radkins

A great story was wasted by the trivialization of the real account of the theft of the necklace, based on a fictionalized mistreatment of Jeanne Remy de Valois. The woman was a fabulous schemer whose sense of entitlement is world-class. It would have been a great story if the writer had used the real one, instead of the weak screenplay composed using scant facts. The role of the fake Countess La Motte is a scenery chewer worthy of Faye Dunaway in her heydey and I would have loved to have seen Tim Curry assay the Cardinal Rohan character which is equal parts scoundrel and fool. The only victim in the real story is Marie Antoinette, in whose name the scheme is initiated, but who never had any part in the necklace theft - in fact turned it down three times when offered it by the foolhardy jewelers who designed it for the more audacious Madame du Barry, Marie Antoinette's godfather-in-law's mistress. The real interplay of ego and privilege ending in utter tragedy had all the stuff of a fascinating and lively movie. This wasn't it.

"The Line of Beauty," which I recently saw on Logo, is a wonderful film, but it reminded me heavily of "The Great Gatsby" in that it makes the narrator a character in the scenario. Sam Waterston was given the role of Daisy Buchanan's poorer cousin, Nick Carraway. In "Line" Nick Guest serves in much the same way, with the exception that Nick Guest never realized he was an outsider, whereas Nick Carraway always did. Also much like Hemingway's reaction to F. Scott Fitzgerald's (author of "Gatsby") that "The rich are very different from us" - "Yes, they have more money", Guest finds out that human emotions, in this case recrimination, blame and betrayal, are just as much a part of the upper class as the lower. Guest and Gatsby both admire the upper class and at some point in each story, believe themselves equal to them, until each are made to pay for the sins of those they admire. In Gatsby's case, he is mistakenly shot by the wife of a garage mechanic who believes him to be Daisy's husband Tom, who is both wealthy and immoral. It is a classic story of social separatism, told with an extra layer of the start of the AIDS epidemic. It is a fine job of writing and acting all around. I was particularly impressed with the final slap in the face Nick gets from the housekeeper, who should have been more sympathetic to Nick, but who is also self-deluded in her thinking that she is part of the family, and not an outsider.

"Her Man 'O' War" is one of 50+ films released under the DeMille studio banner between late 1925 and early 1928. To fund his own studio, DeMille had negotiated a production supervision arrangement where DeMille would make one film a year and then supervise 50-odd films over a three year period with Producer's Distributing Corporation. The result was that his own films took a year to make, and a lot of "programmers" like this film were made to keep a product flowing out of the studio into those theatres not owned by studios which would exhibit independent studio films. DeMille had taken several top stars with him from Paramount when he left, including Goudal. The temperamental actress proved a problem right away when F.W. Murnau wanted to borrow her for "Seventh Heaven" and DeMille refused. Goudal then looked for a way to break her contract. Able to only find a minor financial foul-up, she received a settlement, but not a release. DeMille would not direct her in a film after this and she was cut from the release version of "King of Kings" as well. Similar personal problems existed between DeMille and his other two leading stars, Leatrice Joy and Rod LaRocque, so that the films they made for the DeMille studio were not directed by him, minimizing the potential publicity and promotional value of the combination of director and stars.

William Boyd is the male lead of this film and he is not up to the task, although frankly, the writing doesn't require that he do much. Goudal vacillates from impish gamine to heavy dramatics not unlike Nazimova in "War Brides". Her overplaying and Boyd's underplaying don't assist this film. It's basic plot is sound, but the romance between the two principals is less interesting than the military mission which is at the film's core. In comparison to "The Big Parade", a contemporary of this film, "Her Man 'O' War" seems weak and clichéd.