Cento anni fà 4 – La Film d'Art nel 1909

A Hundred Years Ago 4 – Film d'Art in 1909.
Presentano Béatrice de Pastre (CNC), XX (male), and Mariann Lewinsky. Grand piano: Maud Nelissen. Viewed in Bologna, Cinema Lumière 1, 29 June 2009.

Film d'Art:
- great themes from Homer, the Bible, and the opera
- the search for high quality
- the search for a visual language for the cinema

Le Retour d’Ulysse. FR 1909. D: André Calmettes, Charles Le Bargy. Based on Ulysses by Homer. SC: Jules Lemaître; M: Georges Huë; CAST: Julia Bartet (Penelope), Albert Lambert (Antinous), Paul Mounet (Ulysse), Louis Delaunay (il sacerdote); PC: Pathé; 35mm. 320 m. From: AFF/CNC. - Reportedly blown up from Pathé-Baby, amazing visual quality if that is true. - Penelope weaves her tapestry and tears it secretly to postpone the attentions of her suitors. Penelope's dream. The rivals destroy mementi of Ulysses. 11 min
L’Enfant prodigue. FR 1909. D: Georges Berr. SC: Henri Lavedan; DP: Lucien Jusseaume, Floury; CAST: Eugène Silvain (il padre di famiglia), René Alexandre (il figlio maggiore), Jean Dehelly (il figlio prodigo), i ballerini de l’Opéra, PC: Pathé; 35mm. 246 m. From: AFF/CNC. - Biblical epic. Three colours. 13 min
Mireille. FR 1909. D: Henri Cain. Based on the long poem Mirèio (1859) by Frédéric Mistral; Op.: Hérault e Nedelec per le scene girate ad Arles; LOC: Arles. CAST: M.lle Didier (Mireille), Roger Karl (Vincent), Jaegger (Maître Ramon); PC: Pathé; 35mm. 165 m. From: AFF/CNC.- A nest in the mulberry tree predicts a marriage within the year. Tragedy: the woman falls ill. Ok print. 9 min
Une conquête. FR 1909. D: Charles Decroix. SC: Charles Decroix; CAST: Max Linder (Gontran), M.me Frémeaux; PC: Pathé; 35mm. 130 m. From: AFF/CNC. - Comedy. Max Linder is the indefatigable ladies' man to whom accumulate handkerchiefs, flowers, statuettes, and dogs as he tries to please the lady who is on her way to meet her husband. 8 min *
Moines et guerriers. FR 1909. CAST: Pauline (Emilie) Polaire, Jacques Volnys, Georges Colin, Julien Clément, Léonie Richard; PC: Pathé; 35mm. 200 m. From: AFF/CNC. - Siège de Saragosse, 1808. Shot on location. A historical military subject from Napoleon's wars. The soldiers by the monastery, the grim revenge. Print ok, somewhat low contrast.

Cento anni fà 2 – Che c'è di nuovo nel 1909: Cinegiornali! Ballets Russes! Cretinetti!

A Hundred Years Ago 2 – What's New In 1909: Newsreels! Ballets Russes! Cretinetti!
Presenta: Mariann Lewinsky. Grand piano: Alain Baents. Viewed at Cinema Lumière 1, Bologna, 28 June 2009.

- The Centenary of the newsreel (Pathé Journal)
- The only moving image records of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in their first Paris season in 1909.
- The first aerial films
- Marinetti's Futurist manifesto in February 1909 celebrated with the film of The Electric Policeman
- Maria Montessori's Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica (1909) celebrated with films about children
- James Joyce's Volta Cinema in Dublin opened in Dublin in 1909; among the films shown was Une pouponnière
- The Centenary of the film star: Cretinetti (Max Linder, Sarah Duhamel, and Stacia Napierkowska were to be credited by name later)
- The Centenary of the film diva: Stacia Napierkowska

Prima stagione dei Ballets Russes a Parigi / First Paris season of the Ballets Russes

La Danse du flambeau. FR 1909 D: Jules de Froberville. With: Tamara Karsavina; PC: Les Films du Lion. 35mm. 31 m. B&w. From: AFF/CNC. - Doc. A fine print, an impressive ballet performance, of the first filmed records of Ballets Russes. *
Pas-de-deux et soli. FR 1909. D: Jules de Froberville. With: Alexandra Baldina, Theodore Kosloff; PC: Les Films du Lion 35mm. 86 m. B&w From: AFF/CNC. - Doc. Two great ballet numbers, first a valse caprice for two, and then a solo number, ?by Nijinsky?.

