The Negro Soldier (the original cut 43 min)

 

Stuart Heisler: The Negro Soldier (US 1944).

US 1944. Director: Stuart Heisler.
    Scen.: Carlton Moss. F.: Allen Q. Thompson, Paul Vogel, Horace Woodard. M.: Jack Ogilvie. Scgf.: Haldane Douglas. Mus.: Howard Jackson, Albert Glasser, Paul Horgan, Meredith Willson, Earl Robinson, Dimitri Tiomkin.
    Non-fiction with enactments of historical moments and animations by Walt Disney Studios.
    Featuring: William Broadus (Jim), Clarence Brooks (Chaplain), Carleton Moss (il pastore), Bertha Wolford (signora Bronson), Norman Ford (Robert Bronson).
    Prod.: Frank Capra per U.S. War Department. 35 mm. 43 min
    IMDb soundtrack listing: "Hit the Leather" (Meredith Willson); "Arms For The Love Of America" (Irving Berlin), Piano Concerto In F Major (George Gershwin), "Onward Christian Soldiers" (Arthur Sullivan, arr. Dimitri Tiomkin), "Old Abe Lincoln Came Out of the Wilderness" (trad.), "I've Been Working on the Railroad" (trad.), "Over There" (1917, George M. Cohan), "Stars and Stripes Forever" (1897, John Philip Sousa), Symphony No.9 In D Minor, Op. 125, choral: Ode to Joy (1824, Ludwig van Beethoven), "You're in the Army Now" (1917, comp. Isham Taylor, lyr. Tell Taylor and Ole Olsen), "On, Brave Old Army Team!" (West Point fight song, comp. Philip Egner), "The U.S. Air Force (Wild Blue Yonder)" (1938, official song of the U.S. Air Force, comp. Robert Crawford), "The Army Goes Rolling Along" (official song of the U.S. Army, comp. Edmund L. Gruber, lyr. John Philip Sousa), "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" (adapted from "God Save the Queen", lyr. Samuel Francis Smith).
    AFI Catalog online sampling of the soundtrack: "Since Jesus Came into My Heart," "Our Boys Will Shine," "This Is the Army, Mr. Jones," "Yankee Doodle Girl," "Sleepy Lagoon" and "Holy, Holy."
    AA additions:
– Theme tune (in the beginning and the finale): "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" (trad. spiritual of Black slaves of the early 19th century, copyrighted by Jay Roberts in 1865).
– "John Brown's Body" [the same melody as in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"] (music: trad. American folk song, 1856, lyr.: James E. Greenleaf, C. S. Hall, C. B. Marsh, and others, 1861)
– When W. C. Handy appears, we hear "St. Louis Blues" (W. C. Handy, 1914).
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler
    Print from: National Archives at College Park – Special Media Archives Services Division (RDSM).
    Introduce Ehsan Khoshbakht.
    E-subtitles in Italian by SubTi Londra.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 30 Aug 2020.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "This film is considered a “watershed in the use of film to promote racial tolerance”, and Heisler had previously handled the subject with surprisingly fine results in his 1940 The Biscuit Eater. Hollywood showed little interest in the subject of race, apart from work by those communist writers such as Lester Cole (None Shall Escape) and John Howard Lawson (Sahara) who gave African Americans a voice as agents of democracy in the fight against fascism. However, The Negro Soldier was perhaps the only film in that vein written by an African American, Carlton Moss. Films about the black experience were either ‘churchy’ or ‘bluesy’ (a rare exception, King Vidor’s 1929 Hallelujah! was both). The Negro Soldier is churchy (even if it does include a fleeting shot of the father of the blues, W. C. Handy), adopting the form of a sermon, in which the history of African Americans’ involvement in the making of America is recounted to an entirely black audience. But when the familiar image of the church minister at the pulpit arrives, it delivers a twofold punch: it is Moss himself – and the book in his hands is Mein Kampf, from which he reads Hitler’s perspective on the black race. The church form finds new urgency, as the film’s writer merges roles with that of the minister. Heisler makes his point visually, to avoid preaching: at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the German and Japanese athletes fail and an African American wins; a black conductor leads a mixed orchestra through Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Combining footage from fiction films, recreations of real events and newsreels, Heisler and Moss’s take on racial tolerance was perhaps too much for the Army: they demanded that some scenes be cut, such as one in which a black officer commands the troops, and another in which a white nurse massages a black soldier. That didn’t stop African American soldiers and the black press from admiring the film as a step towards a dignified image of their people on screen." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: A milestone and model in portraying African Americans in the cinema, still dignified, dramatic and engrossing.

"E pluribus unum" ("One from Many"), the motto of the Great Seal of the United States is in this film no decoration. It is the substance of the account of the history of the African Americans since the Revolutionary War.

Directed by Captain Stuart Heisler under the supervision of Colonel Frank Capra, the movie offers a many-sided and constructive account of the African American experience. It keeps silent about many things. But it expresses those things powerfully via indirection.

When Carlton Moss preaches from the church pulpit and recites relevant pages from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, he is of course also indirectly referring to the White Supremacy gospel of the Ku Klux Klan. Fighting Hitler, we fight racism everywhere, the Hitler inside.

Visually, the movie is rich in montage sequences, and there is also epic footage from West Point and other military subjects. The animations are from the Walt Disney Studio. Also the score and the soundtrack grow into an inspiring time machine. There is a long soundtrack listing in the Internet Movie Database, and another, different list, appears in the AFI Catalog online. Both are incomplete, missing "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy, the father of the blues, who appears in the live footage in person, but, mystifyingly, also such key songs as "John Brown's Body" / "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", and, most importantly, the film's theme tune, "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho".

We saw the unabridged original director's cut, and the white nurse is on display, but no massage of a Black patient takes place.

Suspense (Frank Tuttle, 1946)

 

Frank Tuttle: Suspense (US 1946).

Frank Tuttle: Suspense (US 1946). In the center: the ice queen Belita as Roberta Elva.

Orgasmo / Mord i isbalettern.
    US 1946. Director: Frank Tuttle. 101 min
    Sog., Scen.: Philip Yordan. F.: Karl Struss. M.: Richard V. Heermance. Scgf.: Frank Paul Sylos. Mus.: Daniele Amfitheatrof.
    Int.: Barry Sullivan (Joe Morgan), Belita (Roberta Elva), Albert Dekker (Frank Leonard), Bonita Granville (Ronnie), Eugene Pallette (Harry Wheeler), George E. Stone (Max), Edit Angold (Nora), Leon Belasco (Pierre Yasha).
    Prod.: Frank King, Maurice King for King Brothers Productions. DCP
    PC: Monogram Productions, Inc.
    Music titles: "East Side Boogie" by Tommy Reilly. "With You in My Arms," comp. Dan Alexander, lyr. Dunham. "Cabildo," comp. and lyr. Miguelito Valdes.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler
    DCP from Warner Bros.
    E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 30 Aug 2020.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Shabby-looking Joe Morgan is offered a way out of skid row when he lands a job as a peanut seller at an ice-skating show. He quickly rises to become the righthand man of impresario Frank Leonard and begins an affair with Frank’s wife, Roberta, the star of the revue. Joe’s involvement with the couple leads to an even quicker reversal of his fortune. Written by Philip Yordan, Suspense has been described as an imaginative riff on Gilda. The films were released only two months apart, so there could be no possibility of influence. Yet, if compared, Tuttle’s work can be seen to be tapping into the darker aspects of his lead character – who, unlike Glenn Ford in Gilda, starts out as a sympathetic bum and ends as a distraught murderer. There is a similar erotic, even voyeuristic air; Frank’s window onto the ice rink is almost like a movie screen, through which he watches his wife’s sensual routines. Performed by English Olympic figure skater Belita, the dancing often becomes orgiastic (the Italian title of the film was Orgasmo), reaching its climax with turns executed at such a speed that the performer’s face can no longer be discerned – transforming her into a statuesque body of desire. Advertised as the King Brothers’ “first million dollar picture”, the film’s hefty budget is reflected less in the choice of actors than it is in the visual quality of the film, especially the impressive set design by Frank Paul Sylos, who was well acquainted with European modernist painting. (Los Angeles’s Pan Pacific Auditorium, with the help of a matte shot, serves as the location for the ice rink). The film plays on cinematic perception, opening with a scene of a woman shooting a man in cold blood, only to reveal later that it has been an illusion, breaking with the conventions of the shot / reverse-shot. The viewer is continually deceived in this way, creating a sense of uncertainty – a tension between what is shown and what is withheld. We see none of the deaths that occur in the film, except maybe the last. Tuttle establishes a world that is continually threatened by what is outside the frame, sustaining a sense of malaise." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: "Avalanches, cats, ike skaters, jealousy" are the subjects listed for Suspense in the AFI Catalog of American feature films.

