Le torrent fatal

Frank Lloyd was Oscar nominated for this film & two others, in 1929, about a gangster imprisoned, who becomes a singer...singing endlessly throughout the film the title song.

It's part silent-part talkie...which makes me think that this had been originally shot as a silent and then some portions of it where re-shot with dialogue, a usual thing to be done back in 1929.

A rare chance to watch William Holden, the elderly character actor (no relation to the star of Sunset Boulevard) of late silents and early talkies, who's very, very fine as the warden of the prison, in which gangster Richard Barthelmess is locked up. Barthelmess is good as Jerry Larrabee and Betty Compson (although her voice sounds a little bit high-pitched-maybe due to technical shortcomings)is fine too, as her girlfriend.

Thanks again to TCM, for the opportunity of watching another "rarity", not seen for a long time (completely restored, as best as possible).

I am a fan of early talkies.I have seen many but none quite like this.The first reel is silent,the second sound,the third starts off silent then 3 minutes in sound comes in.For the rest of the film,silent and sound constantly interchange.Was this supposed to be an experiment.Was it started as a silent picture.Were they short of sound apparatus some of the time?Why didn't they just make one sound and one silent version?We shall never know.I actuallybfound it quite entertaining even if I got fed up listening to Weary River.

The plot of Weary River is a peculiar amalgam of gangster movie, love story and musical centering around a sensitive hood played by Richard Barthelmess who, after being sent to jail for a crime he didn't commit, discovers his true passion for music and becomes a radio star (based on a true story, believe it or not!). As an entertainment, I give this film 7 out of 10 stars. It's dated but well-paced and amusing without being particularly outstanding.

This review is about Weary River's soundtrack, which is an astonishing achievement for its time but overlooked by film music historians... possibly because the recordings were only rediscovered and restored to the film in 1997.

Film music historians often talk about Max Steiner's 1933 score for King Kong and Franz Waxman's 1934 score for The Bride of Frankenstein as if Steiner and Waxman magically invented synchronized music for film out of thin air... which is preposterous. Due to the success of The Jazz Singer, early talkies were mostly musicals. But it's one thing to have people burst into song in the middle of a scene as if they were on the stage, as in Ernst Lubitsch's superior 1929 film "The Love Parade"... it's something else entirely when the music has to synchronize with action and dialogue over the course of multiple shots and scenes, as in Weary River.

You see, in early talkies, all the sound had to be recorded live simultaneously. If you were going to have music under dialogue, or sound effects, or dialogue looping, it all had to be recorded at the same time. They didn't have multi-track recording in 1929.

Weary River has musical underscoring in virtually every shot of the picture. If you wanted underscoring in 1929, you had to have the orchestra and conductor on the set with the actors. But Weary River has music that flows from silent sequences into talking sequences. To allow that to happen, the composer had to write music for the entire film after they had shot the silent sequences and edited them together but BEFORE they had shot the sound sequences. The composer/conductor (Louis Silvers, who certainly deserved the big screen credit he got for his work) would then have to record all the music for the edited silent sequences. Where the silent and sound sequences were to join together, the conductor would have to record the music to a metronome beat; this would allow the yet-to-be-recorded sound sequence to join seamlessly with the silent sequence musically.

At some point in this process, the composer and director would have to collaborate in order to pre-plan the shot list for the sound sequences... because Weary River has a very sophisticated editing scheme for the visuals. There are a lot of different kinds of shot sequences leading into spoken dialogue. You don't just go from a silent sequence with musical score into a static shot with dialogue on a soundstage. There are many cuts, pieces of business, scene changes, sound effects or synchronized spoken words, all of which had to flow seamlessly into a spoken dialogue exchange in the film with unbroken music playing under it. That means a lot of planning, charts, diagrams. There is nothing spontaneous about the synchronized sound and music of Weary River. It's a choreographed dance of visuals and effects and music and dialogue, all recorded live on a soundstage with actors on a set waiting for their cue. Did they have the conductor in a soundproofed booth with glass windows containing a metronome so that the click didn't get onto the sound track? Did they run edited film behind the orchestra with punches flashing the tempo while the actors waited on the nearby set for their cue to speak? There was clearly one sequence I saw where an actress had to sit with the orchestra and deliver her line in time to her own actions on a film playback which then flowed into a sequence shot live on a set with other actors. This is not a typical early talkie. The fluidity of the shots, and the way the music synchronizes with them and works with the dialogue to create an integrated whole, all recorded in one pass... mind boggling. Things flow together so seamlessly that you don't even realize what you're looking at.

