This silent version of Harold Brighthouse's play is well cast and performed, but it's hard to look at it without thinking of David Lean's great sound version, with an amazing cast (Charles Laughton, John Mills and a star-making turn by Brenda de Banzies). If anything, it's low on the physical comedy and outsized performances that must have been shown on the stage.
It's simply shot, relying more on cuts than camerawork, and we can judge where the film makers judged people would laugh -- cut to reaction shot. By this time, American movies were being shot in a much more complicated manner, but clearly when what you're doing is interesting, you don't need to use fancy camera tricks, and this story still works.
Few of the key players had major film careers, and the director, Percy Nash, ended his film directing career the following year (he did return in 1925 to helm a series of short documentary films). Despite that unprepossessing description, it remains a watchable silent movie almost a century later.
It's simply shot, relying more on cuts than camerawork, and we can judge where the film makers judged people would laugh -- cut to reaction shot. By this time, American movies were being shot in a much more complicated manner, but clearly when what you're doing is interesting, you don't need to use fancy camera tricks, and this story still works.
Few of the key players had major film careers, and the director, Percy Nash, ended his film directing career the following year (he did return in 1925 to helm a series of short documentary films). Despite that unprepossessing description, it remains a watchable silent movie almost a century later.
