Flesh and Spirit (1922)

FLESH AND SPIRIT (1922)
Article 4280 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-3-2013
Directed by Joseph Levering
Featuring Belle Bennett, Walter Ringham, Denton Vane
Country: USA
What it is: The reformation of an atheist

An atheistic scientist adopts a young orphan girl, but neglects his fiancee and refuses to allow her to teach the young girl about God.

One of the rules of writing that I occasionally encounter in books that try to teach you how to do such a thing is that you should give your characters names that have specific meanings to reflect the themes you want to express. Personally, I’ve always looked askance at this rule, as it seems to me that you run the risk of throwing subtlety to the wind if you do so. This movie provides one of those examples; its theme is pretty obvious to begin with, but to give the name of “Truth” to the devout and neglected fiancee is laying it on fairly thick, especially when the plot turns on the atheist seeing the ghost of his deceased fiancee for the first time. That being said, the movie is at least efficient and fairly well-made; it’s something of a cross between A CHRISTMAS CAROL and THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, and the relationship between the atheist and the little girl is remarkably similar to the relationship between the little girl and her father in the latter movie. The ghost provides the fantastic content, and once you figure out the main conflict, the movie becomes quite predictable; perhaps the biggest surprise is that it allows the atheist to have some positive qualities at all, considering how it stacks the deck in other regards.

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Melodie der Welt (1929)

MELODIE DER WELT (1929)
aka Melody of the World
Article 4279 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-2-2013
Directed by Walter Ruttmann
Featuring Ivan Koval-Samborsky, Renee Stobrawa, Grace Chiang
Country: Germany
What it is: Abstract documentary

A visual and musical symphony is composed about the universalities of human existence around the glove.

Much of what I’ve been watching lately have been listings from Walt Lee’s Reference Guide to Fantastic Films, and it’s one of the first books I’ve encountered that includes a lot of abstract films, the argument being that abstraction is to some extent borderline fantasy. He includes this film because there are a few scenes of abstract shapes, and I think that means the shots at the beginning and end of the movie that are supposed to emulate looking at the planets in outer space. If so, then you should know that these scenes are very short, and that makes the film extremely marginal in terms of its fantastic content at best.

Still, I have a real admiration for this audacious film. If any film I’ve seen could be said to be about everything, this might be the one. It covers a plethora of human experiences, with scenes from around the globe juxtaposed with each other showing how universal many of these experiences are. It’s structured like a piece of music, and much of the soundtrack is music in the conventional sense. However, it will occasionally include ambient sounds and dialogue used in musical ways as well. The juxtaposition of images is often fascinating and witty, flowing from one them to the next, and even without the juxtaposition, some of the scenes are very interesting to watch. There are a few recurring characters to tie the whole thing together, though that’s a far cry from saying that this movie really has a plot. For an abstract movie, it’s a bit on the long side (it’s forty-eight minutes long), but it managed to do a very good job of holding my attention.

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The Tale of the Ark (1909)

THE TALE OF THE ARK (1909)
Article 4278 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-31-2013
Directed by Arthur Melbourne Cooper
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Stop-motion take on Biblical tale

A child dreams that Noah emerges from her toy model of the ark, and calls the animals together to avoid the flood.

This is one of the more elaborate stop-motion experiments in early cinema, as Noah and all the animals appear to be animated dolls, possibly made of clay. The fantastic elements have to do with the way the animals are handled; the elephants spend much of their time on two feet cavorting in un-elephant like ways, and certainly the way the animals all line up on their own seems fantastic enough. It’s a pretty charming and delightful way to tell the story, with little comic touches like Noah having trouble setting the gangplank and being helped by one of the elephants. All in all, this one is quite entertaining.

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La dame de pique (1965)

LA DAME DE PIQUE (1965)
aka The Queen of Spades
Article 4277 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-30-2013
Directed by Leonard Keigel
Featuring Dita Parlo, Michel Subor, Simone Bach
Country: France
What it is: Supernatural drama

A gambling countess comes by a secret three card combination that wins her a fortune, but she is allowed to use it only once and not gamble again. She passes on the info twice, and the recipients both die violently. She is warned that if she passes it on again, she too will die. Many years later, a young soldier discovers that the countess has the secret, and he resolves to get it out of her.