Aviazione e cinegiornale / Aviation and newsreels

Wilbur Wright und seine Flugmaschine. FR 1909. PC: Eclipse. 35mm. 73 m. B&w. From: Filmarchiv Austria. - Doc. Ok actuality. Pretty low contrast.
Blériot traverse la Manche (25.7.1909). FR 1909. Blériot Crosses the Channel; PC: Pathé. 35mm. 110 m. B&w. English intertitles. From: BFINA. - Doc. Ok actuality.
Les Surprises de l’aviation. FR 1909. PC: Pathé. 35mm. 161 m. B&w. From: BFINA. - Fiction, wild and crazy comedy with an Eiffel Tower hijack. Ok print. *

Fait divers / Miscellaneous

Une pouponnière / Kinderbewahranstalt. FR 1909. PC: Pathé. 35mm [frammento]. 45 m. B&w. From: BFINA. Doc about a nursery, a print from deteriorating material, incomplete.
Concorso di bellezza fra bambini a Torino / Kinder tendoorstelling. IT 1909. PC: Aquila Films. 35mm. 66 m. B&w. From: NFM. - Doc from a childen's beauty contest. Print partly beautiful, partly from deteriorating material. Expressive medium shots of faces.
The Electric Policeman. FR 1909. PC: Gaumont. 35mm. 120 m. B&w. From: BFINA. - Fiction, comedy. Ok print. Due to electricity, the policeman becomes tireless in the chase, his feet continuing to move even when he is upside down in the river.

Star di Cinema / Movie Stars

Cretinetti paga i debiti / How Foolshead Pays His Debts. IT 1909. CAST: André Deed; PC: Itala-Film. 35mm. 154 m. B&w. From: BFINA. - A comedy with tricks in the Méliès style. Ok print. *
Une femme doit suivre son mari. FR 1909. CAST: Sarah Duhamel; PC: Gaumont. 35 mm. 115 m. Tinted. From: AFF/CNC. - Ok print. A police comedy.
Amoureux de la femme à barbe. FR 1909. CAST: Max Linder; PC: Pathé. 35mm. 120 m. B&w. From: NFM. - Here I lost my attention.
La Fable de Psyche. FR 1909. CAST: Stacia Napierkowska; PC: Pathé. 35mm. 108 m. Pochoir. From: Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique. - The great dancing star.
Dans l’Hellade. FR 1909. CAST: Stacia Napierkowska; PC: Pathé. 35mm. 74 m. B&w. From: NFM. - The great dancing star. Ok, somewhat low contrast print.

The Three Must-Get-Theres

Kolme muskettisolttua. US 1922. PC: Max Linder Productions. D+SC: Max Linder; DP: Harry [E. J.] Vallejo, Max Dupont; titles: Tom Miranda; cast: Max Linder (Dart-in-Again), Bull Montana (Duke of Rich-Lou), Frank Cooke (King Louis XIII), Catherine [Caroline?] Rankin (Queen), Jobyna Ralston (Connie), Jack Richardson (Walrus), Charles Metzetti (Octopus), Clarence Wertz (Porpoise), Fred Cavens (Bernajoux), Harry Mann (Bunkumin), Jean de Limur (Roquefort), Jazzbo (donkey); HDCAM, 58’ (transferred at 18 fps), (reproducing original tinting); source: Lobster Films, Paris / Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin, building on the SDK restoration of 1995, now original in English with e-subtitles in Italian, grand piano: [Gabriel Thibaudeau?]. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 5 October 2008. - David Robinson: "Linder made two attempts to establish himself in the USA. In 1917 he was engaged by Essanay, struggling since the departure of Chaplin. He completed three shorts (...) before the contract was dissolved (...) Linder returned to Hollywood in 1922, and produced, wrote, and directed 3 feature films for his own company: Seven Years Bad Luck (released 6 February 1921), Be My Wife (released December 1921), and The Three Must-Get-Theres (released 27 August 1922).
These were the only features directed by Linder alone; and he is said to have considered The Three Must-Get-Theres the best film of his career. It came out almost exactly one year after the release of The Three Musketeers, but the success and furore of Douglas Fairbanks’s opulent spectacle were still fresh enough in the audience’s memory to justify Linder’s parody. With his wig always a little awry, Max parodies Fairbanks’s elegance, athleticism, and beaming self-satisfaction. The story and characters are directly caricatured from the original: Richelieu becomes Rich-Lou, and Buckingham, Bunkumin, while Max becomes Dart-in-Again, and Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are whimsically renamed Walrus, Porpoise, and Octopus. The best-remembered moment of Max’s emulation of Fairbanks’s balletic athleticism is his deft and lethal stratagem when surrounded by a ring of swords. Much of the humour depends on surreal anachronism, so that Max is inclined to change his faithful donkey for a motorcycle, or cross the channel on a sailing horse. Fairbanks clearly appreciated the parody, and is said to have sent Linder a gracious congratulatory telegram.
Linder’s assistant director, Fred Cavens (1882-1962), who also plays Bernajoux, was a specialist in stunt fencing (...) The cinematographer E(nrique) J(uan) Vallejo (Harry Vallejo; 1882-1950) is credited with Chaplin’s first films, Making a Living and Kid Auto Races at Venice (...). This was Jobyna Ralston’s (1899-1967) first considerable part: some biographies say that it was in fact Linder who persuaded her to leave Broadway for Hollywood(...). Linder’s fellow countryman just arrived in America, Jean de Limur (1887-1976), was to work with Chaplin (...)
The original American release version appears no longer to exist in its entirety, and is known only from truncated 16mm dupes. When the film was released in Berlin in April 1924, it was in a version that had been cut by around 400 metres, and given new German intertitles written by Lothar Knud Frederik, a regular writer for Harry Piel. In 1942, the Reichsfilmarchiv acquired a copy of this version from the Gerhard Lamprecht collection. A dupe negative was produced, which has been the source of prints now in other archives. In 1995 the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek was able to undertake a new transfer, of much improved technical quality. In the interim, new elements of the film had emerged: fragments in the collections of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek and the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv and a near-complete print in the Nederlands Filmmuseum were used in the restoration. In this new high-definition restoration produced by Lobster Films, Paris, the English titles have been restored using the German titles and other sources, in a new adaptation aiming to recreate the humorous vernacular of the original. "– David Robinson. - It was a pleasure to see Linder's masterpiece (included in the 1100 films of my MMM Film Guide) at last in a version close to the original; I was familiar with the Maud Linder abridgement in En compagnie de Max Linder and the SDK restoration in German. The English titles in this version are witty. - It's a marvellous parody with several weird and original touches as the Cardinal's servant whose bald head has a growth of only a couple of hair, used for meditation by Richelieu and finally removed by Linder.

