MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: HER NIGHT OF ROMANCE (1924)

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The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
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Saturday, June 26, 2010

HER NIGHT OF ROMANCE (1924)

Constance Talmadge clings to a bit of Hollywood fame as the spunky Mountain Girl in D.W. Griffith’s INTOLERANCE/’‘16. (She’s the girl in the Babylon segment who snacks on scallions so no one will buy her at the brides’ market.) But in the 1920s, she was one of the top stars in light romantic comedies. This typical bit of fluff finds her playing an American millionairess who travels to England and falls for Ronald Colman’s cash-strapped British Lord. There’d really be little problem (and no story) if he were the fortune hunting cad the situation calls for, but his honesty and upstanding morals just keep getting them into farcical troubles. The film holds a bit of historical interest as an example of ‘20s commercial hackery, but the pleasures are modest to a fault. Sidney Franklin megs with little sparkle or invention, just as he did in his M-G-M heyday. At best, it’s . . . unobjectionable.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Anita Loos, who wrote GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and some of Hollywood’s naughtiest Pre-Code dialogue, bio’d the famous Talmadge sisters (Norma, Natalie & Constance) in THE TALMADGE GIRLS. The research & opinions are hardly scholarly, but Loos was there and earned her POV.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Saturday, June 26, 2010

HER NIGHT OF ROMANCE (1924)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE