Category: Silent Film

This film has the exact same plot and two of the same actors as the 1930 film with the same title. The main difference is this is a completely silent film. In most ways, the talkie version is superior. A main plot point revolves around a ventriloquist and talking parrots which is a bit strange for a silent film. It is cute that they solve that issue here using speech bubbles. The patsy in this film is also less appealing, making it questionable why the love interest would want to switch alliances from her gang. The one preference I have in this version is the chimpanzee. The remake cheapens out by just using a man in a costume versus the real thing and it comes across as ridiculously silly.

After a young girl suffers a horrible attack on the night of her confirmation, she is then abandoned by those who should be looking out for her. Despite the damage she suffers, she somehow refuses to lose her kind nature or soul in the process. Louise Brooks somehow brings such innocence and heart to her role as the lead character. A little more love and no-one would be lost in this world indeed.

I generally hate the soundtracks that accompany silent films, but I also don’t like watching them with no noise whatsoever. It’s quite the conundrum. F.W. Murnau is a master at directing silents though, so the soundtrack on this one generally faded into the background. I’ve wanted to watch more Emil Jannings after seeing The Last Command and he’s just as good here depicting the emotional desperation that a simple but proud doorman feels after being discharged from his prestigious post. So much is done with essentially no words. I do wish that the ending, taped on as it was, could have also featured the reactions of his family and neighbors who had earlier rejected him.

The Criterion Portraits of the Artist box set offers a great variety of the works of Paul Robeson. My decision to watch the entire set may have led me somewhat astray with this film. I go to films mostly for the narratives they have to offer, but this was a bit too avant-garde for my tastes. It felt like a student film with the director throwing as much as he could at the viewer just to see what would stick. As far as I can tell, the story centers around an interracial couple cheating on their spouses and how this effects the racist townspeople who hang out at the local lesbian bar. Paul Robeson isn’t in the film nearly enough, maybe because just his presence overwhelms that of everyone around him.

Clowns are creepy. A scientist who faces the ultimate betrayal from his wife and his patron, then chooses to become a clown so he can reenact that betrayal night after night is incredibly sad. Lon Chaney plays the role of this man, who as a clown is known only as HE, to perfection. The humiliation is willingly subjects himself to is heartbreaking. If all that isn’t enough, there’s some wonderful visual transitions in the film that are worth the watch on their own.