Page 16 - CinemaRecord #11R.pdf

The Silent Sufferer by Denzil Howson

I was about eight years old and this was the first full length film I ever saw. Perhaps that is why much of it
remained in my memory.

My parents were visiting Castlemaine for a School Reunion, and one night we went to the Castlemaine Town
Hall to see the Silent Film Classic 'The Last Command", with Emil Jannings, the great German actor in the
lead. Writing in the Trade Magazine in 1929, journalist Lionel Collier observed "Nine people out of ten, if asked
who is the greatest actor on the screen, would unhesitatingly reply, Emil Jannings".

Jannings, who was born in 1882 began a distinguished stage
career at the age of ten, and, at the behest of film director
Ernst Lubitsch, began appearing in films in 1914. Before
long he had established himself as a great character actor
and tragedian. No other actor suffered as much as Emil
Jannings in the roles he undertook.

He suffered silently in "Madame Dubarry", 'The Tragedy of
Love", "Othello", "Waxworks" (in which he co-starred with
Conrad Veidt), "Quo Vadis", "The Last Laugh", "Faust", "The
Way Of All Flesh" and "The Last Command", and we
listened and watched (1 00% All Talking) as he suffered as
Marlene Dietrich taunted him, and throatilly enticed him
when she crooned "Falling In Love With Love Again" as,
with her left leg crooked suggestively over her right, she
reclined on a table top in the "Blue Angel" cafe.

I had the good fortune to see "The Last Command" again
about two years ago, when Ken Tulloch screened it at his
Roxy Cinema. That second visitation filled in the gaps in
my memory of the 1928 experience.

Incidentally, the "villian" in 'The Last Command" was a
young William Powell who later attained respectability as
the wise-cracking private detective Nick Charles opposite
Emil Jannings Myrna Loy in the popular "Thin Man" series.

If you like compelling film fare described by Leonard Maltin in his video guide as a "stunning silent drama" and
for which Jannings won an Academy Award, don't miss 'The Last Command" if it ever comes your way. And if
you ever see it advertised make sure it is the 1928 Jannings-Von Sternberg film and not a forgettable Western
released by REPUBLIC under the same title.

Flickers At The Town Hall by Denzil Howson

Why you may ask should we go to the Castlemaine Town Hall to see a film? Because from 1913 to 1929, there
were two cinemas in the old gold mining town of Castlemaine- the historic Theatre Royal in Hargreaves Street,
the oldest theatrical performing site in mainland Australia, and the impressive Town Hall in Lyttleton Street.

Shortly after the advent of sound, the Town Hall ceased to operate as a cinema. But with a large stage, equal
in size to some of the theatres in the heart of Melbourne, the Castlemaine Town Hall continued as a venue for
live theatre and Melbourne companies often performed there.

The Town Hall stage has a proscenium width of 30 feet and an amazing depth of 45 feet, with available "fly"
space. The hall itself is 90' by 40' with a gallery at the rear of which was the large projection booth. And, if the
Town Hall was not available, companies could always use the well equipped stage facilities at the historic
Mechanics Institute Hall around the corner in Barker Street, built and opened in 1857, at the height of the gold
boom.