The Sorrows of Satan

I was expecting this to be longer (it ran for just 90 minutes) since most sources cite it as being close to the 2 hour-mark...although one never really knows with Silent films given the variety of projection speeds involved!

Anyway, it's a rare 'horror' film for Griffith and one that, reportedly, he did against his will...in fact, it was originally intended for Cecil B. DeMille! As it happens, it's pictorially sumptuous but, typically of Griffith, rather static; for having been a pioneer of cinema, his occasional reluctance to move the camera is both strange and regrettable (some of the close-ups of his leading lady here seem interminable). The Faustian plot is reasonably compelling if predictable and the acting plaudits effortlessly go to Adolphe Menjou who brings his customary sartorial elegance to the titular character; on the other hand, Carol Dempster is nowhere near as expressive as Lillian Gish had been in Griffith's earlier films.

Even so, the director seemed far more at home during her melodramatic scenes than in depicting the sophistication of the high-life hero Ricardo Cortez breaks into, and even less so with its essential supernatural elements! While individual scenes deliver the goods (the fantastic opening sequence set in Heaven showing the banishment of Lucifer and his minions, Menjou's initial materialization in Cortez's apartment and the finale when he reverts back to his true form to menace Cortez - wisely shown only as a huge bat-like shadow), the film really needed a European sensibility to do it full justice rather than the hand of a Victorian romantic who was past his prime anyway! Still, it's very much a worthwhile if essentially patchy enterprise and I would certainly love to catch up with the director's other 'horror' work eventually - THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE (1914) and ONE EXCITING NIGHT (1922).

This movie is available from Grapevine Video. Only two of the three films that Griffith did for Paramount exist, the only being "Sally of the Sawdust", that co-starred W.C. Fields. This one has Adolpe Menjou making an interesting entrance and exit as a well-dressed Prince of Darkness. Top billed, he actually has less footage than Ricardo Cortez or Carol Dempster, the actress Griffith really tried to make a star; she starred in almost all 1920's Griffith films up to this point and would vanish from the film scene much more effectively than Garbo would or could after this. Lillian Gish she wasn't. Actually, her pretty but not very beautiful looks help with the story of Cortez being dazzled with the fetes that Menjou takes him to. He actually even marries somebody else, played by Lya De Puti. The plot with this is somewhat ridiculous. However, Griffith's cross-cutting of the fetes and Dempster's loneliness is very effective. I really liked the showing of newspaper slowly covering the meal that Cortez was supposed to show up to and of she pretending he was there. (Echos of Chaplin's similar scene in "The Gold Rush".) I had much more fun watching "America" and "Isn't Life Wonderful", two other and the better known Griffith-Dempster films. But enjoyed Dempster more in this one.

After an introduction showing a war between angels and the transformation of Lucifer and his cohorts into demons (!!!), we move to contemporary times and meet would-be writer Geoffrey Tempest (Ricardo Cortez), who lives in a shabby boardinghouse across the hall from another struggling writer, Mavis (Carol Dempster). After Geoffrey makes a comment about selling his soul for money, Prince Lucio (Adolphe Menjou) appears at his door with news that Geoffrey has inherited a vast fortune. Lucio tempts the young man with the expensive life, including sultry temptress Olga (Lya De Putti), but will the love of wholesome Mavis be enough to save Geoffrey's eternal soul?

While the proceedings run slowly at times, Griffith throws in enough memorable imagery to make this worthwhile. I particularly liked a scene where the demonic shadow of Lucio looms over Geoffrey. Menjou is dapper, slim and perfect in his role. Dempster, the last of Griffith's "favorite ladies" after the Gish sisters and Mae Marsh, retired from the screen after this film. She wasn't much liked by critics at the time, but I thought she was good here.

