The Horse's Head

Update: The original version of this post was a placeholder version pieced together from the 3 ^1/2 minute excerpt embedded above, a 21 minute version with French intertitles, and this copyright description from 1921 in the Library of Congress that gives a detailed overview of the film. But thanks to Mike Champlin of DeBergerac Productions, Inc., I was able to watch the full version of “Film Land”.

My immense thanks to Mike Champlin for getting me access to the original film, as well as for sharing his expansive film knowledge. Mike worked on a restoration of “Film Land” in 2004, and has informed me that DeBergerac Productions is working on a new restoration to celebrate its NFR induction, with a projected general release of later this year. Check out the DeBergerac Productions website to learn more about their other preservation work.

The Plot: An animated “international convention of movie fans” gather to watch “A Movie Trip Through Film Land”. The “Film Land” of the title is none other than Kodak Park in Rochester, New York: Home of Kodak film, the popular choice for both still photography and motion pictures! As we travel through Kodak Park, we get a very thorough explanation of how film nitrate is made. Produced by Bosworth, De Frenes and Felton of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “educational and highly informative”, and gives a shoutout to the George Eastman Museum, Eastman Kodak laboratory, and the Eastman Kodak Company for their parts in this film’s restoration.

But Does It Really?: This is certainly one of the NFR’s more meta selections: a film about how physical film is made. I had never heard of “Film Land” before it made the Registry, and it has been fascinating to research this film and learn more about how physical film was actually made at the early stages of this new medium. A historical pass for “Film Land”; and keep an eye out for that new restoration.

Everybody Gets One: Information regarding Bosworth, De Frenes and Felton is pretty scarce, but what we do know is that it was a film production company that existed from roughly 1917 to 1927 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Among their major clients who commissioned films from them were Goodrich and, of course, Eastman Kodak. Paul M. Felton was an animator and musician, referred to in local papers as “that famous comic artist”. Felton drew the intertitle illustrations and animated opening of “Film Land”. Joseph De Frenes was a photographer and cinematographer, best known for his expeditions with fellow filmmaker Charles Urban, which resulted in some of the earliest travelogues in the film history. De Frenes is the only credited name in the opening “Film Land”, having shot the Kodak Park footage. C. R. Bosworth was a local businessman and producer, and that’s pretty much all we know about him.

Wow, That’s Dated: Nitrate film; that’s the big one. Film buffs (and longtime readers of this blog) know that nitrate film catches fire faster than a dried-up Christmas tree, which led to the loss of a majority of pre-1950 film, and the urgent need for film preservation. By 1952, film stock had finally made the switch to cellulose acetate (aka “safety film”), with polyester becoming the film base of choice by the 1990s.

Today’s post is perhaps the biggest placeholder post I’ve ever written. Of this serial’s 14 episodes, I was only able to track down four online. As always, if and when the other 10 episodes show up, I’ll update this post.

The Plot: Elaine Dodge (Pearl White) is an amateur sleuth who teams up with scientific detective Craig Kennedy (Arnold Daly) to find out the real identity of The Clutching Hand, a mysterious masked man who killed her father. Both Kennedy and the Clutching Hand have state-of-the-art gadgetry at their disposal; Kennedy has such things as the Detectascope and the Telegraphone to help solve the case, while the Clutching Hand has things like the Death Ray for…death. Can Elaine solve the case without becoming the Clutching Hand’s next victim? I genuinely don’t know, because most of this serial is not readily available online.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives the usual rundown, and calls the serial “superior” to its predecessor “The Perils of Pauline”, citing its “sophisticated camera work and production values.” An essay by silent film expert Margaret Hennefeld gives a more thorough synopsis, which is very helpful in this case.

