As a movie, this offering has all of the usual faults of an early talkie. It movies too slowly with awkward pauses; there are long often flowery speeches, and the performers seem uncomfortable at times. In addition, the script is a hodge podge of ideas and scenes written not so much to tell a coherent story but to get required love and action scenes into the movie. Characters are stereotypes whose lines are predictable.
It is interesting as cinema history. What killed Gilbert's career? For a while, his voice was considered the reason. In this film, Gilbert's voice is fine. In this movie, he reads his lines well with a tenor voice, but he can't find any inner character to give resonance to them. His character just isn't quite congruent with the premise of this movie. It probably isn't his fault because the person the script forces him to play couldn't possibly exist in real life or even in plausible fiction. I wonder if this was also the case with his other early talkies?
Early thirties blond beauties Anita Page and Leila Hyams look so much alike that they might be twins (actually a plot point). Both do a credible job, but Page is more compelling. The movie comes alive with her scenes. Neither she nor Hymes were given much to do in their later movies and their careers were quite short.
All in all, if you aren't a movie history fan, you'll need a pot of coffee on the stove to get you through this.
It is interesting as cinema history. What killed Gilbert's career? For a while, his voice was considered the reason. In this film, Gilbert's voice is fine. In this movie, he reads his lines well with a tenor voice, but he can't find any inner character to give resonance to them. His character just isn't quite congruent with the premise of this movie. It probably isn't his fault because the person the script forces him to play couldn't possibly exist in real life or even in plausible fiction. I wonder if this was also the case with his other early talkies?
Early thirties blond beauties Anita Page and Leila Hyams look so much alike that they might be twins (actually a plot point). Both do a credible job, but Page is more compelling. The movie comes alive with her scenes. Neither she nor Hymes were given much to do in their later movies and their careers were quite short.
All in all, if you aren't a movie history fan, you'll need a pot of coffee on the stove to get you through this.