Well, made it through "Vanity" (1927)! Back on March 8th of this year, Ed Lorruso, who produced this new Blu-Ray from a LOC restoration in a Kickstarter campaign, wrote on the Nitrateville site:
"Went thru the 13 episodes of the fabulous Hollywood documentary series by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill again. It's a breathtaking achievement. The interviews they compiled with luminaries like Swanson and Gaynor, Viola Dana, Leatrice Joy, Jackie Coogan, etc. Are beyond priceless...And in that same episode there was a clip of Leatrice Joy in Vanity (my next project!), which was a major surprise, as an example of glamour lighting."
I have to admit that the statement about "glamour lighting" is what strikes me most when thinking back about watching the show, even more, perhaps, than the plot lines and characters which are not very pleasant to watch at all! The production is a Cecil B. DeMille Pictures Corporation one, and I've always kept a memory for the set designs in DeMille's late 10s/early 20s films like "Why Change Your Wife", "The Affairs of Anatol", "Old Wives for New", or "Don't Change Your Husband". They are rich and full, carefully detailed. In "Vanity" there is a starkness of design in Leatrice Joy's boudoir that is startling and humongous! It has all the trappings of Bauhaus austerity! Now, one of the plot characterizations is that of Joy being a spoiled rotten elite who wouldn't smell if she walked through elephant poo. She has a servant for each detail of her dress, for each detail of any need. Frankly, the character of Joy throughout this film is disgustingly difficult to watch! The sets in which she is placed are lit to showcase how large everything is to keep her happy and how trifling she genuinely is within them. But, as a viewer watching this on a television, it comes across as though we're watching a play that has been filmed. It is a disparate watch and disengaging. When Alan Hale finally comes into the picture in a major way the change in tone is also a disparate one. That is, too, the idea of the film, but Donald Crisp the director doesn't do it very comfortably. Then comes the character change in Joy and suddenly the end.
I found this a challenging watch. I'm going to assume that it may have been a challenging watch in 1927, but I may be utterly incorrect. Charles Ray, who plays the man who is to marry Joy in the end, seems bloated and lifeless in this picture. He's never been one of my favorite actors in the first place, so my prejudice begins at the beginning - and remains. The one character I enjoyed watching was Mayme Kelso who plays Leatrice Joy's mother. She oozes her eliteness and condescension like a viper putting venom in an eyeball. It's almost humorous while being completely without humor and done in a most serious manner.
I'm very glad that Ed has produced this and given us another Leatrice Joy vehicle to watch. She's good at what she has to do, but it's not a pleasant thing to watch. One man's opinion.
The final reel of the film has quite a bit of nitrate deterioration. It does detract from enjoyment even more than the characters already in the film. The character played by Noble Johnson will not be seen by a black audience as anything they would enjoy watching, either. He's a deaf cook on the boat owned or run by Alan Hale. Both characters are stereotypically evil. They may as well have tied Joy to the railroad tracks and twirled long mustaches as they laughed at her fate - but there weren't any railroads in the film.
