White Sister, The (1923)
*** (out of 4)
Adaptation of the Francis Marion Crawford novel, this screen version has Lillian Gish playing Angela Chiaromonte, the woman who gets cut out of her rightful inheritance by her evil step sister (Gail Kane). She then suffers a second heartache when the man she loves (Ronald Colman) is reported dead. With nowhere else to turn she decides to become a nun since they were the ones who saved her from the streets but soon the man she loved comes back but can she break her vow to God to take him back? This is a very handsome production of a novel that was filmed quite a few times including a remake ten years later with Clark Gable. This version is certainly very easy on the eyes and it features some very good performances but clocking it at nearly 140-minutes, the running time certainly doesn't do it any favors. The biggest problem is the running time as many scenes just seem to go on and on and on when they could have been cut down and it probably would have made the film float a lot better. Just take a look at the first thirty-minutes and everything that happens could have been told just as well with about ten or more minutes cut down. With that said, the film is still worth viewing for several reasons with the performances being one. Gish does her usual great job and really digs deep into this character and brings it to life as someone we really do care for and feel sorry for. As expected, we have some wonderful close ups of Gish's brilliant eyes that have no problem showing her sadness. Also, Gish is given another sequence where they were clearly trying to recapture the "terror" sequence from BROKEN BLOSSOMS but it doesn't work nearly as well here. The scene involves her learning that the man she loves is dead. Colman, in his screen debut, turns in a very good performance as well as he too really delivers in terms of the character's emotions and the pain he's going through as the woman he loves might not be able to love him. The direction by King is very good throughout and especially towards the end when the climax features a large volcano erupting and causing major panic in the streets. Fans of Gish and silent films will certainly want to check this out but I'm sure others will probably be bothered by the long running time. I know some versions are out there running nearly forty-minutes shorter and I actually checked a bootleg I had bought before watching the restored version on TCM and it actually only runs 66-minutes!!! One day I might try watching that version just to see how the film plays with more than fifty-percent of its time missing.