Compare Weary River with a 1929 film like The Vagabond Lover; its shots and music integration are simplistic, static, nothing more than 2 or 3 cameras pointing at a band playing and singing. 1929's The Broadway Melody is exactly the same, primitive camera positions and static shots and nothing very complicated.

Weary River, on the other hand, is a much more sophisticated production... to achieve that fluidity, that seamless integration of music and sound and imagery, required some really extreme measures on the part of the production team given their technical limitations. I'm surprised it's not more highly regarded. In terms of technical achievement, Weary River rates 10 stars.

Unfortunately, the music is not as memorable as King Kong or Bride of Frankenstein. But Weary River makes sound film look like silent film WITH a synchronized musical score and dialogue, which is an amazing feat. Director Frank Lloyd won the Oscar for best director that year, and he deserved it. In 1929, the team at Warner's was the best in the business when in came to sound films, and Weary River is a technical tour de force. You won't see anything more fluid with background music until 1932's groundbreaking Love Me Tonight.

Weary River (1929), restored by UCLA and TCM, is a great chance to see two silent screen stars Richard Barthelmess and Betty Compson step into the talkie era together, warming your heart as they do so. Their characters are so obviously head over heels crazy about one another that you can't help but be endeared to them and their story.

Sure, we've seen prison films like this before, but there is still such a sweetness to this one because of the caliber of stars involved. Other silent stars like the first William Holden, who was a character actor of the era, and Gladden James, who got his start in silents in the 1910's, show up too and we get to hear their voices for the first time. Part silent - part talkie makes for an odd mix in most of these early sound films, but the very nice Vitaphone soundtrack helps to smooth over any rough spots.

I really loved the picture but then I'm very sentimental about these particular stars so please bear with me while I give this wonderful relic a 10 out of 10.

And my guess is that Richard Barthelmess is NOT singing here. The lip synching is off, and besides it doesn't sound like his voice at all. I wonder who the real singer was?

I've since researched the film on the TCM website and found the singer dubbing for Mr. Barthelmess was Johnny Murray.

Singing gangster Richard Barthelmess (as Jerry Larrabee) is sent "up the river" after an innocent bystander is killed in one of his orchestrated shoot 'em ups. In prison, Mr. Barthelmess (#46039) has more time for singing and less time for racketeering. He becomes a hit in the big house and decides to go straight on the outside. But, after serving his time, Barthelmess receives a rocky reception. While a wonderful singer, he's derided as an ex-con. Through it all, Barthelmess is encouraged by beautiful blonde Betty Compson (as Alice Gray). She and warden William Holden would like Barthelmess to keep trying, but he is tempted by his criminal past...

"Weary River" is a part-talking, part-silent film. It begins as a silent, with oddly primitive background music (for 1929), and turns "talkie" early in the running time. You're thinking it will remain there, but the silent style occasionally returns. Perhaps the soundtrack on these scenes was inferior and re-takes unsatisfactory. While mostly a sound film, the spirit is silent; this may be why the technology appears superior to many other early talkies. The possibly better all-silent version should be restored, if possible...

Then a very big star, Barthelmess maintained his standing during the transition from silent to sound. His voice was fine, but Barthelmess is obviously better in the older style. Barthelmess also mouths his songs for a vocal double. Taken from this film, the song "Weary River" was a big hit for the popular new singer Rudy Vallee. Randolph Scott and Sally Eilers are extras and elevator "boy" Raymond Turner looks frightened. Director Frank Lloyd's artful prison sequences require no dialogue, and photographer Ernie Haller is an obvious asset. Their assistant Alvin Knechtel was killed in a plane crash, sadly, on the verge of a promising career.

***** Weary River (2/10/29) Frank Lloyd ~ Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, William Holden, Louis Natheaux