In the first two decades of the video age, 20th Century-Fox has
not had a particularly good reputation for circulating its
archival rarities. During the heydays of VHS and laser disc, Fox
confined itself to new releases and established classics and
seldom dipped into their reserves of silent and early sound films.
Recently, however, the studio's tarnished image has undergone a
thorough polishing, thanks to a series of ambitious DVD releases.
Their 21-disc collection of John Ford films,
Ford at
Fox (2007), was the most glorious tribute any studio had
paid to a director to date.
To date. In late 2008, Fox followed up
Ford at Fox
with an even more eclectic release designed to satisfy the most
ardent cineaste:
Murnau, Borzage and Fox. Comprised of
twelve DVDs (twelve feature films and a feature-length
documentary) and two oversized books of photographs, it explores a
fascinating and unique chapter in American film history: when one
Hollywood studio made a conscious effort to reach the pinnacle of
artistic achievement. MGM may have mastered the market in
masterful storytelling and technical polish, but studio head
William Fox had higher aims. He cultivated a stable of
visionaries who were encouraged to deviate from the
factory-production model and open up the boundaries of
cinema.
At the forefront of Fox's crusade was F.W. Murnau, who had been
recruited from the Ufa studios, where he had made such influential
films as
The Last Laugh (1924) and
Faust (1926).
Once Murnau arrived at the Fox lot and began work on his film
Sunrise: A Song of Two Human (1927, winner of the first
Academy Award for "Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production,"
and commonly regarded as the greatest silent movie ever made), Fox
encouraged other directors to observe Murnau and follow his
example. He allowed them the freedom and the resources to pursue
masterpieces of their own.
Prominent among these other filmmakers were Frank Borzage, John
Ford, and Howard Hawks. Great directors in their own right, they
didn't merely imitate Murnau (though at times they did), but
learned the degree to which an intimate drama could unfurl into
something cinematically transcendent.
Economic difficulties eventually forced the studio to adopt a more
modest approach to art-making, but for a time, Fox was a place
where certain directors were allowed to indulge their greatest
creative fantasies. The films collected in
Murnau, Borzage and
Fox allow viewers to experience that short-lived,
once-in-a-lifetime situation in meticulously-prepared
DVDs.
The set is the perfect companion piece to the monumental
Ford
at Fox. It may contain fewer discs, but the fact that it
represents the work of lesser known directors, and focuses on a
particular moment in Fox's evolution makes it a more daring
collection than its acclaimed predecessor, and one that film
history enthusiasts will find even more satisfying.
The films are preceded by disclaimers, stating they were mastered
from "best surviving source material available." The quality of
film material varies greatly, but on the whole the films are at or
above the technical standard for films of this vintage and
obscurity. Anyone who watches silents on DVD will be pleased with
the quality of presentation. Some digital cleanup could have been
performed on some of the more obtrusive blemishes (particularly in
7th Heaven [1927]) but one musn't quibble. A backlash
against digital restoration (some call it tampering) has been
building for some time, since it alters the integrity of the
surviving film element. I personally have no complaints if a
studio chooses to present a film in the condition in which the
actual print/negative exists, but those who desire flawless image
quality are hereby forewarned.
The cornerstone of
Murnau, Borzage and Fox is, of course,
Sunrise, Murnau's brazenly artsy tale of a rural man
(George O'Brien) who is tempted to murder his wife (Janet Gaynor)
by a big-city seductress (Margaret Livingston). "The Man"
falters, and travels to the city with "The Wife," where their
relationship blooms unexpectedly.
Sunrise is presented as
a dual-sided disc. Side A presents the film almost identically to
Fox's 2002 DVD release The "Best Picture" Collection (theatrical
trailer, audio commentary by director of photography John Bailey,
1927 Movietone score, 2002 score composed by Timothy Brock,
outtake footage, etc.). The material pertaining to Murnau's lost
film
4 Devils (1928) has been removed from the
Sunrise and relocated on the disc of
City Girl
(1930).
