Legs and Our Dancing Daughters

Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
DIRECTED BY: Harry Beaumont
STARRING: Joan Crawford, Anita Page, Dorothy Sebastian
NOMINATED FOR: Best Cinematography (George Barnes)
Best Writing, Achievement (Josephine Lovett)

I find I have a bad habit of pretending I know something about culture and the history of culture. For some years I ran a pop culture website where I feign expertise on what people used to do and why they do it. However, I've come to realize I can't even grasp my own culture, which is completely different to the culture of ten years ago, which is different to the etc etc etc.

But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that in the 20s, it was all about the legs!

Our Dancing Daughters is a boring love story made in the heyday of the Jazz Age (the stupid white people jazz, not the awesome New Orleans jazz). It's not funny or exciting or emotional, it's just sleep inducing, and I see no real reason to return to it. However, it did bring to light something that I never realized. In the 20s, when a lustful man gazed at a woman, it was usually directed at her legs.

I'm not saying legs aren't still sexualized, but in these old films, they're the ONLY thing that's sexualized. As far as Hollywood was concerned, even pre-code Hollywood, breasts and other womanly curves just didn't exist. I have no idea why, really. I can assume it has something to do with the religious influence that was leading into the 50s, but I'm simply not qualified to say for certain. All I know is that Our Dancing Daughters is about sexuality, and sexuality is all about legs.

Our three main female character are all introduced BY their legs. First, Diana, a woman who takes a party girl persona in public, but inside is really romantic and wants to settle down:

She's introduced in the movie as a pair of dancing legs in front of the mirror, getting ready for the big party.

And then we have Beatrice, a woman who insists on not fooling around and really can't be bothered to party.

We meet here from behind, standing still as her overprotective parents give her a stern talking to.

And finally, we have Ann, a gold digger, a woman who's only interested in marrying a rich man for his money.

She only has interest in nice things, so when we meet her legs, we find her tearing and discarding some worn-out stockings.

Our female characters are characterized by their legs, which proves that shallow characterization has been present as long as film's been around. It's like when female characters in modern day action movies are characterized by hair color and cup size. To pound this point home, Ben, the man for our characters to swoon over, is introduced LOOKING at legs.

When people think back to the golden days of cinema, it's hard to imagine that there were shallow sexual films. What was "shallow" and "sexual" back in the 20s are alien to us now, and it makes trying to understand these times seem kinda futile.

If you're really interested in Our Dancing Daughters, you can find it on Youtube HERE.

Bess Meredyth Vs. William H. Daniels: A Woman of Affairs

A Woman of Affairs (1928)
DIRECTED BY: Clarence Brown
STARRING: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lewis Stone
NOMINATED FOR: Best Writing, Achievement (Bess Meredyth)

"In the old silent days, [William H.] Daniels had been the best of them all. His camera work was so close to art that producers and directors and cameramen used to sit in private projection rooms, not to judge a picture, but to see what new tricks of lighting and effects Daniels had achieved. The industry acknowledged that Daniels' work was so fine that other cameramen were never censured for shamelessly stealing it".
-Mark Hellinger, producer

Every year, when the Academy Awards role around, there's always something to complain about. How in the world did such-and-such get nominated? Why was this nominated over that? Why was this aspect of the film nominated but not this aspect? These strange choices, the result of both ballot voting and inner-politics, have been consistent with the Academy since the beginning, and A Woman of Affairs is an early example of it.

The film was nominated for it's writing, but it's story is muddled, it's dialogue is over-dramatic, and it's pace is uneven.

The film was NOT nominated for it's cinematography, even though it has some great dramatic lighting, it uses it's space well, and its tracking shots are mind blowing for a film this old.

Cinematographer William H. Daniels was been nominated four times for his work, winning once. He made over 150 films from the 20s to the 60s. Bess Meredyth wrote some Zorro movies. Ok, maybe I'm being disingenuous, one's success does not directly reflect one's quality and character, but seeing a film praised for it's weakest quality and having it's strongest quality ignored just seems so typical of the Academy these days.

This is the film's opening shot:

Our main character, Diana Merrick, goes all CRAZY WOMAN DRIVER and haphazardly drives her car into puddles, avoiding other drivers by a fraction of an inch, and finally nearly decapitating half a dozen road workers.

It's a typical screwball comedy gag, and it's high energy suggests we're in for a wild and zany ride! Problem is, this scene is in no way related with the rest of the movie. Nowhere else in the film do we get off-the-wall physical comedy or any general goofiness. It's not even consistent with the character. We see Diana drive several times after this scene, and she does so safely and calmly.

