Raoul Walsh

[Lowry_Sam]

Just saw the double feature of Walsh's The Big Trail & John Ford's The Iron Horse @ The Stanford. While I thought I regarded both directors about the same, the ability to compare the two side-by-side really gave the edge to Walsh for me. Ford's 2 1/2 silent take on how the West was won (through the expansion of the railroad) feels like a well-researched documentary with some story thrown in to maintain the audiences interest. While I enjoyed the ribbing between Irish & Italian railworkers, it was more used as some needed levity as the film's length really tests the viewers patience (and backside when watching in uncomfortable rep theater seats). I felt like 30-45 min. could have easily been cut without losing anything.

The Big Trail on the other hand seemed to sail by, despite the fact that it too exceeded the 2 hour mark (and I saw it second). The technical feats this film accomplished (for its day) were really quite impressive & no scene demonstrated this more than when The frontiersmen are lowering their covered wagons down cliffs with just rope while entire families attempt sliding down the slope with just a rope & the help of fellow travellers. I had read that the 70mm version was more documentary-like & that the 35mm version used more close-ups & was better at emphasizing the personal side of the stories taking place. However, the 70mm version did not evoke the human side of the stories any less than The Iron Horse, despite it comprising of fairly static long shots.

So I had to check out how my ratings for both Ford & Walsh for their entire careers compared & was surprised that Walsh came out significantly ahead. It could be just the titles of each I've seen, but Walsh had many more higher ratings & signficantly fewer below 7/10. I had always considered him to be on par with Ford (whom I've always been underwhelmed with).

[knives]

Now I’m curious which of each you’ve seen because Ford
seems so blatantly the better of the two to me even after seeing nearly all Ford’s surviving films. Walsh peaked early and never at the heights of Ford.

[Lowry_Sam]

Thr Iron Horse was the silent (1924) version and Dennis James played film's soundtrack on the Wurlitzer from the sheet music for the film (it was well-matched with the action on screen). I did enjoy it more than I expected (I'm not a Western fan & my favorite of Ford's films are not his Westerns). Both films were epic narratives that contributed to the birth of the Western, and many of the elements that would become Western tropes really felt fresh and germaine to the story (which is probably the biggest problem I have with many later Westerns when the genre is well-established). Ford's motive for his film, educating the audience on the history of the expansion of the railroad industry across the country to California, came through very well & was very informative. The narrative focus draws this history together by telling the story of a son who leaves for the West with his father and battles all the odds to build the railroad of his dreams and win the love of his childhood sweetheart in the end. The film did present many social elements (tension between Irish, Italian & Chinese laborers, white landowners appropriating native identity to decimate white Westward migrants to protect their land claims/wealth) better than I've seen in most films from the era. However, I really wanted more of the details of the lives of those actually doing the work. The main narrative arc of a hero overcoming all obstacles in building America felt like it could have been written by Ayn Rand and the social elements really only served to pique viewer interest when the narrative arc was dragging. The Big Trail, on the other hand, was less concerned with conveying facts of the history of settlers and delved more into their lives. It allows you to empathize with the people who actually forged the way West much better and so it almost feels almost like social documentary as a result. In his first role, John Wayne's character's heroic actions don't trump all the similarly heroic actions of the settlers with whom he's travelling. Additionally, a film that stars John Wayne where I'm not continually reminded that he's in it (which unfortunately most of his films from his star era do) is a directorial achievement in itself.

[hearthesilence]

I'm reluctant to quantify the worth of a filmmaker, but if I had to do something to clarify how I regard his work in comparison, Ford is an A+ filmmaker and Walsh is maybe an A-, which is to say I still think of him as an excellent director who consistently makes good films and has made quite a few that are really good, possibly even great in a couple of cases. But I'm not sure he's ever reached the same exalted heights as his greatest contemporaries - whenever I've gone to the more obscure parts of Ford's filmography, I can still be amazed by the filmmaking, moved or sent deep into introspection in a way that doesn't happen with a lot of Walsh films.

If I had to pick ten personal favorites, in chronological order they'd be: The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Me and My Gal (1932), The Roaring Twenties (1939), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), The Man I Love (1947), Pursued (1947), White Heat (1949), Colorado Territory (1949), A Lion Is in the Streets (1953) and The Tall Men (1955). White Heat and Strawberry Blonde would probably be the two I'd recommend most.

[FrauBlucher]

Can They Drive by Night be considered a proto-noir and if so, would Ida Lupino's character be the driving force behind that classification?

[Stefan Andersson]

What Price Glory:
"Preserved and restored by The Museum of Modern Art and the Film Foundation. US restoration premiere. 116 min."
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11558

[Marwood]

What Price Glory:
"Preserved and restored by The Museum of Modern Art and the Film Foundation. US restoration premiere. 116 min."
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11558

The same restoration will be screened in Bologna, Italy at Il cinema ritrovato in their "100 years ago" series.