Tonight's movie was "Beggars Of Life" (1928) a Silent classic starring the great Louise Brooks, Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen. I discovered this movie after seeing Brooks in "Pandora's Box" last month, then checking her IMDB page to look for more of her work. "Beggars Of Life" was recently restored and released by Kino just last year, so I ordered it directly from them, along with some other Silent movies which I will be watching and reviewing in the days to come. For the record, Kino (or Kino Lorber) is another excellent film restoration label. They don't have quite the standing as Criterion, nor as extensive a catalogue, but they are certainly the next best name in classic film preservation.
At any rate, in "Beggars Of Life", the story begins with young (and handsome) Richard Arlen wandering across a field. He is homeless and hungry. He sees a house, comes to the front door, and knocks. Nobody answers, so he opens the screen door and walks in. There he sees a man sitting at a table with a meal in front of him. Richard Arlen approaches him and speaks. The title card (used in Silent movies to convey dialogue) expresses his desire to eat. "Excuse me, but what are the chances of getting some of that grub"? The man at the table doesn't respond, and that is when Arlen notices drops of blood on the floor. Moving closer to the man, he sees a bullet wound in his head. The man is dead.
Louise Brooks then appears from another room, trademark Bob haircut intact. She explains to Arlen that - yes - she shot the man, but she had a reason : he was her adoptive father who for years had tried to molest her. Very suggestive stuff for a 1928 film and presented forthrightly. As Brooks explains her plight, a double-exposure scene depicts an attempted sexual attack by the father with an overlapping image of Louise Brooks giving her explanation to Richard Arlen for why she killed him. It is an inventive use of cinematic narration, especially when considering that this is a Silent picture. It is up to the camera alone to tell the tale, and director William Wellman, who went on to win the first Best Picture Oscar for "Wings" in 1929, uses the double exposure device to full effectiveness here. The opening scene gives you the complete set-up for the story that will unfold, and to pull off such a thorough summation with only a few title cards shows a mastery of the Silent form on the part of William Wellman.
Louise Brooks has killed her abusive stepfather, and she is desperate. Richard Arlen, though homeless, offers to help her in the only way he knows, by suggesting that she hop a train and take it all the way to Canada, where she will be beyond the reach of police.
And this is where the story really begins. Arlen and Brooks wind up hopping freight trains together, she a fugitive and he an experienced vagabond.
But suddenly they encounter a sizable group of hoboes. Hoboes, in those days, were like small, organised bands of homeless. Their entire lifestyle was based on hopping trains, maintaining their group structure and hierarchy, stealing and scavenging what they could find, and camping out in the wide open parts of an America that, one hundred years ago, was not nearly developed to the extent that is is today. The country was wide open then. It was a Hobo's paradise.
The head honcho Hobo in the movie is played by the beefy Wallace Berry, an actor who had a very successful career in early Hollywood. He takes center stage for a section of the picture, as he attempts to dominate the proceedings of the other hoboes. He also tries to force Louise Brooks away from Arlen, who is much younger and far less tough. Beery is the alpha male of the hoboes, but later in the film, he reveals a softer side.
That is all the plot I will reveal, and though I don't expect you to rush to see a Silent film, even a classic one, I still imagine that one day you might. I myself would not have watched Silent movies had I not "grown" into different types of movies besides just going to see what is currently playing in the theaters. And I have already explained how my transformation took place, beginning with watching older movies with my Mom, starting 20 years ago, then accessing all kinds of movies, from all eras, when dvds were first made available. And then finally, when the CSUN retrospectives began in 2009, I was opened up all the way to all kinds of cinema, and it made me want to go all the way and try to find every kind of great movie that had ever been made. Movies are our great American art form, so they say.
In short, though, "Beggars Of Life" gives you an early look at the Hobo lifestyle, but from the dangerous perspective of a woman in peril. Louise Brooks goes from the frying pan into the fire, with only the altruistic Richard Arlen to help her. Can he protect her from the drunken Hoboes and steer her clear of the cops? Watch the movie and see, and you will also see why Louise Brooks is a Screen Legend. :)
That was all the news for today. Pouring rain all afternoon. We needed it, but it came the way it always does, raining down in buckets and creating mudslides in areas that had just recently been denuded by fire. That's Southern California weather for ya. Stable and serene most of the time, the serenity then broken up by extremes of wind, fire and water.
See you in the morn.
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