Hundreds of Beavers (2022) Directed by Mike Cheslik

 

Hundreds of Beavers is a low budget independent slapstick comedy that heavily draws on cartoon action and settings with liberal nods to Buster Keaton among others. Only costing 150 000 $, it's brought in over a million. Pretty good for a film made by two friends with only the experience of making another black and white film called "Lake Michigan Monster" with similar techniques at this one for the much lesser sum of 7 000$! 

The entire movie is mostly special effects done with After Effects and it's very affective. The production reads as a cartoon and the characters are over the top. All the animals are either animated or actors in mascot costumes. To promote the film the director and main actors went on the road with a live show added to the cinema experience. 

The plot is appropriately more like a Warner Brothers short than a live action film. This  mostly works but 108 minutes is a little long to sustain such craziness. I can't say it doesn't succeed, because it does for the most part mainly from the energy the cast and crew bring to it. Ryland Tews as the Applejacks salesman whose business is destroyed by the actions of nearby beavers. This leads into an escalating conflict between him and the beavers and the stakes are made higher when he falls in love with a merchant's daughter but can't marry her unless he brings the merchant hundreds of beaver pelts. I don't think I'll try and lay out many beats of the plot as that will spoil it for new viewers and the comedy relies on how surpassing and outlandish it all is. 

I can 100% see where this will get old really fast for some people so it's not for everyone. I thought it was charming and fun to watch. Tews is a handsome, muscular guy that runs around shirtless in the winter snow a good part of the film so there's that element if the nonstop cartoon aspect gets old for you. I didn't laugh out loud but I did appreciate effort made and found it amusing all the way through. The act of getting this made on so little money with over 1 500 effects shots alone makes it worth a look! 

Die Nibelungen (1924) Directed by Fritz Lang

 

Die Nibelungen is a 2 part film, almost 5 hours long, that tells the story Siegfried in the first part who rises to legendary status by killing a dragon on his way to find the love of his life who he has only heard of in a tale told by a story teller in the place he learned to forge swords. By the end of part one he has married and been betrayed by his best friend. The second part is the story of Kriemhild, his wife, taking revenge on her brother the king and everyone else even peripherally involved in the murder. 

I won't spoil too much as even though this film is legendary I don't feel many people have sat through it all - either seeing the first part only (the dragon part) or just seeing clips about it. To be honest I do understand the idea of sitting through a 5 hour silent film seems like a punishment to many people but they are WRONG. This is a prize, an epic fantastic journey with stunning visuals, great performances, effects and sets that will amaze you. 

The pacing is not as fast as a modern film, but so what? Almost every frame is mesmerizing. Siegfried is the iconic muscular, blonde hero who will be copied throughout future films and the story covers a lot of ground from his modest start to his finding of the the treasures of Die Nibelungen in the dwarves underground layer to his epic fight with the dragon after which he bathes in it's blood to become invincible, only to be foiled when I leaf lands on his back blocking the blood and giving him a vulnerable spot. To win the woman of dreams, he helps the king wed his, the formidable Brunhild by using an invisibility device to secretly aid the king to beat her in 3 competitions of strength and battle. Brunhild leaps from one end of the set to the other in a way that today's superheroes could learn from. 

The effects are fantastic. The dragon is a huge puppet controlled by 32 people inside, the castles and landscapes are stylized but also seem like real places. The biggest success is the forest scenes. They are beautifully film with light streaming through the trees and intriguing in their look and structure. And.. they are all fake and inside a studio which seems impossible watching the film. 

Kriemhild's revenge, the second part is all intrigue and battles as she finds favour with a foreign king, marries him and convinces him to help her with her revenge and reclaiming the treasures of Die Nibelungen. 

This is the sort of epic film Lange was famous for before coming the states to escape the nazis and he never made again in the United States. The budget is girnormous and it shows and highlights his attention to every detail. 

Silent Summer: The last laugh (1924) FW Murnau

 Can a Murnau film with Emil Jennings go wrong? Nope, but it can sure go right. This is the height of silent cinema. The acting is outstanding, the sets are breathtaking, the cinematography is draws you in and keeps you in.

The story is very simple, hard to believe such a good film is based around something that should be mundane. A doorman loses his job at a famous hotel. That is basically it. He is deemed too old by his cold hearted boss and demoted to washroom attendant. When his neighbours find out they mock him and doubt he was ever the doorman and was just trying to make himself seem important. Jennings gives his typical top drawer performance and brings humour and pathos to the character. 

This is spoiler (the film is 100 years old this year but I doubt too many know it now). 

At the end, the humiliated doorman reads in the newspaper that he inherited a fortune from  a patron who died in his arms in the hotel washroom and shares his wealth by going back t the hotel and treating the staff to generous tips. Especially the night watchman who was the only one there who teated him kindly. 

This is one of those films that will amaze anyone not familiar with the silent era and think they are all overacted, sped up comedies. Its hard to imagine that the street shots are actually sets, they have a realism you don't expect and the editing, effects and compositions are far beyond what anyone would think of as "early cinema". 

