This weekend in Wilton, N.H.: double header of all 15 chapters of 'A Woman in Grey' (1920)

Arline Pretty is in a pretty pickle in 'A Woman in Grey' (1920). But at least she's following guidance on face masks.

This weekend I'm doing music for a special cinematic event at the Town Hall Theater in Wilton, N.H.: a screening of all 15 chapters of 'A Woman in Grey' (1920). It's a century-old dramatic serial adventure of which all episodes survive complete.

That means more than four hours of film! So we'll run the first eight chapters on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 2 p.m., and then the remaining episodes (including the thrilling conclusion!) on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2 p.m.

I'm looking forward to the chance to immerse myself in this extended story as it plays out over such a long span of time. I have some main themes in mind, but other than that, the music will grow naturally from the story as it unfolds. 

Also, I can't wait to try out this joke: "It's called 'The Woman in Grey,' but it's black-and-white film, so what choice did they have?"

Lots more detail in the press release below. Hope you can join us for some (or preferably ALL) of 'A Woman in Grey' on the occasion of its 100th anniversary.

 

Me outside the Flying Monkey in Plymouth, N.H. prior to the show.

For now, let me report on last night's screening of 'Man With A Movie Camera' (1929) up at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth, N.H.

Before the show, I recounted to the audience my first experience of accompanying this film about 10 years ago. It was part of a monthly series in Manchester, N.H. that was heavy on traditional Hollywood dramas starring the likes of John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, and so on.

So we ran 'Man With A Movie Camera' without explanation. Afterwards, I asked for opinions.

"That was a terrible movie," said one woman, a regular attendee. 

Wow! Turns out she was expecting, yes, a good story—exactly what filmmaker Dziga Vertov was aiming to avoid. He hoped to use film to show life as it really happens, rather than through some made-up narrative.

So I learned that for 'Man With A Movie Camera' to be understood, at least a brief explanation was in order. Silent film is unusual enough; for 'Man' to work, you need to prepare people for what Vertov was aiming for, at least as I understand it.

So I tell people: in essence, it's a celebration—of life in general, and of the potential of the motion picture camera to capture it.

I also think it helps to look at the film as a large-scale piece of music. Like a symphony, it contains movements of varying tempi, all grouped and structured in a way to create an overall effect.

One thing I've recently noticed is that often when the visual rhythm of the film is about to shift, Vertov inserts an image of a hand-operated traffic signal being changed. 

For the music, I was thinking of Franz Schubert's 'Great' C Major Symphony, with its broad melodies filled with repeated notes, and also more recent minimalist music with a harmonic structure that unfolds slowly over a long time.

Yelizaveta Svilova edits 'Man With A Movie Camera' within the movie. 

Overall, it worked. I caught all the big shifts, and kept things pretty bottled up until the final five minutes, in which a riot of fast-changing images explode on the screen.

What held it together was a steady pattern of three notes before the beat, and three notes after. (So with the accent on the fourth note.) Also, a simple line of four descending notes (down a half-step, and then a whole step and another whole step) was another key building block. 

 Those four notes could be harmonized in all manner of ways, but I found that reverting often to a simple triadic texture created a powerful "coming home" kind of feeling no matter how busy the texture.

I also kept using a non-traditional chord change that you hear a lot in contemporary tonal music such as in some scores of John Adams: going from a major chord (say Eb Major) to a minor chord up a half-step (E minor), in which all tones shift up except the third of the chord, which stays on the same note but which goes from major to minor because of context.

It's a very atmospheric move, I find, and has become part of my own toolkit and basic musical vocabulary. And it came in very useful with 'Man With A Movie Camera' because of how it creates a sense of very slight change while still moving forward. Sometimes I added other notes: the flatted 7th of the major chord becomes the leading tone of the minor, which adds richness. 

Once all this was established, there were many places where the music seemed to fall into place with ease and really helped the visuals, I felt. I was especially pleased with music I came up with for scenes of women in a gymnasium using odd exercise machines from the period, including a mechanical horse. 

It all really held together, and 'The End' brought cheers. (And for all the right reasons, I think.) For me, it was quite a workout, just like the ladies in the gym. Best of all, no one seemed to concur with the assessment 10 years ago.

Here's more info on 'A Woman in Grey.' See you this weekend for what promises to be yet another unusual cinematic experience!

*    *    *

TUESDAY, SEPT. 22, 2020 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Rare showing of all 15 chapters of 100-year-old vintage serial coming to Town Hall Theatre

'A Woman in Grey' (1920), multi-part adventure thriller, to screen with live music over Saturday & Sunday Oct. 3-4

WILTON, N.H.—It's a cliff-hanger, but each time you won't have to wait long to find out what happens next.

It's 'A Woman in Grey,' a 15-episode adventure serial produced 100 years ago, when movies were a brand new form of entertainment.

