Jone o Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (Ione or The Last Days of Pompeii, 1913)

Set, famously, in 79AD, film adaptations of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 novel "The Last Days of Pompeii" do not usually cross into Bible film territory. However, the 1935 Hollywood version (my review) by the directors of King Kong Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper somehow manages to shoehorn Jesus into the picture and so I'm always keen to see other versions of the story just in case. Plus I'm just a big fan of Roman peplum films anyway.

So the recent showing of one of the two 1913 Italian versions of the film at Kenington Bioscope's Seventh Silent Film weekend proved irresistible: It ticks all my boxes, as a love of Italian cinema, silent movies and the potential for a biblical character as well.That potential is only slight. In the novel – itself inspired by Karl Briullov's painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" – four characters end up being Christians (after Olinthus converts Apaecides and Glaucus and Ione convert later), but there are no biblical characters from what I recall.

As it turned out, I was to be disappointed on the biblical characters front: The film sticks in its lane and doesn't even really explore the Christianity angle. Nevertheless I thought I may as well record a few thoughts here while I was at it.

As I mentioned above 1913 witnessed two Italian versions of the story being made. The more famous one, directed by Eleuterio Rodolfi and possibly Mario Caserini (who was one of the earliest Italian cinema pioneers, directing a stack of Shakespearean and historical films) is simply called Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (a literal translation) and had been produced by Ambrosio – one of the major film production companies in pre-WWI Italy, based in Turin. You can view it on Wikipedia. The handouts/notes for the day, written by the Italian silent historical film expert Ivo Blom identified this as the original film. Apart from anything, it was Ambrosio who had had success with the 1908 version. Blom explains that 

"when Ambrosio heard that the rival company Pasquali, their city rival, was going to release an equally ambitious, impressive film on the same subject and launched at the same time, they were seething. Yet not even appeals to the court could stop the release of Pasquali's version which had its premiere in Rome four days after the Ambrosio version". 

Yet aside from local rivalry, there were other reasons why both companies may have set their hearts on adapting Bulwer-Lytton's novel. Firstly, earlier in the year another adaptation of a 19th century novel based on the mid-first century Roman Empire had enjoyed huge success. To say the 1913 Quo Vadis? was a groundbreaking movie is something of an understatement: it redefined the possibilities of what historical cinema could be, set the bar to a new height in terms of spectacle and grandeur and was celebrated across the globe. So film producers did what film producers tend to do and looked for the nearest bandwagon they could jump on. Ben-Hur was tied up in a legal case, but Last Days was evidently very much available.

The other key motivation was that Vesuvius (very much the villain of the piece) had erupted again in 1906, killing 100 people and activity began stirring again in 1913 (though not as dramatic) so despite the story being set 1850 years in the past, it had particular modern relevance.

I've yet to see the Ambrosio version, but, sadly the Pasquali version (directed by Giovanni Enrico
Vidali and Ubaldo Maria del Colle) was kind of dull. Not knowing the story, it was hard to get much sense of the plot, particularly as the available intertitles were displayed too briefly to be able to read them. I'm not sure if any other prints of the film still exist, but were it to ever get a DVD/ digital release I hope they extend the duration of the title that remain.

From what I could work out, though, Nydia, a slave/servant with a visual impairment, essentially helps Glaucus and Jone escape the evil (pagan) priest Arbaces (played by Vidali, one of the directors). The individual scenes feel very much like they could have been shot in a early 20th century country house and are fairly pedestrian, but for the fact that Suzanne De Labroy who plays Nydia overacts quite badly.

There were a couple of shots of the crowd, big shots designed to impress and to showcase the 300 people who purportedly starred in the film, but the camera angles were very unconventional, betraying a sense that they didn't have have enough extras to fill a normal shot and so had to cram the ones they did have into a narrow frame. The production also advertised “100 lions and tigers” and they, along with the wider amphitheatre shots are the highlight, ably abetted by the horses. 

What I did find interesting, however, is the way the film adopts Maggi’s innovative stumble-past-the-camera shot as seen in both Ambrosio's earlier Last Days (1908) and his later Giuda (1911). It’s not an exact reproduction,  but it certainly seems like a nod. Or was it just a rip-off? Perhaps it was a way to leave audiences thinking they had seen the Ambrosio remake – that seems a little far fetched though.

Sadly. in contrast with the 1908 film, the climax of the Pasquali film was a little disappointing. Things descended into chaos, but the moment the volcano erupts felt a little sedate. But perhaps that's on me. Perhaps, with a serious volcanic eruption lodged in the collective memory, too great a proportion of the film's potential viewers might object to over-the-top, Hollywood-style, pyrotechnics.

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For a different (and, lets face it, better) take on the film have a look at the review of my blog-twin Paul Joyce over at his IThankYouArthur blog who reviewed the whole day.

Silent Bible Film Mystery - #06Pre-Griffith Judith Films

As I've noted before, D.W.Griffith's Judith of Bethulia (released in 1914, though filmed in 1913) was not the first film based on the Book of Judith but the fourth or even fifth. Of the others two are definitely still in existence  Giuditta e Oloferne (1906/1908) [my review] and Gaumont's Judith et Holopherne (1909), directed by Louis Feuillade [my review]. But recently I've been investigating a Judith film, or perhaps two Judith films, from the UK released sometime between 1910 and 1912 going by the title Judith. 

The Theo Frenkel Film

The film more likely to have both existed and been about the biblical heroine is one directed by Dutch director Theo Frenkel (above right). It is listed along with several of Frenkel's other films on page 7 of Jon Solomon's "The Ancient World in the Cinema" (2001) and although the list of films is from 1911-1912 the index clarifies that Judith was 1912. Solomon kindly checked his notes for me but unsurprisingly, all these years later he was unable to determine his source. The IMDb repeats these details, however the BFI database has no entry.

