It is hard to resist a film with such a lovely title. Or a film that has lovely Mae Marsh, a Griffith regular who was fantastic in the likes of 'The Birth of a Nation' and 'Intolerance'. Or a film directed by DW Griffith, not a favourite but a silent film pioneer and his best work milestones, it is a shame that his reputation wasn't quite the same after the controversial 'The Birth of a Nation' as some of his best work was after that (i.e. 'Intolerance', 'Orphans of the Storm').
'The White Rose' is not one of his best though sadly. Of the films of his seen, it is a lesser work and one of only three disappointments so far seen of Griffith's work. The others being 'The Birth of a Nation' because of its mess of a second half and the whole of 'Abraham Lincoln', the only one of his work seen where he was clearly not comfortable in the director's chair. It is a great representation of Marsh and interesting to see Ivor Novello (known best to me as a song-writer, some lovely songs he wrote too) in an acting role, but it's best looking elsewhere for a good representation of Griffith.
Some absolutely beautiful images and cinematography can be seen 'The White Rose', well it is Griffith so that was not unexpected. The lighting also has a lot of atmosphere. Griffith gives some more than competent and often accomplished direction, if not as imaginative as some of his other work.
Moreover, there is a wonderful lead performance from Marsh, another one of great silent film actresses. Carol Dempster does much with little and Novello is a dashing leading man even if the part doesn't exactly stretch him. There is some nice chemistry between him and Marsh.
However, 'The White Rose' is somewhat too long and could have been trimmed by twenty minutes. Evident from the pedestrian and over-stretched pace and too many self-indulgent close ups. The story, on top of being very slight for feature length, is very soapy and goes overboard on the too heavy melodrama.
Rest of the cast tend to overact or are not particularly memorable. Lucille La Verne, my first exposure to her being her voice work for the Evil Queen from 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves', comes off best. The stereotypes are unfortunate and are not going to go down well with everybody, have seen more offensive ones though.
In summary, watchable but Griffith did do much better than this. 5/10