The entire run of all 15 chapters will be screened over two days at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

Chapters 1 through 8 of the multi-part tale will be shown on Saturday, Oct. 3 starting at 2 p.m. Remaining episodes 9 through 15, including the serial's thrilling conclusion, will be shown on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2 p.m.

Admission is free to each screening; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to help defray expenses.

The screening, the latest in the Town Hall Theatre's silent film series, will feature live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating music for silent films.

"Seeing all episodes of this marvelous multi-part adventure over two days is a century-old form of binge-watching," Rapsis said.

"But it's also a great chance to experience early cinema the way it was intended to be shown: on a big screen, in a theater, with live music, and with an audience," Rapsis said.

The Town Hall Theatre is observing procedures to comply with all state and CDC public health guidelines, including reduced seating capacity. For complete information about the venue's safety protocols, visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com.

Similar to the more famous 'Perils of Pauline' serial, 'A Woman in Grey' follows the story of a mysterious woman (Arline Pretty) who may hold the secret to finding a long-lost fortune in an abandoned mansion.

Like most multi-part serials, each chapter of 'A Woman in Grey' runs about 12 minutes, and was designed to be shown one episode each week at local theaters.

Most episodes ended with a "cliffhanger" predicament designed to keep audiences coming back to find out what happens next.

Most multi-part serials from the early days of film are completely lost, or exist only partially. 'A Woman in Grey' is unusual because it survives completely intact. The total length of all 15 episodes is nearly four hours.

'A Woman in Grey' is also unusual because it was produced not in Hollywood, but in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. by Serico Motion Pictures, Inc., a short-lived independent production firm.

The company recruited local stage performers, including leading actress Arline Pretty, to fill out the large cast of 'A Woman in Grey.'

All 15 chapters were shot on location in northeastern Pennsylvania, providing a rare glimpse of the region as it looked a century ago.

Serials continued through the 1920s and into the era of sound films, but over time came to be regarded as programming for children's matinees rather than a format for serious drama. The practice faded out after World War II and the development of television.

The complete 15-chapter serial 'A Woman in Grey' (1920) will be presented over two days at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H. Episodes 1 through 8 will be shown on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 2 p.m., followed by episodes 9 through 15 the next day, on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2 p.m.

Admission is free; a donation of $10 per person is suggested. For more information, call (603) 654-3456 of visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com.

This Thursday: Gloria Swanson in a silent film that accidentally created a new art form

Gloria and Lionel warming up for their big battle in 'Sadie Thompson.'

Up next: Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore in 'Sadie Thompson' (1928), an intense drama made in Hollywood's final burst of silent film production.

It's screening on Thursday, March 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H.

Admission is $10 per person.

There's a lot to like about this movie, which many feel contains Swanson's best performance. It may be.

But structurally, there's something very special about 'Sadie Thompson,' the story of which was adapted from Somerset Maughan's story 'Rain.'

What's special? Nothing that the people who made it intended to happen, but it's this: we're missing the last reel!

Yes—the last 10 minutes, which contain the climax, just don't exist.

And so, by accident, we have a situation that leads to an experience very different from what the filmmakers had in mind.

It would be great to have the footage, of course, and see what really happens when the battle between Gloria's fallen woman and Barrymore's tempted preacher reaches a boiling point.

But we don't. And unless the last reel is ever found, we can't.

Instead, we have what often happens when a vintage film exists with missing sequences. Stills and other materials are substituted, and the story is told through narrative titles and other techniques such as pan-and-scan of stills.

With about 70 percent of silent film missing, this happens more often than you might think. Among big films that I've accompanied that are missing entire reels are Raymond Griffith's 'Paths to Paradise' (1925); King Vidor's 'Bardelys the Magnificent' (1926), and Clara Bow's 'Get Your Man' (1927).

And you know what? In each case, I've found that such efforts to fill in missing film with other materials creates a kind of hybrid art form that can actually be quite effective in its own way.

Mainly, I think, because it leaves scenes to the imagination, which engages an audience in a completely different way that if everything's right there on the screen.

In pondering this, I've come to think this is not unlike what happens with other art from the past when things go missing.

Take the Venus de Milo, which lacks arms. Or Schubert's unfinished symphony, short by two movements.

And much of my public school education took place under the watchful eye of George Washington as depicted in Gilbert Stuart's famous unfinished painting.

Some critics feel such losses can actually enhance the stature of the work of art in question.

How? Because we don't know what the arms on the Venus de Milo look like, we're free to idealize them to a state of perfection—one that goes way beyond what any artist could actually achieve.

And that's because the absence allows us each to fill in our own personal visions of perfection. Such notions that are unique to us, and are thus uniquely gratifying or satisfying.

Gloria with director Raoul Walsh, who appears in 'Sadie Thompson' as "Handsome" Tim O'Hara.

