Treading on the Devil’s Tail

F.W. Murnau arrives in America As the Columbus, then the largest ship in the German merchant marine, glides into the Norddeutscher Lloyd terminal at Hoboken beneath the Jersey slope, the Fox camera catches something finer than a stock filmed arrival. For all the fanfare with which his arrival is generally described, there seems here no great crush of press, no stiff receiving line, only a small circle of men. While Murnau laughs, nods, and points things out, terminal structures slip by, arteries of a beating maritime heart. Behind the camera is Russell Muth, Fox’s Berlin editor and a seasoned newsreel cameraman. That fact alters the whole scene. The exchange does not carry the chill of introduction or the effort of performance. It has the ease of recognition. What survives here is not merely the arrival of a famous director in America, but a brief, almost illicit sense of how light the world may have felt to him in that hour. Filmed 1 July 1926. Fox News story B3456-B3457. Courtesy of the University of South Carolina's Moving Image Research Collections.

@RealPreCinema Thank you, Paul.

Welcome aboard Treading on the Devil’s Tail @coladeldiablo

@NeilMcGFilm I err on the side of "finally discovered."

4 DEVILS (1929) d. FW Murnau - Could there be a day when this film is finally discovered or is it lost forever?

Cuando nos aventuramos en el mundo, a menudo se nos aconseja tener presente que nos forjamos nuestra propia suerte; y, a base de prueba y error, he llegado a creer firmemente en ello. Tener la suerte de nuestro lado siempre es agradable, pero hoy en día estoy convencido de que el trabajo es un mejor sustituto de la esperanza. Y yo he trabajado muchísimo.

@Juanjo1811 Muchas posibles respuestas rondaban por mi mente y me quedé con ésta, al momento es solo un deseo incumplido, que quizá, con mucha suerte, se hiciera realidad, encontrada por casualidad y restaurada, mientras aún vivo: ‘4 Devils’ (1928) de F. W. Murnau.

¿Cuál es la película que más os hubiera gustado ver en una gran sala de cine?

@giorgio_giraudo Concordo com você, mas posso perguntar... Por que você acredita que alguém não faria isso?

Tem umas versões que dizem que ela jogou no mar ou queimou, mas eu prefiro acreditar que ninguém faria isso.

Tem umas histórias sobre filmes antigos que foram perdidos que eu acho muito inexplicáveis. Tipo aquele 4 Devils do Murnau que uma das atrizes protagonistas pegou o filme emprestado com a Fox pra mostrar pros amigos dela e simplesmente perdeu a única cópia existente.

@fkursztejn I'm going to rudely intrude into this conversation and then show myself out, leaving this before I go: the real monumental blunder has been accepting this tantalizing bit of hearsay as established fact, without even the presumption of further investigation.

@cliftvol2 @Benny_Profane_ "Honestly, we should be searching for a lost Murnau." Couldn't agree more. High and low.

@Benny_Profane_ one of the great pieces of movie trivia people are unaware of is that 4 devils which he made after sunrise is now a lost film. the lost footage of the magnificent ambersons is the holy grail of lost films but honestly we should be searching for a lost murnau lmao

The greatest what-if in cinema history might be the loss of the rest of his career.

Un film sans égal.

@d4doome They're inextricably linked in my mind now, for better or for worse. youtube.com/watch?v=cpZI6r…

An accord could not be struck any stronger than the degree to which I agree with your contention. Murnau's Faust may well be the pinnacle of human expression. Serendipitously, I watched this clip with Hoedh's Das Geistige Universum booming in the background.

Not everyone agrees with me but I think that FAUST rather than NOSFERATU is Murnau's masterpiece.

... I can tell you that the project began one idle afternoon, like I would imagine many of these things tend to do. I wondered about the preservation status of 4 Devils, and like that, I was down a rabbit hole. I will say this: I do believe it can be recovered.

@coladeldiablo Prey wild. Would love to know more about the project!

