User Reviews

This was my first exposure to Janet Gaynor, and I fell in love with her. She plays a poor, ragamuffin country girl who begins a timid romance with a wheelchair-bound WWI veteran (Charles Farrell), against the stern wishes of her mother, who wants her to marry instead a swaggering bully. Director Frank Borzage keeps the potential mawkish sentimentality at bay, and pulls achingly beautiful and naturalistic performances from his actors. When you watch Gaynor's face in this film, able to convey heaps of emotion (just get a look at her when she first realizes Farrell is confined to a wheelchair) with the most nuanced of glances, it's no surprise that she was able to make a successful transition to sound film and continue as a huge star and box-office draw throughout the 1930s.

The forbidden love storyline is the stuff of standard silent film melodrama, as is the suspenseful race-against-time finale that finds Charles Farrell willing himself to walk so that he can get to Gaynor before her husband-to-be takes her away forever. All of that is as silly as it sounds. But it's the quieter moments that give this film its gentle appeal: like the surprisingly erotic scene in which Farrell decides Gaynor needs a makeover and washes her hair with the yolks of a dozen eggs; or the beautiful bittersweet moment when Farrell gives Gaynor a gold bracelet that looks like an over-sized wedding ring.

A film center in Chicago is showing a festival of Gaynor and/or Borzage films, and I look forward to seeing more of both of them.

Grade: A

"Lucky Star" boasts an exceptional performance by Charles Farrell as the handicapped Tim, who falls in love with a pathetic waif, "Baa-Baa", played by the sweet and petite Janet Gaynor. Whereas in "7th Heaven", Janet Gaynor gives the performance of a lifetime, here in this film it is Charlie Farrell who wows you with his believable, dynamic acting as Tim, a good man maimed in World War One, who comes home in a wheelchair and has to cope with being lame. One can easily see Charles was much more than your typical Hollywood "pretty boy", so it is kind of bizarre that the studios quickly forgot his excellent silent film performances, and put him in vehicles like musicals once sound came in, thereby destroying what should have been a continued dramatic career throughout the coming decades.

Frank Borzage was a sentimental director whose work I have always enjoyed. He continued to make some excellent sound films as the years went on, but his silent films are his most memorable, for he had a knack of drawing excellent and subtle pantomime performances from his actors which communicated emotions far more profoundly without words than with them. I would like to see this film restored and placed on DVD so that future generations can see it. Keeping it locked up - and forcing people to watch poor bootlegs - does not do honor to this film, or to Borzage, Farrell, and Gaynor. They deserve the best showcase for this moving film. I do feel the ending - which I won't reveal - is a cop-out, but other than that "Lucky Star" is a film well worth seeing.

If someone wants to understand what happened between the end of the silent period and the beginning of sound, to experience an immersion in the sort of lyrical romance that people responded to at the time, there are few better films than Lucky Star. Both of the featured players, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell had already established themselves as audience favorites in films from Seventh Heaven on, and this simple tale of a crippled soldier finding love with a rustic local girl allowed both of them to give rich, likable performances without gross exaggeration or hysteria. For contemporary moviegoers, accustomed to multiple layers of irony and a cynical take on romance between a man and a woman, this film may be laughable, but for those willing to transport themselves to another world (which is what film can do so well!) director Frank Borzage's magical, shadowy, soft-focus rustic never-never land creates a sweet, idyllic romance

I wholeheartedly concur with the first reviewer. This is one of the most perfectly crafted of all silent masterpieces, and a further evidence that sound was unnecessary to produce such poignant and moving images. I was amazed how extremely haunting and luminous this movie was. There is no greater degree of luminosity; each scene is a lush, radiant extension of a romantic painting. The brief war scenes alone surpass those in "7th Heaven" and the ethereal romantic moments between Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor match theirs in "Street Angel". I love that scene in which Farrel tells Gaynor why he's on the wheelchair. The photography and story may owe a lot to Murnau's epochal "Sunrise" but most of the material is Borzage's own.

