La fleur d'amour

The Love Flower (1920) : Brief Review -

Quite a mix from Griffith but the fact remains intact that such great stories could only be made in that era. Relatable even after 100 years. Forget all those heavy content classics of Griffith, forget those epics, forget those melodramas, those tragedies just for 95 minutes and enjoy this simple but interesting film with no load on your brain. DW Griffith was a completely different director for audience and critics after 'Birth Of The Nation' (1915) and 'Intolerance' (1916). And he even had 10 more classics in those 4 years before making this film so naturally the expectations were different. Contrary to his favourable genre and themes, The Love Flower came as a nice fun break. I am calling it a fun film because i enjoyed it a lot, not that it has any comedy or such stuff. Griffith again made his heroine to do the role of a hero, no directors of that time were doing it continuously as he did and very few directors have done it even till date. Griffith had won me there. In the film, A man murders his wife's lovers and escapes with his daughter to the South Pacific. A detective pursues him, joined by a young man who eventually falls in love with the daughter and then her attempts to save her father begin. It was quite a mix from Griffith, i mean multiple themes together in one narrative and all with dramatic proportions. Nevertheless, the story was itself great for its time and it is great even today. Highly relatable to today's daughters. If somebody had remade this film, I'm sure people would have liked it. I haven't seen much of Carol Dempster's work so for me it was like a fresh face in Griffith film. She was good fortunately. I loved George MacQuarrie in father's role the most. Overall, not a typical Griffith film but a fine typical film afterall.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

On 4 February 1919, David Wark Griffith joined with Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in establishing United Artists as a major film distributor. Griffith had one film ready for U.A. release in "Broken Blossoms", but he had also negotiated a contract with First National in which he had promised them three films.

Griffith duly delivered "The Idol Dancer" (1920) to First National, but had second thoughts regarding "The Love Flower". Griffith decided to augment the footage shot on location in the Bahamas with an underwater swimming scene (shot in Florida). He also felt the film needed additional close-ups of both Carol Dempster and George MacQuarrie. (These were made in a studio and can easily be detected as the players are photographed against a pure black backdrop). The re-cut movie was then handed to United Artists but it received only lukewarm reviews and was not a great commercial success.

However, although "The Love Flower" has a poor reputation, it is by no means the clinker most references suggest. True, there is no great outpouring of lavish spectacle or rousing crowd scenes, but the South Seas locations are both pictorially fascinating and dramatically utilized. The characters are likewise sympathetic and the story holds more than enough suspense to grip one's attention.

In the acting department, Anders Randolf delivers a consistently strong and most compelling performance as the Inspector Javert character, while Florence Short makes quite an impression in her brief role as the heroine's unsympathetic step-mother. I also thought Richard Barthelmess handled his role with all the necessary charm and conviction—although I should mention that Barthelmess is an actor who can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

As for the two leads, however, I have mixed feelings. (Despite his status as the hero of the piece, Barthelmess—as in the Victor Hugo novel from which this story is derived—doesn't come into the action until the movie is half over). MacQuarrie is generally able enough, despite a tendency to over-emote, but simply lacks the charisma that a lead role calls for. This miscasting is actually a serious flaw, because the audience doesn't share the heroine's obsessive desire to protect him at all costs.

Equally at fault is Carol Dempster. Oddly enough, she seems more convincing as the young girl chasing shadows in the movie's opening scenes, despite the fact that she is obviously too old for the part. When called upon to act her actual age, she is less successful. Her simpering close-ups are especially unappealing.

"The Love Flower" kept me on the edge of my seat with suspense. What a great film! Miss Dempster was very enigmatic and strangely intoxicating as the young daughter who is willing to kill the police detective who is after her father for murder. They hide out on a South Sea island for years, but the detective pursues them to the end.

Richard Barthelmess was a delight to watch as the young sailor who is tricked into bringing the detective to the island. Richard's face was literally gorgeous. No wonder Griffith preferred him over other male actors in his stock company. Griffith's personal attraction to Miss Dempster was also apparent, especially in the beach and water scenes with her scantily dressed outfits revealing ... well, I'll leave you guessing there.

If you are a fan of D.W. Griffith's work don't miss this film! It is his most contemporary and one of his most fascinating movie projects.

While daddy's girl Carol Dempster (as Stella Bevan) frolics innocently in the woods, trouble is brewing - her loving father (George MacQuarrie as Bevan) and shrewish mother (Florence Short as Mrs. Bevan) are having marital problems. Informed by a faithful servant that his wife is entertaining a lover, Mr. MacQuarrie discovers the trysting twosome; then, during a struggle, he shoots the man dead. To escape from the police, MacQuarrie takes daughter Dempster, and flees to a South Sea island. There, they encounter handsome Richard Barthelmess (as Bruce Sanders), who makes Dempster's heart flutter. She doesn't know it, but Mr. Barthelmess is assisting police detective Anders Randolf (as Crane), who has arrived to arrest her father.

"The Love Flower" is a much better film, overall, than director D.W. Griffith's accompanying South Sea adventure "The Idol Dancer" (1920). G.W. Bitzer's photography is superb; he and Griffith paint some extraordinary, poetic images with the movie camera. The better production values are assisted by the absence of the ludicrous comic relief elements found in "The Idol Dancer". Unfortunately, "The Love Flower" fails to bloom; the melodramatic plot is interesting, but the love story between Dempster and Barthelmess does not work. Their pairing is more dull than passionate, although Barthelmess is a fine performer. Dempster is attractively athletic, and well-photographed; but, her emoting close-ups become sillier and sillier as the movie progresses. The older performers are much better, especially MacQuarrie.

***** The Love Flower (8/22/20) D.W. Griffith ~ Carol Dempster, Richard Barthelmess, George MacQuarrie

"The Love Flower" is a real mixed bag from director D.W. Griffith. On one hand, the story itself has some holes and doesn't make a lot of sense at times. And, the intertitle cards are the worst written ones I've ever seen. Yet, in spite of all this, I could not hate the movie because the direction and cinematography were so good.

When the film began, I felt vaguely ill as I tried to read the horrid intertitle cards. Most of the worst were used to describe the daughter, a girl described this way on one card--'Girlish dreams sighed into the pink ear of a rose beneath the azure southern skies'. What does this even mean?! This was not the only time--no many more times the very prosaic writer made me ill!

The story begins in the Caribbean. Some guy had apparently written a bad check and ran off to the islands with his wife and daughter to evade the law. However, his wife was a total skank--and was fooling around on him. When he entered his home to find the wife and her lover, the lover tried to murder the husband and the husband killed the guy in self-defense. However, with his criminal record AND a wife who was going to lie about the attack, he and his loyal daughter take to the South Seas in search of a life of solitude. However, there is a crazed cop--one who vows to search EVERYWHERE to find the killer. And, there's also a nice man (Richard Barthelmess) who meets the daughter. What becomes of all this?

The plot had many problems. How could Barthelmess fall in love this quickly and sacrifice so much for a lady he didn't even know? Why was it okay for this lady to be a repeated attempted murderess in order to protect her father?! While the plot is hard to believe at times, the film did feature many amazingly good and difficult shots for 1920. Some underwater footage as well as the view from the rope bridge were incredible--as was the island footage. Overall, a very mixed bag--with lots to like and a bit to make you ill!

By the way, IMDb lists this film at 70 minutes but it ran 96.