By Jeremy Carr.
Ben Model and his Undercrank Productions continue to deliver eclectic fare from the annals of film history, distributing movies that shed light on their respective era, their audiences, and their creators.”
Given the nature of what is discovered, handled, and ultimately distributed as part of the Accidentally Preserved series, a fair amount of variety is to be expected. Accrued from private collections of rare 16mm prints—“Show-at-Home” versions of a studio’s 35mm offerings—diverse results are par for the course, and to that end, this fifth installment from Undercrank Productions does not disappoint. The four compiled silent films, each preserved by the Library of Congress and featuring original scores by Jon C. Mirsalis, vary in genre, stars, directors, production value, and length—from 18 to 76 minutes. Together, they are fascinating glimpses into what studios produced aside from their more commonly recalled and lauded product. And while their respective qualities also vary, each, in their own way, do exactly what they were meant to do.
The idea of accepting these films simply for what they are, or were, is particularly valuable with the first inclusion, 1925’s Lorraine of the Lions, from Carl Laemmle’s Universal. Absurdity abounds in what is an entertaining mélange of action, comedy, and drama. Aboard the Queen Mary, travelling from Sydney to San Francisco with several human passengers and a host of animals in tow, John Livingston (Frank Newburg) receives a telegram from his wealthy father Ezra (Joseph J. Dowling), informing his son of how disappointed he is that John and his wife (Rosemary Cooper) are mere circus folk and threatening to take away their daughter, seven-year-old Lorraine (Doreen Turner), known as the “world’s youngest animal trainer.” Before anything further can be made of this familial dispute, a typhoon strikes, animals break loose, and the ship takes on water in the first of the film’s rather admirable set pieces, killing all on board save for a few of the animals and little Lorraine. The survivors somehow find their way ashore, Lorraine on the back of her stalwart gorilla pal Bimi (in the suit: Jack A. Goodrich, and, as Bimi ages, Fred Humes), who soon thereafter also saves the girl from a random, briefly appearing band of cannibals.
Given the film’s title and its Tarzan-esque promotion, one would think the duration of Lorraine of the Lions would be about Lorraine’s wild life on the South Seas island. But, after years pass off-screen and she grows into a teenager (now played by Patsy Ruth Miller), a rescue party arrives spearheaded by Ezra, who had been visited by phantom visions of his distraught granddaughter and assembles a group of shady associates and a strange clairvoyant named Don Mackay (Norman Kerry), who convinced the old man, a kindred occult spirit, there was still hope for the lost girl. From there, first on the island then in San Francisco, the film basically follows Lorraine’s unsteady path toward civilization as everyone tries to get her used to contemporary clothes and behavior. Some of this works with amusing and even tender results, but some of it strains credulity, as Lorraine wasn’t that young or previously isolated when she was left stranded; are we to believe, based on her bemused reaction to a gun—in an anxious and humorous scene—that she had never seen or heard of such a weapon?
Lorraine of the Lions was directed by Edward Sedgwick, who helmed Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman (1928) among nearly 100 other credits, and, as an informational note at the start of the film points out, contributed significant reshoots to 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera. It was written by Carl Krusada and Isadore Bernstein, the latter a brother-in-law to “Uncle” Carl Laemmle, and, as also noted on the disc, Norman Kerry and Patsy Ruth Miller were probably most familiar to audiences at the time for their appearance in 1923’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. All this to say, there were genuinely talented and well-known individuals involved in the making of Lorraine of the Lions, and several sequences (the opening shipwreck, the island set, a final, stormy act of bedlam) are quite impressive. Miller is a sprightly actress who aptly conveys Lorraine’s intrepid adaptability and the evolution of Dowling’s dour Ezra as his cold heart is melted by the thought of losing his granddaughter is touching. The internal animosities and jealousies are largely secondary developments, but everyone plays their parts well, and, although the film is marred by a tacked-on happy ending, it’s a perfectly fine little picture.
The shortest film of the bunch is Mack Sennett comedy Love at First Flight, and it is also, as it should be, the funniest. Released in 1928, when aviators were public idols, the film stars Joe Young as pilot Jimmy Hawks, first seen high in the sky with his goofy partner Andy (Lige Conley), who is busying himself by sweeping the outside of the plane mid-flight. From above, they catch sight of a group of beach-bound women—Sennett’s famed “Bathing Beauties”—and quickly, haphazardly, descend. The ladies frolic and flirt and the men happily indulge in a series of silly antics. Andy is accosted by the film’s highlight, Daphne Pollard’s buoyant Polly Polka, who is mocked by the others but is clearly the most interesting of the female players, while Jimmy falls for the sultrier Nita Nutti (Madeline Hurlock).
Fascinating glimpses into what studios produced aside from their more commonly recalled and lauded product.”
Love at First Flight is a delightful, madcap lark, with aerial hijinks (Andy feeding Jimmy from behind as the latter steers the plane), some animated embellishments, sight gags (especially between the odd-balls Andy and Polly), and, most pronounced, a two-color Technicolor sequence of the beauties performing a “Butterfly Dance,” which is darker than it would have been in theaters at the time, as an informational note informs, but is, nonetheless, noteworthy. Director Edward “Eddie” Cline, a silent comedy mainstay who began his career as one of the Keystone Kops before moving on to writing and directing, keeps the pace moving and the humor consistent, and consistently zany.
