#Maurice Elvey

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The Late Edwina Black, dir. Maurice Elvey (1951)

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Cartel película "Luna de miel agitada" (Is your honeymoon really necessary?) 1953, de Maurice Elvey.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 5

Pordenone changes a person. I don’t just mean in the way that my bloodstream is now 80% espresso. It changes your aspirations. My dream now is to live in an apartment designed by Sonia Delaunay, watching Peter Elfelt’s dance films (they are playing before several of the screenings) all day. For loungewear, I would choose the louche shawl-collared robe sported by Jaque Catelain in Le Vertige, and…

[schlock-luster-video]

On May 21, 1922, The Devil's Foot debuted in New York City.

[naldibutnice]

Folly of Vanity (1925) Dir. Henry Otto, Maurice Elvey

[technicolorfamiliar]

The Wandering Jew Dir. Maurice Elvey 1933

[Note: This film along with 1934's Jew Süss set Conrad Veidt apart from many of his German film actor peers. While he was not Jewish, many of his close friends and colleagues -- not to mention his wife Lily -- were, and he was committed to portraying these deeply complicated and sympathetic characters with as much care and empathy as humanly possible. You can see it in his performance. These films are what got his work banned in Germany in the '30s and painted a huge target on his back. Later he would double down and donate most of his acting paychecks to the British war effort, and arrange to help friends and family who were in danger of violence in Germany safely get out of the country. Maybe it's not necessary to mention all this, but just in case I want to make it abundantly clear where he stood.]

When I first saw this movie about a year ago, I couldn't get into it. It didn't help that I only watched the shorter version on Youtube. The poor quality of the picture and audio, plus a mostly terrible cast, made it a tough watch. But I wanted to give The Wandering Jew a second chance, if only for the Conrad Veidt of it all, and I'm glad I did. So over the course of the first weekend in November, I watched both versions: the shorter, much-censored version and the digitally restored version with over 20 minutes of additional material.

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After watching the two existing/available copies of the film, I definitely think both are necessary if you want to get the whole picture.

Unfortunately, the shorter version is in semi-rough shape and the audio is pretty garbled, but the edits are smoother which helps individual scenes and lines make more sense. There's more air in this version; the director clearly wanted to give the actors, especially Connie, room to breathe, and it not only helps the pacing but the atmosphere of the film as well. However, the shorter version is missing several important and interesting moments due to some heavy-handed censorship.

The longer version has a cleaner picture and slightly clearer audio, but some of the dialogue gets randomly chopped up and there are abrupt cuts that make the film jumpy and take away from the languid atmospheric feeling that in retrospect I think actually makes the film work. Or at least tries to make it work. And, being the longer version, there are key scenes that made it past the censors: all the scenes related to leprosy; the aggressive anti-semitic stuff at the Renaissance Faire crusaders camp; and a great line Matathias delivers in an added scene in Act IV, "All men are Christians. All men are Jews. The faith is only a mask, it does not make a man what he is." MIC DROP, AIR HORNS. There's also a wild scene where Renaissance Faire crusade era Matathias cackles at Anne Grey's crucifix for well over a minute. But for whatever reason, the longer version is missing random things too, like the forward, which isn't entirely necessary but if you're presenting your film in a kind of storybook style, a written forward makes sense.

And there is an illustrative, storybook quality to the film. The costumes and sets feel like something out of a N.C. Wyeth painting or even vaguely Pre-Raphaelite at times. It's heavily romanticized and I think this threw me the first time I saw the movie. But it makes sense, the story is a parable after all. And yet, while you're going in that direction, why not go bigger, why not compose each shot with even more care? I know they shot this movie in 1933, but all I want is some vision and intentionality in the cinematography and staging, dang it! I do like the two moments when Jesus is speaking and his dialogue is only shown as text. We don't see or hear him, but everyone else in the shot is frozen and the sound drops out. Time seems to stop for a few seconds. But nothing else in the film really manages to match those moments stylistically.

I feel like a broken record saying this, but Connie's performance once again carries the entire film. Pretty much everyone else is just so bad, the women in particular. Seriously, sound was being used in films at this point for over 5 years -- so why is everyone in this movie doing this style of acting that is maybe only acceptable for huge stage productions? Three of the four lead actresses are legitimately the worst. The only exception is Peggy Ashcroft in Act IV who isn't great, but at least she's a better scene partner. That could also have something to do with the first three women being annoyingly pious, and Act IV's Olalla is just a more interesting and better-written character. In Act I, the woman playing Judith barely engages with Connie. Sure, she's dying, but she's dying like she's on stage in some 2000+ seat West End theater. And the wife in Act III is literally giving Connie nothing to work with, nothing! There's so little believable intimacy in these women's performances that it really makes the movie suffer as a whole. Maybe that's harsh, maybe that's what the director wanted, but I think about Connie's other British films from this time and their lead actresses -- Madeleine Carroll, Jill Esmond, etc -- weren't nearly as painfully awful.

