User reviews

...because basically he gives the only three-dimensional performance in the film as his fellow players appear as cardboard cut-outs when compared to him. However, since this was released very early in talking picture history in the spring of 1929, I can overlook that. In fact, because this is one of the first all talking pictures Fox made it makes Muni's performance all the more remarkable and his colleagues' performances all the more forgivable.

This is a very simple short little film with little back story given. The film opens with a man (Paul Muni) having just shot another man in the heart of the big city, leaving the scene of the crime, and turning himself in for murder at the local police precinct. When asked his name, he picks one off of a nearby calendar - James Dyke. When he's asked why he committed the murder he simply says that the man deserved to die for what he did and he's not sorry, but he also realizes he himself has to pay for what he did and he is ready to accept the consequences. The papers pick up the story of this mystery man, soon to be executed for murder. Out in rural Ohio, an old sick woman sees pictures and stories of this man, whom nobody has been able to identify and is unwilling to identify himself, and wonders if it isn't her son who has left home 15 years before and from whom she has received no word in all this time. Worried sick this is her son, her daughter and her daughter's fiancé make the trip cross-country to visit the condemned man and find out if he is the long lost man - Joe Douglas.

The best scene is the last scene, where Dyke meets Mary Douglas (Marguerite Churchill) in the warden's office and has time with her alone where she is sure she can determine if this man is her brother. This is where you realize where the title comes from and who it is that is being valiant here and why. I'd recommend this one primarily for those interested in the transition to sound, plus it's a pretty good example of the kind of material Fox Films specialized in at least up until 1940 or so, that being entertainment for rural audiences in which it was common for their films to warn people of being tempted by the big city versus valuing the simple charm of hearth, home, and farm.

I saw this film originally in 2005 after making a special appointment at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. (It has shown a few times on TCM, I believe.) THE VALIANT is an excellent showcase for Paul Muni's performance as an anonymous man sentenced to death for a murder he refuses to discuss. His scenes become exemplars of powerful understatement, particularly in his penultimate scene with Mauguerite Churchill's character, who comes to Muni's prison (probably New York's Sing Sing) to find out if he is her long-lost brother. The resulting emotional scene moved my partner to tears, and she is not an easily moved person! I first became attracted to Muni's acting when I watched his powerful performance in I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932) as a child. His performance in THE VALIANT earned Muni his first Academy Award nomination. I've seen the other extant nominations, and they are substandard at best (Chester Morris in ALIBI, George Bancroft in THUNDERBOLT, and especially the winner, Warner Baxter in IN OLD ARIZONA.) The film suffers a bit from the limitations associated with the early sound era, particularly from the somewhat wooden supporting performances by Churchill and the future cowboy star John Mack Brown. But the writing and direction by William Howard are still powerful enough to help support Muni's outstanding performance.

This 60-minute film earned two Oscar noms: best actor for Paul Muni (in his film debut), and and writing nom.

A rather intriguing narrative setup has Muni turning himself in for murder, giving a false name, and refusing to give any information about the murder or offer an defense. Back in Ohio, a family reads the story and wonders if the killer is the long-lost brother. The younger sister heads to New York to see if she can discover his identity.

After a few implausible turns of events, the two meet, but the young woman (Marguerite Churchill) goes back home, convinced the killer is not her brother and that he may still be alive and well somewhere in the world.

Johnny Mack Brown plays the boy friend, Edith Yorke is the old mother, Henry Kolker is the judge, and DeWitt Jennings is the warden. This film was released right after Brown's talkie debut in Coquette with Mary Pickford. He has little to do here. As for Muni (never a favorite of mine) he gives a very subtle and subdued performance. He lost the Oscar to Warner Baxter for In Old Arizona.

Paul Muni's (1895>1967) initial role in film earned him a Academy Award nomination for 'Best Actor' in a understated performance. He plays his role without the 'bravura' or 'historonics' that would mark most of his later roles the rest of his career. Just for that, THE VALIANT (1929) is worth watching.

