THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 43

 One German silent movie + three short subjects = two hours of celluloid bliss.

THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE (1913): The poor, lovesick title character named Balduin is given a bag of money and the woman of his dreams, Countess Margit, by a mysterious stranger named Scapinelli. In return, Scapinelli is to take anything in the student's apartment. Sounds like a good deal -- until the guy steals Balduin's reflection from his full-length mirror. Things start getting even more hinky when the reflection starts turning up everywhere in town, even to kill Margit's fiancé in a duel. Getting a little tired of seeing himself everywhere but mirrors, Balduin shoots him (it?), not foreseeing the consequences for both of them. And as for Scapinelli? He just dances down the road for his next victim.

It's a fool's game to refer to a movie as "the first" in almost any category. So when web jockeys casually refer to The Student of Prague as the "first horror movie" and the "first German art film", take it with a sack full of salt and a side of fries. Nevertheless, The Student of Prague has a lot of good going for it, like the story itself, seeing that it's an interesting take on the Satan-taking-a-soul routine (even if Scapinelli is described as a sorcerer). And for a 1913 production, the double exposures of the two Balduins onscreen simultaneously are surprisingly effective. (The shot of his reflection leaving the mirror as he looks on in horror is one of the more memorable images I've seen in a silent fantasy.)  I'm not sure of the purpose of a Gypsy dancer named Lyduschka popping in and out like a wanna-be spy but she's certainly spooky that way.

Onto the negatives. Co-directors Hans Heinz Ewers and Stellan Rye hold almost every shot too long. And, at 39 (but looking 50), Paul Wegener doesn't look anything like a college student. While Gret Berger, as Margrit, was only 30, she's supposed to be a decade younger but appears to be middle-aged. As usual for the time, both actors chow down on the scenery -- Wegener doesn't react to situations as much as allow the top of his head fly off. Only John Gottowt as Scapinelli, taking delight in Balduin's destruction, gives a truly entertaining performance -- but isn't the bad guy always the best part? The 1926 remake of The Student of Prague starring Conrad Veidt is said to be better, but the original has its charms -- as well as a reminder that if a deal is too good to be true, you're never going to see your reflection again.

BONUS POINTS: Immediately following the opening credits, Paul Wegener and Student of Prague director/writer are seen as themselves visiting Prague, although why is never explained.

POETIC GEMS: THE OLD PROSPECTOR TALKS (1931): It's always a treat to
discover a series of short subjects you never knew existed. Then there's Poetic Gems. 

Produced by someone named William M. Pizor, Poetic Gems appear to have been focused on the works recited by seventh-graders at school assemblies until Bob Dylan blew up that crap but good. Pizor was clearly obsessed with the defiantly middlebrow "People's Poet" Edgar A. Guest -- well-loved in his day by Americans who probably considered Norman Rockwell an abstract artist -- since at least seven of the alleged "gems" in this series were from the poet's hackneyed hand.

The title alone, The Old Prospector Talks, warns that you're about to sit through ten minutes of twaddle, made even twaddler when recited by radio announcer Norman Brokenshire with the gravity of Laurence Olivier reading aloud from The Bible. "I've taken my gold with pick and pan/And sent it back to be stained by man"... Oh, brother. No wonder Guest was able to churn out a poem a day for 30 years like so much sausage. Each line is painstakingly recreated visually with a progressively grizzled prospector, aging before our eyes as he pans for gold, walks his donkey, smokes a pipe -- everything but take a leak in the outhouse behind his rundown shack.

Puerile poetry isn't enough to sustain even a one-reeler, so the tune "Take Me Home to the Mountain", composed for The Old Prospector Talks, is performed by Al Shayne, who should have lost his credentials as "The Radio Ambassador of Song" after the first verse. Accompanied by a queasy marimba, Shayne sings -- make that oscillates -- the saccharine lyrics with a melody resembling "Home on the Range" played sideways. If The Old Prospector Talks is any example, the Poetic Gems were strictly cubic zirconia.

