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.