Post by Coopsgirl on Sept 25, 2009 15:06:24 GMT -6
Beau Sabreur released on Jan 7, 1928, featured Gary as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, a definite departure from the Western roles he had recently played. Evelyn Brent was his costar and they had a brief relationship in 1928. William Powell again plays the villain as he did in Nevada (1927). This film was made partly so Paramount could use the extra footage they shot two years earlier for their 1926 film version of Beau Geste starring Ronald Colman. Beau Sabreur is somewhat of a sequel to Beau Geste thus making Gary the only actor in Hollywood history to have appeared in the sequel before also appearing in the original (he played the title role in the 1939 remake of Beau Geste).
This is unfortunately a lost film so I will just include the AFI catalog synopsis instead of a review.
The trailer has survived however and can be viewed here.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j77Ifpu3K2U
Doomsday, based on the novel by Warwick Deeping, was released on Feb 18, 1928 and costarred Florence Vidor and Lawrence Grant. Vidor born in Texas (my home state) was married to acclaimed director King Vidor for nine years divorcing in 1924. Born in 1895, this is one of the rare instances where Gary’s leading lady was older than him (Jean Arthur who costarred with him twice was also one year older). Florence only made three more films after this one in her career which spanned 13 years. Chinatown Nights (1929) was her last film and it was made with some talking sequences that were hurriedly done to appease the public’s appetite for talking pictures. Florence, now remarried to famed violinist Jascha Heifetz, and unhappy with the new style of filmmaking as many long time silent actors were since it was very different, retired to raise three children and enjoy family life.
Doomsday, a romantic melodrama, put Gary in unfamiliar territory but his performance proved he was capable of playing a romantic lead and not just a cowpoke or adventurous soldier. The plot is fairly simple but very well done. Set in the English countryside shortly after the end of WWI, Gary plays Arnold Furze (what a name!), a former army captain who bought the run down Doomsday farm and is trying to build it back up. Florence plays Mary Viner a middle-class lovely young woman who lives with her elderly father, also a former military man. Lawrence Grant is Percival Fream the much older, wealthy man who lives in the big mansion on the hill overlooking the village.
Both Arnold and Percival are sweet on Mary but for much different reasons. The strapping young farmer loves her and wants her to be his wife and partner while the older man with money wants an attractive young trophy wife to add to his collection of beautiful things. One day Arnold comes to visit Mary to drop off her order of potatoes. The cinematography here is much different and more sexually charged than most other films I have seen of this era. As they are talking we see an extreme closeup of Gary’s lips as he smiles and it’s like we’re getting Mary’s point of view and we know that she is specifically watching his lips. Then we cut back to her and her eyes are open wide and she has a big smile and she says “How well you look!”. Other silents showed love and romantic scenes but the extreme close-ups seem to make this a more intimate affair. Arnold then goes out to the backyard to visit her father for a moment and help him fix the clothesline that has broken. Percival has also come to pay her a visit and we see his driver park his fancy car next to Arnold’s humble horse drawn wagon in a stark contrast of their positions. As Mary and Percival are talking in the parlor, Arnold comes back in and sees them. Not wanting to interrupt he leaves through the backdoor. Mary sees him as he gets in the wagon and they wave goodbye. It’s clear they have feelings for each other and Percival picks up on this as well telling her it’s alright to flirt with the farmer, but she should marry the banker.
Next we see Mary walking down a country road and a gust of wind blows her hat onto Arnold’s property. She climbs over the fence to retrieve it and as she’s sitting on the fence post, Arnold sees her and waves then runs over to join her. He gently puts his arms around her waist and helps her down. Still holding her close, he leans forward and takes a deep breath as if he’s smelling the sweet scent of her hair as it’s blowing in the breeze. Mary shyly looks away and smiles then they walk together through the pasture as Arnold points out the improvements he had made so far. She says she loves it and thinks he’s doing a great job. Somebody turns up the wind machine (ha!) as it’s getting quite blustery so Arnold makes a hole in the large haystack behind them and they sit down inside it to get out of the gale.
