Mildred's Fatburgers
  • Home
  • The Blog
  • Clips & Quotes
  • Blogathon Archive
  • Contact

2014 SF Silent Film Festival: Day One Selections

5/29/2014

0 Comments

 
Song of the Fishermen 1934, San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Song of the Fishermen (1934)

An occasionally beautiful film about a poor fishing family's struggle with poverty and social injustice, Song of the Fisherman was the first social-realist Chinese film.

A fisherman's wife gives birth to twins, a boy (Monkey) and a girl (Kitty), prompting the husband to take a dangerous job at sea to try to make more money. He is never heard from again. To support her family, the wife takes a job for a rich family as nanny for their newborn son, whom she must put above her own children. Indeed, she is forced to leave her sick son one night to care for the rich baby and her child suffers permanent physical and developmental delays as a result.

All three children form a long-lasting friendship even though they are from different classes. The film follows the ever-increasing struggles of the poor family as the livelihood of small fishermen is overtaking by large-scale fishing operations, the very industry the rich boy's family runs. But the rich family has (self-imposed) problems of its own.

It's an uneven picture with moments of poignancy, but I got the sense that pieces of it were missing. The mother was blind all of a sudden, for instance, and I don't remember actually seeing anything about what happened to the father.

At any rate, Wang Renmei was positively luminous as Kitty.

Midnight Madness 1928, San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Midnight Madness (1928)

I kept recasting this film with Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper, but it really wasn't necessary. Perhaps I wasn't expecting much after looking this picture up on IMDb and reading the festival program, but I really dug Midnight Madness.

Norma (Jacqueline Logan) is a secretary who lives with her drunken father behind a shooting gallery and has her eyes on her bachelor boss. The boss is only in it for the fun, however, and encourages her to date up a rich South African client, Michael Bream (Clive Brook) so he can learn the location of Bream's new diamond mine. Bream is actually very fond of Norma and on their first date, asks her to marry him. She wonders whether it all isn't a little sudden, but Bream is an "I know you better than you know yourself" kind of guy and persists. Why not, thinks Norma, it's got to be better than the shooting gallery, so they marry.

But first they stop by the office so Norma can give her former boss the news. The boss is baffled, but amused and not a little delighted that she'll be so close to the diamonds. She tells him to forget it, because she's found a meal ticket and she's never going to go second class again. Unfortunately, her new husband has heard this exchange and decides to teach her a lesson by pretending he's not as rich as she thought.

The two of them wind up in a shack at the new claim in the African veldt, with Norma doing a great job of being increasingly less enthused. Bream is equally effective at making it worse for her, knowing that deep down she really cares for him. Their mutual struggle is pretty effective. You kind of get his point that it would be better if she loved him for himself and not his money, but you also get her city girl's dislike of wilderness and giant bugs. Things happen that cause the two to get genuinely closer and everyone does eventually live happily (and poshly) ever after.

Plus there's a lion.

Parson's Widow 1920, San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The Parson's Widow (1920)

The Parson's Widow is Carl Theodor Dreyer's comic tale of Sofren Ivarson (Einar Rod), a young seminarian recently elected by the members of a small village to be its vicar after theirs has died. It's kind of a good news/bad news situation: on the one hand, having landed a job, the parson is now eligible to marry his girlfriend, Mari (Greta Almroth); on the other hand, this is the kind of town that expects its new paster to marry the widow of its last pastor.

In this case, the widow is Dame Margarete (Hildur Carlberg), a seventy-something presence who has married the new pastor a couple times before. The prospect is not appealing to young Sofren (nor Mari), but after spending time with the widow (and eating her food, drinking her schnaps, and letting her mend his clothes) the man decides to marry her after all. She is only interested in maintaining her home and lifestyle. There is temporary difficulty in convincing Mari that this is a good scheme, but the two kids decide to wait it out. After all, the widow will die some day (with any luck, soon) and Sofren will inherit her many possessions, so they pretend in the short term that Mari is Sofren's sister.

