Upstream

"Upstream" is an early film in the directorial career of the great John Ford. However, I saw no hints of greatness in this one and felt the story was rather unremarkable.

The film begins in a boarding house for would-be actors. Most of them barely got by and success seemed to elude most of the residents. In this atmosphere, a young actor named Brashington (subtle name, huh?) falls for the assistant to a knife-thrower. However, their romance is interrupted when Brashington is discovered and he's soon the toast of the London stage. It's obvious this guy's success has gone to his head and he envisions himself to be the next John Barrymore (that's why he kept emphasizing his profile--much like Barrymore used to do). In the process, he forgets about the girl and his friends. Time passes and he returns for a visit--and arrives on the day the girl is marrying the knife-thrower! What's next? See this film.

Earle Foxe played Brashington and you can only assume that the director encouraged him to really ham it up and play the role with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever. As a result, he comes off as more a caricature than a real person and the film is therefore very, very weak. Additionally, the story is amazingly simple--too simple--to be taken very seriously. Not a bad film but certainly not a very good one either. It's hard to imagine Ford made this--especially because around the same time, he's made a few decent films (such as "3 Bad Men") and would make one of the truly great silent films only a year later ("Four Sons").

Upstream (1927)

** (out of 4)

Whenever a lost film is discovered, it's always a reason to celebrate even if that film turns out not be a loser. That's pretty much the case with this forgotten John Ford film that turned up in a New Zealand archive in 2010. The film tells the story of Eric Brasingham (Earle Foxe), a poor actor who has an ego like the biggest stars in the world. He gets a lucky break and ends up becoming a hit on the London stage, which does nothing expect make his head much bigger. UPSTREAM, the title, refers to one character saying an actor must travel "upstream" if he wants to be a success. I really don't know too much about the history of this film other than it once being lost but I have to think that director Ford took this project not because he cared for the material but because the studio forced him. I say this because there's really nothing here that will remind fans of the director that he actually had anything to do with the picture. There's really none of his style, flare or energy to be found anywhere and it's rather amazing at how flat the comedy is. The film tries to be clever as well as tell a morality story but it fails on pretty much all levels. One of the biggest problems with the screenplay is that the main character is such a jerk that you don't care for him. You want to see him fail right from the start and when he becomes a success, you don't feel good for him but instead turn against him even more. The only time the screenplay comes to life are during some early scenes where we see a boarding house full of actors. One great scene has a couple song and dance men rehearsing, which causes the roof to partially cave in and getting stuff all over some people eating. UPSTREAM runs a very short 60- minutes, which is a good thing because anything longer and the film would have been a real chore to get through.

Another film filled to the top with amusing side characters, Upstream is a modest and slight entertainment that does well enough to fill its sixty minutes and little else. It's another instance of an early John Ford film that really could have done good use with twenty to thirty more minutes to help flesh out some key details.

The majority of the action takes place in a boarding house for performers, and the film's first large bulk is simply introducing them all. There are dancers, retired actors, and the landlady (Lydia Titus) who is always asking for advanced payment from those without contracts. The center of the action falls upon a trio of a knife thrower, Jack (Grant Withers), his female assistant Gertie (Nancy Nash), and the last son of a great line of actors who is no great actor himself Eric Brasingham (Earle Foxe). The appeal of this early section is the light comedy of the variety under the landlady's roof as the different personalities clash in light and amusing ways, like the pair of dancers who practice in their room immediately above the dining room.

Everything changes when a famous theatrical agent appears, everyone in the house eager for their moment of fame having arrived (except for Brasingham who remains seated at the table eating). He's there for Brasingham specifically, though. He's been charged with finding a name to help open a new production of Hamlet in London, and it doesn't matter if Brasingham isn't actually a good actor at all. This is the moment that one of the elder boarders takes upon himself to act as mentor to the inept Brasingham, offering him up lessons in a single night before he departs. At the same time, Brasingham breaks the heart of young Gertie, seemingly implying that he was going to take her with him to England but instead just asking for money. Gertie sulks back to Jack, unhappy to continue in the knife throwing business.