There's also a mention in "Anzeiger für die Altertumswissenschaft" Volumes 59-61, listing the film as:

Judith, GB 1911, Regie Theo Frenkel [Regie translates as director].

This evidence is also backed up by a list I was sent many years ago now by David Wilson, adding that the film was produced by Charles Urban's Natural Colour Kinematograph Co. Frenkel was also known briefly as Theo Bouwmeester during his British years, after his mother, indeed that's the name he is listed under in Brian McFarlane's " Encyclopedia of British Film". There's a good piece on Frenkel at eyefilm.nl though the only thing it mentions about this period is to confirm that he was indeed working for Urban at this point in time.

Interestingly Tord Larsson, among other sources, mention another biblical film by Frenkel from this era, Fall of Babylon (1911), covering events in Daniel. Indeed it appears from IMDb that he directed numerous films with biblical sounding titles including: Samson and Delilah (1911), Ester: A Biblical Episode  (1911), Herod (1912), The Prodigal Son (1913), 

Things are further complicated by the fact that Frenkel directed a later film which was also called Judith in 1923, only this was not a biblical adaptation. Whilst it certainly doesn't rule out the possibility that he made a biblical film called Judith in 1912, it does raise the possibility of error. Perhaps Frenkel's 1923 film was mis-dated at some point, or maybe his 1923 film was a remake and neither film was biblical. However, overall I'd say the possibility of this film existing and being about Judith of Bethulia looks fairly probable.

The Brockliss Film

The evidence for a British Judith film from 1910 comes down to a single line in an advert in the British Weekly trade publication "The Bioscope" on the 3rd March 1910. In the listings of film's available to exhibitors it simply lists "Judith ... Brockliss    700   B" as shown below.

The 700 is 700ft (about 10-12 minutes depending on various factors) and the B is one of Bioscope's genres (my term not theirs) standing for "Biblical" which in itself is kind of remarkable as the Bioscope listed only 16 genres at the time. 

These few details are so scant it's difficult to know how to interpret them, but the Brockliss in question is (the company founded by) J. Frank Brockliss, pictured, left, above. At this stage, Brockliss primarily seems to have been selling projectors - see the puff piece on him in the August 1912 edition of the Cinema News and Property Gazette. However, according to Jan-Jun 1912 copies of The Implet (produced by US company Imp Films) he was also an agent distributing (Imp's) films and it seems he imported films into the UK to sell to exhibitors. 

Three possibilities come to mind. Firstly, this could (as I thought initially) be a film in its own right, probably British. I can't rule that out, but it seems unlikely to me given the available evidence. It's also possible, given what I've written above that this film was the same as Theo Frenkel's 1911/1912 film Judith. I can't be 100% certain that film even existed, and in any case, this is (at least) a year before Frenkel's film is usually dated. The fact that Brockliss imported films from overseas, rather than distributing home-grown talent also seems significant.

For me, a third possibility seems most likely: that Brockliss was actually distributing the 1909 Gaumont film Judith et Holopherne. The Cinema News and Property Gazette article tells us that he already distributed Méliès' films in the UK and that he had other French producers signed up. Secondly at the end of March 1910 an almost full page advert for Gaumont's film appeared in The Bioscope and, in contrast to the French title it was simply going under the name Judith in the UK. While it looks like they were distributing the film themselves, that doesn't rule out Brockliss promoting the same film three weeks before on the 3rd of March. Perhaps they ultimately decided not to do business together. 

The full page ad also gives Gaumont's release date was April 20th again this is the right kind of time-frame. It does raise the question as to how Brockliss was already showing it on the 10th March, but as the Bioscope was more of a trade publication, perhaps this was a pre-screening for exhibitors. The other minor problem with this theory is that Brockliss' 700 feet is considerably less than the Gaumont advert's 960ft, but given that lengths of cuts varied, this is not insurmountable.

Whilst the BFI database/collections does have an entry for this title which notes Brockliss's involvement, it refers directly to the same Bioscope advert as I have and has no other details, so so it seems quite likely the database entry is based on the advert. It does, however, also list the Gaumont film under the title Judith rather than the fuller French title, confirming that this was the name it was known by in the UK. There's no entry in the IMDb for this film and I could find no other verification.

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So it's hard to be 100% confident that either film actually existed, but if you put a gun to my head I'd say the Frenkel one did, but Brockliss was just promoting the Gaumont film in the UK, quite possibly before either he or they decided to part company.

As an aside, in the process of investigating all of this I also made a few discoveries. For example, I've known for a while that several early silent film periodicals are available to view via the Internet Archive (yet another reason to donate to them), and that you can search for key words in the scanned in versions, this tends to take a while for many files (some of which contain over a thousand pages. However, if you scroll down you can get a text file version of these files which are so much easier to search and then cross compare. Searching "Moving Picture World" (in the combined book of the first six months of 1910) yields a rave review of the Gaumont Judith film (p.552) by T. Ruth. There's also a run down of the plot of the Book of Judith for "lecturers and exhibitors who may not be in a position to readily refer to the Apocryphal books of the Bible" (pp. 699-701). 

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Larsson, Tord (2017) "The New Testament in Film" in Ilona Nord, Hanna Zipernovszky (ed.), Religious Education in a Mediatized World (Kohlhammer: Stuttgart). p.40.

Jon Solomon The Ancient World in the Cinema (New Haven: Yale University Press, [1978] 2001).

Silent Bible Film Mystery - #05 Christus (1914/1916)

Back in 2007 and 2008 I wrote a couple of posts about the Italian Jesus film Christus. At the time there was a bit of a problem with what the date of the film was (was it 1914 or 1916?). As part of my research on Italian Jesus films I've been looking back at this film again, and it turns out that there were two different films called Christus one released in 1914, the other in 1916 or maybe even 1917.

I guess it's time for another instalment of Silent Bible Film Mysteries.

