De Luxe Annie

This film exists in the Library of Congress and I recently viewed a safety print there. There is some decomposition in the 4th reel (out of 6), but overall it's a print of excellent quality. De Luxe Annie is a neat little pulp story - the kind Roland West would later specialize in. It's also the earliest film of his that I have seen and his earliest that may very well exist. Norma Talmadge plays a happily married woman who gets amnesia and is tricked into believing she is a master criminal. After redemption, she returns to her family in the end. West shot this as he would his later films - with a dark edge and a passion for telling a crime story. The film has excellent settings, good cutting and nice compositions. Not a heck of a lot of camera movement, but West didn't really start that until The Dove (of which 4 impressive reels also reside at LOC). There is an awesome dream sequence that utilizes split frames. Shadow-y in places with some striking under-lighting we'd later see much more of in The Bat Whispers, this is a solid film for 1918 and reminiscent of The Penalty (1920) in tone and style. And Talmadge had charisma. Hopefully it will come out on video one day.