Murnau, Borzage and Fox

[Gregory]

This is not in my trembling hands yet, but I wanted to post a quick thank-you to Adam for clarifying how the CostCo deal worked. I had a friend of mine in Portland, Oregon, who regularly shops at that store pick this up for me, and without your information about the $60 being taken off at the register she would have held back on buying it, and I'd still be trying to figure out another way to get it at an affordable price.

[Tommaso]

What about an "Upcoming Movies on arte" thread .

Yes, good idea! I wonder into what subforum that should go? I used to place such announcements in the "Silent Films on DVD" thread, but first of all that thread actually runs in the R1 News section, and secondly such an 'Upcoming on arte' thread should of course not only include rare silents, but also other films that are hard or not at all to get on disc. I would suggest the "International DVD News" subforum, then, or the 'Old Films' section. In the case of sound films, we should perhaps make sure they are showing them in the original language, which occurs more and more often with German and French films (via your TV's dual language selection), but rarely if ever with films in other languages.

[Adam]

This is not in my trembling hands yet, but I wanted to post a quick thank-you to Adam for clarifying how the CostCo deal worked. I had a friend of mine in Portland, Oregon, who regularly shops at that store pick this up for me, and without your information about the $60 being taken off at the register she would have held back on buying it, and I'd still be trying to figure out another way to get it at an affordable price.

You're welcome. Glad it worked out.

[HerrSchreck]

Borzo has an altogether different narrative impulse. All his best movies seem to be about the couple and the journey, through the stages of love and threat and growth. There simply isn't the room for "character" phenomena like the Rogers' schtick.

I'd have to disagree with you a little on this Dave... I think you're selling Borzage hugely short here. One of the things that strikes me about Borzage and makes his authorial voice so consistently identifiable is his use of character, and character quirks-- particularly in his males.

Look at Chico in 7th heaven.. his initial arrogance, his carefully rehearsed gestures and stock lines "I really am a remarkable fellow", etc. His blowhard pride, gesticulatory mannerisms, his overconsumption with himself and refusal to be taken in by a low street urchin. Without this the turnaround via his captivation by Diane wouldn't be nearly as moving. Street Angel is loaded with characters... the ginzo who heads the circus, Gaynor's character who is so strongminded and initially put off by men (essentially "Take it someplace else, pal... I don't fall in for that shit."), the chubby lady with the frizzy 'fro who gets her hair-- to her delight-- pulled by her thin moustachio'd lover spanking and ravaging her over in a corner. Look at Lazybones himself.. it may be a bit of Buck Jones himself, but the character as played against his usual cowboy/Western type, he is fully drawn, and in fact the narrative is built around the entirety of these traits. James Dunne's Eddie in Bad Girl is a hugely drawn character, fully realized, built brick by brick from the beginning-- his entre into the narrative is entirely owing to his personality traits (that he's not the 'typical guy' that so fatigues Dot & her pal, who they think doesn't exist), and half the subsequent screentime is devoted to his peculiar blend of lingo, tough guy 1930's Bronxy exterior blended with a devastatingly moving heart of gold.. not to mention his constant snipping to & fro with Dot's friend Edna.

Liliom (despite the deliberate avant strangeness of the line readings here-- this is actually in my book a unique entry in the annals of the American Avant Garde, and perhaps it's first fullblown hollywood feature) is all about the specific character of Liliom, his traits and mannerisms. Charles Farrell in After Tomorrow redeems his sound film acting reputation (vs Liliom) and turns in a fine performance filled with individuality. The wind-up is, versus say a 30's gangster pic, 40's noir, or 50's sci-fi quickie which takes you from point A to B without any consideration of character history, quirks etc, Borzage is very much about character, character developments in the face of adversity and transformations-- and of course, epiphanies.

I'd love to discuss Liliom with someone, anyone. This previously undiscovered country is ripe for evaluation (I can't say re-evaluation since this thing was so far off the radar it might as well have been a lost film). It's strangeness is infecting and bewitching, and there's got to be more to the Bad Line Reading issue than just the transition to sound, Rose Hobart, and the rube Farrell. This is the American Avant Garde in strange full flower. In Hollywood no less!

[lubitsch]

Liliom (despite the deliberate avant strangeness of the line readings here-- this is actually in my book a unique entry in the annals of the American Avant Garde, and perhaps it's first fullblown hollywood feature) is all about the specific character of Liliom, his traits and mannerisms. [...]
I'd love to discuss Liliom with someone, anyone. This previously undiscovered country is ripe for evaluation (I can't say re-evaluation since this thing was so far off the radar it might as well have been a lost film). It's strangeness is infecting and bewitching, and there's got to be more to the Bad Line Reading issue than just the transition to sound, Rose Hobart, and the rube Farrell. This is the American Avant Garde in strange full flower. In Hollywood no less!

I would be careful before proclaiming a film from 1930 as the first Hollywood avantgarde feature. Tourneur's Blue Bird or Brenon's Peter Pan or Kiss for Cinderella are other candidates.

I'm just watching the films I don't know but I was disappointed by Janet Bergstroms essay in the included book. She surely knows her Murnau, but she doesn't really write anything worthwile about Borzage's sound films, especially Liliom. Somehow people seem not the get the idea behind the film, read the imdb comments where the sets are faulted for being cheap. Good god. Dumont correctly points out that the film is heavily influenced by European constructivism especially Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky come to mind. Watch the abstract design of all rooms, the bare walls, everything arranged in geometrical compositions. Or the fair with its lights or the railway junction. Apparently Borzage felt it was a good idea to go one step further than he had done before. Seventh Heaven and the following silents always retire in a dreamland which has few connections with any reality especially the huts in Lucky Star and The River, but also the 7th floor room. Now he goes a step further and not only films in an effusive style these neverlands, but additionally designs an artifical ambiente that is unreal to the spectators eyes. What I find puzzling is that he doesn't rely on the tradition of Tourneur and Brenon, but instead switches to cold modernist shapes, but I think he wanted to keep a contrast to the heaven scenes which are arguably the more conservative ones (as strange as it may sound) in regard to design becuase you expect heaven to look a bit funny. Anyway it was a bad move financially because the film predictably bombed at the box office and the flop combined with Fox' catastrophic financial decline closed the iron door on Borzage's stylistic experiments.
I don't think the film is really successful though and that's more the problem of the play which presents us a complete jerk and a masochistic woman. In Borzage's silent features you have a wpoman and a man meeting and transforming each other. The man gains experience and softness, the woman power and love. In Liliom there's no transformation whatsoever, the main constellation is presented and never evolves anywhere. After Tomorrow has a similar problem. Therefore I find it hard to fault the actors because Farrell has to play an unsympathetic role and his irritatingly thin voice shows us that he's all pomp and not much more. Rose Hobart also fits her role like a glove because this is NOT a film about a relation rather about the love delusion of a masochist. Therefore it makes perfectly sense that she projects an intense brooding feeling of cool suffering (it sounds a bit contradictory I know). No reason why she should project any warmth. The constant comments that Gaynor should have played all the female parts in this and that early Borzage film are completely unfair to the concerned actresses.

That the film is worth a rediscovery is obvious. I don't get tired to say that the writing of film history is to a certain part arbitrary. Some films get a powerful number of critics to speak for them or get famous in some, sometimes strange way and other films ... well they just lie down buried in the vaults. Occasionally there's an expert who sees them and declares them great in a book but nobody listens. I agree with Dumont on proclaiming Till we meet again (1944) a great film, but it's a Paramount film which means at the mercy of Universal's mad whims, completely unknown and therefore destined to remain so.

I drop a few more thoughts when I've finished the box, but let me see first some films for the first time I have already praised as masterpieces in print .

[HerrSchreck]

I'd be even more leery of calling these films (Blue Bird, Peter Pan, KFC) part of the avant garde-- sure they have supercool sets, but stripping those away you have pretty standard treatment in the handling of the material... certainly nothing to upset or provoke or throw off balance (or deliberately psyche out) the Victorian - postVictorian moms & pops who took their kids to see these fairy tales. Even a conceit like Expressionism (you'll appreciate this Lubitsch I'm sure) involved more than a wacky set (a la Walsh's Thief of Bagdhad, which minus Menzies totally fucking awesome sets is a totally fucking awesome but standard Fairbanks swashbuckler)-- Expressionism was a fully formed sensibility that involved an equally unusual approach to the scenario and the acting style.

I'd actually, giving it some thought, regard Roland West's ALIBI (1929) as a good, pre-LILIOM candidate for the American Avant Garde Hollywood Feature.

No what I'm getting at about Liliom that causes me to suspect it of an intent which joins hands with the American AG is it's seemingly subversive intent. This is, after all, as handled by Borzage, the tale of a majorly grating pack of assholes who go absolutely nowhere, make the worst plans and speak in complete nonsense, told in a fashion that ranges from deliberately irritating to LSD-drenched. Even the Angel Gabriel can't play the fucking horn to save a life, and the HB Warner character has the idiocy to choose the least promising candidate for transformation... idiocy which is borne out by the idiotic ending. This is either the most brilliant subversion on earth or something Ican't for the life of me make out.

Girl (in lilting zomboid keys): "Mommy-- should grown strangers be allowed to come in My Front Yard & slap me inna mouth and Me Love It Too?"

Rose Hobart (in profound baritone, eyebrows crawling slowly up over her scalp): "Yes darling-- that especially.."

Girl (now sleepwalking & bumping into cardboard peppers & corn): "Should it feel..." wiggles fingers over hip area "All tingly-funny down here too?"

Rose Hobart (looking up from Bible, eyes heavy-lidded with profundity): "Yes dear-- there especially."

I mean-- come on!!! WTF? Did something like an icepick go onto accidentally flying at hi-speed into Borzage's ear preproduction on this film, and he kept it there for convenient access.. so that when directing scenes he could first jazz up some shortcircuited connections and mind-failures by yankiing the pick like an atari joystick and mashing around his brain matter destroying cerebellar tissue for kicks?

Naturally I'm being wierd but it's only in tribute to this most odd film. The AV nature goes far beyond the sets-- which, though interesting, are no more or less strange than Bill C Menzies' output at this time-- it goes to the very substance of the film, the treatment of the source material, the cultivated LSD atmosphere (even the atmopsheric hiss in the early sound mics seems infected), and the handling of the actors. It's my suspicion that Borzage is fucking with traditional cinematic/melodramatic expectations, and I mean this in every aspect-- narrative, acting, tone, art direction, all of it-- and messing with the mind of the collective audience.

This is why ALIBI is considered by some to be a pertinent bullet-point for the American AG: much of the material seems deliberately anti-audience, the line deliveries are wilting, ponderously paced, and strange. The authors are seeking to execute at the verbal level the experimements and conceits they've articulated on the visual level. Very VERY V E R Y few people can get ready for this kind of subversion, as it upends the typical/expected setup of sympathies, and boots them right out of the arc. Very few people are capable of investing in a narrative whose cast either 1) doesn't seem to know what they are doing (and thus disallowing the mind the investment and sympathy it so desperately is trained to seek by the diet of standard melodrama they've been weened on), or 2) an abrasive cast that is in one form or another telling the audience to go bugger off and mind their own business.

Oftentimes what comes down to us from history are the very least important factors that determined the shape and scope of a film-- all the key factors for the record have been trampled over by time and uninterviewed key players who died... so that by default an erroneous or blank-slate historical backdrop is all that remains for context. I think a time machine would be most rewarding vis a vis Liliom.

Of course all this could be wrong and I'm finding gold in snot. But for me this only makes the gold finer... dwain Esper's Maniac is considered a perfect Accidental US Avant Garde.. jarring, disconcerting, so otherworldly it's almost a drug, rude, funny-- an AG filmmaker with deliberate intent couldn't have fashioned any finer such a subversively rewarding result.

After Tomorrow: this is interesting. You of all people Lubitsch I'd expect to be relieved to find a more realistic treatment of the rewards lying at the end of the road for patient lovers... this vs the atomic sentimentality of Borzage's silents, which I know in and of itself (the excessive romanticism) you're not always the biggest fan of (do correct me if Im wrong, though). Lovers will most certainly not jump out of their wheelchairs, or cheat death in a holy beam of light-- simply because they love each other-- but certainly they might find that if they hang on through adversity, love can and most definitely will get you thru a spell of misery you might not have survived individually.

Borzage's silent films strike me as the tales concocted by a man dreaming of love-- a man denied love, and aching for eternal, idealized love. The kind of love that can conquer all things, overcome any adversity, can help a soul up out of a literal or figurative wheelchair-- even the literal or figurative grave. All you need is the transformative love of another.

Whereas films like Bad Girl and After Tomorrow strike me as tales concocted by a man who has been in love. He's getting towards the reality of love in actual human life of flawed, nonidealized human beings-- a wise, experienced portrayal of love and how it works... the kind of love on view in Naruse's Repast. Love is not a provider of ability, muscular dexterity and function, etc, and I always thought the worst thing one could do to a lover is hold them responsible for your life's ups & downs. I used to know a guy who used to want to be a writer, and would complain about his girlfriend "She doesn't inspire me--" fists shaking in the air before him-- "to be creative, to write.."

What could be worse pressure on a human being than to hold them responsible for your own personal failings and ups and downs? Most successfully creative people I know disappear down a metaphorical hole when they write, paint, etc.. they need to be left alone, in some cases to the frazzling of the partner who now has nothing to do, lonesome: it's something they've always done and will go on doing no matter who they're with.

