This week: music for MGM late silent 'The Pagan' (1929), then Murnau's 'The Last Laugh' (1924)

An original lobby card promoting MGM's 'The Pagan' (1929).

This week finds me creating music for a silent film I've never before accompanied, then two well-known favorites: one a drama, the other a comedy.

First up is 'The Pagan' (1929) a late MGM silent starring Ramon Novarro and Renée Adorée, which I'm accompanying on Wednesday, Aug. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H.

This is the one I've never done before. (By my count, it'll be #396 on my list of film titles I've accompanied in theatrical screenings.) It's an exotic tale of romance and adventure set in the South Pacific, which means plenty of opportunities for Novarro to go shirtless.

Like many late silents, 'The Pagan' was released with a recorded musical soundtrack (but without dialogue) that could be used by theater that had the ability to handle synchronized sound. 

Interestingly, the recorded soundtrack featured a tune called “Pagan Love Song” composed by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, the same team responsible for “Singing in the Rain” and so many other popular songs of the era.

However, for the many theaters not yet "wired for sound," music was provided the same way it had been throughout the silent era: by live musicians playing whatever music they felt would help support what was on the screen.

That's what I'll be doing on Wednesday night for 'The Pagan,' a film I've never seen before. Despite the title, pray it goes well. 

Then, on Saturday, Aug. 24, it's up to Ludlow, Vt. for my annual appearance at 'Silent Film Night' at Ludlow Town Hall. This year's films is F.W. Murnau's 'The Last Laugh' (1924) starring Emil Jannings in a towering performance as a doorman who loses his job at a fancy downtown hotel.

Showtime for 'The Last Laugh' is 7 p.m.; more info in the press release below.

And on Sunday, Aug. 25, we turn to comedy with Buster Keaton's 'Spite Marriage' (1929), which I'm accompanying at the Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H. Showtime there is 2 p.m. Admission is free, with donations welcome to support this independent theater.

All the best and enjoy this last stretch of summer before Labor Day weekend arrives!

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Promotional poster for 'The Last Laugh' (1924) starring Emil Jannings.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2024 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

'The Last Laugh' to screen with live music at Ludlow Town Hall on Saturday, Aug. 24

Oscar-winning actor Emil Jannings stars in ground-breaking 1924 silent drama from German director F.W. Murnau

LUDLOW, Vt.—'The Last Laugh' (1924), a German silent film drama about a hotel doorman demoted to washroom attendant, will be screened with live music on Saturday, Aug. 24 at 7 p.m. in Heald Auditorium in Ludlow Town Hall, 37 Depot St., Ludlow.

Presented by the Friends of Ludlow Auditorium, the screening will feature accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating live music for silent film presentations.

Admission is free and all are welcome to this family-friendly event. Donations are accepted at the door to support the Friends of Ludlow Auditorium.

In 'The Last Laugh,' regarded as one of German director F.W. Murnau's best pictures, the story is told entirely in visual terms, without the use of title cards.

The film, a character study that chronicles the mental breakdown of an aging man who loses his position of authority, is also noted for its revolutionary use of camera movement.

Playing the lead role is Swiss/German actor Emil Jannings, widely recognized as one of the most versatile actors of early cinema.

Jannings would later move to Hollywood, where he earned the first-ever Best Actor Oscar at the inaugural Academy Awards for his towering performances in 'The Last Command' (1928) and 'The Patriot' (1928).

Critics and film writers regard 'The Last Laugh' as a landmark of early cinema.

" 'The Last Laugh' is a masterpiece of psychological study, perhaps the best ever portrayal of what goes through one man's mind under varying situations ... It is absolutely mind-boggling to see Emil Jannings age at least 10 or 15 years right in front of our eyes in the course of a couple of minutes," wrote author Robert K. Klepner in 'Silent Films' (2005).

Critic David Kehr of the Chicago Reader described 'The Last Laugh' as "the 1924 film in which F.W. Murnau freed his camera from its stationary tripod and took it on a flight of imagination and expression that changed the way movies were made."

