The Age of Commercialism

Memorable, crazy movie

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Lucky Star (1929)*** (out of 4)Entertaining silent drama has Timothy (Charles Farrell) and poor farm girl Mary (Janet Gaynor) meeting under bad circumstances before the start of WWI. After the war Timothy returns home as a cripple and soon he and Mary strike up a strong friendship, which doesn't sit too well with people in town or Mary's mother due to their prejudice against him being cripple. LUCKY STAR should have been a complete disaster but director Frank Borzage and the two stars do a remarkable job at building up the drama and there's no question that the message really packs a punch. The film is incredibly dark and this is especially true when it comes to the message of how people were pretty much throwing cripples into a lonely shack and forgetting about them. The message of this not being right is certainly well told here and especially because there's no melodrama preaching but instead it's perfectly built into the story. I was really surprised to see how dark this part of the story was told and it's pretty darn grim. Some of the best moments in the film deal with the blossoming relationship between the two stars. They made several films together and it's easy to see why because their chemistry just jumps right off the screen. The romance here is quite good and manages to keep a smile on your face throughout. Gaynor, as you'd expect, has no trouble playing the charming farm girl and Farrell is just as great and especially during his more dramatic scenes dealing with not being able to walk. Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams is excellent as the rival for Gaynor's attention and Hedwiga Reicher makes for a great villain as her mother. The ending is incredibly far-fetched but it's so perfectly executed that you can't help but get caught up in the drama.

I noticed that one reviewer referred to this as a 'perfect film'. Well, there are some serious problems with the plot towards the very end that, to me, make it less than perfect. But, aside from this, the film abounds with charm and is among the better silents I have seen--and I've seen a lot.A couple notes before I go on with the review. First, while this film originally was a part-talking picture with sound effects, the sound has been lost. However, I don't think this was a bad thing, as many such hybrid films aren't that great due to poor sound and integration of this. And, frankly, had you just assumed it was always a silent, you'd never notice the difference thanks to the excellent restoration. Second, if you get the film from Netflix, you'll find that their summary of the film's plot is very wrong.The film begins in a small town just before the US gets directly involved in WWI. Charles Farrell is a nice guy who decides to enlist. But, before he does this, he has a run-in with a tom-boyish girl (Janet Gaynor). There is no hint of love on either of their parts and Gaynor appears to be way too young anyway.In the war, Farrell is badly injured and his legs are paralyzed. He returns home after two years and is relatively upbeat considering everything--but he's also quite lonely. Gaynor begins to visit him and he assumes she's just a girl. But, slowly they both help each other--he gets the needed companionship and he cleans her up and reveals her to be a pretty young lady--a lady of almost 18. At this point, it's obvious both are starting to fall in love, but he's afraid to allow his feelings to show, as he sees himself as a cripple.Later, a horrible person (Guinn Williams) returns to town from the war--the same guy who may have contributed to Farrell's injury and the same guy who has no compunction about getting a girl to sleep with him by promising to marry them! When Williams starts to show the now prettified Gaynor attentions, Farrell cannot sit back in his wheelchair and acts. Now this action on Farrell's part was fun to watch but 100% ridiculous--no man can make a recovery THAT fast! His hopping out of his wheelchair and going on crutches for the first time--and in the snow--is ridiculous. Yes, it made for a fun finale...but one that makes no logical sense. It's a shame, actually, as up until then it WAS the perfect film. Still, the ending does not ruin the film and is well worth seeing even with its flaws.

SPOILER NOTE: contains spoilers about Lucky Star and its predecessors Seventh Heaven and Street Angel.As the followup to the hugely successful sentimental hit Seventh Heaven and its successful, but far less appealing followup, Street Angel (see review of that film for more details), Lucky Star, which was lost until c. 1990 and then rediscovered fairly rapturously, has the feel of a chastened attempt to return to a more faithful rendition of a popular formula (or two). Again, it's a tale of young lovers separated by circumstances they must overcome, but like Seventh Heaven rather than Street Angel, what will come between a young couple is not merely their own moralistic attitudes, but World War I. This time the setting, however, is not the proles' Paris or Naples, but a rural hamlet out of a Griffith film or Tol'able David, thus bringing the stars back home for American audiences after becoming too European in both setting and tone. Where Farrell was a layabout artiste in Street Angel, here he's not only a ruggedly American pole-climber for the electric company, but in the opening scene winds up trading punches with his boss at the top of the pole! In the war he loses the ability to walk, and back home in a wheelchair he forms a friendship with young Gaynor, who's good-hearted white trash. But her harridan mom has eyes set on Farrell's old boss, a scoundrel and a rake in his Army uniform who, however, looks to be prosperous and, most importantly, has two working legs. Again, as in Street Angel, the movie does Farrell few favors by reducing him to an emasculated role-- rather too much of the middle section has him offering Gaynor grooming tips and shampooing her hair, which ain't exactly how Clark Gable made it big. But it works at least as the low point from which Farrell's character will rebound when, like the shill for a faith healer, he rises from that wheelchair and heroically makes his way on two legs and crutches to save her from the scoundrel and, as in Seventh Heaven, fulfill the deepest fantasy of everyone in the audience who had a family member return damaged by the war. The old Seventh Heaven formula works one last time in a rousing conclusion to the silent era for the stars and the director who made them indelible. (Gaynor had one more silent to go, but we'll let that pass.) Visually, Lucky Star survives in a much better copy than Street Angel, the UCLA restoration of which was extremely grainy (16mm blowup?), and so the real pleasure of the film is less the story, though its emotional impact is real, than Borzage's presentation of it in gauzy, shimmery late silent Poetic-o-Vision. The sets-- which may have recycled some of Sunrise's, though they're shot quite differently-- have a kind of heightened reality, presenting multiple planes on which action may take place (a house might be in the middle, for instance, but a road will wrap around front and back so that we might see action taking place either right in front of us, or up on the road behind the house). It's not exactly stage-like, but certainly not realistic either; maybe the best analogy is to something like the entire fantasy town constructed for Robert Altman's Popeye, which allowed his improvisational camera to poke around at will (unlike the sets in so many fantasy films, e.g. a Batman movie, which are clearly just what the storyboard shows for that shot and no more). Borzage's camera-work is not improvisational, it's clearly planned, but it's also just as clear that the whole environment is quite solid and detailed, and this sort of dreamlike vividness makes Lucky Star one of that group of utterly accomplished and visually masterful late silents that show us everything that was about to be lost forever with the transition to sound. Indeed, in Lucky Star's case even that final testament to silence was lost for 60 years-- until, like Chico in Seventh Heaven, against all odds it made its way back from the land of the dead.

This film was the last silent film Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor made as a team, and their soulful chemistry is more evident in this film than any other they made together. Is this movie so poignant because it marked the end of their silent career together, or because they had really reached the peak of their artistry together? This was also their last film with director Borzage, who also reached the peak of his art with this film.To me, LUCKY STAR also demonstrates what made Farrell great as an actor. Although he is often unfavorably compared to Gaynor, he is restrained, elegant, and utterly believable as the handicapped Timothy Osborne. The scene in which he bathes Janet, or later when they embrace before she heads off to the party, is masterful. His expression tears your heart out.If you have a chance to see this film, please do--you won't be sorry. This is the kind of film that makes you realize how truly great the art of silent cinema was (and remains). 10 stars.