1910 - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Otis Turner

The early silent film era (which I would classify as running from 1895-1914) is a grossly neglected era of filmmaking. As this blog has pointed out on a numerous occasions, not only were some of film’s most important technical advances made during these years, but many of the film’s are of outstanding quality and remain relevant to the modern audience. However, as with any era, there are bound to be some poorly made films.

                                                      

The first surviving cinematic adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel is perhaps the weakest film that we have observed on the Film: Ab Initio list so far. Given the great strides that filmmaking has made in 1909 and 1910, with films shifting from novel ‘trick’ films to tackling more complex and ambitious stories, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz looks and feels as though the film is at least five years older. Even if a better print of this was available, it would still look slightly primitive.

In fact, one of the main set pieces of the film, the wizard’ court, looks quite similar to the astronomer’s room in Melies’ 1902 film La Voyage Dans La Lune. Rather than paying homage to the earlier film, this scene only highlights how outdated this film seems.   

                                                       The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910)

                                                       La Voyage Dans La Lune (1902)

And although the film manages to incorporate a number of impressive sets, the overtly simple cinematography makes the film seem theatrical rather than cinematic. Given some of the brilliant camerawork that we have seen in films such as Afgrunden and La fée des grèves, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz cannot claim that such techniques were not possible in 1910.

Yet there does appear to be a significant gap between the quality of the films being produced in Europe and the U.S.A. in 1910. As was mentioned in a previous post, it is important to remember that up until 1914, France was the dominant force in global filmmaking.  

The 1910 version of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz was loosely based on a popular 1903 stage musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s novel. This is why several sections of the film involved choreographed dancing; however, much of the dancing onscreen seems amateurish and unnecessarily acrobatic. As with the musical, a new character is added to the cast, Imogene the cow. In the musical Imogene replaces Toto, in the film though, they both make an appearance.

The one scene which stands out in this film is where the characters are not the focal point of a scene; it is when a cyclone hits Kansas and transports Dorothy to Oz. The rolling clouds steal the scene, and for a brief moment, the film’s set does not feel clustered or claustrophobic.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this film is the speed with which it manages cover a great degree of the novel’s plotting. As with the earlier literary adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and Ben Hur, this film adopts an episodic approach to its source material in order to allow the film to focus on several key scenes from the text.  

I have not mentioned the film’s plotting or any character in any detail, because neither stood out. The 1910 version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a messy piece of film making which seems out of place when compared to the other films we have looked at from the previous few years.  

The first successful Shakespeare adaptation - 1908 - The Tempest - Percy Stow

Is the concept of a silent Shakespeare film an oxymoron? Absolutely not, I would argue. Shakespeare’s language is a crucial ingredient of his dramatic works, but far too often in recent cinematic adaptations it has been over-emphasised. There is a visceral visual element to many of the key works of Shakespeare that film can capture in a way that the theatre cannot. For example, my favourite cinematic Shakespeare moment involves no language at all: it is when Macbeth has been slain by a sheaf of arrows that pin him against a door in Kurosawa’s 1957 film Throne of Blood (I will have a lot more to say about this scene when we eventually get round to looking at the film).

Percy Stowe’s The Tempest is an extremely brave adaptation of its source material. With the film running at around twelve minutes, Stowe had very little scope to convey the plot of the play. However, limitation often breeds innovation, and the limited running time of the film allowed Stowe to concentrate on the key visual moments of the play.

Yet unlike with his earlier 1903 collaborative effort Alice in Wonderland, which Film: Ab Initio described as ‘enjoyable, charming but lightweight’, The Tempest is a more significant and substantial film. Whereas Alice in Wonderland picked a selection of moments from Carol’s work that felt episodic, with The Tempest, Stowe skilfully constructs a narrative thread that allows the film to have a more cohesive feel to it.

This is partially to do with Stowe’s development as a film maker, but Stowe also owes a significant debt to the rapid speed with which film was developing as a medium. Since 1903, film had witnessed its first superstar (Max Linder), ventured into the world of animation and tackled key historical events in films such as La Presa Di Roma and Stenka Razin.

Although the film leaves out some of the play’s major plotlines, the film is complete enough in itself to convey the narrative threads it does follow to someone who had not read the play (although there is no denying that a viewing of the film, as with any Shakespeare film, is enriched if one has read the play beforehand).

The film’s major success is its portrayal of Ariel. When Ferdinand chases Ariel in the film and she disappears using a simple Mélièsian trick, film has another one of its pivotal moments. This moment crystallises the difference between theatre and film; to put it simply, film can do things that theatre cannot. Although this is not the first time such a moment occurs in film history, given that it happens during the adaptation of a Shakespeare play, it explicitly confirms that film is developing in a separate direction to theatre. And this point extends beyond technical differences; it allows film to accentuate different emotional currents through such visual trickery. Ariel’s ‘disappearances’ in this scene (see image below) highlights the playful nature of Ariel, and more importantly, Ferdinand.