After a long period as a contract director for Paramount Pictures (1924–1944), Frank Tuttle, to avoid blacklisting, became independent. Suspense was produced by Monogram Pictures, the very company to which Jean-Luc Godard dedicated À bout de souffle / Breathless, from which the poster photograph of the 2020 edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato has been taken.

Suspense was photographed by Karl Struss, a legendary cinematographer of Paramount elegance, schooled by Alfred Stieglitz, taught to glamour by Cecil B. DeMille and Gloria Swanson, the DP of Murnau's Sunrise and Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

The production numbers featuring Belita, the British Olympic figure scater, are not only stunning. They are beautiful, elegant, and full of poetry, beautifully shot by Struss in dizzying long takes. They are a kind of a farewell by Frank Tuttle to his period as a director of comedies and musicals at Paramount.

Belita had participated in the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and she had been groomed as a successor to the Norwegian Ice Queen of Hollywood, Sonja Henie.

In Suspense, she portrays the ice star Roberta Elva, managed by her husband and impresario Frank Leonard (Albert Dekker). Elbowing his way between them is an East Coast hustler, Joe Morgan (Barry Sullivan). He characterizes himself as an "in-between guy", "always between jobs". But Roberta is a strong woman: "I always take the driver's seat".

In an eerie turn, Joe sneaks his way even into Frank and Roberta's mountain ski hideaway. In the morning, Frank goes skiing armed with his big game shotgun while Joe observes Roberta practicing on an icy pond. A gunshot launches an avalanche, and Frank vanishes without a trace, but back in L.A. his ring appears in Joe's glass, his reflection flashes by, and his still warm pipe is found on the floor.

Joe has proposed for Roberta her most dangerous number, a jump through a loop of long knives and this "dance of death" figures in the exciting finale.

The score by Daniele Amfitheatrof is effective, and the soundtrack is versatile with blues, danse macabre themes, Latin numbers and "dancing in the starlight".

A welcome touch of humanity is provided by Eugene Pallette in his final role. His Hollywood career had started in 1913; we best remember his Friar Tuck, co-starring with Errol Flynn as Robin Hood in 1938.

Frank Tuttle does not distance himself from touches of lurid, melodramatic excess, nor perhaps does he want to. Joe, the male lead, is an anti-hero, whose dismal fate we applaud. Roberta is cool and elegant but remains distant, not surprising for an ice queen.

Quote of the day: "I never shake hands, it's unsanitary".

A brilliant DCP from Warner Bros.

Film concert Sylvester / New Year's Eve (world premiere: 2020 restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek based on the Komiya Collection print) (original Klaus Pringsheim score arranged by Frank Strobel, conducted by Timothy Brock)

Lupu Pick: Sylvester (DE 1924). Cinematographer (outdoors): Guido Seeber.

Lupu Pick: Sylvester (DE 1924). Cinematographer (indoors): Karl Hasselmann. Eugen Klöpfer (Man), Frida Richard (Mother), Edith Posca (Woman).

World premiere: Film Concert Sylvester, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, 29 Aug 2020. Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna diretta da Timothy Brock. Photo: Lorenzo Burlando / Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Sylvester. Tragödie einer Nacht / La notte di San Silvestro
    DE 1924. Director: Lupu Pick. 57 min
    Scen.: Carl Mayer. F.: Karl Hasselmann (Innen), Guido Seeber (Strassen). M.: Luise Heilborn-Körbitz. Scgf.: Klaus Richter. Mus.: Klaus Pringsheim.
    Int.: Edith Posca (la donna), Eugen Klöpfer (l’uomo), Frida Richard (madre), Karl Harbacher, Julius E. Herrmann, Rudolf Blümner.
    Prod.: Lupu Pick per Rex-Film AG. DCP.
    1529 m
    There are no intertitles in the film.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Recovered and Restored.
    Restored in 2020 by Deutsche Kinemathek in collaboration with the National Film Archive of Japan and La Cinémathèque française at laboratories ARRI and Imagica Lab with the support of German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
    DCP from Deutsche Kinemathek.
    Video greeting by Hisashi Okajima (National Film Archive of Japan).
    Introduced by Martin Koerber, hosted by Mariann Lewinsky.
    Partitura originale composta per la prima del film nel 1924 da Klaus Pringsheim, ricostruita ed arrangiata da Frank Strobel.
    Accompagnamento dal vivo dell'Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna diretta da Timothy Brock. 32 players.
    Viewed at Piazza Maggiore, 29 Aug 2020.

Hiroshi Komatsu (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Sylvester – Tragödie einer Nacht is the fourth collaborative work of Lupu Pick and Carl Mayer following Der Dummkopf (The Blockhead, 1920), Scherben (Shattered, 1921) and Grausige Nächte (Nights of Terror, 1921). And for Mayer, it is the third Kammerspielfilm after Scherben and Hintertreppe. Mayer also wrote the original idea for the script of Die Straße (The Street, 1923), which was directed by Karl Grune around the same time. Sylvester is, in a sense, a work developed from Die Straße; here the street becomes a landscape on which the protagonist’s inner feelings are projected. The expression of the street seen in these two films would further link to the importance of the street in the films of Neue Sachlichkeit. In the Kammerspielfilm, the tiny things in daily life that most films do not depict are observed as seen through a microscope, and the psychological movements of the people become important, represented not through the intertitles but through the subtle changes and movements of the actors’ expressions. A strong, intensive and quite different drama is born via these experiments. The camera not only witnesses the tragedy of a family over the course of one night in Sylvester, but also finally shows the world itself as a living environment – Lotte Eisner called it “Umwelt”. The objects and the landscape are shown almost as living objects. This is the animism that runs throughout this work. The protagonist dies but in this living world a new life is born." Hiroshi Komatsu (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

Julia Wallmüller (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Sylvester is based on a script by Carl Mayer that is a work of art in itself and was published to coincide with the film’s premiere. Sylvester shows us the tragic story of a woman, a man and his mother on New Year’s Eve, featuring the street as supporting actor, so to speak: cinematographer Guido Seeber shot the street scenes with a moving camera. Sylvester premiered in Berlin in January 1924 with music by Klaus Pringsheim. The original negative of the film is lost. The only surviving German element is a heavily abridged nitrate print in the collection of Deutsche Kinemathek. A vintage print of the English version archived in the Komiya-Nitrate Collection of the National Film Archive of Japan is the most complete preserved film element. This print was presented in Bologna in 2019, while the restoration was still under way. In a collaborative project between Deutsche Kinemathek and the National Film Archive of Japan, Sylvester has been digitised and restored. The German nitrate print and film elements from La Cinémathèque française were used to substitute fragmented or badly damaged parts of the Japanese print. Furthermore, Deutsche Kinemathek aimed at correcting the numerous editing mistakes inherent in this element. Important preliminary work had already been done by Filmmuseum München, but many obviously displaced shots still remained without any indication of their correct position. During the reconstruction phase, the original manuscript of Klaus Pringsheim’s score was located in the archives at the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. It contained references to the content of the film that served as important indications for reconstructing the cut as presumably seen in 1924. In an intensive collaboration, Deutsche Kinemathek and conductor Frank Strobel, who was brought in to reconstruct and arrange the music for the restored version, managed to reunite the images and music of the dramatic Kammerspiel that Lupu Pick shot as warning to society." Julia Wallmüller (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: The Komiya Collection print of Sylvester was a revelation when it was rediscovered at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in 1992 in Pordenone.

