Eugénie Grandet

As the immediate follow-up to his anti-war saga FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, Rex Ingram presented this rendition of Balzac's EUGENIE GRANDET. The story is nominally updated to the flapper era, but most of it takes place in a provincial town where everyone wears 19th century costumes anyway. As in the earlier film, Rudolph Valentino is a playboy [ with a poodle] who must prove himself, but he appears to somewhat less advantage here. Once again, Alice Terry sensitively plays his designated love object, but in a more traditional ingenue role. Ingram does not always stage scenes effectively, but his films are distinguished by appealingly natural acting: even the obsession of old miser Grandet is never overplayed. In fact, the most striking scene shows the old man hallucinating personifications of his beloved gold, a sequence which may have influenced Ingram's friend and colleague Erich von Stroheim when he filmed GREED. Ingram's celebrated visual talent and John Seitz's cinematography are hard to judge in the dim, unrestored print available. This film lacks the spectacle of FOUR HORSEMEN, but still manages to suggest Balzac's sweep in portraying the complexity of human relations. The "conquering power," according to an introductory title, is Love.

"The Conquering Power" is an amazing film starring Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, and Ralph Lewis. In the film, "the conquering power" is intended to be love, though in the original material, it's that root of all evil, money/gold. Here, Charles (Valentino's) father loses his fortune, and before he kills himself, he sends his son to his estranged brother. His brother, Grandet, is a wealthy, cruel miser who takes advantage of Valentino's bad luck. He has a lovely daughter, Eugenie (Terry) and she and Charles fall in love, in spite of the fact that they seem to be first cousins. Charles decides to seek his fortune, and Eugenie makes him a gift of her gold, given to her each year by her father on her birthday.

Well, the "Sunset Boulevard" phrase "We had faces then" certainly applies to this film. There were so many odd-looking, wizened up, elderly people in this film, it was astounding. They were all fascinating to look at and seemed to showcase the beauty of Terry and Valentino all the more. Valentino is excellent, ever elegant, and is particularly handsome in the beginning and toward the end of the film, when he sports casual clothes, a mustache, and 5 o'clock shadow. For the scenes at his uncle's, his makeup is somewhat exaggerated in the style often used in the '20s - and this is one actor who needed no accentuation. Terry is lovely and gives a wonderful performance.

The star of this film, however, is Ingram's direction, particularly at the end, where mysterious hands come out of a cradle filled with gold and from everywhere else, Gold itself makes a human-like appearance, spitting out coins, and walls literally close in. Fantastic effects done many, many years before the computer and requiring a lot of imagination.

Highly recommended - we are so fortunate to be able to see some of these films, even if they are not in pristine condition.

I've just watched the Alice Terry, Valentino movie The Conquering Power. While I enjoyed the movie, it didn't have the power and emotional scale of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The story is about the power of love over seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

The focus here is on the director's wife, Alice Terry, and she's up for the challenge, her lovely face registering a myriad of emotions, but it seemed unrealistic that she fell in love with her own cousin played by Valentino so quickly, that she was willing to wait for him as years passed without word as she was subjected to so much abuse from her father.

The morality angle about the obsession of greed and the way it's depicted as a monster that eventually crushes the person obsessed, really reminded me very much of the movie Greed, but in a much smaller, more intimate little film.

You can tell that there must have been some falling out between the director Rex Ingram and Valentino, as his part is very small and secondary, as compared to the earlier film Horsemen. They never made another picture together, which was a shame. Valentino never got another director who was willing to take the same kinds of risks with him.

Angelic Alice Terry (as Eugenie Grandet) lives with her miserly father Ralph Lewis (as Pére Grandet) in a French village. Soon, Mr. Lewis's brother sends word that they are to be joined by Paris playboy Rudolph Valentino (as Charles Grandet). Kissin' cousins Valentino and Terry fall quickly in love (they are not blood relations, it is later revealed). After his brother commits suicide over some bad business deals, Lewis conspires to keep the young lovers apart, and steal their family fortunes.

"The Conquering Power" is introduced as being the power of Love; although, you'll see, later in the film, another "Power" give Love a run for the money - it is an extraordinary scene, near the end, wherein greedy Lewis receives comeuppance. Valentino's role is a rather bland one; but, he dresses up well. Cinematographer John F. Seitz and actress Terry are outstanding. Most of all, the film is a triumph for Terry's director husband Rex Ingram; he makes the most of a poorly adapted story, which doesn't take full advantage of the personnel involved. Still, Mr. Ingram delivers the Midas touch.

******** The Conquering Power (7/8/21) Rex Ingram ~ Alice Terry, Rudolph Valentino, Ralph Lewis

This movie from one of the masters of silent cinema Rex Ingram is a melodrama without its excess. Certain scenes show you the power of silent cinema over sound such as the hallucinatory sequence showing a man's dependency and folly on wealth. Valentino is solid as the rich playboy who loses everything and is forced to live with his miserly Uncle who intends to cheat him out of his inheritance and Terry is solid too as the Miser's daughter who falls in love with Val and learns humility and virtue along the way. The story like all epic sagas spans many years. Here is where I'll knock the movie. It is obvious the movie is truncated from the book and a lot of detail is left out. If made today, it would obviously be almost three hours long. I don't know if it would make a better movie but it would be more detailed. Ingram though turns the movie into a study of greed and love as polar opposites in the avail of human survival and in that aspect, the movie scores. Just to add, the movie opens with an inter-title telling the audience that since polling (they had NRG in the twenties too) showed that audiences did not like costume pictures, the movie had been moved to a modern setting. Funny for in a few years the costume picture would dominate the industry and oscillate but never die ever since.