ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Safety_last_poster.jpg

Safety Last, Fred C Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1923

Morbsies #1133

Youtube link

I have a blu-ray of this! But for some reason my allegedly region-free Chinese DVD/blu-ray player is insisting that it's the wrong region, so here I am watching it on youtube with the plebs, present company excluded of course.

Whole film is apparently embedded on the Wikipedia page as a webm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Safety_Last_(1923).webm

Heard something along the lines of Harold Lloyd's work was exhibited on TV less (I think due to rights issues?) and this accounts for his lower profile when compared to Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy.

i do remember harold lloyd on tv in the uk, specifically watching it around my gran's. seemed to be always on. "hooray for harold lloyd"... possibly a clip show.

yeah, these, from 1977 - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2yaO_4_FwpkWNviqJsyrKIw16fVFT9YO

Yes, I believe that came up in the convo as well, the UK being an exception.

can't believe it took me so long to watch this in full.

the building climbing scene, of course this is just fantastic, just the sheer planning and imagination needed, nothing is wasted. enjoyed it as a thriller more than as a comedy.

the rest of the film is fine, if a bit weak. I know I've been spoiled a bit with all this Keaton & Chaplin, but Lloyd just doesn't quite have the same charisma, or the same quality of writing.

I dispute the notion of Lloyd lacking charisma

oh he has it, just not quite as much

ok, back to the main plot

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Man With A Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, 1929

Morbsies #193
Sight & Sound Critics #9
Sight & Sound Directors #30

Should really post a youtube link. Very nice post-rock/jazz soundtrack from The Cinematic Orchestra.
Should also post some thoughts as I've now watched it three times, but that can wait for tomorrow.

I was looking forward to this as I've already used Dziga Vertov's sound collages in my mixes (in fact I structured my 1925 mix entirely around one) but was not ready for how deeply and immediately I would fall for it. I could say it's the way he frames the film with the audience / the orchestra / filming himself filming / his eye / stopping the action and showing the editing of the film we're watching / the intercuts of birth & death - but all of these I'm sure have been talked about a lot already, and are enough to make me admire the work. What I absolutely love about it though is the feel he has for editing at pace, the way the cuts build up and crash down like a symphony. So many shots feel so wildly ahead of their time too, every few minutes there's something I could swear I've seen referenced in 50s/60s/70s cinema.

Started watching The Unholy Three (1930), and think I will substitute this for All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) which will surely be a bit less shit.

This short can represent 90% of Hollywood films in 1930.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH7XlG9j0xs

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front_%281930_film%29_poster.jpg

All Quiet on the Western Front, Lewis Milestone, 1930

Apologies to ILX user J.Lu, whose vote got The Unholy Three to #434 in the Morbsies, I couldn't sit through it.
No votes for All Quiet on the Western front in Morbsies or Sight & Sound polls, but it's the top rated film of 1930 in a number of places, and I haven't seen it before.

Gave this one a spin.

It's certainly visually impressive for a sound feature from 1930. Obviously showy are those tracking shots following the boys as they run through the field, explosions around them, but often it's also just a matter of making the blocking and general visual information onscreen aesthetic and interesting enough that you don't mind the static camera. Lots of smart editing as well.

I've read a couple of Remarque novels but not this one, still feel I can say the film mostly does a good job of capturing his mix of cynicism and romanticism. I'd like to think the corniest moments from this read different in the novel but tbh Remarque wasn't above a cheap tear jerker moment or two.

A big problem is none of the lads we follow have much charisma, they all seem basically interchangeable and none of the actors exude much star power. The semi-comedic grizzled veterans are much better, and much closer to how we think of grunts now.

A scene featuring extensive dialogues in French, spoken by native speakers! Classic Hollywood was so much more cosmopolitan than modern Hollywood. Helps to have a couple world wars provide a torrent of talent from all over I guess.

