About a month back I bought THE PARAMOUNT STORY, which goes year by year through that studio’s movies like The RKO Story which I bought several years back. As Paramount’s silents are public domain, I checked out a few that looked interesting on YouTube
MISS LULU BETT (1920) stars Lois Wilson in the eponymous role of a spinster working for her in-laws as a kitchen drudge, marrying in haste and repenting at leisure before finally finding the strength to stand up for herself. Soapish but engaging, and Wilson is sparkling. Directed by Cecil B. Demille’s brother William C. “You’re the first person who ever noticed I wasn’t there.”
Watching FORBIDDEN PARADISE (1924) was an odd experience as the best copy of this early Ernst Lubitsch picture I could find seems to be missing about 25 minutes. Then again, I may be misinterpreting things because all the title cards were written in a foreign language so I’ve only a minimal idea of what was happening.
I know from THE PARAMOUNT STORY this involves royal Pola Negri bestowing her favor handsome soldier Rod La Roque, only to have him join the revolution when he learns he’s far from the only one she favors — can Negri’s canny chancellor Adolph Menjou save the day? Negri’s someone I’ve heard of but never seen before; she definitely has screen presence but obviously that didn’t help when watching this. For all they talk about how silents didn’t need dialog, they definitely need title cards!
I’m much more familiar with Gloria Swanson’s legend than Negri, though I’ve not seen her in anything I can recall except Sunset Boulevard. STAR STRUCK (1925) stars the sexy glamor queen in an atypical comic and down-to-Earth role, a waitress crushing on the restaurant’s actress-crazy cook; would taking an acting class by the mail enable her to win his heart? Swanson’s charming and this has a certain appeal but not quite enough — and by today’s standards, the guy she wants comes off a bit of a jerk. “Standing before the mirror, register the expression of ‘Contented Wife.’”
THE CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION (2010) is a Merchant Ivory film in which an Iranian-English professor travels to Venezuela in hopes of convincing the executors of a Great Dead Author (gay Brother Antony Hopkins, widow Laura Linney, mistress Charlotte Gainsborough) to greenlight his proposed biography of the man. The individual scenes are well done, the cast is great, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts — this is too low key to work for me. “I’ve already made my decision — and it’s not hasty.”
UGLIES (2024) adapts the Scott Westerfeld Y/A about a young girl living in a gloriously utopian future where at sixteen everyone gets turned from an ordinary schmuck into a Pretty, freeing you to look fabulous and have fun forever and ever. Only gee, isn’t it odd how her BFF, having taken the treatment first, is now so different and uncaring towards her? Reminiscent of both Twilight Zone: Number 12 Looks Just Like You (Westerfeld says it wasn’t an influence though he sees the similarity) and Logan’s Run (another dystopia full of shallow, beautiful people) this doesn’t live up to my memory of the book. Part of the problem is that the protagonist is so vibrant, I don’t get the feel Ugly life is as miserable as it’s supposed to be. I’m also amused that going back to nature and forming a commune remains the solution to high-tech dystopia (it’s an idea with a looooong history). “Free will is a cancer.”
#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders.