Though this is Connie's fifth English language film, it almost seems like he's still getting his sea legs as an actor in the British studio system. Maybe with the exception of I Was A Spy, his previous English films were all roles for a character actor, and so Matathias was the first opportunity he had to really show off his range. I have no idea if they shot in sequence -- unlikely -- but from Act I to Act IV he seems like he's progressively carving out a foundation for his future work in British films. After The Wandering Jew, he was off and running with a great series of meaty and fascinating roles. Josef Süss, The Stranger, even Convict 83 have some roots in the performance he gives in this movie.

Matathias is a role an actor would consider one of their crowning achievements but would probably never want to play again. He's incredibly demanding and challenging, very likely made even more so by Connie's uniquely holistic and intense method of preparing for a role. Even though there are moments when his performance comes across as a little stilted, that could be more due to him trying to match the tone of the film itself, especially early in the narrative when he's a little flat -- he has to start like that so he has somewhere to go with the character. There's zero humor or levity in the script so Connie had to humanize Matathias through his journey across time by incorporating moments of deep compassion and the pain of loss, shame and regret, and ultimately complete surrender.

No other actor would believe the story and its message enough to pull off the heart-wrenching performance Connie gives in this film.

Act I Matathias is a difficult guy in a fabulous robe (the sleeves!). He's clearly selfish, but not really cruel. After all, he and everyone else know that the woman he loves does not belong to him and were she to go home to her husband, she would most definitely not survive whatever violence awaited her there. And Matathias does not allow harm to come to her, at least not in that way. His selfishness means he'll keep her at any cost, meaning he refuses to see how ill she really is. But he's not a bad guy, he's just a regular person in a very difficult situation which makes his impulse to bitterly lash out at Christ understandable. But there is some part of him that does believe because it doesn’t take much for him to get on board with the whole curse thing. With very little convincing, he appears to be resigned to his fate. But that's fine, we have to move the story along, after all.

The cruelty comes out more in Act II. The Unknown Knight just wants to fight, feast, and get his freak on. Connie gets to be pretty aggressively sexual (good god, the way he grabs that woman) and blasphemous in this section ("Blasphamy, blaspha-you, blaspha-everybody in the room!"), especially for the early 1930s, so no wonder it's one of the shorter acts. His haircut might be hideous, but his veiny forearms are, uh, real nice (as are all the long shots of his exposed throat and sternum throughout the film). Confession time: it took me three viewings to get the whole leprosy thing. Judith has it in Act I, so does the guy who wanders into the camp in Act II, and the sick boy in Act IV as well. The son in Act III is bit by a snake, but it could be something to do with snakes = the devil or something, idk. The appearance of sickness/leprosy always signals a lesson Matathias has to learn, or signals the ending or beginning of something important. So his reaction to Renaissance Faire Babe's rejection isn't really about her at all, which is revealed in the longer edit of the film. He hears the leper's bell and mutters, "Unclean…," before letting Ren Faire Babe discover her murdered husband. Matathias may not have killed the man, but he continues to leave behind a trail of death and destruction as some kind of act of defiance against the curse of wandering the earth until such undetermined time as Jesus will appear to him again. By making his life dangerous, he flaunts how he is able to cheat death, but when he hears the leper's bell and is reminded of the events that set him on this path, he realizes he can't go on like this, that there has to be something else, something more. I like how the shot of Connie at the end of this section echoes the end of Act I, suggesting he still has a long journey ahead before he can hope to reach own end.

So when we next see him, he's a merchant and family man living in Palermo named Matteo. Instead of causing mayhem everywhere he goes, he's trying to build something, maybe even a legacy. This is my least favorite part of the movie, but the way Connie shows Matteo's heartbreak, first at the death of his son and later at losing his wife to the Church, is something else. When Gianella tells him she's leaving, he goes through each of the stages of grief in like two minutes and we can see it happen in his face and in his body language. The way his knees buckle and he slowly crumples to the floor, ugh. Also, shout out to the attention to detail in this film. If you look closely at the beginning of Act III, Connie's fingernails look ink-stained like he's been writing and handling documents all day. Not to mention the fact that he wears the same onyx ring throughout, and the same necklace in Acts I and IV. I also thought it was interesting how the music cut out when Mateo is handed his dying child, it immediately reinforces the gravity of the scene. This movie did not come to play.

