TOL'ABLE DAVID (1921)

Still freshly felt & moving in its centennial year, Henry King’s idyllic, irony-free Americana, near flawless till its slightly overloaded climax, gets the best out of all who worked on it.  Joined by silent ‘everyman’ actor Richard Barthelmess, fresh off five for D.W. Griffith (BROKEN BLOSSOMS/’19 to WAY DOWN EAST/’20) at ‘Inspiration Pictures,’ King’s new independent outfit (shortly to sign Dorothy & Lillian Gish), this first release was largely shot on location in rural Virginia; and it shows, opening a window to what even then was a rapidly fading world of small farm communities & local support systems.  Every clapboard house & Dry Goods store porch an offering of plain rough beauty.  A world young David (26 yr-old Barthelmess, rail-thin/believably teen) lives not merely in harmony with, but in something of a state of grace.  Careworn cattle-raising parents & a big brother he idolizes for his height, strength, family life & grown-up job running the government mail delivery.  There's even a neighboring girl to moon over.  But a shadow is about to pass over his life when the neighboring girl’s three cousins, on the run from the law, invite themselves in for a visit.  Saved from jail by the State Line, these are dangerous men, threatening to the girl, the worst of them (a terrifying Ernest Torrence) a full-fledged psychopath who’ll quickly destroy the Barthelmess family in three tragic encounters.  It’s the trick in making these sentimental old dramas work; you pay dearly for those blissful moments.  A narrative balance Hollywood storytellers would soon forget, especially post-WWII, mistaking honest hard-won sentiment for sappy sentimentality.  The Griffith influence very strong here, too much so at the end (at least for modern audiences) when the mail must get thru at any cost.  Leaving the destruction of life’s certainties around Barthelmess, played at the end of the second act in tableaux of silent, stricken grief, the film’s true dramatic peak.  Stunningly achieved.  Surviving prints in pretty good physical shape for such a wildly popular film.  Look for editions that use Robert Israel’s fine 1999 score.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Now largely overlooked, Barthelmess’s classics would be remade with Errol Flynn, Henry Fonda, Emlyn Williams & Richard Cromwell, all coming up short of his standard.  Here, playing a teen, Barthelmess is a ringer for young Jake Glyllenhall in many shots.

DOUBLE-BILL: Harold Lloyd’s greatest film, THE KID BROTHER/’27, is an all but unofficial remake, with plenty of laughs and not short on thrills or sentiment.  Probably the better film . . . but why choose?

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Mick LaSalle examines Barthelmess as actor & social provocateur in his fascinating, if overstated, DANGEROUS MEN: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man.