Muni plays 'James Dyke' a alias to protect his Family back in Ohio. He is a self-confessed murderer who killed a Man for a undisclosed discretion with his only explanation 'he deserved it and God will understand'. Later suspected as a long lost Son he concocts a story to put his Family at ease which his Sister (first) and Mother buys. He is their Son's Friend who witnessed him get killed during the GREAT WAR (WWI) by a direct hit from a artillery shell, a '5.9'. For the historically interested that would be a German 15 Centimeter.

Running only 66" it will not tax the modern viewer. Like most early 'talky' films it is relatively static. Even though it is made at the FOX STUDIOS who used the advanced 'sound on film' technology from Western Electric. Marguerite Churchill (1910>2000) best know for Dracula's DAUGHTER (1936) and JOHNNY MACK BROWN (1904>1974) 'B' Westerns are also here for the ride. It is Muni though that will hold your interest. Recently restored, it is a fine illustration of the early sound Cinema.

Of what interest "The Valiant' may be of today is probably mostly due to its receiving a couple of nominations from the second Academy Awards (Paul Muni for Best Actor along with one for Writing) and for those interested in surveying Hollywood's transition to talkies or Muni's career, with this being his first picture in an oeuvre that would include six Oscar nominations and one win. Three years later, he would star in two of his best roles, "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and "Scarface" (both 1932). Here, thankfully, he's relatively restrained, although the line readings for most of the cast tend to be very stilted, which isn't helped by the creaky and primitive sound-recording technology. Being based on a one-act play, however, "The Valiant" is an interesting adaptation that "opens up" the play to about-an-hour-long feature-length film, while commendably leaving much of its story unexplained, or open. Looking beyond its primitive deficiencies, it's even a subtly powerful picture in its treatment of war.

Technically, "The Valiant" is superior to some other talkies from this period; although, silent cinema was at an artistic peak and remains better than these early sound pictures. The first scene makes good use of off-screen action as indicated by sound (a gun shot) and shadows. There are also a few crane and dolly shots throughout the picture. A hold-over from the silent era, the film is divided by five title cards that set-up the proceeding acts. The lack of a musical score is probably beneficial here, as it would surely be overly mawkish otherwise; what music there is consists of three diegetic musical scenes: a Jazz band in prison and a dance party and piano playing in the country house. I've seen quite a few films from 1929, and it seems that even the "silent" ones included such diegetic musical scenes. At least two other 1929 prison pictures, "Thunderbolt" and "Weary River," also include the playing of musical instruments. Evidently, it was a popular notion for exploiting the new synchronized film-sound recordings. Fortunately, the dialogue is clear, too, and the picture, overall, is relatively restrained. Even the hokey superimposed flashbacks and thoughts of the mother are forgivable compared to the over-the-top melodramatics of some other contemporary films, and they play well into the film's implications about war and the perceptions of it.

The narrative has a John Doe (he uses the false name "James Dyke") sentenced to be executed for murder after he turns himself into the police. But, he refuses to admit his true identity and, eventually, invents a story of himself dying in WWI. He also writes articles for the newspaper "warning the youth on the folly of crime." From the press coverage he receives, his mother and sister suspect that he's their long-lost Joe, with his sister traveling to meet him setting up the scene from the one-act stage version. Although rather creepy, their past of quoting "Romeo and Juliet" to each other is central to his identification.

There's the clichéd theme of the corrupting city contrasted with the idyllic country, with James/Joe killing a man in the city, while his mother oversees the wholesome coupling of her daughter, Mary, with an upstanding young man named Bob (who's so dull he spends the entire picture staring at Mary like one of her dogs waiting for attention). More interesting is the past of the Great War. The protagonist hasn't seen his family since it; at one point, he openly wishes he'd died a soldier. "The Valiant" doesn't answer every question raised in the plot. We never discover why he abandoned his family, the reason he murdered a man, or what his true involvement in the war was. It's as though the war did take away his life.