The only significant improvement over the old DVD of
Sunrise is the inclusion, on Side B, of a print of the film
held by the Narodni Filmovy Archiv in Prague. It is unclear
whether the side B version -- referred to as the "European silent
version" -- is comprised of different footage from the familiar
"Movietone version" on Side A (as international release versions
sometimes were). However, the image quality is substantially
improved over the standard edition, with a clarity and range of
contrast that has never been seen in the U.S. since its initial
release. The only drawback is it is presented with Czech
intertitles, so it is something that should be reserved for
second-viewings (after one has experienced the film with the
original, sometimes animated, English intertitles). One authoring
glitch to beware of: there is no on-screen menu option for
English subtitles -- only French, Spanish and none. The English
subtitles usually appear beneath the Czech intertitles by default.
However, when viewed on my particular Blu-Ray machine, the
English titles did not automatically appear, and had to be
manually located via remote, with some difficulty.
Most people are not buying this pricey and lavish boxed set for a
new edition of
Sunrise. They are seeking the lesser-known
films that have either circulated in poor-quality bootlegs or been
locked within the Fox vaults for decades. Such a film is Murnau's
City Girl. Often overlooked because it survives in a
version that was edited without Murnau's involvement,
City
Girl is a breath-taking rediscovery -- and deserves to have
the asterisk removed from its reputation. It does not include the
camera pyrotechnics of Murnau's earlier work. Instead it is a
more delicate, low-key drama which, curiously, appears to have
been influenced by the Borzage films (which had been inspired by
the Murnau films). As a result, it has a depth of feeling and
emotional maturity that is often lacking in Murnau's work (where
characters feel more like symbols, rather than flesh-and-blood
beings).
Charles Farrell (who starred in virtually all the Borzage high-art
films) plays Lem Tustine, a Minnesota wheat-farmer's son who has
been sent to the big city to sell the year's crop. He meets and
falls in love with a lonely waitress (Mary Duncan) and takes her
home to the folks. Upon their arrival, Kate discovers that Lem is
controlled by his domineering father (David Torrence), who rejects
her as a gold-digger from
before the moment he meets her.
Lem and Kate's relationship further crumbles when a band of rowdy
laborers (led by Richard Alexander) arrive to harvest the crop,
and begin flirting with the worldly woman whom fate has dropped
onto the joyless farm. An approaching hailstorm pushes the
workers to their physical limits, and puts an emotional strain on
the Tustine family that seems destined to break them apart or,
possibly, bind them together
City Girl survives in better condition than any other film
in the collection. Its image quality is exceptional and virtually
without blemish. The 2008 score, by Christopher Caliendo, is airy
and bright. This generally suits the film well but is so cheerful
that it tends to diminish the air of tragedy that lingers about
the plot, from the very beginning.
Murnau's second American film, now lost, is
4 Devils, which
is represented in script material and photos recycled from the
previous DVD release of
Sunrise. New in this collection,
however, is a lavish book of photographs from the film, which
serves to further whet our appetites for a film we are,
unfortunately, unlikely ever to see.
Murnau and Borzage responded to the Fox windfall in different
ways. Murnau had a more European approach. he designed every
shot for the effect it would have upon the eye, and tuned every
visual element -- production design, costume, camera movement,
performance -- for heightened artistic expression. Borzage, on
the other hand, was more American in his style, focusing his
energy on storytelling, using the Fox resources to provide a rich
and realistic canvas -- for heightened emotion.
The 1925 film
Lazybones, made prior to Murnau's arrival on
the lot, helps illuminate the degree to which Borzage's visual
style was influenced by the emigre. Borzage is in full command of
the emotionally complex characters and moments of bitter pathos
that highlight his "prime" work, but it lacks the visual eloquence
that Murnau brought to the studio. Cowboy star Buck Jones is
Lazybones, a thoroughly unmotivated rustic bachelor who fatefully
rescues from drowning a suicidal woman, Ruth Fanning (Zasu Pitts),
who is despondent over revealing her infant child to her family.
Lazybones agrees to not only protect Ruth's secret, but to raise
the child until her family is ready to accept her. Unfortunately,
little Kit remains an outcast from the intolerant Fanning clan,
and Lazybones continues to father the pitiful waif, watching her
grow to womanhood, ignorant of her own parentage.
