The River
“Frank Borzage was that rarity of rarities, an uncompromising romanticist,” writes Andrew Sarris. Throughout the twenties and thirties, his subject remained “the wondrous inner life of lovers in the midst of adversity.” After Seventh Heaven and Street Angel made Borzage one of Hollywood's most successful directors (he won two Oscars in the first five years of the award's existence), he brought his depiction of the inner world of lovers into the great outdoors in the exquisite late silent, The River. A wandering lad (Charles Farrell) meets a worldly-wise woman (Mary Duncan) by a river bank. They find love on his barge--she tames his wanderlust, he restores her soul--but they must contend with her gangster boyfriend before they continue their lovers' journey downstream. The superb camerawork of Ernest Palmer highlights the many qualities of erotic symbolism in Borzage's conception of the river romance. The River has a synchronized musical track. Though it lacks two of its seven reels, as William K. Everson notes, “this is literally all that is left, and we can be thankful that it is one of those typical late silents that were all mood and no plot.... Fortuitously, the closing reels also contain a few flashbacks from the missing reels.”