Classic Films in a Classic Theatre

Close to a hundred film buffs from around the country gathered last weekend at a restored little 1915 movie theatre in Massillon, Ohio, to watch a potpourri of classic films made from about 1911 through the 1950s, with a few rare 1960s TV commercials thrown in for fun.

The occasion was the 18th annual Fall Cinesation, dedicated to preserving America’s film heritage and screen it the way it was meant to be seen: projected from real film in a real movie theatre.

There were 17 feature-length films and over 20 shorts of varying length running last Thursday night, all day and evening last Friday and Saturday, and Sunday morning to early afternoon.

Some of the films were recently restored by film archives like the Library of Congress and the George Eastman House (introduced by representatives of the archives), while others were rare original collector prints many decades old.

Several of the titles are available on DVD and some turn up periodically on Turner Classic Movies cable channel, but a large percentage of the program is unavailable for viewing outside of special screenings like these, especially on a big screen with live musical accompaniment for the silent films.

The best film of the weekend was easily the Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930), but this was not the usual 105-minute cutdown reissue print or even the painstaking restoration of the 133-minute general release version (the 140-minute premiere version no longer exists).

The version shown at the festival was the rarely-seen alternate cut (using different takes) made for international release and for theatres that had not yet converted to sound. Major dialogue is replaced with title cards, but there is still an effective soundtrack of music and sound effects so it could be shown as a sound film overseas with the titles translated into their own languages.

Thanks to director Lewis Milestone’s fluid use of the moving camera throughout, the silent version of “All Quiet…” does not have the typical stilted look of an early sound film missing its dialogue. On the contrary, it often comes across as more powerful and dramatic than the talkie version, aided by its effective musical score and extended sequences of only sound effects. The film even elicited applause by the audience at one point.

If MCA-Universal ever gets around to putting this movie landmark onto Blu Ray (a number of classics are finally trickling out on the high-definition format over the next year), it really needs to include this beautifully preserved alternate version.

The 130-minute cut of the sound version is currently on DVD at a bargain price, and the chopped-up 105-minute re-release was on VHS, but the superior 130-minute silent version is all but unknown.

A crowd-pleaser with an altogether different attitude was the Constance Talmadge-Ronald Colman romantic comedy “Her Sister from Paris” (1925). Although directed by Sidney Franklin, this sophisticated sex romp has the flavor of Ernst Lubitsch at his best, possibly because Lubitsch’s frequent collaborator Hans Kraly wrote the screenplay.

It’s the story of a neglected wife whose more glamorous twin sister convinces her to impersonate her in order to seduce her own husband, at the same time that his best friend also happens to be pursuing the sister.

Another fine silent was the color tinted print of “The False Faces” (1919), a somewhat slow-starting but otherwise action and intrigue-packed World War I spy melodrama starring Henry B. Walthall (“The Birth of a Nation”) and Lon Chaney (“The Phantom of the Opera”).

Fascinating to see was “The Typhoon” (1914), starring Sessue Hayakawa recreating his star-making stage role as a Japanese diplomat who kills his demanding Parisian mistress in a fit of passion, but his embassy hopes to get a substitute convicted so he can continue his secret mission.

“Everybody’s Sweetheart” (1920) was a recently restored copy of the final film made by the beautiful but all-but-forgotten superstar Olive Thomas. It’s a pleasant but predictable story of mischievous but lovable orphans taken in by a gruff old man whose disreputable nephew is hoping to inherit his fortune. Very few of her numerous films survived after her sudden untimely and mysterious death shortly before this film’s release.

Memorable sound films included “Powdersmoke Range” (1935), a well-plotted, slickly-made, and strongly acted B-western in the “Three Mesquiteer” series, starring veteran Harry Carey with a host of noted western stars including Hoot Gibson, Guinn Williams, Tom Tyler, William Farnum, Bob Steele, and more. It really deserves to be issued on DVD (or Blu Ray if original 35mm source material can be found—an old 16mm TV print was screened at the festival).

Some of the films on the schedule that actually are available on DVD include two major titles by superstar Gary Cooper.

The Oscar-winning Ernest Hemingway espionage adventure-romance “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1943), which casts him as an American freedom fighter in the Spanish civil, war was shown in a lovely original 35mm Technicolor 1945 rerelease print (albeit cut to a more manageable two hours instead of the epic 166-minute roadshow version that’s been on DVD for a decade.

The excellent action adventure “Lives of a Bengal Lancer” (1935), which casts him as a Canadian serving in British India, was shown in a variable quality 16mm dupe print, but a beautiful video transfer is part of a five-film double-DVD set called “The Gary Cooper Collection.”

The goofy but fun Bob Hope-Gracie Allen-George Burns musical comedy “College Swing” (1938) is available in a fine video transfer as part of a single-DVD Burns & Allen triple feature.

The even goofier off-beat horror comedy “The Boogie Man Will Get You” (1942) is notable for pairing Boris Karloff with Peter Lorre in a bizarre amalgam of mad scientist thriller and screwball comedy along the lines of “Arsenic and Old Lace” with a touch of “You Can’t Take It With You.” It can be found on a four-film double-DVD set called the “Icons of Horror Collection.”

While DVDs are convenient, numerous films simply are not available in that home format, hard to find on cable TV, and even when they are, there’s nothing like seeing the movies on real film in an authentic old theatre with a crowd of appreciative people.

The next major classic film festival doesn’t come until the last half of March in Syracuse, NY, the 29th annual “Cinefest.”