Potseluy Meri Pikford

This is an important film to watch if you want a good demonstration of international dialog within cinema. We see the power that American cinema held during the Soviet Union's NEP as thousands upon thousands of Russians mob Pickford & Fairbanks. The attitude of the film towards American cinema stars is both affectionate and annoyed - when we see our hero satirize the affected actions of Fairbanks, it is motivated by frustration in his inability to attract women like that screen icon did.

The Beatles had nothing on this screen couple. There was never -any- celebrity marriage that was as gigantic or joined together two stars quite -so- popular.

Ultimately, the film comes to the conclusion that victory can be gained by beating the capitalists at their own game. Unfortunately, in the 1930s the NEP was dissolved and the Soviet Union was plunged into a time of almost unmatched fear and oppression.

People just don't realize how far and influential one blockbuster film could be. One of the lost films is the soviet "the thief, but not from bagdad" - a satire of Fairbanks' Thief Of Bagdad. It's sort of sad that we may never get to see this - it would've been interesting to see a Communist interpretation of that most graceful and rich fantasy film.

The beginning of this film is pretty good and interesting, but it starts to get a little tedious halfway through. As a story, this is crackerjack, but an interesting footnote in the history of silent films. Hard to find - I had to watch it in Russian!

A KISS FROM MARY PICKFORD was a comedy made to tie in with Mary Pickford's and Doug Fairbanks' tour of Europe. Everywhere they went, the crowds went mad and Russia was no different. When they hit a film studio, Mary did a short love scene with Igor Ilyinsky and this movie was scripted around it.

The story: Igor is an usher at a Russian movie theater that is playing Fairbanks' THE MARK OF ZORRO to an enthusiastic audience. His girlfriend, Anel Sudakevich, is an actress who is not particularly good. Wounded by a failed casting call, she turns on Igor and tells him that she only kisses movie stars.

Igor gets a card in the stunt man's union and a job at a studio, where they decide to make him the Russian Harry Piel. When Doug and Mary show up at the studio, she performs a short love scene with Igor and kisses him.

Igor high-hats the suddenly adoring Anel, but being a star is not easy. Maddened fans swamp him. Paparazzi won't leave him alone and his clothes are ripped off. In desperation, he washes off Mary's kiss and everyone leaves him alone. He goes back to his job as an usher. Anel and he, having learned their lessons, are now a happy couple.

It's a well-done comedy, particularly in the sequence in which Igor is a star. Yet is it as non-political as some of the reviewers believe? I think not. Movies about people dealing with the insanity of movie fans were a popular subject in Hollywood, but this is Russia we are considering. This movie carries as a basic political subtext that people should succeed by their own merits. Igor's importance is sanctified by Mary's kiss, which he preserves on his cheek with a transparent plaster; The Romanovs' rule had been sanctified by priests pouring oil over the Tsar's head and shown by the crown he wore. Although the latter is not mentioned, it was a constant political assumption of the Soviet era.

Was the parallel a deliberate, intended choice? It's hard to say. Every era's arts has its unspoken assumptions and conventions. Certainly it's something that would come up at a brainstorming session. It's a plot that was popular in Hollywood in the period. The next year William Randolph Hearst would bankroll his mistress, Marion Davies, in SHOW PEOPLE and there are dozens of others that don't spring immediately to mind. However, if the idea occurred to anyone, it would have been much more easily greenlit than, say, a story which, say Igor was a struggling actor unjustly ignored. In this scenario, Igor would finally be noticed by the people in charge and would displace his undeserving rival.

That movie would have been much tougher to get produced, not simply because the censor might have noticed the seeming approval of Mary's anointment, but because it probably would not have occurred to the film makers.

Every era has its assumptions which suffuse its art. Even ours.

Considering the jerrybuilt way in which this was conceived/assembled (incorporating documentary footage of Doug & Mary's Russian vacation into fiction narrative without their knowledge), the result is pretty seamless.

But while the Hollywood superstars' presence is clearly the hook, the movie belongs entirely to Igor Ilyinsky, then near the beginning of a very long and popular career as a stage/film comic actor. I didn't know anything about this guy before, but he's really a gifted physical comedian--more in the manic, rubbery vainglorious-goofball mode of Jim Carrey than Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd or other 1920s contemporaries.

Pickford looks lovely doing the goodwill-ambassadress thing in her scenes--which culminate in a little comic bit she was somehow persuaded to perform with Ilyinsky--while Fairbanks (who briefly demonstrates his famous athletic prowess) looks very, very tanned. Like, George Hamilton tanned.

The public hysteria that ensues after our hero has actually been touched by a visiting Hollywood celebrity is just as funny as his earlier tribulations (which include a bizarre stress- test medical exam). I saw this in a good DVD transfer (albeit with untranslated Russian titles), suggesting perhaps it's been restored for imminent DVD release. (No, I can't get you a copy--it was a press screener in advance of a single-showing big-screen revival--but quite likely the film is going to be more accessible soon, I'd guess.)

I would be very happy to see any other movie that gave Igor Ilyinsky an equal showcase, though it's hard to imagine one that would be this fast-paced, inventive, and American- influenced in its brash slapstick style.

In July 1926, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks visited Moscow. Taking advantage of this important and curious social film anecdote for the Bolshevists, Herr Sergei Komarov ( Herr Kuleshov's disciple and an actor and sometimes, director ) filmed them in different locations and later used this footage to make a full-length silent comedy unbeknownst to those Amerikan stars.

"Potseluy Meri Pikford" ( The Kiss From Mary Pickford ) tells the story of Goga, an usher in a movie theatre ( Herr Igor Ilyinsky, a very important Russian comic actor of that time ) who is in love with Duzya ( Dame Anel Sudakevich ), an aspiring and unsuccessful young actress who doesn't pay attention to him; on the contrary, Duzya loves madly film stars like Douglas Fairbanks and his movies. In order to win Duzya's love, Goga goes to a strange place called Laboratory of Experimental Studies and in there, after suffering many difficult tests; he gets a diploma as an important cinema stuntman. When Mary Pickford herself visits the studio, Goga does a love scene in which he is kissed by the Amerikan star, becoming in that same moment Goga the celebrity, a new idol for the hysterical girl silent fans, including Duzya… but to be a film star has its problems too… There are many interesting aspects to this film that make it unique; the first one is that the obvious Amerikan influence is not only restricted to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford appearances because the Amerikanization affects too the classical film narrative concept of the oeuvre, that is to say, a classical film comedy starring a clumsy hero who will have to perform many difficult tasks in order to gain the affection of his beloved. And typical of this type of work there are many stunts, pratfalls and hilarious mimics that reminded this German count of Herr Charlie Chaplin work.

Another important and remarkable aspect of "Potseluy Meri Pikford" is that in the whole film there is not any political reference and no trace of those communist subjects so important for the U.S.S.R. film directors ( in case they forgot their duties, there were many convincing methods of persuasion… ) This is extraordinary given that films made in that country in those early times always had political references of one kind or another ( Praise for the Party, scorn for bourgeoisie and denunciations of the corrupt capitalist world ). Those subjects were inevitably a main part of the story often to the detriment of the film.

"Potseluy Meri Pikford" is a "rara avis" in the Russian silent film cinema for its lack of politics and special film achievements as well as being a funny, harmless and classic comedy, perfectly accessible on both sides of the iron curtain.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must give a chaste kiss to one of his Teutonic heiresses.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

A long-time lost classic, this Russian comedy adapts well for today's audiences. Although not a laugh riot (and the print that I saw not really good) the visual imagery and the sneaky cutting and editing of an unknowing Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks into the film makes this a must see, if for the history of its creation alone.