"'Man is absolute ruler. Woman is working slave.' Such is the rigid backwoods morality framing this long-lost silent, a stunningly photographed mix of lyrical anthropology and action melodrama. Karl Brown's assured first film as a director is in the tradition of Frank Borzage's Back Pay, King Vidor's Love Never Dies or F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: rural romantic discontentment fired by the allure of city ways. Filmed on location in North Carolina, Stark Love focuses on a country boy whose book-reading about 'chivalry' leads him and the girl he loves away from the brutal paternalism all around them. The plotline is simple enough, but the execution is like little before or since, with a rare feeling for Appalachian faces and workways, for the textures of nature. Its heart is in its images, as one might expect from Karl Brown, a photographic assistant for D.W. Griffith and principal cinematographer on The Covered Wagon. (Further reading: Karl Brown's Adventures with D.W. Griffith (1973) remains the most authentic and wittiest first-hand report on silent filmmaking.)" Scott Simmon