Directed by William K. Brown. Starring Paul Muni, Marguerite Churchill, DeWitt Jennings, John Mack Brown, Edith Yorke, Clifford Dempsey, Richard Carlyle.

After killing a man who "deserved to die," Muni turns himself in to authorities under a false identity to protect his family; when Churchill sees his picture in the paper and believes it to be the brother she hasn't seen in years, she travels to the prison to meet him before his execution. Simple, unfussy drama, clocking in at just over an hour, has moments of quiet power emerging from the often stiff, static presentation. In his screen debut, Muni establishes an intuitive, naturalistic acting style, avoiding nearly all the industry-wide creaky performance tricks that severely date most early talkies (Brown, on the other hand, inspires giggles just about every time he opens his mouth). Even at its short length, signs of padding when Muni is offscreen are apparent, while other aspects would have benefited from deeper development; sentimentality during the final reel is earned.

61/100

The organ music announcing the credits fades, the sound tracks buzzes and hums, and the camera focuses on a door at the end of a bleak hallway. A shot rings out, and Paul Muni stumbles out holding a gun. He says not a word, as he stumbles down a noisy street, tries to get the attention of a cop. While everyone around him chatters on (in the aimless way sometimes one finds in the early talkie), and life goes on, Muni is a man apart, in his own silent world, his motives a mystery, his identity a mystery, but his guilt written all over him. Muni, through the operation of the rather simple and simplistic plot, will prove himself one of THE VALIANT, but will remain almost a total mystery as he goes willingly to the electric chair.

This is a movie with a dynamite opening sequence -- which takes superb advantage of the primitive state of movie-making technology circa 1929 -- that, alas, does not live up to the opening. Paul Muni is good enough to deserve his Oscar nomination (and a heck of a lot better than the guy that got the Oscar that year -- Warner Baxter), but everyone else is wedded to the over-enunciated acting of 1929. And, as is the case with so much of the 1929 product, the pace is so verrrry slow, with the overlong scenes that suggest a filmed play. Any scene that does not feature Muni is downright terrible. He is the one that makes the movie work.

So, this is a movie you might want to see, but you might want to give up on halfway through. It is exceptionally brave plotting though, that while we do sort of settle the mystery of who Paul Muni is, we never quite find out why he did what he did, or even if the story he tells at the end has some element of truth. It's a pity this play does not seem to have been remade, when talkie acting styles had improved.

The coming of sound to the cinema not only brought a host of stage trained actors but there was a crash demand for new material with dialog, the better to exhibit the new medium. The Valiant is a prime case in point. It was a flop play on Broadway written by Robert Middlemass, not only closing after one performance in its debut, but it was revived and again closed after a single performance. But now such work was being snapped up by Hollywood.

Speaking of stage trained actors, Paul Muni who learned his craft in the Yiddish theater made his Hollywood debut here and was given an Oscar nomination for what I would have to say was a most restrained performance given the fact that a lot of players were still using silent histrionics to create their characters. Muni was most restrained as a world weary man who kills someone and then just walks into a police station and confesses. Suicide by electric chair. He even gives an obviously fake name and awaits his execution.

But his story makes Marguerite Churchill think that he might just be her long lost brother. So most of the last part of the film is between Muni and her as both reach a strange accommodation.

Though Muni got the first of his Best Actor nominations for The Valiant I have to say that Churchill matched him every step of the way in their scenes. Pity she wasn't similarly recognized. Muni lost that year to Warner Baxter playing the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona.

I doubt The Valiant will be given another remake (it did have one with Lloyd Nolan in the Forties). It's why too old fashioned a story. Still it's a curiosity and a good debut for an acting legend.

