June 30 1964

The Theodore Huff Memorial Film Society

Not much is known about director Eugene Nowland. He seems to have disappeared around 1920, and none of his features - Peg of the Sea etc. - appear to have survived. But judging from this fast little melodrama, he knew how to put a film together, and how to keep it on the move. Far livelier than the usual Edison, this is almost up to Biograph standards. As usual with Edison scripts, the titles telegraph too much action, and transition shots are often just not there. But otherwise it is well above the normal Edison level, and the final chase, which brings in some quite expert stunt work, and is photographed from another moving car (quite rare, away from Biograph) is very nicely done.

Fred Guiol (later a 2nd unit director for George Stevens) always seemed less at home with Laurel and Hardy than James Horne, George Marshall, Charles Parrott, Charles Rogers and their other stock directors. Most of the films he made with them rank among their lesser ones. But this one is not only his best, but certainly up among their better ones. Faster-moving than most late silent L&H films, and with less milking of single gags, it rolls along very smoothly with of course the street-painting sequence, now well-known thanks to The Golden Age of Comedy, ranking as the best single episode. And note the delightful sign on that street for "Ice Cream Cohen" -- a sign that was largely obliterated in The Golden Age of Comedy due to the wide-screen cut-off.

This has been quite a year for Griffith re-discoveries. First The Sorrows of Satan and Sally of the Sawdust, then Hearts of the World, The Greatest Question last month, and now -- perhaps the weakest of the quintet, but still a fascinating film, The Love Flower.

The Love Flower and The Idol Dancer, both starring Barthelmess, were shot back-to-back in 1920 when Griffith's company went on an expedition to the Bahamas -- and incidentally were reported lost at sea en route. Sandwiched in between the big ones - Way Down East and Orphans of the Storm - they are frankly pot-boilers with slim and unimportant melodramatic story-lines which ran roughly parallel, and which of course were made to measure for the Bahama locations. However, even with program pictures, Griffith made distinctions. The Idol Dancer seemingly interested him but little: it was hurriedly and casually put together, and was designated as Griffith's contractual obligation to First National. The Love Flower, on which he obviously spent more time and effort, he channeled to his own company, United Artists -- and for it he also reserved all the very best locations. (Apart from occasional pleasing seascapes, the scenery in "The Idol Dancer" was distinctly drab).

In terms of their melodramatic plots, there is little to choose between the two films, although The Love Flower still tends to come out on top by virtue of having stronger characters and a minimum of low comedy. But what really gives The Love Flower distinction is the superb photography by Bitzer: with some magnificent scenery to record, he comes up with sea and landscapes by day and by night - moonlight shimmering on the waters, figures silhouetted against the waves - that are truly stunning, and quite put to shame the always over-rated (and much similar) Flaherty photography in the later Moana.

Visually the film is often stunning -- and since D.W. was reputedly much in love with Carol Dempster at the time, much of the film is a kind of pictorial tribute to her. She later gave better performances, but she never looked more beautiful as she does here, especially in some of the well-cleavaged swimming shots. The film's visual poetry is matched of course by Griffith's lush titling -- much of which has real beauty and charm -- although it is not always consistent, since he intercuts between titles much as he does between image, and after three or four flamboyantly poetic titles at the beginning, he suddenly thrusts in a bald documentary title about the raising of vegetables!

At its best, The Love Flower is good solid Griffith. Who else but D.W. in a fairly unimportant manhunt sequence, would bother to show us police in London, India and New York getting to work on a minor case in Jamaica! But if for no other reason, it's justified by the lovely shots of police at work in snow-bound harbor and Central Park in New York. The underwater sequences, and there are three of them, are extremely well done, and there's one of those uncanny sequences with a kitten (as also in Way Down East and America) that looks as though D.W. caught it almost accidentally, with a lucky first take. The Dickensian influence is far less apparent than in Orphans of the Storm or True Heart Susie, but Griffith seems to know his Victor Hugo too, for the Anders Randolf character is a fairly obvious steal from Javert.

At least one title is a marvellous if unintended delight. After having sat sometimes rather impatiently through Griffith heroines dancing with their shadows and catching moon-beams, it's rather refreshing when a gamboling Carol Dempster's step-mother brings her up short with a to-the-point "Oh, do stop running around like an idiot!" But apart from some of the rather hair-brained plotting - when Griffith goes round the bend he's always beyond recall - the only serious criticism one can level at The Love Flower is for its cutting, and more specifically, the sometimes sloppy non-matching of scenes. Even allowing for the fact that originally it would all have been tinted blue, there is no excusing a yacht sinking in the middle of the night, Carol preparing to leap off, and completing the leap under the mid-day sun. And Griffith's obstinate insistence on tampering with a finished work, and inserting close-ups willy-nilly, a practice that was harmful to some scenes of Way Down East, was never more outrageously in evidence that in the latter portion of this film, Almost every closeup of Dempster (and some of the other players too) was shot back in Mamaroneck, with an unchanging black background. Her lip rouge different, her hair different, obviously being told to grind out so many feet of given emotions, this later Dempster footage is cut in regardless of place or context, and is not only jarring visually, but plays havoc with what is otherwise quite a good performance.

But -- why carp? It's a Griffith, a Dempster and a Barthelmess that is new to most of us -- or that we're seeing for the first time in 30 years or more. Imperfections and all, it's still good to have it brought back to life again, especially since - as you can see from the hypo eating away at many of the titles - this print is probably the last one that can be made from the fast deteriorating original 35mm negative.

Wm K. Everson     

EXTRA: A preview of --

We are fortunate indeed in being able to show this delightful new French travel-documentary, a European prize-winner, while it is passing through NY. Universal bought it for France and thought so highly of it they printed up elaborate stills and posters, rare for a 2-reeler of this type. In this country there is enthusiasm for it, but the inevitable comment - "It needs to be cut" - so this may well be the only complete showing it will get here. Its very lack of pretention is its greatest charm, and it's so pleasant to see again a travel film that is leisurely, affectionate, and isn't trying to slip in all sorts of profound points or propagandist jibes. And too, considering that it is the first film of its producer, it is a thoroughly smooth, imaginative and professional job. There is no arty New-Wave cutting or obscure camerawork - an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud perhaps, I still prefer cows grazing by a stream to abstract fireworks and shock cuts - but the camerawork is often quite creative, and the introduction to a metal worker by first seeing his vibrating reflection is the kind of a shot that Fritz Lang needn't be ashamed of! I'm sorry we couldn't hold the film long enough to place it in a more felicitous spot - it may seem rather quiet after two hours of Griffith and Laurel & Hardy -- but it's too pleasant a film to miss, so it was tonight or probably not at all.