I think love is a place to go after all this endeavor has been taken care of-- a place of refuge and comfort after you have taken care of your business. I see it time and again in all the best relationships. This is what I see on view in After Tomorrow: two lovers existing in the real world, and on the road to a very good future. It's a wonderful illustration of how love can abide you through a series of unpleasant situations. And like Naruse's Repast, the lovers come to understand the value in the striving, the simple fact of have someone, a good person, to be there for you, no matter whether the goal is reached. The epiphany, which is huge, is in the coming to grips with the lack of one, the cultivation of patience-- then you come to your Niagra Falls, which you then duly deserve.

And I find Farrell hugely sympathetic in the film. It's perhaps the most authentic character he plays in the whole box. Truly. I don't understand how you're construing character ("he's all pomp") from the purely hereditary nature of his larynx. He's pateint, genuine, evenhanded, has wrestled his testosterone into a corner and put a dunce cap on his cock for the sake of Doing The Right Thing, never wavers in his love, is industrious, a good provider, faithful-- and he's got a sense of humor and genuine masculinity to boot. He's your usual Borzagean male in that sense.

As for seeking out a Borzagean arc, i e After Tomorrow vs the standard setup of his other films... the transformation occurs out there in the world, not within the characters. I think it's an interesting twist. Instead of waiting for a lover to return from the grave, to get out of his wheelchair, to get out of prison, etc, we wait for the world to come around two honest-good, real-world-based souls. Sometimes it's the world and the people around you that need to get outa their fucking wheelchair. During the onslaught of the depression, a more inspiring love story I couldn't imagine.

As an asterisk to this longwinded vamp I'd add I love Borzage's silents-- there is nothing wrong with fantasy and dreams and idealization. But to pigeonhole the man into a narrative requirement for Metaphysical Transformative Trade Between Lovers is limiting.

[carax09]

I'd have to say that Liliom was one of the strangest cinematic experiences I've had. Borzage certainly finds a way to undermine or circumvent (sometimes both!) expectation at every turn. I watched Joseph Cornell's Rose Hobart immediately before, and I would guess that my ability to enjoy the film was greatly improved by already being in a avant-garde headspace. It's too bad Cornell didn't revisit the footage in Liliom, and score it with this.

[lubitsch]

Hm ... I listen with some lingering suspicion to the huge arcs you try to build.
Borzage's commercial success got a blow with Lucky Star, he recovered with these two unbearable star vehicled for Rogers and McCormack and then really sank to the bottom with Liliom. Apart from the fact that he was neither an intellectual nor a modernist, he would have acted very unwisely to try to crash avantgarde heaven in 1930 with his studio collapsing around him. If I have to choose between thinking that Borzage wants to make the strangest film in the world and some limitations of sound technology resulting in a forced and strange way of talking by the actors, I would choose the latter. The biggest directors of this time had problems with sound. Siodmak's ABSCHIED (1930) features a truly bizarre performance by Brigitte Horney where she intones every sentence in a somehow strange way. It was one of the most irritating things I ever saw in a classical film, but despite Siodmak's avantgarde background I wouldn't read too much into it.
Regarding following films (Bad Girl, After Tomorrow) are low budget productions. They lack by necessity the pictorial scope, they have to swim more in the US mainstream despite still resisiting the usual melodramatic stuff. How much of that is Borzage talking and how much circumstances? I don't know but I would be very careful before I register profound changes in the artists's vision. Leaving the decaying Fox, Borzage produces at paramount a sumptuous FAREWELL TO ARMS which is again more in line with his silents and the same goes for MAN'S CASTLE for Columbia next year. And all told I still think that despite the changes between the silents and the early Fox sound films the core is still the same.

I agree however that it's dangerous to imagine Borzage's films as some kind of madonna-like pictures of divine love glowing in the hearts of two lovers. Quite the contrary Borzage has to work overtime because he focuses on these two characters and has to invest them with a lot of actions, character traits and so on. That's what makes these films so watchable and modern, they don't follow the melodrama trail of so many silents.

But I need a break because rogers and McCormack positively knocked me out. I've rarely seen such a s*** in my life and hit both films with 2/10 in the imdb. What is exactly the idea behind presenting them with own discs while hiding away one of the best films, THE RIVER, as an extra? Surely the buyers of this sit know or don't mind about the fragmentary status on the one hand and are aware of the sometimes insufferable nature of early sound films.

[lubitsch]

By way of comparison I re-watched last night Desire followed by what is possibly Borzage's masterpiece History is Made at Night.

Desire is for the first hour at least just fine as a Lubtisch vehicle, as though the whole film was enitrely closely guided by the producer. EVery element of the screenplay is tightly controlled to maintain the old Sternbergian "star pairing" in some sort of new upbeat way after their debut together in the genuinely "avant garde" (especially in terms of soundtrack) Morocco.

