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August 29, 2023

The Spanish Dancer

Herbert Brenon – 1923
Milestone BD Areas ABC

My first time watching The Spanish Dancer and I’m considering that is one other fanciful silent movie about an unique time and place, and sure, Pola Negri is engaging, however this appears to be like like simply one other interval piece going down in early seventeenth Century Spain. After which the motion strikes from the countryside to Madrid, with an enormous citywide celebration. The set itself is large, with a colossal cathedral within the again, with rows of multistory buildings. And actually tons of of extras both in interval costume or costumes, clogging the streets, many doing their very own dances if not watching Negri carry out in the course of the sq.. There may be additionally the fixed bathe of confetti in each shot. One man is wrestling an precise bear. One other man is carrying a skeleton costume. I needed to surprise how Herbert Brenon and cinematographer James Wong Howe coordinated all the things. I used to be awestruck by the spectacle.

The Spanish Dancer begins with a prologue stating that the movie takes place 300 years earlier than the movie was made, and certainly, 1623 was the yr when King Philip IV of Spain (Wallace Beery) posed for a portray by Diego Velazquez. That occasion is reenacted within the movie. Negri performs Maritana, a gypsy fortune teller additionally famed for her dancing. By way of a sequence of circumstances, Maritana encounters Don Caesar, a not too long ago disgraced nobleman, and later rescues the King Philip’s son from a runaway horse. Maritana is invited by the Queen to carry out for the courtroom throughout the celebration. In Madrid, Maritana is pursued by Don Salluste (Adolphe Menjou), and has her honor defended by Don Caesar. Goaded into having a public sword struggle by Salluste, Caesar is arrested for breaking the legislation. Add to that palace intrigue between the king and queen.

Fortuitously, not all of that is accomplished as a severe enterprise. A lot of the credit score ought to in all probability go to Antonio Moreno as Don Caesar. He brings out the humorousness of a person who doesn’t take himself too critically. In a latter scene, Caesar arranges to die by firing squad fairly than hanging, however not earlier than having a celebratory dinner wherein he will get his executioners drunk. There may be even one visible gag with Negri carrying a proper costume for the primary time, one with a really vast hoop beneath as was the fashion, requiring her to stroll sideways by a door.

Though Pola Negri and Herbert Brenon reportedly didn’t get alongside, Negri’s efficiency shares some similarities with different Brenon actresses. Particularly within the introductory scenes of her skipping by the countryside, Negri appears to anticipate Betty Bronson in Peter Pan (1924) and Clara Bow in Dancing Moms (1926).

The commentary monitor is uncommon because it has been break up between movie historian Scott Eyeman and dance historian Naima Prevots. Whereas the historical past of choreographer Ernest Belcher is of curiosity, each particularly to The Spanish Dancer and as a part of early Hollywood, there’s a battle in listening to Prevot focus on Belcher’s work on the silent Phantom of the Opera whereas watching Brenon’s movie. I think Scott Eyeman may have simply crammed the total operating time himself, however packs a whole lot of info throughout the hour that he has with historical past of the making of The Spanish Dancer. There may be additionally an interview with composer Invoice Ware, finest often called a jazz vibraphonist. Ware’s rating straddles conventional film music with jazz and avant-garde improvisation, carried out by a small band.

The blu-ray itself is sourced from a 2012 restoration by the Dutch Eye Filmmuseum from 4 completely different surviving prints. Based mostly on the movie script, the restored model is 95% full. Some parts nonetheless are broken, however nonetheless watchable. A really temporary further reveals excerpts to check the surviving prints with the restored model.

Posted by Peter Nellhaus at August 29, 2023 06:29 AM