Enemies of Women

It impresses me the way novels have been adapted for the silent screen like this film. One writer adapts it for the screen, another one works on character or dialogue, and then a final writer polishes up the script. The work that went behind this film was inspiring, but at the end of the day, I didn't find it entertaining.

Lionel Barrymore is a rich, degenerate Russian nobleman with gaggles of beautiful women hanging around his palace, dancing and playing harps and doing everything else for his pleasure. He thinks of nothing else. The only woman he likes is Alma Rubens, who also enjoys her pleasures. They have never gotten together because, as he puts it, they each want to dominate in their short relations, and that wouldn't work. After he kills her brother, he leaves Russia, first for Paris, then when the Great War breaks out, Monte Carlo. There he surrounds himself with like-minded male pleasure seekers; they call themselves 'the enemies of women.'

Monte itself has turned into a maelstrom of self-indulgence, fueled by the profits of war. Barrymore is amused that Miss Rubens has taken a young lover to herself. She doesn't know that the youth she lavishes her affection and the shrinking remnants of her fortune on is actually her son.

This movie is based on an Ibáñez novel. It is in poor shape. Twenty minutes of its length are missing, and large sections of the rest are in poor condition. Director Alan Crosland clearly has a big budget, and many beautiful women, including an early role for Clara Bow, and one for Margaret Dumont as one of a number of 'French beauties'. He lacks the flair for scenes of degeneracy that Demille had, and that Rex Ingram showed in THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE. Barrymore himself is pretty good, but it's odd to see him so physically active, stripping for a duel or wrestling with Ivan Linow... I've seen him in too many talkies, confined to a wheelchair, grumbling his lines.

Despite that, this movie remains watchable through its remaining length, if a bit simplistic and Bible-quoting. The print I saw, derived from one held by the Library of Congress, is probably the best available. It may be that the missing scenes would raise it to a major work of cinema, but, alas, we are confined to what we can actually see.

Now available on You Tube, with only a few reels missing. I think if more people could of seen Lionel in physical roles like this, they wouldn't see him as just an old man in a wheelchair, 'grumbling his lines' as one reviewer put it. Obviously that individual has not seen much of Lionel's films. He was ALOT more than that. Very underrated. Only 16 years of his 60 year career was he in a wheelchair. The other decades he was all over the place in many different roles and far from grumbling his lines. From 1911 to 1938 he was in hundreds of films and very active indeed. Only from 1938 til his death in 1954 was he confined to his chair. Amazing versatile actor I wish more appreciated. For this alone this movie is worth viewing. And how handsome he was! Sure I am biased, but Lionel deserves it!