Firstly there is some confusion as to who directed which film. The cover of the DVD I have, cites Giuseppe De Liguoro as the director, but the film itself does not name the drector. Other sources cite Giulio Antamoro, with others mentioning Enrico Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1913). The film is on YouTube several times but usually attributed to Antamoro.

It turns out that this mystery isn't quite as mysterious as some of the others in this series. Discussion about a film called Christus is mentioned in a number of sources (Bertellini's "Italian Silent Cinema", Shepherd's "Silents of Jesus", Campbell & Pitts' "The Bible on Film", Kinnard & Davis' "Divine Images" and Adele Reinhartz's "Jesus of Hollywood", all of whom identify Antamoro as the director.

Pucci (in Shepherd) names De Liguoro as the director of a different film called Christus (200) and even notes the confusion caused by this Grapevine release, which is different from the one I bought from them over a decade ago (207). Both he and Bertellini (134n38) give the alternative title of De Liguoro's film. La sfinga della Ionio (The Sphinx of the Ionian Sea).

A little googling brought up a bit more information about the De Liguoro film (pictured above). Whilst Rome was fast becoming the film-production capital of Italy, the industry was growing in other regions as well. De Liguoro’s 1914 Christus had been filmed and financed in Sicily. Filmmaking did not start on the Catania side of the Island until 1914 so Liguoro’s film, based on a local legend about a sphinx-shaped outcrop of rocks, was amongst the first shot in the region. It was made under the banner of Etna films, funded by local industrialist Alfredo Alonzo, which targeted their output at the local, upper class market whilst seeking to engage a broader audience (Bertellini, 130).

The Christus of the title, however, is not Jesus Christ, as you might expect, but the name of a character from an entirely different story set around 1000 B.C. In 2014 an Italian paper ran a series looking back at their community a hundred years previously. You can read the original article in Italian, (or have a look at this translation to English), which includes the following summary:

"Christus tells the story of the impossible love of the lustful, corrupt, governor of Syracuse Xenia, for the young Christus, in love with the sweet Myriam, with punctual and atrocious death in the flames of a galley (built ad hoc) of the cruel Xenia, while Christus, together with old Gisio, manages to save Miriam locked up in a well. Meanwhile the protagonist, together with old Gisio, succeeds in saving Miriam who had been locked up in a well"

The article also makes it clear that Alonzo, inspired by Cabiria (1914) earlier in the year pumped a vast amount of money into Etna films, and that this epic was their most costly and spectacular production. In addition to a reputed cost of 300 extras and several major stars there was also the creation of vast sets and a ship for the scenes at sea. Sadly though it seems the film's marketing efforts failed to get any traction, with even the local media underplaying it, and it never broke out to become the European/Worldwide smash that Alonzo/Etna needed to recoup costs.

The confusion in this case however seems to be limited to Grapevine video and customers like me. Aside from their case and the surrounding confusion there is nothing else linking De Liguoro with a Jesus film called Christus. Whilst Grapevine no longer seem to sell the DVD set I bought they continue to market a film they claim is De Liguoro's Christus, but according to Pucci's endnote the film supplied is Maître's 1914 Life and Passion of Jesus Christ the subject of  Silent Bible Film Mystery #04 (207n1).

In summary, then, we have two films. The 1914 Christus, also known as La sfinga della Ionio (The Sphinx of the Ionian Sea),was made in Sicily by Etna films with Giuseppe De Liguoro at the helm. Rather than being a Jesus film however, it's a story from 100 years previously, whose hero (played by Alessandro Rocca) is simply called Christus, though it's biggest star was Alfonso Cassini in the role of Gisio.

Then there is the Jesus film called Christus released two or three years later in 1916/1917 was directed by Giulio Antamoro for the great Cines firm. This is the film I wrote about and which has been covered by the other authors listed above. a version of this film, (labelled correctly) is also available from Grapevine, though the print of the film on YouTube is better if you can hack the fairly occasional subtitles being in Italian. Jesus is played by Alberto Pasquali, and it's worth looking at CineKolossal's page on this film, for the sheer number of screenshots and stills (though they date it 1914 which is seemingly date production began). And it turns out that whilst Antamoro filmed most of the picture, Guazzoni did direct a few shots including part of the ascension scene (Pucci 201).

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Bertellini, Giorgio (2013) “Southern (and Southernist) Italian Cinema” in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) (2013). Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (New Barnett: John Libbey Publishing), pp. 123-134

Pucci, Giuseppe (2016) "Christus (Cines, 1916): Italy's First Religious 'Kolossal'  by Antamoro and Salvatori" in The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897-1927); ed. Shepherd, David. pp.200-210

Silent Bible Film Mystery - #04 Untangling the Pathé Passion Plays

I've been promising for a while to write a post disentangling the various Pathé Passion Plays made during the turn of the twentieth century. The films are most widely known due to the 2003 Kino-Lorber/Image Entertainment joint DVD release with From the Manger to the Cross, although obviously they are also available on YouTube. However, both the DVD and that YouTube link claim that the version of the film they have is from the period 1902-1905. Having a range of years is, in itself, a bit odd, and what's more subsequent research suggests that their dating is incorrect.

Pathé's first Jesus film was released in 1899. Gaumont produced their first Jesus film at around the same time. Over the years they evolved it and remade it such that the final version wasn't completed until 1914. By which time it's style will have been looking very mannered, though that didn't prevent subsequent re-releases. This development took two different forms. One the one hand, there was the creation of new scenes to complement the original ones. This, for example, is why a time range of 1902-05 is often ascribed to the film. The first scenes were shot in 1902 and released but new material was being filmed and gradually made available as things progressed.

On the other hand, there was also the refilming of material that had already been filmed before. Indeed, within that 15 year period there were four distinct series, one in 1899, one in 1902-05, one in 1907 with the final incarnation in 1914. For each of these material was re-shot, often improved in certain ways, such as the creation of more impressive sets - something that became a key part of the Pathé brand - larger numbers of actors, improvements in camera quality, and variations in location. At the same time there is a remarkable consistency in terms of composition and ideas, with various scenes being recreated in almost exactly the same fashion from version to version.

