Galgenhochzeit

John Gilbert is in his dashing prime as the great lover in Bardelys the Magnificent. Adept at both swordsmanship and seduction Gilbert intersects the careers of Fairbanks and Flynn with a dash and panache equal to them in their heyday.

In the court of Louis Xlll no one is more gossiped about than the charismatic Bardelys, an insatiable rake who literally has women lining up on his doorstep to be seduced. The fun loving Bardelys delights in deluding the ladies with the same pick-up lines sending each away with the feeling they are that special one. Bardelys enviable talents however draws the enmity of Chatterault (Roy D'Arcy) a recently spurned suitor of the the lovely Roxanne (Eleanor Boardman). In a devious attempt to even things up with both he challenges Bardelys to seduce her sight unseen. What Bardelys expects to be another day at the office, however, turns into passionate love and Chatterault vows revenge on both.

Gilbert is perfect fit as Bardelys. With dark piercing eyes he conveys both a hard to resist charm and noble resolve. In addition to his expressive features Gilbert displays a wily limberness in some action scenes where he does some challenging stunt work. As the venal Chatterault Roy D'Arcy aquiline features bespeaks iniquity. Eleanor Boardman's sedate beauty and restraint as Roxanne brings counterpoint to Gilbert's rakish Bardelys and it's all good chemistry.

Director King Vidor who made a star out of Gilbert in The Big Parade the previous year injects Bardelys with his signature crane and exposition shots to bring grandeur to the court as well as depict the hedonistic existence of the let them eat cake crowd. Dividing the film with ample amounts of action, romance and humor Vidor keeps Bardelys moving and magnificent most of the way.

John Gilbert and Elenor Boardman make a beautiful pair, and their scene at the lake, boating under willow trees, is romantic and rather steamy for 1926. That scene alone makes the film worth watching, and it's fun to see the dashing Gilbert later make a great escape, scramble up a castle, and engage in sword fights that may remind you of Errol Flynn a decade later. Gilbert seems underrated today given how popular he was in the 1920's, and his personal story - clashing with studio head Louis B. Mayer over his high salary ($250,000 for each of six films), his near marriage to Greta Garbo in what would have been a double ceremony with Boardman and director King Vidor, etc - is fascinating. While the film has its moments, it also trundles along at a slow pace, and the plot is rather mundane, so keep your expectations grounded.

I thought this was a great film. It's got everything. There's plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor (as with Sabbatini's MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE, one of Valentino's more underrated films) and also some terrific action sequences.

John Gilbert and Eleanor Boardman are great together. Roy D'Arcy has another memorable role as the bad guy (see THE MERRY WIDOW). Karl Dane and George K. Arthur provide comic relief (so does Gino Corrado in the opening duel sequence). Lionel Belmore and Emily Fitzroy are solid as the Lavedans. Try to find John Wayne and Lou Costello as extras.

The missing reel (?) seems to leave us without the story of Lesperon (whom Gilbert masquerades as), but the missing footage doesn't ruin the story.

As has been pointed out, the river seen among the willows is lushly romantic and beautifully done and reminds one of scenes from SUNRISE. The escape scene is terrific with great closeups of Gilbert as he swings on tapestries from the castle walls. It would be interesting to know how they shot these scenes.

There are enough comic and action scenes here to dispel the image of John Gilbert as merely some pale and insipid "great lover" of the silent screen. Gilbert was a solid actor who had appeared in around 70 films by 1926. Gilbert did everything: westerns like HELL'S HINGES with William S. Hart, sports films like THE BUSHER with Charles Ray and Colleen Moore, comic roles like the manic hayseed dancer in HEART O' THE HILLS with Mary Pickford. When he finally reached stardom in the early 1920s, Gilbert continued to explore a full range of roles. He was also a writer and director.

BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT ranks among Gilbert's best and most entertaining silent films.

Based on a 1906 novel by Rafael Sabatini and subsequently dismissed as hack work by director King Vidor, 'Bardeleys the Magnificent' was a lost film until 2006, nearly a quarter of a century after Vidor's death.

It's certainly no 'Big Parade', although Eleanor Boardman (who married Vidor the same year it was made) would play the female lead a couple of year's later in Vidor's next major achievement, 'The Crowd', and is here a very attractive if too modern heroine (although that may be what makes her so attractive).

The emphasis is on romance rather than action, although enlivened by a last minute escape from the scaffold obviously based on Fairbanks but embellished (as elsewhere in the film) by Vidor's accomplished use of the camera.

Roy D'Arcy is a marvellous, sneeringly urbane villain who drops out of the film for quite a while; although during his absence an overdressed, baby-faced George K. Arthur enlivens the proceedings as a would-be villain hopelessly not up to the job.

Bardelys The Magnificent which put John Gilbert in strong competition with Douglas Fairbanks for screen's best silent swashbuckler is based on a novel by Rafael Sabatini who gave us much good material for those action adventure swashbucklers on the silent screen and in sound. We're far more familiar with work like Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, and The Black Swan. Sad Bardelys The Magnificent never got a sound remake, the role would have fit either Tyrone Power or Errol Flynn perfectly. Especially Flynn because the story has elements of Don Juan which Flynn so successfully brought to the screen.

As the Don Juan of France, Gilbert as Bardelys is tricked into a wager with his court rival Roy D'Arcy that he can't get the hand of a young woman widely known for her virtue in those bawdy times of the court of Louis XIII. Later on through a combination of circumstances Gilbert arrives at Eleanor Boardman's estate incognito in the guise of a rebel to Louis XIII. He woos and wins her and as is usual in these romance stories actually falls for her. But you can already see he's got some real problems to win her.

John Gilbert was as dashing as any of the other noted swashbucklers of the screen. When dialog was given him when talkies started it was in these kind of roles that his voice did not record well and his career took a tumble. But seeing this you have no doubt of why he was considered a great screen lover. Eleanor Boardman is as virtuous as Mary Pickford or Lillian Gish ever were in their films and she wound up marrying the director of Bardelys The Magnificent, King Vidor.

For completists the restoration of Bardelys The Magnificent is of great interest to fans of John Wayne. The Duke no doubt under his real name of Marion Michael Morrison was an extra in this film. But with all the men wearing beards and mustaches as befit the period, I doubt you could spot him in crowd scenes. And Lou Costello probably under his birth name of Louis Cristillo is also an extra.

For Costello this would prove ironical because the actor playing Louis XIII is Arthur Lubin who later became a director of some note and he directed several early Abbott&Costello features, most notably their breakthrough film, Buck Privates.

The action highlight of the screen is John Gilbert's escape from the gallows which rivals anything that Douglas Fairbanks did in his film. There is some really clever use of a pike to aid Gilbert in his escape and I wonder if Gilbert did any of that work himself. No doubt MGM frowned on injuring his rather expensive body with these deeds.

Of course the real beneficiary of this restoration is John Gilbert and the legacy of work did for the big screen. Bardelys The Magnificent is an expertly staged well done piece of cinema.