The Valiant

I saw this film originally in 2005 after making a special appointment at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. (It has shown a few times on TCM, I believe.) THE VALIANT is an excellent showcase for Paul Muni's performance as an anonymous man sentenced to death for a murder he refuses to discuss. His scenes become exemplars of powerful understatement, particularly in his penultimate scene with Mauguerite Churchill's character, who comes to Muni's prison (probably New York's Sing Sing) to find out if he is her long-lost brother. The resulting emotional scene moved my partner to tears, and she is not an easily moved person! I first became attracted to Muni's acting when I watched his powerful performance in I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932) as a child. His performance in THE VALIANT earned Muni his first Academy Award nomination. I've seen the other extant nominations, and they are substandard at best (Chester Morris in ALIBI, George Bancroft in THUNDERBOLT, and especially the winner, Warner Baxter in IN OLD ARIZONA.) The film suffers a bit from the limitations associated with the early sound era, particularly from the somewhat wooden supporting performances by Churchill and the future cowboy star John Mack Brown. But the writing and direction by William Howard are still powerful enough to help support Muni's outstanding performance.

...because basically he gives the only three-dimensional performance in the film as his fellow players appear as cardboard cut-outs when compared to him. However, since this was released very early in talking picture history in the spring of 1929, I can overlook that. In fact, because this is one of the first all talking pictures Fox made it makes Muni's performance all the more remarkable and his colleagues' performances all the more forgivable.

This is a very simple short little film with little back story given. The film opens with a man (Paul Muni) having just shot another man in the heart of the big city, leaving the scene of the crime, and turning himself in for murder at the local police precinct. When asked his name, he picks one off of a nearby calendar - James Dyke. When he's asked why he committed the murder he simply says that the man deserved to die for what he did and he's not sorry, but he also realizes he himself has to pay for what he did and he is ready to accept the consequences. The papers pick up the story of this mystery man, soon to be executed for murder. Out in rural Ohio, an old sick woman sees pictures and stories of this man, whom nobody has been able to identify and is unwilling to identify himself, and wonders if it isn't her son who has left home 15 years before and from whom she has received no word in all this time. Worried sick this is her son, her daughter and her daughter's fiancé make the trip cross-country to visit the condemned man and find out if he is the long lost man - Joe Douglas.

The best scene is the last scene, where Dyke meets Mary Douglas (Marguerite Churchill) in the warden's office and has time with her alone where she is sure she can determine if this man is her brother. This is where you realize where the title comes from and who it is that is being valiant here and why. I'd recommend this one primarily for those interested in the transition to sound, plus it's a pretty good example of the kind of material Fox Films specialized in at least up until 1940 or so, that being entertainment for rural audiences in which it was common for their films to warn people of being tempted by the big city versus valuing the simple charm of hearth, home, and farm.

Directed by William K. Brown. Starring Paul Muni, Marguerite Churchill, DeWitt Jennings, John Mack Brown, Edith Yorke, Clifford Dempsey, Richard Carlyle.

After killing a man who "deserved to die," Muni turns himself in to authorities under a false identity to protect his family; when Churchill sees his picture in the paper and believes it to be the brother she hasn't seen in years, she travels to the prison to meet him before his execution. Simple, unfussy drama, clocking in at just over an hour, has moments of quiet power emerging from the often stiff, static presentation. In his screen debut, Muni establishes an intuitive, naturalistic acting style, avoiding nearly all the industry-wide creaky performance tricks that severely date most early talkies (Brown, on the other hand, inspires giggles just about every time he opens his mouth). Even at its short length, signs of padding when Muni is offscreen are apparent, while other aspects would have benefited from deeper development; sentimentality during the final reel is earned.

61/100

The organ music announcing the credits fades, the sound tracks buzzes and hums, and the camera focuses on a door at the end of a bleak hallway. A shot rings out, and Paul Muni stumbles out holding a gun. He says not a word, as he stumbles down a noisy street, tries to get the attention of a cop. While everyone around him chatters on (in the aimless way sometimes one finds in the early talkie), and life goes on, Muni is a man apart, in his own silent world, his motives a mystery, his identity a mystery, but his guilt written all over him. Muni, through the operation of the rather simple and simplistic plot, will prove himself one of THE VALIANT, but will remain almost a total mystery as he goes willingly to the electric chair.

