Modern Movies: HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (2022)

I often tell people that I love "weird movies," and Hundreds of Beavers (2022) is definitely one of the weirdest, wackiest, and most purely delightful movies I have seen in a long time. This festival darling from Mike Cheslik (writer and director) and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (writer and star) puts silent comedy, Looney Tunes cartoons, and modern video games into a blender to create an absurdist masterpiece with gags flying by at a breakneck pace for the entire 108 minute run of the picture. If you have the opportunity to see Hundreds of Beavers in a theater, you should skip this review and hurry out the door, but for those who - like me - have to make elaborate travel plans to see indie festival flicks, here's my review to encourage you to book the hotel and gas up the car (or at least make sure you track this one down when it hits streaming or physical media release).

Ryland Brickson Cole Tews plays the hapless Jean Kayak, whose boozy good times making and selling applejack abruptly end when beavers destroy his business. Forced to survive in the relentlessly cold winter, Jean learns by painful trial and error to hunt the beavers and other local critters (all played by actors in cartoonish costumes). He's encouraged in his efforts by an old Master Trapper (Wes Tank) and the attractive furrier (Olivia Graves), but as it turns out the beavers have much more grandiose plans than general mischief against the local humans.

There's so much going on in addition to this basic narrative that it's hard to know where to start, but try to imagine Tex Avery directing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) with Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton in the starring role and you might begin to get the idea. The movie owes a lot to silent comedy, with many scenes evoking The Gold Rush (1925) thanks to the setting but also Modern Times (1936) and any of the Keystone Cops pictures. There are sight gags and stunts Keaton would love, especially the more meta examples like the holes that dot the landscape or the elaborate Rube Goldberg traps Jean builds. Watching the movie is often like watching someone play a puzzle game (I found myself especially thinking of the 1996 classic, The Neverhood), and the video game vibe is enhanced by action scenes that recall Frogger, Donkey Kong, and other iconic games as well as the intentionally flat and artificial backgrounds against which these scenes occur.

As funny as Cheslik and the other actors are in the human roles - and they are very funny, indeed - the "animals" in the movie are absolutely uproarious, and presenting the story this way is a brilliant stroke that effectively separates us from any expectation of a moral. I won't spoil the dozens of hilarious bits, but a few of my favorites include the two detective beavers, the melodramatic story of the rabbit family, the poker playing sled dogs, and the horse. There are also several delightful puppets to represent smaller animals, including a frog, some fish, and a very annoying woodpecker. Whenever you think the movie has surely reached peak absurdity, it raises the ante again, much to the whooping delight of the audience with whom I saw it. Because it's so maniacally silly, older children will almost certainly love it, but I should add that there's a brief pole dancing scene, a fair bit of sexual innuendo and imagery, and a lot of scatological humor, in addition to non-stop cartoon violence. It's all in service to the comedy, but it's important to consider your own tolerance or that of your children before taking anyone under 12 to see it. There was at least one kid who was about 10 in our small audience, and I could hear him laughing even louder than the adults throughout the movie.

If you want to learn more about Hundreds of Beavers or find the nearest theater screening, head over to the official website. A Blu-ray release is planned for Summer 2024, and the movie will stream on Fandor starting in the spring. I will definitely be buying a copy of the movie so that I can see it again and force all of my friends to watch it.

LEGO Tribute to NOSFERATU (1922)

Happy Halloween! This year I decided to celebrate spooky season with a LEGO tribute to one of the greatest horror movies ever made, Nosferatu (1922). Max Schreck created an iconic character as the creepy, plague carrying Count Orlok, the film's replacement for Count Dracula (because they couldn't get permission to make an actual adaptation of Stoker's novel). While the setting here is not strictly faithful to the familiar shots of Orlok in the doorway, I felt that the rats and spiders helped to convey the mood of the picture (you can't have Nosferatu without rats!).

Just like a vampire, this great silent movie rose again from the dead after Stoker's estate demanded that the prints be destroyed, and we're lucky to be able to watch Nosferatu today. The original film was remade in 1979 (with Klaus Kinski), celebrated in song by Blue Oyster Cult in 1977, and parodied to great effect in the 2000 film, Shadow of the Vampire, with Willem Dafoe earning an Oscar nomination for his delightfully weird performance as Max/Orlok.

 

 

Searching for Silent Treasure on Paramount Plus

We signed up for Paramount Plus to watch Star Trek, which is probably why most people subscribe to the streaming service, but it has turned out to be a very interesting opportunity to watch classic movies that don't necessarily appear on other streamers. Classic movie fans still mourning the loss of Filmstruck mostly find their content on HBO Max, with its TCM hub, or the Criterion Channel, but the collapse of the DVD market has made old movies harder to find in general as streamers focus on original content instead of large libraries full of hidden gems. Venerable old studio Paramount, however, has less original content to offer and instead fills out its catalogue with lots of iconic and obscure features from its distant past, including a surprising number of silents. If you're looking for classic movies you haven't seen before, and especially if you're looking for silents, Paramount Plus might be worth your while, but the interface leaves the hard work of finding its buried treasure to you.

I originally wrote about classic movies on CBS All Access, as it was then called, back in 2020, so I wanted to follow up with a look at its current catalogue under the Paramount Plus moniker. The service still has quite a large collection of classic movies on offer, ranging from comedies and dramas to horror and Westerns, although your best method of finding them is to search the entire category A-Z for each genre because you can't search the library using people's names or general terms like "silent" or "classic." Mixed into the groups are numerous silent features, but you'll only identify them as such if you recognize the titles or click on them to get to a brief info page that includes the release date. You can follow one listing to a group of similar films, so once you find a silent picture you can more easily turn up others, but it's a haphazard method of discovery, for sure.

In spite of the effort it takes to find them, Paramount Plus does have some real gems tucked into its collection. Here are a few of the silent movies currently on offer:

The Mark of Zorro (1920)

The Lost World (1925)

Little Annie Rooney (1925)

The Black Pirate (1926)

Sparrows (1926)

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928)

The General (1926)

 

 

         The Thief of Bagdad 1924) 

         The Eagle (1925)

         Blood and Sand (1922)

        Orphans of the Storm (1921)

The films themselves come from several different studios, but the prints included on Paramount Plus seem, after a casual survey, to be generally good quality, unlike the unwatchable prints sometimes offered up by Amazon Prime. Thus far my experiences watching silent movies on the service have been good ones, even if I would really like a better way to search for them and better information about them in their listings. 