Act IV, set in Seville, is by far the best part of the whole film. And I'm not just saying that because Care-giver!Connie is doing things to my brain. How sweet and gentle he is with his patients, the way he keeps looking up to check in with Olalla when he's treating her broken ankle, the way he murmurs and coos little things under his breath like "Come on, let's try a little walk…" and "Ohh, what's the matter, my boy" that sound totally improvised. That's the good stuff, right there. And when Olalla says, "There's magic in your hands." I BET. This whole fourth act is just Connie kicking in the door of 1930s British cinema. The scene in front of the Inquisition alone is the most powerful and important part of the movie. Connie manages to fill Matteo with such humanity and empathy by the end of the film that it's practically radiating out of him. In an otherwise one-dimensional film he brings real, complicated, fascinating, tragic and beautiful life to this legendary figure. It's astonishing.

Is it a good movie? Not really. Is it an important movie made at a critical time in history, as a statement against anti-semitism on behalf of the filmmakers and cast? Of course it is. Despite the mild annoyance of needing to watch two different versions of the same film, and needing some patience with the tone and supporting cast's performances -- it definitely helps to be in the right mood going in -- it really is essential viewing in the Conrad Veidt canon, especially if you're interested in his work as an actor. I mean, just watch this movie and bask in the glow of his radiant, spiritual performance. Bask in it!

In the end, I'm glad I gave 1933's The Wandering Jew a second chance.

P.S. Connie looks unbelievably stunning in this movie. His costumes, wigs and facial hair are all basically perfect. The silhouettes and lines of his robes, the details in his jewelry and accessories. He really knew how to wear the clothes so they wouldn't wear him. He must have been a costume designer's dream. Or nightmare (he can be your angle;;… or yuor devil).

[citizenscreen]

Photographer and costume designer Cecil Beaton shows Lilli Palmer some of his latest designs for costumes for her upcoming film BEWARE OF PITY (1946), directed by Maurice Elvey.

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The Incredibly Futuristic Tatra T77 From 1934

The Tatra T77 is a relatively unknown vintage car today however its influence on automotive aerodynamics was gargantuan. It was the first production automobile with a streamlined, wind tunnel-tested body and it was so futuristic looking that science fiction director Maurice Elvey used one in his 1935 film Transatlantic Tunnel. So good was the aerodynamic design of the T77’s body that its…

[alightinthelantern]

Books read and movies watched in 2022, and whether I’d recommend them:

Books:

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton): Yes

The Devil and the Dark Water (Stuart Turton): No

At Bertram’s Hotel (Agatha Christie): Yes

A Murder is Announced (Agatha Christie): Eh

The Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie): Yes

Destination Unknown (Agatha Christie): Eh

A Pocket Full of Rye (Agatha Christie): Eh

Pavilion of Women (Pearl S. Buck): Yes

O Caledonia (Elspeth Barker): Yes

The Mask Carver’s Son (Alyson Richman): Yes

(Poetry) Ordinary Words (Ruth Stone): Yes

(Poetry) Thirst (Mary Oliver): No

(Poetry) Howl & Other Poems (Allen Ginsberg): Yes

Movies:

Lady Bird (2017, Greta Gerwig): Yes

High Treason (1929, Maurice Elvey): Eh

Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean): Yes

Les Visiteurs du Soir/The Devil’s Envoys (1942, Marcel Carné): Yes

Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz): No

Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock): Yes

North By Northwest (rewatch) [1959, Alfred Hitchcock]: Yes

Once Upon A Time in America (1984, Sergio Leone): NO

A River Runs Through It (1992, Robert Redford): No

The African Queen (1951, John Huston): No

Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujirō Ozu): Eh

Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock): No

I Married a Witch (1942, René Clair): No

La Belle et la Bete (1946, Jean Cocteau): No

Medea (1969, Pier Paolo Pasolini): No

The Letter (1940, William Wyler): Yes

Among the Living (1941, Stuart Heisler): No

Johnny Come Lately (1943, William K. Howard): Yes

Thunderbolt (1929, Josef von Sternberg): Yes

The Plane that Disappeared (1961, Reginald Le Borg): No

Larceny (1948, George Sherman): Yes

The Woman in the Window (1944, Fritz Lang): No

The Spiral Staircase (1946, Robert Siodmak): No

High Sierra (1941, Raoul Walsh): No

Raising Arizona (1987, Joel Coen): YES

Close-Up (1990, Abbas Kiarostami): Yes

Night Train to Munich (1940, Carol Reed): Yes

Mister 880 (1950, Edmund Goulding): Yes

Encanto (2021, Jared Bush & Byron Howard): Yes

[cinearchitecture]

