

" After getting much attention as Charles Ray’s love interest in The Old Swimmin’ Hole (1921), La Plante soon ended up at Universal, which would be her home for the next nine years. Supporting Horton and Reginald Denny in features like The Fast Worker (1924) and Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926) led to a string of her own starring films, which included Silk Stockings, The Cat and the Canary (both 1927), and Thanks for the Buggy Ride (1928). She made a solid transition to sound films, but retired early in 1935. She later worked when she felt like it, doing an occasional film or television show, and as she had become a close friend of Horton’s she would appear with him in stage productions, such as The White Sheep of the Family and Springtime for Henry. "

" Horton followed up Poker Faces with more comedy features, such as The Whole Town’s Talking (1926) and Taxi! Taxi! (1927), and his silent film career culminated in an excellent series of eight two-reel comedies produced by no less than Harold Lloyd. When sound took over the film industry, Horton was well set due to his stage background, and dove right in – appearing in talking features like The Terror (1928), and a series of sound shorts for Educational Pictures. Making a solid hit, with verbal timing that matched his double- and triple-takes, he was in demand for the next 40 years, busy in films and on stage and radio. He remained a popular figure in the television era, narrating “Fractured Fairy Tales” for the animation series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959-1962), and playing the medicine man “Roaring Chicken” on the Western spoof F Troop (1965). Horton worked right up to his passing in 1970. " – Steve Massa

The music 

" Poker Faces is a hidden gem that captures from afar the carefree life of a historical period. Inspired by the music of the 1920s, the score portrays – or better, blends – the qualities of the characters with the dynamics of the plot. Marked by a Rossini-style crescendo that transforms the film from a play into a comedy, the score closely follows its rhythm as it tries to keep pace with its madcap finale. " – Juri Dal Dan

AA: Edward Everett Horton is familiar to me as a member of the Ernst Lubitsch "stock company" and a ubiquitous presence in the greatest comedies and musicals of the 1930s and the 1940s.

Laura La Plante I mostly know as the queen of Paul Leni horror films at Universal Pictures (The Cat and the Canary and The Last Warning) and as a lovely Alta Studios model.

In Poker Faces, I see Edward Everett Horton for the first time in a leading role and Laura La Plante in a comedy role.

Both are revelations to me. They stand out both individually and as a duo with humoristic chemistry.

Poker Faces is great entertainment, a comedy of misunderstandings with witty dialogue and marvellous pacing, and fundamentally it is a character comedy based on the appealing presences of Edward Everett Horton and Laura La Plante.

Juri Dal Dan's score is perfect for the sense of humour in this Universal-Jewel situation comedy directed by Harry A. Pollard con brio.

A fine 4K transfer from a 16 mm source.