A Romance of Happy Valley

For many years, this film was among a number of D. W. Griffith films from the 1918-1919 season which were considered irretrievably lost. In the 1970s it was discovered in the Gosmofilmfund in Russia, and through some complicated negotiations was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in time for the Griffth centenary in 1975. Prints in English have the subtitles replaced, as the Russian print was subtitled in Ukrainian. The story is a simple one and personally close to Griffith's heart - a Kentucky lad, played by Robert Harron, is an inventor and hears of opportunity in New York. Although the townsfolk, his mother and father, and his sweetheart, played by Lillian Gish, all try to restrain him from leaving Happy Valley, he does so. In New York, the boy works tirelessly on his invention for eight years and resists a number of temptations. Little does he know that back home, his sweetheart is struggling with similar issues, and when the foreclosure notice comes on the family home, his father, whose opposition to the boy's departure to New York was particularly noisome, experiences a major crisis of temptation himself. The title card identifies this as a "Griffith Short Story" vehicle, and it plays like one of Griffith's Biograph shorts, only much longer. It is not one of his most technically accomplished films, and there are some uncomfortable racial characterizations, though nothing of the kind witnessed in "The Birth of a Nation." But it is a chamber movie, sort of a sketch for "True Heart Susie" and "Way Down East," rural stories told on a more ambitious scale. It contains much of Griffith's idealized vision of his childhood Kentucky, and the desperation of the father may have drawn to some extent on Griffth's own father's struggles late in life. Overall, it is a sweet, unpretentious little film which mean, and does, no harm to anyone. Not a major masterpiece, but an attractive film in a genre that was a Griffith specialty, local in orientation but universal in theme.

"A Romance of Happy Valley" is a good smaller production from D.W. Griffith. It's very similar to and somewhat lesser than his later film also of the same year, "True Heart Susie". Both pictures star Lillian Gish and Robert Harron as lovers estranged for considerable length and are coming-of-age melodramas set in America's rural South. I'm not positive, but the same sets may have been used in both films; regardless, the locations are similar looking.

As in the later film, Gish plays a naïve, long-suffering country girl who awaits Harron's return from making good in the city. The narrative here isn't as well developed as that for "True Heart Susie" and, perhaps, one can view "A Romance of Happy Valley" as a bit of a trial run for the later film. The frog toy invention Harron makes good with seems as though it must be a joke I'm not getting. And, the contrived ending reused from Griffith's short film "The Son's Return" (1909) and the Judas character were unnecessary and irrelevant to the main story. A more abrupt reunion finale without the cheap surprise gimmicks would have been preferred.

Nevertheless, I like the film for its nice photography and good scene dissection between the picturesque countryside and closer views of the characters. The beauty of Bitzer's cinematography isn't as evident in the somewhat worn out print for this film as it is in the recent Film Preservation Associates restoration of "True Heart Susie" and in some of Griffith's other more prominent releases, but since "A Romance of Happy Valley" was considered lost until a print was discovered in a Soviet archive in 1971, we should, I suppose, consider ourselves fortunate. Additionally, arguably the best part of this picture, as was often the case in her films, is Lillian Gish's performance. She really makes her character appear featherbrained in this one, with her nervous skipping and wide-eyed look. The scene where she jerks her head right and left causing her hat to flip sides each time with her while she argues her need for more fashionable clothes to her father was especially amusing. And, her scenes with Harron's coat on a scarecrow rack, as a substitute for her estranged lover, are pitiful and poignant. (EDIT: It's interesting how similar this scene is to the one in "The Artist" (2011); I wonder if that's intentionally so.)

Romance of Happy Valley, A (1918)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith film was one of four he rushed at First National. A poor boy (Robert Harron) from Kentucky goes to NYC to make a fortune while his love (Lillian Gish) waits back at home. In a lot of ways this was a semi-bio pick about Griffith's own life as he too was a poor boy from Kentucky who went to the big city to make it rich. Like the character in the movie, Griffith at the time was breaking up with Gish in favor of Carol Dempster who has a small part in this film playing a NYC girl who tries to steal the Kentucky boy. On the whole, this film is rushed together and it really doesn't work in the end even though there's a lot to admire here. The performances by Harron and Gish are very good and the cinematography by G.W. Bitzer is also good. The story drags at even 70-minutes with a far fetched ending that borrows from Griffith's earlier film The Son's Return.