It's almost as if they started writing one film and suddenly changed their minds. This isn't the first time we'll have this type of shift of tone, but it is the most jarring.

So, now that those meaningless gags are out of the way, it's storytime. Diana is a young British aristocrat in love with slightly-less aristocratic Neville Holderness. Through flashback, we see that they've known each since childhood, and Diana, still an overgrown child, clings to the "strong male sweeps her away" fantasy of her youth, and Neville thinks she's cute, so hey, win-win.

Meanwhile, Diana's brother Jeffry (right) drinks away his sorrows (though what those sorrows are, we never find out) while his best friend David Furness (left) tries to talk him out of the booze.

Neither of these two are well-written characters. Jeffry does two things throughout the film: mope around and act angry for no defined reason, and show a damn-near homosexual amount of admiration to David. David's role in the film is simply to react to Jeffry. Both these characters are empty shells that simply offer plot devices when the story needs them to.

So, after some short meaningless scenes of Jeffry and Diana fighting and then making up, we cut to the next day, where we're introduced to two more characters. First, Dr. Hugh Trevelyan:

An old friend of Diana and Jeffry. HE'S NICE!

And then there's Sir Morton Holderness:

Neville's father. HE'S NOT SO NICE!

In case you couldn't tell already, the biggest flaw in this film is that the characters are totally depthless with one possible exception, but we won't meet her till much later in the film. All these characters do is allow the plot to move forward, and we never spend anytime learning their reasons for doing these things.

So, Diana and Neville talk for a bit, and we learn that Diana is richer then Neville, and Neville, with his outdated masculinity, can't stand the idea of her supporting him. He suggests the idea of him leaving for a few years to start business in Egypt, but is only deterred when Diana threatens to leave him.

I really need to point out there is no dramatic difference between Diana's and Neville's fortunes. I mean, look at Neville's house!

TWO PEOPLE LIVE IN THIS HOUSE! This isn't some fish-out-of-water love relationship, this is a story about a guy who feels less like a man because he has ten million dollars and she has eleven million. This film is "the rich and restless," and who wants to watch that? Sorry guys, I'd love to hear about your petty struggles, but I gotta go work at WAL-MART!

Anyway, Neville does end up going to Egypt after a long off-screen talk with his father, who acts as the makeshift villain in this film. Diana learns of this, and as an act of petty revenge, marries Jeffry's friend David instead.

Of course, Diana doesn't love David, but David is too blissful to be aware of these. In any case, David has other things to worry about, because on their honeymoon, there's a mysterious knock at the door.

Up to this point, the cinematography is pretty standard, but this moment, which also acts as a tonal shift in the film, is when it really starts to shine. David, with an expression of total terror on his face, slowly approaches the door, and we follow him with a long, tension-building tracking shot through two rooms.

This is the first of nearly a dozen tracking shots in the film, and they're all done really, really well, and brings forth the main theme in the cinematography: these people live in empty space, which could reflect the emptiness in each of the characters if I believed the film was trying to be that deep.

Later, the film seems to switch to more natural lighting and frames the characters from far away, allowing the characters to get lost in dark voids. Take these shots from later in the film for example:

One scene much later in the film takes place in a hospital, which is brightly lit, but the empty space is still overwhelming.

This emptiness is made even more pronounced by how far apart the characters are from each other.

There's a lot of shots I could analysis for you, but these are the basic tricks used throughout the second half of the film, and they really give the film a much-needed flavor boost. There really isn't much more to add to that: The story is pointless and shallow and the cinematography makes me giddy. End review.

But wait, who was knocking on the door? Will Diana and Neville get back together? I'll leave that for you to find out, because you can watch A Woman of Affairs on Youtube HERE.

Hollywood and The Jazz Singer

The Jazz Singer (1927)
DIRECTED BY: Alan Crosland
STARRING: Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland
WON: Honorary Award (For producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry)
NOMINATED FOR: Best Writing, Adaptation (Alfred A. Cohn)

Lately, I've been blind-sided by the state of life. At this time last year, I was far less concerned about my economic status, far less concerned about if my car was functioning correctly, far less concerned about the policy changes at my job. The things I was more concerned about I've almost completely forgotten.

I've been in so many good places in my life, and inside I'd beg for things to stay this way. Change is almost nothing but destructive. Change kills many great things.

The Jazz Singer carries the stench of death...

*snicker*

Sorry, I'm being corny. As much as I want to make The Jazz Singer out as a Hollywood serial killer who killed the era of silent films and more then half of the people involved, it'd be closer to the truth to call it some mentally handicapped guy who accidentally ran over the silent film industry with his parent's car. It's fame and infamy are purely by chance, and not at all earned.