High Treason (Maurice Elvey, 1929) | Art direction by Andrew Mazzei

L'architecture dans le cinéma muet at Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé

[gatutor]

Diana Dors-David Tomlinson "Luna de miel agitada" (If your honeymoon really necessary?) 1953, de Maurice Elvey.

[silentlondon]

Silent Sherlock at the London Film Festival: the game is afoot

Stand outside Alexandra Palace on a clear evening with a full moon, as I did last night, and you can take in the whole city. London may be as silent as it gets from this perspective, but the landscape is loud in its own way. The glittering towers that dominate the skyline were all built in the last 50, probably 20 years. The red lights dotted in among them are all cranes, standing by to change…

[amandi-mga2024mi5014]

Research on Marie Belloc-Lowndes's novel, The Lodger (1913)

Marie Belloc-Lowndes is an English author.

The novel is a short story that was published in 1913 on the daily telegraph.

The story is based on the Whitechapel murders of 1888, committed by Jack the Ripper. While some of the traits of the novel's killer have been attributed to Forbes Winslow's findings about the original murderer, Lowndes was also influenced by the Lambeth Poisoner's physical appearance.

The book tells the story of a husband and wife who own a lodging. They let in Mr. Sleuth, who is their only guest in a long time and therefore their only chance to salvage their business. As new murders happen in the surrounding neighborhoods, the couple slowly begin to suspect their lodger might be the one responsible for them.

The novel has been considered an example of how to write a psychological suspense due to its focus on the effects the serial killer has on the main cast of characters, instead of on the murders themselves.

The Lodger is considered to be both the first and the best fictional adaptation of the Jack the Ripper story. The book was also heavily praised by critics for the sense of atmosphere it created.

The first adaptation of Belloc Lowndes novel was a silent movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The movie was titled 'The Lodger: a Story of the London Fog.'

In 1932, another movie based off the novel was made titled Phantom Fiend, and was directed by Maurice Elvey.  In 1944 another movie was released, this time by John Brahm. In 1953, yet another adaptation was made called 'Man in the Attic."

The novel was also adapted to television and radio.

Marie Belloc-Lowndes's writing can be considered feminist in a way. In the novel she had the main female character be the one person capable of solving the mystery behind the murders that eluded thousands of officers and detectives. For her, the novel gives agency to women in a situation of violence and misogyny. Although the reader sees the perspective of several characters throughout the story, the one that is most prevalent is Mrs. Bunting's, who is also the first of them to realise that the new lodger might be the killer that the Scotland Yard is after. Mrs. Bunting is also treated as an agent in the novel, instead of being an object or victim. I wanted to include this in my own narrative by focusing my story on the female ant character.

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Sons Of The Silent Age. Part One.

1) Ivy Duke (1896-1937) starred in the 1920 hit film The Lure of Crooning Water. She drank herself to death after her career took a downward turn.

2) Sybil Rhoda (1902-2005) starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Downhill opposite Ivor Novello. Interviewed at age 101, she said "I'm amazed I've existed so long. I'm surprised about the whole thing. I can't get over it,"

3) Maurice Elvey (1887-1967) was one of the most prolific film directors in history, making nearly 200 films between 1913 and 1957. During the silent film era, he directed as many as 20 films per year. His adaptations of Sherlock Holmes were praised by Arthur Conan Doyle. In order to film the sinking of a troop ship, Elvey built a water tank in his own back garden, spending two months to fill it up via his kitchen tap.

4) Victoria Hopper (1909–2007) was a British actress popular during the 1930s. From 1934 until 1939, she was married to film director Basil Dean, who grew interested in Hooper due to her resemblance to his former lover Meggie Albanesi (1899-1923). Dean cast her in several major films, which did badly at the box office.

5) Chrissie White (1895-1989) appeared in more than 180 films. White married director Henry Edwards, and they became one of the most newsworthy celebrity couples of the 1920s. They had two children, and remained together until his death in 1952.

