#668) The Augustas (1930s-1950s)

#668) The Augustas (1930s-1950s)

OR “Man About Towns”

Directed by Scott Nixon

Class of 2012

The Plot: Scott Nixon is an insurance salesman and amateur filmmaker hailing from Augusta, Georgia chronicling a specific element of his travels across America. Filmed over the course of 20 years, “The Augustas” is Nixon’s recording of over 30 towns across the country – all of them named Augusta. With quick peeks at various small towns and a wry sense of humor throughout, “The Augustas” goes beyond its gimmicky premise to become a window into an all-but-forgotten slice of American life.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives a rundown of Scott Nixon and the film, calling Nixon an “amateur auteur” that brings these cities “together under the umbrella of Americana.”

But Does It Really?: Man, the NFR loves their amatuer filmmakers. I enjoyed “The Augustas” as a fun, breezy travelogue; a vacation to both place and time. But what I found especially fascinating in my research were historians trying to find a deeper meaning to all of this; the subconscious connective threads Nixon is trying to show us by highlighting these Augustas. Here’s my hot take: Maybe the man just liked the name Augusta and was amused by how many other towns shared the name. I’m all for preserving someone’s art, but don’t overthink it, especially when it’s a hobby. I can give “The Augustas” a pass for NFR inclusion as a creative twist on the standard home movie, as well as recognition of someone spending their free time documenting a niche that makes them happy: something I can definitely relate to.

Everybody Gets One: As always, my thanks to the Center for Home Movies, especially an essay Heidi Rae Cooley which rounds up the little information that’s out there about Scott Nixon. As previously mentioned, Nixon was a traveling insurance salesman from Augusta, Georgia, and a member of the Amateur Cinema League (like fellow NFR artists Mary Marvin Breckinridge and Miriam Bennett). According to his son Cobbs Nixon, Scott was so fond of the name Augusta he wanted to name his daughter Augusta Georgia Nixon, but was talked out of it. Side note: Scott Nixon was of no relation to Richard Nixon, nor did he ever suspiciously delete any of his recordings to avoid criminal charges.

Title Track: During my viewing I began to wonder if all of these Augustas are named after the same person, but it turns out Augusta was a much more common name 300 years ago. Augusta, Georgia was named for Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the Princess of Wales who married Prince Frederick in 1736, the same year her Georigan namesake was established. Many of the other stateside Augustas are named after family members of their founders, typically their wife or daughter. Interestingly enough, Augusta, Illinois was named after Augusta, Georgia because co-founder Joel Catlin had a memorable trip there! Now we’re getting meta.

Other notes 

  • Right out of the gate, you know that Nixon has a creative side to him. The first shot of “The Augustas” is a silent movie-era intertitle reminding men not to smoke, spit, or use profane language during the feature. A good sign that this won’t be your ordinary vacation film.
  • My main takeaway is that in the early 20th century all Augustas were small towns, with the possible exception of Augusta, Maine; the state’s capital and the only Augusta I could have named before this viewing. So much of what Nixon chronicles in the Augustas are farms and main streets and local businesses. I suspect a modern remake wouldn’t be as quaint, and because most of these Augustas are on the east coast there would be far more Dunkin’ Donuts.
  • As technology changed over Nixon’s two-decade shoot, different types of film stock crop up in this movie: 8mm, 16mm, black-and-white, color. They appear somewhat randomly throughout, which makes for an exciting watch. I don’t know what kind of color film stock Nixon was using, but it’s beautiful to look at. There’s a vividness to the color, yet it still feels realistic. You get the sense that this is what these towns actually looked like. On a similar note: The back and forth between black-and-white and color is fun. It’s like if Dorothy took home movies of both Kansas and Oz.
  • A few of the Augustas on the list are represented either by an image of its spot on a map, or its name on a train schedule. I guess that counts. It’s like a placeholder shot; as if Nixon is saying “Take my word for it, I was there.”
  • Those train schedules lead me to believe that this was Nixon’s main mode of transportation. Some of these shots feel like Nixon got off the train, took a few shots of nearby buildings, and then hopped back on before his train left the station.
  • About halfway through, Nixon starts getting flexible with what counts as an “Augusta”. We get Fort Augusta, North Augusta, South Augusta, New Augusta, Augusta Springs, and Augusta County. My favorite is West Augusta, Virginia, followed somewhat confusingly by Augusta, West Virginia.
  • I imagine it was fun to watch this with Scott Nixon providing the color commentary. Obviously I did not know the man, but I bet he had a few well-crafted one-liners to toss off during a screening.
  • Scott Nixon saves the best Augusta for last: a shot of a hardy phlox augusta, seemingly a cross-breed of two different genera of flower. I’ll admit I didn’t get the joke on first viewing, but then again I’m not a plant person. I had to look up each individual word in the phrase “hardy phlox augusta”.