Brasingham takes the quick lessons he had and becomes a great actor, impressing on the London stage and even getting a nod from the royal box upon his inaugural performance. Like most things in this little film, this feels drastically underdeveloped, a hapless actor suddenly becoming a sensation. But okay, we can deal with it.

The action moves forward by a few months and the boarders all seemingly return to their rooms in the boarding house at once after a season. Picking up with the light comedy once again, the boarders insist most earnestly that they had send large envelopes full of cash for their rent in the mail, but it must have gotten lost. This is also the time when Gertie decides to get over Brasingham and admit her hidden love for Jack (again, underdeveloped, but okay). As they get married, we see Brasingham in New York for a performance, convinced by his theatrical agent to make a stop at his old boarding house for a promotional moment.

This kind of amalgamation of events is part and parcel with John Ford's filmography at this point, but it's interesting to see it laid out in such a small scale and without any significant action elements. Brasingham comes in right as the wedding photos are taken after the ceremony, convinced the flowers, decorations, and pictures are for him. The common motif of haughty folk lording over the little people manifests, and Brasingham gets his comeuppance in crowd pleasing style.

None of this is challenging, but more importantly, none of it is as fleshed out as it should be. With the sheer number of minor characters that get their time to shine, that leaves shockingly little time for the central love triangle to play out. However, it's amusingly told with its side characters and Ford's adeptness with the camera helps provide some solid amusement in the film's final reel.

It's a small effort from Ford towards the end of the silent era (really his last fully silent film before he started using soundtracks of any kind). It's entertaining enough for a small distraction, but little else.

This is the supposedly lost film that John Ford directed that was found in the collection of former cinematographer Jack Murtagh in New Zealand when he died.

It's a wonderful comedy/drama about a group of people who live in an actor-boarding house, most who are out of work, looking for employment in their respective facets of the entertainment business. It stars Earle Foxe, one of filmdom's very early superstars who nobody today has ever heard of (!). It also has Nancy Nash, a lady who made a whole seven movies, Grant Withers appears a couple of years before he had very brief leading man status at Warner Brothers. Also featuring Francis Ford, John Ford's brother, who, at the time, was probably more famous than John because of his prior directing and acting.

No, it's not a John Ford Western, but the lovely humor that turns up is recognizable as Ford's handiwork, and it's fun to watch. Earle Foxe is really good with his non-stop arrogance and hauteur. He has a way of giving a certain look of incredible arrogance that is so funny! Even Grant Withers, an actor who can easily go over-the-top if not directed well, is restrained and quite watchable.

Jane Winton, playing a character who is listed as 'Soubrette', which usually means a female stock character in opera and theatre, derived nevertheless from the Provençal word for 'conceited', is a character in the film who is exactly that! For those who just love to gawk and find up-and-coming actors and actresses in the wings who go uncredited - look closely at the scenes in the London theatre in the audience: one of the audience is Anita Garvin! The restoration was very well done.

I've just come from the American Museum of the Moving Image where the New York re-premiere of this 1927 John Ford film took place with great pomp and circumstance. Donald Sosin led a fine orchestra of four and a singer to cover this short (64 minutes at an announced 21 fps) feature with one of his typically well researched and executed scores.

Unfortunately, despite the high hopes of the small but eager audience, we saw an ordinary programmer without much evidence of individual style or art. Earle Fox is consistently annoying as the talentless scion of a distinguished acting family who gets the big break on his name and never shows a moment of gratitude or humility. Grant Withers and Nancy Nash are competent as the young couple. The real star turns are in support -- which is typical of Ford, I suppose; Ted McNamara and Sammy Cohen as 'Callahan and Callahan', dancing and snappy patter; but mostly Emile Chautard who gets to chew the scenery as the down-on-his-luck thespian who coaches Fox; and even more so, Raymond Hitchcock, who shows us, at the beginning of the second act, why he was such a big star on Broadway for years.

However, despite these grace notes, there isn't much of anything in the story or realization to point to any particular director, and it never rises much above the ordinary. I'm very glad to have seen it, as it's another John Ford movie to cross off my list, but once you've done the same, it's not going to be one you return to.