Reelin' In The Years -- Eleven P.M. (1928), directed by Richard Maurice

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Hear the Dogs", by Dog Faced Hermans

       As it is with far too many things, the contributions of Black people in the field of cinema is often downplayed or outright ignored in the United States. Take today’s stop on the Reelin’ In The Years tour as an example: For much of my life, I thought that Black cinema had sprung forth from the 1960s on the heels of the cultural zeitgeist, and that the majority of the roles afforded to actual Black men and women (not the jackasses with shoe polish on their face) were relegated to bit parts as servants or what have you. Then recently I came to find out that films with Black leads, even a predominantly Black cast, go as far back as the silent era! The world is lucky to have as many films intact as we do from that era, so the fact that we’ve managed to swell the ranks with films that by their very nature are historically and culturally significant is certainly a treat for a lover of cinema. Which is exactly what I claim to be, and so 1928 is going to be dedicated to one such film. Sorry Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, maybe next time.

       Possibly released in 1928, although it could have been as late as 1930, Eleven P.M. is the last known, and as far as I can tell the only surviving, film by Cuban-born writer/director Richard Maurice. The film begins with Louie Perry, a young writer & athlete who’s attempts to finish writing a (bizarre) story for a church newspaper are constantly interrupted by the various people in his life, which will all come to a head at eleven p.m. Tired out, he decides to take a nap, at which point the film jumps to a completely different story. About a poor violinist named Sundaisy, a girl named June and a young boy named Clyde Stewart, and the web of lies and deception which forms in the wake of their meeting. A meeting which might just have the tinge of the supernatural to it.  

       Eleven P.M. is definitely an interesting movie. Historians and film buffs will mention things like shooting on location and filming at unusual angles to classify it as an experimental film, but I don’t think I noticed because of all the weird shit that kept going on. I mean the film starts with a guy who is writing a story about how people can reincarnate as animals through force of will for a church newspaper of all things, and then he takes a nap and disappears for a bulk of the movie’s runtime. Then you’ve got the whole Sundaisy story, which you would think would play out like your typical Christian morality tale, except the religious leaders in the film are either gullible or outright criminals and it’s got more in common with old folk tales than anything else. Not to mention the numerous time skips, spread out over 24 years, that sees children age into exact copies of their parents. All of which takes place in little over an hour. It’s the criticism equivalent of wind sprints.

       Beyond that weirdness, it’s intriguing to me how race was such a non factor in what would have likely been labeled a ‘race film’ by the U.S. Aside from a one-off reference to Sundaisy being a ‘half-breed’, which even for the time sounds a bit harsh, it doesn’t come up. Black and white people marrying each other, working for each other, just hanging out, and it’s just fine. Which should be no big deal, but I think there’s been this prevailing attitude in modern times of the 20th century being this static homogeneous blob of bigotry until the late 60s when folks like Martin Luther King Jr. appeared out the aether, when in reality it was an ongoing process. That’s not to minimize the fact that racism was and still is a problem in the United States, and it’s not like this movie has Sundaisy kicking the shit out of Klan members or anything, but there’s something comforting about seeing a film from 1928 that says ‘yeah, it’s not that big a deal’. Puts things in perspective a bit, I dunno. It also makes sense that after his relatively short time in the movie business Richard Maurice would go on to do great work in labor organizing, helping to found the Dining Car and Railroad Workers Union. Practicing what he preached, in a manner of speaking.

       I’d also be remiss if I didn’t give props to Rob Gal, who composed the score for this edition of Eleven P.M. When it comes to silent films I think we collectively expect certain sounds that go with that, so when that expectation is subverted it gives the film a bit of an alien atmosphere. So it was with Haxan, with its free jazz and William S. Burroughs narration, and so it is here, where Rob Gal’s combination of sparse blues and dirty R&B brings to mind Tom Waits rather than Fritz Lang. I think Eleven P.M. would be plenty weird regardless, but the addition of Rob Gal’s music pushes it to another level. Easily my favorite score of the films we’ve covered so far.

        The only real problem I can come up with is that Eleven P.M. is just a weird fairy tale, and like fairy tales doesn’t have much in the way of strongly written characters or dramatic arcs. Yet I can’t say I was ever bored, and it moves along so quickly you don’t have the time to anyway. It gets the recommendation; an experimental silent film that’s also a pioneer of Black cinema sounds too awesome not to watch at least once, so you better watch it 4 or 5 times to be safe. But don’t take too long, because our next stop on this Reelin’ In The Years tour is only a year away...