Have you watched classic movies on Paramount Plus? Have you uncovered any hidden gems from the silent era lurking in its collection? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

The End of FilmStruck

For the last six months my movie watching and review writing have been severely curtailed due to pressing work on other efforts, but I always comforted myself with the thought that FilmStruck would be there waiting for me after November 6 passed. Now, alas, the cruel corporate gods at AT&T have declared that FilmStruck is to end this month, and my comforting hope has evaporated. I only have two weeks left to enjoy the best movie streaming service ever to grace my television with its presence, and I can't seem to get through my long watchlist fast enough.

Originally I had doubts about FilmStruck because they seemed more interested in being an art house service than one with a robust catalog of classics, but once they teamed up with TCM they really took off as a platform for serious classic film fans. It was an especially welcome pairing to me because I love TCM but don't watch it at home, where we don't have cable. I was also annoyed by their lack of availability on Roku during their early rollout, but I signed up as soon as that became an option. Once I started using FilmStruck, I fell in love with its ever expanding catalog and delightful curation of spotlight collections.

When FilmStruck leaves us, we'll be stuck with the lame offerings of Hulu and Netflix once again, and many of the movies I enjoy won't be available except as expensive made-to-order DVDs. I don't know where Criterion will go with its films, given that it ended its partnership with Hulu to move over to FilmStruck (and thus made Hulu practically useless except for watching Saturday Night Live without the commercials). Many actors and film directors are joining with fans to call for FilmStruck to be saved, but I doubt AT&T cares, which means that this holiday season is one that the Grinch is stealing from classic movie lovers. It's going to be a blue Christmas for all of us when we watch our last Lon Chaney silent or Ernst Lubitsch comedy at the end of November, and I'm thinking of telling my in-laws that I'm sick just so I can stay home on Thanksgiving and watch movies all day instead of putting up with small talk over the turkey.

With so many movies and only two weeks left, I'm trying to concentrate my viewing time on the hardest to find films, things I haven't seen before and am unlikely to be able to see another way. For me that means digging into the silents, especially the Chaney offerings like HE Who Gets Slapped (1924) and Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928). I'm not going to bet on any future platform being willing to give so much space to silents. Warner is reportedly going to roll out some kind of new streaming service at the end of 2019, but given the way things have gone since the end of 2016 we could all be living in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic hellscape by then.

So, fellow FilmStruck fans, what movies are on your list for the last two weeks of streaming? Offer your suggestions in the comments below!

UPDATE: Later on the same day that I made this post, Criterion announced that they will launch their own streaming platform starting in Spring 2019. This is good news for folks who particularly value the Criterion titles, although we'll have to wait to see if the now also promised upcoming Warner service will cater to the classic movie fans who were more drawn to the Warner and TCM offerings. The standalone Criterion Channel will be $11 a month, and you can sign up now to become a charter member on their website.

Classic Films in Focus: THE PENALTY (1920)

Part crime drama and part body horror, The Penalty (1920) helped to propel Lon Chaney to true stardom after seven years in the film business and a long roster of less memorable roles. The melodramatic adaptation of Gouverneur Morris' novel about an amputee crime lord gave Chaney the opportunity to demonstrate the lengths he would go to create a physically distinct character, but it also allowed him to show his skill at conveying that character's complex emotional experience. Nearly a century later, Chaney's performance still has the power to move and horrify his audience in equal measure, although some of the story's attitudes toward women, immigrants, and people with disabilities have not aged nearly as well.

Chaney plays a notorious San Francisco kingpin called Blizzard, who lost his legs as a young boy when a novice surgeon (Charles Clary) prematurely amputated them following a car accident. The malpractice was covered up by the doctors, but Blizzard has never forgotten the gross injury done to him. While he plots the ransack of San Francisco with his criminal gang, Blizzard watches for an opportunity to avenge himself on Dr. Ferris, who has since become a well-respected surgeon. He finds his chance when the doctor's artistic daughter, Barbara (Claire Adams), advertises for a model for her sculpture of Satan after the Fall. Meanwhile, Blizzard himself is the target of the secret service, which sends the intrepid agent, Rose (Ethel Grey Terry), undercover into Blizzard's lair.

Chaney has a particular genius for making tragic figures of his most monstrous men, and Blizzard is a terrific example of the actor's ability to make us feel pity and even sympathy for someone sunk so low in the worst of human emotions. Of course we stare at Chaney's tortured body and wonder how he manages the physical feat of playing a legless man, but his face tells us even more about Blizzard's self-loathing and his longing for something beautiful and good in his life. He can look like the devil incarnate, but he can also recall to us the innocent boy whose life was ruined by a foolish doctor's haste. He has his best scenes with the film's two female characters, both of whom respond to the buried humanity that they sense within him. Rose even falls in love with him, though she knows perfectly well the long list of crimes he has committed. If the final explanation for Blizzard's crimes seems far-fetched, it does at least give Chaney another facet of the character to portray, showing that he can be credible as good men as well as monsters.

Blizzard is made more sympathetic by the frankly obnoxious men who are meant to be the "good guys" of the piece, namely Dr. Ferris and his assistant, Wilmot (Kenneth Harlan), both of whom treat Barbara's artistic efforts as a pointless waste of time. Blizzard might be using Barbara for his own insidious ends, but at least he takes her seriously as an artist. Ferris and Wilmot both dislike Blizzard primarily for being "crippled" and "deformed," even though it was Ferris himself who wrecked Blizzard's body by being an incompetent fool. While the film provides some pushback against the sexism and ableism embodied by the doctors, it never confronts its anti-immigrant, Red Scare depiction of Blizzard's army of anarchist "foreign workers" who intend to loot San Francisco. The scheme does, at least, explain Blizzard's decision to pull his "dancing girls" off the streets and put them to work making hundreds of straw hats, which the anarchists will wear as a sort of uniform when they rise up to ransack the city.

Despite these dated attitudes, The Penalty succeeds as a gripping silent drama with a strong flavor of the horrific thanks to Chaney's powerful performance. Anyone interested in the "man of a thousand faces" will find this picture worthwhile, especially if you've already seen later films like The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Unholy Three (1925), and The Unknown (1927). Director Wallace Worsley worked with Chaney again on several movies, including The Ace of Hearts (1921), A Blind Bargain (1922), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). For contrast in terms of Chaney's depiction of a character with extreme leg problems, try West of Zanzibar (1928).

If you want to read more about The Penalty, check out this thorough discussion of the film at Movies Silently (warning - includes spoilers). The Penalty is currently available for streaming on the horror service Shudder.