I'll also admit that on a shallow level, I don't find modern warfare scenes exciting. My hippie parents never encouraged me to play with toy soldiers or watch military-related stuff. I did read fantasy though, so give me some orcs and a dragon or two and suddenly it's a different story. I can't get enough of those LOTR battles.

There's certainly a lot of cheese here, though obv allowances have to be made, a lot of the stuff that registers as total cliché wasn't so much so when this came out.

How crap must the recent version be? I don't think the current scene has much of a way with hard boiled gallow's humour, which I think is the best part of the story.

Just finished watching and yes! agreed with you on almost all of that. These early sound films are all so hokey, they haven't figured out how to do dialogue on screen, so you get these looooong two-shots of actors unconvincingly going through this stagey dialogue which also sounds muffled and hard to make out - honestly feels like film has stepped back a decade in terms of artisty. It also doesn't help that Lew Ayres (and the rest of the young cast to be fair) are clearly not up to the job of portraying the horrors of war.

The best thing here is definitely the battle scenes, which are as beautiful as they are terrifying. Some of those tracking shots are absolute works of art. Just a shame the majority of the film is so deeply average.

Dunno if I would extend this to early talkies as a whole - checking my letterboxd for 1930, this came out the same year as Lubitsch's "Monte Carlo" and the Marx Bros movie "Animal Crackers", both of which do fine on dialogue. Slightly more comparable to "All Quiet..." from this year is Hawk's "The Criminal Code", which has its fair share of corny moments but manages much better due to the star power of Walter Huston and Boris Karloff. The technical limitations you mention def play a part but I think it's also to do with the specific brand of oscarbait-y drama that this film is.

Well yes, I might have been a little hyperbolic there, but I think it holds up as a general rule for most of the 1928-1931 talkies I've seen. Even Animal Crackers and Monkey Business suffer from these problems, though both still great, the jump in quality when you get to Horse Feathers is huge (let's not even talk of The Cocoanuts). Haven't seen Monte Carlo or The Criminal Code, may take a look. The "Tomatos Another Day" video I posted upthread is a brilliant parody of early talkies, and sums all of this up really well.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/City_Lights_%281931_theatrical_poster_-_retouched%29.jpg

City Lights, Charles Chaplin, 1931

Morbsies #160
Sight & Sound critics #36
Sight & Sound directors #46

youtube link

afraid I have a bit of a challops on this one

so this was, what, fine? OK? a bigger budget version of the longer silent comedies from the late 20s, and I enjoyed watching it well enough, but that's kind of it. the cinematography was nothing special, the comedy scenes were neither funny nor spectacular (apart from the first one where he was sleeping on the statue) - the story with the rich drunk could have been developed a little. most importantly I'm afraid i found the central love story just kind of mawkish and basic, and the famous last scene just left me cold. think I have to conclude that I am Just Not Into Chaplin.

Think Keaton works better for a modern audience than Chaplin does, the latter often gets mawkish.

I don't like how transactional the romance feels. she loves him because he paid for the operation which restored her sight, but there's very little to show she really knows who he is. what if, having found out he's a penniless tramp and the money was stolen, she finds she isn't really into him? Kindness towards people you pity isn't romance, surely. of course this is entirely my reading and she may actually be really into him, but it was a surprise that I didn't feel completely on-board at the end.

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M, Fritz Lang, 1931

Morbsies #70
Sight & Sound Critics #36

youtube link, English subs

I have yet to meet the person who doesn't love or at least really, really like this movie. Prove me wrong, ILX!

Melancholia (von Trier, 2011)
The Earrings of Madame de...(Ophuls, 1953)

Finally got to watch it on MUBI. Just perfect. Silly people make it hard for themselves.

I was reminded this evening that I watched the von Trier a couple of months ago. It's kinda unique how Von Trier got into making really good films by the end of his career.

fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.) at 10:38 12 Jun 23

I have yet to meet the person who doesn't love or at least really, really like this movie. Prove me wrong, ILX!

https://i.imgur.com/mrQz5lH.jpg

Shanghai Express, Josef von Sternberg, 1932
Morbsies #229

Flaming, goddamn masterpiece this one is

it's here because it's somebody's number one pick.

