The Horse's Head

#517) The Last Command (1928)

OR “From Russia Without Love”

Directed by Josef von Sternberg

Written by John F. Goodrich. Story by von Sternberg & Lajos Bíró. Titles by Herman J. Mankiewicz

Class of 2006

The Plot: In 1928 Hollywood, Eureka Studios is casting extras for a war epic, and hires Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings), who claims to have been a General in Czarist Russia. A lengthy flashback to 1917 Russia reveals that Sergius was indeed a General, as well as the Czar’s cousin. While in command, Sergius learns of Leo Andreyev and Natalie Dabrova (William Powell and Evelyn Brent), two actors who are secretly revolutionists with a mission to assassinate the General. Sergius has Leo imprisoned, but begins to develop feelings for Natalie, who reciprocates after seeing his devotion to Russia. Can this romance last in the face of revolution?

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “powerful” and says that Jannings’ performance “towers over the screen”. The write-up also calls the ending “one of cinema’s most memorable”.

But Does It Really?: Am I missing something? Everything I’ve read talks about “The Last Command” being an unforgettable masterpiece, but nothing about my viewing could back that up. Yes, it’s well made, and Jannings is giving a great central performance, but overall it didn’t grab me. Josef von Sternberg is represented elsewhere on this list (see “Morocco” and “The Docks of New York“), so this seems like an excuse to include another one of his movies. In fact, almost everything I’ve read about “The Last Command” clumps it together with these other films as an example of von Sternberg’s early work. “The Last Command” is a fine showing for von Sternberg, but can it stand on its own as a classic?

Everybody Gets One: By the late 1920s, German actor Emil Jannings had found success on both stage and screen (including F.W. Murnau’s “The Last Laugh”). Through an agreement with his home studio UFA, Jannings (as well as other actors and creatives) was loaned out to Paramount in Hollywood, and was immediately cast as the lead in films like “Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh“.

Wow, That’s Dated: Mainly the Hollywood system of the late 1920s, complete with gate-crashing extras and mood music. Also, the $7.50 a day Sergius makes as an extra would be about $114 today.

Title Track: Towards the end, the revolutionist in the movie-within-a-movie tells Sergius “[y]ou’ve given your last command”. So close.

Seriously, Oscars?: At the very first Oscar ceremony, “The Last Command” received two nominations. The film lost Best Writing, Original Story to “Underworld” (another von Sternberg picture), but Emil Jannings won the first Academy Award for Best Actor (along with his performance in the now-lost “The Way of All Flesh”). The winners were announced prior to the ceremony, and knowing he would be leaving America for his native Germany, Jannings wired the Academy with the message “Hand me now already the statuette.” Jannings received his Oscar a month before the ceremony, making him the first Oscar recipient. 

Other notes

• The idea for “The Last Command” came from Ernst Lubitsch, still an up-and-coming director/screenwriter in the late 1920s. Years earlier, Lubitsch had met General Theodore Lodigensky, who had fled the Communist revolution in Russia and was operating a Russian restaurant in New York. Lubitsch later spotted him in Hollywood as an extra, wearing his general’s uniform. Lubitsch recounted this to Lajos Bíró, who turned the story into a screenplay, originally titled “The General” (I guess he had never heard of Buster Keaton).
• Following brief stints with MGM and Charlie Chaplin, Josef von Sternberg landed at Paramount, and his first movie for the studio – the gangster picture “Underworld” – was a huge success. Paramount essentially gave von Sternberg carte blanche for his next project, and the director picked “The General”, now known as “The Last Command”, as his follow-up.
• I will say, Emil Jannings is quite good in this. Of course it helps that everyone in the opening Hollywood scenes are hamming it up quite a bit, making his performance seem all the more subtle by comparison. Side Note: With the beard, Jannings kinda looks like The Man Who Came to Dinner.
• Once we get to the 1917 portion of the movie, you can see that no expense was spared: big sets, large crowds of extras. Almost 100 years later you can recognize that this film had a larger budget than your normal fare.