Classic Films in Focus: WEST OF ZANZIBAR (1928)

Tod Browning's silent 1928 story of revenge in the African Congo provides a challenge to modern viewers, given that it relies on hyper-racist stereotypes and deeply rooted misogyny for much of its horror, but if you're looking for something truly horrifying then West of Zanzibar (1928) certainly fits the bill. It packs an astounding amount of perverse cruelty into 65 minutes of film, most of it perpetuated by Lon Chaney as a paralyzed villain on a vendetta against his romantic rival and the child who symbolizes his betrayal. Lionel Barrymore and Warner Baxter also have prominent roles, although Mary Nolan takes most of the abuse as the young woman persecuted by Chaney's monstrous vengeance. Chaney is, as always, mesmerizing in a dark and complicated role, but be warned that this film is no stroll in the park.

Chaney plays the magician Phroso, who loses the use of his legs in a fight with Crane (Barrymore), the man who is stealing his wife. Later the wife turns up again with a baby in tow and promptly dies. Over his wife's corpse, Phroso swears vengeance on Crane and his child, thus embarking on an eighteen year mission to ruin Crane, debauch his daughter, and murder them both by invoking the ritual sacrifice performed by a tribe of African cannibals. Phroso makes himself a voodoo master in the remote African camp by using his magician's tricks, but his relentless desire for revenge blinds him to a painful truth until it is almost too late to change.

Chaney's performance is the highlight here. He begins as a sympathetic victim, a good man buffeted by unkind fate. His world crumbles when his beloved wife abandons him and her suitor cripples him, but these events alone do not change him. He only chooses evil over good in the church where he finds his wife's body, with the helpless infant crying nearby. The scene swells with terrible irony; Phroso looks on the Virgin and Child, and instead of pity for his wife's daughter chooses hate. From then on he embraces cruelty, sending the girl to be raised in a Zanzibar brothel while he cheats Crane of his ivory haul. Chaney plays Phroso as tragic, then monstrous, with slight hints of the vestiges of his humanity peeking through from time to time just to remind us of what he once was. His dead legs provide a physical parallel to his withered soul, and Chaney is, of course, brilliant in the way he manages to convey both the bodily and the spiritual wreckage.

Everyone else mainly reacts to Chaney, and the emotions called for are horror, disgust, fear, and loathing. In his own way, Lionel Barrymore's Crane is just as much a monster as Phroso, wreaking havoc and creating misery without ever worrying about the consequences of his actions. He laughs at Phroso's folly because he feels no pity for its victims. Mary Nolan, as Maizie, is chief among these; her tragic eyes and body language suggest so much more about her suffering than the title cards can convey. Warner Baxter plays a good man mired in Hell as Doc, but Maizie's arrival stirs his numbed conscience, and the pair eventually gather the courage to defy Phroso. These two characters get more nuanced development in the 1932 version of the story, Kongo, which fleshes out the doctor's narrative and their budding romance. The superstitious natives also react to Phroso, but they're so hideously stereotyped that they remove the viewer from the moment, and it's hard to blame the actors playing them for being unenthusiastic about selling their roles.

If nothing else, West of Zanzibar proves (yet again) that silent horror is by no means tame; Browning pushes buttons and tests limits in ways that no horror director of the 40s or 50s could. It suffers from the usual limitations of its era, especially where racist, colonialist attitudes are concerned, and it exploits the sexual degradation of its main female character in deeply uncomfortable ways. It might be preferable to start with other Chaney films if you aren't already well versed in his work or silent movies in general; try The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Unholy Three (1925), or The Unknown (1927). For some of Browning's more controversial work, see Freaks (1932), or try his very weird collaboration with star Lionel Barrymore in The Devil-Doll (1932), in which Barrymore plays the man obsessed with revenge. Browning and Barrymore also team up for The Show (1927). For a different look at Warner Baxter, try The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936).

Classic Films in Focus: THE UNHOLY THREE (1925)

The Unholy Three (1925) takes director Tod Browning and star Lon Chaney out of the horror genre, but this silent crime drama is still weird enough to satisfy fans of their other films. Many of Browning's favorite motifs are on display, including his obsession with carnival sideshow types, and Chaney, so often deformed to play strange characters, this time adopts the guise of a little old lady with stooped shoulders and a sweet, grandmotherly face. Mae Busch, Harry Earles, and a young Victor McLaglen add to the film's appeal with their performances, with Earles in particular getting the opportunity to prove that his small stature was not the only thing he had to bring to his roles.

Chaney plays sideshow ventriloquist Echo, who hatches a bizarre scheme to commit robberies by posing as the elderly female owner of a bird store. He recruits fellow performers Hercules (Victor McLaglen) and Tweedledee (Harry Earles) as his accomplices, and he also brings along his pick-pocket sweetheart, Rosie (Mae Busch). Echo's plans go awry when Hercules and Tweedledee commit a Christmas Eve robbery without him, and Rosie turns out to be in love with the innocent man they intend to frame for the crime.

Chaney's character resembles many of his other roles in that Echo is not an entirely bad man, but one capable of great good or great evil as a result of his ambitious, jealous nature. Echo loves Rosie more than he is able to express to her; he doesn't even realize how much he cares about her until she falls for the unassuming Hector (Matt Moore). When Rosie pleads with Echo to save Hector from being executed for the trio's crimes, Echo has to choose between selfless love and his own safety. As Echo, Chaney is intense, a man taut with energy and expectation. As Mrs. O'Grady, he hides that masculine identity beneath an old woman's face and clothes, but the best scenes show Echo struggling to repress his real feelings while maintaining his feminine disguise. The ridiculous nature of Echo's impersonation grabs our attention in several scenes, but Browning and Chaney frequently remind us that this is no mere frolic, and the consequences of the trio's robberies are deadly.

Of the supporting players, Victor McLaglen and Matt Moore have the least to do, although seeing McLaglen's impressive physique is quite a thrill. Moore’s milquetoast Hector is the weakest part of the film, even more so than the chimpanzee standing in for a ferocious gorilla. He’s so dull that it’s hard to understand what Rosie sees in him, although Mae Busch gives a very good performance as the bad girl slowly succumbing to her better nature. Harry Earles steals his scenes repeatedly as Tweedledee, who spends much of his time pretending to be a toddler but really has the most violent, selfish nature of the lot. When we first meet him, he kicks a child in the face and then tries to get into a brawl; later he watches the other characters with sharp, calculating eyes, always waiting for an opportunity to get the upper hand. The role provides a fascinating contrast with Earles’ best known part, that of the innocent Hans in Browning’s horror masterpiece, Freaks (1932).

Lon Chaney and Harry Earles reprised their roles for a sound version of The Unholy Three in 1930, with Jack Conway as the director. Tod Browning is best remembered today for Dracula (1931), but his other films with Chaney include The Unknown (1927), West of Zanzibar (1928), and Where East is East (1929). See more of Mae Busch in Foolish Wives (1922), Souls for Sale (1923), and Sons of the Desert (1933). Victor McLaglen won an Oscar for Best Actor for The Informer (1935); a favorite of director John Ford, he makes memorable appearances in Wee Willie Winkie (1937), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and The Quiet Man (1952). Browning liked the drag aspect of The Unholy Three enough to revisit it with The Devil-Doll (1936), in which Lionel Barrymore tackles the role of the counterfeit granny.

Classic Films in Focus: THE SHOW (1927)

Horror maestro Tod Browning is in familiar territory in The Show (1927), which takes place in a community of Budapest carnival performers. Although much of the movie falls more into the category of melodrama, Browning revels in the opportunity to stage images of the disturbing, the extraordinary, and the truly bizarre, and fans of Browning’s work will certainly see the parallels to films like The Unholy Three (1925), The Unknown (1927), and, of course, Freaks (1932). John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, and Renee Adoree star in this silent shocker about a deadly love triangle, which holds up well despite some unintentional hilarity from an unusual animal costar.

Gilbert plays the skirt-chasing Cock Robin, a sideshow barker and performer who uses his charm with the ladies to attract the foolish daughter of a wealthy sheep farmer. Barrymore’s character, known only as The Greek, is a dangerous criminal who jealously watches the attention that Cock Robin receives from his lover, the beautiful dancer Salome (Renee Adoree), who used to be Cock Robin’s girl. Determined to get rid of his competition, The Greek devises a series of bizarre schemes to kill Cock Robin, who has enough problems already thanks to his mercenary entanglement with the farmer’s daughter.

All three of the principals perform their roles beautifully, projecting their characters’ emotions as only silent stars can. John Gilbert, devilishly handsome in his striped shirt and fitted pants, makes us see what the ladies love about the aptly named Cock Robin even though he behaves like a heel. His charisma helps to explain Salome’s helpless attraction to a man who mistreats her so cruelly, although Cock Robin might as well be a saint compared to The Greek. There’s something sadistic, even sociopathic, about Lionel Barrymore’s bright, steely eyes as he imagines his gruesome revenge on Cock Robin. Everybody is afraid of him, and with good reason, too. Renee Adoree plays Salome as a complex character, sometimes a temptress, as her name and stage role suggest, but at other times a patient martyr, a voice of reason, and a steadfast protector. If her sexy carnival costume doesn’t quite become her, it’s because her true nature differs so greatly from the role she has to play; she looks most beautiful when her eyes fill with tears of suffering, love, and compassion.

With the sideshow as the setting for this romantic melodrama, Browning has room for plenty of bizarre touches. Cock Robin and Salome perform a recreation of the beheading of John the Baptist, which ends with Salome kissing the mouth of the decapitated but still living victim. The show also includes an assortment of fake freaks, the most striking of which is the Spider Woman staring balefully from the center of her web. The horrific teeters over into the hilarious, however, when a deadly Gila monster is introduced as The Greek’s weapon of choice against Cock Robin. The poisonous animal is played in the movie by a rather energetic iguana, who leaps onto his victims as if he has been shot from a catapult. When The Greek finds himself trapped in a closet with the angry animal, it’s a moment of poetic justice, but watching Barrymore react to the iguana provokes laughter much more than horror. Perhaps iguanas were less familiar when the movie was made, but whatever audiences in 1927 might have thought of the reptile, it’s sure to be one of the movie’s most memorable elements for modern viewers.

Tod Browning is best remembered today as the director of Dracula (1931), but he also made Mark of the Vampire (1935) and The Devil Doll (1936) with Lionel Barrymore. See more of John Gilbert in He Who Gets Slapped (1924), Flesh and the Devil (1926), and Queen Christina (1933). Renee Adoree also stars with Gilbert in The Big Parade (1925) and La Boheme (1926). Of the three stars, Lionel Barrymore is the most familiar to modern audiences; his long career included over 200 roles in classics like Captains Courageous (1937), You Can’t Take It with You (1938), and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

The Show is currently available for streaming on Warner Archive Instant.

Classic Films in Focus: THE UNKNOWN (1927)

Lon Chaney’s talent for physical transformation takes a different form in this silent horror film from Tod Browning, the director best remembered today for Dracula (1931) and Freaks (1932). Like Freaks, this earlier Browning production also unfolds in a circus, with Chaney as one of the sideshow acts, and it presages the later movie’s themes of altered bodies, unrequited love, and terrible revenge. As the movie’s murderous protagonist, Chaney gives an intense, powerful performance that silent horror fans are certain to appreciate, but Joan Crawford also provides part of the appeal as the object of Chaney’s deranged devotion.

Chaney stars as Alonzo, an armless performer in a gypsy circus. His inability to touch her attracts the friendship of the beautiful Nanon (Joan Crawford), who harbors a phobia of men’s hands. Alonzo, however, has a dangerous secret; he does have arms, which he keeps hidden because a deformity of his fingers marks him as a wanted criminal. Alonzo pretends to encourage his handsome rival, Malabar (Norman Kerry), to pursue Nanon, but secretly he plots to win her for himself, even if keeping her love means making a monstrous sacrifice.

Many of Chaney’s most famous characters depend on makeup and appliances to alter his face, but as Alonzo he looks more or less like himself, if outfitted in picturesque gypsy garb. We actually get to see the way in which his arms are bound when Alonzo gets undressed at night, and it looks absolutely excruciating, but the real fascination lies in Alonzo’s expressions, which Chaney brilliantly invests with love, hatred, rage, and grim resolve. We understand that Alonzo is both evil and insane, but we also see that he worships Nanon with a passion even more violent than his darker urges. He will go to any lengths to possess her, and we have to pity him for that devotion, much as we pity all of the great, doomed monsters of classic horror.

As Nanon, Crawford amply justifies Alonzo’s ardor, although she’s so young that you might not recognize her at first glance. With her large eyes and Cupid’s bow mouth, the youthful Crawford has a softness about her that we don’t normally associate with her image. We do, however, see flashes of the woman she would become later in her film career; when Nanon is frightened, angry, or repulsed, the angles of her face take on their familiar shape, the hard lines revealing that steely, indomitable force. She has her best scenes early on, when she recoils from the amorous Malabar’s embraces; later, once she gets over her fear and accepts him as a lover, she functions mostly as Alonzo’s unwitting tormentor, smiling at her distraught admirer while the hated rival triumphantly takes her in his arms. We can hardly blame Alonzo for plotting an accident that will tear the offensive appendages right off of Malabar’s muscular torso.

