Dans les laves du Vésuve

The 1920s were the golden age of the screen melodrama. As motion pictures became ever more elaborate in their expression and ever more legitimate as part of culture, so they became less of a picture show and took their cues more from stage and literature. The White Sister is a typical example. Derived from a book by F. Marion Crawford, like so many novels from the previous hundred years, it tells a tale of romantic love versus social convention, with fate, or rather bad luck, playing a hand. Crawford is all but forgotten today, but in 1923 he was still remembered as a popular author of the previous generation, and regarded worthy of this rather extravagant production.

The White Sister was directed by Henry King, another name not so familiar now, but a high profile one in Hollywood throughout his career. King was a firm believer in physical space as a psychological factor – a bit like Fritz Lang but not nearly as abstract. The large sets provide him with a lot of material, and he really allows them to dominate, emphasising both their height and depth, in the early scenes showing the disinherited Lillian Gish dwarfed within them. But he knows to keep focus on the characters by placing us inside the action, for example with the point-of-view shots of the musicians when Gish and Ronald Colman sit together on the wall. He is also able to move right in on a personal level, such as his memorable introduction to Gish, a face peeping through a barred window. Throughout the picture he is juxtaposing the big canvas with the little. For example, when Gish's carriage rides away after her goodbye to Colman, we get a close-up of her pulling down the blind, followed by the carriage receding away down a lonely looking street – the emptiness of the latter image complements the emotional moment of the former.

As for Miss Gish, this were first picture since parting ways with her mentor D.W. Griffith. Her recent performances for that great director had not been impressive. For one thing she had too often been cast as a teenager and encouraged to put on a twee girly act. Secondly in pictures like Broken Blossoms and Orphans of the Storm she had been unbearably hammy, throwing wild gestures and pulling faces in every scene. The White Sister finds her refreshingly understated, just as she was in her earliest Griffith pictures. In scenes such as the one where she meets Colman after being turfed out of her home, or the moment she takes her vows, her face is passive, her emotions stifled, but clearly burning below the surface. Of course, when she is lead to believe that her love has been killed her reaction is extreme, but this is natural given the context, and compared to the subtlety of the rest of her performance it has all the necessary impact. In some of her later Griffith movies Gish would have reacted like that if she heard the next-door neighbour had a cough.

Ultimately however The White Sister bears the traits of a movie industry seeking to become more literate and prestigious, in that its title cards are too long and too many. At 143 minutes this is not a short picture, and a lot of that runtime is accounted for by wordage that would be better left out. After all, King's images are so meaningful, and Gish's performance is so intelligent, there is no need to break them up with a lot of text. We even get a title pointing out that the portrait of Gish as a nun by her lovelorn admirer shows her as an unattainable ideal, forcing the symbolism upon the audience rather than allowing them to interpret it for themselves. Incidentally Henry King was also the producer, and while not actually responsible for writing the titles he certainly would have had final say over what was included, so perhaps to some extent he lacked confidence in his own ability to tell a story visually. Whatever the case, it makes what could be one of the more sophisticated melodramas of its era just a bit more boring than it ought to be.

Have for a long time had a very high appreciation for silent film, short and feature. DW Griffith favourite Lillian Gish was among the finest silent film stars and one of the few who translated well into talkies (see for example 'The Whales of August' at the end of her life). Ronald Colman did some great work in his career and it was interesting to see him in a silent film and so young. Have also liked some of Henry King's other work, with 'The Song of Bernadette' becoming an instant favourite on first watch four or so years ago.

'The White Sister' is a very interesting and well crafted film with a lot of excellently executed elements. Colman and King went on to do better, though it is one of King's better and more interesting early films and forays in silents, but Gish shows that she could work brilliantly with directors other than Griffith. The subject matter was a bold one for back then and it was unusual for any film to tackle religion against a contemporary background, which is done very well actually in 'The White Sister'.

It's not perfect. It for my tastes a little too on the overlong side, which made for some stodgy over-stretched pacing here and there.

Did also find it melodramatic, with some of the support acting being theatrical. Some of the camera work is on the static side.

Most of it however is beautifully framed and elegant and makes the most of the atmospheric and never cheap backdrops. King directs with a very confident hand and there was never a sense of him being out of his depth or not knowing what he was doing. 'The White Sister' is thought provoking, often very moving and the religious element of the story doesn't preach surprisingly and is as bold as it sounds.

Gish is wonderful in a very expressive and nuanced performance that touched me deeply, she indeed did suffering better than a vast majority of silent film stars and to me she was one of the best. The role was the kind that could easily have been overacted, but Gish doesn't. Despite being robbed of his beautiful speaking voice, Colman shows even early in his career that he could do aristocratic suavity beautifully. The two smolder together.

Overall, liked it a good deal while not being in total love with it. 7/10.

This commendable silent has now apparently been restored by Turner and is available for sale - though not as yet for Netflix rental, so I can't comment on the image quality. Even given the less-than-luminous print I saw some years ago, the film deserves to be seen. Lillian Gish is brilliant. And Ronald Colman gives an emotionally charged, subtle performance unlike anything else I've seen of his work in film. The story is not to my taste: it is old-fashioned, sentimental melodrama, heavily laced with Catholic religious fervor. The real attractions, besides these two glorious stars, are the wonderful Italian locations, and - presumably - some beautiful black and white photography.

This second version of The White Sister, an earlier silent was done in 1915 was the first project of the Gish sisters after they had left the paternal care of D.W. Griffith. Lillian Gish spared no expense in this very long silent film, 123 minutes was quite a demand on the audience's attention. She and director Henry King took the principal cast members to Italy to film on location, something rarely done back in that day.

Gish and King also personally selected their leading man in Ronald Colman who had appeared in several British silents and one American feature before The White Sister. According to the Citadel Film series book, The Films of Ronald Colman, Gish and King saw him on the stage.

Now Ronald Colman had one of the greatest speaking voices in the English language, something we know since the advent of talkies and Colman's sound debut in Bulldog Drummond. But what attracted Gish and King to him was the swarthiness of his complexion, they thought he would pass convincingly for an Italian on the silent screen.

He and Gish made a fine screen team. The story today is rather old fashioned and Gish's saintliness is a bit much at times. Still the film does hold up well.

Gish is the younger half sister of Gail Kane and both are the daughters of Italian duke Charles Lane. When Lane is killed during a hunting accident, Kane quickly finds her father's will and burns it, effectively disinheriting Gish who was they used to say, born on the wrong side of the blanket.

Gish's Catholic faith sees her through the crisis and also the love of young officer Ronald Colman who originally was Kane's guy. Later on he's chosen to head a military mission to North Africa in what is now Libya. This was in the colonial expansionist period in the 19th century in a newly united Italy. But he's reported killed and Gish in her grief surrenders herself to her religion and becomes a nun.

That's as far as I'll go, the ending is not typical of Hollywood normally would give its audience. Still the loose ends of the plot are neatly tied together.

I'm surprised Gail Kane did not come out of this film with a bigger reputation. Her portrayal what might be called the Black Sister is really quite good.

The location cinematography in Italy is first rate and the special effects with Versuvius erupting and a dam bursting for its time are also nicely done. The White Sister is worth a look, I think it's better than the 1933 sound version with Clark Gable and Helen Hayes.

White Sister, The (1923)

*** (out of 4)

Adaptation of the Francis Marion Crawford novel, this screen version has Lillian Gish playing Angela Chiaromonte, the woman who gets cut out of her rightful inheritance by her evil step sister (Gail Kane). She then suffers a second heartache when the man she loves (Ronald Colman) is reported dead. With nowhere else to turn she decides to become a nun since they were the ones who saved her from the streets but soon the man she loved comes back but can she break her vow to God to take him back? This is a very handsome production of a novel that was filmed quite a few times including a remake ten years later with Clark Gable. This version is certainly very easy on the eyes and it features some very good performances but clocking it at nearly 140-minutes, the running time certainly doesn't do it any favors. The biggest problem is the running time as many scenes just seem to go on and on and on when they could have been cut down and it probably would have made the film float a lot better. Just take a look at the first thirty-minutes and everything that happens could have been told just as well with about ten or more minutes cut down. With that said, the film is still worth viewing for several reasons with the performances being one. Gish does her usual great job and really digs deep into this character and brings it to life as someone we really do care for and feel sorry for. As expected, we have some wonderful close ups of Gish's brilliant eyes that have no problem showing her sadness. Also, Gish is given another sequence where they were clearly trying to recapture the "terror" sequence from BROKEN BLOSSOMS but it doesn't work nearly as well here. The scene involves her learning that the man she loves is dead. Colman, in his screen debut, turns in a very good performance as well as he too really delivers in terms of the character's emotions and the pain he's going through as the woman he loves might not be able to love him. The direction by King is very good throughout and especially towards the end when the climax features a large volcano erupting and causing major panic in the streets. Fans of Gish and silent films will certainly want to check this out but I'm sure others will probably be bothered by the long running time. I know some versions are out there running nearly forty-minutes shorter and I actually checked a bootleg I had bought before watching the restored version on TCM and it actually only runs 66-minutes!!! One day I might try watching that version just to see how the film plays with more than fifty-percent of its time missing.