In Paul Muni's first movie, he came out of nowhere-aka the stage-and earned an Oscar nomination and instant success. So, if you're a Paul Muni fan, you're going to want to rent The Valiant. Prepare yourself beforehand and remind yourself that it was made in 1929. This movie is so similar to silent pictures, it could have easily been one! Everything, from the title cards to the sparse dialog, acting styles, and frame composition, looks like a silent movie. There's even a shot of Edith Yorke sitting in her rocking chair with a dog curled up on the floor reminiscent of how silent films introduced characters to the screen.

The film is very short, and the story is very simple. A man commits murder, turns himself in, and refuses to give his real name. He doesn't want his family sullied by his crime. Back at home, his saintly mother and sister worry that the unknown criminal might be the young man who left home years earlier. It's not really fair to judge this film so harshly, since many of that time period don't stand the test of time, but this isn't an exceptional movie. The story itself is good, and when Paul is given his big scene in the end, there were probably lots of 1929 audience members who teared up. By today's standards, we've seen much sadder films with much nobler characters. As a screen actor, Paul is extremely green, but fans of his won't really mind.

If ever you ever wanted a definition of melodrama then this is it but don't let that put you off - it's is also a unexpectedly intelligent, grown-up and by 1929 standards, a well-made little film. A man kills another man - we don't know why, we don't know who the killer is, we don't know whom he killed. He's sentenced to death - is he resigned to his fate, does he want to die, is he planning an escape? By not giving anything at all away your curiosity is instantly engaged. It's such a clever little device - and one you wouldn't expect from a 1929 Fox Film.

In 1929 a handful of directors hit the ground running when it came to switching from silents to talkies. Most however, as was amusingly shown in the Margot Robbie film BABYLON hadn't a clue resulting in so much unwatchable awfulness. Although William Howard wasn't one of those up there with the likes of De Mille, von Sternberg, Mamoulian or even Roland West, he wasn't one the worst either. There's nothing wrong with this at all it simply doesn't have the 'wow factor' some of his contemporaries managed to achieve. He clearly knew how to make a silent film and especially his 'film parts' as opposed to the main 'stage play part' at the end (this picture is an expanded version of a very popular one-act play) are excellent. His skill is shown in the first scenes where he perfectly captures an authentic feel of pre-depression America as Muni traipses down some tatty street past tatty kids born a hundred years ago playing out their ordinary lives. He gives us a real time-machine moment.

The acting is also miles better than a lot of the very early talkies but it's still far from natural.... except for Paul Muni. His portrayal of detachment, hopelessness and quiet resignation is outstanding. Although this gets crazily melodramatic, Muni's stoic performance is both intriguing and really rather moving. He easily makes up for the shortcomings of his fellow actors....apart from Johnny Mack Brown who cannot be forgiven on any grounds. Fortunately he's not in this too much. You almost feel embarrassed for him. Whereas MGM and Paramount targeted those who considered themselves sophisticated, Fox's audience were more blue collar. Presumably Mr Brown was picked to appeal to Fox Film's rural audience in middle America but I'd imagine even the humblest of farm hands back then must have found that patronising.

I know people looked older in the past but Edith York, playing the mother looks about two hundred years old. She must have given birth to her daughter when she was about 90 which can only be explained by her daughter Mary being some sort of miracle you read about in The Bible. That's actually feasible and confirmed when you look at Marguerite Churchill because if you had to imagine what an angel looked like, you'd imagine her. She's almost too pretty to be real! You can easily forgive her slightly uneasy performance doing something completely new to her simply because she's so pretty but even so she's not just a (very) pretty face - she really can act - her emotional longing, purity and positiveness actually blends really well with Paul Muni's mysterious self-sacrificing moodiness.

"The Valiant" is one of those movies from that brief silents to sound transition period that is virtually impossible to enjoy for any of the things we usually watch movies for. You have to have both a curiosity about and knowledge of the history of film technology to make it through a movie like this, and even then it can be a real slog. Take Paul Muni for example, one of the best actors of the 1930s. A mere three years after making his film debut in "The Valiant," he would deliver one of the best performances of the decade in "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang," but the actor who would go on to give that performance is nowhere to be found here. Why? Because sound technology was so new and clunky that actors weren't allowed to move. Muni clearly has no idea what to do with himself and apparently wasn't given much direction, because he spends the entire movie standing stock still and delivering every line as if he's seconds away from being comatose. He looks terrified to even move his head from side to side.

