Silent Sundays: The Red Lily (1924)

“Merciful Father hear me, a sinner- bring her back to me.”

            Can anyone ever think about living without a cell phone nowadays? I can remember I got my first cell phone when I started driving at seventeen. My mom told me she was not getting me one until I started driving. Now I see eleven year olds walking around with cell phones. I honestly cannot even imagine being without my cell phone I get nervous if I cannot find it and even more nervous if I realize I went out without it because God forbid I get into an accident. In the 1924 silent film The Red Lily my modern mind could not help but think this whole tragic storyline could have been avoided if both the main characters had cell phones. I hate the fact that that thought came to my mind but it could not be helped especially because the story got dragged out.  

            Jean Leonnec (Ramon Novarro) is the mayor’s son in a small French town. He is in love with the cobbler’s daughter Marise La Noue. They have been friends since they were children. Jean and Marise spend a lovely spring day riding around the country in a wagon while in town his father is told to come away from his office as quickly as he can the cobbler is sick. By the time the mayor and Marise make it to the house the poor cobbler is dead from a bad heart. Marise now has leave her home and the town and go live with relatives. She has to leave Jean behind which none of them wants to happen.

            Marise’s next of kin are uncivilized country people. She walks in the door and her heart just drops. In the city Jean tells his father he love Marise and when he comes of age he wants to marry her. The man of the house where she is staying tries to whip her for coming between him and his wife. Marise runs out of the house and away back to her old home. Alone in the empty house she sees someone opening the door. The person is Jean he saw the light in the fireplace. He stays with her the whole night in front of the fire. The next morning Marise says she has to go back. Jean does not want her to go he wants to protect her. His father and some of the villagers come to the house. He tells Marise to leave town. He believes Jean has to marry her after spending the night together. Jean tells his father if Marise has to leave town he will go with her.

            Jean and Marise go to Paris. He walks out of the station to do something where he is arrested and told he will be brought back to his village. Marise in the meantime waits for him for hours at the station not knowing what has happened. For one moment Marise walks away from her bags and they are stolen. Jean manages to get away by jumping from the train. He manages to get back to the station and just misses Marise walking away. Alone Marise comes to a café. She is so hungry she collapses. The owner takes care of her. For weeks Jean returns to the station looking for Marise. On the night he finally gives up he goes to stand by the edge of the Seine. There he meets a man called Bobo (Wallace Beery).

            Months go by. Marise has a job cleaning the steps of a building. An older man who works in the building sees her and says the work is too hard for her. He says he will give her a position in the cloak room. The old man tries to make and advance on Marise. She rejects him and he fires her. Jean has fallen in the wrong way with Bobo. He has taken to stealing from people and robbing safes. Marise goes for a walk by the Seine and looks into the water. She eventually gets a job in a shady restaurant with grabby dirty men. She rejects a man and is fired.

            Jean is now wanted by the police. They notice him and chase after him. Jean comes to a door way where a woman is standing. She takes him to her apartment. When she turns on the light he sees the woman is Marise. Jean strikes her to the floor. He is upset to see what she that she has become a poor ragged girl when all the time he was looking for an angel. Jean leaves her apartment. He gets into a fight with a police officer and he calls for backup. Jean is shot. He runs to Marise for her to hide him. Maries covers for him when the police follow his blood trail by saying the blood is hers from the cut on her cheek. In the middle of the night Jean hallucinates that he sees Marise the way she used to look when they were in their small town at the foot of his bed. He cannot bear to see her the way she is now.

            Some time later after he has recovered Jean is nasty to Marise. He thinks she is out all night earning her money. She shows him her ragged hands from working in a factory. Bobo comes and Jean leaves without saying goodbye or thank you. Bobo motions to Marise to follow them. The police see the three of them on the streets together. Marise follows Bobo and Jean to a shady bar where Jean goes into a back room with a woman. The police come and raid the bar. Marise runs into the back room to tell Jean the police are there and to help him try to get away. Jean finds a trap door in the floor that leads to the sewers. The police barge into the room just as Jean is going down the trap door. Marise comes in between the police and Jean and is shot. Jean makes it out of the sewers and back to the bar. Bobo tells him that Marise has been shot and is probably dying. Wracked with guilt Jean goes to see Marise in the hospital.

            Two years later Marise is alive and she has become a seamstress. Jean is out of jail. Marise hopes he will come for her. Jean comes to Marise in a new suit and has flowers. He falls into Marise’s arms and cries. They go back to their happy home in the country.

            The Red Lily was an alright silent film. It was odd seeing Ramon Novarro as this poor tortured young man who goes bad over his guilt and lost love. The story kind of drive me nuts because as I said I was unfortunately watching this film with a modern mind and I thought how this would never happen today thanks to cell phones. The Red Lily has its moments where it is good and where it gets overly drawn out. I would suggest if you can to sit through this film at least once.