Trouble is the last half hour seems to be written to allow Borzo the chance to take the film into another key and follow the redemption theme with Dietrich's "conversion" back to the good side. It simply doesn't work (rather like her playing thepre debauched virginal Empress Catherine in Scarlet Empress.) Consequently the picture is best viewed as a Lubitsch film in which another director of note has played his hand and been found wanting, at least in those terms.

History on the other hand is pure Borzage, like the other Columbia titles Little Man What Now and Man's Castle - both of them at the top of his form and arguably superior to most of the early 30s Fox titles. History just takes off - the narrative is highly incident driven, down to a Titanic like ship sinking, and literally transatlantic separation and reuniting of loverrs, with a deft murder thrown in. THis is the sort of narrative range you don't see elsewhere in B, but he more than rises to the challenge. THe changes in tone are handled like the turning of a page, and the direction of the leads is flawless. Why is this picture in particular so perfect? Trying to explain it in auteurist terms takes you down a narrow direction which doesn't satifsy it fully. Was it also the confluence of studio, a rising budget (Up to now COlumbia had been the real poverty row studio of the majors) and a flawless cast?

I simply don't know. And when you look at the real ups and downs of his post 1940 work the final flowering of genius in the sublime Moonrise is almost like the work of another man. Once again it would be tempting to throw some autobiograpy into the mix and dial in the breakup of the one sidedly loveless marriage which ended in 1940 and his remarriage a few years later.

Lol. With me it's just the other way around. I thought Desire works wonderful because it starts with all the Lubitsch innuendo and fun and then suddenly opens up a deeper layer below all the polish. History on the other hand drove me mad with its villain and who exactly had the idea with the shipwreck??? Yes it's very Borzagean in its core, but the plot around was too much for me though I only saw it in a dub which wasn't particularily good. BTW Moonrise is very much the work of Borzage because it's that rare of rarest things, a redemptive film noir. contrary to all the despair, angst and destiny which seems to infiltrate the script, Borzage strictly goes against the mainstream and subverts this subversive genre. Would his films have been more accessible in the 50s/60s he would have been declared an auteur without a doubt and enjoy much more of a reputation.

I just watched the docu which is nicely made though it again emphasizes too much the first films rushing through Borzage's later silents and almost dropping the sound films. I just wrote in article in a book I'm editing about Romy Schneider (very subtle advertising :-") how the perception of film history is pressed into certain patterns like the rise and fall story. Here we have the three great persons, rising, meeting each other, creating a summit, declining due to lack of commercial success and other pressures and breaking down. Nice story isn't it? Unfortunately Bad Girl's success doesn't fit at all into the story arc and so we have the amusing case of a studio financed docu which slights one of its successful Oscar winners with a few sentences.

I liked Lazybones very much though it reminded me very much of Ford's Just pals and I found it therefore unnecessary and misleading from the historians in the docu to declare that Borzage was a nice director but needed a visual vocabulary which he learned by god Murnau himself who descended from Germany to USA in a heavenly light to teach US directors filmmaking. They could have at least mentioned that the Germans had learned a lot from Hollywood before, that the influence of Murnau was only short-lived since Ford, Hawks and Borzage all retreated from their Murnau-influenced wild experiments and finally maybe some critical words about Sunrise artistic summit.
How the heck can this film be described as the best silent ever? I think it's a gross mistake from the film community to send this film as the holy grail around because it is deadly outdated in some aspects. If you show COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR or PANDORA'S BOX you don't have to make excuses, but alone Gaynor's wig produces giggles. I think I already harped about the unpleasant female stereotypes which are so bloody reactionary that they alone prevent the canonization of the film as the Big One not to speak of the sloppy narrative structure which is practically over by half of its runtime and has to add silly sequnces in the city and a completely unmotivated storm at the end.
There's a very dangerous tendency to praise silent films for their visual merits only.

Lucky Star was good, not exactly the epiphany I hoped for, I stay with Street Angel and the River as my favourites.

[HerrSchreck]

Hm ... I listen with some lingering suspicion to the huge arcs you try to build.

We're in the same boat my friend-- I'm suspicious of my self (tiptoes up to mirror with baseball bat)-- seriously: my suspicion of my own theories is only momentarily drowned out by the fun of speculating what the hell was up with Borzage in Liliom. But you and I depart at a fork in the road... I most certainly don't buy "early sound problems", as even in 1929 the Audio-Auto-Wreck that was Will Rogers couldn't come near (Hadda See Paris) the kind of cast-wide line deliveries we get in Liliom.. even the Song-O My Heart's not near it, and needless to say both of these sound films preceded Liliom.

