For five years I have maintained the the awful Charles Ray vehicle of 1917, THE PINCH HITTER, is the worst silent film I have ever seen. This afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art, I saw this, the new record holder.
There are only two titles in this film: one identifying the main characters as Sylvester, his wife and his mother, and the other identifying the sets as the Tavern, the Street, and the Sea -- and a good thing, too, as anyone stupid enough to think this a movie worth seeing might easily mistake these settings for something else. To minimize confusion someone even tinted the pictures of crashing waves blue -- I think that's supposed to be the Sea -- lest someone confuse it for the Matterhorn or the train station at Alice Springs. Plus there's five seconds of a prize fight cut in near the end, but that, no doubt, is Very Symbolic.
Were these my only issues, I would lay the blame on this being an American translation of a Japanese print of a German film -- these discontinuities happen. However, when you realize that this is actually a silent episode of the modern American sitcom EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND with no jokes, the only conclusion is that the glacial pace and massive padding is nothing more than an effort to bring a bizarre split-reel tragedy up to feature length.
Let's recapitulate. It's New Year's Eve and Sylvester brings Mama home, despite some issues with wifey. Things go pretty well until the little woman nods off while Sylvester is helping out in the bar and mama tries to strangle her.
After this heartwarming start, there are, unsurprisingly enough, emotional repercussions: wifey walks out, Sylvester fetches her back and after a bit Sylvester goes into his room, locks his door and kills himself. Eventually celebrators break in, discover the corpse and in twenty minutes or so -- that's time spent on the screen, although it seemed a couple of days sitting in the theater -- the mortician comes and takes the body, interspersed with shots of the street, the sea and aforementioned five seconds of a boxing match. Although the whole thing times in at an hour, it seems much longer as a lot of time is spent watching people doing nothing. Worse, those few things that people do are somehow both bizarre and unsurprising. After ten minutes of happy celebrating between mama and wifey, for example, I was so bored I wondered what would come next and thought of one trying to kill the other. I must admit that the clip of a prize fight did not occur to me. I had spent the last half hour wondering when this thing would finally be over. I hadn't cared for quite a while.
None of this was helped by the fact that the accompanist, Stuart Oderman didn't know what to play, but he has only been playing for silent films for fifty years and nothing quite this awful has ever passed his eyes before.
Finally, let me make one thing clear: just because this is now the Worst Silent Film I Have Ever Seen does not mean you should see THE PINCH HITTER in preference. Should the choice ever come up, try calling Stuart and asking him to play 'Suicide is Painless.'
There are only two titles in this film: one identifying the main characters as Sylvester, his wife and his mother, and the other identifying the sets as the Tavern, the Street, and the Sea -- and a good thing, too, as anyone stupid enough to think this a movie worth seeing might easily mistake these settings for something else. To minimize confusion someone even tinted the pictures of crashing waves blue -- I think that's supposed to be the Sea -- lest someone confuse it for the Matterhorn or the train station at Alice Springs. Plus there's five seconds of a prize fight cut in near the end, but that, no doubt, is Very Symbolic.
Were these my only issues, I would lay the blame on this being an American translation of a Japanese print of a German film -- these discontinuities happen. However, when you realize that this is actually a silent episode of the modern American sitcom EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND with no jokes, the only conclusion is that the glacial pace and massive padding is nothing more than an effort to bring a bizarre split-reel tragedy up to feature length.
Let's recapitulate. It's New Year's Eve and Sylvester brings Mama home, despite some issues with wifey. Things go pretty well until the little woman nods off while Sylvester is helping out in the bar and mama tries to strangle her.
After this heartwarming start, there are, unsurprisingly enough, emotional repercussions: wifey walks out, Sylvester fetches her back and after a bit Sylvester goes into his room, locks his door and kills himself. Eventually celebrators break in, discover the corpse and in twenty minutes or so -- that's time spent on the screen, although it seemed a couple of days sitting in the theater -- the mortician comes and takes the body, interspersed with shots of the street, the sea and aforementioned five seconds of a boxing match. Although the whole thing times in at an hour, it seems much longer as a lot of time is spent watching people doing nothing. Worse, those few things that people do are somehow both bizarre and unsurprising. After ten minutes of happy celebrating between mama and wifey, for example, I was so bored I wondered what would come next and thought of one trying to kill the other. I must admit that the clip of a prize fight did not occur to me. I had spent the last half hour wondering when this thing would finally be over. I hadn't cared for quite a while.
None of this was helped by the fact that the accompanist, Stuart Oderman didn't know what to play, but he has only been playing for silent films for fifty years and nothing quite this awful has ever passed his eyes before.
Finally, let me make one thing clear: just because this is now the Worst Silent Film I Have Ever Seen does not mean you should see THE PINCH HITTER in preference. Should the choice ever come up, try calling Stuart and asking him to play 'Suicide is Painless.'
