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Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Cheat

I found this to be a very interesting film, despite Fannie Ward's over-the-top arm gestures and horrified eyes.

Ward plays a married woman who lives to be seen and admired; we first see her out shopping for clothes and arguing with her husband that she simply won't give up her way of life - which includes not only shopping for horrendously expensive clothes, but keeping company, as they used to say, with an ivory baron (played by Sessue Hayakawa).

This is one of the things that intrigued me - the movie was made in 1915, and a high-society woman is associating with a man of a different race. I'm sure she wouldn't do it if he weren't rich, of course, but the same can be said of many Caucasian men. Even more intriguing, the film was re-released in 1918, and the Hayakawa character was changed from Japanese (as he was in the original) to Burmese.

Why? Because Japanese-Americans objected to the way a Japanese man was portrayed in the film.

This was the same time The Birth of a Nation was raising hell due to its almost unbelievable racism, with a fledgling organization called the NAACP protesting mightily - and with the fullest justification - against the way the black characters were shown.

That's what interests me, apart from the technical aspects of both movies. They both showed non-Caucasian characters in an unfavorable light, and they both received criticism for it. In 1915. Long before the civil rights movement; when the States were still segregated. Even then, there were organizations setting the stage for reform.

Back to the movie, it had some fascinating lighting techniques that Griffith never used, but then, it's not Griffith; it's DeMille. The two leads are a bit much, especially Ward, but Hayakawa is perfect and perfectly cast. Ward and Jack Dean, who played her hard-working husband, were married offscreen the following year; they remained married until his death in 1950. Ward and Dean join the ranks of the Forever Silent, neither of them ever having made a talkie film.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Hill Park Mystery

I saw this Danish movie at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy, a few years ago. The movie, fortunately, had English titles; not only that, but the names of the characters were also English, as if Copenhagen could be mistaken easily for London.

I love it. It's the same old plot of a reporter getting mixed up in a crime, but in this case, the story is a comedy. Our Hero is no damn good at staying out of trouble, and he's equally inept at keeping a low profile. The comedy really works here, and shows us how funny a movie can be with images rather than words.

I'm glad to be able to inform anyone who's reading this that it's available on DVD:

http://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/product_info.php/info/p29_A-W--Sandberg--Der-goldene-Clown---Zerr-ttete-Nerven.html

For some reason, the link option isn't working here, so I have to post the URL without it.

The other movie on the DVD is one that I haven't seen, but if it has the same standard as The Hill Park Mystery, then I,for one, have no problems owning it. I haven't bought it myself; it's still on my wish list.

If anyone out there does buy it, will you tell me your thoughts on the other movie?