Almost the only reason for interest in this film nowadays lies in the fact that it features an uncredited, unknown bit-part player by the name of Louise Brooks. So it's perhaps unfortunate, not to say ironic, that her brief performance was for me at least the most jarring and awkward part. With her glossy cheeks and hair, her brand-new outfit, and her lack of response to the scene around her until it comes to her turn 'to act', she seems as thoroughly out of place as a schoolgirl plucked from her end-of-term play onto the movie set. She stands out all right, but for all the wrong reasons; it's not hard to believe this was her first time on screen, but rather more difficult to understand from here why the director even kept those (largely extraneous) scenes in, let alone why anyone would conclude from such a showing that she had a potential movie career.
Miss Brooks' presence apart, the film is not without interest of its own. At the time of writing, two sections appear to be missing from the start of the story in addition to some visible decay in the first reel: the material is presumed lost for good. This leads to a somewhat disconcerting viewing experience, as the plot jumps ahead abruptly and one is kept very busy for the first few minutes after the break trying to extrapolate what has taken place in the interim! In fact, ample clues seem to be available, which -- in conjunction with the ample surviving length of the film, well over an hour -- leads me to wonder just how much footage can be missing after all, since these references would surely all have originally constituted repetition. On the other hand, the quality of the writing isn't always that elevated, so it's entirely possible.
The acting is generally quite good, although the heroine does have a certain tendency to over-emote and the intertitles are sometimes a little overwrought. Percy Marmont at once caught my attention as "Easy-Money Charley", the central Jean Valjean figure -- I don't know how much of the debt to Hugo is conscious intent, but the parallels are pretty much unavoidable, as the criminal rescues the daughter of a dying prostitute, 'Fancy', and then has to do a moonlight flit and set her up in a private establishment far away from his old haunts, educating her privately as a gentlewoman without ever disclosing either his true identity or the source of their wealth. When a young man wishes to marry his 'daughter', Charley makes a haggard breast of the whole, declares himself unfit for decent company, and takes steps to remove himself forever from his beloved daughter's life. But underworld associates hope to blackmail the young husband by threatening to make public the true nature of his father-in-law...
So far, so Valjean; and Percy Marmont is equal to the role, save when he too emotes -- doubtless at the director's request -- a little too long or too graphically. But Charley does face a couple of issues with which Valjean is not afflicted: he discovers to his dismay that the girl's affection for him is rather more than daughterly (with the thoroughgoing approval of the housekeeper, who thinks the set-up romantic), and, instead of expiring in sanctity, having faked his own death he is then required to deal with the threat to her happiness himself, and without the consolation of a deathbed reconciliation. On top of this is the moralistic strand by which his enemy White-Eye, who has spent a lifetime faking blindness for alms, ultimately becomes blind in truth and dependent upon Charley for his eyes.
It's a pretty melodramatic plot to carry off, but by and large the film succeeds in doing so, marred only by the odd tendentious intertitle and over-emphasised pose. In the part of Charley, Marmont showcases the character's almost chameleon-like ability to slip between multiple personalities -- the cripple, the genial rogue, the loving father, the elegant gentleman -- at the drop of a coin. The juvenile leads have relatively little to do, and do it relatively well. John Harrington is impressively malevolent as White-Eye, under the added handicap of having to play most of his scenes 'blind', with his eyes rolled up into his head; although the script never makes it clear why, as a regular frequenter of Adolphe's Cripple Factory, anyone would -- as Charley apparently does -- believe him to be genuinely blind in the first place. Dorothy Walters has a somewhat one-note part as Charley's housekeeper and Mary's doting 'Nannie', producing a long series of eavesdropping shots to telegraph the intended reaction to Mary's suitor and his courtship. However, like the various blowsy women in Diamond Mike's, she does at least fit into the milieu; which is more than I can say for Louise Brooks' disconnected 'gangster's moll'.
It's a decent enough little picture -- given the drawback of the missing footage -- with a certain Dickensian air, and a well-realised and sympathetic protagonist in Charley. But compared to, say, Sternberg's "Underworld", it's nothing special to speak of.
Miss Brooks' presence apart, the film is not without interest of its own. At the time of writing, two sections appear to be missing from the start of the story in addition to some visible decay in the first reel: the material is presumed lost for good. This leads to a somewhat disconcerting viewing experience, as the plot jumps ahead abruptly and one is kept very busy for the first few minutes after the break trying to extrapolate what has taken place in the interim! In fact, ample clues seem to be available, which -- in conjunction with the ample surviving length of the film, well over an hour -- leads me to wonder just how much footage can be missing after all, since these references would surely all have originally constituted repetition. On the other hand, the quality of the writing isn't always that elevated, so it's entirely possible.
The acting is generally quite good, although the heroine does have a certain tendency to over-emote and the intertitles are sometimes a little overwrought. Percy Marmont at once caught my attention as "Easy-Money Charley", the central Jean Valjean figure -- I don't know how much of the debt to Hugo is conscious intent, but the parallels are pretty much unavoidable, as the criminal rescues the daughter of a dying prostitute, 'Fancy', and then has to do a moonlight flit and set her up in a private establishment far away from his old haunts, educating her privately as a gentlewoman without ever disclosing either his true identity or the source of their wealth. When a young man wishes to marry his 'daughter', Charley makes a haggard breast of the whole, declares himself unfit for decent company, and takes steps to remove himself forever from his beloved daughter's life. But underworld associates hope to blackmail the young husband by threatening to make public the true nature of his father-in-law...
So far, so Valjean; and Percy Marmont is equal to the role, save when he too emotes -- doubtless at the director's request -- a little too long or too graphically. But Charley does face a couple of issues with which Valjean is not afflicted: he discovers to his dismay that the girl's affection for him is rather more than daughterly (with the thoroughgoing approval of the housekeeper, who thinks the set-up romantic), and, instead of expiring in sanctity, having faked his own death he is then required to deal with the threat to her happiness himself, and without the consolation of a deathbed reconciliation. On top of this is the moralistic strand by which his enemy White-Eye, who has spent a lifetime faking blindness for alms, ultimately becomes blind in truth and dependent upon Charley for his eyes.
It's a pretty melodramatic plot to carry off, but by and large the film succeeds in doing so, marred only by the odd tendentious intertitle and over-emphasised pose. In the part of Charley, Marmont showcases the character's almost chameleon-like ability to slip between multiple personalities -- the cripple, the genial rogue, the loving father, the elegant gentleman -- at the drop of a coin. The juvenile leads have relatively little to do, and do it relatively well. John Harrington is impressively malevolent as White-Eye, under the added handicap of having to play most of his scenes 'blind', with his eyes rolled up into his head; although the script never makes it clear why, as a regular frequenter of Adolphe's Cripple Factory, anyone would -- as Charley apparently does -- believe him to be genuinely blind in the first place. Dorothy Walters has a somewhat one-note part as Charley's housekeeper and Mary's doting 'Nannie', producing a long series of eavesdropping shots to telegraph the intended reaction to Mary's suitor and his courtship. However, like the various blowsy women in Diamond Mike's, she does at least fit into the milieu; which is more than I can say for Louise Brooks' disconnected 'gangster's moll'.
It's a decent enough little picture -- given the drawback of the missing footage -- with a certain Dickensian air, and a well-realised and sympathetic protagonist in Charley. But compared to, say, Sternberg's "Underworld", it's nothing special to speak of.