I have seen an awful production of The Tempest where Ferdinand was played in a dry, one-dimensional manner; this film gives the character more colour and depth in twelve minutes than that production managed to do so in two and a half hours!

From the perspective of film history, Ariel is also interesting because she is a Méliès visual trick that is removed from the confines of his studio and transposed onto a naturalistic setting. The most impressive Mélièsian trickery, however, is saved for when Prospero shipwrecks the King of Naples’ ship. I am surprised that the image is not more iconic (see image below).

The bfi’s screenonline is in agreement as to the quality of the film, though it also notes that the film’s attempts to uncover the cinematic qualities of Shakespeare’s text were not followed:

Comfortably the most visually imaginative and cinematically adventurous silent British Shakespeare film, Percy Stow's The Tempest (1908) takes a different approach from that of Dickson's 1899 film of King John, in that it attempts a complete précis of the entire play staged specifically for the cameras...

Curiously, though, no-one seems to have built on its lead, as all surviving silent Shakespeare films have tended to be as stagebound as those made by Stow's predecessors - Frank Benson's Richard III (1911) being typical.

Film: Ab Initio will carefully monitor the progress of adaptations of Shakespeare’s works; with Stow’s The Tempest, film has made a promising start.

Note: Unfortunately, the film for The Tempest cannot be found online, it can only be found on the bfi’s DVD Silent Shakespeare. It is well worth the purchase, and contains several other Shakespeare films that this blog will cover.  

News Review - Indian Govt. to spend $140 million dollars restoring classic movies

There has been an incredibly exciting film restoration news story that has broken over the last few days; the Indian Government has announced plans to restore 2,500 films, of which 1,450 are silent, at a cost of around $140 million.

This is a far bigger story than the news of 75 films being found in New Zealand and sent to America for restoration - yet all I have been able to find so far in regards to this story in the British and American media is a few paragraphs on the story in The Telegraph.

The Times of India provides us with more substantial details (for those interested in converting the numbers, a crore is 10 million):

Great celluloid classics like Mrinal Sen's `Antareen', Mani Kaul's `Nazar' and Bimal Roy's `Do Dooni Char' will soon come alive in their pristine glory under the National Film Heritage Mission. 

The Mission, being established by the I&B ministry with a corpus of Rs 660 crore, will digitise, restore and preserve prints from films belonging to not just the National Film Archives but also the Children's Film Society of India, Films Division and NFDC.

Significantly, rare archival footage and documentaries on leaders like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose and others associated with the freedom movement, that have decomposed due to neglect or wear and tear, will also be restored and digitised.

The scheme envisages preservation of the invaluable film heritage of the country that is presently lying with various government agencies and private bodies in the country. Sources said that the authorities have now been tasked with preparing a detailed project report.

The Films Division plans to restore a total of 2,500 films, of which 1,450 belong to the `silent era' and 200 that are on video format. Shockingly, there are almost 200 films (400 reels of 4,000 minutes' duration) that have decomposed due to fungal infection and will require digital restoration at a cost of Rs 30 crore.

1,450 silent films - that is earth-shattering, ground breaking news. How many silent films have in survived in total, surely this gargantuan restoration process will provide a substantial addition to the silent film oeuvre? And how many Indian silent films exist? 

The non-fiction footage of the great Indian leaders is another mouth watering prospect. I wish we could have more specific details in regards all the films that they plan to restore, but that would require 2,500 separate entries!

The only saddening news is the fact that 4,000 minutes of film have decomposed to due to fungal infection. That is pretty shocking to hear, I hope that this is not a problem shared by other countries. Even if Governments/Film Organisations are not restoring certain films, they should at least store them in a safe manner.

India Glitz adds some further details, as well as highlighting what appears to be U-turn in policy from the Indian government in regards to film preservation:

The scheme envisages preservation of the invaluable film heritage of the country that is presently lying with various government agencies and private bodies in the country. Sources said that the authorities have now been tasked with preparing a detailed project report. Restoration can be an expensive process with a single film running up a cost of Rs 8 lakh-Rs 10 lakh. Added to that is the cost to digitise films so that they can be seen and used by generations to come. "It is a major challenge to use technology that will allow us to use digitally restored material for commercial purposes. We also hope to webcast digitised and restored films," the source said.

NFAI that has a collection of 6,000 films has already restored 48 films and digitised 148 others in 2009-2010.

Besides some efforts by Doordarshan and NFAI, the government involvement in archival of films has so far been minimal. Some films have been restored by producers or major production houses as people realise the importance of preserving visual history. But in most cases producers do not see the immediate value of either providing the Archives with a copy of the master print or preserving their own films because of a general lack of awareness and resources.