Silent Summer: Dans la nuit (1929) direccted by Charles Vanel

 

One of, if the last of the French silent film era. this film is a tour de force in acting and image composition. The editing and transitions are amazing and the recent restoration really lays to rest any ideas that silent films were primitive filmmaking in any way. 

After a disfiguring mining accident, a man hides his face from his wife who he discovered is charting on him. He catches her and her lover who is also wearing a mask and in the struggle, the husband is killed and the body dumped in the river. I won't spoil things but suffice it to say that murder leads to to a number of twists and turns that use creative montage to show the [present, what really happened and to move between the past and present in a truly masterful way. The only problem I have is with the ending, which was forced on the director by the studio. It still works but could have been a much more powerful ending if the studio had kept their hands off it. 

I saw this on French TV and I have no idea where else it can be seen. I did not find it on Amazon or on YouTube but if you get a chance see it! 

Silent Summer: Salomé (1923) directed by Charles Bryant

Based on the play by Oscar Wilde and starring Alla Naive, this is a very stylized (which is putting it mildly) adaptation that has more in common with a play than a film at times. It does offer some very strong shots, like the suicide of the man jumping from the palace wall into the void that a play could not really accomplish. The sets are sparse and costumes a re base don Beardsley drawings and work very well to give the movie a look that is both beautiful and bizarre. The acting is exaggerated and I suspect the Ken Russell version of this story was heavily influenced by the silent version as it too was more than a little over the top. The editing is excellent and many of the shot compositions are fantastic and unique looking. 

The actual dance is a little underwhelming and I was surprised that while she asked for the head of John the Baptist we don't see it on it's silver plate and we certainly don't see her kiss it's lips. That was done under the cover of her robe and might make that act seem even more shocking in the end. 

Silent Summer: The Haunted Castle (1921) directed by F.W. Murnau

 There really isn't much haunted anything in this film as the story centres around a group of aristocratic hunters stuck indoors because of a storm and receiving an unwanted visitor - a man accused of murder three years before. The plot revolves around his efforts ot vindicated himself and is more like a Agatha Christie mystery than anything else. Being a Murnau film is it exceptionally well made, great editing and interesting shots as the twists and turns and new guests arrive to shine light on the murder and who might really be the killer. 

The Kino restored version is on youtube:

City Lights (1931) written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin

 

Made several years after sun was taking films by storm, Charlie Chaplin defied the odds and produced not only a work of art but a huge hit in this silent film. He would avoid sound another few years but this is considered one of his best projects. 

The little tramp character befriends a millionaire after stopping him for committing suicide who helps Chaplin by giving him money so that a blind girl, the tramp's love interest can have an operation restore her vision. When the rich an is robbed and the tramp is found with  a ton of his cash, things get complicated. The tramp evades the police long enough to pass the cash to the girl but is soon arrested and put in jail. 

After being released he sees the girl in a flower shop window, the girl comes out and replace a crushed flower he is holding and when she touches his hand she realizes who he is and they smile at each other. 

Well acted, filmed and maybe a little sentimental the film still has impact and can touch your heart like few other movies can. Chaplin is a master of his medium and this is considered by sum to be his masterpiece. 

La Chute de la maison Usher (1928)

Jean Epsteins’s 1928 silent film of Edgar Allen poe’s short story was co-written by Luis Buñuel who had worked with him on another tim 2 years previously. 

The story, like every Poe adaptation, takes plenty of liberties, one of the biggest is making Roderick Usher’s twin sister into his wife… which adds a level of creepiness since if you ever read the story (and who hasn’t) it all seems fairly incestuous. Roderick still suffers from hyperesthesia and the actor playing him (Jean Debucourt) has seriously crazy eyes.

The thing that makes this movie worth watching is the visual style… Germany wasn’t the only place doing surrealist off the wall cinematography. Some of the imagery is really amazing. In this version of the tale, Roderick is painting a portrait of his wife and the more he works on it, the more life is sapped from the real woman. At one point his brush grazes the canvas and there is a cut to her stroking her face in the same spot…and it seems painful. Th emanating itself is total creep out. If I am right, it seems they put a frame with a glass or vellum interior in a black room and had the actress playing the wife sit far enough away to look like a very 3D image but not so obvious (she NEVER moves an inch) that you are ever really sure if that it’s just not a really good piece of artwork. When the wife dies, and put in the coffin her husband screams that nails are not to put in the lid and he is convinced she is not really dead. So they lay her in it with her wedding dress… the train dragging what seems like a ½ mile through the house and into the tomb. her return to the world of the living, wandering back to the house in her white dress is classic, or what would become classic gothic horror stuff. 

No surprise, the house falls to pieces but unlike most other versions, it all ends pretty well. With all the craziness that came before, tending is a disappointment but it doesn’t ruin the overall effect of what should be known as a silent classic but seems to have been forgotten in recent times. 

See the entire film below! 

Les Vampires

Louis Feuillade's multi-part dram about evildoers. Here's a lil' animated gif from it I made. Downloadable/watchable here