City Girl

Excellent actors, good music, NO STUPID DIALOGUE and a story I was really interested in. The supporting actors had personality, the bad guy was realistic, for a long time the first movie I really had to see all the way to know the ending (happy end? No? Yes? No?). Perhaps a bit too much "Pathos" in the end, but I didn´t care...

True, it isn't "Sunrise" (what is?) and it isn't even the complete silent version as Murnau envisioned it, but it's still a beautifully expressive film from one of the great masters. What's more, it's the only film I've ever seen which pinpoints a pivotal moment in American history (it seems to be set before the Crash). One thing that precipitated the Great Depression was the squeeze on farmers, who had no profit margin at all, and whose only recourse was to plant more and more, unwittingly worsening their own situation. One of the conflicts is that Charles Farrell is sent to the city to sell the wheat crop at the most advantageous price (and this is a desperate necessity), and not only fails to do so but comes home with a (perhaps unsuitable) new wife. The family patriarch has planted the farm in wheat right up to the front door, and even reprimands his little girl for picking a stalk of it to play with. They are drowning in a product everybody needs but which barely supports them, and on which they are completely dependent. The contrast between an agricultural America far from idyllic and a motorized city whose drudgery for most is at least as bad is redeemed by the awakening of human feelings and re-ordered priorities. Nothing will save these people but love and family.

Murnau's third American film after Sunrise and the lost Four Devils, and his penultimate before Tabu. City Girl, of the surviving three, is the least seen. The reason for this must be its close resemblance to Sunrise, which is a masterpiece of the first order. Yes, City Girl does remind one of Sunrise in its mood and focus. A young rube from Minnesota (Charles Farrell) travels to Chicago to sell his father's wheat crop. Business-wise, the trip doesn't go well, but his romantic world blossoms when he meets up with a lonely waitress (Mary Duncan). The two marry, and the rest of the film deals with Duncan's fight for acceptance on the farm, where she faces a fierce opponent in her father-in-law (David Torrence). The film is romantic, emotionally moving and utterly beautiful. Yes, it is a lot like Sunrise, but, heck, who wouldn't want a second Sunrise? It's hardly a carbon copy, anyway, so it's like another wonderful gift. City Girl is a masterpiece, as well. I'm not the biggest fan of Murnau's German films, but his three surviving American films are probably the best proof of the sentiment that the silent cinema was at a miraculous level right when it was snuffed by sound. Murnau tragically died in an auto accident in 1931. I find it hard to imagine his work in the talkies, but I have an inkling that the cinema would be rather different if he had survived.

Not as well known as "Sunrise" but in its own way just as fine, "City Girl" is another Murnau pastoral in which "City Girl" and waitress Mary Duncan moves to the wheatfields of Minnesota as the wife of farmer Charles Farrell, (one of the greatest and least appreciated of silent movie stars), only to find his father taking against her and life down on the farm not as ideal as she thought it would be. It's a film that is said to have influenced Terrence Malick and there are images here as eloquent as any in "Days of Heaven" and its one of the few really good parts Duncan ever had. Although she lived to be ninety-eight she only made 16 films and retired in 1932.

If the plot is novelettish Murnau's handling of it is anything but. He takes melodramatic material and situations and imbues them with a realism that the American cinema never really seemed to develop for at least a decade or two, aided by the magnificent cinematography of Ernest Palmer and the wonderful performances of the leads. It also proved to be Murnau's penultimate film; he died in a car crash the following year leaving behind a body of work as fine as any in all of cinema.

I was so astonished by this movie that as soon as "The End" came up, I started watching it all over again. For one thing, the restoration of this forgotten classic was so stunning it was like watching a black and white movie made an hour ago. Each scene simply glowed with amazing grays and whites and charcoals. Mary Duncan as the 'City Gir' was absolutely enchanting. She was a sweet, young girl who was also feisty and was so believable and likable that she became someone you'd love to know. The movie's great loss is that she made only one other movie, 'Morning Glory" before leaving the screen to marry millionaire polo player. She only died recently at the age of 92 She was matched by silent screen great Charles Farrell who had t difficult role of Lem, who was also simple, sweet but manly, too. Although released in l930, this film confirms how incredibly smooth and profound silent movies had become. Director Murnau brilliantly cast and directed this amazing drama--proving to one and all what a profound loss silent movies became when they were overtaken by those noisy talkies. You should definitely check out this masterpiece and be amazed