The emotional texture of
Lazybones is remarkable for a film
of 1925, and it would surely stand alongside Borzage's best-known
works, were it not for a misguided turn in the final reel, when
Lazybones falls in love with his adoptive daughter Kit (Madge
Bellamy), who has just come of age. The sudden shift from
paternal affection to sexual desire derails our identification
with the hero, and makes us aware of the filmmaker trying to pile
more pathos onto the story than its narrative framework can
support.
7th Heaven was made just two years after
Lazybones
but, stylistically, they are worlds apart. One immediately sees
what effect
carte blanche and a visionary mentor such as
Murnau had upon a director who might have otherwise been nothing
more than a capable dramatist.
7th Heaven stars Janet Gaynor as Diane, a Parisian waif
abused by her absinth-crazed sister (Gladys Brockwell) and driven
by whip into the streets, where she is rescued by Chico (Charles
Farrell), a sewer-cleaner who aspires to advance above-ground to
street-sweeper. When Diane is threatened with arrest, Chico
claims she is his wife, and they are suddenly thrust into a
relationship. To satisfy the police, Diane moves in to Chico's
spartan seventh-floor apartment, the walk-up paradise of the
film's title. In spite of the seedy milieu, Diane and Chico are a
couple of innocents, who inevitably warm to one another. At the
very moment when Chico finally professes his love for Diane, war
breaks out and he is swept off to battle, leaving her to work in a
munitions factory. Years pass and the war deals the lovers a
fateful blow, and Diane faces the news that Chico has died in
battle. Will she accept the truth -- or find some way of
prolonging the delicate happiness she found in Seventh
Heaven?
One of the most deluxe discs in the collection,
7th Heaven
(1927) is loaded with significant extras. The "final shooting
script" is presented in its entirety, typeset in the style of
silent-movie intertitles. Without chapters or an index, however,
paging through the hundreds of menu cards in one setting is a
time-consuming task. Other bonuses include an exhaustive
collection of production stills, and brief notes by music
historian Miles Kreuger on the Movietone score by Erno Rapee that
accompanies the DVD presentation. The most enlightening special
feature is by far the audio commentary track. Unlike the typical
supplemental audio comprised of obvious observations and
free-associating filmmakers, the track of
7th Heaven is
dense with historical and technical information provided by
writers Anthony Slide and Robert Birchard. Even when they wander
into speculation about Borzage's creative process, the insights
are meaningful, the anecdotes amusing, and supported with an
astonishing array of statistics and factoids.
The visual quality of
7th Heaven is below studio standards,
grainy and scratched throughout, sometimes dupey. This is not the
fault of the DVD producer, but a studio that did not hold silent
films in high enough regard after the arrival of sound to more
carefully preserve them (and Fox is by no means the only studio
that took this stance).
On the flipside of
7th Heaven is a reconstruction of
Borzage's
The River (1929), which exists in fragmentary
form, missing, "the beginning, two intermediary scenes, and the
final reel." There remains enough of
The River to see that
Borzage could make a delicately observed romance in the mold of
7th Heaven and
Lucky Star without Janet
Gaynor in the lead. Farrell stars opposite
City Girl's
Mary Duncan in a delicate romance set in the Rocky Mountains near
the site of a dam under construction. Of particular note is a
brazenly erotic sequence in which Duncan discovers Farrell
swimming in the nude.
The reconstruction was compiled from multiple of source elements,
of varying quality. The missing scenes are represented in a
collection of titles and stills that appears to have been compiled
on film some years ago. The quality of these passages is not very
good (seeming to come from an outdated analog video master), with
considerable grain, "noisy" blacks, and an unstable image. Once
we get to the surviving footage, the image quality appreciates
considerably. The restoration, conducted by Herv Dumont on
behalf of the Swiss Film Archive, includes all the surviving
footage held by 20th-Century Fox, as well as a rediscovered scene
located by Swedish film censors. It is backed with a surviving
Movietone score, presumably the one composed for the film.
Originally released at 84 minutes, the reconstruction of
The
River runs 56 minutes, 40 seconds, and includes an extensive
gallery of production stills.