Tonight the well-known (yet perhaps still unknown?) Weimar classic was reborn in the film concert on the Piazza Maggiore. The 2020 Deutsche Kinemathek restoration is based on the Komiya Collection nitrate print, and the subtle théâtre intime experience is greatly enhanced by the visual refinement. For the first time since the premiere the original music by Klaus Pringsheim was heard, played by the orchestra of Teatro Comunale, conducted by Timothy Brock. It is now on my shortlist of ten greatest original silent film scores.

For generations the film was known only in truncated versions. When I saw the Pordenone screening (1357 m / 66 min), I had fresh in memory the then best available European print, the Munich restoration that we had screened at Cinema Orion in Helsinki in 1987 (1031 m). The short Munich version was good, but the superior quality of the Komiya Collection print and its subtle toning brought out nuances and balances in a much more effective way.

Hiroshi Komatsu, who introduced Sylvester in Pordenone in 1992, sums up the film very well in his Bologna program note above. Almost all attempts to give a resume or synopsis of Sylvester fail to convey what the film is about, but Komatsu catches the essence of this unique film that takes place beyond verbal discourse.

God has scattered the people who are building the Tower of Babel and confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other. Outside, there is great joy: on New Year's Eve people are partying on the streets like there is no tomorrow. Inside, there is deep sorrow: a man, crushed between mother and wife, regresses to a baby and ends his life. Brief insert shots portray the indifferent nature: the Moon over the sea at night.

This is just the external course of the film whose deepest currents are profoundly moving yet impossible to verbalize. Sylvester is an example of film art that moves in the wavelengths of pantomime, ballet, Beethoven's string quartets and the great poets of the age.

The screenwriter Carl Mayer famously emerged as a founder of this kind of cinematic monologue intérieur, in films including Scherben (27 May 1921, D: Lupu Pick), Hintertreppe (19 Dec 1921, D: Leopold Jessner & Paul Leni), Die Strasse (29 Nov 1923, D: Karl Grune), Sylvester (3 Jan 1924, D: Lupu Pick) and Der letzte Mann (23 Dec 1924, D: F. W. Murnau).

With the exception of Der letzte Mann / The Last Laugh, these were not hit films, but both Carl Mayer and Lupu Pick were also skilled at entertainment. Creating a film based on pure visuals, without intertitles, and employing an "unchained camera" ("die entfesselte Kamera") were reasons for Der letzte Mann to achieve world fame and for Fox Film Corporation to hire Murnau as their house director. But these qualities were already present in Sylvester.

Regarding its emphasis on pure visuals, it was a great loss that there were no worthy prints of Sylvester for a long time. Now this loss has been rectified by this great film restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek and the resurrection of the original score by Frank Strobel.

God is in the detail.

Suzaki paradaisu: aka shingo / Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District

Yuzo Kawashima: 洲崎パラダイス 赤信号 / Suzaki paradaisu: aka shingo / Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District (JP 1956).

 

Yuzo Kawashima: 洲崎パラダイス 赤信号 / Suzaki paradaisu: aka shingo / Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District (JP 1956). Tatsuya Mihashi (Yoshiji, marito di Tsutae) and Michiyo Aratama (Tsutae) under the gate of the bridge to Suzaki Paradise.

洲崎パラダイス 赤信号 / Suzaki paradaisu: akashingô / Suzaki Paradise Red Light.
JP 1956. Director: Yuzo Kawashima. 81 min
    Sog.: from an original story by Yoshiko Shibaki. Scen.: Toshiro Ide, Nobuyoshi Terada. F.: Kurataro Takamura. M.: Tadashi Nakamura. Scgf.: Kimihiko Nakamura, Mus.: Riichiro Manabe. Ass. regia: Shohei Imamura.
    Int.: Michiyo Aratama (Tsutae), Tatsuya Mihashi (Yoshiji, marito di Tsutae), Yukiko Todoroki (Otoku), Seizaburo Kawazu (Ochiai), Izumi Ashikawa (Tamako), Shinsuke Maki (Nobuo), Kenjiro Uemura (Denshichi), Shoichi Ozawa (Sankichi), Kyozo Fuyuki (Sobo).
    Prod.: Nikkatsu. DCP. D.: 81’. Bn.
    Songs: "Akai hi yo sayonara" (lyr. Takao Saeki, comp. Masanobu Tokuchi), sung by Natsue Yuri. "Suzaki Elegy" (lyr. Akinori Matsuo, comp. Takurô Kitano), sung by Teruo Hirai.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Yuzo Kawashima: The Missing Link
    DCP from Nikkatsu .
    Japanese version with English subtitles by Stuart J. Walter on DCP.
    E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Introduce Alexander Jacoby
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 29 Aug 2020

Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Kawashima’s personal favourite among his own films recounts the story of a poor couple who find work in the bars and restaurants of Tokyo’s red light district. Lead actress Michiyo Aratama would go on to appear in films by Ozu, Ichikawa, and Kobayashi and Kihachi Okamoto. Tatsuya Mihashi, a regular in Kawashima’s Nikkatsu films, was in the early stages of an extensive film career; he would appear in Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (1960), and in Japanese- American co-productions None But the Brave (1965) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Shohei Imamura, who served as assistant on the film, praised its “extremely convincing, chilly atmosphere”, and the way in which this story of marginalised characters captured “the intimate atmosphere” of Yoshiko Shibaki’s source novella. Scholar Tomoyuki Sasaki refers to the film as “a counter-narrative to the success story of postwar economic recovery and growth that the Japanese state sought to promote”. In it, Kawashima “addresses the issues of the economic stagnation within the metropolis, uneven development, and the liminal space of muen, or ‘no ties’, which offers a brief refuge from an increasingly disciplined everyday life”. Its characters are simultaneously freewheeling and crafty survivors, and losers bound to repetitive and self-destructive behaviour. Through their experiences, Kawashima captures the anomie of postwar Tokyo. The “Kinema Junpo” reviewer praised the acting of Michiyo Aratama as Tsutae and Yukiko Todoroki as Otoku, but felt frustrated by the film’s tone, with its helpless main characters and their story, and hopeless ending. Nevertheless, he did praise Kawashima’s direction, stating that “it is a film I am glad to have seen, and depiction of the life of the young man and woman who only live for lust is done skillfully with a dry touch”. Kawashima himself stated that “Although Bakumatsu taiyoden has become known as my signature work, this is the kind of film I prefer. Although it was shot over an extremely short period of time. I more or less totally changed the script”. Shooting the film in the less salubrious corners of Tokyo proved perilous, as the director recounted: “When we first went to the shooting location, there was both an old and a new yakuza group with influence, and we had only cleared it with the old group. I, as the director, was called out as they surrounded me with drawn swords. At times like these, the police never do anything. Things like this actually happen in reality”." Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

Nikkatsu summary: "A couple stand indecisively on a bridge in Asakusa. Tsutae and Yoshiji have lost confidence and passion for their future as they get on the bus for Tsukishima and get off at Suzaki. Across the bridge they see the sign for Suzaki Paradise, a red-light district where Tsutae once worked as a prostitute. Tsutae spots an ad for a waitress at a bar near the bridge and she rushes in to get the job. The kind hearted madam, Tokuko, helps them out by hiring Tsutae and finding work for Yoshiji delivering noodles. But the wanton Tsutae is soon attracted to Ochiai, a rich, generous man who owns an electrical shop specializing in radios." (Nikkatsu summary)

AA: A red light district emerges as an allegory of the post-war reconstruction period. Lots of trucks pass the bridge to Suzaki Paradise for urban development, and men still cross the bridge for recreation, although an anti-prostitution law is about to come into force.

