Directed: F. W. Murnau

Year Released: 1927

Nominated: Best Actress – Janet Gaynor

Won: Best Actress – Janet Gaynor

Plot in 25 Words: Man cheats on wife. Mistress plots to kill wife. Wife finds out. Man and wife reconcile. Wife nearly dies. Man kicks mistress back to city.

In My Opinion: For a first film to kick-start my newest obsession i couldn’t have picked a better one. Well my DVD rental list couldn’t have sent me a better one. It was the first silent film I’d ever watched, and annoyingly due to some post-op medications I was pretty dopey for a few days and had to watch the film more than once!

But once I’d made it past the first half hour (at the fourth attempt) I was hooked. The film made my list for Janet Gaynor’s role as ‘wife’. Which is more than fair. She might have been the only character/person in the film who stuck out.

The film is quite sinister in places. After the husband has made a plan with his mistress to kill his wife (no names are used at all – fun!) he leads her onto their boat, that he plans to use to fake her accidental death in a drowning. Her dog rushes to follow, barking madly, sensing the danger, and is dragged away by a furious man.

With the dog dealt with, the man suggests a day in the city and it’s on the way his wife realises the danger she is in. She runs, he chases, apologises and then they begin to have a day out in which he tries to win her over.

The set ups for each of their ‘adventures’ seems pretty standard and used but they can’t be. This is one of the first films to use the situations like that. A meal as a posh restaurant with mock panic about not being able to pay. Mutual jealousy on both of their parts for simple misunderstandings, a romantic picture being taken and then, bizarrely a piglet escaping and running loose. Many other films have copied them and done them well but originally they are pretty clever.

They leave the city to return home and the effects as they cross a busy street are pretty cool. For the time it was filmed they are impressive if a little obviously done.

They get back to the farm for a happy ending, after a near death along the way. The mistress is despatched back to the city – a mistress IMDB refers to as ‘slatternly’. A wonderful word! A word that I need to use more and more in everyday life.

In the whole film there are barely a dozen subtitles and it works. The film is subtle and quite lovely. For my first silent film I enjoyed it. I watched it on DVD and it had its own form of outtakes – very cool. They were well worth a watch. Not so much as outtakes but behind the scenes in old skool movie making.

Star Performer: Janet Gaynor. The only performer who stood out. At all.

Overall: I enjoyed it. It made a very pleasant change to some of the over the top blockbuster productions I’ve been watching lately. This was a good start to my mission, and I hope the rest are as good