PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Seven Footprints To Satan 1929

Seven Footprints To Satan 1929 Based on the 1928 novel Seven Footprints To Satan by A Merritt, story, screenplay and direction by Benjamin Christensen. Benjamin is Danish and the director of the 1922 silent film Haxan. In 1924 he got hired to direct pictures for MGM. He didn't make many films and I haven't seen any of them, other than Haxan and now this. Haxan is sort of interesting, it's a documentary on witches, there's a shorter version out there with narration by William S Burroughs. It's on the Criterion DVD along with the full length version.

Seven Footprints To Satan was shot silent but had some sound added for a second release. The film was lost for quite some time but a couple of prints turned up. I put a link in the title to a copy on YouTube, it's not the best quality image but it seems the most complete version and it's been "restored".

A rich young man called James, played by Creighton Hale, figures he should go off exploring in Africa, his Uncle Joe tries to talk him out of it. Thelma Todd plays his fiance Eve. Her father has a party and there's a robbery, James and Eve jump into her chauffeur driven limousine only to find they've been kidnapped to a strange house in the country.

There they find themselves in the hands of a black robed figure who calls himself Satan. He has quite the throne, huh. Those are the seven footprints to Satan, one of the few plot points from the novel that made it into the movie. In an interview with A Merritt from 1933 he says he watched the film and wept. Benjamin turned Merritt's dark crime novel into an old dark house comedy. I just read the novel and the movie really has very little of the book in it. The movie did poorly at the box office and Merritt claims it hurt the sales of the novel.

I liked parts of the movie, occasionally there was a silly bit, but in the end I was disappointed that it wasn't more like the novel. You can check it out in the link above, you might like it well enough to get to the end. I didn't care for the music much. I doubt I'd watch it again but I did save a download for that future possibility.

Rio Rita 1929

Rio Rita 1929 It's based on a 1927 stage musical by Florenz Ziegfeld with a book by Guy Bolton and Frederick A Thompson. Guy wrote 14 shows with Fred, 21 shows with P G Wodehouse, and 10 shows with George Middleton. Luther Reed wrote the film script and directed. I can't say I've seen any of his silent work but I have seen his 1930 film of Dixiana.

That's Dorothy Lee on the left, Robert Woolsey in the middle and Bert Wheeler on the right. The play made Wheeler and Woolsey famous and the producers hired them to appear in the film. They are the only members of the play's cast that appear in the film. Wheeler and Woolsey would appear in 21 films between 1929 and 1937. Woolsey would die the following year at age 50 and Bert would only appear in a handful of films after that. Bert died in 1968 at age 71.

The film is set in a little town in Mexico called San Lucas. Bebe Daniels is Rio Rita and she's being wooed by a Texas Ranger played by John Boles and a local warlord played by George Renavent. The Ranger is after a bandit called Kinkajou. The warlord is going around saying it's Rita brother, he wants to help Rita out by saving her brother, then he can get her to marry him. The audience quickly finds out that the Warlord is Kinkajou.

In the subplot Bert has come to San Lucas to get a divorce, Robert is his lawyer. Bert married Dorothy Lee but right after the wedding Robert tells him the divorce isn't valid. Then Bert's wife shows up. Things get complicated in their lives before it all works out through the medium of song.

There's a fair number of songs in the 103 min film, there were more in the original 141 min version. The 5 missing reels are said to be lost and the shorter version is the 1932 release. There are big lavish dance numbers with lots of dancers and extras on the stage. The film switches to 2 strip Technicolor for the big musical numbers at the end of the film. The sets were reused in Dixiana.

There's plenty of activity and some good number of jokes. Wheeler and Woolsey are rather madcap and they cavort and blather a lot. I'm not as big a fan of the musical numbers but I do like Bert and Robert. I first saw them on cable back in the 80s. I'd just recently bought their whole film catalog on DVD from Warner Archives. I'll be getting to them occasionally as time passes.