Browning and Chaney both revel in a perverse sense of irony that builds to a crescendo around the halfway point and then spills over into the conclusion, but the climax really comes with Alonzo’s realization, too late, that he has made his sacrifice in vain. It’s an extreme but effective reminder not to count one’s chickens before they hatch, and the scene delights in showing us the happy couple’s caresses contrasted with Alonzo’s increasing hysteria in reply. They don’t know why he laughs, and cries, and faints, but we do, and the result is brilliantly awful, the kind of moment that makes a viewer squirm with an unbearably delicious sense of agony and dread. It is precisely the kind of sublime horror that the best of the silent films excel at evoking.

Alloy Orchestra provides musical accompaniment on the Warner Archive version of the film, which enhances the mood without being intrusive. For more Chaney and Browning collaborations, see West of Zanzibar (1928) and Where East is East (1929). You can see Chaney in his most iconic roles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925); Norman Kerry appears in both of those films, as well. For more of Joan Crawford's early screen work, see West Point (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928).

The Unknown is currently available for streaming on Warner Archive Instant, along with the 1928 Chaney picture, Laugh, Clown, Laugh.

Classic Films in Focus: HOLLYWOOD CAVALCADE (1939)

Fox’s Technicolor Tinseltown retrospective is by no means one of the most significant pictures to come out in 1939, but Hollywood Cavalcade has its charms as a sentimental tribute to the silent film era. Like the later - and much better - MGM musical, Singin’ in the Rain (1952), this story follows the changing fortunes of silent movie stars as the sound age arrives, with Alice Faye and Don Ameche as the leads in a cast that also includes some real veterans of the earlier era. Silent movie fans will find Hollywood Cavalcade worthwhile for its cameos and silent segments, even if its vision of cinema history is both romanticized and compressed, while Fox devotees will be glad to see strong performances from Faye, Ameche, and the very likable J. Edward Bromberg.

Don Ameche plays rising filmmaker Mike Connors, who signs Broadway actress Molly Adair (Alice Faye) and stakes his career on making her a star. Once they arrive in the infant Hollywood, still awash in orange groves, Mike and Molly start making pictures together, and Molly soon becomes a huge success. Molly pines for Mike’s romantic attention, but his single-minded obsession with the movies leads her to marry her handsome leading man, Nicky (Alan Curtis), which provokes a rift with the outraged Mike. Even Mike’s long-suffering friend and backer, Dave Spingold (J. Edward Bromberg), eventually walks out on the difficult and self-destructive director, but Molly, Nicky, and Dave never stop hoping for reconciliation and a chance to help Mike get his career back on track.

Oddly enough, Alice Faye never sings in this picture, and although the silent film sequences contain a lot of slapstick the central narrative is really a drama that focuses on the collateral damage caused by Mike’s intense dedication to his art. Ameche therefore carries most of the story’s punch, and he’s very good, especially as Mike spirals downward after Molly and Nicky marry. We understand, of course, that Mike has his chance with Molly and ignores it, but to Mike her marriage seems like an unforgivable betrayal, and it becomes a catalyst for the rise of his darker side. Mike’s movie-making combines the efforts of Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and other early innovators, and we see him run through the major styles defined by the silent directors in the inevitable march toward sound.

Alice Faye takes most of the comedy work in stride, getting pies in the face from Buster Keaton and being chased around by the Keystone Cops. Some of her silent film segments run a bit long, but they’re sincere homages to the earlier age, and it’s nice to see some of the old stars reliving their glory days, especially Al Jolson in the climactic recreation of The Jazz Singer (1927). Mack Sennett plays himself, as do Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin, and Lee Duncan, although Rin-Tin-Tin Jr. stands in for the original Rin-Tin-Tin. In the regular supporting cast, handsome Alan Curtis makes an attractive second choice as Molly’s love interest but has little to do, while J. Edward Bromberg brings a lot of heart to his loyal sidekick character. Modern viewers will probably find Willie Fung an irritating stereotype, but Donald Meek has a good small role as the studio head who first clashes with Mike.

Although Irving Cummings is the credited director for Hollywood Cavalcade, both Buster Keaton and Malcolm St. Clair made contributions to the film. Cummings, a silent film veteran himself, also made Curly Top (1935), Lillian Russell (1940), and Down Argentine Way (1940). For more Hollywood commentaries on motion picture history, try Footlight Parade (1933), Sunset Boulevard (1950), or The Artist (2011). Alice Faye and Don Ameche also star together in In Old Chicago (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938), and That Night in Rio (1941). Catch J. Edward Bromberg in Strange Cargo (1940), The Mark of Zorro (1940), and Son of Dracula (1943).

Hollywood Cavalcade is included in the Alice Faye Collection Volume 2, and the DVD includes some several good bonus features, including a featurette about the film.

Classic Films in Focus: THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (1921)

Its title might suggest a horror story, but The Phantom Carriage (1921) really offers a supernatural morality tale in the same spirit as Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, including the idea of the year’s end as an opportunity to confront one’s own shortcomings and sins. This silent Swedish film, important for its influence on Ingmar Bergman as well as its own merits, features a compelling if melodramatic story rendered hauntingly sublime thanks to its eerie special effects, in which dead men’s souls rise from their bodies and Death’s carriage collects its passengers on both land and sea. Directed by Victor Sjöström and adapted from the novel by Selma Lagerlöf, The Phantom Carriage is certain to thrill Bergman devotees but should also appeal to those generally interested in silent film or even the timeless theme of a lost soul’s quest for redemption.

Sjöström himself plays deeply flawed protagonist David Holm, a drunkard who repeats a New Year’s Eve story of the phantom carriage to his equally inebriated friends. The legend says that the last soul to perish as the old year ends must drive Death’s carriage for the coming year, and David inevitably finds himself in just such a position. In his ghostly form, David is forced to relive his darkest moments and witness the suffering his sins have caused, but his chance for reclamation might not be as lost as it seems.