Legacy 

  • Scott Nixon continued making films for the rest of his life, including a few about his other passion: trains. When he died in 1980, his films were donated to the Augusta Museum before becoming part of the University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research in 2000. “The Augustas” appears to be a favorite among historians and amateur film enthusiasts, receiving a restoration in 2008 thanks to Colorlab and a grant from the National Film Preservation Fund.

#667) Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914)

#667) Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914)

OR “Chaplin, Start Your Engines!”

Directed by Henry Lehrman

Written by Lehrman and Charles Chaplin

Class of 2020

The Plot: It’s race day at a junior soapbox car derby in Venice, Los Angeles. A director and cameraman (Henry Lehrman and Frank D. Williams – the film’s actual director and cameraman) are there to capture all the excitement. Well…at least they would be if it weren’t for a little tramp (Charlie Chaplin) that keeps walking in front of the camera and hogging the attention. That’s about it plot-wise, as the Tramp does his comic schtick in front of an increasingly frustrated director as the cars race by in the background. But in these brief moments of silliness we are witnessing the first film ever released to star Chaplin’s famous Tramp character.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film a “milestone in film history” and quotes a contemporary review in The Cinema which called this new guy Chaplin “a born screen comedian”.

But Does It Really?: The only thing surprising about “Kid Auto Races” being added to the NFR is that it didn’t make the cut until 2020. This one is a no-brainer: It’s Chaplin’s debut as the Tramp, and while nowhere near as funny or iconic as Chaplin’s later fare, it’s still the first, and that’s good enough for NFR induction.

Everybody Gets One: Henry Lehrman started off as an actor at Biograph Studios, where he met another young actor named Mack Sennett. When Sennett left Biograph to form Keystone Studios, Lehrman jumped ship as well, and started directing as well as acting. As evident from “Kid Auto Races”, Lehrman had zero regard for actors or their safety, earning him the nickname “Mr. Suicide” in the industry.

Wow, That’s Dated: I was gonna say soap box derbies, but research has proven me wrong. Turns out soap box derbies are still a thing, with the official one that started in 1934 still going strong, only skipping 2020 due to COVID. I can only assume that modern soapbox racing is far safer than the one depicted in “Kid Auto”, and probably with less actual soapboxes.

Other notes 

  • Before we go any further, an oversimplified biography of Charlie Chaplin and the origins of the Tramp. Born in England and growing up with an absentee father and institutionalized mother, Charles Spencer Chaplin started performing in his teen years, first as a singer and dancer, quickly pivoting to more comedic roles in burlesque and vaudeville. Finding success quickly, Chaplin signed with Fred Karno (the same music hall impresario who discovered Stan Laurel), and Chaplin found himself on a North American tour with Karno’s company. While in Los Angeles, Chaplin attracted the attention of Keystone Studios, who signed the young actor to appear in their comedy shorts. While preparing for his second Keystone short, “Mabel’s Strange Predicament”, Chaplin grabbed what he described as “contradictory” clothing (loose pants and a tight coat, etc.) and invented the character of the Tramp on the spot, proving an instant success with Mack Sennett. Chaplin reprised the role in his next assignment, “Kid Auto Races at Venice”, which was filmed a few days later, but released two days before “Mabel’s”, making “Kid Auto Races” the Tramp’s official introduction to the viewing public.
  • “Kid Auto Races” was filmed on January 11th, 1914 at an actual soap box derby race, the junior version of the Vanderbilt Cup being held that year in nearby Santa Monica. Allegedly the entire thing was shot in 45 minutes, with Chaplin and Lehrman improvising as they went along in a bit of guerilla filmmaking. I suspect everyone that isn’t Chaplin, Lehrman, or cameraman Frank D. Williams is an actual spectator, as noted by people constantly looking into the camera, as well as two women who are hiding their faces, presumably so as not to be seen on camera. Your loss, ladies.
  • Yeah, I don’t have a lot to say about the actual film, other than it did make me laugh a few times (Chaplin’s timing is already in fine form as he coordinates a few bits of business with the passing racers). I don’t think anyone could have guessed that the Tramp, depicted here as an annoying vagrant, would go on to star in some of the greatest movies ever made.

