By Doug Gerbino
The
film preservation community has been excited about the 2010 discovery of 75
hitherto lost American films found at The New Zealand Film Archive. One of the
most heralded finds is a John Ford silent from 1927 entitled UPSTREAM. On
Monday, June 20 Cinema Retro had been invited by A.M.P.A.S. to attend a screening of this film at the
Academy Theater at Lighthouse International in New York City. The opportunity
to see any new aspect of John Ford’s work is not be missed, and while it did
not bear the stamp of what we have now come to know as the JOHN FORD STYLE, the film
was impressive.
The
screening was introduced by Brian Meacham, a
preservationist for the Los Angeles archive of the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences. Mr. Meachham spoke of how he undertook a vacation to New
Zealand in 2010 that wound up being a busman’s holiday. As is his want, he told
us, whenever he takes a personal trip he tries to contact film archives in the
city he is traveling to. After he arrived in Wellington the folks at The
New Zealand Film Archive told him that they had some cans of film he might be
interested in seeing. The result of that little visit proved to be a major find
to the American cinematic history.
UPSTREAM
is among the first fruits of this groundbreaking multi-year collaboration of
The New Zealand Film Archive, The American archival community and the National
Film Preservation Foundation to preserve and present the lost American films to
new audiences. 90 percent of the film footage found in New Zealand is
considered truly unique and does not survive anywhere else. Mr. Meacham said countries such as New Zealand and
Australia were a good source of otherwise lost silent movies.“New Zealand,
Australia and other places that are further afield from Hollywood were really
the end of the line for a lot of films in the early days of distribution,†he
said. “By the end of the road, it wasn’t really financially worthwhile for the
film-producing companies to pay to have them sent back.â€
As
for UPSTREAM, the film has been has been preserved by the collaboration between
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and Twentieth-Century Fox. It
was released (or PRESENTED-as the main title tells us) by William Fox. The film
is a 68 minute romantic backstage comedy about a group of struggling
vaudevillians living in a theatrical boarding house. We find a mixed bag of
theatrical types who are all waiting for their big break (or comeback). There
are CALLAHAN and CALLAHAN (one is Irish the other clearly a non-PC Yiddish
stereotype) who are a song and dance team. We have a sister dance act (really a
mother-daughter team). We have a once famous Broadway comedian, played
wonderfully by Broadway legend Raymond Hitchcock, who charms the bulldog of a
landlady whenever she wants her back rent. A poignant portrayal is delivered by Emile Chautard as a
totally forgotten Shakespearian actor from the previous century who lights
candles in his room in memory of Edwin Booth and at one point is seen trying to
hock his treasured bust of Shakespeare to raise the rent.
The
main protagonists are a sword throwing act played by Nancy Nash and Grant
Withers. Grant is in love with Nancy, but she loves a hammy, conceited oaf of
an actor played by Earl Foxe. Foxe’s character is the ne’er-do-well offspring
of a multi-generation theatrical family (a play on the Barrymores?) who gets a
big break to star in London on the basis of his family name. Without giving
much away, let’s say the ham gets his just desserts.
If
you are looking for the strong traits that you come to find in a John Ford
film, there isn’t much evidence of them here. As for the visuals, you can see
that Ford was very much influenced by F. W. Murnau, who was working at the time
at Fox on SUNRISE. That influence primarily extends to the aspects of lighting
and frame composition. This was Ford’s first film after he swore off Westerns
and it would be another twelve years before he revisited that genre with STAGECOACH
in 1939.
This
film, as well the others in that treasure trove from New Zealand, will
eventually make the rounds once they are restored. Let’s hope Twentieth-Century
Fox puts this out on DVD. It is a wonderful thing to be able to experience a
NEW John Ford film.