 

Mata Hari (1931)

“A spy in love is a tool that has outlived its usefulness.”

            If anyone has ever heard the name Mata Hari it has most likely been said along the lines of a woman being beautiful and alluring and also someone who likes to spy. I believe the first time I ever heard of Mata Hari is when Ingrid Bergman mentioned the name in Hitchcock’s Notorious. Naturally I had to look the woman up after hearing that line and several people in the extras mentioned how perfect it was that Bergman’s character mentioned the name in the film. Since I have been on somewhat of a Greta Garbo kick (or maybe it is a Swedish kick since I have been dying to go on an Ingrid Bergman binge?) lately, I decided the next films of hers I would view was Mata Hari. What actress past or present could do any better than playing an exotic, mysterious, alluring, beautiful spy better than the great Greta Garbo?

            Young Russian aviator Lt. Alexis Rasonoff (Ramon Novarro) has just flown from London to Paris on his way back to his country. He meets with his superior officer General Shubin (Lionel Barrymore) who takes him to a nightclub to see a show by the exotic Mata Hari. As soon as Alexis sets his eyes on the gorgeous woman he becomes obsessed with her. He pesters Shubin to introduce him to her but Shubin brushes him off that he could not possibly set a meeting up with her she is a very popular woman. But apparently Shubin knows Mata on a personal level meeting with her in her dressing room and speaking to her very comfortably.

            That night Alexis follows Mata to a gambling house then back to her house. She tells him goodnight but he does not want to go. All that is between her bedroom and the living room are curtains which she only closes halfway.

            The next day Mata meets with Shubin. He knows that she is a spy who has been working with a man named Adriani. He also knows that she is supposed to be gathering important Russian secrets to give to Adriani. Their meeting in interrupted by a man named Dubois who accuses Mata of being a spy. Jokingly Shubin says yes of course Mata is a spy all of Paris knows it just to embarrass Dubois further for walking in on them. A few minutes later Alexis walks in to receive his orders from Shubin. Alexis will not even look at Mata after she kicked him out of her apartment that morning.

            On her way back to her place Mata notices she is being followed. She manages to get away and goes to Alexis’s apartment he keeps in the city. Alexis is so completely in love with her that he says she comes before God and country to him. Above the bed he has an icon of the Virgin where he keeps a candle lit at all times underneath it. Mata says that if he loves her that much he will blow it out and after some hesitation he does. During the night a man comes in and steals the secrets Alexis is supposed to be taking to Russia, has them photographed, and returns them.

            Dubois goes to Shubin to try to rile him up to spill about Mata. Dubois knows the general is in love with the woman and tells her he saw her with Alexis that she went to his place last night and left in the morning. When Mata comes in later Shubin confronts her in a rage. He says he will call the embassy to confess to her being a spy which is exactly what Dubois wanted him to do. Mata shoots Shubin dead. She tries to make it seem as if he killed himself but Dubois knows that she killed him.

            Mata has to go into hiding under Adriani’s orders. She hears that Alexis was hurt in a plane crash and is in the hospital. Mata has fallen for Alexis and risks her life to see him. Alexis has been blinded. When she gets her car to leave Dubois is waiting for her.

            If you want to know what happened to real Mata Hari look her up. The ending to the film is outrageously melodramatic.

            Garbo, Lionel Barrymore, and Ramon Novarro were excellent. Garbo was the perfect choice to play Mata Hari; she was gorgeous and she was not called the Mysterious Greta Garbo for nothing. I find the more I watch Garbo’s films the more I love how she expresses so much with her eyes or should I say her eyebrows, well both actually. Novarro played kind of the same character he played in The Barbarian where he chased Myrna Loy all over the desert, his character was obsessed with a woman and he just chased after her until the woman started chasing after him. In the films I have seen Novarro in he played the love sick little boy. He definitely had the look for it. Lionel Barrymore was nothing to shake a stick at his character was alright.

            Mata Hari is pure melodramatic fluff with very little actual historical accuracies… but would expect anything else from MGM during the 1930s? Didn’t think so. I just loved how pre-code the film with both Mata and Alexis staying over the others places for the night and Mata using Alexis’s sexual desire for her to get what she needed. Mata Hari is not Greta Garbo’s best film but it is good and one I would suggest seeing sometime. 

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)

“And a prince after all is only a human being”

            Ever since I became a fan of Norma Shearer’s her silent film The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg is mentioned when people talk about her greatest films (along with The Divorcee, A Free Soul, and The Women). Every review of the film I have read raves about how beautiful it is and how great Shearer was along with Ramon Novarro. I was finally able to see the film when TCM aired it a few weeks ago and from start to finish I adored it.