• It’s nice to see William Powell playing a down-and-dirty revolutionist, as opposed to the more sophisticated Nick Charles types he would later be pigeonholed as.
• The main thing that threw me off about “The Last Command” is its tone. The Hollywood prologue suggests a more light-hearted movie: not a full-on comedy, but something more in line with Lubitsch’s later work. The Russia storyline, however, becomes more dramatic (and melodramatic), with an occasional bit of comic relief. “The Last Command” feels like an early pass at “To Be or Not To Be“, complete with actors getting mixed up in political intrigue.
• This is the second movie I’ve covered this month that devotes extended screentime to an elaborate military processional. Coincidentally, one of Josef von Sternberg’s first jobs at Paramount was assisting with the mammoth editing of “The Wedding March“.
• This is my first venture into the work of Josef von Sternberg, and while I didn’t care for the movie overall, “Last Command” definitely shows off von Sternberg’s mastery of composition, close-ups, and effective editing. I look forward to viewing his later, better known films.
• The final scene between Sergius and Natalie is definitely a heartbreaker, but is somewhat stunted by the obvious model train used for its climax. Cool stunt, though.
• Easily the most dated reference in the movie: a film extra is told his beard “looks like an ad for cough drops”, which I assume is a reference to Smith Brothers Cough Drops, but that’s only after some deep Googling.
• While I disagree that the film’s ending is “one of cinema’s most memorable”, it is an effectual bit of cinematic irony (He’s the actor now. Get it?). This ending may also be one of filmdom’s first examinations of the kind of PTSD experienced by war veterans.

Legacy

• Janning’s Hollywood career ended with the advent of talkies, his thick German accent being too difficult to understand. He returned to Germany, and spent the rest of his career making Nazi propaganda. That’s right, the first Oscar winner for Best Actor was complicit with the Nazis. Maybe they should have given the Oscar to Rin Tin Tin after all.
• Josef von Sternberg continued cranking out movies for Paramount, but it was a loaned-out assignment for Germany’s UFA that gave him his first classic. “The Blue Angel” was intended as a vehicle for Emil Jannings, but his co-star Marlene Dietrich stole the show. Von Sternberg would bring Dietrich back to Paramount with him and make six more movies together, including “Morocco“.

• In terms of legacy, “The Last Command” has received no remakes or homages, and it barely gets mentioned in the conversation of classic silent films. It wasn’t even that successful when it came out! I suspect it’s our continued reverence to Josef von Sternberg (and the film’s place in Oscar history) that has kept “The Last Command” from completely fading away.

#516) Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina, May 1940 (1940)

OR “The Mark of Zora”

Directed by Zora Neale Hurston

Class of 2005

Not a lot of clips I could easily imbed for this post, so here’s a video on Zora Neale Hurston.

NOTE: Zora Neale Hurston’s raw footage of “Commandment Keeper Church” is 42 minutes, and this write-up is based on my viewing of a 16-minute edit made available on The Criterion Channel. 

OTHER NOTE: Zora Neale Hurston is a very important, nuanced figure in not only African-American history but also American history period. This post can only scratch the surface, and researching her life and work is well worth your time. A good starting point is her official website! 

The Plot: On the weekend of May 18th-19th, 1940, African-American anthropologist and author Zora Neale Hurston arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina with a skeleton crew to record the religious services at Commandment Keeper Church. The raw footage, mixed in some prints with raw audio of the visit, commemorates an energetic gathering at the church, complete with musical performances and an enthusiastic sermon. What seems like an ordinary church service is a record of specific time and place from one of the 20th century’s most notable Americans.

Why It Matters: The NFR admits that the film is “worthy of recognition” because of the then-recently discovered sound recordings that had been synched to the film. There’s also a more supportive essay by religious expert Fayth M. Parks, who is so far the only NFR essayist who mentions their Twitter account.

But Does It Really?: You had me at Zora Neale Hurston. I’m embarrassed to say I knew nothing about Ms. Hurston prior to this viewing, and researching her life for this post has been a satisfying experience. Like the congregation at Commandment Keeper Church, I have seen the light, and recognize Zora Neale Hurston for the significant figure she is. No argument here for the film’s NFR inclusion.

Everybody Gets One: Zora Neale Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-black cities in America. It was during her time at Barnard College that Hurston started to seriously study anthropology, earning her degree in the subject in 1928. Hurston focused on studying various black cultures both in America and abroad. In addition, her research served as inspiration for her fiction novels, most notably the Harlem Renaissance classic “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. In 1940, fellow anthropologist Jane Belo commissioned Hurston to film religious services in Beaufort, South Carolina based on the success of Margaret Meade’s “Trance and Dance in Bali”.

Wow, That’s Dated: As a pseudo-sequel to the Solomon Sir Jones films, “Commandment Keeper” shows the evolution of “Sunday Best” clothing 15 years later. And Beaufort’s warmer weather gives us a better look at the suits and dresses no longer covered in winter coats.

