1929 - MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA, an art film out of Soviet Russia

An arty silent film sort of a documentary from the Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertog real name David Abelevich Kaufman.  This film is a completely plotless piece and has no titles in it since there is basically no story.

The cameraman who appears throughout the film is Mikhail Abelovich Kaufman the brother of Dziga Vertog.  There is some interesting film making going on here involving split screen effects and very frenzied editing iand at times interesting optical stuff.

 

Apparently Vertog's film was fairly controversial when it came out.  Unsurprisingly considered this was Communist controlled Russia which wasn't a place that was all that hospitable to individual artistic expressions.  The film was shot around Moscow and in some ways this is the most interesting aspect of it since you get a look at life in Moscow before World War I. 

 

I would have to say that all of Vertog's photography tricks only goes to show that when it comes to film in many ways people are still creating films in much the same ways as they were back in the 1920's before sound came in, editing is editing after all.

The film was written by Dziga Vertog and the running time is around 68 minutes.  It exists on YouTube in  a fairly decent copy if you are so inclined.

1929 - BLACKMAIL, Hitchcock begins his transition to sound films.

Hitchcock's Blackmail exists in two versions, silent and sound.  The studio producing Blackmail had Hitchcock shoot some of the scenes with sound, so this film is generally considered the first British sound film

This is a story that Hitchcock adapted himself based on a play by Charles Bennett.  Hitchcock was always good at integrating the visual elements in his films with dialog and for a director coping with early sound film technique, he did surprisingly well although the film is creaky at times.

 

The story is about the girlfriend of a Scotland Yard detective who has to cover up the murder of a man who was attempting to rape her. The story focuses on her attempts to keep from being blackmailed by a man who witnessed the crime. Considering the age of the film and the constraints Hitchcock had to deal with the film is reasonably watchable.  When it came to making movies Alfred Hitchcock always knew where to place the camera in a scene and how to edit it for maximum impact even in an early film like this.

The running time is 85 minutes on the sound version that I watched.

1929 - WOMAN IN THE MOON or FRAU IM MOND

Another fascinating film from Fritz Lang and his wife the writer Thea von Harbou.  Woman in the Moon is about the first flight to the Moon for the purpose of locating gold.  The complicated plot kicks into gear almost immediately.  A group of businessmen who control the world's gold supply want to stop the flight.  There is an espionage plot, a love story and a fairly crazed idea of what the Moon is like which in this film turns out to have a breathable atmosphere. 

 Since this is a Fritz Lang film made at the UFA studios it is an extremely well done production.  The model and miniature work are very impressive.  The photography and editing are very good, it's hard to find anything that looks substandard in this film.

Woman in the Moon is not considered one of Lang's best silent films.  The chief issue seemed to be the extremely crazy turn the script takes once the spaceship "Friede" lands on the Moon.  There is a young boy who has snuck into the Friede prior to the launch in the great movie cliche tradition of the stowaway.  Further craziness comes with the search for gold on the Moon which involves using a divining rod of all things.

In spite of these last act plot situations the film does have a fascinating ending and while it's no Metropolis, it's not the big disappointment that it is usually labeled as.  Woman in the Moon is an excellent finish to Fritz Lang's silent film period.

156 minutes.

1929 - HALLELUJAH - early talkie about Black American life in the south

King Vidor shot one of the first sound films on location in the southern United States.  His subject, religion and Black American life.  Vidor incorporated a lot of musical sequences into this film which makes it a strange quasi musical drama.

Hallelujah was an honest attempt to portray black life in the late 1920's.  Watching the film today is mighty tough going.  The primitive early sound recording and the presentation of black life in a very patronizing manner no matter how well the intentions were.  It makes the film pretty hard to stomach

The most interesting parts in Hallelujah are the scenes of the religious revival meetings and most impressively the large scale baptism in the river sequence.  Here religious ecstasy is combined with a kind of sexual frenzy or hysteria, very interesting stuff. 

King Vidor must have filmed a lot of these on location scenes without sound which was probably added later since the camera work is pretty fluid.  Vidor was one of the masters of silent films.
 

King Vidor directs the impressive river baptism sequence.

Hallelujah is a film of historical importance for the fact that major mainstream films about black American life were just never filmed.  The all black cast does what it can to keep the racial stereotypes from completely sinking the film.  But, this "happy darkie" stuff is what finally keeps the film from becoming a classic.
 
90 minutes, written by King Vidor, Wanda Tuchock, Richard Schayer and Ransom Rideout.

1929 - THE MANXMAN, rare Alfred Hitchock drama.

Alfred Hitchcock in his last silent film brings his visual composition skills to The Manxman, an interesting if familiar melodramatic love triangle.

Hitchcock's silent films are rarely discussed with the exception of The Lodger which is considered the first real Hitchcock thriller.  But  The Manxman is a more interesting film and certainly shows that Hitchcock was a very talented film maker even three years into his career, not even John Ford had such a sophisticated visual style when he began directing.

Of course it would hardly be a Hitchcock film without closeups of a blond, in this case the actor Anny Ondra.  If you know anything about Hitchcock you know that this obsession with blond women would show up in his films throughout his career. 

Ondra is featured in an early sound test with Hitchcock who is being very politically incorrect with her.

The Manxman is not some undiscovered classic but it's worth a look for Alfred Hitchcock's film making ability.

90 minutes.

1929 - EROTIKON aka EROTICON aka SEDUCTION, whatever.

Legendary erotic film from Czechoslovakia seems more like a soap opera.  Farmer girl sleeps with city slicker, city slicker gets her pregnant, farmer girl meets rich guy and marries him instead city slicker shows up and farmer girl almost screws up her marriage to rich guy by getting involved once again with the city slicker.  All My Children meets Closely Watched Trains as it were.

The film is basically remembered for one erotic scene at the beginning  that involves the woman withering back and forth in supposed ecstasy with alternating shots of the camera rocking back and forth,  pretty corny stuff these days.

The rest of the film is yet another trite love triangle story.  But I suppose there are only so many ways to tell this kind of story.  The director uses a lot of closeups and throws in some arty shots of dripping water and speeding trains symbolizing god knows what.

The two things I came away with from this film are that the actor Ita Rina, looks pretty good especially when they film her in closeup and that guys sure used a lot of hair care product back in the 20's.  They must have left grease spots on their high backed chairs wherever they sat down.

85 minutes.

1929 - THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU is some thing to see

Shot over a five month period from January until June of 1929 literally on a mountain. Temperatures during filming were in the -50's to -60's at times. This film is really something to see.

 

Amazing photography, incredible effects achieved with light and shadow.

The film stars Hitler's favorite film director Leni Riefenenstahl who would go on to film documentaries for the Third Reich. One scene has her been hauled up the side of the mountain while an avalanche is falling on her what fun that must have been.

 

Incredible flying sequences by a German World War I fighter ace (62 confirmed kills) named Ernst Udet. It's unnerving to watch him fly so close to the mountain.

No special effects. An amazing film.

150 minutes.