Customer Reviews

The Mechanical Man / The Headless Horseman

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The two silent films - The Mechanical Man and The Headless Horseman - on this budget DVD have only a few features which would appeal to the silent film enthusiast and/or Will Rogers fans (who stars in The Headless Horseman) and while the material presented is in itself not too bad, the picture quality is a little disappointing, being generally blurry and not as clear as it could be. The main feature, "The Mechanical Man" is an Italian film from 1921, of which only about a third has been found and salvaged. Alpha Video, to their credit, has presented an outline of the plot and added nice new English intertitles which help quite a bit, but the entire remains of the film are less than 30 minutes in length, and probably only serve to give us an idea of what "The Mechanical Man" was really like. My impression is that this early Sci-Fi was probably a very good, interesting and somewhat scary film in its day, with a complex plot, a lot of action and detailed attention to the robot - the mechanical man - which terrorizes a city. Scenes of the robot only amount to about 10-15 minutes, but they are interesting nevertheless, and the accompanying electronic music is actually rather well suited most of the time, in my opinion.

The second film is the full-length (ie about 70 minutes) "The Headless Horseman" from 1922, starring Will Rogers, who appeared in many silent films and is probably best remembered by most for his work in radio and early sound films later on. He plays the role of Ichabod Crane quite convincingly, and the film is overall authentic-looking and well done, but it somehow lacks any special or outstanding features. Perhaps the less-than-clear picture quality and electronic music (which doesn't seem to suit The Headless Horseman as much as it did The Mechanical Man) also detract a bit from viewing pleasure, but otherwise I cannot find much fault with the film. The scenes of the headless horseman are only brief, with the bulk of the story focussing on Ichabod and his relationship with the residents of Sleepy Hollow. No doubt a clearer picture and better music would enhance this film, and we can only hope that the remainder of "The Mechanical Man" might be found somewhere one day, but meanwhile this budget DVD might still satisfy the real enthusiasts.

The improbably famous André Deed, known mainly for his farcical
character of Boireau(in French) or Cretinetti(in Italian)in split-reel
comedies in 1910, became a director once the craze for silly burlesque
film had died away and led to the more artistic wave of feature-length
works that most European filmmakers were prone to create during the
teens. He was, in Italy mostly, considered as a Melies-influenced
artist and it is very easy to speculate, imagine or fancy anything
about his films since they are all, or most of all, lost. So the DVD
edition of the Mechanical Man comes as a very interesting treat for any
historian, any science fiction fan, or even any person interested in
the silent film, even if it is in a much truncated form. Once the
viewer gets accustomed to the poor quality of the transfer, and to the
fact that 55 minutes of the work are now gone forever, what stands out
is the incredible uniqueness of the film: it starts(in the current
form) as any proper serial would do, with suspense, a criminal fire, a
daring escape, masks and chases... then we move to the romantic
subplot, involving an awkward and rather self-consciously Ugly Deed,
who can't pass for a Valentino, nor a Fairbanks. We are directed next
to scenes in which the robot is introduced, triggering much
Nosferatu-like suspense(To protect themselves against the giant robot,
the characters close doors behind them, and feel safe, but they-and
we-all know that the robot will keep on moving forward and of course
will dispose of the door in his own sweet way, rendering any action
against him useless)and the finale is very much in the somewhat
excitingly scary mold of a Méliès-meets-Feuillade-meets-L'Herbier type
of work: dazzlingly original, eccentric, suspenseful and highly visual.
At the end, the heroes learn of the identity of the villain: she is one
of the supposed victims of the robot, and the director has so blatantly
stripped and exposed her in the last robot scenes that we feel her true
identity was probably the only missing piece of the puzzle as far as
she was concerned... this erotic undercurrent is one of the bases for
the artwork for posters that were long the only extant material
concerning this film. 3 years before Aelita, 6 before Metropolis, this
film invents a typically European science fiction and does so with such
vitality , fun and pace that the vision of this museum artifact,
however painful the prints makes it, is really a pleasant experience.

The sad part, is this mechanical man movie apparently only has one existing copy known and it's incomplete...with about 26 minutes of the original film existing. So no possability exists at present of splicing two copies together to get a more complete version. But fortunately the people that box this up found the original transcript and thus show us a synopsis of the movie at the start so you can follow it along... and it works... and they use nicely decorated speech cards to give a good silent movie flavour. Some don't bother to do this when they translate to English, but frankly I think the ornate speech cards are as important as the movie footage themselves...they keep you in the mood ot the period.

The premice is amazingly advanced for a 1921 movie (and an Italian one at that!) and could be seen more at home in a 1950's sci-fi...and could even be updated to a modern version. Folks I repeat this is a 1921 recenly found gem! The robot seen in this show is absolutely classic. The only reason it's not as known as say The Metropolis Robot or Robby the robot is it's so newly found. This is a classic robot movie, and the fight scene between the two robots is just transfixing. I felt very lucky to own this one. Perhaps being a silent movie buff, I have a special appreciation for this that other reviewers don't seem to have But I felt incredibly lucky to even have as much of this movie as exists, particularily when you realize many silent films were just destroyed outright when talkies came in. But consider this: Voyage dans la Lune (First men on the Moon) from 1902 is only 3 minutes and 49 seconds long, but it's probably the most classic movie of all time. Suddenly 26 minutes of a great robot flick sounds like a great silent movie deal! many shorts with Laurel and Hardy or Charlie Chaplin were shorter than this 26 minute gem.

And the makers obviously felt guilty selling it as a movie with only 26 minutes of the original movie left, so they include a very fun 1922 51 minute Will Rogers movie. What a bonus! 2 silent films on one disc, and both classic! I didn't think a silent movie with Will Rogers would show his charachter very well or that it would even come through, but he's as Will Rogers as ever. And it's the headless Horseman no less. what a bargain.

This is a must have for sci-fi buffs, Will Rogers fans and silent movie collectors.

Optimum viewing speed for ALPHA VIDEO's THE MECHANICAL MAN is 70% of normal. Original tinting is most effective. It's true this is a fragment of the only known copy of a film we're lucky to have at all. It's hard to follow the story, despite text that fills in the first 40 minutes or more. The keyboardist providing the score at times resorts to the worst sort of repetition, and video quality is less than ideal, yet silent movie aficionados will not be disappointed with this early Euro-sci-fier.

There are some interesting moments here. A hospital patient falls out of a burning bed and extinguishes the flames that engulf her flimsy gown by rolling on the floor. A man goes over a cliff and saves himself by clinging to the trunk of a slender tree. A metallic fistfight between the two monstrosities looks briefly like something out of Kenner's "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots."

Bonus photoplay, THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN is probably taken from a 16 mm print. This movie is blurrier than the feature and lacks tinting. Brightly lit scenes wash out entirely at times. Again the keyboardist gets stuck on single short phrases, repeating them 40 and 50 times.

Will Rogers, who had an excellent face for radio, is a cypher here. The infrequently seen horseman is an overly-faint double exposure. Too many intertitles, maddening musical redundancy and very little action make viewing this one an absolute chore. Sadly, this "bonus" is the lion's share of the DVD.


SHADOWS (1922), from MIRACLE PICTURES, is somewhat better. It stars Lon Chaney as a Chinese man who washes ashore at a New England fishing village after he's shipwrecked.


Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.

(5.7) The Headless Horseman (silent-1922) - Will Rogers/Lois Meredith/Ben Hendricks Jr./Charles Graham/Mary Foy/Bernard A. Reinold/Downing Clarke/Jerry Devine

(6.6) The Mechanical Man (silent-Italy-1921) - Giulia Costa/André Deed/Valentina Frascaroli/Mathilde Lambert/Gabriel Moreau/Ferdinando Vivas-May

Let me start by saying- Don't waste your time on this dvd if you can't enjoy silent films! I am a "buff" so to speak of our ancestors vision of the future we live in now. In my opinion some of the best movies ever made are pre-sound. This is not one of them, but I still enjoyed it for what it trys to be. It is early Science Fiction. I bought the dvd for the main feature "The Mechanical Man". In fact I haven't even viewed the Will Rodgers version of the Headless Horseman. I'm not really sure what connects these movies in such a way that they be packaged on the same disc. At any rate, this is not a great print of the movie but I don't think it needs to be. It's moderately fun to watch and the music makes for a surreal experence. On a humourous note: As it is still with a great many modern filmakers mentality that there must be some erotic content to get the audiences attention, is the scene where the Mechanical man rips his female victims clothes off with one slash of his great metal arm. Pure shock value, nothing more. Was this considered terrifiying at the time? However, I was impressed with the robot cosutmes as they where superior to many of the science fiction film production values and effects of as many as 30 to 40 years hence.

The Mechanical Man is an incomplete piece of what was originally an epic,serial like adventure made in the silent era.

Alpha does an alright job(for once) of restoring the image and presenting the film tinted.
However,it is also saddled with an unintentionally,HILARIOUS music score that combines Jazz-Fusion with techno to ridiculous effect.
(My favorite piece of music,that friends and I would sing is the one that sounds like-"I'm the man,ar-da-dork-dork!).

The effects of the Robot are actually pretty cool as is the climatic battle between two mechanical men(!) at a dinner party.
(Which is also pretty funny as we watch the Mechanical Man get drunk and hit on some ladies,which is always good for a few chuckles.)

The film is only a twenty minute fragment,but it's very entertaining,and the footage that does remain appears very far ahead of it's time.
It also proves that Germany did not have a monopoly on fantasy product in that decade.

As a bonus,the DVD also includes the 1922 version of The Headless Horseman(with Will Rogers!),which is a fairly faithful adaption of the Washington Irving story with elements of Comedy and some atmosphere.

The ending is alright,but it's a shame the supernatural elements were not elaborated on.

This DVD is wonderful for the curious fan of the Fantastic,as this offers some cool,interesting rarities for those who can appreciate them.