Legong: Dance of the Virgins (film)
Encyclopedia
Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935
) was one of the last feature film
s shot using the two-color Technicolor
process, and one of the last silent films from the silent era.
exploitation film
(of a type often referred to as a "goona-goona epic
") similar to Isle of Paradise (1932) directed by Charles Trego and Goona Goona or Love Powder (1932) directed by Andre Roosevelt
and Armand Denis
. Legong was produced and directed by Gaston Glass
and Henry de la Falaise for Falaise's wife Constance Bennett
's Bennett Pictures Corporation, and was filmed entirely on location in Bali
from May to August 1933, using an all-Balinese cast. The crew was helped by Roosevelt, Denis, and Walter Spies
to gain access to local villages and people willing to act in the film.
The cameraman was three-time Academy Award
winner color specialist W. Howard Greene
, billed as William H. Greene, who also photographed the 2-color Technicolor scenes in Ben-Hur
(1925
in addition to many other early Technicolor films. Legong was first distributed in the United States in 1935 by DuWorld Pictures Inc. and outside the U.S. by Paramount International
.
The score was compiled from stock cues from the Abe Meyer library, and was conducted by Samuel Wineland.
on October 1, 1935 at USD$
5.00 per ticket. Reaction from some New York critics
was positive; “exquisitely beautiful” from one, “Moments that touch the heart” from another, and “flaming splendor” from a third. The New York Times
' reviewer found it "a pleasant venture in the filmic literature of escape... a pretty tale, and the photoplay recites it simply and with faith. Subduing his color camera to inviting browns and pastel tints, the Marquis sets his native lovers against the rice fields, the shadowy lagoons, the pounding surf and the mountains of that island of which Paul Morand
has written that it is absolutely irresistible to college boys and women of 40." Variety
, on the other hand, considered it to offer "nothing especially refreshing in the story... follows usual procedure for this type of native stuff" though conceding "A number of elaborate production scenes with oriental trappings are made doubly effective through use of color".
Ten weeks later Film Daily
reported that Legong was still playing in New York. Part of the appeal was likely the bare breast
ed young actresses that appear throughout the film: American censors of the time tended to be more lenient with toplessness in films purporting to be cultural studies, and the women were not white. Legong was successful enough that it was re-released several times. At one time advertisements promoted the film in large letters as “NUDITY WITHOUT CRUDITY: A FILM FOR ALL AUDIENCES!” “Bali... a garden of Eden with dozens of ‘Eves’! See the strange dance of Rongda
, the Witch! Romance in the South Seas! Mass Cremation
ceremonies!”
While nudity may have been part of the film's appeal, it also received recognition at the time of its release for embodying "many details of anthropological interest, giving a record, in particular, of betrothal custom, traditional dances and mortuary rites." This is only partially true. The script writers, while basing the story on Balinese culture, gave it a decidedly Hollywood treatment. Despite its shortcomings, the film gives an unparalleled view of life in Bali in the 1930s.
In the course of the story there are several authentic performances of Balinese dance. One of these dances is "Legong", from which the film gets its name. While the film shows the traditional gamelan
accompanying the dancers, there is no gamelan music in the original music track.
This silent film has a musical soundtrack
but no dialogue—rather it uses intertitle
s written by Hampton del Ruth
. Poetoe Aloes Goesti played Poutou, the girl, and Njong Njong Njoman her unnamed lover.
and released on DVD
in 2004. Legong was reconstructed using three surviving nitrate two-color Technicolor prints, one each from the United States, Canada
, and Britain
. Scenes of nudity had been trimmed from the U.S. print, while shots of cockfight
ing had been removed from the British print. The DVD release includes an alternative soundtrack composed by Richard Marriott
and I Made Subandi and performed by Gamelan Sekar Jaya
and Club Foot Orchestra
. The new score mixes Balinese and Western musical traditions.
The new score was performed live at showings of the film at the Castro Theatre
in San Francisco
in May 1999, and at the UC Theater
in Berkeley
in 2000. There were also performances at the Winter Garden
in the World Financial Center
in New York, as part of the Silent Film/Live Music festival in 2000 and 2005. In November 2004, a DVD of Legong was released with Bennett Pictures' follow-up film, Kliou, the Killer (1936), filmed in Indochina
in color.
1935 in film
-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
) was one of the last feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s shot using the two-color Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
process, and one of the last silent films from the silent era.