I think that Lazybones is a crucial film-- it shows where Borz was headed prior to the arrival of Murnau, and the injection of the Teutonic Patina to to the image. And in terms of subtlety, in terms of really well nuanced, wonderfully punctuated, super tightly edited melodrama, Lazybones can stand alongside anything Borzage produced to the end of the silent era. In some terms exceeds the lot. Watch Lazybones and the vast bulk of what is most important to the tale-- the private feelings of Lazybones himself, which stay mostly hidden-- bloom inside of your mind with incredibly well deployed subtlety. Borzo forces you to engage with his narrative by observing all the wonderful nuance-- how much different could this be from the gigantic strokes employed in the string of films beginning with 7th Heaven, all of which rest on the outsize Farrell and the heaving, panting little-big breast of Janet Gaynor.

I can't believe that nobody seems to pick up on the duplication in this film of the narrative of La Roue by Gance-- comparisons a la Buck Jones/Fox to Just Pals is just... but for lordsakes this is La Roue to the hilt. And I must say-- in terms of straight narrative, embellishments to the cinematic medium aside, this is light years ahead of La Roue, which is just fucking ponderous storywise.

Lubitsch, I know you're not alone in your feelings viz Sunrise (go here, or read this), but your comments remind me of those you made viz Renoir's The River (I know you're cold on Renoir in general). Specifically you have problems with stuff like-- in The River-- the mother telling her daughter "It is the highest calling of a woman to bear a child," etc.

I'm not going to go on too much about Sunrise because it doesn't need me to commend it-- except to say folks can be reactionary in both directions.. I will say, a la the film itself, that one of the most astounding things about it, and I think I've said this before, is how it always chokes me up in the church scene, no matter how I tell myself this time I won't fall for this Manipulative Bid. Yesterday I watched the Czech cut of the film (which does, btw features different takes of the actors, and exhibits gigantic differences vs US Movietone)... once again the dumb lug (more idiotic & simple than his wife) gets taken in by Churchill, he takes his wife on the boat, stops short of killing her, she flees on the shore, he chases after-- and I say to myself:

"Okay Herr Plumpe... you are not going to reel me in this time. You've set an impossible task for yourself viz me this time, because the stars I had in my eyes for you and your technique have cleared years ago, I am heretofore the most Advanced & Sophisticated Version of Me, which I was not then when I first saw this film and fell for its narrative: no sane woman would ever forgive her husband who tried to kill her on the same day, and you cannot rise to the occasion of convincing me that this can take place."

Yesterday, as always: the tram ride. Into the city (utterly sublime). The restaurant, okay. Right. Him buying flowers all that. Then they get to the church. They sit down like a couple of lost crackheads a thousand miles from home. Cut to the ceremony and OBrien's face, as the vows are exchanged.

And again my heart broke into a thousand pieces with tears in my eyes. I don't know how the man does it, but by the time the couple are in the atrium, with OBrien on his knees, and the bells start ringing, I'm a total fucking mess, and I never cry during movies. I've seen this simple little story a hundred times all the way thru at least... on an old rare vhs back inna day, on the old Fox dvd, on this version, and when I settle in and truly engage, it knocks me out every time. Never mind it's visual conceits (which I think are secondary to the magic of Faust).

Dartmoor and Pandora are fine films, great films. But Murnau is Murnau, and Asquith and Pabst are openly sitting at his feet in these films.

One other benefit of the Czech print: it's clarity affords us a clearer look at one of the sexiest shots of the silent era-- when Churchill first picks up on all the flashing lights (christ those light effects!) of the post-storm search parties outside, and runs to the window in her see-thru neglige. The ass & legs that are (more clearly) on view in that shot leave me, er, in need of assistance shall we say...

[peerpee]

I'm going to do a dual monitor comparison of the two versions of SUNRISE, but I'd love to hear more observations from others. There's 14 minutes difference (the Czech print is the shorter), lots of scenes missing in the Czech, but, as Schreck points out, some alternate takes in addition to "same take from a different camera placed alongside the "Movietone" camera". Lots of missing intertitles too in the Czech.

Resolution is generally better in the Czech too, but there are many dropped frames.

[evillights]

Can anyone here post information regarding why Street Angel's image is, it seems, squished from (presumably) 1.33:1 to 1.19:1 on the box set's DVD?

[HerrSchreck]

Ah, now I now why David said what he did about this film-- but over on the Borzage Filmmakers thread.

Craig-- David is right-- like the domestic/best-known version of Sunrise, or Tabu, Seventh Heaven, etc, Street Angel is presented in it's original sonorized cut, with the vintage Movietone sountrack intact... so the optical sountrack impinges on the left side like any other early sound film (M, Testament Dr Mabuse, Dreigroschenoper, etc) that's presented pillarboxed. It's a good thing, versus cropping the t&b to re-establish an artificial 1.33 frame.