Hold onto your hats because we are about to get one of the most sensually beautiful scenes ever put to celluloid. As Mary and Arnold sit in the hay, they begin to steal glances at each other. Again we get the extreme close-ups of their lips and then their eyes and there’s no mistaking what they are thinking. Gary is so strikingly beautiful in this scene he almost looks unreal. Next we see a close shot of Mary’s hands in her lap and then we see Arnold’s hand come into the frame as he gently caresses her hand. She then puts her other hand on top of his and then he slowly moves his other hand up her bare arm. All this is shot so we can only see their hands and arms and every time I see it I get chills, like I can feel him touching my arm too. Once his hand is up to her shoulder we cut back to their faces as they slowly move towards each other and finally kiss. In another very close shot we see Arnold now kissing her neck and Mary has put her arms around him. They kiss again and then we fade out. Phew! I need a cold shower.
Okay, I’m back. One thing that makes this scene so powerful is the way it was filmed. Once they sit down in the hay, there are no more title cards for the rest of the sequence and the different camera angles and close shots are wonderfully effective. I believe this is the first kiss between the two as they seem a little tentative at first and it’s also set in the late teens and has an old fashioned feel. I’ve read in a few different places where people describe this sequence as less like a carefully choreographed movie scene and more like we’re spying on two young lovers. It’s very different from anything else I’ve seen from that era and it’s a perfect mix of sweetness and sensuality. Modern movies could only hope to capture this same mood with their “love scenes”.
You can see the good parts of that haystack scene in this video I made.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMQfClIckEk&feature=channel_page
Moving on, Arnold takes Mary back to look at his house and he continues being the sweetest thing ever as he kisses her hand and holds her close while giving her the grand tour. They speak of marriage and while Mary seems happy about this at first, she begins to change her mind once she sees the conditions she’ll be living in. The house is centuries old with centuries old equipment including a terribly shabby kitchen. Arnold explains that it will be wonderful once she fixes it up as it will be her job to take care of the house while he works outside on the farm. This may seem sexist at first glance but it does make sense that his domain would be the farm outside and she would take care of the house. He said earlier that he thinks hard work is good for both men and women and it will take both of them doing their share to make their home pleasant and successful. There is a forest on his land which he loves but he tells her he will personally cut the trees down to sell as timber so he can buy her new things for the house to make it nice. Mary is hardly paying attention though as she is daydreaming about the hard work she will have to do as the wife of a farmer. In another scene that gives me chills from horn to hoof (like Ado Annie in Oklahoma!), Arnold stands behind her and kisses her neck slowly moving down towards her shoulder. I can’t believe she got paid for that! Anyway, she finally snaps to and runs off telling him her father will be worried about her. On her way home Percival stops to give her a lift but first he takes her back to his mansion to try and convince her they should be married and that she deserves a life of ease in luxury. From the window in his opulent parlor, Mary can see the trees of Doomsday farm falling as Arnold chops them down one by one.
A few days later after Arnold has sold the timber, the new furniture and kitchen things he ordered have arrived. As he is opening the packages one of his farmhands brings him a note from Mary. After reading that she has married Percival because she didn’t want a life of hard work, he is absolutely seething with anger and throws one honey of a tantrum kicking and tossing around the new furniture. After a “loveless” honeymoon (and we know what that means) Mary and Percival return home. She wants to go visit her father but Percival says she must stay and try on the new dress she is to wear that night at the party where he will introduce her to his friends. Mr. Viner has been sick lately but Percival assures her the new nurse he hired is taking good care of him. The seamstress arrives and is making alterations to the dress as Mary continues to ask her husband if he can put off the party for another night. He becomes irate and explains to her that she is basically his trophy to show off whenever he pleases. In a show of defiance, she rips her dress apart. She is discovering now that she picked the wrong man.
