• 7th Heaven

12/29/23 (Fri)

Frank Borzage’s 1927 film, based on a play that itself ran for nearly two years on Broadway, was apparently a massive hit in its day. It won the first Academy Awards for Best Direction and Actress (it lost Best Film to Wings), spawned several remakes over the decades (including a flop musical), and turned the pairing of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell into a sensation that carried over for another 11 films. Sawato Midori, the benshi narrator who voiced all the characters live for today’s show, noted that Ozu featured a poster of this film in one of his early works, so it must have been popular in Japan as well. A benshi would have presented the movie in this way back in its day (further explained here), so the event was very much a throwback to the silent era. Sawato performed to the accompaniment of a five-piece band.

The film is melodramatic and fairly ludicrous viewed from today’s perspective, including some pretty dodgy acting. Chico, a sewer worker in Paris, has dreams of moving up in the world – literally, as he wants to be a street cleaner. He proclaims himself an atheist since his donations to the church have never answered his prayers. A passing priest overhears him and gives him his chance to come out into the sun and clean streets.

Meanwhile, Diane, a woman living in dire circumstances with her abusive whip-wielding elder sister, is offered a ticket out of poverty when they are rediscovered by rich relatives just returned from abroad. Unfortunately, she is unable to lie about the dubious activities she had pursued in order to sustain herself, leading her all-too-proper relatives to reject her. Her enraged sister whips and beats her mercilessly, following her out on the streets as Diane tries to escape. As the sister raises the whip, Chico bursts dramatically out of a manhole, grabs her hand and drives her away. When the police try to arrest Diane for prostitution, Chico saves her by claiming that they are married. The suspicious police say that they plan to check up on them to make sure this is truly his wife, adding that he will be arrested if he is found to have lied.

Thus, they begin living together in his seventh-floor walkup to predictable results. He refuses to acknowledge to her or himself that he is coming to like her, but she eventually works her way into his heart. When Chico is called to arms with the outbreak of WWI, they vow to communicate telepathically at 11am each day via religious charms that he got from the priest (seriously). After some harrowing scenes on the battlefield, Diane is shocked to hear that Chico has been killed. In the end, Waterloo Bridge-like, that proves a case of mistaken identity, and he returns alive but blind, saying that he can see better than ever how much he loves her.

Diane is too meek and angelic to be believed despite Gaynor’s considerable efforts; that element alone assures that the film could never be made today. The hunky Farrell looks the part but overacts, and the elder sister is pure camp. This film is what most people imagine as silent-era acting.

The camerawork can be impressive. The camera follows the couple upwards as they climb to their “penthouse” using a cutaway shot of the stairs, a brilliantly edited shot that reminded me of the much later Citizen Kane. The war scenes were also very effective for the times, and the mobilization scenes in the streets of Paris were thrilling. The director was much better at such scenes than in the dramatic moments. The sight of the blind soldier pushing through the celebrating crowds as he desperately tried to get back home was laughable, and the director topped that with the shaft of light that shined on the lovers as they embraced at the end. (I noticed that Wikipedia says, “Chico is not dead. He returns home to Diane, wounded and blind, which is worse.” That downbeat tone suggests that the writer must have stopped before the film’s mawkish close, a smart move.)

The film is worth seeing as a piece of film history – it’s one of the most financially successful silent films of all time – but a modern viewer will need a lot of tolerance for the excesses. Hard to take it seriously.