Tinsel on The Painted Ladies

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black …

Intolerance (1916)
Saturday December 1, 2:00 p.m. The Castro, San Francisco

Originally conceived as a three-reel drama, D.W Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) became his attempt to surpass the popular success achieved by The Birth of A Nation (1915). Griffith constructed a great populist commentary by weaving three historical episodes together with a modern story and the unifying theme of social injustice. The monumental scale and complexity of Intolerance on screen was only matched by the scope of Griffith’s talent and ambition.

The resulting film is both a masterpiece and an incongruous monstrosity. Intolerance imposes great demands on its audience and holds more significance for the influence it had in motion picture development than for its commercial success as a feature film.

At the heart of Intolerance is the original story, an urban nightmare of callused indifference and the tragedy of two thoroughly likeable youngsters played by Mae Marsh and Robert Herron. Griffith released deconstructed versions in 1919. Preaching is for the pulpit.

… and A Fool for Love.

Flesh and The Devil (1926)
Saturday December 1, 8:00 p.m. The Castro, San Francisco

A jewel from MGM’s golden age, Flesh and The Devil (1926) is the story of Felicitas (Greta Garbo), an irresistible but moody and shallow woman who sends both her husbands, Count von Rhaden (Marc MacDermott) and Ulrich von Kletzinak (Lars Hanson, The Scarlet Letter 1926, The Wind 1928) to the field of honor with her obsessed lover Leo von Sellenthin (John Gilbert, The Merry Widow 1925, The Big Parade 1925). Garbo smolders as the aloof and toxic beauty every man desires, while Gilbert attempts to set her on fire with his penetrating gaze.

Produced by Hollywood’s ‘Wonder Boy’ Irving Thalberg, adapted by Benjamin Glazer from Hermann Sudermann’s novel, beautifully photographed by William Daniels and directed by Clarence Brown (The Rains Came 1939, The Yearling 1946), Flesh and The Devil exerts a potent and surprising sexual dynamism which furthers the theory that all men are stupid, and all women are evil.

Musical accompaniment for both features will be performed on the Castro’s 4/21 Wurlitzer by the incomparable Dennis James,

Relics

Griffith on Geary …

D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance opened on Monday, October 6, 1916 at San Francisco’s Columbia Theatre. Built in 1909 amid the post-earthquake construction boom, and opened in January 1910, the theater located at 415 Geary was renamed ‘The Geary’ in 1928. Heroic efforts (and millions of dollars) saved The Geary after catastrophic damage suffered in the 1989 earthquake and today its legacy of ‘legitimate’ theater lives on as the home of ACT.

Griffith chose to market his grand historical epics as more than mere movies. Advertisements in the San Francisco Chronicle announced Intolerance, " will positively never be presented in any but first-class theatres and at prices customarily charged for high-class productions." With a "Symphony orchestra of forty," and two shows daily, ticket prices for "… the most stupendous creation the theatre has ever known," ranged from 25 cents for second balcony and gallery seats, to 50 and 75 cent matinees and two dollar (a king’s ransom) box seats.

… and Love at The Warfield.

The San Francisco Chronicle announced Clarence Brown’s Flesh and The Devil on Saturday, March 19, 1927 as MGM’s "… love drama of the century…" Showtimes ran from 10 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. at Lowe’s Warfield on Market Street and featured "Rube Wolf and his Greater Band." Advertisements by the second, and final week claimed Flesh and The Devil was, "… playing to absolute capacity audiences at all performances!" "Every record … for every picture … is broken … more then 100,000 people have seen … and marveled over … Flesh and The Devil!"

Located at 982 Market Street, The Warfield is another San Francisco survivor. The Albert Lansburgh designed theater opened on May 23, 1922. Known for decades as a premiere concert venue, rather than a movie house, The Warfield has remained in use for virtually its entire history.