Three further obstacles hamper the progress of those trying to get to the bottom of this situation. Firstly, there is range of different titles given to the different editions. The films have come to be known as The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ in English or La vie et passion de notre Seigneur Jésus Christ in French, but the shorter La vie et passion de Jésus Christ or even La vie de Jésus or The Passion Play have also been used.

Secondly, there is the fact that Pathé gave distributors and exhibitors the opportunity to pick and choose which scenes they wanted to display. So a theatre owner could choose just to show the nativity scenes, or run a shorter version of the film and not have to pay for the whole thing. This is a totally different mindset to how cinema is distributed today. Given that so many copies of the film have been lost over the years it's hard to work out what is happening with various different fragments and run times of similar, but slightly different looking material.

Lastly there are also various red-herrings. The film's use of colour is much discussed, but it's unclear when this first began (though it was certainly fairly early) or at what stage the colour was added to the various remaining fragments of material we have today. The film's artistic choices in terms of a central, fixed, camera became such a typical part of Pathé's house style, and Pathe's success in this era was so substantial, that it came to be seen a something primitive that later filmmakers evolved on from, rather than a creative choice. But look at a variety of 1890s and 1900s films and you'll soon see that many other approached to camera positioning and use were in evidence. And then there's the use of intertitles, which can date from far later and can themselves contain incorrect information; the release of intermediary versions; and the quality of the print which can make a newer film look far older to the uninitiated than a pristine print of an old version. A further complication is that the film continued to be chopped about, repackaged, recycled and re-released under new titles well into the sound era. I have a VHS at home which calls the film Son of Man (1915) but which comes from a release after it was "hand-colored by Nuns" in 1928.

Anyway, there's been a great deal of work into these films over the last few years, not least by Alain Boillat and Valentine Robert, Dwight Friesen, and Jo-Ann Brant, all of whom have essays in David Shepherd's book "The Silents of Jesus". Between them they break down and de-lineate the four films, which I'll summarise here with references to the relevant page in Shepherd's book:

1899
Little is known of this film. It contained 16 tableaux (p.27) and the odd scene may be included in these films I discussed back in 2006 (though I stand by very little that I wrote in that post and I think most of those are from later versions). The director is not known, but it's possible that it was Ferdinand Zecca who first joined Pathé at this time.

1902-05
This is the version that the Image/Kino DVD claims to be, but it appears they are mistaken. We can forgive them - it they had not painstakingly restored this film and made it widely available, the subsequent research which has cleared things up a little might not have happened. There was a VHS release in 1996 by Hollywood’s Attic (31). In any case, it was directed by Ferdinad Zecca and his assistant / co-creator Lucien Nonguet. As the time range suggests this was the most evolutionary stage. The 16 original tableaux were reshot - some longer some shorter - and new titles were added (p.27). Then over the following three years additional tableau were created, taking the eventual total to 32 (p.27).

1907
This is the version that is available on the Image/Kino DVD, or at least that is one of them because two very, very slightly different versions exist, one in black and white and one in colour, though the differences extend to marginal variations in composition, not just the use of colour (p.79f). The number of tableaux in this version are hard to number with precision. Boillat and Robert state 37; Friesen cites 39 (p.79), but only lists 35. In many ways Zecca seems to be responding to his friend and rival Alice Guy's 1906 Jesus film (p.87-92) as evidenced by the increased percentage of outdoor footage at a time Pathé was increasingly building its reputation on its sets (as evidenced by the now prominent Pathe logo on several of them). The film has been discussed in many places at length, so I'll say no more on this for now.

1913-4
In contrast to the previous two or three stages, the fourth and final film was directed by Maurice-André Maître. It's this version which was re-released as Son of Man in 1915 and again after 1928 and for several years was available on VHS from Nostalgia Family Video. As you might expect everything here is bigger and better. Abel claims that there were 75 tableaux, but Boillat and Robert, writing more recently reduces this figure to 43 (p.27). Brant notes how his use of "deep staging and misè en scene "intensify the pathos", "dramatize the logic", provide a "more complicated visual experience" and "liberate his story" (158). Again he uses more outside scenes, bigger crowds and scenery, but he uses this to increase his depth of field.


I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion over the various films - I must admit it's still not entirely clear to me, and still I watch  the DVD I discussed back in 2006 and long to know the story of how what seems to be a jumble of fragments came to be assembled in this way. In writing this post I also sat down and watched the two later films together in parallel, pausing one or the other to keep the episodes in sync. That in itself was enough of an interesting exercise to make this worthwhile.


1 - Abel, Richard (1994) The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896-1914, Berkeley: University of California Press. p.320

Silent Bible Film Mystery - #03The First St. Paul Film

"For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." - Paul's letter to the Romans 7:19

I don't really know what Paul meant when he said this; but it at least sounds like something a procrastinator might say. The kind of person who is meant to be working on their book, but instead decides they really need to tell everyone about a new film about Paul, but then before they even start that, finds themselves up in the not-so-small hours leafing through books trying to find out if two, old, silent films are actually just the same film with different titles, or two separate ones...

So it turns out that the first film about Paul didn't come out until 1910 or thereabouts when two different Western European silent film titles were circulating, both of which were about St. Paul. But there - and granted it is quite a long way down the road - the similarities started to end.

The one I've known about for a long time was Milano films' 1910 San Paolo (Dramma Biblico), released in the UK as The Life of St. Paul. It was directed by Giuseppe De Liguoro, and according to the BFI archive Rodolfo Kanzler from Adolfo Padovan;sscript. As De Liguoro also took the leading role, it seems churlish not to mention the only other person credited, set designer Sandro Properzi. It ran to 453ft and there's a little bit more about it on p.114 of Giorgio Bertellini's "Italian Silent Cinema".