I recently had the opportunity to rewatch the 1949 British version of this movie, and I found it as entrancing the second time as I did the first time. I also have a copy of the original Pushkin story, but I haven’t read it yet. Perhaps I should; this movie version I just saw tells a much more elaborate version of the story, one in which the countess is just as much a major character as the soldier; in the earlier film, she was a secondary character, albeit a pivotal one. It also fleshes out certain details that were lost in the earlier version; for example, it features a scene that underscores the significance of the card of the queen of spades and why it plays into the climax of the movie. These extra touches dovetail with the events in the earlier movie and make it a more complex experience. I’m glad I saw this version.

Nevertheless, when I watch the story again, it will be the earlier one I will choose. Though this more recent version has some effective moments, it also lapses into static scenes of dialogue, and is often slow and dull. This is somewhat ironic in that this later movie is telling more of the whole story in less time; the earlier movie held my attention throughout, and this one does not. I’m looking forward to reading the original story now, though, as it will be interesting to see what was in the original and what enhancements the various movie versions have made to the story.

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El que murio de amor (1945)

EL QUE MURIO DE AMOR (1945)
aka He Who Died of Love
Article 4276 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-29-2013
Directed by Miguel Morayta
Featuring Julian Soler, Luis Aldas, Fernando Cortes
Country: Mexico
What it is: Switched identities farce

A man suffering from unrequited love is visited by a spiritualist who offers him the opportunity to win the countess he loves by switching the souls between him and the count.

Here’s another movie that got saved from my “ones that got away” list. It’s in Spanish without subtitles, but fortunately, I was given a plot summary to help me along. Still, even though I didn’t have trouble following the story, I do have to reserve judgment on this one due to the fact that much of the humor seems to be verbal, and without being able to follow the movie on a line-by-line basis, I can’t really tender a meaningful evaluation. However, it looks solid and well-acted, and it has a fair amount of fantastic content, as the spiritualist has definite powers. Furthermore, there’s a fictional country tossed into the mix (the man who takes over the body of the count must contend with the fact that the count, coming from this fictional country, speaks a different native language), and there are reference to the story of Aladdin. I do find it amusing that the “lamp” of Dr. Aladino, Jr. is a cigarette lighter, but it is disappointing that the genie is personified as a cloudy sky with a voice. Overall, it seems like a decent little comedy.

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Witchcraft (1906)

WITCHCRAFT (1906)
aka The Village Witch, La jeteuse de sorts
Article 4275 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-27-2013
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Melodrama

When a witch causes a peasant to fall in love with her, the other peasants, out of pity for the man’s fiancee, take vengeance on her.

This is one of those titles that ended up on my “ones that got away” list, and I’m glad it finally came to light. The plot is a little hazy from watching the short itself; if the title didn’t mention witches, one might mistake the woman in question for a common seductress. This is to say that the movie has no special effects that I could tell; it plays like a straight and fairly serious drama; the only macabre touch is a skeleton lying in the back of the witch’s house which is very easy to miss. And, at only four minutes of length, there’s no real way for the story to build up much of a head of steam, and there’s just not enough time to make the story interesting enough to merit more than a single watch.

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La table magique (1899)

LA TABLE MAGIQUE (1899)
aka The Magic Table, Salle a manger fantastique, A Dinner Under Difficulties
Article 4274 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-28-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Trick film

A family sits down together for dinner, but finds that their table is acting bizarre.

It’s a familiar early movie scenario; the table teleports from one place to another, grows too high and too low, etc., much to the consternation of the family. Of the Chomon efforts I’ve seen, this one is one of the most Meliesian of the bunch; it rarely if at all does anything that Melies wouldn’t have done. In its way, it’s entertaining enough, but if this is indeed a 1908 movie as CITWF suggests (there’s no listing for this one on IMDB), then it’s pretty old hat by that time. Still, there is some doubt as to the actual year of production on this one; some of my sources say it’s from 1905. I also wonder if the print is complete, as it cuts off right after the appearance of a demon in a big flower pot that you barely get to see.