Don't miss it.

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.

Lucky Star is a lovely film. It's good to have a contrast, I ended up watching ten minutes of the Fantastic Four before this film. So after that incredible dross, the Borzage was a double-barrelled blast of wonder to the face. It's a very simple movie story-wise. We start off looking at a farm very early in the morning, still dark, it's awesomely Gothic, probably a set because it's so perfect, but you can't tell. You got these windy lanes and crooked fenceposts and creepy trees. Mary (Janet Gaynor) a dirty and chiselling but winsome little ragamuffin lives on the farm with her Ma and some littl'uns, Pa ain't around. She's milking the cow, probably at five in the morning, when the house is getting up. You can tell that life is pretty hard. It's about 2 minutes of cinema that's more precious than a dozen movies.

Anyway there's these two men Wrenn and Tim. Wrenn is a lazy good-fer-nuthin who is the foreman of the telegraph gang. Tim is the one he always gets to do the hard work. World War One comes and these guys decide to get a load of the world and pack off to France. Anyway we're shown in no uncertain terms during this episode how Tim is a nice guy and Wrenn, well he ain't. Private Tim ends up in a wheelchair when he gets back, on account of Sergeant Wrenn.

Mary is a grown up now, and Tim and Wrenn are vying for her affections. Wrenn has got the head start because he's a blackguard and he's not crippled. So it's a love story. It all seems real simple, but the nuance is what it's all about, the exquisite lighting and camera-work, the great partnership between Gaynor (Mary) and Farrell (Tim), and the heart-rending final scenes. It's simply a charming innocent movie, that there's no way could be made any more.

Tim has to undergo a harrowing struggle in order to get the girl. The snow scenes towards the end have to be seen to be believed.

LUCKY STAR (Fox, 1929), directed by Frank Borzage, follows the familiar pattern of sentimental love stories most associated with director and his young romantic team of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. For their third screen venture together, following the success of SEVENTH HEAVEN (1927) and STREET ANGEL (1928), Borzage works wonders with them again in the story based on Tristram Tupper's "Three Episodes in the Life of Timothy Osborn" by which Farrell's character dominates the screen, but whenever together with Gaynor, they're quite equivalent. LUCKY STAR seems to be an odd title for the selected story in question since it's not one that takes place in Hollywood as did Gaynor's much latter success of A STAR IS BORN (1937). Regardless of what it's titled, as Gaynor's character would frequently say, "that's gran."

The scenario takes place in a rural setting on a farm where the widowed "Ma" Tucker (Hedwig Reicher)raises her four yungins, the eldest being Mary (Janet Gaynor). After driving her horse and buggy to town selling drinking items to electrical linemen for a nickel, she attracts the attention of Timothy Osborn (Charles Farrell) working on top of the telephone pole. Trying to cheat Martin Wrenn (Guinn Williams), the foreman, by acquiring an extra nickel from him with the indication she wasn't paid, Timothy comes to the girl's defense which starts a fight between him and Wrenn on top of the pole. The fight is interrupted with the news that war has been declared. Before Timothy enlists with Wrenn, he gives Mary a spanking for hiding the nickel thrown to her by his foreman. After two years in France at the war front, Wrenn returns home from the Army still retaining his sergeant's uniform while Timothy, having met with serious accident, is wheelchair bound, living alone in his cottage fixing broken things to keep busy. Still remembering the spanking, Mary (now 18) throws a stone through Timothy's window, but after meeting again, they soon become the best of friends, with Timothy affectionately giving Mary the pet name of "Baa Baa." When forbidden by her mother to have anything to do with the crippled Timothy, Mary passes Wrenn off as the escort who walked her home from the barn dance. Taking an immediate liking to Wrenn, Mrs. Tucker sees a great opportunity for a better lifestyle for all by arranging for Mary to marry Wrenn, regardless of her true love for Timothy.

