+ intro by Josephine Botting, Curator, BFI National Archive
To mark 25 years since the death of British screen superstar Dorothy ‘Chili’ Bouchier, we present a rare outing of this archive print with beautiful stencil colour sequences. This Venice-set drama revels in the lavish spectacle of the carnival, enhanced by stunning sets and costumes by renowned artist and theatrical designer Doris Zinkeisen. Matheson Lang plays a celebrated actor convinced of his wife’s infidelity and so consumed with jealousy that he plots her murder during a performance of Othello. Bouchier’s affecting performance as a woman trapped in a stifling marriage saw her labelled the ‘British Garbo’.
bfi.org.uk
Carnival time in Venice!
Time of romance, laughter and song, everyone is carefree and happy and the happiest of all perhaps are Silvio Steno and his wife Simonetta, they are actors and are about to present Othello in Venice during Carnival time.
Silvio’s sister, jealous of Simonetta, warns Silvio that she is attracting the attentions of young Count Andrea. On the night of the Carnival ball, Silvio is called away to a dying friend. Simonetta is disappointed and accepts Andrea as an escort. The intrigue that follows is most exciting.
Press notes
A sound remake of the 1921 silent original (d. Harley Knoles), this also stars Matheson Lang as jealous actor Silvio Steno, but with a different supporting cast and director, this time Herbert Wilcox. And while the first film was entirely shot on location in Venice, the remake is much more studio-bound, using stock footage of Venice and the Carnival (including some hand-tinted firework displays in the BFI National Archive print) intercut with the main action.
There’s also a marked difference in style – whereas the first film was staged almost entirely in long shot (the better to show off the locations), the remake relies much more on medium shots and especially close-ups, meaning that what it lacks in visual splendour it makes up for in terms of intimacy: we get to know the characters in a way that we never quite managed with the silent version, especially when it comes to the crucial central relationship between Silvio and Simonetta.
Since the remake has a virtually identical plot to the 1921 original, it’s worth noting some key differences. The sound version has a somewhat Hitchcockian opening whereby Simonetta appears to be strangled in close-up before we’re informed that it’s only a rehearsal; there’s rather more emphasis on Simonetta’s eagerness to spruce herself up before Andrea’s visit; Lelio has an unnamed girlfriend that he’s trying to impress; there’s no previous reference to Silvio’s master Donati before his telegram arrives (making his excuse for missing the Carnival seem rather perfunctory); there’s a recurring motif of Silvio looking across the canal at a neon sign announcing his stage appearance; as he is contemplating hitting Andrea backstage, Silvio recalls his earlier dismissal of Othello’s jealousy as being psychologically implausible, which stays his hand; the final reconciliation between Silvio and Simonetta is much more emphatic.
Another difference is that there’s rather less Shakespeare on offer here – while the 1921 version made use of several scenes from the earlier part of the play, chosen for the resonance of their lines in the context of the backstage drama, in the remake this has almost entirely been replaced by Desdemona’s Willow Song, presumably because of the opportunities it provided for a musical interlude. This comes at the price, though, of losing a greater level of integration between play and film.
Michael Brooke, BFI Screenonline, screenonline.org.uk
Born Dorothy Bouchier in London in 1909, Chili Bouchier took the name under which she generally appeared from the song ‘I Love My Chili Bom-Bom’, had the good fortune to live long enough to become a legend of British cinema, with the publicity and the claims in her 1996 autobiography Shooting Star far out-stretching her minor importance in films and on stage. However, she did exude a vibrant personality that kept her career alive.
Husband 1 of 3 was actor Harry Milton (b.London, 1900 - d.1965), who appeared in a few 30s films, including The King’s Cup (1933), with Bouchier, and her second was actor Peter de Greef, who played Jean Kent’s boyfriend in Champagne Charlie (d. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1944). She died in 1999.
Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film, quoted on BFI Screenonline, screenonline.org.uk
CARNIVAL
Director: Herbert Wilcox
Production Company: British and Dominions Film Corporation
Producer: Herbert Wilcox *
Assistant Director: James G. Kelly
Adaptation: Donald Macardle
Dialogue: Donald Macardle
Based on the play by: Matheson Lang, C.M. Hardinge *
Photography: F.A. Young
Editor: P.M. Rogers
Settings and Decor: Doris Zinkeisen
Art Director: L.P. Williams
Theatrical Costumes: Doris Zinkeisen
Modern Dresses: Lady Victor Paget Ltd
Music Performers on Soundtrack: Alfred Rode and His Royal Tzigane Band *
Recording: L.E. Overton
Cast
Matheson Lang (Silvio Steno)
Dorothy Bouchier (Simonetta Steno)
Joseph Schildkraut (Count Andrea Scipio)
Lilian Braithwaite (Italia)
Kay Hammond (Nella)
Brian Buchel (Lelio)
Dickie Edwards (Nino)
Brember Wills (stage manager)
Alfred Rode and His Royal Tzigane Band (performers at carnival)
Joan Pereira
Edith Savile
UK 1932
87 mins
35mm
* Uncredited
A BFI National Archive print
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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