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: Faust (1926)

“The portals of darkness are open and the shadows of the dead hunt over the earth…”

            The battle between Good and Evil have existed since time began. It is a subject that all the great stories have told and that all movies explore. I think it is amazing to see how people can be so tempted by evil. I think we all want to believe we could never be tempted to do terrible things to others. But in the end when we want something to happen so desperately we turn to temptation. Humans are impulsive and we want results and things to happen right away no matter the cost. We cannot wait for what may happen weeks or months from now. We see the concrete not the abstract.

            In the usual story of Good vs. Evil a good person is tempted by Satan or they make a deal with Satan in order to help someone. In the story of Faust a man partners with Satan’s helper at first to help the people of his town who are dying from the plague. Then he is given youth and falls prey to youth’s temptations and impulses.

            The story opens with Satan sending down Plague, Death, and Famine to a small town in Italy. An angel appears before the town telling Satan to go back to where he came from. Satan asks the angel if he knows a man named Faust who lives in the town and who preaches good but practices evil. Satan makes a wager that he can destroy Faust’s soul, that no man can resist temptation.

            Satan sends the plague down upon the town. Half the town is dead within days. To find a cure Faust prays to God. The villagers live in constant fear of death. The people turn to Faust for help but he cannot help them as they need to be helped. He goes into a room full of old dusty crumbling books. In frustration he throws some books onto a fire. One book opens to a page that gives instructions on how to stop death. In order to do so a person must summon a dark one. Faust follows the instructions on the books and summons a person called Mephisto. When he returns to his room Mephisto is there waiting for him. Mephisto holds up a contract for Faust to sign that says that he renounces God and that he wants all the power in the world. Faust is disgusted with what Mephisto has put before him. All he wants is one day where he can have the power to heal the people of his town. Mephisto has Faust sign the contract that only lasts for a day so he can heal the sick and hungry. Mephisto also tells Faust that he will be his own personal servant and grant what whatever wish he wants done. Faust heals a sick person but he cannot look upon a cross.

            Mephisto shows Faust a vision of what his youth can look like if they were to sign a pact together. Faust asks the evil servant to grant him youth. Faust is given youth. When he awakens he sees an apparition of a young woman. He has Mephisto, as his servant, take him to the girl. Mephisto has Faust stand on his cape and the two of them fly off to where a duchess, the most beautiful woman in Parma, is celebrating her wedding. Mephisto brings a wedding present that when open gives off a bright light that blinds everyone except for the duchess. She lays eyes on Faust and runs away with him. Mephisto kills the duchess’s new husband.

            The day runs out, Faust has to go back to being an old man. He begs Mephisto to stay a young man. Their pact is now for eternity. Sometime later Faust has indulged in everything he could ever want but he is not satisfied. When Mephisto asks him what he wants most Faust replies that he wants to return to his home. In the town Mephisto scares Gretchen, a young girl, making her drop whatever was in her hands. Faust helps Gretchen pick up what she has dropped and falls immediately in love with her. Mephisto tells Faust to leave her alone she is young and innocent and was on her way to church she is not for him there are other girls that will be obliging to his needs. Faust only wants Gretchen. Mephisto gives Faust a golden chain to give to Gretchen that will make her feel his (Faust’s) power.

            Gretchen’s brother has returned home. She is at first excited to see him and then is all the sudden unhappy and runs to another room and opens a window. Outside the window Faust is standing there. Gretchen sees the necklace. Soon she is deeply in love with Faust and he with her. Mephisto sees Gretchen’s brother at an inn. He tells the brother that his sister is not as pure and innocent as he thinks she is. The brother goes to the house and fights with Faust over his sister’s purity. The brother is killed by Mephisto but the townspeople, and even Faust himself, believe he is a murderer. Mephisto drags Faust away from the town where he cannot be found. Before the brother dies he tells everyone around him to say a mass for him and to put his sister on the stocks for all to look at the harlot.

            In the winter Gretchen has a child. She tries as hard as she can to keep the child safe and warm. She goes to houses begging for people to have mercy on her child but when they see who she is they turn her away. Gretchen sinks into the snow and in a delirious state believes a snow drift is a cradle and places the baby in it. A group of soldiers find Gretchen and the dead child. They think Gretchen has purposely killed her child and send her to be burned at the stake.

