"Tol'able David" is routinely described as 'an old warhorse'; a staple of film societies in days gone by, now fallen out of the canon with the restoration of long-lost masterpieces to more general circulation. Having seen it... I suppose I can see why.
It's clearly an accessible film with appeal to an audience unfamiliar with silent cinema, thanks to a healthy dose of introductory comedy and a good-looking boyish lead: Richard Barthelmess, playing a very convincing sixteen. It's a straightforward 'coming of age' story in which an adolescent proves himself to Be a Man, and wins the heart of the girl he loves. It boasts a tastefully-shot nude bathing scene for the ladies' benefit, and a lengthy no-holds-barred fist fight for the men. The characters are all well cast and played, from the hissable villains to the heroine as girl-next-door, and Barthelmess's performance in his role is extremely good.
On the other hand, compared to later features from the final flowering of the silent era, the film really has no great pretensions to subtlety or depth; this is an unsophisticated melodrama, a slab of rustic Americana that might have been helmed by Steven Spielberg, and by modern standards the weepy ending is perhaps a little saccharine to swallow. The David and Goliath fight (foreshadowed in the opening) between boy and brutal killer would be done better by Harold Lloyd in the action finale to "The Kid Brother"; here, I found it went over the top to a degree that cut out the actual sense of danger, going on and on in multiple cut-away scenes where the hero neither outwits his enemy nor credibly out-slugs him. The language of the intertitles isn't quite Elinor Glyn, but it's highflown enough to seen quaintly 'dated'.
"Tol'able David" is good, of its kind, but I didn't find it great -- and I have to admit that at a number of points I found it hard to get immersed in the story. (Part of my problem, I strongly suspect, is that it's a very American tale in more ways than just its setting: it simply isn't aimed at me.) The old warhorse still flares its nostrils and stamps the ground; but it has justly earned occasional trips out of peaceful retirement, rather than the regular duties that were once its fare. I'd certainly recommend it to a friend... but I wouldn't recommend him to expect too much.
It's clearly an accessible film with appeal to an audience unfamiliar with silent cinema, thanks to a healthy dose of introductory comedy and a good-looking boyish lead: Richard Barthelmess, playing a very convincing sixteen. It's a straightforward 'coming of age' story in which an adolescent proves himself to Be a Man, and wins the heart of the girl he loves. It boasts a tastefully-shot nude bathing scene for the ladies' benefit, and a lengthy no-holds-barred fist fight for the men. The characters are all well cast and played, from the hissable villains to the heroine as girl-next-door, and Barthelmess's performance in his role is extremely good.
On the other hand, compared to later features from the final flowering of the silent era, the film really has no great pretensions to subtlety or depth; this is an unsophisticated melodrama, a slab of rustic Americana that might have been helmed by Steven Spielberg, and by modern standards the weepy ending is perhaps a little saccharine to swallow. The David and Goliath fight (foreshadowed in the opening) between boy and brutal killer would be done better by Harold Lloyd in the action finale to "The Kid Brother"; here, I found it went over the top to a degree that cut out the actual sense of danger, going on and on in multiple cut-away scenes where the hero neither outwits his enemy nor credibly out-slugs him. The language of the intertitles isn't quite Elinor Glyn, but it's highflown enough to seen quaintly 'dated'.
"Tol'able David" is good, of its kind, but I didn't find it great -- and I have to admit that at a number of points I found it hard to get immersed in the story. (Part of my problem, I strongly suspect, is that it's a very American tale in more ways than just its setting: it simply isn't aimed at me.) The old warhorse still flares its nostrils and stamps the ground; but it has justly earned occasional trips out of peaceful retirement, rather than the regular duties that were once its fare. I'd certainly recommend it to a friend... but I wouldn't recommend him to expect too much.