Forbidden Fruit (1921).

Review #1880: Forbidden Fruit.

Cast: 

Agnes Ayres (Mary Maddock), Clarence Burton (Steve Maddock), Theodore Roberts (James Harrington Mallory), Kathlyn Williams (Mrs. Mallory), Forrest Stanley (Nelson Rogers), Theodore Kosloff (Pietro Giuseppe), Shannon Day (Nadia Craig), and Bertram Johns (John Craig) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille (#1245 - The Squaw Man (1914), #1371 - Unconquered, #1697 - Why Change Your Wife?)

Review: 

Sometimes I think I haven't been quite fair with Cecil B. DeMille. Imagine being only the 119th director to have at least four films covered on Movie Night, you might. The man made seventy movies and had a reputation for scale and showmanship, yet here we are with something from his most proficient era, the silent times (the religious films are ones I can kick the can on for a couple more years). This was actually a remake of a film he had directed in 1915 called The Golden Chance, which he co-wrote with Jeanie Macpherson. She had collaborated with DeMille on countless movies in the era when she had approached him at Lasky Studios over she could act in his features (apparently, she also served as one of his mistresses). At any rate, the director made dramas, comedies, Westerns, morality plays, you get the idea; it only makes sense to go back to familiar material that worked out before, since it wasn't like people could just go back and watch the earlier movie. Yes, this is basically a riff on the Cinderella story, what with it being about a (married) seamstress being turned into a pretty woman in gorgeous gowns to serve as an escort to a man at a dinner party that sees them both fall for each other. You know who really liked the movie? Alfred Hitchcock, who cited it as one of his favorites in 1939 (he also stated Saturday Night (1922), also done by DeMille, as his favorite).  

So okay, it is a bit of a melodrama romance. Did I mention there is also a conniving butler who plans to rob them? Or that he joins up with the drunken husband of the leading lady? That, plus the extortion attempt is what makes up a very curious experience for a film. I can't say that it is great by any measure, because it certainly has moments to uh, make light of (try reading the title cards about husbands and wives out loud and you see what I mean), but it is still pretty solid for what ends up on screen for 87 minutes. It isn't as offbeat in mindset like Why Change Your Wife? (1920), but it has all of the DeMille touches in imagination with its views on love, complete with dream sequences imitating Cinderella and birds being killed by shoes being thrown. These antics are more interesting than a good chunk of the actors in the movie, who are just fine. Ayres shows a few of the demands required in basic emotions of love and pain that comes and goes. Burton makes a quality lout, one fitting the bill for what is needed in ways that you can see the decayed essence of a person with someone to play off of (hell, there's a scene where dollar bills are imposed on his eyes). Roberts and Williams do well in basically playing discount fairy godparents (again, this Cinderella story is their doing, but only because getting oil deals is important), complete with guiding our lead to the right fork to use in dinner that is pretty funny. Stanley kind of gets lost in the shuffle with minimal describing factors. Look, it is the kind of movie that hones plenty of things that would seem familiar to soap opera enjoyers, which can make for an interesting experience if one has the patience for it. DeMille knows what he likes when it comes to certain viewpoints about the ideals of love and how to show it visually. Sure, one knows where the road is going to lead when it comes to these kinds of movies, but it sure makes for a worthwhile ride to go on. Thankfully, with the public domain, one can see for themselves just what happens when you play a bit of Cinderella on the melodrama, so if it seems up your speed, perhaps take a ride with DeMille if it seems like something to view from a name in classic cinema.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Okay, there is a sort of theme I am planning with the month of September, albeit on a "Stuff to do" basis, covering movies from directors that haven't had as much coverage on Movie Night as others have had...that and one other movie I've been looking forward to. Enjoy the ride...

The Roaring Road.

Review #1263: The Roaring Road.

Cast: 
Wallace Reid (Walter Thomas "Toodles" Waldron), Ann Little (Dorothy Ward, the cub), Theodore Roberts (J. D. Ward, the bear), Guy Oliver (Tom Darby), and Clarence Geldart (Fred Wheeler) Directed by James Cruze.

Review: 
How many times can one pick a century-old film to give spotlight to? The decade saw Hollywood rise in stature for film-making in the United States, with several studios rising to the occasion to make their own films, ranging from shorts to roughly an hour. Who better to cover than a film from Paramount Pictures, one of the oldest film studios still in existence that also happens to be the lone major studio still located in Hollywood. In a silent era where plenty of films were lost to audiences after release forever, one can appreciate the ones that did in fact survive for someone to view (particularly for films exhibited for over 95 years, which make for fresh pickings in the public domain), and I would hope that a viewer picks at least one film from this particular era of film-making to look at once in a while. This is a year in which test screenings were only just beginning to be used to gauge reactions to film, after all. Not every film needs to be loud or expressive to be a true winner, although the reverse can easily be said when it comes to how films were back then, which certainly could be spectacular or ridiculous. In this case, this is an okay movie, filled will silly moments to boot aside from a few interesting directing sequences (done through Frank Urson) that accompany a relic like this. It just doesn't feel like the kind of film meant to endure as heavily as other films of its time, where Broken Blossoms and The Grim Game managed to evoke more emotion and thrills in the same year. Each film certainly looks like they came from 1919, but there is a certain energy in the direction or its star that really drive those two films to inspire curiosity that this does not.

What is this film, you may wonder. Well, it's about a automobile salesman who wants to race and also get the daughter of his boss - even winning the big race in the middle of its 58 minute run-time doesn't convince the dad to let go of his daughter to be married unless they wait five years, because...1919, I suppose. Marion Fairfax helped write the scenario based on short stories done by Byron Morgan (Junkpile Sweepstakes, Undertaker's Handicap, Roaring Road), which turned out to be such a success that it inspired a sequel named Excuse My Dust the following year. Reid does fine, even if one doesn't really see that much of him (the auto scenes with him count, I suppose), but what can one really do with a name like Toodles? In the same year that he did this film, Reid suffered an injury to his scalp while in production for The Valley of the Giants. Treatment to relieve his pain at the time meant addiction to morphine that would torment him for the following three years in which he kept working in films before his death in 1923 at the age of 31. Little is okay, although she doesn't really seem to show that much passion (one would expect that from a film that favors its race action a bit more, really). Roberts (introduced to us after a quick shot of a bear to open the film) is also okay, playing to the strings of the plot with reasonable unreasonableness. In the end, this is a fairly mediocre effort that just can't inspire a shift into second gear despite all the chances to do so. You wouldn't hate what you see on screen by any means, but you also wouldn't really like it all that much either.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.