The film's director of photography, Karl Freund, set new standards of cinematography in 'The Last Laugh,' setting up the camera to move through corridors and "see" action through a character's eye-view.

Freund's long career later included work in television in the 1950s in Hollywood, when he developed the "three camera" system for the "I Love Lucy" show, which became the standard format for shooting situation comedies.

'The Last Laugh' will be accompanied by live music by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who performs at venues across the region and beyond.

"Films such as 'The Last Laugh' were created to be shown on the big screen and in a theater as a communal experience," Rapsis said. "With an audience and live music, they still come to life in the way their makers intended them to.

'The Last Laugh' (1924) will be screened with live music on Saturday, Aug. 24 at 7 p.m. in Heald Auditorium in Ludlow Town Hall, 37 Depot St., Ludlow.

Admission is free and all are welcome to this family-friendly event. Donations are accepted at the door to support the Friends of Ludlow Auditorium.

 

A scene from F.W. Murnau's 'The Last Laugh' (1924) starring Emil Jannings.

Next at Harvard: 'The Big Parade' (1925) on Wednesday, Oct. 15; public welcome

A colorful vintage poster for 'The Big Parade' (1925), one of the highest-grossing films of the silent era.

Just a quick note here ahead of a screening coming up of an unusually good silent drama.

Tomorrow night (Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.) I'll be at the keyboard for 'The Big Parade' (1925), MGM's blockbuster drama about U.S. doughboys who brashly head off to fight in World War I, only to return changed forever—if they return at all.

We're running 35mm print of the flick in Harvard University's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, which is between Quincy Street and Prescott Street in Cambridge, Mass., just outside Harvard Yard proper. (It's a short walk from the Harvard Square T Station.)

Although the screening is for a class, it's open to the public. And it's free! So if you're within traveling distance, it's a great chance to take in one of the top silents in an actual theater with live music and an audience. (And in 35mm, too!)

It's especially good value, because with 'The Big Parade,' I think you actually get two motion pictures, not one.

King Vidor filmed the first 90 minutes or so of 'The Big Parade' as if it was a standard "join the army" drama, with John Gilbert and his buddies going off to rural France and making light-hearted ooh-la-la with the ladies. You almost expect Constance Talmadge to show up, fleeing the likes of Ronald Colman.

How's this for a meet-cute? Renee Adoree has John Gilbert over a barrel, so to speak, in 'The Big Parade' (1925).

But the mood shifts dramatically for the film's final hour. (Yes, the whole thing runs about 2½ hours long.)

I don't want to get into enough detail to spoil things. But I think a big part of the film's emotional impact is that Vidor first takes enough time to allow us to get to know the characters, and for them to get to know each other, before everything changes.

And so our emotions are fully vested when the characters are suddenly put into the unknown territory that makes up the balance of the film.

We can't not watch. We can't not care. And it makes for some powerfully effective cinema, I think.

A scene from later in 'The Big Parade' (1925).

It also makes for an interesting accompaniment challenge. No matter what happens in the first part, you need to hold back so you have some place to go when things escalate.

To ensure this happens, I'm thinking of deliberately keeping things set at a "chamber orchestra" level during the first part, holding the full orchestra in reserve until it's really justified.

As an incentive, I try to keep in mind that audiences at the time this film was released had really never seen anything like what Vidor depicted on the screen, and many were quite shocked.

Nowadays, of course, we've seen it all, which tends to blunt the impact of what might have been mesmerizing movies were new. But music, if done a certain way, can help the film retain the dramatic punch that I believe Vidor was going for.

Will I be able to pull it off? Find out by joining 'The Big Parade' down at "Hah-vad" tomorrow night!

And after this, it's non-stop Halloween screenings until the first weekend of November, starting with a Lon Chaney "Chiller Theatre" double feature up at Brandon Town Hall in Brandon, Vt. on Saturday, Oct. 18.

It's "Chiller Theatre," by the way, because the building has no heat. But more on that later this week...