The Jazz Singer was not the first sound film. Thomas Edison managed to sync sound almost right after inventing film, and the twenty years before The Jazz Singer led to dozens of examples.

The Jazz Singer was not the first full-length film with sound. Don Juan came out a year earlier with a synced music soundtrack and sound effects. Sunrise came out a month earlier, also with music and soundtrack, and even background dialogue.

The Jazz Singer was not the first full-length film with synced dialogue. For the most part, it's a silent film, intertitles and all, with dialogue only popping up in two scenes. The first "talkie" wouldn't come for another year, in the form of Lights of New York.

The Jazz Singer was not made with the most innovative technology available. Fox Studio's sound-on-film system surpasses Warner Bros' sound-on-disk system in just about every way. Sound-on-film didn't get unsynchronized, it didn't wear out nearly as fast, and it allowed for more portable cameras.

The Jazz Singer was not a good film. Not in the slightest. Some people are still rolling their eyes over it's high melodrama and over the top acting. It's the worse film I've reviewed thus far.

The Jazz Singer is not a comfortable film. Even ignoring it's history as a silent film killer. I don't care how often you say "that was just how things worked back then," the famous blackface scenes make my stomach turn. Less talked about is the film's strong Jewish stereotype. There isn't as many numbers on just how offensive Jew stereotypes are, but this film like two kinds of uncomfort sandwiching some cheesy old musical numbers.

The Jazz Singer was merely the first successful film with some sound in it. And, I guess, that's all it took to kill silent pictures.

And with this, we finish the 1st Academy Awards. The film industry would recover eventually. It's like a phoenix, it becomes reborn in it's own ashes. Unfortunately, ashes are all we have to look at as we enter the 2nd Academy Awards...

Let's Talk Intertitles

When talking about the 1st Academy Awards, people often talk about the "Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production" award, which went to Sunrise. At that time, two Best Picture awards were given, one for production merit, and one for artistic merit. This was the only time that separate awards were given, and "Unique and Artistic Production" became a piece of Oscar lore.

However, little attention is given to the OTHER award that was only given out at the 1st Academy Awards: Best Writing, Title Writing, awarded to Joseph Farnham, for no film in particular. 1929 officially marked the end of silent pictures. A demand for sound forced Hollywood and filmmakers to start from square one, 20+ of progress tossed in the trash by a humble blackfaced jazz singer. They had find new ways to shoot, new ways to act, and new ways to be artistic. And intertitles disappeared for good.

It's hard to imagine what films would look like if the silent era had been allowed another ten or twenty years to itself. Silent television, now that would have been something.

People rarely talk about intertitles, even when talking about silent films, but they were developing along with the rest of the film industry. Many great films didn't just have their intertitles reveal dialogue. They used artistic language to set moods that couldn't have been found with simple lighting and sets. And the actual intertitles, the screens themselves, began exploring new ways to present themselves.

Not all intertitles were simply white text on a black background. Take a look at some of these, from 1921's The Sheik:

That's what we lost people. Awesome stuff like this.

Another artistic aspect intertitles had were their physical relation to the film itself. My favorite use of intertitles in all the films I've reviewed so far comes Sunrise. The film's story is simple and the acting is a bit blunt and direct, but Murnau's use of images adds subtextual layers in the film in ways you wouldn't see anywhere else. That goes for the film's intertitles as well, which are used in a very unique way.

Take this scene. Neighbors to the husband and wife characters are discussing the two's marital problems. One of the the neighbors says this:

Then, we fade into a flashback of happier times...

Fine enough. Usually we'd cut to the next scene, probably back to the neighbors, but instead...

We fade back to the same intertitle. What we just witnessed was the thoughts and memories behind this dialogue, encased completely in it, and it works great. Also, it's an idea you couldn't pull off in sound. Imagine if someone was talking, and in the middle of their sentence we fade to a flashback for a minute, then fade back to see the original speaker finish their sentence. It would seem awkward at best, bad editing at worst.

When the husband and the woman from the city are making near the lake, the intertitles take on the devilish qualities of the surrounding mist.

My favorite intertitle moment ever comes in this scene. The woman from the city offers a suggestion to the husband about what to do with his wife.

We hold on this for a moment, unsure of what evil thing our antagonist is going to suggest. Then, it fades in.

This thought then literally sinks into the husband's mind...

After sinking it, the idea plays out in the husband's head, words turned into actions...

Intertitles had only just started getting used in these unique and interesting ways when sound showed up and ruined all of that.

So, please, when you go to bed tonight, say a little prayer for intertitles.

To close, here's a collection of some of my favorite intertitles from films previously reviewed. Can you guess which film goes to which?