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The Edison wax cylinder recording
would be pretty much at the top of my list.
 
Great question, Ms. Lovell.
 
Roger Durrett
Charlotte, NC
 
 
In a message dated 10/2/2014 2:24:05 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Nothing  makes me happier than
to see these sorts of conversations.
What a  lovable bunch of geeks
we are, and wouldn't SLC relish
such affectionate  scrutiny? Haven't
we all 'squandered' countless hours
speculating and  imagining answers
to thousands of questions? What a
power he holds over  each one of us.
He is more intimate to us than many
of our own  DNA-sharing relatives,
yet he belongs to the world.

If only ONE lost  item or bit of information
could be discovered from his life, 
what  would each of you place at the
top of the list? (Impossible to  answer
with only one, I know.)

The butler pictured in the film is  Claude:
http://www.twainquotes.com/beuchotte.html



________________________________________
From:  Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Kevin Mac Donnell  
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 2, 2014 9:49  AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Twain film redux

Oh, he's  playing for the camera for sure. Even in still photos Twain is
seldom  caught truly off-guard. Even his supposedly spontaneous speeches  
and
interview responses were usually carefully rehearsed. That looks like  the
self-conscious public Mark Twain stalking about Stormfield, not the  private
Mr Clemens.

The little finger extended from the teacup is  another good detail. Every
time the film is viewed more little details  emerge, especially if you hit
the pause button now and then. As he walks  away from the front door there
appears to be a silhouette of someone  standing inside the entrance. The
curtains in the sidelights rustle in the  wind, an indication that the 
French
doors of the dining room must have been  open, creating a breeze through the
center of the house (that would also be  his pathway to go around and circle
that end of the house later in the  film).

But the limp looks real to me. I played with the pause and the  rhythm of 
his
steps does not correspond with each frame, so it's not the  film --it's
Twain. So, the question is whether it's deliberate. The posture  of his hips
while at the door and the persistent limp in profile both trips  around the
house, and the left side sway all seem genuine indications of a  problem of
some sort. When I get time I'm going to run it past my medical  friends and
seek an expert opinion.

Also, it would be nice to nail  down the precise date this film was made. Is
there a list of Edison's  employees who might have been in the crew he sent
out that day? If so, I  could check them against the two Stormfield
guest-books. I have the  original first guestbook and an old facsimile of 
the
second (the original  is at Hartford) and although most of the people can be
identified, quite a  few of the people who signed in are not.

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare  Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member:  ABAA, ILAB
*************************
You may browse our books  at:
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com


-----Original  Message-----
From: John Chappell
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2014 9:25  PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Twain film redux

The  Langdons gave the Edison film to the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum
in  Hannibal, as I was told in the early 1970s. It was on dangerous  nitrate
stock, so 16mm prints were made from it; and a number of copies  were kept
in Hannibal.

When I visited Hannibal for a benefit  performance around 1971, they ran
them on a 16mm projector for me. 18  frames a second looked way too fast.
Thinking they'd probably been shot at  a slower speed, maybe 12 frames a
second, we got access to an audio-visual  Bell&Howell projector. It had
variable speed that made it possible to  see them at what was obviously a
more correct rate.

It was my  opinion that Twain was intentionally playing the camera for
humor. First,  he comes out the door as if saying "Get that contraption off
my property,  and be quick about it!"

Next, we see him ambling past the camera but  completely ignoring it,
puffing away on his cigar. That has to have been  deliberate.

There's a pause following, and here he comes again  wandering past camera
again, and ignoring it again, as if he'd run madly  around the house for
another shot, but wouldn't let on to it -- oh,no --  just wander past as if
he never noticed camera or crew. Again.

From  an actor's view, he's working it. And doing it very well.

That humor  looked might Twainian to me, and to the man who ran the Becky
Thatcher  Bookshop back then. Every time I've viewed the Edison film since
I've seen  that same humor.

It's there again with the tea. Watch him stick his  little finger out as he
lifts his teacup.

They gave me one of the  prints, since I wouldn't take money for the show.
After, they asked how I  liked the table they'd brought to use on stage at
the high  school.

"That's the one, you know," they said. "From the museum. That's  the one he
wrote Tom Sawyer on."

Oh, my. For sure I knew I was in  the right town then. Just as I knew who
you were Susan, when I saw your  photo, and that inherited nose so familiar
from many, many studies of  photographs of the man.

John Chappell

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at  8:59 PM, Susan Bailey <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>  Kevin, I've looked at this footage many time and I agree that it looks  
as
> if he has a slight limp coming around the corner but then it seems  to
> clear
> up as he appears in front of the house. As Bob said,  this could be due to
> his age.  You can see at the beginning that  his right hip seems to be a
> bit
> higher than his  left.
>
> As a person who actually knew Clara when I was a child,  I don't believe
> that is Clara on the left. And that is certainly not  her in the middle.
> That woman has a widow's peak, which Clara didn't  have. Clara had a 
strong
> face and, in my memory was not given to  girlish gestures like touching or
> smoothing back her hair.  That  could be a difference in age but this just
> does not look like Clara to  me.
>
> Regards,
> Susan Bailey
>
> On Wed, Oct  1, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Kevin Mac Donnell <
>  [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Well, I have me  bad days and me better days, but it looks like a limp 
to
> >  me,
> > especially visible as he corners the far end of the house in  profile.
> >
> > It's Jean on the left and Clara in the  middle. That's not Ashcroft who
> > brings Clara her hat, nor Ossip,  but likely a servant and there are
> several
> > candidates for  that honor.
> >
> > Kevin
> > @
> > Mac  Donnell Rare Books
> > 9307 Glenlake Drive
> > Austin TX  78730
> > 512-345-4139
> > Member: ABAA, ILAB
> >  *************************
> > You may browse our books at:
>  > www.macdonnellrarebooks.com
> >
> >
> >  -----Original Message-----
> > From: [log in to unmask]
>  > Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2014 6:27 PM
> > To:  [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: Twain film redux
>  >
> > Kevin, you're certainly right about the wind. Those trees in  the
> background
> > look like props from news footage of a  hurricane making landfall. But
> > I'm
> > not sure about  the limp. If it's there, it's very slight -- and might
> that
>  > just be a normal state of affairs from someone in his 70s?
>  >
> > The little explanation at the beginning says the two women  in the film
> are
> > believed to be Jean and Clara. But didn't  someone here confirm a while
> back
> > that it's Jean and  Isabel Lyon? I seem to recall that, anyway. And the
> man
> >  who appears briefly -- is that Ashcroft?
> >
> > -- Bob  G.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Best  regards,
> Susan Bailey
> Greenville, SC
>  www.marktwainonline.com
>=

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