But Does It Really?: We have a rarity on the blog: my judgment on this film’s NFR standing is inconclusive. I do not have enough available footage for me to make the call. This is not helped by my decision to watch this so shortly after “The Perils of Pauline“, giving this serial a feeling of sameness. Befitting a placeholder post, I’ll give “Exploits of Elaine” a placeholder pass: I’m sure it has enough value to warrant its early spot on the NFR, but only watching the rest of this will tell me for sure.

Everybody Gets One: Although all but forgotten today, Arthur B. Reeve was a celebrated mystery writer in his day, with Craig Kennedy being hailed as “the American Sherlock Holmes”. Reeve wrote the Craig Kennedy short stories from 1910 to his death in 1936. “Elaine” was one of Reeve’s first film projects, and he concurrently wrote a book adaptation to coincide with the release of the serial. While filmmaking was on the move from New York to Hollywood, Reeve opted to stay behind in New Jersey, pivoting to anti-racketing campaigns and covering such news events as the murder of William Desmond Taylor.

Today marks the 7^th anniversary of the Horse’s Head blog (or maybe it’s tomorrow, I genuinely don’t remember anymore). For seven years, I have not only chronicled my attempt to watch every movie on the National Film Registry, but I’ve also submitted my own nominations for films I believe should be on the list. So far, 36 films I have submitted have been inducted (23 of them inducted in the year I nominated them). Most of my selections are iconic films that I’m sure would have made it on without my help, but there are two that haven’t made the cut yet that I feel need a little extra endorsement. These two movies are far from the greatest movies of all time, but they are personal favorites that I feel are worthy of a place in the Registry. For your NFR consideration I give you “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “Original Cast Album: Company”.

By 1963, director Stanley Kramer was Hollywood’s king of the Important Movie, with “The Defiant Ones”, “Inherit the Wind”, and “Judgment at Nuremberg” under his belt (plus he produced “High Noon“). When New York Times critic Bosley Crowther challenged the serious-minded Kramer to make a comedy, Kramer accepted the challenge, and vowed to make the film comedy to end all film comedy. The result was “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”, an epic in which an old man’s dying words about a hidden fortune spark a race across California to find $350,000. Everything about “Mad World” is big: the cast is packed with the most famous comedians of the 20^th century (everyone from Buster Keaton to Jerry Lewis), the action contains some of the most impressive stunt work in movie history, and the film’s widescreen Ultra Panavision 70 was so wide Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome was built specifically to show the film. “Mad World” may not get as many laughs at it did 60 years ago, but it is still an impressive undertaking that deserves to be preserved and enjoyed.

By its very nature, theater is hard to document. No recording can replicate the feeling of watching a live performance, and while the NFR has plenty of film adaptations of plays and musicals on the list, it doesn’t have anything that documents the kinetic energy of American theater. That’s why I always push for 1970’s “Original Cast Album: Company”. Legendary documentarian D.A. Pennebaker takes his camera into New York’s Columbia 30^th Street Studio to witness the cast album recording for Stephen Sondheim’s latest Broadway musical “Company”. Originally filmed as the pilot for a proposed TV series, “Original Cast Album: Company” chronicles the marathon 14-hour recording session of the entire album, complete with in-the-moment adjustments from Sondheim himself as well as record producer Thomas Z. Shepard. The climax of the movie is performer Elaine Stritch trying and failing to nail her signature song “Ladies Who Lunch” in one take. A cult classic among theater fans, “Original Cast Album: Company” is a rare glimpse into part of the creative process of putting on a Broadway musical, the kind of “lightning in a bottle” preservation that every documentary on this list strives for.

Both “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “Original Cast Album: Company” stand on their own singular piece of ground, and are therefore worthy of inclusion in the National Film Registry. I will keep pushing for these movies every year until that December morning when I read that the NFR finally made the right decision. As always, you the reader can nominate any American movie you want for NFR consideration. Just head over to the NFR’s official nomination page, and be sure to check out their list of movies not on the Registry for reference. And if I may, please also visit my own For Your Consideration page for the countless other movies and stars I have lobbied for over the years.

