I don't mind well-acted sentimentality. And Jean Hersholt and Don Ameche do a beautiful job in this early Twentieth Century Fox movie, Sins of Man from 1936.
Hersholt plays Christopher Freyman, a widower with two sons. He is an Austrian church bell ringer, and he harbors hopes -- even expectation - that his son Karl (Ameche) will follow in his footsteps. Karl, however, is interested in aeronautics and wants to study engineering. Karl goes to New York City to study and work. Christopher announces that Karl is dead to him.
His younger son Gabriel is deaf. There isn't anything that can be done for him, as Christopher can't afford to take his son to a doctor in Berlin or to one in New York City.
Eventually Christopher breaks down and has communcation with Karl. Karl wants him to come to New York and to post a bond so that Gabriel can enter the country and receive treatment. Karl's firm will loan him the money.
Tragedy strikes, and Karl is killed when a plane he is piloting crashes. This leaves Christopher stranded, as World War I has now broken out. The town the Frymans lived in has been destroyed. Karl doesn't know what happened to Gabriel.
He lives by taking menial jobs like washing dishes and hangs out on the Bowery, where he has a good friend (Allen Jenkins). One day he hears a recording - the composition has bells, just like Christopher played in Austria. When the conductor arrives in New York, Christopher is desperate to meet him.
I thought this was a beautiful film. It seems that since COVID, the new films are very dark and depressing. I would have thought the stories would have been more hopeful, perhaps with some comedy, raising people's spirits. Instead, as my sister says, "People just can't pull out of it."
A little sentimentality, a little happiness can't hurt. Might even help.
