King of the triple take ...

... Wallace Beery

Tugboat Annie (1933)
Wednesday June 6, 7:00pm, SIFF Cinema (The Neshlom Family Lecture Hall), Seattle International Film Festival

Beggars of Life (1928)
Saturday July 14, 8:45pm, The Castro, The San Francisco Silent Film Festival

As the archetypal silent movie villain, Wallace Beery tied Gloria Swanson to the railroad tracks in Teddy at The Throttle (1917). He appeared as reviled, despicable characters in The Last of The Mohicans (1920) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). As he grew older, his characters became less edgy and more appealing, in films like Old Ironsides (1926), and Beggars of Life (1928). With sound, his slow, baritone cadence transformed him into a loveable slob, still the villain, but too sweet to hate.

Imagining Beery’s typical character in the nineteen thirties, he paws the ground with one foot and averts his eyes in bashful modesty, "O – o – o – o – h – h - h w – e – l – l – l – l – l, it weren’t n – u – t – h – i – n". He greeted filmgoers in his later years with a drunken wink, a smile, and mischievous spirit, in films like The Champ (1931) and Tugboat Annie (1933).

Tugboat Annie (1933)

Sadly, Paramount’s silent version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s storybook classic Treasure Island (1920), directed by Maurice Tourneur, starring Shirley Mason and Lon Chaney is, presumed lost. What remains in the American collective consciousness as ample consolation is the superb 1934 MGM version starring Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore, Louis Stone and Beery, in his most memorable and endearing role, as Long John Silver.

Running away to join the circus as a teenager, Berry moved on to Vaudeville and established himself as a riotously funny female impersonator, a specialty he transferred to his earliest films as "Sweedie" the Maid. He made one of the most successful transitions into sound. Turning unassuming ugliness and nonchalance into a franchise, Beery’s easy-going buffoon was the perfect intermediary, the favorite trouble-making uncle, the best-buddy, a comrade-in-arms, master of the slow burn and king of the triple take.

Treasure Island (1934)