The Conquering Power

As the immediate follow-up to his anti-war saga FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, Rex Ingram presented this rendition of Balzac's EUGENIE GRANDET. The story is nominally updated to the flapper era, but most of it takes place in a provincial town where everyone wears 19th century costumes anyway. As in the earlier film, Rudolph Valentino is a playboy [ with a poodle] who must prove himself, but he appears to somewhat less advantage here. Once again, Alice Terry sensitively plays his designated love object, but in a more traditional ingenue role. Ingram does not always stage scenes effectively, but his films are distinguished by appealingly natural acting: even the obsession of old miser Grandet is never overplayed. In fact, the most striking scene shows the old man hallucinating personifications of his beloved gold, a sequence which may have influenced Ingram's friend and colleague Erich von Stroheim when he filmed GREED. Ingram's celebrated visual talent and John Seitz's cinematography are hard to judge in the dim, unrestored print available. This film lacks the spectacle of FOUR HORSEMEN, but still manages to suggest Balzac's sweep in portraying the complexity of human relations. The "conquering power," according to an introductory title, is Love.

Angelic Alice Terry (as Eugenie Grandet) lives with her miserly father Ralph Lewis (as Pére Grandet) in a French village. Soon, Mr. Lewis's brother sends word that they are to be joined by Paris playboy Rudolph Valentino (as Charles Grandet). Kissin' cousins Valentino and Terry fall quickly in love (they are not blood relations, it is later revealed). After his brother commits suicide over some bad business deals, Lewis conspires to keep the young lovers apart, and steal their family fortunes.

"The Conquering Power" is introduced as being the power of Love; although, you'll see, later in the film, another "Power" give Love a run for the money - it is an extraordinary scene, near the end, wherein greedy Lewis receives comeuppance. Valentino's role is a rather bland one; but, he dresses up well. Cinematographer John F. Seitz and actress Terry are outstanding. Most of all, the film is a triumph for Terry's director husband Rex Ingram; he makes the most of a poorly adapted story, which doesn't take full advantage of the personnel involved. Still, Mr. Ingram delivers the Midas touch.

******** The Conquering Power (7/8/21) Rex Ingram ~ Alice Terry, Rudolph Valentino, Ralph Lewis

Even though Rudolph Valentino is billed as the lead (in the version I saw, anyway) he is not on screen all that much and is more of a supporting character. It is really the story of Pere Grandet (well played by Ralph Lewis) and how his life has been, figuratively and literally, crushed by gold (the final scenes in which he is trapped in his cellar with the ghosts of people his greed has destroyed and is taunted by a snake-armed, leering golden demon are very disturbing). Still, even though his role was comparatively small, Valentino makes a strong impression as Charles Grandet, the spoilt son of a rich man whose essential decency, like that of Julio Desnoyer, is brought out by adversity and the love of a good woman . At the beginning of the movie he is hosting a wild birthday party for himself, but twenty minutes into the picture his father has committed suicide and Charles has become dependent on his wealthy but miserly uncle, Pere Grandet . At his uncle's home he meets and falls in love with his beautiful country mouse of a cousin, Eugenie, played by Alice Terry whose ethereal blondeness contrasts well with Valentino's dark good looks and who with the possible exception of Vilma Banky was his most memorable leading lady.

Objections have been sometimes raised to the liberties the screenwriter, June Mathis, took with Balzac's novel. A title card at the beginning of the picture tells the audience that "commercialization" has told the producers that it dislike costume pictures; evidently commercialism also told them that audiences don't like unhappy endings or unlikable leads, hence the sentimentalizing of the original story in which Charles Grandet and Eugenie are happily reunited at the end of the film. In the novel, Charles wastes Eugenie's gold and quickly forgets about her (making her gift seem more rash than romantic), and the conquering power does indeed turn out to be greed, not love as the movie would have it. If one is able to accept the movie on its own term (which of course can be difficult if you're familiar with the original source), Mathis's changes work well enough, however. Other complaints about the movie have involved the disorienting change of setting from Paris to the countryside--in the Paris scenes the people are dressed in modern (1920's) fashions, but the clothing and lifestyles of the country people has a very nineteenth century look to them. It is conceivable, however, that in the days before modern media had permeated everywhere fashions in isolated villages would change more slowly.

On the whole, this is one Valentino's stronger movies—it was a shame that irreconcilable professional and personal differences between Rex Ingram and Valentino led to the latter's departure from Metro shortly afterwards as there he was being offered the sort of quality scripts he would spent the rest of his short career trying to find.

Conquering Power, The (1921)

*** (out of 4)

The impressive silent film starts off with one of the strangest titles cards I've ever read. The film, obviously meant to be played at least a hundred years before 1921, has a title card that tells us current movie goers don't care for costume dramas so they've updated the story to 1921 times. In the film, Rudolph Valentino plays a playboy who has everything he wants in life but his father comes home, obviously upset, and asks him to go stay with his uncle (Ralph Lewis) for a little while. When the playboy reaches his uncle's home he learns that his father has killed himself but his cousin (Alice Terry) is there to comfort him and soon the two fall in love. The problems are just starting because her father is an evil man that only cares about money and will stop at nothing to keep them apart even if one must die. This film is probably best remembered for having a big influence on Greed and that isn't the only reason people should seek this film out. Ingram does a great job in the direction even though the material isn't the strongest that it could have been. I think a little stronger screenplay would have helped the film but there's no doubt that this film contains one of the most memorable scenes in silent history. I wasn't overly thrilled with Terry who I feel somewhat weights the film down with her mediocre performance but Valentino comes off quite strong. The scene stealer is certainly Lewis who turns in a great performance as the wicked father. The evilness of his character certainly jumps off the screen and Lewis does a great job at playing it. The highlight of the film comes towards the end when Lewis is trapped in a room where ghosts of the people his greed as destroyed or killed come to haunt him. The way this scene is shot, with light coming in through a hole in the roof, is extremely well done but it also has a very creepy and eerie tone throughout. This certainly isn't a horror film but this sequence is among the greatest I've seen in any of the silent horrors I've watched.

"The Conquering Power" is an amazing film starring Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, and Ralph Lewis. In the film, "the conquering power" is intended to be love, though in the original material, it's that root of all evil, money/gold. Here, Charles (Valentino's) father loses his fortune, and before he kills himself, he sends his son to his estranged brother. His brother, Grandet, is a wealthy, cruel miser who takes advantage of Valentino's bad luck. He has a lovely daughter, Eugenie (Terry) and she and Charles fall in love, in spite of the fact that they seem to be first cousins. Charles decides to seek his fortune, and Eugenie makes him a gift of her gold, given to her each year by her father on her birthday.

Well, the "Sunset Boulevard" phrase "We had faces then" certainly applies to this film. There were so many odd-looking, wizened up, elderly people in this film, it was astounding. They were all fascinating to look at and seemed to showcase the beauty of Terry and Valentino all the more. Valentino is excellent, ever elegant, and is particularly handsome in the beginning and toward the end of the film, when he sports casual clothes, a mustache, and 5 o'clock shadow. For the scenes at his uncle's, his makeup is somewhat exaggerated in the style often used in the '20s - and this is one actor who needed no accentuation. Terry is lovely and gives a wonderful performance.

The star of this film, however, is Ingram's direction, particularly at the end, where mysterious hands come out of a cradle filled with gold and from everywhere else, Gold itself makes a human-like appearance, spitting out coins, and walls literally close in. Fantastic effects done many, many years before the computer and requiring a lot of imagination.

Highly recommended - we are so fortunate to be able to see some of these films, even if they are not in pristine condition.