Cardiff Silent Movie Star at City Film Festival
A tribute screening to Ivor Novello, the greatest silent film star from Wales, hosted by The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales is a welcome highlight of the Cardiff Screen Festival opening this week (Nov 9-19).
Novello, gay icon and legendary stage matinee idol, will be seen at an 80th anniversary screening of his finest but now rarely-shown silent feature The Rat, directed by Hitchcock's mentor Graham Cutts. The movie,. presented by The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales at Chapter Arts Centre (Nov 12, 3pm), stars the Cardiff-born stage and film actor and musical composer as a Paris 'Apache' or dance hall gigolo who finds himself as a murder suspect after a killing and falls prey to the seductive charms of a mature society woman (played by British actress Isabel Jeans). Novello's mistress is played by Hollywood star Mae Marsh who appeared with Novello in The White Rose (1923), the only film he made for the man acknowledged as America's 's greatest silent film director, DW Griffith.
The Rat is energetic, humorous and boasts spectacular, extravagantly kitsch sets (especially in the scenes at the film's White Coffin Club). It was successful enough to spawn two sequels Triumph of The Rat (1926) and Return of the Rat (1929), and a freely- adapted 1937 re-make with Anton Walbrook in the Novello role.
The Welshman remains best known for creating so many superb stage musicals and even The Rat began as a successful stage play co-written by the actor, but he also enjoyed a fine film career in Britain. In the late 20's he was the top British star in UK films, and he made 22 features between 1920 and 1934. At least six are missing believed lost.
A feature of The Rat screening will be the live accompaniment by former Aberystwyth student Neil Brand, now widely regarded as the world's finest specialist silent -movie pianist. Brand, who has played all over the world at screenings of The Life Story of David Lloyd George (1918) the astonishing marathon feature re-discovered by the Archive after 78 years as a lost film. He's one of a small rota of international pianists who accompany films annually at the leading international silent movie festival at Pordenone, Italy - and can be heard on the DVD of Hitchcock's classic silent The Ring .