BONUS POINTS: The lyricist of the too-treacly by 1,000 "Take Me Home to the Mountain" was pre-Academy Award/Pulitzer Prize winner Frank Loesser, who wrote the inane songs for Universal's Postal Inspector five years later. 

INFORMATION PLEASE (SERIES 2, #12) (1941): Now this is a short subject series I can get behind: RKO's 10-minute versions of one of the most popular radio quiz shows of its time. That's why people suddenly make themselves scarce when I ask if they want to drop by for a movie.

Hosted by Simon & Schuster editor Clifton Fadiman, Information Please featured three "intellectuals" as its regular panelists -- newspaper columnists Franklin P. Adams and John Kiernan, and composer/musician/actor/wit/pharmaceutical addict Oscar Levant, along with a different guest panelist each week -- in this case, a bespectacled Boris Karloff. Wheel of Fortune it was not.

Now, you couldn't spend even a one-reeler watching a panel of smarty-pants just answering questions read by the host. Therefore, in the Information Please shorts, panelists had to identify things, as, in this case, what kinds of drinks were served in the particular glasses they were shown. (No surprise that the drink Karloff correctly guesses is the Zombie.) They also have to identify nursery rhymes mimed by actors (a little boy with a bottle of rye and a bag of rye flower represents "Sing a Song of Sixpence") and act out literary characters. Would you have correctly guessed that a woman looking out a window as a man walked by was The Lady of Shallot? And did you know "Shallot" was pronounced "Shalay"? John Kiernan did! 

Unlike today, then, there was a time when the average person enjoyed listening to intelligent people. Audiences aspired to be well-educated, and supplied the questions themselves. The top prize for stumping the panel was the Encyclopedia Britannica, which most families probably treasured more than they would a new car. The information I want is when did people prefer to be stupid?

BONUS POINTS: Did you remember "Jack and Jill" had a verse involving vinegar and brown paper? Franklin P. Adams did!

HOW DO YOU LIKE THE BOWERY? (1960): If you were to ask a New Yorker today
that question, they'd probably say, "Not bad. Some of it's out of my reach." But it was way different in 1960 as this 12-minute, 16mm documentary demonstrates, when it was the home to countless bums before they were called homeless (and now, unhoused). 

What's striking about these men (and they're all men) is that many, if not most, are relatively well-dressed in hats, ties, occasionally suits, and overcoats that people would pay good money for in used-clothing stores today. They're mostly self-confessed alcoholics who by and large admit to being unhappy with what's become of themselves. One guy wound up on the Bowery after accidentally running over his wife while backing up his car, and now is just waiting to join her. Another can't get a job due to being partly paralyzed, while a third, at age 70, can't get his old job back at the post office. One optimistic fellow likes that you can get a full breakfast for a quarter. Got to find good luck where you can.

There are moments of dark humor, as with a fellow named Red. Red, who refers to himself in the third person, reminisces about being friends with Trigger Burke, who went to the chair for killing Poochy Walsh. Red himself retired four years earlier from his previous employment as a gunman, having been a member, he claims, of Pistol Local 824 before serving a stint in Sing-Sing. (Everybody's a union worker in New York.) By the way, you can read about Trigger Burke and Poochy Walsh on Wikipedia. 

Red isn't the only interesting person we meet. An unnamed guy who resembles Bela Lugosi -- he even articulates liked a trained stage actor -- has no use for the "stupid" social workers he encounters at the men's shelters. Another denizen, sporting a nose equal to that of the late-in-life W.C. Fields, found himself in the Bowery after the death of his wife. By the end of the short, the title How Do You Like the Bowery? is asked as much to us as it is its inhabitants. 

BONUS POINTS: Of the many flophouses seen, one is named Providence, while another is Newport -- two cities from my home state. If these places still exist on the Bowery, I hope I never wind up there.

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