Month: August 2020

Tannhauser (1913)

TANNHAUSER (1913)
Article 4821 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-14-2015
Directed by Lucius Henderson
Featuring James Cruze, Marguerite Snow, Florene La Badie
Country: USA
What it is: Silent opera

A minstrel falls in love with a princess, but leaves when her betrothal to a previous suitor is announced. The suitor releases the princess from her vow when he discovers that she loves the minstrel, but the latter has been seduced and put under a spell by the pagan goddess Venus.

Ah, the course of true love ne’er did run smooth. Still, the pitfalls, setbacks and obstacles that beset the lovers in this one are so contrived that one can only shake one’s head. Granted, this one is from an opera, and it might have worked better if the characters could sing, but this being a silent movie, we’re left with the story. It’s a surprisingly slow story, at that; even at only forty minutes, it drags, and the sometimes dull and cluttered staging don’t help things out. As for the fantastic content, we have Venus to contend with as well as a plot element that requires a miracle to solve. You know a story is jerking you around when it coughs up a miracle to solve an impossible situation, and then pulls the rug out from under you by… well, I won’t give away the ending, but to quote Bugs Bunny, “Well, what did expect in an opera? A happy ending?”

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Martyrs Chretiens (1905)

MARTYRS CHRETIENS (1905)
aka Christian Martyrs, Belshazzar’s Feast
Article 4820 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-13-2015
Directed by Lucien Nonguet
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Biblical scenes

Various Bible scenes are depicted, mostly ones with lions.

This one entered my hunt list as BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST, though that was only one episode of this movie; that’s probably because it was the only part of the movie at the time that was considered extant. I do find its real title rather deceptive; there are four segments to the short, and only in one of them does it look like a Christian is dying. The first scene has a man tussling with a lion, and the action mostly makes me suspect that the man was a lion tamer doing his act. The second scene is where a man is killed by a lion, but I”m not sure who he’s supposed to be. The third scene has Daniel in the lion’s den, and with the appearance of the angel, it’s the first one that has any real fantastic content. The most striking fantastic content comes in the Belshazzar section, in which a giant hand appears and writes on the wall, though I couldn’t read what he wrote. The short is competently done, but I’m afraid I wasn’t particularly impressed with it.

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