**NOTE** If some of the comments in the text above are confusing, it is because I left it as I first wrote, but changed some of the credits due to discoveries made about the film after I wrote my review. The changes I made were the addition of the last two alternate titles, the change of the year from 1908 to 1899, and the change of the director from Segundo de Chomon to Georges Melies. When the review was published, the knowledgeable doctor kiss on CHFG pointed out that what I had seen was an unknown fragment that had been misattributed to Chomon for years; apparently, no movie matches it in the well-documented Pathe filmography. However, there were enough clues given in the review to lead him to the discovery that the fragment actually belonged to the Melies film SALLE A MANGER FANTASTIQUE. This, of course, invalidates much of my review, but I’m grateful that it led to the discovery of the truth about it.

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I.N.R.I. (1923)

I.N.R.I. (1923)
Article 4273 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-26-2013
Directed by Robert Wiene
Featuring Gregori Chmara, Henny Porten, Asta Nielsen
Country: Germany
What it is: Retelling of the Passion

The story or Jesus Christ is told, with emphasis on the events leading up to the crucifixion.

You know, the idea of the director of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI taking on the story of the Passion of Christ isn’t a bad idea in theory; one could envision what he might do with it. However, those attracted to the movie on this basis will be sorely disappointed; it never approaches the level of audaciousness of his earlier work. This is not to say that the movie doesn’t have a sense of style; it does, but the style is far too similar to the usual ways this story is filmed. At times, it feels like a photographed stage play, and there are scenes where the characters move so slowly and deliberately that I found myself wishing the movie had been recorded at the wrong projection speed so that things would start moving a little faster. Granted, I do have to point out that my copy of the movie had no music and featured title cards in some East European language I couldn’t understand, so I can’t say I saw it under ideal circumstances. Still, it tells a very familiar story, and except for a few short segments of a framing story that were intended to turn the story into anti-Bolshevist propaganda, I found it easy to follow. But even the fact that my version runs only 72 minutes (a good half-hour short of the 102 running time listed on IMDB), I found this one rather tedious.

On a side note, the movie as I saw it qualifies for fantastic cinema in one element only, and that is that there seem to be angels in the opening scene in the manger. The miracles aren’t shown, and the movie ends with death of Christ on the cross, so we don’t have anyone returning to life or ascending to heaven. Granted, if the movie is missing thirty minutes, these scenes might have existed at one point. But if it weren’t for the angels, there would be no fantastic content here, and I’ve never been quite sure whether movies based on stories with fantastic content that have removed that content really qualify as genre. It’s a side issue, but one I’ve run into before.

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Symphonie Diagonale (1924)

SYMPHONIE DIAGONALE (1924)
Article 4272 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-25-2013
Directed by Viking Eggeling
No cast
Country: Germany
What it is: Abstract animation

Figures appear and disappear with rhythmic regularity.

Here’s another foray into the world of pure abstract film. In this one, the focus seems to be on the rhythm of the items appearing, growing, changing and disappearing; each pair of images seems to have a matching rhythm. In some ways, it’s quite remarkable; one is tempted to want to compose some music to go along with the images. However, that may partially be due to the fact that the copy that I watched of this at archive.org doesn’t have any music to go along with it, and this is a bit of a problem, because without the music, this one gets to be a bit of a bore, especially with a running time of seven minutes. Still, I do like that I was able to see a clear discipline and focus to the project; with some abstract film pieces, it is difficult to tell what they’re trying to accomplish.

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Cauchemar et doux reves (1909)

CAUCHEMAR ET DOUX REVES (1909)
aka Sweet Dreams Intermingled with Nightmare
Article 4271 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-24-2013
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Featuring Julienne Matthieu
Country: France
What it is: Fantasy trick film

A woman falls asleep by a pond, and has two dreams. The first is a nightmare where she is tormented by trolls. The second takes her to a fairyland where she is romanced by a rich courtier.

This is a cute but rather minor entry from the oeuvre of Segundo de Chomon. For some reason, I can’t think of much to say about this one; the dreams vs. nightmares theme is only mildly interesting but not really compelling, it doesn’t appear to be an imitation of any of the other shorts I’ve seen (but then, plenty of shorts from the era are missing), and it builds up to an okay punch line. All in all, it’s pretty ordinary.

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