The Theodore Huff Memorial Film Society

Piano Accompaniment for tonight's program by
STUART ODERMAN

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Although hardly an outstanding Sennett, especially by the generally high 1924 standards, A Sea Dog's Tale compensates for its lack of great gags by an overall bizarre quality that approaches the surrealism that the French always claimed was so prominent in the earlier Sennetts.

The Fox 2-reel comedies of the 20’s were a diversified lot, hurt moat perhaps by the lack of a stock company of comedians to lend them expertise and continuity. Mostly they were peopled by straight actors on the way up -- Richard Walling here (later the star of Walking Back) and Bill Elliott and Harry Woods in others. One or two, such as the Keaton-inspired Easy Payments, were quite outstanding; but on the whole, they were more interesting for their off-beat plots and the care that went into their production than they were for the humor they generated. Few films generated more pun title takeoffs than Universal's 1916 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The following year there were at least three - 20,000 Feats Under the Sea, 20,000 Laughs Under the Sea and 20,000 Legs Under the Sea. The title of tonight's film was also used again in 1931 for a Fleischer cartoon.

It's some 20 years since we last ran this film. We re-scheduled it without recalling that it had also been in the Museum's Universal cycle a couple of years back, but it's quite possible that many people missed it then, and in any case it's worth seeing again if only for the stunning print quality. Oddly enough, when we first ran it, we suspected that that might be its only showing, since the print was in very brittle shape. Through the years however, care and lubrication seen to have improved its condition somewhat and it has gained something of a new hold on life. The main title is missing, and there are still a few rough segments, but on the whole it's not a bad print at all, physically. It was from this print that the AFI made their preservation negative, but a black-and-white dupe, while invaluable for the now more intense study of Lois Weber's work, can't really compare to the sharp, clear beauty of this duo-tone original print. It's a strange little film, something of a cross between Mary Pickford's Pollyanna and a "commercial" for Christian Science -- though it pulls its punches in the latter area, and like the novels of Lloyd Douglas in the 30's, never quite comes right out and says what it is all about, or where its faith lies. It's a fairly even-keeled and uneventful film and perhaps because of that drops a few illicit hints of bigger things to come. Almost subliminally, one is led to expect a fire-in-the-stables climax which never materialises. But it's a satisfying little film, beautifully photographed, elaborately titled, and with some interesting players. Claude Gillingwater did this kind of thing in his sleep of course - with Jackie Coogan earlier, and with Shirley Temple later – and somehow almost makes it seems fresh!

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Its plot is rather a mixture of The Prisoner of Zenda and The Love Parade. Written before 1900, it is - like the 1936 Flash Gordon - an incongruous blend of old and new when transferred to the 20's. The Kodascope prints were of course all trimmed down to a standard 5 reels for non-theatrical release, and in the process, this film lost about 14 minutes. The cutting was always skillfully done and there is no sign of cutting anywhere. The AFI's catalogue of the 20's gives a plot synopsis which indicates a couple of plot elements not present in this version, but these synopses are often inaccurate, being based in many cases on pre-release synopses, so there's no guarantee that those elements are indeed missing because of cutting. Quite frankly, the cutting has probably helped the film. It moves along very briskly now, and jets to its action climax quite quickly. Certainly one has no sense of a "butchered" masterpiece.

Bessie Love is charming. Rudolph Schildkraut has the time of his life in a role not unlike Emil Jannings' in The Merry Monarch, and - apart from The King of Kings - this was the only film in which he appeared with his son Joseph, and certainly the only one in which they played father and son. Bryant Washburn, with bristling Kaiser Wilhelm moustache, does his beat to rival the villainy of Roy D'Arcy in The Merry Widow. Geographically as well as politically, it is all pretty vague, but it will do you no harm, won't offend you and certainly won't scar you for life - mentally or emotionally - which is more than can be said for most of the current crop of films on view.

Its basic appeal however, is visual. Marley's photography is excellent, and so is Anton Grot's art direction, which uses height and shadows to suggest an opulence which really isn't present, except in one or two uses of the big castle set from deMille's The Road to Yesterday of the year before.

William K. Everson