In his lifetime Victor Fleming was recognized as one of Hollywood's top directors, proficient in every genre and a molder of top stars. He was also something of a star himself: handsome, dashing, and a man's man as well as a lady's man. Today he's best known as director (in part) of both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, shot back-to-back in the course of that miraculous Hollywood year of 1939. Yet somehow, despite his vivid personality and impressive track record, Fleming himself has all but vanished from film history. For a number of reasons he has never been as celebrated as such contemporaries as Howard Hawks or Raoul Walsh. At long last, however, that situation is changing. The first full-length biography of Fleming (written by Michael Sragow) was published in 2008, and in March 2010 Film Forum in NYC devoted a two-week festival to the director's work. It was at Film Forum that I was fortunate enough to see Fleming's The Wolf Song, a rare late silent feature starring Gary Cooper and Lupe Velez.
On its original release in March 1929 this film was primarily silent with a few talkie sequences in which Cooper, Velez, and crooner Russ Colombo speak and sing. Unfortunately, the sound sequences do not survive. The sole surviving negative of The Wolf Song, held by the Library of Congress (and from which the print shown at Film Forum was made) is entirely silent and runs about an hour. It's rough in places, with stretches of visible decomposition and a couple of continuity jumps along the way, but the story is straightforward and easy to follow.
The time is 1840. Cooper plays a young adventurer named Sam Lash who heads west -- one step ahead of a shotgun wedding -- and becomes a trapper, roughing it in the mountains with two grizzled cohorts. (One of them, a plug-ugly named Gullion, is played by Louis Wolheim, who was so memorable as the tough sergeant in All Quiet on the Western Front.) In Taos Sam encounters a beautiful, well-bred but restless woman named Lola (Lupe Velez), who is tired of living with her over- protective parents. Sam and Lola meet at a dance, and, like Romeo and Juliet, fall in love instantly. Naturally, her parents object, and just as naturally, the young couple choose to elope. They marry and set up housekeeping together, but soon Sam is the restless one, for he hears "the wolf song" of the mountains calling. He deserts Lola and heads for the hills, but after some harrowing adventures returns to her full of remorse, having learned the hard way that love is stronger than the lure of the wilderness.
The story could hardly be simpler, and in bare outline may not sound especially interesting, but The Wolf Song exerts a strong pull. Despite the battered condition of the surviving material it's clear that the cinematography was first-rate, not only in capturing the western vistas, but for preserving the extraordinary beauty of both Lupe Velez and Gary Cooper. They certainly made an attractive couple (off-screen and on), and their first dance together is mesmerizing. They truly heat up the screen. Cooper also appears nude, seen mostly from behind, in a skinny-dipping sequence that wouldn't have made it past the Breen Office a few years later. Velez is so gorgeous it's hard to believe that her husband would even consider leaving her to hang out in the mountains with two ugly old geezers, but it's a credit to Cooper's underrated abilities as an actor that he manages to convey a genuine sense of personal turmoil over this decision. Director Fleming boosts this central, internal conflict with a well-handled visual effect: after Sam leaves Lola and is sleeping alone at his campsite, obviously troubled and missing her, a ghostly Lola joins him, snuggles alongside him and nuzzles her face against his -- and then vanishes. Sam immediately resolves to return to her and seek her forgiveness. And we can see why! Fleming brings an unusual degree of intensity to the love scenes that carries over to the fights: a barroom brawl between Wolheim and his sidekick (Constantine Romanoff) is surprisingly violent, though neither seems much worse for the wear when it's over.
It's unfortunate that The Wolf Song is incomplete; this becomes especially noticeable towards the end, as Sam journeys back from the mountains. He arrives in Taos without his horse and visibly wounded, but it's not clear how this happened. (From what I gather Sam is attacked by Indians in the woods en route to Taos, but that scene is among the missing.) Additionally, supporting player Russ Colombo is not visible at all in the surviving print, so it may be that he appeared only in the lost sound sequences. Still, what survives is an interesting drama that bolsters the contention of biographer Sragow that Fleming had a crucial influence on Cooper's screen persona and subsequent career. Cooper exudes star presence here. It's all the more baffling that one contemporary review, by the anonymous critic from Motion Picture News, asserts that "Gary is far from being a lady killer in his make-up in this offering and it is difficult to visualize this picture adding to his lists of conquests among the fair fans." I must disagree: Cooper looks great in The Wolf Song, and I'd imagine he set more than a few hearts a-flutter when this film went into release. Perhaps the critic from Motion Picture News stepped out for popcorn during the skinny-dipping sequence? In any case, after this project, the director and his male lead re-teamed for the all-talkie Western The Virginian, a smash hit that firmly set Gary Cooper's course forever after. We can thank Victor Fleming, and it's good to know that he's finally getting recognition for his valuable contribution to the movies, not only in his best known works but also such neglected yet worthy films as The Wolf Song.
On its original release in March 1929 this film was primarily silent with a few talkie sequences in which Cooper, Velez, and crooner Russ Colombo speak and sing. Unfortunately, the sound sequences do not survive. The sole surviving negative of The Wolf Song, held by the Library of Congress (and from which the print shown at Film Forum was made) is entirely silent and runs about an hour. It's rough in places, with stretches of visible decomposition and a couple of continuity jumps along the way, but the story is straightforward and easy to follow.
The time is 1840. Cooper plays a young adventurer named Sam Lash who heads west -- one step ahead of a shotgun wedding -- and becomes a trapper, roughing it in the mountains with two grizzled cohorts. (One of them, a plug-ugly named Gullion, is played by Louis Wolheim, who was so memorable as the tough sergeant in All Quiet on the Western Front.) In Taos Sam encounters a beautiful, well-bred but restless woman named Lola (Lupe Velez), who is tired of living with her over- protective parents. Sam and Lola meet at a dance, and, like Romeo and Juliet, fall in love instantly. Naturally, her parents object, and just as naturally, the young couple choose to elope. They marry and set up housekeeping together, but soon Sam is the restless one, for he hears "the wolf song" of the mountains calling. He deserts Lola and heads for the hills, but after some harrowing adventures returns to her full of remorse, having learned the hard way that love is stronger than the lure of the wilderness.
The story could hardly be simpler, and in bare outline may not sound especially interesting, but The Wolf Song exerts a strong pull. Despite the battered condition of the surviving material it's clear that the cinematography was first-rate, not only in capturing the western vistas, but for preserving the extraordinary beauty of both Lupe Velez and Gary Cooper. They certainly made an attractive couple (off-screen and on), and their first dance together is mesmerizing. They truly heat up the screen. Cooper also appears nude, seen mostly from behind, in a skinny-dipping sequence that wouldn't have made it past the Breen Office a few years later. Velez is so gorgeous it's hard to believe that her husband would even consider leaving her to hang out in the mountains with two ugly old geezers, but it's a credit to Cooper's underrated abilities as an actor that he manages to convey a genuine sense of personal turmoil over this decision. Director Fleming boosts this central, internal conflict with a well-handled visual effect: after Sam leaves Lola and is sleeping alone at his campsite, obviously troubled and missing her, a ghostly Lola joins him, snuggles alongside him and nuzzles her face against his -- and then vanishes. Sam immediately resolves to return to her and seek her forgiveness. And we can see why! Fleming brings an unusual degree of intensity to the love scenes that carries over to the fights: a barroom brawl between Wolheim and his sidekick (Constantine Romanoff) is surprisingly violent, though neither seems much worse for the wear when it's over.
It's unfortunate that The Wolf Song is incomplete; this becomes especially noticeable towards the end, as Sam journeys back from the mountains. He arrives in Taos without his horse and visibly wounded, but it's not clear how this happened. (From what I gather Sam is attacked by Indians in the woods en route to Taos, but that scene is among the missing.) Additionally, supporting player Russ Colombo is not visible at all in the surviving print, so it may be that he appeared only in the lost sound sequences. Still, what survives is an interesting drama that bolsters the contention of biographer Sragow that Fleming had a crucial influence on Cooper's screen persona and subsequent career. Cooper exudes star presence here. It's all the more baffling that one contemporary review, by the anonymous critic from Motion Picture News, asserts that "Gary is far from being a lady killer in his make-up in this offering and it is difficult to visualize this picture adding to his lists of conquests among the fair fans." I must disagree: Cooper looks great in The Wolf Song, and I'd imagine he set more than a few hearts a-flutter when this film went into release. Perhaps the critic from Motion Picture News stepped out for popcorn during the skinny-dipping sequence? In any case, after this project, the director and his male lead re-teamed for the all-talkie Western The Virginian, a smash hit that firmly set Gary Cooper's course forever after. We can thank Victor Fleming, and it's good to know that he's finally getting recognition for his valuable contribution to the movies, not only in his best known works but also such neglected yet worthy films as The Wolf Song.