Film Spectator (1927-1928)

Page Two February 5, 1927 THE FILM SPECTATOR EVERY OTHER SATURDAY Published by FILM SPECTATOR, INCORPORATED Welford Beaton, President and Editor 6713 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood GRanite 6346 EDITORIAL 6600 Leland Way HEmpstead 8330 Subscription price, $3.50 per year Single copy, 15 cents. The only publication conducted solely for those who THINK about motion pictures. HOLLYWOOD, CALIF., FEBRUARY 5, 1927 Coming^ Up Old Ironsides will be reviewed in the next Spectator. Also we will endeavor in that issue to uplift the screen by pointing out lessons to be learned from The Flaming Frontier, The Night of Love, the latest Banky-Colman production; New York, Kid Brother, Everybody’s Acting, The Snarl of Hate, Summer Bachelors, and any others that defy us by coming to the neighborhood houses which we patronize. If any reckless producer invites us to a preview, we will include it, too. * * ♦ Clarence Brown Scores a Triumph Now that Flesh and Blood is being shown here there will be a general doffing of hats to Clarence Brown. It is one of M.-G.-M.’s program pictures which was kept within its cost and shooting schedules, but it is the only picture that ever played four weeks at the Capitol, New York. Judging solely by my conception of motion picture art I think it is the best thing that Metro ever gave us. It will not have the appeal of The Big Parade or The Fire Brigade, but is a better piece of work than either of them. It is a director’s picture. Give Ben Glazer credit for having written a splendid story, and Greta Garbo and Jack Gilbert credit for doing the best work of their careers, and still the major honors for the superb production go to the director. When Brown gave us The Goose Woman he demonstrated his right to be considered among the greatest American directors. Flesh and the Devil raises him still higher. Judging him by both pictures, I could offer no argument in rebuttal if you proclaimed him the greatest. Flesh and the Devil is as colorful and elaborate as The Goose Woman is drab and sordid. Both are highly emotional and in both the emotions are handled with the sureness and sincerity of a master. Brown is a good director and is going to be a better one because he is not hampered by any of the motion picture traditions beyond which the imaginations of most of our other directors can not soar. He simply tells his story, with the writing of which he always has a great deal to do. Something of his training as an engineer is reflected in the systematic efficiency with which he moves from scene to scene in a story that flickers by without a superfluous foot. But his understanding of human emotions is something that can not be learned at an institution that specializes in producing engineers. In depicting them on the screen he ignores the factor of safety that enters into bridge building. Each emotion is strong enough only to carry its share of the burden of the story. There is no waste energy, not a gesture more than is necessary to make a perfect scene. But there is vigor in Brown’s repression, the vigor of a red blood that is pulsing deeply, the surface ruffled only enough to indicate the storm within. It is the kind of direction that makes actors great. More than any other American director, Clarence Brown invests a picture with the proper atmosphere to match the mood of the story. In Flesh and the Devil he displays a pictorial sense comparable only with the qualities in Pommer’s pictures that made them popular here. The production is extraordinary for the beauty of its scenes and the businesslike connection between the scenes and the action. Although his characters belong to the titled, wealthy class they are not forever tripping over servants. Occasionally you see a maid or a butler who is necessary to maintain the atmosphere of the story or assist the action, but never anything to cover up a lapse in the story or to provide scenic effects that bear no relation to the story. Brown’s production in this picture is like the exquisite work of a master bookbinder whose are registers on the cover the mood of the story which the book contains. * * * . Clarence Scorns Movie Traditions Before dismissing the externals of Flesh and the Devil I would like to pay my respects to Clarence Brown’s proficiency in handling ensemble shots. Greta Garbo and Gilbert meet in a park without disturbing the park activity. It is staged splendidly. Strollers pass between the characters and the camera, a policeman saunters by, a perambulator almost runs over Gilbert’s toes, in the dim background two saddle horses cross the scene, a man leads a dog across the foreground — dozens of things happen that make you feel that the whole thing is real, but not one thing that distracts your attention from the lovers on the bench. Anyone who has been in a European railway station lives the experience over again in this picture. Brown is not too busy with his drama in the foreground to overlook the background in which a porter touches his hat to the station master, a man hails a cab and a woman collects her luggage. It is easy enough to put action in an ensemble shot, but Brown puts it in in a manner that is convincing. He applies his engineering efficiency to the story itself. He does not bother us with non-essentials. The opening sequence takes place in a military institution of some sort in which Gilbert and Lars Hanson are something or other in uniforms. We are not told what the institution is, what the young fellows are doing in it, or even what city or country it is in — and we don’t care, for such details have nothing to do with the story. But you know and I know that almost any other director in the business would have opened with a title reading something like this: “In the Bimberger School of Infantry, where German gentlemen are made