L'isolé

Another silent movie by Borzage and another winner ,with or without a lucky star!Frank Borzage is the poet of compassion ,of simple happiness, of the bright side of the human soul.Borzage's heroes ("seventh heaven" " street angel" "little man what now?" ) have got to fight against a hostile world .They have to give all they've got: Charles Farrell crawling in the snow would find an exact equivalent in the yet-to-come "the river " when Rosalee warms the lumberjack's naked body with her own body.

Timothy ,confined to a wheelchair ,has everybody against his : the mother who dreams of a rich wedding for her daughter and the buck who seduces all the girls around.Like the other Borzagesque heroes ,he never gives up,ready to sacrifice everything if the girl he loves (Janet Gaynor) finds true happiness.

"Lucky Star" boasts an exceptional performance by Charles Farrell as the handicapped Tim, who falls in love with a pathetic waif, "Baa-Baa", played by the sweet and petite Janet Gaynor. Whereas in "7th Heaven", Janet Gaynor gives the performance of a lifetime, here in this film it is Charlie Farrell who wows you with his believable, dynamic acting as Tim, a good man maimed in World War One, who comes home in a wheelchair and has to cope with being lame. One can easily see Charles was much more than your typical Hollywood "pretty boy", so it is kind of bizarre that the studios quickly forgot his excellent silent film performances, and put him in vehicles like musicals once sound came in, thereby destroying what should have been a continued dramatic career throughout the coming decades.

Frank Borzage was a sentimental director whose work I have always enjoyed. He continued to make some excellent sound films as the years went on, but his silent films are his most memorable, for he had a knack of drawing excellent and subtle pantomime performances from his actors which communicated emotions far more profoundly without words than with them. I would like to see this film restored and placed on DVD so that future generations can see it. Keeping it locked up - and forcing people to watch poor bootlegs - does not do honor to this film, or to Borzage, Farrell, and Gaynor. They deserve the best showcase for this moving film. I do feel the ending - which I won't reveal - is a cop-out, but other than that "Lucky Star" is a film well worth seeing.

Lucky Star is a lovely film. It's good to have a contrast, I ended up watching ten minutes of the Fantastic Four before this film. So after that incredible dross, the Borzage was a double-barrelled blast of wonder to the face. It's a very simple movie story-wise. We start off looking at a farm very early in the morning, still dark, it's awesomely Gothic, probably a set because it's so perfect, but you can't tell. You got these windy lanes and crooked fenceposts and creepy trees. Mary (Janet Gaynor) a dirty and chiselling but winsome little ragamuffin lives on the farm with her Ma and some littl'uns, Pa ain't around. She's milking the cow, probably at five in the morning, when the house is getting up. You can tell that life is pretty hard. It's about 2 minutes of cinema that's more precious than a dozen movies.

Anyway there's these two men Wrenn and Tim. Wrenn is a lazy good-fer-nuthin who is the foreman of the telegraph gang. Tim is the one he always gets to do the hard work. World War One comes and these guys decide to get a load of the world and pack off to France. Anyway we're shown in no uncertain terms during this episode how Tim is a nice guy and Wrenn, well he ain't. Private Tim ends up in a wheelchair when he gets back, on account of Sergeant Wrenn.

Mary is a grown up now, and Tim and Wrenn are vying for her affections. Wrenn has got the head start because he's a blackguard and he's not crippled. So it's a love story. It all seems real simple, but the nuance is what it's all about, the exquisite lighting and camera-work, the great partnership between Gaynor (Mary) and Farrell (Tim), and the heart-rending final scenes. It's simply a charming innocent movie, that there's no way could be made any more.

Tim has to undergo a harrowing struggle in order to get the girl. The snow scenes towards the end have to be seen to be believed.

Lucky Star (1929)

*** (out of 4)

Entertaining silent drama has Timothy (Charles Farrell) and poor farm girl Mary (Janet Gaynor) meeting under bad circumstances before the start of WWI. After the war Timothy returns home as a cripple and soon he and Mary strike up a strong friendship, which doesn't sit too well with people in town or Mary's mother due to their prejudice against him being cripple. LUCKY STAR should have been a complete disaster but director Frank Borzage and the two stars do a remarkable job at building up the drama and there's no question that the message really packs a punch. The film is incredibly dark and this is especially true when it comes to the message of how people were pretty much throwing cripples into a lonely shack and forgetting about them. The message of this not being right is certainly well told here and especially because there's no melodrama preaching but instead it's perfectly built into the story. I was really surprised to see how dark this part of the story was told and it's pretty darn grim. Some of the best moments in the film deal with the blossoming relationship between the two stars. They made several films together and it's easy to see why because their chemistry just jumps right off the screen. The romance here is quite good and manages to keep a smile on your face throughout. Gaynor, as you'd expect, has no trouble playing the charming farm girl and Farrell is just as great and especially during his more dramatic scenes dealing with not being able to walk. Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams is excellent as the rival for Gaynor's attention and Hedwiga Reicher makes for a great villain as her mother. The ending is incredibly far-fetched but it's so perfectly executed that you can't help but get caught up in the drama.

This film was the last silent film Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor made as a team, and their soulful chemistry is more evident in this film than any other they made together. Is this movie so poignant because it marked the end of their silent career together, or because they had really reached the peak of their artistry together? This was also their last film with director Borzage, who also reached the peak of his art with this film.

To me, LUCKY STAR also demonstrates what made Farrell great as an actor. Although he is often unfavorably compared to Gaynor, he is restrained, elegant, and utterly believable as the handicapped Timothy Osborne. The scene in which he bathes Janet, or later when they embrace before she heads off to the party, is masterful. His expression tears your heart out.

If you have a chance to see this film, please do--you won't be sorry. This is the kind of film that makes you realize how truly great the art of silent cinema was (and remains). 10 stars.