A confession. I was conspiring over breakfast, and reader, this was a two-cappuccino problem. The upshot? I was a little late in getting started with the screenings today. But I certainly knew that I was going to be up late, with the gala… and the end-of-festival celebrations!
My sunny morning stroll to Cinemazero was rewarded with a simply terrific film from Uzbekistan. In Her Right (Grigorii Cherniak, 1930), a group of workers from the collective farm are sent to the factory to boost the workforce there, and to learn those valuable Soviet methods. One woman from the village defies her husband and sheds her burqa to join them. It’s a life-changing experience and not only does she gain independence through work, but she inspires others to do the same, through a filmed speech, that the workers clamour to watch, even after he enraged husband slashes the screen. Even with her “throat” cut, in a silent film, she continues to speak her truth. So you have noted already that this is once again pro-Soviet, anti-Islam propaganda in intent, but this is also a remarkable film in style and action. Our Hollywood friends would applaud the excellent, and indeed poignant, action sequence in which our heroine runs to jump on the train to the factory, is repeatedly shoved away by male guards and then, when it seems she has finally found a helping female hand, her husband leaps – for a second we think he has dragged her form the moving train, but no, he only has her coat in his hands. Nail-biting stuff. And the scene in which they watch the film is also very strong. Günter Buchwald at the keys for this one, keeping the energy at exactly the right pace.
After lunch, a Rediscovery: Forgotten Faces (1928). In this deeply enjoyable, and narratively implausible, Hollywood melodrama with plenty flair by Victor Schertzinger, Clive Brook plays a gentleman thief named Heliotrope Harry with a faithful sidekick (William Powell), a faithless wife (Olga Baclanova), and a beloved baby daughter. It has been described as a male Stella Dallas, but that isn’t quite right. Maybe add in a dash of The Count of Monte Cristo? I am not sure. This film should really have been in Smell-o-Vision,. The fragrant Harry ends up in prison, for murdering Baclanova’s lover (which he confesses to with quite some panache). He will see his daughter again, and he will have his revenge… Stephen Horne played up, up, up to the drama here, including a lift from a certain Hitchcock film, which was well justified, when someone fell screaming to their death. It’s enough to make you giddy.
Our second sight of Ivor Novello this week came in the Sicily strand, in his film debut, the French film L’Appel du Sang (Louis Mercanton, 1920), in which he plays Maurice, newly married to Hermione (Phyllis Neilson-Terry, in gowns by Paul Poiret) and moved into her bucolic Sicilian home. Should we be worried that young Maurice has Sicilian heritage – could there be something in the landscape that moves him, that calls to his blood? Well. Do you want to know what else is as seductively beautiful as the Sicilian countryside, as accompanied by John Sweeney’s luscious melodies? Young Maddalena (Desdemona Mazza), who resides on Sirens’ Island. And also Maurice’s loyal manservant Gaspare (Gabriel de Gravone), with whom he disappears for moonlight swims, but that is not strictly the plot of the film. This is really something special to look at, and if the Hermione-Maurice relationship doesn’t quite convince, the way that Novello lounges in a cardigan is more than compensation. Rest assured that, even in the hot Sicilian sunshine, impetuous adultery will not go unpunished, but poor Hermione ended up with someone I wouldn’t really consider a consolation prize… just my opinion, don’t write in.
I was sorry to miss the final Ben Carré screening, Raoul Walsh, The Red Dance (1928). By all accounts masterclass student Andra Bacila did an outstanding job on the accompaniment. I do want to mention a few short films before we hurry on the desert sands. Per La Morale, a Cines film from 1911, was a real gem. A timely one, you might think, a short satire on the idea of a campaign to clean up public morality, but inking over the nudity in paintings, covering up naked statues’ modesty with one;s own suit jacket, throwing a cloth over a breastfeeding mother’s chest – and even draping a handkerchief over Romulus and Remus in the studio logo.
That film was playing in the Rediscovery section as it was recently unearthed in Belgrade. However, it’s just the kind of mischief-making we have come to expect from the feminist fragments programmes, which tonight closed the entire festival with a selection of indelible faces, human and animal both, in a package titled I’m ready for my Close-up! There’s a female tightrope walker who happens to be a dog on two feet, Baby Peggy and a kitty-cat, an osprey more charismatic than the entire cast of a Marvel movie, giggling family portraits, actress Ruth Weyher in screen tests and outtakes – plus a female prisoner gurning for her mug shot. Such fizzogs! Such powerful gazes, such moments of connection and reflection. Every film is made of fragments, moments that mean so many different things in and out of context. A delight to see these on the big screen, accompanied with such humour and charm by José Maria Serralde Ruiz.
But this is a festival bookended by westerns – the John Ford on the opening night and tonight, for the big finish, Henry King’s The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926). It’s a big, big movie, with the youthful star trio of Ronald Colman (on $1,750 a week), Vilma Banky (on $1,000 a week) and Gary Cooper ((on $50 a week!) in a desert love triangle, and a tremendously terrifying climax, as the townsfolk run for their lives when the river bursts its manmade bounds. Plus we were to enjoy the world premiere of a wondrous new score composed by Neil Brand, arranged by George Morton, conducted by Ben Palmer, and performed live tonight by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone. If you know the film you will know that it is celebrated for its scale, but also that this is a Frances Marion script, with a touch of melodrama (Vilma overhearing Ronald’s confession that he won’t propose to her, but not the reason why), her pet subject of adopted children, and her love of a grand theme – here the pioneers’ battle for mastery over the elements, and capitalism’s battle for mastery over the populace. You’ll also know that between the big action scenes there are several more sedate moments, discussions of policy and payroll. As, quite frankly, we have come to expect, Brand’s score was buoyant and nimble, keeping the film on its toes, teasing out the romance and flooding (yes, I went there) the auditorium with sound during those blockbuster setpieces, starting with a sandstorm in the first reel and the deluge in the last. Timed to a T, so that image and sound met in perfect harmony, and just a joy to listen to – for what it’s worth, I think it’s a winner. Geddit?
Jay Weissberg promised us late nights this year, and we got them. This is the latest of them all and I really should go to bed, but first I will bid you arrivederci and thanks for reading. This was a delectable Pordenone. See you next year?
Intertitle of the Day
“We ain’t got the brains? Yeah, well you ain’t got the guts!” Gary Cooper or Ronald Colman – you simply have to choose. That’s from The Winning of Barbara Worth, of course.
Scratch and Sniff Intertitle of the Day
“Heliotrope!” IYKYK, Forgotten Faces