This is a movie with a dynamite opening sequence -- which takes superb advantage of the primitive state of movie-making technology circa 1929 -- that, alas, does not live up to the opening. Paul Muni is good enough to deserve his Oscar nomination (and a heck of a lot better than the guy that got the Oscar that year -- Warner Baxter), but everyone else is wedded to the over-enunciated acting of 1929. And, as is the case with so much of the 1929 product, the pace is so verrrry slow, with the overlong scenes that suggest a filmed play. Any scene that does not feature Muni is downright terrible. He is the one that makes the movie work.

So, this is a movie you might want to see, but you might want to give up on halfway through. It is exceptionally brave plotting though, that while we do sort of settle the mystery of who Paul Muni is, we never quite find out why he did what he did, or even if the story he tells at the end has some element of truth. It's a pity this play does not seem to have been remade, when talkie acting styles had improved.

Of what interest "The Valiant' may be of today is probably mostly due to its receiving a couple of nominations from the second Academy Awards (Paul Muni for Best Actor along with one for Writing) and for those interested in surveying Hollywood's transition to talkies or Muni's career, with this being his first picture in an oeuvre that would include six Oscar nominations and one win. Three years later, he would star in two of his best roles, "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and "Scarface" (both 1932). Here, thankfully, he's relatively restrained, although the line readings for most of the cast tend to be very stilted, which isn't helped by the creaky and primitive sound-recording technology. Being based on a one-act play, however, "The Valiant" is an interesting adaptation that "opens up" the play to about-an-hour-long feature-length film, while commendably leaving much of its story unexplained, or open. Looking beyond its primitive deficiencies, it's even a subtly powerful picture in its treatment of war.

Technically, "The Valiant" is superior to some other talkies from this period; although, silent cinema was at an artistic peak and remains better than these early sound pictures. The first scene makes good use of off-screen action as indicated by sound (a gun shot) and shadows. There are also a few crane and dolly shots throughout the picture. A hold-over from the silent era, the film is divided by five title cards that set-up the proceeding acts. The lack of a musical score is probably beneficial here, as it would surely be overly mawkish otherwise; what music there is consists of three diegetic musical scenes: a Jazz band in prison and a dance party and piano playing in the country house. I've seen quite a few films from 1929, and it seems that even the "silent" ones included such diegetic musical scenes. At least two other 1929 prison pictures, "Thunderbolt" and "Weary River," also include the playing of musical instruments. Evidently, it was a popular notion for exploiting the new synchronized film-sound recordings. Fortunately, the dialogue is clear, too, and the picture, overall, is relatively restrained. Even the hokey superimposed flashbacks and thoughts of the mother are forgivable compared to the over-the-top melodramatics of some other contemporary films, and they play well into the film's implications about war and the perceptions of it.

The narrative has a John Doe (he uses the false name "James Dyke") sentenced to be executed for murder after he turns himself into the police. But, he refuses to admit his true identity and, eventually, invents a story of himself dying in WWI. He also writes articles for the newspaper "warning the youth on the folly of crime." From the press coverage he receives, his mother and sister suspect that he's their long-lost Joe, with his sister traveling to meet him setting up the scene from the one-act stage version. Although rather creepy, their past of quoting "Romeo and Juliet" to each other is central to his identification.

There's the clichéd theme of the corrupting city contrasted with the idyllic country, with James/Joe killing a man in the city, while his mother oversees the wholesome coupling of her daughter, Mary, with an upstanding young man named Bob (who's so dull he spends the entire picture staring at Mary like one of her dogs waiting for attention). More interesting is the past of the Great War. The protagonist hasn't seen his family since it; at one point, he openly wishes he'd died a soldier. "The Valiant" doesn't answer every question raised in the plot. We never discover why he abandoned his family, the reason he murdered a man, or what his true involvement in the war was. It's as though the war did take away his life.