Der Tanz auf dem Vulkan - 1. Sybil Young

Daughter of the Night (1920)

** (out of 4)

The earliest surviving Bela Lugosi film has him playing a French millionaire who falls in love with a Russian singer and soon joins her in an underground revolution. I'm not sure how compelte this film is but it never really makes a bit of sense and some of this is just due to over-dramatic situations and a real lack of development. The film tries to speak highly of Russian people and to show they're aren't animals yet that's exactly what they're shown as in the unbelievable ending. This was my first time seeing Lugosi in a silent film and I really wasn't too impressed after hearing some stories of him being a "great actor" in his early days. He's way too stiff in the film, stiff like his later performances but at least there you had his voice to carry some weight. That stiffness really doesn't work too well in a silent film but he's far from the worst thing here.

"Daughter of the Night" is a very dull German movie that you can find on DVD from Alpha Video...though I would hardly recommend it. I bought the inexpensive DVD simply because I wanted to see one of Bela Lugosi's earliest film appearances.

The story begins with a long-winded and incredibly optimistic prologue about the recent revolution in Russia and how they assume over time cooler heads and freedom will prevail in the country. What follows is a dull tale of spies and Royalists living in France following the 1917 revolution. Andre (Lugosi) is in love with a beautiful Russian singer....and Andre's old fling, the Countess, is determined to hurt them because she hates to let Andre be with anyone but her.

There are many problems with the film, particularly the pacing. It's glacially slow and very, very talky. Talky is bad enough in a sound movie but in a silent it really is awful. Additionally, several times the plot is advanced through letters...letters so sloppily written and damaged due to the decayed print that it's hard to know what some of them say. Overall, a picture you would be best to skip unless you insist on seeing it. Nice costumes and the acting is good for a silent....but the script is hopeless.

I guess I expected more from this film. I watched it only for Bela Lugosi - and it's his earliest surviving film. I wanted to like this movie - I really did but the film really lacked a better story.

3/10