Dream Street (1921)
** (out of 4)
Typical love triangle has brothers (Charles Emmett Mack, Ralph Graves) falling in love with the same woman, Gypsy Fair (Carol Dempster) and soon their loving relationship starts to fall apart. Things take an even more dangerous turn when the evil Swan Way (Edward Peil Sr.) takes an interest in Gypsy. You can't help but watch this film and have BROKEN BLOSSOMS in the back of your mind since the stories from both films came from the same book. When this film was originally released it got mixed reviews with some calling it quite poor but others, like the Nation Board of Review, calling it one of the ten best films of the year. I'm going to have to fall on the negative side. I should mention that the film originally played with a sound introduction by Griffith as well as two other sound sequences but my copy didn't have any of this but I'm not sure how much that would have added to the film. With that said, the biggest problem is without question the acting which is pretty horrid. Most people hate Dempster with a passion but I think given the right role she could do nice work (see Griffith's THE SORROWS OF Satan) but this isn't that right role. She's all over the map here because at times she underplays scenes and then other times she's way too over the top. I also can't help but feel Griffith made her watch Gish's performance in that 1919 film and there's even a sequence here where the evil Chinese lord throws her into a closet and we get that "fear" sequence, which comes off incredibly bad even when you don't compare it to the masterful sequence by Gish. Mack doesn't fair any better as he too seems to be all over the place as is Graves. Tyrone Power, Sr. has a nice little part and Porter Strong, Griffith's blackface expert, has his typical comic relief part. Griffth's direction handles everything quite well but there's just no getting over the fact that the performances aren't very good and we're also missing G.W. Bitzer and this certainly takes away from the look of the film. Griffith fans will certainly want to check this one out just to complete their viewing pleasure but everyone else would be best to stay away.
