Maytime (1923) User Reviews (2)

Sweetheart and Other Songs You Won't Hear In This Movie

[boblipton · 6/10 · 18 July 2018]

It's unfair to write a review of an incomplete film and I agree. It's not going to stop me, however, except to note that it's a pity that it is incomplete -- missing, as it does, the last 20, 2-strip-Technicolor minutes -- and that there is serious degradation in the remaining sections, ameliorated by a red tint on the restored print.

Ethel Shannon and Harrison Ford (the silent star, not Indiana Jones) are young lovers in Pre-Civil-War New York, but he is a poor gardener working for her rich father, who insists she marry her annoying cousin. Ford goes out to California to get rich, and returns, just as she has been married, and a scandal is threatened, which he averts by marrying Ethel's cousin, Clara Bow -- surely not a fate worse than death -- and again, the lovers are parted. However, in Jazz Age New York their grandchildren, who bear the same names (and are played by the same actors) know and like each other....

Well, most of that last part is the missing footage, even if the course of events is covered in the restoration's titles and fairly obvious to anyone who knows how dramas of this variety go. It's all based on a hit Broadway show by Cyrus Wood and Rida Johnson Young, with a famous libretto by Sigmund Romberg. The title and score were plundered a decade and a half later for one of the Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy movies.

This one is notable for its production values, for its recreation of New York before the Civil War, and for some fine make-up work on the leads, which serve to actually make them look old when appropriate. Also, the actors are very good. They play two sets of very distinct characters, one set of them at various ages, and succeed in making them all believable.

The story may seem corny -- as a modern New Yorker, it's sometimes hard to believe that the Little Old New York shown in this movie ever sat on the same land where skyscrapers now tower -- even though I live in a brownstone whose skeleton was erected before the events of the show took place. Yet, grown old and, yes, sentimental, I like to believe in the reality of such things, and this movie -- the parts of it that, like Old New York, survive -- pleases me greatly.

Watch out for that tree!

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 7/10 · 18 June 2010]

In 2009, U.S. film preservationist Brian Meacham (good man!), with archivists at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington, identified 75 'lost' U.S. silent films which had been stored in New Zealand all along. The discovery was announced in June 2010, after the archivists had learnt precisely which films were in the trove. 'Maytime' will be released on DVD, due to the presence (in a supporting role) of Clara Bow.

I've stated elsewhere that 'lost' films tend to surface at the terminus of an exhibition circuit -- New Zealand, Australia, the Yukon -- and that (as this case indicates) 'lost' films often turn up when someone actively seeks them. 'Maytime' was in the New Zealand archive for decades, but Paramount didn't bother to ask for it and the archivists were busy with other tasks.

Because the highly unstable nitrate film stock can't wait, the U.N. have granted permission for these dangerously combustible films to be shipped from New Zealand for conversion and image transfer at several Stateside locations. Since I can't wait either, I've been able to audit the restoration process of some of these, including 'Maytime'.

The final sequence on this print's last reel was in colour tint, and my source in the restoration tells me that this particular footage is especially challenging for the image transfer and preservation.

'Maytime' was originally a 1917 Sigmund Romberg operetta with no hit songs. The 1937 'Maytime', officially MGM's remake of this 1923 Paramount silent, actually has an almost entirely new plot; MGM's screenwriters despised the original.

IMDb's contributor Kieran Kenney has already posted a synopsis for this movie, but his synopsis more accurately describes the 1917 stage operetta rather than this 1923 film. You'll be able to see for yourself when the restored version is publicly available, but here's a preview:

SPOILERS NOW: Romantic leads Harrison Ford (no relation) and Ethel Shannon play the frustrated 19th-century lovers, and also play their respective grandchildren in the modern story. (We briefly see the second pair *as* children, en route to the final reels.) But (despite Mr Kenney's synopsis) the modern lovers don't recapitulate the original romance. The first Richard Wayne is an ardent suitor who loves the original Ottilie utterly, but his namesake grandson is a scapegrace whom we see eagerly attending an orgy. (Quite mild by modern standards, this sequence.) Ostensibly the modern Richard loves the modern Ottilie, but he feels entitled to control her and possess her. When he catches up with Ottilie inside a married man's mansion, in a compromising situation that's actually quite innocent, Richard refuses to accept her explanation.

There are some intriguing visual devices in this movie. A tree is significant during the climactic storm sequence, and this multi-generation romance uses trees as a motif to convey the passage of time. Karl Struss's splendid photography is warm and lush in the romantic sequences, sharp-edged when the romances go off the rails.

Modern viewers will be interested in this film because of Clara Bow: she actually plays a smallish supporting role, but she's as vivacious as usual and she's briefly given real emphasis in a few shots.

Silent-film actor Harrison Ford gives the most impressive performances (plural) here: the two Richard Waynes have two very different personalities, and Ford clearly makes them two very different people despite the physical similarity. Ethel Shannon, in the two female leads, overacts the bathos at several points. Her dual role gets more emphasis than Ford's, but he easily steals the film as the humble gardener's son who becomes a generous millionaire, and as his bad-boy grandson (more a scapegrace than an outright villain). Ethel Shannon's looks, alas, are not likely to impress modern viewers. She did impress me in this movie's middle sequences, as the heiress humbled when her fortune fails.

While a 'new' Clara Bow movie is welcome, this is really Harrison Ford's film, even though his two roles are meant to be subordinate to Shannon's. Silent-film star Ford was utterly forgotten by 1935; the modern actor with the same name hadn't even heard of him until he saw the original Ford's star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I'd be delighted if the interest in this lost film's reappearance leads to new awareness of the original Harrison Ford, a talented actor whose voice was unsuited for talkies ... although he actually made a few sound movies, unlike this film's star actress Ethel Shannon.

I didn't audit the entire restoration of this long-lost film, but what I saw impressed me. This 'Maytime' is definitely superior to the talkie 'remake'. My rating, from only a partial viewing: 7 out of 10.