"The Valiant" is a terrible bore and again only of real interest if you're a film buff (like me) who's fascinated by these transition movies.

1928-29, no doubt because of all this transition business, offered up perhaps the worst collective batch of Academy Award nominees in the institution's history. It was also maybe one of the weirdest years for the Academy. "The Valiant" snagged nominations for Best Actor and for Best Writing (Tom Barry), but technically there weren't nominees that year. A combination of historical records and insider knowledge now clues us in on what films were under serious consideration in each category, but no one was nominated in advance and just a winner in each category was announced at the actual Oscar ceremony.

Grade: C-

The Valiant (1929)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is a rather bizarre film that has been forgotten over the years but it does have some historical importance to it as it earned Paul Muni his first Best Actor Oscar nomination. As the film starts off we witness him killing a man and then turning himself into the police. He refuses to give his real name, defend himself or explain anything so he is sentenced to die. On a farm in Ohio, a mother sees his picture in the paper and believes that he is her son that went missing over a decade earlier so she sends her daughter (Marguerite Churchill) to see. THE VALIANT really isn't a good movie but there are some interesting things going on in it that makes it worth viewing for film buffs. The biggest reason are for the performances, which are all fairly good. This includes Muni who looks so incredibly young here. It's rather fun to see him in a performance like this because it's so different from what we'd see later in his life and especially in stuff like SCARFACE. What really caught me off guard was how laid back Muni was in the part and the restraint he showed by not going over-the-top or reaching for some sort of melodrama. Churchill is also very good in her role as the possible sister. DeWitt Jennings does a nice job as the warden of the prison and we even have Johnny Mack Brown playing the sister's fiancé. On a technical level the film is also rather impressive and especially the audio, which is among the best I've ever heard from an early talkie. The cinematography is also quite impressive for the time and especially some tracking shots that are seen early on. With that being said, the story itself really isn't a very strong one and you can't help but grow somewhat frustrated that there's not a better pay off to the story. There are also a few scenes that come off way too stagey and this here takes the film down a few notches. With that said, fans of Muni or early sound films will want to check this out and at 61-minutes the thing never gets boring.

THE VALIANT (Fox Films, 1929), directed by William K. Howard, marked the movie debut of stage actor, Paul Muni. While many might claim his movie career began with either 1932 successes of SCARFACE (United Artists) and I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (Warner Brothers), this is actually where the legend of Paul Muni began. Long before assuming many faces for biographical roles of Louis Pasteur, Emile Zola and Benito Juarez, he assumed his actual face as his movie introduction. Adapted from the stage play by Holworthy Hall, Muni's first screen performance was to be a man behind bars, yet, a screen test before doing one better in the Chain Gang movie three years later that has made his name better known throughout the years.

A full-fledged talkie, the opening credits features an organ underscore that would make one believe this to be either a silent or part- talking production. After its cast introduction and opening title card reading, "A city street - where laughter and tragedy rob elbows," it becomes apparent this to be a full-length talkie while hearing noises of cars and children playing on the streets in the tenement area of 191 East 8th Street in New York City. Then suddenly, a gun shot is heard. A shadow of a man (Paul Muni) comes out, and later enters a police station to confess his crime. He tells the desk officer that he's not sorry for what he did and that the man he killed, John Harris, deserved to die. Unable to remember his own name, the killer identifies himself as James Dyke. Taken to trial for murder, the jury finds him guilty and the judge (Henry Kolker) gives him the death sentence. While in prison, Mrs. Douglas (Edith Yorke), an elderly woman from Pennington, Ohio, reads an article about this man. After seeing his photograph, she believes him to be her son she hasn't seen since he enlisted in the war some in 15 years ago. Wanting to meet with this prisoner before his execution, her daughter, Mary (Marguerite Churchhill), finding her mother unable to take an extensive trip, agrees to take the train ride over to the prison to visit with the mystery man who might or might not be her older brother. Accompanied by her fiancé, Robert Ward (John Mack Brown), Mary visits with the prisoner at great length, only to learn more than she realized. Others in the cast include Richard Carlyle (The Prison Chaplain); and DeWitt Jennings (The Warden).

