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For many years, Maurice Tourneur's The White Heather was believed to be a lost film. However, a surviving print with Dutch intertitles was found in The Netherlands in 2023. The recovered print was in battered condition, shrunken and scratched, but substantially complete. Repair work began immediately. The result was recently screened at the Museum of Modern Art, as part of "To Save and Project," a series devoted to newly restored films. Thanks to the restoration team, what we saw at MoMA looks clear and clean, complete with newly created title cards, designed to resemble the studio's output from the period. Since this film was based on a stage drama, a copy of the play was consulted to recreate the dialog in a form close to what it must have been when the film was first released in 1919.

Holmes Herbert plays Lord Angus Cameron, a man in financial difficulty. Since he's the first major character introduced, you might assume he's the story's hero, but we soon learn otherwise. It seems Lord Angus was secretly married years ago, during an ocean voyage, to Marion, a housekeeper at his family's castle (played by Mabel Ballin). They have a son. But all of this has been kept secret from the family, since Marion is of low birth. Meanwhile, a young man named Alec, who doesn't know any of this backstory, is in love with Marion. And so is a laborer named Dick Beach, who is portrayed by 22 year-old John Gilbert (billed as "Jack" in the credits). He's young and very skinny here, almost gaunt. Dick Beach is a sympathetic character, and Gilbert, not yet the movie star he would become, makes a strong impression.

The plot is rather convoluted, but what it all boils down to is that Lord Angus (who is a rotter) denies he was ever married to Marion; Alec sets out to find proof, to uphold Marion's honor. The only evidence of the marriage is a document locked in a safe in a ship which sank off the Scottish coast -- the very ship where the wedding took place. At the story's climax, both men don diving outfits, descend to the ocean's floor near the wreck, and compete to get that document.

Fans of Tourneur's work --and I'm one-- will be pleased to find this film offers the stylistic flourishes we associate with him, such as striking visuals, unusual compositions, action in different parts of the frame, etc. Since the story is set mostly in Scotland, this allows for some pretty scenes on the heather: hillsides covered with sheep, for instance. There are also some gritty scenes in urban settings: when Dick Beach ventures into the ugly parts of town, the design work is exceptional. But the most memorable aspect of the film is the finale, the underwater sequence. At the bottom of the ocean, the dastardly Lord Angus gets into a fight with our hero Alec -- a rather dreamlike, slow-motion fight -- while fish swim by, unconcerned! The underwater cinematography is remarkable, and must have deeply impressed viewers in 1919.

Overall, while the plot is somewhat melodramatic, as you'd expect from an adaptation of a Victorian stage play, The White Heather is a great find, especially for its visuals. This is a treat for fans of the director, of John Gilbert, and of silent drama in general.

Good news for fans of Edward Everett Horton: a print of this long-lost film has been discovered! It was found in late 2024, in a 16mm film collection. The surviving copy of "Taxi! Taxi!" is a Universal "Show-At-Home" print, made for home use. This afternoon, the film received what was probably its first public screening since the silent era, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

There's more good news: not only is the print complete and in decent condition, but this a very enjoyable comedy! Eddie is in fine form, there are plenty of good gags, and the direction by Melville Brown is smooth and brisk, with some unexpected, nicely handled cinematic flourishes.

Horton plays an architect named Peter Whitby, one of many lowly draftsmen in a firm run by grouchy Mr. Zimmerman (Burr McIntosh). It's quickly established that Whitby struggles to get to work on time, and is not popular with the boss. Even so, he's assigned the task of going to the train station and retrieving Zimmerman's niece Rose (played by the charming Marian Nixon). There's a funny sequence at the station when our hero rescues Rose from a masher almost accidentally, like something out of a Harry Langdon comedy.

Peter and Rose fall for each other. But when they wind up in a "gay" nightclub -- which in those days meant lively -- the same night as Rose's uncle, they must sneak out quickly. Heavy rain hinders their escape. In desperation, Peter buys an old taxicab from a man he meets on the street. He's unaware the guy is a crook, that the cab was just used in a heist, and that the cops are on the lookout for the car and the driver! Complications ensue. The story builds to a chase, and one of the funniest comic wedding scenes I've ever witnessed.

This is a cute comedy, which starts well and builds in momentum as it rolls along. Mr. Horton is a captivating comic lead, even without his famous voice. I've never heard of director Melville Brown, but he employs unusual creative touches which give the film a boost. For instance, when our hero is sitting in his car, talking with a traffic cop, the cop's face is clearly reflected in the windshield during the chat. Instead of cutting back and forth between closeups, we see each character's reactions in the same shot. In another scene, we learn that Peter is smitten with Rose via his silhouette, visible through a smoked glass window. Even in a shadow image, Horton is able to convey his character's emotional state. These moments lift the proceedings out of the ordinary, and give viewers a little treat along with the gags.

"Taxi! Taxi!" was greeted with big laughs today at the library screening, especially the wedding finale. Let's hope the newly-recovered print can be cleaned-up and restored, and made available to a wider audience!

Given the eerie opening shots of this film, a viewer might expect a silent era precursor to King Kong: we're in a shadowy urban setting, gazing at skyscrapers at night, as the silhouette of an enormous gorilla glides across them. It's an impressive opening although, as it turns out, it has little to do with what follows. These shots are symbolic: the city is being terrorized by a ruthless strangler known as The Gorilla, a killer with a powerful grip.

Once that's established, our setting switches to a gloomy old mansion in Westchester County. The masters of the house are the wealthy Townsend brothers. Cyrus is a sour-faced miser with lots of enemies, while William is a spendthrift with lots of creditors. Other members of the household include Cyrus' pretty daughter, his male secretary, a handsome houseguest, the butler, and the maid. When Cyrus discovers a substantial amount of money missing, everyone is suspected. And then -- Cyrus is lured to a room upstairs where he is strangled, by a killer with a powerful grip. (Of course, we don't see the killer's face.) Once the news spreads through the house, a phone call is made, and two detectives soon arrive to solve the case.

Despite the grim tone up to this point, what follows is a comedy! But perhaps you knew that already. The same source material --a popular play, a spoof of the 'old dark house' genre-- was remade in 1939 with The Ritz Brothers, and that version has been shown on TCM and elsewhere. But this first screen adaptation was believed lost for decades, until a print turned up in Italy. The newly restored version premiered at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival earlier this year.

Here, the detectives who arrive to straighten everything out are Fred Kelsey (as Mulligan) and Charles Murray (as Garrity). The cigar-chomping, derby-hatted Kelsey was born to play comic cops, and did so many times. Tex Avery's classic 1943 cartoon Who Killed Who based its central cop on Kelsey --and indeed, he looks and acts like a caricature come to life. Murray, meanwhile, is familiar from many Mack Sennett comedies: a skinny older guy with a rubbery face. Some of the funniest bits in this film come when he simply reacts to what's happening around him, especially at the finale, when The Gorilla appears on the scene and looms, for a long, long moment, just behind Garrity.

Director Alfred Santell keeps the proceedings rolling along, and provides occasional flamboyant cinematic touches, as when the camera swoops upward along a winding staircase, or swoops in for a closeup of a startled face. This comedy is entertaining overall, though I'd say it could have used stronger gags. It's lightly amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny. But that's okay. I was fortunate enough to see The Gorilla at MoMA this week in an auditorium full of happy viewers, and "lightly amusing" suited everyone there just fine!