Which brings us to 'Sadie Thompson.' Just as the battle between Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore is about to reach its climax, the film stops!

And what starts up is a recreation of the final reel through stills, titles, and footage from a later remake.

To me, every time I've seen 'Sadie Thompson,' this feels exactly right. The animosity of the two characters grows so intense, the movie just can't contain it. It's like things are so hot, the film melts, or the story triggers infinity, or something.

And so we're left to visualize the climax on own, and because we all do that in our own individual ways, it has the potential to more terrifying and awesome than anything director Raoul Walsh could have put on celluloid.

So it's a motion picture, yes. But it's also something different. By virtue of its missing final reel, it's a hybrid—a new way of telling stories, really. Or at least a different way of rendering a film's climax.

I like it, and I think it's a technique that today's filmmakers might consider employing.

Well—until that happens, you can catch Gloria Swanson in 'Sadie Thompson' (1928) on Thursday, March 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 S. Main St., Plymouth, N.H. Tickets are $10; for more info, call the box office at (603) 536-2551.

On different versions of silent films: It may have no arms, but it's still a masterpiece

I've recently accompanied two film prints of widely known silent movies that had significant differences from what I expected.

In one case, it was a 35mm print of 'Intolerance' (1916) that was missing dozens of key scenes, often substituted for with frame grabs.

In another case, it was a 16mm print of 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928) that was missing key information in titles, and so didn't make much sense to the audience.

In both examples, I've seen other versions of the films that each had the missing footage or titles. But these prints just didn't have them.

When this happens, I tell people that silent film often has to be considered in the same we the "Venus De Milo" is looked at in sculpture.

Yes, it has no arms. But it's still recognized as a masterpiece.

And the lack of arms is part of the sculpture's greatness, I think, as it shows so visibly the perilous journey of anything from antiquity that has come down to us today.

It also invites us to collaborate, in a way. We can't help but imagine what to us would be the most perfect arms, their position, their placement, and so on.

Like a lot of art, it prompts us to come up with our own visions to complete it. And each person's vision is bound to be unique and different and perhaps more perfect (to you) than any sculptor could have made them.

Franz Schubert, composer of the 'Unfinished' Symphony.

Same thing in music with Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony. Okay, it's missing the last two movements of the typical format of a symphony of its time.

But it stands on its own as a satisfying and complete piece of music. And part of its special beauty is that it leaves us wondering what might have been.

And so it is with a lot of silent film, I say.

Many films, including well-known classics like the two mentioned above, exist in different versions, different formats, and sometimes with significant pieces missing: lost arms, so to speak.

This can seem surprising to people because we live in an age where a movie is always expected to be complete, a whole thing, either in a theater or DVD or online or whatever.

No matter how you watched 'Frozen,' it's the same film.

No so with early cinema, where archaeology is a useful frame of mind to have. Often, to assemble a reasonably complete version of even a well-known title requires pulling material from archives all over the world.

And then there's the whole conundrum of European versions vs. American versions; home cut-downs vs. full theatrical releases; prints butchered by local censors and projection booth mishaps.

Even at the time of original release, there was often no one definitive version of a film. After releasing 'Intolerance,' director D.W. Griffith would visit projection booths where the film was running and try to edit the prints on the spot!

Raymond Griffith in 'Paths to Paradise' (1925).

One of the best examples of a film that's missing a big chunk, but still worth watching, is Raymond Griffith's 'Paths to Paradise' (1925), which I'm accompanying next month at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth, N.H. and also the Somerville Theatre in Boston.

In the version that's come down to us, the film ends with a crackerjack cross-country chase worthy of Buster Keaton. In my experience, it never fails to get an audience going.

So afterwards, people are stunned to learn that the film is actually missing its entire last reel!

From what I understand, after a pause for the audience to catch its collective breath, Griffith takes his chase one big step further for the film's real climax.

Does it work? We can't say because no one has ever found a copy of the last reel.

It may still be out there. A century after silent film flourished, reels of original nitrate film turn up in the most unlikely of places.

So keep looking.

And while you're at it, if you happen to spot a pair of marble arms, let me know.

Five screenings in four states: It's a Halloween Nosferatu-a-thon!

Actor Max Schreck would have a hard time accompanying 'Nosferatu' with those fingernails.

Tomorrow I embark on a daunting adventure: doing live music for five separate screenings of 'Nosferatu' (1922) in less than two weeks. And a screening of 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1925) is mixed in there for good measure. Can you tell Halloween is coming up?

First, here's a round-up of the where and when, if only to help ME keep track of where I'm supposed to be...

• Saturday, Oct. 19, 7 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Brandon Town Hall and Community Center, Main Street/Route 7, Brandon, Vt.; http://www.brandontownhall.org. Our annual "Chiller Theater" presentation in the as-yet-unheated Brandon Town Hall. Admission free, donations accepted, with proceeds to help continuing preservation work.

