Thru Different Eyes

1928 and 1929 were pivotal years in the conversion from silent film to sound film. Many films were made with both silent and sound versions, and in many instances they differed because of the technique inherent in each kind of film. However - there were a few where they were made with sound, but because some theaters weren't wired yet for sound, some intertitles were placed at strategic locations to identify what was going on, and even some dialogue in the intertitles was used, exactly as it had been in silent pictures - if it was fitting. Last night I viewed such a film. My print of "Thru Different Eyes" (1929) has no sound of any sort, including any accompanying music score. Totally silent. When it began I was surprised because I bought the DVD thinking it was the sound Mono (MovieTone) version. Instead, it was the silent version, and a strange thing it is, too. I bought the film because it's the debut of Sylvia Sidney, but also because it stars one of my favorite movie stars, Edmund Lowe. The lead actress and first name in the cast is Mary Duncan. The man who is the cause of this court brouhaha is Warner Baxter, fresh off his Best Actor Academy Award for "In Old Arizona", an early and rather creaky '28 sound film.

The film begins in a courtroom with Selmer Jackson defending Lowe in a case where Lowe has been accused of murdering Baxter. Jackson pleads the case as he knows it from his defendant. When he's finished (having seen the case pleaded through the action in flashback) we've witnessed a case where Lowe is innocent. Jackson begs the jury to exonerate his client. Then the prosecution pleads its case. We witness (all through flashback again) a completely different argument. Let me repeat. A completely different argument. While we witness the two different ways the case was supposedly done, we get periodic scenes back in the courtroom of Lowe's wife, played by Duncan, simply sitting stolidly, mute, without any kind of facial expression. She's been shown to have fallen out of love with Lowe and in love with Baxter during the proceedings so far. When the jury declares Lowe guilty after the cases have been given, suddenly one of the spectators in the court whom we've seen shown on camera four or five times - Sylvia Sidney - rushes up to the judge and pleads HER version...

This was really a wonderful drama. Lasting only 62 minutes, I only wish I could have heard the sound version. Those who've seen it compliment Sidney on her acting. She's good silent, but she must have been spectacular with sound! I really recommend this show, but hopefully anyone who sees it will see the sound version and not this really lessened silent version.

Others in the show are Natalie Moorhead (with her blonde helmet of bobbed hair), Earle Foxe, Florence Lake, Purnell Pratt, and many other character actors of the period, including Nigel de Brulier, Stepin Fetchit, and DeWitt Jennings.

This 1929 U.S. film is probably not a source for the groundbreaking 1950 movie classic Rashomon, because the 2 Japanese short stories which Rashomon is based upon were written in 1915 and 1922, while Thru Different Eyes came out in 1929, and was based upon a prior U.S. stage play. The writer of the short stories, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, killed himself in 1927. His style was highly influential in Japan, and he's considered the father of the modern Japanese short story, comparable to Edgar Allen Poe's influence in English literature, and of a similarly dark nature. Several of Akutagawa's other stories were made into films in the U.S. and Japan. Rashomon director Akira Kurosawa combined Akutagawa's 2 unrelated short stories in Kurosawa's film, which first brought Japanese cinema to world acclaim.

David Stevens

In 1929, Fox released a courtroom drama that is very similar in theme and content to RASHOMON, produced 21 years later. Milton Gropper and Edna Sherry are the credited authors of the story, but you won't find them credited in any way in the English credits usually supplied for RASHOMON. Ryunosuke Akutagawa may have known of this story, consciously or subconsciously, when he wrote "In the Grove", the source novel for RASHOMON.

THRU DIFFERENT EYES made a great impression on me when I saw it at the age of nine. I don't recall many details after three quarters of a century, but I remember that three different witnesses gave entirely different testimony relating to a rape and murder, during a court trial. At that age, I saw at least one movie a week (the usual Saturday matinée), and I remember this one while most of the others are completely forgotten. It had a great cast, too. Notice Sylvia Sydney and Warner Baxter in lead roles. Pity, it seems to be among the "lost" films from Hollywood.

Although this movie was originally issued as a talkie, that version is missing. I looked at a silent print, with titles.

Edmund Lowe is on trial for murder. At the summation, he lawyer paints a picture of a loving couple, with the deceased, Warner Baxter, a cad who want to take Mary Duncan, Lowe's wife, to Europe..... and presumably not to explain the architecture. The DA paints them as a high-living couple, Miss Duncan as a loose woman, and Lowe as murdering the innocent Baxter in a fit of jealousy. Each scenario is shown in flashback.

Does this seem familiar? Yes, of course, it is the story-telling technique used in Roshomon. Each of the scenarios takes a couple of reels, with interstitia material, and the wrap-up, showing what really happened, about one reel.

The camerawork is pretty good foran early talkie, with some nice tracking shots and a lot of costume changes for Miss Duncan. However, like many early talkies, there are a lot of words on the title cards, and these clearly distort the pacing.

Movie debuts for Sylvia Sidney and -- in a bit part -- Karen Morley.