Silent Sundays: Raffles (1925)

“A criminal is more easily identified and caught when the motive that actuated him is found. Here is the story of a ‘criminal’ whose motives baffled the detectives of two continents.”

            There are four different versions of Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman. I have now seen both silent versions and the 1939 version starring David Niven and Olivia de Havilland. The story is, obviously, the same but each version has had their little variations. Here is the second silent version of Raffles from 1925.

            Raffles is an English gentleman who is traveling back to England from India by boat. Raffles has a secret under his gentlemanly ways: he is a jewel thief. No one knows he is who the press has dubbed the Amateur Cracksman. He is known for breaking into safes and stealing valuable jewels. On the boat he steals a necklace from a wealthy old couple. When the boat and all the passengers are to be searched Raffles places the necklace into a cigar box and gives the owner the box with a note saying to give the reward to the Soldiers’ Fund.

            Also on the boat was a young woman named Clarice Vidal (Hedda Hopper) and she likes him.

            Back in England, Raffles is invited to a party given by Lord and Lady Amersteth. Also invited to the party is a rich man called Captain Bradford who has nothing better to do with his time than to study crime. He has so much time on his hands to study crime that he has become a leading criminologist. Bradford and Amersteth bet that a string of pearls cannot be stolen as long as Bradford is there and it is locked in a safe. Of course Raffles steals them. Clarice somehow knows that Raffles is the Amateur Cracksman and she lets everyone know it. Clarice is a little jealous because Raffles now has eyes for the Lord and Lady’s daughter Gwen.

            Captain Bradford tells the police about Raffles. Gwen comes to warn him about the police coming for him. They manage to get a boat leaving England. He writes a letter to the police with the pearls and promises to retire from burglary.

            As I said before I have seen the story of Raffles so many times yet each one has something different about it. This version was short at fifty-five minutes so the story moved a little faster and it was a little different from the 1939 one where Raffles is taken in by the police. This silent 1925 version of Raffles is worth watching at least once

Silent Sundays: Among Those Present (1921)

Among Those Present is a nice short silent film at almost thirty-five minutes. Nothing too involved happens to write a decent summary so here is a short and sweet one. Finally a short summary from me, right?

            A high society woman is planning a party. She has a woman known as a Society Pilot plan the party and to invite all the most important people. The society woman reads in the paper that a Lord Abernathy has come to town. She gets very excited seeing this news item and tells the Society Pilot that she must have the Lord come to the house. The Society Pilot immediately gets on the phone to a man credited as The “Hard Boiled Party” (for the sake of this summary and my sanity and yours this guy will be referred to as HBP) and tells him that he has to whatever he can to get the Lord to the party even if it means kidnapping him or their scheme will be blown.

            Meanwhile in another room, the husband of the society woman and their daughter (Mildred Davis) are happily playing some old Irish tunes on the fiddle and dancing. The society woman comes in and yells at them for doing such low class things. The father is obviously very upset with his pushy wife.

            At a fancy hotel a Boy (Harold Lloyd) is in the lobby. He is wearing a fancy coat, hat, and gloves and smoking. An older man comes into the lobby and goes up to the boy staring at him. The Boy sees the man staring at him and he removes the coat and hat to reveal that he is just the hotel bell boy. The HBP sees The Boy and what he had just done and asks The Boy if he would like to dress up for a party as a Lord.

            The Boy as the Lord walks into the dull party and everyone immediately lights up. He even lights up when he sees The Girl. The society woman has him tell stories about his hunting parties. The Boy makes up some courageous and hilarious hunting escapades. After his stories he overhears the Society Pilot and the HBP discuss their scheme and how he (HBP) is going to marry The Girl.

            The following day is the hunting party. All the guests are outside ready to chase foxes and whatever snobbish things happen at a party like that. The Boy is terrified of going hunting and riding horses. He tries to hide and this being a Harold Lloyd film fails at doing this hilariously. He does manage to get on a horse that goes crazy on him which throws him onto a wild bucking bull which them throws him over a fence and makes The Boy lose his pants. He does not realize he has lost his pants until some of the women in the party see him and scream and run away.

            The Boy tries very hard to hide and stay away from the rest of the party. He had finally found a spot to hide when he sees the HBP bothering the girl. The Boy finds a feed sack to tie around his waist and goes out to save The Girl. He hooks the HBP to a rig and he pulls the guy up away from The Girl.

