Entfesselte Elemente

During the silent screen years Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky were a popular screen team and The Winning Of Barbara Worth was their first film together. Neither Colman or Banky was particularly happy with doing a western and certainly neither are players you would think of for a western. But in the days of the silent screen you could not hear Colman's cultured English tones or Banky's thick Hungarian accent which killed her career in sound films.

The Winning Of Barbara Worth is a modern western set in 1926 Arizona where Banky's father is the local head honcho in a small town. Father Charles Lane has a dream of building a dam and irrigating the desert and turning it into an agricultural paradise. But he puts his trust and the hard earned cash of his people into the hands of the unscrupulous E.J. Ratcliffe who cut many corners and built one inferior dam. His chief engineer Ronald Colman points that out to him and his fired for his trouble.

Undaunted, Colman gets new backing from millionaire Fred Esmelton and goes to work on a new dam. Which does not fit in Ratcliffe's plans and he tries to stop Colman by fair means or foul.

Colman also has eyes for Banky, but she's already got Gary Cooper courting her. And Coop's the jealous type and does not think Colman is on the up and up.

Henry King whose career in films spanned over 40 years and was the top contract director at 20th Century Fox during sound did a great job both with his live players and the cinematography. The overflowing dam and subsequent flood was of DeMille like quality.

Maybe Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky aren't what many would consider western names, but that sure can't be said about Gary Cooper for whom this was his first featured role. Coop had done many bit roles in silents up to this time, but he was a complete unknown at this time and The Winning Of Barbara Worth was his first part with billing. You probably could not have made this film during sound with the voices of Colman and Banky, but when Cooper uttered his first screen words in Wolf Song, this man's voice perfectly suited the characters he had been playing on the screen already. In fact both Colman and Cooper went on to far bigger careers because of sound unlike poor Vilma Banky who barely spoke any English.

In the scenes he's in Gary Cooper steals the film and there was no doubt this man was going to be a major star. The Winning Of Barbara Worth holds up very well as drama and with Gary Cooper a star was born.

Beautifully photographed epic silent western following the story of a toddler baby girl caught in a desert sandstorm that kills her mother, the child's only surviving parent on their family's wagon trek along a lonely desert trail. Rescued by a man named Jefferson Worth, soon little orphan Barbara becomes his adopted daughter - cut to fifteen years later, where our Barbara (played by Vilma Banky) is now a young beauty living with papa in the small desert town of Rubio City. Enter new arrival, Willard Holmes, engineer set to help bring water to the desert and turn it into a garden spot. Of course he's handsome (well, he's played by Ronald Colman, after all) - but Barbara already has a local fellow, Abe Lee (Gary Cooper), who is completely smitten over her (and extremely handsome too - how's a girl to choose?!). Holmes actively pursues Barbara while Abe Lee watches from the background - but soon a misunderstanding leaves the whole town believing Holmes is a money hungry bad man!

This film is a stunning visual masterpiece showcasing images of wagons and people and horses moving against a backdrop of yellow-tinted sun-lit desert that looks absolutely gorgeous, not to mention the exciting flood climax featuring a fast-paced race on foot and wagon between the townspeople and the approaching roar of the Colorado river which is expertly brought to life. The DVD of this features a totally gorgeous tinted print that really makes the cinematography in this pop, plus a well done organ score done before a live audience (who you can sometimes hear laughing in the background). A really excellent film.

Henry King directs this Western full of romance and heroics. Irrigation engineer Willard Holmes (Ronald Colman) is hired to build a water system for a parched Southwestern community. Barbara Worth (Vilma Banky), the adopted daughter of ranch boss Jefferson Worth (Charles Lane), falls for the debonair outsider, much to the annoyance of Worth Ranch foreman Abe Lee (Gary Cooper). This romantic rivalry leads to hardship and danger, all of which serves to empower local baron Greenfield (E. J. Ratcliffe).

It is odd seeing Colman in a western setting, but he handles himself well enough in the milieu. Cooper, in his first starring role, is green but has undeniable screen presence. Banky is lovely and satisfactory. The most memorable sequence is the big finale river flood, and it's well executed.

I must confess that even though I am a silent film enthusiast with quite a collection of silent films on DVD/Blu-ray (and a number of reviews of them on Amazon), I had never heard of THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH. Now that I have seen it the surprise is even greater. Made by Samuel Goldwyn in 1926 and featuring Gary Cooper in his first credited film appearance, this movie is an outstanding example of a late American silent film. Not a classic but a well constructed, well acted and well photographed film presented here in a pristine print with color tints and a score performed by legendary organist Gaylord Carter. The speed transfer is occasionally too fast but never enough to detract from what you're watching.

