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Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "redemption" (25)

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Showing 21-25 of 25 works

The Silent Man

William S. Hart (director/lead)
Joseph H. August (cinematographer)
Charles Kenyon (writer)
Vola Vale (lead)
Robert McKim (lead)
J.P. Lockney (lead)
Dorcas Matthews (lead)
George Nichols (lead)
Harold Goodwin (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Nov 1917
Minutes: 47

Surprise: this drops Hart's standard cowboy-changed-by-a-woman formula. Bigger surprise: it's a total mess...

52 words of highfalutin prose on 3 title cards in the first 40 seconds to describe...nothing: Gee, the desert is awfully empty!
It gets worse. From the 90-second mark until 3 minutes in, there's never more than 6 seconds between title cards. Since the title cards are onscreen 5-9 seconds, most of time is spent reading, not viewing. The barrage of titles doesn't slow to a more reasonable pace until 5-6 minutes in.
But just when the titles let up, the action on screen in this video gets hopelessly muddled: the hero fights the villain, tries to escape, but somehow ends up out cold on the floor. The next time we see him, a fortnight later, he is followed by a man with a rifle who tells him: “You're turned loose, stranger,” - apparently, he's been jailed but we're not told why.
The hero's version of later events doesn't seem to agree with what is shown on screen.
When the hero next encounters the villain, he gets his revenge by forcing him to...do something that seems pointless and of no benefit.
Both the heroine's-little-brother subplot and the parson's-church subplot are never made to feel relevant - and are never shown to be resolved.
Worse of all, the resolution of the main conflict, between hero and villain, is the worst kind of script cop-out.

And then there is the biggest unresolved mystery: why is the hero called “Silent” when he is no more silent than anyone else in this silent film?

Featured elements:

: corruption; courtroom; cowboys; falsely accused; flashback; gambling; heroic defender; kiddie act; lynching; male bonding; manipulator; melodrama; redemption; religion; revenge; swindling; undercover agent

Out West

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead/writer)
George Peters (cinematographer)
Natalie Talmadge (writer)
Al St. John (lead)
Buster Keaton (lead)
Alice Lake (lead)
Joe Keaton (lead)
Comique (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jan 1918
Minutes: 20

A parody of the conventions of Wild West movies - clearly a slapdash attempt to capitalize on the box-office success of 1974's Blazing Saddles.

Featured elements:

: action; animal act; antihero; comedy; cowboys; dark comedy; death scene; ethnic stereotype; forsaken; gambling; parody; redemption; rescue; slapstick; torture; train; tramp; unstoppable menace; white savior; white supremacy; zero to hero

The Wicked Darling

Tod Browning (director)
Harvey Gates (writer)
Waldemar Young (writer)
Evelyn Campbell (author)
Priscilla Dean (lead)
Lon Chaney (lead)
Wellington A. Playter (lead)
Spottiswoode Aitken (lead)
Kalla Pasha (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Feb 1919
Minutes: 59

Talent of Priscilla Dean wasted in this cornball Bad-Girl-Gone-Good tale of 1-dimensional characters more suited to early Griffith fluff.

Featured elements:

: abuse; fighting; flashback; heroic defender; melodrama; prejudice; redemption; romance; strongman; treachery

The Pearl Necklace (一串珍珠)

C. Y. Lee/李澤源 (director)
Hou Yao/侯曜 (writer)
Guy de Maupassant (author)
P. L. Chan/程沛霖 (cinematographer)
Harding Louie/雷夏電 (lead)
H. June Liu/劉漢鈞 (lead)
Liu Ji-Qun/劉繼群 (lead)
E. E. Dick/翟綺綺 (lead)
Great Wall Film/上海長城畫片 (production)

Language: Silent, Chinese and English titles, released in Jan 1926
Minutes: 102

A rather lifeless morality tale adapted from the 1888 short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, warning of the perils of vanity, that is brightened only by its lavish set designs.

Featured elements:

: crime; ex-con; family; fighting; flashback; melodrama; prison; redemption; social commentary; treachery; unemployment

Don't Change Your Husband/Kisses Once (情海重吻)

Y.C. Zai/謝雲卿 (director/lead)
S.M. Chow/周詩穆 (cinematographer)
P.H. Yuen/嚴秉衡 (cinematographer)
Lyton Wong/王乃東 (lead)
T.S. Tong/湯天繡 (lead)
Chen Yi-Tang/陳一堂 (lead)
Yang Ai-Zhen/楊愛真 (lead)
Wang Xie-Yan/王謝燕 (lead)
Cui Tian-Sheng/催天生 (lead)
Zhang Fu-Feng/張扶風 (lead)
Wu Yi-Xiao/吳一笑 (lead)
Great China Lilium/大中華百合影片 (production)

Language: Silent, Chinese and English titles, released in 1929, month unknown
Minutes: 61

When a young wife's indiscreet extramarital affair is discovered, she and her husband find themselves pressured into a divorce that neither of them wants, but tensions aggravated by their families' class differences seem to compel. The shorter length and abrupt ending suggest that the final reel may be missing. A clumsy and heavy-handed plea for old-school righteousness, saved only by its lavish interior settings and a shot of mixed-up Chinese telegraph code.

Featured elements:

: family; flashback; forbidden love; goofs; infidelity; marriage termination; melodrama; modernism; redemption; social commentary

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Showing 21-25 of 25 works

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