Three Hankie Monday and...

... My Favorite Year

Film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow once described 1927 as the Annus Mirabilis. It remains without a doubt, the greatest year the in storied existence of motion pictures. The Movies reached a parity of technology and creative expression, resulting in the greatest collective output of this or any other year, unsurpassed in both quantity and astonishing quality.

It was the year of F. W. Murnau’s masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Frank Borzage’s 7th Heaven, both starring Janet Gaynor, both produced by Fox and both showered with generous and well deserved awards. While Charles Chaplin was conspicuously absent from 1927, two of film’s comic legends produced what may be considered their finest work. Buster Keaton released his Civil War railroader The General and Harold Lloyd’s equally impressive The Kid Brother was an ambitious reinterpretation of Henry King’s bucolic masterpiece, Tolable David.

A banner year for Weimar Cinema, UFA produced G. W. Pabst’s beautiful but nearly forgotten The Love of Jean Ney and Fritz Lang’s futuristic nightmare, Metropolis in 1927, both with the intoxicating Brigit Helm as their star, while French master Able Gance released his monumental epic, Napoléon.

Hollywood leader MGM contributed Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Love, an adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and a breathtaking Ernst Lubitsch production, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg<, starring Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer, wife of Lous B. Mayer’s Wonder Boy, producer Irving Thalberg.

Clara Bow appeared in the two best films of her career in 1927. It, with Antonio Moreno was an enormously popular piece of fluff from the pen of Elinor Glyn, and Wings, with Richard Arlen and newcomer Gary Cooper was the first (along with Sunrise) to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Cecil B. DeMille, John Barrymore and Colleen Moore contributed some of their finest work in 1927, while Lon Chaney starred in no less than a miraculous five feature films!

7th Heaven (1927)
Monday June 29, 7pm, The Paramount

" The trouble with you is you won't fight. You're afraid! Me! I'm not afraid of anything! That's why I'm a very remarkable fellow!"

His gift for transforming the mundane, commonplace world into something beautiful and dreamlike made the films of Frank Borzage extraordinary. 7th Heaven, and the heartbreaking performance of its star Janet Gaynor, virtually defined not only the Borzage style, but also Gaynor’s screen image and to an even greater extent, romantic love in Hollywood. The story of a Paris waif, saved by a sewer worker who pities her, was so wildly successful Fox spent years trying to equal it. Nothing ever did. The pairing of Gaynor with handsome leading man Charles Farrell presented a couple so attractive, likable and with such genuine chemistry, the two would go on to appear in eight films together, including two more with Borzage.

A pitiful young girl from the Paris streets, Diane (Gaynor) is saved from death at the hand of her degenerate and violent sister Nana (Gladys Brockwell) by Chico (Charles Farrell), a sewer worker, who then tells police Diane is his wife to keep her out of prison. There is a sense that Nana’s corruption is a moral burden imposed on the girl, who remains virtuous in her heart.

Borzage’s use of beautiful set design: the girls’ decrepit home, the ancient cobblestone streets, Chico’s rooftop garret and even the sewer, evoke an atmosphere that is both unreal and timeless. The ravishing sets created by Harry Oliver, whom Borzage used many times, add to the rich fairy-tale mood of a rather simple story, giving the characters an iconic quality.

To avoid being caught in the lie, Diane timidly offers a suggestion. " Couldn’t I stay at your place until the police come? Then I’d go away." Thoughtful and good-natured but very self-centered, Chico grows accustomed to the girl while Diane falls deeply in love with him. In a touching scene, she wraps herself in the arms of his coat she’s been mending, and dreams. The moment when Chico and Diane finally profess their love is tender and genuine. She comes from the sky like an angel in her wedding dress and Chico is overcome with emotion. It is the rapturous and poetic fulfillment of young love.

Released both silent and later with an overwrought (but effective) Western Electric Movietone sound-to-film musical score, 7th Heaven maintains its emotional impact regardless of the musical accompaniment. The surviving print is a 12 reel "road show" version screened in previews, the originally released nine reel theatrical version, cut by some 35 minutes, having been lost. 7th Heaven is rife with obvious and improbable circumstances: the sudden onset of war without any previous hint or allusion. Diane’s near murder virtually at Chico’s feet, and several others later on. They seem insignificant in this story of tragic romance, which emphasizes what Andrew Sarris described as "Borzage’s commitment to love over probability."
(originally published July 2, 2006 for the 11th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival)

Relics: "Chico - Diane – Pantages!"

Seattle’s Pantages Theatre welcomed 1928 with hoards of moviegoers and long lines on Monday, January 2 for Frank Borzage’s romantic masterpiece 7th Heaven. The film enjoyed a long run, ending two days shy of February. On the heels of their customary New Year’s show, The Seattle Daily Times reported, "Manager J. Lloyd Dearth and his staff have been working night and day to present these two features in their usual elaborate way." The Times went on to announce 7th Heaven, which commanded in upwards of $5 a seat as a road show feature, would be shown without an increase in the usual admission price (25¢ - $1.50). A special midnight press only screening on December 26 was opened to "…a limited number of theatregoers… who will not be able to attend the regular showing of this tremendous motion picture next week." With five daily showings and a "...complete new program of special vaudeville… the program again has been shortened because of the photoplay’s length (a sign of the times), but what there is matches the film excellently." The dance team of D’Andre and Walters was supported by "...a jazz band of comely young women," who the Times claimed were "…no ordinary group of tune ticklers." In a return engagement, Joe Freed and Company "...provided plenty of laughs." Rounding out the program, "Nelson and Daly, two young women vocalists" performed "…a good variety of songs and put them over well."

1304 3rd Avenue
Opening on July 19, 1915 Alexander Pantages’ fourth and most opulent Seattle theater was home to a Vaudeville empire that spread from Canada and Hollywood, to the Mississippi River. The gold and white palace on the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue and University Street played host to the stars of the Pantages circuit and witnessed the long transition from variety-vaudeville to motion pictures. Pantages turned down a generous buyout from his biggest competitor, Radio-Keith-Orpheum in 1928, only to liquidate his holdings the following year as he was enveloped in personal scandal and the Great Depression.

The theater at 1304 3rd Avenue remained open under several different names, Follies, Rex and finally Palomar, while vaudeville disappeared entirely. The once great theatrical showcase turned rundown movie house met the wrecker’s ball in 1965 and was replaced with a parking garage.

Seattle Theater Group and Trader Joe’s present Silent Movie Monday’s: Women in Film II, with four exceptional films from Hollywood’s silent era. 7th Heaven starring Janet Gaynor will be presented with live musical accompaniment performed on The Paramount’s original Publix 1 4/20 Wurlitzer organ by Oakland Paramount house organist Jim Riggs.