User Reviews

A Pathé film d'art which has most of the well-known characteristics of the Pathé product of this type, yet seems to lack in some particulars the usual convincing qualities which generally form a conspicuous feature of these ambitious pictures. The acting of the principal character, Joan of Arc, is not as strong as it ought to be in places, though perhaps this would not appeal to everyone in the same way. She is good where she hears the supernatural voice and sees the vision which calls her to the defense of her country, but in her action as commander of the army and when leading her men forward she lacks the convincing dash which should go with that place. Possibly this is because she is a woman, yet one would rather expect that a woman thought capable of commanding an army would be possessed of enough of the commanding spirit to insure the commanding attitude. The staging seems to be reasonably good, yet in places the canvas is crowded far more than Pathé is wont to crowd his canvases of this type. Perhaps the subject requires it, yet the same house has presented similar scenes with a broader canvas and in a more convincing way. The marching men seem to be supernumeraries rather than actual soldiers, and only in the battle scene does this collection of soldiers rise to the occasion and appear as though actually fighting. The capture of Joan seems rather poorly managed. It looks as though she rode deliberately down to the enemy and invited them to capture her and the fact that no effort was made to effect her release seems to give color to this supposition. The closing scenes, Joan in prison condemned to the stake and the funeral pyre, with the flames and smoke curling about her are good and seem to be more in accord with what would naturally be expected than any one of the others. – The Moving Picture World, July 3, 1909