Legacy 

  • Unfortunately the most well-known thing about Henry Lehrman after “Kid Auto Races” is a personal tragedy. In the early 1920s, Lehrman was engaged to Virginia Rappe, the actress whose death in 1921 led to the heavily publicized trial and career downfall of Roscoe Arbuckle, who was accused of raping and murdering Rappe. Lehrman continued directing throughout the 1920s, but never successfully adapted to directing talkies, and his career quickly dried up.
  • But of course, this film’s legacy is and will always be the Tramp. For the next five years, Chaplin would rarely play anyone but the Tramp in his short films, fleshing the character out as the little guy who stands up to antagonistic authority figures, and making him an internationally acclaimed movie star. Starting with “The Kid” in 1921, Chaplin would play the Tramp (or a version of him) in seven features, retiring the character for good in 1940’s “The Great Dictator“. And now you know the rest of the story!

Bonus Clip: The origins of the Tramp, and the filming of “Mabel’s Strange Predicament” were recreated for Richard Attenborough’s “Chaplin” with Robert Downey Jr.

#666) Hell-bound Train (1930)

#666) Hell-bound Train (1930)

OR “The Little Devil That Could”

Directed & Written by James and Eloyce Gist

Class of 2021

I was able to track down the full movie at Kino Now.

The Plot: While many a preacher will simply tell you about fire and brimstone, the filmmaking couple of James and Eloyce Gist show you the wages of your sin with their film “Hell-bound Train”. Engineered by the Devil himself (Actor Unknown), this train speeds to its one-way destination with a separate car for every possible sin; from big ones like murder and infidelity to more questionable ones like jazz (both the listening of and dancing to). And the only way off this train is total devotion to the church with zero gray area or room for error. All aboard!

Why It Matters: The NFR calls this movie a “[s]urreal and mesmerizing allegorical film” and “an important and until recently overlooked milestone in Black cinema.”

But Does It Really?: Heavy-handed and preachy? Obviously. A natural for the NFR? Absolutely. “Hell-bound Train” has a lot going for it; a work by independent Black filmmakers, an amateur film brimming with creativity, and a time capsule of the religious scare tactics of the day (some of which are still in use). Even with the darker subject matter, you get the sense of a community coming together and having fun putting on a show. A yes for “Hell-bound Train” on the NFR, one of the more unique entries I’ve had the pleasure of covering for this blog.

Everybody Gets One: Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of information out there about James and Eloyce Gist due to most of their records being destroyed in a house fire. What we do know is that James Gist was a traveling evangelical preacher, while Eloyce was a writer and beauty culture entrepreneur native to D.C. Although they practiced different religions (James was Christian, Eloyce was of the Bahá’í Faith), they agreed on the main bullet points such as morality and spirituality. From what other researchers have surmised, James had already filmed and completed “Hell-bound Train” when he and Eloyce met, though Eloyce appears to be responsible for re-writes and re-shoots of later versions of the film. The Gists would travel the country screening “Hell-bound Train” at churches; Eloyce providing live musical accompaniment, and James delivering a sermon after the film. And of course, a collection plate was passed around.

Wow That’s Dated: This whole movie has that early 20th century mentality where city living is an automatic sin.