6) Cora Goffin (1902-2004) was an actress on the London stage. She acted in two silent films, during which she leapt from a moving horse and threw herself beneath a moving car in Paris. There were reports that she had her legs insured for £20,000 with Lloyd's of London. Goffin married theatre manager Emile Littler in 1933. She became Lady Littler when Emile was knighted in 1974

[naldibutnice]

Billie Dove in Folly of Vanity (1925) Dir. Henry Otto, Maurice Elvey

[technicolorfamiliar]

Technicolor Familiar Watches Too Many Conrad Veidt Movies Part 4 of ?

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3

The Wandering Jew, 1933 Dir. Maurice Elvey ⭐2.5/5 Watched Nov 30, Youtube Maybe it was my mood, maybe my expectations were too high, maybe it was the poor quality of the version I watched on Youtube, but I kept waiting for this movie to get better. It sort of did, eventually. The whole last act, especially Mathathias' powerful monologue during the courtroom/Inquisition scene, almost made up for the rest. I get what they were going for style-wise, but I think this kind of epic, mythical story could have benefited from some more grounded writing and performances. Either that or it should have gone harder in the other direction to be more impressionistic, more dreamlike. In the end I feel like it didn’t know what kind of movie it wanted to be.

Casablanca, 1942 Dir. Michael Curtiz ⭐4/5 Watched Dec 2, Max The balls they had to make this movie in 1942. I think the first time I saw this a few years ago I must not have been paying very close attention. This time around I definitely appreciated the whole thing a lot more. The cast, the production design, the lighting, the atmosphere are all pitch perfect. Why not 5 stars then? Maybe because I'm greedy and I want more. This is the only film on this list so far that I wouldn't mind being longer. I want to get to know all the supporting and side characters more. It's nice to see Connie with an ensemble of other excellent actors for a change. It really let him off the hook to be purely unlikeable and not have to carry the movie. As Strasser, he's ice cold with only the slightest trace of camp (which was much more pronounced in the previous year's All Through the Night). He played a lot of villains and unfortunately was typecast in these kinds of roles late in his career, but I think he finally got to showcase here his fervent contempt for the Nazis by playing this utterly icky guy with zero redeeming qualities. He understood the assignment.

Whistling in the Dark, 1941 Dir. S. Sylvan Simon ⭐2.75/5 Watched Dec 3, Archive.org This makes All Through the Night look like auteur cinema. But once again Connie sells it by being totally deadpan amongst all the slapstick tomfoolery. Love to see him with a bunch of underlings, especially at the beginning as they hatch their plan. It's clear he's having a lot of fun with his line delivery. Kind of wish there was more cult/con artist stuff for him to do, but the premise is enjoyable in an absurd way. I love the two ladies, Ann Rutherford and Virginia Grey; they sort of make up for how obnoxious Red Skeleton is. Most of the bits go on far too long though. My main take away from this movie is that I'll now be leaving every future interaction saying, "We part in radiant contentment."

Der Gang in die Nacht, 1921 Dir. F. W. Murnau ⭐2.5/5 Watched Dec 10, Archive.org It's been a minute since my last foray into silent Connie, so I wanted to watch Kreuzzug des Weibes which recently surfaced on Youtube only to have since mysteriously disappeared. Figures. So I watched this instead. A lot of these movies, silents and talkies, have rushed and disjointed endings and this is no exception. The restoration of the version on Archive is amazing, the quality is just beautiful. But I had a hard time connecting with this one, and I don't think it has anything to do with the expressionistic performances. I feel like they were maybe trying to say something about science vs art, while also throwing in messages about infidelity, etc. I don't know what I wanted, but this wasn't it. But I can't complain too much, Connie's romantic anguish is a thrill to watch. When he wakes up after recovering from surgery, his intensity is something else. It's crazy how palpable his performances are across so many years.

King of the Damned, 1935 Dir. Walter Forde ⭐3.5/5 Watched Dec 11, Archive.org This is only 3.5 because of the absolutely god awful quality of the version that's on Archive -- it's like someone did 18 shots of jäger, picked up a camcorder and recorded a bootleg of the movie on tv. It made me kind of seasick. Probably the worst copy of any of these movies I've seen so far. And that really sucks because I actually really liked the movie. It's surprisingly progressive in a way I wasn't expecting. The conversation it's trying to start about prison reform is still really relevant. And we get wet, sweaty, grimy shirtless Connie gently caressing other men in the jungle. I wish we had learned his name at the end, once the revolt was successful and the prisoners had control of the island, it would have been really satisfying for him to reclaim his identity again. But I also completely understand that it needed to not be about him, that he was committed to serving and advocating for the collective. Ugh, love it.