The allegorical approach brings to mind G. W. Pabst's Joyless Street and Helmut Käutner's Black Gravel. For a fleeting moment the sign over the bridge evokes to me the Nazi slogans "Arbeit macht frei" and "Jedem das Seine".

I'm also thinking about the Finnish post-WWII films of Teuvo Tulio, Roland af Hällström and particularly Maunu Kurkvaara, in which prostitution means more than sensational box-office material.

It's a period of hard work both for enterprising men and diligent sex workers. Tsutae (Michiyo Aratama) has had enough of his no good man Yoshiji (Tatsuya Mihashi) and slides back to her old profession, becoming first a hostess in a sake bar and then a kept woman of a successful radio shop owner.

The humiliated Yoshiji finally stops being sorry for himself and gets a job as a singing noodle courier. He steals money from his employer, but returns it. A female fellow workers looks at him with eyes of sympathy and more, but Yoshiji is too myopic to notice, or perhaps he has lost his self-respect.

Meanwhile, the husband of Tokuko, the sake shop madam, returns and manages successfully to take over as the father of the family, his son visibly energized by his father's attention. But in an underworld showdown Dad is killed.

Yuzo Kawashima paints a rich and vivid portrait of the milieu and the atmosphere. In the middle of Japan's economic miracle, he takes us to a gray and foggy landscape. The people who wander there are deeply hurt and disappointed. On the other hand, the streets and the yards are full of children, evidence of the baby boom that Kawashima had covered in Burden of Love.

A hallmark of the three Kawashima films that I had seen before was a sense of community. That sense is still there in the scenes at the sake bar and the noodle shop. People care, people help, they genuinely wish that the unfortunate one can get back on his or her feet again.

But in this film the force of anomie is more powerful. When Tsutae and Yoshiji are reunited in the finale we don't know if this is a cause for joy or regret.

The score by Riichiro Manabe and the song selections on the soundtrack are intriguing.

The digital transfer by Nikkatsu does justice to the densely nuanced cinematography by Kurataro Takamura.

1900 Anno Cinque: Méliès

 

Georges Méliès: Jeanne d'Arc. Pièce cinématographique à grand spectacle en 12 tableaux (1900). Tableau 11: Le supplice. La Place du Marché à Rouen. Star Film n° 274.

Méliès 1900
Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Century of Cinema: 1900
Accompagnamento al Steinway Concert Grand Piano di John Sweeney e all'arpa di Eduardo Raon.
Intermezzi di magio dal vivo, introducono Émilie Cauquy, Elena Selana e Frédéric Tabet.
Viewed at Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 29 Aug 2020.

Georges Méliès: L'Homme-orchestre (1900). Star Film n° 262–263.

L’Homme-orchestre / The One Man Band.
Prod.: Star Film (n° 262–263). 35 mm. 30 m. 2’ a 16 f/s. Bn.
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900
Country: Francia
Copy from BFI
    AA: The wonderful Méliès classic revisited. Print from a duped but ok source.

Georges Méliès: Rêve de Noël (1900). Star Film n° 298–305.

Rêve de Noël / The Christmas Dream
Prod.: Star Film (n° 298–305). 35 mm. L.: 90 m. (incompleto, l. orig.: 160 m). D.: 5’ a 16 f/s. Bn.
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900
Country: Francia
Copy from BFI
    AA: This enchanting Christmas dream with several fairy-tale characters takes place in a gentle snowfall.

Jeanne d'Arc. Pièce cinématographique à grand spectacle en 12 tableaux / Joan of Arc .
Georges Méliès
Prod.: Star Film (n° 264–275). DCP. Col. (from a hand-colored nitrate positive print).
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900
Country: Francia
11'
Copy from La Cinémathèque française
    AA: See photo above. I blogged about this wonderful print of Jeanne d'Arc in Pordenone in 2014.

Gens qui pleurent, gens qui rient / Crying and Laughing.
Prod.: [Star Film (n° 306)?]. 35 mm. L.: 20 m. D.: 1’ a 16 f/s.
Director: [Georges Méliès?]
Year: [1900?]
Country: Francia
Copy from CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l'image animée – Direction du Patrimoine Cinématographique)

Georges Méliès: Les Miracles du brahmine (1900). Star Film n° 237–240. Georges Méliès as the Brahmin, Jehanne d'Alcy as the lady in the middle. My scan from: Catalogue raisonné : L'œuvre de Georges Méliès (Jacques Malthête et Laurent Mannoni, La Cinémathèque française, 2008). Please click on the image to enlarge it!

Les Miracles du brahmine / The Miracles of the Brahmin
Prod.: [Star Film (n° 237–240)]
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900
Country: Francia
    AA: In an Indian palace, a Rajah enters accompanied by his ladies. A Brahmin comes to greet the rajah and begins his miracles by animating the three Buddhist deities, then makes them resume their initial form. Taking his travel stick as a pivot point, he rises from the ground and remains suspended in space. Hovering back to the ground, he conjures three priestesses on a platform, which he isolates from the ground; they remain suspended in the air and disappear like shadows. He himself disappears in a cloud of smoke.

Georges Méliès: Spiritisme abracadabrant (1900). Star Film n° 293

Spiritisme abracadabrant / Up-to-Date Spiritualism.
Prod.: Star Film n° 293. DCP. Col. (from a hand-colored nitrate positive print).
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900
Country: Francia
1'
Copy from La Cinémathèque française
    AA: Haunted by a poltergeist, jumping and running.

Georges Méliès: La Chrysalide et le papillon d'or (1900). Star Film n° 332–333

La Chrysalide et le papillon d’or / The Brahmin and the Butterfly.
Prod.: Star Film n° 332–333. DCP. Col. (from a hand-colored nitrate positive print).
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900–1901
Country: Francia
2'
Copy from La Cinémathèque française
    AA: A Brahmin conjures a giant caterpillar into a butterfly princess, and she transforms the Brahmin into a caterpillar. With scissor and paper, elaborate cut-outs emerge, and they in turn transform into living butterflies.

Georges Méliès: Le Savant et le chimpanzé (1900–1901). Star Film n° 317. My scan from: Catalogue raisonné : L'œuvre de Georges Méliès (Jacques Malthête et Laurent Mannoni, La Cinémathèque française, 2008). Please click on the image to enlarge it!

Le Savant et le chimpanzé / The Doctor and the Monkey.
Prod.: Star Film (n° 317). DCP. Bn.
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900–1901
Country: Francia
2'
Copy from Lobster Films
    AA: A test monkey of a scientist goes wild and wreaks havoc.

Georges Méliès: Les Infortunes d’un explorateur ou les momies récalcitrantes (FR 1900). Star Film n° 244.

Les Infortunes d’un explorateur ou les momies récalcitrantes
Prod.: Star Film n° 244. DCP. D.: 17’’ (incompleto, l. orig.: 20 m). Bn.
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1900–1901
Country: Francia
Copy from Lobster Films
    AA: A brief flash of an archaeologist entering a sarcophagus.

AA: A wonderful live magic show performance by Émilie Cauquy, Elena Selana and Frédéric Tabet with John Sweeney at Steinway Concert Grand Piano and Eduardo Raon playing the harp. During the intervals we saw a suite of vintage 1900 drawn and painted production stills from Georges Méliès advertisements. After a hot week, having worn a face mask all the time, including during the morning-till-night screenings, I had a moment of exhaustion during this very show.

Georges Méliès: "Biberon Robert le meilleur" [Baby Bottle Robert the Supreme] (vers 1900). Bande publicitaire. Photo de plateau. Tirage sur papier argentique. 12,1 x 16.8 cm. CNC. P382-054. From: three films for Le biberon "Robert". From: Bandes publicitaires, 11 photos de plateau, Number 7. Georges Méliès est à droite. My scan from: Catalogue raisonné : L'œuvre de Georges Méliès (Jacques Malthête et Laurent Mannoni, La Cinémathèque française, 2008). Please click on the image to enlarge it!

1900 Anno Cinque: Nice Moves – British Film in 1900

Cecil M. Hepworth: Clown and Police (GB 1900).

Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Bei movimenti – Il cinema britannico nel 1900
Introduce Mariann Lewinsky
Steinway Concert Grand Piano: John Sweeney
Viewed at Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 29 Aug 2020.

Bryony Dixon (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Four themes link this programme of British films from the year 1900, each celebrating a type of movement. Joe Rosenthal’s globe-trotting from England to South Africa to the Far East in search of a news story, the cyclical descriptions of random bodies – gymnasts, spiders, traction engines and the moon –, the in/out motion of waves sometimes with great violence and a series of explosions. Films from 1900 are still mostly single scenes or comprised of a very few shots, but this apparent simplicity can obscure how difficult it sometimes was to make them. Here are examples of clever trickwork, inventive use of models, patient observation, expert spider wrangling and very good organisation. There are few things as difficult to film as a total eclipse of the sun, but here we present for your delectation the first ever surviving eclipse film by magician Nevil Maskelyne Jr. filmed in North Carolina on 29 May, showing the corona and the famed Baily’s beads or the ‘diamond ring’ effect. These films have all been newly digitised from the best film sources as part of the BFI National Archive’s Victorian Project covering all the surviving British films from the 1895 to 1901. Some will be familiar but are shown here in better quality and a few will be new to the festival audiences." Bryony Dixon (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

ESPLOSION! / BIG BANGS.

Cecil M. Hepworth: Explosion of a Motor Car (GB 1900).

Explosion of a Motor Car
GB 1900.
Prod.: Hepworth and Co.
1'37''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Fiction, trick film, spectacle. A foundational car disaster film in a comic mode. The policeman takes notes of the bizarre goings-on. From a duped and scratched source. Long take approach.

Cecil M. Hepworth: Demolishing a Factory Chimney (GB 1900).

Demolishing a Factory Chimney
GB 1900.
Prod.: [Hepworth and Co.]
1'32''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction. Cinema of attractions and perhaps an allegory of patriarchy. Witnessed by a crowd. From a duped source in low contrast.

R. W. Paul: Railway Collision (GB 1900).

Railway Collision
GB 1900.
Prod.: [Paul’s Animatograph Works].
39''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: A studio reconstruction. A painted backdrop, miniature models.

Alfred West: Torpedo Explosion (GB 1900).

Torpedo Explosion
GB 1900.
Prod.: [Alfred West].
20''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction. A ship is exploded with the torpedo.

Clown and Police
GB 1900
Prod.: [Hepworth and Co.]
1'50''
DCP from BFI.
Photo: see above.
    AA: A trick film. Méliès style special effects: the policeman is blown into pieces, but, reconstructed, he tears the clown apart.

MOTI CIRCOLARI / CIRCULAR MOTIONS.

Vaulting Horse Display (GB 1900).

Vaulting Horse Display
GB 1900
48''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, a record of a sport event. A splendid display of vaulting on the horse.

G. A. Smith: Spiders on a Web (GB 1900).

Spiders on a Web
GB 1900
Prod.: [G. A. Smith].
17''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, natural science, zoology, entomology. Scientific cinema: two spiders under the loop.

Salvaging a Steamroller (GB 1900).

Salvaging a Steamroller
GB 1900
2'12''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction. With great effort a heavy steamroller is lifted from a pit.

Nevil Maskelyne: Total Eclipse of the Sun (GB 1900).

Total Eclipse of the Sun
GB 1900
Prod.: [Nevil Maskelyne].
1'08''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, astronomy. Scientific cinema, simple and eloquent.

IN GIRO CON JOE ROSENTHAL / AROUND AND ABOUT WITH JOE ROSENTHAL.

Warwick Trading: Scene on Mr N. Smith’s Ostrich Farm, Impanzi SA (GB 1900).

Scene on Mr N. Smith’s Ostrich Farm, Impanzi SA
GB 1900
Prod.: [Warwick Trading Co.].
2'09''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, zoology, travelogue. A simple and vivid view about ostriches. From a source duped in high contrast.

Warwick Trading: Coolie Boys Singapore (GB 1900).

Coolie Boys Singapore
FB 1900
Prod.: [Warwick Trading Co.].
1'09''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, travelogue. Coolies jumping from the boat.

Warwick Trading:  Ride on a Peak Tramway (GB 1900).

Ride on a Peak Tramway
GB 1900.
Prod.: [Warwick Trading Co.].
3'10''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, travelogue, cinema of attractions. A long uphill phantom ride.

Warwick Trading: Nanking Road Shanghai (GB 1900).

Nanking Road Shanghai
GB 1900
Prod.: [Warwick Trading Co.]. DCP.
1'13''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, travelogue. A fine long take about rickshaw men. Plan-séquence.

ONDE / IN AND OUT

Storm at Sandown I O W (GB 1900).

Storm at Sandown I O W
GB 1900
48''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, cinema of attractions. Storm waves break into the shore. Simple and eloquent, but the definition is so low, the film borders on the invisible.

Rough Sea (GB 1900).

Rough Sea
GB 1900
1'19''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, cinema of attractions. The might of the waves against the breakwater.

Wreck in a Gale (GB 1900).

Wreck in a Gale
GB 1900
44''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, cinema of attractions. A wreck at the mercy of a gale. From a duped and scratched source.

Warwick Trading: Waves Break on Bow of a Ship (GB 1900).

Waves Break on Bow of a Ship
GB 1900.
Prod.: [Warwick Trading Co.].
55''
DCP from BFI.
    AA: Non-fiction, travelogue, cinema of attractions. A display of the majesty of the waves as the bow of a ship ploughs the sea.

AA: A wonderful early cinema show. The films are usually in a single shot, or at least in long takes. The visual quality: usually far removed from the original negative.

Storm Warning

 

Stuart Heisler: Storm Warning (1951). The KKK leader Charlie Barr (Hugh Sanders) uses the bullwhip to discipline the blonde troublemaker Marsha Mitchell (Ginger Rogers). There is a lingering feeling that the KKK would prefer to burn her at the stake.

Stuart Heisler: Storm Warning (1951). The KKK leader Charlie Barr (Hugh Sanders) meets District Attorney Burt Rainey (Ronald Reagan) who lifts Barr's mask and
ridicules his "Halloween routine".

La setta dei tre K / Ku Klux Klanin merkeissä / Under Ku Klux Klan.
    US 1951. Director: Stuart Heisler. 93 min
    Scen.: Daniel Fuchs, Richard Brooks. F.: Carl E. Guthrie. M.: Clarence Kolster. Scgf.: Leo K. Kuter. Mus.: Daniele Amfitheatrof.
    Int.: Ginger Rogers (Marsha Mitchell), Ronald Reagan (Burt Rainey), Doris Day (Lucy Rice), Steve Cochran (Hank Rice), Hugh Sanders (Charlie Barr), Lloyd Gough (Cliff Rummel), Raymond Greenleaf (Faulkner), Ned Glass (George Athens).
    Prod.: Jerry Wald per Warner Bros. 35 mm
    Helsinki premiere: 28 March 1952 Kaleva, distributed by Warner Bros.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler
    Print from Warner Bros.
    E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 29 Aug 2020.