With all the elements of an early D.W. Griffith rural melodrama, LUCKY STAR rightfully belongs to Borzage, through fine visuals and the re-inventing of certain aspects that played so well with SEVENTH HEAVEN. The World War is worked into the plot once again, but to a limited degree. However, poor Gaynor plays an abused urchin, substituting the whipping from her older sister to facial slaps from her oppressed mother. The one who gathers more sympathy turns out to be Timothy (Farrell), especially during the film's second portion as a handicapped war veteran rather. As much as Gaynor gathers much attention with her sympathetic charm and fragile round face, this time Borzage gives Farrell the opportunity with crucial scenes where, after hugging Mary, his facial expression, telling more than actual words, who, at that very moment, comes to realize how much he loves her; along with Timothy's struggling attempt to walk again by holding on to his crutches and falling off from them. Another scene worth mentioning, played more for laughs than tears, has Timothy washings Mary's hair with a dozen eggs, resulting to Mary's hair resembling that of Little Orphan Annie's. Scenes involving Farrell and Williams starts off in humorous fashion between two men as friends one moment and fist fighting the next. Their sort of friendship comes to a halt as Wrenn interferes with Timothy's romance. Other members of the cast include Paul Fix (Joe); Gloria Grey (Flora Smith); and Hector V. Sarno ("Pop" Fry).

Released at a time when talkies were dominant over silents, a few lines of spoken dialog were inserted into the story between the two lucky stars during its initial theatrical run. LUCKY STAR, which had been out of circulation since its initial release, was thought to be among the many missing from the silent era. However, the film was finally discovered, with talking sequences no longer available, restored by the Netherlands Film Museum, and unveiled in 1991, notably at the Telluride Film Festival and the Museum of Fine Arts with piano accompaniment by Bob Winter, and other revival movie houses before cable television broadcast on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: October 9, 2012).

Never distributed on home video, a long awaited release onto DVD became a reality in 2008 as part of the Frank Borzage collection for 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The print not only contains newly inserted inter-titles, but a new but somewhat unsatisfactory musical score composed and conduced by Christopher Caliendo, making one long for recovery of the lost Movietone soundtrack that accompanied the film back in 1929. The rediscovery of LUCKY STAR, overall, gives film scholars and historians a rare opportunity viewing Gaynor and Farrell at their prime, thanks to the fine direction of Frank Borzage. (***)

Another silent movie by Borzage and another winner ,with or without a lucky star!Frank Borzage is the poet of compassion ,of simple happiness, of the bright side of the human soul.Borzage's heroes ("seventh heaven" " street angel" "little man what now?" ) have got to fight against a hostile world .They have to give all they've got: Charles Farrell crawling in the snow would find an exact equivalent in the yet-to-come "the river " when Rosalee warms the lumberjack's naked body with her own body.

Timothy ,confined to a wheelchair ,has everybody against his : the mother who dreams of a rich wedding for her daughter and the buck who seduces all the girls around.Like the other Borzagesque heroes ,he never gives up,ready to sacrifice everything if the girl he loves (Janet Gaynor) finds true happiness.

The third Gaynor-Farrell picture I have watched, and quality-wise it sits somewhere in the middle between '7th Heaven' and 'Street Angel', though perhaps closer to '7th Heaven'. 'Lucky Star' is a sensitively directed, well-acted and amazingly photographed love story. Janet Gaynor develops from a prickly, lying and cheating brat to a beautiful young woman - she changes fundamentally, but in a way that convinces the viewer. The other characters stay largely the same. Charles Farrell is the nice guy, and that he does not drown in self-pity after having lost the use of his legs makes him likeable. His antagonist, Guinn Williams, is the more interesting person. He plays really well - I found his mix of bonhomie, lying and threatening quite fascinating. What makes 'Lucky Star' a little less good than '7th Heaven' is the ending. After having spent months in a wheelchair, Farrell regains the use of his legs basically within an afternoon. All of a sudden, he is able to walk quite a distance through deep snow. Seriously. With a better ending I would have rated the film 8 stars; as it is, it gets 7. But it is still a very good picture.

