Best Screen Couple You Have Likely Never Heard Of

[dangermousie]

Some of you might know that one of my biggest fannish loves is silent movies. I don't post about them on this LJ often but I do think there are few pleasures so purely, viscerally visual as a well-made silent movie. It's a very different art form from a modern movie but it's gorgeous. Some of my favorite movies of all time (Sunrise, The Crowd, Big Parade, City Lights, Seventh Heaven) are silents.

Another thing, however, silents had that modern movies do not, is a phenomenon of "movie couples" rather equivalent to Bollywood "jodis", i.e. an actress and actor paired in a movie after movie together, becoming an established on-screen couple. Most of them were excellent. John Gilbert and Greta Garbo? sizzzzzzzle.

And my favorite of the bunch was the pairing of the tiny, fragile-looking Janet Gaynor (first winner of Best Actress Oscar, in fact) and the tall, strapping Charles Farrell. They just...were so gorgeous on screen, together, with insane chemistry. Unlike a lot of other silent movie couples who sizzled with sexual chemistry in those pre-Code days, while Gaynor and Farrell were physical, their vibe was much more of just intense and protective romantic love, somewhat of a 'pure love' concept Asian movies seem to love.

The most famous of their collaborations (and on my list of all-time favorite movies) is the super-phenomenon hit Seventh Heaven. Set in the slums of Paris pre-WWI, Farrell is a rough and gruff cleaner who works in the sewers. Gaynor is a street-walker and a horribly abused younger sister of an alcoholic. Their paths cross when Gaynor is being beaten on the street and the only one who intervenes is Farrell. Due to some circumstances, and his pity for her, they end up sharing his flat. Platonically, of course, but inevitably love blooms and then comes World War I...The interplay between them is gorgeous from the start. Such utter weakness and helplessness is completely alien to him and at first he feels only derision for someone who won't fight back. But he can't help but sneak peeks at her lying there in a heap at his feet too tired to even want to move. And being with her makes him able to slowly open up all the emotions that he never allowed himself to feel. And Gaynor is amazing, portraying someone whose soul has been almost brutalized out of her but who slowly begins to regain self-worth and courage in a supportive environment.

It is gorgeously-shot movie with social commentary, star-crossed love, war and tragedy, and a happy end. What more can you want?

This is a pretty glorious (and unspoilery) review of Seventh Heaven from Slant which basically encapsulates why I love the movie so: Review here.

Someone made a very unspoilery (it covers only the first half of the movie) SH mv:

Btw, while the quality of film in the vid is blurry, the one I have is much sharper and is gorgeously tinted. Give it a chance.



They starred in two other good movies: Street Angel (she is a wild spirit and he is an artist who falls in love with her) and Lucky Star where she is a village girl and he is a crippled WWI vet:



Awesome Slant review of LS is here.

Check them out?

Slant did a wonderful retrospective article on Frank Borzage, the director of Seventh Heaven (and a bunch of other great movies) and his films here.

Comments

[kathputli-girl.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I love silent films! I'd love to see you post about them here! 8D

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I love your icon! Clara Bow is so awesome. "It" is one of my favorite movies: it would be perfect as a Bolly flick, too!

I am going to try to post more on silents. You know how you get into a habit of posting only one thing on your lj...

[animeshon.livejournal.com]

Oooo I loved Street Angel and Seventh Heaven. We had to watch them in a film studies class once!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Lucky you! I never got to do anything so fun (but then I never ook film class either :))

[animeshon.livejournal.com]

Film Class was awesome. I really enjoyed the film screenings more than anything and saw some movies I never would have seen otherwise. Even my Japanese Film paper we watched some absolutely tragic WWII Japanese films, but they were brilliant!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see those Japanese movies!

[animeshon.livejournal.com]

Human Condition was brilliant (despite being 9 hours long!) and I loved Rhapsody in August (with Richard Gere) and Black Rain and Twenty-Four Eyes. We also watched Grave of the Fireflies which is one of my all-time favourite films.

I got to watch Yakuza films in Asian Popular Cultures which was kinda cool, not my usual movie style

[ulkis.livejournal.com]

OK, that first one sounds awesome! (Sorry for being all spammy tonight!) I'm gonna have to look on e-bay for that one. sigh. I wish TCM showed silent movies more than once every week. (Well, they do once in a while, I admit, but not enough. Thank goodness for youtube, there are so many silent films on there now.)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

They have a version up on youtube but not sure how good the quality. If you wait a week, Fox is releasing a shiny DVD set that includes that and I am sure that it will soon be on netflix or similar (quality of what you find on ebay with such an old movie may be iffy).

[ulkis.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can definitely wait a week. Thank you so much for telling me! :running off to put it on queue now:

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's part of that Borzage/Murnau set.