Other notes

  • The version of “Hell-bound Train” you are watching is a reconstruction pieced together from different surviving prints of the film. As previously alluded to, there were multiple versions of “Hell-bound Train” over the years, some with different intertitles, alternate footage, or a restructured order of events. Shoutout to Steven Torriano Berry and Gloria Gibson for their early efforts to restore this film, which ultimately led to the version we have today.
  • From the start you know what kind of movie this is going to be once the Devil shows up, dressed in the Halloween costume version we associate with the Prince of Darkness. In fact, he’s dressed almost identically to the way I was in “Ghost Bros.” (A small point of pride: We filmed that in February 2020 and I’ve lost a considerable amount of weight since then).
  • The first car on our tour of this heck-bound train is reserved for the sin of dancing, which starts this movie off on a “Footloose” vibe. By the way, when is that making the NFR? Seems like the kind of ’80s popcorn movie they love throwing on the list.
  • This film posits that the dancing of the day is indecent, and I see what they mean; these kids are dancing way too close together. As one of my teachers said at my middle school dance, “Save room for Jesus!” (Odd considering I went to public school).
  • Every time – and I mean every single time – a sin is committed in this movie, there is an intertitle telling us that the Devil is rejoicing in this, followed by a shot of our Halloween Devil gleefully jumping up and down. Seriously, this would make a good drinking game. Speaking of…
  • Second car – Drunkenness. And among the sinners on this car are another sign of the times: Bootleggers!
  • When are they gonna get to the rich people cars at the front of the train?
  • I love all the shots of the train speeding by, clearly filmed as real trains happened to pass by the shooting location. There’s also a great shot where we follow the train, meaning the Gists are either driving alongside the train or filming on another train traveling in the same direction. Either way, it’s impressive.
  • Third car – Jazz! Oof that’s a rough one. What’s so bad about jazz? Is it because it was new? If the Gists really wanted to incorporate jazz, they would make this movie about the sins you don’t commit. 
  • The next car is reserved for “Thieves, Crooks, & Grafters”, which was a Cher song if I’m not mistaken. Also, did they mean “grifters”? I’ve heard of grafting, but I’ve never heard the term grafter.
  • Any vignette that doesn’t end with a character dying of their committed sin ends instead with them being arrested by the police (And don’t worry, the Devil rejoices in those too). A few of these sequences continue with our main sinners in prison, wearing the classic black-and-white striped uniforms and breaking rocks, two clichés that were phased out decades ago, but are still the cultural shorthand for prisoners.
  • Next up, Murderers & Gamblers. I’m enjoying the random pairing of these two, as if gambling always leads to murder, or vice versa.
  • I noticed there’s a lot of references to daughters in this film. Young women dancing are “someone’s daughter”, gamblers corrupting your daughter, etc. Know your audience, I guess.
  • Next car: Immorality. Oh come on, that’s just an umbrella term for everything covered so far. You’re not even trying anymore. This is also the segment in which a young girl emulates her parents’ behavior and smokes a cigarette! At first I was very concerned for this child’s health and well-being, but then I remembered it was the ’30s and that kid was probably already up to three packs a day.
  • This movie shows us at two separate points that close dancing leads immediately to having a baby. Those jump cuts do a lot of heavy lifting. After the second instance, this movie delivers an unexpected gut-punch: the near-death of a woman who takes “medicine to avoid becoming a mother”, which this movie declares is “murder IN COLD BLOOD”. I know the severe condemnation is intentional, but Jesus Q. Christ! It’s all fun and games until we bring up birth control.
  • The next car is “Backsliders, Hypocrites, [and] Used-to-Be Church Members”. By this movie’s logic, 99.9% of the world population has sinned. The Gists weren’t leaving your church until everyone in that room felt guilty for something.
  • Car number seven (although I think the filmmakers lost count at this point) is “Overcrowded with Liars”. [Insert Your Own Political Joke Here]
  • Among those liars are “false preachers”. You mean like Paul Robeson and Robert Mitchum? Were fake churches really that big a scam back in the day? Seems like quite a commitment to pull off successfully. And what’s a travelling evangelist like James Gist doing railing against preachers who come out of nowhere and take your money?
  • Also a sin: worshiping automobiles. I would argue that the greater sin is to make an incredibly boring counterculture movie about worshipping automobiles.
  • As we wrap things up with a guy dressed like the Grim Reaper welcoming the arriving train as it speeds into a tunnel, we get an amazing shot of a model train on fire, representing a trip to Hell. This is amateur filmmaking at its finest. “Hell-bound Train” could have been shorter, but that ending is worth the wait.