For many years Griffith had wanted to do Faust. He tried to get Lillian Gish to join him in the project, but she, quite rightly, declined saying that Faust had been a flop every time it had been tried with American audiences on the stage or screen. Instead she convinced him to do Orphans of the Storm (1921). Undaunted, however, Griffith took a wack at it several years after Orphans in this, The Sorrows of Satan (1926). Instead of Gish he had Carol Dempster.

Much has been said about Carol; how Griffith ruined his career by trying to make her a star; how she was his girlfriend (she wasn't) and how she was essentially responsible for his demise. This is, I feel, a gross exaggeration. She was an actress trying to make her living and doing the best she could. She was not a great actress, and Griffith often miscast her. In this film she is not badly cast. She plays a sweet, gentle and fairly pathetic girl with a heart of gold. A role she played very superbly well in Griffith's final masterpiece, "Isn't Life Wonderful" - made just two years earlier. Although this is not a great performance, Carol seems sincere and she has one of the better parts of this film.

The real cause of Griffith's demise is Griffith himself. He had abandoned so many of the things that made him great, In is early days on "Birth of a Nation," he would take his working cut to a small town and play it in the local theater to get the audience reaction. When he finally did release it, he knew that it would go over well with the audience. Between that film and this, he had let the justified praise for his skill go to his head. He had given up that practice thinking that his own taste was sure to be a success. (Faust no less) His judgment had been fogged by drinking, and a somewhat maudlin visions of great art. In truth, he was indulging in the greatest evil of an artist - a contempt for the ignorance of his audience.

I am a big Griffith fan and it hurts me to write this review, but just as there are some poor parts to this film, there are also some very good ones. Adolphe Menjou is a wonderfully oily Satan. Ricardo Cortez and Lya De Putti put in solid performances. Much of this is a credit to Griffith's direction. The inter-cutting to create excitement is always a feature of a Griffith film and this one is no exception. The excellent review by wmorrow59 here gives some other good points. A very sparing use of titles makes the flow of the best sequences move very soothly, and saves some of the lesser sequences from being a total bore. Unfortunately these islands of excellence are placed among a general sea of mediocrity.

Any moments of delight are overshadowed by extremely slow pacing. There are times when people stand for over a minute motionless and just looking at each other for no real reason. At one point I mistakenly got up to see if there was something wrong with my set. Add to that a plot with no real surprises, and you have some very boring moments. Griffith's attempts at showing sin and excess are not a copy of DeMille, as on reviewer suggested, but a copy of his own style in Intolerance. (It was DeMille who copied Griffith - and admitted it - not the other way around.)Here, however, they seem very tame and stilted. The players look as though they are moving through a set routine and not having very much fun.

The whole film has a feel of being very old fashioned even for its time. Griffith was known to be old fashioned; he was known to be overly melodramatic, moralizing and somewhat arrogant. In his best films he either controlled these tendencies or overcame them with his great sense of humanity, his technical and innovative brilliance or his remarkable talent for making a mundane role seem important, relevant and real. In this film, however, he seems to have let his faults run to excess. It is HUBRIS (excess) writ large.

All in all, although the film is not wonderful, it is watchable and even entertaining - provided if you don't expect much. But there are far better films by Griffith, and if you love Griffith, it is a pity to see him wasting his talents.

Sorrows of Satan, The (1926)

*** (out of 4)

The final of three films made by D.W. Griffith at Paramount. A poor writer (Ricardo Cortez) living in poverty desperately wants to marry his girlfriend (Carol Dempster) but the lack of money won't allow it. One day, after cursing God, a man (Adolphe Menjou) appears out of nowhere offering the writer tons of money but there will be a price to pay. This is another retelling of Faust but it manages to be entertaining throughout due in large part to some very good performances. The only downside is that Griffith, who was legendary for refusing to go ahead with technology, edits and shoots this in a way that it seems like a film from 1915 and not one from 1926. Technically the film is pretty flat but Griffith makes for a very fast paced 90-minutes and delivers and effective and chilling ending. The opening sequence of Satan being kicked out of Heaven is also nicely done.