Production
An AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
(of a type often referred to as a "goona-goona epic
Goona-goona epic
Goona-goona epic refers to any of several films set in the Far East or Southeast Asia which combined travelogue and stock footage of exotic customs and locales with universally understandable stories of romance and betrayal. Nudity and sexual situations were important to these films...
") similar to Isle of Paradise (1932) directed by Charles Trego and Goona Goona or Love Powder (1932) directed by Andre Roosevelt
Andre Roosevelt
Andre Roosevelt was a filmmaker. He was born in Paris, France to Cornelius Roosevelt , a cousin of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who married a French actress....
and Armand Denis
Armand Denis
Armand Denis was a Belgian-born documentary film-maker. After several decades of pioneering work in filming and presenting the ethnology and wildlife of remote parts of Africa and Asia, he became best known in Britain as the director and co-presenter of natural history programmes on television in...
. Legong was produced and directed by Gaston Glass
Gaston Glass
Gaston Glass , was a French-born American actor. He appeared in 100 films between 1917 and 1943.He was born in Paris and died in Santa Monica, California.-Selected filmography:* Little Miss Smiles...
and Henry de la Falaise for Falaise's wife Constance Bennett
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...
's Bennett Pictures Corporation, and was filmed entirely on location in Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
from May to August 1933, using an all-Balinese cast. The crew was helped by Roosevelt, Denis, and Walter Spies
Walter Spies
Walter Spies was a Russian-born German primitivist painter. In 1923 he came to Java, living first in Yogyakarta and then in Ubud, Bali starting in 1927. He is often credited with attracting the attention of Western cultural figures to Balinese culture and art.In 1937, Spies built what he described...
to gain access to local villages and people willing to act in the film.
The cameraman was three-time Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
winner color specialist W. Howard Greene
W. Howard Greene
William Howard Greene was a cinematographer. He was born in Connecticut and died in Los Angeles.Greene, sometimes billed as William H. Greene and W. Howard Greene, was a cinematographer on many early Technicolor films, including Legong: Dance of the Virgins .-External links:*...
, billed as William H. Greene, who also photographed the 2-color Technicolor scenes in Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur (1925 film)
Ben-Hur is a 1925 silent film directed by Fred Niblo. It was a blockbuster hit for newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This was the second film based on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace...
(1925
1925 in film
-Events:*November 5: The Big Parade holds its Grand Premier*December 30: premier of Ben-Hur the most expensive silent film ever made costing 4-6 million dollars -Top grossing films :...
in addition to many other early Technicolor films. Legong was first distributed in the United States in 1935 by DuWorld Pictures Inc. and outside the U.S. by Paramount International
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
.
The score was compiled from stock cues from the Abe Meyer library, and was conducted by Samuel Wineland.
Original release
The film opened in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
on October 1, 1935 at USD$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
5.00 per ticket. Reaction from some New York critics
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
was positive; “exquisitely beautiful” from one, “Moments that touch the heart” from another, and “flaming splendor” from a third. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
' reviewer found it "a pleasant venture in the filmic literature of escape... a pretty tale, and the photoplay recites it simply and with faith. Subduing his color camera to inviting browns and pastel tints, the Marquis sets his native lovers against the rice fields, the shadowy lagoons, the pounding surf and the mountains of that island of which Paul Morand
Paul Morand
Paul Morand was a French diplomat, novelist, playwright and poet, considered an early Modernist.He was a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies...
has written that it is absolutely irresistible to college boys and women of 40." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, on the other hand, considered it to offer "nothing especially refreshing in the story... follows usual procedure for this type of native stuff" though conceding "A number of elaborate production scenes with oriental trappings are made doubly effective through use of color".
Film Daily
The Film Daily was a daily publication that existed from 1915 to 1970 in the United States.For 55 years, Film Daily was the main source of news on the film and television industries...
reported that Legong was still playing in New York. Part of the appeal was likely the bare breast
Breast
The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues...
ed young actresses that appear throughout the film: American censors of the time tended to be more lenient with toplessness in films purporting to be cultural studies, and the women were not white. Legong was successful enough that it was re-released several times. At one time advertisements promoted the film in large letters as “NUDITY WITHOUT CRUDITY: A FILM FOR ALL AUDIENCES!” “Bali... a garden of Eden with dozens of ‘Eves’! See the strange dance of Rongda
Rangda
Rangda is the demon queen of the leyaks in Bali, according to traditional Balinese mythology. Terrifying to behold, the child-eating Rangda leads an army of evil witches against the leader of the forces of good — Barong.- Description :...
