
A Lady and Her Maid. 1913. USA. Directed by Bert Angeles. Screenplay by Beta Breuil. With Florence Radinoff, Norma Talmadge, James Morrison. DCP courtesy Eye Filmmuseum. Dutch intertitles; English subtitles. 13 min.
The ladies get the last laugh in this one-reel Vitagraph comedy, scripted by Beta Breuil, about two “ugly ducklings” and the man who rejects one of them. According to the trade press, A Lady and Her Maid was the fourth entry in Breuil’s “Belinda” series, which she wrote specifically for young actress and eventual producer Norma Talmadge. Breuil (née Elizabeth Donner Van der Veer, or Vanderveer, in New York City) only worked in the scenario department at Vitagraph for three years, from 1910 to 1913, first as an assistant and eventually as department head. While there, she mentored other scenario writers such as Catherine Carr and Doris Schroeder. Breuil moved on to freelance and other contract work after that, and archival research carried out by former WFPP project manager Maria Fosheim Lund links her to Eastern Film Company, North American Film Corporation, and Mirror Films. Reportedly having entered the film industry out of financial necessity as a two-time widow, Breuil’s life and career after the late 1910s remain a mystery.
The Boatswain’s Mate. 1924. England. Directed by H. Manning Haynes. Screenplay by Lydia Hayward, from a short story by W. W. Jacobs. With Florence Turner, Johnny Butt, Victor McLaglen. 35mm print courtesy the British Film Institute. 24 min.
A stage and film actress turned screenwriter, Lydia Hayward excelled at populist and middlebrow literary adaptations, and her rich body of work deserves continued attention today. Her career in the British film industry spanned from 1920 to 1942, and she collaborated closely with three filmmakers in particular during the silent era: H. Manning Haynes at Artistic (1921–24); Will Kellino at Stoll (1924–26); and Dinah Shurey, England’s only woman director at the time, at Britannia Films (1926–29). Unfortunately, all of the titles Hayward wrote for Shurey are believed to be lost. However, many Hayward gems do survive, such as The Boatswain’s Mate, which she made with Haynes. This comedy stars Florence Turner (whose own directorial effort Daisy Doodad’s Dial also appears in this series) as a self-sufficient pub owner who does not need protecting, much to the surprise of the ex-boatswain who wants to marry her (and who hires an ex-soldier to pretend to burgle the “frail, weak little woman” so that he can save the day).
Moral (Morality). 1928. Germany. Directed by Willi Wolff. Produced by Wolff, Ellen Richter. Screenplay by Wolff, Robert Liebmann, Bobby E. Lüthge, loosely based on a play by Ludwig Thoma. With Richter, Jakob Tiedtke, Ralph Arthur Roberts. 4K digital restoration courtesy the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and the Filmoteca Valenciana, from an original negative and Spanish release print. German intertitles; English subtitles. 82 min.
Austrian film actress and producer Ellen Richter was a major highlight of the 2021 edition of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the occasion for her first career retrospective and the rediscovery, restoration, and exhibition of some of her surviving films. Making its New York premiere here, the restored Moral is an excellent entry into Richter’s filmography, a delightful comedy in which the film camera becomes one woman’s tool against male hypocrisy. Richter plays beautiful touring showgirl Ninon d’Hauteville, who is forced to stop performing onstage thanks to a small town’s stuffy “morality society,” comprised of a group of middle-aged men. At the reigning monarch’s request, she stays in town and begins giving piano lessons to his son in her apartment, where, one-by-one, the lascivious members of the morality society also show up for lessons. Written and directed by Richter’s husband and longstanding collaborator Willi Wolff, and produced by her company Ellen Richter-Film GmbH, Moral also features glimpses of many real-life 1920s performance acts, including Lawrence Tiller’s Original Empire Girls. Overall, Richter starred in approximately 70 features of various genres in Germany between 1913 and 1933, producing 30 of them from 1920 onward. She made the transition into the sound era, but her film career was cut short by the rise of the Nazi Party. Richter and Wolff, both Jews, left Germany, eventually settling at 7 Park Avenue in New York City, where Richter became a US citizen in 1946.
Program 108 min.