Peter Pan (1924)

Betty Bronson beat out Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford for the role of Peter Pan. Both actresses were older than Bronson; better established, more accomplished. Pickford, in particular, was famed for playing children. But neither could have done better, in this role, than Bronson did. No less an authority than J.M. Barrie himself selected her for it.

Bronson is not simply the centerpiece of Peter Pan—she embodies it. She's a free-spirit, dancing her way through scenes: conscious of an audience watching her but not concerned about it. A belle among bells and whistles and shiny objects. She connects with us as an performer as well as a character, constantly reminding us that we’re not just watching a made-up story, but a movie depicting one.

Sorry, I've got to take this...

Much buzz lately about the 'time-travelling cellphone user' discovered in Charlie Chaplin's 1928 silent, The Circus. Here's an article from the Toronto Star describing the find. Apparently several people have proposed theories that move beyond 'man from the future', 'transvestite ghost', or 'demon who lives in nitrate film stock'... all perfectly plausible explanations to me.

Here's one more: the actor is pretending to be a crazy woman who thinks she's talking on a phone. Why not? I once witnessed a senile relative 'answer' a TV remote control, and he certainly didn't own a mobile. George Clarke's point about the actor's hands gripping something the shape of a cellphone only proves that he (or she) is gripping something flat and rectangular. He'd think nothing more of it if the actor wasn't also holding the object like he/she would a phone receiver and speaking into it. But some telephone receivers already looked like this in 1928:

So to me, it's just an actor acting. Amazing, I know, and not as much fun, but that's my call.


George Clarke's video expose:



Lady Gaga's essay on the ubiquity of cells:



Chris Edwards' early post on The Circus.

Tess of the Storm Country (1922)

“No hill-topper kin look me down.”


If lines like this make you wince, you’re on to why I don’t like Tess of the Storm Country. It’s not that I mind an accent, even a hokey, broad, vaudevillian accent that audiences in 1922 would have read and heard hundreds of times. It works here. Mary Pickford’s Tess speaks and acts like the unkempt, uneducated, pretense-free wharf-rat she is, and the scruffy fishermen and washerwomen populating her village at the bottom of the hill are equally believable—as comic characters. Trouble is, Tess of the Storm Country ain’t comedy. Nor is it comedy-drama, nor tragic romance; it’s a grim two hours of classism, sexism, murder and rape, suicide, infanticide and wrongful conviction. Yes, there’s laughs, especially in the first half; there’s a love story too, but if ever Pickford needed to play a role totally straight, it was here. And she didn’t.

Live Screening of Peter Pan

If you're in Toronto on October 30th, consider this silent film screening. The venue's unique and the choir is a talented one. I attended last year, and will be there again. Here's the deets:

Enjoy Halloween Eve with Orpheus Cinema - a family event!

Back by popular demand, the Orpheus Choir of Toronto goes to the movies, and kicks off its 46th season with the enchanting 1924 silent film classic Peter Pan, accompanied with split-second timing by a specially chosen choral 'soundtrack' created by artistic director Robert Cooper.

The Paramount Pictures adaptation of the J.M.Barrie classic tale was the first-ever film version of the beloved story of the magical boy who refuses to grow up and his adventures in Neverland with Wendy, Tinkerbell and the villainous Captain Hook. The Orpheus Choir, accompanied by organist extraordinaire Edward Moroney, provides the soundtrack in true silent movie style, with music by Bernstein, Dvorak, Rutter, Vaughan Williams, Weill, Mendelssohn and more.

The many cinematic effects, including mermaids, mystical ships, secret hideaways and the ever-popular flying sequences, even by today's high-tech standards, work amazingly well on-screen. You will not want to miss this year's Orpheus Cinema ... a unique and entertaining choral event!

Saturday October 30, 7:30 p.m.
Eglinton St George's United Church, 35 Lytton Blvd
Tickets: $30, $25 senior, $15 students.
Special family rate $75 for two adults and two children.
Order tickets on our website http://www.orpheuschoirtoronto.com/, or call 416-530-4428

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

I cannot love Sunrise.

I have tried. I’ve seen the movie more than once; aware, since my first viewing, of its eminence. This was director F.W. Murnau’s greatest American film—some say his greatest, period. Its in-camera effects, particularly in the film’s first half, conjured a world where the boundaries between fantasy and reality fell away. Viewers were, and still are, mesmerized by every brain-boggling scene, myself included. But I’m unable to divorce Sunrise’s technical brilliance from its story. It is about the fall, then heroic rise, of a sociopath.