by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2015 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
Afterwards Charles and I watched a pretty quirky film: the
1913 Tannhäuser made by the Thanhouser
company. I suppose it was virtually inevitable that Edwin Thanhouser would make
a movie more or less based on the opera by Richard Wagner about his legendary
namesake, the Minnesänger
(referred to in the credits as a “Minstrel,” which predictably led Charles to
joke that he hadn’t known medieval Germans performed in blackface) Heinrich
Tannhäuser (though given his German heritage it’s a bit surprising Edwin
Thanhouser misplaced the umlaut in the title character’s name; he’s referred in
all the titles as “Tannhaüser”), who ended up entrapped in a carnal
relationship with the goddess Venus and tried to fight his way back to the good
graces of both the Roman Catholic Church and his nice girlfriend Elisabeth. The
film runs 40 minutes and therefore at least arguably qualifies as one of the
first American-made features (though that honor is usually given in film
histories to D. W. Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia, also made in 1913, a 50-minute film Griffith made
in secret; when his employers, Biograph, learned he’d made a film that long
with their money they fired him, then futilely tried to hire him back when the
film was released and it was a major hit), and like most Thanhouser films it’s
handsomely produced. Unfortunately, also like most Thanhouser films, it’s
awfully static: the characters, settings and props (except for the horribly
fake-looking lyres the characters playing singers carry around to accompany
themselves) are quite impressive, and the special effects (notably Tannhäuser
and Venus dissolving in and out of the action) are great for 1913, but the film
is a series of static tableaux in which the actors move but the cameras don’t.
The basic grammar of film as Griffith was inventing it at Biograph — the
close-ups, the cutting between angles in a single scene, the use of moving
cameras to follow the action and bring it closer to the audience — was totally
foreign to Lucius J. Henderson, who directed this one (no writer is credited
but the script was probably by Lloyd Lonergan, third partner in Thanhouser with
Edwin Thanhouser and his wife Gertrude, based on Wagner’s opera).
The movie
basically tells the same story as the opera, but with the addition of a
backstory showing the Markgrave basically putting up his niece Elisabeth
(Marguerite Snow) as prize for the winner of a song contest, a plot device
cribbed from a later Wagner opera, Die Meistersinger. Wolfram von Eschenbach (William Russell) wins the
prize and the Markgrave announces his engagement to Elisabeth, but then
Tannhäuser (played, like many leading men in Thanhouser movies, by future
director James Cruze) shows up — the title says he’s in time to compete but the
action makes it seem like he’s too late, he’s missed the deadline. He and
Elisabeth meet and instantly fall in love with each other, but she still feels
she has to honor her uncle’s arrangement of her marriage to Wolfram, so she
sends him away and it’s at that
point that he runs into Venus (Florence La Badie, the closest Thanhouser came
to establishing a major star and by far the most charismatic on-screen
performer in this film) and her entourage. Though she and Tannhäuser conduct
their romance (and their magical appearances and disappearances) in the open
air instead of inside a mountain as in Wagner’s opera (let’s face it, in 1913
lights were expensive and sunlight was free), the plot pretty much continues as
in Wagner: Tannhäuser has fun with Venus (and as the only male in her
entourage, possibly with some of the other girls as well!) but starts longing
for a normal life and a normal partner. When a group of pilgrims on their way
to Rome passes by, Tannhäuser joins them and walks with them as far as the
Markgrave’s palace, whereupon he scandalizes the Markgrave’s entourage by
singing a hymn to Venus. Wolfram challenges him to a duel, Elisabeth
intercedes, and Tannhäuser decides to seek absolution by joining the pilgrims
(ya remember the pilgrims?) and
visiting the Pope. Only once he gets there the Pope tells him that his sins
with Venus are so scandalous that he won’t be forgiven until the Pope’s staff
sprouts leaves.
Well, you don’t need two guesses to figure out what happens
next: Tannhäuser returns to Elisabeth, Wolfram agrees to give her up and let
her marry Tannhäuser (Charles joked that James Cruze looked so nellie, and
William Russell so butch, it was a wonder Tannhäuser didn’t marry Wolfram
instead), but Elisabeth is dying of a broken heart and even the news from Rome
that the Pope’s staff sprouted leaves after all (you were expecting that, weren’t you?) doesn’t arrive in time
to save the lovebirds: Elisabeth dies and Tannhäuser dies as well. Tannhäuser the movie is an obvious example of Thanhouser the
studio’s attempt to raise the level of motion-picture entertainment by drawing
on classic sources from literature and high culture (they were among the first
people to film Charles Dickens — though I suspect Edison’s 1910 A
Christmas Carol is the first Dickens movie,
and there might be British-made shorts even earlier — and the first company to
make a movie of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with James Cruze in the title role[s]), and if they
had had a director of Griffith’s creativity their movies would probably be
considered classics instead of curiosities today. As it is, Tannhäuser is electrifying in the Venus sequences but the rest
of the film is pretty dull, though at least respectably acted — the playing is
surprisingly naturalistic for a film this early and only Tannhäuser’s hand-to-the-back-of-the-head
swoon when he learns Elisabeth isn’t going to be allowed to marry him shows
silent acting at its worst — and handsomely produced. It probably wowed
audiences in 1913, and for our viewing (off the computer in VLC since the download
from archive.org had a glitch four minutes in when we tried to run it in any
other program) I assembled a soundtrack CD of music from the opera that worked
pretty well — especially when the music Wagner wrote for the scenes in the
Venusberg accompanied similar action involving Venus and her entourage in the
movie.