            Crowned Prince Karl Heinrich (Novarro) was sent to live with his uncle King Karl of Karlsberg at a young age. Since that time he has been isolated from the town’s people or anyone his own age and has lived a very sheltered life. After he graduates from prep school he is allowed to go to college at Heidelberg along with his tutor Dr. Friedrich Juttner (Jean Hersholt).

            Karl Heinrich is immediately taken with the town. Student and Tutor stay at a normal inn among the common people. Upon arriving the inn keeper’s pretty niece Kathi (Shearer) recites a speech but forgets it because she is so taken with the prince. Karl Heinrich is also taken with Kathi.

            That night Karl Heinrich sees that the courtyard is full of fellow students and longing to be a part of something and meet people his own age he goes down. The other students immediately take him and they have a wonderful night of fun and drinking and bonding. Kathi is the barmaid that all the students enjoy seeing. They carry her on their shoulders and are very sweet to her. Karl Heinrich before he came down was shocked to see her chug a glass of beer! After everyone has gone Kathi and Karl Heinrich are left alone. He climbs over a wall where she is on the other side and he chases her and kisses her. In a field they profess their love for each other.

            A few days later a letter comes for Karl Heinrich from his uncle that he has chosen a princess for him to marry. Dr. Juttner reads the letter first and hides it from the prince since he knows the young man is so much in love with Kathi. Not much long after the letter arrives news comes that the king is very ill and that Karl Heinrich must return. He and Kathi know that they will most likely never see each other again even though they promise they will. Karl Heinrich’s face is one of torment between family tradition and love. They also promise not long after that they will never forget each other they will always have a strong for the other.

            The ending is sad. Neither Kathi nor Karl Heinrich die but it is just sad.

            Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer were just all around perfection. They brought their sweet and innocent characters to life beautifully to the point where you would think they were really a couple in love. Novarro was adorable and so handsome as the naïve to the world prince. The look on his face when the students treat him as if he had been their best friend for years is so touching. He beautifully portrays his torment over a lost love that will leave you feeling his pain. Shearer is just lovely. I may love her in her pre-codes where she is a bad ass chick looking for a man to sleep with but I adored her to pieces this was such a welcome change from her other films.

            Jean Hersholt was very good as Dr. Juttner. He was the only one who really saw that Karl Heinrich was a young man in a castle prison. I loved how he let loose and had some fun when they were in Heidelberg. He makes the ending sad as well. The young actor Philipe de Lacy who plays the young Karl Heinrich was excellent. He was a very good looking boy. I had to chuckle a little bit because he was wearing guy liner and in one scene where he cries the liner runs.

From the moment the film began I was mesmerized by how gorgeous and touching it was. One aspect of the story that I really liked was how three times Ernst Lubitsch had people say how great it must be to be the prince/king since had a lot of toys when he was younger, he was handsome and could get any girl when he was a teenager, and how great it must be to be a king at the end. This was genius because Karl Heinrich’s life was not great he was sheltered until he was a teenager and he was not free be with the girl he really loved. The story could have been an overused fairytale love story but Lubitsch turned the story into a realistic drama.

            The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg is an absolutely beautiful and touching silent film. This is definitely one of Norma Shearer’s, Ramon Novarro’s, and Ernst Lubitsch’s best films. It is a film that moves you in so many ways from the touching story, the sweet characters and their love and heartache, to the direction and even the acting.  Hopefully one day The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg will be available on DVD so more people to see and enjoy. 

The Barbarian (1933)

When Myrna Loy first began her career she was continually cast as the exotic, vamp luring men to their edge of their sanity. By the early 1930s MGM let Loy tone down her vamp image but she was still playing women with some kind of exotic image and she was still luring them away from their sanity. If she was not being alluring she was being a brat who just wanted things for herself (Emma, Vanity Fair, Men in White for example). It was not until really Manhattan Melodrama and The Thin Man that Loy finally got out the selfish women and vamp roles. The Barbarian does not have Loy exactly playing the exotic nor is she intentionally alluring but she followed and humiliated by an obsessive Egyptian prince disguised as a tour guide.

            Jamil (Ramon Novarro) is without a doubt a lady’s man. He is the best tour guide in Egypt with a specialization in helping out the female tourist. In the beginning of the film he is saying goodbye to two women. He tells each one of them that they will always be in his heart and he will always love them. Jamil even has a small bag full of the jewelry each woman he has been with have given him to remember them by.

            A new train has just arrived and right away Jamil notices a stunning British woman depart from it. She is Diana Standing (Loy) who has come to see her finance Gerald with her uncle and companion. Jamil goes up to the party to help them with their luggage but they dismiss him. In ensure he sees Diana again he takes her dog when her uncle is not looking.

