The Song of Love

THE SONG OF LOVE stars Norma Talmadge at the height of her stardom in a heap of hokum with a lot of sand. She's a famous dancing girl in Algeria, sort of promised to Ramilka (Arthur Edmund Carewe), but she falls for another man (a limp Joseph Schildkraut) who is posing as an Arab but is really French. Ramilka is about to rally the clans and drive the Whites out of the city in the name of allah but of course Norma gets in the middle of everything and fouls up the plans. In the end, she sacrifices her great love for Schildkraut to go off with Ramilka and thereby saving his life. There are two endings and neither is very satisfying. Co-directed by Frances Marion, so this film is included in the recent women film pioneers collection. Carewe's name is misspelled as Carew in the credits and one intertitle omitted the word "do" and gave us "So with me as you will!" I know what I wanted to with it!

This is definitely the weakest of the Talmadge feature films I've seen. A major downfall is the casting of Schildrkaut as the romantic lead. He always reminds me of Michel Serrault in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, so all ideas of a romantic leading man are dissolved.