It should be noted that
The River was released on DVD in
early 2008 in PAL on the Filmmuseum label, along with Borzage's
pre-Fox two-reelers
The Pitch o' Chance (1915),
The
Pilgrim (1916), and
Nugget Jim's Pardner (1916), which
do not appear in
Murnau, Borzage and Fox.
One of the most underrated romances of the silent era (partly
because for decades no prints were known to exist),
Lucky
Star is another variation on the Farrell/Gaynor sensitive
he-man/neglected waif story. Although it recycles numerous
ingredients from the previous Farrell/Gaynor romances, it still
manages to strike notes of exquisite emotional richness. Farrell
is Tim Osborn, a rugged member of a power line crew, and Gaynor is
a rural farmgirl who frequently interferes with their progress.
Sent off to war, Tim's legs are crushed when his horse-drawn cart
is struck by an artillery shell. Confined to a wheelchair, Tim
returns to his mountain cabin. He maintains his good spirits, in
spite of his isolation. He welcomes troublesome Mary's visits,
and nicknames her "Baa-baa" because she is the black sheep of her
family. Tim takes her under his wing, gives her gifts, washes her
hair, and inevitably falls in love with her (echoing the surrogate
father/daughter love story of Borzage's
Lazybones).
Childlike Mary is blind to his feelings and, in one of the most
poignant scenes, scampers off to attend a Fireman's Ball, looking
radiant in a cheap white dress, while Tim must remain behind in
his chair. Circumstances cause Mary to become engaged to the
local bully (Guinn Williams, who appears in a number of Borzage's
films). Tim struggles for a way to intervene and stop the wedding
but cannot steer his chair in the heavy snow. It seems that only
a miracle will be able to reunite the deserving lovers and keep
"Baa-baa" out of the goon's clutches.
Lucky Star has all the earmarks of a Fox specialty picture.
The production design -- landscapes sculpted within a studio,
constructed in forced perspective -- is particularly
amazing.
In terms of source material,
Lucky Star is among the
best-looking films in the
Borzage, Murnau and Fox
collection. The 35mm film element was recovered by the Nederlands
Filmmuseum of Amsterdam. Dutch intertitles have been replaced
with English title cards, the content of which has been derived
from historic records. The film is accompanied by a modest score
composed by Christopher Caliendo, performed by a small orchestra,
presented in 2.0 stereo and 5.1 stereo surround.
When
Murnau, Borzage and Fox reaches the sound era, we
suddenly discover the degree to which technology inhibited the
visual expressiveness of cinema. One would hope that the dawn of
sound would have provided Borzage with a new array of artistic
opportunities. Regrettably, this was not the case. His first
talkie,
They Had To See Paris (1929) is completely lacking
the emotional texture and aesthetic beauty of his recent silent
films. It is not as wooden as
some early sound pictures,
but the sluggish pace, the stiff formality of the actors, the lack
of visual richness, the reliance on stock footage, and the clumsy
plotting make it the most unpleasant viewing experience of the
entire collection. No film could provide a better example of the
extent to which sound technology hamstrung some of Hollywood's
finest directors.
Will Rogers stars as Pike Peters, a garage-owner in the small town
of Claremore, Oklahoma. When oil is struck on his property, he
becomes wealthy, and his wife Idy (Irene Rich) insists on raising
the family's cultural awareness by taking them all to Paris. Some
of the highjinks that ensue are amusing for a moment -- Pike
befriending a stuffy Grand Duke (Theodore Lodi), Pike getting
caught in the boudoir of a beautiful songstress (Fifi D'Orsay) --
but their pace so leaden that they are drained of life before they
can conjure any chuckles.
Were it not for the opening credits, one would never believe
They Had To See Paris was made by Borzage, at the top of
his craft. The credits include a few names from
The River,
but the only significant contributor from the salad days of
7th
Heaven is production designer Harry Oliver. Clearly, his
creative input was severely limited, as the sets are consistently
two-dimensional (like a stage backdrop) and without the expressive
design of the prime films. Seeing Borzage and his crew being
bridled by the demands of sound technology and studio politics is
a heartbreaking thing to behold. Borzage
could have made
an expressive sound film. The same year, Rouben Mamoulian made
the extraordinarily visual talkie
Applause (1929). But
Mamoulian had the support of the studio (Paramount), whereas
Borzage was caught in a tightening of the belt at Fox as economic
factors choked off the stream of self-indulgent art films that he,
Murnau, and John Ford had been allowed to undertake.