Imogen Sara Smith (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Gorgeously shot and brilliantly directed, Storm Warning is a dark, atmospheric crime melodrama, though in delivering its message it pulls its punches. As an exposé of the Ku Klux Klan, the film exposes its own timidity. There is not a single mention of racist violence or religious bigotry; instead, the organisation is characterised as a money-making racket whose leaders exploit resentment of “outsiders” and government interference. The screenplay, by two excellent writers – Richard Brooks and Daniel Fuchs – amusingly plagiarises A Streetcar Named Desire, with Steve Cochran playing a dim-witted but sexy brute who wears a tight T-shirt, gets raucously drunk, has an adoring wife, and tries to rape his sister-in-law, just like Stanley Kowalski. To make up for its political weakness, the film goes for lurid shock in its climax; to make the KKK unpalatable to American audiences, it casts a blonde woman as the victim of their brutality. These lapses are all the more unfortunate because the film is in many ways so good. The opening scene is a stunner, as a woman from New York (Ginger Rogers) arrives in a Southern backwater to visit her sister, and finds the town mysteriously quiet, hostile, and suspicious. Walking through the dark, empty streets – asphalt glimmering with rain, air still and heavy with moisture – she witnesses a murder by hooded Klansmen, and soon discovers that one of them is her brother-in-law. Rogers gives one of the best performances of her later career as a wary, burned-out woman, torn between a crusading DA (Ronald Reagan) who wants her to testify and the goons who bully and blackmail her into keeping quiet. The film is a trenchant portrait of a cowardly community, where respectable business leaders urge the DA to drop his case because it will make the town look bad and hurt their Christmas sales. The presence of rightwingers Rogers and Reagan seems ironic in this, one of a spate of films about mob violence and civic corruption released at the start of the 1950s, warnings about a society sick with greed and intolerance." Imogen Sara Smith (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: Storm Warning is an excellent political thriller, to me Stuart Heisler's masterpiece of the films that I have seen (and I need to see more).

It was the last Warner Bros. contract film for the visionary producer Jerry Wald and the male lead, Ronald Reagan, playing District Attorney Burt Rainey. Both went independent after Storm Warning, Wald at first releasing through RKO, and Reagan benefitting from a lucrative Lew Wasserman deal.

Based on a powerful screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Richard Brooks, Heisler immediately creates an electrifying mise-en-scène as Marsha Mitchell (Ginger Rogers) steps out of the bus to experience "Southern hospitality".

Rogers gives an effective and deeply felt performance in the leading role. Mitchell has come to the South to visit her little sister Lucy, played by the young Doris Day in an appealing and disciplined interpretation. In the night scenes there are shades of Southern Gothic or even Dracula (Jonathan Harker crossing the bridge to Transsylvania).

Again it is in the big crowd scenes that Heisler excels. The courtroom scenes are thrilling. I have just seen Roman Polanski's J'accuse, and the conspiracy of silence is similar. A monolithic wall comparable with the mafia law of omertà conceals the crime committed. They did not see anything or hear anything, and they are not going to say anything. Not even Marsha, eyewitness to the murder. She is protecting her sister, married to the Klansman Hank Rice (Steve Cochran), who pulled the trigger.

The most powerful shot of the movie is the one where the widow of the murdered journalist Walter Adams looks Marsha silently in the eyes. She does not say anything, either. At home, Marsha bursts into tears. "I'm not proud of what I did".

The KKK leader Charlie Barr (Hugh Sanders) warns Hank Rice: "don't rock the boat". But at home Hank sees Ginger in lingerie, and as Imogen Sara Smith observes, the screenwriters plagiarize A Streetcar Named Desire in a scene where Hank proceeds to rape Marsha. However, she is no Blanche DuBois.

In a shocking finale Marsha is beaten unconscious by the KKK and bullwhipped by the masked Charlie Barr in front of a burning cross in a huge crowd scene. Alerted by Lucy, Burt Rainey enters to unmask the KKK and ridicule their "Halloween routine".

It could have become a melodrama, but Heisler directs it as pure tragedy. Bosley Crowther compared Storm Warning unfavourably with the previous relevant Warner Bros. films Black Legion and They Won't Forget. I need to see them, and I'll be happily surprised if they are stronger than Storm Warning.

In an incredible casting coup, both players in the leading roles, Ginger Rogers and Ronald Reagan, were activists in the current Hollywood witch-hunts. This contributes to a much richer complexity in the performances than a casting of actors with liberal credentials would have enabled.

Imogen Smith and other critics have reproached Storm Warning for its timidity. I don't know if it would have been possible to make a mainstream Hollywood studio film about KKK lynching a Black person in 1951.

For me, Storm Warning is audacious as it is. Film narration is like dreamwork, based on similar principles, including Verschiebung (displacement) and Verdichtung (condensation). In the nightmare address of Storm Warning, it is an extremely powerful idea to cast a prestigious Hollywood blonde in the part where we would expect a persecuted Black male.

A brilliant Warner Bros. print.

Hostages (2020 print from NBC Universal)

Frank Tuttle: Hostages (1943).

 

Frank Tuttle: Hostages (1943). Arturo de Córdova (Paul Breda), Luise Rainer (Milada Pressinger), Paul Lukas (Richard Rheinhardt).

US 1943. Director: Frank Tuttle.
    Sog.: from the eponymous novel (1942) by Stefan Heym. Scen.: Lester Cole, Frank Butler. F.: Victor Milner. M.: Archie Marshek. Scgf.: Franz Bachelin, Hans Dreier. Mus.: Victor Young.
    Int.: William Bendix (capo della resistenza), Luise Rainer (Milada Pressinger), Arturo de Córdova (Paul Breda), Paul Lukas (Richard Rheinhardt), Katina Paxinou (Maria), Oskar Homolka (Pressinger), Reinhold Schünzel (Kurt Daluege), Frederick Giermann (capitano Patzer).
    Prod.: Sol C. Siegel per Paramount Pictures 35 mm. 88 min
    Theme tune: Antonín Dvořák: Slovanské tance, II. řada, Op. 72, Nr. 2, mazurka, e-moll, allegretto grazioso.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler
    2020 print from NBC Universal by concession of Park Circus
    E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 29 Aug 2020.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "One of the most sobering wartime films made in Hollywood about the atrocities in Europe, this is also one of Tuttle’s greatest. Written by Lester Cole, soon to be blacklisted, the film’s historical perspective and visionary nature matches that of Cole’s other great achievement from the following year, None Shall Escape (shown at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2018). William Bendix, in one of his finest screen roles, plays a restaurant waiter in 1943 Prague; considered an idiot, he is in fact a resistance leader. His workplace is frequented by Nazi officers and when a homesick officer kills himself, the Gestapo calls it a murder and vows retaliation. Random citizens are picked for execution, including the resistance leader and a collaborator. While the initial death is considered a murder, the film ends with a Nazi passing off the murder of another officer as suicide. Nazi occupation is seen as a continuously futile and suicidal act. This is not a propaganda film by any stretch, but rather a film about propaganda. William Randolph Hearst’s “Los Angeles Herald Express” disagreed and cried Red: “plain Communism masquerading under the guise of Czech patriotism”. Cole must have worn this as a badge of honour. The location footage was originally shot some six years earlier for Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife by Ernst Lubitsch who, in 1942, had made his own Nazi occupation film, To Be or Not to Be. Paul Lukas, fresh from Watch on the Rhine, plays Rheinhardt, a role originally meant for Erich von Stroheim (who instead appeared in Five Graves to Cairo). It was a time of urgent creativity in the production of war films focusing on the moral complexities of war. Tuttle shows fascism as unprincipled and unfaithful to humanity or truth, he keeps the tone pensive and eerily quiet, the air charged with oppression. Between silence (a female prisoner silently crying) and whispering (the way the Czechs talk) there’s the deafening sound of a machine gun. But even under fire, the Czechs in the film fall without a sound." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: This Hollywood film from Paramount Pictures is from a European viewpoint also ein Exilfilm, employing a lot of German and European exile talent to a resistance thriller about the Nazi occupation of Prague.

