00:11Welcome back to the Giornati da Cinemamuto, the Pordenone Salon Film Festival.
00:16Every year on the final Saturday morning of the festival we always have a screening here at Cinema Zero.
00:22Cinema Zero is one of the founders of the festival back 45 years ago.
00:25They're an exceptional organization within Friuli and within Italy in general.
00:30They consist of an archive, exhibition spaces.
00:33They do quite a lot of outreach to the community.
00:35They sponsor film festivals and we're always delighted to be able to partner with them each and every year.
00:40We're here today to watch the films of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew and also to talk about the concept
00:45of situation comedy.
00:47Now we have this idea of sitcoms as something that's very television focused.
00:52And I have to add here that sitcoms is possibly my least favorite television genre.
00:58But let's break that word apart, that phrase apart, situation comedy.
01:03According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it dates back to 1893.
01:07And if that's the case, after a mention in the Manchester Guardian, that means of course that it's already being
01:13used.
01:13In fact, in the article that mentions that for a play, they put it in quotation marks.
01:17So clearly it's already a phrase quite early on, at least by 1915.
01:21But certainly it must have been earlier.
01:23It's also being used of film.
01:25Now, what is the situation comedy?
01:26It's a contrast to slapstick humor.
01:30And particularly in this middle teen period in American silent cinema, there's a lot of debate about what is good
01:38comedy and how is comedy evolving.
01:40And I'm going to break from tradition and actually read you some quotes.
01:44I don't have a teleprompter, as you probably figured that out, I know.
01:47So I want to read to you from a piece of paper, two quotations from 1920.
01:51One, Frederick Palmer, in Photo Play Writing, Simplified and Explained, where he defines it,
01:57purely situation comedy is comedy depending on humorous situations without the use of gags.
02:03Now, that same year, Al Christie, the film producer, gave a 19-page lecture.
02:08It was published, that's what we know as 19 pages, about comedy.
02:12And he says, while there may be a little exaggeration and a little stretching of plausibility,
02:18the situations and incidents must, in a general way, be of the sort that might happen in real life to
02:25real persons.
02:26And I think that's a really excellent definition of what a situation comedy is.
02:32Now, one of the most important purveyors, not the right word, but of situation comedy was Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
02:39Drew.
02:39Mr. Sidney Drew came from vaudeville, from theater.
02:43He and his first wife made some films together where they were beginning to explore this idea
02:48of a regular middle-class couple, obviously regular, white, and fairly well-off middle-class couple,
02:55and the funny things that can happen in our daily lives.
02:59The first Mrs. Drew died in 1914, and then he married, in 1915, Lucille McVeigh.
03:05Lucille McVeigh is one of the unsung heroines of film.
03:09Although she's rarely officially credited, she is the director of the films that we're seeing here.
03:13She also mostly co-wrote the scripts or wrote them completely.
03:17She was a key figure in the development of situation comedy,
03:22together with her husband, Sidney Drew.
03:25But they were clearly intimate collaborators.
03:28And you can see that rapport in the five shorts that we're going to be screening today.
03:31The Drews are the kind of naturalistic couple who will still kiss on a sofa.
03:38They'll have little humorous exchanges together in the most natural way possible.
03:44And this informs all kinds of comedy afterwards.
03:47And in fact, the series that this form is part of is called The Roots of Situation Comedy,
03:52because we're not necessarily saying that Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew invented the form.
03:56I think that's clear from what I've just said about its earlier manifestations.
04:00But they were very much pushing the envelope and making it something that was very popular,
04:07and that people noticed the difference between their kind of comedy
04:11and something like it's a kind of a rollicking Mac Senate kind of comedy.
04:15The five shorts that we're showing, they're all one reel.
04:19All but one of them comes from the Library of Congress.
04:22They aren't always in great condition.
04:24Many of these films have only survived in 16mm, which is a real shame.
04:28I imagine there's better material out there.
04:30So if people have, please let us know.
04:32It's very important, I think, that we draw more attention to the films of the Drews.
04:38You'll see that, as I said, in some cases the condition is not great.
04:42A case of eugenics, for example, we're missing the beginning and the end.
04:45The print quality sometimes is solarized.
04:48And also, the word eugenics, you wonder why is it even called this?
04:52And that's because there is, according to the plot description that we have
04:56in contemporary trade journals, there is a mention of eugenics.
04:59Do please read Richard Aple's catalogue notes.
05:02They are terrific.
05:03Not only beautifully written, and highly informed, of course, as well.
05:08But really explaining the dynamics of this couple.
05:12How they represent a particular kind of American middle class bourgeois life.
05:17As I said earlier, relatively well off.
05:19This is the kind of couple that have servants.
05:22The final film, his wife knew about it, which is really the best.
05:27And very much conveys a wonderfully feminist viewpoint.
05:30It's also tinted, which is a rarity in this case.
05:34I love the actress playing the maid, for example.
05:38The one who's chewing gum in the background sometimes.
05:40If anybody can identify her, please, please let us know.
05:44One of the hallmarks of so many of the Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew films
05:47is their creative use of intertitles, which Richard Aple does talk about in his catalogue note.
05:53And with his wife knew about it, I do want to point out there's one peculiar intertitle,
05:58which mentions klismic soup.
06:00I also had to look up the word klismic.
06:02It's the same root as klister.
06:04And so it means purifying in exactly the kind of connotation that you would imagine it has.
06:12We are delighted to be able to have Neil Brand performing for these films.
06:17So that's an extra added bonus.
06:20I just want to go back and say a little bit more about the Drews.
06:24Mr. Sidney Drew died in 1919.
06:26Mrs. Sidney Drew, Lucille McVeigh continued a little bit longer.
06:31But sadly, she too died very early.
06:33She was only 35 when she died in 1925.
06:36It's one of those wonderful question marks as to what might have happened to her career
06:41had she been able to continue.
06:42And had women by that time been able to really have a role in Hollywood?
06:47I just want to add one more thing.
06:49In 1921 and 1922, respectively, Beulah Marie Dix, the great American female screenwriter,
06:56and Lois Weber, the great director, they were interviewed talking about situation comedy.
07:01So this clearly is an important movement forward, many people think, in terms of the kinds of comedy.
07:08We know, thanks to the Nasty Women Project, that slapstick is also female.
07:13Situation comedy is also female and male, of course.
07:17But in the case of the Drews, it does very much seem like the driving force behind these collaborations
07:24was Mrs. Sidney Drew, Lucille McVeigh.
07:28Enjoy the screenings and see you later.
07:30We'll see you later.
