From the notebooks: Movies
Aug. 21st, 2008 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonSeptember 4, 1995
[According to Wikipedia, the IMDb opened up for business in 1990, but I didn't know about it at the time of this entry. This is rather funny in light of that, but whatevs. And I should warn you, this was in the full flower of my filmmie days, so there's a lot of that sort of thing going on here. ::sigh::]
I stayed up late last night watching an old silent film on Turner Classic Movies. I was channel surfing and became fascinated by it. I switched to the Cable Prevue Guide to find out it was called The Chess Player. Set in Poland when it was in the thrall of Catherine the Great and Russia, it centered around a young man named Boleslas who tried to lead a rebellion. The rebellion is crushed and a badly injured Boleslas is whisked off to the home of the quirky artist/inventor of automatons Baron von Kempelen and his lovely ward, Sophie, who’s about sixteen or seventeen and thinks she’s in-love with a young Russian officer named Serge, who is, coinkydinkily, Boleslas’ best friend. To keep Boleslas safe from the Russians who are searching everywhere for him, Baron von K. incorporates Boleslas into one of his automatons, a chess player. Then things really go to hell.
We would later learn that Sophie, who loves Poland and wants it free, is really a Russian princess who Catherine had spirited away to Baron von K. sixteen years earlier, but I have no idea why. She also snaps out of her looniness and realizes, as any sensible girl would, that she actually loves Boleslas. All of this happened before I tuned in and I was able to piece it together as I watched. What kept me watching was 1) I like silent movies and you don’t always get opportunities to watch them on TV; 2) very interesting art direction; 3) the quirky automatons, which were surreal, wonderful, fabulist; 4) the alternately fine and absurd style of the acting; and 5) the amazing beauty of the actor playing Boleslas.
How to describe him? He had a face rather like the actor who played in Abel Gance’s Napoléon, but I don’t think it was him. [No, it wasn't. That was Albert Dieudonné.] He had long, straight black hair; a strong, prominent nose; a firm jawline, and beautiful, large dark eyes. Ah, he was lovely. He looked a bit like Caius [one of my characters], but not exactly. Anyway, I have no idea who he is and it’s driving me crazy. [Ah, IMDb, how I love you.] They ran no credits at the end (an abomination!), only credits telling who’d done the restoration work. So odd to think he’s probably very, very old or dead now. He was one of those presences that stepped right off the screen: a Purple Rose of Cairo kind of guy...
[MILD SPOILER ALERT IN CASE ANYONE PLANS TO SEE THIS.]
It was a very nice film, with a great scene of automatons wreaking automatic revenge on the villain. And although the young lovers seem to be okay at the end, it’s not settled 100% exactly, and there are other things that make it not a typically rosy American ending.
[END SPOILERS.]
“Oh please, darling, don’t scold me,” just came wafting in here from the other room. TCM is playing some 1930s-vintage movie right now. Where did they all learn that funny Englishoid accent? I can’t believe people actually talked like that anywhere in the States. “Oh, come along darling, don’t lets waste the whole evening . . .”
[Note: the actor playing Boleslas who I was so earnestly seeking was Pierre Blanchar. I can still recommend this film highly, even though my hormones have calmed down. An odd and fabulist and skiffy experience.]
[And I still think it's an abomination not to run the credits at the end of movies shown on TV.)
[According to Wikipedia, the IMDb opened up for business in 1990, but I didn't know about it at the time of this entry. This is rather funny in light of that, but whatevs. And I should warn you, this was in the full flower of my filmmie days, so there's a lot of that sort of thing going on here. ::sigh::]
I stayed up late last night watching an old silent film on Turner Classic Movies. I was channel surfing and became fascinated by it. I switched to the Cable Prevue Guide to find out it was called The Chess Player. Set in Poland when it was in the thrall of Catherine the Great and Russia, it centered around a young man named Boleslas who tried to lead a rebellion. The rebellion is crushed and a badly injured Boleslas is whisked off to the home of the quirky artist/inventor of automatons Baron von Kempelen and his lovely ward, Sophie, who’s about sixteen or seventeen and thinks she’s in-love with a young Russian officer named Serge, who is, coinkydinkily, Boleslas’ best friend. To keep Boleslas safe from the Russians who are searching everywhere for him, Baron von K. incorporates Boleslas into one of his automatons, a chess player. Then things really go to hell.
We would later learn that Sophie, who loves Poland and wants it free, is really a Russian princess who Catherine had spirited away to Baron von K. sixteen years earlier, but I have no idea why. She also snaps out of her looniness and realizes, as any sensible girl would, that she actually loves Boleslas. All of this happened before I tuned in and I was able to piece it together as I watched. What kept me watching was 1) I like silent movies and you don’t always get opportunities to watch them on TV; 2) very interesting art direction; 3) the quirky automatons, which were surreal, wonderful, fabulist; 4) the alternately fine and absurd style of the acting; and 5) the amazing beauty of the actor playing Boleslas.
How to describe him? He had a face rather like the actor who played in Abel Gance’s Napoléon, but I don’t think it was him. [No, it wasn't. That was Albert Dieudonné.] He had long, straight black hair; a strong, prominent nose; a firm jawline, and beautiful, large dark eyes. Ah, he was lovely. He looked a bit like Caius [one of my characters], but not exactly. Anyway, I have no idea who he is and it’s driving me crazy. [Ah, IMDb, how I love you.] They ran no credits at the end (an abomination!), only credits telling who’d done the restoration work. So odd to think he’s probably very, very old or dead now. He was one of those presences that stepped right off the screen: a Purple Rose of Cairo kind of guy...
[MILD SPOILER ALERT IN CASE ANYONE PLANS TO SEE THIS.]
It was a very nice film, with a great scene of automatons wreaking automatic revenge on the villain. And although the young lovers seem to be okay at the end, it’s not settled 100% exactly, and there are other things that make it not a typically rosy American ending.
[END SPOILERS.]
“Oh please, darling, don’t scold me,” just came wafting in here from the other room. TCM is playing some 1930s-vintage movie right now. Where did they all learn that funny Englishoid accent? I can’t believe people actually talked like that anywhere in the States. “Oh, come along darling, don’t lets waste the whole evening . . .”
[Note: the actor playing Boleslas who I was so earnestly seeking was Pierre Blanchar. I can still recommend this film highly, even though my hormones have calmed down. An odd and fabulist and skiffy experience.]
[And I still think it's an abomination not to run the credits at the end of movies shown on TV.)
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