The River of Romance

Unfortunately, this is one of the worst acted films I've ever seen.

This 1929 production of Booth Tarkington's play MAGNOLIA has just about everything go wrong. The writing and direction are atrocious, the sets are incredibly cheap looking, and the actors wallow in performances that range from stage posing to undecipherable blathering.

Buddy Rogers stars as a southern boy schooled in Philadelphia. He returns to his daddy's plantation totally ignorant of Southern ways. He's engaged to the silly and simpering Elvira (June Collyer) although her younger sister (played by Mary Brian) is in love with him. Daddy (Henry B. Walthall) seems happy with everything until a pair of brothers (Walter McGrail and Anderson Lawler), who are happily pursuing a state-wide feud, are insulted when Elvira refuses one's advances. They demand a duel with Rogers, who refuses because it's dumb. He's chased away and branded a coward.

Rogers shows up somewhere on the Mississippi in a gambling den run by Wallace Beery, who sports an eye patch because his ex wife "got religion" one day and chucked a hymn book at him. The local chanteuse (Natalie Kingston) swishes around singing amid the many fights that break out. When Fred Kohler arrives and threatens Beery, Rogers jumps to his defense and deflects a dagger with a breadboard. Beery and Rogers become friends.

When Rogers, now sporting a mustache, returns to the plantation for Brian's debutante ball, he finds that the Patterson brothers are deeply in debt and swindling daddy because they now live there, one having married the simpering Elvira. But things have changed even more, and when the bullying brothers challenge Rogers (with an assumed name) to a duel, he now accepts. The brothers back down and all is well in the world.

The actors labor under bad direction, bad recording technology, and an inability to hold their fake accents. Mary Brian comes off best although she seems to be patterning her performance on Mary Pickford's in COQUETTE. Buddy Rogers and Wallace Beery actually seem to be trying hard here, but have too many handicaps to deal with. Poor Henry B. Walthall seems totally lost as do June Collyer, and Anderson Lawler. Natalie Kingston, playing the mulatto named Mexico, and Walter McGrail as the older brother are just plain hideous.

Interestingly, Leo Carrillo starred in the 1923 Broadway production, which ran for only 40 performances.

Buddy Rogers was raised by the Quaker relatives of his mother. He returns home to father Henry B. Walthall's southern plantation, where he quickly becomes engaged to Walthall's ward, June Collyer, while her younger sister, Mary Brian also falls in love with him. No sooner has Walthall announced the engagement, than in comes Walter McGrail, who challenges Rogers to a duel. Rogers, because of his upbringing, thinks there's no reason to fight, so Walthall kicks him out for violating the Code Of The Southern Gentleman and marries Miss Collyer to McGrail, who turns out to be an utter dud. Rogers heads out and falls in with one-eyed Wallace Beery, who teaches him how to act like a bloodthirsty maniac.

It's based on a stage play by Booth Tarkington, and the first half hour with its southern-fried mint-julep attitude, where every man is at least a major, and prepared to fight at the drop of of a black-eyed pea, is rather dull. There's some fun with Beery which neatly skewers the Southern stereotype, but Rogers is rather dull as the lead, even when he's wearing a fake mustache. With Fred Kohler and Natalie Kingston.

Yes, the acting is way over the top but it's precisely the style this sort of work demands. We're watching a Victorian-type melodrama here and realism is certainly not wanted on voyage. Actors like Wallace Beery and Fred Kohler know just what's expected of them and deliver with gusto, chewing up every bit of scenery in sight. Buddy Rogers and Mary Brien are perfect in their roles, I swear one can smell magnolia blossoms in the air when they're on screen.

This tale of old Mississippi is such an enjoyable film but one has to leave one's modern sensibilities at the door as the price of entry. Trust me, it's worth it!