Other notes

• If you’re watching this footage with audio, keep in mind it’s not meant to synchronize with the film. The audio is courtesy of the Hurston collection in the Library of Congress, based on field recordings made at the same time as this film. The sound was recorded at a different speed than the film, making total synchronization a challenge for the Library of Congress.
• I appreciate Commandment Keeper Church’s simple mission: You see those ten rules in stone? That’s what we’re going by.
• The service at Commandment Keeper Church is very different from my experience in Catholic mass growing up. For starters, I was told to remain seated. But what if the spirit moves me?
• It’s hard to understand what this congregation is actually singing, but you don’t need subtitles to know what they’re feeling.
• There are a variety of percussion instruments being used here, but someone really loves cymbals, there are at least three pairs. Of course, with the right attitude, any two objects can become cymbals.
• Look for Zora Neale Hurston making a director’s cameo playing a pair of rattles.
• My takeaway from this film (especially once it moves outdoors) is that a church isn’t just a building; it’s a state of being anytime a group of devout followers gather. Not bad for a religious cynic like me.

Legacy

• Like many of the greats, Zora Neale Hurston didn’t start getting serious recognition until long after her passing. Interest in Hurston’s work was revived in the early 2000s, resulting in a slew of tributes and honors. In 2014, she received the highest honor bestowed on any American: a Google Doodle.

• Zora Neale Hurston is so prolific that she’s still getting new material published! Her non-fiction book “Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo’” about the Atlantic slave trade failed to find a publisher in 1931 and was stored away for decades until being rediscovered in the early 2000s. “Barracoon” was finally published in 2018, 58 years after Hurston’s death.

• In 1971, future “The Color Purple” novelist Alice Walker found the unmarked grave Zora Neale Hurston was buried in, and paid for a new marker praising Hurston as “A Genius of the South.”

NOTE: For this post, I initially watched what I thought was the full, uncut version of “Empire”. Unfortunately it turned out that this was not Andy Warhol’s version, but rather a recreation by a devoted fan (Which I would have noticed had I read the video description. That’ll learn me). The longest excerpt of “Empire” readily available online is a 61 minute video embedded below. As with a handful of other entries on this blog, consider this a placeholder post to be reevaluated once I watch the entire film.

#515) Empire (1964)

OR “485 Minutes of Fame”

Directed by Andy Warhol and John Palmer

Class of 2004

There’s no way I can cover everything about Andy Warhol and pop art in this post, but Warhol’s work is fascinating and definitely worth a look. A good place to start is the official website for the Andy Warhol Museum in his home town of Pittsburgh.

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The Plot: The Empire State Building.

That’s it. That’s the whole movie. It’s one static shot of the Empire State Building from late evening to early morning. That’s your movie. But why look at the Empire State Building for a few moments when you can watch it for 485 minutes (a little over 8 hours)?

Why It Matters: The NFR calls it “[p]erhaps Warhol’s most famous and influential cinematic work”, and stating that the film “redefines concepts of perception, action and cinematic time.” The write-up also includes a photo of the Empire State Building…in 1937. Interesting choice.

But Does It Really?: I will never scale Everest, nor will I see many of the Earth’s natural wonders, but today I watched Andy Warhol’s “Empire” from start to finish [UPDATE: I didn’t]. Andy Warhol is the definitive pop artist of the 20th century, and his work should be preserved wherever it can. Having one of Warhol’s films on the NFR is a natural choice, and “Empire” stands out for its innovation and continued polarizing reception (“Nothing happens!”). A yes for “Empire” and its NFR inclusion, but please, you don’t need to spend eight hours watching this. Let that be my cross to bear. [Eventually]

Everybody Gets One: Andy Warhol spent most of the ’50s as an advertising illustrator in New York, doing his own work on the side and gaining interest in the rising pop art movement. His success as a pop art painter led to his expansion to other artforms, including music, and of course movies. Warhol attended the premiere of the 1962 static musical composition “Trio for Strings” and was inspired to create the first “static film”. His first such film was 1963’s “Sleep”, 321 minutes of Warhol’s then-partner John Giorno sleeping.