[Max Linder filmt 1922 in Wien am Rosenhügel]

AT 1923/24. DVD, 45” (transferred at 18 fps); source: Österreichisches Filmmuseum, no intertitles. Grand piano: [Gabriel Thibaudeau?]. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 5 October, 2008. - David Robinson: "This brief fragment comes from a documentary compilation, Buntes Allerlei, now surviving only in 16mm, and shows Linder in conference on the set of his last completed film Der Zirkuskönig (Le Roi du cirque; 1924), at Vita-Film’s Rosenhügel studios in the suburbs of Vienna. Co-directed by Linder and Édouard-Emile Violet for the Austrian company Vita-Film, the film gave Linder as partner the Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky, who was to become Valentino’s leading lady the following year. The sequence in the compilation is titled “Max Linder filmt 1922 in Wien am Rosenhügel”. The date is clearly an error; it would be 1923/24." – David Robinson

Max toréador

Max wird Torero / Max als Stierkämpfer. FR 1913. PC: Pathé. D+SC: Max Linder; cast: Max Linder, Stacia Napierkowska; orig. l: 580 m.; print: Österreichisches Filmmuseum, 509 m /16 fps/ 28 min, (Desmet colour, duplicating original tinting); deutsche Zwischentitel, with e-subtitles in English and Italian, grand piano: [Gabriel Thibaudeau?], viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 5 October 2008.

David Robinson: "Linder’s punishing production schedule for Pathé seems never to have permitted any pause in his work. If he took a holiday or a trip, he regarded it primarily as an advantageous change of location for the current film. In the summer of 1913 he found himself in Barcelona, where the spectacle of bullfighting was irresistible. He filmed the parades and the crowds and the fights extravagantly (at least in terms of his usual economy with film), and, donning a beautifully fitting torero uniform, intrepidly entered the ring himself to perform adeptly with the bulls, and make a tour of honour around the ring. Some extra scenes to fill in the background story of Max’s dream of becoming a great torero appear to have been filmed on his return to Paris.

Previously the film has been known only in surviving copies of the French version, running a little over 12 minutes and giving the impression of being complete and integral. This restoration, done from an original tinted German nitrate print, however, even allowing for the many German intertitles, is at least twice that length, running a total of 28 minutes. Overall the editing is often different and much more expansive, making maximum use of the bullring footage: thus the opening sequence, with Max an excessively excited spectator at a fight, runs 3 minutes in the German version as against 95 seconds in the French. The scenes of parades before the arrival in the ring run 2 minutes 40 seconds in the German version, and 1 minute 50 seconds in the French. Most striking, however, is the climactic scene in the bullring. In the French version it runs a mere 1 minute 50 seconds, while in the German version the sequence lasts 7 minutes 50 seconds, with extensive coverage of engagements with the bulls, and evident delight in a pole-vaulting picador.

More significant however, are two scenes in the German version which totally change the narrative, and of which there is no trace in the French version. Following his adventures with the milk-cow which he has taken home for practice, Max, in pyjamas, gets into bed and (as a title explains) dreams the whole of the focal bullfighting sequence (introduced, on the contrary, in the French version by an unequivocal title, “At last the great day arrives”). At the end of the bullring sequence, at the point where the French version neatly concludes with the end-title, the German version has an extra scene of Max falling out of his bed. Getting to his feet, rubbing his head, he says (in an intertitle), “That is the best dream of my life …. And a great idea for a film.” He then retires again and pulls the sheets over his head as the film comes to its end.

