The official list date is midnight (Central European time) on the night from Sunday to Monday, but I need time to tabulate the results, ask back the usual questions and some people will forget about the list, so if it arrives early on monday, it's ok, but then I start to inquire and will threaten to close the list, so please don't keep me waiting too long. Only three lists have arrived by now and one needs reworking, but that was no different the last time around. I also noticed that
Oblomok imperii has wandered a year ahead to 1930 but it remains in the 20s list like
Queen Kelly.
I have 6 films to go, I finished off a bit of Hollywood though I really can't muster much enthusiasm for most of the commercial product of its time like in the Warner Archives.
Two Arabian Knights is a nice buddy movie,
The Last Warning is a carbon copy of
The Cat and the Canary, while
The Pagan is the weakest link in Van Dyke's trilogy encomapssing
White Shadows in the South Seas and
Eskimo, Novarro's character is just too dumb for us to sympathize with him.
The Sea Hawk was arguably the most enjoyable of these films, nice to see all the effort that has gone into this production.
I also bit the bullet for
Brudeferden i Hardanger though I should have known that no film Tommaso likes can be really any good
. It's a curiously uninvolving affair with the actors being very uncharismatic and especially the moon-faced leading lady being not especially nice which admittedly gives the second half some dramatic credibility and the film has a very fine, moving end. It's picturesque, but lacks the necessary force.
Buying the fine Grapevine edition of
Hintertreppe (kudos to the DVD producer) meant that I could check
Sappho though the title is misleading to say the least. Fine presentation, very good score which gave the film more power than it really had. More rewarding was the early version of
Die Geierwally an early examle of the German heimatfilm which however has unusually heavy conflicts drawn out. The characters stand around and are shaking with hate or desire until they explode in fast movements, fine location shooting. The Steinhoff version of 1940 is nevertheless better and Henny Porten is ... ahem a very interesting choice for the role (imagine Hugh Grant as Jason Bourne). The cream of the cake is however Lamprechts
Die Verrufenen which shows a prisoner being released and sinking rapidly to the flophouse and working grimly determined his way back into society helped by a prostitute. Ok this may sound like pretty ordinary stuff, maybe it is to a certain degree and the main character is maybe to stoic and courageous, but this is 1925 and it's quite impressive how this follows uncompromisingly the descent of the main character without any cheap melodramatic embellishment.