Seriously, Oscars?: Oh how I wish “Empire” (or any of Warhol’s films) had gotten some Oscar attention. Imagine how long the acceptance speech would have been…

Other notes 

• In 1930, construction began on a new office building that would replace the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Financed by Empire State Inc., the building was originally to be 50 stories tall, but the “race to the sky” skyscraper competition of the late 1920s led to the plans being revised. The Empire State Building was completed in 1931, coming in at 102 stories and 1,454 feet tall, a world record at the time.
• The idea for “Empire” came when filmmaker John Palmer was working for Jonas Mekas’ Film Maker’s Cooperative and took naps on the roof, which offered an impressive view of the Empire State Building. In 1964, the Empire State received floodlights so that the top of the landmark could be seen from that summer’s World’s Fair. Palmer thought the image of the building in floodlights would make a good Warhol film, and Mekas sold Warhol on the idea. Warhol repeatedly stated that the purpose of the film is “to see time go by”.
• “Empire” was shot on the 41st floor of the Time-Life Building, about a mile away from the Empire State Building. Filming commenced at 8:06pm on Friday, July 24^th, 1964, ending at 2:42am on Saturday, July 25^th. Warhol, Palmer, Mekas, and a few others were at the shoot, and I wish that they had recorded the sound. To be a fly on that wall.
• While “Empire” was shot at the standard framerate of 24 frames per second, Warhol had the film screened at 16 fps, extending the runtime by about 20%.
• Warhol initially didn’t have any money to pay the film processor, so John Palmer agreed to co-finance, on the condition he receive co-director credit on the final film.
• Watch closely during the reel changes; Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas had to turn on the lights during the reel changes, and you can occasionally see their reflections at the beginning of a few reels.
• Last summer I visited the Andy Warhol exhibit at the SFMoMA, going in with only the CliffsNotes version of Warhol (“the Campbell’s Soup guy with the hair”). While I’m sure there’s plenty of layers and commentary I didn’t get from viewing his art, they all had the same message for me: Look closer. You see this soup can every day, but have you ever really looked at? What about Marilyn Monroe’s face or the dollar bill? What do you notice when you really look at them? In “Empire”, we get that same idea in film: What if you just stared at a national landmark for 8 hours? What would you see? Personally I saw an iconic building that maintains its uniqueness amidst a sea of other well-known skyscrapers. A landmark’s landmark, if you will.

Legacy 

• “Empire” premiered in March 1965 at the City Hall Cinema in Manhattan, and according to the Village Voice, a large amount of the opening night audience walked out after 10 minutes demanding their money back.
• In a span of 14 years, Andy Warhol made 60 films and hundreds of shorts, though became more removed from the process following being shot at in 1968.
• In the early 1970s, Warhol removed his films – including “Empire” – from circulation. After Warhol’s death in 1987, his films were revived and re-evaluated. In the interim, “Empire” had received a reputation of being “unwatchable”, which led to its notoriety. The film has since been screened in countless museums in exhibitions.
• I guess Jared Leto is playing Andy Warhol in a new movie? I don’t know…maybe Leto will put his Method Acting to good use and become a pop artist.
• Although it lost its standing as the New York’s tallest building in 1970 to the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building is still a New York landmark, and is visited by over four million tourists a year (Except maybe this year).

Further Viewing: I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that Andy Warhol appeared as himself in a 1985 episode of “The Love Boat”, in which he reunites with a former “Warhol Superstar” played by Marion Ross. It’s…something.

#514) The Wedding March (1928)

OR “The Honeymoon Is Over”

Directed by Erich von Stroheim

Written by von Stroheim and Harry Carr

Class of 2003 

The Plot: In Vienna on the verge of the Great War, Prince Nickolas (Erich von Stroheim) is encouraged by his parents (George Fawcett & Maude George) to marry for money instead of love. During a cavalry procession on Corpus Christi, Nickolas meets Mitzi (Fay Wray), a beautiful disabled woman who is engaged to abusive butcher Schani Eberle (Matthew Betz). While Nicki and Mitzi have a secret courtship, Nicki’s parents arrange for him to marry Cecelia Schweisser (ZaSu Pitts), the daughter of a wealthy factory owner. All of this comes to a head at –

Much like “The Wedding March”, the second half of this plot synopsis is missing, presumably lost forever.

Why It Matters: While the NFR write-up is a straightforward account of plot and production, the essay by film archivist Crystal Kui is a much more appreciative dissection of the movie.

But Does It Really?: My take on “The Wedding March” is about the same as my previous posts on von Stroheim’s films; a lavish production with an intriguing behind-the-scenes story, but ultimately a viewing experience reserved solely for film buffs. It doesn’t help that “Wedding March” is, in a sense, an incomplete film (more on that later). While Erich von Stroheim is an important filmmaker in the history of the movies, anything on this list other than “Greed” is, much like von Stroheim’s films, a bit excessive.

Everybody Gets One: Harry Carr was primarily a newspaper reporter, best known for his coverage of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. His subsequent film and theater criticism were also well received, and Erich von Stroheim was one of many filmmakers who called on Carr to co-write and “humanize” their screenplays.

Title Track: If you’re watching the 1998 restored version, you do indeed get to hear Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus“, aka “The Wedding March”. No one is certain when exactly we got the “Here Comes the Bride” lyrics, nor the line about “the bluest sky you’ve ever seen, in Seattle“.

Other notes 

• The main thing to know about “The Wedding March” is that what you’re watching is the surviving first half of a much longer movie. The second half of the original film followed Nicki and Cecelia on their honeymoon, with its own melodramatic, tragic results. We’ll discuss what became of “The Honeymoon” in the Legacy section.
• After parting ways with MGM in 1925, Erich von Stroheim persuaded independent producer Pat Powers to co-finance his next film. Powers was aware of von Stroheim’s difficult reputation, but was convinced he could reign von Stroheim in, and arranged for Paramount to distribute “The Wedding March”. Production of “The Wedding March” began in June 1926, and ended in January 1927; not because the film was done, but because Paramount shut down production after the budget quadrupled from $300,000 to $1,250,ooo.
• This movie answers the question “Name a second Fay Wray movie“. Speaking of, who do you think Fay Wray would rather work with again: von Stroheim or King Kong?
• Having now seen all three of von Stroheim’s NFR films, it’s interesting that they are all about money and how it motivates and/or corrupts people. It’s almost like von Stroheim had previous experience being financially irresponsible. I’m just glad he didn’t go into accounting.
• The Corpus Christi procession sequence is all of von Stroheim’s excess in one sequence: a full battalion with authentic outfits and weaponry, hundreds of extras, an exact replica of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and to top it all off, the whole sequence is in two-strip Technicolor!

• An example of von Stroheim’s authentic attention to detail: a recreation of an entire apple orchid with thousands of individual blossoms tied to each tree. As von Stroheim was quoted as saying about his critics, “They say I give them sewers – and dead cats! This time I am giving them Beauty. Beauty – and apple blossoms! More than they can stand!”

• So, everyone in Mitzi’s life is the absolute worst. Physical abuse, verbal abuse: I’m rooting for Mitzi and Nicki to get together just so she can escape from these awful people.
• Even by von Stroheim’s standards, every scene in this movie is torturously drawn out. Though to be fair, all of these scenes were supposed to be the set-up in a longer movie’s first half.
• The only people of color in this movie are the prostitutes in the brief orgy scene, and the demonic “Iron Man” at the end. Great, Erich, just great.
• Ah, drunken intertitles: a lost art-form. “Wedding March” opts for drunken title cards that double as stuttering. “y-you h-have – a n-nice son.”
• ZaSu Pitts really doesn’t get a lot to do in this movie. Maybe she had a bigger role in “The Honeymoon”?
• While trying to convince Nicki to marry Cecelia, Nicki’s mother Princess Maria sits on his lap. What is this, “Hamlet”?
• Von Stroheim takes the distressing wedding sequence from “Greed” and gives the climactic wedding ceremony here even more doom and gloom, including skeleton hands playing the organ! Seeing as how von Stroheim was on marriage #3 during production, I understand his expert knowledge/judgmental trepidation in regards to wedding ceremonies.
• The ending is definitely an unintentional letdown. Without the follow-up film, “The Wedding March” ends on a cliffhanger with no resolution that doubles as a very dour standalone conclusion.

Legacy 

• As we’ve come to expect from von Stroheim at this point, the first cut of “The Wedding March” was eight hours! Like “Greed”, von Stroheim intended to release “Wedding March” as two four-hour films, but Paramount called upon director Josef von Sternberg to cut the two films down to one film of manageable length. After an unsuccessful sneak preview, Paramount relented and released the film as two parts: “The Wedding March” and “The Honeymoon”.
• “The Wedding March” was released in October 1928. In the almost two years that the film spent in post-production, “talkies” became the new industry standard, with silent movies an outdated relic. “The Wedding March” was a box office failure, which caused Paramount to cancel the release of “The Honeymoon” (though it did end up being released in Europe and South America).
• After being fired from his next two films, Erich von Stroheim moved away from directing and pivoted towards acting. Highlights include Jean Renoir’s “La Grande Illusion” and Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard“.

