Silent movies - The Reckless Age

Have you ever heard of "Floyd's of London"? I'm quite sure you haven't because it's a joke on "Lloyd's of London", the famous insurance market.
Yes, we are in the world of insurances today and you can imagine it will be an unusual one we are dealing with in "The Reckless Age" from 1924.

First, the plot (spoilers!)

Lord Allan Harrowby from London is meeting with the two top managers of Floyd's of London.
He has an unusual request. He will marry the heiress Cecilia Meyrick soon and wants to take out an insurance for $100,000 against her changing her mind.
The managers agree, but first he has to sign an agreement that there will be no compensation if the wedding is off due to his own actions. Also, they will send their risk manager Richard Minot along to Florida to make sure the wedding goes through.

They put all their trust in Dick who has never disappointed them so far and give him a token of their appreciation, a watch.
The watch is engraved on the back - and no, I have absolutely no idea if they were just too cheap to get the real watch engraved for the film or if that picture was missing in the only existing print and was replaced by this masterpiece (which is shown twice).

On the train, Dick happens to meet Cecilia. Unfortunately, it is love at first sight for him which makes the whole mission very awkward for him now.
Although Cecilia also feels attracted to Dick, she is very keen on arriving in San Marco in time for the lunch where her engagement will be announced.

When the train is held up by a pig family, Dick decides to take a "taxy" to get Cecilia to the lunch in time. The train-car chase makes for a really cool stunt which made me jump.

From that moment on, Dick has a hard time to make this wedding happen.
Cecilia is not at all sure about it anymore, she and Dick keep flirting.
Naive Lord Harrowby is befriended by con man Martin Wall.
A valuable diamond necklace is stolen right off Cecilia's neck.
 

Pushing Cecilia over to Lord Harrowby to faint.

Some other guy turns up and claims to be the real Lord Harrowby. Dick has him taken to Wall's yacht to get him out of the way.
Actress Gabrielle Rose arrives with whom the Lord used to have an affair. She threatens to sue him for breaking his marriage promise. Luckily, Dick finds proof that she had already been married at the time and isn't divorced yet.

Are you already confused? Because, you know, we are not even halfway through the movie yet.

Meanwhile, Allan has endorsed the policy to Wall for a loan of the money he thinks he needs to get rid of Gabrielle Rose. Of course, Wall sees his chance to make a lot of money if he brings the other Lord back into the game.
Cecilia's father demands identification for the wedding to take place.
Allan's reaction is to run off. It's not looking good for him. Good for Dick and Cecilia, though. Only she doesn't want to see that because she still doesn't know why Dick has done everything to push that wedding through while saying he loves her. It's quite understandable that she's mad.

And don't you know it, the Lord is back! He's in company of the Duke and Duchess of Lismore who are friends of his and also of the Meyricks.
The other Lord gets introduced and Lismore recognizes him as the former butler. Another obstacle is removed.

Martin Wall, however, is still working on his plan. He offers the local paper's editor $1,000 to put the insurance story in the next issue.
The editor thinks he can do better than that, prints the story and goes to Cecilia's father offering him to destroy the issue if he buys the paper for $20,000.
Of course, Wall isn't happy when he finds out, they start fighting, Dick arrives and joins the fight (Denny used to be a boxer and started out in boxing two-reelers), then the employees, and in the end the whole office is in shambles. When Allan and Cecilia turn up, Cecilia learns about the insurance and Dick's role in it. Obviously, the marriage is off for good now and Dick doesn't have good cards, either.

Wall tries to claim the money, but since it was Allan's fault for telling him, the policy is invalid. To top it off, a police officer turns up because they found the necklace and jewels in Wall's room, yes, he has even stolen the yacht!

Dick and Cecilia meet again when the train they're on has a problem and they go for the same "taxy". The driver can tell there's something wrong between them and drives so wildly on purpose that they keep bumping into one another - until they can't resist anymore.

I know that it sounds like a very confusing movie, but it really isn't.
Dick handles one problem after the other and Floyd's trust in him is absolutely justified because he handles them well.
Denny was a popular actor in the 20s (and still worked in film until his death beside being an engineer and inventor) which isn't surprising as he was good at romance, comedy, but also action.
He and Ruth Dwyer make this a cute little romantic comedy.
As you might know, dollar princesses absolutely existed - rich heiresses marrying into titled families who needed money. In this case, the Lord is even in love with Cecilia - that wasn't always the case with these marriages - although I'm not sure about her feelings because she falls for Dick awfully quickly.
Not even the insurance is that unusual. There is indeed an insurance company offering a "change of heart" policy, just not that shortly before the wedding date.
The only awkward bit was that there was one example of blackface with the taxi driver.

When I saw that the movie was an adaptation of the book "Love Insurance" by Earl Derr Biggers, I had just finished another book and figured why not?
Although I had only read one or two of the books and watched one or two of the movies years ago, Biggers was familiar to me as the creator of Charlie Chan. I hadn't been aware that he was a journalist and playwright as well and also wrote other successful novels before Charlie Chan.

