Silver Screen: Portraits of Aging on Film

Sketch by by friend Lu from Shanghai who attended the series. I'm wearing my Georgetown University Tombs cap and talking with editors as he sketched.






The November film series included

November 7 - The Whales of August with Lillian Gish, Bette Davis and Ann Southern. (1987)

November 14 - Driving Miss Daisy with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman (1989)

November 21 - Make Way for Tomorrow with Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Louise Beavers as the maid, Gene Morgan and others (1937). This film was inspiration for Tokyo Story by Ozu. (Equinox Flower from 1958 currently, early Dec. 2013, screening at Film Society of Lincoln Center to commemorate Ozu's centennial.) Leo McCarey assisted. No happy ending to this film, but a fade with music of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." Heartbreaking. A sensitive portrait of an elderly couple in financial difficulty, forced to "temporarily"separate when none of their five children  will take in both parents.

Series was well attended with mostly seniors, some students, my friends from Grace Episcopal, some media, and some special needs friends.

Chaplin's Centennial Year Here We Come

James Patterson in Leister Square with The Little Tramp, 2006. My story was published by Christian Science Monitor. An Exchange of Smiles Between Old Friends.

Baby Peggy, Lillian Gish and James Patterson

November 16, 2013

Silent screen star Baby Peggy, Diana Serra Cary, celebrated her 95^th birthday at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Fremont, today amid throngs of well-wishers who presented the star with flowers, cards and other small gifts. Baby Peggy began her film career at 19 months. An Amsterdam filmmaker produced a documentary on her in 2012. NESFM in 2013 produced a silent black and white short film homage of a Broncho Billy Anderson film from 1913 with an era camera and starring Ms. Cary. NESFM sold her books at retail and she signed her Hollywood photos for $20.

Cary singed her books and production stills from her movies, posed for photographs, recalled Pola Negri, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, Colonel Tim McCoy, Roddy McDowell, Jackie Coogan and many others.

Cary's titles include 1978's "Hollywood's Children: An Inside Account of the Child Star Era" with a foreword by Kevin Brownlow. The Washington Post said of the book, "An eye-opening wide-angled view. A riveting, discerning account of performing children and their parents." Southern Methodist University Press

Cary wrote "What Ever Happened to baby Peggy?: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star" in 2009 with Bear Manor Media. Publisher's Weekly said of the book, "(Cary's) honest and well told account of her unusually rich life, as well as of Hollywood's during its formative years, should interest even those who have never heard of baby Peggy."

Ms. Cary told me she has a new book coming out in 2014, but as a wise author she would not disclose any details. At Niles, she worked non-stop from noon to 5 Pacific but exited before the evening screening of her 1923 “Captain January” with Hobart Bosworth and Irene Rich. She told me it is her favorite film as she got to do "responsible" and "heroic" things in the film. In her 2-reel comedies, more than 50 were made, she said she always played "a mischievous child" for laughs. 

Ms. Cary had several issues of Classic on her table. Photo covers included Baby Peggy (December 1923), Lillian Gish (February 1924) and Dorothy Gish. I searched the February 1924 issue for an article on Lillian and found nothing. The photo cover of Lillian highlights her youth and dramatizes her very small mouth. The cover of Dorothy is rather unflattering I thought.

Lillian Gish cover on Classic, a Brewster publication February 1924

For baby Peggy's 95th birthday.

James Patterson with Baby Peggy, Diana Serra Cary, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Fremont California.

 

 

Beautiful Aurora, who came from Phoenix to celebrate Baby Peggy's birthday, with the Gish sisters

In the December 1923 Classic, combined with Shadowland, a Brewster publication, an article “Questions and Answers,” Harry Carr writes:

“Who is the finest artist in the movies?”

“The Answer: Taking all things into consideration, the finest artist among the men is Charlie Chaplin; Lillian Gish among the women.”

“Lillian Gish is a delineator of characters. Lillian Gish is a great actress in the sense of casting off her own personality and putting on another like a coat.

“Lillian Gish is a not a genius is. She is a master workman.”  (Ed. A sexist reference.)  

“Lillian Gish is always shooting at a mark. She studies the character she is portraying as a surgeon studies a disease. She even figures out in her own mind what such a girl would eat; what she would do on her holidays; what kind of friends she would have. She may never use these points on the screen; but it helps her to get ‘clear under.’”

