Silent Sundays: City Girl (1930)

“What’s the matter with you hicks? Don’t you people ever fall in love out here?”

            In my recent write up of No Man of Her Own starring Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, I wrote how usually in films and books a small town girl dreams of being taken away by a big city man back to the city he came from. The 1930 silent film City Girl takes that plot and wonderfully reverses it.

            Lem Tustine (Charles Farrell) is a farm boy from Minnesota heading to Chicago. He is traveling into the city to sell the wheat from his father’s farm. His father is hoping to make $29,000 selling his wheat at $1.15 a bushel. He is depending on Lem to make the sale so he can make even on his farm.

            In the city Kate (Mary Duncan) is a waitress in a very busy restaurant. She dreams of getting out of the crazy city and living a quiet life in the idyllic country. Lem walks into the restaurant. Kate notices him praying before he begins to eat his food. She goes over to him and they talk. Kate notices he is from Minnesota and asks what it is like living on a farm. Compared to the other men around her Lem is a nice guy and Kate likes that.

            When Lem leaves the restaurant he reads in the paper that wheat prices are falling because the price of corn is going up. He decides he cannot wait to sell the wheat and sells it at three cents lower than his father wanted.

            His parents are worried about him because he has not called or written to them. The scene cuts to Lem’s punch card for the restaurant. He has been there quite often to see Kate. He tells Kate that he has to go back home. At the station Lem waits for Kate to come. While he is waiting he goes up to a machine that claims it can reveal his fortune based on his weight. The fortune he receives reveals that if he marries the one he is thinking about all will be right. Kate comes to the station. She sees the fortune card. Before the next train comes Lem and Kate get married. Lem sends a cable home to his parents that he has married a waitress and that they will like her. The father thinks Kate was after his son for some reason and roped him into marriage.

            Lem and Kate are very much in love with each other. They run happily through the wheat on the farm. Their happiness is short lived though. Lem’s mother and little sister like Kate but the father does not even acknowledge her. He is a miserable man who immediately becomes furious with his daughter for playing with stalks of wheat and demands his son go to change so they can start harvesting the grain. The father wants to speak to Kate alone. He asks her what she expects from his son. Kate replies that all she expects is Lem’s love. The father lets her know he thinks she is just after some money. Kate becomes furious with the father for what he has just said. When she talks back the father grabs her and lets her know he is the master of the house and Lem will do what he tells him to do. In self defense Kate bites the father’s hand. Lem comes downstairs. Kate informs her husband about what had just occurred. Lem goes to fight with his father but the mother stops him. Lem looks at his wife and says he cannot hit his father. Kate is more upset that her husband does not stand up for her than what his father said to her.

            Kate just winds up being a waitress all over again at the farm. She serves all the farm hands working for the father. At breakfast Kate accidentally drops Lem’s fortune. One of the guys, Mac, picks it up and keeps it. Mac starts going up to Kate and bothering her about being from the city and living on a farm. Lem goes to Kate that night and says they cannot go on the way they have been quarreling. Kate gets angry, Lem goes to leave and Mac is there outside the door. Kate is not fully dressed. Mac just stares at her and Lem does nothing. The workers make fun of Lem because he is sleeping with them in the loft and not with his wife.

            The father reads about a hail storm coming in from Canada. He wakes the men up and tells them he will pay them overtime if they work through the night to bring in the wheat. Kate hears the commotion above her and gets up. She sees the paper with the storm headline. As she reads it Mac comes to the house because he cut his hand. He tries to flirt with her and tempt her to leave Lem and come away with him once the harvest is done. Kate is having none of what Mac is saying. The father comes in and thinks Kate is in the wrong. He tells Lem about what his wife is supposedly really like. Kate tries to go after the father but Mac pulls her back. To get back at the father Mac has the guys walk away from the job that night.

            Lem comes back to the house. His father told him everything. Kate tells him that it takes more than a license and a wedding ring to keep a wife. Lem only calmly responds that their marriage must have been a mistake. Kate is in her room. Mac barges in. He lets her know that if she does not come with him that he will let the father know she put him up to spoiling the crop. She does not want to cause that kind of trouble so she leaves a note for Lem.

            As the men are leaving and taking their belongings from the loft, one of the men finds the fortune hidden under Mac’s pillow and throws it to Lem. Lem has an epiphany and runs downstairs looking for Kate. She is not there. He finds her note. He reads that she is leaving because he believes the lie his father created. Lem is now furious. He goes after Mac. They have a fight on a wagon and the horses take off. The father had warned the workers that if they were to leave the farm he would shoot them. Lem knocks Mac out. The father just sees a man on the wagon and shoots. Fortunately he misses. The close call upsets the father. He apologizes to his son for what he caused between him and Kate. Lem lets his father know that he has caused so much hell between him and his wife and that after he apologizes to her they are leaving to start their own lives. Lem finds Kate and the father apologizes. He wants his son and his wife to stay and live with the family.

            City Girl was a very good film and it has so much to do with F.W. Murnau’s direction. Murnau directed the absolutely incredible Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans two years prior to this. I love Sunrise because of the story and also the direction. Murnau was a great director. I like him because his films have that touch of German Expressionism. The scenes are bare yet have abstract artistic feel to them. The sets do not take away from  the actors they force you to just pay attention to them. Charles Farrell and Mary Duncan were wonderful together. I have yet to see Farrell in a bad role I adore him. If someone were to ask me what my ideal man is I would just pull out a picture of Farrell! I have never seen Duncan in anything before this. I would like to see her in other films. The story was enjoyable because it was different. It was nice to see the guy who comes to the city was a country boy and it was the city girl who wanted to move to the country and not the other way around. City Girl is a beautiful silent film that I highly suggest seeing. As of this writing it is available to view on YouTube in full.

