Seu Sacrifício

It's marvelous what turns up in the Kodascope Library! For the curious movie addict – like me – who will watch almost anything, Grapevine have released "Her Sacrifice", a Poverty Row 1926 melodrama – and I do mean "melodrama" – starring the somewhat-less-than-inspiring team of Gaston Glass and Ligia de Golconda. A Mexican actress, Miss de Golconda made only eight movies between 1921 and 1935. Three of them were Spanish, and one Portuguese. De Golconda seems to have enjoyed featured roles in only three of the eight – one of them Portuguese (way down the cast list) and the other a lensed-in-Hollywood Spanish version of "The Lady Who Dared" (1931) in which she did not play the lead but was billed fourth. "Her Sacrifice" was directed by well-known character player, Wilfred Lucas. To say that the direction is half-hearted, uninspiring, clumsy and somewhat lacking in forcefulness and style would be to over-praise Mr Lucas's skills. Admittedly, he was working on a tight budget with a second-string group of actors for a Poverty Row studio – Sanford Productions. "Her Sacrifice" turned out to be the last of the company's 27 movies. And with a hackneyed script like this one – a forced and utterly ridiculous melodrama of the type that is so ruthlessly satirized in "Show Boat" – no wonder!