First a word about the two pseudo-categories "fans of silent film" and "the modern viewer". In so far as they exist, the two categories are not equal. Someone who appreciate silent film is also perfectly capable (and probably more capable) of appreciating later film while, evidently the reverse is not true. In other words, the former category is that of the cinematically fully literate while "the modern viewer" is simply another way of saying that someone is only cinematically semi-literate. The reflex response that a film is "too long" or "too slow" is usually a real give-away but is obviously easier to say than to admit that, by dint of bad viewing habits, one lacks the necessary powers of concentration to appreciate the film.
The twenties is the golden era of European film and the time at which it is briefly most influential on the US film. The two traditions had already developed a strongly different character, both in terms of style and content, but, in the early twenties, while in many seemingly at the height of its glory, US cinema found itself in something of a bind. One sees this very clearly if one looks at its biggest stars - Pickford, Fairbanks, Chaplin and even Valentino. They were all in a sense victims of the system they had helped to develop, typecast by the emergent star-system in roles and in films whose style was increasingly conventional and whose content was frankly puerile. And all four were acutely aware of the problem and all four sought (with equal lack of success) to try and remedy the situation.
While US cinema was to some extent blocked, European cinema was developing apace in several different directions at once and had (in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia and France) developed a mature style of film-making that the captive US stars could only admire. One esult was a sustained attempt to encourage European directors (and stars) to the US (Lubitsch invited by Pickford in 1923, Murnau in 1926.Stller, Sjöström, Christensen,Duvivier etc) For the rest of the decade, European films and European film-makers exerted an influence in the US.
The two prime features of the European tradition were "naturalism" (and "impressionism") and the various forms of non-realist cinema associated variously with "expressionism" (in Russia and Germany) or "surrealism" (in France). All these things had an important influence on film-making style - emphasis on mise en scène and context - by comparison with the conventions - back-lighting, rapid continuity editing - that dominated US cinema.
Nevertheless in the 1920s one sees a certain elements of "expressionism" in US films, particularly those associated with the actor Lon Chaney and "naturalism" begins to make an appearance in the films of the Yugoslav Paul Fejos and, most remarkably, in King Vidor's 1928 film The Crowd.
King, like Borzage, is an intermediate figure. His four major films of the period, Tola'ble David, Stella Dallas, The White Sister and Romola are all relatively melodramatic in tendency and can hardly be considered "naturalistic". Although the cinematography is often interesting it could not really be described as "expressionistic". Nonetheless King shows in these films an important European influence in the importance given to mise en scène and in the strongly "contextual" nature of the drama (this is what makes the films seem "too long" to our "modern viewer" and which makes the film appear "static" to another).
With the advent of sound, the formal realism of US film was strongly confirmed, coinciding with the dominance of the giant studios and the high point of the star system. US film style abandons any attempt at naturalism in favour of a complete concentration on what is often euphemistically described as "character" (in fact, stylistically, it involves an obliteration of context to focus on the stars, the use of "glamour" photography and a highly conventionalised form of continuity editing driven increasingly - ping-pong - by the rhythm of the dialogue).
Interestingly Vidor's The Crowd, although not a popular success, and King's Tol'able David were two of the rare "serious" films of the silent era to remain in the memory at least of the next generation of film-makers but they represented a style of film that could no longer easily be made in the US.
King is particularly interesting in having made three classic films at this period that were the subject of 1930 remakes. As regards Tol'able David, I have not seen the 1930 remake but I have never heard a good word said about it. As for The White Sister, most opinions agree that King's film is better than Fleming's 1933 remake. I also think his Stella Dallas better than the much better 1937 version by King Vidor with Barbara Stanwyck. And in each case the reason is the same. King in both his films provides a wealth of context that renders the stories believable. The later films sacrifice "context" for "character". Belle Bennett plays a part in King's version of Stella Dallas (so convincingly that she found herself often typecast as such characters in the few remaining years of her life - she died in 1932); Stanwyck does a star turn and there are all manner of inconsistencies in the role as a result.
It is not the passage of ten years that makes the 1933 remake of The White Sister seem "silly"; it is simply the inappropriate way in which the second film has been made. The New York Times said of it: "It is a beautiful production, but its scenes never seem as real as those of the old mute work." One could say the same in my view of the King Vidor Stella Dallas. And it will be found to be very often the case where a twenties film was remade in the thirties (King himself was guilty of at least two ill-advised thirties remakes - Way Down east and Seventh Heaven).
