Le roman de Manon

"This medal, sent by the Bishop himself, will protect you against temptations of the flesh."

Haha, that sure lasted a long time. This is an epic period drama, 1927 style, (very loosely) based on the 18th century novel Manon Lescaut, and stars John Barrymore and Dolores Costello. It's got about everything you might want in such a film - romance, costumes, swashbuckling, and general adventure. It's 111 minutes long which can sometimes be painful in a silent film given the era's slower pace, but this one moved along pretty well and had many entertaining scenes.

Early on, the pure-hearted characters (the young people who fall for each other at first sight, Barrymore and Costello) seem to be contrasted with people wise to the ways of the world (a scheming brother, lecherous Comte, and even a winking maid, Marcelle Corday). However, these "pure" characters enjoy a blissful carnal relationship despite not being married, something that wouldn't have been possible under the Production Code seven years later. Barrymore's character is also good at cheating at cards, kills a man, and leads an insurrection. Between these things and his tender moments with Costello, like the one where he steams up the screen by slowly leaning down to kiss her, we get an interesting, three-dimensional person. Costello's character is not really afforded that same luxury, existing mostly to be lusted over by a string of powerful men, including the Comte, the King, and even the captain of convict ship. Barrymore fends off the men trying to assail her as they come, channeling Douglas Fairbanks at times. The pair's chemistry is undeniable, and they would marry in real life a year later (hey, these are Drew Barrymore's grandparents we're watching here).

What made the film for me were the scenes with unsavory characters, like when Barrymore enters the subterranean den of iniquity (and then orders a glass of milk for the cat). While the court of Louis XV and the gambling salon filled with powdered wigs and polite society appear very different, the leers and knowing glances in those places were nice parallels to the earlier scene. We also get saucy prostitutes being rounded up with for deportation to that far-away colony called Louisiana, and a cage full of prisoners who Barrymore incites like a deranged monkey. There is a darkness to its ending too, at least for those aboard the ship, where we see women being thrown over the shoulders of a fearsome bunch of marauding criminals (apparently Myrna Loy was one of those aboard!). Overall, it's a tad melodramatic but the energy at the end and the fun I had along the way had me rounding my review score up.

Before John Barrymore left for United Artist, he had one last movie to make to fulfill his three-picture contract with Warner Brothers. He starred along with his future wife Dolores Costello in February 1927's "When a Man Loves," a period piece based on Abbe Prevost's 1731 novel Manon Lescaut.

Warner Brothers continued with its experimentation into sound films with "When a Man Loves," the studio's third disc-on-sound Vitaphone picture. At its February 4, 1927 premier, the New York City theater audience failed to pay attention to the empty musical pit usually filled with an orchestra. So crisp was the music coming out of the house's speakers they completely forgot about the lack of musicians. Just as the film concluded, there appeared a brief 15-second clip of the Vitaphone Symphony Orchestra with its conductor on the screen. It was then the patrons realized all the music was pre-recorded and synchronized to the movie. They went nuts.

OK, I admit it, it makes me completely glad they were all guillotined.

This transitional silent is really a visual work of art. I say transitional because it is one of Warner Brothers first Vitaphone films back when Warners was still using sound just to bring sound effects and synchronized music to silents. No talking was going on yet.

The location is 18th century France about 20 years before the French Revolution. Our protagonists are a young man of aristocratic descent who is studying for the priesthood, Chevalier Fabien des Grieux (John Barrymore) and the unfortunate Manon Lescaut (Delores Costello). She's unfortunate because she actually trusts her brother (Warner Oland) who has two alternate plans for her - either sell her to the highest bidder to help him continue his gambling habit, or dispose of her in a nunnery. Fabien overhears the brother's plotting, rescues Manon, and the two flee to Paris. Because the brother found an aristocratic buyer for his sister's companionship he won't give up so easy on retrieving his meal ticket. A week after the young lovers have arrived in Paris, he finds Manon and convinces her that it is best for Fabien if she leaves him so he can return to his studies for the priesthood and regain his father's good graces.

What follows is a remarkable adventure with Fabien first losing and then regaining his faith in Manon, him turning from the studying for the priesthood to gambling as a profession, and a turn of treachery by Manon's discarded former protector/consort that has them both destined for a life of slavery in Louisiana.

The focus and sympathy are kept on the two young lovers for several reasons. For one, the actors themselves have remarkable chemistry - they were actually married for several years - and also, they are the only two members of the cast that don't resemble grotesque gargoyles. The poor of Paris are shown as disheveled, greasy, drunken, and ready to assault any maiden that crosses their paths. The aristocracy of Paris are shown as decadent, perfumed, powdered and rouged to the point of looking like corpses, and also ready to assault any maiden that crosses their paths. Thus even in pre-revolutionary France the poor and rich seem to have at least one thing in common.

The cruel twists of fate could make long stretches of this movie a bit of a downer if it were not for the fun of watching Barrymore in his prime playing - at various times - the protector, the swashbuckler, the broken-hearted when he loses Manon, ecstatic when he gets her back. Plus Barrymore could say more with a roll of his eyes or a gesture than many actors could say with an entire soliloquy. Highly recommended.

When a Man Loves (1927)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Silent melodrama about a man (John Barrymore) studying for the priesthood when he falls in love with a woman (Dolores Costello) whose brother (Warner Oland) has sold her for prostitution. This film is beautiful on the eye but the story is pretty lacking, which makes it rather difficult to sit through the 110-minute running time. The costume design and sets all look extremely well especially a torture dungeon used on a ship towards the end of the movie. Both Barrymore and Costello, who would be married the following year, are very good in their roles but Oland comes off rather bland. Myrna Loy has a cameo but I wasn't able to spot her. The screenplay is all over the place but as I said earlier the story never gets too thrilling or dramatic so it left me rather cold. This is another early Vitaphone film and the movie was released two weeks before The Jazz Singer. There isn't any spoken dialogue but there's several sound effects, which are pretty silly especially some of the effects used during a thunderstorm.

I must admit I've only seen one clip, of this rumored to be picturesque silent, on an old HBO documentary on the 1920s. That was in the early 1980s. This film treatment on the much filmed Manon Lescaut romance story is known to exist. It is not a lost film yet it is almost never seen even though it would presumably be owned by Turner Classics being a Warner Bros. silent. This was the film in which Ethel Barrymore upon seeing commented that her brother John Barrymore basically threw his part away in order for Dolores Costello, then Barrymore's girlfriend and soon to be wife, to standout and shine. Costello was then concurrently starring in Warner's "Old San Francisco"(1927), which had a Vitaphone pre-recorded soundtrack. WAML was John Barrymore's third and final film in a three picture deal with Warner Brothers and it followed the better know Don Juan. WAML had a Vitaphone pre-recorded soundtrack with musical score & sound effects, the same as Don Juan. Vitaphone was the pioneer system where the music, sound effects, speech etc. was recorded on an LP type of wax disc rather than the later standard of film. Byron Haskin, WAML's Cinematographer, said in an interview that this was a wonderful story to photograph and was superior to Don Juan photographically in many respects IHHO. Incidentally director Alan Crosland seemed to be involved with all things Vitaphone & Warner Brothers at this time. He was not only the director of WAML but the aforementioned Old San Francisco & Don Juan as well as the talking film breakthrough The Jazz Singer. Maybe one day Turner Classics will surprise everyone and resurrect WAML, a late silent/major studio obscurity. Perhaps some kind of restoration is in order and that includes the original pre-recorded soundtrack if it exists. I'm sure it's as gorgeous as Don Juan's soundtrack.