Century Film Project

Celebrating the movies our ancestors loved
March 3, 2018

Best Screenplay 1917

Film didn’t have to become a narrative art form. Its early inventors generally saw it as a means of taking short documentary clips of actual events, or at most of creating “moving portraits” that might involve deliberate costume and lighting, but not necessarily complete stories. Experimental film makers have created a variety of non-narrative, or non-linear, movies that test the boundaries of what film “is.” But, once stories started to be told onscreen, it didn’t take long to catch on, and by 1917, this is the established and expected form, to the degree that actualities are now struggling to come up with stories to justify their running time. The people who created these stories were now highly sought-after professionals, and they were kept busy coming up with fodder for the industry.

The nominees for best screenplay of 1917 are among the best of these storytellers. “A Man There Was,” written by Gustaf Molander and the director, Victor Sjöström, takes a story of a man lost at sea to an epic level, pitting him against storms and his own worse nature to come out a hero. “The Dying Swan,” written by Zoya Barantsevich and inspired by the dance solo of the same name, tells the story of an artist driven mad by his morbid fascination with suffering, and his need to kill the woman he loves if she should become happy. Frances Marion, adapting the stage drama of Eleanor Gates for “The Poor Little Rich Girl,” added a working-class sensibility to its bratty protagonist, assuring a much more sympathetic character. Her second nomination this year comes for “The Little Princess,” adapted from the novel by Frances Hogson Burnett, and here she creates a great friendship in the characters of Mary Pickford and ZaSu Pitts, for which they seem perfectly suited (Marion and Pickford were friends, so the story was written with her, at least, in mind). The story of “Polly Redhead,” written by Eliott J. Clawson from the novel “Pollyooly” by Edgar Jepson, works with the contradictions of the British class system to produce an effective melodrama with comedic elements.

The nominees for best screenplay of 1917 are:

  1. A Man There Was
  2. The Dying Swan
  3. Poor Little Rich Girl
  4. Little Princess
  5. Polly Redhead

And the winner is…”Poor Little Rich Girl!”

This is the first time Frances Marion has been honored with a Century Award, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not the last. She was able to understand what worked for Mary Pickford, one of the biggest stars of her age, with an almost prescient intuition. The fact that she had to make fairly radical changes to the character of Gwendolyn, changes which the director, Maurice Tourneur didn’t care for but which Pickford herself fought to preserve, only makes this a more outstanding example of her talents.

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March 3, 2018

Best Visual Effects 1917

Entertainment often means trickery. Even on stage, various “effects” are used to simulate real-world or fantastic conditions that would be dangerous if reproduced in a theater space: cannon fire, for example, or the ghostly ship in the “The Flying Dutchman”. I’ve even read about spectacles in which building fires were simulated and fought on a large stage to celebrate the bravery of firemen.  Early filmmakers learned that the camera allows for much more convincing and spectacular effects than are safe to perform with a live audience attending, and that it also has the potential for more impressive “magical” trickery. Thus, the category of visual effects in film has become a part of how we judge them. This award considers the best of those effects each year.

In 1917, many films were using simple effects as a matter of course, but the movies I’ve nominated each showed some more innovative, or more elaborate application of them. In “Fear,” a man is haunted by his visions of a “Buddha Priest” he’s wronged. Conrad Veidt is made to appear transparent, and impervious to bullets, in this early example of a horror movie. “The Dying Swan” has a similar ghostly effect, in which the female lead is threatened by disembodied hands that reach out to strangle her, and re-appear in the scene in which she is really strangled. “The Little American” is an ambitious action film, that re-creates the sinking of the Lusitania and also shows the war-ravaged streets of a French town in the First World War. The main effects seen in the “Judex” episode, “The Fantastic Dog Pack,” are changes in tinting of the film to simulate lighting changes, and the hard work of the animal trainers in getting the eponymous “pack” to do its work. We also get underground caverns and chase scenes, handled well.

The nominees for best visual effects of 1917 are:

  1. Fear
  2. The Dying Swan
  3. The Little American
  4. The Fantastic Dog Pack

And the winner is…”The Little American!”

There’s a tradition in Hollywood of giving the special effects award to a movie that was spectacular, but not a critical success, and I guess I’m following that tradition here. “The Little American” was big with audiences in its day, but is not especially fondly remembered now. It’s a pretty transparent propaganda piece that relies heavily on stereotypes and emotionalism. But, it does have some pretty extravagant effects. We see the sinking of the boat from inside of a ballroom that appears to turn on its side and fill with water. It genuinely appears as though the actors could have been in danger of drowning. The devastated countryside is also effective, even if the plot at the end becomes so heavy-handed as to be almost impossible to take seriously.

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