further disintegration

More beauty within loss.
With a running jump, our hero grabs onto an overhanging bar and spins himself upwards onto the next floor.
How sad that the one piece of stunt work in Street Angel is nearly lost to deterioration.
How lucky we are to experience it with the glow of disintegration that gives the feat an other-worldly quality:

single shot - street angel

Although the most photogenic aspect of the movie has to be this actress  playing Garbo-as-a-vampire, my favorite part is this sweet little song that has stuck in my head for days now.

In the clip you get a brief glance of her brooding as well as the lead heroine's Depeche Mode-like boyfriend and of singer Zhou Xuan herself in all her charm.

I love that the words appear as subtitles. I can only imagine how wonderful it must have been to see this in the theatre - would the audience sing along? I really hope they would sing with the film.

It should play on a double bill someday with Electric Shadows, which has a lovely scene in which the characters try to get into a sold out showing of Street Angel.

Malu tianshi (1937)
aka Street Angel
directed by Mu-Jih Yuan

prisoner 13

I'm completely blown away by the quality of light in the photo above.
It is one of the most gorgeous scenes ever captured onto film.









el Prisionero 13 (1933)
aka Prisoner 13
directed by Fernando de Fuentes
cinematography by Ross Fisher








No relief offered by the end of the film: