If asked to name a great film about filmmaking, I would imagine that most people will likely mention at least one of the following: Day For Night, Sunset Blvd, 8½, Singin’ In The Rain, The Bad And The Beautiful, The Player, Once Upon A Time In America, Postcards From The Edge, A Star Is Born, Ed Wood etc. I think that few, if any at all, would mention Shooting Stars(1928).
This little-known British silent, with its playful title which has two completely different meanings, is not only one of the best films about making films, but it has also become my favourite silent film. It is part love letter to cinema and part satire. It is also the earliest film I am aware of in which a director so mercilessly turns the camera on their own industry in order to expose its inner workings to the audience. Almost one hundred years on from its release, Shooting Stars remains an exciting and visually interesting gem, helmed by a young director who wanted to shake things up for both his colleagues and his audience.
Shooting Stars was the debut feature of director Anthony Asquith(Underground, The Winslow Boy, Pygmalion). The film’s subject matter was a bold and daring choice for such a young director. In addition to directing, Asquith also wrote the original story and co-wrote the screenplay with John Orton, in which he laid out his plans for every single camera shot in the film. When the film went into production the veteran director Albert Victor Bramble was assigned to supervise the 25-year-old Asquith and received director’s credit instead of Asquith, something that wasn’t rectified until decades later. The film was mostly shot at London’s Cricklewood Studios – a former aircraft factory turned film studio which operated between 1920 and 1938, and was run by Oswald Stoll, the founder of Stoll Pictures. The beach sequence was shot in Norfolk.
Asquith, the youngest son of British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, had been a film aficionado from a young age. He was a huge fan of Charles Chaplin and was particularly influenced by his technical skills as a director. Asquith and his older sister Elizabeth visited Hollywood during the 1920’s as guests of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Asquith spent a lot of time during the trip observing both Fairbanks and Chaplin at work. In 1954, Chaplin paid a visit to the UK to see Asquith at work on the set of The Young Lovers. Asquith was also one of the founding members of the Film Society. Between 1925 and 1939, the society was able to screen uncensored European films in London, due to operating as a private members club open to anyone who could afford the subs: the cheapest membership costing a Guinea a year. They also invited directors such as Sergei Eisenstein to give lectures about their work. At the time of the Film Society’s founding, almost all of the films shown in the UK were American, and this new exposure to the innovative German and Russian films in particular would influence Asquith, Michael Powell, Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed to follow in the footsteps of their European colleagues and rip up the rule book, challenge convention and make fresh and exciting films which changed cinema forever.
I imagine that it must have been a little difficult and uncomfortable for audiences to have sat and watched this film back in 1928. I say that because Shooting Stars so completely destroys the illusion of film by throwing back the curtains to reveal the technology and tricks used to achieve the magic of film. I also love how the film shows us that despite us knowing film is nothing but illusion, we still believe and enjoy what they see up there on the big screen anyway. I would have loved to have been in the audience when this film premiered. I really do wonder if this made people more interested in how films were made, or if the things shown in this film spoiled the enjoyment of watching films from this point on for some?
The opening scene of Shooting Stars is the perfect example of how this film shows us the tricks of the trade. The film starts with a woman sitting in a blossom tree kissing a cowboy on horseback. What begins as a beautiful romantic scene quickly descends into chaos when the bird she is holding bites the woman on the face. The woman screams. The camera pulls back. We see that the woman is actually an actress, that the tree is part of a film set, the horse is a wooden prop on wheels, and the scene we’ve just witnessed was being shot as part of a Western called Prairie Love. The camera pulls even further back to show us the soundstages of the studio, we see other actors and crewmembers walking around, and we see other films being shot on adjacent stages. This is one of the most ingenious openings to a film that I’ve ever seen.
Shooting Stars focuses on actors Mae Feather(Annette Benson)and Julian Gordon(Brian Aherne), who are married co-stars. The couple are two of the most popular British film stars. Mae is a beautiful and self-centred woman. Julian loves her very much though, despite her many personal flaws and how she can sometimes treat him badly. Mae begins an affair with the adored comedy actor, Andy Wilkes(Donald Calthrop), a man whose comic screen persona comes across to me as a mix of Chaplin and Keaton. When Julian discovers their affair, Mae becomes so enraged that she decides to kill Julian. Mae’s plan ends up having some unexpected and disastrous results. The film’s end is deeply poignant and serves to remind us that fame is fleeting, and that once great stars can so very easily become yesterday’s news. I really wasn’t expecting the dark turn that this film makes when I first saw it. It is a very surprising film in many ways, and that is part of the reason why I have come to love it so much. I would also love to somehow be able to see all three of the films featured within this film. Wilkes’s comedy film in particular looks like it would be great fun. I also really love the beautiful intertitle cards used in the film My Man, in which we see Julian’s character rescuing Mae’s. Be sure to see the BFI restoration release of Shooting Stars which is accompanied by John Altman’s bouncy and jaunty score. I think that Altman’s music is very catchy and I always have the main theme stuck in my head for a bit whenever I watch this. My favourite scenes include Mae and Julian walking onto Wilkes’s comedy film set and watching him perform; the beach sequence; the opening in the blossom tree; the ending; Julian watching his new film at the cinema and noticing the excited reaction of the boys behind him as they watch the film.
Annette Benson is superb as the actress who destroys her only chance of happiness for a moment of passion. Annette is a very expressive actress and she really lets us see how her character is feeling and thinking through her expressions. Her performance here is the one that she is best remembered for today. While she enjoyed a fairly successful film career during the 1920’s, the arrival of the sound era saw art sadly mirror real life, and her career ended in 1931. She died in California in 1965.
Brian Aherne has the hardest role here because he has to play Julian as being slightly dull, but also has to ensure he has our sympathy throughout the film, and I think he more than succeeds. Aherne would go on to enjoy the greatest success out of the cast. He had a long career in America, in film, television and on Broadway. He would marry Joan Fontaine, and also wrote a biography of his friend, the actor George Sanders. He died in 1986.
Donald Calthrop is marvellous playing both the comic screen character that Wilkes is famous for, as well as the elegant ladies man that Wilkes is off the screen.Calthrop went on to an enjoy a successful screen career into the sound era. He worked with Hitchcock several times, and is probably best remembered today for his sinister performance as the blackmailer in Hitchcock’s Blackmail(1929). He suffered a fatal heart attack while filming Major Barbara in 1941.
Shooting Stars marked the debut film performance of Chili Bouchier, who makes quite an impression as a glamorous co-star of Wilkes. Chili continued to work in films until 1960, and then went on to have a very successful stage career here in the UK. She received and declined two marriage proposals from Howard Hughes. She died in 1999, after suffering a fall at home just a few days before her 90th Birthday.
Source: A Century Of Cinephilila: the legacy of the Film Society.14.10.25. BFI . org .