You thought there was a lot happening in the movie?
Although the basic plot was the same, the book had even more people and twists! For some reason, the movie turned Lloyd's into Floyd's and turned Cynthia into Cecilia.
The story had been serialized in several newspapers in 1914 and was published as a book later that year. It was quite amusing to read, so much so that I put other Biggers pre-Chan books on my list, but I think reading it in installments might have made more sense to keep the whirlwind feeling down a bit. Oh well, those sleepless night.


Source:

Marc Wanamaker/Kimberly Pucci/Janice Simpson: The Reckless Age (L'età frenetica). On: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 36, Pordenone, 30 September | 7 October 2017

From my children's book cabinet - Der kleine dicke Ritter

Today's book is "Der kleine dicke Ritter". Inside it says it's based on an audio play based on a play called "The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew" by the British author Robert Bolt.

Before telling you about "the little fat knight" named Oblong-Fitz-Oblong, however, I have to tell you about the "Augsburger Puppenkiste".
Augsburg is a city in the Bavarian part of Swabia and "Puppenkiste" translates to "puppet chest".

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The "Augsburger Puppenkiste" is a marionette theater whose predecessor was founded in 1943 and revived under the now known name in 1948. It performs plays for children, but also for adults, even operas.
We grew up with the "Puppenkiste", but not because we went to Augsburg to see it, that would have been out of the question, but because it gained popularity thanks to their TV productions (Liz, in case you read this, there are even two series of the Moomins from 1959/60 that I had never heard about before! I'm looking forward to watching those even if I don't know the books.).

In short, we grew up on stories from the "Puppenkiste", such as the "Jim Knopf" ("Jim Button") series based on the books by Michael Ende, the "Urmel" ("Impy") series based on Max Kruse's books, and among others also "Der kleine dicke Ritter" in 1963 (which obviously means I saw the reruns).
Watching those today still evokes a special childhood feeling in me, the familiar voices of the puppet players, the typical marionette movements, and the melodies. They were classic Christmas programs for example.

I think I knew the puppet version even before the book and even later than that I was really aware that it had originally been a play.
Here's the timeline and it's confusing.
The play came out in 1962 and translated into German by Marianne de Barde. Her translation was used by German writer Carl Mandelartz to retell the story under the pen name Carl Schanze in form of a novel which was published in 1963.
Also in 1963, the TV adaptation of the play of the "Augsburger Puppenkiste" was on air in Germany.
The BBC broadcasted the English audio play on Christmas 1964.

There were bound to be differences between original play and book, so I read the play as well which was quite a surprise.
Let me put it nicely, I guess it was Mandelartz who was very generous with the material and the puppet play was then based on the book. I couldn't find any information on that, though.

Maybe it's about time to tell you a bit about the plot.

The Duke and his knights want to get rid of Oblong-Fitz-Oblong because he's a bit too good a knight for them. After all the dragons in the area have been killed, he wants to move on to where they are needed. The Duke and knights, on the other hand, would prefer a little breather. They dream of sleeping in, some light jousting, and big meals.
So they send Oblong to the Bolligrew Islands as a Royal Knight Errant to stand up to the evil Baron Bolligrew and the dragon on the island. I think I don't give away too much when I say that he succeeds. First he has to gain the trust and help of the peasants on the island and deal with being hit by a magic spell which gives Bolligrew power over him.

Both in the play and the book, Oblong loves animals. One reason for him to accept the task is when he hears that the Baron is hunting all the animals.
In the play, however, he has killed at least one small pink dragon himself although he didn't like doing it and brings its tail tip for proof. In the book, he can't get himself to kill the dragon and instead of the tail tip he brings the whole pink dragon, tames him, and calls him Bonzo - and after him two more dragons!
When the Duke visits the Islands himself at the end, he even brings Bonzo along on the trip with him.

When Baron Bolligrew wants Oblong
out of the way for the Duke's visit,
Bonzo finds him and takes him
back to see the Duke just in time.

The dragon on the Bolligrew Islands is so evil, by the way, that not even Oblong wants to let him live in the book.
The play's dragon is black and has red eyes. In performances, that allows for him to be represented just by two red lights as he's sitting in his cave where he gets shot in the end. In the book he's black and has two tails and in the end he's dying in the ocean.
Bolligrew has an agreement with the dragon, each of them gets half of the island. When the dragon has ravished his half, he wants Bolligrew's half, so the Baron tries to get rid of him.
In the book he offers him poisoned mutton which the dragon is too smart to take.
The wizard putting the spell on Oblong uses an apple in the book, but in the play it's his mantle. The apple he's giving Oblong makes him poisonous, so the dragon will die if he eats him!

The evil dragon in the puppet play

And there are more animals. When Oblong leaves the castle, he takes all the jackdaws from the castle tower with him, including his friend Dolfus. You must know that the Duke's favorite dish is filled jackdaw and Oblong fears for his friends. Dolfus plays an important role when Oblong is put under the magic spell.
In the play, there are no jackdaws. Oblong meets Mike the magpie on the island and it's Mike who helps him with the spell. Also a badger plays a much bigger role in book and puppet play.

So essentially, the plot is the same, but the book and puppet play add more details.
There is a video of a school performance on YouTube. Maybe I should have a look at that sometime, just to see what it could look like on stage.
I will always prefer our version. I have loved it for over 50 years and I hear the voices of the marionettes when I read the book.
It was definitely interesting to find out about the differences, though, not something I had expected!