L'emprise

Another Lois Weber film, "The Marriage Clause," if only in its surviving, 20-minutes fragment form, this was the real selling point for me on the "This is Francis X. Bushman" (2021) documentary Blu-ray, especially given I'd already seen the doc. I will and have seen every picture of hers I can get my hands on, as Weber was one of the most intelligent and innovative filmmakers of the 1910s and early 1920s and whose best work tended to be artistically reflexive, from the unusual angles and use of mirrors in a one-reeler mirroring the type of last-minute-rescue shorts of D. W. Griffith in "Suspense" (1913), the statue turned naked superimposed truth in "Hypocrites" (1915), to the operatic ballet of "The Dumb Girl of Portici," the film-within-the-film morality tale of the unfortunately mostly-lost "Idle Wives" (both 1916), or the emphasis on reflections in the reflective "Too Wise Wives" (1921).

That said, Weber did have some unflattering tendencies, at least to modern eyes. Besides the tendency to lecture, which graciously appears absent in what survives of "The Marriage Clause," there's her preference for dated melodrama. One scene here is especially illustrative of this point. The scenario is essentially a variation of "A Star Is Born" (1932, 1937, 1954, 1976, 2018, etc.), or rather "A Star Is Born" is a variation of it, where a starlet of the stage rises to fame as her director and lover fades from the limelight. The biggest difference here is there doesn't appear to be any alcoholism.

Anyways, the scene illustrating my point has him observing her walking into a room with her manager with the door being closed behind them, which he may believe suggests they're about to have sex, whereas in actuality they're merely looking over contracts. This is followed by her seeing him in a seemingly compromising position of kissing another woman, but actually he's lighting the other woman's cigarette with his, and he subsequently bucks her advances. Ernst Lubitsch was filming similar scenes based upon obscured looks and the dramatic troubles that would ensue from such misinformation, as in "The Marriage Circle" (1924) and "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1925), but for sophisticated sex comedies. Weber, on the other hand, does if to prolong and heighten the melodramatic tension of the divide between the romantic coupling, including the titular marriage clause of her theatrical contract preventing their marriage--something treated much more lightly by Lubitsch.

The real genius of Weber's picture, though, is in the other sense of melodrama, or the play-within-the-play. I'm not sure whether the inner play has any relevance to the outer one that is the film, but there is a real-life reflection in the casting here. Bushman was a matinee idol of the 1910s, including starring opposite frequent co-star Beverly Bayne in a now-lost production of "Romeo and Juliet (1916), but scandal derailed his career. Ironically enough given the marriage-clause plot here, the scandal involved his marrying co-star Bayne and reportedly abandoning his prior family in the process. Nowadays, he's probably best known, however, for his comeback role as Messala in the 1925 "Ben-Hur."

This is what makes the other "A Star Is Born" variations work--for the ones that do work, that is--as such scenarios are based in real-world show-business tragedies. "What Price Hollywood?" has the suggestion of queerness for its director-character within the film and was directed by the gay George Cukor, the 1954 version reflects in James Mason's alcoholic the shadow of drug abuse and a troubled career of the real Judy Garland, and at least the 2018 remake reflects Bradley Cooper's vanity in overly focusing on himself over the more promising critique of the over-sexualization and bizarre performances of the music industry as represented by Lady Gaga.

Beside Bushman, the cast here also includes Billie Dove, who I also recently saw in "The Black Pirate" (1926), as the star on the rise, and Warner Oland, in an early role where he's not disguised as an Oriental stereotype, plays the theatre manager. Fortunately, from the Library of Congress, the surviving fourth of a film that's said to have been originally some 80 minutes in length, is an abbreviation of the entirety of the scenario, as opposed to a continuous reel or two, so one can still get an idea of the overall picture, if not many of the details and pacing. Indeed, it's kind of funny to watch how the surviving print cuts from shot to shot and actors are in entirely different positions or situations all of a sudden, as if they're Buster Keaton entering the screen in "Sherlock, Jr." (1924). And, some intriguing aspects remain, such as the aforementioned scene revolving around obscured looks, as well as a letter motif beyond the marriage clause of the contract. Another interesting film from Weber, as well as Bushman and the others, largely lost to time and neglect--a faded star.