Monthly Archives: October 2021

Piccadilly
Directed by E.A. Dupont
Written by Arnold Bennett
1929/UK
British International Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

Mabel Greenfield: I want you to leave Valentine alone.
Shosho: Oh! You want me to give you back what you couldn’t keep.

The fabulous Anna May Wong meets a fabulously made British silent.

Playboy Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas) has made a success of his Piccadilly nightclub on the West End of London.  The clubs star attraction is the dance act of Vic (Cyril Ritchard) and Mabel (Gilda Gray).  Vic lusts after Mabel but she loves Valentine.  Vic gets fed up and goes off to seek fame and fortune on Broadway.  Mabel continues as a solo act.

In the meantime, Shosho (Anna May Wong) is working in the club’s scullery as a dishwasher.  But she prefers to entertain her co-workers, leading to an epidemic of dirty plates.  Valentine fires her.  But when he notices her lovely legs, he asks her to come upstairs and show him her dancing.

Since the departure of Vic, Valentine’s business hasn’t been going too well.  He decides to  try out Shosho as a specialty act.  She is wildly successful.  They begin an affair.  Thus begins the tragic love quadrangle plot as both Mabel and Shosho’s lover Jim are insanely jealous.  I’ll end here.  Charles Laughton has a small uncredited bit as a drunken diner who complains about his plate.

This movie has so much going for it from the fabulous design and cinematography to the acting to Dupont’s masterful direction, especially in the several crowd scenes.  He captures the contrast between the posh West End and the grimy decadence of Limehouse where Shosho lives.  The stealth with which the two leads have to carry on their interracial tryst is also explored.  This was one of my favorites of its year.  Highly recommended.

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A Cottage on Dartmoor (AKA “Escape from Dartmoor”)
Directed by Anthony Asquith
Written byAnthony Asquith from a story by Herbert Price
1929/UK
British Instructional Films/Svensk Filmindustri
IMDb Page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. — Charles M. Schulz

This is a late British silent film in the Hitchcockian vein with some gorgeous cinematography.

The film begins with fugitive Joe (Ugo Henning) escaping from the high security Dartmoor prison and crossing the lonely moors to a certain cottage occupied by Sally (Nora Baring) and her baby.  He forces his way in and the film moves into a lengthy flashback.

Joe and Sally worked together as barber and manicurist at a salon.  Joe is obsessed with Sally but she is not interested.  Instead she falls in love with Harry, a kindly customer who buys a farm in the Dartmoor region.  Joe is wildly jealous and attempts to kill Harry while he is shaving him.  He is arrested and vows to kill both Harry and Sally if he ever gets out of prison.  We segue back to the events at the cottage.  Will Joe go through with his revenge?

This is a beautifully shot movie with a somewhat implausible story.  The acting is good too and we get a nice scene showing Harry and Sally attending a talkie that illustrates the changes in the movie watching experience wrought by the advent of sound.

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Asphalt
Directed by Joe Mayand  Rolf E. Van Loo
1929/Germany
UFA
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

I wonder why it is, that young men are always cautioned against bad girls. Anyone can handle a bad girl. It’s the good girls men should be warned against. – David Niven

This late German silent introduced me to another brunette American temptress, Betty Amann, and was one of my favorite films of its year.

Albert Holk (Gustav Frölich) still lives at home with his proud and doting mother and father. Albert has followed his father’s footsteps and joined the police force.  It his first day on the job.  He spends it mostly directing traffic.  At shift change, he notices a commotion at a nearby jeweller’s shop.  Vamp Else Heller (Amann) has been accused of stealing a loose diamond while distracting the shop owner with flattery and her lovely eyes.  The store employees track her down as she is walking away.  They search her thoroughly but do not find the gem.  But Albert finds it.  The store is willing to treat this as a “no harm” type of incident but Albert is determined to take her in.

Thus begins the amusing seduction of Albert.  But what starts out as a comedy ends as a melodrama.

