Ford’s Classic ‘Sons’ Anchors Tribute

Imagine not being able to see until now King Vidor’s “The Big Parade,” William Wellman’s “Wings” or Lewis Milestone’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the Hughes-Hawks “Hell’s Angels,” the four classic World War I sagas shot in the ‘20s, and you get some idea of the impact of seeing John Ford’s 1928 “Four Sons” for the first time.

Based on a story by I.A.R. Wylie, “Four Sons,” which will be screened publicly in the U.S. in its original format for the first time Sunday at 8:30 p.m. at the Directors Guild of America as the centerpiece of a major Ford tribute, tells of the toll exacted on ordinary Germans by the military elite in the Great War. It opens in a quaint Bavarian village where the widowed, white-haired Mother Bernle (Margaret Mann) lives with her four sons, one of whom (James Hall) emigrates to America after a humiliating run-in with an arrogant, Stroheim-like officer (Earle Fox).

The villagers verge on rural caricatures, although Ford’s broad but affectionate humor elicits a smile that freezes on one’s face as war and conscription begin to encroach upon the idyllic town. By now Ford has evoked powerfully a sense of foreboding that inevitably Hall (also a “Hell’s Angels” star) and his brothers will end up on opposite sides of the battle. The focus is on the home front, but there are some impressive scenes in the trenches.

That “Four Sons” is sentimental and melodramatic only emphasizes the prodigious gifts that would make Ford widely hailed as the greatest of all American filmmakers. Ford brings to bear on this film a tremendous sense of vision that embraces a pervasive melancholy feeling that loss is inevitable and victories are temporary, but courage, selflessness and simple kindness are human values worth upholding at all costs and that family is an enduring source of strength.

Ford has often been hailed as the poet of farewells and departures, strong motifs in this film, and the sheer expressive power of the visuals, eliciting at once life’s transitory quality and the eternal way of nature, transforms any and all moments of mawkishness. “Four Sons” has an unexpected epilogue, already heightening the film’s epic quality, and it climaxes in a scene of reconciliation that it is at once warm and gratifying while acknowledging human mortality. “Four Sons” retains the power to move the viewer to tears.

Upon its release, “Four Sons” was widely praised and won the Photoplay Magazine Gold Medal for Picture of the Year, but slid into the obscurity of most silents, rarely shown and available only to scholars in truncated form. Both “All Quiet” and “Hell’s Angels” started out as silents that were converted to talkies because of the sound revolution. Luckily, “Four Seasons” remained a silent, but William Fox superimposed a score that made use of his new sound-on-film process, Movietone, with music arranged by none other than famed showman S.L. “Roxy” Rothaphel. This meant placing the optical soundtrack on the left side of the film track, which cropped Ford’s images slightly, making them off-center.

Since Europe was slower to convert to sound, “Four Sons” was released there as Ford intended. It was at the Cinemateca Portugesa that Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences film archivist Michael Pogrozelsski discovered an original nitrate print of “Four Sons,” the basis of its restoration, a collaboration of the Academy Film Archive, the Cinemateca, 20th Century Fox, represented by its archivist Schwan Belston, and L’Imaginne Ritrovatto film laboratory in Bologna. The results are spectacular, revealing the richness of Ford’s black-and-white images. “Four Sons” will be presented with live musical accompaniment.

“Four Sons” is key in the evolution of Ford’s style. He went to Bavaria to shoot background footage, met F.W. Murnau, who was soon to arrive at Fox; both “Four Sons” and Frank Borzage’s “Seventh Heaven” made use of the costly sets of Murnau’s “Sunrise,” whose Expressionist style would strongly influence Ford and many other American filmmakers. It is worth noting that a USC football player named Marion Morrison spent his summer vacation as a “Four Sons” prop man; he soon would change his name to John Wayne.

Correspondence between Murnau and Ford, who formed an intense mutual admiration society, will be on view at the DGA along with other artifacts as part of the Directors Guild’s “A Marathon of the Masters: Retrospective of the Films of John Ford,” which commences Sunday at 10 a.m. with “The Iron Horse” (1924) and includes a 7 p.m. panel discussion moderated by film historian and Ford biographer Scott Eyman. Among the participants will be Maureen O’Hara, Anna Lee, Darryl Hickman, Ford’s grandson and biographer Dan Ford. Admission is free but reservations are required: (310) 289-5373.

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Some other notable weekend film events: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents tonight at 8 in its Samuel Goldwyn Theater “A Centennial Tribute to Gary Cooper,” which leads into the UCLA Film Archive’s “Gary Cooper: Man of the West” retrospective at Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater, Saturday-May 24. The archive will also screen Sunday at Melnitz at 2 p.m. Jacques Tati’s evergreen “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” (1953) as a Kids Flicks presentation. (310) 206-FILM.

The American Cinematheque will offer at the Egyptian two fantasy retrospectives: “Fantastika: The Films of Russian Fantasy Master Alexander Ptushko” Thursday through Sunday, and, on Wednesday only, “Science Is Fiction: The Films of Jean Painleve,” who made surrealist undersea films accompanied by jazz scores. The Ptushko retrospective represents an especially rare opportunity to see brand-new 35-millimeter prints of the original Russian-language versions of the work of a visual effects pioneer. 6712 Hollywood Blvd. (323) 466-FILM.

LACMA’s “Feel My Pulse: Twelve Comedies by Gregory La Cava” begins Friday and runs Fridays and Saturdays through May 19; La Cava is best remembered for “My Man Godfrey” (Saturday at 7:30 p.m.) and “Stage Door” (Saturday, May 19). Bing Theater, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. (323) 857-6177.