Legacy

  • James and Eloyce Gist followed up “Hell-bound Train” with another morality film: “Verdict Not Guilty” (um…spoiler). A third film – “Heaven Bound Travelers” – only exists in small excerpts and appears to have never been completed. Eloyce never made another film after James’ death in 1940, focusing instead on her writing. Following Eloyce’s death in 1974, the surviving elements of the Gist films were donated by their family to the Library of Congress. After the aforementioned efforts to reconstruct the film over the decades, “Hell-bound Train” received a digital restoration in 2016 when Kino Lorber released the film as part of their “Pioneers of African American Cinema” disc.
  • Almost every article I have read about “Hell-bound Train” was published post-2016, with a majority of them being written in the last two years since the film made the Registry. It’s exciting to think that this 93-year-old film’s cultural legacy is just beginning as movie lovers and historians discover it for the first time. And that’s the power of the NFR bump.

#665) The Atomic Cafe (1982)

#665) The Atomic Cafe (1982)

OR “Apocalypse Then”

Directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, & Pierce Rafferty

Class of 2016

You can watch the entire film for free on Kino Lorber’s YouTube channel.

The Plot: In the early 1980s, when Reagan-era politics reignited the nuclear arms race, we revisited the first era of Cold War paranoia with “The Atomic Cafe”. Clips from dozens of government propaganda films, newsreels, and TV interviews are spliced together in a “compilation vérité”: no narrator, no modern-day interviews for context, just archival footage illustrating how the invention of the nuclear bomb in 1945 quickly escalated into a full-on arms race, and how the US government used the surrounding fear to keep its citizens in line. The footage is edited to highlight the absurdities of the era, as well as the darkness of a government trying to normalize this new weapon of mass destruction.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “a unique document of the 1940s-1960s era” and praises the “vast, yet entertaining, collage of clips”. An essay by the University of Kent’s John Wills contextualizes the film’s production.

But Does It Really?: Oh sure. I enjoyed this movie a lot, or at least as much as I can enjoy a movie about such a dark subject matter. “The Atomic Cafe” is on the list for its succinct representation of Cold War politics, and its unique presentation makes it more accessible than a lot of its contemporaries. Part documentary, part collage, part cautionary tale, “The Atomic Cafe” isn’t an essential American film, but is an alternatingly humorous and terrifying account of essential American history. On a list with its share of government propaganda, I’m glad the Registry found room for a post-modernist takedown like “The Atomic Cafe”.

Shout Outs: It wouldn’t be a film about atomic age propaganda without an appearance from our friend Burt the Turtle in “Duck and Cover“. The NFR write-up also mentions the use of “The House in the Middle“, though I wasn’t able to confirm its appearance here. And among the needle drops from old film scores is the theme from “The Killers” by Miklós Rózsa.

Everybody Gets One: While in San Francisco, Pierce Rafferty found a catalog of US Government films and was intrigued by their unique titles such as “You Can’t Get Away With It“. He convinced his brother Kevin – then a CalArts film student – to work on a film highlighting their fascination with government propaganda. Journalist Jayne Loader was brought on board, and helped narrow the focus of the movie on government films pertaining to the Cold War and atomic bomb. The trio sifted through an estimated 10,000 hours of footage and outtakes for their 86 minute movie. While most of these films were in the public domain, a majority of the movie’s $300,000 budget went to acquiring the rights to the remaining footage, as well as the soundtrack.

Title Track: The Atomic Cafe is the name of an actual cafe seen about 72 minutes into the movie, in the midst of a montage of all the random things that got nuclear names at the time.

Seriously, Oscars?: No Oscar nomination for “The Atomic Cafe”, though it was nominated at the BAFTA’s, and the Boston Society of Film Critics gave it their Best Documentary prize. The Oscar’s Best Documentary winner that year was “Just Another Missing Kid”, John Zaritsky’s film about the disappearance of a Canadian teenager in Nebraska in 1978.

Other notes 

  • The print of “Atomic Cafe” I watched was the 2018 restoration by the good people at Kino Lorber, supervised by the original filmmakers. The film’s NFR designation is mentioned upfront, and the NFR logo appears during the restoration credits at the very end.
  • There is something to be said about only using archival footage for this film. Obviously, even without a narrator, the clips are being edited to manipulate a narrative, but so much of that narrative is already baked into the footage: the awkward speeches, the fear mongering, the deliberate lies. Everything that needs to be said can be found within the subtext of the original footage.
  • The filmmakers do an excellent job of showing the ripple effect of how the first atomic bomb led to the end of one war and beginning of another. And it all escalates so quickly, much like how I imagine it must have felt in real life. It’s saying something when your movie can only touch on the McCarthy hearings and the Rosenberg executions for only a few brief moments. But then again, if you’re looking for a streamlined documentary about the McCarthy hearings, the NFR has got you covered.
  • It was very interesting watching this film so shortly after seeing “Oppenheimer” (a movie that I owe a second viewing that isn’t immediately followed by “Barbie”). In fact, “Oppenheimer” serves as an excellent primer to “Atomic Cafe”, which picks up more or less where the Nolan film left off. If nothing else, it made me appreciate the appearance in this film of Lewis Strauss, the Chair of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and future Robert Downey Jr. awards-bait. Strauss is on hand to downplay the nuclear fallout at Rongerik and Utirik, two islands downwind of the nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll in 1954. Strauss speech is intercut with footage of the Marshallese and their obvious signs of acute radiation syndrome.
  • In addition to Strauss, this movie has a lot of notable politicians sprinkled throughout, including future presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan (’80s filmmakers loved their ironic Reagan footage). Also on hand is Senator Owen Brewster, remembered today as Alan Alda’s character in “The Aviator”, and Representative Lloyd Bentsen, who would go on to famously tell Dan Quayle “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
  • For a movie hailed as being so funny, I actually found this an unsettling watch. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have the nostalgic lens of Boomers who grew up with this atomic culture, who can afford to look back on their childhoods as adults and laugh. Sure I learned about the Cold War in high school (kinda), but seeing actual footage of the frenzy that Americans whipped themselves up into is a distressing viewing experience. In some ways the film is even more relevant now than in 1982. I recognize so many of the same scare tactics in today’s cable news and clickbait headlines, applicable to any hot button issue a politician wants to scare their followers with. To paraphrase from this movie, it can happen here today, and it can be a lot worse.
  • Wow, I did not realize how many songs there were about nuclear bombs. This movie’s soundtrack has such ’50s classics as “Atom Bomb Baby”, “Atomic Love”, and “Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb”. There’s so many of these that the movie had a soundtrack album! One song that has actually come up on this blog before is Bill Haley And His Comets’ “Thirteen Women (And Only One Man In Town)”, sung from the perspective of the lone male survivor of an atomic bomb. Unfortunate subject matter aside, you’re probably more familiar with that record’s B-side: “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock”.
  • The final sequence in the film is an approximation of what a nuclear attack would have been like in the ’50s, with the nuclear family (another atomic namesake) heading into their fallout shelters and waiting out the bombing. The film ends with Father telling his kids to sweep up the glass and debris while they just relax and wait for the authorities to tell them what to do. I know it’s supposed to be funny, but I just found it all disturbing.

Legacy 

  • “The Atomic Cafe” marks the only directing credit for either Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty, though Loader continues to write, and Pierce would go on to found the stock footage library Petrified Films. Kevin Rafftery’s next film was 1991’s “Blood in the Face”, which uses this movie’s archival footage approach to discuss American Neo-Nazism.
  • “Atomic Cafe” was one of several films released in the late ’70s/early ’80s about the fears of nuclear power, including “The China Syndrome”, “Silkwood”, and the TV movie “The Day After” to name a few.
  • Interestingly enough, it is speculated that “Duck and Cover” got a resurge in popularity thanks to its appearance in this film.
  • Perhaps this film’s biggest influence: among its devotees was a young journalist named Michael Moore, who reached out to Kevin Rafferty and asked how exactly the film was made. Rafftery passed on his knowledge, and even assisted Moore as a cinematographer on his first film: “Roger & Me“. And now you know the rest of the story!

#664) The Perils of Pauline (1914)

#664) The Perils of Pauline (1914)

OR “Pearl, Interrupted”

Directed by Louis J. Gasnier and Donald MacKenzie

Written by Charles W. Goddard and Basil Dickey. Based on the novel by Goddard.