Mary does indeed go to the party and forces a smile as she is introduced around. Suddenly Arnold busts in soaking wet from being out in the rain and tells Mary that her father is very ill and she needs to go home at once. She says she’ll go with him but he is still angry with her and tells her that riding in his wagon would spoil her fancy dress and he leaves. Percival insists that she go back to the party but instead she grabs her coat and runs outside into the storm. Once home she learns her father has just died. She reaches out to Arnold for comfort but he turns away and leaves her with the nurse.
The next day Percival goes to retrieve Mary and she tells him that she is going to file for divorce. He gently takes her hand then breaks one of her nails. She jerks her hand away and rubs her finger as he tells her she won’t like going to back to hard work, especially if she can’t even stand one broken nail. She insists that she can and goes ahead with the divorce. Once it is final a few weeks later, she asks Arnold to bring her some potatoes. He does and when he sees she still has plenty he knows she just wanted to see him. She literally throws herself at him but again he rejects her and says he never wants to see her again. Boy, he knows how to hold a grudge!
Later on after Arnold is done with his days work he goes inside and finds someone has cleaned up his kitchen and there is food cooking. He looks around until he finds Mary dressed in old clothes working away cleaning his house. She explains that she is going to work as his housekeeper for six months and prove that she can work hard and be worthy of him. He tries to argue with her but she won’t take no for an answer. They go in the kitchen to have dinner and she tries to make small talk and says she hopes he likes it. He doesn’t say anything but he eats every bite. After dinner, Mary tells him she has made a fire in the living room and also unpacked some of the furniture and set it out. Arnold then gives her his dirty work boots to clean as he goes to relax by the fire. When he goes to bed that night he sees Mary has placed his boots, now clean as a whistle and polished, in front of his door. He then knocks on her door and gives her an alarm clock so she’ll be up bright and early the next morning to begin her work.
Six months have now passed and we find Arnold and Mary sitting silently in front of the fire. Mary sighs a little and he asks if she is tired. He says if she can’t get through six months how will she get through six years or longer. She says she’s not tired but fears she has failed him. She says nothing else matters if she has failed and that she will leave. Mary then goes up to bed leaving Arnold to pace in front of the fire. Finally he breaks down and goes into her bedroom. She wakes up to see him standing beside her and he explains that she is stronger than he thought and that she has endured his cruelty without complaint. He says he doesn’t want her to leave and that he loves her and then sits down on the bed. They embrace sweetly and then kiss as we fade out.
My conversation with Gary:
“That’s my favorite of your silent movies” I say with a big grin. “I kinda picked up on that the way you were smiling and giggling through most of it.” “I couldn’t help it. You were so handsome and romantic.” “Makeup and lighting can work wonders” he says. “By the time we get through all these films I’m going to convince you that you’re good looking” I say in a mock scolding tone as I wag my finger at him. “Why don’t you holster that thing and tell me what you liked best about this one” he says laughing. “Well, I thought you and Florence had great chemistry so I really liked all your scenes together. My favorite part though is the scene in the haystack. Oh my gosh, that was awesome!!.” I say getting a little giddy. “Yeah, that seems to be a lot of people’s favorite” he begrudgingly admits feeling embarassed. “Was it hard doing that scene?” “I was nervous but not as bad as I had been before. I was finally starting to feel like maybe I was a real actor and had a lot more confidence so it was all getting a little easier.”
“It shows; you did a real good job in this one. The scenes near the end where you’re real cold toward Florence’s character and you just keep glaring at her were spot on. I mean you really looked mad and heartbroken all at the same time” I explain. “Thanks. I learned early on that if I just thought about an emotion it showed much better than if I purposely tried to show it by making a face or something like that. If you feel it, it’ll show.” “As good as you were in talkies, you were really well suited for silents too because your face is so expressive.” “It was a very different style. You had to be able to show what your character was feeling and thinking.”
