Masterpieces of Silent Film Are Rescued From Obscurity

Josef von Sternberg is perhaps most popularly remembered for his films with Marlene Dietrich and his “painterly” approach to directing, but even his earliest works had a lot more going for them than a star performance or impressive visual style. Silent films Underworld (1927), The Last Command (1928), and The Docks of New York (1928) are masterpieces of visual storytelling — human dramas expressed with cinematographic innovation, impeccably realized set design, and an unparalleled grasp of the “bigger picture” of the motion picture. 3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg, Criterion Collection’s deluxe release, rescues these three films from being lost to history and reverently, generously revives them for DVD.

None of these films has a writer in common, but the basic dramatic thread running through all of them is that of a man heading for redemption and contending with loyalty. Each man has a woman at his side. All eventually find their way, but some do so at a greater cost than others. In Underworld, that man is gangster Bull Weed (George Bancroft) and his lady is moll Feathers (Evelyn Brent). At the center of The Last Command is the once-powerful Russian Commanding General Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings), who shares a complicated relationship with actress/revolutionary Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent). Finally, The Docks of New York finds rugged stoker Bill Roberts (Bancroft) moved to reluctant heroism by troubled dance-hall girl Mae (Betty Compson). Von Sternberg’s direction of the plots streamlines the action around these central relationships and unifies three otherwise disparate tales.

A prototypical gangster film, Underworld originated in a story by Ben Hecht and the true adventures of Chicago gangster “Terrible” Tommy O’Connor. The opening title card rather seriously suggests, “This first professional film of Josef von Sternberg seemed unusually bold both in subject matter and in treatment at the time it was made.” Largely responsible for the “boldness” is a remarkably well-balanced combination of tones, including action, romance and gallows humor. Von Sternberg’s taut approach succeeds because his use of cinematic language is complex enough to synthesize all of these within a single narrative framework (the “gangster film”).

There are a few significant rivalries in Underworld, and boss Bull Weed exudes the “with me or against me” ethos in everything he does. His manner is not serious, but he does have a serious amount of power. After we witness his daring bank robbery and escape from the law, the film reveals to us an article concerning the police force’s hunt for the bank bandits. Sternberg cuts from the paper to a shot of Weed’s reaction to the article: laughing boisterously and dismissively. His laughter becomes a recurring event within the film, sometimes associated with sinister activity, and later, as a defense against fear.

Within the underworld, his main rival is Buck Mulligan (Fred Kohler), a figure that seems to be the archetype for the gangster characters that Frank Vincent is now famous for playing. While Weed’s tendency is to laugh, Mulligan’s is to seethe, and the film makes great use of each actor’s ability to hold a close-up or single shot with a signature emotion.

A less sophisticated approach to this material would foreground the Weed/Mulligan opposition and organize most of the action around it. Von Sternberg, however, seems more interested in the aspects of the screen play (by Robert N. Lee) that concern the social positioning of a crime boss and the loyalty that engenders. Therefore, Weed’s greatest troubles come not from his sworn enemies, but from the turbulence created when those closest to him appear to be betrayers. The individual most indebted to Weed is Rolls Royce (Clive Brook), an alcoholic lawyer that Weed helps find employment and social betterment. At one point, Rolls Royce asks Weed how he can repay such generosity, and the boss replies, “Help me? Nobody helps me! I help other people!” This scenario of forced indebtedness can be easily identified in a number of subsequent gangster films and their respective bosses (e.g., The Godfather’s Don Vito Corleone, Goodfellas’ Paul Cicero, etc.)

Underworld’s influential plot is only one portion of von Sternberg’s command of greater design within the film. There is a clever interaction of title cards to express dialogue and title cards to develop the plot. While at his flower shop, Mulligan says, “I’m going to bury that guy while these lilies are still fresh”. The subsequent title says, “But Buck should have used wax flowers, for long after his lilies had faded—”, and then the film cuts to Weed, alive and thriving. By establishing the motif of the flowers in this “literary” context as well as through visual attention, von Sternberg readies the audience for a flower’s function in a succinct robbery montage later in the film.

Later, during “The underworld’s annual armistice – when, until dawn, rival gangsters bury the hatchet”, a title card reads, “Here the brutal din of cheap music-booze-hate-lust made a devil’s carnival”. The film proceeds to show us a man passed out alongside what looks like a funhouse mirror that reflects warped visions of the revelers. Then, for the first time, the film cuts to a quick editing style, presenting a series of drunken faces in close-up. This is a dizzying parade of encounters that puts us in the middle of the “carnival”.

Set design also connects the plot, dialogue and characters of Underworld. Weed tells Feathers that Rolls Royce, now his sophisticated right hand man, has read every book in the bookcase at their getaway apartment. The audience interprets this as additional evidence of his burgeoning intellect and refinement. By contrast, we see that for Weed, the bookcase’s sole function is to enable an escape to a secured, adjacent room. The case and books therein have no intellectual value for Weed, who demonstrates their usefulness by pushing them aside. As with the flowers, the bookcase makes another couple of appearances within the film, and each time von Sternberg relies on the audience’s memory of its establishment to vary its function within the plot.

Some of the film’s most effective storytelling occurs without dialogue (not only silent, but literally wordless). Feathers and Rolls Royce appear in a temptation scene, in which they test and draw out a mutual attraction. The audience already recognizes the inherent danger, as both characters owe their livelihoods to Weed, the man they now risk betraying. When they finally stop dancing around the issue and come together, the framing shifts to nearly subjective points of view, wherein Rolls Royce’s close-up is seen from her vantage point and Feathers’ close-up is viewed from his. This powerfully connects the audience to the attraction that is taking place. Few words are spoken, but von Sternberg’s arrangement of the actors and composition of the action express the subtext. One could argue that the remainder of the action in the film springs from the consequences of this moment.

Like Underworld, The Last Command synthesizes different narrative types. Led by the electrifying, Academy-Award winning performance of Jannings, the film is an engrossing historical drama that includes a love story and a satire of Hollywood. In the first act, a Russian director (William Powell) has come to Hollywood and is searching for a Russian actor to play a general for his war film. He finds a head shot which reads “Sergius Alexander – claims to have been Commanding General of Russian Army and cousin to Czar. Little film experience – works for $7.50 a day.” As Alexander, Jannings is a frail and quaking shell of a man.

At “the bread line of Hollywood” where actors are clamoring for roles, Alexander gets his general’s uniform, going from one window to the next to pick up each article of clothing. He seems humiliated and disoriented by the crowd of hungry extras. Alexander has in his possession a medal, the function of which recalls Mulligan’s telltale flower from Underworld. This medal is allegedly from the Czar, and its appearance in the first act provides a transition to the second act of the film, which flashes back to Imperial Russia 1917.

Von Sternberg, equipped with art direction by Hans Dreier, convincingly presents the historical period. The first act has prepared the viewer for the making of a “period piece”, and this shift backwards in time for the second act transports us to the time and place for which the actors in the present-day section were being outfitted. Hence, their preparation for historical drama has manifested itself in a historical drama, though not in a direct fashion. Von Sternberg acts playfully (but faithfully) on our expectations.

The biggest difference, of course, is the figure of Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, here described as “cousin to the Czar and Commanding General of the Russian Armies” and loyal to the “crumbling empire”. In this earlier personification of the general, Jannings is resolute and strong — no longer the man out of time we witnessed in the first act. Both Alexander and the empire are, however, positioned for a fall. There is a growing awareness that the revolutionaries are gaining strength, and actress Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent) is described as “the most dangerous revolutionist in Russia.” Her partner is Leo Andreyev, whom we recognize to be the film director from the present day action. The introduction of these characters’ pasts creates in the viewer an anticipation of the events that will bring Andreyev to power and Alexander to ruin. Given von Sternberg’s skillful positioning of his characters on screen and within the narrative, it is more than likely that Dabrova will be instrumental in these transformations.

From Vulnerability to Suspicion

The Last Command takes a multifaceted view of the events, institutions, and individuals surrounding the revolution. Imprisoning Andreyev, Alexander brings Dabrova to the new military headquarters. The ensuing narrative events open up the drama to greater questions about the difference between duty to a military and/or governmental structure and love for one’s land. Both Dabrova and Alexander argue that they love Russia, but that love has placed them on opposing sides of the power structure. While Alexander cannot “turn into” a revolutionary, he acknowledges the silliness of recalling and arranging the troops at headquarters for the Czar’s inspection. Again linking plot to film style, von Sternberg stages the Czar’s visit as a big, quite impressive show that the General must endure because it is his duty. When Alexander is asked to stage an offensive for the benefit of the Czar, who will be visiting the front, he refuses, saying he will not sacrifice troops for the “entertainment” of the Czar.

Von Sternberg uses these events, rooted in historical reality, to bring forth a star-crossed love story between the General and his actress, who is still at the headquarters. The scene in which they express mutual affection is full of mixed and false signals. The temptation scene of Underworld includes a degree of danger because the threat of a crime boss’s wrath forms a cloud over two would-be lovers. In The Last Command, however, the sense of danger is made even more intense by the presence of Dabrova’s gun.

Once Alexander sees the gun, which she has attempted to hide, the stakes of their interaction increase to a boiling point. Jannings undergoes a masterful transition from vulnerability to suspicion in a single shot. From here, von Sternberg continues a technique from Underworld, in which objects escalate with meaning and import throughout a scene or sequence. Alexander is wary of the tea Dabrova offers. She is distrustful of the cigarettes he offers. All of this is a prelude for the proper introduction of the gun to the scene. Of the many films Quentin Tarantino referenced in Inglorious Basterds, perhaps nothing had a greater influence than scenes such as this from The Last Command.

In a mordant stroke of humor that Tarantino would appreciate, the eventuality of the revolution is summed up in a single title card, which tells us that “A group of obscure people” decides that Russia will become a republic. The second act’s most thrilling action occurs after the revolutionaries stop Alexander’s train and he’s threatened with having to “stoke our train to Petrograd.” As imperiled General and avowed revolutionary, Jannings and Brent keep the audience guessing, and von Sternberg treats us to some stunning reversals of behavior. The Last Command, like Underworld, concerns among other things the virtue of loyalty, and the characters’ commitments grow ever deeper even as the reality around them deteriorates.

The third act of The Last Command shifts back to present day action. We are now fully aware of how, and why, the balance of power has shifted between Andreyev, once an imprisoned revolutionary and now a powerful director, and Alexander, a once-great General, now a frail actor, playing a commanding general. Once the film within the film begins to shoot, the infirm Alexander begins to have visions of his former glory. Von Sternberg shows us his visions with superimpositions, but even without those, Jannings’ performance makes clear the cycle of emotions playing out in the general’s head and heart. Sunset Boulevard would, in its own inimitable way, later satirize Hollywood as the source of madding dreams, but The Last Command precedes and one-ups even Billy Wilder’s masterpiece as a film about identity lost, regained, and artificialized for the camera.

As a welcome change of pace from the forceful drama of The Last Command, the final film in this collection is its brief, charming confection. The Docks of New York is a freewheeling work that seems limited in scope compared to the other two ambitious works collected here. However, joined again by set designer Dreier and with cinematographer Harold Rosson, von Sternberg meticulously realizes the dockside environment inhabited by the film’s hard-luck characters.

George Bancroft is stoker Bill Roberts, and his one night ashore begins unexpectedly, as good time girl Mae (Betty Compson) attempts suicide by jumping in the water. He rescues her, but after doing the right thing, he faces a series of obstacles that prevent him from following through on “meeting” her. Other characters in and around the Sandbar, a dockside hangout, come in and out of the picture, but the two most significant supporting characters are a dysfunctional husband and wife who initially take care of Mae. The woman, Lou (Olga Baclanova), seems to be the bitter sort of person Mae might become someday.

The Sandbar is a lively spot full of fun and carousing. On any other break, Bill would probably stay in the middle of the action until dawn. Yet his persistence to reach Mae and get to know her sets up their relationship as the foremost dramatic development of the film.

When Bill and Mae finally reunite in a bedroom, it becomes apparent that they have both lived rough and tumble lives. The audience has seen the dirty, fiery domain of stoker Bill, but beyond the Sandbar, there is no specific context for Mae’s lifestyle. Dialogue on title cards helps us to infer that she has been with several men. Bill is not at all thrown by Mae’s perception of herself as damaged. As with Underworld and The Last Command, The Docks of New York also contains a wooing scene. Indeed, von Sternberg reserves his sweetest courtship for the unlikeliest characters. Bill wins her heart with lines such as, “I’ve sailed the seven seas, but I never saw a craft as trim as you.”

The conflict in The Docks of New York is found in the limited options available to these characters, separately and together. The film is especially frank about the circumstances of their short romance, and when the subject of marriage enters the picture, it carries many meanings. Certainly, it is a shot at redemption for Mae, but only if Bill sticks around. In the world of the story (which reflects its time and place), there is no value to becoming “an honest woman” if the arrangement is only temporary. Since Bill is a likeable rogue, it is with mixed feelings that the viewer reacts to the prospect of him settling down.

Ultimately, dire circumstances involving violence and the threat of the law are what it takes to strengthen the bond of these characters. An important key to the story’s resolution is Mae’s introduction to the film, which is shot expressionistically, in the reflection of the water. Although much of the film is dedicated to the boisterous and loud environment that defines a rough dockside life, The Docks of New York is just as much a fairy tale, uniting the girl who leaps into the water and the man who climbs up from the furnace to rescue her.

3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg arrives on DVD with several special features exclusive to this edition. The DVDs are packaged in individual, numbered cases and accompanied by a 96-page book that features essays by Luc Sante (on The Docks of New York), Geoffrey O’Brien (on Underworld) and Anton Kaes (on The Last Command). Also included in the book is Hecht’s story for Underworld, an excerpt from von Sternberg’s autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, and notes on the film scores written by their composers: Robert Israel, Ken Winokur/Alloy Orchestra, and Joanna Seaton and Donald Sosin.

The Underworld disc includes a visual essay by UCLA film professor Janet Bergstrom. On The Last Command, there is another visual essay by film scholar Tag Gallagher. The Docks of New York features a Swedish television interview from 1968 with von Sternberg. In the interview, he discusses his approach to filmmaking and pokes some fun at the seriousness with which his films are analyzed by saying, “The place for messages is a telegram.”

Finally, perhaps the most welcome additions to this release are Robert Israel’s brilliant symphonic scores for all of the films. Although the discs also include inventive scores by Alloy Orchestra (Underworld and The Last Command) and Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton (The Docks of New York), none of them matches the subtlety and emotion of Israel’s work. His own brand of musical storytelling is a perfect fit for von Sternberg’s silent masterpieces.