The performances drive home the story’s moral purpose, even as they reveal the natural actions of the varied characters. Sjöström in particular gives a terrific and moving performance; the scene in which he breaks down a door with an axe resonates with emotional power, but he can also be pathetically funny, as he is when David rejects the idea of being dead and tries to crawl back into his lifeless body. As Georges, Death’s representative and current coachman, Tore Svennberg is somber but sympathetic, a Marley for David’s reluctant Scrooge. The rest of the important characters are women whose lives have been ruined by David’s thoughtless cruelty. Hilda Borgström suffers to the point of despair as David’s unhappy wife, while Astrid Holm plays Sister Edit, the virgin martyr doomed by David’s disease-ridden presence but determined to pray for his salvation with her last dying breath.

Although the story alone is enough to make The Phantom Carriage worth watching, the otherworldly effects really grab the viewer’s attention, especially in a film this early. Sjöström superimposes images to give the carriage and the souls of the dead their ghostly appearance of being part of and yet separated from the living world. We see spirits lifted from their corpses and thrown unceremoniously into the back of Death’s carriage, a sobering vision of the moment of death. No far-flung region is too remote; Death comes to the suicide sitting at home and to the mariner drowning at sea. The carriage itself, drawn by a ragged nag, is homely and unadorned, but it seems to glow with an unearthly light, and the horse’s bones almost show through its starved, transparent sides. It might not be a horror story, but there is something ineffably terrible about that spectral carriage and its occupants, something that might well haunt the viewer after the final scene has closed.

Pair The Phantom Carriage with The Seventh Seal (1957), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), or your favorite film adaptation of A Christmas Carol to continue the supernatural mood. Victor Sjöström also directed memorable Hollywood silents, including He Who Gets Slapped (1924), The Scarlet Letter (1926), and The Wind (1928). Sometimes billed in the United States as Victor Seastrom, he directed his final film, Under the Red Robe, in 1937, but continued to appear as an actor in Swedish movies like Bergman’s To Joy (1950) and Wild Strawberries (1957). For a completely different cinematic encounter with Death, try Death Takes a Holiday (1934).

The Criterion Collection edition of The Phantom Carriage is currently available for streaming on Hulu Plus.

Classic Films in Focus: GO WEST (1925)

Although it’s set in its own modern day, Go West (1925) provides Buster Keaton with the opportunity to exploit the comic possibilities of Western staples like cattle drives, cowboy life, and the cultural conflict between urban and rural perspectives. These elements give the silent comedy its unique character in the Keaton oeuvre, with its own particular gags, even though the basic situation of Keaton’s awkward, earnest protagonist remains more or less the same. Although it lacks the jaw-dropping brilliance of Keaton’s best films, Go West still provides plenty of entertainment, and young viewers will especially appreciate the main character’s odd romance with a four-footed heroine.

Keaton plays the unfortunate Friendless, who follows Horace Greeley’s advice to “go West” after striking out in Indiana and New York. He falls into a job as a cowhand, where he finally finds a friend in a sweet-natured cow named Brown Eyes. When Brown Eyes gets sent to the stockyards by the rancher (Howard Truesdale), Friendless goes to great lengths to save her.

Like Keaton’s most famous film, The General (1926), Go West features the spectacle of our hapless hero atop a moving train, but the most memorable scenes in this picture involve the huge herd of cattle and the chaos that they inspire during their rampage through city streets. The unruly herd routs the locals by venturing into barber shops, department stores, and Turkish bath houses, with Friendless doggedly shooing them back out despite persecution as the cause of these intrusions. Keaton then stages a bizarre version of the running of the bulls, inducing the cattle to follow him by donning a red devil costume that works rather better than his character might like.

Less showy but more subtly subversive is Keaton’s substitution of a cow for his usual love interest. Brown Eyes plays the same role as the heroine in other Keaton films; like Annabelle Lee in The General, Brown Eyes has to be rescued from frequent peril, but her kindness is the transformative experience in the protagonist’s life, and to him she’s worthy of the utmost devotion. The actual girl in Go West, played by Kathleen Myers, never really competes with Brown Eyes for Friendless’ affection, as the picture’s final gag makes clear. Being a cow, however, Brown Eyes has some unique problems for her protector to solve, such as her inability to stand up to the other cattle due to her lack of horns. Friendless’ solution provides one of the silliest images of the film, which is certain to leave kids rolling in the aisles with laughter.

Keaton not only stars but also writes and directs on Go West; for more of his work in front of and behind the camera, see Sherlock Jr. (1924) and Seven Chances (1925). Don’t miss The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), and the earlier short, One Week (1920), as examples of Keaton’s most celebrated work. Any of the Keaton films will work well to introduce children to silent movies, but if the kids love Brown Eyes they’ll also fall for the monkey in The Cameraman (1928).

Classic Films in Focus: THREE AGES (1923)

Although it’s not as celebrated today as Sherlock Jr. (1924) or The General (1926), Buster Keaton’s Three Ages (1923) is still funny stuff, even if it ventures into more outlandish settings than most of Keaton’s films. This would be the first of Keaton’s efforts at creating a feature film after a series of shorts; Keaton not only starred in Three Ages but also wrote, directed, and produced it, which means that his influence is felt in every frame of the picture but also that he had a lot riding on this production. Given its place in the formation of the Keaton canon, Three Ages is required viewing for hardcore fans of the silent comedian, but it’s also goofy and energetic enough for the youngest novice to enjoy, even if it lacks the polished brilliance of Keaton’s best films.

Keaton plays the underdog suitor in three interwoven tales of love and war across time: one in the Stone Age, one in the Roman Empire, and one in the modern day of the 1920s. In each incarnation Keaton vies with a larger and more successful rival (Wallace Beery) for the affections of a lovely girl (Margaret Leahy), but fate and his opponent throw one obstacle after another into Buster’s path.

The stories alternate so that we follow our romantic triangle through each segment of the common narrative in batches. Each story is set up, then the contests between the two rivals begin, and from there we proceed through the ups and downs of courtship toward the inevitable end. Of course, the conclusion of each story remains the same, with Buster finally winning his lady fair and retiring to enjoy the pleasures of domestic life, although the fruits of domesticity vary from age to age.

The Stone Age is the most absurd of the three settings, with Buster riding a stop-motion dinosaur and all of the characters engaging in gags that presage those seen on The Flintstones. In the Roman sequences the funniest bit is probably the chariot race, in which Buster drives a dogsled against his rival’s more traditional horses. His handling of a “flat” during that scene is particularly silly, but kids will love it. The lion’s den segment is also charmingly bizarre, especially when Buster searches the lion’s paw for a thorn to pull. There’s nothing remotely realistic about the lion, but he still displays wonderful personality, and his movements are fascinating to watch. The modern plot has fewer opportunities for such wild visual antics, but the situations remain just as comical, and without the crazy costumes we can focus on the more nuanced aspects of the three central characters.

For more of Keaton’s silent features, see Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). He continued to appear in films long after the silent era ended, and you’ll also find him in In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Sunset Blvd. (1950), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). Wallace Beery also made the jump to talkies, and today he is best remembered for character roles in classics like Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), and China Seas (1935). In 1932 he tied with Fredric March for the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The Champ (1931). Margaret Leahy, the winner of a leading lady contest in England, made no other pictures, so Three Ages is the only chance you’ll have to assess her potential as a silent film star.

Classic Films in Focus: THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)

If people think of Al Jolson at all today, they think of him in blackface, belting out his plaintive "Mammy" song at the end of The Jazz Singer (1927) or in countless cartoon parodies of it. It may well discourage viewers from giving the original movie a chance, which is a shame because, as problematic as such a moment has become, it only accounts for a small part of what is mostly a very good picture, with a surprisingly sensitive take on a different minority group's American experience. Although The Jazz Singer is often cited merely as a footnote in movie history, it has enough merit as a film in its own right to reward viewers who enjoy sentimental tales of the conflict between personal desire and familial duty, and those interested in the Jewish-American experience ought to find it especially compelling.

Jolson stars as Jakie Rabinowitz, the American-born son of Jewish immigrants who struggle to pass their Old World values on to the next generation. Jakie, meant by his father (Warner Oland) to continue the traditional family role as cantor, rebels against a life spent in the synagogue because he longs to be a jazz singer and a star. He runs away from home after a particularly heart-rending scene with his father, changes his name to Jack Robin, and pursues a life on the stage. There he meets Mary Dale (May McAvoy), another ambitious young soul who urges him on to stardom, but Jakie is torn by his feelings. Through all of his highs and lows, Jakie's mother (Eugenie Besserer) remains devoted to him and longs to see their broken family ties restored.

I don't intend to defend blackface as a practice; it's certainly racist and offensive to modern viewers, but it was a staple of the minstrel shows and vaudeville routines that shaped Jolson's career and those of many of his contemporaries. You'll find it in many classic films that people still watch, including A Day at the Races (1937) and Holiday Inn (1942), and even the all African-American picture, Stormy Weather (1943). Like sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and other kinds of prejudice, racism is one of those things viewers and readers have to confront when they look at works from earlier eras.

Still, there's a lot more going on in The Jazz Singer than a white guy cashing in on the vogue for minstrel shows. The overwhelming concern of the story is Jakie's difficult position as a man caught between two worlds and two ways of living. His family's Jewish traditions have tremendous power within their community, and the film treats them as serious, holy moments (Jolson was, after all, born Asa Yoelson). The Jazz Singer does not take lightly the cantor's chosen life, and he is no Shylock, but a stern, loving father whose heart is broken by his son's defection from the ancestral path. It might be true that the sentimentality of the picture is too much for some modern viewers, but those who enjoy a good cry will respond to the aching desire of Jakie's mother and the late scenes that depict the subtle healing of the rift between father and son.

The Jazz Singer is also, of course, important to those interested in the transition from silent films to talkies. The picture is mostly silent, using title cards to relay spoken dialogue and plot points; it switches to sound only for the musical numbers, including the moment when Jolson famously says, "You ain't heard nothing yet!" You can read more about the film's place in history in this Filmsite review by Tim Dirks. Its significance to movie and especially musical history explains its inclusion in the recently released Best of Warner Bros. 20 Film Collection: Musicals, which also includes standards like Singin' in the Rain (1952) as well as other early musicals like The Broadway Melody (1929).

For more of Al Jolson's films, look for The Singing Fool (1928), The Singing Kid (1936), and Rose of Washington Square (1939). You might also be interested in The Al Jolson Story (1946), starring Larry Parks in the title role. To learn more about Al Jolson, visit the website of the Al Jolson Society. Alan Crosland, the director of The Jazz Singer, also directed silent classics like Don Juan (1926) and The Beloved Rogue (1927) as well as dozens of later talkies.

Disclaimer: Warner has provided a review copy of this film to the reviewer free of charge. No promise of a positive review is made in exchange for this product.

Classic Films in Focus: THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)

D.W. Griffith's silent Civil War epic is one of those films that every serious student of film probably feels obligated to sit through at some point, but for the modern viewer The Birth of a Nation (1915) is a very hard pill to swallow. Lauded by film critics who praise its technique while deploring its politics, Birth is regarded as a landmark in cinema history, and it's true that the movie was a huge success in its own day and offers a number of visually striking sequences that have become part of film's larger vocabulary. It also more or less single handedly revived the KKK, and it's hard to watch the movie with this knowledge and not wonder how much blood was spilled thanks to the pernicious ideals paraded before viewers' eyes.

Based on Thomas Dixon's 1905 novel, The Clansman, The Birth of a Nation follows the fortunes of two families during and after the Civil War. The Stonemans are the Northern family; their patriarch (Ralph Lewis) becomes a powerful advocate for abolition, partly because of his dangerous relationships with biracial opportunists. The Camerons hail from the South, and the two families are entwined by the love affairs and shared sufferings of their children, including the troubled courtship of Ben Cameron (Henry B. Walthall) and Elsie Stoneman (Lillian Gish). After the war ends, racial conflict leads to violence and upheaval, leading to the formation of the Ku Klux Klan to help whites reassert their power over the former slave population.

I'm not particularly interested in acting as an apologist for Griffith or Dixon for this maddeningly racist fairy tale of white paradise lost and regained. Many other film critics with much greater credentials, including Roger Ebert, can list the virtues of Griffith's story-telling and his use of cross-cutting, set pieces, and other important machinery of the medium. Yes, the action sequences are well-made and exciting, although at a good three hours the movie is long by anybody's standards, and some of the re-used shots in particular might have been edited to pick up the pace. Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh are lovely and effective, and the other younger characters are also interesting, but the elder Stoneman and the antagonists often devolve into mere caricatures.

Beyond these considerations, however, lies the real problem. Griffith presents a story in which the KKK are the heroes, riding to the rescue of terrified whites as savage, subhuman blacks run riot. If you aren't a member of a white supremacy group, it's horrifically uncomfortable to be asked to cheer, "Here comes the Klan!" when the riders turn up, their white sheets billowing out behind them. One might laugh nervously at the ridiculous situation, or turn the film off in disgust, or watch on with a sick sinking feeling in the pit of one's stomach. At that point, the technical merits of the movie disappear from the equation. The message overrides them.

