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Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "dance-orientale" (10)

She Would Be An Actress

Lubin (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Aug 1909
Minutes: 5

Intense drama unfolds when wife must choose between the two greatest joys in her life: dancing on stage, and whacking her hubby upside the head. What will she choose: the glamour of stage life, or the fulfillment of pummeling Papa?

Before his Alexander's Ragtime Band shot him to fame, a 20-year-old Irving Berlin penned a modest success in 1909, that included lyrics on the same theme: Sadie Cohen left her happy home//To become an actress lady
On the stage she soon became the rage//As the only real Salomy baby
When she came to town, her sweetheart Mose//Brought for her around a pretty rose
But he got an awful fright//When his Sadie came to sight//He stood up and yelled with all his might: [Refrain:] Don't do that dance, I tell you Sadie//That's not a bus'ness for a lady!
'Most ev'rybody knows//That I'm your loving Mose//Oy, Oy, Oy, Oy//Where is your clothes?...
Oy! such a sad disgrace//No one looks in your face
Sadie Salome, go home

Also, note the original “slap stick” the comic uses, just before she goes on stage.

Featured elements:

: abuse; backstage; by the book; comedy; dance; dance-orientale; emblematic shot; family; forsaken; marriage reconciliation; metatheatre; neglected spouse; obsession; patriarchy; shrew; slapstick; undercover agent; zero to hero

Zigomar contre Nick Carter

Victorin Jasset (director/writer)
Lucien N. Andriot (cinematographer)
Léon Sazie (author)
Éclair (production)

Language: Silent, Dutch titles, English subtitles, released in Mar 1912
Minutes: 47

Nick Carter, a dickhead whose irritating smugness is only exceeded by his utter ineptness, takes on his equal in Zigomar who, when he's not busy handing out beatdowns to Nick Carter, hands out receipts for the loot he nicks. Other than the car chase shootout (a tamer rehearsal for the upcoming Bandits En Automobile), definitely a go-to flick for insomniacs.

Featured elements:

: abstraction; action; addiction; adventure; alter ego; animal act; automobile; catfight; chase; crime; criminal mastermind; dance; dance-orientale; death scene; detective; fighting; gambling; gangs; suicide; torture; unstoppable menace

Tigris

Vincenzo Denizot (director)
Natale Chiusano (cinematographer)
Segundo de Chomón (cinematographer)
Edoardo Davesnes (lead)
Alex Bernard (lead)
Lidia Quaranta (lead)
Itala (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Feb 1913
Minutes: 48

The monotonous story of repeated disguises doesn't provide enough incentive to suffer through the eyestrain of viewing this poor quality print. Maybe all the creativity was spent on the hallucination sequence.

But there is one claim to fame here: in 7 years of Voidsville Follies, here is the first instance seen of someone tied to train tracks (actually, tied up and then dumped on the tracks - a more efficient method) that seems to be done for drama, not laughs.

Featured elements:

: abstraction; action; alter ego; automobile; boozy-woozy; chase; crime; criminal mastermind; dance; dance-orientale; detective; master of disguise; servitude; tied to the tracks; train; undercover agent

Child of the Big City/The Girl from the Street (Дитя большого города)

Yevgeny Bauer (director/writer)
Boris Zavelev (cinematographer)
Elena P. Smirnova (lead)
Michael Salarow (lead)
Emma Bauer (lead)
Khanzhonkov (production)

Language: Silent, Russian titles, English subtitles, released in Mar 1914
Minutes: 37

Elena P. Smirnova delivers a virtuoso performance that lays down the real deal on Cinderella, while teaching the proper response to the threat “Over my dead body!”.

Featured elements:

: alienation; breaking class; dance; dance-orientale; death scene; femme fatale; flashback; forsaken; infidelity; melodrama; poverty; servitude; suicide; unrequited love; wage slavery

Crossed Love And Swords

Frank Griffin (director)
Louise Fazenda (lead)
Dave Morris (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Harry Bernard (lead)
Helen Carlyle (lead)
Keystone (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in May 1915
Minutes: 17

The Keystone touch (hammer?) of broad comedy is applied to elements typical of European films of that time: high society, exotic dance, and the duel. While certainly not the best of Keystone, it's still fun to see Al St. John as a different character - and he dances! Plus, there's a cameo of an early ancestor of Godzilla...in the form of a mockodile that couldn't even frighten a feeble pooch.

Featured elements:

: animal act; comedy; dance; dance-orientale; duel; falsely accused; parody; rescue; servitude; slapstick

La secta de los misteriosos

Alberto Marro (director/writer)
Jordi Robert (cinematographer)
Josep Duran (lead)
Alexia Ventura (lead)
Emilia de la Mata (lead)
Hispano (production)

Language: Silent, German and Spanish titles, English subtitles, released in Apr 1916
Minutes: 68

A gang steals two halves of an ancient necklace, that legend claims holds the key to hidden treasures. One half is stolen from a countess, whose young daughter interrupts the theft and is kidnapped. The police are called in, and Detective Hernandez and his assistant go on the trail of the gang. Along the way, the ancient legend of the necklace - centered on a love affair between a Moor queen and a Christian count - is presented on screen.

