Lucky Star

If someone wants to understand what happened between the end of the silent period and the beginning of sound, to experience an immersion in the sort of lyrical romance that people responded to at the time, there are few better films than Lucky Star. Both of the featured players, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell had already established themselves as audience favorites in films from Seventh Heaven on, and this simple tale of a crippled soldier finding love with a rustic local girl allowed both of them to give rich, likable performances without gross exaggeration or hysteria. For contemporary moviegoers, accustomed to multiple layers of irony and a cynical take on romance between a man and a woman, this film may be laughable, but for those willing to transport themselves to another world (which is what film can do so well!) director Frank Borzage's magical, shadowy, soft-focus rustic never-never land creates a sweet, idyllic romance

This film was the last silent film Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor made as a team, and their soulful chemistry is more evident in this film than any other they made together. Is this movie so poignant because it marked the end of their silent career together, or because they had really reached the peak of their artistry together? This was also their last film with director Borzage, who also reached the peak of his art with this film.

To me, LUCKY STAR also demonstrates what made Farrell great as an actor. Although he is often unfavorably compared to Gaynor, he is restrained, elegant, and utterly believable as the handicapped Timothy Osborne. The scene in which he bathes Janet, or later when they embrace before she heads off to the party, is masterful. His expression tears your heart out.

If you have a chance to see this film, please do--you won't be sorry. This is the kind of film that makes you realize how truly great the art of silent cinema was (and remains). 10 stars.

This was my first exposure to Janet Gaynor, and I fell in love with her. She plays a poor, ragamuffin country girl who begins a timid romance with a wheelchair-bound WWI veteran (Charles Farrell), against the stern wishes of her mother, who wants her to marry instead a swaggering bully. Director Frank Borzage keeps the potential mawkish sentimentality at bay, and pulls achingly beautiful and naturalistic performances from his actors. When you watch Gaynor's face in this film, able to convey heaps of emotion (just get a look at her when she first realizes Farrell is confined to a wheelchair) with the most nuanced of glances, it's no surprise that she was able to make a successful transition to sound film and continue as a huge star and box-office draw throughout the 1930s.

The forbidden love storyline is the stuff of standard silent film melodrama, as is the suspenseful race-against-time finale that finds Charles Farrell willing himself to walk so that he can get to Gaynor before her husband-to-be takes her away forever. All of that is as silly as it sounds. But it's the quieter moments that give this film its gentle appeal: like the surprisingly erotic scene in which Farrell decides Gaynor needs a makeover and washes her hair with the yolks of a dozen eggs; or the beautiful bittersweet moment when Farrell gives Gaynor a gold bracelet that looks like an over-sized wedding ring.

A film center in Chicago is showing a festival of Gaynor and/or Borzage films, and I look forward to seeing more of both of them.

Grade: A

Lucky Star is a lovely film. It's good to have a contrast, I ended up watching ten minutes of the Fantastic Four before this film. So after that incredible dross, the Borzage was a double-barrelled blast of wonder to the face. It's a very simple movie story-wise. We start off looking at a farm very early in the morning, still dark, it's awesomely Gothic, probably a set because it's so perfect, but you can't tell. You got these windy lanes and crooked fenceposts and creepy trees. Mary (Janet Gaynor) a dirty and chiselling but winsome little ragamuffin lives on the farm with her Ma and some littl'uns, Pa ain't around. She's milking the cow, probably at five in the morning, when the house is getting up. You can tell that life is pretty hard. It's about 2 minutes of cinema that's more precious than a dozen movies.

Anyway there's these two men Wrenn and Tim. Wrenn is a lazy good-fer-nuthin who is the foreman of the telegraph gang. Tim is the one he always gets to do the hard work. World War One comes and these guys decide to get a load of the world and pack off to France. Anyway we're shown in no uncertain terms during this episode how Tim is a nice guy and Wrenn, well he ain't. Private Tim ends up in a wheelchair when he gets back, on account of Sergeant Wrenn.

Mary is a grown up now, and Tim and Wrenn are vying for her affections. Wrenn has got the head start because he's a blackguard and he's not crippled. So it's a love story. It all seems real simple, but the nuance is what it's all about, the exquisite lighting and camera-work, the great partnership between Gaynor (Mary) and Farrell (Tim), and the heart-rending final scenes. It's simply a charming innocent movie, that there's no way could be made any more.

Tim has to undergo a harrowing struggle in order to get the girl. The snow scenes towards the end have to be seen to be believed.

Another silent movie by Borzage and another winner ,with or without a lucky star!Frank Borzage is the poet of compassion ,of simple happiness, of the bright side of the human soul.Borzage's heroes ("seventh heaven" " street angel" "little man what now?" ) have got to fight against a hostile world .They have to give all they've got: Charles Farrell crawling in the snow would find an exact equivalent in the yet-to-come "the river " when Rosalee warms the lumberjack's naked body with her own body.

Timothy ,confined to a wheelchair ,has everybody against his : the mother who dreams of a rich wedding for her daughter and the buck who seduces all the girls around.Like the other Borzagesque heroes ,he never gives up,ready to sacrifice everything if the girl he loves (Janet Gaynor) finds true happiness.