Eyes of Youth

"Eyes of Youth" is an enjoyable but heavy-handed silent film starring Clara Kimball Young. In its time, it probably played a lot better than it does today for a variety of reasons. Still, it's well worth seeing.

The film begins with a silly message that seems to say that folks from 'the East' are somehow purer of heart and spirit than westerners and therefore have odd insights and powers. An example of this is what follows when one of these 'easterners' wanders into the path of some rich folks. When he begs for food, several of them rebuff his requests but Gina is tender-hearted and helps the man. In exchange for her kindness, he uses his magic powers to show her her possible futures to that she can make her best life choices. He shows her the results of four different choices and the story seems to illustrate that sometime the best choice is NOT the most seemingly selfless one.

For 1919, the story is quite good. The acting is more subtle than you'd often see and the only serious problem is the heavy-handed story about the folks of the east. Also, the story is a bit old fashioned when seen today. However, I've seen a lot of films of this era and "Eyes of Youth" is better than average and quite interesting when seen today.