June 11 1968

The Theodore Huff Memorial Film Society

Kevin Brownlow, writer-producer-director of It Happened Here, and a long-time friend to the Huff society (several of our rarer silents have originated with him) has here produced a paean to his particular idol, Abel Gance. The Nelly Kaplan Gance compilation that we ran last year was only half as long, and covered more ground - with attention given to many of the technological innovations that Gance came up with in the 30's. Brownlow's dedication to the cinema has always remained firmly entrenched in the silent period however, so basically - and perhaps justifiably - this tribute never gets past Napoleon. While the Kaplan film was a dutiful contribution to film history, Brownlow's is more of a labor of love, designed not just to re-establish Gance's major position in the hierarchy of film artists, but also to stress the permanent, not transient, value of the silent cinema as a medium unto itself. The narration is thoughtful, accurate and serious - a film society program note transformed into something far less condescending for the non-student who will view it over television. One might argue that Gance was a great enough artist to use sound as creatively as he used image (as moments of Beethoven certainly testify), but that is hardly a fair criticism since the film so openly and honestly concentrates on Gance as a master of the silent medium. Nor can one really quibble at the fact that the innocent tv viewer is likely to be bowled over by these glimpses of Gance's great bravura sequences without knowing of the reels of tedium that often came in between them. In any case, film has few enough Gods; as long as their miracles work, why examine them too closely to ascertain if, like the Emperor of Hans Andersen, they are really naked beneath their gauzes and traveling cameras? This Gance film anyway, with its excellent print quality and well-selected excerpts, is a text-book model of its kind; would that we had similar films on Ford, Renoir, Dreyer and Murnau. (Brownlow is currently working on such a film on Maurice Tourneur however). The film is not all compilation of old material; there is much newly-shot footage, including lengthy interviews with Gance and the star of Napoleon. However, Gance's closing remarks about enthusiasm for the art of the cinema being what keeps him going are not altogether convincing in view of the buxom blondes who seem to surround him on all sides. Maybe, like the great D.W., he has supplementary forms of inspiration to keep his mind so agile and his countenance so youthful.

Our sincere thanks to Mr. Brownlow for making this print available for its first New York showing.

- - - - Intermission - - - -

Comedy does predominate of course, but opportunities for big laughs seem to have been deliberately soft-pedaled so that one never loses sight of the underlying seriousness. Mary Boland has some grand lines, but they are delivered almost as throwaways, and Lyda Roberti's comic maid is never allowed to dominate scenes as did Jean Dixon in Godfrey. As a result, the tragi-comedy of life maintains a convincing even keel, and the few moments of high dramatics are all the more effective because the film doesn't have to shift gears to accommodate them.

Incidentally, the always-charming Joan Marsh - a kind of second-string Mary Carlisle - is quite delightful as a minor vamp, and gets the opportunity to reveal some quite spectacular cleavage, a talent that was singularly unexploited in her later days as a Republic serial heroine!

A year or so ago we ran a few scenes from Kong that were present in the original release, but missing from the first reissue on. These additional scenes are from the same basic sequences, but are far more savage in detail. Kong tramples natives underfoot (an unconvincing effect, but a gruesome one), chomps them up between his teeth (on Skull Island and in Manhattan), and undresses Fay Wray with much fascinated twitching of his nostrils. Also included (and this scene remains in the current English release prints) is a scene where Kong thinks he sees Fay in a skyscraper window, climbs up to her, grabs her, and then drops her into the street when he realises it is only an extra and not Miss Wray. These scenes were all dropped from the first reissues because of excessive brutality; Karloff throwing the child into the lake in the original Frankenstein was likewise lost to us during this purge. In all fairness though, the film does work better without Kong's bestialities; this Kong is a real s.o.b. who really doesn't deserve too much sympathy, while in the pruned version he takes on quite a different and far more respectable aura. It's quite remarkable how just a few scenes can so radically change the balance of a film.

--- William K. Everson ---