[evillights]

Ah, now I now why David said what he did about this film-- but over on the Borzage Filmmakers thread.

Craig-- David is right-- like the domestic/best-known version of Sunrise, or Tabu, Seventh Heaven, etc, Street Angel is presented in it's original sonorized cut, with the vintage Movietone sountrack intact... so the optical sountrack impinges on the left side like any other early sound film (M, Testament Dr Mabuse, Dreigroschenoper, etc) that's presented pillarboxed. It's a good thing, versus cropping the t&b to re-establish an artificial 1.33 frame.

I'm well-acquainted with pillarboxing and the 1.19/1.20:1 frame — but the difference in the Borzages that bookend Street Angel, and in the Lang and Pabst films, is that the images aren't squished... but I really think they are, in Street Angel. I'm not necessarily doubting that this is how the film is supposed to look, and how it looked on its original release... but something's telling me the film was shot in 1.33, and then anamorphized to 1.20 for the Movietone soundtrack version.

[zedz]

So, now that we know that Fox's motivations are supererogatory, what's on the cards for 2010?

Can we hope for Raoul Walsh at Fox? A quick IMDB check shows a rich vein of late silents / early sound films, including the original What Price Glory and the highly regarded The Bowery (plus the irresistably-titled Me, Gangster from 1928). I think the only title already available from this period is The Big Trail. Then there are a handful of films from the end of his career: The Tall Men, Revolt of Mamie Stover, A Private's Affair and Marines, Let's Go!. There are potentially twenty or so titles eligible for inclusion.

Other contenders?

('scuse me while I quote myself)

I've been so busy dipping into those glorious Borzages that I've only just noticed that the blurb on the back cover specifically namechecks (as Fox's other Murnau-influenced American directors) John Ford and Raoul Walsh, so if there is another of these, Walsh has been given pole position.

[Max von Mayerling]

Hopefully they'll get to a Walsh box before they fire all these people for devoting valuable studio resources to "art," for fuck's sake. Or history, or whatever the fuck it is.

[evillights]

Craig these three grabs were taken from Power DVD on the PC and they support your view that the image looks pinched.

David, all of your frame-grabs — above, and the ones you posted in the other thread about the recent Borzage screening on TCM — are getting stretched to hell, on your end. I think Power DVD is playing tricks when it works its screengrab magic. Given that, the images you posted from Street Angel don't really speak to the pinch-squishing...

Here's the evidence, though, along with my theory (just a theory) of what happened.

ck.

[HerrSchreck]

Hm.. Craig your captures are convincing. Unfortunately I don't have the box to hand with me to see if they look that way on my TV-- not to mention I have a rare TV broadcast version of the restored movietone edition of the film to compare it against as well (which I indeed did send-- risky risky risky... fucking post offices of the world... testament to the high esteem we hold il dottore Hare around here-- to dave in Australia a couple yrs ago for rip to dvd). But if it looks that way on my tv at home, I stand convinced.

Dave, can you do a disc to tape comparison of the body statures?

[Tommaso]

Allright then, I've received the set now from amazon and am mighty impressed. For the 'damage record': one of those paper straps that is supposed to hold the first book was torn, but I guess it wouldn't have properly held the book anyway. "Street Angel" had slipped under the cardboard that was supposed to hold it and was pretty difficult to get out without damaging the paper or the disc. The greatest shock, however, was to find one of the slots completely empty, and the disc nowhere to be found at all. Whilst I was working myself into a mix of rage and heartbreak, it finally occured to me to take a look at the bottom part of the outer box, where luckily I found it, pretty scratched, but apparently playable. Most of the other discs however seem only lightly scratched or not at all. I couldn't resist checking "7th Heaven" after the amazon reports, although the disc wasn't scratched at all. Well, it seems it IS playable after all, but it caused my player to make the most horrible grinding noises I EVER encountered from it. Must be a manufacturing problem with that particular disc which seems to occur on a pretty regular basis. I only hope the player will survive the torture of playing it in its entirety, but even then, I suppose those noises will be a pretty annoying aural addition to the film experience....
But, as David said, enough of the negativity. This is indeed a mind-blowing package, and the wonderful photographs in the books gave me great delight already, though I agree that the Bergstrom essay says far too little about Borzage. I hope the missing bits will be covered by the documentary disc.