Out of all the autobiographys written on Griffith and all of his movies, none come close to tuly identifying the man who was known as the Father of Filmmaking. A Romance of Happy Valley is not only Griffith's vision of what Kentucky was in his eyes, but himself. From Griffith's upbrining as a poor, farmer, his ideal as a businessman and most importanly, his relationship with women are all on display in this movie. Robert Harron portray John Logan, who is without a doubt a young D. W. Griffith. Throughout their careers, Harron anf Griffith were close. The speculation of them being gay has been debated for the last 100 years. Looking into their relationsip as Actor and Director, and what happened to both men off screen has been the subject to much speculation. It is hard to ignore how Griffith showcases Lillian Gish in his portrayal of first love and how a woman is suppose to be treated alongside business and success. A Romance of Happy Vallet is more of a bio-pic of Griffith than a love story.

Some modern viewers understandably have a hard time sitting with silent films, and among other reasons, some instances especially epitomize the notion of "simpler entertainment for a simpler time." Intertitles may directly address the audience, or speak very exactly to what is happening in or represented by a scene, at the same time that the storytelling in some cases is as lighthearted as drama can be without being labeled as "comedy." Plot or character development may be very direct and uncomplicated. That's to say nothing of depiction of old-fashioned or downright antiquated values, and of culture and lifestyles far removed from our own. I think it's safe to say that all these facets are present in 'A romance of Happy Valley' in varying proportions, right down to the core of the narrative; I love the silent era, and still there are parts of this that I watch while barely suppressing derisive laughter of disbelief. Much as fantasy or science fiction may take us to an entirely different world, old titles like this might require the most robust suspension of disbelief to engage with.

Some silent movies are among the very best movies that have ever been made; others are well done and entertaining, but decidedly quaint. Given all the elements I've described, this feature is among the latter - but even at that, more than not it's a pleasure to watch, and all the more so for devotees of early cinema who recognize how such early pictures were made. The sets, costume design, and hair and makeup work are terrific, certainly helping to ease viewers into the experience. Films in the 1910s and 20s weren't necessarily known for particular nuance in the acting, but I think everyone here rather successfully imbues welcome heart and personality into their roles, letting the tableau feel meaningfully real even as other aspects might threaten our suspension of disbelief. To that point, too, while filmmaker D. W. Griffith has an asterisk or two on his legacy, there's no disputing that he was a leading icon of the industry in its earliest days, and he again proves why here with excellent, mindful direction orchestrating every shot and scene. Moreover, between Griffith's direction and the screenplay he penned with Mary Castelman, there some nicely subtle, clever inclusions that in and of themselves add much to the feature.

Mind you, for whatever value this can claim, and neverminding its idiosyncrasies, there are specific faults I would cite that weigh against it. The emphatic religious language seems very heavy-handed even for the narrative the feature has to impart. One would be remiss not to note the tawdry, tiresome use of blackface (to which Griffith was no stranger). More substantively: Among other subjective faults I would not count the tonal shift between the approximate first and second halves; on the other hand, all those factors I initially described above don't entirely hold true as the tone shifts, and that includes how intertitles are used. There comes a point when the storytelling becomes a tad muddled, and the production struggles to elucidate the precise course of events or who characters are. That goes for too much of the second half, which has fewer intertitles, choppier sequencing, and examples of emphatically weak lighting. None of this is helped by having two actors who look alike being dressed up in ways that make them even more indistinguishable from each other. While the broad story beats are clear enough, I don't believe the movie is entirely effective in communicating the movement from A to B to C, and the result feels like Movie Magic - or worse, perhaps the undeveloped storytelling of a young child ("This happened. And then this happened. The end."). If the writing of the backend were tightened, providing a more lucid narrative, the whole would have been drastically improved.

Considered overall I believe 'A romance of Happy Valley' is roughly on par with the bulk of its contemporaries - not super remarkable, but suitably well done despite glaring issues (the blackface), ham-handedness and outmoded norms, and other matters. The uneven dispensation of its storytelling is where I have the biggest problem, but then, maybe I'm being too cynical. In any event, the fact remains that when all is said and done this is surely a piece mostly likely to appeal only to those who are already enamored with the silent era, and other audience members can probably just move on. Even then there are many other titles that indisputably earn a higher priority, but if you happen to come across this one and are willing and able to parse with distinct imperfections, then it's not a bad way to spend 76 minutes.