Maurice Tourneur had an typical biography : his career path began in his native France , then continued in the USA during the silent age ; after a short stint in Germany ,he ended his career in his homeland where he is often too overlooked although he produced classic talkies such "la main du diable" or "le val d'enfer" .
The ending of his version of Lorna Doone (unlike Phil Karlson's in the fifties) has something supernatural ( a fancy which would remarge in full bloom in "la main du diable" )and a deeply moving line "I .....take .....thee"
The black and white cinematography is splendid and the restoration is excellent : the movie ,although silent,can appeal to today's melodrama buffs . There's more violence ,even bestiality in some sequences than in the color version :the kidnapping of Lorna and her mother left for dead whose body lies by the sea ; the brutality of the "fiancé " when Lorna is given to him .
There's a lot of poetry too : the lovers meeting when they are still very young and this beautiful sentence which reads that childhood does not know high-born girls and common boys; their meeting after Rigg's fall in the waterfall; the wedding in the village church ,in direct contrast with the grandiose baptism in the London cathedral where a prince is christened ;both scenes are interrupted by a murder ; the contempt the nobles show towards Rigg who pampers the baby he's just saved.
Tourneur already shows flair for the fantasy and horror genre which would emerge again in "la main du diable": the intervention of a ghostly old Doone, the divine intervention of love which "opens the gates of death" .
The ending of his version of Lorna Doone (unlike Phil Karlson's in the fifties) has something supernatural ( a fancy which would remarge in full bloom in "la main du diable" )and a deeply moving line "I .....take .....thee"
The black and white cinematography is splendid and the restoration is excellent : the movie ,although silent,can appeal to today's melodrama buffs . There's more violence ,even bestiality in some sequences than in the color version :the kidnapping of Lorna and her mother left for dead whose body lies by the sea ; the brutality of the "fiancé " when Lorna is given to him .
There's a lot of poetry too : the lovers meeting when they are still very young and this beautiful sentence which reads that childhood does not know high-born girls and common boys; their meeting after Rigg's fall in the waterfall; the wedding in the village church ,in direct contrast with the grandiose baptism in the London cathedral where a prince is christened ;both scenes are interrupted by a murder ; the contempt the nobles show towards Rigg who pampers the baby he's just saved.
Tourneur already shows flair for the fantasy and horror genre which would emerge again in "la main du diable": the intervention of a ghostly old Doone, the divine intervention of love which "opens the gates of death" .