Happy Viewing and Happy Nominating,

Tony

The Plot: Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free Black man living in Saratoga Springs, New York with his family in 1841. An accomplished violinist, Northup is hired by two men (Scoot McNairy & Taran Killam) to play for their circus in Washington D.C., but the men are con artists who drug Northup and sell him into slavery. Shipped to New Orleans and forced to take the name “Platt”, Northup is sold to plantation owner William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). While Ford is a benevolent slave owner (if such a thing is possible), Northup’s frequent clashes with his White overseers leads to a near-lynching. Northup is sold to Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), another plantation owner who is more abusive to his slaves, particularly his top cotton picker Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o). Despite the horrors he experiences on a daily basis, Solomon never gives up hope that he will regain his freedom.

Why It Matters: Weirdly enough, the NFR’s official write-up is just a rehash of the movie’s plot and Oscar tally. The blurb on the NFR’s Class of 2023 press release, however, calls the film “raw, visceral” and “[o]ne of the key films of the 2000s”.

But Does It Really?: I never got around to seeing “12 Years a Slave” during its original run, but I have to say it was worth the wait. Slavery is always a difficult subject matter to create art from, but in the hands of Steve McQueen “12 Years a Slave” is a gripping, honest depiction of slavery that never shies away from the horrific elements but also never sensationalizes them. Aided by McQueen’s direction, a terrific cast, and some beautiful cinematography, “12 Years a Slave” – for better or worse – hasn’t aged a day, and will be an important viewing for any film lover for years to come.

Everybody Gets One: Born and raised in London, Steve McQueen became interested in film while studying at University of London’s Goldsmiths College. His early works were experimental shorts, including 1997’s “Deadpan”, in which he recreated Buster Keaton’s famous house-falling-around-him stunt. McQueen started gaining attention with his first feature, 2008’s “Hunger” about the Irish hunger strike of 1981. It was at a screening of “Hunger” where he met writer John Ridley, and the two began collaborating on a screenplay about American slavery, a topic they both felt was underrepresented in films. It was McQueen’s partner Bianca Stigter who suggested they adapt “12 Years a Slave”. And for the record: No, Steve McQueen was not named after the popular movie star with the same name. In fact, McQueen rarely acknowledges the connection in interviews, though he admitted recently that he likes “The Magnificent Seven“.

Title Track: It’s worth noting here that while there may have been some embellishment in Solomon Northup’s memoir (attributed to Northup’s copyist David Wilson), research has shown that the book “12 Years a Slave” is historically accurate. The film itself is a faithful adaptation, and considered by historians one of the most accurate portrayals of slavery in film.

Seriously, Oscars?: Going into the Oscar race, “12 Years a Slave” received nine nominations, one behind “American Hustle” and “Gravity”. Although “Gravity” swept the tech awards, “12 Years” prevailed with three important wins: Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong’o. With its win, “12 Years” became the first movie by a Black filmmaker to win the Best Picture Oscar. Ceremony host Ellen DeGeneres summed up the film’s frontrunner status in her opening monologue: “So many different possibilities. Possibility number one: ’12 Years a Slave’ wins Best Picture. Possibility number two: You’re all racists.”

