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THE ACTUAL
director. The copy shown in this country was maltreated, either by the censor or by special English editing, but it sufficed to show that in its original version Flesh and the Devil had some pretensions to be called a good film. The theme was sheer, undiluted sex, and Brown used a series of close ups to get this across with considerable effect. Notable also was his use of angles, different indeed from either the customary German or American method, and the happiness with which he settled the characters in their environment.
The work of John Ford has been uneven, but there are to his credit two good films, The Iron Horse and Three Bad Men, made in 1924 and 1926 respectively. The former purported to tell the story of the laying of the first railroad across America in the teeth of the opposition of nature and the Indians. It was the type of film that America can make well if she sets her mind to it. It ranked on the same level with the epic quality of The Covered Wagon, and combined the best elements of the western school with the more sophisticated direction of the Hollywood feature film. The Iron Horse was vast in its conception, and John Ford, despite the hindrances of a storyinterest, handled it with a high degree of talent. It was not popular in this country, where audiences have no enthusiasm for railways being thrown across trackless wastes, but as a film it was fit to rank with any in the class of recorded fact. I remember with feeling the long line of railwaymen's camps on the progressing track; the spirit and adventure of the pioneers; the clever rendering of the manoeuvres of the encircling Indians; and above all, the far-stretching landscape across which the steel track was to run. Ford's other film, Three Bad Men, was conceived in the same open-air spirit, dealing with the dramatic episodes of the gold rush in 1877. ^n many remarkable scenes the incidents of this extraordinary event were brought out with reality. The dance hall, its oddly assorted patrons, the wouldbe-rich settlers, the pastor and his ruined chapel, were pieces in a pattern that Ford blended together with clever direction. The great moment of the picture was the astounding stampede, the mad, on-rushing race of the donkeys, mules, race-horses, and oxen, jogged forward by their lashing drivers towards the hidden gold. Through the whole film moved irresistible camaraderie, the likeable badness of the three disreputable companions, each of whom met their death by holding the real bad men at bay. The playing of Frank Campeau, Tom Santschi, and Farrell MacDonald was excellent.
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