            The father finally has enough of the mother and the society people around him and yells at her and the guests to leave. The Girl comes into the room with The Boy. She tells her father that he is an imposter he is a normal guy. The father likes The Boy and likes him all the more once he finds out The Boy is also Irish. The Boy is so in love with The Girl that he eats the flowers on the table instead of the food because all he can think about is her.

            Ok, maybe that summary was not as short as I had planned but that is the whole story of Among Those Present. It was alright. It is the usual Harold Lloyd film where he likes a girl and crazy things happen to him where he has to hide and get passed people and then he finally gets with the girl. I like Harold Lloyd films I think he was very funny and entertaining but all his films were the same just with different settings and somewhat different plots. Among Those Present is available to view in full on YouTube. If you like Harold Lloyd it is worth seeing. 

Silent Sundays: White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)

“They are like man was before he lost the Garden of Eden.”

            White Shadows in the South Seas is about imperialism and how the white man feels superior to those he conquers. 

            The film begins on an island that over time has been “civilized” by greedy westerners. Dr. Matthew Lloyd lives on the island. He used to be respectable doctor but has become indecent because he is ashamed of what the white race has done to the natives. Some of the natives dive for clams. What they do is very dangerous. Many of them have died from burst veins and lungs from the pressure change. There are also sharks and other large sea creatures. Matthew is called a native coddler. He helps a man with collapsed lungs but unfortunately the man dies. The father of the dead man says he has lost all his sons the same way.

            Someone tells Matthew there is a ship out in the middle of the ocean that has sick people on it. When he gets out there he sees that most of the crew are dead not from measles but from the plague. He says the ship will have to be burned. The men attack Matthew, tie him up, and set the ship to sail. The ship heads into a typhoon. Matthew tries desperately to steer the ship away from rocks. He manages to jump and swim to land. He sees a hut on the other side of the island. He finds a whole native village untouched by white men. When Matthew approaches them they all scatter away. The men of the village are summoned to capture Matthew. The men gather around him, they have never seen a white man before. As the natives examine him, Matthew collapses from thirst and exhaustion. He is attended to by some of the women. One of the women is Fayaway. They massage him to take away his ache.

            The villagers see Matthew as a god and they prepare a great feast for him. He speaks with Fayaway alone and is immediately attacked by the men. An elder tells him that he cannot look at her with love in his eyes even if he is a god because she is a virgin of their temple. The next day Fayaway takes Matthew around the island. They hear a signal that the sea has taken someone’s life. It is a little boy who is in trouble. Matthew tries to save him. At first he is unsuccessful then he remembers what to do and saves his life. The elder says that now Matthew has saved his son and he may look into the eyes of Fayaway. White man and native are soon married.

            Matthew sees they do not collect pearls. His selfishness of his race and greed take over. One of the natives notices that Matthew goes around the lagoon looking for pearls. That night he sets fire to some leaves on the shore hoping ships will see it and come for his pearls. Fayaway asks him if he wants to leave. He realizes he has made a terrible mistake and gets mad at himself he does not want the ships to come. In the day time ships start coming ashore. Matthew tries to warn the villagers the boat is evil it will bring them woe. One of the crew members says they spotted the fire on the mountain the night before. The captain sees a girl wearing a pearl on a necklace. Now the greedy man wants to stay. The villagers think the other white men will be nice like Matthew. The captain is a man named Sebastian that Matthew knew on the other island. Matthew pleads with Sebastian to leave. He gets mad when Sebastian says he wants to open a store and have the villagers dive for pearls. One of Sebastian’s men shoots Matthew and the poor man dies.

            In the end all the villagers become “civilized.”

            I thought Shadow in the White Seas was good but very sad. In school when we learned about imperialism I would always get a little upset and mad how white men just went into lands they thought “uncivilized” and “civilized” the natives. Just because a group of people does not wear or practice something that you do does mean they are uncivilized. The people thinking this are uncivilized. W.S. Van Dyke directed the film. The more I see of his films the more I take notice of how good and creative he was. None of his films I have seen so far have been the same. Some of shots of the islands and the “natives” were beautiful. They reminded me of a Gaugin painting. I loved the feast scene, the food looked amazing! Shadow in the White Seas is definitely working watching.