• Thursday, Oct. 24, 7 p.m.: "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925), starring Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin; the Putnam Arts Lecture Hall, Keene State College, Keene, N.H. Free and open to the public. Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber created the hit stage musical, this silent film adaptation starring Lon Chaney helped place 'Phantom' firmly in the pantheon of both horror and romance.

• Saturday, Oct. 26, 8 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Leavitt Theatre, 259 Main St. Route 1, Ogunquit, Maine; (207) 646-3123; http://www.leavittheatre.com. Admission $10 per person. Another unheated "chiller theater" screening, if only because it's a summer-only cinema in a seaside resort.

• Sunday, Oct. 27, 4:30 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Wilton Town Hall Theatre, Main Street, Wilton, N.H.; (603) 654-3456; www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com. Admission free, donations of $5 per person encouraged. Movies since 1912!

• Wednesday, Oct. 30, 7 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. (978) 837-5355. Free admission. Nice modern arts center on college campus north of Boston.

• Thursday, Oct. 31, 6:30 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); The Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H.; (603) 536-2551; http://www.flyingmonkeynh.com. Admission $10 per person. Hoping for a good turnout from students at Plymouth State University, who usually ignore these screenings.

Wow, that's 'Nosferatu' in four different states! The vampire sure gets around. If anyone makes it to all five screenings (besides me), I'll donate a pint of blood to the American Red Cross in your honor.

This will be interesting, and not just in terms of finding my way to theaters all over New England. Because I improvise the score live each time, it'll be intriguing to see how the accompaniment evolves during the performances.

Yes, I do have a few musical ideas in my head that I'll use when I sit down for the first performance, which is tomorrow night up in Brandon, Vt. I've done 'Nosferatu' before, and I have a "vampire" chord sequence that is versatile enough to power most of the score.

But inevitably, new ideas will happen along the way. And those ideas may get carried over to the next screening, where they'll evolve a bit further, and so on. So by the time of the fifth performance in Plymouth, N.H. (on Halloween night!), the score might be totally different from what I did in Brandon 12 days earlier.

The idea that I sit down without any sheet music and create a movie score in real time seems a bit strange to people, but it's really nothing magical. Even if I don't have a idea in my head, all I have to do it play one note, and the score sometimes creates itself from there.

Just play one note and hold it, and you can go in so many directions, depending on what the movie seems to want.

One note, so many possibilities! Just in terms of the mechanics of music, there are so many ways to go. Is it the root of a chord? If not the root, which part of the chord is it? Either way gives it a certain character.

And if not part of a chord,will it want to resolve somehow? Each direction carries its own relevance to what might be happening on screen.

I'm kind of reminded of what I remember reading once in Vonnegut (probably from 'Bluebeard' (1987), one of his later novels), where an abstract artist explained his method by saying that he started by making one mark on a blank canvas, and the canvas would then do at least half the work.

I had a nice guy come up to after a recent screening, a musician who wanted to know if I took on students, as he wanted to know if he could learn more about what I do.

I'm not really part of any school or traditional academic setting, so I don't have pupils, although I'm glad to share anything I can. And I thought about this, and most of what I do can be taught: the methods, the way to transform melodies, the way to create a certain kind of music to bring a film to life.

The only thing that I would be at a loss to teach would be where the melodies come from in the first place. I can make some observations, such as people tend to be attracted to melodies with notes that skip around in a small area, such as the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

But where does a melody come from in the first place?

With me, it just seems to flow naturally out of some place in my brain where scraps of old music (pop songs, cartoon scores, Broadway overtures, brass band marches) are continually playing. Sometimes it seems like several pieces are running at once, all colliding deep down below, like tectonic plates below the earth's surface, breaking up and recombining into something new.

That's where the tunes come from, I think. And we'll see if any keepers emerge during the upcoming Nosferatu-a-thon. It's been my experience that the state of mind I get into when accompanying a film seems to allow me to tap into this inner music more readily.

My self-editing and critical filtering gets turned down, and new melodies of all different types seems to flow more readily. Many times, I'll be sitting there accompanying a movie, and I'll be as surprised as anyone at the music flowing out of my keyboard. Geez, where did that come from?

But then afterwards, sometimes the audience tells me. This past March, after improvising a completely made-up-on-the-spot piano score to Mary Pickford's drama 'The Foundling' (1915) at Cinefest in Syracuse, N.Y., a guy came up and said he especially appreciated how I was able to use a melody from Schubert's 'Trout' Quintet.

My witty reply was to say that I thought something sounded fishy. Wow, from channeling Schubert to channeling Henny Youngman!

Well, to channel Groucho Marx: "They can't all be gems, folks."