This film's plot is pretty thin and virtually everything about it is cartoonish melodrama. Now this does make you appreciate the really great silent film acting of Lon Chaney, for example, as everybody here has too many chances to mug and bug their eyes out. It does vaguely suggest the overheated romantic/sexual tension that director Vidor later brought to DUEL IN THE SUN, this in a way could be called Duel in the Swamp.
Especially poor is the villain, described as a man-child, Vidor allows such ham bone body language and a sort of giggling attitude that the part and therefore the whole movie is hard to take seriously.
There is an interesting sequence where the sailor remembers his recent and not so recent past in ghostly fashion.
Also the rather silly, but at times rather creative, and very long final fight and escape sequence at least gives the, until then, static film an exciting Holywood type climax.
The restored version that TCM shows could be better restored today, 2022, and the new music score helps it but also gets a bit silly or is trying to sound like silent movie chase music at a few times, still better than old stock music library music track and recorded with real instruments it holds up better than some other TCM restorations of the era which now often sound very synthesized and or cutesy or both!
So for King Vidor fans, and certainly he's still worthy of fans for many reasons, this should be seen for those who want to see everything he's done. He's done much better but....
It's hard to overemphasize how melodramatic this movie is, nearly everything it played for big gestured sketch type presentation, no incident no matter how minor, doesn't result in some eye rolling and "silent movie" over-acting. Perhaps Vidor realized the story is kind of thin so had to press every moment. The movie would probably have been better at perhaps even half it's length.
Especially poor is the villain, described as a man-child, Vidor allows such ham bone body language and a sort of giggling attitude that the part and therefore the whole movie is hard to take seriously.
There is an interesting sequence where the sailor remembers his recent and not so recent past in ghostly fashion.
Also the rather silly, but at times rather creative, and very long final fight and escape sequence at least gives the, until then, static film an exciting Holywood type climax.
The restored version that TCM shows could be better restored today, 2022, and the new music score helps it but also gets a bit silly or is trying to sound like silent movie chase music at a few times, still better than old stock music library music track and recorded with real instruments it holds up better than some other TCM restorations of the era which now often sound very synthesized and or cutesy or both!
So for King Vidor fans, and certainly he's still worthy of fans for many reasons, this should be seen for those who want to see everything he's done. He's done much better but....
It's hard to overemphasize how melodramatic this movie is, nearly everything it played for big gestured sketch type presentation, no incident no matter how minor, doesn't result in some eye rolling and "silent movie" over-acting. Perhaps Vidor realized the story is kind of thin so had to press every moment. The movie would probably have been better at perhaps even half it's length.