A Frank Borzage production from 'Three Episodes in the Life of Timothy Osborn' by Tristram Tupper.
The third and final Janet Gaynor-Charles Farrell pairing (though the couple would appear in several other films together). I think he was great. Observe here the energy he puts into the (first) scene where he's trying to make his legs work with crutches. Whilst he made plenty of talkies, his career wound down in the thirties, when he established the Palm Springs Racquet Club with Ralph Bellamy! He's my favourite new discovery.
This is real sweet. Farrell loses the power of his legs in WW1. Develops relationship with poor farm girl Gaynor and teaches and refines her. And, of course, they fall in love. But her horrible mother (Hedwiga Reicher) wants her to have nothing to do with the 'cripple', preferring her to marry ex soldier Guinn Williams, who's in fact a fraud. And we've already seen he's a lowlife from his behaviour in the war (to local women and to his own men).
In a somewhat incredible third act, struggling through the snow, Farrell remarkably gains his lower limb motion and catches her just before the wedding. Hurrah! 'Why don't your legs work?' she had enquired earlier. 'I'm saving them for a special occasion.' In the end, where she sees him standing upright and without aid, she sinks to her knees grabbing him around the legs and asks 'Is this the special occasion?' SWEET!
Great Borzagy moments - he washing her hair; then suggesting she washes the rest of her! The two looking at each other through the window which she has broken. The breakfast which has to take place with her sitting outside the door.
Absolutely beautifully photographed by Chester Lyons (also Bad Girl and Mad Love) and William Cooper Smith, and designed by Harry Oliver.
Like all these other silent Borzage pictures a William Fox film. He lost his fortune in the Wall Street Crash followed by losing control of the company the next year; Fox merged with Twentieth Century in 1935. I'm amazed to find good copies of these great old movies on YouTube!
The second half as shot with sound but I guess there was a silent print made.
One thing - no idea why it's called 'Lucky Star'.
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