Second Fiddle (1923) User Reviews

A Stylish Rural Tale

[tashman · 28 March 2002]

I wasn't surprised to learn that Frank Tuttle directed this unexpectedly beautiful and stylish film. A quintessential "rural" story of the younger sibling (ie, the SECOND FIDDLE) breaking out from the oppressive shadow of the favored son. This is a stylish, briskly paced tale, and although themes of rural poverty, child abuse, and alcoholism conspire to render the proceedings occasionally grave, the acting is uniformly thoughtful and natural, thus occasionally lightening the burden. Much of this picture was shot out of doors, and during bright times with a consistent windiness about the grasses and trees, lending the piece a rather glowing, nether worldly quality and giving the film an eerie, contemporary feel. You are literally swept along with the breeze. It also helps that the leading players are exceptionally non-period, with Glenn Hunter particularly, and with timeless Mary Astor magically so. Young Mary Astor's dark beauty was as breathtaking as expected, but nothing prepared the audience for the bewitchingly natural vision captured in that outdoor splendor. And remarks about her beauty shouldn't obscure her value as one of the best actresses to ever grace the screen. Glenn Hunter was a lanky man, complete with imperfect teeth and angular face and hair cowlick. He gives a heart-felt, full-blooded performance as a young man finding himself and saving the heroine along the way.

Attactively Photographed Small Town Potboiler

[richardchatten · 4/10 · 11 January 2018]

Picturesquely photgraphed in the more sylvan parts of the New York borough of Queens, as this film progresses it initially meanders through comedy, pathos and drama until getting mired in one of those tiresome silent film plots in which the hero is wrongly believed to have funked out during a crisis, even though we know full well he was Really a Hero!

Finally, however, we're permitted a cracking climax in a big spooky house when gawky hero Glenn Hunter (whose centre parting and cheekbones make him resemble Alfred E. Neuman) at last proves himself worthy of the hand of radiant 16 year-old heroine Mary Astor, who looks astonishingly as she did during her thirties & forties Hollywood peak.