The rest of the film deals with the morality of the situation with great effect. Everyone comes to love Dame Margarete, chiefly because Hildur Carlberg is terrifically good, but also because Sofren overcomes his weaknesses in such a charming way.

I absolutely loved this picture. It was funny, sweet, and sad in all the right proportions.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About Mildred

    I'll do just about anything a movie tells me to do. Unless it tells me wrong...

    Then I get cranky.

    But go ahead, like me on Facebook.

    RSS Feed

    Visit Mildred's profile on Pinterest.

    Proud Member Of

    Picture
    Classic Movie Blog Hub Member

    Archives

    May 2019
    December 2017
    October 2017
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    Agnes Moorehead
    Akira Kurosawa
    Alan Mowbray
    Albert Salmi
    Alice Terry
    Aline MacMahon
    Allen Jenkins
    Alloy Orchestra
    Anna Massey
    Ann Dvorak
    Anne Bancroft
    Anne Baxter
    Anne Revere
    Anne Shirley
    Ann Miller
    Ann Sothern
    Anthony Quinn
    Anton Walbrook
    Arthur Penn
    Art Linkletter
    Arturo De Cordova
    Audrey Hepburn
    Baby Peggy
    Barbara Bel Geddes
    Barbara Stanwyck
    Barton MacLane
    Basil Rathbone
    Bea Benadaret
    Beatrice Straight
    Bette Davis
    Beulah Bondi
    Billie Burke
    Bill Scott
    Billy Wilder
    Birthday Of The Week
    Bob Newhart
    Bonita Granville
    Boris Karloff
    Brian Aherne
    Bugs Bunny
    Burt Lancaster
    Busby Berkeley
    Butterfly Mcqueen
    Carl Boehm
    Carl Theodor Dreyer
    Carol Haney
    Cary Grant
    Charles Boyer
    Charlton Heston
    Chester Morris
    Christopher Morley
    Claire Bloom
    Claire Trevor
    Clark Gable
    Claude Rains
    Claudette Colbert
    Cliff Robertson
    Cloris Leachman
    Connie Gilchrist
    Conrad Veidt
    Constance Bennett
    Cybill Shepherd
    Dana Andrews
    Dana Delany
    Dan Duryea
    David Niven
    Dean Stockwell
    Deborah Kerr
    Dennis Morgan
    Diana Lynn
    Diana Wynyard
    Dick Moore
    Dick Powell
    Donald Sutherland
    Donna Reed
    Doris Day
    Dustin Hoffman
    D.W. Griffith
    Eddie Albert
    Edie Adams
    Edith Fellows
    Edward Arnold
    Edward Everett Horton
    Elaine May
    Elissa Landi
    Elizabeth Taylor
    Ella Raines
    Ellen Burstyn
    Elvis Presley
    Emilio Fernandez
    Ernest Borgnine
    Ernst Lubitsch
    Errol-flynn
    Ethel Barrymore
    Eugene-pallette
    Eve-arden
    Evelyn Varden
    Fay-bainter
    Fay-bainter
    Firesign-theater
    Frank Hurley
    Frank McHugh
    Frank Morgan
    Frank Sinatra
    Freddie Bartholomew
    Frederic March
    Fredi Washington
    Fred MacMurray
    Fritz Lang
    Friz Freleng
    Gabriel Figueroa
    Gary Cooper
    Gary Merrill
    George Brent
    George Murphy
    Geraldine-fitzgerald
    Ginger Rogers
    Gladys Cooper
    Glenda Farrell
    Gloria Jean
    Government Cheese
    G.W. Billy Bitzer
    Hal E. Chester
    Hal Roach
    Harold Lloyd
    Hedda Hopper
    Henry Fonda
    Herbert Marshall
    Howard DaSilva
    Howard Hawks
    Howard Hughes
    Howard Keel
    Hume Cronyn
    Humphrey Bogart
    Inga Swenson
    Ingrid Bergman
    Irene Dunne
    Jackie Butch Jenkins
    Jackie-coogan
    Jackie Cooper