 

Silent Sundays: Street Angel (1928)

“Everywhere… in every town in every street… we pass unknowing human souls made great by love and diversity.”

            There are a few actors and actresses from Old Hollywood that made the same types of films over and over again. Sometimes I do not mind because I love the actors or actresses in them that I am willing to overlook the overused plot. In the few silent films I have seen starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell they have the same plot: a down and out girl meets a man who gives her a good life but she has to overcome an old demon to finally and fully be with him. And so goes the plot of the pair’s film Street Angel from 1928.

            Angela (Gaynor) lives with her mother in Naples, Italy. Her mother is dying from a fever and needs medicine to bring it down. Angela and her mother are poor and cannot afford the medicine. Looking out her window Angela sees a man negotiating with a prostitute. Angela gets the idea to try to get money like the prostitute she is so desperate. Out on the street no one notices Angela. One man just eats his food and ignores her. She comes to a food stand and tries to steal someone’s money. Angela gets caught and brought to the police. The person tells the police officer that Angela stole while soliciting and she gets sentenced to a workhouse for a year. Angela manages to runaway home but her mother has died. The police are after her. She manages to run away into town where a circus is performing in the streets. The circus people help her hide from the police by sticking her in their broken drum.

            Angela is now part of the circus. A fortune teller predicts to Angela that love will come to her soon. Angela laughs the prediction off she does not want to be in love at all. A painter named Gino (Farrell) down the road from their circus is taking all their audience away. Angela goes to tell him to leave and his goat butts her and rips her dress. She is furious with Gino but he stays calm and leads the crowd to the circus. The fortune teller says to Angela that her love is there Gino the painter is her lover. To be close to Angela Gino joins the show. He tells her he wants to be near her and to paint her. Gino paints Angela but she is hard to paint because she hides her soul behind a mask.

            At a show Angela is performing on stilts. She sees Gino and he whistles. As she whistles back she sees two policemen come over. Angela panics with nervousness and loses her balance and falls breaking her ankle. Gino wants to take her away. He wants to take her Naples. Even though Naples is where she got into trouble Angela goes back to the town with Gino.

            In Naples they are living in a studio where Gino paints. They barely have enough money to live and cannot pay the rent. One day Gino sells a painting and instead of going out to get food he buys a flower. What little money they have Angela takes and goes out herself to get food. A police officer recognizes Angela and follows her to the apartment. He tells another officer he should remember Angela’s face and that it will come to him in time. With Gino back inside the apartment Angela watches a group singing outside. She also sees a prostitute get arrested and she becomes scared. She tells Gino she feels bad for the woman. Gino tells her not to worry about those kinds of people they only have themselves to blame.

            Gino eventually gets a commission to paint a mural in an opera house. He comes home with an arm load of food as well as a ring. He asks Angela to marry him. Just at that moment the police officer knocks on the door. Angela answers it. He has come to take her away. He wants to take her away right then and there but she pleads with him to let her say goodbye so Gino’s heart will not be broken leaving him unable to paint. The officer allows her one hour to say goodbye.

            Gino goes on and on about how happy he is and how happy their life will be together. Every mention of their future happiness tortures Angela. Finally Angela makes Gino go to bed by telling him the sooner he goes to bed the sooner tomorrow comes and the sooner they will be married. When Gino is in his room Angela leaves with the police officer. The following morning Gino cannot find Angela. He goes outside looking for her. A prostitute named Lissette tries to comfort him but he does not pay attention to her advances. Lissette lets Gino know that Angela is no better than she is.

            In the workhouse Angela stays happy believing that Gino is doing great things. In reality Gino’s heart is broken and is therefore not in making the mural. His fired from his job by the men who hired him. They tell him they have gotten another painter. After a few months Lissette is put in the same cell as Angela and laughs at her.

            When Angela is released she goes to the opera house to see Gino’s mural. She sees another artist’s signature in the corner. She is surprised and sad. Lissette has also been released and lets Gino know about Angela. Angela goes back to the apartment. She finds that Gino has gone away. Gino has decided to paint women with black souls and at Lissette’s suggestion he goes down by the wharves. Angela is down there. They wind up finding each other. Gino is furious with Angela and goes after her. She runs into a chapel. Gino backs Angela into the altar. He realizes where they are and he looks up to see his painting of Angela above the altar. He lets go of her. Angela calmly tells Gino that she is still like the painting he just has to look into her eyes.

            Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell are wonderful together. I like how their characters not only in this film but their others I have seen are nice and innocent but there is a toughness in both of them. Gaynor was adorable in the scene at the beginning when she first meets Farrell. I was laughing at how this small person was packing so much attitude and yelling at this big man. Gaynor and Farrell need to be recognized more as one of the best screen couples they were perfect.

            The more I see of Frank Borzage’s films the more I like him. There is always happiness and light and hope in his dramas. His direction is great especially in the opening scene. The opening scene pans the circus that is walking through the town. The camera comes to the drum and we that it was broken but someone being pushed into it. At first I was like why is this important to the story then you see later that the broken drum is what allowed Angela to escape the police.

            Street Angel is a great silent film. As I mentioned at the beginning the story and the characters in this are pretty much the same as the characters and stories that Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell had made before. But the acting and the direction are so good I am more than willing to overlook this oft used plot. Street Angel is definitely worth seeing. It is available to view in full on Youtube.