• The run of “Who isn’t in this movie?” continues with SNL cast member Taran Killam (giving me some Jebidiah Atkinson vibes), followed by an all-too-brief appearance by the late great Michael K. Williams. Also, blink and you’ll miss Quvenzhané Wallis as Solomon’s daughter Margaret. By the time “12 Years” was released, Wallis had become the youngest Best Actress Oscar nominee in history with “Beasts of the Southern Wild”.
• Maybe I’ve just become desensitized to movie violence over the years, but while the abuse directed towards the slaves in “12 Years” is severe (and at times very hard to watch), I feel like it was restrained compared to other films. Even in its most intense moments, “12 Years” strives for a grounded reality. Compare that to a movie like “Django Unchained”, which goes for an amplified, cinematic version of slavery that turns into a full-on revenge fantasy. Obviously “12 Years” isn’t going for that, but if you were able to stomach the violence of “Django”, you can handle “12 Years”. On a similar note, while the n word is thrown around quite a bit here, it is nowhere near the amount in “Django”.
• We get another batch of familiar faces once Solomon is sold to the Ford plantation. There’s Paul Giamatti, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Paul Dano, but I was pleasantly surprised by seeing Adepero Oduye, aka Lee from “Pariah“. It’s been a full year since I watched “Pariah” for the blog, and I was genuinely happy to see Oduye again. Her time in “12 Years” as fellow slave Eliza is brief but impactful, and I’m glad she now has two movies on the NFR. Side Note: Adepero’s on-screen daughter is played by Storm Reid, who while I was writing this won an Emmy for her performance on “The Last of Us”. This cast is on a roll!

• Between this and “There Will Be Blood”, there was a point in time when the movies loved beating the shit out of Paul Dano.

• The scene where Solomon is almost lynched and left hanging from a noose for hours is definitely an indelible moment. If one image from this movie stays with me, it will surely be Solomon trying to reach the ground with his tiptoes while he goes unnoticed and unassisted by the rest of the plantation.
• Another round of familiar faces once we arrive at the Epps plantation. There’s of course Michael Fassbender, giving as much nuance as you can to a Simon Legree-type. Side note: Fassbender looks here like if Joaquin Phoenix played Vincent Van Gough. I’m also a fan of the brief supporting turns by Sarah Paulson and Alfre Woodard, Woodard in particular nailing her one scene as a preferred “house slave”. Also, shout out to Ryan Murphy, who rearranged the production schedule of “American Horror Story: Asylum” so Sarah Paulson could be in this movie.
• This is the feature film debut of Lupita Nyong’o! It’s incredible to think about the amazing film career she has already racked up in only the last ten years. It’s easy to see how Nyong’o won the Oscar for this: Her Patsey is the soul of the movie, somehow maintaining her optimism and faith in humanity despite all the cruelty around her. In both this film and in real life, what happened to Patsey after the events of “12 Years a Slave” is unknown.

• The other aspect that struck me about the film is the aura of immediacy about it. So many films dealing with America’s racist history present it as “that was then”; something that has already been overcome. Somehow in McQueen’s direction there is a sense of urgency: this is then and now. I don’t know how, but while obviously a period piece, the film contains a modern sensibility, making the viewer aware that while legalized slavery is long gone, the horrible treatment of our Black citizens prevails.
• The scene where Northup is forced to whip Patsey is easily the most intense in the movie, captured brilliantly in one seemingly uninterrupted take. Watching Patsey’s spirit finally get broken is just as distressing as the physical violence she endures.

• My one complaint about this movie is the same as everyone else’s: Brad Pitt. To be fair, Solomon Northup’s freedom was obtained as seen in the film: He got Canadian abolitionist Samuel Bass to deliver letters to his family giving his whereabouts, and local authorities arrived to free Northup. Within a film, however, this plays out as a White savior deus ex machina, especially when that savior is Brad Pitt, the only bona fide movie star in the cast. Pitt (a producer of the film under his “Plan B” company) has stated that he didn’t want to act in “12 Years”, but played the part in order to help secure more funding; making this ending one of the unfortunate casualties in the never-ending battle of art vs. commerce.

• This is one of the rare movies based on real events in which I appreciated the obligatory epilogue text. Without it, the film has a happy ending wrapped in a bow, but the text about Northup’s unsuccessful suit against those who kidnapped him reminds us that real-life evil rarely gets punished.
• “12 Years a Slave” is dedicated to Philbert John McQueen, Steve’s late father.

Further Viewing: “Solomon Northup’s Odyssey”, a 1984 TV movie also based on “12 Years a Slave”, directed by fellow NFR filmmaker Gordon Parks.

National Film Registry day is seriously becoming more and more like Christmas morning for me. I’ve been up since about 4:30 this morning because, to quote a very niche Disney World commercial, I was too excited to sleep. This year’s selections for the Registry definitely did not disappoint, and I’ve enjoyed spending time today learning about each film while injecting emergency caffeine into my system. Here at last is the NFR Class of 2023 in chronological order:

• A Movie Trip Through Filmland (1921)
• Dinner at Eight (1933)+
• Bohulano Family Film Collection (1950s-1970s)
• Helen Keller: In Her Story (1954)
• Lady and the Tramp (1955)+
• Edge of the City (1957)
• We’re Alive (1974)
• Cruisin’ J-Town (1975)
• ¡Alambrista! (1977)
• Passing Through (1977)
• Fame (1980)+
• Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
• The Lighted Field (1987)
• Matewan (1987)
• Home Alone (1990)*
• Queen of Diamonds (1991)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)+
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)*
• The Wedding Banquet (1993)
• Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994)
• Apollo 13 (1995)
• Bamboozled (2000)
• Love & Basketball (2000)
• 12 Years a Slave (2013)*
• 20 Feet from Stardom (2013)

* Movies I nominated this year

+ Movies I have nominated in previous years

Other notes

• Three of my 50 nominated movies made the cut this year, a step up from last year’s two, and more or less my yearly average. According to the NFR press release, 6,875 titles were submitted by the public this year, so getting three on there is pretty damn good.
• Maybe I’ve just been doing this for too long, but I look at this year’s crop and I think “Yep, that’s an NFR list”. As usual, the board makes an eclectic selection of list-worthy movies, but nothing really sticks out to me as a surprise. These are all movies that are either justifiably iconic, made by filmmakers with previous entries, or highlight independent and experimental work. The only one that surprised me in a good way was “20 Feet from Stardom”, a movie I enjoyed when I saw it 10 years ago and look forward to revisiting.
• Of the less-familiar titles, the one that intrigues me the most is the “Bohulano Family Film Collection”, filmed by a family from my hometown of Stockton, California. I’m genuinely curious to see what Stockton looked like before my time (my family moved there in the late ’80s), and equally curious to find out if I have any six-degrees-of-separation from this family. It’s astonishing to me that my hometown is getting some recognition on this list beyond “Cool Hand Luke” and that one shot in “Raiders of the Lost Ark“.
• Also noteworthy is “¡Alambrista!” the only one of Representative Joaquin Castro’s 27 submissions to make the cut. I don’t know how I feel about getting more of my submissions on this list than Representative Castro’s much more publicized selection.
• It’s nice to see Helen Keller represented via her Oscar-winning documentary, though I worry this really messes up my chances of getting “The Miracle Worker” on this list. I’ll keep fighting for you, Patty Duke!
• As best I can tell, the only double-dippers from these movies are actors Catherine O’Hara and Alfre Woodard. Amazingly, this is the first NFR representation for either of them. Welcome to the club!
• Congratulations to Damon Wayans, the first Wayans brother on the NFR (although his sister Kim made the cut last year). And apologies to Marlon Wayans, who I predicted would be the first Wayans brother to make the list. Clearly, no one on the NFR board is ready to re-watch “Requiem for a Dream”.
• Not to gripe too much about what didn’t make the cut, but the NFR has once again excluded any of Jane Fonda’s filmography, and her current NFR total remains at 0. I’m beginning to think there’s a conspiracy behind all of this. Is she being kept off the list because she was married to Ted Turner? Hasn’t she atoned for that yet?

And finally, I know that in the grand scheme of things with all of the horrible atrocities happening in the world right now, my little movie blog “don’t amount to a hill of beans”. That being said, if reading any of my posts has given you even a moment of respite or happiness, I’m grateful to have added a little bit of good into the world. Thanks for your continued support, and my wish for 2024 is peace and freedom.

Stay safe and Happy Viewing,

Tony