The BFI archive holds six prints of the work (although only two are viewable) and a couple of articles from Christmastime issues of The Bioscope, "Some Christmas releases" from page 9 of issue no. 216 (1st Dec 1910) and an untitled article from no. 219 (22nd Dec 1910). The BFI's description is as follows:

DRAMA. Biblical. Scenes from the life of St Paul the Apostle. The archive holds several versions: Paul, a merchant in Tarsus, hears of a Christian gathering in a pine forest. With a group of followers he attacks the Christians: Jacob the Younger is dragged away to be stoned. On the road to Damascus, Paul is struck blind and hears the word of the Lord asking why he persecutes Him. He is converted to Christianity and his sight restored. Years later Paul enters the Christian catacombs on the Via Appia. He converts Nero's slave girl and a Roman soldier. Paul and the Christians watch Rome burning. They emerge from the catacombs to be arrested by Roman soldiers (453ft). St. Paul is led by Roman soldiers to an execution site. He is made to kneel. [The execution is not shown]. Pilgrims bring flowers and palm leaves to the site (48ft). Note: The Archive also has DER HEILIGE PAULUS (75ft Joye 1925) dated 1910 and consisting entirely of German intertitles.

As I'm unlikely to stumble across either a print or the Bioscope articles anytime soon. I decided to see if any of the digitised, silent-era, film journals had a picture of it and whilst my search wasn't exhaustive, it did prove fruitless. Except, that is, from the fact that it seemed to uncover an entirely different 1910 Silent Bible film about St. Paul...

St. Paul and the Centurion (written"Centurian" more than once in Moving Picture World) was produced by Charles Urban's French company Urban-Eclipse, and distributed in the US by George Kleine. This one doesn't appear at all on the BFI site, but it does appear on the AFI site and on IMDb. There doesn't seem to be any record of a French title, however. By this point Kleine was also starting to distribute Italian films as well as French but the AFI lists this as French, as does Jon Solomon ("Ancient World in the Cinema", p.7, though it lists it as 1911). An advert in Moving Picture World featuring the above image declines to mention the film's country of origin.

An illuminating excerpt from Anthony R. Guneratne's "Shakespeare, Film Studies, and the Visual Cultures of Modernity" (p.141) and an entry from "The Oxford History of World Cinema" detail a little of Kleins involvement in the Italian industry seems to clarify that whilst Kleine distributed Cines and Ambrosio product, he was not involved with Milano, so all things here point towards this being two separate films. It's noticeable also that at 955ft this film is over twice as long as the Italian one above.

In addition to the above picture there's also a good summary from a July 1910 edition of Moving Picture World.

Metella, daughter of the Centurion Vicinius, loves one of her lather's slaves, Caius by name. This youth is a Christian and in the habit of frequently visiting the meetings held by them in the hills outside the city walls. Paul has gathered about him a small body of the faithful and preaches to them often in this secluded part of the forest. Metella, encouraged by her natural curiosity as to her sweetheart's secret excursions, one day follows him and learns her first lessons in Christianity. She leaves her hiding place and hastens to her father's palace where she finds Vicinius, her stern parent, in great rage because Caius is absent from his task. Vicinius now orders the slaves to take Caius to a nearby woods and there flog him. After the cruel chastisement Caius is left lying alone in the forest where soon after Metella finds him. She assists her sweetheart to the camp of his friends where she is so impressed by their lives that she accepts the belief and is baptized. When Caius has sufficiently recovered from his punishment he returns to his master and dutifully takes up his work in the household. Soon Vicinius, the Centurion, receives orders from Nero to arrest all the Christians who have been meeting in the hills outside the city. The soldiers are now called together and move upon the Apostle and his little band of followers. Although warned in due season, Paul refuses to flee, but engages in prayer while awaiting the arrival of Vicinius and his soldiers. Caius and Metella join their Christian friends, fully expecting to be imprisoned with them. When the attack is made upon the unarmed worshipers they are astounded to see the soldiers stop with their weapons suspended while they listen to the divine words. Gradually the swords and spears are lowered and the entire company with their leader drop to their knees.

Whilst it's not impossible that these two synopses are just very different takes on the same film, again it seems likely that they are separate.

Finally I decided to turn to Herbert Verreth and Hervé Dumont which is probably where I should have started. Whilst neither Campbell and Pitts, nor David Shepherd mention either film, Verreth and Dumont both mention both of them. Indeed Dumont expands the above by suggesting the Italian Sao Paolo comprised of two sub-films, 1. Paolo persecutoredei cristiani and 2. Paolo Apostolo (released in France as La légende de Saint Paul). It's possible that the 75ft, German version of the film in the BFI archive is equivalent to a complete copy of one of these two "sub-films". In any case, Dumont also includes this summary:

Du persécuteur de chrétiens à Tarse (la lapida-tion d’Étienne) au martyre sous Néron après l’incendie deRome. Tourné dans la banlieue de Milan sur un scénario de l’écrivain Adolfo Padovan. 

The persecutor of Christians from Tarsus (the stoning of Stephen) to the martyrdom under Nero after the fire of Rome. Shot in the suburbs of Milan from a scenario by writer Adolfo Padovan (translation mine).

So in the end it turns out that after 15 years of silence, the first two films about St. Paul (one of which came in two parts) were released, in America at least, just 5 months apart. Over the next few years films starring Paul would be released at the rate of at least one a year. Yet over a hundred years later we're still awaiting his big-screen, talking film debut.

Silent Bible Film Mystery - #02 Joseph's Trials in Egypt

Last week I posted a silent Bible film puzzle that I was struggling to identify and as I've been struggling with others all week I thought I might turn it into a series. (There's a very old couple of posts that fit with this series as well at that link).