, the Witch! Romance in the South Seas! Mass Cremation
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
ceremonies!”
While nudity may have been part of the film's appeal, it also received recognition at the time of its release for embodying "many details of anthropological interest, giving a record, in particular, of betrothal custom, traditional dances and mortuary rites." This is only partially true. The script writers, while basing the story on Balinese culture, gave it a decidedly Hollywood treatment. Despite its shortcomings, the film gives an unparalleled view of life in Bali in the 1930s.
In the course of the story there are several authentic performances of Balinese dance. One of these dances is "Legong", from which the film gets its name. While the film shows the traditional gamelan
Gamelan
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
accompanying the dancers, there is no gamelan music in the original music track.
This silent film has a musical soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
but no dialogue—rather it uses intertitle
Intertitle
In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to, but not necessarily covered by, the material photographed.Intertitles...
s written by Hampton del Ruth
Hampton Del Ruth
Hampton Del Ruth was an American film actor, director, screenwriter and film producer. Among other work, he wrote the intertitles for the final American studio-made silent film, Legong: Dance of the Virgins. Del Ruth began working in film in 1913 and continued until the early 1930s...
. Poetoe Aloes Goesti played Poutou, the girl, and Njong Njong Njoman her unnamed lover.
Restoration and new musical score
The film was restored by the UCLA Film and Television ArchiveUCLA Film and Television Archive
The UCLA Film and Television Archive is an internationally renowned visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. It holds more than 220,000 film and television titles and 27 million feet of...
and released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in 2004. Legong was reconstructed using three surviving nitrate two-color Technicolor prints, one each from the United States, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. Scenes of nudity had been trimmed from the U.S. print, while shots of cockfight
Cockfight
A cockfight is a blood sport between two roosters , held in a ring called a cockpit. Cockfighting is now illegal throughout all states in the United States, Brazil, Australia and in most of Europe. It is still legal in several U.S. territories....
ing had been removed from the British print. The DVD release includes an alternative soundtrack composed by Richard Marriott
Richard Marriott
Richard Marriott is a U.S. avant-garde composer and performer. He has composed for film, television, dance, theater, opera, installations and video games. He is the founder and artistic director of the Club Foot Orchestra, an important modern ensemble for live music performance with silent films....
and I Made Subandi and performed by Gamelan Sekar Jaya
Gamelan Sekar Jaya
Gamelan Sekar Jaya is a Balinese gamelan ensemble located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has been called "the finest Balinese gamelan ensemble outside of Indonesia" by Indonesia’s Tempo Magazine. It performs the music and dance of Bali in many different genres of Balinese gamelan, mainly...
and Club Foot Orchestra
Club Foot Orchestra
The Club Foot Orchestra is a music ensemble founded in 1983 by Richard Marriott. After a brief career playing dramatic, complex music in San Francisco clubs, they became known for their equally dramatic and complex scores for classic silent movies. The ensemble got their name from a performance art...
. The new score mixes Balinese and Western musical traditions.
The new score was performed live at showings of the film at the Castro Theatre
Castro Theatre
The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...
in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
in May 1999, and at the UC Theater
UC Theater
The UC Theatre was a movie theater at 2036 University Avenue near Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, California.-History:Opened in 1917, the 1,300-seat theater was acquired in 1974 by theater owner Gary Meyer as one of the first theaters—along with the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles—in his Landmark...
in Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
in 2000. There were also performances at the Winter Garden
Winter Garden Atrium
The Winter Garden Atrium is a 10-story glass-vaulted pavilion on Vesey Street in New York City's World Financial Center. Originally constructed in 1988, and substantially rebuilt in 2002, the Atrium houses various plants, trees and flowers, and shops...
in the World Financial Center
World Financial Center
The World Financial Center is a complex of buildings across West Street from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan in New York City, overlooking the Hudson River. This complex is home to offices of companies including Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets, Nomura Group, the Wall Street...
in New York, as part of the Silent Film/Live Music festival in 2000 and 2005. In November 2004, a DVD of Legong was released with Bennett Pictures' follow-up film, Kliou, the Killer (1936), filmed in Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
in color.
External links
- Review of the 1999 live performance reviewed in the San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
- An essay by Peter Bloom and Katherine Hagedorn that was inadvertently left out of the first pressing of the DVD.