“One other thing I gotta point out.” “Sure, shoot” he says. “Your hair.” “My hair?! What about it?” he asks unsure of where this is going. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. It always looked so modern, not dated at all. It just especially stands out to me in this movie. You could be plucked right out of that film, sat down anywhere today eight decades later and not look old fashioned or dated.” “I might if I was wearing those pants” he says with a snicker referring to the riding style pants with the big thighs he had in the film. “Okay, you’d definitely have to change pants” I say laughing too.
This is unfortunately a lost film so I will just include the AFI catalog synopsis instead of a review.
The trailer has survived however and can be viewed here.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j77Ifpu3K2U
Doomsday, based on the novel by Warwick Deeping, was released on Feb 18, 1928 and costarred Florence Vidor and Lawrence Grant. Vidor born in Texas (my home state) was married to acclaimed director King Vidor for nine years divorcing in 1924. Born in 1895, this is one of the rare instances where Gary’s leading lady was older than him (Jean Arthur who costarred with him twice was also one year older). Florence only made three more films after this one in her career which spanned 13 years. Chinatown Nights (1929) was her last film and it was made with some talking sequences that were hurriedly done to appease the public’s appetite for talking pictures. Florence, now remarried to famed violinist Jascha Heifetz, and unhappy with the new style of filmmaking as many long time silent actors were since it was very different, retired to raise three children and enjoy family life.
Doomsday, a romantic melodrama, put Gary in unfamiliar territory but his performance proved he was capable of playing a romantic lead and not just a cowpoke or adventurous soldier. The plot is fairly simple but very well done. Set in the English countryside shortly after the end of WWI, Gary plays Arnold Furze (what a name!), a former army captain who bought the run down Doomsday farm and is trying to build it back up. Florence plays Mary Viner a middle-class lovely young woman who lives with her elderly father, also a former military man. Lawrence Grant is Percival Fream the much older, wealthy man who lives in the big mansion on the hill overlooking the village.
Both Arnold and Percival are sweet on Mary but for much different reasons. The strapping young farmer loves her and wants her to be his wife and partner while the older man with money wants an attractive young trophy wife to add to his collection of beautiful things. One day Arnold comes to visit Mary to drop off her order of potatoes. The cinematography here is much different and more sexually charged than most other films I have seen of this era. As they are talking we see an extreme closeup of Gary’s lips as he smiles and it’s like we’re getting Mary’s point of view and we know that she is specifically watching his lips. Then we cut back to her and her eyes are open wide and she has a big smile and she says “How well you look!”. Other silents showed love and romantic scenes but the extreme close-ups seem to make this a more intimate affair. Arnold then goes out to the backyard to visit her father for a moment and help him fix the clothesline that has broken. Percival has also come to pay her a visit and we see his driver park his fancy car next to Arnold’s humble horse drawn wagon in a stark contrast of their positions. As Mary and Percival are talking in the parlor, Arnold comes back in and sees them. Not wanting to interrupt he leaves through the backdoor. Mary sees him as he gets in the wagon and they wave goodbye. It’s clear they have feelings for each other and Percival picks up on this as well telling her it’s alright to flirt with the farmer, but she should marry the banker.
Next we see Mary walking down a country road and a gust of wind blows her hat onto Arnold’s property. She climbs over the fence to retrieve it and as she’s sitting on the fence post, Arnold sees her and waves then runs over to join her. He gently puts his arms around her waist and helps her down. Still holding her close, he leans forward and takes a deep breath as if he’s smelling the sweet scent of her hair as it’s blowing in the breeze. Mary shyly looks away and smiles then they walk together through the pasture as Arnold points out the improvements he had made so far. She says she loves it and thinks he’s doing a great job. Somebody turns up the wind machine (ha!) as it’s getting quite blustery so Arnold makes a hole in the large haystack behind them and they sit down inside it to get out of the gale.