Hostages is based on Stefan Heym's bestselling debut novel, which he wrote in exile in English. Heym was not involved in the making of the film: he had become an US citizen and started his service in the US Army in January 1943.

Later in life Heym stated that his novel covered "just a bit of the truth" about the occupation, and the film even less, but he was nevertheless always proud of both, because they were manifestoes of another Germany, fighting for freedom and against Nazism. Retrospectively, Heym found the account of the Nazis romanticized. There was also much more collaboration than Heym knew at the time.

I have not read Heym's 362-page novel, but much of its complex plot is apparently included in the movie's compact screenplay. The action is thrilling, and there are several plot turns that demand attention. The retaliation plot is brutal, but most emphatically, Hostages is a game of wits.

Key protagonists play double roles. Janoshik (William Bendix), a dim-witted waitroom attendant, is in reality Karel Vokosch, the leader of the Resistance. Paul Breda (Arturo de Córdova), a media liaison, translator and censor of the Nazis, is a Resistance contact.

The cast is exciting. Luise Rainer (1910–2014) had withdrawn from her MGM contract in 1938 to focus on theatre work and other activities such as helping Spanish Civil War orphans, but she returned for this final major Hollywood role.

The Hungarian theatre veteran Paul Lukas won an Academy Award in the same year for his male lead in another Resistance drama, Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine.

The Mexican star Arturo de Córdova (Soledad's Shawl, Luis Buñuel's Él) worked in Hollywood at the time, and he is a suave and convincing presence as the double agent Paul Breda.

Another Resistance leader is played by the Greek star Katina Paxinou (Rocco and His Brothers), who also appeared in the same year in the Hemingway epic For Whom the Bells Toll.

There is a tinge of the caricature in the Nazi characters, largely played by German Jewish emigrants, and who can blame them? The ambience is "Prague, Paramount" which is a bit distancing, and maybe not stylized enough: Chaplin in The Great Dictator created an all-out fairy-tale atmosphere, and Lubitsch's To Be Or Not To Be was based on the concept "all the world is a stage". Frank Tuttle does not go so far, perhaps not far enough? The same reservation applies to Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die!, also made in 1943 about Gestapo in Prague.

An important plot point may be lost for today's viewers, and plot summaries fail to register it. The suicide of the SS officer Lt. Glasenapp (Hans Conried) that sets the whole plot in motion is based on his realization that his "bride is to be sent to the breeding colony".

This is a reference to the Lebensborn program of the Nazis where women were sent to breeding colonies – human henhouses and stud farms – to mass produce babies for SS families to speed up the rise of the Master Race.

A brilliant print of an important film about the resistance spirit.

Ginza 24 chou / Ginza nijuyononcho / Tales of Ginza

 

Yuzo Kawashima: 銀座二十四帖 / Ginza 24 chou / Ginza nijuyononcho / Tales of Ginza (1955).

Yuzo Kawashima: 銀座二十四帖 / Ginza 24 chou / Ginza nijuyononcho / Tales of Ginza (1955).

銀座二十四帖 / Ginza 24 chou
 JP 1955. Director: Yuzo Kawashima.
    Sog.: from the novel by Tomichiro Inoue. Scen.: Kazuhide [Ruiju] Yanagisawa. F.: Minoru Yokoyama. M.: Tadashi Nakamura. Scgf.: Akiyoshi Satani, Kimihiko Nakamura. Ass. regia: Shohei Imamura. Mus.: Takio Niki.
    Int.: Tatsuya Mihashi (Kan Mimurodo ‘Coney’), Yumeji Tsukioka (Wakako Kyogoku), Mie Kitahara (Yukino Nakamachi) Seizaburo Kawazu (Katsumi Kyogoku), Osamu Yukawa (Ken Hasebe) Masumi Okada (Mineo Akaishi), Toru Abe (Go Momoyama), Shiro Osaka (Santaro Mochizuki), Hisaya Morishige (voce narrante).
    Prod.: Nikkatsu. 35 mm. 117 min. Bn.
    Theme song: "Ginza Nights".
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Yuzo Kawashima: The Missing Link
    Print from Nikkatsu.
    Subtitles in Italian and English
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 28 Aug 2020.

Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "This drama unfolds in the upscale Tokyo neighbourhood of Ginza, a prosperous, fashionable and somewhat westernised district since the early decades of the 20th century, and the stomping ground of the upper-class bourgeoisie. Ginza maintains this reputation today, but Kawashima captures the place in a state of flux during the fragile mid-1950s, as Japan gradually recovered from the effects of World War II and after it emerged from the postwar American Occupation. Kan Mimurodo, nicknamed ‘Coney’ and played by Kawashima’s regular star, Tatsuya Mihashi, is a florist whose job brings him into contact with Wakako (Tsukioka), an unhappily married woman who treasures a portrait of her teenage self, painted by an artist she would dearly like to meet again… This premise allows Kawashima to explore a cross-section of society at this upwardly mobile period, including entrepreneurs, artists and criminals. Kawashima himself commented: “Perhaps it can be called a fuzoku-eiga [a film depicting the custom and manners of the time], it is a film where the main goal was to document contemporary Ginza, and the story became frivolous. This time what I wanted to try my hand at was to not have the narration aim to provide psychological explanations of the characters. I thought I didn’t want to do that. When I am working on the scenario myself it always becomes like that. If I am going to use narration, then I thought that I would use it in a different, aggressive way. The narration was done by Hisaya Morishige, and it was our first time working together”. Morishige, one of the Japanese cinema’s great actors, had starred in the same year in Marital Relations (Meoto zenzai), Shiro Toyoda’s masterly account of a love affair between a geisha and the son of a wealthy family; he was to be reunited with Kawashima in two of the latter’s Toho productions. Distinguished lead actress Yumeji Tsukioka starred, also in 1955, for director and actress Kinuyo Tanaka in the latter’s The Eternal Breasts (Chibusa yo eien nare), a moving account of a poet ill with breast cancer." Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: The night life of Ginza is the subject of Yuzo Kawashima's multi-character study in which a florist is the character who connects everybody.

The plot of this detective story is about a woman who is trying to discover who was the painter who created a painting of her teenage self and signed it with the initials "G. M." Several candidates turn up. Finally the right one is found: Mr. Big of the Ginza underworld, living under a double identity. A massive police roundup takes place, and the drug lord's days are numbered.

But the real questions linger: Are paintings meant to replace the real thing? And is life just a lot of goodbyes?

The sense of the milieu with Miss Ordinary contests, markets, cabarets and bright lights is compelling in Yuzo Kawashima's portrait of Tokyo nightlife in a period of change.

The motif of a painting of a protagonist as a young person brought to my mind Pedro Almodóvar's Pain and Glory. The painting does not have to be of the greatest artistic quality.

This is the third Yuzo Kawashima movie that I have seen. They are all different, but an essential quality common to all is a sense of community.

A brilliant print from Nikkatsu.