The integration of animal interest in Lorraine of the Lions was a natural part of its circus establishment, but other than Bibi, the assorted creatures remained largely peripheral exotic inclusions. By contrast, in the Universal Western Hoofbeats of Vengeance (released in the U.S. in 1929), the animals are front and center, specifically the star of the show: Rex the Wonder Horse. Rex “plays” a former mounted police horse who now roams the wilderness seeking retribution for the murder of his master. The man who did the deed is devious ranch foreman and smuggler Jud Regan (Al Ferguson)—pure badness—who is also being pursued by Sgt. Jack Gordon (Jack Perrin) of the Canadian Mounties—pure goodness—a new man on the scene sent to take charge by the derisively and ambiguously referred headquarters.
Rex, a Morgan stallion, was a regular presence in feature films and serials and his escapades are treated here with a charming balance of awe, admiration, and gallantry. Working from a screenplay by the extremely prolific George H. Plympton (more than 290 writing credits), director Henry MacRae emphasizes Rex’s abilities with effective, accentuating angles of Rex’s galloping high-speed pursuits. Helen Foster is also present as Mary Martin, but in a film where most of the human characters are cardboard caricatures, she is even less established and more inconsequential. Instead, one remembers the horses, individually and in their shared scenes together. There is the heroic Rex, of course, but he is joined by an ally, Jack’s white horse Starlight, and an adversary, Jud’s steed Markee, known for his evil eye (which is indeed unnerving). MacRae cleverly communicates the horses’ sense of duty, obedience, and expressive understanding, having them “talk” to each other with their own dialogue cards, for example. But the most potent indication of Rex’s power is the way he haunts the dreams of Jud, whose paranoia comes mighty close to being purely comical but stops just short and instead testifies to Rex’s unflagging quest for justice. Ending on a trio of comic notes, Hoofbeats of Vengeance is often—obviously—ridiculous, but again, it does just what it should, and at just 47 minutes, there’s not much to argue against.
This edition of Accidentally Preserved takes a far more serious turn with the last film in the collection, another Universal release, this one from 1927: The Fourth Commandment. Unfortunately, the seriousness is labored and repetitive and the performances, save for one, do nothing to diminish the overwrought emotional tenor. The picture begins in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake (one of the film’s better sequences but one with no enduring bearing on what comes after) and from there follows the life of the widowed Mrs. Graham (Mary Carr), who alone raises her compliant son Gordon, played in his later years by Henry Victor. Gorden eventually marries his sweetheart, Virginia (Belle Bennett), who at first happily treats Mrs. Graham as her own mother. Things change as Gordon and Virgina have a child and she grows restless with their life of domestic simplicity. Virgina is lured by the fancy-free frivolity of her single friends, is bored with being a stay-at-home mother, and, quite simply, wants more money. After the two move in with Gordon’s mother, who offers to take care of the child so Virginia can go out, the daughter-in-law then becomes resentful of how her child favors his grandmother. She delivers an ultimatum to Gordon: it’s her or his mom.
According to a title card, Mrs. Graham takes the place “that only a mother should take,” and the relationships between the mothers and sons of the film are tested by Virginia’s unsympathetic outbursts. Years go by and Virginia thinks she gets what she wants, but the cyclical structure of the plot brings the initial enmity around with a variance and Virginia thinks twice. Bennett, star of the 1925 version of Stella Dallas, is the film’s centerpiece, but touchy Virginia is never pleased and Bennett is routinely excessive in her protests. It is Carr who gives the most controlled and, as a result—and certainly by comparison—the most effective performance (Victor is just kind of there are the go-between).
The fourth commandment of “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother” was particularly—and peculiarly—well-suited to the film’s director and writer. In what must surely be a Hollywood rarity, The Fourth Commandment was realized by the mother-son team of writer Emilie Johnson and director Emory Johnson. They no doubt had the best of intentions with this obvious message movie, but there’s no overcoming its blatant moralizing and its sappy predictability. Some have compared The Fourth Commandment to Leo McCarey’s 1937 parental tearjerker Make Way for Tomorrow, but in subtlety, delicacy, and overall quality, the two films are miles apart. A reel had apparently been removed for this show-at-home edition, but it’s hard to imagine it would have made up for the film’s faults; more likely, it would have added to them.
Interestingly, The Fourth Commandment was released as a Universal-Jewel production, one of the studio’s “premier” releases, so the bosses must have been fine with its high-mindedness, and maybe contemporary viewers were, too. In any event, Accidentally Preserved, Volume 5 is more prominently bolstered by the other three films assembled, which are satisfyingly diverting entertainments with far fewer pretentions. Ben Model and his Undercrank Productions continue to deliver eclectic fare from the annals of film history, distributing movies that shed light on their respective era, their audiences, and their creators. No matter the quality, that they even exist at all and are now readily available is itself worthy of appreciation.
Jeremy Carr is a Contributing Editor at Film International and teaches film studies at Arizona State University. He writes for the publications Cineaste, Senses of Cinema, MUBI/Notebook, Cinema Retro, Vague Visages, The Retro Set, The Moving Image, Diabolique Magazine and Fandor. He is the author of Repulsion (1965) from Auteur Publishing and Kubrick and Control from Liverpool University Press a contributor to the collections ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May, from Edinburgh University Press, and David Fincher’s Zodiac: Cinema of Investigation and (Mis)Interpretation, from Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.