Oh my goodness, where do I even begin with Flappers?
Today the word conjures up a stereotypical jazz age dame: young, short-haired, uncorsetted, wildly dancing the Charleston and swilling martinis.
However, in 1920 the word “flapper” meant something a little different. It gradually evolved into its current meaning over the course of the decade.
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After the two tropical island ‘quickies’ I wrote about in my last post, D.W. Griffith took his next project far more seriously. In making Way Down East he returned to the high level of care and effort he usually bestowed upon his productions. He was prepared to spend the time and money required to make a ‘serious film’, and began with the purchase of a hit play.
Way Down East was a melodrama about small town life that had been successful on Broadway for many years. It tells the story of an innocent country girl who is deceived and abandoned by a rich playboy. She finds a new life and a new love, but her past threatens to ruin all chance at happiness.
It was exactly the kind of moralistic melodrama that movie studios had been churning out since their earliest days.
While it had been very popular, Way Down East premiered in 1898. By 1920 it was regarded as an old-fashioned relic of a bygone era, and a poor choice for a motion picture. Griffith, however, was an old-fashioned guy.
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If you were a director who needed to churn out some films as quickly as possible, it might seem like a good idea to load up your crew and head to the Bahamas to dash off a couple romantic adventure flicks. Right?
In 1920 David Wark “D.W.” Griffith was reknowned around the world as a visionary film pioneer. He had revolutionized American film production in storytelling strategies, the direction of actors, editing for suspense, parallel action, lighting innovations, and numerous innovative camera techniques. It is largely due to his ambition and vision that American movies made the leap from 12-minute shorts shown in shabby storefronts for a nickel (in 1908 when he began) to the epic two hour production shown in grand theatres with full orchestra, charging an unprecedented ticket price of two dollars. (This was his Birth of a Nation in 1915.)
D.W.’s views of the film medium and business were forward looking, yet when it came to picking stories to shoot, his feet were firmly planted in the previous century. His technique was modern, his tastes and world view unrelentingly old-fashioned. This paradox was eventually what finally ended his filmmaking career.
Griffith’s three pictures in 1920 starred three different actresses: Clarine Seymour, Carol Dempster, and Lillian Gish. The male romantic lead for all three was David Barthelmess. Two were shot in the Bahamas and the third in upstate New York. Two were flops and one was a massive hit.
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They can’t all be winners.
My last post was about the very successful and acclaimed Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I’ll look next at two forgotten films that tried to follow in Caligari’s footsteps… and failed.
This was a follow up from Caligari‘s director, Robert Wiene, in which he ill-advisedly tried to dial up the weirdness.
First a disclaimer: there are no undead bloodsuckers in this flick. In 1920 the term ‘vampire’ or ‘vamp’ was more commonly used to refer to a seductive femme fatale, which is the case here.
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I start my series of posts about the films of 1920 with a real blockbuster…
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene is one of the most highly regarded artistic works of 1920. Stills from this film are probably familiar to you, most of them featuring spidery Conrad Veidt carrying a limp Lil Dagover around crazily painted sets. Today the film is most famous for the Expressionist art direction. (And for how cool Veidt looks.)
When designer Hermann Warm gave his proposed set sketches to director Wiene and producer Rudolf Meinert, Wiene gave his approval, but Meinert took an extra day to think it over before giving the order: “Do these sets as eccentrically as you can!” *
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I’ve been immersed in silent movies recently, partly as research for a book but also because I’m fascinated by both the history and the films of this period. Spending more time at home this year has enabled me to take a long, close look at movies made in 1920, exactly one hundred years ago.
It was a particularly fascinating year. The world had just emerged from WWI and a devastating pandemic. Both left a psychological mark especially on defeated Germany, where filmmakers responded with dark folk tales, horror, and expressionism. (And some comedy as well – thank you Ernst Lubitsch!)
In America the mood was lighter. 1920 saw the enactment of Prohibition outlawing the sale or use of alcohol, but despite this – perhaps because of it – Americans were in a party mood. The movie industry, having entered its rebellious teen years, was eager to set the pace. They would have ten more years to whoop it up before the Hays Code came in to regulate movie morals and ruin everyone’s fun.
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