Important to note that one of the screenwriters was Owen Davis, a
playwright. Many studios made the fatal error of handing over the
task of screenwriting to playwrights, under the simple assumption
that they had superior skills at writing dialogue, not realizing
the enormous difference between writing for the screen and writing
for the stage. Instead of lingering on the expressive eyes of
Janet Gaynor and the soulful gaze of Charles Farrell, Borzage let
the story be told by Will Rogers, whose folsky witticisms
occasionally warrant a nod of appreciation, but do nothing to
engage the viewer in the storyline.
In terms of DVD quality, the 35mm film element of
They Had To
See Paris shows imperfections typical of a film of this
vintage (watery stains that appear to be the early stages of
nitrate decomposition), the overall look of the master is quite
nice and sharp. The audio is very thin and at times difficult to
decipher, but is an accurate representation of the early sound
film experience. The disc includes a gallery of production stills
and promotional artwork.
Liliom (1930) offered Borzage something of a return to the
more stylized films of the late 1920s, being an intimate romance
backed by high-concept production design. Based on the play by
Ferenc Molnar, it centers upon a womanizing carnival spieler
(Charles Farrell) who woos a young working girl named Julie (Rose
Hobart). When Liliom and a friend (Lee Tracy) attempt to rob a
factory clerk, he commits suicide rather than fall into the hands
of the authorities. After death, his body is whisked away on a
bizarre celestial locomotive (that recalls Robert Wiene's
The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari [1919] and Winsor McCay's
The Dream
of a Rarebit Fiend [1906], while foreshadowing the style of
Dr. Seuss). After being dispatched to hell for a decade (aboard a
rocket-powered train), Liliom is allowed to return to earth to see
Julie and his nine-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Will he be
capable of performing one good deed to redeem himself -- or is he
the foul brute all Julie's friends said he is?
Though a step back in the direction of prime Borzage,
Liliom is hardly a return to form. His regular production
designer, Harry Oliver, was given more resources than in the
previous couple of films, but clearly not as much as he wielded on
a film like
7th Heaven. The film has forced-perspective
miniature sets, distorted trees, and low-key lighting, but the end
result is stagy and flat (the design compares unfavorably with
Fritz Lang's dark and moody version of
Liliom, shot in
France in 1934). Though not as rigid as, say,
They Had To See
Paris,
Liliom's camera (commanded again by Chester
Lyons) maintains too much distance from the actors -- giving the
film a stiff theatrical tone it can do without. And there is very
little movement from the actors, who stay mostly immobile so as
not to wander too far from the boom microphone. The intentionally
artificial sets would have worked much better if the viewer didn't
spend so much time looking at them. The film's fatal flaw is its
glacial pace. Borzage seems to have coached the cast to slowly
enunciate every line and allow
at least four seconds of
silence after each character speaks.
The image and sound quality of
Liliom are exceptional
(though the Fox disclaimer appears yet again at the the
beginning). Borzage manages to blend music with dialogue quite
well (at a time when most directors considered it an either-or
proposition). It is interesting to hear Farrell speak, after so
many commanding silent roles -- and disappointing to find his
voice is thin and high -- not at all what one imagines the burly
farm-owner of
Sunrise sounding like. The DVD includes a
satisfying photo gallery.
Bad Girl (1932) earned Borzage an Oscar for Best Director,
and the DVD is discussed at length in a review by TCM's -------
(HYPERLINK).
After the Fox Studios had been forced to take a more conservative,
formulaic approach to filmmaking (owing to the Great Depression
and some ill-timed acquisitions made by Fox), Borzage worked on a
number of projects that took him away from his area of expertise,
and required that he expand his repertoire beyond the poignant,
intimate romance.
After Tomorrow (1932) is an urban drama of an office worker
(Charles Farrell) and his girlfriend (Marian Nixon) who seek
happiness in spite of economic challenges, as well as a variety of
family issues (examples). At times, we see flashes of Borzage's
brilliance shining through, but screenwriter Sonya Levien did not
bring the film very far from its origins as a stage play (by Hugh
Stange and John Golden).