One further sequence entirely absent from the French version may have been removed on account of censorship or more delicate Gallic sensibilities. Practising with the cow in his apartment, Max triumphantly aims the banderillas into its back. The startled animal wheels around, so that Max abruptly finds himself facing its rear end. There follows a scene of zooscatology which is even more insistently indecent than the earlier gag of the urinating cow whom Max is endeavouring to manoeuvre, along with her calf, into his apartment house.

This was the last of 13 films made between late 1910 and 1913 in which Linder’s leading lady was Stacia Napierkowska (1886-1945). Her later roles notably included a femme fatale in Les Vampires (1917); but already in Max toréador there are signs of the weight problem and ample appetite that so troubled Feyder when he cast her as Antinea in L’Atlantide (1921): “The dresser complained for having to enlarge the costumes almost every day.” Her career (and probably her figure) did not survive the coming of sound films." David Robinson.

AA: I agree with DR: this is a fascinating Max Linder discovery with Rabelaisian dimensions and Buñuelian currents. His impeccable elegance and the naturalistic realities of having a cow and a calf in a city apartment are in a strong comic contrast. - I also find the ample charms of Stacia Napierkowska easy on the eye.

Le Serment d'un prince

FR 1910. PC: Pathé. D+SC+star: Max Linder (Prince Jacques de Lacerda); orig. l: 175 m.; 105 m /16 fps/ 6 min (Desmet colour, duplicating original tinting); print: Svenska Filminstitutet. Original in French with e-subtitles in English and Italian, grand piano: [Gabriel Thibaudeau?], viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 5 October 2008. - David Robinson: "One of 44 recorded films made by Max Linder in 1910, his most productive year,(...) a surprising moment in the comedian’s film career, as a pathetic melodrama rather than a comedy. Discovered by the Swedish Film Institute, this (...) film, long believed lost, appears to lack only the opening, which might better have explained how we come to find Max, as Prince of Lacerda, in a liaison with a beautiful gypsy (?) lady living in a caravan and blessed with a little daughter. After this, the story is told with admirable clarity and a minimum of intertitles. The first surviving title, “Un riche banquier vient proposer au Prince de Lacerda l’union de leurs enfants”, introduces the Prince’s aristocratic home, where the returning Prince learns that his father, the old Prince, has arranged a marriage with the daughter of a rich banker. The Prince (with very naturalistic and touching acting) explains his situation and is spurned by his father. In the next scene, introduced with the title “Pour gagner sa vie”, the Prince, in clown uniform, is working as a street entertainer. This scene is particularly attractive, since Linder evidently shot it on location with real passers-by, who show the same mixture of puzzlement and amusement as the public at Kid Auto Races at Venice four years later. They are also required to act, turning their backs and scurrying away when the clown brings round his collecting bag.
The final scene is introduced as “Trois ans après. Grande vedette au music hall”. While the Prince, on stage, is performing some very nicely tricked acrobatics on a trapeze, the old Prince passes the theatre and sees the billboards for his son. He enters the theatre, prepared to be enraged; but after the show, meeting his son and his family on the steps of the theatre, he is enchanted by his little granddaughter (suitably matured from the opening scene), and reconciled to his son in a big concluding embrace.
Despite the missing section, and considerable damage to the perforation of the original nitrate print, the picture quality and stability of the restored version are exceptional." – David Robinson. - I agree, this film is a charming humoristic drama rather than pure comedy.

MAX LINDER

Nine films by Max Linder, France 1905-1915, production company: Pathé Frères, prints from Les Archives Francaises du Film / Le Centre Nationale de la Cinématographie. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 11 March 2008. Upright piano: Joonas Raninen. E-subtitles by Lena Talvio.
Première sortie. FR 1905. His first film, as a drunken soldier.
Au music hall. FR 1907. Based on The Mumming Birds, as Chaplin's A Night in the Show (1915).
Les Surprises de l'amour. FR 1909. Father and two sons wooing the same lady.
Trop aimée. FR 1910. Max chased by two jealous dogs.
Les Débutes de Max au cinématographie. FR 1910. A reconstruction of Max meeting Charles Pathé and Louis J. Gasnier.
Entente cordiale. FR 1912. Two rivals in love with the same maid get into duel, apparently killing the seconds.
Max fait de la photographie. FR 1913. Max on the beach wants to photograph a voluptuous lady.
Jockey par amour. FR 1913. Max starts to fast to qualify for the race track.
Le Baromètre de la fidélité. FR 1915. A beautiful print of a comedy with Jane Marnac.