Restoration of films previously considered lost is always a blessing. But when they start with a lengthy lament of the difficulties of the restoration (and the hacks to work around them), expectations have to be toned down. Originally produced in Barcelona as a 3-episode Spanish-language serial (clearly inspired by the Fantômas and Les Vampire serials), but more than half of that footage is lost. This version is a reduction of the serial into a feature film for German-language viewers. Gaps are filled by text from the original scenario - in Spanish. So expect a rough ride: choppy action with frequent jump cuts, action replaced by stills and text, and titles switching between German and Spanish (here held together with English subtitles from machine translation).

The reward for hanging in there is an earnest female-tied-to-the-train-tracks scene - to counter the claim that such scenes were already outdated and obsolete before the silent fim era (see The Bioscope: Tied to the tracks).

Featured elements:

: action; chase; crime; dance; dance-orientale; death scene; detective; gangs; infidelity; kiddie act; rescue; revenge; servitude; tied to the tracks; train; treachery; white flesh lust

Anime buie

Emilio Ghione (director/lead)
Hesperia (lead)
Kally Sambucini (lead)
Tiber (production)

Language: Silent, Spanish titles, English subtitles, released in May 1916
Minutes: 55

Yet another oddball from director/performer Emilio Ghione.

Just as his The Black Circle (Il circolo nero) showed an influence from Louis Feuillade, this starts like a Les Vampires-style fashionable urban criminal underclass flick. But after only 12.5 minutes of some dope early gangsta shit, the story morphs into yet another installment in Ghione's spaghetti Western series, For a Few Sheep More, documenting the untold story of the contribution of Italian immigration to Texas' early twentieth century boom in sheep ranching - with some unimpressive diva-glam by Hesperia along the way.

Biggest mystery: how did Za La Mort manage to part with his hometown's flashy shoes?

Featured elements:

: alter ego; animal act; antihero; backstage; biking; breaking class; catfight; circus; cowboys; dance; dance-orientale; displaced persons; diva mode; fighting; gangs; goofs; prison; prostitution; rescue; servitude

The Cook

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead/writer)
George Peters (cinematographer)
Al St. John (lead)
Buster Keaton (lead)
Alice Lake (lead)
Luke the Dog (lead)
Comique (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Sep 1918
Minutes: 21

Fatty's back in the kitchen, juggling utensils again, this time with help from Buster as a waiter - until Buster is overcome with exotic dance fever, that spreads to Fatty and results in exotic apparel created from kitchenware. Wonderfully destructive and wacky fun to watch, even without being aware that it's a parody of a popular 1918 film (now lost), Salomé - complete with the dancer being brought a head on a plate. Al The Bad Guy breaks it up with a bit of Tough Dancing, and has to be put in his place by Luke the ladder-climbing dog (revisiting the 1915 Fatty's Faithful Fido). When things settle down we are reminded that, despite its current ubiquity, spaghetti is relatively new to the US - just another case of a country's debt to its immigrants.

Featured elements:

: abuse; animal act; chase; comedy; dance; dance-Apache; dance-orientale; metatheatre; parody; slapstick

Salomé [1923]

Charles Bryant (director)
Alla Nazimova (director/lead/writer)
Natacha Rambova (director-art/writer)
Charles Van Enger (cinematographer)
Oscar Wilde (author)
Aubrey Beardsley (author-art)
Mitchell Lewis (lead)
Rose Dione (lead)
Nigel De Brulier (lead)
Earl Schenck (lead)
Arthur Jasmine (lead)
Frederick Peters (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, German subtitles, released in Feb 1923
Minutes: 72

Timeless tale we can all relate to, of heart-warming harmony in an ordinary family of loyal mother, loving father, and compassionate daughter passionately trying to get a head in life.

Featured elements:

: abstraction; abuse; agent of discontent; alienation; beheading; boozy-woozy; breaking class; comedy; dance; dance-orientale; dark comedy; diva mode; execution; family; femme fatale; obsession; prison; psycho; religion; revenge; servitude; suicide; unrequited love

The Mystery Of Dr. Fu Manchu (Serial)

A.E. Coleby (director/writer)
Frank Wilson (lead/writer)
Sax Rohmer (author)
Fred Paul (lead)
H. Agar Lyons (lead)
Harry Worth (lead)
Humberston Wright (lead)
Joan Clarkson (lead)
Julie Suedo (lead)
Stoll (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Sep 1923

This serial seems to be the earliest surviving film appearance of Dr. Fu Manchu. Unlike subsequent Fu Manchu films, these 13 episodes are essentially faithful (though abridged) adaptations of the events in Sax Rohmer's original stories, which are posted here for comparison. Each episode is a self-contained story, with no cliffhangers.

The protagonist duo of Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie is, superficially at least, an obvious imitation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, with Dr. Fu Manchu taking the archvillain role of Prof. Moriarty. But in Fu Manchu stories, it is the genius of the archvillain that is the focus - not the cleverness of the detective. Nayland Smith admits: “I am a child striving to cope with a mental giant”.

Thankfully, the film adaptation ditched the repetitive narration of Dr. Petrie, with its endless vitriol against the so-called “Eastern race”. Of course, as faithful adaptations, these episodes maintain the Yellow Peril theme that is central to the story, but less explicitly.

Featured elements:

: abuse; action; animal act; antihero; bad cop; Bhutan; Burma; Chinatown; crime; criminal mastermind; dance-orientale; death scene; detective; ethnic stereotype; falsely accused; femme fatale; fighting; flashback; haunted house; kiddie act; male bonding; melodrama; mind control; rescue; Scotland Yard; servitude; sidekick; sophisticated shady; suspense; torture; train; UK; undercover agent; unstoppable menace; windbag assassin; yellow peril

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