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"The old ballad, yes?" Cozy sentiments born out of bitterness, the artist out of mother's study and into the world. (A frosted window rises and falls like a curtain.) John Howard Payne (Henry B. Walthall), who chooses an actor's life to his family's horror and expires far from his sweetheart (Lillian Gish), by a gutted candle with quill pen in hand he composes the titular song. "Not biographical but photo-dramatic and allegorical," announces D.W. Griffith, who has a trio of tales to seek aural connections in a visual medium. The young prospector (Robert Harron) goes West and falls for the spirited slattern (Mae Marsh), when separated she keeps his specs while he takes a Christmas card in lieu of a picture. ("Looks like me," explains the girl.) The tune clears his head in a moment of doubt, a smiling toddler in close-up embodies their happy future. Cain and Abel in a seaside shack for the next story, money is at the root of the hatred between brothers (Donald Crisp, James Kirkwood). The "dull lad" (Jack Pickford) rides to the rescue in an exceptional high-angled view of the curving coast, too late to prevent fraternal tragedy but in time to keep Mom (Mary Alden) from plunging a dagger into her heart. The street singer here becomes a wedding violinist in the third tale, his fiddling comes in handy as the young wife (Blanche Sweet) contemplates an indiscretion with the tuxedoed interloper (Owen Moore) while the cuckold (Courtenay Foote) snoozes in the living room. "Misfortunes come and friends go," the song remains. The angelic beloved lifts Payne out of the infernal pit in a coda directly quoted by Cocteau in La Belle et la Bête. With Dorothy Gish, Josephine Crowell, Fay Tincher, Spottiswoode Aitken, Miriam Cooper, and Fred Burns. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |