Take One (Jul 15, 1979)

BOOKS Ladies luckless Virgins, Vamps, and Flappers: The American Silent Movie Heroine, by Sumiko Higashi. Eden Press Monographs in Women’s Studies. Montreal, Quebec and St. Albans, Vt.: Eden Press, 1978. $15.00. By Sarah Smith Sumiko Higashi has undertaken a sociological analysis of the myth of woman in the silent cinema, a fertile enough subject in a period still too little studied. However, her argument is vitiated by the stereotyping she deplores. She has chosen to structure her book largely around a few stars (Gish, Pickford, Theda Bara and Garbo) and discussions of a small number of what she considers lesser lights, for instance Clara Bow. One may disagree with her choice of stars: Mae Marsh, Mabel Normand, Gloria Swanson, the Talmadges, Louise Brooks and Carol Dempster would have led her to far different conclusions about the cinema of the period. And one may feel some incompleteness, some straining of the evidence to fit the argument, in the way Higashi sees the stars themselves. There is nothing on Gish’s shorts, in which she combined a tomboyish selfreliance with her later Victorian sweetness, and Higashi in general credits Gish with far less comic sense then we see. Nor is there anything on Pickford’s shorts, or on’Gish’s extremely odd role in Intolerance. Garbo’s silent roles are discussed in terms of the vamp stereotypes of the earlier cinema. Surely this oversimplifies the appeal of an actress who, in films like The Mysterious Lady, can as easily be compared stylistically to Gish as to Bara. Marjorie Rosen's pages on Clara Bow give a greater sense of complexity than Higashi’s. But why, more generally, restrict a discussion of female stereotypes to those created by stars working in America, mostly in the ‘20s? To do so is to leave out such important and popular performances by lesser actresses as Blanche Sweet's in Judith of Bethulia, or Louise Brooks’ in Lulu, a performance in which the intention has been well documented by Brooks herself (In Kay & Peary, eds., Women and the Cinema pp. 77-85), and even ZaSu Pitts’ in Greed. It restricts discussion of social questions in the film largely to the two genres that attracted stars, the historical film and the modern love story. It would have been interesting 50 TAKE ONE to include some discussion of women’s roles in Westerns. Certainly the whole range of female presence in the cinema should have included a look at minor roles, especially those incarnated by the better-known character actresses. Higashi spends little time on the stereotypes of motherhood, under whose sign many of the Schadenfreude tendencies of the silent cinema were allowed free rein. She includes some material on antistereotypical films of the later silent period, but could have included films like Your Girl and Mine, Griffith's The Female of the Species (described by Molly Haskell in From Reverence to Rape) or, indeed, the Pearl White adventure films. There could have been material on the stereotypes of such female directors as Blaché and Weber. And should we assume that the only messages to women in films come through actresses? At times, Nan Piene is quoted as saying, men are a medium for communication among females. One can hardly get at the whole context of female stereotyping without discussing the two major male stereotypes of the period—the two categories that appear frequently in Higashi’s discussions—the romantic but unsuccessful lover and the rapist/tyrant. John Gilbert, Richard Barthelmess, and even Buster Keaton fit into ‘the first category of men whose classically handsome sexuality has become ineffectual; successful courting is frequently reserved for actors like Stroheim and Sessue Hayakawa. The most popular actors combine the two: Valentino in The Sheik, and John Barrymore, literally, in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Rosen remarks rightly that they are the male equivalent of the vamps. They seem to provide a strong contextual element for the female stereotypes of the period, an element Higashi largely ignores. Another message to women is in the lush production values of Vidor and de Mille films, sets and costumes providing a _ semiological equation between consumerism and discreetly limited sexual license. These messages, and others, Higashi leaves almost undiscussed. Some excellent suggestions enliven the book—on the vamp as Magna Mater and feminist, the Little Mary character as “woman's woman,” and the star system