While THE VALIANT starts off with the impression of a 1932 melodrama than 1929 early talkie, it reveals its stage origins most during its 17 minute long one-on-one talk between Muni and Churchill, a scene that's a sure mix of interest or boredom, especially without any mood music. As much as Muni gives a satisfying performance, as always, Churchill seems a bit wooden through her acting methods in certain areas of the plot. It can be forgiven since this, too, was her movie debut, and possibly she was a little uneasy working in front of the movie camera and microphone. Muni did well enough, however, to earn an Academy Award as Best Actor, leading the Fox Studio to reunite Muni and Churchill once more in the now lost and forgotten, SEVEN FACES (1929). SEVEN FACES would be an interesting find watching Muni assuming seven different characters in one movie.

For THE VALIANT, Muni plays a man of mystery. Surprisingly short at 60 minutes, the story leaves some questions unanswered: "Why did he murder that man and what he did do to deserve being killed?" "Who is the man who doesn't know his own name?" along with few others that remain unclear to the viewer. THE VALIANT was remade by 20th Century-Fox (1940) as THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T TALK starring Lloyd Nolan, another good but underrated actor like Muni, yet, it would be interesting comparing these two now forgotten movies to determine which one gives a better screen presentation.

Still very much unknown and forgotten, its only known cable television broadcast happens to be from Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: December 14, 2011) as part of its tribute to films from the George Eastman Collection. Paul Muni's performance alone makes THE VALIANT worth viewing today, for that "Valiant is the Word for Muni." (***)

Muni's debut.

A big of overacting.

The main reason to see "The Valiant" is because it's Paul Muni's first movie role. He's pretty good in the story and earned an Oscar nomination for this film, though I was surprised that they made a movie out of a play that closed after the opening night!

When the story begins, a guy (Muni) shoots and kills someone...and then turns himself in to the police. He freely admits he killed the guy and said the victim deserved it...but he also steadfastly refuses to tell anyone his real identity. Later, the woman who is possibly his sister comes to the prison to see him.

In addition to Muni's Oscar nomination, the film also received a nomination for Writing. This is interesting because when seen today, the film is awfully schmaltzy...too much so. Plus the ending really didn't make a ton of sense, as no woman could be THIS clueless. But back in 1929, this sort of thing was more acceptable. Additionally, some of the acting is pretty over the top...not Muni...but a couple others.

So should you watch it? Well, if you are an old movie fan or Muni fan, by all means. Otherwise, it's skippable.

Time and time again I write similar reviews for films that came out in 1929 but this time the plot just sucks and the storyline. Dont get me wrong I love paul muini in scarface and I was a fugitive of chain gang but this film aint it. How could the other characters be so dumbfounded that they actually believed paul muinis character. It just doesn't make too much sense to me. Jhonny Mack Brown is in this and he does a good job playing Marguerites chuchills girlfriend or "sweetheart" (as they called them back in the day). But aslas Jhonny mack brown would star in many B westerns in the 30s and 40s.

Does anyone else see hints of Neo-realism (Italy, 1940s and 50s) in the early parts of this (NYC street scenes)? And this was 1929. The Eastman House beautiful print (available on YouTube for free) shows a lot of the street scenes in such clarity that makes it easy to compare it to the decades later Italian movies. I wonder how much of the street scenes are documentary.

There is also quite a bit of noir-ish light and shadows (for example, the guard's changing room at the prison).

Personally, I'm not too impressed with the hammy acting of Muni. But the writing does contain some unpredictable twists.