            Faust can see what is happening to Gretchen. He is furious with Mephisto he had been told nothing bad would happen to Gretchen. He has Mephisto race down to earth to try to save Gretchen. Much to Mephisto’s anger, Faust ignores him and runs towards Gretchen at the stake. In revenge Mephisto turns Faust back into an old man. Faust’s love for Gretchen is so strong that he would rather die with her than be without her on earth.

            Satan believes he has won his wager with the angel. The angel tells Satan to be gone that Faust’s love for Gretchen has redeemed him.

            Faust is a very interesting story. I liked the idea that at first Faust made a deal with the devil to help his town to be a good man and save people but then he was tempted by youth into impulsiveness and lust and then in the end his love and compassion for Gretchen saved him. F.W. Muranu’s direction made the film visually stunning. The acting along with Murnau’s direction make you feel so sympathetic for Faust and Gretchen. You feel their desires, lust, love, and desperation. Faust is a very good silent film. My only complaint is that is ran much more longer than it should have but other than that I have no complaints. 

Silent Sundays: Phantom (1922)

Almost all of the greatest films ever made are love stories. They tell about lost and tortured love and obsession. The world, life, space, class, whatever you can imagine give the two lovers obstacles as they try to unite. In most of the stories it is the man who becomes obsessed with the woman and does anything in his power to get to her. If it was always women chasing after the man the woman would be called an obsessive annoyance and not a romantic but that is a discussion for another time. In F.W. Murnau’s silent film Phantom it is a young man who is literally knocked down by love and his life dragged to depths he never could have imagined.

            Lorenz Lubato and his wife Maria are happily married. She gives him a book to write his story. Lorenz asks her if she thinks if he writes his story the memory will be less painful. Maria believes it will help with his painful memory.

            Some time ago Lorenz used to live at home with his mother, sister Melanie, and brother. In this time he was the city clerk and was never on time. In his spare time Lorenz would write poetry and one day he brought it to Maria and her father who ran a book store. Her father thinks his poems are amazing and wants to give it to a professor from the local university to look over. On his way to work one morning Lorenz is hit by a horse that was being driven by a young woman. The young woman gets out of the carriage to check on him. She is beautiful and from that moment on Lorenz can think of no one and nothing but her. The girl rides away and Lorenz walks dreamily back home. He does not even listen to his mother talk to him about Melanie and what she has been up to he stares off into another world and dreams that he is chasing the girl as she rides away in her horse and carriage.

            After this incident Lorenz’s life is never the same. He obsesses over the girl who he finds her name is Veronika. Day and night he causes trouble around Veronika’s home looking for her. Lorenz finds out from an acquaintance that Veronika is engaged to another man. With this news Lorenz asks to speak to Veronika’s parents to tell them how much he loves her. The father tells Lorenz to come back in a year and the love struck young man happily leaves their home. The mother thinks her son is sick and cannot control what he does. His obsession makes him miss work without an excuse and he loses his city clerk position.

            One night Lorenz goes out to a dancehall with Melanie. He meets a young woman and her partner. The young woman looks like Veronika. She needs to paid for her time so Lorenz goes to his aunt who runs a business. When his aunt does not get her money back she threatens Lorenz and the young woman with the police and jail. Lorenz cannot come up with the money and surrenders himself to the police.

            When he is released Maria and her Father are waiting for him.

            I was expecting Phantom to be better than it was. The story did not hold my interest. When I heard the title and that Murnau was the director I thought it would be about phantoms and nightmares not about an obsessed young man. Murnau took some aspects from Expressionism and added them to this film to give the story its phantom-dream- like look. The Expressionist look was used perfectly in a scene towards the end of the film where Lorenz is at a dancehall with the young woman who looks like Veronika. He dreams his life is spiraling out of control and slowing going down. The floor underneath Lorenz and the girl actually moves down and Murnau had a bicyclist ride around a ring above. Phantom was an alright film it is not what I was expecting from Murnau.