NR | $6 General / Members
In honor of Women’s History Month, Sunday Silents is showing a Double Feature of Film Pioneer Lois Weber who wrote, directed, produced and acted in most of her films thereby retaining a maximum of creative control, allowing her to tackle complex social issues of post WW1 America.
On March 1st, we present two of her most progressive films, both from 1916:“Where Are My Children” and “Shoes”.
In an era where any talk of family planning, even between doctor and patient, was illegal, Weber made “Where Are My Children”, a landmark film, the first film to intelligently discuss birth control, making the case that if women used birth control abortions would be virtually unnecessary.
Placed among upper class matrons instead of the usually expected slum dwellers. The story concentrates on Mrs Richard Walton, wife of the local DA (who desperately wants a family) who basically uses abortion as birth control, ending pregnancies not because of the lack of basic things, but because she will miss out on the merry whirl of social events – a solution used by most of her friends. While Weber doesn’t vilify these women, she does take a dim view on their short sided view on life and asks the question: “What happens when the last waltz is waltzed, and the last party lantern burns out?”
In contrast, Eva Meyer’s troubles are far more basic and dire. As the title suggests she is in desperate need of a good, basic pair of shoes but never has the money for them. So begins Lois Weber’s “Shoes”, perhaps her finest masterpiece and one of the great feminist films in the history of cinema.
Eva Meyer is a poor shop girl working at a five-and-dime. She is the sole wage earner for three younger sisters, a mother who struggles to hold everything together, and a father who prefers laying around drinking beer and reading cheap dime store novels to work. Each week, Eva returns to her tenement with her meager pay, and each week, she is promised the $2.50 for the desperately needed new shoes, but there is the grocer’s bill, the rent and her father’s beer, tobacco and “novels” that takes priority. So, Eva hands over her entire pay with the promise of “next week” from her mother, who tries to make ends meet by taking in washing. As Eva plods back and forth from work in the incessant April showers, the cardboard to patch the holes in the soles fail quickly, her life becoming harder with each rainy day and every splinter in the dime store floor. In constant pain, the shoes ready to literally disintegrate and with no solution in sight, the disheartened girl considers the uninvited advances of “Champagne Charlie”, who is more than happy to buy her shoes – but Eva has to “give a little” too.
Sunday Silents is made possible by the generous support of Jim DeMaio State Farm New Paltz