Black Oxen

Black Oxen is a remarkable film largely because it is based on a remarkable book, by Gertrude Atherton, and is (as far at any rate as the part that survives is concerned) quite a faithful representation of the novel.

"Rejuvenation" in its general usage during the period was something of a euphemism and was extremely male-oriented (in effect the "viagra" of its day). The interest in the potential effects of what would eventually be identified as testosterone goes back in some ways way into folklore but its "scientific" application began with a very eccentric French physiologist called Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard who claimed in 1899 to have regained his youth after injecting himself with filtered extracts from the crushed testicles of young dogs and guinea pigs. In the 1920s and 1930s, Russo-French surgeon Serge Voronoff developed a technique for grafting monkey testicle tissue onto the testicles of men for a similar purpose, but is was the very distinguished endocrinologist Eugen Steinach whose work created the most interest.

Steinach believed that what he called the "Steinach vasoligature" for men (a partial vasechtomy) would effect a rejuventaion and, although the emphasis still remained largely on men and on sexual potency; poet W. B. Yeats, from one of whose verse-plays the title of the book and film comes, was the best-known celebrity to have been "steinached" and to have claimed a rejuvenation and a re-energisation as a result. Steinach did however extend his theory to women, the equivalent being an irradiation of the ovaries (which also rendered the woman infertile) and Atherton was herself one of those who had undergone the treatment and she too claimed to have benefited significantly from it and it was the inspiration for the novel.

This was the time when cosmetic surgery was also coming of age - many people know that actress Sarah Bernhardt had to have her leg amputated but fewer know that she had had had a face-life shortly before that. This was also the time when the generation-gap was beginning to be talked about and seemed in the era of "flapper" 9represented of course by Clara Bow in the film) to create a particularly harsh divide where women were concerned. Atherton believed that Steinach rejuvenations were a form of female empowerment (many women would claim the same today for cosmetic surgery) and she uses the idea of rejuvenation in her novel to review a whole range of related subjects - the situation of the old, the generation gap, the sexuality of women.

In the first part of the film (the part that survives) this is fairly well represented by Lloyd but if the ending of the film is (as some reviewers claim) predictable, it should not be because it is not at all the same as the ending of the book. Lloyd plumps in fact for a much more conventional view that has the heroine agreeing to "act her age" (and in effect "know her place")while the hero goes off with the flapper. Corinne Griffith gives I think a very impressive and subtle performance as a woman with a mature mind but a young body (the ideal as Atherton perceived it) but, in life, as in the film, it was the young Clara Bow (whose performance is nothing remarkable) who proved the eventual beneficiary.

It is thought that the film in its entirety is not beyond the possibilities of being Steinached but given the disappointing ending, it is perhaps better the way it is.

Once again a curiosity of the silent era. Unfortunately, this is another incomplete film. We don't know what the result of all this interest in youth revitalizing surgery will lead to. The main character, Mary, became old at a time when her continued work was critical to the return of Austria to power after the war. While she was hospitalized, a treatment was performed which left her forever young. Now she has come to the attention of those who knew her years before. A man falls in love with her and things get pretty complicated because she is nearly a hundred years old. Soon all the old women in the film, some friends of hers, begin to want to do the same treatment. The problem is that just as we are about to find out what happens, we run out of film. I understand this was based on a popular piece of fiction. Still, it is an interesting idea. Barely science fiction, really. Are all mythical medical discoveries in movies science fiction? Perhaps.

Sadly, I would like to know how this film ends. The DVD that is available of course is short the missing reels - the film ends at a dinner party. It's not a great transfer but worth watching. Clara Bow is an obnoxious little flapper who is in love with Conway Tearle - a small complication throughout. I agree with the previous comment that Corrine Griffith who is supposed to be around 60, when made up looks much older. She seems infirmed with a cane but there is no explanation about this.

It would be wonderful if the missing reels would turn up in Russian or the Czech Republic or the Netherlands or anywhere. This film was long on my want list so when I saw it advertised on DVD I took a chance and ordered it.

An enigmatic young woman becomes the talk of Jazz Age Manhattan when it appears she's the same socialite who left New York for Europe decades before. They actually are one and the same thanks to x-ray treatments that reverse the ageing process but will her new beau care once he finds out? Like ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? made the following year, the movie's trying to say something about age-ism but I'm not sure if the point was made because it's missing the last reel. Still, I enjoyed what I saw thanks to its star, the extravagantly beautiful Corrine Griffith, and it's impossible to look away whenever Clara Bow's flirtatious flapper appears on screen.

"Black Oxen" by Gertrude Atherton was the #1 best-selling novel of 1923, going through 14 printings in a single year. The novel gained a racy reputation, due to its (for the time) frank discussion of women's sexual organs, and because of some innovative language. (This novel featured the first use of the word "sophisticate" as a noun.) The film version was rushed into production almost immediately, but is well-made and not a quickie.

"Black Oxen" (the 1923 novel) is science fiction, although few of its readers realised that fact. The 1924 film "Black Oxen" is a science-fiction movie, but is not immediately recognisable as such because the film emphasises ideas rather than sci-fi gadgetry. The film takes its title from a verse by Yeats: "The years like great Black Oxen tread the world". A much later science-fiction novel, also cried 'Black Oxen' (by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox, published in 2001), takes its title from this same source.

Lee Clavering (played by Conway Tearle) is a handsome playboy in jazz-era Manhattan. (In the novel, Clavering was a playwright: in this movie, he allegedly writes a newspaper column, but seems to spend all his time carousing.) In a nightclub, he meets a mysterious Austrian beauty named Madame Zatianny (Corinne Griffith) and he's instantly attracted to her. Clavering's older friends Mr and Mrs Oglethorpe are also intrigued by Mme Zatianny, because she is an exact double for Mary Ogden, a socialite of the 1890s who disappeared in Europe many years ago. But Mary Ogden would now be 58 years old, whilst Mme Zatianny is a young woman. Can she perhaps be Mary Ogden's daughter?

SPOILER COMING: As a romance develops between Clavering and Zatianny, he discovers the bizarre truth. Years ago, Mary Ogden went to Vienna and volunteered for a medical experiment, in which her ovaries were irradiated with radium treatments. This rejuvenated the fiftyish Mary, restoring her to the sexual vitality and physical youth of her early twenties. She re-invented herself as the European beauty Zatianny, and has now returned to her old haunts. For reasons never properly explained, the radium treatment works only on women, not men.

This is a strange film, but an interesting one. In flashbacks, we see Mary Ogden as she looked in her fifties: the make-up on Corinne Griffith is not very convincing, and she looks as if she's in her seventies, not her fifties. Also, the movie implies that a woman in her fifties is hopelessly old, beyond any hope of emotional happiness. If this is true, it's down to social prejudice rather than biological fact.

Clara Bow is good in a small role as the Oglethorpes' socialite daughter, and more subdued than usual. "Black Oxen" is a good example of how silent films sometimes had narrative advantages over talking films. Corinne Griffith has to play an American and a (supposed) European. In a sound film, she would have to speak her lines in two different accents. The European accent would probably have been a fairly ludicrous one, dispelling the credibility of her character. Because "Black Oxen" is a silent film, the accent problem is avoided.