Director: Clarence Brown
Cast: Louise Dresser, Jack Pickford, Constance Bennett, George Cooper
Have I Seen It Before: Never. The great value of seeing a silent film in a theater (with an organ accompaniment, no less) is that for a few stray moments (read: those moments where someone’s cell phone isn’t going off), the vulgarities of the 21st century melt away… Usually to give way to the vulgarities of the 20th. When you keep getting text messages throughout the movie from Home Depot informing you of the status of your toilet delivery, you never really had much of a chance.
Did I Like It: In previous reviews of silent films, I’ve generally come to the conclusion that some genres still hold up, while some don’t. Comedies? Very nearly always. Science Fiction? The charm is there, sure. Dramas? Almost never. A drama from 100 years ago is either wholly depressing—the abject poor will never get over their lot in life—or groanworthy—the obscenely rich dwell on their inadequacies while they wait for the stock crash to take them away. Horror? If you’re in the business of playing with shadows, there’s still plenty of dread to wring out of a modern audience. Western? Assuming anyone bothered to preserve the film and keep it from being just a bright white splotch with the occasional intruding shadows, then perhaps, but I’ve yet to see any evidence of it.
Now we bring ourselves to the mystery, and I’m just not seeing the appeal. Forget for a moment that this is really a drama of both the worst kinds, the question of just who killed the theater owner is painfully obvious, right up until the very end when it turns out someone about whom we never even bothered to think turned out to do it.
Maybe I’m one of the last people still holding on to the virtues of the silent movie, but even I have my limits.