It (1927/Milestone)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: B
Can interest in silent films be rekindled? Obviously, many of them have been
inexcusably lost, even thrown out!
Thanks to collectors and major restoration efforts, more have survived
than would have otherwise, but some are so key, they remained well known well
into the sound era. Outside of films
from other countries, Hollywood’s best-remembered pictures form the era are
either from the Comedy or Horror genre.
Clarence Badger’s It (1927) is a comedy with one of the greatest
gimmicks in cinema history, and certainly one of the most influential.
That lies in its title, which began the idea of certain
individuals having some one of a kind quality that had to do with sex, but also
extended to the kind of star quality that made Tinsel Town the dream factory it
developed into. Clara Bow is one of the
big screen’s all-time great stars, even if she did not reap the benefits she
should have. The film was made for
Paramount Pictures, the second biggest major studio in those years. When they sold their catalog to Universal’s
TV division in 1948, the studio became divorced from their legacy in ways that
was a big mistake, but It is one of the lone shining remains of that
legacy still stuck with the town to this day.
The film is fun and has some of the all-time great silent
camerawork by cinematographer H. Kinley Martin, with some iconic images that
are referenced and remembered often, especially when silent film is discussed
in general. That is also because the
story is fun, with department store flapper Betty Lou Spence (Bow) getting the
attention of the son of the store’s owner (Antonio Moreno) and the love affair
begins. They have chemistry, but Bow is
so loved by the camera, she shines scene after scene after scene. One story element has the split between the
working class gal and the rich guy, the Cinderella factor and male-being-older
archetypes being set in the permanency of the Classical Hollywood narrative
before the formula wore itself out quickly.
Here, it is gloriously fresh and endured nearly 80 years later, which is
reason enough to see the film. It
remains a great picture, despite its short 77 minutes, and like all great
silent classics is so involving, you often forget it is silent.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image was restored in 1991 by
Kevin Brownlow, Patrick Stanbury and David Gill, and is terrific for that
time. There is plenty of print damage
that was not touched at the time and could not be repaired, including some scratches
that could now be wetgated out of the print.
With that said, there are some remarkable shots and scenes that show
great depth and detail, especially with their age considered. This may not be up to the recent restoration
of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926, reviewed elsewhere on this site), but
is one of the better, older visual restorations around. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo offers a Carl
Davis score that may be repetitious, but does have some Pro Logic surrounds
that can only involve the viewer further.
Obviously, the sound fidelity outdoes the picture, as in all these
restorations. At least the score is not
from some tired keyboard synthesizer, something that held back the acceptance
of many a restoration. Extras include a
DVD-ROM feature that offers the screenplay in the Adobe Acrobat format (rare
for a silent film), a stills gallery that offers some fine poster art and
another solid audio commentary track by Corwin-Fuller Professor Of Film Studies
Jeanine Basinger. We recently listened
to her older commentary on the film Three Coins In The Fountain (on this
site) when she was just getting the hang of doing them. She is better here and adds to the fun and
enjoyment of watching this classic.
Cheers to Milestone Films for putting together such a terrific DVD
edition of this classic, up to their usual standards.
- Nicholas Sheffo
