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Children of Divorce

Huh — I’m not sure I’ve seen that logo this early before? I mean, 1927…

Nice! Sounds very convenient.

Oh!!! It’s Gary Cooper! Very young and looking totally deranged.

He’d been doing stuff (uncredited) for a couple of years before this, but it looks like this was one of his first real jobs. And he’s really going for it here — he’s totally acting for the cheap seats.

But she’s the reason I got this bluray — I’ve seen virtually no Clara Bow films, and I thought it was time I fixed that.

I should have a mirror like that! Looks very practical.

I know it was just how they did things back then to make everybody pop more on screen, but the heavy lipstick and mascara on Cooper makes him look insane.

I’ve gotta get one of those armpit showers!

Yay work!

I quite like the restoration on this. It’s from Flicker Alley, a company I can’t remember buying anything from before. It’s not over restored — it’s got some scratches and retains quite a lot of grain, but the contrast looks natural instead of being too stark or too bland, which sometimes happens. But it’s been stabilised so that it doesn’t jump around, and just generally looks good. The only thing that’s slightly disturbing is that sometimes when they show a title, they show a still of the title instead of the footage, so everything grows STILL. But that’s nit-picking — it looks as good as a movie from 1927 can look.

Unfortunately, Clara Bow isn’t really in this movie a lot. She’s the villain, sort of, getting in the way of Gary Cooper’s and Esther Ralston’s happiness.

Bah humbug!

This movie is fine. It’s well made and has plot that isn’t bad — the text is very explicit about Divorce Being Bad, but the plot seems to say the opposite — but it’s not more than that. The best things about the movie are really the incredible 20s fashions and the set designs.

Children of Divorce. Frank Lloyd, Josef von Sternberg. 1927.

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