Upstream

Dir. John Ford

60 Minutes

USA

1927

Starring: Nancy Nash, Raymond Hitchcock, Sammy Cohen, Earle Foxe, Francis Ford

***1/2/*****

Seemingly atypical late Ford silent that abandons cowboys and western landscapes for an examination of the masculinity of fame in the comedic setting of a theatrical boardinghouse. Beginning like a period adventure romance with a yearning couple and a dastardly looking knife thrower, we soon pan out an discover it is simply a trio of actors, albeit one that is experiencing a love triangle of their own. Gertie Ryan loves the not-so-good actor Eric Brashingham, who lives in the shadow of his much more famous relatives, while also being pursued by the more talented Juan. When a big wig producer gets Brashingham gets a gig in London playing Hamlet (attempting to cash in on the name rather than the acting skills), he becomes massively egotistical and leaves the boardinghouse (and Gertie) behind (though not before asking her for a few dollars). 

This just under an hour feature was presumed lost for decades before being found in a vault in New Zealand in 2009. Many find this a slight entry in Ford's filmography, and when looking at it aside from of his behemoths both from this era and the sound one rapidly approaching perhaps there is good reason. But the picture has an energy to it that, even if this was just an assignment for Ford at Fox he was clearly responding to working outside of his usual genres. The film has some highly entertaining sequences, with an early scene around a dinner table as an obvious highlight, bringing together quite the array of characters that are all introduced in their various rooms in the boarding house. And Ford has a nice eye for space here, with the majority of the picture taking place in the rooms of this couplex (with an exception made for a scene in a theater that has quite the expressionist depiction of a scene from Hamlet before Brashingham waits to see if his performance has met the approval of a noted London theatre producer). The film does have shades of Murnau seeping throughout several sequences, and Ford may be thinking about the issues of performative masculinity when one is approached with the idea of fame over domesticity. It is also interesting to see how the material sets up Brashingham as a hero, expecting him to have some grand realization and come to his senses. But the pivot towards Gertie in the second half yields some surprising results, giving the film more of a comment on the more likely lost cause of one who gets a glimmer of fame (in this case, brought upon, in a way, by nepotism, or, at the very least, from the potential of marketing) rather than moving into sentimentality (like something Capra would be doing soon enough). But setting aside some of the obvious surface level aspects that make the film stand out from Ford's usual genre wheelhouses, Upstream is more at home with his interests than appearances might suggest, and it is quite the enjoyable hour that has shades of the experimental instead of the routine.

Viewed on July 9th, 2020

Part of an ongoing John Ford Project with notes from selected films.