            Later on as Jamil planned Diana cannot find her dog. Just in time he comes to the rescue with the dog in his hand. He lets her know that he is the best guide in Egypt and he would love to be hers and she accepts. Gerald finds Jamil a nuisance the guide never leaves he and Diana alone he is always right there or trying to get her alone without him.

            An acquaintance of Jamil’s, named Pascha, who has a lot of money arranged for Gerald to be taken away on business which would leave Diana behind. Jamil knows what Pascha is up to and blackmails the man into letting Diana alone. Now Jamil has his chance to truly be alone with the woman he so greatly admires. He watches Diana as she sleeps dropping flower petals on her face. She wakes up in a fuss she does not want him in her room she does not want anyone getting the wrong idea. Before Jamil leaves her room he kisses her and Diana does not resist. She more upset that she did not resist than with the fact that she kissed him.

            Diana fires Jamil and wants to leave immediately to be with Gerald. In the desert Diana gets the surprise of her life when she sees Jamil. He tells her that he threatened the other guide at knife point to leave. Furious she does not want to finish the trip to Gerald she wants to go back to Cairo. But Jamil has other plans for her, he tells the men to take the rest of the caravan back to the capital he wants to take her across the desert back to his tribe.

            Jamil kidnaps Diana and Gerald and her uncle put out a manhunt for his death. While in the desert Jamil humiliates Diana he makes her walk beside his horse in the hot sun for hours and will not let her drink water before he and his horse have had some. The following day they arrive at his tribe. He asks her to marry him and she accepts. You know she has something planned when she accepts his proposal she is not doing so because she wants to. During the ceremony she embarrasses him by saying no and runs out. Before she can get out he whips her but then tells his men to take her back to her people in Cairo.

            In the end Diana cannot resist Jamil and she runs away with him. As they sail down the Nile Diana tells Jamil that her mother was Egyptian. Before they runaway we can see that Diana is not exactly happy. Her mother-in-law is a total control freak trying to fix her Juliet cap the way she wants it not how Diana wants it and she will not listen that Diana does not want roses as her bouquet she wants gardenias. Her companion, Powers knows she is not happy and when Jamil comes back for her Powers trips the guards from going after them.

            I loved the fact that it is such a pre-code film it is racy and actually disturbing. Myrna Loy is barely dressed for several of the scenes especially the ones where Jamil is stalking her in her room. She almost has a wardrobe malfunction when the strap to her slip falls off her shoulder. One of Loy’s most well known scenes is the one where she has a bath with flowers all around her, of course she was wearing a flesh tone suit but you can barely see it (in her autobiography Loy writes that the crew were getting overzealous with pushing the petals towards her and when she looked up they were all people she knew in Culver City where she lived. She said they were just trying to protect a local girl’s modesty). Ramon Novarro is disturbing as Jamil, the man is like a Peeping Tom. A reviewer on IMDB brought up an excellent point: in the end Diana is “only… happy with the man who has humiliated, beaten, abused [and] raped her.” That scene where Diana and Jamil are alone in the desert at night is unsettling; he kisses her then the screen fades to black, when the characters are shown again Diana is crying and holding her dress tightly around her.

            Myrna Loy is fantastic (she was only part “exotic” since her character’s mother was Egyptian). Even broken down and beaten she looked beautiful. This is one of my favorite roles she played she was just so good. For the one thousandth time I will say just by looking at her face you know what is going on in her character’s mind. When Jamil kisses her and she does not resist but she is angry you can see it on her face before she even says anything. Another really great example is when she whips Jamil in the desert when he finds her and the caravan. She said that she is going to treat him like a slave and she takes his whip and whips him. No words could have explained her anger better than her face. This was my first Ramon Novarro film. I thought he was great. I can see why he was considered one of the greatest lovers of the screen he was so smooth and so outrageously charming. Loy writes her book that actresses dreamed of doing a film with Valentino or Novarro in the twenties and she was happy she got to work with him.

            The supporting cast of C. Aubrey Smith as the uncle, Reginald Denny as Gerald (in case you cannot quite place him he was Frank Crawley in Rebecca), and Louise Closser Hale as Powers was perfect. Hale was so funny she had some of the sharpest and funniest scenes and lines in the whole film. Keep an eye out for famous movie gossip columnist Hedda Harper as the American tourist at the beginning.  

            Anita Loos wrote some of the screenplay and the dialogue. Whenever I think of Loos I always think of her as the writer of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. If you have ever read any of her work you can hear her touch of wit and biting dialogue and the words of women’s sexual freedom during this time.

            Even though the plot of The Barbarian is so unbelievable I did enjoy the film. It is an amazingly well made romantic pre-code fantasy film that allows you to just escape for a while.