I thought I had it downloaded, but I didn't, so just resolved that.

it isn't on youtube

The only one of the six-film run from Morocco to The Devil is a Woman that has never been in the “first among equals” position in my personal rankings is Devil, but lately I am settling on Shanghai being the true best, tho Empress outdoes it in sheer gall

this was an odd one, for the first half an hour or more I wasn't getting into it at all, despite those amazing shots of the train going through the market, I think maybe the lack of restoration on the copy I was watching hobbled it somewhat.

then suddenly it all clicked, and I was gripped. Marlene Dietrich's performance is straight up astounding, and the way close ups are used! it just feels like a breakthrough, very much pre-code in the way the characters are free to be themselves, even Chang is well-drawn and in no way a cartoon villain. (Did find it bizarre that this warlord and his army in Northern China were speaking in Cantonese throughout, but makes sense in terms of actors available in Hollywood in 1932)

Oh and quite chuffed to have picked up that it was a loose adaptation of Boule de Suif, I was a bit obsessed with Maupassant after doing some of his short stories for GSCE English literature, and don't see him referenced nearly enough.

Going to try to find a restoration for a better re-watch.

think I'm too cishet to fully "get" Sternberg/Dietrich :(

not really sure what you mean, I don't really like camp or kitsch and I didn't see any of that here

Yeah I'm not sure what is meant by that.

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The Earrings of Madame de...(Ophuls, 1953)

Sorry lol already posted about that.

Yeah, only parts of Scarlet Empress and maybe Devil is a Woman are, to my eyes, tipped over into genuine camp

I dunno about camp, but I bought that Criterion box and watched up to and including Blonde Venus - there seemed to be a big thematic preoccupation with obsessive passion arising from often forbidden or impossible love, and a focus on female pain (that last shot of Morocco!), portrayed with solidarity as opposed to sadism. Is it controversial to say those are traditionally queer themes? Anyway while I admired the visuals and emotional commitment of those films there was something about them that kept me at arm's length regarding them, thus my initial post, which was meant half-jokingly and self-deprecatingly if that didn't come through.

Is it controversial to say those are traditionally queer themes?

No, but also, y'know, feminist themes as well

I like Sternberg (aka the fake "von") but I'd rather discuss Ophuls.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Kingkongposter.jpg

King Kong, Merian C Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933

Morbsies #546

Saw someone in a discord the other day arguing that sfx age but good storytelling does not so we still like King Kong because it's a great story, despite the aged effects. Wrong! Special effects can have aesthetic value that goes beyond their state-of-the-artness and the reason we like King Kong is because big munhkee looks great, despite the story being mostly bullshit.

"Twas beauty killed the beast" - nah dude pretty sure it was you taking this poor animal out of his habitat and flogging him as a circus attraction that's to blame here.

Not sure if I've seen this in full before, if I have then it was in the early 90s and I wasn't paying attention.

This is not on youtube in full, there is a hacked down one-hour version but I won't bother sharing it.

It's on iplayer for brits and those with a VPN.

they used to show an extract from this on the Granada Studios Tour (before the MotionMaster "experience", which was a bit disappointing in comparison), it was definitely the best part after getting to walk round the real Coronation Street

Finally watched this last night, all very familiar, but interesting to see it in the context of the year. The editing & direction for the non-monster scenes is interesting after watching Shanghai Express, there is still this slight disconnect between lines of dialogue, but it's at least getting there. Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong were fine, other actors were pretty bad, including Bruce Cabot, who seems to have made the best career out of it anyway.

Agreed that Kong himself looks magnificent, just really ground-breaking animation, really feels like a living, breathing character, this is the main (if not only) reason the film works so well. The dinosaurs on the other hand were a bit shit.

So yeah, not by any means the best film I've ever seen, and the racism is inexcusable, but I can understand why this would be someone's favourite.