Remember Jean Hagen in Singin’ in the Rain? She was the silent movie star spurned when talkies came in. Her OTT acting and nasal voice were no longer de riguer and she quickly became a Hollywood has-been. Although Marion Davies, star of King Vidor’s silent comedy The Patsy, was not quite so harshly derided, her stutter scuppered her chances somewhat (though not entirely).
The charming Brooklynite had been a Ziegfeld Follies girl before her looks and funny gal persona sent her to Hollywood. There she had a high-profile affair with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and became better known for socialising than acting, despite her efforts.
Nevertheless, in 1928’s The Patsy, she shines. Poking fun at the brilliantly-named doyennes of the Silents – Lillian Gish, Mae Murray, Pola Negri – she plays Patsy as a likeable goof to a gold-digging older sister out to scupper her chances of marriage. It’s only when she bags herself a ‘personality’ by reading a book of one-liners that she gets herself noticed and wins the man of her dreams.
Wholly predictable but a lot of fun, the period piece was given a new lease of life when it played to a packed crowd as part of the festival’s Sounds and Silents strand. This was thanks to a bouncing new score by Gwyneth Herbert, a wiz on the kazoo (and so much more) and ably aided by musicians Al Cherry and Foz Foster.
Their catchy riffs and inventive orchestra (from a bent saw to crushed paper) added a fresh and fittingly comedic dimension to Davies’ legs-akimbo acting and sweetly farcical plot. And though jobbing comedians say Londoners – spoiled-for-choice urbanites – are the world’s hardest audience to impress, The Patsy’s punning one-liners made even the modern-day audience laugh.
Choice cuts included: “Isn’t it a marvellous moon? Not bad for a town this size.” “If there wasn’t any rain there wouldn’t be any hay to make while the sun shines.” And “I’ll hit her so hard she’ll starve to death with her teeth bouncing.”
Try them out for size on your next date, feedback encouraged.
Meanwhile, Entre Nos finally made its way to UK shores this month after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, where it won an honourable mention. The independent feature was written, edited, produced and directed by a formidable two-woman tag-team of Gloria La Morte and Paola Mendoza, who premiered the film at BEV. The pair have followed up their 2006 documentary, Autumn’s Eyes, with a true-life tale inspired by Mendoza’s own family, which shares themes of female independence with Pablo Trapero’s Lions Den and that of unhappy immigration with Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s Sugar. So it’s not a popcorn flick, but not to be dismissed either. Mendoza’s compelling performance is essential viewing; the camera loves her and she rewards its obsession.
She plays Mariana – a character based on Mendoza’s own mother – who was forced onto the streets with her two children after her husband abandons them just weeks after securing the family’s move from Colombia to the States. With $50 and no English, she grabs a supermarket trolley and spends each day collecting and recycling cans with her kids. She makes around $26 a day. She eventually secures a room while trying to figure out how to free her unwitting family from the poverty trap. Her kids never complain once.
In fact, the ever-angelic kids undermined the film’s realism. Their performances were spot-on but the writing becomes sentimental; it is after all based on the star and film-maker’s childhood experiences. It’s also dedicated to Mendoza’s mother who, we learn, eventually left the city and now lives happily on a ranch.
That the film exists seems proof of the America Dream. But the film-makers are keen that the dream’s fallacies are addressed. Mendoza and La Morte deliberately obscured the family’s legal status. For the audience, watching helplessly as the mother is unable to ask for help when we all know that she’s entitled to basic healthcare, shelter and food is torturous. But that’s exactly the point, say the writers.
“Even if you are a documented immigrant you don’t know how to get help because you don’t know how to navigate the system,” says Mendoza. “They don’t know where to begin. Everyday is to have to accomplish the impossible.”
Entre Nos is a dignified piece of work, well worth the two years it took to write. Though let down by mediocre cinematography (we can perhaps blame the film’s teeny budget for that), it is a tender and fitting choice for a festival that celebrates women filmmakers.
And though a distribution deal outside the US seems unlikely, these are women who make their own luck; you get the impression nothing’s too big to hold them back. Their next feature will be bigger and it will be better and that’s a very exciting prospect indeed.