Lucky Star begins in a small town and focuses on a small tomboy (Janet Gaynor). She spends her time carting various goods around town to make money for her family and brings some milk to a work site for sale. There she causes trouble between two of the men, one named Martin who believes she tried to cheat him out of his money (Guinn Williams) and the other, Tim, who defends her innocence (Charles Farrell). Suddenly, the quaint sentiment is broken by the announcement of WWI and then scatter off to enlist. A few years later, we see the town after the war. Tim has lost the ability to use his legs and is confined to a wheelchair. Martin is a man about town who uses his stint in the war for his own personal gain. The tomboy is a bit older now, but still as mischievous as before. She befriends Tim, who by this time is very lonely, and the two form a strong bond. However, Martin sees how beautiful the girl has become and goes about wooing her mother for her hand in marriage.

A heartfelt movie with a great cast, Lucky Star is one of those movies that should be released on DVD. It is talked about often among cinephiles but is rarely seen. The copy I saw was a terrible print with an ill-fitting soundtrack; if it was good in spite of those things, just think of how wonderful it could be with a clear print and a great soundtrack! Unfortunately, most of Frank Borzage's beautiful cinematography was lost in the haze of the damaged print, but it was no doubt an asset to the film. The outdoor scenes show a picturesque town with almost fantastical homes. It adds to the charm of the love story.

Lucky Star (1929 : Brief Review -

I am convinced that every single romantic reconciliation cliche was born here. Borzage, Farrell and Gaynor took home the trophy for influencers. Try to remember all those romantic dramas where you saw the girl fall in love with a kind man who had some physical or other issues, and then she was forced to marry a non-lovable, normal man. She tries to make it right for love, but she is being taken away. The hero somehow manages to reach the station/airport to reconcile and then appears the happy ending. So all those cliches are born out of this charming romantic flick by Frank Borzage. Such a beautifully made film with the heart in the right place. Mary, a poor farm girl, meets Tim just as word comes that war has been declared. Tim enlists in the army and goes to the battlefields of Europe, where he is wounded and loses the use of his legs. Home again, Tim is visited by Mary, and they are powerfully attracted to each other; but his physical handicap prevents him from declaring his love for her. Deeper complications set in when Martin, Tim's former sergeant and a bully, takes a shine to Mary. What does fate have in store for Mary and Tim? Find out all the answers in this moving tale. Janet Gaynor looks so gorgeous in this film that I feel like if she was alive today and looked the same as she did in the film, I would have proposed to her. Charles Farrell's character is well written and you fall in love with him without any fail. For Martin Wrenn, it did seem like overlifting the draft, but for his character, it worked surprisingly well. A special mention to the large writing team who have written such a lovely film full of hearts. Frank Borzage just made sure that everything that is written gets the perfect presentation. He does just fine. No big mistakes. Just a few minor faults here and there, but overall a worthwhile flick. A perfect fit for the timeless romantic saga club.

RATING - 7.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

I have said here and elsewhere that in their collaborations it was Gaynor who carried Farrell, a competent actor who would have had a decent career based on his looks and talent rather than genius: think Richard Arlen. It was the teaming with Gaynor that made him, for a while anyway, a star.

Or so I thought until I saw this movie. In this one, sitting in a wheelchair, scrubbing Gaynor's hair ("Why, Baa-baa! You're a blond!"), and later, Gaynor lets him carry the scenes, and he does it: aggressive, funny, dynamic, angry and thunderstruck.

There are the usual Borzage touches, including the surrealistic farmhouse -- attributed to the Murnau influence, but really, Borzage was going that way already. It had everything to do with his mysticism, I think. His impressionistic sets helped create a private world where miracles could happen. Or maybe make it apparent.

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.