I would hypothesise that as the Indian economy continues to grow at a considerable rate, the Indian government is attempting to follow America's lead and establish itself as both an economic and cultural superpower. This restoration process will retroactively assert Indian cinema as a cinematic force that has rivalled America's dominance of the medium from the early silent days (we should not forget that before World War One, French Cinema was the dominant force of cinema). In an ideal world, this would set off a classic and silent film preservation race (as opposed to an arms race!) and we would see various countries deciding to restore all of the great films that are lying in their vaults. Film goers of the world unite!

  

My posts are rarely as hyperbolic and exclamation mark ridden as this, but I am genuinely gob smacked at the enormity of this news. I am also saddened that it has as yet received little if no coverage in the British and American press. News reporting has become increasingly globalised over the last twenty years, yet film reporting remains Hollywood-centric. 

News Review - A number of lost silent films found in New Zealand

News review is a new feature that Film: Ab Initio will be running. It will allow this blog to share any news that is relevant to this project (particularly if the news may result in new films being added to the list) and also look at the various pieces of information coming from different sources in regards to that particular story.

Various sources yesterday reported the exciting news that a whole host of lost movies have been found in the New Zealand Film Archive, 75 of which are being returned to the United States' National Film Preservation board.

The New York Times tells us:

The films came to light early in 2009, when Brian Meacham, a preservationist for the Los Angeles archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, dropped in on colleagues at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington during a vacation.

“The conversation inevitably turned to what films we held in our collection,” recalled Steve Russell, the New Zealand archive’s manager of corporate services. “Brian was not surprisingly excited to learn the Film Archive held a number of non-New Zealand titles, primarily early nitrate films, including a substantial number of American films. We offered to compile a list of the U.S. material, and it was a short step to here.” Many foreign films remained in New Zealand after their commercial lives were over because the studios didn’t think the return shipping was worth the expense. “It’s one of the rare cases where the tyranny of distance has worked in our and the films’ favor,” Mr. Russell said.

Because of the importance of the John Ford film, “Upstream” — a backstage drama from 1927, a year that was a turning point in the development of one of America’s greatest filmmakers — it is being copied to modern safety film stock in a New Zealand laboratory, rather than risk loss or further damage in transit.

Although Ford was already famous as a director of epic westerns like “The Iron Horse”(1925) and “Three Bad Men” (1926), “Upstream” appears to be his first film reflecting the influence of the German director F. W. Murnau, who had arrived at Ford’s studio, Fox, in 1926 to begin work on his American masterpiece, “Sunrise.” From Murnau, Ford learned the use of forced perspectives and chiaroscuro lighting, techniques Ford would use to complement his own more direct, naturalistic style.

Richard Abel, a professor of film studies at the University of Michigan and an authority on early cinema, was one of the experts called in by the National Film Preservation Board to evaluate the inventory and establish priorities for films to be returned. “ ‘Upstream’ was an obvious choice,” Mr. Abel said, “and I suggested strongly that they do ‘Dolly of the Dailies’ with Mary Fuller, because there’s very little that survives of her films. But we were also looking to fill in gaps, which is why many of the early westerns were chosen.”

John Ford’s Upstream appears to be an integral part of his oeuvre, so its discovery must be celebrated. It should be interesting to see to what extent it reveals Murnau’s influence over Ford. One hopes that it will get some sort of cinematic release, but I will be more than happy if it is released on DVD.

The Los Angeles Times provides details of much the restoration will cost as well as providing the tragic background of just how many films from the silent era have been lost:

These films, which will cost more than $500,000 to preserve, are being divided among the five major American silent film archives: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art and the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Very few films from the silent era still exist, says Annette Melville, director of the National Film Preservation Foundation, the nonprofit charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. "We know looking at the feature films only about 20% exist," she says. "We think fewer of the shorter films survive. Our major job is to give out grants to American archives to save their films."

The New Zealand partnership is part of a current trend of "film repatriation," in which movies are returned to the country of origin. Three years ago, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and the NFPF worked to bring back films considered lost in the U.S., using copies made for the Australian archive. The same is holding true with New Zealand.

It is incredibly sad to learn that only 20% of feature films exist and that even fewer shorter films survive. It makes this discovery all the more important and raises prospects of similar finds being made elsewhere.

It would have been helpful to have been given a rough estimate of the timetable of how long the restoration will take. Does the restoration time differ for each film or can you make a calculation of how long the process will take if you know how long the film is?