• In the early 1950s, von Stroheim was given an opportunity by the Cinémathèque Française to recut “The Wedding March” and “The Honeymoon”, possibly the first known director’s cut of a film. Unfortunately, this cut, as well as the last known print of “The Honeymoon”, was destroyed in a fire at the Cinémathèque Française in 1959, making “The Honeymoon” a lost film.

#513) From Stump to Ship (1930)

OR “The Maine Event”

Directed by Alfred K. Ames and Dr. Howard Kane

Class of 2002

The Plot: The NFR heads up to Machias, Maine for “From Stump to Ship”. Like the title suggests, the film is a documentation of the logging industry in 1930, from the cutting of the trees to its transport down the Machias River, to its preparation in a lumber mill, to its final loading on a boat bound for New York. Filmed by politician Alfred K. Ames, who would often narrate the film during public screenings.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives a rundown, and praises Ames (and Dr. Howard Kane) for “creat[ing] a cinematic record of the lumber industry.” There’s also an essay by Karan Sheldon, New England film archivist and advocate for home movies and amateur films, making her the perfect person to cover “Stump”.

But Does It Really?: Oh yeah. “From Stump to Ship” definitely stands on its own piece of ground compared to other NFR films: a detailed look at the long-gone logging procedures of the 1930s, as well as the kind of presentations Alfred Ames would give to his constituents. Thanks to this 30-minute documentation, I feel wholly qualified to be a 1930s logger; and for that I support this film’s NFR designation.

Everybody Gets One: In addition to owning the Machias Lumber Company, Albert K. Ames was a noted Maine politician, serving three terms in the Maine Senate. While not a professional or amateur filmmaker, Ames was interested in filming the logging process for his future campaign for governor as a way to show people how successful his business was. Fun Fact: the K stands for Kellar.

Wow, That’s Dated: Besides the obvious evolutions in logging technology, Ames mentions one of his employees, “Al Smith, not of New York”, a reference to the former New York Governor of the same name.

Other notes

• While Ames was the main force behind the film, Washington D.C. physician Howard Kane was recruited to film footage from inside the sawmill. I’m still not sure how or why Kane got involved. While Ames makes several Hitchcock cameos throughout, Howard had to be coerced into his brief on-camera appearances. 
• What I most appreciate about this narration is that Alfred Ames credits everyone. As each of the loggers makes an appearance, Ames mentions them by name, making sure that these long-gone men get a reprieve from anonymity.
• The version I watched was the 1985 reconstruction with the original narration intact. This of course reignited my fascination with the Maine accent: Not quite posh New Englander, not quite slurred Bostontian. It always ends up sounding like Jimmy Stewart, or someone warning the teens about the haunted house down the road yonder.
• I want to know who looked at all these logs travelling down a river and thought, “This would make a great amusement park ride, but it should be themed around the most problematic IP possible.”
• I have a new goal in life, and it’s to confidently cross a river by walking on moving logs. Your move, Bakhtiari.
• Did you know that the phrases “high and dry” and “come hell or high water” both come from log driving terms? The things I learn while researching this blog…
• In the end, while the logging depicted in this film is an impressive undertaking of manpower, you can’t help but be saddened by the massive destruction of our forests. This may be the Lorax’s least favorite movie (besides “The Lorax“).

Legacy

• A few months after this footage was filmed, Alfred Ames sold 115,000 acres of wood to a paper mill company. While Ames never made another film, William Kane continued his hobby of amateur filmmaking for the rest of his life.
• Alfred Ames ran for Governor of Maine in 1932, using “From Stump to Ship” on his campaign tour. Ames lost this bid, as well as his subsequent campaign in 1934.
• Logging is still around, though river log driving was phased out in the ’70s due to environmental/safety hazards. That being said, logging is still one of the most dangerous industries in the U.S., with a fatality rate far higher than the national average.

• “From Stump to Ship” languished in obscurity until the early ’80s, when the Maine Humanities Council funded a reconstruction of the film, now called “From Stump to Ship: A 1930 Logging Film”. Ames’ original script was found, and actor Tim Sample was brought in to record the narration. More recent screenings have opted to use the original silent film with live narration.