Fri July 12, 2013
The Yellow Ticket, Raoul Walsh (U.S., 1931)
SEE EVENT DETAILS
at Pacific Film Archive (PFA) Theater
(see times)
Vault Print!
Energized by the stylistic breakthrough of The Big Trail, Walsh continued his radical reconsideration of screen space with this very different piece of material, an often filmed 1914 stage drama about a Jewish woman (Elissa Landi) forced to accept a passport identifying her as a prostitute in order to travel within Imperial Russia. Working with the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, Walsh assembles shots of astounding spatial complexity, prevented only by the relatively slow lenses of the time from achieving the extreme depth of field effects that Gregg Toland would perfect in the forties. The marriage of camera movement to point of view in such sequences as Landi’s attack on the Czarist official (Lionel Barrymore) is highly inventive (and thrilling to watch), although Walsh would later eschew such techniques as too showy. Of all of Walsh’s Fox films, The Yellow Ticket most strongly reflects the influence of Murnau, but if the lighting is Germanic, the tempo is pure Walsh, with Landi assuming the heedless, headlong rush of the mature Walsh hero once she decides that the old regime must be brought down. A young Laurence Olivier here makes his American film debut, as a last minute replacement for the forgotten Edward Crandall, though Olivier would later prefer to date his Hollywood career from his breakthrough performance in Wuthering Heights (1939).
—Dave Kehr, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna
• Written by Jules Furthman, from the play by Michael Morton. Additional dialogue by Guy Boulton. Photographed by James Wong Howe. With Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Walter Byron. (81 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Criterion Pictures/20th Century Fox)
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Energized by the stylistic breakthrough of The Big Trail, Walsh continued his radical reconsideration of screen space with this very different piece of material, an often filmed 1914 stage drama about a Jewish woman (Elissa Landi) forced to accept a passport identifying her as a prostitute in order to travel within Imperial Russia. Working with the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, Walsh assembles shots of astounding spatial complexity, prevented only by the relatively slow lenses of the time from achieving the extreme depth of field effects that Gregg Toland would perfect in the forties. The marriage of camera movement to point of view in such sequences as Landi’s attack on the Czarist official (Lionel Barrymore) is highly inventive (and thrilling to watch), although Walsh would later eschew such techniques as too showy. Of all of Walsh’s Fox films, The Yellow Ticket most strongly reflects the influence of Murnau, but if the lighting is Germanic, the tempo is pure Walsh, with Landi assuming the heedless, headlong rush of the mature Walsh hero once she decides that the old regime must be brought down. A young Laurence Olivier here makes his American film debut, as a last minute replacement for the forgotten Edward Crandall, though Olivier would later prefer to date his Hollywood career from his breakthrough performance in Wuthering Heights (1939).
—Dave Kehr, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna
• Written by Jules Furthman, from the play by Michael Morton. Additional dialogue by Guy Boulton. Photographed by James Wong Howe. With Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Walter Byron. (81 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Criterion Pictures/20th Century Fox)
Vault Print!
Energized by the stylistic breakthrough of The Big Trail, Walsh continued his radical reconsideration of screen space with this very different piece of material, an often filmed 1914 stage drama about a Jewish woman (Elissa Landi) forced to accept a passport identifying her as a prostitute in order to travel within Imperial Russia. Working with the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, Walsh assembles shots of astounding spatial complexity, prevented only by the relatively slow lenses of the time from achieving the extreme depth of field effects that Gregg Toland would perfect in the forties. The marriage of camera movement to point of view in such sequences as Landi’s attack on the Czarist official (Lionel Barrymore) is highly inventive (and thrilling to watch), although Walsh would later eschew such techniques as too showy. Of all of Walsh’s Fox films, The Yellow Ticket most strongly reflects the influence of Murnau, but if the lighting is Germanic, the tempo is pure Walsh, with Landi assuming the heedless, headlong rush of the mature Walsh hero once she decides that the old regime must be brought down. A young Laurence Olivier here makes his American film debut, as a last minute replacement for the forgotten Edward Crandall, though Olivier would later prefer to date his Hollywood career from his breakthrough performance in Wuthering Heights (1939).
—Dave Kehr, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna
• Written by Jules Furthman, from the play by Michael Morton. Additional dialogue by Guy Boulton. Photographed by James Wong Howe. With Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Walter Byron. (81 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Criterion Pictures/20th Century Fox)
read more
Energized by the stylistic breakthrough of The Big Trail, Walsh continued his radical reconsideration of screen space with this very different piece of material, an often filmed 1914 stage drama about a Jewish woman (Elissa Landi) forced to accept a passport identifying her as a prostitute in order to travel within Imperial Russia. Working with the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, Walsh assembles shots of astounding spatial complexity, prevented only by the relatively slow lenses of the time from achieving the extreme depth of field effects that Gregg Toland would perfect in the forties. The marriage of camera movement to point of view in such sequences as Landi’s attack on the Czarist official (Lionel Barrymore) is highly inventive (and thrilling to watch), although Walsh would later eschew such techniques as too showy. Of all of Walsh’s Fox films, The Yellow Ticket most strongly reflects the influence of Murnau, but if the lighting is Germanic, the tempo is pure Walsh, with Landi assuming the heedless, headlong rush of the mature Walsh hero once she decides that the old regime must be brought down. A young Laurence Olivier here makes his American film debut, as a last minute replacement for the forgotten Edward Crandall, though Olivier would later prefer to date his Hollywood career from his breakthrough performance in Wuthering Heights (1939).
—Dave Kehr, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna
• Written by Jules Furthman, from the play by Michael Morton. Additional dialogue by Guy Boulton. Photographed by James Wong Howe. With Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Walter Byron. (81 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Criterion Pictures/20th Century Fox)
show less
Date/Times:
Pacific Film Archive (PFA) Theater
2575 Bancroft Way, Alameda, CA 94720
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