Griffith might not have meant for it to happen, but it remains important that The Birth of a Nation brought the KKK back into the South with a vengeance. It had died out towards the end of the 19th century, and perhaps it would have stayed dead if not for this one picture. That's a terrible example of the impact a film can have on history, given that the rebirth of the KKK certainly led to the deaths of many African-Americans in the South in the first half of the 20th century. According to this PBS article, "In Mississippi alone, 500 blacks were lynched from the 1800s to 1955." Across the South, two to three African-Americans were lynched every week, not in fiction or on movie screens, but in real life, by real men who saw themselves as the saviors of their race. Beyond its offensive stereotypes and blackface antics, Birth has blood on its reels, and no amount of technical innovation can make up for that.

I can't really recommend that you watch The Birth of a Nation unless you are just very committed to checking that box in your film education. You can see a shorter, less repulsive example of Griffith's style in Broken Blossoms (1919), which also stars the luminous Lillian Gish. If you really want to explore the evil side of cinema, you might also subject yourself to Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will (1935). For a silent Civil War film that avoids these thorny issues while still romanticizing the South, try Buster Keaton's The General (1927).

Classic Films in Focus: MODERN TIMES (1936)

Long past the point where Hollywood had turned to sound, Charlie Chaplin continued to believe in the silent film, although Modern Times (1936) does make use of sound in its own unique way. This would be the final appearance of the Tramp character whom Chaplin had first introduced in the Keystone comedies over twenty years before, and, fittingly, it reveals a bittersweet sentimentality, mingling real suffering and injustice with its slapstick laughs. For many Chaplin fans, Modern Times ranks as the greatest of the artist's films, and it certainly retains its charms today, demonstrating the eternal appeal of Chaplin's work and his sympathetic everyman hero.

The Tramp, as usual, encounters wildly varying highs and lows over the course of his adventures, which begin with his employment in a large, impersonal factory. He soon suffers a nervous breakdown as a result of the monotonous, grinding work on the factory floor and is committed to an asylum. When he recovers, he learns that the factories have closed and work is scarce. Mistaken for the leader of a workers' protest, the Tramp is thrown into jail, but he becomes a cellblock hero when he prevents a jailbreak. He likes jail so much that he begs to stay even after his actions win him a pardon. Determined to return to the comforts of his cell, the Tramp aids a young street urchin (Paulette Goddard) in the hope of being arrested, but his relationship with the penniless girl eventually alters the course of his efforts.

Watching Modern Times in the current historical moment is a strange experience; sometimes it seems too modern for comfort. The film details the miseries of unemployment and poverty when work is hard to find, and it reveals the dangers of an automated, assembly-line society, where people literally function as mere cogs in the machine. Work of this kind will kill the soul, but its absence starves the body, and the Tramp is all too right in preferring his prison cell to such a terrible set of choices. Early in the film, voice and power are given to the factory boss, who sits idle in his office while he demands an increasingly breakneck pace of labor from the workers. The Tramp and the girl later find a temporary respite from hardship in the world of performance, where they support themselves by singing and dancing. The Tramp's song number, a comical tune sung in a gibberish language, finally gives him a voice, too, but outside forces conspire to rob the downtrodden pair of their refuge, just as political persecution would drive Chaplin himself from the United States in 1952.

Chaplin performs the Tramp brilliantly, as always, but Modern Times has the additional attraction of Paulette Goddard as the Gamin. Chaplin's girl characters were often melodramatic innocents, like the mission worker of Easy Street (1917) or the blind flower girl in City Lights (1931), but Goddard plays a feisty, scrappy girl of the streets, a dirty rebel who steals bananas and dances about with barefoot grace. When she appeared in Modern Times, Goddard was still an unknown appearing in uncredited bit parts, but she went on to have a successful Hollywood career; she even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). As the Gamin, her flashing eyes and defiant posture make her a fascinating foil to Chaplin's gentle Tramp, and she deftly proves her own ability to hold the screen with that iconic character. In real life, Goddard and Chaplin were romantically involved when this film was made, but their relationship ended in the early 1940s.

Modern Times is also known for its use of Chaplin's great musical composition, "Smile," which serves as a theme for the film. For more films starring The Little Tramp, try The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928). Along with Modern Times, City Lights (1931) is considered one of Chaplin's best pictures. Look for Paulette Goddard with Chaplin again in The Great Dictator (1940). She also makes memorable appearances in The Women (1939), The Ghostbreakers (1940), and The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927)

Silent horror films rely on provocative images and creative camera work for their thrills; therein lies much of their charm. Paul Leni's 1927 picture, The Cat and the Canary, is a great example of this kind of horror, although it leavens its spookier aspects with a liberal dose of humor. Its lively, well-defined characters fairly jump from the screen, and it takes the "old dark house" genre of horror films through all the usual conventions with energy and imagination. Like most silent films, it requires a certain amount of patience from its audience, but even novice viewers will find The Cat and the Canary sufficiently entertaining.

Laura La Plante stars as the lovely Annabelle West, who will inherit her deceased uncle's immense wealth only if she is officially declared sane after spending a night in the dead man's mysterious mansion. Her fellow guests in the house are her disinherited relations, all of whom might have abundant reasons to hope Annabelle sees something to scare her out of her wits over the course of the night. Rumors of the uncle's ghost give the visitors a chill, but their dread increases with the news that a maniacal killer, The Cat, is on the loose and may be hiding inside the house.

While several of the characters are played for laughs, there are plenty of thrills to be found as Annabelle encounters one strange event after another, including secret doors, dead men, and a disfigured murderer. The housekeeper, ironically named Mammy Pleasant and played by Martha Mattox, is especially creepy. Her droopy eyes and dry humor make her one of the picture’s most fascinating figures, as well as an excellent example of a Gothic stock character.

The Cat and the Canary started out as a stage play in 1922, and it has been adapted for film several times. In 1939, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard starred in the most notable remake of the original movie, but it was also remade in 1930, 1961, and 1979. Although it is not as well known today as other early horror films from Universal, the 1927 version holds up well, and it makes a perfect atmospheric backdrop to a Halloween party or a solid choice for a quiet October night curled up on the couch.

See more of Laura La Plante in the 1929 version of Showboat and The Love Trap (1929). Director Paul Leni also oversaw the Victor Hugo adaptation, The Man Who Laughs (1928). For more silent horror, try The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Other examples of the old dark house genre include James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932), The Haunting (1963), and House of the Long Shadows (1983). Comedy and parody treatments abound, as well, including The Ghost Breakers (1940), Haunted Honeymoon (1986), and quite a few episodes of Scooby Doo.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.