Stuff

Kevin Brownlow, film historian, author and director, had a life long ambition. To restore the film “Napoleon”, directed in France in 1927 by Abel Gance, back to something like its full glory. Brownlow had come across clips in his travels, and knew it was a true silent masterpiece. He recognised that it used or even invented techniques and ideas that were rare then but are all too common now, such as multiple cameras, underwater work, tinting (ok, so it’s computerised nowadays) and a multiprojector finale (an early version of Cinerama). Apparently there had even been some 3D filming, though I suspect that is lost.

The record of Brownlow’s can be found in his book which you may still be able to find.

By the 1980s, the film was in some kind of a complete form. It was ready to be seen by the public. The success of “Hollywood” on TV had generated an appetite for silent films with music, and a showing of the five hour epic took place in London, and later elsewhere, in the early 1980s. The music used a full orchestra and was created by Carl Davis. It sold out immediately (in the pre-internet days, when booking was more difficult).

Further showings happened. I saw it at the Empire in Leicester Square. By then it had reached way more than five hours as more material had been found. Now, that’s a long time to watch a film, but for the orchestra, it is two, probably three consecutive classical concerts, so multiple breaks were in order. It was a day long event. Towards the end, Davis could be heard giving the flagging players vocal encouragement.

The success prompted Thames to request more films, so many of the films highlighted in the series “Hollywood” got similar treatment, restoration, musical score and public performances. These included “The Crowd”, “Broken Blossoms”, “Greed”, “The Wind” and “Intolerance”.

As time went on, UK station Channel 4 took up the series and we had “The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse” and “The Iron Mask”, running once a year until the late 1990s. Many of these films got some kind of TV broadcast and home media release. Some are still available, “The Big Parade” and “Napoleon” for example.

But it wasn’t all heavyweight and serious stuff. There was Keaton’s “The General” and Chaplin’s masterpiece “City Lights”. Ah yes, Charles Chaplin…

In the 1980s, Thames TV in the UK created a documentary series (in the days when major terrestrial stations did these kinds of things) that was hugely successful and award winning.

Created by film historian Kevin Brownlow and producer David Gill, “Hollywood” took thirteen one hour episodes (minus adverts) to tell of the beginnings of cinema in, well, Hollywood.

It was a perfect time for such a series. There was a budget for it, very many of the stars were still alive and many were happy to be interviewed (though some were not, and of course, all are now long dead), there were good (non-computer) techniques for restoring the films and some interest in the subject and the style after the success of “The World At War”.

“Hollywood” had a simple purpose. It wanted to dispel the myths of silent films all being like the Keystone Kops, fast, jerky, poor quality. Instead, clips were presented at the right speed in the best quality.

As was said many times in the series, “silent” films were not silent. There was always music, anything from a person with a piano to a full orchestra. As well as generating a book about the series, an LP was released of the music by Carl Davis. The orchestral music underscored the clips, but also continued through the interviews, adding a seamless quality to the show and a touch of class.

Episodes covered the beginnings of Hollywood, comedians (Chaplin, Keaton etc), stunt men, directors, photographers, war and westerns and much more.

Narrator was film legend James Mason.

Sadly, this series has never been made available on DVD. When asked once about it, Brownlow hinted that there were legal and copyright problems and the chances of it coming out were small. You may be able to find copies of the individual episodes on YouTube, for example here https://youtu.be/8mo3Z8IkLnU, but the quality may not be too good – VHS recordings, I suspect. They are just about watchable, and if you saw the series when it first came out, may be worth a look, if only to see the credits again.

The success of “Hollywood” spawned other short series, one on Chaplin, one on Keaton and more on Harold Lloyd.

And, it invented, or re-invented, Live Cinema.

After a year’s break, we’re back, with some enthusiasm for writing yet another blog in the sea of blogs and videos engulfing the world.

The idea is to write a few words about some of the films we like. We hope to show the reaons why we like certain films, and perhaps say something about each of them that has not been said before.

It will be a meandering conversation. If no-one reads it, fine. If someone does read it, and they decide to watch, or perhaps re-watch, a film we mention, then that will be great.

There will be some chronology to it. We hope.

It will eventually be one a week, on Sunday. The lengths will vary. You are invited to comment, and tell us why we are wrong.

We have to limit the list. There are plenty of “100 films you must see before you die” lists, and you can see those for yourself. We also want to avoid films we have mentioned elsewhere in this blog, but that may not be possible. To limit our list, we’re dealing mostly with English language films, because we have to draw the line somewhere.

Have fun.