The legacy of director Lois Weber
SHOES and THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI, silent dramas, not rated, The Screen, 3.5 chiles
Ask most people to identify the greatest filmmakers of the silent era, and they might mention Cecil B. DeMille or D.W. Griffith. They are far less likely to bring up Lois Weber — a sad fact, because back in the day, Weber was considered a true equal of DeMille and Griffith. She was not only the first woman to direct a feature-length silent film in Hollywood, but at one time, she was the most prominent and highest-paid filmmaker among all of those working for Universal Studios.
Weber is believed to be the first filmmaker ever to use a split-screen to depict side-by-side unfolding action. Besides directing, she did much of her own screenwriting and camerawork, and developed a reputation for her solid and peerless tracking shots. She also helped many women gain entry at Universal, not only as directors, but also as screenwriters, including Frances Marion, and a host of leading actresses, notably Mary MacLaren and Esther Ralston.
Why has Weber lapsed into obscurity? Simple. Most of the silent works produced at Universal are lost forever. Fires at the studio’s vaults wiped out much of its archives. Weber created more than 200 shorts and features, but now fewer than 20 remain in existence.
This week, The Screen presents two of Weber’s 1916 features, newly restored and rereleased in 2016 as part of a centennial celebration of the silent-era pioneer.
Shoes probably best exemplifies the social realism of Weber’s larger body of work. Also on tap is The
Dumb Girl of Portici, undoubtedly Weber’s grandest epic and the only movie starring Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.
Muckraking and social commentary were dominant impulses in the 1920s: Witness the novels of Upton Sinclair or the cityscape photographs of Jacob Riis. Weber drew from that tradition, often tackling thorny social issues in her films — poverty, birth control, and prostitution. Shoes introduces Mary MacLaren as Eva, a poor shopgirl who needs some new shoes. Her only pair is disintegrating. She has put in new soles a couple of times, but the leather gives way. She cuts out makeshift cardboard patches to try to keep everything from falling apart. But whenever it rains, the cardboard washes away, and she’s left desperate and stranded.
Shoes follows Eva at the five-and-dime store where she works and at her tenement home. All of her earnings go to buy food for her mother, her freeloading father, and her three younger sisters. When Mom reneges on a promise to get Eva new shoes, the girl makes a fateful decision. She will sell her virginity to the nightclub singer and cad Charlie, and use the extra income to buy a spiffy new pair of shoes. The film was adapted by Weber from a 1916 short story by Stella Wynne Herron, which in turn was inspired by reformer Jane Addams’ 1912 book on prostitution. It is a fast-moving melodrama that pretty much delivers exactly what you expect. The moralistic shadings
might seem a bit dated nowadays, but MacLaren’s performance is so natural and well grounded, you won’t feel like you’re being hoodwinked by all the Sturm und Drang.
Most of the film’s restoration work occurred in 2011, after three different fragments of the picture were found in the collection of the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam. The new version has been re-edited to reflect plot instructions in a copy of Weber’s original script, recently discovered at NBC/Universal.
Weber’s husband, Phillips Smalley, collaborated with her as the co-director of the film, just as he did with the much more elaborate The Dumb Girl of
Portici. Weber adapted that film from a circa-1828 opera by D.F.E. Auber, which is based on events that took place in Naples in 1647. It tells the story of Fenella, a mute woman who is seduced by a Spanish nobleman. She is abused and ultimately abandoned, and the betrayal sparks a violent peasant uprising. Universal commissioned Weber to create The Dumb
Girl of Portici after Paramount scored a big hit with its 1915 release of Carmen, starring opera singer Geraldine Farrar and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Pavlova was touring across the United States at the time with the Boston Grand Opera Company and agreed to make the movie to help bail out the financially strapped organization. Shooting occurred in Chicago and Los Angeles — often for only an hour or two — scheduled around Pavlova’s concert appearances.
The strains are evident. It’s a rush to see Pavlova — her dancing is exquisite. At the same time, she is quite evidently more comfortable on the stage than onscreen. Her gesturing tends to be a bit overcooked. Victor Dandré, Pavlova’s husband, wrote of the dancer’s concerns about the film in a biography of his wife. “The taking of this picture caused her much annoyance and many disappointments . ... She was