As I made up my mind to watch the Borzages - all unknown to me apart from "The River" - in chronological order, I started with "Lazybones" last night. I can only add to the praise already expressed by Schreck and others. It's indeed so tightly and convingly constructed, so effortlessly shifting between comic and tragic moments, with a style that relies much more on the details of the actors' expressions than on any visual gimmicks, that I also have the impression that it didn't need Murnau to make Borzage a great filmmaker. I was particularly amazed about the acting all around, most perhaps by Zasu Pitts as Ruth, perhaps because of her nicely 'expressionist'/moody looks at her rescue from the river. And the actress who plays her mother gave me the creeps, almost literally. It was also nice to see Madge Bellamy again whom I liked so much in Tourneur's "Lorna Doone", and this time thankfully without any over-acting.
As to the comparison with "Just Pals": much as I like Ford's film and indeed also find it similar, "Lazybones" for me is easily superior in its much wider emotional scope and perhaps 'meaning'. The latter for me consists in showing that the central character leads a life that I would call 'contemplative' in the sense of that he doesn't much care for what is considered important by society (money, work etc.); but he is not at all against these values and obviously cares for others (his mother, and especially Ruth and Young Kit of course). But for him life slowly passes on like the symbolic molasses that introduces him, for good or for worse, and he can even become a war hero by 'not-doing' something. Thus, Tuttle almost has a zen-like approach to life in my view. His way of leading this contemplative life however has the side-effect of letting chances go by, in this case, by not getting Kit. It is wise that Borzage left open whether his attitude will change after losing Kit, or whether he will quietly accept the loss. I suspect the latter, but in any case, Borzage never really pushes any interpretation. In this sense, the film is as contemplative as its 'hero', filled with a quiet but joyful melancholy. But in comparison to "Just Pals" or "La Roue", the Kit story for me never formed such an exclusive central part of the film, but serves as a (major) illustration of this more general theme of the film.

[Max von Mayerling]

As has been noted, shipping experiences with this box can vary widely. I was holding off due to concerns about this, but when Amazon put the thing in my goldbox deals of the day, I gave in. It was sent to me by UPS two-day shipping. There was no meaningful damage to the box, and I have inspected all the discs & none are scratched. One had slid a bit into its sleve, as described above by Tommaso, but mine was pretty easy to gently extract. So, it's obviously a bit of a crapshoot, but it is possible for the thing to make it through UPS fairly unscathed.

[domino harvey]

That gives me hope, as I would be getting my set from Amazon Prime the same way. Still on the fence, but wavering closer to going for it

[Max von Mayerling]

On another random note, Netflix had happened to ship me Street Angel the same day that I ended up ordering the box. I had put it at the top of my list on account of HerrSchreck's ravings. It arrived the day before the box, so I gave it a spin. Turns out the version Netflix sent me was from some other company, pre-dating the Borzage box. The print was not was not the greatest & the transfer was fairly miserable. Much of the detail was lost. When I received the box, the first thing I did was pop in Street Angel, and it was, of course, night & day.

[arsonfilms]

That gives me hope, as I would be getting my set from Amazon Prime the same way. Still on the fence, but wavering closer to going for it

Although it does not necessarily relate to the Murnau/Borzage set specifically, when I ordered my John Ford box (long after the hype had died down), every disc was in place and the whole thing looked great. Similarly, while I fully plan to get the Murnau/Borzage box, I'm hoping that the quality of the handling improves once demand dies down a bit.

[Ishmael]

On another random note, Netflix had happened to ship me Street Angel the same day that I ended up ordering the box. I had put it at the top of my list on account of HerrSchreck's ravings. It arrived the day before the box, so I gave it a spin. Turns out the version Netflix sent me was from some other company, pre-dating the Borzage box. The print was not was not the greatest & the transfer was fairly miserable. Much of the detail was lost.

Netflix is also carrying the new Street Angel from the Borzage box. Fortunately, that's the one they sent me. Amazing film; great transfer. But I guess it's the usual pot luck for those like me who are renting these.

[HerrSchreck]

"7th Heaven" caused my player to make the most horrible grinding noises I EVER encountered from it. Must be a manufacturing problem with that particular disc which seems to occur on a pretty regular basis. I only hope the player will survive the torture of playing it in its entirety, but even then, I suppose those noises will be a pretty annoying aural addition to the film experience.....

Mine too-- like a fucking helicopter hovering overhead buzzsawing wood in the cockpit.

Was there a report on amazon or somewhere that says this is a common occurrence with everybody's 7th Heaven disc? Is everyone else having this same problem?

And what in god's name is it? I was thinking that maybe my disc had an excess of connective glue or whatever on one side-- or the layers in the ds disc were not weighted evenly, and one side was heavier than the other, causing it to have an uneven or perhaps even quasi-wobblized spin.

But that's just amatueristic speculation. ANyone know what this is, and does anyone have a 7th Heaven disc that does NOT make this noise?