The Golden Chance

... shot by director Cecil B. DeMille at night after directing another film during the day, but the strain on him failed to weaken his power over performances. Perhaps deep night infected his approach, for the film looks dark with bold "Rembrandt lighting" featuring sharp unfiltered key lights on players that are often set against black backgrounds.

How wonderful is seeing Wallace Reid in his youthful prime four years before the 1919 accident that started him on his morphine decline? Serendipity provided us with a nearly pristine print for study, and the intimate yet predictable story provides many nuances worth savoring, not the least of which are intelligent, subtle characterizations by every player. Jeanie Macpherson's scenario weaves an interesting tapestry out of died-in-the-wool fabrics.

Reid shines with an admirably constrained performance, but the one oddity is his co-star, buxom and pretty Cleo Ridgely, who I swear looks a bit cross-eyed and tends to mainly express hand-wringing angst to an annoying degree. Sharp performances by the five other secondary players provide enough support to divert the viewer from her limitations, and the overall hour, augmented by some sharp, revealing extreme close-ups, puts genuine oomph into the outing. I wouldn't mind seeing it a second time someday, which, in my opinion, is one mark of a good movie.

Mary Denby (Cleo Ridgely), a seamstress from the slums, gets a chance at a better life when she is employed by a couple that hopes to woo a young millionaire (Wallace Reid) into a lucrative contract. However, unbeknownst to her employers and would-be-suitor, she has a thieving drunkard husband (Horace B Carpenter) who complicates things. Directed by Cecil B DeMille.

The story is generally engaging, although at times somewhat implausible, and with a rather rushed ending. Cleo Ridgely is quite appealing and sympathetic as the heroine, and Wallace Reid smolders and charms very effectively as the debonair millionaire. The acting by all is generally quite restrained and naturalistic, showing that even in the early days of feature films actors were capable of nuanced performances.

Director Cecil B DeMille and cinematographer Alvin Wyckoff make a very talented team, imbuing the film with distinctive lighting and shadow effects, as well as intriguing compositions (note the shot where Reid and Ridgeley kiss, which is done with the camera looking down briefly from above). By now they had emerged with a distinctive style, consolidating the successful elements at work in CARMEN and THE CHEAT (which also came out in 1915). A nice film, worth watching for silent movie enthusiasts as well as those who may be new to silent film. SCORE: 8/10.

While agreeing entirely with those who have expressed the opinion that "silent" DeMille is very much better than "talkie" DeMille, this particular film provides a very rare chance to also very directly compare EARLY silent DeMille with LATE silent DeMille. DeMille remade two of his silent films before the advent of talkies but in the othr case )The Indian Squaw) the second film is lost (although the third version, the talkie, survives). In this case, however, both silent versions survive, this film of 1919 and Forbidden Fruit, the 1921 remake.

Now neither is, I think, especially wonderful. The weaknesses of the melodramatic plot are the same in both cases. This film also suffers, as do many US films of around 1914-1915 from an overuse of close-up and lose medium shots (the recrudescence of the "facial"). The Cheat of the same year is, I think, a much better film. But it does have its good points and other reviewers have described these very well and it is, to my mind, a better film than the much gaudier and less believable Forbidden Fruit.

So why did DeMille's films decline in quality while he steadily became more famous and more acclaimed. It is not an absolutely straight line (there are some other good films throughout the silent period) but by and large DeMille films get worse as they go along and the reason I think is very clear to see. Throughout his career two elements characterise DeMille films - a great natural talent and a great and seemingly an equally naturally vulgarity and taste for whimsy, along with an understandable desire to please (very much indeed to develop a kind of "cinema of attractions" that is so falsely supposed to characterise earlier films. And as his career progressed, it was this natural vulgarity that increasingly got the upper hand. It made him in the end a popular film-maker (popular too with the studios) but not a good one and certainly not as good a one as, given the natural talent, he might have been.

In Forbidden Fruit for instance he inserts a "Cinderella fantasy" scene (a gimmick he had started to use in Male and Female and which became a sort of trademark). Yes, it is in a way effective as spectacle but it totally undermines any seriousness the film might otherwise have had. In the same way all the gritty elements of the film (particularly the marital violence) is all softened in the later film.

I enjoyed FORBIDDEN FRUIT, DeMille's Jazz Age remake of THE GOLDEN CHANCE, but I still have to admit CHANCE is the better of the two. Cleo Ridgely is a phenomenal actress with strikingly modern looks and she nails her Cinderella role perfectly. Wallace Reid is also memorable as the love interest, adding a touch of cynicism to his Prince Charming. The blend of grimy urban reality and fairytale Edwardian splendor elevates the drama, making THE GOLDEN CHANCE one of DeMille's best silent films.

Having worked as an actress with D.W. Griffith, Jeanie Macpherson joined forces with Cecil B. DeMille to write screenplays for his films. She learned her writing skills from Griffith who also started out as an actor and began to write his own material. It seems that via Macpherson, DeMille was tutored by Griffith to write this film.