Anyway, this one revolves around a film about Joseph (son of Jacob not Jesus' guardian) which was released in the US as Joseph's Trials in Egypt in 1914. Now there are a number of other films about Joseph released around that time. The first is Thanhouser's Joseph in the Land of Egypt (1914), which is available to view on Vimeo. It was directed by W. Eugene Moore. Another US film was released the same year - Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors - directed by produced by Sawyer, directed by Louis N. Parker and released by the Dormet film company it ran to six reels. There's some record of both of these films having the alternate title Joseph and his Brethren, but these two films do seem to be separate.

The confusion starts with the other well attested Joseph film of the era, Henri Andréani's Joseph, Fils de Jacob. David Shepherd discusses this film in some detail in his book "The Bible on Silent Film" (pp.149-154). Interestingly addition to the detailed description of the plot he also explains that Andréani had split from Pathé just before the release of the film and produced the film himself (although Pathé still distributed in).

The IMDb (which I don't consider particularly reliable on obscure old films like this) considers this film to be the original title for the one in question, Joseph's Trials in Egypt. It's not surprising that the films have been linked as various sources refer to Trials as being French in origin and produced by Path&eacute.

However, I'm not sure the IMDb is correct on this point. Firstly none of the people who have compiled lists of these films before seems to list this as an alternate title to Joseph, Fils de Jacob. That may not seem so remarkable for Campbell and Pitts, but it seems unlikely, to me at least, that if there was an established link that Shepherd would not have heard of it given the depth of his research; or that if he had heard of it that he wouldn't have mentioned it.

Secondly there is also the fact I mentioned above regarding Andréani's split from Pathé. This may have left Pathé feeling that they needed to make their own Joseph film to round off their series. Verreth lists the film by its English title, but also provides a French translation Les épreuves de Joseph en Égypte. Might this have been the film's original title?

Or am I just over-complicating the issue? Should I have just gone with the IMDb's verdict and list Joseph's Trials in Egypt as an alternate title to Joseph, Fils de Jacob? If anyone has any evidence on this one way or the other I would be interested in hearing it.

Silent Bible Film Mystery - #01 Gaumont's Esther (1910)

At present I'm doing some work on a list of films from the Hebrew Bible. It's one of those tasks that you start off thinking will be a big job and then it turns out to be massive. The end is in sight but I'm left trying to figure out if certain films are the same with different title or different films, which is particularly tricky when you delve into the silent period and the period between 1907-1914 when films were short, often released together but also often sold section by section.

Which brings me to the film/series Esther from 1910. It was made by Louis Feuillade for Gaumont and starred Renée Carl, Léonce Perret, Madeleine Roch. But according to the AFI it was released as two films on two different dates - The Marriage of Esther on the 11th June 1910 and Esther and Mordecai a week later on the 18th June 1910. Dumont (2009) lists these as two films, one simply called Esther and the other called Esther et Mordochée. The IMDb joins them together under the title The Marriage of Esther although if you view it on the iPad app the title is changed to Esther. It lists all three titles as alternatives.

David Shepherd discusses the film briefly in "The Bible on Silent Film". He lists it as simply one film Esther and indicates that it exists in both the BFI and the Gaumont Pathé archives and describes it on pages 104-5 which you can read in Google Books. It sounds like he has seen it. One key point though is that he describes it as part of a trilogy, though I'm not sure what evidence exists for this aside from his own assertion. Campbell and Pitts mention this only in passing (as part of the easily missed section on page 5 of other Gaumont films) but mention it as two films Esther and Mordecai and The Marriage of Esther, in that order.

So whilst my hunch is that these films were originally released as one in France, I'm going to list them as two as that appears to be how they were released in the US and that it seems to be the only way to clear up the relationship between the three titles. Unfortunately, whilst I like to call the films by their titles in their original language that would be problematic here so I will have to opt for their English titles. The more I go into this project the more I realise just how many twists and quirks there are.

A couple more bits of information on this one. Firstly. There are some excellent frame grabs of this film at NitrateVille thanks to Bruce Calvert of the Silent Film Still Archive. These also show that the film was hand coloured rather than just black and white. Disappointingly I can't seem to find this anywhere to buy or view. Neither it, nor any Bible films are part of Kino's Gaumont Treasures Vol. 1 DVD despite the fact that two of the three discs are dedicated to this films director Louis Feuillade and star Léonce Perret. Indeed given that the other disc is given over to Alice Blanche Guy it's a little disappointing that not a single Bible film makes the cut. Opens the door for another project perhaps...

Lastly, the IMDb also includes a couple of photos of the film and there's also a nice summary of the two parts taken from "Moving Picture World".

PART ONE: "The Marriage of Esther" King Abasueris, who is now generally understood to have been Xerxes, and who ruled over India and its provinces about B.C. 521, is recorded to have cast aside his wife and directs that it be heralded throughout the domain that he is in search of a new spouse. He issues instructions to have brought before him for his approval the most beautiful young girls of all his lands. Accordingly, the maidens are led to the palace, and we see them being sumptuously gowned and bejeweled before being brought into the presence of his Majesty. Among the number, the king is greatly impressed by the beauty and grace of a handsome young Jewish girl. This one is Esther, who was adopted by her uncle, Mordecai, and by him brought to the palace of the king. Esther's beauty surpasses that of all the others and she is crowned Queen by Abasueris. Mordecai is appointed to sit at the king's gateway.

PART TWO: "Esther and Mordecai" Mordecai is appointed to sit at the King's gateway. While on duty he discovers a plot to assassinate the King and discloses the facts, whereupon the King orders that this brave deed be recorded in the Annals of the Kingdom. Among the King's favorites, Haman is supreme. He soon becomes violently jealous of Mordecai and plans his destruction. As Mordecai is a Jew, Haman makes preparations to massacre the entire race and thereby complete his revenge on Mordecai. About this time the King decides to make a review of the Annals and to his amazement finds no record there of the good deed of Mordecai, whereupon Haman is ordered to give honors to Mordecai. This only serves to increase the jealousy of Haman. Through the gracious intercession of Esther, Mordecai soon has another and greater victory over Haman. As the time for the massacre of the Israelites approaches. Esther, who has been told all by her uncle, Mordecai, invites Haman to dine with her and the King at the palace. During the feast she discloses the fact that she is a Jewess and declares that all those who are enemies of the King and are not worthy of his favor, whereupon the King, who has been informed of the full facts, orders Haman delivered up to the guards and has him hanged on the very gallows Haman had designed for Mordecai. The victory of the Israelites is now the cause of great rejoicing.