Photoplay based on "4 Devils", sadly a lost #silentfilm about a circus foursome by the brilliant silent film director, F. W. Murnau (Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, Faust, and others). Leading the cast was Janet Gaynor, who was amazing in Murnau's" classic "Sunrise. "

@mikewritesagain Sure. Because I have to protect the project, the juiciest stuff... I have either tiptoed around or have left it unaddressed entirely. This X profile is entirely dedicated to the project, I do not go off-subject. I invite you to look at the full profile, but...

On 2 July, 1928, 4 Devils was screened before a preview audience at the Fox California Theatre in San Jose. Afterwards, a questionnaire was distributed to the audience, imploring them to share their impressions of the film, specifically by answering five questions. Many of these responses are preserved at the Deutsche Kinemathek, and I believe that they are of immense value to any effort to recover elements of 4 Devils. One of these responses was dutifully submitted by Frank René Sauliere, 23 years old and a student at Stanford. His neatly typed letter is addressed to Murnau and on those three pages, Sauliere is frank in his assessment, disclosing that he was not very impressed with the picture. Among the many faults Sauliere found with this cut of the film was the inconsistent use of the French language. This must have been maddening for a young man, son of Occitan émigrés, who had once achieved some celebrity for having been, at twelve years of age, the youngest soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, assigned to the 18th Engineers, where he served for 21 months with some distinction as an interpreter and a runner. Sauliere’s family’s fortunes at this time were intimately entwined with that of the prominent Hart family of San Jose. His father, Ernest, was A.J. Hart’s chauffeur, and Hart even went so far as to legally adopt Sauliere’s sister Jeanette into their family. When in 1933, Hart’s son Brooke was kidnapped, held for ransom, and ultimately murdered, the two families were devastated. The murderers, Jack Holmes and Harold Thurmond, were apprehended, a furor arose, and ultimately a mob stormed the San Jose jail and lynched the pair at St. James Park. In his 1983 book Swift Justice, author and former San Jose Mercury News columnist Harry Farrell states Frank Sauliere took part in the lynching. The 1936 Fritz Lang film, Fury, was very loosely based upon the Brooke Hart case. Sauliere went on to study law at Harvard and once again don a uniform, this time fighting in World War II, rising to the rank of Captain in the Marine Corps. Later, he was a reporter in Miami before returning to San Jose, where he died in 1963. But in 1928, he was a 23 year old veteran of the Great War who found Mary Duncan’s performance to be, to use the vernacular, bunk.

You don't have to say anything more to convince me. But do go on.

I've really taken a liking to the series of advertisements that the Hoyts' chain created for their Regent theatres, this one in Sydney in particular. Regrettably, this engagement was delayed by the first instance of a 4 Devils print-loss that I've been able to identify. On 12 June, 1929, just hours before the Sydney premiere was scheduled to take place, a fire that broke out at Metcalfe's bonded and free stores on the Circular Quay consumed at least one print of 4 Devils. The Sydney premiere was expected to be delayed at least five weeks. The delay wound up lasting four months, taking place at last on 23 November, 1929. A print did reach the Sydney area in the meantime, though, presumably provided by the Adelaide circuit. That print was shown at Potts Point's Grantham Theatre for a private event on 25 August, 1929, that event being a fundraiser for the "Home for Incurables." One night only.

Considered lost until the 1970s, Over the Hill would have been almost 40 years old when this Skolsky column was published. Leo Ryan, therefore, is a person-of-interest.

It's interesting, for the purposes of my project, that you shared these images all within the span of one week. A Skolsky column that solicited "top ten" film lists in 1958 only received three replies fit for print; one of those lists included 4 Devils.

Perhaps you've grown accustomed to calling Mary Duncan's character The Lady. In Guy Fowler's novelization of 4 Devils, the Lady has a name. Madelon Cochón. I have it on good authority that a cochón is a piglet. Not a very flattering name then, but it looks good on the page.

Commencing production on 4 Devils. January, 1928.