In
Young America (1932) Ralph Bellamy stars as an
unconventional juvenile court judge who tries to keep neglected
boys from being victimized by a rigid legal system. At the behest
of is wife (Doris Kenyon), Jack Doray (Spencer Tracy) takes
troubled teen Arthur Simpson (Tommy Conlon) under his wing, but
bad luck (and social intolerance) threaten to stand in the way of
Arthur's long-term happiness.
Young America is a
Depression-era social conscience film of the type First National
(Warner Bros.) specialized in, but this film lacks the pace, wit
and edge of the films of William Wellman, Mervyn LeRoy, and Roy
Del Ruth. It shows that when Borzage was assigned a "programmer,"
he was often unable or unwilling to raise it to the level of
engaging drama or impressive art (
They Had To See Paris is
a previous example, and there would be dozens more later in
Borzage's career).
The final disc in the collection contains
Murnau, Borzage and
Fox (2008), a 105-minute documentary that spans the entirety
of William Fox's career, from his early years as an exhibition
entrepreneur (defying the monopolistic Edison Company), technical
innovator (with the Movietone sound-on-film process and the 70mm
widescreen Fox Grandeur process), artistic visionary (offering
carte blanche to Murnau and encouraging his stable of
filmmakers to challenge themselves visually), to his professional
decline. Directed by John Cork and Lisa Van Eyssen, the
documentary is rich in detail, and illustrated with a treasure
trove of archival clips and photographs. Curiously, the
documentary is much more detailed than the book, which is oriented
more toward photographs than information. The only criticism is
that -- being narrated by about 30 historians, experts, and
descendants (who are infrequently identified) -- it is impossible
to know who is speaking about 85% of the time. Furthermore, the
cutting-and-pasting together of all these perspectives is brisk
and incessant, leaving the viewer fairly exhausted by the end of
the piece. But, in its own way, this suits the collection, which
is all about packing as much content as possible into one DVD
collection.
To say the set is handsomely packaged is an understatement. It is
probably the most elaborate yet tasteful DVD packaging ever
released. The discs are fitted into the cardboard pages of a
faux-leatherbound album Within the covers of this album are
fitted oversized paperbound books:
Murnau, Borzage and Fox
and
4 Devils: The Lost Film by F.W. Murnau. All of this
slides into a sturdy box with a lid that is shaped to fit the
contours of the nameplate on the exterior. The box and lid are
also inlaid with photographs (of
Sunrise and
7th
Heaven).
The book
Murnau, Borzage and Fox is one of the weaker
elements of an otherwise breathtaking collection. While it
showcases 128 pages of production stills and advertisements on
high quality paper stock, it includes no studio documents related
to the films (such as set design sketches, script pages, memos,
etc.). The publicity photos offer little insight into the methods
by which the films were made. Nor is the brief essay, by Janet
Bergstrom, particularly insightful. The essay devotes most of its
attention to
Sunrise, and the manner in which Fox
encouraged other directors in his stable to welcome Murnau's
influence. Once Murnau leaves the picture (for Tahiti, to
independently produce
Tabu [1931]) and Borzage resumes a
more modest visual style in his films, Bergstrom's interest seems
to wane, and she devotes no more than a cursory paragraph to such
programmers as
Young America and
After Tomorrow that
are nevertheless worthy of a bit more attention.
Viewers unfamiliar with Murnau and Borzage's work will no doubt
welcome the historical context Bergstrom provides, but there is
not much in the way of fresh observations and data to satisfy the
silent film enthusiast reasonably well-versed in the topic (this
admittedly narrow demographic will nonetheless comprise most of
the purchasing public for the set).
As the epic length of this review suggests,
Murnau, Borzage and
Fox is a monumental DVD collection. It raises the bar high,
demonstrating the degree to which a studio's video label can pay
tribute to its own history, resurrect the neglected films of its
past, and prove itself dedicated to the ongoing preservation of
the moving image.
For more information about
Murnau, Borzage and Fox, visit
Fox Entertainment. To order
Murnau, Borzage and Fox, go to
TCM
Shopping.
by Asa Kendall, Jr.
