Scaramouche (1923)

Though produced by Metro, not Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Rex Ingram's Scaramouche, starring the upcoming Ramon Novarro, was released by MGM during their first year in business. Like Ingram's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, also rereleased by MGM, Scaramouche is an epic film, with huge, sixty-acre lot sets, seemingly hundreds of extras and immaculate, astonishing set design.

Scaramouche, though, is a much better film than The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's a rousing, swashbuckling spectacle that's free of most of the mawkish tendencies of many later MGM epic films (Mare Nostrum, I'm looking at you).

Set during the time leading to the French Revolution, Scaramouche is based on Rafael Sabatini's enormously successful novel released only two years earlier. Though straining credulity (Novarro is an outcast aristocrat and a law student and a playwright and actor and a master swordsman and a leader of the revolution), the screenplay and directing are smooth and captivating, the actors entertaining and the choreographed scenes full of life.

Alice Terry is Novarro's love interest and Lewis Stone, who so wonderfully played cads during this period in his acting career, plays one you especially love to hate here.

Scaramouche is filled with half-shadowed knick-knacks, ornate costumes, kids playing games and other extraneous manifestations of life. I can describe it no better than historian Kevin Brownlow: Scaramouche is "primarily a work of art in the 18th-century tradition. The period has been so beautifully evoked that it seems inconceivable that the picture belongs to this century. It looks as though the combined efforts of several 18th century painters, sculptors, scenic designers, costumiers and architects have reached a climax of rococo glory on celluloid."

The compimentary and full-bodied orchestral score (commissioned, I think, by Turner Classic Movies) used for the Warner Archives DVD-R I watched is by Jeffrey Mark Silverman. While it may not have any memorable themes, neither does it detract from the film as so many composed or hodge-podged scores for silent films do.

The same print is shown from time to time on Turner Classic Movies and can also be ordered from Warner Archives here: http://www.wbshop.com/product/scaramouche+1923+1000179701.do

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)

Although originally released by Metro in 1921, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was rereleased by MGM in their first year in business, 1924.

A long (132-minute) tale of two generations of a splintered, warring family, The Four Horsemen is primarily known today as the film which made Rudolph Valentino famous. He plays a rich, spoiled wastrel through much of the film, until he falls in love (with a married woman) and attempts to redeem his sorry life by joining the French infantry in WWI.

Directed by Rex Ingram, the story is hokum, pure and simple, complete with a pious, emotionless, creepy Nostradamus/Christ figure (one of several who pop up in MGM silent films when sanctimonious sentiment is needed) who foretells days of apocalyptic wrath and brotherly love.

The movie is, though, good, old-fashioned Hollywood spectacle. The sets are gargantuan, filled with the kind of mysterious clutter you only see in silent movies. The themes are large, accented by color-tinted images of Hell. And, with The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you get a star in the making. The very first scene Valentino appears in, rakishly stealing another man's vampish date to dance a tango with, is alive, smoldering and timeless in a way most of the rest of the movie isn't. The scene has "classic" written all over it.

Be prepared to slog through a lot of the second half of the film, though. You know you're getting starved for entertainment when your eyes light up at a lost monkee jumping out of a handbag.

You do get to see Wallace Beery and Alan Hale playing evil German scavengers and the film's love interest, Alice Terry, has an acting style more subtle than you often see in silent films.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse has not been released on DVD. The version shown on Turner Classic Movies, a Photoplay production with a grand orchestral score by Carl Davis, is the one to beat. Amazon is selling an on-demand DVD-R version with a simpler score. I recommend holding out for the TCM version.

MGM Straight Down the Line

Since April, 2002, Mary and I have undertaken an ambitious (some would say foolhardy) agenda of film watching: we are watching every MGM film which still exists (many no longer do), in as close to chronological order as possible. Our agenda encompasses all feature films released by MGM from the studio's creation, in 1924, until 1960, when the classic era of systematic Hollywood filmmaking was, for all intents and purposes, over.

MGM was probably the grandest of the Hollywood studios. It lacked the hard-hitting edge of Warner Bros., but made up for it through sheer spectacle, high, glossy production values and, as their tagline proclaimed, "more stars than there are in heaven". It's also worth noting that proto-EC and proto-Lynchian films such as Tod Browning's Freaks and The Unknown were produced by MGM, as were films of visionary decadence by Erich Von Stroheim, (recommendation: see Stroheim's Greed on a double-bill with P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood. Only the strong will survive). MGM also destroyed the career of Buster Keaton, another fascinating but depressing spectacle. Last but not least, MGM featured a trinity of top actresses in the '20s and '30s: Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, and Joan Crawford. Sometimes sublime, sometimes mediocre and sometimes bizarre (or all three in the same movie), their films were always fascinating.

We began by watching The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the first film MGM released (though not the first film made by the new studio). It is also the film which made Rudolph Valentino a star. Since then, we have watched approximately 115 films, and are halfway through 1931. We're using, as a reference guide, The MGM Story, by John Douglas Eames, which lists films MGM released by year. (If you'd like to follow along with our movie watching, buy a copy of The MGM Story and have at it.) As films from years we've already covered have been made available, we've "backtracked", watching that film, then continuing on with the "current" year. I'll be posting here short reviews of the films we watch in the series, and posting reviews of earlier films we've watched when it's possible to go back and review them.

I'll also be posting miscellanious thoughts and lists on our crazy endeavour and we welcome your comments, comparisons, suggestions, or just plain help in tracking down elusive MGM films we've not yet been able to find. If you have a question about MGM or an MGM film,please post it here. I don't claim to be an expert on MGM, merely a guy watching a bunch of MGM movies. Then again, watching 115 MGM movies in a row can fill your head with a lot of near-useless facts. If you spot mistakes or wish to post clarifications or alternate opinions, feel free to post your comments.