Variety provide us with a partial list of the films that will be restored:

• "The Active Life of Dolly of the Dailies," Episode 5, "The Chinese Fan" (Edison Manufacturing Co., 1914). In this episode of the famous serial (previously entirely lost in the United States), ace woman reporter Dolly Desmond, played by Mary Fuller, rescues the editor's daughter from kidnappers and gets the scoop. In the early 1910s, on-going serial narratives starring intrepid heroines lured female moviegoers back to the theater week after week.
• "The Better Man" (Vitagraph Company of America, 1912), a Western in which a Mexican American outlaw proves himself the better man. This film will be preserved through funds raised in February by the "For the Love of Film" Blogathon.
• "The Big Show" (Miller Brothers Productions, 1926), the only surviving fiction film made by the famous Oklahoma-based Wild West Show managed by the Miller Brothers. The film showcases performances by many of the troupe's performers as well as its owner, Col. Joseph Miller.
• "Billy and his Pal" (George Méliès / American Wild West Film Company, 1911), a Western filmed in San Antonio, Texas, and the earliest surviving film featuring Francis Ford. The actor-director introduced the movie business to his younger brother, John, who soon blossomed as director. Released in New Zealand as Bobby and his Pal.
• "Birth of a Hat" (Stetson Company, 1920), an industrial short illustrating how Stetson makes its hats.
• "The Diver" (Kalem Company, 1916), a documentary showing how to set underwater explosives.
• "Fordson Tractors" (Ford Motor Co., 1918), an industrial film promoting the all-purpose tractor introduced by Henry Ford & Son in 1917.
• "The Girl Stage Driver" (Éclair-Universal, 1914), an early Western filmed in Tucson, Arizona. American-made Westerns were in demand by movie audiences around the globe and helped establish the United States as the major film-exporting nation by the late 1910s.
• "Idle Wives" (Universal Moving Pictures, 1916), the first reel of a Lois Weber feature in which a film inspires three sets of moviegoers to remake their lives. More of the film exists at the Library of Congress.
• International Newsreel (ca.1926), newsreel including five stories from the United States and abroad. By the late 1910s, newsreels became a regular part of the movie program. Because the footage was usually cut up and reused, very few newsreels from the silent era survive in complete form.
• "Kick Me Again" (Universal Pictures / Bluebird Comedies, 1925), a short comedy with Hungarian silent star Charles Puffy. As America became the center of world film production in the 1920s, European actors, such as Puffy, came to Hollywood to build their careers.
• "Little Brother" (Thanhouser Film Corporation, 1913), one of two one-reelers from New York's Thanhouser Company repatriated through the project.
• "Lyman Howe's Ride on a Runaway Train" (Lyman H. Howe Films, 1921), a thrill-packed short entertainment that was accompanied by sound discs which survive at the Library of Congress.
• "Mary of the Movies" (Columbia Pictures, 1923), Hollywood comedy about a young woman seeking stardom in the movies. This first surviving film from Columbia Pictures exists in an incomplete copy.
• "Maytime" (B.P. Schulberg Productions, 1923), a feature with Clara Bow in an early role. Nitrate deterioration has reached the point where "blooms" are starting to eat away at the emulsion.
• "Midnight Madness" (DeMille Pictures, 1928), comedy starring Clive Brook as a millionaire who decides to teach his golddigging fiancée a lesson.
• "Run 'Em Ragged" (Rolin Films, 1920), a short featuring slapstick comedian Snub Pollard.
• "The Sergeant" (Selig Polyscope, 1910), a Western filmed in Yosemite Valley when the area was managed by the U.S. Army. This film will be preserved through funds raised in February by the "For the Love of Film" Blogathon.
• Trailer for "Strong Boy" (Fox Film Corporation, 1929), a "lost" feature directed by John Ford and starring Victor McLaglen as a courageous baggage handler who thwarts a holdup. No other moving images from this film survive.
• "Upstream" (Fox Film Corporation, 1927), a feature directed by four-time Academy Award winner John Ford. Only 15% of the silent-era films by the celebrated director are known to survive. This tale of backstage romance stars Nancy Nash and Earle Foxe.
• "Why Husbands Flirt" (Christie Comedies, 1918), one of the nine short comedies that will be preserved through this project.
• "The Woman Hater" (Power Picture Plays, 1910), a one-reel comedy starring serial queen Pearl White.
• "Won in a Closet" (Keystone Film Company, 1914), the first surviving movie directed by and starring Mabel Normand. Released in New Zealand as Won in a Cupboard.

I would like to single out a few films on this list, but the truth is I have the intention of watching every single one of them! The importance of restoring these films cannot be overstated and I hope that this news encourages archives from other countries to find and return equivalent treasures.

Are there any lost silent films that you are hoping will be discovered? Perhaps we can make a list of the most desired lost silent films... 

Finally, filmpreservation.org have uploaded two clips from The Sergeant (1910), the first film to be preserved from the New Zealand Archive. They are well worth watching.