    Jack Lemmon
    Jacques Tourneur
    James Craig
    James-garner
    James Gleason
    James Mason
    James-stewart
    James Whitmore
    Jane Darwell
    Jane-powell
    Jane-withers
    Jane-wyman
    Jay Ward
    Jean Dixon
    Jeanette-macdonald
    Jean Harlow
    Jean Simmons
    Joan Blondell
    Joan Crawford
    Joan-fontaine
    John Carradine
    John Ford
    John Hurt
    Joseph Cotten
    Juano Hernandez
    June Foray
    Karin-swanstrom
    Karl-malden
    Katharine Hepburn
    Kathleen Byron
    Kathryn Grayson
    Keenan Wynn
    Kevin Mccarthy
    Kirk Douglas
    Lauren Bacall
    Lee J. Cobb
    Leif Erickson
    Leila Hyams
    Leonard Nimoy
    Letitia-palma
    Lew Ayres
    Lewis Stone
    Lillian Gish
    Lillian-roth
    Lizabeth-scott
    Loretta Young
    Louise-beavers
    Lucille Ball
    Lurene-tuttle
    Lyle Talbot
    Maggie-smith
    Marcia Mae Jones
    Margaret Sullavan
    Maria Schell
    Marie-dressler
    Marjorie-main
    Marni-nixon
    Marsha Hunt
    Marx-brothers
    Mary-boland
    Maxine-audley
    Max-linder
    Max Ophuls
    Mel Blanc
    Mercedes McCambridge
    Mia Farrow
    Michael Powell
    Mickey Rooney
    Mike-mazurki
    Mike Nichols
    Miles-mander
    Miriam Hopkins
    Moira Shearer
    Montgomery Clift
    Movie-theatres
    Ned Sparks
    Niall Macginnis
    Nicholas Ray
    Nigel Hawthoren
    Ninon Sevilla
    Norma-shearer
    Orson Welles
    Pamela Franklin
    Patsy Kelly
    Patty Duke
    Patty McCormack
    Paulette Goddard
    Paul Henreid
    Paul Lynde
    Peggy Cummins
    Percy Kilbride
    Peter Bogdanovich
    Peter Breck
    Peter Falk
    Peter Lorre
    Peter Ustinov
    Preston Foster
    Ralph Bellamy
    Ramon Novarro
    Renee Falconetti
    Rex Ingram
    Ricardo Montalban
    Richard Barthelmess
    Richard Basehart
    Richard Briers
    Richard Mulligan
    Rita Hayworth
    Robert Benchley
    Robert Ryan
    Robert Wagner
    Rock Hudson
    Rodolfo Acosta
    Roger Livesey
    Roland Young
    Rosalind Russell
    Royal Dano
    Rudolf Valentino
    Sabu
    Sam Fuller
    Sandra Dee
    Shelley Winters
    Shirley MacLaine
    Shirley Temple
    Skippy/Asta
    Soyuzmultfilm
    Spencer Tracy
    Spring Byington
    Sterling Hayden
    Susan Hayward
    Sydney Greenstreet
    Takashi Shimura
    Teri Garr
    Tim Holt
    Tod Browning
    Tommy Kirk
    Tony Randall
    Toshiro Mifune
    Una Merkel
    Van Johnson
    Veronica Cartwright
    Victor Buono
    Victor McLaglen
    Virginia Weidler
    Walter Huston
    Walter Matthau
    Walter Tetley
    Warren William
    Wednesdays Child
    Wendy Hiller
    William Demarest
    William Powell
    William Shatner
    William Wyler
    W.S. Van Dyke
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Zero Mostel

    More

    Upcoming Blogathons

    Picture
    Rhoda Penmark flaunts some norms in THE BAD SEED (1956)

    Blogathons Gone By

    Great Breening Blogathon
    NIGHT NURSE (1931)
    Picture
    THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
    Nature's Fury Blogathon
    THE GRAPES OF WRATH
    Reel Infatuation Blogathon
    Sugarpuss O'Shea changes my life in BALL OF FIRE (1941)
    Great Villain Blogathon 2016
    Charlotte Vale's Mean Mom in NOW VOYAGER (1942)
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.