Class of 2008

The Plot: Pauline Marvin (Pearl White) is a young woman who dreams of living a life of adventure before she settles down with her beau Harry (Crane Wilbur). Around the time she makes this vow, her adoptive father Sanford (Edward José) dies, leaving his fortune to Pauline, which she will inherit as soon as she marries Harry. Sanford’s secretary Koerner (Paul Panzer) knows he will get the money if Pauline dies before getting married, so he attempts a series of plots (perils, if you will) to murder Pauline. In this nine-part serial, a typical episode is Pauline setting off on an adventure, Koerner hiring a shady character to kill her during said adventure, and Pauline getting out of harm’s way just in time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Why It Matters: While the NFR admits that “Pauline” is “now regarded as a satirical cliché of the movie industry”, they give the series its due as “among the first American movie serials” and gives a pre-feminist shoutout to Pearl White.

But Does It Really?: I suppose. We don’t have a lot of serials on this list, and it makes sense to include the first successful one. I tried to space out my viewing of these episodes to one every few days, but even then these were a slog to get through. Once you get the hang of what each episode is like, there isn’t a lot of variety to spice things up. Still, you can trace a lot of influence back to “Pauline”: from melodramas and their tropes all the way to modern binge-watching. “The Perils of Pauline” earns its spot on the list as the film serial that started it all, but this is another viewing reserved for people like me forcing themselves to go through this list.

Everybody Gets One: Pearl White lived a life as exciting as her cinematic counterpart, performing on stage at age six and eventually working as a bareback rider in the circus. As a young adult she traveled South America as a singer until she developed voice problems, which naturally led her to a career in silent films. White was already a regular at Pathé Frères when “Pauline” came her way, and the serial made her a star.

Other notes 

  • “The Perils of Pauline” was produced by none other than William Randolph Hearst! This was just a few years before he founded his own production company – Cosmopolitan Productions – and became involved with film star Marion Davies. This serial was a co-production with Pathé, a French film company that is still around today.
  • Originally released as a 20 part series, the surviving version of “Pauline” is an edited, re-shuffled nine part version released in theaters around 1916. The most notable difference is that the main villain, known as Raymond Owen in the original release, has been renamed Koerner because of the strong anti-German sentiment during the Great War. This post covers the edited cut, with notes on where these episodes appeared in the original 20 part series.
  • Among the episodes lost to time: Pauline being held hostage in a Chinese temple, acting in a movie (meta!), landing a plane by herself, and fighting a giant ape.

Episode 1: Trial by Fire (Original Cut: Episodes 1, 6, & 7)

  • We start off with the standard “pilot” stuff as mentioned in the plot synopsis, and Koerner’s first attempts to kill Pauline involve setting her out in a hot air balloon, abandoning her by the edge of a cliff (the famous New Jersey Palisades), and trapping her inside a burning house. All this, and she’s got eight more episodes to go? She’s resilient, I give her that.
  • Oh man, this serial needs a restoration, stat. The version I watched is clearly a VHS rip of a duplicate film print. We are nowhere near the original film elements and it shows.
  • Sure it’s impressive that Pearl White did her own stunts, but that’s a lot of actual peril putting your actors in a burning building. I’m surprised film actors didn’t unionize right then and there.
  • This re-edit does a lousy job with the cliffhangers. Episode 1 ends with Pauline being rescued from the burning house. Shouldn’t it end with her still trapped in the house, to be resolved next week? And before that she was literally hanging off a cliff. It was right there! Instead we get Pauline safe and sound at home, with a tacked on question mark in the final moments. This question mark appears at the end of every episode, becoming more and more useless with each ending.

Episode 2: The Goddess of the Far West (Original Cut: Episodes 7 & 8)

  • Pauline heads west and is kidnapped by some bandits hired by Koerner, then rescued by an Indigenous tribe who think she’s their god.
  • Another on-going issue with this print is the intertitles. The surviving version of “Pauline” is a French print, so these titles are translated back into English with mixed results. That being said, I’m enjoying the random words they choose to hyphenate, like “cow-boys” and “high-way”.

Episode 3: The Pirate Treasure (Original Cut: Episodes 3 & 4)

  • Blinky Bill the Pirate is hired to take Pauline out on a boat, abandon ship, and set off a bomb hidden in the boat. I’m beginning to sense that these are all like Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner shorts, except way less entertaining (same amount of spoken dialogue though). We don’t even see the bomb explode! Definitely not hitting the “peril” aspect this week.
  • And because we can never have nice things, Harry disguises himself as the ship’s cook in FULL BLACKFACE. I mean, I really should have expected that from a 1914 serial, but geez Louise.