It is hard to resist a film with such a lovely title or a premise that immediately resonated with me. Janet Gaynor was an immensely talented actress, her Best Actress Oscar win for more than one role for that year being proof that year (this was ground-breaking too, being the first ever recipient for the award and being the only one to get it for more than one role in the same year). Frank Borzage was always a sensitive director with some of his best directing coming from his three collaborations with Gaynor and Charles Farrell.

'Lucky Star' is the third and last of those film collaborations, the others being 1927's '7th Heaven' and 1928's 'Street Angel'. Of the three, 'Lucky Star' is my personal favourite due to being the one to connect with me the most emotionally. It is one of Borzage's best and most relatable films and one of the finest examples of showing what his strengths were as a director. Gaynor is as just as she was in the three films that gave her her Oscar and it is a shame that Farrell didn't become a bigger star after his collaborations with Gaynor and Borzage.

First and foremost, 'Lucky Star' looks wonderful. Borzage began developing a lush romantic style in the lead up to '7th Heaven', 'Street Angel' and 'Lucky Star' and had fully done so when it came to those films. The photography is lush and often dazzles, making the sets and costumes even more beautifully elegant than they already are. Borzage directs typically sensitively and intelligently, not allowing the film to become too lightweight or too heavy.

Moreover, 'Lucky Star' has a lot of sensitivity and subtlety in the writing too. The story has moments of real charm, the chemistry between Gaynor and Farrell is irresistibly charming and affecting with some truly lovely little things between them (well actually 'Lucky Star' is full of those little things). It is also incredibly moving to me, Borzage specialised in the sort of films where the characters had to go through and overcome great adversity and how he portrayed love through those trials. 'Lucky Star' is one of those films, being disabled myself the story was very relatable to me.

As were the characters, ones that were interesting and easy to get behind every step of the way. Gaynor is expectedly marvellous in a deeply felt performance that is as good as the performances that got her deserved awards attention. It is a shame that Farrell didn't become a bigger star, judging from his restrained and equally poignant performance that is perhaps the best one of his three collaborations with Gaynor and Borzage. The rest of the cast are all fine if not quite in the same league as Gaynor and Farrell, both of whom doing amazingly at telling so much through their eyes and faces.

Overall, absolutely wonderful. 10/10

The story is indeed hackneyed, and the title cards ("it's gran", "Baa- Baa") are a minus, but this is a simple little romance back when sentiment and honest emotions were allowed to be expressed, instead of drowned in cynicism as they often are in today's films. Janet Gaynor was the bigger star, but Charles Farrell is the heart and soul of this film and he gives a moving performance. He never allows Tim to be an object of pity even when the script presents him as one. He expresses his emotions on such a pure level. There's a scene where Tim hugs Mary ("Baa Baa") and as she clings to him, we see expressed on his face the full, startling realization of how much he loves her. It is a gorgeous performance and one which, if you see the film, I don't think you will forget.

How a broken man changed a dirty kid in a real splendid woman, and how in return his growing Love gave him the strength to fight and and practice his legs until the miracle.

Again and again unBorzage's masterpiece and the adorable lovebirds of th 20's Janet and Charles.

A memorable spanking who probably maked laugh them for years ♥

The third pairing I've seen of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor, and they just keep getting better. While I was more attracted to the technical aspects before, this time I thought a lot more about the story and what it was saying. Among the several things this had going on, what stood out the most to me was the examination of what love really is, and how each of the leads --but especially Farrell-- show it to each other as their relationship blossoms over the course of the film. Nearly as important, there were also two incompatible versions of manhood/masculinity on display. Which one wins at the end tells you what you need to know about which version is the correct one. And by dint of a major plot point, there's also a subsidiary message about having sympathy for, and acknowledging the full humanity of, the disabled. I know I've used these words a lot when describing the Borzage films I've seen recently, but they are truly apropos: Lucky Star is a sweet, heartfelt story with an important moral message, and provides yet another great showcase of Farrell and Gaynor's easygoing, natural chemistry. A "Hollywood movie" in the best sense.