The Conquering Power

As the immediate follow-up to his anti-war saga FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, Rex Ingram presented this rendition of Balzac's EUGENIE GRANDET. The story is nominally updated to the flapper era, but most of it takes place in a provincial town where everyone wears 19th century costumes anyway. As in the earlier film, Rudolph Valentino is a playboy [ with a poodle] who must prove himself, but he appears to somewhat less advantage here. Once again, Alice Terry sensitively plays his designated love object, but in a more traditional ingenue role. Ingram does not always stage scenes effectively, but his films are distinguished by appealingly natural acting: even the obsession of old miser Grandet is never overplayed. In fact, the most striking scene shows the old man hallucinating personifications of his beloved gold, a sequence which may have influenced Ingram's friend and colleague Erich von Stroheim when he filmed GREED. Ingram's celebrated visual talent and John Seitz's cinematography are hard to judge in the dim, unrestored print available. This film lacks the spectacle of FOUR HORSEMEN, but still manages to suggest Balzac's sweep in portraying the complexity of human relations. The "conquering power," according to an introductory title, is Love.

This movie from one of the masters of silent cinema Rex Ingram is a melodrama without its excess. Certain scenes show you the power of silent cinema over sound such as the hallucinatory sequence showing a man's dependency and folly on wealth. Valentino is solid as the rich playboy who loses everything and is forced to live with his miserly Uncle who intends to cheat him out of his inheritance and Terry is solid too as the Miser's daughter who falls in love with Val and learns humility and virtue along the way. The story like all epic sagas spans many years. Here is where I'll knock the movie. It is obvious the movie is truncated from the book and a lot of detail is left out. If made today, it would obviously be almost three hours long. I don't know if it would make a better movie but it would be more detailed. Ingram though turns the movie into a study of greed and love as polar opposites in the avail of human survival and in that aspect, the movie scores. Just to add, the movie opens with an inter-title telling the audience that since polling (they had NRG in the twenties too) showed that audiences did not like costume pictures, the movie had been moved to a modern setting. Funny for in a few years the costume picture would dominate the industry and oscillate but never die ever since.

Rex Ingram was one of the best "silent" directors, and he proves his skill yet again in this powerful, and often frightening film about love and greed. Evidently a strong influence on Von Stroheim's "Greed", "The Conquering Power" is about the love affair between cousins Valentino and Terry, and the actions of Terry's miserly father to prevent the affair. Ralph Lewis gives a commanding performance as the father, and the scene in which he is locked in a room with the ghosts of the people his greed destroyed, and even the ghost of gold itself, is utterly terrifying. Valentino convincingly moves from dandy to enlightened youth, and Terry is sublime as the suffering daughter. And through it all is Ingram's uncanny ability to catch the beauty in a face, the stream of light into a room, the thrill or the terror of a touch! Silent film-making at its very best.

Playboy Charles Grandet (Rudolph Valentino) is sent to live with his uncle Pere Grandet (Ralph Lewis) when his father becomes ill. His father dies leaving Charles penniless. Charles falls in love with his niece, Eugenie (Alice Terry). Pere refuses to let them fall in love and get married and will do anything to stop it...

Very good silent movie that is virtually unknown--I couldn't find it in any movie books! Valentino and Terry are just both just gorgeous looking and make a very appealing couple. Lewis is also very good as the cruel uncle. Rex Ingram was one of the best directors of the silent era and this shows why. It's beautifully done--the movie flows smoothly and (for a silent film) moves rather quickly. The sequence in which Pere starts going mad at the end is extremely well done (and actually quite scary). A very good film--well worth seeing.

Sadly the only print available (shown on TCM) is in poor shape. The print is VERY grainy with scratches making some scenes hard to watch. Still, if you can overlook this (I was) you can enjoy the film. But it needs a major restoration job. How about it TCM?

Conquering Power, The (1921)

*** (out of 4)

The impressive silent film starts off with one of the strangest titles cards I've ever read. The film, obviously meant to be played at least a hundred years before 1921, has a title card that tells us current movie goers don't care for costume dramas so they've updated the story to 1921 times. In the film, Rudolph Valentino plays a playboy who has everything he wants in life but his father comes home, obviously upset, and asks him to go stay with his uncle (Ralph Lewis) for a little while. When the playboy reaches his uncle's home he learns that his father has killed himself but his cousin (Alice Terry) is there to comfort him and soon the two fall in love. The problems are just starting because her father is an evil man that only cares about money and will stop at nothing to keep them apart even if one must die. This film is probably best remembered for having a big influence on Greed and that isn't the only reason people should seek this film out. Ingram does a great job in the direction even though the material isn't the strongest that it could have been. I think a little stronger screenplay would have helped the film but there's no doubt that this film contains one of the most memorable scenes in silent history. I wasn't overly thrilled with Terry who I feel somewhat weights the film down with her mediocre performance but Valentino comes off quite strong. The scene stealer is certainly Lewis who turns in a great performance as the wicked father. The evilness of his character certainly jumps off the screen and Lewis does a great job at playing it. The highlight of the film comes towards the end when Lewis is trapped in a room where ghosts of the people his greed as destroyed or killed come to haunt him. The way this scene is shot, with light coming in through a hole in the roof, is extremely well done but it also has a very creepy and eerie tone throughout. This certainly isn't a horror film but this sequence is among the greatest I've seen in any of the silent horrors I've watched.