Episode 4: The Deadly Turning (Original Cut: Episode 15)

Episode 5: A Watery Doom (Original Cut: Episode 14)

  • Koerner hires a band of “gypsies” (who look more like pirates) to kidnap Pauline and Harry, trap them in the cellar of an abandoned mill, and drown them. Didn’t we already have a drowning scheme? Back in the cave in the Western one? I guess if you saw these bi-weekly you had time to forget.
  • My main problem with this whole serial is the overall lack of suspense. There’s a way to do this kind of cliffhanger serial and give it the element of “How are they gonna get out of this one?” (The James Bond and Indiana Jones films are both great examples of this). I know Pauline is going to escape, but it never feels interesting or earned. I guess it was easier to entertain back in 1914. Whatever. Next!

Episode 6: The Shattered Plane (Original Cut: Episode 2)

  • Koerner tries to get Pauline to fly in one of those newfangled aeroplanes, which one of his cohorts secretly tampers with. It helps that the plane is a Wright Flyer, so Koerner doesn’t need to do anything; that thing’s already a deathtrap.
  • I like the moment when Koerner worries that Pauline will be late for the flight. It’s like the old punchline “Gee, I hope nothing happened to her.”
  • Another problem I have with this serial: Too much lead-up to a thing, not enough time on the actual thing. After the promise of a dangerous flight, most of this episode is Pauline trying to get to the airfield. And then when she gets there, SHE DOESN’T EVEN GET ON THE PLANE! You can’t really deliver on peril if you don’t put your hero in the perilous situation.

Episode 7: The Tragic Plunge (Original Cut: Episode 18)

  • Koerner outsources this week’s scheme to Mlle. Yagow, who gets Pauline onboard a submarine with a bomb! That’s right, another “bomb on a boat” episode. I guess there are only so many ways to kill someone. At least this one has a few underwater shots (well, underwater via an obvious set) as Pauline escapes the sub via the torpedo tube.

Episode 8: The Serpent in the Flowers (Original Cut: Episodes 12 & 13)

  • Koerner once again hires “gypsies” to kidnap Pauline. Only this time, after Pauline escapes, one of them vows revenge by placing a snake inside a basket of flowers. I assumed this title would be metaphorical but nope, there’s a motherf***ing snake in these motherf***ing flowers.
  • The serpent in the flowers plotline finishes halfway through this episode, with the second half being devoted to a steeplechase in which Koerner drugs Pauline’s horse, causing it to wildly convulse during the race and throw Pauline off. I feel like you could have made this episode a standalone and bumped the series up to an even 10.

Episode 9: The Floating Coffin (Original Cut: Episode 20)

  • In the final episode, Pauline and Harry go on yet another boat, with Koerner half-assing it by cutting a hole in a rowboat Pauline takes on a mini-excursion with her dog Rusty. They escape the sinking boat, only to find themselves on an abandoned ship being used by the Navy for target practice. All ends well as Pauline is rescued by the U.S. Navy and decides that she is through with adventures and will settle down with Harry. Oh, and Koerner falls overboard and drowns, but no one seems to notice or care.

Legacy 

  • “The Perils of Pauline” was a hit upon release. Pathé immediately followed up with “The Exploits of Elaine“, while Kalem Studios responded in kind with “The Hazards of Helen”. All of these serials have fused together in the public consciousness to become the standard damsel-in-distress melodrama clichés (think Nell from “Dudley Do-Right” or Penelope Pitstop from “Wacky Racers”).
  • Pearl White would go on to star in the aforementioned “Exploits of Elaine”, which was even more successful than “Pauline”. She spent most of the 1910s as “Queen of the Serials” before retiring from film in the early 1920s.
  • “The Perils of Pauline” was remade as a serial in 1933, and as a film in 1947 and 1967. It should be noted, however, that the only connection any of these have to the original serial is the title. Heck, the ’47 movie is a fictionalized biopic of Pearl White with Betty Hutton.

Further Viewing: One item that pops up in a lot of write-ups about “Perils of Pauline” is the melodrama trope of the woman tied to the railroad tracks. While this never happens in “Pauline”, it does occur in other films of the time such as “The Hazards of Helen” and “Teddy at the Throttle”, with these films being conflated with “Pauline” over time. I know it’s a stretch, but shouldn’t one of these be on the NFR?