It's a shame that the BFI have taken all the details of their archive details off their website, as that might have been a potentially useful source of information. I don't understand that decision at all...

Early David and Saul Films Redux

Tyler Williams has blogged the two films early (David and) Saul films I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It's great to have some more in-depth comments on these two films, particularly as Tyler comes at it from a different angle than my original post. If you've not read it yet I suggest you do. There are however a couple of places where I wanted to comment on what he says, partly because he brings something new that I'm impressed with, and partly because in places he disagrees with my earlier comments and so I thought I would respond.

Firstly, Tyler makes an excellent suggestion for how these two separate films are related. "From the discussion in Abel, however, it is clear that the Death of Saul on the DVD does not include its original beginning. Perhaps that is why excerpts from "Saul and David" were included at the beginning. That certainly seems like a good explanation to me. It would be surprising if either of these films were in their complete form, and the combined narrative does seem a little more rounded, if lacking the narrative arc that cinema quickly achieved shortly afterwards.

Next comes the episode analysis, and there are a couple of places here where we disagree. Having read his counter-arguments I do partly agree. There are two places we disagree, both of which are from the first film David et Saul (1911). I'd like to start with the second scene first. Whilst the intertitles on these films aren't always that clear (they severely distort in places), they do identify the final scene we are shown in David et Saul as "Fatigued, Saul Seeks Repose in the Cave where David was Hidden". Somehow I missed that and from the following images considered instead the scene to be the more obscure episode from 1 Sam 23:24-28 where David and Saul are found on different sides of a mountain. This is in part because the most famous part of this story (David cutting Saul's cloak from 1 Sam 24)is absent from the film. If we assume that the footage is incomplete then I have to concur with Tyler's assessment. This time around I also noticed that Saul does go into the cave where David and his men were previously, and that at the point where the footage ends, David does seem to be heading in Saul's direction.

(It's interesting to note that although camera language such as "pan and scan" is absent the idea of location continuity has been established. That is to say, Saul enters the cave and is heading to the left, David and his cohorts respond to that action suggesting it is to their right [see top]. Theatre does not have these basic continuity rules that cinema does. Often theatre characters can journey from left to right, and then appearing the next time from the right heading left. In film the same two scenes would take place with the characters moving in the same direction.)

Of course it's possible that both Tyler and I got it wrong and the original scene was actually 1 Sam 26, which may or may not be the same story from a different tradition.

This also challenges my identification of the earlier scene which originally I placed as David feigning madness whilst in hiding (1 Sam 21:10-15). Tyler disagrees and considers it to be David hiding at the cave of Adullam (1 Sam 22:1-2). Having re-watched the scenes I have to disagree with both suggestions. As noted above the rocks and the caves shown are the same ones Saul relieves himself in later on. So it makes the most sense to see this scene as a pre-cursor to the later one (a sort of establishing shot), rather than a scene in itself. That said David does look a little mad in this scene (see the close up - right), and whilst this is probably just the vastly different acting style of that time, it may have been the director adding in David's madness as well. So I suspect the correct scripture passage for this scene is 1 Sam 23:29.

Early films about David and Saul (1911-1913)

The final films on the DVD I've been discussing this week are both about the Hebrew King Saul; David et Saul (David and Saul) made in 1911 and La Mort de Saül(The Death of Saul) made two years later in 1913.

These films are also made by Pathé Frères and not listed in Campbell and Pitts' "The Bible on Film". They do list two other related films David and Goliath (1908) and Saul and David (1909), which is also listed on the IMDB . What is unusual about these two films is the subject material they choose to handle, particularly given that only a couple of films based on 1 Samuel had been made by this point. I imagine if you asked a modern day viewer which episodes from the books of Samuel they were most familiar with they would firstly list David and Goliath, and then perhaps David and Bathsheba, or the calling of Samuel, or the anointing of Saul or David. I'm not sure whether it's a sign of how much the parts of the bible we focus on have changed so much in 95 years, or that, even upon its release, they were unusual choices. Suffice to say none of the above scenes are in either of these films, the details of which are below:

David and Saul (1911)
David returns from beating the Philistines - (1 Sam 17/ 1 Sam 18:27)
David marries Michal - (1 Sam 18:27)
Saul grows jealous - (1 Sam 18:6-9)
David feigns madness whilst in hiding - (1 Sam 21:10-15
Saul slaughters the priests - (1 Sam 22:6-18)
David hides from Saul - (1 Sam 23:24-28)

Death of Saul (1913)
Saul slaughters the priests - (1 Sam 22:6-18)
The Witch of Endor - (1 Sam 28)
The death of Saul - (1 Sam 31:1-6)

What we do see is a great deal of attention given to Saul ordering the killing of the priests of Nob, which appears in both films. The review of The Death of Saul at IMDb notes how:

"The story of David and Saul is an interesting and ambitious choice of material, and this short feature does a creditable job of filming it. The story has plenty of action, plus some significant psychological themes, and this movie succeeds in bringing out at least some of both."

In my opinion the most successful biblical films have been those that use less familiar material to challenge our pre-conceptions, or are at least more concerned with trying to explore their protagonist's motives.

A few notes:
It's interesting that the first film starts with a celebration of David's victory over the Philistines. I put chapter 17 as a possible reference, but that's probably just re-coiling from the fact that the most likely victory this refers to is the one where he gives 200 Philistine foreskins to Saul as a wedding dowry (1 Sam 18:27). Certainly the fact that at the end of the scene Saul holds David and a very un-cinematic Michal together indicates that it is this victory which is being celebrated.