“I think her work in Broken Blossoms was the higest point in which scrren acting has ever been lifted.”

Carr said the most intelligent woman on the screen was “between Mary Pickford and Louise Fazenda.” He called Pickford “a captain of finance.”

In its back pages, Classic had the following ads:

“Earn Money at Home You can make $15 or $60 weekly in your spare time writing show cards.” The company was West-Argus Show Card Service in Toronto.

“Learn Photo Play Writing. From John Emerson and Anita Loos two the world’s most famous, most successful, highest paid screen writers. They have written photo plays for Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Dorothy and Lillian Gish,” and many others

Another advert urged readers to consider a career in “Cartoon drawings.”

All photos courtesy Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.

James Patterson

PS Our office recently sent thanks out to Alexander Kogun, Jr., whose studio is in Long Island City, New York. We interviewed him on his restoration work on Mayerling with Audrey Hepburn and The Trip to Bountiful with Lillian Gish. Kogan is legal owner of these early TV productions and hundreds more. He had the vision kinescopes could be restored to broadcast quality and marketed.

Baby Peggy's Birthday is Saturday!

A View of the Pitkin House from Whales of August 1987

One view of the Pitkin House in 1987, we were standing at the point. Notes to come as continue the digitization of all the old files and photos. The old chap told us not to throw "any damn cigarette butts" on his yard. More to come.
I had a lousy camera that day but a better one the next day. At the small store by the dock, we sat and chatted with a Census taker who worked the islands in the Casco Bay. My son ran to pet a goose who did not want to be petted and extended its neck and tried to bite him. The island taxi didn't look all that dependable so we walked from the dock to the Pitkin House on the far side of Cliff Island. The island US Post Office startled me in its design. One must walk across a bridge over a rather steep gorge to enter the PO. The island's small church was vacant most of the time. We saw islanders emptying their lobster traps for Portland restaurants. More photos and notes to come.

James Patterson
  

Harry Carey Jr. and James Patterson at San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2006

James Patterson with Harry Carey, Jr. at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2006. Notes from the screening and comment with the Financial Times to be added soon.

Actress Lillian Gish, director Spike Lee and writer James Patterson

James Patterson with Spike Lee at MoMA for the Gish Award. October 30, 2103. Lee said the Gish Award of $300,000 would go a "Spike Lee joint."






"Would you believe that Lillian Gish starred in two of the most important films that impacted me while I was studying film at NYU? Those great films are D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation and Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter. Isn't it funny sometimes how life works? How ironic life can be? God can be a trickster.

Peace and love to the Gish sisters and the Gish Prize Trust."

-Spike Lee
New York, 2013

Lee's NYU colleagues praised him for his "ferocity in filmmaking" and for taking film in a direction "Hollywood would not go."

In remarks, Lee said the telephone call notifying him he would receive the Gish Prize "was a good phone call to have" as he was fundraising for a new film.

While D. W. Griffith was "a cinematic genius" who "invented stuff we're still using" the film ["The Birth of a Nation'] was a recruitment tool for the Klan." (For about 75 years, according to a colleague at San Francisco State University Film Department.) Lee said his first film was "The Answer" about a black man who signed onto a remake of "The Birth of a Nation" thinking he could effect a better outcome.

A scene from "Do the Right Thing" (finger rings) was "straight from James Agee" in "The Night of the Hunter." (Moving from a scene of brutality to a scene of fragility. As in focusing on Robert Mitchum singing on the tree stump then on Miss Gish singing in her rocking chair while holding her rifle.)

Lee said his parents were instrumental in getting him interested in the arts. He said him mom was always taking him to museums when he wanted to play street games with his pals. "I was raised in the days when a kid did what his parents told him to do" and he went to the museums. He also went on movie dates with his mom.

In his NY Public School, he didn't mention which number, art was required and he played a musical instrument. "Art, music and gym are now off PS curriculum," he said. "Obesity has run amok in the African American community." He added, "The arts keep us humane."

The cash prize was "nearly $300,000" Ms. Elias said to audience applause. She also handed Lee the medal with Dorothy and Lillian's profiles.

Food was superb! Plenty of liquor! Unfortunately, I spent most of my time talking with friends from St. Bart's rather than eating and drinking. I talked with a woman who taught private school in Manhattan. Her husband worked for the Norman Vincent Peale estate in Manhattan. We had a brief conversation about Lillian's contributions to Guideposts in 1949 and 1982.

James Patterson