During my childhood in the sixties and seventies silent films were often shown on British television. These were invariably comedy shorts starring the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy or the Keystone Kops and I was left with the impression that my grandparents' generation only ever went to the cinema to be entertained by slapstick comedy. This impression was, of course, quite erroneous and there were plenty of full-length feature films on serious subjects made during the silent era. "A Cottage on Dartmoor" was one of these. It was, in fact, one of the last silents to be made in Britain, coming out in 1929, two years after "The Jazz Singer" had launched the talking picture revolution. The film actually makes reference to the coming of sound and a key scene takes place when two characters go to the local cinema to watch a "talkie".
The film opens with an escaped convict making his way across the bleak Dartmoor landscape. (The film is also known by the alternative title "Escape from Dartmoor"). He meets a young woman outside an isolated farmhouse and she, evidently taking pity on him, allows him into her home and offers him a hiding place. She exclaims his name, "Joe!" from which it is clear that these two already know each other. Their back-story is then told in flashback.
We learn that Joe was originally a barber and that the girl, whose name is Sally, worked alongside him as a manicurist in the same salon. At one time the two were dating one another, but Joe had a rival for Sally's affections in the shape of Harry, a local farmer and regular customer at the salon. During the above-mentioned scene in the cinema it becomes clear that Sally prefers Harry to Joe, and when Harry comes into the shop the following day an altercation between them leads to Harry being slashed by Joe's cut-throat razor. Joe is arrested, convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to imprisonment. The action then switches back to that Dartmoor cottage.
The silent cinema did have some advantages over the sound cinema; it could, for example, be more international. It seems that this was Chaplin's motivation for staying faithful to the silent medium; he wanted his films to be understood across the world, not just in English-speaking countries. Here only one of the three leads, Norah Baring, is British; Joe is played by the Swedish actor Uno Henning and Harry by the German Hans Schlettow. All three, in fact, are very good, having mastered the art of silent acting, which is something very different from conventional acting.
And yet, despite all the talents involved- not only the talents of the actors but also those of director Anthony Asquith and cameraman Stanley Rodwell- I could, watching the film, understand one of the reasons why silent and sound films could not coexist for long in the way in which, say, black-and-white movies managed to coexist with colour for around thirty years. Unlike physical comedy, strong emotions like love and jealousy are not really an ideal subject for silent film. When most people want to express their emotions they do so through speech. They do not act them out in dumb show. This applies even more strongly to actions motivated by mental reasoning than to those motivated by raw emotion. Emotions can to some extent be expressed though gestures and facial expressions- the cinema scene is a good example of this- but rational thoughts cannot.
Watching this film we are always aware that the actors and film-makers were working to overcome the limitations inherent in the silent form, and perhaps not always successfully. There are a number of points at which the meaning of the action is unclear. To what extent is Sally torn between her feelings for Joe and those for Harry? Does Joe deliberately try to kill Harry? Why do Sally and Harry attempt to assist Joe's escape from prison, even though one might have thought they have good reason to hate him? All of these matters could have been clarified by spoken dialogue.
It often happens that a particular class of object reaches its pinnacle of design just at the point where it is about to be made obsolete by technological change. Clipper ships like the "Cutty Sark" were masterpieces of design, as were Nigel Gresley's A4 Pacific railway engines, but all the skill which went into creating these objects could not prevent the sailing ship from giving way to the steamship or the steam locomotive to diesel and electric traction.
As it was in transport, so it was in the entertainment industry. A lot of skill went into creating films like "A Cottage on Dartmoor", and yet the silent film was doomed to give way to the talkie. (Asquith was to become one of Britain's leading directors of talking pictures). The critic Simon McCallum described the film as "a final, passionate cry in defence of the silent aesthetic in British cinema". I see it more as a requiem for the silent tradition. 7/10
The film opens with an escaped convict making his way across the bleak Dartmoor landscape. (The film is also known by the alternative title "Escape from Dartmoor"). He meets a young woman outside an isolated farmhouse and she, evidently taking pity on him, allows him into her home and offers him a hiding place. She exclaims his name, "Joe!" from which it is clear that these two already know each other. Their back-story is then told in flashback.
We learn that Joe was originally a barber and that the girl, whose name is Sally, worked alongside him as a manicurist in the same salon. At one time the two were dating one another, but Joe had a rival for Sally's affections in the shape of Harry, a local farmer and regular customer at the salon. During the above-mentioned scene in the cinema it becomes clear that Sally prefers Harry to Joe, and when Harry comes into the shop the following day an altercation between them leads to Harry being slashed by Joe's cut-throat razor. Joe is arrested, convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to imprisonment. The action then switches back to that Dartmoor cottage.
The silent cinema did have some advantages over the sound cinema; it could, for example, be more international. It seems that this was Chaplin's motivation for staying faithful to the silent medium; he wanted his films to be understood across the world, not just in English-speaking countries. Here only one of the three leads, Norah Baring, is British; Joe is played by the Swedish actor Uno Henning and Harry by the German Hans Schlettow. All three, in fact, are very good, having mastered the art of silent acting, which is something very different from conventional acting.
And yet, despite all the talents involved- not only the talents of the actors but also those of director Anthony Asquith and cameraman Stanley Rodwell- I could, watching the film, understand one of the reasons why silent and sound films could not coexist for long in the way in which, say, black-and-white movies managed to coexist with colour for around thirty years. Unlike physical comedy, strong emotions like love and jealousy are not really an ideal subject for silent film. When most people want to express their emotions they do so through speech. They do not act them out in dumb show. This applies even more strongly to actions motivated by mental reasoning than to those motivated by raw emotion. Emotions can to some extent be expressed though gestures and facial expressions- the cinema scene is a good example of this- but rational thoughts cannot.
Watching this film we are always aware that the actors and film-makers were working to overcome the limitations inherent in the silent form, and perhaps not always successfully. There are a number of points at which the meaning of the action is unclear. To what extent is Sally torn between her feelings for Joe and those for Harry? Does Joe deliberately try to kill Harry? Why do Sally and Harry attempt to assist Joe's escape from prison, even though one might have thought they have good reason to hate him? All of these matters could have been clarified by spoken dialogue.
It often happens that a particular class of object reaches its pinnacle of design just at the point where it is about to be made obsolete by technological change. Clipper ships like the "Cutty Sark" were masterpieces of design, as were Nigel Gresley's A4 Pacific railway engines, but all the skill which went into creating these objects could not prevent the sailing ship from giving way to the steamship or the steam locomotive to diesel and electric traction.
As it was in transport, so it was in the entertainment industry. A lot of skill went into creating films like "A Cottage on Dartmoor", and yet the silent film was doomed to give way to the talkie. (Asquith was to become one of Britain's leading directors of talking pictures). The critic Simon McCallum described the film as "a final, passionate cry in defence of the silent aesthetic in British cinema". I see it more as a requiem for the silent tradition. 7/10