The acting is great, the editing is innovative, and the cinematography has that German Expressionist lighting that I love so much.  Shows what silent films had achieved as they made way for talkies.

Director May moved to Hollywood when the Nazis took power and continued his career there.

Clip – An attempted seduction

Lucky Star
Directed by Frank Borzage
Written by John Hunter Booth from a story by Tristram Tucker
1929/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Timothy Osborn: (to Mary after she tries to sell him some overpriced berries) I’ll give you twenty cents for the berries, and ten cents for not pitying me.

Mary Pickford was regarded as “America’s Sweetheart”.  My vote would have gone to Janet Gaynor.  She is very appealing in this quality melodrama.

Mary (Gaynor) is an uneducated, unwashed farm girl.  She is prone to lying and gouging her customers.  One day she is called to the construction site where Tim (Charles Farrell, frequent Gaynor co-star) works with foreman Martin Wrenn.  They catch her in a minor fraud and Tim gives her a good spanking.  Word comes that war has broken out and both Tim and Martin are quick to volunteer.  Tim is injured by a bomb and left in a wheelchair.  Martin becomes a Sergeant.  Both end up back in Mary’s hometown.

Mary starts to visit Tim.  They are powerfully attracted to each other but Tim is afraid to declare himself due to his disability.  She gratefully accepts his instruction on cleanliness and ethics.

Mary’s mother is downtrodden and mean.  When Martin spots Mary in the new dress she bought for a dance, he schemes to get at her through her mother.  Martin is a complete cad and tells numerous lies about his military service.  Mother sees no future for Tim and Mary and tries to force their marriage.  Tim keeps telling her she has to obey her mother. You get only one guess as to how this will wind up.

This is a sweet movie despite its incredible melodramatic ending.  I find Gaynor charming in everything and she is wonderful here.  The chemistry between the two leads works perfectly.  Worth a watch.

This film was post-synched to be a talkie in theaters that had the technology to show sound films.  At some point, both the silent and sound versions were lost.  A print was later discovered in the Netherlands and restored.  The soundtrack remains lost.  Free on YouTube currently.

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Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlornen)
Directed by G.W. Pabst
Written by Rudolph Leonhardt from a novel by Margarete Böehme
1929/Germany
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

Elder Count Osdorff: With a little more love, no one on this earth would ever be lost!

The combination of Louise Brooks and G.W. Pabst in 1929 was just magic.

As the story begins, the lovely teenager Thymian (Brooks) witnesses her wealthy pharmacist father fire the housekeeper he has impregnated.  It puts kind of a damper on the festivities for her confirmation.  She receives a diary as a gift.  The father’s lecherous assistant, writes in the diary asking Thymian to meet him in the pharmacy later that night.  Now Thymian has an unfortunate habit of fainting dead away anytime a potential rapist approaches and remains unconscious until the deed is done.

Her father brings in another, smarter, housekeeper who can’t wait to get Thymian out of the house so she can get all the attention.  The birth of Thymian’s daughter provides the perfect excuse.  Thymian refuses to marry her rapist so the baby is taken from her and she is sent to the reformatory from hell.  This is run by a sadistic matron and her pervert husband.  Thymian escapes with another girl.  She hopes to recover her baby but cannot. So she takes up the girl’s suggestion to join her at a certain address.

This turns out to be an establishment run by a grandmotherly madam.  Thymian thinks her job is to dance with the men but at a fateful moment she faints again and becomes truly “lost”.  Will Thymian escape her sad existence and her shame?

I watched this on YouTube in a restored version that added about an hour to the 70-minute version I have previously seen.  Truth be told, that hour didn’t add a lot though we do get to see Brooks cavort on the beach with some young friends 1929 style.  On the other hand, Brooks is so captivating that I didn’t mind watching her for another hour.  All the accolades I gave to Pandora’s Box (1929) apply here.  It’s an interesting look at the double standard and decadent Weimar Berlin.  Recommended.

Clips from film set to Pink’s “Dear Diary” – the PERFECT mashup – I love this!