Otets i syn / [Father and Son] (1936) (commented live by Bernard Eisenschitz)

 

Margarita Barskaya directs Отец и сын / Otets i syn / [Father and Son] (SU 1936).

Отец и сын / [Padre e figlio]
    SU 1936. Director: Margarita Barskaja. 72 min
    Sog.: Margarita Barskaja, V. Jadin. Scen.: Margarita Barskaja. F.: Louis Forestier. Scgf.: P. Bejtner, K. Geningson, S. Kuznecov. Mus.: G. Gamburg.
    Int.: Lev Sverdlin (Pëtr Nikolaevič Volkov), Vasilij Novikov (segretario del comitato del Partito), Mihail Tarchanov, Ol’ga Žizneva, Ženja Volovič, Teodor Vulfovič, bambini da sei mesi a tredici anni.
    Prod.: Sojuzdetfilm. 35 mm. Bn.
    Songs: "Марш дальневосточных партизан" / "Partisaanimarssi" (comp. Пётр Семёнович Парфёнов, lyr. Сергей Алымов, 1929)
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Early Women Directors in the Soviet Union.
    Print: Gosfilmofond of Russia.
    The print is incomplete with two reels (à 10 min) with sound only and two reels with image only.
    E-subtitles in English and Italian by Violetta Zardadi.
    Introduced and missing scenes explained by Bernard Eisenschitz.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 28 Aug 2020.

MARGARITA BARSKAYA

Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Born in Baku in 1903, Margarita Barskaya grew up with two sisters and her divorced mother, a would-be artist who made ladies’ hats. She took theatre classes in Azerbaijan and joined a troupe in Odessa. On a visit to the city’s studios, she met the veteran of Tsarist cinema, Pyotr Chardynin, 30 years her senior. She went on to become his wife, leading lady and assistant-director. She appeared in Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s first film, Yagodka lyubvi (Love’s Berries, 1926), but had little interest in acting. She left Chardynin and moved to Moscow, where, in 1929, she opened a dramatic arts studio for children and published numerous articles where she laid out her idea of cinema “by children, for children and about children”. In 1930, she filmed an educational documentary about bread-making: a narrow-minded peasant realises that he needs agricultural tools and tractors, in short that he needs the working class to be able to increase production. Kto vazhneye – Chto nuzhneye (Who’s More Important, What’s More Necessary), long believed to be lost, was identified in the archives of documentary film and photography (RGAKFD) by Natalia Miloserdova in 2008. Poetic and humorous, despite its mandatory didacticism, the film mixes animation and live action. Following praise for this success, Barskaya was able to make her first feature film, Rvanye bashmaki (1933). It depicts the rise of Nazism in an industrial German town, shown from the perspective of children. Convinced that her young actors wouldn’t be able to post-synchronise their dialogues, she filmed them with direct sound, allowing them to react without having learned a script by heart. She also built a tripod to set up the camera at their height. The film was a triumph, both in the USSR and abroad. Gorky declared he was staggered to see “a young boy expressing a range of emotions that are only seen in the greatest actors”. Famous by the age of 30, Barskaya eventually persuaded Boris Shumyatsky to entrust her with a production unit dedicated to children’s films. But what she had envisioned as an experimental venture, in the summer of 1936 became a major studio, Soyuzdetfilm, jealously controlled by the Party’s youth organizations. In September the arrest of Karl Radek, whom she had been close to, made her situation worse. While the screenplay of her second feature film, Otets i syn (1936), had been accepted, the film was attacked, re-edited and finally banned. Barskaya refused to fall in line and protested; she refused to testify against Radek. A violent campaign was unleashed against her. She began a new project with the pedagogue Anton Makarenko, but his death brought this to an end. On 23 July 1939 she killed herself by jumping from the fifth floor of a building." Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "While a factory director is distracted by production problems, his adolescent son suffers from loneliness. His mother is dead, and the father – a kind man and exemplary communist, winner of a Lenin Prize – is unable to find the time to educate his son, or a way to express his feelings. After an argument, the young boy runs away and, at his own risk, joins a band of criminals. The revolution isn’t just about production quotas, Barskaya seems to be telling us in this fine portrait of men, young and old. While female filmmakers were often assigned as directors of children’s films, the genre’s most brilliant representative chooses to tell the story of a single father. The Meyerhold actor Lev Sverdlin, who made his cinema debut with Boris Barnet’s U samogo sinego morya (By the Bluest of Seas), displays, as ever, a luminous intelligence, but the film’s sensation is the 12-year-old non-professional actor Genya Volovich, a cross between Jean-Pierre Léaud from The 400 Blows and Buster Keaton, who casts a disgruntled look at Stalinist Moscow. As Evgeny Margolit pointed out, if the screenplay does follow the predictable line of didacticism, the film and its protagonist dive into the night and a pervasive atmosphere of anxiety. Barskaya had fallen into disgrace after the arrest of Karl Radek, who had been an advisor for her previous film, Rvanye bashmaki, and suddenly found herself labelled a “close friend of an enemy of the people”. The film was branded as “perverted” and “harmful” by her own colleagues at Soyuzdetfilm. After giving the film a positive reception at initial screenings, they criticised one another for not having been alert enough. In discussions, they reproached Barskaya for having depicted Moscow as “dirty, disagreeable and ugly”, a cesspit. The scene of a worker sleeping in a Party meeting also caused outrage. On 17 June 1937, Barskaya was fired from the studio whose creation she had wished for so fervently. The film underwent much reworking and cutting. The only preserved positive print is incomplete (with two parts of the soundtrack lost, and the second to last reel missing), but “little does it matter, the film is nonetheless splendid” (Peter Bagrov)." Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: It is unexpected to meet a Rebel Without a Cause in Underworld Moscow in a Soviet film made during the darkest years of the Great Terror of Stalin.

In portraying children, Margarita Barskaya excels, as she did in Torn Boots. In that film, children joined their parents in fighting social injustice. They also defied their authorian teacher. Now Barskaya herself plays the teacher, not without problems either, facing troubled children and youth.

The film is well cast. Lev Sverdlin plays the factory director Volkov in classic Soviet heroic mode, but after his wife's death, Volkov finds himself clueless with the children, and when his son Boris becomes a teenager, he loses track entirely. Guided by Barskaya, Gennadi Volovich as Boris gives an extraordinary interpretation of "Disorder and Early Sorrow" / "Unordnung und frühes Leid" to quote the title of Thomas Mann's story.

Boris hardly ever smiles. He feels the draw to juvenile delinquency ("hooliganism" in Russian parlance), but there is constantly the feeling that he would rather hope to be seen, noticed, taken seriously and listened to. He is a loner and a stranger both in the official world of the nomenklatura and the sordid hangouts of the Moscow mafia.

There is a vivid atmosphere in the film. Predictably for Barskaya, children's plays and games and the tumult in the classroom are engaging and full of life. Mirroring Boris, a girl who cares for him, feels the sorrow and the solitude too, as Boris is drifting away from the circle of his friends.

The greatest suspense is based on a failure of communication: the father fails to notice Boris's final appeal to him, and Boris waits in vain outside in the dark. Reflections in a coffee cup trigger montages of childhood memories.

Lermontov's poems in the classroom evoke longings to the Caucasus. A beautiful violin theme is heard in G. Gamburg's score. Children keep singing the famous "Partisan March" about battles in the Far East.

These were years of abandoned children appearing on the screen: Wild Boys of the Road by William A. Wellman, and A Passport to Life by Nikolai Ekk. Margarita Barskaya would have been the ideal choice to film Anton Makarenko's Flags on the Towers and The Barefoot Masters.

The print was incomplete and the visual quality was variable (but there were passages of good visual quality to give a sense of what the film was supposed to look like). Bernard Eisenschitz's live commentary made sense of it all in this special presentation of a remarkable film.