One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie.
There are those who believe silent films are indecipherable to a modern audience. Yet this image from 1924’s Manhandled bridges a century capturing city living far below penthouse level. After holding her own on a rush-hour subway, shopgirl Tessie McGuire stands crushed in body and spirit. Examining the lone grape left on her stomped cloche, she wears the mix of burnout, self-recrimination, weltschmerz, and disappointment that’s crossed the mind of anyone living in NYC too long.
We move into shoebox apartments of questionable legality and dubious physical stability. We put up with New York’s indifference, anger, grime, and congestion. We're overcharged and underpaid, all in hopes of catching a little bit of the city’s promised magic; sophisticated elegance, nouveau nightlife, chance encounters and singular sights. This early scene tells the film’s entire story in miniature. Earnest striving already falling short—Tessie’s gaudy topper doesn’t scream sophistication—a working girl wanting bread and roses gets run through the wringer by surrounding men. Left to fend for herself, her innocent desire to get away from the workaday leads her into the path of more men, and hence, more trouble.
Ironically it’s La Swanson playing Tessie, the shopgirl selling chic to grabby basement mobs but who can’t get her own hands on it. The actress’ glamorous persona (the Swanson Cocktail she allegedly quaffed every morning was champagne and cognac) overshadows her start in Keystone comedies, but in Manhandled Swanson’s gift for slapstick is obvious. Her subtler genius, uncapturable in one frame, is conveying a girl’s street-smarts and naïveté through movement (and gum-chomping) alone.
Swanson and director Allan Dwan worked together on several films. Dwan’s penchant for “simple, honest stories” and Swanson’s talent elevate what could have been mawkish hokum into a sympathetic character study. There’s still some hackneyed framework—the main story takes place between Tessie’s scrappy inventor boyfriend declaring he’ll make a fortune... and him frictionlessly making a fortune, among other lacks of suspense. Yet Tessie’s struggle is centered. Dwarfed by a sea of backs, she looks at her trampled attempt at elegance. Her disappointment gets room, even if she doesn’t. A moment later, with true New York masochism, she tears the grape off, plunks the hat back on, and resumes fighting through her commute.
New York's Film Forum is showing Manhandled on September 29, 2021 to celebrate National Silent Movie Day.