Although this film doesn't actually show the incident where David chooses not to kill Saul when he had the chance, it does refer to it in the intertitles "Fatigued Saul seeks repose in the cave where David was hidden". However, instead of seeing David cut Saul's cloak or steal his spear, the scene following this intertitle seems to portray David hiding on the other side of the mountain (1 Sam 23:24-28). The film crams a lot in, in a very short time, and it's hard for the viewer - even if they have a good knowledge of the various stories - to work out what is being depicted.

The break between the two films on the DVD I have is very slight, and most of the scant discussion of these two films on the web seems to treat them as one. In fact I noticed that the title of the film, placed at the top of each intertitle, changed before I noticed the briefly shown intertitle card that announced the new film.

The second film is two years later, and the filmmakers have significantly improved in that time. The use of a red colour wash during the sacking of Nob is quite effective, as is the use of special effects when Samuel appears in the witch's cave. There's also a really impressive scene (coming soon) where a large crowd of Philistines rush past the camera into the battle. Except for the old black and white celluloid
the way this action is filmed is on a par with anything today, and is the most impressive sequence I can recall at any point before Birth of a Nation revolutionised film in 1915.

It is interesting how the second film paraphrases Saul's prophesy into three clauses and then shows each happening in turn:

"Thy armies shall be delivered into the hands of the Philistines
Thy sons shall perish
Thy sword shall avenge the God of Israel"

It's not quite what Samuel says (1 Sam 28:19), but the way the film takes each clause and shows it happening is a far more sophisticated narrative device than was standard for the era.

Finally, although the second film is about the same length as the first it takes things much more slowly. The emphasis here seems to be much more on Saul and what is happening to him internally, than the events that are happening around him. It also allows a chiastic structure to the events. The film starts with Saul destroying the priests of Nob, and ends with him being destroyed by them, separated only by an announcement of God's judgement upon him, and linking the two actions nicely together.

Matt

The Early Jesus Film Synoptic Problem

I won a DVD of "Early Religious Films" on eBay, and they arrived yesterday (in less than a week - from Canada). The information on the auction page claimed that it contained 3 films from the 1890s and 1900s, Life of Christ, Death of Christ, and David and Saul. Information about this period in cinema history is fairly unreliable so I was fairly sceptical as to what it might produce.

Having watched both of the Jesus films I'm still not sure what to make of them. I'm going to discuss each film individually as we go through the week. The hardest task before me however is trying to work out the date of these films.

Before the internet, there were two major sources of reference information on Films about Jesus, "Divine Images" by Roy Kinnard and Tim Davis, and "The Bible on Film: A Checklist 1897-1980" by Richard H. Campbell and Michael R. Pitts. However, neither of these films mention a Jesus film, made by Pathé before The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, listed as 1905. The opening shot of this film is shown below:


It seems unlikely that this might have been faked, particularly as it appears that all three films appear on a video entitled "A History of Color in Silent Films" which covers Pathé films from 1898 onwards, and The Life of Christ is the first.

A third piece of the puzzle is the relationship between this film and The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ. This film was given a wide release on DVD a few years ago, and the packaging claimed parts of it were released in 1902 with extra scenes and colouring being added with subsequent re-releases in he years up to 1905. This contradicts the testimonies of both both "The Bible on Film", and "Divine Images". Both of which list Pathé's first film of this title being released in 1905 and another longer film of the same title being released in 1908, with a colourised version being produced in 1914, when reviewers, who were seemingly unaware of its antiquity, slated it for poor production.

The relevance of this becomes apparent from the first scene of The Life of Christ which is identical to a scene in The Life and Passion, in fact, as the film continues, it appears that most of The Life of Christ was reproduced in The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ. Something of a Jesus film synoptic problem. That said there are some scenes which are different - either the same scene shot very differently, or similarly but in a different location, or with different actors, whereas some are entirely absent in The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ. Other scenes are less extravagantly coloured than the ones from that film. Significantly all of the scenes that look like they have been re-shot are significantly better in The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, most of the material from The Death of Christ is original, although even it utilises some of the same material that is later incorporated into The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ. Here though the quality of the film (from an aesthetic point of view) is lower, suggesting that this is the oldest of the three films. In several places where one of the later films improves upon one of the earlier two films, one of its "improvements" is to add special effects. For example the resurrection scene in "The Death of Christ", is less technical, but also far less gaudy than the way Jesus hovers out of the tomb in both of the later films.

So the three films are clearly related, and it would be logical to suggest that The Death of Christ, is the eldest film (particularly given that most of the very first Jesus films were passion plays). However, things are not quite that simple. Firstly, it appears that a number of different actors are used in The Life of Christ. This and the fact that the style of the intertitles changes from those identical to The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, to others that look older, and less sophisticated, suggests that this film (and possibly The Death of Christ) are composites.

NT scholars will be relieved to hear that my hypothesis isn't that there was a fourth hypothetical Jesus film now lost which the two later films copied parts of and incorporated! My best guess is that the earliest parts of these films do date from 1898, but that the longer Life of Christ film didn't reach this hotch-potched form until 1902. It subsequently was expanded to 2 reels and tidied up a bit in 1905 and released as The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, and similarly was expanded again to 3 reels in 1908 and re-released under the same title. This means that Campbell, Pitts, Kinnard and Davis come away with some credit, as do the packagers of the The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, but none of them get things wholly correct. This leaves a number of gaps unfillled, not least the varying intertitles (which would be easier to fix and more noticeable than changing Jesus), and questions as to what point the film got hand coloured (the books say not until 1914, but all the other evidence points the other way).

If anyone knows more about these films, please do post some comments. Alternatively, if you would like to get hold of these films and decide for yourself The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ is widely available and I get the impression that the others will up on eBay again soon (or can be bought on VHS from the link above).

Matt