Hold onto your hats because we are about to get one of the most sensually beautiful scenes ever put to celluloid. As Mary and Arnold sit in the hay, they begin to steal glances at each other. Again we get the extreme close-ups of their lips and then their eyes and there’s no mistaking what they are thinking. Gary is so strikingly beautiful in this scene he almost looks unreal. Next we see a close shot of Mary’s hands in her lap and then we see Arnold’s hand come into the frame as he gently caresses her hand. She then puts her other hand on top of his and then he slowly moves his other hand up her bare arm. All this is shot so we can only see their hands and arms and every time I see it I get chills, like I can feel him touching my arm too. Once his hand is up to her shoulder we cut back to their faces as they slowly move towards each other and finally kiss. In another very close shot we see Arnold now kissing her neck and Mary has put her arms around him. They kiss again and then we fade out. Phew! I need a cold shower.
Okay, I’m back. One thing that makes this scene so powerful is the way it was filmed. Once they sit down in the hay, there are no more title cards for the rest of the sequence and the different camera angles and close shots are wonderfully effective. I believe this is the first kiss between the two as they seem a little tentative at first and it’s also set in the late teens and has an old fashioned feel. I’ve read in a few different places where people describe this sequence as less like a carefully choreographed movie scene and more like we’re spying on two young lovers. It’s very different from anything else I’ve seen from that era and it’s a perfect mix of sweetness and sensuality. Modern movies could only hope to capture this same mood with their “love scenes”.
You can see the good parts of that haystack scene in this video I made.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMQfClIckEk&feature=channel_page
Moving on, Arnold takes Mary back to look at his house and he continues being the sweetest thing ever as he kisses her hand and holds her close while giving her the grand tour. They speak of marriage and while Mary seems happy about this at first, she begins to change her mind once she sees the conditions she’ll be living in. The house is centuries old with centuries old equipment including a terribly shabby kitchen. Arnold explains that it will be wonderful once she fixes it up as it will be her job to take care of the house while he works outside on the farm. This may seem sexist at first glance but it does make sense that his domain would be the farm outside and she would take care of the house. He said earlier that he thinks hard work is good for both men and women and it will take both of them doing their share to make their home pleasant and successful. There is a forest on his land which he loves but he tells her he will personally cut the trees down to sell as timber so he can buy her new things for the house to make it nice. Mary is hardly paying attention though as she is daydreaming about the hard work she will have to do as the wife of a farmer. In another scene that gives me chills from horn to hoof (like Ado Annie in Oklahoma!), Arnold stands behind her and kisses her neck slowly moving down towards her shoulder. I can’t believe she got paid for that! Anyway, she finally snaps to and runs off telling him her father will be worried about her. On her way home Percival stops to give her a lift but first he takes her back to his mansion to try and convince her they should be married and that she deserves a life of ease in luxury. From the window in his opulent parlor, Mary can see the trees of Doomsday farm falling as Arnold chops them down one by one.
A few days later after Arnold has sold the timber, the new furniture and kitchen things he ordered have arrived. As he is opening the packages one of his farmhands brings him a note from Mary. After reading that she has married Percival because she didn’t want a life of hard work, he is absolutely seething with anger and throws one honey of a tantrum kicking and tossing around the new furniture. After a “loveless” honeymoon (and we know what that means) Mary and Percival return home. She wants to go visit her father but Percival says she must stay and try on the new dress she is to wear that night at the party where he will introduce her to his friends. Mr. Viner has been sick lately but Percival assures her the new nurse he hired is taking good care of him. The seamstress arrives and is making alterations to the dress as Mary continues to ask her husband if he can put off the party for another night. He becomes irate and explains to her that she is basically his trophy to show off whenever he pleases. In a show of defiance, she rips her dress apart. She is discovering now that she picked the wrong man.
Mary does indeed go to the party and forces a smile as she is introduced around. Suddenly Arnold busts in soaking wet from being out in the rain and tells Mary that her father is very ill and she needs to go home at once. She says she’ll go with him but he is still angry with her and tells her that riding in his wagon would spoil her fancy dress and he leaves. Percival insists that she go back to the party but instead she grabs her coat and runs outside into the storm. Once home she learns her father has just died. She reaches out to Arnold for comfort but he turns away and leaves her with the nurse.
