NOW PLAYING: A King Double Bill
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During her time as a curator in MoMA's Department of Film, Adrienne Mancia was a major proponent of unearthing important and often overlooked treasures from film history.
As noted by her close friend and colleague Jon Gartenberg, “[Adrienne] celebrated American directors of a bygone era who had worked within the Hollywood studio system.” King Vidor's THE JACK-KNIFE MAN (1920) and Henry King's THE SEVENTH DAY (1922) are among the early Hollywood films Mancia championed.
Both films, which were featured in MoMA's 2023 In Memoriam tribute to Mancia, stream this month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room.
STILL: KING VIDOR’S THE JACK-KNIFE MAN (1920). SOURCE: MUBI.
THE JACK-KNIFE MAN is one of the earliest surviving films by King Vidor, who had a long and prolific career that spanned both the silent and sound eras. It was also his first project distributed by First National, and the first film he shot on his newly constructed 15-acre studio, dubbed "Vidor Village."
Vidor directed THE JACK-KNIFE MAN shortly following the publication of his "Creed and Pledge" in Variety magazine, wherein he proclaimed:
I believe in the motion picture that carries a message to humanity. I believe in the picture that will help humanity to free itself from the shackles of fear and suffering that have so long bound it in chains. I will not knowingly produce a picture that contains anything that i do not believe to be absolutely true to human nature, anything that could injure anyone or anything unclean in thought or action. Nor will I deliberately portray anything to cause fright, suggest fear, glorify mischief, condone cruelty or extenuate malice. I will never picture evil or wrong, except to prove the fallacy of its line. So long as I direct pictures, i will make only those founded on the principles of right, and I will endeavor to draw upon the inexhaustible source of good for my stories, my guidance and my inspiration.
HENRY KING’S THE SEVENTH DAY (1922).
THE SEVENTH DAY was Henry King's 38th film. King, who began appearing in films as an actor in 1912 and directed his first film in 1915, was one of the 36 founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. King directed seven films that were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and himself earned two Oscar nominations for Best Director.
Gartenberg elaborated on Vidor’s and King’s films in his program notes for MoMA's In Memoriam tribute to Mancia's life and career:
Both King Vidor and Henry King — the subjects of MoMA retrospectives in 1972 and 1979, respectively — began making films in the 1910s. These retrospectives helped to shed light on the significance of many of these long-neglected movies at a time when the era of film preservation was beginning to take hold… Vidor’s THE JACK-KNIFE MAN is centered on a dying mother who, not wanting her son to go to an orphanage, leaves him with a poor riverboat man, who carves wooden toys with a jack-knife for the young boy. Travails and plot twists eventually lead to a happy ending. Vidor frequently addressed social issues in his films, and THE JACK-KNIFE MAN presents both a sympathetic portrait of impoverished people living on shanty boats along the Mississippi River in the 1920s and a critique of child rescue societies. The film advocates for self-help and redemption, consistent with Vidor’s ‘Creed and Pledge,’ published in Variety, which was a manifesto of his social and artistic ideals… [Meanwhile] Henry King became known as a proficient director whose work cut across many genres… According to noted film historian Peter von Bagh, King’s ‘early routine works were dominated by a touchingly naïve sense of American happiness: illusions but also wishes fulfilled.’ THE SEVENTH DAY (1922) highlights class distinctions between high society, in the guise of young, wealthy New Yorkers on a yachting vacation in New England, and the local youth of a Maine fishing village. The class divides are bridged at the end of the film, when love overcomes all.
King Vidor’s THE JACK-KNIFE MAN
Henry King’s THE SEVENTH DAY
CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO VIEW HENRY KING’S “THE SEVENTH DAY” AT THE INTERNET ARCHIVE.