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Have any of you seen the 1927 silent film 7th Heaven from director Frank Borzage? When I did my first Gratuitous Charles Farrell post back in 2013 I mentioned it - I hadn't seen Charlie in anything yet at that point but I sure wanted to. Well I finally saw 7th Heaven this past weekend in a Charlie Double Feature (I told you about the series MoMA's running previously) and man it is a terrific one.
It was his first movie alongside Janet Gaynor, who he made a ton of movies with over the next decade or so and you can see why they became the It Couple of their day (even though they were married to other people) - they've got chemistry out the wazoo. I can't stop thinking about this undressing and re-dressing sequence - it's so freaking charming. You can see all the romantic comedies to come packaged up right here in infant form.
You can see some especially charming gifs from the other Charles Farrell movie I watched this past weekend, a 1929 musical called Sunnyside Up, over here on the Tumblr - unlike the strapping sewage worker Charlie played in 7th Heaven he was a rich-boy fancy-pants in Sunnyside and totally convincing as that type too. I don't know why his name isn't remembered better than it is. PS It's not as fine a copy as what I saw (MoMA restored it so here's to hoping for a good release) but you can watch all of 7th Heaven on YouTube:
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2 comments:
Seventh Heaven is very swoony and romantic, next year's Street Angel is a good one as well from the pair (it's another along with the first film and Sunrise that she was awarded her Oscar for).
There was an absolutely ghastly remake of Seventh Heaven in the 30's with James Stewart(!?) playing Farrell's role. I love Jimmy Stewart but he was hopelessly miscast as a French sewer worker especially cast beside the actually French Simone Simon.
I've yet to see Sunnyside Up but I'll make a point of it now.
There is an ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR big musical number involving melting igloos and writhing girls and inflating bananas in Sunnyside Up that is not to be missed! It's a lot of fun.
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