The next day Percival goes to retrieve Mary and she tells him that she is going to file for divorce. He gently takes her hand then breaks one of her nails. She jerks her hand away and rubs her finger as he tells her she won’t like going to back to hard work, especially if she can’t even stand one broken nail. She insists that she can and goes ahead with the divorce. Once it is final a few weeks later, she asks Arnold to bring her some potatoes. He does and when he sees she still has plenty he knows she just wanted to see him. She literally throws herself at him but again he rejects her and says he never wants to see her again. Boy, he knows how to hold a grudge!
Later on after Arnold is done with his days work he goes inside and finds someone has cleaned up his kitchen and there is food cooking. He looks around until he finds Mary dressed in old clothes working away cleaning his house. She explains that she is going to work as his housekeeper for six months and prove that she can work hard and be worthy of him. He tries to argue with her but she won’t take no for an answer. They go in the kitchen to have dinner and she tries to make small talk and says she hopes he likes it. He doesn’t say anything but he eats every bite. After dinner, Mary tells him she has made a fire in the living room and also unpacked some of the furniture and set it out. Arnold then gives her his dirty work boots to clean as he goes to relax by the fire. When he goes to bed that night he sees Mary has placed his boots, now clean as a whistle and polished, in front of his door. He then knocks on her door and gives her an alarm clock so she’ll be up bright and early the next morning to begin her work.
Six months have now passed and we find Arnold and Mary sitting silently in front of the fire. Mary sighs a little and he asks if she is tired. He says if she can’t get through six months how will she get through six years or longer. She says she’s not tired but fears she has failed him. She says nothing else matters if she has failed and that she will leave. Mary then goes up to bed leaving Arnold to pace in front of the fire. Finally he breaks down and goes into her bedroom. She wakes up to see him standing beside her and he explains that she is stronger than he thought and that she has endured his cruelty without complaint. He says he doesn’t want her to leave and that he loves her and then sits down on the bed. They embrace sweetly and then kiss as we fade out.
My conversation with Gary:
“That’s my favorite of your silent movies” I say with a big grin. “I kinda picked up on that the way you were smiling and giggling through most of it.” “I couldn’t help it. You were so handsome and romantic.” “Makeup and lighting can work wonders” he says. “By the time we get through all these films I’m going to convince you that you’re good looking” I say in a mock scolding tone as I wag my finger at him. “Why don’t you holster that thing and tell me what you liked best about this one” he says laughing. “Well, I thought you and Florence had great chemistry so I really liked all your scenes together. My favorite part though is the scene in the haystack. Oh my gosh, that was awesome!!.” I say getting a little giddy. “Yeah, that seems to be a lot of people’s favorite” he begrudgingly admits feeling embarassed. “Was it hard doing that scene?” “I was nervous but not as bad as I had been before. I was finally starting to feel like maybe I was a real actor and had a lot more confidence so it was all getting a little easier.”
“It shows; you did a real good job in this one. The scenes near the end where you’re real cold toward Florence’s character and you just keep glaring at her were spot on. I mean you really looked mad and heartbroken all at the same time” I explain. “Thanks. I learned early on that if I just thought about an emotion it showed much better than if I purposely tried to show it by making a face or something like that. If you feel it, it’ll show.” “As good as you were in talkies, you were really well suited for silents too because your face is so expressive.” “It was a very different style. You had to be able to show what your character was feeling and thinking.”
“One other thing I gotta point out.” “Sure, shoot” he says. “Your hair.” “My hair?! What about it?” he asks unsure of where this is going. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. It always looked so modern, not dated at all. It just especially stands out to me in this movie. You could be plucked right out of that film, sat down anywhere today eight decades later and not look old fashioned or dated.” “I might if I was wearing those pants” he says with a snicker referring to the riding style pants with the big thighs he had in the film. “Okay, you’d definitely have to change pants” I say laughing too.