Roszak, Theodore. Flicker. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Until The DaVinci Code came along, there was nothing out there with which to compare this book. It’s the story of a hunt for lost films, some of the technology involved, the netherworld of film societies and slasher geeks, subliminal messaging, and a conspiracy theory involving a cult made up of equal parts Shaker, Rosicrucian, and Turner Entertainment. Roszak’s book got a bounce from Dan Brown’s megaseller Code in the form of a reissue fourteen years after it disappeared below the radar.
ONLINE INFORMATION
Usually, this is an oxymoron. The Internet is unedited, and therefore less reliable in most cases than the Magic Eight Ball. However, Kodak has posted data on the Environmental Services page of its Web site essential to understanding the process involved in preserving, storing, transporting, and disposing of silver nitrate film, including molecular sieves and how to identify the dreaded five stages of decomposition. Details are absorbing and harrowing. The characters who stepped up beside Yves Montand to truck nitroglycerine over a hundred miles of bad road in The Wages of Fear might have balked at this cargo. You’ll find the site at—oh, something dot com. Just Google it.
FILMS
The following titles reveal, in terms this writer could never replicate, the beauty and drama of the silent film as it pertains to the career of Erich von Stroheim. Good luck finding some of them.
Foolish Wives. Directed by Erich von Stroheim, starring Maude George, Mae Busch, Cesare Gravina, and Malvina Polo. Universal, 1922.
Von Stroheim replicated Monte Carlo in astonishing detail for this melodramatic mix of seduction, blackmail, fakery, and murder. William Daniels and Ben Reynolds, who would later photograph Greed, taught their cameras to perform impossible feats. Available on DVD.
Greed. Directed by Erich von Stroheim, starring Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Chester Conklin, and Dale Fuller. MGM, 1925.
Until someone actually discovers a complete print, we must make do with the four-hour reconstruction produced by Rick Schmidlin in 1999, using hundreds of stills and additional title cards based on Von Stroheim’s shooting script. The effect, unfortunately, is static, and counterproductive to the epic poetry of the moving image. It still manages to astonish—and shock audiences misled to believe that the motion picture was family fare until the late 1960s—but sitting through it makes one long for Thalberg’s two-hour cut. Available on VHS.
Hollywood. Produced by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, narrated by James Mason. Thames Television, 1980.
Words cannot describe this thirteen-part series of one-hour documentaries on the silent film. Scenes from classics, beautifully remastered and projected at the original speed (not the herky-jerky comic pace that comes from running them through standard modern projectors), interspersed with personal accounts by pioneers who have since gone to the mezzanine in the sky, present a look firsthand at the birth and adolescence of an exciting new medium. It’s another home run for Brownlow, with a healthy assist from David Gill, and an even greater achievement than The Parade’s Gone By. VHS, out of print.
The Merry Widow. Directed by Erich von Stroheim, starring Mae Murray, John Gilbert, Roy D’Arcy, Tully Marshall, and Josephine Crowell (cameo by Clark Gable!). MGM, 1925.
This is the one about the prince and the showgirl, based on an operetta by Franz Lehar, with the infamous boot-collection scene. (Von Stroheim: “He has a foot fetish.” Thalberg: “And you have a footage fetish!”) Not available on home video.
Sunset Boulevard. Directed by Billy Wilder, starring Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim, Cecil B. DeMille (cameos by Buster Keaton, H.B. Warner, Anna Q. Nillson, Henry Wilcoxon). Paramount, 1950.
Billy Wilder, another eccentric Austrian director, wrote this masterpiece under the indisputable influence of Raymond Chandler, with whom he collaborated on the script of Double Indemnity six years before. Ironically, it’s the movie most people think of when they hear the names Swanson and Von Stroheim, made a generation after the dozens of pictures that made them household names throughout the world; but then that’s the theme of Boulevard: No matter how much money you made for your studio and the industry, you’re disposable and quickly forgotten. Von Stroheim’s real-life fall from grace is eerily reflected in Max von Mayerling’s subservience to the woman he’d directed and once wed. The casting is spot-on and unique. However eye-catching you find Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical stage adaptation in the 1990s, even his pool of talent couldn’t approach an aging silent star cast as an aging silent star, a disgraced director playing a disgraced director, and DeMille playing DeMille. The film is the Gone With the Wind of cinema noir, and the best movie Hollywood ever made about Hollywood. Available on DVD.
**
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Frames could not have been written but for the inspiration and contributions of the following people, some of whom have exited the theater:
Bill Kennedy, host of At the Movies. For decades, Kennedy, a former movie bit player (I Died a Thousand Times) and radio announcer (“Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive!”), introduced virtually the entire library of every studio afternoons on CKLW and later WKBD TV. His formidable knowledge of Hollywood lore— and his somewhat acerbic personality—required as much as fifteen minutes during station breaks while he fielded questions telephoned in by viewers. No one seemed to mind the interruptions.
Mary Morgan, hostess (with her dachshund, Liebchen) of Million Dollar Movie. This ladylike Detroiter, her hair piled high and sprayed hard as mahogany, brought a more genteel quality to local programming Sunday afternoons following Kennedy, scavenging features he’d overlooked.
Rita Bell, hostess of Prize Movie. On WXYZ Channel 7, infectiously bubbling Ms. Bell filled the time between reels taking calls from viewers trying to answer the trivia question of the hour. Each wrong answer added seven dollars to the cash prize awarded the winner.
Don Ameche, host of Armchair Theater. The urbane actor, whose career spanned sixty years (The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, Heaven Can Wait, Trading Places, Cocoon), brought style and polish to this network evening showcase, sipping cognac from a balloon glass and wearing a silk smoking jacket in the depths of a huge wingback easy chair.
The unsung programmers behind Saturday Night at the Movies. The Estleman family bonded around this weekly CBS fixture.
Deborah, the writer’s wife. An accomplished novelist (as Deborah Morgan), she made suggestions, offered advice, counseled reason, and braved the terrors of the Internet to retrieve bales of technical material on preserving and restoring films photographed on silver nitrate. In addition, she holds her husband’s hand through the closing credits long after everyone else has left the room.
Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine. A friend and fine editor, she’s published ten Valentino short stories as of the time of this writing. May this happy relationship continue.
The coveted final credit goes to Kevin Brownlow, author of The Parade’s Gone By and coproducer of Hollywood. He’s done more than any other person living to rescue the silent movie from oblivion and to raise the public consciousness to its appreciation; as a real-life film detective, he’s recovered hundreds of miles of footage once considered lost, including the complete 235-minute cut of Napoleon, Abel Gance’s 1927 epic—for whose 1979 premiere the eighty-nine-year-old director took his bows. In every way, Brownlow is the inspiration for Valentino. He may yet find Greed.
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