The director was Henry King who made the silent classic TOL'ABLE DAVID in 1921 and whose career lasted well into the sound era with other classics such as THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH, and THE SUN ALSO RISES. The casting shows what silent films were truly capable of. Joining Cooper are Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky as the romantic leads which would have been impossible in the sound era as Hungarian actress Banky could barely speak English and Colman's voice was much too urbane to be believable in a Western setting. The story of Western boom towns and the building of a faulty dam which results in massive flooding is based on the novel by Harold Bell Wright and is still relevant today. Director King knows how to handle both the action scenes and the quieter moments which were his real specialty.

THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH was originally part of the 4 DVD set GARY COOPER: MGM MOVIE LEGENDS COLLECTION which was released back in 2007. In addition to BARBARA WORTH it featured 3 sound features THE COWBOY AND THE LADY (1938), THE REAL GLORY (1939), and the influential VERA CRUZ (1954) with Burt Lancaster and directed by Robert Aldrich. If you love Gary Cooper then by all means get that set for your collection. If you are a silent film enthusiast like myself or a fan of Ronald Colman and just want the silent then look no further. This Warner Archive DVD-R is the same copy that was released in the MGM set...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Gary Cooper was one of the most consistently popular stars of classic cinema from the beginning of the talkie era to his death in 1961. However there is a lesser-known early chapter to his career, when he played supporting roles in a series of silent pictures. He never achieved stardom in this period, in part because a lot of his appeal was founded in his warm, steady voice. Still, his charming persona was enough to shine through even in these non-speaking days, as this, his first credited appearance, shows.

The Winning of Barbara Worth was a prestigious picture in its day, directed by the respected and capable Henry King. King was really good at these human dramas played out against a grand backdrop. On the one hand he keeps the vastness and deadly potential of the desert a continual presence, with landscape shots that seem to go on forever. But on the other hand he is not averse to stripping away all other business to just focus us on people and their faces. There are some really neat close-ups here, such as Gary Cooper jealously spying on Vilma Banky with Ronald Colman, or Banky as she walks out on Colman. These shots aren't overused, and they seem to segue naturally into the editing pattern rather than being "look-at-this" attention-grabbers. But what is really impressive is the way King can arrange things to tell the big story and the intimate one simultaneously. Look at the scene in which the water flows into the irrigation system. The crowd cheer and dance ecstatically, but the main characters who have put more into this than any other are stood still, as if overcome with emotion. There are a handful of close-ups of various reactions, and then we see Banky and Colman share their first kiss, and all the liveliness behind them reflects the intensity of the moment. As the kiss breaks off there is a sudden feeling of awkwardness between them, and the slowing of the crowd seems to mimic this too.

And this is very much a *silent* drama of reactions, expressions, motions and body language. Gary Cooper may not have his voice here but he does have that deep, sensitive face and steady, deliberate way of moving. His acting is only passable at this stage, but he has the look of a man one can implicitly trust, and this goes a long way in screen stardom. And yet for this picture Cooper is ostensibly the third wheel, behind dapper, moustachioed lead man Ronald Colman. Colman was a very decent dramatic player, and as with Cooper there was something innately likable about his manner which secured his success into the sound era. Colman is very good here, and it is only his experience as an actor coupled with his own honesty and simplicity that prevent him being outshone by Cooper. The leading lady is Vilma Banky, who shot to fame as the object of ravishment for Rudolph Valentino. In this slightly more grown-up picture she reveals herself to be a very fine actress, and like her two male co-stars she has a capacity for deeply expressive reacting. Sadly her career was to fizzle out in the sound era, probably because English was not her first language.

Story-wise, The Winning of Barbara Worth is a tale of progress and prosperity that is very typical of Roaring Twenties optimism. And perhaps herein lies another reason why Cooper didn't become a cinematic icon until a few years later. The end of the silent era happened to coincide with the beginning of the great depression. Before that, Cooper's down-to-earth nature didn't really fit with the grandiose flights of fancy that made up most of 1920s cinema. However by the 1930s, cinema had suddenly become very different in its scope and focus. Heroes became ordinary men who worked for a living, and the heroin really would marry the boy next door. As it is, this picture sees Cooper as the homely type whom Banky loves as a brother. There's no real problem with this – Cooper isn't miscast, he's simply in the wrong time for lead roles – and he plays his part aptly in what is a very worthy 20s drama.