Ramona

"Ramona" is a women's picture all the way. There is much weeping, strife and bitterness and, of course, redemption at the end. This version is the third of four that have been brought to the screen since 1910 and is the last silent rendition. It is an oddity in that it is a romance/western, and there are very few of those.

As stated by the reviewer above, it stars Warner Baxter, and Dolores Del Rio as Ramona. The picture gets a big boost by the presence of hatchet-faced Vera Lewis as Ramona's step-mother, who steals each scene she's in with her fierce presence. By turns, the three principals suffer and reflect a great deal of sorrow. Often the mood is broken by cue cards, this being a silent picture, and so the level of grief is ramped up to bridge the presence of the cue cards. No such problem existed with the 1936 sound version. Overall I thought this silent version was more effective in conveying the feelings of the players.

This film played last week at Capitolfest in Rome,N.Y. A print was found in the Czechoslovakian Film Library and was updated and restored by the Library of Congress.