"Blue Beard" (two words) was the pantomime musical comedy playing at the Drury Lane Theatre from Christmas 1901 into the spring of 1902. Very loosely based on Charles Perrault's fairy tale about a polygamous serial killer, this panto starred Herbert Campbell as Blue Beard, the dancer Julia Franks as his seventh bride Fatima (he murdered all the other lot) and the great comedy star Dan Leno as Fatima's sister Anne, whom Blue Beard must also marry in order to wed Fatima.
Leno, Britain's leading comedy star of the day, frequently wore grotesque costumes (often female) but nearly always displayed his own hair in its distinctive style, parted neatly down the centre. In this brief film, as Sister Anne, he wears an elaborate frock that's quite pretty in its own right, topped by a wig of long ringlets that includes a feminine version of Leno's trademark centre-part.
Leno's stage act consisted largely of comic patter songs (unsuitable for a silent film, of course) and elaborate clog-dancing routines: his dances, too, were not especially suitable for silent film, since Leno performed extremely percussive clog routines that relied heavily on sound for their effect.
Act One of "Blue Beard" concluded with sisters Anne and Fatima entering a forbidden room in Blue Beard's castle, where they discover the severed heads of his previous six wives. This being a comedy panto, naturally the heads are still alive and they offer some bad jokes.
I've read a copy of the Drury Lane playscript for "Blue Beard", written by someone named J. Hickory Wood (really!). This brief film consists of a scene that isn't in the script, and may possibly have been an ad-lib devised by Leno during the panto's stage run ... although it involves an enormous prop face that seems too elaborate for an ad-lib.
Leno, in flowing skirt and full drag, enters a forbidding chamber in Blue Beard's castle (an obvious stage set), and discovers a huge grotesque head. IMDb's notes for this film describe it as a "mechanical head", but what I saw here didn't meet my definition of "mechanical" ... just as I disagree with the opening credits of "The Old Dark House", which claim that Boris Karloff's role in "Frankenstein" was a "mechanical" monster.
Stepping forth to confront Leno is some sort of huge vaguely disc-shaped face of plywood and scrim, with rolling eyes and lolling tongue. Dangling from the face's chin is a long beard resembling a hula-dancer's grass skirt: this beard serves the obvious purpose of concealing (not much!) the lower body of the actor wearing the enormous face. The actor's feet are just barely visible at the bottom edge of the beard, and his hands (supporting the enormous face) are just visible behind the face's surprisingly understated ears.
When this enormous face confronts him, Leno reacts comically and performs one of his distinctive "twizzle" dance steps, which would likely be more effective if we could hear it as well as see it. The face capers about, too. Leno's real face is nearly as grotesque as the "mechanical" one, and certainly more expressive.
That's it. Not a gripping plot, but a vital glimpse of Dan Leno, a major performer of the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, who died just as silent films were getting started. More for historic significance than as entertainment, I'll rate this brief movie 9 out of 10.
Leno, Britain's leading comedy star of the day, frequently wore grotesque costumes (often female) but nearly always displayed his own hair in its distinctive style, parted neatly down the centre. In this brief film, as Sister Anne, he wears an elaborate frock that's quite pretty in its own right, topped by a wig of long ringlets that includes a feminine version of Leno's trademark centre-part.
Leno's stage act consisted largely of comic patter songs (unsuitable for a silent film, of course) and elaborate clog-dancing routines: his dances, too, were not especially suitable for silent film, since Leno performed extremely percussive clog routines that relied heavily on sound for their effect.
Act One of "Blue Beard" concluded with sisters Anne and Fatima entering a forbidden room in Blue Beard's castle, where they discover the severed heads of his previous six wives. This being a comedy panto, naturally the heads are still alive and they offer some bad jokes.
I've read a copy of the Drury Lane playscript for "Blue Beard", written by someone named J. Hickory Wood (really!). This brief film consists of a scene that isn't in the script, and may possibly have been an ad-lib devised by Leno during the panto's stage run ... although it involves an enormous prop face that seems too elaborate for an ad-lib.
Leno, in flowing skirt and full drag, enters a forbidding chamber in Blue Beard's castle (an obvious stage set), and discovers a huge grotesque head. IMDb's notes for this film describe it as a "mechanical head", but what I saw here didn't meet my definition of "mechanical" ... just as I disagree with the opening credits of "The Old Dark House", which claim that Boris Karloff's role in "Frankenstein" was a "mechanical" monster.
Stepping forth to confront Leno is some sort of huge vaguely disc-shaped face of plywood and scrim, with rolling eyes and lolling tongue. Dangling from the face's chin is a long beard resembling a hula-dancer's grass skirt: this beard serves the obvious purpose of concealing (not much!) the lower body of the actor wearing the enormous face. The actor's feet are just barely visible at the bottom edge of the beard, and his hands (supporting the enormous face) are just visible behind the face's surprisingly understated ears.
When this enormous face confronts him, Leno reacts comically and performs one of his distinctive "twizzle" dance steps, which would likely be more effective if we could hear it as well as see it. The face capers about, too. Leno's real face is nearly as grotesque as the "mechanical" one, and certainly more expressive.
That's it. Not a gripping plot, but a vital glimpse of Dan Leno, a major performer of the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, who died just as silent films were getting started. More for historic significance than as entertainment, I'll rate this brief movie 9 out of 10.
