BEST FILMS OF 1925
by Mike Lorefice

Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein

****

Ben-Hur
Fred Niblo

***

The Big Parade
King Vidor

***

The Freshman
Fred Newmeyer & Sam Taylor

***

Go West
Buster Keaton & Eddie Cline

***

The Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin

One of the greatest comedies, yet one of the worst love stories. The memorable comic scenes overshadow Chaplin's typical sentimental & corny love stories, so it's easy to see why it's considered a classic. Yet, despite containing some of Chaplin's most inspired sketches also can't ignore the other half, which is some of the sappiest pathos begging dribble ever put to screen. The first half where Chaplin is the Alaskan prospector is far superior to the second where he tries to make us and Georgia Hale love him, but I think the problem with early Chaplin is scenes work well on their own but together they are just too manipulative. One of the big reasons Keaton was superior is he didn't beg you to love him, so the films could focus on extracting all the gags from the scenery. When Chaplin did that here, in the house with the criminal and the big guy he delivered his best work of the period, but he always had to stray. The new version with intertitles is a typical unimprovement, as Chaplin finds it necessary to describe what one can plainly see, as if the audience were all idiots. [9/10/05] ***

Master of the House
Carl Theodor Dreyer

Dreyer's household comedy where the wife leaves after taking far more than her share of abuse from her once loving husband upon him losing his business was decades ahead of its time in it's valuation of women and in urging them to stand up for themselves. It was Dreyer's first international success, but he treated female torment much more maturely and truthfully in his later serious films and unfortunately this one doesn't really gain from being a comedy in other respects. This plot is, outside of it's subject matter, far too standard feel good material with the much of his film being the tyrant getting his comeuppance from the nana until he finally gives in and stands in the corner, making it safe for the wife to return. What's interesting is the similarity the wife has to Dreyer's later heroines, she's a steadfast, determined, self sacrificing provider, but in this case someone steps in and solves her problem so she doesn't take it to the grave. Dreyer, of course, wanted to shoot it in a real two bedroom apartment but had to settle for having one constructed on a sound stage, which still proved very difficult for his cameramen. Nonetheless, while visually it's among the least of Dreyer's films, it manages never to come across as a play. All Dreyer is recommended and this story was so far ahead of it's time it could just as easily have been made last week (though now it's sitcom material rather than socially conscience), but I find Master to be one of the master's least interesting works. [9/10/05] ***

The Merry Widow
Erich von Stroheim

***

The Phantom of the Opera
Rupert Julian

The original screen version is the scariest and best. No publicity photos of the unmasked phantom were allowed prior to the film's release, and Universal was considered crazy for making a movie where the world's top star was not seen in the flesh for the first third of the picture. However, the shadowy renderings allow them to first build to the first good look at Lon Chaney masked and then the memorable unmasking. Mystique was much of Chaney's box office appeal to begin with, so there were many people, extra people, attending to see just how horrific the phantom was going to look. And they were not disappointed. Though Phantom is now the most famous of Chaney's characters and films, it's far from his best, despite the ghastly effective makeup job. This is essentially a good big budget film. The pageantry is impressive, the set pieces effective (standing out more than usual because they are in the early two-strip technicolor), and the extras add to the proceedings especially when charging with torches in a nighttime hunt for the phantom. But along with this comes big melodrama, with some awful over the top performances, and the usual hokem. There's no cohesion or flow whatsoever, partially because of the usual bad ideas that come from test screenings. What we are left with after the additions and subtractions are set pieces then some plot cut right out of the book (if not the cliffnotes), and back and forth. Though I generally don't miss the sound, no one can argue lengthy opera performances in a silent doesn't exactly cut it. But Chaney is typically tremendous in this slow, deliberate performance. What separates his phantom is he's not a romantic figure. It's regularly pointed out that Chaney's has the uncanny knack for getting you to feel for his tragic figures whose love is always unrequited without a lot of manipulation, but to me the brilliance is that he achieves this without hiding his dark side. His phantom is an imprisoning tyrant, and we are regularly reminded of this fact. Yet his ability to portray humanism, to hit on our desire to be loved and our fear that we won't be accepted, causes us to root for him despite his flaws. Thus we root against the diva. Granted she is irritatingly shallow and cowardly, but that should not distract us from the fact that even if the phantom was what she was looking for, she would have no reason to consider accepting him as her lover (much less ruler/possessor) given she already has a man. [10/20/05] ***

The Unholy Three
Tod Browning

A more commercial offering from Browning, but he and Lon Chaney are always at their best in circus related films. While not as macabre as Browning's best work, this one still hits on enough of the combinations strengths to succeed. The circus performers double as the "Unholy Three" in a scam to nab some shiny rocks. There's a ventriloquist posing as a grandmother (Chaney), a dwarf posing as the cuddly grandson (Freaks star Harry Earles), and the muscle narcisist (Victor McLaglen), well, he's just a poseur. There's also a forth member, a female pickpocket that Chaney loves, but this time he loses out to an honest Harold Lloyd type. What Browning brings to this film is a certain seriousness that allows this preposterous story to be played straight. Browning and Chaney keep the criminal aspects near to the forefront, minimizing the melodrama (though Browning only works on sensational stories) and even more importantly refusing to exploit cross dressing for cheap safe gay chuckles like such useless later films as Some Like It Hot and La Cage aux Folles. Don't get me wrong, this is a funny film, but much more because of the charming domestic touch, the ironic characterizations, and strong performances than because Chaney wears earrings. Long before it was politically incorrect to laugh at midgets, which resulted in them no longer being employed in entertainment, the midgets tended to steal the show. As great as Chaney is, Earles is just a riot. Despite his stature he's the tough guy of the outfit, taunting and bullying the superficial tough guy McLaglen. Browning has no visual acumen, but he can stage a memorably tense scene by using the fact that we and some of the actors know more than others, giving it time to develop and build, and allowing the actors faces do the work. There's one highly memorable scene where a policeman almost finds the stolen jewels by playing with Earles' toy elephant, none of the Three knowing how to get out of the predicament, whether they should kill him or hope he stops short of discovery. The masturbatory Gus Van Sant style 1930 Hack Conway remake is more impressive in one, and probably only one aspect, the fact that with sound Chaney is able to do the various voices required of his ventriloquist. [10/20/05] ***